The overman did not answer, but glanced back.
"Did Saram have a lover before I met him?"
Garth shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I never saw any evidence of one." He turned his attention forward again, to the trail ahead, wondering what quirk had brought Frima to be questioning her dead husband's past at this late date. It was an almost-welcome distraction from his own gloomy, repetitious thoughts, which ran over and over again along the same deadend paths, considering ways out of his predicament that he already knew would not work.
Frima reminded herself that she was not totally alone; she had friends, or at least acquaintances, back in Skelleth, and she was sure that they would not desert her if she returned there. She had Garth, who had agreed to help her in her revenge and who still seemed to feel some obligation toward her from earlier events. She had her father and siblings, perhaps, though she could not be sure that any of them had survived. She had not thought much about them in almost three years, not even long enough to send them a message reporting her own survival and her improved estate as the Baroness of Skelleth, but surely, if they lived, they would welcome her back.
She felt suddenly guilty that she had never told them that she was still alive. They must, she realized, believe that she had died on Sai's altar long ago-unless her father or brother had been in the mob in the marketplace when Garth slew the high priest of Aghad. They would have seen her there and known she still lived, but would have no idea what had become of her after she fled the city.
Of course, if they had been present, they might well have been among the first to contract the White Death, which was invariably fatal. And if the plague had not killed them, the fires she herself had set, and the chaos that ensued, might well have caught them.
Her younger sisters would have been safe at home, she was sure-but the fires and plague and rioting might have found them even there. And if their father and brother had died, how would they have survived? Most probably they, like herself, would have wound up on a sacrificial altar somewhere-but without a strange overman to rescue them.
She was suddenly impatient to see Dыsarra again, to discover how much the stories of its destruction had exaggerated. She wanted to know whether her father, her brother, and her two sisters still lived. What remained of her father's shop? Were any of her old friends still there? Was the cult of Tema still active? She remembered the priestess Shirrayth, who had tried to teach Frima some of the mysteries of the goddess in hopes of recruiting her as an acolyte, and wondered what had become of her. She remembered the magnificent stone idol in the temple's domed chamber, which had awed and comforted her as a child, and longed to see it again. She was certain that it must still be intact; the goddess would protect her own image, Frima was sure of that.
She remembered how she had been consoled by a priest-she had never known his name-after her mother's death and how she had prayed to Tema and sensed her presence in the night sky in response. The knowledge that the goddess watched over her followers had eased Frima's mind many times when she was young, yet during her stay in Skelleth she had neglected her religion completely.
She tried to excuse herself on the grounds that Tema was a Dыsarran deity, not to be found in strange eastern lands, but she knew that for the lie it was. Tema was the goddess of night, and the night came everywhere, not just to Dыsarra.
She had not kept up her childhood faith; she had lived mostly by day, for convenience, since the people of Skelleth, unlike her own, were wholly diurnal. She had relinquished her ties to the night.
That was not right.
Had she remained steadfast, Frima thought, perhaps Tema might have warned her, or protected Saram somehow, or turned away Aghad's followers-or at the very least, eased the pain and grief.
Perhaps the goddess had watched over her family and she would find her father and siblings waiting for her in the tinker's shop, untouched by the catastrophes that had struck the city. They, surely, had remained faithful.
No, she told herself, that was going too far, believing that anyone who worshipped Tema would be preserved against the wrath of the other gods-for it was P'hul and Bheleu who had caused Dыsarrans suffering, at Garth's behest. Tema was the least of the seven Lords of Dыs, unable to stand against any of her six siblings. If P'hul's plague, or Bheleu's flames, or the machinations of Aghad had been directed against Frima's family, then they surely would have died. She could only hope that they had been fortunate.
It would do no good to pray to Tema that they had been spared, for not even the gods could alter the past, except perhaps for the being called Dagha, who had created the gods themselves. If her family still lived, she would find them when she reached Dыsarra; until then, it would do no good to worry about them.
Nonetheless, she worried.
She wanted them to be alive, for there to be someone she could go to, now that Saram was dead. She wanted to return to the comforts of her childhood, to the relative security she had known before her kidnapping.
With that in mind, as the party was coming within sight of Nekutta's central mountain range, she leaned forward and asked Garth, "Don't you think we should travel by night?"
The overman glanced back at her and asked, "Why?"
"Wouldn't it be safer?"
The overman looked out across the peaceful landscape of green pastures, grazing cattle, and occasional houses or plowed fields scattered along the roadside. Nothing within sight seemed in the least threatening.
Still, he remembered that reports had reached Skelleth describing wars and other disturbances in Nekutta. He had seen no evidence to support the stories-but caution would do no harm.
So far, the party had been spending long days on the road, traveling on well into the evening every day, and rising again before dawn to get an early start. Garth had no intention of slowing the pace, but he saw no reason not to move the sleeping period from nighttime to day. It might, he thought, provide a small decrease in the chance of danger.
"Old man? Do you have any preference?"
The Forgotten King shook his head and walked on, tirelessly, without looking at the overman. He had no trouble in keeping up with the warbeast. An ordinary man would have been left far behind in a single day, or else would have collapsed from exhaustion, but the King marched stolidly and silently onward, his pace always steady and matching the warbeast's own. It was one more little demonstration of his strangeness, but one that pleased Garth because it meant faster travel.
"Very well, then," Garth said. "Tonight we ride until dawn."
Frima smiled; she was returning to the night, where she belonged.
The habits of years were not so easily broken, however, and she dozed off shortly after midnight, only to be awakened half an hour later by the cessation of movement.
Startled, she opened her eyes and saw that Koros had stopped and was standing motionless in the middle of the road. No inn was in sight, and the eastern sky was still black and strewn with stars.
"What's happening?" she asked.
"Silence!" Garth warned in a low voice.
"Why?" she whispered. "What's happening?"
"I see campfires ahead, where none should be," Garth replied.
Frima lifted herself up on her hands and stared over the overman's shoulder. As he had said, several lights were visible on the hillside ahead of them.
"Couldn't it just be a caravan?" she whispered.
"It could be," Garth admitted, "but I think it is not. Look how many fires there are."
Frima peered into the darkness and tried to count the flickering lights; her hand slipped before she had finished, and she bumped down onto the saddle, losing her place.
She didn't need to finish her count, however; Garth's point was obvious.
"I estimate thirty fires," the overman whispered. "At the least. And assuming ten humans to each, that means three hundred people are camped there. I have never heard of so large a caravan. Raiding parties, however, are often such a size."
"Maybe the caravan set extra fires to scare away bandits," Frima suggested.
Garth did not bother to reply to that.
"What are you going to do about it?" Frima asked.
"I have not decided," he replied.
His first impulse had been to make a detour around the encampment, but the thought of going out of his way, even so briefly, annoyed him. He was tempted to ride straight through, as if nothing were out of the ordinary-and if anyone in the camp tried to stop him, well, the Sword of Bheleu could deal with such interference.
In fact, he thought it might be fun to destroy the camp, whether he was bothered directly or not; after all, the fools had settled themselves on the highway, obstructing traffic, and deserved whatever response travelers might be able to make.
He found himself considering with anticipation just how he would go about it. He might burn down the tents first-assuming there were tents-and then hunt down anyone who got out in time. He would pursue them individually, he decided, and skewer each one on the sword, so that he could watch the blood run up the blade and spatter across the ground.
"Garth?" Frima's voice was worried.
He ignored the girl; nothing she could say would be of interest.