"Rindy!" I bellowed. "No!"
She stood shaking, tears pouring down her round cheeks, a Toy squeezed
tight in either hand. Dark veins stood out almost black on her fair
temples. "Break them, Daddy," she implored in a little thread of a
voice. "Break them, _quick_. I can't hang on...."
Rakhal staggered to his feet like a drunken man and snatched one of the
Toys, grinding it under his heel. He made a grab at the second, reeled
and drew an anguished breath. He crumpled up, clutching at his belly
where I'd butted him. The bird screamed like a living thing.
Breaking my paralysis of horror I leaped up, ran across the room,
heedless of the searing pain along my side. I snatched the bird from
Rindy and it screamed and shrilled and died as my foot crunched the tiny
feathers. I stamped the still-moving thing into an amorphous mess and
kept on stamping and smashing until it was only a heap of powder.
Rakhal finally managed to haul himself upright again. His face was so
pale that the scars stood out like fresh burns.
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