Chapter four
Of the simple pleasures of banditsThey’d locked Unmok into one half of an iron-barred cage with a savage beast in the other half and they were having great fun lifting the iron grille separating man and beast and letting it go, and lifting again, and letting go. Great fun.
As the chain rattled up, the wild animal — he was a hexagon-patterned chavonth — leaped slavering for Unmok, and down would come the grille with a crash. The great cat hit the iron bars in a bundle of spitting snarling fur, and a taloned paw raked through trying to reach Unmok. When the chavonth drew off, baffled, the chain would rattle again. His fur in the pattern of gray, blue and black hexagons gleamed in the lights of the suns. His six legs spurted sand as he sprang.
The grille dividing the cage lift
