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Impatience equals death.”
    “I do understand—”
    “I think not.”
    She bit her lip in vexation. What a crude barbarian warrior he was! And yet, well, this was a part of his life she had not shared, could not have shared. The idea that this way of living might be hers from now on gave her a shudder that was not entirely delicious with romantic terror; but was not too far removed from that silly notion.
    If she told him the truth about herself, he might react in a wild and unpredictable way that would spoil everything. No. Far better to get back home to safety and then sort things out.
    She had no doubts whatsoever that with Seg the Horkandur to protect her she would see her home. She would arrive in the end safely; the trouble was the journey at this rate was going to take an unconscionable amount of time.
    At last — at long last — Seg said, “They did not follow us this far. Now we find our meal.”
    A single shaft brought down a small creature of large ears and thin tail and orange and green furriness.
    Thankfully, as far as Milsi was concerned, it was a mammal and not a reptile. Brusquely, as Seg set about preparing the poor creature, he instructed Milsi to collect wood and break open the crumbly interior from the outer bark.
    He produced his tinderbox from the soft leather pouch attached to his belt and the janul worked splendidly. In a secure cover of a mass of roots affording spying eyes no flicker of flame, Seg got the fire going. The small prepared animal, a forest colo, went on a spit over the fire.
    Milsi watched fascinated as Seg’s powerful hands molded and worked a chunk of the mud. He fashioned a pot and made it watertight. Water was at the moment no problem for the rains left puddles here and there — which Seg ignored. He climbed a tree alert for any unpleasant denizens with prior rights of habitation, and fetched down a cup-shaped leaf filled with liquid.
    This he emptied into his pot and boiled up. It was a messy process, and twice the pot split so that he had to start afresh. But, eventually, Milsi drank water of a brackish and vegetation-tasting quality. It tasted fine.
    The little colo went down well.
    “Now we march.”
    “The way is dreadfully hard.”
    “We follow where these blundering great monsters open a way for us. We go quietly. We listen, and we smell. We will see them before they see us.”
    “I hope to Pandrite you are not mistaken.”
    “You can only die once.”
    “Oh, I agree. But that is one time too many for me.”
    He smiled, did not answer, and set off.
    Although, of course, with the fiendish cunning of some wizards to command unholy skills it might be perfectly possible to die and be resurrected and so die all over again... This prospect was one which displeased Seg enormously. His upbringing, wild and free though it had been, had inculcated in him a respect for the processes of nature.
    His respect was genuine and extended universally — save in one thing.
    Seg had no respect for anything that interfered with his procurement of the finest bowstaves he could cut.
    A vine studded with short hard spikes lashed in from nowhere. A shiny brown spine caught in Milsi’s tunic just to the side of her navel and whipped back, tearing the blue cloth around to the small of her back. She yelped, and Seg’s single slash dropped the vine onto the forest floor, wriggling and squirming.
    “Did it—?”
    “No, thank the good Pandrite.”
    The skin had not been punctured, no blood had been drawn. Very seriously, his face expressionless, Seg shifted the ripped blue cloth aside and inspected Milsi’s stomach, side and back. He could see no lacerations in that tanned pink skin. He breathed out a relieved sigh.
    “That is one problem of walking down a trail made by the monsters.”
    “It is still far preferable to struggling through that awful jungle.”
    As they went on it occurred to Seg to wonder how Milsi’s skin under her tunic was so smoothly tanned.
    Since he had known her