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The first grunted and turned back to peeling his potatoes. “Not that it matters. We’ll all be dead soon, like those sorry fuckers.”
“Can’t complain if you’re getting a full belly,” replied the second.
I looked up from slicing carrots into the bucket tucked between my knees. “There’s no reason to believe we can’t win this.”
They both looked at me before exchanging a glance. The second snorted. “If you think that, human, you are in the wrong place. This war is already lost. It was lost the moment that dragon appeared.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” I lowered my head and went back to slicing the carrot.
The Skaag working on potatoes tossed his peeled potato into the bucket of water. “Have you ever seen what dragon fire can do, human? It doesn’t just burn you. It burnsthroughyou. Eats your skin, your muscle, your bone, until you are nothing but ash and metal.”
“Do you think dragon fire gets hot enough to burn a gargoyle?” asked the other.
“How hot does fire have to be to burn stone?” the first replied with a grunt.
“You know only their outsides are stone, right? So I suppose if it gets hot enough, their blood would boil. Huh. Never thought of that.” The Skaag looked up from dicing his onion. “Do you think you could eat a gargoyle’s insides?”
I sighed and tossed the end of the carrot off into the grass before selecting another. “If you don’t think we can win, then why are you here?”
The onion Skaag shrugged. “Where else would we be? When Brenna and the Fire Lord win, do you think they will just let us live? They’ll kill us either way.”
Potato Skaag nodded. “I would rather die on my feet with a sword in my hand.”
“Well, I don’t plan to die at all,” I said. “At least not for a while.”
Onion Skaag huffed. “You just want to get some more gargoyle cock before you die, human.”
I snorted. “There are worse ways to die than getting good cock.”
The two Skaags burst out laughing. Onion Skaag pointed his knife at me. “I like you, human.”
Eventually, the strippers came back pushing half a dozen carts loaded down with swords, armor, and scraps. The caravan moved on, pushing further up the narrow strait we’d been traveling on for hours.
The scent of death was still in the air when we made camp, or maybe it was on my clothes. It seemed like it was on everything. I couldn’t eat that night, the smell of corpses too fresh everywhere. I didn’t know how I’d survive the front.
“You get used to it,” one of the wagon drivers told me, shoveling stew into his mouth. He was a big Nightmare with chameleon-like skin and the ears of a deer. They twitched toward every sound, taking them in, assessing for threats. “To the smell, I mean. Just becomes part of life after a while.”
I put my bowl of watery stew down on a flat rock. “Have you seen many battlefields?”
He shrugged. “A few. I was there when Lukesh fought Iridyn, but I didn’t fight. I’m no soldier. I just strip the dead.”
I frowned. “I don’t know how you can stomach that.”
“Someone’s got to,” was all the big Nightmare said. “Best it be someone not squeamish about it. All that armor, those shoes and swords going to waste. In war, you don’t just leave stuff like that. Not unless you’re Iridyn.”
Xeltec picked through his stew, pushing the potatoes to one side. He hated potatoes. “He can afford it. Iridyn’s got more bodies to throw at us than we’d have in a hundred years. Let’s thank the gods all we’ve had to deal with so far is Brenna’s tantrum.”
I started. “We’re not fighting the entire army?”
“Not yet.” Xeltec spooned some broth into his mouth. “Iridyn has two grown children, and each commands a third of his host while he retains power over the elite units and the dragon riders. It keeps them from trying to overthrow him and gives them enough troops to indulge. Though don’t doubt for a second this isn’t Iridyn’s war. When we defeat Brenna—”
“If,” corrected the other Nightmare.
Xeltec ignored him. “Whenwe defeat her, we’ll have to contend with Balor.”
“They say he has a magic eye, that he can kill you just by looking at you.” The big Nightmare next to me upended his bowl into his mouth, slurping loudly.
Xeltec eyed me and then shrugged. “They say a lot of things. Worrying about the future never did anything to help anybody sleep, though, so I don’t give one damn. Our job is to deliver the ballistas and then assist. That’s all I care about right now, not some fairytale about a magic copper eye.”
