“Unfurl Kel banner. Advance and fire. I want anything that twitches to die.” The banner-bearers ignited the generator, and fire blazed in the sky. At the heart of the golden flames was the Kel ashhawk, the black bird that burned in its own glory, and beneath it their general’s emblem, the Chain of Thorns. Despite Cheris’s amusement at Kel design sensibilities – of course the emblem was the flamboyant ashhawk, of course it involved fire – she felt a stinging in her secret heart at the sight of it.
