（外文电子版资料）Terry Goodkind - Debt of Bones.pdf

DEBT OF BONES BY TERRY GOODKIND What do you got in the sack, dearie? Abby was watching a distant flock of whistling swans, graceful white specks against the dark soaring walls of the Keep, as they made their interminable journey past ramparts, bastions, towers and bridges lit by the low sun. The sinister spectre of the Keep had seemed to be staring back the whole of the day as Abby had waited. She turned to the hunched old woman in front of her. Im sorry, did you ask me something? I asked what you got in your sack. As the woman peered up, she licked the tip of her tongue through the slot where a tooth was missing. Something precious? Abby clutched the burlap sack to herself as she shrank a little from the grinning woman. Just some of my things, thats all. An officer, trailed by a troop of assistants, aides, and guards, marched out from under the massive portcullis that loomed nearby. Abby and the rest of the supplicants waiting at the head of the stone bridge moved tighter to the side, even though the soldiers had ample room to pass. The officer, his grim gaze unseeing as he swept by, didnt return the salute as the bridge guards clapped fists to the armour over their hearts. All day soldiers from different lands, as well as the Home Guard from the vast city of Aydindril below, had been coming and going from the Keep. Some had looked travel-sore. Some wore uniforms still filthy with dirt, soot, and blood from recent battles. Abby had even seen two officers from her homeland of Pendisan Reach. They had looked to her to be little more than boys, but boys with the thin veneer of youth shedding too soon, like a snake casting off its skin before its time, leaving the emerging maturity scarred. Abby had also seen such