‘Explain!’
‘Mael assumes a quarry on the run, after all. .’
‘Yes, he must, of course, no other possibility. Mael doesn’t get it! The idiot! Hee hee! Now, let’s get out of this ash-heap, my throat’s getting sore.’
Cotillion stared after the Hounds and their charge, squinting against the bright sunlight. ‘Timing, Shadowthrone. .’
‘Perfection.’
‘So far.’
‘We will not fail.’
‘We’d better not.’
‘Which among our newfound allies do you imagine the weak link?’
Cotillion glanced back at Shadowthrone. ‘Well, you, of course.’
‘Apart from me, I mean.’
Cotillion stared. Shadowthrone waited. Fidgeting on his throne.
Midnight at the lone tavern of Morsko provided Nimander with memories he would never lose. Slack-eyed, black-mouthed villagers staggering forward, colliding with him and the others. Stained bottles thrust into their faces. Eyes smeared with something murky and yellowed. The drink was potent enough to numb tongues, if the exhorting moans were in truth invitations to imbibe.
Even without Clip’s earlier warning, Nimander was not inclined to accept such hospitality; nor, he saw with some relief, were any of his kin. They stood, still crowded at the entrance, bemused and uneasy. The pungent air of the low-ceilinged chamber was sweet, overlaying strains of acrid sweat and something like living decay.
Skintick moved up alongside Nimander and they both watched as Clip — Desra at his side — made his way to the counter. ‘A simple jug of wine? Anywhere in this place? Not likely.’
Nimander suspected Skintick was right. All he could see, at every table, in every hand, was the same long-necked flask with its blackened mouth.
The moans were louder now, cacophonous like the lowing of beasts in an abattoir. Nimander saw one man — an ancient, bent, emaciated creature — topple face first on to the wood-slatted floor, audibly smashing his nose. Someone close by stepped back, crushing the hapless man’s fingers under a heel.
‘So, where is the priest?’ Nenanda asked from behind Nimander and Skintick. ‘It was his invitation, after all.’
‘For once, Nenanda,’ Skintick said without turning, ‘I am pleased to have you standing here, hand on sword. I don’t like this.’
‘None here can hurt us,’ Nenanda pronounced, yet his tone made it plain he was pleased by Skintick’s words. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, ‘while Clip is not close by — he holds us all in contempt.’
Nimander slowly turned round, as Skintick said, ‘We’d noticed. What do you make of that, brother?’
‘He sees what he chooses to see.’
Nimander saw that Kedeviss and Aranatha were listening, and the faint doe-like expression on the latter’s face was suddenly gone, replaced by a chilling emptiness that Nimander knew well. ‘It is no matter,’ Nimander said, sudden sweat prickling awake beneath his clothes. ‘Leave it, Nenanda. It is no matter.’
‘But it is,’ Nenanda retorted. ‘He needs to know. Why we survived our battles, when all the others fell. He needs to understand.’
‘That’s over with, now,’ Nimander insisted,
‘No,’ said Skintick, ‘Nenanda is right this time, Nimander. He in right. Clip wants to take us to this dying god, after all. Whatever he plans disregards us, as if we did not exist. Voiceless-’
‘Useless,’ cut in Nenanda.
Nimander looked away. More villagers were collapsing, and those on the floorboards had begun twitching, writhing in pools of their own waste. Sightless eyes rolled ecstatically in sunken sockets. ‘If I have made us. . voiceless, I am sorry.’
‘Enough of that rubbish,’ Skintick said conversationally.
‘I agree,’ said Nenanda said. ‘I didn’t before — I was angry with you, Nimander, for not telling this so-called Mortal Sword of Darkness. Telling him about us, who we were. What we’ve been through. So I tried to do it myself, but it’s no use. Clip doesn’t listen. Not to anyone but himself.’
‘What of Desra?’ Nimander asked.
Nenanda snorted. ‘She covets her own mystery.’
That was a sharp observation from Nenanda, surprising Nimander. But it was not an answer to what he had meant with his question.
Skintick, however, understood. ‘She remains one of us, Nimander. When the need arrives, you need not doubt her loyalty.’
Kedeviss spoke then, with dry contempt. ‘Loyalty is not one of Desra’s virtues, brothers. Set no weight upon it.’
Skintick sounded amused when he asked, ‘Which of Desra’s virtues should we set weight upon, then, Kedeviss?’
‘When it comes to self-preservation,’ she replied, ‘Desra’s judgement is precise. Never wrong, in fact. She makes surviving the result of profound clarity — Desra sees better and sharper than any of us. That is her virtue.’
Clip was on his way back, Desra now clinging to his left arm as might a woman struggling against terror.
‘The Dying God is about to arrive,’ Clip said. He had put away his chain and rings, and from his palpable unease there now rose, like a dark cloud, the promise of violence. ‘You should all leave. I don’t want to have to cover you, if this turns bad. I won’t have the time, nor will I accept blame if you start dying. So, for all our sakes, get out of here.’
It was, Nimander would recall later, the moment when he could have stepped forward, could have looked into Clip’s eyes, unwavering, revealing his own defiance and the promise behind it. Instead, he turned to the others. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
Nenanda’s eyes widened, a muscle twitching one cheek. Then he spun about and marched out of the tavern.
With an expression that might have been shame, Skintick reached out to prise Desra away from Clip, then guided her out. Aranatha met Nimander’s eyes and nodded — but the meaning of the gesture eluded him, given the vast emptiness in her eyes — then she and Kedeviss exited the taproom.
Leaving Nimander and Clip.
‘It pleases me,’ said Clip, ‘that you take orders as well as you do, Nimander. And that the others still choose to listen to you. Not,’ he added, ‘that I think that will last much longer.’
‘Do not confront this dying god,’ Nimander said. ‘Not here, not now.’
‘Excellent advice — I have no intention of doing so. I simply would see it.’
‘And if it is not pleased by being seen by one such as you, Clip?’
He grinned. ‘Why do you think I sent you to safety? Now, go, Nimander. Back to our rooms. Comfort your frightened rabbits.’
Outside, beneath a glorious sweep of bright stars, Nimander found his kin in a tight huddle in the centre of the main street. Rabbits! Yes, it might look that way. From the tavern they could hear the frenzied moaning reach a fierce pitch, and the sound was now echoing, seeming to roll back in from the hills and fields surrounding the village.
‘Do you hear that?’ Skintick asked. ‘Nimander? Do you hear it? The scarecrows — they are singing.’
‘Mother Dark,’ breathed Kedeviss in horror.
‘I want to see one of those fields,’ Skintick suddenly said. ‘Now. Who is with me?’
When no one spoke, Nimander said, ‘You and me, Skintick. The rest to our rooms — Nenanda, stand vigil until we return.’
Nimander and Skintick watched as Nenanda purposefully led the others away.
Then they set out into a side alley, feet thumping on the dusty, hard-packed ground. Another voice had joined all the others, emerging from the temple, a cry of escalating pain, a cry of such suffering that Nimander staggered, his legs like water beneath him. He saw Skintick stumble, fall on to his knees, then push himself upright once more.
Tears squeezed from his eyes, Nimander forced himself to follow.
Old house gardens to either side, filled with abandoned yokes, ploughs and other tools, the furrows overgrown with weeds like bleached hair in the starlight. Gods, they’ve stopped eating. All is in the drink. It feeds them even as it kills them.