Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy 2)

Skillen Droe studied K’rul – they had, at some point in the past few moments, halted once again. ‘In what manner is he lost, K’rul? Does he play High King somewhere? Then I will fly to him and drag him from his pathetic throne. What of Mael? Does he hide still beneath the waves, building his castles of sand?’

‘Caladan Brood yields not to earthly ambitions, Droe. But he is bound to another cause. It may walk in step with our own, but no more in the manner that Draconus does, with his own singular efforts. As for Mael, well, we are not on speaking terms for the moment.’

Skillen’s laugh was a hiss, harsh and almost painfully dry. ‘So I am third among your choices.’

‘No. Without you, Skillen Droe, I have no hope of achieving what I seek.’

‘That much I do comprehend, K’rul. Very well, you have made me curious. Tell me, what scheme have you concocted to keep each and every dragon from charging into battle with me, upon first sight?’

‘None.’

‘What?’

‘Abyss take us, Skillen! Name me one dragon that could defeat you in single battle?’

‘Then you see me fighting each and every one?’

‘Not necessarily. And if so, be sure not to kill them. No, Skillen, you still don’t understand why I so need you. When we step on to the mortal realm, they will know that you are among them once again. Skillen Droe, I need you, as bait.’

Skillen reached out, and down, closing a massive, scaled hand around the front of K’rul’s cloak. He lifted K’rul up until his companion’s face was close to his own. The hood fell back, and Skillen was pleased to see the faintest flush fill K’rul’s thin cheeks.

‘I’d rather you not drop me from this height,’ K’rul said in a tight, strained voice.

‘You said Starvald Demelain has opened twice. How many dragons are we talking about?’

‘Oh, the first time yielded but one dragon, and it is already dead.’

‘Dead?’

‘Well, as dead as dragons are able to get.’

‘Who killed it?’

‘I’m not sure. Its carcass rots on the shore of the Vitr.’

‘Which dragon? Name it!’

‘Korabas Otar Tantaral.’

‘Korabas!’

‘But don’t worry,’ said K’rul. ‘I’m not done with her just yet.’

SIX

THE NAILS ON GOTHOS’S HAND, WHERE IT RESTED ON THE stained tabletop, were amber-hued and long, more like talons, and as they tapped a slow syncopation, one falling after the other, Arathan was reminded of stones in the heat. The vast table had been dragged in from some other now abandoned abode. Devoid of accoutrements, it stretched out like a weathered plain, with the sunlight that played out across its surface making a slow crawl to day’s end.

Arathan stood near the entrance, leaning

against the doorway’s warped frame, to gather as much of the courtyard’s chill air as he could. Within the chamber, braziers had been laid out, four in all, emanating a dry heat, caustic and enervating. Against one side of his body, he could feel winter’s breath, while upon the other, the brittle heat of a forge.

Gothos had said nothing. Beyond the clicking of his nails, and the almost mechanical rise and fall of his fingers as they tapped, he yielded nothing. Arathan was certain that Gothos was aware of his arrival, and by indifference alone offered invitation to join the Jaghut at one of the misshapen chairs crowding the table. But Arathan knew that no conversation would be forthcoming; this was not so much a mood afflicting Gothos, as yet another of those times characterized by obstinate silence, a belligerent refusal to engage with anyone.

One could, unfettering the imagination, conjure up a chorus of bridling emotions to fill such silences. Condescension, arrogance, contempt. In its company, it was easy to wince to the bloom of shame, with the sting of irrelevance at its heart. Arathan suspected that the Jaghut’s bitter title – Lord of Hate – was derived from these spells, as in frustration fellow Jaghut threw up walls of indignation, pocked with murder-holes from which they might let loose their own missiles, and make of the whole thing a clattering war, a feud raised up against a multiplying nest of imagined insults.

But whatever barriers the silence posed, there was nothing personal to them. They stood not in answer to any particular threat. They faced out upon every imaginable quarter, standing fast against both presence and absence. This was, Arathan had come to believe, not the silence of an embittered man. It accused no one, acknowledged not a single enemy, and because of this, it infuriated all.

A month had passed since Lord Draconus, his father, had left Arathan in the keeping of the Lord of Hate. A month spent struggling with the endless, impossible nuances in the Jaghut language – its written form, at least. A month spent in the strange, baffling dance he’d found himself in, with the hostage Korya Delath.