Lenk stared at Asper’s back, watching the sweat stain grow longer down her robe.
It was a hard battle to resist the urge to rush up beside the priestess, to see if he could help, if he could do something. He was used to fixing things: fixing the fights between his companions, fixing the agreements between him and his employers, fixing to jam hard bits of steel into soft flesh.
That’s how it should be.
He should have been able to fix this.
The sound of metal gently scraping against skin was loud, unbearable. He cast a resentful, sidelong scowl at his companion. Denaos, however, paid no heed to the young man, gingerly working at his fingernails with a tiny blade. Eventually, it seemed Lenk’s stare became a tad more unbearable and Denaos glanced back at him.
‘Sweet Silf, fine,’ he hissed, ‘I’ll do yours, if you’re so damn envious.’
‘Kataria,’ Lenk replied sharply, ‘is dying.’
‘To be more precise, Kataria may already be dead.’
Lenk blinked at him. Somewhere in the distance, a gull cried.
‘What?’ Denaos hardly looked at him as he plucked up a waterskin from the ground and took a drink.
‘This doesn’t bother you?’ Lenk all but shrieked at the tall man, snatching the skin away. ‘You can’t even keep yourself from drinking her water?’
‘It’s our water, you milksop. She’ll have her drink if and when she wakes up. Have at least an ounce of faith in Asper, would you?’ Denaos glanced over to the priestess. ‘She’s doing her best. She’ll do what’s right.’
‘Really?’ Lenk permitted a squeal of relief to tinge his voice. ‘You’ve seen this sort of thing before?’
‘Once, aye.’ He nodded appraisingly as Asper pressed her lips against Kataria’s once more. ‘But the spectacle cost me a pouch of silver.’ He became aware of Lenk’s angry stare after another moment. ‘What?’
‘What is wrong with you?’ The young man forced an angry snarl between clenched teeth. ‘I almost suspect Gariath would be more sympathetic in this than you are.’
‘He’s further up the beach,’ Denaos gestured, ‘far more curious about dead demons than he is about Kataria.’ He cast a smug smile at Lenk. ‘Besides, it’s not like he’d do anything more than I am save urinate on her corpse.’ He coughed. ‘Out of respect, of course.’
‘Then maybe you should go and linger with him,’ Lenk snorted. ‘If we’re lucky, I’ll only have to come back to see one of you still alive.’
‘Unsurprising as it might be, I find the near-dead to be rather more pleasant company than that lizard.’
‘Then do me,’ Lenk paused, ‘and her the respect of showing proper manners and worrying a little.’ He grunted. ‘Or by seeing how many daggers you can fit in your mouth. Whichever.’
‘Worry?’ Denaos made a scoffing sound. ‘Would that I could.’
The wind between them died. Lenk turned a scowl upon the rogue.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Frankly, I’d rather not say.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have said it in the first place,’ Lenk snarled. ‘What do you mean by that?’
The rogue’s shoulders sank as his head went low to hide the rolling of his eyes.
‘Really, you don’t want me to continue. If I do, you’ll get all upset and pouty, then violent. You’ll do something you’ll later regret, then come crawling back like a worm to tell me I was right and, honestly, I’m not sure if I can stand such a sight.’
‘Whatever I do, I’m guaranteed to regret it less if you don’t have the testicular-borne valor to finish your thought.’
Denaos half-sighed, half-growled.
‘Fine. Allow me to slide a shiv of reality into your kidneys. ’ He shrugged. ‘If she dies, it’ll be a tragedy, to be certain. She was a fine shot with that bow of hers and a finer sight for eyes used to far too much ugly, I’ll tell you. But it’s not like we’re losing anyone . . .’ He paused, tilting his head, wincing as though struck. ‘I mean . . . in the end, she’s not one of us. She’s just a shict. No shortage of them.’
Lenk blinked once. When his eyelids rose, it was not through his own stare that he saw his hands reach out and seize the tall man by his collar. It was not his arms that trembled with barely restrained fury. It was not his voice that uttered a frigid threat to the rogue.
‘The only regret here,’ he whispered, ‘is that my sword is stuck in a corpse that isn’t yours.’
This is it.
The thought rang through Asper’s head solemnly, like a