"No!" shouted Fasra. "Leave him with us!"
But each of them was firmly held by three of the giant Khroi-guards; there was nothing any of them could do.
"I'm sorry," Morlock muttered. "You chose your guide unwisely. Good-bye."
The guile of dragons rose into the air and flew away southward like a storm. The noise of their passage made further speech useless, and Thend could have said nothing anyway: that fist of fear was gripping his throat again. He looked at his mother, whom he had loved and feared, and at Roble, the man who was closer to him than his long-dead father, the man he had wished he could be, and all he wanted was to die with them. But the Marh's cruel kindness had denied him even that.
The others watched without words as Thend and Morlock were dragged away. The werewolf was picked up and carried, too, and the Khroi that Thend had saved, "the Lost One" as Marh Valone had called him, walked slowly alongside them.
"Why is it a favor to be given to the dragons?" Thend called to Morlock after they had been dragged for a while. (The dragons had long gone on ahead and they could hear each other now.) "Won't they-?"
"They'll kill us and eat us," Morlock said. "The others will die too, as hosts for the Khroi young, in the Vale of the Mother. It is slower, more painful, more horrible."
"And this is all your fault somehow?"
"No!" said Morlock.
Thend wished he could say something to comfort the crooked man. Not that there was anything to say. So he said nothing.
Suddenly they were surrounded by a faster-moving group. Thend had a crazy hope that the others had gotten away and come to rescue them-but it was only the dancing Khroi in black-and-white rags. They spoke to the gigantic Khroi guards in birdlike harmonious voices, and the guards (looking nervously at each other) stopped dragging the captives along.
The dancing Khroi stretched out their arms imploringly and sang at Morlock, just as they had to the Khroic marh before, but this time Thend could understand them, as they sang in the language Thend thought of as Coranian.
"Spare us," the Khroi sang, "spare us, Destroyer. You are a seer, like ourselves, although you do not walk always in the tal-realm as we do. Spare us, have mercy on us, do not destroy us, and we will not pray for you to the godswho-hate-us and they may forgive you."
"I will spare you," Morlock agreed, "if you spare me and my friends. I will give mercy for mercy, blood for blood."
"We cannot spare you," the Khroic seers sang. "The warriors act; we advise; the Sisters and the elders, led by the Math, decide. His word is our law; we cannot break it. But only your word is your law. You can spare us, even if we destroy you. Please, please, let us kill you in peace."
"Is it horde law for you to plead with prisoners like this?" Morlock said. "Did you not defy the math's command to return to your place on the slope? You pick and choose the laws you will obey. You choose the destruction before you, just as he does. Spare me and my friends or I will destroy you. Blood for blood: that is my law."
The Khroic seers put their palp-clusters over their eyes and moaned. The gigantic guards took this as a sign that the interview was over and they dragged Morlock and Thend onward.
"How can you destroy them?" Thend called when the wailing seers had passed out of earshot.
"Why would I want to?" Morlock replied glumly. "Death is their dream, not mine. If only I could understand why! I took care to not explore this journey with visions, for I knew the Khroi had seers and one seer's vision can encompass another's. I wanted to pass under their notice, but they were waiting for me all along. It is strange……
Presently they came to a wide flat area where a dozen or so posts of maijarra wood had been driven deeply into the stony ground: the Giving Field. A faded blue dragon was waiting there. The claw had been severed from his right forelimb and the fresh wound was still oozing blood or pus that smoked sullenly on the ground. His dim red eyes watched glumly as the Khroi guards lifted up their prisoners and hung them from hooks driven into the maijarra wood high above the ground. The Khroi whom Thend had saved from the spiders was bound and hung there, too. Then, without ceremony, the guards left them alone with the dragon.
"Is this it?" Thend called over to Morlock. The prisoners were hung in a line, with Thend and Morlock on either end. The werewolf was next to Morlock and the Khroi was next to Thend.
"No," Morlock said. "I suppose the dragons are settling which one of them gets which one of us, along with our stuff." At this, Thend noticed that their packs and weapons had been brought along by the guards and left off to the side of the Giving Field.
There was a long period while Thend wondered how the dragons would decide these important issues. A fight? A contest? A vote? Some combination of these? Should he hope that it would take a long time or no time at all?
Meanwhile Morlock was looking at the leather thong binding his hands, at the packs, at the Dragon who watched him grimly without ever looking away.
"Do you think you can unhook yourself from that thing?" Thend called over.
"No," said the crooked man. "Not with our friend watching. And listening."
This last was a mild rebuke, Thend realized. The dragon was not an animal; it might be able to understand them. If Thend had a good idea, he should probably keep it to himself and hope that Morlock had it, too. Unfortunately, Thend had no more ideas, good or bad.
"Thend," Morlock said presently, "I'm sorry."
Thend was embarrassed. He should never have blamed Morlock, even as a stupid joke. "It's all right," he said. "I know it's not really your fault."
"Not about that," Morlock said, but he didn't say what he was apologizing about. Which meant he couldn't. Which meant it was an Idea. And he was apologizing because it might end up getting Thend killed, even if it got Morlock free.
Thend thought carefully about his response. He didn't want to die, but if Morlock got away maybe there was something he could do to save Thend's family. That was tough luck for Thend, of course, but it wasn't like his chances looked good at the moment anyway. He couldn't say anything to discourage Morlock from whatever crazy plan he'd come up with, and he couldn't say anything to suggest to the dragon that there was a crazy plan.
"It's still all right," Thend said at last. "I understand." And he hoped Morlock had understood him as well as he had understood Morlock. (If he had.)
Morlock said something, but not to Thend and not anything Thend understood. He looked straight into the dragon's dimly burning eyes and said it: in Dragonish, Thend guessed, or some language the dragon understood.
Thend was right. What Morlock said was, "Hey, Smoky! What's taking your masters so long?"
The dragon snarled, a long low rumbling, like stones grinding together under the earth, and said, "I have no master but Math Valone, kharum of my guile."
"You actually answer to that insect?" Morlock asked. "He told you to stay here and keep your murky eyes on us?"
"No!" the dragon snapped. After some long bitter moments of silence he added, "My guile-mates asked me to wait here and watch you."
"Oh," said Morlock distantly. "I see. I think."
The dragon lashed his tail in a catlike gesture of irritation and looked with glowing disfavor at Morlock.
"It is a position of considerable trust," the dragon insisted.
"I'm sure they can trust you, Smoky," the crooked man replied generously. "I'm sure you'd never even think of taking something that was theirs."
There were several barbs to this insult: that the dragon wouldn't have the courage or cunning to steal from his guile-mates, that the prizes were unequivocally theirs not his, and "Smoky," which implied that the dragon's fire was not as bright and hot as a dragon's fire should be.
"Don't call me `Smoky'!" the dragon snarled.
"Do you prefer `Three-Claw'?" the hanging man asked, with an appearance of civility. "Your leg might grow back in time, but I see that you're a dragon of, well, of a certain age and perhaps you don't expect to live much-"