Alan Akers - Renegade of Kregen

The overlords of Magdag trampled nearer in their iron and their might. I, Dray Prescot, with a host of stupid titles, sat and held my daughter Velia in my arms. Shadows fell across the bright faces of the moons.

Toward the end her sight cleared. She looked up as I held her cradled and she saw the tiny gold and enamel valkavol she had given me.

"The valkavol!" she said, and the dark blood ran down her white chin, thick and thicker. "Father — it will be all right. ."

I did not care if the whole of Kregen heard her. The overlords meant nothing. The metallic rattle of their war harness sounded loudly now, the stamp of sectrix hooves iron-hard on the turf. She lost that brief spurt of luminous reason. She lay back in my arms, as she had when I had first held her, looking up from her tiny face to the glory of my Delia beyond, smiling. Her hands and her face were ice-cold.

"My lord. ." she whispered. "My love. ."

She was slipping from me.

"Mother," she said. "Here is Father."

The pallor of her face, the coldness of her, and that ugly red dribble from her mouth. .

"Father-" she said again. And then: "Gafard." She spoke his name three or four times. At the end she said, "Oh, to be home in Val-"

The overlords of Magdag rode up to take me.

I sat on the ground holding the broken body of my daughter in my arms as they came for me — as my Velia died.