“Shall we risk it?” asked Deor, who was steering.

“No,” said Kelat.

“Yes,” said Morlock.

Deor agreed by steering the oar toward the hill and its town.

The guards at the gate were armored with bowl-like helmets and mattress-like padding. They were weaponed with ill-made wooden pikes, and something about their slouching stance and cheery grins made Deor think these were not professional soldiers—at least, not until recently. They watched the approach of the Hippogriff with open-mouthed surprise, not even coming to guard when Deor applied the impulse collectors and braked the cart in front of them.

“Greetings, sentinels!” said Deor in what he hoped was decent enough Ontilian.

“Heartheld thingings, strangers!” one of the guards said. “Have you been come to embrickle the highhearts of High Town?”

“No, we are passing through,” said Deor, his hopes of communication fading.

“Entrucklements for gift-and-get we have been bringing roadwise,” Kelat remarked, surprising Deor. But of course Kelat was from here, or near here.

The guards received his remark quite cheerfully, and seemed to welcome them in about twelve times as many syllables as Deor thought was really necessary.

As the guards were laboriously opening the gate to admit the Hippogriff, Kelat said, “I told them we were just passing through, but we might have things to trade. They seem excited by the offer.”

Morlock nodded and looked sour. Deor wondered why: perhaps it was just the torrent of warm stink that swept over them when the gate swung open.

There was a sort of animal pen full of odd pink and brown beasts inside the wall. Attached to it was a building that was clearly, from its stench, a slaughterhouse. There were guards armed with pikes and scythes around the slaughterhouse and the pen.

Kelat made a sound of involuntary disgust, and Morlock’s bitter expression became, if possible, bitterer. Deor didn’t understand why at first, and then he realized that the animals were men. Men and boys, it seemed. Although Deor was not always sure whether Other Ilk were male and female, the absence of clothing helped here.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said to his companions in Wardic. “These savages have nothing for us, nor we for them.”

“Not yet,” said Kelat reluctantly. “The Regent of the Great King will want to know about this. We . . . I should learn as much as I can.”

Morlock nodded grimly. They followed their guide, pedaling the Hippogriff up the winding narrow streets of High Town.

Well over half the townsfolk seemed to be female—perhaps as much as four-fifths, by Deor’s count. The women and girls were blank-faced, as if they were trying to remember something they had forgotten. None of them were armed. All the men were. None of the men seemed to be doing anything resembling physical work—fetching and carrying; cleaning; working. All the women were.

They came at last to a biggish house covered (recently) with silver paint, its front doors adorned with stained glass windows. The guard verbosely invited them to dismount and greet-and-be-greeted by the High Baron of High Town.

The High Baron of High Town was sitting on the floor of his entryway playing a game of checkers with an empty-faced young girl. He waved her away without speaking and stood to greet his visitors.

The High Baron of High Town wore splendid clothes that had clearly been made for someone else—probably several other people. His shining scarlet-and-gold tabard did not quite cover his belly; his skin showed through the lacing of his blue suede boots, and one of the seams was burst; his shining robe of office had gotten tangled with his feet, and his coronet had slipped down over his left ear. There were grease stains among the gold stitchings on his tabard.

“Bold baroner of High Town’s high barony,” began Kelat, “it is we who have been come to gift-and-give both things-of-word and things-of-things passing-wise from foothills coming to vale of Tilion going.”

The High Baron looked upon him contemplatively for a moment or two and then said, “Perhaps one of you other gentlemen . . . ?”

“Well,” said Deor with some relief, “he—” pointing at Morlock “—isn’t gentle, and I’m not a man. Still, maybe we can do some talking.”

“I certainly hope so. I certainly do. Some of our rustics have lost the clear path of Old Ontilian and have been become tangle-tugged in slang-sloughs lost.”

“Uh. I suppose so.”

“But I hope that you, gentle and man, are not considering immigrating into High Town? We have as many mouths as we can feed these days. Unless you have. . . . Perhaps somewhere safely hidden nearby . . . ? I think we understand each other.”

“No,” said Morlock.

“You have no females—no women or girls?”

“Not with us,” Deor said.

“We will treat them well. They will live through the year and the long winter to follow, and how many people can say that in these dark cold days? The price will be as nothing, to men as devoted as yourselves.”

“You waste your time,” Morlock said.

“I have more time than anyone! It is a luxury I enjoy wasting. All this was my idea, so they made me High Baron, when I was only the village usurer down in Low Town a few years ago. We will accept females here in High Town, one for every two males who surrender themselves to our food pens. The women do work and have other uses; the men go to feed the community. It is the only way we survived so long as other towns faded into the dust.”

“No,” said Kelat.

The High Baron chuckled. “Well, I thought not. No one would carry a woman while travelling. But we will accept you as immigrants of the usual sort—straight into the slaughterhouse.”

Armed men stepped out of the shadows of the hall. They wore shirts of overlapping bronze plates and carried curved swords and were not at all like the jolly cannibals at the gate.

Morlock said, in a conversational tone, “Tyrfing.”

The black-and-white crystalline blade burst through the stained glass in the doors and flew to Morlock’s right hand.

The High Baron goggled at the sword and the armsmen did the same. Morlock seized the High Baron by the loose skin in his fat neck and held the black-and-white blade to the Baron’s throat.

“We’re leaving,” Deor said. “Don’t try to stop us, or you’ll need a new baron.”

The armsmen didn’t look heartbroken at this thought, but didn’t try to stop them either. They backed out the door, Morlock dragging the sputtering baron along for the ride. He sheathed Tyrfing in the scabbard on his pack and sat down in the back bench, making the baron stand in front of him.

Kelat and Deor piled onto the front bench and began to pedal. Morlock steered them skillfully in a tight circle and they rattled down the same narrow street they had ridden up.

“Halt at the gate!” Kelat shouted back.

“Risky,” Morlock said.

“We have to try!” Kelat insisted. He didn’t say what he wanted to try; Deor thought he could guess and Morlock at least didn’t ask. But he did grind the wheels to a halt just before the still open gate.

Kelat leaped out of the car. Morlock tossed him his stabbing spear and followed, carrying Tyrfing and dragging the High Baron with him. Deor grabbed his axe and stood between the gate guards and Hippogriff.

With the advantages of surprise, rage, and skill, Kelat easily slew two of the cage guards, and Morlock struck the third senseless with the flat of Tyrfing.

Kelat attacked the thin fence with the spearblade, slashing two-handed until a great hole was opened, and the naked men within peered incuriously out.

“Come with me!” shouted Kelat. “Some, at least, can escape! We will return with the Vraidish army at our backs and cleave High Town until it is neither high nor a town.”

None of the men or boys within moved to escape.

“Come with me!” shouted Kelat. “What have you got to lose?”