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"I can’t hear your voice at that pitch"
"Y’be very generous, sir," Thernadad grunted
"Spread the word"
"M’don’t suppose, as a gesture to our new understanding…"
"No Once we’re across the river and I’m in the Lavadohting changed into full dark He understood light changing froht over the lake altering over a single digestive cycle was new to hi bats riding upon his crest The water was a good deal warround tunnels, war over the water
"Stay low," he suggested to the bats on wing "The, uht circle over the Copper’s nostrils
"--griffaran shouldn’t be able to pick you out through thesethe mists to hide A boat, a version of the deman craft he’d encountered on the river, rowed across the water as fast as paddles and de and a third in the center
The deman in the ! and wrapped it in a cloth before placing it in a basket He wore colorful feathers tucked through each ear piercing, set so they covered his shoulders
The Copper’s stoet hiside the boat,its direction and speed The boat neared the far bank The rowing demen jumped out, and the other climbed out, then extracted his basket The rowers lifted the boat
Appetite helped hih to fly," he told the young bats
He dove and swa deman It became more of a wet scuttle as he neared the shore
"Jt tht aleet," a de his tail to take the des out from under him The hominid fell into the shalloater with a splash
The Copper didn’t want to fight the de He nosed into the basket and extracted an egg and--
Urk!
His head was jerked out of the water The jerk originated from his neck, and his neck was attached to a line, and the line was in the hands in one of the de ood sii, and haul hiot a line about his saa
The Copper fought on pure instinct, determined to either die or be freed of the lines He’d never be bound and tortured again, and if that round lake and his last breath rising up through those far-off cracks, he’d overcoh the line on his saa, but the line on his neck pulling in the other direction restrained his reach Every ti his claws into the line on his neck, they pulled again to straighten out his body so he couldn’t reach
All he could do was hiss, gurgle, and fling his tail this way and that
The deed hi to each other in their rattling language The third got his basket of eggs and ran into the rough-cut, low-hanging tunnels
He returned with a short tube Hesound, and his obscenely short throat expanded He put the tube to his mouth
A bat struck him between the eyes The dart that flashed by the Copper’s earon his blood were flitting back and forth between the demen with their lines
If the Copper hadn’t been otherwise occupied by being choked and dragged, he would have gaped in astonish rodent, attacking creatures a thousand tiotten into thee sort of a weapon, a long, wide-ended blade He didn’t raise it like a dwarf, but reversed it so the blade was shielded under its elbow It whistled through pointed teeth and caht himself, but his bad sii slipped on slimy stone He went down on his side The deman at his saa ran forward and looped the line around his free li the Copper’s claws
The blade flashed down and then up, and the Copper saw his own blood fly into the air, splattering the deer, hurt, fear--his breastbone convulsed, and a wide gout of flaret his inexperience in dragon fighting before the liquid fire consumed his face, chest, and shoulders He lit up like a dwarf’s oiled torch The deht a little of the spray on his arm
Pain struck--hard Harder than the blade, or the tail-breaking iron bars of the dwarves
The strain at his legs vanished as the deroped for the fallen blade of his coled toward the water And here was the dropped egg!<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>