Farther from the ravine, tall sawtooth grass clumps fountained
perpetual white floral sprays into the air from shooting star sticks in
their centers. The clumps were surrounded by field grass interspersed
with bare sand and gravel patches. The field stretched away from the
banks of the crooked watercourse, in which the morning glories kept
mostly to the sheltering canopy of overhanging tree boughs.
If his body had slid or rolled just a little farther beyond where it
now lay, it would have gone down the side of the more steeply banked
inner run of the ravine and continued into the bottom, which ditched
down much more sharply into a pronounced drop-off.
The center of the ditch contained a profusion of spiked briars and
berry brambles of a size such as to give pause to the most determined
invader, and was undoubtedly rife with scorpions, spiders, flying
stinging insects, huge venomous vipers, and other unguessable horrors,
from which depths it would have been plainly hopeless for her to
venture the recovery of the foot soldier's body again.
But to her good fortune, the body had not gone too far, and the
impromptu pall-bearers -his former comrades-at-arms- had not bothered
to make a better effort of their thankless task.
Si'Wren knelt down beside an exposed rock, placing her little stone
lamp upon it.
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