The Warden reined in. ‘Captain Bered must see this.’
‘Ride back,’ said Sharenas. ‘I will examine it more closely.’
‘I would advise against that, milady. Perhaps it is a quality of the Vitr that nothing dead stays dead.’
She shot him a look. ‘An intriguing notion. Go on. I intend to be careful, as I happen to greatly value my life.’
He swung his horse round, kicked it into a canter, and then a gallop.
Facing the dragon again, she rode closer. At fifty paces her mount baulked, so she slipped down from the saddle and hobbled the horse.
The giant beast was lying on its side. Its flank bore wounds, as of ribs punching out through the thick, scaled hide, but she could see no thrust of white bone from any of them, and there were scores. The huge belly, facing her, had been sliced open. Entrails were spilled out in a massive heap, and these had been slashed and chopped at, savaged as if by a sword swung in frenzy.
Something else was lying near the belly wound, amidst disturbed sands. Sharenas approached.
Clothing. Armour, stained by acids. Discarded. A long, thin-bladed sword was lying close to the gear, black with gore. And there… footprints leading away.
Sharenas found that she was standing, motionless, unable to take another step closer. Her eyes tracked the prints up the strand to where they vanished between boulders crowding the verge.
‘Faror Hend,’ she murmured, ‘who walks with you now?’
EIGHT
‘There is nothing bold in the wearing of weapons,’ haut said, the vertical pupils of his eyes narrowed down to the thinnest of lines as he studied the array on the table’s battered, gouged surface. ‘Each one you see here is but a variation. What they share is of far greater import, Korya. They are all arguments in iron.’ He turned upon her his lined, weathered face, and his tusks were the hue of old horn in the meagre light, the greenish cast of his skin reminding her of verdigris. ‘You will eschew such obvious conceits. For you, iron is the language of failure.’
Korya gestured at the weapons on the table. ‘Yet, these are yours, and by their wear, you have argued many times, master.’
‘And won the last word each and every time, yes. But what has that availed me? More years heaped upon my back, more days beneath the senseless sun and the empty wind in my face. More nights under indifferent stars. More graves to visit, more memories to haunt me. In my dreams, Korya, I have lost the gift of colour. For so long now, in passing through my eyes the world is bleached of all life, and strikes upon my soul in dull shades of grey.’
‘I must tire you, then, master.’
He grunted. ‘Foolish child. You are my lone blaze. Now, heed me well, for I shall not repeat myself. We must quit this place.’
‘Do you fear the return of the Jheleck?’
‘Cease interrupting me. I have spoken now of the education awaiting you, but all that I have done has been in preparation. There are things you must now learn that are beyond my expertise. We journey south, to where powers are awakening.’
‘I do not understand, master. What powers? Have not the Jaghut surrendered all claims upon such things?’
Haut took up a weighty belt bearing a sword in a heavy leather scabbard. He strapped it on, adjusted it briefly, and then removed it with a scowl. The weapon thumped heavily back on to the tabletop. ‘Azathanai,’ he said. ‘Someone has been precipitous. But I must speak with my kin. Those who have remained, that is. The rest can go rot.’
‘Why am I so important, master?’
‘Who said you were?’
‘Why then have you spent years preparing me, if I am to have little or no value?’
‘Impertinence serves you well, Korya, but you ever risk the back of someone’s hand across the face.’
‘You have never struck me.’
‘So, like some Jheleck mongrel, you play the odds, do you?’ He lifted free a heavy halberd, stepped back and waved it about, until the blade bit into a wall, sending stone chips flying. He dropped the weapon with a clang, rubbed at his wrists.
‘What will you discuss with your kin?’
‘Discuss? We never discuss. We argue.’
‘With iron?’
A quick, savage smile lit his features, only to vanish again a moment later. ‘Delightful as the notion is, no.’
‘Then why are you girded for war?’
‘I fear too light a step,’ he replied.
Korya fought the urge to leave the chamber, to head back up the tower. To stand beneath the morning stars and watch the sun slay them all. Haut had forbidden her any possessions beyond a change of clothes for this journey. Even so, she believed they would never return here.
Haut collected a double-bladed axe with an antler shaft and hefted it. ‘Thel Akai. Where did I come by this? Handsome weapon… trophy or gift? My conscience makes no stir, so… not booty. How often, I wonder, must triumph drip blood? And is it by this that we find its taste so sweet?’
‘Master, if it is not by iron I am to defend myself, then what?’
‘Your wits, child. Now, can you not see that I am busy?’
‘You told me to listen well, master. I remain, listening well.’
‘I did? You are?’
‘We are to travel south, among your kin. Yet the source of your curiosity will be found among the Azathanai. Thus, I assume we will meet with them as well. This promises to be a long journey, and yet we have but a small bag of food, a single waterskin each, two blankets and a pot.’
‘I see your point. Find us a ladle.’
‘Will you be passing me on to one of your kin, master? To further my education?’
‘Who would have you? Get such absurd notions out of your head. We might as well be bound together in shackle and chain. You are the headache I cannot expunge from my skull, the old wound crowing the coming of rain, the limp that stumbles on flat ground.’ He found a leather strap to take the weight of the Thel Akai axe. ‘Now,’ he said as he collected up his helm and faced her, ‘are you ready?’
‘The ladle?’
‘Since you are so eager to be armed, why not? It hangs on a hook above the hearth.’
‘I know that,’ she snapped, turning round to retrieve it. ‘I mislike mysteries, master.’
‘Then I shall feed you nothing but, until you are bloated and near to bursting.’
‘I despise riddles even more.’
‘Then I shall make of you an enigma to all. Oh, just reach for it, will you? There. No, tuck it into your belt. Now you can walk with a swagger, bold as a wolf. Unless you’d rather carry the axe?’
‘No. Weapons frighten me.’
‘Then some wisdom at least I have taught you. Good.’
She did not want to leave. By far the greater host of her memories belonged in this tower, rather than in the place of her birth; but now it seemed she would make her pilgrimage, by a most circuitous route, back home. In her path, however, she would find other Jaghut, and then the Azathanai. Since the Jheleck visit, Haut had been animated by something, his mood mercurial, and it seemed that his infirmities were vanishing from his withered form, like skins in the heat. He bore himself like a warrior now, readying himself for an argument in iron.
She followed him to the door, frowning at it as if seeing it for the first time. All at once, she had no faith in what waited beyond it. A sweep of yellow grasses, the muted rise of worn hills ahead, a sky paling as if brushed with light — these would be as they always were. What then to fear?
As Haut reached out for the handle he paused and glanced back. ‘You’re learning.’
‘I don’t understand.’
The Jaghut flung open the door. Darkness swirled in like smoke around him, tendrils curling round his legs. He muttered something, but, turned away as he was from her, she could not make out the words.
Dread held Korya motionless. Her heart beat wildly, like a trapped bird.