His basket jostled and then fell away from the quadruped. Now he smelled dung, straw, and harness oil. They moved through more streets in a great curve, climbing slightly, until they passed through a threshold of sandy stone.

Voices directed the rest of the caravan to continue to Customs House. His and several other quadrupeds lumbered onward, along with the disguised Outsiders and militiamen, who wore dusty robes over their uniforms. Painted tiles on the wall depicted a woman seated atop an ankylosaur with an enormous abacus mounted on its back David guessed this was a warehouse space near the main market. The convoy turned a corner, and then another, and then passed a broad, shallow fountain tiled in white and blue. He couldn’t say if that soothed or aggravated his stomach. The smells of curry and wastewater joined the stink of the basket. The quadruped swayed as it lumbered over a bridge. Richly carved buildings striped with black, white, and green stone less jackets and close-cut trousers and more voluminous wraps and robes of pink, earthy red and yellow merchants and shoppers bartering in a dozen languages he had never yet heard on Dinotopia. Glimpses between the wickerwork brought to mind golden age Turkey and the kingdoms of ancient Ethiopia: Inside the basket was like being back in the womb: broiling hot, cramped, and stinking powerfully of root vegetables and spicy pickled cabbage. He’d recovered from this enough to peek nauseously through the gaps in the basket weave.

He himself had played the compliance card and received only an ill-spirited smash to the head from a baton. David didn’t know what had become of Freefall. They carried their captives drugged and bound, concealed in great woven baskets slung on a quadruped. Morowa’s band trundled up the great stone ramp into Khasra once again disguised as a traveller caravan.

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