“he started with the rascal's questions.Where was he?dangling fifty feat above ground choking to deathWere there friends near by?He could hear his sister strugling by the stairs, but she was too far to helpWere there weapons nearby?His fishhook was lying useless on the ground below, leaving him only his hands.But his were no ordinary hands.”

“He nearly always put his hand on his friend's arm and looked for a second into his face before leaving him.”

“The boy will remain a son and never become a father. He will be forgotten by the crowd once his blood is rinsed clean from the ground; his sister will think of him but soon she will forget him, too. He will live on only in Han's memory, a child punished not for his own insincerity but someone else's disbelief.”

“Sometimes after dinner, he would walk into the woods that began behind the house. He would stretch down on the ground on his stomach, his elbows, planted before him, his hands propping his chin and he would watch the patterns of veins on the green blades of grass under his face, he would blow at them and watch the blades tremble then stop again. He would roll over on his back and lie still, feeling the warmth of the earth under him. Far above, the leaves were still green as if the color were condensed in the last effort before the dusk coming to dissolve it. The leaves hung without motion against a sky of polished lemon yellow, its luminous pallor emphasized that its light was failing. He pressed his hips, his back into the earth under him, the earth resisted, but it gave way; it was a silent victory; he felt a dim, sensuous pleasure in the muscles of his legs.”

“As he took possession of it, he was overcome by a sense of something like sacred awe. He carefully spread his horse blanket on the ground as if dressing an altar and lay down on it. He felt blessedly wonderful. He was lying a hundred and fifty feet below the earth, inside the loneliest mountain in France - as if in his own grave. Never in his life had he felt so secure, certainly not in his mother's belly. The world could go up on flames out there, but he would not even notice it here. He even began to cry softly. He did not know who to thank for such good fortune.”

“Even before Laurent had hit the ground,the man had drawn his sword.Damen was too far away. He was too farto get between the man and Laurent, heknew that, even as hedrew his sword--even as he wheeled hishorse, felt the powerful bunch of theanimal beneath him. There was only onething he could do. As the spray of watersheared up from under his horse, hehefted hissword, changed his grip, and threw.It was, emphatically, not a throwingweapon. It was six pounds of Rabatiansteel, forged for a two-handed grip. Andhe was on a moving horse, and many feetaway, and the man was moving too,towardsLaurent.The sword drove through the air andtook the man in the chest, ramming intothe ground and pinning him there.”