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"Yes?"

"They go to sleep"

"After feeding-?"

Brutha looked round at Vorbis, as slu?" he repeated

"It'll be a kindness," said Om

"To the lion, yes! You want to use hi to survive the desert Anyway, he's done ood cause"

"A good cause?"

"I like it"

There was a growl, from somewhere in the stones It wasn't loud, but it was a sound with sinews in it Brutha backed away

"We don't just throw people to the lions!"

"He does"

"Yes I don't"

"All right, we'll get on top of a slab and when the lion starts on hiet aith an ar He'll never miss it"

"No! You can't do that to people just because they're helpless!"

"You know, I can't think of a better tirowl from the rock pile It sounded closer

Brutha looked down desperately at the scattered bones A them, half-hidden by debris, was a sword It was old, and not well-erly by the blade

"Other end," said Om

"I know!

"Can you use one?"

"I don't know!"

"I really hope you're a fast learner"

The lion eed, slowly

Desert lions, it has been said, are not like the lions of the veldt They had been, when the great desert had been verdant woodland[7] Then there had been ti oat[8] But the woodland had become scrubland, the scrubland had becooats and the people and, eventually, even the cities, went away

The lions stayed There's always soh People still had to cross the desert There were lizards There were snakes It wasn'ton to it like grim death, which hat happened to most people who met a desert lion

Someone had already met this one

Its ged itself towards Brutha, back legs trailing uselessly

"It's hurt," said Brutha

"Oh, good And there's plenty of eating on one of those," said Oy, but-

The lion collapsed, its toast-rack chest heaving A spear was protruding fro to eat in any desert, flew up in a swarm

Brutha put down the sword Om stuck his head in his shell

"Oh no," he murmured "Twenty million people in this world, and the only one who believes in me is a suicide?"

"We can't just leave it," said Brutha

"We can We can It's a lion You leave lions alone "

Brutha knelt down The lion opened one crusted yellow eye, too weak even to bite hi to die I' to find anyone to believe in e of anih soe of the insides of the human body that is denied to all those who are not allowed to open it while it's still working, medicine as such was frowned upon in Oe, was someone who officially didn't set bones and who didn't know a few things about certain plants, and who stayed out of reach of the Quisition because of the fragile gratitude of their patients And every peasant picked up a sh all but the strongest in faith

Brutha grasped the spear-haft The lion growled as he moved it

"Can't you speak to it?" said Brutha

"It's an animal"

"So are you You could try to calets excited-

Om snapped into concentration

In fact the lion'snebula of the stuff, overcoer Om tried to encircle the pain, make it floayand not to think about ould happen if it went By the feel of things, the lion had not eaten for days

The lion grunted as Brutha withdrew the spearhead

"O It must have met the soldiers when they were on the way to Ephebe They must have passed close by" He tore another strip from his robe, and tried to clean the wound

"We want to eat it, not cure it!" shouted Orateful?"

"It wanted to be helped"

"And soon it ant to be fed, have you thought about that?"

"It's looking pathetically at me"

"Probably never seen a week's s before"

That wasn't true, Oht like an ice-cube, out here in the desert That kept hied camel

Brutha crunched towards the rock pile, shards and bones shifting under his feet The boulders formed a maze of half?-open tunnels and caves By the s time, and had quite often been ill

He stared at the nearest cave for so about a lion's den?" said Oot steps down into it, I think," said Brutha

Didactylos could feel the crowd It filled the barn

"How many are there?" he said