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had rammed home.
    "But I think the other one's dead," Thom added, watching the limp body swaying in the rain.
    "Probably the best thing. The beating must have been bad from the looks of his back."
    "No worse than what they did to…"
    "To His Grace."
    Thom winced; a powerful stab of pain went through him as it always did when he remembered Conar. He turned his eyes away from Shalu as a second bar pulled free of its housing.
    "Two more and I think I can squeeze through!" Jah-Ma-El told the men working on the bars.
    Another hour passed as the third bar proved to be harder to loosen than the ones preceding it. The men worked diligently, worrying the bar in its socket, trying to lift it free of the slot in which it rested. Groans of exertion and disgust filled the late night. Grunts of exhaustion drifted off as other men took an inmate's place working on the bars.
    * * *
    Shalu saw Conar's lids flicker open, then close. He felt his heart start to thud within his massive chest. "McGregor?" he called, his voice low, no longer masked by the pouring rain, for the deluge had trickled to a slow sprinkle.
    Conar's body quivered from fingertips to bare toes, and then he groaned softly.
    "McGregor!" Shalu insisted. "Can you hear me, boy?"
    Conar couldn't move his head enough to nod; he wasn't sure he could open his mouth to answer. He looked at the darkman for just a flicker of a moment and then let his gaze slip away.
    The impact of those lost blue eyes pierced Shalu through the heart. The Necroman knew he had looked into the eyes of a man already dying in his own mind. "Don't give up, boy. You're not alone. We're not going to let you be alone anymore. Do you hear?"
    A tremor ran through Conar's body again. He jerked, his fever lapping at his flesh with flame-like intensity.
    "Do you know who I am? Do you remember me?" Shalu queried.
    Conar was too tired to look at the man. His lips were cracked, bleeding, and he couldn't seem to open them. His head throbbed with an unmerciful agony that seemed to be blinding him to everything but the pain in his throat and chest.
    "I am Shalu, McGregor. I am your friend."
    Conar tried to smile, but smiling was something only living men did. He was dead. Had been for a very long time. He fell headlong into the black, bottomless pit that waited for him.
    * * *
    Just as the first rays of dawn lit the sodden sky, the fourth bar came from its socket. Jah-Ma-El wiggled out of the eleven-inch space. He stumbled as he started to run for the whipping posts, went down on one knee in the mud, but managed to push himself up without breaking stride.
    "Can you get through, Johnny?" Roget asked one of the guards.
    "Think so." The man sucked in his gut, squeezed through and unhooked the keys to the gates from their niche on the rock face of the mine entrance. He inserted the thick key and the gate's catch popped free.
    "Roget!" Jah-Ma-El yelled. "Hurry!"
    Men stood aside to let du Mer and Commandant Appolyon pass, then hurried after them, their faces set and hard. Angry mumbling broke the early morning silence and the sound of running, scuffling feet brought Lydon and his cohorts from the barracks.
    "I did what you wanted me to do, Commandant, but didn't dare say!" Lydon shrieked as five of the guards who had spent the night in the mineshaft rushed to overpower him. He stared at them as though he had done nothing wrong.
    "Get him locked up!" Appolyon snarled as he waddled toward the whipping post.
    Jah-Ma-El was standing before Conar, cradling his brother's head against his shoulder, his hands smoothing back the wet hair. He looked up as Roget joined him. "He's burning with fever!"
    Roget turned to Thom and Storm. "Hold him, men. Be careful with him." He extended his hand to a guard. "Give me your knife, Nyles." Without hesitation, the guard handed his weapon to Roget, handle first. Du Mer stood on his tiptoes and sliced through the hemp around Conar's wrists before doing the same with Shalu's rope.
    Thom and Storm held