'Can you convince him to go home?' Scillara asked.
'Not likely,' Barathol admitted. 'Simple and stubborn – that's a miserable combination.' He slipped down to the ground and walked back to the huge young man. 'Here, Chaur, let's tie your kit to the mule's pack.'
Smiling, Chaur handed it over.
'We have a long way to go, Chaur. And for the next few days at least, you will have to walk – do you understand? Now, let's see what you're wearing on your feet – Hood's breath-'
'He's barefoot!' Cutter said, incredulous.
'Chaur,' Barathol tried to explain, 'this track is nothing but sharp stones and hot sand.'
'There's some thick bhederin hide in our kit,' Scillara said, lighting her pipe, 'somewhere. Tonight I can make him sandals. Unless you want us to stop right now.'
The blacksmith unslung his axe, then crouched and began pulling at his boots. 'Since I'll be riding, he can wear these until then.'
Cutter watched as Chaur struggled to pull on Barathol's boots. Most men, he knew, would have left Chaur to his fate. Just a child in a giant's body, after all, foolish and mostly useless, a burden. In fact, most men would have beaten the simpleton until he fled back to the hamlet – a beating for Chaur's own good, and in some ways very nearly justifiable. But this blacksmith… he hardly seemed the mass murderer he was purported to be. The betrayer of Aren, the man who assassinated a Fist. And now, their escort to the coast.
Cutter found himself oddly comforted by that notion. Kalam's cousin… assassinations must run in the family. That huge double-bladed axe hardly seemed an assassin's weapon. He considered asking Barathol – getting from him his version of what had happened at Aren all those years ago – but the blacksmith was a reluctant conversationalist, and besides, if he had his secrets he was within his right to hold on to them. The way I hold on to mine.
They set out again, Chaur trailing, stumbling every now and then as if unfamiliar with footwear of any kind. But he was smiling.
'Damn these leaking tits,' Scillara said beside him.
Cutter stared over at her, not knowing how he should reply to that particular complaint.
'And I'm running out of rustleaf, too.'
'I'm sorry,' he said.
'What have you to be sorry about?'
'Well, it took me so long to recover from my wounds.'
'Cutter, you had your guts wrapped round your ankles – how do you feel, by the way?'
'Uncomfortable, but I never was much of a rider. I grew up in a city, after all. Alleys, rooftops, taverns, estate balconies, that was my world before all this. Gods below, I do miss Darujhistan. You would love it, Scillara-'
'You must be mad. I don't remember cities. It's all desert and driedup hills for me. Tents and mud-brick hovels.'
'There are caverns of gas beneath Darujhistan, and that gas is piped up to light the streets with this beautiful blue fire. It's the most magnificent city in the world, Scillara'Then why did you ever leave it?'
Cutter fell silent.
'All right,' she said after a moment, 'how about this? We're taking Heboric's body… where, precisely?'
'Otataral Island.'
'It's a big island, Cutter. Any place in particular?'
'Heboric spoke of the desert, four or five days north and west of Dosin Pali. He said there's a giant temple there, or at least the statue from one.'
'So you were listening, after all.'
'Sometimes he got lucid, yes. Something he called the Jade, a power both gift and curse… and he wanted to give it back. Somehow.'
'Since he's now dead,' Scillara asked, 'how do you expect him to do anything like returning power to some statue? Cutter, how do we find a statue in the middle of a desert? You might want to consider that whatever Heboric wanted doesn't mean anything any more. The T'lan Imass killed him, and so Treach needs to find a new Destriant, and if Heboric had any other kind of power, it must have dissipated by now, or followed him through Hood's Gate – either way, there is nothing we can do about it.'
'His hands are solid now, Scillara.'
She started. 'What?'
'Solid jade – not pure, filled with… imperfections. Flaws, particles buried deep inside. Like they were flecked with ash, or dirt.'
'You examined his corpse?'
Cutter nodded.
'Why?'
'Greyfrog came back to life…'
'So you thought the old man might do the same.'
'It was a possibility, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
He's mummifying – and fast.'
Barathol Mekhar spoke: 'His funeral shroud was soaked in salt water then packed in even more salt, Cutter. Keeps the maggots out. A fistsized bundle of rags was pushed into the back of his throat, and a few other places besides. The old practice was to remove the intestines, but the locals have since grown lazier – there were arts involved.
Skills, mostly forgotten. What's done is to dry out the corpse as quickly as possible.'
Cutter glanced at Scillara, then shrugged. 'Heboric was chosen by a god.'
'But he failed that god,' she replied.
'They were T'lan Imass!'
A flow of smoke accompanied Scillara's words as she said, 'Next time we get swarmed by flies, we'll know what's coming.' She met his eyes.
'Look, Cutter, there's just us, now. You and me, and until the coast, Barathol. If you want to drop Heboric's body off on the island, that's fine. If those jade hands are still alive, they can crawl back to their master on their own. We just bury the body above the tide-line and leave it at that.'
'And then?'
'Darujhistan. I think I want to see this magnificent city of yours.
You said rooftops and alleys – what were you there? A thief? Must have been. Who else knows alleys and rooftops? So, you can teach me the ways of a thief, Cutter. I'll follow in your shadow. Hood knows, stealing what we can from this insane world makes as much sense as anything else.'
Cutter looked away. 'It's not good,' he said, 'following anyone's shadow. There's better people there… for you to get along with.
Murillio, maybe, or even Coll.'
'Will I one day discover,' she asked, 'that you've just insulted me?'
'No! Of course not. I like Murillio! And Coll's a Councilman. He owns an estate and everything.'
Barathol said, 'Ever seen an animal led to slaughter, Cutter?'
'What do you mean?'
But the big man simply shook his head.
After repacking her pipe, Scillara settled back in her saddle, a small measure of mercy silencing, for the moment at least, her baiting of Cutter. Mercy and, she admitted, Barathol's subtle warning to ease up on the young man.
That old killer was a sharp one.
It wasn't that she held anything against Cutter. The very opposite, in fact. That small glimmer of enthusiasm –
