‘Lasa, a dragon!’
She waved dismissively. ‘They die too, pup, as we well know.’
‘Let us simply hasten, Lasa Rook,’ Hanako said, collecting up his gear. ‘Into the protection of the Jaghut.’
‘I shall lead,’ she pronounced. ‘You may watch me from behind, Hanako, pining for all that you shall never possess. Draw not too near, either! I have claws and fangs at the ready!’ She set out then, and a moment later Erelan Kreed straightened and fell in behind her.
Hanako looked down at the fire. It took only a few moments to stamp out its flames, and then he set off after them.
Twenty paces in, Lasa Rook glanced back over her shoulder and winked. ‘Alas, the truth wins free! I shall crumble at your first touch, young pup!’
Hanako hesitated, and then with a half-snarl he threw down his pack. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Erelan Kreed, do go on and mayhap the dragon will find us first, if only to feed. We will catch up with you anon.’
Brows lifting, Lasa Rook walked back towards Hanako. ‘Truly? Oh, now I am come over all shy!’
He stared at her, wanting to scream.
* * *
Korya Delath found Haut gathered with a dozen or so of his compatriots, Varandas, Senad and Burrugast among them. The Jaghut had been laughing but their amusement fell away, quickly hidden like a private thing, when she strode among them.
Seeing her, Haut straightened. He muttered something low to the Jaghut woman, Senad, and then gestured. ‘Mahybe, we must talk. There are tasks awaiting you—’
‘Why should any of that matter to you, Haut?’ Korya asked, her glare shifting to encompass all the Jaghut present. ‘You’re all about to die. What do the dead care for the woes of the living?’ She pointed at her old master. ‘You once told me that there were things we were going to do. The two of us, to answer for the Azathanai’s murder of Hood’s wife. What has come of that?’
Haut’s expression twisted slightly, and it seemed to Korya that he almost ducked to unseen blows. Seated beside him, Senad laughed low and knowingly, meeting Korya’s cold regard with weary amusement.
Burrugast growled under his breath and then said, ‘So much to atone, so little time.’
Snorting, Varandas moved to Haut’s side and settled a hand on the captain’s shoulder. ‘Out of the mouth of babes, a veritable torrent of nonsense. Grief is a fist, but to hold it too long is to feel all strength drain from it. So brutally aged by loss and despair, you would shake it still, with palsied fury. Drag her aside, friend, and make quick and clean the cut.’
Korya fixed her attention on Varandas, studied his lean, scarred face. ‘You tell yourselves that I don’t understand. But I do. You’re all giving up. Clothe it in silks if you like, or, more accurately, a jester’s mocking attire. It doesn’t matter.’
Varandas’s nod was solemn. ‘Well enough, Korya. I am a fool but not a blind one. We are indeed a legion of despair, and here we stand with a gaping chasm between us and you. Age is a siege you have not yet experienced. Your bones remain strong, your foundations not yet undermined. The towers of belief you have raised in yourself still stand tall and proud. Certainty’s armour remains untarnished, undented.’
Burrugast added, ‘Haut spoke from a place of wounding. It was but the last of many.’
After a lon
g moment, Haut sighed and then gestured for Korya to follow him.
They walked to the encampment’s edge, looked out eastward over the deep night’s level plain, where the stars pricked the darkness with a strange, dull light. The moon had crept into the sky just before sunset and though half the night had passed, still it clung to the horizon, swollen and the hue of copper.
‘What is happening?’ she whispered. ‘The stars …’
‘In the last days of life,’ Haut said, ‘there comes to the dying soul a single, long night. For most, it passes locked in step with the world, and come the dawn, the sleeping face is preternaturally still. Rarely does such a night impose itself on others. It is a private thing, a stretched expanse, a realm of dying wind and laboured breath.’ He faced her in sorrow. ‘Hood has invoked the Long Night, to open to our souls the passage into death. Now, this night, the stars do not sparkle, the moon does not rise. Tell me, when did you last draw breath? Blink? Whence the next beat of your heart?’
She stared at him in growing horror. ‘The gate has opened.’
‘Yes. How long shall this night be? None knows, perhaps not even Hood.’
‘This is monstrous …’
Haut rubbed at his lined face, looking old and worn out. ‘He has stopped time. Stolen life’s necessary rush, the rolling needs that burn with defiance. In all realms, life wills itself into being, plunging ever forward in the name of order, outracing the chaos of dissolution.’
She shook her head, half in disbelief, half in terror. ‘But … how vast is this … this end of time?’
‘For now, the encampment,’ Haut replied. ‘But there are ripples, unseen by us mortals, and they spread far and wide. Stirring, agitating, awakening. I would imagine,’ he mused, ‘the dead themselves now hearken to this challenge.’ He settled a hand on the old sword at his belt. ‘It seems we shall have our war after all.’