'The shoulder. I doubt the crab-walk is permanent.'

'And how would you know?'

He shrugged. 'Every woman in this hamlet has dropped a babe or three, and they walk just fine.'

She eyed him with suspicion. 'You're the one called Barathol. The blacksmith.'

'Yes.'

'The mayor of this pit you call a hamlet.'

'Mayor? I don't think we warrant a mayor. No, I'm just the biggest and meanest man living here, which to most minds counts for far too much.'

'Loric says you betrayed Aren. That you're responsible for the death of thousands, when the T'lan Imass came to crush the rebellion.'

'We all have our bad days, Scillara.'

She laughed. A rather nasty laugh. 'Well, thank you for driving those fools away. Unless you plan on picking up where they left off.'

He shook his head. 'I have some questions about your friends, the ones you were travelling with. The T'lan Imass ambushed you with the aim, it seems, of stealing the young woman named Felisin Younger.'

'L'oric said as much,' Scillara replied, sitting up straighter in the bed and wincing with the effort. 'She wasn't important to anybody. It doesn't make sense. I think they came to kill Heboric more than steal her.'

'She was the adopted daughter of Sha'ik.'

The woman shrugged, winced again. 'A lot of foundlings in Raraku were.'

'The one named Cutter, where is he from again?'

'Darujhistan.'

'Is that where all of you were headed?'

Scillara closed her eyes. 'It doesn't matter now, does it? Tell me, have you buried Heboric?'

'Yes, he was Malazan, wasn't he? Besides, out here we've a problem with wild dogs, wolves and the like.'

'Might as well dig him up, Barathol. I don't think Cutter will settle for leaving him here.'

'Why not?'

Her only answer was a shake of her head.

Barathol turned back to the doorway. 'Sleep well, Scillara. Like it or not, you're the only one here who can feed your little girl. Unless we can convince Jessa last house on the east road. At all events, she'll be hungry soon enough.'

'Hungry,' the woman muttered behind him. 'Like a cat with worms.'

In the main room the High Mage had taken the babe from Chaur's arms.

The huge simpleton sat with tears streaming down his pocked face, this detail unnoticed by L'oric as he paced with the fidgeting infant in his arms.

'A question,' Barathol said to L'oric, 'how old do they have to get before you lose all sympathy for them?'

The High Mage frowned. 'What do you mean?'

Ignoring him, the blacksmith walked over to Chaur. 'You and me,' he said, 'we have a corpse to dig up. More shovelling, Chaur, you like that.'

Chaur nodded and managed a half-smile through his tears and runny nose.

Outside, Barathol led the man to the smithy where they collected a pick and a shovel, then they set off for the stony plain west of the hamlet. There'd been an unseasonal spatter of rain the night before, but little evidence of that remained after a morning of fiercely hot sunlight. The grave was beside a half-filled pit containing the remnants of the horses after Urdan had finished butchering them. He had been told to burn those remains but had clearly forgotten. Wolves, coyotes and vultures had all found the bones and viscera, and the pit now swarmed with flies and maggots. Twenty paces further west, the now bloated, shapeless carcass of the toad demon lay untouched by any scavenger.

As Chaur bent to the task of disinterring Heboric's wrapped corpse, Barathol stared across at that demon's misshapen body. The nowstretched hide was creased with white lines, as if it had begun cracking. From this distance Barathol could not be certain, but it seemed there was a black stain ringing the ground beneath the carcass, as if something had leaked out.

'I'll be right back, Chaur.'

The man smiled.

As the blacksmith drew closer, his frown deepened. The black stain was dead flies, in their thousands. As unpalatable, then, this demon as the handless man had been. His steps slowed, then halted, still five paces from the grisly form. He'd seen it move – there, again, something pushing up against the blistered hide from within.

And then a voice spoke in Barathol's head.

'Impatience. Please, be so kind, a blade slicing with utmost caution, this infernal hide.'

The blacksmith unsheathed his knife and stepped forward. Reaching the demon's side, he crouched down and ran the finely honed edge along one of the cracks in the thick, leathery skin. It parted suddenly and Barathol leapt back, cursing, as a gush of yellow liquid spurted from the cut.

Something like a hand, then forearm and elbow pushed through, widening the slice, and moments later the entire beast slithered into view, four eyes blinking in the bright light. Where the carcass had had two limbs missing, there were now new ones, smaller and paler, but clearly functional. 'Hunger. Have you food, stranger? Are you food?'

Sheathing his knife, Barathol turned about and walked back to where Chaur was dragging free Heboric's body. He heard the demon following.

The blacksmith reached the pick he had left beside the grave pit and collected the tool, turning and hefting it in his hands. 'Something tells me,' he said to the demon, 'you're not likely to grow a new brain once I drive this pick through your skull.'

'Exaggeration. I quake with terror, stranger. Amused. Greyfrog was but joking, encouraged by your expression of terror.'

'Not terror. Disgust.'

The demon's bizarre eyes swivelled in their sockets and the head twitched to look past Barathol. 'My brother has come. He is there, I sense him.'

'You'd better hurry,' Barathol said. 'He's about to adopt a new familiar.' The blacksmith lowered the pick and glanced over at Chaur.

The huge man stood over the wrapped corpse of Heboric, staring with wide eyes at the demon.

'It's all right, Chaur,' said Barathol. 'Now, let's carry the dead man to the tailings heap back of the smithy.'

Smiling again, the huge man picked up Heboric's body. The stench of decaying flesh reached Barathol.

Shrugging, the blacksmith collected the shovel.

Greyfrog set off in a loping gait towards the hamlet's main street.

Dozing, Scillara's eyes snapped open as an exultant voice filled her mind. 'Joy! Dearest Scillara, time of vigil is at an end! Stalwart and brave Greyfrog has defended your sanctity, and the brood even now squirms in Brother L'oric's arms!'

'Greyfrog? But they said you were dead! What are you doing talking to me? You never talk to me!'

'Female with brood must be sheathed with silence. All slivers and darts of irritation fended off by noble Greyfrog. And now, happily, I am free to infuse your sweet self with my undying love!'

'Gods below, is this what the others had to put up with?' She reached for her pipe and pouch of rustleaf.

A moment later the demon squeezed through the doorway, followed by L' oric, who held in his arms the babe.

Scowling, Scillara struck spark to her pipe.

'The child is hungry,' L'oric said.

'Fine. Maybe that will ease the pressure and stop this damned leaking.

Go on, give me the little leech.'

The High Mage came closer and handed the infant over. 'You must acknowledge that this girl belongs to you, Scillara.'

'Oh she's mine all right. I can tell by the greedy look in her eyes.

For the sake of the world, you should pray, L'oric, that all she has of her father is the blue skin.'

'You know, then, who that man was?'

'Korbolo Dom.'

'Ah. He is, I believe, still alive. A guest of the Empress.'

'Do you think I care, L'oric? I was drowning in durhang. If not for Heboric, I'd still be one of Bidithal's butchered acolytes.

Heboric…' She looked down at the babe suckling from her left breast, squinting through the smoke of the pipe. Then she glared up at L'oric.