ARYCELLE: At last I find you, Denam. You've given good chase, but the hunt ends here!
DENAM: You're not the first headhunter to mistake me for easy quarry.
ARYCELLE: Oh, I'll have your head, but I am no headhunter. You'll pay in blood for what you did in Balmamusa!
DENAM: You were in Balmamusa!? Please, you must hear me!
ARYCELLE: We are past talk. For Balmamusa! For my brother!
[The vengeful warrior strikes hard, pressing her troops against Denam with all her might.]
DENAM: Enough of this! We did no murder in Balmamusa! We were there, I'll not deny it - but we did all we could to stop the slaughter!
ARYCELLE: Lies! I only pray you sold your loyalty for a worthy sum!
DONNALTO: Hold, Arycelle! You must hear me! All Denam has told you is true. We were conspired against!
ARYCELLE: Abuna Donnalto? How can this be!? Leonar said that you...you died in Balmamusa!
DONNALTO: Leonar told you this? I did not think him capable of such duplicity. Arycelle, as I am living proof, Leonar's words are false. A cozener playwright, he knows the truth, yet writes for us a damning fiction.
ARYCELLE: What do you mean to say? That Leonar has misled me on purpose? Nay. This is no fiction! I know the horrors I saw in Balmamusa! I will never forget!
DONNALTO: No, Arycelle! You are captive to your own rage. It veils from you the truth! O, Great Father Philaha! Raise this child's heart from the dark recesses of hate!
[The fighting continues and Arycelle is overcome with emotion.]
ARYCELLE: My brother injured his leg - he couldn't even walk - but they cut him down just the same.
DENAM: All the Duke's doing. Galgastan had no hand in it, though the duke wished it to appear so. Believe what you will, I speak the truth!
ARYCELLE: Have you no shame?
CATIUA: She has no ear to listen. If words will not win us free, our steel must!
ARYCELLE: Did Leonar know his error when he spoke to me of Abuna Donnalto's death?
CANOPUS: No easy task, discerning the truth. Least of all when it's unpleasant.
ARYCELLE: Do you suggest I am blind to truth, outlander? Speak!
CANOPUS: I suggest only that you take a deep breath. I find it often calms the troubling mind. The wind and my people have been as one since the dawn of days. Restoring the balance of spirit and wind helps clear the head - and only a clear head can search the soul. Easier said, eh? Still, if you can do, might see something you missed.
ARYCELLE: Am I now to be a lectured by one who prostitutes his loyalty?
CANOPUS: Sky above, what is it that makes you Valerian women so stubborn?
[After much pleading, Denam is forced to critically wound his foe.]
ARYCELLE: I know when I am bested...though the knowledge that my brother goes unavenged pains me more than any wound. It is done. Now kill me. Kill as you did in Balmamusa!
DENAM: I will not. You are not my foe. If you have lost the will to fight, leave. I will not give chase.
ARYCELLE: If I leave here now, I will only return to claim your life.
DENAM: Then know I am bound for Tynemouth. If you would hunt me, hunt me there.
ARYCELLE: You're going to regret this.
[She retreats.]
DENAM: Regret? There is already too much for me to regret.
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