He had to drag Jen. Her face had gone utterly blank.
In the next minute he realized that they would never reach the rocks,
and that there was no chance, none at all. Back from the winged whirl
that was driving the humans, two of the hawks came darting at them.
Trevor swung Jen behind him and hoped fiercely that he could get
another neck between his hands before they pulled him down.
The dark shadows flashed down. He could see the sun-stones glittering
in their heads. They struck straight at him....
But at the last split second they swerved away.
Trevor waited. They came back again, very fast, but this time it was at
Jen they struck, and not at him.
He got her behind him again in time. And once more the hawks checked
their strike.
The truth dawned on Trevor. The hawks were deliberately refraining from
hurting him.
"Whoever gives them their orders, the Korins or that _Other_, doesn't
want me hurt!"
He caught up Jen in his arms and started to run again toward the rocks.
Instantly the hawks struck at Jen. He could not swing her clear in
time. Blood ran from the long claw-marks they left in her smooth,
tanned shoulders.
[Illustration: _The lizards screamed and hissed above them. "They're
coming again," the girl managed to gasp._]
Jen cried out. Trevor hesitated. He tried again for the rocks, and Jen
moaned as a swift scaly head snapped at her neck.
So that's it, Trevor thought furiously. I'm not to be hurt, but they
can drive me through Jen.
And they could, too. He would never get Jen to the concealment of the
rocks alive, with those two wide-winged shadows tearing at her. He had
to go the way they wanted or they would leave her as they had left Hugh.
"All right!" Trevor yelled savagely at the circling demons. "Let her
alone! I'll go where you want."
He turned, still carrying Jen, plodding after the other slaves who were
being herded down the canyon.
All that day the black hawks drove the humans down the watercourse,
around the shoulder of basalt and out onto the naked sun-seared lava
bed. Some of them dropped and lay where they were, and no effort of the
hawks could move them on again. Much of the time Trevor carried Jen.
Part of the time he dragged her. For long vague periods he had no idea
what he did.
He was in a daze in which only his hatred still was vivid, when he felt
Jen pulled away from him. He struggled, and was held--and he looked
up to see a ring of mounted men around him. Korins on their crested
beasts, the sun-stones glittering in their brows.
They looked down at Trevor, curious, speculative, hostile, their
otherwise undistinguished human faces made strangely evil and
other-worldly by the winking stones.
"You come with us to the city," one of them said curtly to Trevor.
"That woman goes with the other slaves."