‘Perhaps. But my lord had many factors to consider. The enemy retreated faster than expected, and we underestimated their willingness to burn their camp. Perhaps after that it would have been foolhardy to ride within their range, so far ahead of our own troops, even with the shadowmander. My lord would have had to accompany me to withstand their might, and though I would willingly lose my life to such endeavour, yours is not so lightly given.’
‘Sound justifications,’ said Losara, relieved to find that they actually were. He grew a little calmer. ‘Though you should value your life too, First Slave.’
‘I did not say otherwise.’
Losara smiled. ‘Good. May it be a long one, then – though I admit I have no small trouble picturing you after this war, if we should win.’
Tyrellan glanced at him uneasily. ‘Pardon?’
‘What will you do, if there is no light left to fight?’
Tyrellan ran his tongue over a fang. ‘I have not given it much thought, lord. I imagine I’d continue to serve the shadow.’
‘No desire to settle down?’ said Losara. ‘Maybe raise a family?’
Tyrellan shot him a look of undisguised disgust. ‘You speak as if it will be a clean sweep, lord. No doubt there will be pockets of resistance for years to come.’
Losara chuckled. ‘Already talking yourself out of retirement, Tyrellan?’
Tyrellan grunted. ‘Retirement is for those who find no value in their work.’
‘Or those who know when a job is done.’
Presently, Losara returned to his tent. This time he did travel in shadowform, and appeared in bed to find Lalenda missing – strange, for she had been here when he’d left, and it was still an hour or two until dawn.
As his head found the pillow, proper restfulness finally came. Drifting off easily, he did not notice Grimra’s amulet under the sheets on Lalenda’s side of the bedding.
A Bit of Privacy
She climbed and climbed, higher than she had ever flown. She sought to avoid patrols of Graka or Zyvanix, and well coloured she was for such clandestine enterprise – brown skin in the dark night, and wearing the blackest dress she had. The moon was low and dim on the horizon, making for less chance of any glimmer showing along her crystalline wings. She was nervous but angry and determined too, all mixing to form a churning cocktail in her stomach. What she attempted seemed unreal, and yet here she was attempting it.
She reached an empty space in the sky with no patrols nearby, and turned east. Zyvanix were her main concern, for if she could fly this high, so could they. They lacked her night vision, however, and she was sure she would see them coming. She felt naked without Grimra, but she could not trust even him to keep quiet about what she intended. While Losara might have tolerated her independent actions in burning down Whisperwood, she doubted very much that he would approve of her current course.
Well , she thought, he should not toy with certain dangerous notions so frequently.
It was easier to navigate than she had feared, for the enemy’s army was twinkling with light, giving her a clear indication of its edges. As she moved widely around them, her heart pounded so hard she thought it might knock her off course. Searching, she found the spot she looked for, and positioned herself directly over it – a stream, part of which ran cloistered between trees, some three hundred paces off the eastern side of the army. For days she had watched Bel’s camp, and every morning his Jaya went off to bathe, not to the river, but to this secluded little spot.
‘Precious,’ muttered Lalenda.
Did she really mean to follow through? It was not too late to turn back and pretend this had never happened. Then she pictured the prophecy, saw herself and Jaya each pulling on the hands of a blue-haired man – and she drew in her wings to fall. No one below should see such a dark spot plummeting, and although she noted a Zyvanix patrol, it was only a vague shape far away. She held her wings tightly to her, trying to fall faster. As the ground rushed up towards her, and the enemy grew rapidly larger in her field of vision, her misgivings quadrupled. She had slightly misjudged the stream’s location – understandable given the distance from which she had started this fall – and eased her wings out gradually. To spread full length at this rate would probably rip them from her back, so she found herself necessarily slowing at exactly the point at which she was most likely to be spotted. The trees came at her and she veered between them, thinking for a dreadful moment she was going to crash – but a split-second decision led her to bring herself down in the stream with a great splash.
She coughed as she rose from the water, worried about the noise of her landing, but it was better than breaking her legs. Quickly she waded to the stream’s edge, climbed out on the side furthest from the perilously close army, and dragged up the bank to hide underneath a group of ferns. Mages, she knew, would not become instantly aware of her as they would have with a shadow mage, but that did not mean they couldn’t quest forth with formless sight and find her. Moments went by slowly as she strained her ears, but there came no rushing of feet, no yelling about an enemy being near, and soon the insects she had disturbed were chirping again. She settled down in the mud, part of her enjoying the abeyance of heat. There was nothing to do but wait for the coming of dawn.
•
Grimra wafted through the camp on the lookout for anything tasty. Lalenda usually made sure he had plenty of food, but his hunger was more of a monster than he was. It did not help that he was surrounded by delicious humans and little goblins. Even the tougher Vorthargs sometimes took his fancy, for their bones were hard and did not break easily when he ran his teeth down them to scour every last bit of meat. He did not like stony Graka, so at least obeying Losara was easy on that count.
Behave , he was constantly being told.
‘Grimra does behave,’ he muttered, as he slipped through someone’s legs and made them jump in alarm. ‘He behaves like Grimra, ho ho!’
He discovered a camp in which two Arabodedas women were watching a man skin a rabbit. Not many of those left with such a crowd camping here, so it was a prize indeed for these three. Grimra knew it wasn’t his to take, but still he watched, fascinated and unseen, as the man started to cut the rabbit and toss the pieces in a bowl. When he was done he produced a small pouch from his pocket, and the women glanced at each other eagerly.
‘You brought herbs?’ said one.
‘Of course!’ said the man, grinning. ‘What is food without a little spice?’
The man shook fine brown dust from the pouch into the bowl, and rubbed it into the rabbit with his fingers. Grimra swallowed a growl – he cared not for the subtler flavours of herbs, with the exception of prayer weed, but there was not much hope the man used that, given that it was toxic to humans.
The man finished and set the bowl down proudly in front of the women. Their eyes glistened as they leaned forward to inspect.
‘We can have the first bite?’
‘You may,’ said the man.
Grimra could not help himself. He lunged and grabbed the bowl, smashing it against his teeth so all the rabbit flew into his mouth.
‘Rar, ha ha!’ he laughed, guzzling it up. So surprised were the Arabodedas that they fell backwards off their stones.
‘What was that?’ cried one of the women, clambering to her feet.
‘I’d say it was the Golgoleth we’ve been warned of,’ said the man, stepping in front of her warily. ‘Stay back – they say we need not fear him, but …’
The other woman still lay on the ground, looking mournfully at the smashed and empty bowl. Grimra felt a moment of pity – he knew this was not exactly behaving . Maybe he could make it up to them?