Chapter 22

Snow drifted almost lazily from the sky, melting before it could form into drifts, the curbs along the edges of the street running with water. Rikash watched as the captives were marched out onto the street and fixed by their chains, evenly spaced. Human military and the remains of their government, the men and women were far from the hardened warriors his men were, trembling in the cold and looking up at the bodies strung from the street-lights with horror and fear that rose in an offensive stench. "Have they no pride?" He wondered. His breath hung on the air like smoke. "No," Nadyr replied. "They weep and plead like children. It is revolting." "There is something odd about this planet," Rikash observed. "There are too few people for the buildings in these cities, great stretches of farmland lie abandoned, and there are areas where they have polluted the land and water to the extent it mutates the animals that remain there.&qu