After they'd left the room, Zared turned to the other two and finally let the worry shine unhindered from his eyes. "How will she manage in the wasteland against a Demon," he said, his voice desperate.
"How?"
Leagh slept, and dreamed.
She wandered through the Field of Flowers, so content and relaxed she was half dreaming even amid her dream.
Her hand was on her belly, and she and her unborn child talked — not with words, but with thoughts and emotions and laughter. She loved her child, and her child her, and while neither could wait for the time when the child would be born, they were not impatient for it.
The child curled up, protected and loved, deep within Leagh's body, and that contented both of them.
Leagh walked, and let the scent of the lilies seep into her innermost being.
The unborn child screamed.
Leagh jerked out of her reverie, although not out of the dream; wild-eyed she stared about, almost tripping in her hasty attempts to circle and spot the danger.
Her hands clutched protectively over her belly, no protection at all against knife or spear or iron-studded and hard- wielded club.
The child screamed again, and Leagh panicked.
What was wrong?
She twisted about still more ... and saw it.
Perhaps thirty paces distant stood a great black bull. Its eyes were red flames, its breath sulphurous smoke, its face a mask of hate.
Give it to me, it bellowed in her mind, or I will gore that child out of your belly.
One foreleg pawed the ground, and his haunches bunched.
Leagh screamed, and, turning, ran.
She felt the thunder of the bull's hooves through her own feet, and she could hear the horrendous wet panting of his breath.
Something hard and vicious dug into the small of her back and sent her sprawling.
Leagh hands scrabbled in the bare earth — the flowers had fled! — and tried to get up, tried to get away —
A horn caught under her ribcage and flipped her over, and the bull thrust his sweaty, ghastly face into hers.
Saliva dribbled from his mouth, and drenched the neckline of her robe.
Give it to me, give it to me!
"What?" Leagh screamed. "What?"
The bull lifted one of its massive, splayed fore-hooves — it was the size of a plate! — and thudded it down on her belly.
Give it to me!
"What? What? Take it, anything, oh gods no don't do that don't don't don't stop it stop it stop it
..."
The bull leant its entire weight on its hoof, and Leagh could feel her child screaming, trying to get away ... its flesh tearing, its skull bursting, she could feel her belly bursting apart, she could feel the bull squirming his hoof right down through her ruined belly to her spine, oh gods the pain the pain the pain
...
Leagh jerked out of her sleep, still screaming —
— and found she could not move. A man — she could smell him — had one heavy hand on her throat, and the other one dug into her belly, its fingers probing, probing, oh god, don't don't don't...
"Give it to me," a voice rasped, and Leagh finally opened her eyes and stared into the face of Isfrael.
So panicked she could hardly breathe, let alone think, Leagh tried to fight him off, but he was so strong, so strong, and the instant she started to squirm his fingers dug agonisingly into her belly, and she could feel her child squirm, and Leagh slid completely into panic. She screamed, then screamed again, then —
He lifted his hand from her belly and struck her face so hard she blacked out for a heartbeat or two.
"Give it to me," he roared. "Give it to me!"
"What?" she finally managed. The hand was back on her belly again, and he was leaning virtually his entire weight on it.
"The door!"
"The door?" And then she screamed again as his fingers dug even deeper (how was that possible?) into her flesh.
"The door of light! Where is it?"
