"Kill him.... Mika, Garnd.... Don't let him.... No.... Mercy!" begged the great coward, his hands before his face. Hardan poised his keen blade for the death thrust. "No," he swore angrily, "by Ung Roth, I have not the heart for killing this foul _bladt_." He rammed the sword into the clay. His fists swung hard, all the unleashed loathing and disgust of weeks past in their calculated blows, and Nitka Porn went down emptily, to quiver and lie still. Hardan retrieved his swords, wiping the stains off on the unconscious hulk's ribboned cloth. He faced the sullen Wetlanders. "I take over again," he announced. "Back to Aba we go. It's but two days' trek. There the guilty will be punished before I guide you to Lake Gron." * * * * * Dandu Mot, a gray-maned sarif, stepped forward. "No," he said simply. "We will not go back. The innocent would die with the guilty. And our children and women would be driven out of the settlement stripped of even our poor store of tools and food." Hardan frowned. Dandu Mot was right. The justice of the Consars on the frontier was severe. They would make of this revolt a lesson for all that might follow along the arid dusty way from Wetland to Wetland. Even he, as guide and leader of the wagon train, might be killed. The old man came closer, his faded green eyes pleading. "We did not wish to revolt," he said. "It was Nitka Porn and his men who murdered the Consars. Perhaps beyond the Malsalm Range other Wetlands lie...." His voice trailed off. Hardan's eyes swept over the oddly assorted throng of sarifs and craftsmen, poor oppressed men seeking a new and freer life beyond the Drylands. Could he see these sad-faced women made widows needlessly? And what of the young ones, their soft pelts as yet devoid of the scantiest of silky fur? "I must yield," he said soberly. "And beyond the eastern uplands there does lie a sea. Only one Wetlander has ever looked upon it--Jaff Ka!" He paused. "By the grace of Ung Roth and Zo Aldan we may win through." "There are Drylanders?" Hardan nodded. "Drylanders who hide in watered valleys and war on all who venture there. Strange monsters, demons of Thog Molog, so say the Drylanders, lurk in the darkness to kill. And winged _soraps_ that carry off half-grown children and woolly bladts." "You know the way?" "I have ridden across the Plateau of Fire to the Plains of Niid, Dandu Mot, but never to the Bitter Sea. But Jaff Ka told me the way." "So let it be," said the old sarif, stroking his blistered cheek thoughtfully. "And, if we die in the Drylands--we at least die free!" He turned to his followers. "Seize the followers of Nitka Porn and bind them. Tonight we will try them." Swords and knives flashed. Clubs smashed and battered, and a moment later seven groaning men were led away. Four others of the red-bearded sarif's followers would walk no more, anywhere.