“You want to live,” Moruth said. “You’re thinking now you’d really like to live,
and that this is an awful place to die.” Moruth chuckled, a dry and ugly sound.
“It is. Sit down-sit down, hawkmask.”
He looked, reflexively. There was nowhere. A crutch hooked his ankle and jerked.
He hit the dirt floor on his side and rolled, fighting to get his knees under
him.
“Let me tell you a story,” Moruth said softly, “hawkmask. Let me tell you what
this Jubal did. Remember? Kill a few beggars, he said, and put the informer-sign
on them, so’s the riffraff knows what it is to cross Jubal the slaver, ain’t it
so?” The accent drifted to Downwind’s nasal twang. “Ain’t that what he did? And
he killed us, killed boys and girls that never done no hurt to him-to impress
them as might want to squeal on his business. It weren’t enough he offs his own,
no, no, he cut the throats of mine, hawkmask. You know something about that.”
He knew. He shivered. “I don’t. I don’t know anything about it.-Listen, listen,
you want names-I can give you names; I can find out for you, only you let me out
of here-“
Moruth leaned forward, arms on ragged knees, grinned and looked appallingly lean
and hungry-
“I think we’ve got one what’ll talk, doesn’t we?”
* * *
Haught flinched in his concealment beneath the bridge. Screams reached him, not
fright, but a crescendo of them, that was pain; and they kept on for a time.
Then silence. He hugged himself and shivered. They began again, different this
time, lacking distinction.
He bolted, having had enough, finding no more assurance even in the dark; and