Tark swept them with his gaze. Eric Nelson felt a chill, uncanny shock in meeting those eyes that were like pools of cold green fire.
Shan Kar and the Humanites apparently found nothing strange in the scene. They were too accustomed to contact and speech with the intelligent beasts of the Brotherhood.
"You must choose now whether young Barin is to live or die," Shan Kar told Tark.
His lips did not move, Nelson saw. He was thinking to the wolf again, and Nelson and his companions were picking up that thought through their thought-crowns. Tark's lips writhed back from great white fangs in a soundless snarl. His answering thought came fiercely. "A trick! You want nothing more than to kill both Barin and myself!"
"That is quite true," Shan Kar coolly agreed. "But even more than to kill you two we want something else."
His thought raced on. "Hoik's brother, Jhanon, is a prisoner in Vruun, as you know. We wish to rescue him. We'll give yours and Barin's lives for his freedom."
" I have not authority to release Jhanon," Tark retorted. "Only the Guardian can do that."
"But you could guide a few of us secretly into Vruun, so we could release Jhanon ourselves," pressed Shan Kar. "Do so, and Barin goes free."
Tark's thought came after a pause. "If I did that it would be a direct disobedience of the Guardian's orders."
"But if you don't, the Guardian's son will die!" Shan Kar threatened. "Nsharra sent you to watch over her brother, didn't she? And you failed, Tark! How will you face her and report your failure?"