Night of Knives (35 page)

‘I am Jhenna. Do you know the name?’

Jhenna? He’d been facing a female all along?
’No.’

‘Truly not?’ It shook its helmed head. ‘How far into ignorance you humans have fallen. I was one of your kind’s teachers long ago. We raised you up out of the muck. Did you know that?’

Temper slapped his clenched hands to his sides to warm them. ‘No.’

‘We were puissant upon the world while your ancestors dressed in hides and squatted in their own filth. We gave you fire! We shielded you from the K’Chain!’

Temper shrugged. He was no scholar, just a soldier.

‘What I am saying, human, is name your price.’

‘What?’

‘What is it you wish? Name anything. Simply stand aside. Nothing in the world of your age lies beyond my reach. Is it rulership you crave? I will carve out a continent-wide kingdom for you. Power? I will instruct you in mysteries entirely forgotten by the practitioners of your age. Riches? The locations of hoards beyond your imagination are known to me. Immortality? I know arts that will inure your flesh against the passage of time. Stand aside and these or anything you desire can be yours. What do you say?’

Temper snorted his scorn.
Some things never change.
It was as if the old ogre himself stood before him, promising Moon’s
Spawn itself. He remembered how the council of nobles of Quon Tali province fared after sealing a deal with Kellanved. They were rounded up and beheaded. And there was a timeless saying for deceit and betrayal: dealing with a Jaghut. He struck a ready stance, tensed his arms to warm them. ‘You jammed back in your hole interests me.’

The Jaghut shook its head as if in pity. ‘I can see you lack the imagination necessary to grasp the unparalleled opportunity before you. I am disappointed . . . but not surprised.’ Temper expected a renewed onslaught after that rejection, yet Jhenna made no move towards him. Instead, she pointed her sword south again. ‘Here comes another disappointment.’

Keeping a wary eye on Jhenna, Temper allowed himself one quick glimpse. Someone was slowly approaching up the slope of naked stone, someone wounded or crippled. Temper waited, weapons poised. Jhenna said conversationally, as if to be companionable: ‘Have you yet begun to worry about the time here, human? How much of the night has passed? Or has any time passed at all? Has your limited imagination yet begun to fathom that prickly problem?’

In fact he hadn’t, but he wasn’t about to admit it to Jhenna. What was the fiend getting at? That she could keep him here-wherever here was – forever? Was that possible? Would he have to stand guard here for eternity? Temper reclasped his weapons through his tattered gauntlets. Frost, he saw, feathered the iron links of his sleeves.

Jhenna half-turned away. ‘I have brought you to Omtose Phellack. It is the home of my kind. Our Warren, such as you call them. It is us and we are it. This night of Conjunction has allowed me at least this one small boon: to revisit my old home.’ The helmed head faced Temper. ‘More to the point for you, human, is that time as you know it does not pass here. I could keep you here for an age only to return an instant after we left.’

She shoved her weapons through the sash at her waist, then lifted her helm away and held it negligently. She regarded him through lambent eyes that glittered with inhuman emotion. Tusklike canines thrust up from its wide jaws, but other than this, Temper found her features almost human, simply oversized: a cliff-like brow ridge, broad cheek bones, a wide sloped forehead. Her leonine mane was matted and greasy. Twists of gold thread and lengths of leather tied off a multitude of small braids – rat-tails, soldiers called them.

‘Think more on my offer, human.’ She crossed her long arms. ‘We have the time.’

The world began to crumble for Temper. Was he doomed to face this monster for centuries? Surely, eventually, he would be defeated or driven insane. Curse Faro to D’rek’s pits! He would know how to counter this tactic; why couldn’t he have warned him? What was he to do? He was only a soldier. After what seemed its own eternity, Jhenna spoke to someone behind him. ‘And what gifts do you bring, skulking wanderer?’

Temper shifted until he could keep both beings in sight at once. He was startled to find that the newcomer was the creature who had rescued him earlier this evening-Edgewalker. The desiccated creature cradled to its chest a long object wrapped in rags. Tendrils of vapour fumed from it.

Just outside the low wall Edgewalker stopped and tossed his burden inside. It rolled free of its rags. Fog burst forth like smoke from burning green leaves. It drifted away, revealing something like a rod that appeared carved from precious gemstone: crystal shot through with veins of purple, bright blue, and startling verdant green. It foamed before their eyes, dissipating, leaving nothing.

‘I bring sign of your failure, Jhenna. The Riders have been repulsed. No release will come from that avenue this Conjunction. The Shadow cultists have withdrawn. And further, I am here to deny you access to Shadow should you
attempt that route, while this one blocks your main exit. Your options are falling away quickly. What will you do?’

The giant turned to regard Temper. ‘Did you hear that, human? It is all down to you now. Only you stand in my way. Surely you must see the wisdom of accepting my offer. Is it not obvious that I will overcome you?’

Temper raised his swords; he didn’t remember lowering them. He addressed Edgewalker: ‘This one says she can keep me here forever. Is that true?’

The creature was motionless for a time, until it breathed, ‘A half-truth. Yet what is time to you or me? Myself, I can wait. Time is nothing to me.’

Temper let out an angry snort. ‘I can’t wait. I can’t stand here forever! What do you mean? Is it true or isn’t it?’

‘You are speaking with a Jaghut, human. The Conjunction is like an eclipse between Realms. Even here it passes as we speak. Jhenna’s time is still limited.’

The Jaghut woman laughed her scorn. She pointed to the creature. ‘There speaks self-interest, human. We are old enemies, he and I, and he knows that if you stand aside, then it is his role to be the next defender of the path. He will have to step into the gap and he dreads being destroyed. He is a coward who wishes to benefit from your sacrifice. Do not needlessly throw away your life. Let him stand where he should – in
your
place.’

Temper attempted to blow on his hands. He risked a glance at Edgewalker. ‘Is that true?’

‘Again, a Jaghut half-truth. It is true I am here to dispute Jhenna’s freedom – to stand in her way as you do. But I would only deny her access to Shadow. All other paths would remain open. Including the way to your world.’

‘Imposture!’ Jhenna cried. ‘Either he stands where you do or he does not! Don’t let him get away with such equivocating.’

Temper hunched his shoulders. ‘It’s not for me to say.’

Jhenna stepped closer and Temper fought an urge to flinch away. He raised his weapons as high as he dared, though the woman had none ready – there were, after all, many kinds of weapons. ‘You poor man. I am doing everything I can to spare your life but you are not cooperating.’ Her eyes shone like golden lanterns and Temper winced. He fixed his gaze dead-centre on the Jaghut’s torso, clenched his teeth and waited.

‘Temper, is it?’ Jhenna asked, then nodded at his flinch of recognition. ‘Why of course! Temper of the Sword!’ She spread her arms out wide. ‘What a fool I’ve been. Who else could possibly stand against a Jaghut? But this is wonderful.’

Temper shivered beneath a sudden gust of cold air. He found he couldn’t open his hands – they were frozen to the grips of his weapons. His feet were numb and his thoughts felt thick and slow. He blinked against the ice gathering over his lashes, managed, ‘What do you mean?’

Jhenna lowered her voice to a whisper: ‘I mean that it is wonderful because I know for a fact that Dassem Ultor yet lives.’

Temper jerked upright. ‘
What?
’

‘Yes, it is true. He lives. And I can find him! Surely Fate itself conspired to bring the two of us together – you, his last and truest companion, and I, the one who can bring you to him.’

Grimacing against a cold that numbed his lips and made his teeth ache, Temper whispered, ‘You’re lying.’

‘No. On this matter I need not shade the naked facts at all. He still lives.’

The Jaghut’s head now hovered almost within arm’s reach of Temper’s and he felt a dull alarm.

‘Is that not so, Tracer of Edges?’ Jhenna called.

‘I cannot say whether this man lives or not.’

‘Ha! Cannot or will not? Note how spare this one is with his wisdom now, human.’

His thoughts crawled, gelid and viscous as if frozen themselves. Dassem alive? Truly? Why should he throw his life away now?

‘My wisdom I limit to one last comment, mortal,’ Edgewalker urged in its breathless, spare voice.

‘What?’ Temper snarled, annoyed by the thing’s dry-rustling words.

‘’Ware the cold, human. ‘Ware the ice that grips. The frost that silences.’

Temper heard, distantly, a growl from the Jaghut, followed by an explosion as if the barrier was under assault once more. His head was heavy and his chin had sunk to his breastbone. He opened his eyes to see that a sheath of ice now encased his legs up to his knees, and that his feet had disappeared within a block of jet-black ice that seemed to have grown like a crystal from cracks in the very bedrock itself.

Something within Temper shieked an ancient terror. A firestorm of energies burst to life over him. Instead of burning his flesh and sloughing the metal of his armour, it made his limbs sing, and he snapped his blades up to parry twin blows from Jhenna who bore down upon him relentlessly, her helm rolling on the stones behind. The ice at Temper’s legs exploded into vapour that vanished in the crackling energies.

Jhenna roared as she swung again and again, seeking to drive Temper into the ground. But he held, strength flowing up from the rock to meet the naked might hammering against him. On they fought, and on, until the Jaghut lifted one blade to reach out to the curtain of energy. The aura snapped away as if snatched from existence and left a roll of thunder echoing over the hills in its wake. Jhenna stumbled, snarling and spitting, utterly devoid of reason, and Temper was appalled that he had half-listened to the frothing monster before him.

The landscape shimmered, the night sky brightening to a pale slate. From behind the Jaghut the mounds and trees
reappeared, and the House frowned down once more on Temper.

Distracted, he was nearly decapitated by a lightning assault. A head swipe caught the top of his helmet. It bit at the iron and snapped his head back, dazzling him with sparks. Stunned, he managed to parry the most deadly thrusts, but he was slowing. The next hit shaved scales from his shoulder. He spasmed as a sweep gashed his right thigh. His defence was crumbling. Had he lasted long enough? Could such a short stand have made any difference at all?

Jhenna twisted away, parrying a hurled weapon: an axe. It struck her upper arm a glancing blow and she bellowed.

In that split-second Temper crouched and managed to gather himself. Jhenna flexed her arm but something else flew at her from over Temper’s shoulder: white crackling energy that smashed into her breast-plate. The Jaghut retreated one step, spluttering hoarse curses. She came on again, inexorable like a force of nature. Such power awed Temper. Perhaps it would never tire. Already he was beyond exhaustion. He thought he heard yelling, muffled to his ears after the waterfall thunder of the barrier. The next attack came as an angry flurry, off-balanced and desperate. Temper sloughed the blows, his arms burning with the stabbing agony of fatigue. Shrieking her frustration to the sky, Jhenna drew back her arm to throw a sword, point-first.

Temper knew he was dead. Involuntarily he tensed and caught his breath. But the blade never touched him. Instead Jhenna tottered, then fell to her knees with a clashing of armour.

She sat motionless for a time, blades resting on the ground. ‘I am finished, human,’ she slurred. ‘I have nothing left.’ She chuckled, low and throaty. ‘Now you will see how the House rewards the treachery of its servants.’ Slowly roots gathered, twisting and worming from the soil. They coiled about the
Jaghut’s legs. She strained against them but the tightening cords dragged her to her side. Fist-thick roots wrapped around her torso. As she was yanked ever deeper into the steaming earth, she offered Temper a mocking smile. ‘Careful, human, or this too will be your fate.’ The golden eyes held his as if to pull him along even as her head sank beneath the crumbling dirt. Her arms and hands slipped down last, still grasping the smoking swords.

Temper blinked away the sweat running into his eyes. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was stone dry. Sucking cool air into his lungs, he watched as the fog dispersed, revealing no trace of the mangled corpses, torn robes, or scattered weapons. The House stared at him blindly, and now its neighbouring buildings surrounded it again. He stood with fists numb around his sword-grips, gasping, his body twitching with exhaustion. A hand touched his shoulder and he jumped, staggering. He fell like a corpse, back against the low stone wall.

‘It’s dawn,’ Corinn said, steadying him. ‘We were trying to tell you . . .’ Lubben stood behind her, covering her back as if expecting a last-minute Shadow cultist’s attack.

‘Dawn?’ he croaked. He mouthed the word, uncomprehending.
Dawn.
Corinn fumbled to catch him as he slid onto ground glistening with the morning dew.