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Auron scaled the sink-side, above the water. When he sank into the pool, it was like a pleasant dream brought to life—the water seemed to caress his skin with living tongues. He drank, but not too deeply.
Two men staggered out of the great tent at the canyon mouth, carrying a body by the wrists and ankles. Long hair wet with blood trailed on the sand as they hauled the burden to the mass grave. They tossed the corpse onto the other without word or ceremony, sending an empty bottle crashing against the rock wall after it. They turned back toward the tent, but one found the effort of corpse-removal too fatiguing, and slid to the floor of the pit in a stupor. The other chuckled something Auron could not make out and moved for the glow shining out from a crack in the tent flaps.
Auron took another welcome tongueful of water and then went to work among the bloody ruins of the elves’ victims before settling down for a wait.
Only one more body came out of the tent after the screaming stopped, but the bearers could not be bothered with dragging it all the way to the other end of the box canyon. They tossed the torn body of the pathetically skinny boy against the canyon wall. One gestured at the other with a bloody pair of tongs, and the other cackled as they staggered back inside.
The sun came up an hour after the last sounds of bloody revelry died. Auron looked up into the sky and saw the vultures circling. Perhaps six or seven rode the air currents above, with new ones arriving every few minutes. The others came of their own instinct, attracted by the sight of their brethren gathering.
A pair of waste elves came running down the canyon entrance on the other side of the tent, shouting an alarm. Half-awake elves and men rolled to their feet, reaching for weapons.
Auron let them gather under the unsettling sight of the carrion beasts above and hear the tale from the relief.
“Twas a ghastly sight. Gongglass and Nardi are in pieces. Couldn’t tell who was who. They were taken unawares, and the intruders left no tracks anywhere near the fight. Whatever it was tore them apart from the wind.”
The elves and men muttered, looking around the canyon walls, then to the vulture-filled sky.
“Blood, blood on watch rock!” one said, looking toward the lookout Auron had visited.
“Where’s Tirl? And Sandglitter?”
“Dead!” Auron roared, lifting his head from the pile of bodies. He had festooned himself with guts and tucked severed arms into his crest so they stood up like antlers. “Your lives were forfeited with the treasure you stole! It bore a curse. All who touched it are the Revengerog’s, summoned from the abyss at the breaking of the Hidden Seal.” From the pit Auron swayed back and forth, surreptitiously letting go his urine in a wide arc. He had been long without water, and it was strong with a bitter acid odor.
The horses and camels, already nervous with the waste elves’ fear in the air, caught the powerful scent in the swirling airs of the canyon. The camels bellowed and the horses screamed and ran, adding to the confusion before the tent. Elves threw themselves from their caves as the crowd dissolved pell-mell through the tent, in a footrace where a roaring blood-drenched demon would take the hindmost. In the rush, the supports were knocked out from the tent, and it came down on men and animal alike.
Auron placed his front legs on the edge of the pit, stretching his neck as far as it would go. A transfixed man stood gaping from under a wide hat, eyes blinking in the dust of fleeing men and animals. Auron would have to kill one more. He dragged the costume of intestinal tresses across the floor of the canyon.
The man stood, laughing like an imbecile. He bent over, cradling his stomach, sat, and took off his hat to fan himself.
If he’s thinking I’ll spare him out of fear of killing a madman, he’s in for a surprise, Auron thought. If he really has lost his senses, it’s still the kindest thing to do. Then Auron paused—something about the man’s circlet, pulling his hair away from his face, caught his eye. The metalwork was of a style he had seen before. And the laugh had a familiar bray to it.
“Auron,” Naf said in thick Parl. “I’ve not touched the treasure yet, so you have no cause to kill me, ‘Revengerog.’ ”
After Auron washed himself in the pool, he emerged to find Naf extracting a camel, trapped in the fallen tent. The beast was in no mood to be quieted, and Naf beat it into a corner with the flat of his scimitar and tied it securely.
He returned to Auron covered in bites and spit. “That camel put up near as good a fight as you did last fall, drake,” Naf said.
“I hope that is meant to be a compliment. If it is an insult—”
“No, no insult intended. I don’t know dragons, but it’s sad to learn they have no sense of humor.”
“All of a dragon’s senses are sharp. Sight, hearing—”
“Wrak! That’s not what I meant. Men laugh when they encounter the unusual, the ridiculous. The unexpected.” Naf poked his head into a tent, entered it, and came out again with some sacks over his shoulder and a waterskin made out of something the size of a goat.
“I don’t understand,” Auron said. “The unexpected means one should be cautious, not laugh.”
“How do you explain color to the blind? It’s an unexpected ending to a story, perhaps. Here’s an example of what I mean. ‘Two cannibals are sitting by the fire. One says, “I hate my wife’s brother.” So the other one says, “Then try the potatoes.” ’ Do you see?”
Auron stuck out his tongue and tried to smell the humor. “No.”
“True, it’s a poor jest.”
“What were you doing with these wretched elves?”
Naf began to fill the sacks with food. Sides of meat wrapped in paper, flat loaves of bread, a pot of cheese, dried fruit and nuts disappeared into the sacks. “I didn’t know the kind of robbers they were when I joined them. After I split from Hross, I went south to seek a fortune, and word was going around about an attack on the Golden Road. I thought I’d try for the loot, but all they got was a caravan on its way back. We missed the sack.”
“I was there. They didn’t sack the dwarves.”
