“Just rats!” Edin Ol repeated angrily, as if he wanted to convince himself of this first of all.
“We've been in this damn swamp for a month now, and I don't like the way these locals look sideways at us. I don’t understand what’s on their minds!” Bey was reaching for the mug, but, feeling the pungent smell of bad moonshine, grimacing, set it aside.
“And we came across a skeleton again, this is the second,” said Mike Rout.
This one is much further and not so tangled in thorns.”
“And?” Bey interrupted him skeptically.
“He also has no arm. Again the same as the first one. Have the animals eaten one arm?”
“I don’t know!” Bey flared up. “I don’t care! I also want to get out of here as soon as possible, like everyone else!”
“Gregor would have been better with us, Bey,” Toby said. “The old swamp man has snake eyes.”
“Well, if they put up with us, then they need it,” Edin objected. He got up from behind a roughly put together low table and, going up to a bench in the corner, pushed it sharply to the side, threw away the straw.
“Edin!” Bey shouted at him, “don't touch anything there for the sake of the Gods!”
“There's nothing here.”
“What's there? Under the straw?” Mike Rout asked curiously.
“Planks of some kind, everything rotten. If you try to pick them up…”
“Edin! Sit down!” Ordered Bey, turning to the rest of the soldiers sitting at the table:
“Okay, we've been sitting here all summer, and where were they sitting? In the quagmire? Locals claim that there is nothing there but mud and water. Where?! Where have they been sitting all this time?!”
Edin Ol returned to the table:
“Now it doesn't matter, Bey, where they were sitting, in the quagmire they ate dirt or in the same hut. They showed up, and this is the main thing. We must go out at dawn!”
“Don't worry, Edin,” Mike Rout said. “They walk so slowly that it won't be difficult to ambush them.”
He chuckled:
“They barely move their legs. It's a pity to watch the girl. Very thin. Maybe they really ate swamp slurry alone. Remember her in Lower, huh? Such a beauty she was, and now she is barely alive.”
“She had to run far from them then,” said Bey, “well, it’s her own fault.”
“Yes, she drags around with him, like tied,” agreed Mike, “thin, he seemed to suck her!”
“Damn Devil!” Bey shook his head.
“We grazed them all day until they made a small fire and lay down for the night. They walk slowly, but he keeps the direction right, she trails after him, well, just like on a leash. We came close, close to them, they seemed not to understand anything.”
“What were they talking about? Have you heard?”
“Who?!”
“They!”
“They didn't speak at all! They walked in silence, lit a fire in silence and lay down. I say it looks like both of them don't understand anything. Come and take with your bare hands.”
“Well, so many days to spend no one knows where, exhausted,” said Edin Ol happily, “the easier it will be for us to deal with them.”
“He is alone, and the unclean ones didn’t come to his aid,” Mike said. “We checked everything to see if the accomplices were hiding in ambush. There’s nobody there.”
“How do you think, why is it so?” Toby asked.
“And how do we know,” Edin waved him off, “it's easier for us!”
“I can't wait to be able to cut off his stupid head!” Bey slammed his fist on the rough tabletop. “How tired I am of him, this damn Son of the Devil! I can’t think about anything but about him! And how to take revenge on them all! For the streets, for my girl! I will cut off his head and take it to the prince's estate! I would go out with this Nikto for a one-on-one battle, he was tempting me, but I just don’t want to waste time. So we will just shoot him!”
