Текст книги "Black Halo"

Автор книги: Sam Sykes

Соавторы: Sam Sykes
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‘And, as I said, I am no fool. I knew you would have to leave, eventually, and I suppose my people did, too.’ He tried to offer a smile, but it was an expression with fragile legs, trembling under the weight that stood upon him. ‘But we wanted you to stay … if only so we could remember those times again.’

Lenk regarded the creature thoughtfully. He tried his hardest not to be suspicious, and indeed, Togu’s story gave him no ready cause to be distrusted. And yet …

Something in the creature’s eyes, perhaps: a little too intent to be reminiscent. Or maybe the long, slow pause that followed: a moment intended to reflect the severity of the memory, or a moment to gauge their reactions? He distrusted the lizard, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t really think why.

‘ He’s a liar.’

Oh, right … that’s why.

Lenk wasn’t sure if the voice did have moods, but he suspected that none of them were of the kind to humour him. And so, he felt the cold creep over him with greater vigour, greater ferocity.

‘Surrounded by liars. Everywhere. He lies. They lie. You lie.’

Me, he tried to think through the freezing throb of his head, what do you-?

‘ Listen. Listen to nothing else. Only to us. Only to ourselves. Realise.’

No, no more listening. This is supposed to be over. This is supposed to be-

‘ THROUGH the lies! Do not be tricked! We cannot afford it! We need to stay! Need to fight! Need our sword! See through them! Do not listen! Do not trust!’

‘Not trust …’ he whispered, finding the words less reprehensible on his lips.

‘Something the matter, cousin?’ Togu asked.

‘What happened to them, King?’ The question sprang to Lenk’s lips easily, instinctually. ‘Where are they?’

‘What?’ Togu’s smile was crushed under his sudden frown. ‘Who?’

‘Lenk …’ Kataria placed a hand on his shoulder, but he could not feel it.

‘The humans,’ he said, ‘where are they now? Where did they go?’

‘They are’ – Togu’s lips trembled, searching for the words – ‘not here. They …’ He swallowed hard, a sudden fear in his eyes. ‘They are …’

‘ Shi-i ah-ne-tange, Togu!’

The voice rang out through the hut like a thrown spear, its speaker following shortly through the front door. While it was impossible to slam a leather flap, the Gonwa that emerged, tall and limber with the ridges on his head flaring, certainly gave it his all.

Lenk could only guess at the thing’s gender, of course, and that came only from his booming voice as he shoved his way between the two companions, sparing a glare for both of them. With an arm long and lean like a javelin, he thrust a finger at Togu, using the other hand to pat at a satchel strung about his torso.

‘ Ah-ne-ambe, Togu! Sakle-ah man-eh!’

Togu spared an indignant glare for the Gonwa, which quickly shifted to Bagagame as the littler lizardman came scurrying behind, gasping for air.

‘ Bagagame!’ the king boomed. ‘ Ah-dak-eh mah?’

Bagagame made a reply, his voice going far too rapidly to be discerned. In response, the Gonwa stepped up the tempo of his own voice, his ire flowing freely through his words. Togu tried to dominate them in speed and pitch both, roaring over them as they blended into a whirlwind of green limbs and bass rumbles.

‘Who’s the big one?’ Lenk asked, glancing sidelong at Kataria.

‘How am I supposed to know?’ she growled, fixing him with a very direct scowl. ‘What was that?’

‘What was what?’

‘That. What you just did.’

‘I asked him-’

‘ Youdidn’t ask him anything.’

He strained to keep the shock beneath a stony visage hardened by denial. She couldn’t have heard, she can’t hear that, her ears aren’tthat long … are they?

The argument between the lizardmen seemed to end in a thunderous roar as Togu shouted something and thrust a hand to the rear door. The Gonwa swung a scowl from him to the companions before nodding and stalking off to the back, Bagagame following with a nervous glance to Togu. The king himself hopped off of his throne and grunted at the two non-scaly creatures in the room.

‘Forgive the interruption,’ he said as he disappeared into the gloom. ‘This won’t take long.’

‘Huh,’ Lenk said. They were gone, but their voices carried into the hut, only slightly diminished by the walls between them. ‘What, exactly, do you suppose reptiles argue about?’

He turned to her and saw her lunging toward him, hands outstretched. Before he could even think to protest, question, or squeal and piss himself, she took him roughly by his head, pressing her fingers fiercely against his temples and pulling him close. Their foreheads met with a cracking sound, but they were bound by shock and narrow-eyed anger, neither making a move to resist.

‘Stop,’ she said swiftly.

‘What?’

‘ Stop.’

‘I don’t-’

‘No, you do. You are. That’s the problem.’

‘I really don’t think-’

‘Then don’t. No more thinking; no more speaking. Don’t listen to anyone else. No one else.’

He felt his temples burn, warm blood weeping down in faint trickles. He saw a bead of sweat peel from her brow, slide over her snarling lip as she bared her teeth at him.

‘ Only. Listen. To. Me.’

The warmth from her brow was feverish, intense, as though his skin might melt onto hers and come sloughing off when she pulled away. His whole body felt warm, hot, unbearable yet entrancing, all-consuming. It swept through him like a fire, sliding down his body on his sweat to send his arms aching, shoulders drooping, heart racing, stirring his body as it drifted lower and lower until it boiled his blood away, leaving him light-headed.

And, as such, he could only nod weakly.

‘It’s going to be over, soon.’

She sighed, the heavy breath sending her scent roiling over him, filling his nostrils, one more unbearable sensation heaped upon the other that threatened to send him crashing to the earth. Her grip relaxed slightly, her hands sliding down to rest upon his shoulders.

‘I’m going to take care of everything.’

She stepped away from him, turning her attentions back to the portal as the Gonwa came storming out first. Togu and Bagagame emerged from behind, looking alternately weary and shocked. The taller creature paused in front of the companions, whirling about to level his bulbous, yellow-eyed glower upon them.

‘ Togu,’ he uttered softly, ‘ Shi-ne-eh ade, netha.’

He raised his hands slowly, deliberately dusting his palms together.

‘ Lah.’

And with that, he spun again, the companions having to step aside to avoid his whipping tail as he stalked out the front door. They turned to Togu, each baffled. The king merely sighed.

‘Hongwe,’ he said, gesturing at the vanished Gonwa. ‘Proud boy. His father was, too.’

‘And that was … what?’ Lenk asked.

‘A disagreement,’ Togu replied. He looked up with a weary smile. ‘So … you truly wish to leave, then?’

They both nodded stiffly.

‘Then you and Hongwe agree,’ he said, nodding sagely. ‘And so, I must respect the wishes of my guests and my people. Tomorrow, you depart. Tonight, we offer you a Kampo San-Bah.’

Lenk frowned at the word. It sounded ominous in his ears.

‘And that is?’

‘A party, of course!’ the king said, grinning.

‘Ah.’

Funny, he thought, that the word should get even more menacing with the definition.

Twenty-Two

WISE MEN REMEMBER TO STOMP FACES TWICE

Gariath had never particularly understood the reverence for elders that some weaker races seemed to possess. Celebrating the gradual and inevitable weakening of body and mind that ultimately ended in a few years of uncontrolled bodily functions and a mound of dirt just didn’t seem all that logical.

Of course, it was different for his people. A weakened Rhegamind was still sharp; a frail Rhegabody was still strong. And while weaker races praised senility as wisdom, the Rhegaundoubtedly grew craftier with their years. Taking these traits, and only these traits, into account, he could see how an elder might be revered and respected.

However, when he factored in how incredibly annoying elders, particularly dead ones, could be, he figured he was justified in regarding them with a level of contempt just a hair above ‘intolerable’.

‘How long has it been since you saw the sun shine like this, Wisest?’

He growled in response, not looking up. ‘Is that rhetorical?’

‘Philosophical.’

‘There are an awful lot of words to say “pointless”, I’ve found.’

The fact that he didn’t even have to see the elder’s teeth to know he was grinning, with a profound smugness that only someone who had died and come back could achieve, was just number eleven on an itemised list of irritating traits that was quickly growing.

‘Have you not noticed your surroundings, Wisest?’ the grandfather asked. ‘There is beauty in the land.’

Senseless optimism. Number five.

Gariath stopped in his tracks and looked up, regarding his companion, the grandfather growing slightly translucent as a beam of light struck him. Narrowing his eyes, he looked up and out from the river, its stream reduced to a shallow half-a-toe high. The forest rose in great walls upon the ridges of the ravine he stood in, fingers of brown and green sticking up decisively to present a unity of arboreal rude gestures at him. Sunlight seeped through them, painting the ravine in contrasting portraits of black smears and golden rays.

‘Dying rivers,’ he snorted. ‘Broken rocks. This land is dead.’

‘What?’ The spirit looked at him ponderously. ‘No, no. There is life here. We spoke to it, once. We heard the land and the land … the land …’

His voice drifted into nothingness, his form following soon after, disappearing in the sunlight. Gariath continued on, unworried. Grandfather would not stay gone. Gariath was not thatlucky. His sigh was one of many, added to the snarls and curses that formed his symphony of annoyance.

The river’s bed of sharp rocks was not to blame, of course. His feet had been toughened over six days, searing coastal sand, twisted forest thorns and, more recently, a number of ravines home to sharper rocks than these.

It was the repetition, the endless monotony of it all, that drove him to voice as he did, if only to serve as reprieve from the forest’s endless chorus. The island’s dynamic environs mighthave pleased someone else, someone simpler: a leaf-brained, tree-sniffing, fart-breathing pale piece of filth.

The pointy-eared thing would enjoy this, he thought. She likes dirt and trees and things that smell worse than her. This sort of thing would fill her head with so many happy thoughts. He paused, inhaled deeply and growled. As good a reason as any to spill her brains out on a rock.

‘Really? Thinking about brains again?’

The voice came ahead of him. He looked up and growled at the grandfather crouching upon a large, round boulder. The elder’s penchant for shifting positions wildly did not do anything to impress the dragonman anymore.

‘You’re getting predictable, Wisest,’ the elder chided.

‘It weighs heavily on my mind,’ he grunted. ‘And hers will weigh heavily on the ground.’ He stalked past, trying to ignore the grandfather’s stare. ‘Once I pick up the scent again.’

‘It’s been days since you last had it.’

‘It’s important.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she will lead me to Lenk.’

‘Which is important why?’

‘Because Lenk is the key to finding meaning again.’

‘How?’

‘Because …’ He stopped and whirled about, not surprised to see the rock empty of residence, but growling all the same. ‘That’s what you told me.’ He turned and scowled at the elder leaning against the ravine’s wall. ‘Were you lying to me?’

‘Not entirely, no,’ the grandfather replied with a roll of effulgent shoulders. ‘I had simply thought you might lose interest by now, as all pups do.’

‘Pups aren’t big enough to smash heads, Grandfather.’

‘Size is relative to age.’

‘No matter how old you are, I’m still big enough to crush your head.’

‘All right, then, size is irrelevant to someone with no head to crush, which is a benefit of being very old.’

‘And dead.’

The grandfather held up a single clawed finger. ‘Point being, I had thought you would have found something else to do by now.’

‘Something else …’

‘Something else.’

He spared a single, hard scowl for the grandfather before shouldering past. ‘Something otherthan finding a reason to live? I suppose I could always die.’ He snorted. ‘But someonehad a problem with that.’

‘I meant finding a reason that doesn’t involve killing so many things. You’ve tried thatalready. Has it brought you any closer to happiness?’

‘I’m not lookingfor happiness. I’m lookingfor a reason to keep going.’

‘The sun? The trees? There is much here, Wisest, far away from the sorrows that have made you unhappy. A Rhegacould live well here, wanting for nothing, without humans of any kind.’

‘And do what? Listen to you all day? Have pleasant conversations about the weather?’

‘Would that be so bad?’ The grandfather’s voice drifted to his ear frills softly. ‘It is rather sunny, today, Wisest … Have you noticed?’

The whisper in the elder’s voice quelled the roar rumbling in Gariath’s chest, so he merely snorted. ‘I’ve noticed.’

‘When did you last see this much life?’

Gariath glanced around. The forest was silent. The trees did not blow. ‘There is nothing but death here, Grandfather.’

He didn’t bother to look up to see. He could feel the elder’s frown as sharp as any rock.

‘The stench is hard to miss.’ His nostrils quivered, lips curled back in a cringe at the scent. ‘The trees are trying to cover it up, but there’s the stink of dead bodies everywhere. Bones, mostly, some other smellier things …’

‘There is also life, Wisest. Trees, some beasts, water …’

‘There’s something, yeah. I’ve been smelling it for hours now.’ Gariath took in a deep breath, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Broken rocks, dried-up rivers, dead leaves and dusk.’

‘There was so much before … so much,’ the spirit whispered. ‘I used to hear it everywhere. And now … death?’ He sounded confused, distracted. ‘But why so much?’

‘There would be more,’ Gariath growled. ‘Good deaths, too. But someone distracted me from killing the pointy-eared one.’

‘Would that be me or the roach she shoved up your nose?’ The grandfather chuckled. ‘If it means there’s one less dead body on this island, I won’t object to it.’

‘ Youwere the one to tell me she was going to kill Lenk!’ Gariath snarled in response. ‘If she hasn’t already, she’s still planning to.’

‘And if she has? Then what?’

‘ You’rethe elder. You’re supposed to know!’

‘My point remains,’ the grandfather said. ‘What do you suppose happens when you find the humans again? Given it any thought?’

‘By following him this far, I’ve found Grahta and I’ve found you. That’s a start.’

‘But where is the end? Will you just go chasing ghosts your whole life, Wisest?’

He glanced up, regarding the elder with hard eyes. ‘What are you trying to tell me, Grandfather?’

He blinked and the elder was gone. He turned about and saw him perched on the lip of the ravine, staring down the river.

‘I want you to know, Wisest,’ he whispered, ‘that what you find may not be what you’re looking for.’

Gariath raised an eye ridge as the elder’s figure quivered slightly. The sunlight seemed to shine through his body a little more clearly, as though golden teeth seeped into his spectral flesh and devoured his substance, bit by bit.

‘So much was lost here, Wisest. Sometimes I wonder if anything can really be found. But the scent, since you mentioned it …’

There was reluctance in Gariath’s step as he walked toward the elder. ‘Grandfather?’

‘This place was not dug,’ he said. ‘Not by natural hands, anyway.’

‘What?’

‘Suffering was more plentiful back then,’ the grandfather replied, his voice whispery as his body faded briefly and reappeared in the river. ‘Swift death was the sole mercy, and a rare one, at that. Many more died in agony … manymore.’

‘Back when?’

‘We didn’t want any part of it,’ the grandfather continued, heedless of his company, ‘but maybe that’s just how the Rhegaare destined to die … not by our own hands, our own fights. What is it we were even fighting for? I can’t remember …’

Gariath stopped and watched as the elder trudged farther down the river, growing hazier with each step. Every twitch of the dragonman’s eyelid saw the grandfather fading more and more, leaving a bit of himself in each ray of sunlight he stepped into and out of.

Gariath was tempted to let him go, to keep walking that way until there was nothing left of him, nothing heavy enough that he would have to drop, nothing substantial enough about him that could ache.

He watched the grandfather go, watched him disappear, leaving him in the riverbed …

Alone again.

‘Grandfather!’ he suddenly cried out.

The outline stopped at the edge of a sunbeam, all that remained of him being the single black eye he turned upon Gariath. The younger dragonman approached him warily, head low, scrutinising, ear frills out, wary.

‘Grandfather,’ Gariath asked, barely louder than a whisper, ‘how long have you been awake?’

‘For … quite some … no! No!You won’t send me away like that!’

This time, when Gariath noticed the elder beside him again, he was defined, flesh full and red, eyes hard and black. The elder gestured farther down the river with his chin.

‘Up ahead.’

‘What?’

Gariath glanced up, saw nothing through the beams of light. When he looked back to his side, the water stirred with a ripple and nothing more. The grandfather was up ahead, trudging through the river, vanishing behind each beam of light.

‘ What’s ahead?’

‘A reason, Wisest, if you would follow … and see.’

Gariath followed, without particularly knowing why, save for the urge to keep the elder in sight, to keep him from fading behind the walls of sun. With each step he took, his nostrils filled with strange scents, not unfamiliar to him. The chalky odour of bone was prevalent, though that didn’t tell Gariath much; he doubted that he could go anywhere on the island without that particular stink.

Thus, he was not particularly surprised when he spied the skeleton, its great white foot looming out of sunlight. It was titanic, the river humbly winding its way beneath the dead creature, flowing with such a soft trickle to suggest it was afraid the bleached behemoth might stir and rise at any moment.

Gariath found that not particularly hard to believe as he stalked alongside it, ducking beneath its massive splayed leg, winding between its shattered ribs, approaching the great, fishlike skull.

His eyes were immediately drawn to the massive hole punched through its head, a jagged rent far wider than the smooth round sockets that had been the creature’s eyes. Its bones bore similar injuries: cracks in the ribs, gashes in the femur, the left forearm bent backward behind a spine that crested to challenge the height of the ravine as the right one reached forward.

Towards what, though?

The great dead thing, when it had been slightly greater and not so dead, had stopped with its arm extended, skeletal fingers withered in such a way to suggest that it had reached for something and failed to seize it.

He stared back down the ravine, noting the cut of the rock: too rough to be wrought by careful tools and delicate chiselling, too smooth to have been made by any natural spirit. Rather, it was haphazardly hewn, as if by accident, as though some great thing had fallen …

And was dragged, he thought, looking back to the cracked skull, or dragged itself through until …

‘This land is not our land. Not anymore.’

Gariath looked up and saw the elder crouched upon the fishlike skull, staring at the rent in the bone intently.

‘This island is a cairn.’

‘Those dark stains upon the rock,’ Gariath said. ‘They are-’

‘Blood,’ the elder answered. ‘Flesh, spilling out, sloughing off, tainting the earth as this thing’s screams tainted the air when it dragged itself away from the weapons that had shattered its legs and broken its back.’

Gariath looked to the gaping jaws, the rows upon rows of serrated teeth, the shadows cast in the expanse of its fleshless maw.

‘What did it scream?’

‘Same thing all children scream for … its mother and father.’

He did not ask if they had come to save their titanic offspring, did not even want to think what kind of creatures could have sired something akin to this tremendous demon. He knew he should have looked away, then, away from the mouth that was suddenly so pitiably silent, away from the eyes that he could see vast, empty and straining to find the liquid to brim with tears. He tried to look away, forced his stare to the earth.

But it was impossible. Impossible not to hear the cries of two voices moaning for their mother. Impossible not to wonder if they had died screaming for their father. Impossible not to see their eyes, so wide, so vacant, their breath vanished in the rain. Impossible not to-

‘ No.’

His fist followed his snarl, striking against the skull and finding an unyielding, merciful pain that ripped through his mind, bathing vision and voice in endless ringing red.

‘Why this, Grandfather?’ he asked. ‘Why show me?’

‘I have heard it said,’ the elder replied coldly, ‘that all life is connected.’ His laugh was short, unpleasant. ‘Stupidity. From mouths that repeated it over and over so that no one may speak long enough to point out their stupidity.’ He crawled across the skull, staring down into the skull. ‘It’s deathsthat are connected, Wisest. Never forget that. One life taken is another one fading, one life gone and another one vanishes because of its absence. Each one more horrible, more senseless than the last.’

‘I don’t understand, Grandfather.’

‘You do, you’re just too stupid to realise it, too scared to remember it.’ He stared down at the dragonman, eyes hard, voice harder. ‘Your sons, Wisest.’

Gariath’s eyes went wide, his hands clenched into fists.

‘Don’t.’

‘They died, horribly.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Senselessly.’

‘ Grandfather …’

‘And you would so willingly follow them. A senseless, pointless, worthlessdeath.’

No reply came this time but a roar incomprehensible of everything but the anger and pain melded together behind it. Gariath flung himself at the skeleton, scaling up the ribs, pulling himself onto the spine and leaping, vertebra over giant vertebra, toward the skull.

The grandfather regarded him quietly before he tilted just slightly to his left and collapsed into the rent, disappearing into shadow.

‘You brought me here to mock me? Them?’ Gariath roared, approaching the cavernous hole. ‘To show me this monument of death?’

‘A monument, yes,’ the grandfather’s voice echoed from inside, ‘of death, yes … but whose, Wisest?’

‘Yours …’ Gariath snarled, leaning over and into the hole. ‘ AGAIN!’

The elder gave no reply and Gariath did not demand one, did not have the sense to as he was struck suddenly, by the faintest, lingering memory of a scent, but recoiled as though struck by a fist. He reeled back, blinking wildly, before thrusting his face back down below and inhaling deeply, choking back the foul staleness within to filter and find that scent, that odiferous candle that refused to extinguish itself in the dark.

‘Rivers …’ he whispered.

‘Rocks …’ the elder replied.

‘A Rhegadied here,’ he gasped.

He felt the rent beneath his grip, felt the roughness of it. This was no clean blow, no gentle tap that had caved in the beast’s skull. The gash was brutal, messy, cracked unevenly and laden with jagged ridges and deep, furrowed marks.

Claw marks, he recognised. Bite marks.

‘A Rhegafought here.’ He stared into the blackness. ‘Who, Grandfather? Who was it?’

‘Connected,’ the elder murmured back, ‘all connected.’

‘Grandfather, tell me!’

‘You will know, Wisest … I tried so hard that you wouldn’t, but … you will …’

A sigh rose up from the darkness, the elder’s voice growing softer upon it.

‘And the answer won’t make you happy …’

‘Grandfather.’

‘Because at the end of a Rhega’s life … there is nothing.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘All you are missing, Wisest … is darkness and quiet.’

‘Grandfather.’

Silence.

‘ GRANDFATHER!’

Darkness.

His own echo returned to him, ringing out through the skull and reverberating into the forest. It seemed to take the scent with it, the smell dissipating in his nostrils as the sound faded, dying with every whispered repetition as it slipped into trees that had suddenly gone quiet, leaving him alone.

Again.

That thought became an echo of its own, spiralling inward and growing heavier on his heart with every repetition.

Alone. Again, again, again.

No matter how many spirits he found, how many rocks he stomped, how many soft pink things he surrounded himself with. They would leave him, all of them, leaving him with nothing, nothing of weight, nothing of meaning.

Except that word.

‘Again, again,’ he whispered, smashing his fist against the bone impotently with each repetition. ‘Alone again and always … always and again …’

‘ Again …’

It was not him who spoke this time, nor was it the grandfather’s voice. It certainly was not the scent of either of them that filled his nostrils and drew his head up. His lip quivered at the odour: pungent, iron, sweaty, familiar.

Longface.

The creature appeared farther down the ravine, black against the assault of sunlight, but unmistakable. Its frame was thick, tall, laden with the contours of overdeveloped muscle and the jagged ridges of iron armour. A thick wedge of sharpened metal was slung over its shoulder as a long-jawed face scanned the rocks. He recognised the sight immediately, his eyes narrowing, lip curling up in a quiet snarl.

Female.

‘And again and again and again,’ she snarled, her voice grating. ‘Until you tell me what I want to know, you green filth.’

‘ Shi-neh-ah! Shi-neh!’ the creature at her blood-covered feet spoke a language he did not understand. ‘ Maw-wah!’

At a glimpse, it resembled something akin to a bipedal lizard … or it had been bipedal before both its legs had been crushed. It now strained to crawl away on long, lanky arms, leaving the sands of the cliff they stood upon stained red. Over the corpses of other creatures, identical to it but for their severed limbs, split chests and lifeless eyes, it crawled towards Gariath.

It caught sight of him, looked up. Its yellow eyes were wide, full of fear, full of pain, trembling with a life that flickered like a candle before a breeze. It reached out a hand to him, opened its mouth to speak. He stared back, anticipating its words to the point of agony.

They never came.

‘I don’t have timeto learn how to speak yourlanguage.’ The longface seized the creature’s long tail, hauled it up with one hand. ‘You have exactly two breaths to learn how to speak overscum!’

‘ MAW-WAH! MAW-WAH!’

The sounds of its shrieking mingled with the sound of claws raking against the sand stained with its own life, straining to find some handhold as it was hoisted up by its tail. Gariath saw its eyes wide as it looked to him, saw the pleading in its eyes, the familiar fear and pain that he had seen in so many eyes before.

‘ RHE-’

One breath.

Her thick blade burst out the creature’s belly, thick ribbons of glistening meat pouring out. She paused, twisted it once, and dropped the creature. The blade laughed a thick, grisly cackle as it slowly slid from the creature’s flesh.

Gariath continued to stare at the creature’s eyes, at its mouth. He saw only darkness. Heard only silence.

‘Hey.’

It was the sheer casualness with which she spoke that made him look up to the longface. Her expression was blank, unamused and only barely interested in him. She slammed the blade down, embedding it in the sand as she dusted blood-flecked hands together.

‘They come in red?’ she asked. Narrowing white eyes at him, she snorted. ‘No. You aren’t one of them, are you?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘That’s fine,’ she said. ‘You want to fight, yeah?’

He wasn’t sure why he nodded.

‘That’s fine,’ she said again as she sat upon a rock with a grunt. ‘Just give me a moment.’

He wasn’t sure why he waited.

‘What are they?’ he asked, at last.

‘Those Green Things?’ she replied with a shrug. ‘They don’t have names, as far as I know. They don’t need names.’

‘Everything has a name.’

‘You?’

‘Wise-’ He paused, grunting. ‘Gariath.’

‘Dech,’ she said, slapping her shoulder. ‘Carnassial of Arkklan Kaharn, chief among my people, the netherlings and-’

‘I know what you are,’ he replied. ‘I’ve killed a lot of you.’

‘No fooling?’ She grinned at him. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of you. The Ugly Red One, they called you. You cut open a lot of warriors, you know. I knew a few of them.’ Her lips curled back, the grin evolving from unpleasant to horrific. ‘You’re good at what you do.’

‘You’re calm about that.’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she asked. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to kill you, but it’s not going to be personal or anything. It’s just what I do. It’s what you do. Just like dying was just what those warriors did.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Yeah, I don’t blame you. A lot of overscum have trouble understanding it, which is why they’re always rushing around. They don’t know what they’re supposed to do.’ She gestured to the eviscerated lizard-creatures. ‘Take These Green Things. We got plenty of them back at our base. Slaves. Some of them try to fight against us, some of them pray to some kind of sky-thing, some of them beg for mercy, some of them try to run, some of them talk about how things were …’ She looked up at him. ‘And some of them cry. Big, slimy tears come pouring down their faces when we kill one of them. That’s what baffles me.’

‘They mourn.’

‘Why?’

‘To honour their dead.’

‘The dead don’t care.’

‘They do.’

‘You talk to them?’

‘Sometimes,’ he replied.

‘Huh … well, they shouldn’t. What do they got to ask for once they’re dead?’

‘Honour. Respect.’

‘You and I both know that’s … what’s the word? Shnitz?’ She shrugged. ‘If you believed that, you wouldn’t have watched this ugly thing’ – she kicked the eviscerated corpse – ‘do what he did.’

‘He didn’t do anything. You killed him.’

‘Ah, see, this is where the overscum stop learning,’ she said, smirking. ‘You all talk about death like it’s a sole decision. It takes two to die. The person with the sword does the least amount of work.’

He furrowed his eye ridges.

‘See,’ she elaborated, ‘these dumb things are quick. I only caught them because there was no other place to run.’ She gestured to the river rushing beneath the cliff. ‘Now, when I grabbed one, the others could have run away. They all stood and fought, though. They made the decision to die.’