Deadhouse Landing

Chapter 14

Koro alighted on the blunt stone tip of a standing menhir and cocked his head, regarding with his black beady eyes the surrounding rocky dunes of what some named the Plains of Waste. Idly, he preened the bedraggled fur of his body and wondered anew what to do about these damned pesky meddlers in Shadow.

If Edgewalker refused to act – the obdurate fool! – then it must fall to him.

Yet how to be rid of them?

Had Koro still held human form he would have tapped his chin with a finger, but as it was he pecked at the gritty ancient stone of the menhir then squawked and flapped his membranous wings in alarm as a spark of power glowed to silver life and began rolling a turning route down the outside of the carved stone.

He alighted again, watching, intrigued, while the quicksilver flash spiralled like a bead of mercury down a curved runnel hacked in the face of the stone. Glyphs of power glowed to life as it descended.

Close to the base, the bead of silver was now a blazing fist of power spinning with dizzying speed.

Koro squawed anew, losing his perch, as the ball of sizzling might smashed into something at the base of the stone. Alighting once more, he turned first one black bead of an eye to the spot, then the other. A heap of wind-blown sand there was shifting, and a groan reached him.

A chitinous armoured head and shoulders emerged, shaking off the sands.

Koro now knew where he perched, and he looked to the pewter sky. Oh, him.

‘Where am I?’ the unfortunate below asked aloud.

‘You are imprisoned,’ Koro answered.

The alien angles of the daemon’s armoured head lowered as it considered its buried torso. ‘This I see.’

‘I want to get rid of two meddling troublemakers,’ Koro continued. ‘Have you any ideas?’

‘Troublemakers?’ the entity echoed, sounding confused. ‘What, pray tell, do you mean by that?’

‘Oh, shut up!’ Koro hissed, shifting from foot to foot.

‘I once was powerful,’ the daemon murmured, as if groping after something. ‘I once was … someone…’

Koro rolled his pebble eyes to the sky once more. ‘Oh, please! Well, now you’re an imprisoned nobody.’ Then he jumped, his tattered wings half-flapping, and he opened his beak in silent laughter. Of course!

‘Do you know my name?’ the creature below asked, almost plaintively.

‘Shut up, fool – I am having an inspiration!’

‘I think you know my name,’ the daemon continued stubbornly.

Koro cursed, pecked the stone, then jumped into the air. ‘Fool!’

A spark of silver glowed to life atop the menhir.

‘I will remember you!’ the daemon howled after him.

No you won’t.

And he cawed his harsh laughter as he went.

* * *

The meagre fire cast further shifting shadows across the tall crumbling walls of the gulch surrounding them, and standing in the darkness Dancer wondered on the wisdom of such an … extravagance?

He glanced back to the fire, and the dark figure hunched there, staring into its depths, chin resting atop his walking stick. Clenching his teeth, he returned to stare down at Kellanved. After a moment, he let out a long-suffering breath and said once more, ‘We really should return.’

The wizened black-skinned mage did not answer; he kept his gaze firm upon the fire. Wilfully so, it seemed to Dancer, who cleared his throat again. ‘They’ll catch us eventually – you must know this.’

The hunched Dal Hon shrugged, unconcerned. ‘I will shift us again.’

‘There were four last time.’

‘I can now stay ahead of them.’

Dancer drew a quick breath, fought down his anger and grated, ‘For the moment. But eventually…’

The little man’s shoulders clenched higher and his lips tightened stubbornly.

Sighing, Dancer looked away to the weak shifting shadows. ‘What is this thing you’re trying to sense, anyway?’

‘The node!’ the young mage – who still appeared an ancient – exploded. ‘The locus! The heart!’

Dancer eyed the surrounding slopes and eased the blades in their sheaths about his chest, thighs, and neck. ‘And what does all that rubbish mean in plain language?’

The little man flapped his hands in mute frustration. Finally, he slammed his stick into the sands. ‘You have heard, I hope, of the Throne of Night?’

‘Yes. In songs and legends.’

‘Well, exactly,’ the mage announced, as if it were all common sense.

‘Exactly what?’

The Dal Hon spluttered, flapping his hands. ‘Well – Light and Night had thrones, yes?’

Dancer nodded. ‘So they say.’

‘Well … so too must Shadow, then!’

Dancer drew a blade, a razor stiletto, and thumbed its edge. ‘I understand that’s all more poetry than history.’

Kellanved examined his ebony walking stick, huffing. ‘Well … yes. However, each must possess some centre of power. Some locus. Call it what you will. Control that, and one controls the entire Realm!’

Dancer pushed the blade home into the sheath at his left wrist, nodded thoughtfully. ‘Our path is disputed.’

Kellanved now tapped his fingers upon the silver hound’s head of the walking stick. ‘Yes. Well. An inconvenience. Once we have—’

Dancer raised a finger. ‘No. They must be handled first. And we cannot do that while on the run.’

Kellanved set his chin atop the stick as if pouting and stared into the guttering fire. After a time he sighed, resentfully, ‘Oh … very well!’

Dancer eased his shoulders, and the joints cracked with the strain of his tension. Inwardly, he allowed himself a satisfied nod.

Very good.

He sat across the fire to rest. ‘You will keep watch?’

The mage nodded. ‘Yes. I will keep watch.’

* * *

The next day – if the slight brightening of the monochromatic grey of Shadow could be called ‘day’ – Dancer became aware of the dot in the sky of the strange flying creature which, from time to time, seemed to have been trailing them.

‘It’s back,’ he announced to Kellanved, who merely waved his stick, unimpressed.

This time, however, the shape flapped ever closer, becoming ever larger, until it plopped down ahead of them in a very ungainly fashion, raising dust as it paced about. Dancer thought it an ugly cross between a bat and a pelican. Kellanved, for his part, stopped before it and rested his hands atop his walking stick. Then he actually addressed it, saying invitingly, ‘Yes?’

To Dancer’s surprise, and profound unease, the creature drew itself up almost haughtily and cawed, ‘Welcome to Shadow.’

Kellanved merely nodded, as if this were an everyday occurrence. ‘Our thanks. Welcome indeed.’

The bat-thing now cast its tiny glistening black eyes about the desolate surroundings, then lowered its knife-like head to croak, ‘I know what it is you seek.’

Kellanved glanced to Dancer, his brows raised. ‘And that is…?’

The beast actually looked to the sky as if exasperated. ‘Shadow House, of course!’ It bounced from one clawed foot to the other. ‘Shadow House, you fool!’

Now Kellanved shot Dancer a rather bemused look. He gave an exaggerated knowing nod. ‘Ahhhh! Shadow House. Of course!’

The creature calmed, bobbing its hatchet head. ‘I will take you.’

‘Why?’ Dancer demanded.

The beast squawked, flapping its ragged wings of black skin. ‘What? Why? I offer you the Realm and you ask why?’

Kellanved stilled. ‘The Realm, you say?’

‘Why?’ Dancer asked again, his voice now hard. He glanced about, wondering whether this was a delaying tactic. Were enemies closing upon them even now?

‘Tell me more about the Realm,’ Kellanved invited.

‘Why?’ Dancer repeated, firmly, eyeing the horizons.

Kellanved sighed, his shoulders slumping. ‘Very well. Why?’

The beast’s gaze shifted right to left. ‘Ah, well…’ It rubbed its wings together and lowered its head even further. ‘There are secrets within. Secrets that you must share with me!’

Kellanved turned to Dancer. ‘There you are. Secrets.’ He pointed his walking stick ahead. ‘Do lead on.’

The creature bounced into the air, laughing a bird-like croak as it went. ‘This way!’

Kellanved strolled onward. Dancer pressed a hand to his forehead, then reluctantly followed. ‘I don’t like it,’ he complained.

The Dal Hon mage waved the stick about to indicate the leagues of empty rocky hillsides. ‘Which of our many options would you prefer, then?’

Dancer gritted his teeth. ‘Fine. We investigate then leave, yes?’

Ahead, Kellanved nodded absently, already humming to himself.

They travelled for what seemed to Dancer to be far too long; eventually the hounds would arrive, as they always did. And he saw no likely cave or retreat anywhere within reach. Once more they were gambling on Kellanved’s being able to shift them elsewhere and Dancer did not like it. One failure and that would be it.

Ahead, a dark line appeared to be nearing – some sort of break in the monotonous rocky desert landscape of this region of Shadow. Dancer was now leading Kellanved, who limped, wincing in his tattered shoes, and so he paused, gesturing ahead. ‘Our destination?’

Kellanved came alongside, winded and sweating. He shaded his gaze. ‘Very possibly. There is something there. I sense…’ He trailed off as above the dark shape of their guide was now stooping towards them, its thin wings flapping furiously.

As it passed overhead it squawked: ‘Run!’

Dancer caught his companion’s eye. Shit.

They both ran.

Dancer, however, soon pulled ahead of the limping, huffing mage and so he halted, kicking up dust and stones, cursing. He drew his heaviest blades, searched the hillsides behind for signs of movement.

Quiet this time. Getting smarter.

‘Hurry,’ he snapped at Kellanved, who’d halted with him.

‘If I’d known we’d be tramping all over I’d have worn different shoes, I assure you.’

‘Just run,’ Dancer snapped, impatient.

But the mage merely shook his head, gesturing ahead, panting.

Reluctant, dreading what he knew he’d see, Dancer slowly turned about. Ahead, two shapes fully as large as colts had risen from among the rocks, each shaking sand from its back. One bore savage scars across its black muzzle, while the other’s mismatched eyes blazed yellow and blue.

Hunting as a pack. Should’ve known.

He raised his twinned heavy parrying gauches while turning full circle. From each direction a hound now closed. He counted five. Driven? Can we have been driven like rabbits into this ambush?

‘Get us out of here,’ he mouthed to Kellanved.

Overhead, their erstwhile guide had taken off, flying like an arrow for the dark line far off on the horizon. And Dancer wondered … could they have been following it? How smart were these things?

‘How many are there of these beasts, do you imagine?’ Kellanved asked.

‘Just move us!’

‘Yes, yes. No need to be snippy.’

Dancer turned another full circle to see that, indeed, the creatures were closing upon them from all sides. They were not of one singular hue, being tawny, or earthen brown, or mottled grey and black. Yet they were certainly alike in their titanic size, and the strange lustre, or luminosity, of their eyes. They stalked forward now, low on their forepaws, ears down, lips pulled back from canines the length of his fingers. Their low hunting growl shook the ground beneath his feet and vibrated in his chest.

‘Now would be good,’ he murmured to his companion.

But Kellanved did not have to respond. Tatters of darkness flitted across Dancer’s vision, deepening and thickening like sifting shadows until he could see only dense murk, like a midnight underwater vision of the world.

A blasting howl of lustful frustration made him flinch, and then he hit the ground hard and rolled in dust.

He came up with weapons raised, circling, but they were alone. Kellanved sat hunched in the dust nearby; he appeared to be examining his feet. A forest’s edge rose some leagues distant – their destination, Dancer assumed.

‘Run,’ he said.

The mage gestured to the flapping leather remnants of his shoes. ‘I really do have a complaint for that cobbler.’

‘Ignore them – just run!’

‘I can’t!’

A hound’s deep rich baying sounded from the distance, closing.

Dancer yanked him to his feet and they ran, awkwardly, Kellanved hopping as he pulled at the tattered strips tied about his feet.

Dancer searched the edge for some path or route into the thick woods, but none was visible, so he headed straight for the nearest verge and ploughed in, pushing aside dry black branches, his feet sinking into a deep loose layer of rotting leaves and bracken. Only after pushing onward for some time, yanking Kellanved firmly along, did he pause, listening. He could hear the beast’s howling still, but it sounded strangely distant, muted somehow.

A rustling in the branches above caused him to snatch up his throwing daggers. It was the black bat-like thing, hopping among the higher boughs. ‘You see!’ it croaked, triumphant.

‘They are not following,’ Kellanved observed, and he frowned in distaste at his bare feet. ‘Why are they not following?’

The bat-thing cocked its head. Its black pebble eyes peered about. ‘Well, uh … they are forbidden! Yes! They are forbidden from entering the forest.’

‘Why?’

Koro hopped from foot to foot in frustration. ‘Because they are! Because of the House – yes! The House is near!’

Dancer peered into the tangled depths of the woods. ‘How near?’

‘Near!’ The creature flapped into the air, calling, ‘This way!’

Kellanved was gingerly testing his feet on the cluttered ground. ‘Perhaps you could—’

‘No, I couldn’t,’ Dancer cut in, heading off to follow the beast.

‘Just for a short while…’

‘No.’

‘Until we reach the House.’

‘No.’

‘You’re not being cooperative at all,’ the mage grumbled.

‘I did not buy cheap shoes.’

Kellanved harrumphed. ‘They were not cheap, I tell you that.’

‘All the more reason—’

‘Could you two possibly shut up!’ came a call from above. Both Dancer and Kellanved peered upwards, blinking. Koro was above, bobbing its sharp, knife-like head. ‘I’m trying to listen!’

Dancer stilled, listening as well.

‘For what?’ Kellanved asked, and Dancer shot him a glare.

Each of the creature’s wide membranous wings held a tiny clawed hand and the beast pressed one now to its edged beak, hissing, ‘Shh!’

Dancer listened, motionless. He heard only the creaking of the countless trees about them. Kellanved cleared his throat. ‘Ah, there’s something…’

‘Quiet.’

‘Something’s got my—’

Dancer turned on him. ‘Will you be quiet!’

The mage pointed to his feet, hidden in the deep loam. ‘Something’s grabbed my foot.’

Dancer cursed; he moved to draw a blade but found he couldn’t – a vine had tightened itself about his forearm. ‘What in the name of…’

Kellanved was suddenly yanked down into the loam up to his knees. Yet he did not appear panicked, only embarrassed. He observed, ‘Well, this is depressingly familiar.’

Dancer tried to reach a blade with his other hand but found it too bound by vines. They pulled, yanking him tight up against a nearby tree trunk.

Above, the creature cawed its harsh laugh. ‘Here they come – your panicked screams! Ha, ha, ha.’

‘Are you panicked?’ Dancer asked Kellanved.

The mage threw his walking stick at the beast, missing widely. ‘Not yet.’

The creature paced back and forth on its high branch. ‘Well, they’re coming! I assure you! Once you find yourself— gahhh!’

The bat-thing now hung upside down, swinging wildly, one foot caught up by a vine. ‘Help! It has me! Look what you’ve done! You fools!’

It flapped its wings furiously, pulling and pulling; then, with a parting snap, the vine broke and the beast ricocheted off, bouncing from tree to tree. ‘You will scream!’ it squawked as it flapped away. ‘You’ll see! Entombed for ever! Absorbed! Becoming one with Shadow! Ha, ha!’

Dancer watched it go, then settled his attention upon Kellanved. ‘So. What now?’

The mage was tapping a free hand to his chin, his eyes narrowed. ‘Could it really be that simple?’ he mused aloud.

Thick woody limbs now closed upon Dancer’s chest, tightening. ‘Whatever it is you’d better hurry.’

A vine yanked Kellanved’s hand away and he was pulled down to his waist. ‘An idea,’ he explained. ‘All this time I’ve been trying to force Shadow. But perhaps that’s wrong. Perhaps I should ease into it. Become one with it, as the creature said. Perhaps that’s the secret.’

Dancer did not answer as he was holding his breath in outward pressure against the crushing embrace of the branches. He simply jerked a nod and fumed that he could no longer even curse the pontificating fool.

The mage was nodding as he slipped to his chest among the rotting leaves. ‘Very well. I will give it a try – though it will be difficult and we are far from Malaz.’

Dancer smiled a rictus of encouragement, his lips clenched.

‘So … here goes,’ the mage said as his head disappeared down beneath the loamy steaming surface.

His vision darkening, Dancer looked to the pewter-grey sky through the closing branches. Well … so much for that. The limbs tightened, crushing his chest, and his breath burst from him. He fought to inhale again and again, until nothingness took him.

* * *

The day of his execution Tayschrenn wore the clean linen shirt and trousers provided for him. Stubble now roughened his skull and chin, and though he’d no polished bronze or silver mirror to see in he knew he’d lost weight and must appear rather haggard. As anyone who’d spent weeks contemplating one’s imminent execution would. Especially when a fresh cup of poison is provided alongside each day’s portion of water.

That day, two of the cult Fangs appeared at his cell as escort. When the thick wooden door was pulled open they’d seemed a touch surprised to find him within, and still alive. In the past, many so sentenced had preferred to take their own life rather than face the horror to come. Which was precisely why the priesthood had allowed him to sit so long in solitary reflection on that poison.

And which was precisely why he refused the option. No convenient hidden disappearance that could easily be swept aside and forgotten for him. No, he would go out in full public display and do his best to rub their faces in it.

And so he rose from his meditation, dressed in the clean new clothes, and exited calmly and quietly.

One factor did penetrate his calm, however. It was plain from his cell window that it was the dead of night. As he walked the empty halls, the uneasy suspicion came to him that perhaps they intended to throw him into the Pits unannounced, in the dark, without any witnesses.

The way one might dispose of an embarrassing piece of evidence.

High Priestess Salleen, after all, hadn’t announced the exact time of his execution. Just the sort of oily bureaucratic solution a career functionary might favour.

The suspicion wormed through the wall of calm he’d so carefully built between his fears and his reason, and caused him to check his pace. What then?

One of the Fangs urged him onward and he resumed pacing, thinking, Well, if they go that far then perhaps I need not co-operate after all …

His fears, however, were put to rest when he was delivered to a holding cell at the Civic Pit. Here, he knew, he would sit and wait while the crowd gathered above. It now looked like a noon execution.

The morning’s light grew slanting down in dust-filled rays from high narrow windows. The day’s heat reached his cell. The muted din of conversation slowly swelled. It sounded like a packed crowd. Then came a quiet knock at his door and he cocked a brow. Really? A polite knock?

‘Yes?’

A Fang of D’rek opened the door from without and a white-robed acolyte entered. She held in both hands a small earthenware cup full of a thick dark liquid.

Tayschrenn knew this: D’rek’s Mercy – a numbing potion that would dull the pain to come. Unfortunately, it also numbed the mind. The young woman held out the cup, her head lowered.

He shook his head, then to his surprise found that he had to swallow to speak, and murmured, ‘No.’

She bowed lower, saying, ‘This is not about bravery, Tayschrenn.’

‘I do not wish to go to D’rek with a clouded mind.’

The acolyte nodded. ‘I understand.’ She withdrew to the door, but paused there, trembling almost. ‘I am sorry, Tayschrenn. Not all agree with this.’

He frowned at her. Agree with what? His execution? Tallow’s rise?

One of the Fangs guarding the cell grabbed her arm and pulled her out, slamming the door shut.

He sat in silence, frowning still. Had there been a faction looking to him, after all? Had he, in his inaction, let them down? Yet he had not asked for any of this, nor did he want it.

So he sat while above roars and cheering came and went for the preliminary executions – petty criminals, minor cult offenders and the like – until a single voice, rendered unintelligible by the yards of stone between, spoke at length.

They were announcing him, listing his supposed crimes.

Sure enough, the door opened and the two Fangs of D’rek gestured him out. Rising, he was surprised again by how dry his mouth was and the heat and sweat of his hands. Just the flesh, he reminded himself, dreading impending dissolution. That is all.

He was led up a narrow passage of dressed stone blocks. Cells lining the way held the condemned, and the stink of human excrement, piss and stale sweat hung thick in the enclosed space. Tayschrenn merely noted all this in passing, without discomfort; he knew far worse was to come. In the half-light steaming down from a door ahead he noted messages scrawled upon the faces of the blocks: Tell Herina I love her, Damn the bitch Salleen! and May D’rek forgive them.

The Fang ahead at the door carried a red sash. She waved him closer. ‘Turn round,’ she ordered. Feeling oddly dazed, Tayschrenn complied. His hands were taken and the sash was cinched tight about his wrists.

He gave a light snort of appreciation of the gesture – Tallow, it would seem, was not without a poetic side.

The iron latch of the door clanged, the heavy stone barrier grated as it swung open, and Tayschrenn was pushed out on to the glaringly bright sands of the Civic Pit. He stood blinking for a time, unaccustomed to the light, and a huge roar arose from the stands, a punishing thunder of shouts, applause, catcalls, curses, and cheering.

Squinting around, he saw that the rising circular rings of the coliseum were very nearly full to capacity. A good turnout for Salleen and Tallow.

Dutifully, he walked out towards the centre of the broad circular pit. The dry husks of thousands of shed carapaces crackled beneath his sandalled feet as he went. The sunlight blasted down upon him and he couldn’t even bring his hands out from behind his back to shield his gaze. He damned the heat; already his clothes hung heavy and damp.

Sweating, he noted, distantly and analytically. I am sweating so much because I am … frightened. There. It’s been said. I can admit it. The terror of the unknown. In that at least I share a commonality with the herd that surrounds me.

More or less at the centre he halted and turned to face the main seating platform. In the glare he couldn’t make out any one individual, just a sea of dark robes. Eventually, the roaring calls and jeers died down enough for a single voice to surface above the sullen grumbling.

‘Tayschrenn!’ the voice called – High Priestess Salleen.

He raised his chin with what he hoped signalled defiance and pride. Yet he was panting, his pulse racing in that damned unavoidable fleshly weakness. Deep breaths, he chided himself.

‘Your crimes against the integrity of the cult have been enumerated and suitable punishment has been writ. You have been found guilty of putting your own benefit and selfish desires ahead of the good of the faith of D’rek. Have you any last words before judgement is enacted?’

Strange, he noted, standing before them, blinking, how power-hungry people tend to charge their opponents with the very sins that apply to them. He opened his mouth to speak but found he had no breath for speech. The sun’s glare was making his eyes water – why else would wetness be cold on his cheeks? And the tightness in his chest choking off speech – appalled outrage, surely.

‘No? Nothing?’ Salleen prompted. ‘Not even an appeal to D’rek for forgiveness?’

This announcement stung Tayschrenn like nothing else in the entire charade of the trial, the cowardly sentencing, and now this farcical perversion of mercy. ‘Forgiveness?’ he shouted, hoarse, his voice near cracking. ‘You are the ones who will beg for forgiveness!’ But Salleen had signalled the drummers and now their blasting cacophony robbed him of any hope of being heard. None the less, the dark bulk next to Salleen that was Tallow seemed to stir at his words, perhaps uneasy, perhaps worried that he would lash out now, at the end.

But he would give them no such satisfaction.

He would meet D’rek with more dignity and courage than any they could ever muster – though it annoyed him how his eyes did sting and water in the glare and he could not wipe them.

So he turned his back upon them to await the end. The thunder of the drums shook the sands beneath his feet, vibrating the ground, calling the denizens below. And there in the dark caverns and tunnels he knew they stirred, rising, heeding the summons. Soon they would be upon him, seething, pricking, filling his mouth and nose until he choked …

He blinked savagely, weaving upon his feet, suddenly unsteady.

The heat, he decided. Must be this damned heat …

The hissing of the horde’s arrival assaulted him then. Louder, it seemed, even than the drums. All about him, closing. He blinked the tears from his eyes, fought the rabid urge to flee. No, he thought to himself … Wait!

A tickling wave of thousands surged across his feet like a surf. Countless probosces probed his flesh. A million feet climbed his ankles.

Wait … No! This is not … I want to …

A rising numbness in his feet and legs now made it difficult to stand. He fell to his knees, or thought he did. Was this tide of vermin rising upon him or was he sinking into it? He could no longer tell.

The numbness took his chest and for this he was thankful, as a writhing layer of creatures now blanketed his clamped mouth and closed eyes. But he could not seal his nostrils and they entered there – the tiny silverfish and the smallest of the flesh-eating maggots. Then his breath exploded from him in a convulsive gasp and they foamed into his opened mouth as he inhaled.

He gagged and gagged, rolling and vomiting even as he fought to inhale. But no breath could breach the sea of writhing creatures choking him. He screamed mutely in an abhorrence and revulsion beyond any his mind could grasp, and, thankfully, it gave up. Darkness descended …

* * *

Though the Civic Pit lay far across the city, Silla could still hear the muted distant roar of the gathered crowd. Even in this court overlooking the sea from a far side chapel of the temple, even here she could not escape it.

As if she ever would for the rest of her life.

She wrung her cold hands together, pacing. Why was the fool still here! Wasn’t enough enough? Must he go to the end to prove his point?

That thought froze her in her pacing.

Of course he would. He was right. He knew he was right. And he would go to the end to prove it.

But Tallow had promised her it would never come to this. That he would send him away to a new life on the mainland.

The Invigilator! She grasped the stone lip of the ledge overlooking the sea. Damn the man! Nothing but lies!

She stilled, watching the dizzying glimmer of the waves far below. But that wasn’t true. He hadn’t lied. He’d showed her concocted evidence and testimony that he could’ve used to condemn Tayschrenn to the death of the Fang that very day in court. Only her cooperation had saved his life. Only her testimony saved him from the poison that day.

Only today …

She jumped then as the reverberation of the drums struck her.

He’s still there? Why? Why won’t he flee?

She pressed her fists to her mouth. Damn him! Damn the stubborn fool! Would he really be that wilfully determined? To go to his death rather than yield to anyone?

She nodded then, a fist at her mouth, and sighed. Yes … Yes, he would.

The distant commingled awe and delight of thousands now swelled and she clutched at the ledge for support. Great D’rek! He’s being taken! Taken!

And all because of her. No – she saved him! Saved his life that day. And Tallow assured her it wouldn’t come to this …

Tallow! She straightened then, her breath easing from her in a hiss. From inside her robes she drew a small sheathed dagger and examined the wax seal at the lip of the bronze sheath.

This she had meant for herself. But another had earned its kiss far more than she. She would play the part of the beaten-down disciple for now. Until the moment came. Then he would pay for his lies. He will pay.

She pushed the sheathed blade back down within her robes, wiped the wetness from her face, and slipped back within the temple precincts.