You try to grab him, but he shoves you away and scrambles backward.

"You're a butcher, DARK NUNS!" Urmish shouts. "A blood-mad berserker! Hetch has no use for people like you."

Your furious and disgusted expression only seems to convince the laborers that Urmish is right.

At last your mother appears, stomping back into view around the mounded heaps of earth that surround the collapsed pit.

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"It's a damn mess," Para says. "Thefts. Two of our people dead. They tried to set fire to the granary, too."

"Are they still in town?" Laikan asks.

"Under it," your mother says. "I've stationed guards at every rubbish pit and mine entrance. Everyone who's hurt, get to the old temple. Everyone else, back to work. We'll meet in the great hall at dusk." Then she looks at you and seems to notice for the first time that you're covered in dirt and blood. "And you! Come with me!"

She marches you back home, as if she has nothing better to do than berate you but won't do it in public. You hear Para's quick footsteps behind you and wonder how you can explain that you did rather well, all things considered.

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