“I need something to eat,” he informed his companions, “and a place to rest.”
“Not rest here.” As he delivered himself of the obvious, Hunkapa Aub kicked aside a mutilated, multimouthed length of tentacle as thick around as his thigh.
“No.” Tired as he was, Ehomba was in complete agreement with his hirsute crony. “We will find a suitable place once we are well away from this blasphemous community.” Straightening to his considerable, full height, he gestured ahead. “But first we will have the water that we have fought so hard to gain.”
Eyes and photoreceptors that were not eyes and organs that did not even require the presence of light in order to see watched from the shadows as the four vanquishing mortals strode purposefully past the locked-down slaughterhouse and the remaining few buildings that barred them from the central square. Now and then, Simna ibn Sind would raise his sword and take a step sideways as if to confront one of the hidden watchers. In response, the concealed eyes always retreated—albeit some with greater reluctance than others.
When they finally reached the plaza that lay at Skawpane’s heart, it was with a feeling of mutual relief. The unlucky lizard had not played them false: The fountain was there, exactly as it had told them it would be. Fenced off by blocks of volcanic scree, it bubbled and foamed to a height of more than fifteen feet. From all appearances, it was a natural spring. Fed from below, it could not be turned off. Hundreds of gallons of fresh water spouted into the sky, spilling down into cracks that carried it away, and all of it theirs for the taking. Except that it was perfectly useless to them.