There was prickly grass in his face, an earthy smell in his nostrils. The back of his head thumped a sickening beat, keeping time with his heart. He was cold.
"I don't think you should lie there like that, love," said a man's voice. "It isn't good for you, and it's likely to get a great deal worse very shortly."
Dosh groaned. If he spoke he would throw up, or die. Dying would be better. He opened his eyes a crack and made out a bare knee close by. He closed them and tried not to groan again.
"I suppose I can waste a little more mana on you, just for old times' sake," Tion said. "There, how's that?"
Cool fingers touched his scalp. The pain and nausea disappeared. Dosh felt infinite relief and then shame at having accepted a favor from the sorcerer. "Go away."
"Oh, I shall! But I do think you ought to make yourself scarce, too, lover. They're going to tear you into small pieces if they catch you."
Dosh raised his head. He could hear a strange, low roaring noise in the distance. Like a waterfall. He did not know what it was. Come to think of it, he didn't know what he was doing here or how he had come here or even where here was.
Keeping his face averted from the sorcerer, he scrambled to his feet. Trumb blazed green in the sky again, drowning out the stars, shedding its unholy light on the peaks of . . . er, Thargwall. Yes, this was Thargvale. He was in a meadow, just below the wood where the Free were camping. He turned around to look for the two lonely bristlenut trees, and they were right beside him. This was the rendezvous he'd set up with . . .
He spun around. "D'ward? Where's D'ward?"
Tion was on his feet also, wearing the same appearance as before, the dark-haired boy of ethereal beauty. He shrugged. "Almost at the river. But I think you ought to worry more about those irate peasants, lover."
Reluctantly, suspecting a trap, Dosh glanced again toward the woods. It was shedding a tide of stars, a dark flood full of twinkling lights, flowing down the hill. The roar was growing louder. The dark mass was . . . people with torches.
"The Thargians! They took D'ward?"
"Well, of course. They cracked you on the head. You're of no value to them. You are to me, of course, lover, but not to them. They broke your skull with a sword hilt. Didn't want to get the blade dirty."
"But it was a parlay!" He had delivered the Liberator's message. He had promised that the Liberator would come in person to confirm the agreement, as D'ward had told him to. They had agreed on these two trees as a landmark. . . .
"Dosh, Dosh! You know Thargians!"
"They took him! They're taking him to Tharg?"
Tion rolled his eyes. "I can't heal stupidity, lover."
"They can't kidnap the Liberator! He'll perform a miracle. He'll escape!"
"No he won't. He promised not to."
"Promised who?"
"Me—and my associates."
Filthy lies! Who would ever believe Tion?
"The river?" Dosh looked at Mestwater, a brilliant silver highway looping through the valley. It was in flood, deadly—but it would lead to Thargwater and then the city. "They've got boats?"
"Even ephors can't walk on water, Dosh, dear."
Treachery! If the Thargians had boats ready, then the perfidy had not been a sudden impulse. The swine had planned it. Rescue? Rescue! There might be time for the Free to overtake them before they reached the water with D'ward and were swept away to safety.
He had taken two steps when Tion's hand closed on his shoulder and effortlessly stopped him in his tracks. "Think, Dosh, think! Somebody saw you. They're coming already. But I really don't think they want your help now, darling."
"But—"
"Think! You haven't forgotten verse two twenty, have you? 'In Nosokslope they shall come to D'ward in their hundreds, even the Betrayer'? Where did you enlist, Dosh?"
Dosh screamed. "I was only doing what D'ward told me to!"
"But they don't know that, do they, dearest?" Tion chuckled. "You were seen leading D'ward out of the camp. Now the Thargians have got him. What would you think? If you want to die horribly, then I suggest you stand pat, and your wish will be granted very soon. If you want to live, then your best course is to get down to the river before the last boat leaves and before D'ward's friends can catch you."
The lights were much closer. The roar was louder, and distinguishable now as the sound of mob fury. Being a loner, Dosh had always hated mobs. Panic! He turned and sprinted downhill, running as hard as he had ever run in his life, leaping and stumbling over the rough pasture. When he came to a stone wall, he hurdled it recklessly and kept on going. His shadow raced ahead of him. The river was a hatefully long way away.
Tion loped along easily at his side. "I did warn you that you shouldn't deliver the message, didn't I, dear? I told you it wouldn't do you any good."
Dosh tripped, regained his balance, and went on. He thought he could feel a stitch starting in his side. He had no breath to argue with the evildoer.
"I did tell you D'ward was being nasty to you, didn't I?"
And so had D'ward. D'ward had warned Dosh that the mission might kill him. He had known.
Dosh ran. He had always hated mobs. They would never give him a chance to explain. He thought of Tielan and Doggan, of Bid'lip. . . . They wouldn't stop to Listen to reason or explanations. It wasn't fair. But he'd always done best when he expected the worst. D'ward knew the truth. If he could get to D'ward, he would be all right.
It wasn't D'ward's fault, it was Tion's. If Tion had left him lying unconscious in the field, then the Free would have found him like that and known he hadn't helped the Thargians. He would have been a betrayed, not the Betrayer. He ran. D'ward had known the physical danger. He had foreseen the probability of Thargian violence. He couldn't have expected Tion's meddling.
The river was closer. Dosh looked around, and the pursuit was closer also. There were hundreds of them, spread out now. Some of them would be younger and faster than he. The leaders carried no torches, and they were gaining on him rapidly. It would only take one stripling to bring him down and let the others catch up.
"A little more to the left," Tion said quietly, "over by those sheds." That was the last Dosh heard of him. At some moment after that, the sorcerer disappeared. Soon, though, Dosh made out the Thargians, two or three score of them, dragging boats across the grass to the river. The boats had been beached for the winter, pulled up high, away from floods. As he ran, he watched one after another being launched and swept away in the swirling torrent. He could not see D'ward, but he would have been loaded into the first. Tree trunks and ice floes and ice-cold water: Without a boat, the river was death.
Reeling and gasping, he arrived at the bank just as the last boat was loading. The men were armored and armed. A couple of them drew their swords. Somewhere he found breath enough to scream, "They'll kill me!" in Lemodian, which was close to Thargian. Men laughed, but someone shouted an order. The soldiers sheathed their blades and vaulted over the side as the dory began to move. Dosh splashed through water so cold that it burned his legs. He grabbed hold of the gunwale and tumbled over it headfirst.
Howls of fury and frustration from the shore faded swiftly into the distance as the little craft was seized by the current and swept away on its long trek to Tharg.