"Sssilence, you fool!" snarled the Toothguard, and bobbed his blind head toward Tailchaser, who stood by, shocked into rigidity.
"Don't mind thiss one," he assured Fritti. "He isss not right in the head, I fear. The Lord of All dealt harshly with him over the matter of thisss sssame prissoner. Now, he sssees thiss fellow in every ssshadow.
It isss quite sssad, iss it not?" Indeed, Scratchnail was paying no attention to the actual Fritti beside him, but was rubbing his chin in the dirt, moaning Tailchaser's name over and over. Finally he stopped, and looked up at the Toothguard.
"Why were you gone… so long?" Scratchnail asked Skin wretch. Coming from that powerful body, the pleading tone seemed dreadfully unnatural. Fritti let out his long-held breath. The world underground, which had contracted into a stone-cold, heavy skin around him, expanded once more. Incredible! His luck was holding. To be this close to a Scratchnail who did not recognize him!
"Get up, you great lump!" Skinwretch snapped. The Clawguard's frightened mewing struck the lightheaded Tailchaser as almost comical. "I have found sssomeone to help usss find our way back to the main tunnelsss. We can find food there! Rissse." Scratchnail pulled his bulk erect.
"He iss not right in the head, asss I told you," Skinwretch apologized as the threesome started up the corridor. "He would have died, dessspite all hisss ssstrength, but for me." There was strange pride in the voice of the Toothguard.
Tailchaser now found himself in the unenviable position of being guide and companion to two creatures who wished him and his kind dead-leading them through tunnels with which he was completely unfamiliar, down to the secret center of the maze.
Scratchnail, although up and moving, still showed no signs of recognizing Fritti. His behavior veered from simpleminded to unexpectedly lunatic and vicious. At one point he turned suddenly on Tailchaser, howling, 'Black winds, black winds!" and tried to rend him with powerful claws. At a sharp word from Skinwretch he was again cringing and crying.
"Not right, not right," gasped Skinwretch, shaking his scarred head. "He wasss once a mosst important chief, vou know."
After they had walked a bit farther-Tailchaser relying on minute changes in the air temperature and pressure to guide them in what he hoped was the correct direction-he worked up the courage to try to draw the so-far-amiable Skinwretch out.
"How are the 'final preparations' going, eh? I'm afraid I've been involved in some… er, rather important things up… up aboveground."
"Nobody tellsss poor old Ssskinwretch much," complained the Toothguard, "but I hear many thingsss. Great movementsss, a great uneasinesss… I heard two of my brother guardss whisspering not long ago that sssoon the sssurface will be breached!"
The surface… breached? Fritti did not like the sound of that. Some terrible, incomprehensible thing was about to happen, and apparently he and a scatter of stuttering Rikchikchik were the only creatures who could do anything about it.
No, thought Tailchaser, correcting himself, I can do nothing but find my friends, and probably die with them.
With the mobilization of Vastnir, escape would be unlikely for one, let alone three or four. No. Futile hope-and a tenuous one, at that-rested on leaping backs of squirrels, and a jaded, unconcerned Court.
"Star-face! Creeping, skulking star-face! I'll have his heart out!" Yowling, Scratchnail had stopped in his tracks, whipping his black muzzle from side to side. Fritti realized with a start that although Scratch-nail was mad and Skinwretch blind, he did have a white star on his forehead; he would be easily recognized by any of the mound's more discerning occupants below. As Skinwretch soothed the raging Clawguard, Fritti dipped his head down and rubbed his brow in the dust. Blinking the dirt from around his eyes, he straightened up.
I hope that will hide it, he thought-or at least obscure it enough that it will pass unnoticed. I will never look like a Clawguard, but at least I can hope to look like a nameless slave.
The hairless one had coaxed Scratchnail into a walk again, and though the Claw made strange, whining noises, he did not disrupt their course again for some time.
Tailchaser's directional sense seemed to be working. He began to see signs of increasing traffic in the shafts they were following-stronger and more recent scents came from the side passages. Fritti began to think about finding his captive friends. He knew that he could travel quickly and safely only in these outer, mostly unused byways; once he was into the active heart of the mound his deception would be of no use.
The sound of harsh voices came suddenly from around the curve of their path. Scratchnail-as if in some kind of anticipation-chose this moment to lie down, spreading his large, dapple-bellied body across the tunnel floor. Tailchaser looked wildly about, and after a long moment spotted a tiny tunnel in the wall they had just passed. Grating, sneezing laughter echoed up the shaft as he leaped back and squeezed himself into the small space, which turned out to be a crevice-and a cramped one. He heard the laughing voices stop, and the heavy pad of approaching paws. Then they spoke, in the unmistakable snarling idiom of the Clawguard.
"What's this? What's this great load of unburied me'mre doing in the way?" There was a sharp bark of amusement, then another, equally unpleasant voice said: "It's obvious somebody needs skinning around here, by the Great One! Who's responsible?"
Skinwretch spoke up in an aggrieved tone. "Pleassse now, massterss. Do no injury! Asss you can sssee, I am in the company of two very important membersss of your brotherhood! Tell them, Tunnelwalker!"
"Two!" laughed the first Claw. "I see but one-and a great, boneless wreckage he looks to be, too! What do you see, Riptalon?"
"Exactly that. A useless hulk and a little, squirming blind mole. Unless I miss my count, Shredfang, that makes but two. The little Squeaker's lying to us!" Skinwretch gave a whimper of fear, and Fritti heard the two Clawguard move closer.
"Lying to Guards on the Lord's business. I think we'll make him jump for that, don't you?"
"Tunnelwalker! Sssave me! Sssave us!" The Tooth-guard's voice rose hysterically, and Fritti, crouched in his shallow niche, held his breath.
A muffled groan rose up, and then Scratchnail's droning voice: "Tailchaser! Star-face did it! No, Lord Huh… Lord Heart… Hearteater, not the burning! My ka… no! Ahhhhhhh!" His voice rose into a keening wail. The two Clawguard made sounds of surprise.
"By the Blood-light!" grunted Shredfang. "It is a Claw!"
"It's Scratchnail!" Riptalon gasped nervously. "He is proscribed! The Lord of All punished him. We should not touch him!"
"Pfauggh! You're right. This place stinks of the unclean! The shame of it! And that mewling blind worm… come, let's be off." The disgust in Shred-fang's voice did not disguise the fear that whimpered beneath. Swift, padding footfalls passed by Tailchaser's crevice and faded down the corridor.
Fritti waited for what seemed like a very long time, then stepped gingerly back out into the tunnel. Skinwretch's furless shape was huddled over the supine black form of Scratchnail… and for a moment Fritti was oddly touched. Then the Toothguard swiveled his ruined muzzle around, and the sensation vanished in a cascade of revulsion.
"Who'sss there?" Skinwretch called.
Tailchaser made a hesitant noise in his throat, then said: "Why, Tunnelwalker, of course. I have been off exploring some spur tunnels. I just passed a couple of my fellows. Did you meet them?"
"They threatened usss!" panted Skinwretch. "They were going to kill usss! Why did you leave?"
"I told you!" said Fritti, feigning anger. "Now, get up-and get him up too. I have important things to do, and I am only helping you because you are so pathetic and incapable. Now, are we going to get padding or not?"
"Oh, yesss, Tunnelwalker! Gome, Ssscratchnail, get up now."
With Tailchaser leading, and Scratchnail trailing reluctantly, the mismatched threesome moved on into the heart of gathering forces.