"Why aren't you with them?" Nelson asked.
Li Kin shrugged. "I can better spend my time in sleep. You know how much my word weighs with Sloan."
They came to the prison wing. Here as before the torches flared but now there were no guards. Nelson and Tark, who had slipped back into the shadows, rejoined the little Chinese.
Li Kin's thought was puzzled. "I can't understand it. Shan Kar keeps the boy under guard at all times."
Something came drifting to Nelson on the sluggish air. A little red whisper that made his nerve-ends ripple. He saw the hackles ridge up along Tark's spine and then the two of them ran ahead of Li Kin, going low to the ground with a slinking gait, up to the door of Barin's cell.
Before Li Kin unbarred the door, they knew what they would see.
Barin lay on the floor. The smell of death was on him, and the smell of blood. He had died only a short time before and he had not died easily. The reek of Piet Van Voss was strong in the little room.
Tark's sorrow burst from him in one wailing cry that was quickly checked. Nelson caught the wild, raging thought of the Clan-leader.
"I will avenge!"