But they didn't make it that far. Suddenly there was a roaring that drowned out even the chaos of Khroic voices, and the sky was filled with a fiery light that made the bonfires look dim. The guile of dragons had come. Now the dragons would hunt them down, just like before. There was no escape. There never had been a chance of it, just a false hope. He stumbled and nearly fell as he continued to run, burdened by Stador's dead body. He noted without understanding that they were casting no shadows on the ground, that they were moving within a patch of shadow. Then he did understand.
The others were now muttering with despair, echoing his own, and Roble was saying, "If we have to die, I'd rather try to fight-"
"Listen, I don't think they can see us," Thend said hurriedly. "It's something Morlock is doing."
"I saw us on the cliff," Fasra said quietly, in a dim lost way that made Thend want to weep; he wasn't sure why.
Shockingly, Roble snickered. "That sneaky bastard," he said. "How did you get away from the dragons, Thend? Another one of Morlock's tricks?"
Thend remembered the mutilated blue dragon, its red eyes fading as its corpse cooled in the moonlight. "Sort of," he said. "Tell you later."
"They're killing them," Fasra said, in that same vague oh-look-at-that tone. "They're killing all of them. Us, too."
They were at the crest, but they turned then to see what she was talking about.
The Khroi and the dragons were fighting. Many of the Khroi were already dead, and one of the dragons lay smoldering between the bonfires. Several dragons were smashing the base of the cliff with their tails, burying the illusion-prisoners in shattered stone.
"Why?" gasped Naeli.
Thend thought he knew. Another one of Morlock's tricks, indeed: why else had he put up images of himself, of Thend, of the Lost Khroi and the werewolf? They were the dragons' prizes, but Morlock had made it look as if the horde had stolen them from the guile. He must have known how the fiercely greedy dragons would react….
Then the cliff gave way and the mountainside fell into the narrow valley, nearly filling it. The shock blew Thend and his family off their feet, and when they arose they saw that the horde had been completely destroyed. Several of the dragons had been caught in the collapse and struggled feebly in the smoking rubble, but their former compatriots left them there and flew away: north, west, south, east, alone.
Choking from the dust, they hauled Stador's corpse over the crest of the (now very shallow) valley and put him down not far from Morlock.
The crooked man was returning from his vision, the werewolf standing over him. His sword was dark, and presently he opened his eyes. He sheathed his sword and struggled to his feet.
The werewolf, backing away, snarled at him.
"Probably," Morlock replied. "I thank you, though."
The werewolf disappeared into the moonlit, dust-choked night.
"He thinks he's safer travelling alone," Morlock remarked. "Poor old Stador," he said, his eyes falling on the dead body. "It was a grim death."
"Maybe you can think of a better one for the rest of us," Naeli whispered. "Except for Fasra and Thend. Take care of them, please."
"I'm not a deviser of comfortable deaths," Morlock rasped. "If Thend helps me, we can cut those eggs from you before they hatch. The Khroi aren't like the spiderfolk; there may only be three or four eggs in each of you. It will hurt worse than death, and then you may die anyway …"
"Of course!" Thend said. "Mother, we can do this. I'll go into deep vision, and I can tell Morlock where to cut."
Both Naeli and Morlock turned to look at him. Then they looked at each other. "Something like that," Morlock said.
"Well," Naeli said wearily, "as long as he isn't a miner . .
So the long night after the long day was followed by another long day. They found a cave where Morlock and he faced the terrible task of cutting open his kin to save their lives, then sewing them up like old clothes with thread and patches. Then they faced the easier, but somehow even more ghoulish task of extracting the Khroi eggs from Stador's dead body. At last they buried Stador in a cairn of stones.
Naeli started to weep then, and she wept until she fell asleep, and even then she sobbed from time to time. Thend sat by her until she slept, wishing he could do something to ease her pain, sorry for her, tired of her. Tired of everything, really. That was the problem with surviving: you had so much work to do!
He pointed this out to Morlock, when all the others were asleep, and Morlock said, "Rest then. I'll watch."
Thend shook his head wearily, although he knew he would sleep soon no matter what. He said to Morlock, "So you did destroy them, in the end. They were right about you."
"No," Morlock replied.
Thend knew he was on dangerous ground. He was too stupid to think of shrewd questions, but he needed Morlock to say something more than this. He tried to express this all by opening his hands and grumbling a bit.
Morlock looked at him with a one-sided smile for a time and said, "Should I have lain down and died for Marh Valone's convenience? Should I have let him kill you, your whole family, simply to settle his fears? He would have found something else to be afraid of, Thend. Those who rule by fear will always be ruled by it, until they are destroyed by it. Now, at last, Marh Valone need fear no more."
"So that's why you did it? A sort of mercy killing?"
"I did not kill Math Valone. He turned a blade on himself when the dragons appeared over the Vale of the Mother. You should sleep."
"I can't stand the thought of sleeping," Thend admitted. "I'm afraid of the visions."
"It won't be so bad," said Morlock, and unstoppered a green bottle he held in his hand. A green bird flew out and circled round Thend's head, and before he knew it he was dreaming.
His dream was a vision, but in truth it wasn't as bad as he had feared. He saw the seers of Valona's horde, fleeing into the eastern mountains, along with a few of the Virgin Sisters. They carried with them an infant girl-Khroi they had anointed with Royal Chrism. They were already calling her Valona: the horde would go on.
They saw him, too, for the Khroic seers always walk in vision, and one seer's vision encompasses another.
We will remember you, Horde Mate of the Lost One, they said, not with words.
All right, Thend replied in the same fashion. Remember the Lost One, too. He was better than any of you.
Thend turned away from them in a direction that was neither up, nor down, nor any side. It was still a little frightening, but he wouldn't let the fear rule him. Turning away from the past, he looked straight into the future.
XI
WHISPER STREET
AN OLD MAN STIRS THE FIRE TO A BLAZE, IN THE HOUSE OF A CHILD, OF A FRIEND, OF A BROTHER. HE HAS OVER-LINGERED HIS WELCOME; THE DAYS, GROWN DESOLATE, WHISPER AND SIGH TO EACH OTHER.
–
I admit it: I liked him at first. That's partly due to the kind of men I'd been buried in for more than a dozen years: halfwitted townies who thought a youngish widow was anybody's meat; needle-toothed Bargainers who thought of anybody as meat for their God in the Ground. Morlock wasn't much to look at, maybe, but he wasn't like that. Plus he had very impressive hands: strong and many-skilled. I remember the first time I saw him lacing up both his shoes simultaneously, one hand per shoe, while keeping up his side of a conversation (as much as he ever did, anyway). Or the time my fifteen-yearold Thend bent his knife, using it as a prybar. Morlock took the blade, a steel blade mind you, in his hands and bent it back. It wasn't quite straight, but at least it would fit into the scabbard. Then that night, when we made camp, he set up a kind of portable forge full of flames that talked back to him, and he remade the blade better than before-all without a word of recrimination. And anytime a crow came by he would have a conversation with it, tossing it grain from his pocket for bits of semi-useless information. And he did this stuff like someone buying a pound of cheese: it was perfectly ordinary. How can you not like a man like that?