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She shook her head, thu stupid Silence was unco more It wasn’t a disease He was He was the one that needed to be cured, not her It was him that was the problem

So the problem is him, she told herself That reenshicts … no, no They’re the s’na shict s’ha, remember? Greenshicts are what humans call theht

Because that hat a shict was, she told herself, pressing forward and following the tracks A shict killed humans That hat shicts did Her father said so Inqalle said so Her mother …

Her step faltered The earth heard her hesitation

Mother, she told herself, asked you what a shict was

She stared down at the Spokes feather tied to it

And you said …

Her ears twitched, still listening even if her mind was not They rose up on either side of her head, slowly shifting from side to side as they heard a sound

Water?

She followed it, the roar of rushing liquid growing lanced down at the earth; the tracks continued to it, though the earth still refused to yield the speaker of their stories, even as it becaround turned to mud beneath as forest and riverin close over the great blue serpent that slithered through the earth It floiftly, fed by a distant waterfall thundering down a craggy cliff face not far from where she stood at its bank

Not ten feet away from her, where the water was at its most shallow, an island of earth and stone rose like a rocky pi and wide, it defied the nature of the river with its stone-paved floors, cru pillars and the occasional vine-decorated statue But the forest challenged even this, those trees and underbrush that hadthe finer points of its decay as it strangled the island with leafy hands

Odd, she thought, but not the oddest part about this place

She surveyed the river, eyes narrowing Certainly it sounded like a river ought to The water was clear and, at a glance, clean enough and suitable for drinking Her dry lips begged her to drink, her ears told her it was safe Only her nose rejected it

The scent of freshness was nowhere present in the air; the aros fed by the floas overwhelmed by a reek that lurked just beneath

But surely, water ater Even the water couldn’t be tainted if it caused such plants to grow There was no har a drink It would enable her to hunt farther, faster, and do what lanced down at the water, s her lips Her nostrils quivered

Still, she thought, glancing over to the waterfall, no sense in not taking a drink directly fro exactly where the river cas of the cliff, she found an answer pouring fro so of a h ee of the cliff, wide as a boulder, water weeping through every ereat, toothso in equal ery didn’t unnerve her, but it paled in comparison to the fact that she had seen this skull before, in a much smaller form But she had seen it, cleaned of shadowy black skin, sockets where vast, empty white eyes had once been She remembered the teeth, she re voice that ith the at a deht possible

But it was just a skull, she thought Whatever deed to was dead now and there was no need for her to fear Nor was there a need to wonder where it had come from She had tracks to follow, tracks that had to have led through the shallows, over the island and onto the opposite bank

Rolling her breeches up to her knees, she carefully waded in The current ift, but not deep enough to drag her under Still, it was a slow and steady pace that carried her across, hts

If there are deht I mean, I know that one’s dead and all, but if they’re here … you’re actually doing the them before they could have their heads chewed off Of course, you’d be eatenas they die before that happens That’s just the kind of selfless person you are, right?

She laughed bitterly

Sure I’ht A root reached up frole her She cursed, reached down to free herself and found no rough and jagged tuber Rather, what caught at her ankle was smooth and came easily out of the water and in her hand, the lobs of great brown fat

Shethat metaphor was, if it weren’t for the fact that she was currently staring at a fleshless, skeletal arm in her hand

Before she could even warn herself against the dangers of doing so, she looked down

And the s and politely asking for its ar the appendage and scurrying out of the water Suddenly, the vague reekher nostrils

The water was rife with the scent of corpses

‘Still alive’

The sound of a voice beside the one in her head caused her to whirl about, tense and ready to fight or flee And while she breathed out a scant relieved exhale at the sight of red flesh stretched over ht discount either option

Gariath, for his part, didn’t seeht do Perched upon a shattered pillar beneath the shade of a tree, he see on his feet She recognised it as one of the rainbow-coloured roaches, its innards exposed and glistening, loosing reeking, unseen clouds as he scooped out its guts

Strange, she thought, that a dead roach should be nisable than the creature she had once called a companion

It certainly looked like Gariath, of course: allover the pillar and swayed ponderously, his wings were folded tightly behind his back, as they had been many times before His hands were no less powerful as they tore a whiskered leg fro with roach innards His utter casualness about having a corpse at his feet and in his mouth was also decidedly fa off about hiht as she studied him with ears upraised His skin appeared stretched a bit too tightly His jaws opened with ust on her face was plain as another wave of roach reek hit her nostrils, but he showed no particular joy at the discoh without considering his stare There was intensity behind it, as ever, but it was not a fire that flickered and burned His stare was hard and iainst her

‘So are you,’ she said, observing him coolly as he shovelled another handful of innards into his jaws