with half its face gone. Auk slashed again and again and again. The
third slash met no resistance.
'Man dead!' Oreb announced excitedly. 'Cut good!'
'Auk! Auk, help me! Help!'
'I'm coming!'
'Watch out!' Oreb warned, _sotto voce_. 'Iron man.'
'Get outta my way, Hammerstone!'
From his left, Oreb croaked, 'Come Auk.'
His blade rang upon metal. He ducked, certain Hammerstone
would swing at him. Then he was past, and Oreb exclaiming from
some distance, 'Here girl! Here Auk! Big fight!'
'Auk! Get him off me!'
A new voice nearly as harsh as Oreb's demanded, 'Auk? Auk
from the Cock?'
'Shag yes!'
'Pas piss. Wait a minute.'
Auk halted. 'Jugs, you all right?'
There was no reply.
Someone moaned, and Hammerstone fired again. Auk yelled,
'Don't fight unless they do, anybody. Old man, where are you?'
His own fighting frenzy had drained away, leaving him weaker
and sicker than ever. 'Jugs?'
Oreb seconded him. 'Girl say. All right? No die?'
'No! I'm not all right.' Chenille gasped for breath. 'He hit me with
something, Auk. He knocked me down and tried to... You know.
Get it free. I'm pretty beat up, but I'm still alive, I guess.'
The darkness faded, as sudden as shadeup and as faint. A dozen
stades along the tunnel, one of the crawling lights was slowly
rounding a corner. As Auk watched fascinated, it came into full
view, a gleaming pinprick that rendered plain all that had been
concealed.
Chenille was sitting up some distance away. Seeing Auk, the
naked, starved-looking man standing over her raised both hands
and backed off. Auk went to her and tried to help her up,
discovering (just as Silk had a moment before) that his hand was
encumbered by his knife. Gritting his teeth against pain that seemed
about to tear his head to bits, he stooped and returned the knife to
his boot.
'He grabbed my launcher in the dark. Hit me with a club or
something.'
Examining her scalp in the dim light, Auk decided the dark
splotch was a bleeding bruise. 'You're shaggy lucky he didn't kill you.'
The naked man smirked. 'I could of. I wasn't tryin' to.'
'I ought to kill you,' Auk told him. 'I think I will. Go get your
launcher, Jugs.'
Behind Auk, Incus said, 'He intended to take her by _force_, I dare
say. I warned her on that _very_ point. To force any woman is wrong,
my son. To force yourself upon a _prophetess_--' Striding forward, the
little augur leveled Auk's big needler. 'I _too_ am of half a mind to kill
you, for _Scylla's_ sake.
'Patera got both gods,' Hammerstone announced proudly. 'A
couple of you meatheads, too.'
'Wait up, Patera. We got to talk to him.' Auk indicated the naked
man by a jab of his gory hanger. 'What's your name?'
'Urus. Look, Auk, we used to be a dimber knot. Remember that
sweatin' ken? You went in through the back while I kept the street
for you.'
'Yeah. I remember you. You got the pits. That was--' Auk tried
to think, but found only pain.
'Only a couple months ago, 'n I got lucky.' Urus edged closer,
hands supplicating. 'If I'd of knowed it was you, Auk, this whole lay
would of gone different. We'd of helped you, me 'n my crew. Only I
never had no way to know, see? This cully Gelada, all he said was
her 'n him.' He indicated Chenille and Incus by quick gestures. 'A
tall piece out of the piece pit 'n a runt cull with her, see, Auk? He
never said nothin' about no sojer. Nothin' about you. Soon's I
twigged the sojer walkin', I was fit to beat hoof, only by then he was
goin' back.'
Chenille began, 'How come--'
'Because you ain't got anything on, Jugs.' Auk sighed. 'They take
their clothes before they shove 'em in. I thought everybody knew
that. Sit down. You too, Patera, Hammerstone. Old man, you coming?'
Oreb added his own throaty summons. 'Old man!'
There was no reply from the ebbing darkness.
'Sit down,' Auk told them again. 'We're all tired out--shaggy
Hierax knows I am--and we've probably got a long way to go before
we find dinner or a place to sleep. I got a few questions for Urus
here. Most likely the rest of you got some too.'
'_I_ do, certainly.'
'All right, you'll get your chance.' Auk seated himself gingerly on
the cold floor of the tunnel. 'First, I ought to tell you that what he
said's lily, but it don't mean a lot. I know maybe a hundred culls I
can trust a little, only not too much. Before they threw him in the
pits, he used to be one of 'em, and that's all it ever was.'
Incus and Hammerstone had sat down together as he spoke;
cautiously, Urus sat, too, after receiving a permissive nod.
Auk leaned back, his eyes shut and his head spinning. 'I said
everybody'd get their chance. I only got this one first, then the rest
of you can go ahead. Where's Dace, Urus?'
'Who's that?'
'The old man. We had a old man with us, a fisherman. His name's
Dace. You do for him?'
'I didn't do for anybody.' Urus might have been a league away.
Hammerstone's voice: 'Why'd they throw you in the pit?' Chenille's:
'That doesn't matter now. What are you doing here, that's
what I want to know. You're supposed to be in a pit, and you
thought I'd been in one. Was it no clothes, like Auk said?' Incus:
'My son, I have been _considering_ this. You could _hardly_ have
foreseen that I, an augur, would be _armed_.' 'I didn't even know you
