Chapter 20Estaan sat down. He had positioned his chair so that he was in the shade, and, with a turn of his head, could look through the grimy window, or at the broken door, which he had wedged shut with another chair, or at Antyr and the two wolves sitting and lying by the dead Nyriall.
He drew his knife and slipped it under the folds of his cloak. Then he steadied his breathing. A silence filled the room which seemed to act as a focus for the random noises that reverberated through the tired fabric of the old building. A distant door slammed; a dog barked; voices, unclear, came and went, some conversational, some angry, some laughing; the thin sound of the children in the street filtered through occasionally; footsteps too, came and went, pattering, pounding, running. And boards creaked
