“The rabbits weren’t safe from us, though, were they?” Ireheart glanced at the runes on Tungdil’s armor and grew deadly serious. “Those runes: They’d light up, wouldn’t they, if the food was going to harm you?”
Slowly, very slowly, Tungdil put his food down. “Yes, they would,” he grunted in reply. His patience was coming to an end. “Give me your rabbit. I’ll eat it.”
“Right you are, Scholar.” Ireheart handed his meat over. “But just take a bite.”
“What?”
“Take a bite. I just want to see if my rabbit is as safe as yours was.” He pointed to the decorative inlay. “If it starts to glow I’ll know not to eat the rest.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Come on, hurry up. I’m hungry.”
Tungdil stared at him in exasperation, then burst out laughing. “That’s the kind of thing I really missed on the other side, Ireheart,” he gasped, when he had calmed down. “There was nobody there like you.” He bit into the meat and, when his runes stayed dark, he handed the food back to his friend. “I’ll be glad to live in peace and quiet somewhere after these next battles,” he went on, retrieving some vegetables from the edge of the fire. “I only hope I’ll be able to adapt.”
Ireheart was chomping his way through his meal with renewed appetite. “I managed to. Well, there was always some skirmish or other, out at Evildam, and we’d talk a lot about what battles might occur, but we weren’t immersed in war all the time like you were. To live with the possibility is a sight different from actually having to fight day in, day out.” He pointed his meat spit at Slin and Balyndar. “In case you decide you’d rather be fighting, you could go back with the fifthlings. I’ve heard there’s always trouble at the Stone Gate. Now the kordrion’s gone, the first of the smaller monsters will be along soon.”
“With my son? No thanks.”
Ireheart coughed and looked at Tungdil, who was gnawing at some half-cooked vegetable and putting some spice on it made from dried rato herbs and salt. “So you know?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
“You talk in your sleep, Ireheart.” Tungdil shot him a smile over the top of the parsnip he was eating.
And once more the warrior-twin realized he was being taken for a ride. “You’re taking the piss.”
“Yup. I just felt like it.” Tungdil chucked the empty stick into the fire. “I managed to hang on to one eye so I’m not completely blind. If everyone else can see it, why not me? He’s exactly like me. It must be Tion’s own work if Balyndar is not my flesh and blood. He hasn’t said anything to me so I’ll not broach the subject with him. I can understand it. It makes sense for him to reject me.” He leaned back against a tree trunk and took out his flask. “It’ll be easier for him if he continues to regard the king as his father. However this particular adventure turns out it’ll be better for him if our two names are not mentioned in the same breath.” He opened the flask and drank.
“I wish you sounded a bit more confident, my learned leader and high king,” Ireheart muttered. He contemplated the bare bones left in his hands sadly. “There was hardly any meat on one of them. All fiddly little gristly bits. Not like a gugul. I’d give anything for one of them as my main course now.” He looked at his friend. “Well? How does it make you feel, knowing you and Balyndis have a son?”
Tungdil stared into the fire. “I don’t feel anything. For me he’s just one of the dwarves like all the rest,” he said dully, his eye unfocused.
Ireheart pulled a baked root out of the fire, shaved off the skin and added seasoning. “That’s really sad, Scholar. I love my children, and there’s no better feeling, you know. They make you furious at times but you get to be awfully proud of them as well.” He nodded in Balyndar’s direction. “He’d be one to be proud of. Looks fantastic, very good soldier and he’ll make a splendid king for the fifthlings one day. Balyndis has brought him up well.”
“Yes indeed, I would be proud of him,” Tungdil repeated, lost in thought. “I will ensure he gets back unharmed to his mother,” he vowed to the flames, closing his eye. “You take the first watch, Ireheart. Wake me when you get too tired.”
Boindil bit into the vegetable, which cracked open in his teeth like a juicy apple. “Before you seek the refuge of sleep,” he said, “tell me one thing: Who are the unholy ones?”
“Gods in the land of the Black Abyss.” Tungdil did not take the trouble to lift his eyelid.
“Ho, that’s not a lot to go on. What kind of gods?”
“Cruel gods, Ireheart. Let me rest.”
“And go on waiting?” He chucked the empty spit at Tungdil-it did not occur to him until afterwards what a risk he was taking. He screwed his eyes shut to be on the safe side and lifted his hand to shield his face.
The wooden spit hit the armor and fell to the ground. There were no flashes or any other magic effects. Tungdil did not seem to have noticed.
Ireheart was about to say something but thought better of it. The soft voice of the last of his doubters demanded it. Who knows what this knowledge might be good for, it whispered in his ear, warning him not to betray himself. “Scholar! Tell me about these unholy ones? You know I like a good story,” he urged his friend.
“The unholy ones,” Tungdil began in a deep voice, “are ghostly beings. They show themselves in the blood of those who are sacrificed to them. This lifeblood can give them shape and form. A terrifying form that only the priests may behold without losing their minds.”
“And were you one of them?”
“No. But I was able to look on them and keep my wits.”
“Maybe that’s why your mind has holes in it now.”
“Firstly, my mind does not have holes in it. My memory does. And secondly, I’ve had enough of telling horror stories now.”
Ireheart hugged his knees and wiggled his toes. “How many unholy ones are there? What do they do to be worshipped like that? Do they help in warfare?” He looked at Tungdil, who was already asleep. “Oy, Scholar! Give me a chance to learn something!” Should he dare to throw another piece of wood? “How do you know Tirigon so well? I mean, what did the two of you get up to over there? And why on earth did you take the name of your dead…?”
“That’s enough!” The eye shot open and Ireheart was greeted with a stare that delivered physical pain. The brown iris was penetrating as an arrow, then it disappeared to be replaced by a greenish pulsating light, which transmuted into a pale blue. One last flicker and the brown returned. “I want to sleep, Ireheart. There are many orbits ahead of us on our ride to the Blue Mountains and I will tell you more each time we make camp for the night. But not now!” He spoke with emphasis, regal and sharp, annihilating any objection. Then he shut his eye and arranged himself in a more comfortable position.
“Hmm,” said Ireheart, kicking up the dust. That was the false Tungdil again. Without thinking, he picked up a branch and started whittling away at the end. His movements gradually became slower; his gaze rested on the sleeping dwarf.
“Then I’ll sing a song to stave off boredom,” he decided, and began a tune that Bavragor had taught him. He tapped out the rhythm on his leg armor.
But Tungdil did not react. Annoyingly.
At that moment Rodario came tearing through the bushes, his clothes awry, as if he had dressed in a hurry. “The queen has gone!” he called out in agitation.
“Disappeared off the face of the earth or has she run away because you were importunate?” Ireheart grinned. “Thought you were having a bathe. Not likely!”
Rodario came up to him. “She was scared… and ran away.”
“Scared of your one-eyed trouser snake, I suppose.”
“Listen to me!” He grabbed the dwarf by his broad shoulders. “She’s run off into the undergrowth.”