Fall of Light (67 page)

‘Relief? Oh yes, come the dawn and my seeing the last of you.’

Smiling, Tathenal collected up the three bowls and crabbed his way over to the table.

Ravast, already seated beside Garelko, spoke. ‘Good Raest, we thank you for this. Hear that wind’s howl – how it builds to rank fury. Mountain storms are the worst, are they not? Mmm, this stew smells wonderful, and this meat … what alpine ruminant fell to your snare or arrow, might I ask?’

‘There is a lizard that lives in the scree, venomous and ill spirited. Some can grow as long as you are tall. Indeed, they have been known to eat goats, sheep and Jaghut children we don’t like.’

Ravast paused with his spoon hovering over the bowl. ‘This is a venomous lizard?’

‘No of course not. You’re eating mutton, you fool.’

‘Ah, then, about that lizard?’

‘Oh, only that I found one has made a home of my cottage. It now regards us from the rafters, directly above you, in fact.’

Ravast slowly looked up, to see cold, glittering, unblinking eyes fixed upon him.

‘Hence my warning about you three taking your seats as quickly as possible,’ Raest added. ‘Such are the responsibilities of a host, trying as they might be.’

‘I never much liked mutton,’ confessed Garelko as he slurped.

‘Which is insane,’ snapped Tathenal, ‘since we are sheep herders.’

‘Yes, well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Two belly-bulging meals a day for how many decades? Each one knobby with mutton. That said, this meat here’s gamey, suggesting a wild sheep rather than our gentled breeds of the north. Thus, both overly sweet and roiling pungent. My bowels shall be busy tonight.’

At the groans of both Ravast and Tathenal, Raest cursed under his breath and took another mouthful of his mulled wine.

‘I remain curious, Raest,’ Tathenal said after a moment or two, ‘about this sober study of yours. Have you Jaghut not surrendered the future? What more remains to be contemplated?’

‘Why, the past, of course. Of the present, best we say nothing.’

‘But, kind sir, the past is dead.’

‘That’s rich, from you fools so eager to hasten through Hood’s gate.’

Ravast interjected, ‘Oh, sir, we do nothing of the sort! Indeed, we pursue our wife, with the very aim of bringing her back home before she strides through that sordid portal!’

‘The pathetic moan of disappointing husbands the world over, no doubt. And is your wife buxom, sensuous in an indolent if slightly randy way? Golden-locked, blossom-cheeked, full-lipped and inclined to snoring?’

‘Yes! All those things!’

‘In the company of a Thel Akai brave, big enough to break you all into pieces? A true warrior of a man, wearing nothing but rags and yet freshly scarred and scabbed from head to toe?’

Garelko choked on his stew. Ravast realized that his jaw now hung, leaving his mouth gaping. He managed a dry swallow and then looked to both Garelko and Tathenal. ‘Did you hear that? She’s had her way with him! Torn his clothes to shreds! Clawed and bitten and scratched in her lustful frenzy! She’s never done all that to any of us, damn her!’

‘We are undone,’ groaned Tathenal, lowering his head into his hands. ‘Cuckolded, cast aside, flung away, dismissed! No match to young Hanako, Thief of Love! Hanako the Ravished, the Pawed and Clawed, the Smarting yet Smug!’

Raest observed them all, now sipping gently from his tankard. ‘And the other one, dragon-fevered. Met them a few nights past, on my way here. We shared a fire. For this reason and only this reason, I do return the favour.’

It was a moment before Ravast frowned. ‘Dragon-fevered? Is this some new southern plague, then?’

‘Oh, a plague to come, I’m sure. He’ll live or he won’t. Mayhap you’ll find a cairn beside the trail below. Or not. Or, just as likely, the stiff corpse of this Hanako, his throat lustfully gnawed right down to the vertebrae. All skin rent from his flesh, and a smile upon his ashen face.’

‘You shatter our resolve,’ moaned Garelko, pulling at what remained of his hair. ‘Husbands? Should we perhaps consider returning home? Leaving her to … to him? I admit, I am defeated. Left behind, indeed. She’s used us up, worn us out, and now blithely moves on – even you, Ravast, young as you are, not warrior enough for Lasa Rook! Aaii! We have lost the battleground between our wife’s ample legs!’

Ravast found that he was trembling. Outside, the rain had begun, lashing down amidst trees that thrashed in the gale. Lightning flickered through cracks and joins; thunder followed. ‘No, Garelko. We shall confront her! We shall bear witness to her face, to her confession, to that cruel triumphant glint in her eye.’

‘A knife in my heart would be kinder!’

‘A flood—’

‘Enough about the flooding, Tathenal!’ snapped Ravast. He thumped the tabletop, rattling the bowls. ‘She would stride merrily into the realm of the rock-piles? Fine then, and three boots to her plush backside to send her on her way!’

‘Ladies of Fury,’ sighed Garelko, ‘her plush backside!’

‘This is all rather pathetic,’ Raest said from his chair. ‘But highly entertaining.’

At that moment thunder hammered the ground, so close as to seem to have come from just outside the cabin’s door. Everything shook and with an alarmed hiss the venomous lizard fell from the rafters and landed heavily on the tabletop, where it writhed briefly before righting itself and glaring about, head snapping from one side to the other.

Garelko’s hand shot out, grasping the creature by the snout. He stood and lifted the lizard, walking over to the door. ‘Duck for this damned thing? Not likely.’ Opening the door he flung the lizard out into the night. And then paused, staring out into the gloom.

‘Close that door, please,’ Raest said. ‘You’re scattering the embers here and these boots are almost new. Well, before they got soaked through.’

Garelko eased the door shut with a curiously gentle motion, and then, hunched over, made his way back to his chair. ‘Alas, Raest,’ he said, sighing as he sat. ‘It seems you have another guest.’

‘Is the lizard preparing to insist? No? Then who? I heard no knock.’

‘Good thing, too,’ Garelko said. ‘Sir, there is a dragon in your yard.’

Raest set his tankard down. ‘Only the wicked know peace.’ With a grunt he arose, gathering up a dusty, stained leather cloak that hung on a peg to one side of the door. That it had been hanging there for a long time was evinced by the stretched nipple that remained when he shrugged it on, riding his left shoulder. Tathenal turned away, hand covering the lower half of his face as he fought against an unseemly guffaw.

Garelko dared but a single glance at his fellow husband, lest he too burst loose in unholy mirth. Instead, he pushed his chair back and half stood. ‘Good sir, I will accompany you. Accosting a dragon seems perhaps dangerous. See how I am armoured and armed—’

Ravast added, ‘Do join dear Raest, then. We’ve seen off one dragon already, although that was mostly me and my axe in its foot. I leave this one to you, old goat. Tathenal is welcome to the next one.’ He reached for Garelko’s unwanted bowl of unwelcome mutton stew.

‘I require no armed escort,’ Raest said, now collecting a leather cap, such as might be worn beneath a helm, which he pulled on with some effort, only to remove it immediately, reaching into the cap and withdrawing what looked like a mouse’s nest of dry grasses. Emptied, the cap proved a better fit. Thus attired, the Jaghut opened the door once more and strode outside.

Garelko followed. ‘Good sir,’ he began, ‘about that other dragon—’

‘Kilmandaros has much to answer for,’ Raest cut in.

Before them, filling most of the clearing, the dragon stood upon its four squat limbs in a weary crouch, its tattered wings half cocked in the manner of an exhausted bird. Its massive head was turned and glittering eyes regarded them.

Frowning, Garelko said to Raest, ‘Sir, you take in vain the name of our sweet if fictional goddess mother.’

‘Oh, she’s real enough, Thel Akai. She’s never liked dragons, you see, and it seems some of her prejudice now infuses her wayward children. You may well be in the habit of attacking them, but not here and not now. So listen well. Draw not that weapon. Make no threat. Be gentle in your regard – well, as gentle as that face of yours can manage. As for the conversation, leave that to me.’

‘Conversation? Sir, with this wind I can barely hear you as it is.’

‘Not with you, idiot. With the dragon.’

‘I will delight in being the first Thel Akai to hear the slithery speech of a dragon, then!’

‘You will hear her or not. The choice belongs to her, not you.’

‘A female then! How can you tell?’

‘Simple. She’s bigger.’ With that, Raest strode forward, Garelko falling in a step behind the Jaghut. They halted no more than five or six paces from the creature’s snout. The dragon had lowered her head to bring it level with Raest. Rain streamed down the scales, the occasional flash of lightning sending reflected light shimmering across the pebbled hide.

When the dragon spoke, her voice filled Garelko’s skull, cool and sweet.
‘A Jaghut and a Thel Akai. Yet not at each other’s throats, from which I conclude that you have but just met, with the night still young.’

‘You are of course welcome,’ said Raest out loud, ‘to wait out this storm in the faint shelter of my glade. Once the storm is past, however, I expect you to continue on to wherever it is you’re going. It’s not that I don’t like dragons, you understand. Rather, I prefer solitude.’

‘Of course you do, Jaghut. What then of this Thel Akai?’

‘Gone in the morning as well. This one and his fellows still in the cabin.’

‘I found a slain brother, higher upon the trail.’

Garelko cleared his throat. ‘Alas, he surprised us.’

In that instant, the dragon’s gaze acquired sharp intensity, fixing solely upon Garelko.
‘Do you fear me vengeful, Thel Akai?’

Garelko blinked water from his eyes. ‘Fear?’

Raest said, ‘Thel Akai haven’t the wits to be frightened. That said, I’ll have no fighting in my damned yard, is that understood?’

‘You are Jaghut. I am of no mind to challenge your temper. I am Sorrit, sister to Dalk, who now lies dead beside a lake, slain by Thel Akai. This realm proves dangerous.’

‘In this realm, Sorrit, resides Kilmandaros.’

‘Perhaps then I shall gather my kin, so that we may contemplate vengeance.’

Raest shrugged. ‘You will find her to the east, on the Azathanai Plain. She no longer guides her children, at least not with deliberation. The curse of being a god is how quickly one becomes bored. Not to mention frustrated, exasperated and, eventually, spiteful. But, to ease you somewhat, I have heard no word of Skillen Droe.’

‘Your news is welcome, Jaghut. Once this storm eases, I will indeed be on my way. As for you, Thel Akai, Dalk lusted for my blood. It is well that he is dead.’

Garelko grunted in surprise, and then said, ‘It is sad when siblings fall out. Families should be bastions of well-being, kindness and love.’

‘Is yours, Thel Akai?’

‘Well, it shall be, perhaps, once we hunt down our wayward wife, kill her lover, and drag the damned woman back home.’

Raest slapped Garelko on the upper arm. ‘Let us go back inside. I’m getting wet.’

As they turned about, Garelko took the opportunity to pat the Jaghut on the left shoulder, not out of affection, but to flatten the stretched nipple in the leather, which had been driving him mad.

  *   *   *

There was little comfort to be found in being carried by Skillen Droe. K’rul hung like carrion in the taloned grip of his companion, with the choppy waves of the sea far below. Droe’s leathery wings sent the chill air beating down, and the only relief came when they slipped into a thermal of rising warm air and the wings could stretch out motionless as they scythed forward.

Above them the sky remained cloudless and cerulean, the sun hanging directly overhead as the morning gave way to afternoon. As there didn’t seem to be much to say, and speaking would require shouting, K’rul held his peace, while Skillen Droe self-evidently kept his thoughts to himself.

K’rul had begun dozing when he was jolted awake by a sudden rush of air. Skillen Droe had begun a sharp descent, and K’rul twisted round to look down.

A boat. It sat grounded upon a shoal, perhaps a hundred spans from a narrow sliver of coral-sand that could barely be called an island. There was nothing else in sight out to every horizon, only the endless swell of heaving waves.

There were two occupants in the craft. Only one was visible as the other was mostly hidden beneath a tattered grey parasol. K’rul looked down to see flaming red hair, artfully if loosely curled and piled high above a face turned up to the sun. That face was impossibly white, as if no rays could bronze it. The woman wore what looked like an evening gown, the silk a bright emerald green and the frills a deeper shade. Though the gown was intended to reach down to her ankles, she had drawn it up to expose her white thighs.

The boat had two benches, one fore and one aft. In between these was a broad-bellied gap that had once held a step-mast, but the step, sail and mast were nowhere to be seen. The woman sat at the bow, while her companion with the parasol occupied the stern.

Skillen Droe elected to land in the gap between them, his wings beating fiercely for a moment before catching an updraught that allowed him to hover briefly, sufficient to set K’rul down before he settled his own weight amidst a crunch and groan of wood, and then Skillen folded his wings and hunched down.

The boat was well and truly aground. K’rul straightened his clothes before facing the woman and bowing slightly. ‘Cera Planto, it has been too long since I last looked upon your lovely self.’ Glancing at the huge, iron-skinned, tusked man in the shade of the parasol, K’rul nodded. ‘Vix, I trust you are well.’

Vix replied with a single grunt, his one eye glittering.

Cera Planto fanned herself, ‘Always the sweetest compliments from you, K’rul, but do tell me, what on earth has happened to Skillen Droe?’

‘A new guise for an old self,’ K’rul replied. ‘Should he choose to speak, his words will come in scents and flavours in the mind. Peculiar, but affecting.’