No one stopped them. No one demanded to know why they were shoving an ore cart through the tunnels. No one wanted to know where they were going or what they were going to do once they got there. Jarre, grinning wearily, said it was all for the best. Limbeck, sighing, shook his head and pronounced this lack of curiosity a sad commentary on his people.
CHAPTER 20
LEK, DREVLIN, LOW REALM
IN THE LABYRINTH, A MAN MUST HONE HIS INSTINCTS TO A FINE, SHARP POINT, AS
sharp as any blade of knife or sword, for the instincts, too, are weapons of self-preservation and are oftentimes as valuable as steel. Struggling to regain consciousness, Haplo instinctively kept himself from revealing that he was conscious. Until he could regain complete control of every faculty, he lay perfectly still and unmoving, stifled a groan of pain, and firmly resisted the overwhelming impulse to open his eyes and look at his surroundings.
Play dead. Many times, an enemy will let you alone.
Voices swam in and out of his hearing. Mentally he grasped at them, but it was like snagging fish with bare hands. They darted among his fingers; he could touch them but never quite catch hold. They were loud, deep voices, sounding quite clearly over a roaring thrumming that seemed to be all around him, even inside of him, for he could swear he could feel his body vibrating. The voices were some distance away and sounded as if they were arguing, but they weren’t being violent about it. Haplo did not feel threatened and he relaxed.
“I’ve fallen in with Squatters, seemingly. . . .”
“. . . The boy’s still alive. Got a nasty crack on the head, but he’ll make it.”
“The other two? I suppose they’re his parents.”
“Dead. Runners, by the looks of them. Snogs got them, of course. I guess they thought the kid too little to bother with.”
“Naw. Snogs don’t care what they kill. I don’t think they ever knew the kid was there. He was well-hidden in those bushes. If he hadn’t groaned, we never would’ve heard him. It saved his life this time, but it’s a bad habit. We’ll have to break him of it. My guess is the parents knew they were in trouble. They clouted the kid a good one to keep him quiet and hid him away, then tried to lead the snogs away from him.”
“Lucky thing for the kid it was snogs and not dragons. Dragons would’ve sniffed him out.”
“What’s his name?”
The boy felt hands run over his body, which was naked except for a strip of soft leather tied around his loins. The hands traced a pattern of tattoos that began at his heart, extending across his chest, down his stomach and legs to the tops of his feet but not the soles, down his arms to the back of his hands but not the fingers or the palms, up his neck but not on the head or face.
“Haplo,” said the man, reading the runes over the heart. “He was born the time the Seventh Gate fell. That would make him about nine.”
“Lucky to have lived this long. I can’t imagine Runners trying to make it, saddled with a kid. We better be getting out of here. Dragons’ll be smelling the blood before long. Come on, boy. Wake up. On your feet. We can’t carry you. Here, you, awake now? All right.” Grabbing him by the shoulder, the man took Haplo to stand beside the hacked and mangled bodies of his parents. “Look at that. Remember it. And remember this. It wasn’t snogs that killed your father and mother. It was those who put us in this prison and left us to die. Who are they, boy? Do you know?” His fingers dug into Haplo’s flesh.
“The Sartan,” answered Haplo thickly.
“Repeat it.”
“The Sartan!” he cried.
“Right, never forget that, boy. Never forget. . . .”
Haplo floated again to the surface of consciousness. The roaring, drumming sound whooshed and thumped around him but he could hear voices over it, the same voices he vaguely remembered hearing earlier, only now there seemed to be fewer of them. He tried to concentrate on their words, but it was impossible. The throbbing pain in his head stamped out every spark of rational thought. He had to end the pain.