“Please, disgusting rumors with hardly a grain of truth. You will not be eaten, paladin, if hearing so puts you more at ease.”

Jerico relaxed. Well, if he was going to die, at least it’d be in a normal, sane way. He really didn’t want to meet Ashhur having just been someone’s substitute for dinner.

The net shifted. What had been a flat dirt path below suddenly became heavy vegetation. They passed through bushes, the thorns scratching him through the net. He thought to ask his two captors to lift him higher, then thought better of it. The last thing he wanted was for them to decide to drop him even lower instead. Bellok vanished for a minute, then returned, picking burs from his robe. Wherever they were going, it was no longer on a standard road.

“Damn forest,” the man muttered.

“So where is Kaide?” Jerico asked, more of his memory returning. Someone had spoken the name, and Bellok had confirmed it when he mentioned the cannibal rumor. If he interpreted his blurry past correctly, it had been Kaide who told the rest of the men to take him after they’d flung nets atop him and beaten him senseless. Of course, where they were taking him was another good question he doubted he’d get an answer to.

“Kaide is busy,” Bellok said, a look of distaste crossing his face.

“Shagging some young tart,” said the lug behind him. “Kaide can’t turn down a little fun whenever we pass by a village. The lasses are practically flinging themselves at him.”

“And someday one of those lasses will pull a dagger and claim herself a bounty of gold,” Bellok said, glaring.

“Why would a girl do that?” asked the other guy carrying him. “You can’t hump gold.”

Well, thought Jerico, that explained Bellok’s distaste; and also confirmed why he hadn’t gotten a laugh from either of the two lugs. He knew donkeys with better senses of humor. And wit, now that he thought about it.