at least groaned.
‘Five humans are two and a half times as worthless as two humans,’ he muttered.
‘Four humans,’ she replied, twitching her ears.
‘Pointy-eared humans are still humans.’ He didn’t even bother to dignify her threatening bare of teeth with a glance. Instead, he merely kept a disdainful eye upon the craft. ‘This is a stupid idea.’
‘I thought you wanted to chase the demon.’ She knew that speaking so coyly to a creature whose arm was the size of her waist was not, by any race’s standards, a good idea. Still, she was hungry for a reaction; Lenk would have insulted her back by now. ‘Scared?’
He turned to face her, not with any great need to rip her face off, and regarded her through cold, dark eyes. She tensed, ready to leap aside at the first sign of an angry fist. Instead, he merely grunted, ignoring her flicking tongue as she shot it at him. Her sigh was exaggerated and bored, not that he likely heard it.
‘Fear is something for lesser races,’ he rumbled. ‘It’s the only gift their weak Gods gave them, since they sought to deny them intelligence.’ He thumped a fist against his chest. ‘The spirits gave no gifts to the Rhega. I’ll hunt the demon down.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘It was meant for me.’
‘Meant,’ she paused, cocking a brow, ‘for you?’
‘I don’t expect you to understand.’
‘You’d expect a human to understand any better?’ It was with some form of pride that she noted the crew, standing as far away as possible from both shict and dragonman.
‘I wouldn’t expect anyone but a Rhega to understand.’
‘Yeah, well, there aren’t any Rhega around.’
For the first time, she hadn’t intended any offence. Yet, for all her previous prodding and attempts to incite him into a reaction, her innocuous observation caused him to whirl about and turn an angry gaze upon her.
Obviously.
His step shook the ship as he thundered forwards. The teeth he bared at her, she noted, were far bigger and far sharper than hers. She resisted the urge to back away, even as his hands tightened into fists. Retreat, more often than not, tended to be viewed as even more of an insult by the dragonman.
‘You don’t have the right to utter that word.’ He prodded a claw into her chest, drawing blood and sending her staggering backwards. ‘The Rhega tongue was not meant for your ugly lips.’
‘Then what am I supposed to call you?’ Her attempt to draw herself up seemed rather pitiful when she noted that the top of her head only came up to the middle of his chest, five times as broad as hers. ‘Dragonman? That human word?’
‘There are many human words.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘All of them are equally worthless. Rhega words are worth more.’
‘Fine.’
He ignored her challenging scowl as she rubbed at the red spot beneath her collarbone. They both looked towards the sea, observing the bobbing craft.
‘So,’ she broke the silence tersely, ‘what is it you think you’re meant to do with this demon?’
‘Kill it.’
‘Well, naturally.’
‘A Rhega’s kills have more meaning.’
‘Of course they do. It doesn’t bother you that you couldn’t harm it before?’
‘Hit something hard enough, it falls down. That’s how the world works.’
‘You hit it fairly hard before.’
‘Then I’ll have to hit it harder.’
She nodded; it seemed to make sense.
‘Riffid willing, we’ll do that.’
‘You should save the names of your weak Gods,’ he snorted. ‘The more you utter them, the less likely they’ll be inclined to send you their worthless aid. Besides,’ he folded his arms over his chest, ‘we won’t be doing anything. I will kill the demon and if your Gods aren’t useless, they’ll kill you quickly and get you out of the way.’
‘Riffid is the true Goddess,’ she hissed, ‘the only Goddess. ’
‘If your Gods intended to cure you of your stupidity, they would not have made you that way in the first place.’
She sighed at that, though she knew it was futile. Gariath’s response was hardly unexpected. To credit his objectivity, she grudgingly admitted, he had equal disdain for any God, shict, human or otherwise. His interest in theological discussion tended to begin with snorts and end in bloodshed. It would be wiser to leave now, she reasoned, before he decided to end this conversation.
And yet, she lingered.
‘So,’ she muttered, ‘what’s got you in such a sunny mood today?’
His nostrils flared. ‘There’s a scent on the air . . . one I haven’t sensed in a long time.’
His face flinched. It was such a