How many times had he been in this position, in front of someone much stronger than he was, knowing that only his wits would keep his skin in one piece. As a child in the valley, and one who had never learned the knack of fading into the background, it had happened frequently with his playmates. But he had also dealt with thanadents and snow cats - crows, even the bloody sheep had been a great deal larger and stronger than he was, and the flocks’ rams had frequently chased him up trees. And all of that before he’d left the Calderon Valley. He found himself grinning. Though worry and terror and
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