The Hunters of Sian

Recovery

--

Chapter Four

Recovery

--

Furcus lit his pipe and put it to his lips.

'So now the boy is in the hospice?' he grunted.

Sallos swirled his glass. 'Yes. I am going to wake him today.'

Furcus studied his old friend's face carefully. 'Thought you weren't going to get another apprentice after Evelyn?'

Sallos took a sip of the dark alcohol in his glass. 'I had not intended to, but the conditions were correct. I may not have bothered if it hadn't rained,' he Sallos.

Furcus frowned. 'Rain?'

'The day I saw him in the village I knew he may be suitable. He was clever and had good instincts. I knew he would fight his captivity. I also knew the demons I was unfortunately travelling with were far from professional or trained. They attacked a village several weeks early for their own amusement, like children. Utterly pathetic. I knew they wouldn't have the patience to handle him.'

Furcus lifted an eyebrow, puffing on his pipe. 'You knew they would starve him?'

'Yes, and once the rain started, he only deteriorated further. I gave him his only chance to live.'

'You let them starve him then used his own poor condition to make him dependant on you... that's brutal.' Furcus grinned.

Sallos gave a careless shrug. 'Perhaps. But he's mine now and not even he can't argue that. His choice to save Shade has only cemented that in his own mind.' Sallos set down the empty crystal glass and stood.

'Well, I'm looking forward to meeting him.' Furcus followed him with a laugh.

'You will have to put that out. You know they won't let you smoke it there.'

'Damn nannies.'

--

'Wake him up.'

'I'm really not sure that is a good idea. He needs to rest and-'

'What he needs is to wake up,' said a deep voice. Nell groaned. He was lying on a particularly hard mattress. He tried to move his fingers and noticed with a glimmer of panic that he couldn't. He opened his eyes.

'What...?' He squinted in the bright room. An elderly disgruntled nurse stood by his bed, hands on her large hips. On the other side stood Sallos and a broad-shouldered demon Nell had never seen before. He had pale orange skin and two sets of sharp short black horns sticking out of his forehead. He had a shaggy appearance with messy hair and plenty of stubble on his wide sharp cut jaw. It could just be his beard, but he looked older than Sallos.He also had an unlit pipe hanging from his lips which smelt slightly of rotting meat. The nurse was looking at it with mounting disgust.

'Do you have to have that thing in here?' she snapped.

The demon grunted. 'I put it out. That's as good as your going to get,' he grumbled.

'What happened?' Nell groaned. His head was swimming hideously. He tried to sit up. The memories of the day before slammed into him like runaway bull. Smoke, fire and screaming.

'The stable! Amy, Shade, are they alive? What about the hatchlings? Where-' He leant of the side of the bed and the whole room swayed. His stomach twisted right over.

'Urge...' Several sets of hands pulled up back onto the mattress.

'Quite the firecracker isn't he,' Furcus sniggered.