Her body tensed, but there was nothing sexual about the way she felt against him now.
"What?" he asked suspiciously. "What's wrong?"
She relaxed, and gave that twitch against his groin that made him suck in breath between clenched teeth, thinking of how hard it was to wait to devour her.
"I just didn't expect so many," she said.
From the height, it was an impressive sight as Tumna circled in to seek a landing site. It was the only army Horas had ever seen, certainly, although he understood that the northern army being fielded was twice this size, the one they were going to throw against Toskala and Nessumara after they finished off the city of High Haldia. The vanguard was out of sight where woodland concealed the road, but the body of the beast stretched a fair way back with men marching in ranks of six with six abreast, each of these cadres separated from the next by a banner and sergeant, and three such sergeants to a company with its triple banners and captain, and six companies to a cohort, each cohort assigned a marshal and badge according to the taste and whim of their commander. Six cohorts had been sent against Olossi, although the mounted Flying Fours had been split into foraging groups, one of which was riding two days ahead as their strike force while the rest were split into cadres and subcadres roaming up and down the road, scouting or probing out on raids into the nearby countryside.
"I thought…" She paused.
"You thought what? I'm not stupid, you know."
"No, no," she agreed, resting a hand on his right thigh, right up close to his groin, stroking it just enough to set the flame burning higher. "That's why I know you can answer me. The one thing I've never understood. What's in it for Olossi's council?"
"The hells. You are just a Devouring girl, aren't you? More tits than brains."
She giggled, and gave another of those killing twitches. "Is that what they say about us Devouring girls?"
"Not most people. Most people would give me a good scolding for you know how they will blab on about the duty we owe to the gods and how we each serve and how every service maintains the balance and the many streams that flow in the world. But I say, who would serve the Devourer and give for free what they could be getting coin for, if they didn't want a lot of filling up of what's otherwise empty? Eh?"
She laughed, genuinely amused, and for an instant he was furious, thinking she was laughing at him somehow, and then he realized that of course she was agreeing with him.
"A lot of filling up, you like that, don't you?" He pumped against her buttocks, wishing they weren't both clothed although in fact that kilt and vest she was wearing didn't cover much.
"I do like a real man filling me up, that's true. But I so rarely meet one. I guess Olossi's council will be getting the same treatment, eh?"
"Not at all. Heh. They're getting nothing. They just think they're getting a good milk, but they'll just get a stiff shaft and nothing to show for it, which is all they deserve. 'Greed makes of men rank fools.'"
"So it does. Whoo-ah!" She actually gripped his hips, tensing with fear, as Tumna came down fast to land with a bump and a thump in the grass close beside the road. Then she laughed.
The soldiers kept marching. They had long since learned to ignore the reeves who came and went. Horas ran his hands up and down her lithe body while he still had her hitched against him, but here damn it anyway came a captain wearing the lord commander's colors riding right toward them, on a mission, just as he was. He unhooked her, and she sidled fast out of reach of Tumna's beak, not that the eagle would do anything to her if he didn't command it done. Tumna was strong, and that mattered, but she was balky and slow to obey, and her balkiness had gotten worse over the years, worse luck for Horas, who never seemed to get much good fortune come his way although the Devouring girl stood there waiting to see what he wanted her to do, with a dumb, expectant look on her face that got him all hot and bothered again just as the captain rode up and halted at a prudent distance and looked them over.
"Reeve Horas?"
"Eh, yeh. Captain Mani. Who do I report to today?"
"Who's that?" asked the captain with an ugly frown and a curt tone.
"No need to bark at me like that!"
The captain gave him a look that Horas wanted to scrape right off his face, but he held his temper in while the captain gave the girl a second look. "Who's that? And why's she here?"
She raised both hands palm-up in the manner of a pilgrim come to worship at the temple. "I'm the Devouring girl hired on by Marshal Yordenas at Argent Hall. Maybe you heard of me."
"I didn't," said the captain.
"It's a long story," she said with a lazy smile, "but maybe we can talk about it at length, later."
"Hey!" objected Horas. "You're mine!"
She had a way of lifting her eyebrows that made him feel he was already in the saddle. He flushed.
"I belong to the Devourer," she said.
"I'm not interested," said Captain Mani. "Except in what you're doing here."
She shrugged. "Marshal Yordenas of Argent Hall set me to kill a reeve out of Clan Hall who came nosing around. But the reeve got away, so I was out on West Track looking for him when Reeve Horas here found me on the road and kindly let me know that the Olossi council had already caught the reeve and put him in their dungeon. So I asked for a lift back to Olossi."
"To do him in?" asked the captain.
"If need be. I like it said that I finish what I start. Reeve Horas offered me a lift to Olossi, and I took it. Naturally, it meant I had to come on this part of the errand first."
The captain turned his stare on Horas. "I suppose you hoped to peel and pound the nai root on the side, eh? On your way back to Argent Hall and Olossi?"
"None of your business what's done in the hand of the Devourer!" How these tight-lipped bastards made him want to slug their sneering faces!
Captain Mani shook his head with a grimace of disgust. "Keep it in the temple, then. That's where it belongs. Move sharp. The lord commander saw you come in and is wanting your report."
That shrank him down to size. The lord commander was not a nice man, or a patient one. Not that Horas was afraid of anyone or anything, but still, the lord commander wasn't to be kept waiting.
"All right, then. She can wait here under guard of Tumna."
"I'd like a drink and a bite to eat if there's anything to be had," she said, with a sly smile, probably thinking to earn a little coin with a few quick milkings while he was off giving his report.
"She'll come along where I can keep an eye on her," said the captain. For once, Horas figured this was a man who would keep his hands dry.
"All right," he said grudgingly. He commanded Tumna to stay. With a downcast gaze, the woman followed as he slogged over sun-bleached, heat-dried grass toward the road, keeping pace with Captain Mani. They didn't speak. A drum rattled out a rhythm, repeated twice, and the beat was echoed in both directions up and down the line. Soldiers faltered, and came to a halt, then set down their weapons and made themselves comfortable on the road. They drank, chewed, lay back to nap, and there a quartet formed a square and began rolling dice. Men did stare at the Devouring girl as they crossed the road and pushed into the forest on the other side. Some even licked their lips. It was good to know men envied you for what you had. He thought of slapping her on the butt where everyone could see, but then Captain Mani gave him such a look that next thing he knew his hand was in a fist and it took all his control not to punch the thin-lipped bastard.