Cutter sighed, studied the sky. 'I know, Heboric.'
'Knowing means nothing.'
'I know that, too.'
Heboric rose. 'Treach's greatest comfort, understanding that there are infinite reasons for waging war.'
'And are you comforted by that, too?'
The Destriant smiled. 'Come. That demon who speaks in our heads is obsessing about flesh at the moment, with watering mouth.'
They made their way down the trail. 'He won't eat them.'
'I am not convinced that is the nature of his appetite.'
Cutter snorted. 'Heboric, Greyfrog is a four-handed, four-eyed, oversized toad.'
'With a surprisingly boundless imagination. Tell me, how much do you know of him?'
'Less than you.'
'It has not occurred to me, until now,' Heboric said, as he led Cutter onto a path offering a less precarious climb – but more roundabout – than the one the Daru had used, 'that we know virtually nothing of who Greyfrog was, and what he did, back in his home realm.'
This was proving an unusually long lucid episode for Heboric. Cutter wondered if something had changed – he hoped it would stay this way. '
Then we could ask him.'
'I shall.'
****
In the camp, Scillara kicked sand over the few remaining coals of the cookfire. She walked over to her pack and sat down, settling her back against it as she pushed more rustleaf into her pipe and drew hard until smoke streamed from it. Across from her, Greyfrog squatted in front of Felisin, making strange whimpering sounds.
She had seen so little for so long. Drugged insensate by durhang, filled with infantile thoughts by her old master, Bidithal. And now she was free, and still wide-eyed with the complexities of the world.
The demon lusted after Felisin, she believed. Either to mate with or to devour – it was hard to tell. While Felisin regarded Greyfrog as if it was a dog better to stroke than kick. Which might in turn be giving the demon the wrong notions.
It spoke with the others in their minds, but had yet to do so with Scillara. Out of courtesy to her, the ones the demon addressed replied out loud, although of course they did not have to – and perhaps didn't more often than not. There was no way for Scillara to tell. She wondered why she had been set apart – what did Greyfrog see within her that so affected its apparent loquaciousness?
Well, poisons do linger. I may be… unpalatable. In her old life, she might have felt some resentment, or suspicion, assuming she felt anything at all. But now, it appeared to her that she didn't much care. Something had taken shape within her, and it was self-contained and, oddly enough, self-assured.
Perhaps that came with being pregnant. Just beginning to show, and that would only get worse. And this time there would be no alchemies to scour the seed out of her. Although other means were possible, of course. She was undecided on whether to keep the child, whose father was probably Korbolo Dom but could have been one of his officers, or someone else. Not that that mattered, since whoever he had been he was probably dead now, a thought that pleased her.
The constant nausea was wearying, although the rustleaf helped. There was the ache in her breasts, and the weight of them made her back ache, and that was unpleasant. Her appetite had burgeoned, and she was getting heavier, especially on the hips. The others had simply assumed that such changes were coming with her returning health – she hadn't coughed in over a week, and all this walking had strengthened her legs – and she did not disabuse them of their assumptions.
A child. What would she do with it? What would it expect of her? What was it mothers did anyway? Sell their babies, mostly. To temples, to slavers, to the harem merchants if it's a girl. Or keep it and teach it to beg. Steal. Sell its body. This, born of sketchy observations and the stories told by the waifs of Sha'ik's encampment. Meaning, a child was an investment of sorts, which made sense. A return on nine months of misery and discomfort.
She supposed she could do something like that. Sell it. Assuming she let it live that long.
It was a dilemma indeed, but she had plenty of time to think on it. To make her decision.
Greyfrog's head twisted round, looking past Scillara's position. She turned to see four men emerge and halt at the edge of the clearing.
The fourth one was leading horses. The riders who had passed them yesterday. One was carrying a loaded crossbow, the weapon trained on the demon.
'Be sure,' the man said in a growl to Felisin, 'that you keep that damned thing away from us.'
The man on his right laughed. 'A four-eyed dog. Yes, woman, get a leash on it… now. We don't want any blood spilled. Well,' he added, 'not much.'
