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"They killed her, Jiz…" he tried to get out, but the words ca rounded on hiolden eyes "I’m Wistala"

Confusion…certainty He missed the rest of her words, or perhaps shut his ears to the accusations he knew to be true It was Wistala; she’d returned, and she knew exactly what had happened and as responsible

Auron wasn’t with her He hadn’t made it Perhaps the Copper could reason with her, confess and beg for a chance at redemption

"They lied," he said He needed her to know the whys and wherefores "A bloody cave, no hoard--"

She leaped at hi in her fury He fell on her, tried to keep her fro him If she’d only listen for a moment, he’d make it up to her somehow "We need to overcoed, but we canShe threw hith in her stout fraed," she said, biting and clawing for his underbelly, fighting as though in a duel to the death, not a hatchling wrestlingpain struck as her claws found soft flesh at his eye He fought ood set of backscale toward her, and hit her with his broken and stiff tail He scraain

Wistala knehat he’d done, the enorer than the ue dreas of his own conscience Wistala would carry this knowledge with her for the rest of her life and hate him forever

How could he overcome her hatred? Or was it not her hatred, but his own, shared in some lesser portion by her?

Yes, he would overcoulfed their ho himself in, and let the whirlpool carry him away from his lonely and broken life

Chapter 7

Later he tried to re he was in the water The darkness h the whirlpool, went lied in a crack or hole and asphyxiate

Instead he had the sensation of bouncing off a rock, and then feeling air all around his body before he struckabout the smell and temperature in the water told him he’d joined an entirely different watercourse

Oddly, the interest in that fact sustained hiht hi current in a tunnel

The rushing current and the cold were eneht, and his body responded autoled his frame so he rode the current with little effort

At intervals he passed glowing dots, little clusters of eyes and wagging tongues They flashed up and by so rapidly he never could ular indicated dwarves, though he couldn’t i water in the dark of the Lower World

So when he fetched up against a stout chain hanging into the water, fully as thick as his neck, it was the easiest thing in the world to hang on and look around

He recognized moreonly in profusion in their verticals and horizontals Three caves were scarred with signs of hter than the kind he knew from the ho

He reached out with his neck and found a grip, then let the rest of his body follow in easy stages, finally releasing the helpful, wide-looped chain with his saa

He lay a long ti water

Voices ca by

"Don’tnot the smell of blood Fresh blood"

"Faaaa!" another voice bawled back

He opened an eye

"Here e’is Traveler A bit of washup from the river"