Without thinking, [Will] spoke. 'Halt? Are you awake?' 'No.' The ill humor in the one-word reply was unmistakable. 'Oh. Sorry.' 'Shut up.' He pondered whether to apologize again and decided this would go against the instruction to shut up, so remained silent.

All we could get out of them was that they were taking us to 'Kurokuma'. We didn't know if that was a place or a person. What does it mean, by the way?' 'I'm told it's a term of great respect,' Horace said, unwilling to admit that he didn't know.

You should have left him to wander,” Svengal said coldly. Erak looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Would you?” he asked, and Svengal hesitated. At the end, Toshak had fought well and that counted for a lot of Skandians. “No,” he admitted.

Would you trust him with your life, Halt?" Gilan interrupted, and Halt looked up at him. "Yes," he said quietly. Gilan patted his shoulder once more. "Then trust him with his own," he said simply.

He'd just have to lie there and die, watched over by strange stars who didn't know him, didn't care for him. It was very sad, really.

Now, if you two will excuse us, we'll get back to the relatively simple buisness of planning a war," he said. -Baron Arald

Several of them were discussing this in low tones as they waited for Halt to arrive - until they realized that he was already among them. They weren't used to this. Kings were supposed to sweep into a room majestically - not suddenly appear without anyone seeing their arrival.