So the long night passed.
* * *
The sweat-covered, dirt-streaked slave runner came at a quick jog
through the compound front gates and sought first after the whereabouts
of Slavemaster Habrunt.
He did not know yet that Habrunt, the former Slavemaster of the House
of Rababull, had so recently been deposed and punished. He did not know
that Habrunt was slated to be sold for next to nothing, as soon as his
wounds were healed. The messenger would speak to no one else at first,
and the others were too frightened by the former Slavemaster Habrunt's
terrifying fate to even so much as speak of him to the runner.
Not finding Habrunt, the runner ran straight up the front steps into
the House, where Old Maskron quickly sprang to his feet and raised his
bronze sword in a challenge to yield and declare himself.
The gasping runner took in Old Maskron with a wild-eyed stare, and
finally decided he could withhold his dire news no longer.
"Master Rababull is dead!" declared the breathless slave.
"Whaaaat?!" croaked Old Maskron, his eyes going senselessly round and
wide.
The clatter of the sword rang loud on the stone steps, as Old Maskron
reached out with both hands to seize the runner's tunic by the front to
confront him bodily face-to-face and shook him as he howled, "You
lie!!!"
"It is no lie!" the runner sobbed in a broken utterance.
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