Текст книги "Black Halo"

Автор книги: Sam Sykes

Соавторы: Sam Sykes
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‘I’ve … read books.’

‘Books?’ Denaos asked, chuckling.

‘Books, yes,’ Dreadaeleon replied. ‘I’m … familiar with the basic process, anyway. It’s not like it’s particularly difficult to perform, let along conceptualise.’

The two men stared at him, challenging. He cleared his throat.

‘See, uh.’ The boy scratched the back of his neck. ‘See, a lot of it has to do with the maidenhead. The, er, hymen, if you will, per se.’

‘Oh, I certainly will,’ Denaos said.

‘This isn’t helping me with my-’ Lenk muttered and was promptly ignored.

‘Right, well, this provides a form of … tightness … a sort of barrier that provides difficulty to the expeditious party. That … that makes sense, doesn’t it?’

‘Entirely, yes,’ Denaos confirmed through a grin.

‘All right, then … so, the only thing reallynecessary is some manner of … of …’

‘Penetration?’

‘No, see, because it’s a barrier. It … uh … needs a sort of crushing.’ He made a fist and thrust it forward demonstratively. ‘A punching motion.’

‘Punching?’

‘Yes. Punching.’ He turned to Lenk. ‘See? It’s a matter of nature, physical and mental. There’s no way you can possibly-’

‘Shut up,’ the young man said.

‘You didask-’ Denaos began.

‘I said shut up!’ Lenk roared, fists trembling at his side as he impaled the two men with his stare. ‘I can’t believe I asked either of you. You’ – he levelled a finger at Denaos – ‘who would leap at the chance to rut a sow so long as you were drunk enough or you’ – he thrust it at Dreadaeleon – ‘who divides his time between alienating every woman in sight with his pretentious sputter and staring holes in Asper’s robe and trying desperately to hide the chicken-bone swelling in his trousers.’

‘Asper?’ Denaos asked, glancing at the boy. ‘Really?’

‘Did I speak too softly or did you hear me when I told you to shut up?’ Lenk demanded, his scowl growing more intense, his voice harsher. ‘I don’t care what you, you or anyvoice says. I’mthe leader, and even if what I decide to do is at allmad, it’s still a damn sight better than any of you cowardly piss-slurpers could think of. Rest assured that no matter who I walk away from this with, their presence will be a small blessing against the fact that I am leaving bothof you to rot in filth, get sodomised in an alley and otherwise die alone.’

He turned away from them, forcing his eyes on the stream, forcing himself to control his breathing. It tasted warm in his mouth, cold on his lips. He could feel their stares upon him, feel their shock. As though there were something wrong with him.

‘We are going to turn around,’ he uttered. ‘Do not be there.’

They left. He did not turn around. He didn’t have to. He could feel their fear seeping out of their feet and into the earth. They hadn’t even waited until they were out of earshot to start running.

Scared little animals. The very kind of animal they accused her of being. The very kind of beast they saw when they had looked at him.

Theywere the animals. Fearful, weak, squeaking rodents. Useless. Pointless.

He was strong. He saw it in his reflection in the stream. His face was hard. His eyes were hard. No apology, no weakness.

No pupils. He blinked. That can’t be right.

Falling to his knees seemed a bit too easy; his head pulled the rest of him to the earth. He rested on his hands and knees, staring at himself in the river. His breath poured out of him in great, unrestrained puffs that stirred the water, blurred his face in it.

The legged eels below the surface released their grips on the rocks, went drifting down the stream. Lenk ignored them; his image was no more clearer with them gone. He could make out flashes of grey, blue, each one a stark and solid colour that he had rarely seen in his hair or eyes before. Slowly, he leaned down farther, breath pouring out of his mouth to kiss the water.

And freeze it into tiny, drifting chunks of ice that were lost down the stream.

‘That … that definitelyis not right.’

‘One would suspect,’ a deep voice spoke, ‘that you are a poor judge of that.’

He looked up immediately and saw no one to match the bass, alien voice. He was alone in the forest, even the birds and chattering beasts of the trees having fled to leave him bathed in silence. Just him, the stream, and …

‘Jhombi?’ he asked.

The squat reptile made no immediate answer, did not even look up from his lure bobbing in the water. Then, slowly, his massive head began to twist towards Lenk, staring at him with two immense eyes.

Lenk stared back, mouth gaping open; of all the words he could have used to describe the Owauku’s gourdlike eyes, ‘gleeful’ and ‘malicious’ had rarely come to mind. And ‘terrifying’, not at all.

‘Hello, Lenk.’ His … or its voice was like sap: thick and bitter in the air. ‘I see you’re experiencing some difficulty with your current plan? Perhaps I could be of help.’

Lenk shook his head, dispelling his befuddlement. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think you spoke the tongue.’ He cast a glare into the forest. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked. Denaos has lied to me before.’

‘He has,’ the lizardman said, ‘but he didn’t this time.’

‘He said Jhombi didn’t speak the human tongue.’

‘Jhombi does not.’

Lenk stared as the lizardman’s green smile grew a bit larger and eyes shrank a bit narrower.

‘So,’ the young man said breathlessly, ‘you would be …’

‘I’d say that my name was unimportant, but that would be a lie. You’ve had far too many of those lately, haven’t you?’

‘I’d agree with you, but any bond of trust we might have would probably be shattered by the fact that I am speaking to someone wearing Jhombi’s skin like a costume.’

The creature laughed, not joylessly. Rather, there was plenty of mirth in his deep, booming chuckle, and all of it made Lenk’s skin crawl.

‘You areclever, sir. A bit macabre, but clever.’ He held up a hand. ‘Jhombi is fine, my friend. Not present, but certainly still alive and possessing all his skin. He was lured away long ago by a gourd of his people’s wicked brew. Not half as clever as you were, that one, not half as determined.’ He quirked a scaly eye ridge. ‘Or perhaps now that you’re giving up, you’re roughly on par?’

Lenk could but stare, tongue dry in his gaping mouth. ‘Are … you another one?’

‘A hallucination?’ The creature shook his bulbous head. ‘Would a hallucination admit to being such? After all, they only linger as long as you consider them real. I must linger, Lenk; not long, only enough to speak with you, but I must. After that, you can imagine me away.’

‘All my hallucinations want to speak with me, lately. My mind must have a lot to say … Or is it the Gods that are trying to tell me something?’ Lenk dared a smile at the creature. It could hardly hurt, he reasoned. He would hate to gain a reputation for rudeness amongst his growing collection of mental problems.

‘Good to see you’ve kept a sense of humour about it. I can hardly blame you. Lunatics have a reputation for laughing uncontrollably for a reason.’

‘So you area hallucination.’

‘No, but you are going mad.’ The creature sighed. ‘Mad and clever, I suppose you could answer me this question: do you suppose it will stop?’

The young man blinked. ‘Will what stop?’

‘All of it. All the madness, the suffering.’ The creature looked at him intently. ‘The voices.’ It nodded slowly, all mirth gone from its face. ‘I know. I can’t hear them, but I know. I know how they torment you, running endlessly: hot, cold, soothing, frightening, day in, day out, screaming, shrieking, demanding, whispering, whining, talking all the time.’

Lenk, having nothing else to respond with, leaned forward, unblinking, unbreathing, unmoving.

‘Will they?’

The creature stared back at him and shook his head. ‘One will.’

‘One? There are …’ Should have realised that, should haveknown that. He stopped cursing himself long enough to breathe. ‘Which?’

‘Scarcely matters. One whispers lies, the other whispers what you don’t want to hear. You think either of them will stop?’ It sighed deeply. ‘Or is it that you think the one with the sweet lies will be correct? The one that tells you that everything will be fine, that you’ll go back to the mainland and leave all this behind you, grow fat on a field with your slender shict bride and watch the sunset until your lids grow too heavy to keep up and you die feeding the horseflies.

‘And yet, everything isn’t fine, is it? You are still here. Your companions fear you to the point that they have difficulty following you even back to their precious civilisation. You feel sick without your sword, angry in the company of those who smile at you, experience silence from one voice only when the other speaks …’

The creature shook its head.

‘No, not fine, at all, I’d say. One could scarcely be blamed for fleeing, especially when the alternative is to stay here, amidst the intolerable sun and rivers that turn to ice.’

‘There is nothing here,’ Lenk replied, ‘nothing but lizardmen and bugs. What purpose is there in staying here?’

‘When was the last time you found a purpose by looking behind you? What awaits you there? Burned ruins of your old home? The graves of your family?’

‘What would you know of it?’ Lenk snarled, feeling his hands tense, restrained from strangling the creature only by curiosity and dread for the answer.

‘I know they will not be there when you return,’ the creature replied. ‘Just as I know what little family you’ve scraped together you only have by coming this far.’ It grinned broadly. ‘Go farther and who knows? Blood, yes. Death, most certainly. But in these, you find peace … Perhaps you’ll find the kind that lasts? The kind that lets you know who it is that speaks in your head and who it was that sent you on a road that began with the blood of your family? The kind where everything is fine at the end?’

Lenk swallowed hard.

‘Will I find it?’

‘Are you asking me if things will get better or if things will turn out the way you hoped?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Just as well. Much of the future is uncertain, save for this …’ It leaned forward slowly, eyes widening, mouth widening. ‘None of that matters.’

‘My happiness does not matter?’

‘You were not bredfor happiness. You were bredto do your duty.’

‘I … wasn’t bred! I was born!’ Lenk nodded stiffly, as if affirming to himself. ‘My name is Lenk!’

‘Lenk what?’

‘Lenk … Lenk …’ He racked his brain. ‘I had a grandfather.’

‘What was his name?’

‘He was … he was my mother’s father! We were all born in the same place! The same village!’

‘Where?’

‘A … a village. Somewhere. I can’t …’ He thumped his head with the heel of his hand. ‘But, I knew! I remembered!Just a moment ago! Where …’ He turned to the creature, eyes wide. ‘Where did they go?’

‘It hardly matters. They won’t be coming back … not on the mainland.’

A long silence persisted between them, neither of them breaking their stare to so much as blink. When Lenk spoke, his voice quavered.

‘But they will here?’

‘I did not say that. What I impliedwas that there is nothing to gain upon returning to the mainland.’

‘And what is here, then?’

‘Here?’ The creature grinned. ‘Death, obviously.’

‘Whose death?’

‘A meaningful one, be certain.’ It twisted its yellow gaze toward the distant edge of the forest and the village beyond. ‘Ah … sunset will come soon and your precious farewell feast with it. I would be wary of these green creatures, Lenk. You never know what might be lurking behind their faces.’

The creature’s saplike voice felt as though it had poured over Lenk’s body, pooled at his feet and held him there staring dumbfoundedly at the creature as it strode away like a thing much larger than its size would suggest. Dumbstruck, the young man found the voice to speak only as the creature began to slip into the foliage, green flesh blending with green leaves.

‘Wait!’ Lenk called after it. ‘Tell me … something! Anything! Give me a reason to keep going!’ As the creature continued on, he took a tentative step toward its fading figure. ‘Tell me! Will Kataria kill me? Who killed my family? Who is it in my head? You never told me!’ He growled, his voice a curse unto itself. ‘You never told me anything!’

‘I know …’

Whatever pursuit Lenk might have mustered further was halted as the creature turned to look over its shoulder with a face not its own. Its jaws were wide, impossibly so, to the point that Lenk could almost hear them straining under the pressure.

Gritted between them, reflecting his own horrified visage that shrank with every horrified step he retreated, a set of teeth, each tooth the length and colour of three bleached knucklebones stacked atop each other, glittered brightly.

‘Ominous, isn’t it?’

The words echoed in his thoughts, just as the polished, toothy grin embedded itself in eyes that stared blankly, long into the sunset, after the creature had vanished and drums began to pound in the distance.

Twenty-Five

CONFESSIONAL VIOLENCE

Pagans had certain enviable qualities, Asper decided after an hour of lying in the mossy bed and staring up at the sun, enjoying the sensation of it as it bathed her.

First among those qualities was the confidence to lounge around in skimpy furs beneath the sun for hours on end, she decided. That was certainly a practice she’d have to abandon upon returning to decent society. Not too hard, she thought as she scratched a red spot on her belly, especially if meant fewer bug bites.

But she was possessed of the worrying suspicion that she would have more difficulty leaving behind the second quality she found so enviable: the complete confidence they had in their faiths. She had often wondered what it was about people with limited grasps of homesteading and hygiene that made them so sure of their heathen beliefs.

Only recently, though, was she wondering what it was they had that she lacked.

Perhaps, she reasoned, her faith permitted her a unique position to come to the conclusion. The creed of Talanite was to heal, regardless of ideological difference. The occasional attempt to convert the barbarian races from their shallow, false gods were largely carried out by the more militant faiths of Daeon and Galataur. The most she had ever seen of such attempts was the gruesome aftermath: the hacked bodies of shict, tulwar or couthi who had refused to give up their gods and chose to meet them instead. The most thought she had ever expended for them was a brief prayer and a silent lament for the futility of dying in the name of a faith that made no sense to her.

Of course, she reminded herself, you worship the sun. That seems pretty silly at a glance, doesn’t it?She sighed, wondering if those barbaric races had ever asked themselves the same question. Does Kataria ever wonder that? She doesn’t look like she does … then again, she doesn’t look like she ever pays enough attention to anything deeper than food … or Lenk.

She instantly cursed herself for thinking his name. The memories always began with his name. Like a river, they flowed from his name to that night when Kataria had dragged his unconscious body into the hut. The memories never got any easier to digest. Her heart never ceased to beat faster with every recollection.

It was seared into her mind, its heat every bit as intense as the one that ran through her arm that night.

Funny, she had almost forgotten about her arm, at least for a moment. She had almost forgotten the night prior to that, when it burned at the sight of that hooded face and skeletal grin, the confusion of waking up amidst a tribe of sentient reptiles, she could hardly think of anything else.

Of course, hechanged that entirely.

Naturally, she had fallen to her knees beside him, running practised hands over his body, checking flesh for wounds, bones for breaking, skin for fever. She had ignored it all at that point: Kataria’s shrieking demands, Denaos’ cautious stare, the Owauku’s incomprehensible babble. All that mattered, at that point, was her charge, her patient, her companion. At that point, she could ignore everything.

Everything except her arm.

She was too well-used to it: the aching, the burning. She could feel it coming, feel it tense, feel it hunger beneath her skin. The scream that had torn itself from her lungs had been cleverly disguised, the pain concealed beneath a command that they all leave. They might have suspected something by the second and third screams, too shrill to be commanding.

But they left, left her alone.

With him.

The arm might have been merciful in waiting until the others had gone to erupt. Or it might simply not have been able to contain itself. She didn’t care any more now than she did then; thinking on it brought far too much fear now, far too much pain then. There was no slow eating away this time; the arm simply burst into crimson, the bones black beneath the suddenly transparent red flesh, pulsating, throbbing, burning.

Hungering.

It had pulled itself of its own volition, for a reason she could not bring herself to fathom, towards Lenk. And try as she might to tell herself there was likewise no fathoming why she let her body follow its burning grasp, she had to live with the fact that, at that moment, she had simply let go.

There was no thought for what might have happened next, had her hand clenched on his throat, had he become twisted and reduced to nothing, like those who had felt the crimson touch before. There was no thought for what her god, his god or any god might have said of it. There was only pain, only hunger.

And a blessed, unconscious meal before her. A relief from pain, from the agony that racked her.

But where her hand had slid slowly and carefully towards him, his was swift and merciless. It snapped out suddenly from the sand, without a snarl or curse or even any indication that Lenk had known what was about to happen. Her body went from burning to freezing in an instant as his fingers wrapped about her throat. Her arm fell at her side limply as he opened eyes that weren’t his and spoke with a voice that belonged to someone else.

‘ Do not think,’ it had said, ‘ that it will ever stop if you do it.’

It could have been Lenk, she thought, probably was him. He wasfeverish, if not enough to cause a hallucination, and he wasstarved and beaten. Trauma was known to cause such changes in personality, she knew from experience, and the fact that he remembered nothing of waking up would support this. But the eerie sensation that it was something more, some madness that gripped him, gripped her, too.

Fear had made her recoil and hold her arm away from him as his slipped from her throat and he fell back into feverish slumber. Or maybe it was compassion, a sudden shock of shame that made her spare her friend. Maybe she had finally claimed some victory over the arm.

Maybe.

The pain was too intense to think, though, the burning from her arm and the cold from his grasp conspiring to plunge her into agony. There she remained, huddled against the hut’s wall, choking on her sobs so that no one outside would hear her.

The pain passed, after it had thrust her into agonised sleep and she had awoken to find her arm whole again and Denaos standing over her. She had no idea what he had seen. He stared at her with what looked like concern, but that was a lie.

It had to be.

It was greed, she was sure, the presence of an opportunity to gain an advantage over her for whatever vileness he was planning that kept him around. It was greed that made him lean down and brace her up and offer her water. It was greed that made him ask with such feigned tenderness if she was all right. It was greed that she used to justify cursing at him and driving him out again that she might tend to Lenk and go through the ordeal of forgetting everything.

She had not forgotten, of course. She never would.

She spoke of the event often, posing questions and theorising answers with brazen frequency, but never to anyone with a mouth to reply with. Any time she was alone for a moment, she asked the same questions, as she did now.

‘Why?’

And answers now, as they had then, did not come.

‘Why him?’ Her tone was soft, inquisitive; all her previous indignant, tear-choked anger had long boiled out her mouth and soaked into the earth. ‘What is it about him that you want?’

That seemed a fair question to her. It had never really sought anyone with the unerring grip that it had sought Lenk. Of course, fair or not, it didn’t answer. Perhaps it had heard that one before. Or maybe she wasn’t asking the right question. And, in its silence, she furrowed her brow as a new thought occurred to her.

‘Who sent you?’ She held her hand up to the sun, as though the light would finally deign to give her an answer she had been asking for all these years and shine through the flesh to reveal its purpose. ‘Why is it you wanted him? What did he do to …?’

And she remembered his eyes, his voice, his cold grasp. And so, she asked.

‘Did he …?’ she whispered. ‘Does he deserve it? Should he die?’

A sudden breeze struck. Clouds shifted. Branches parted. The sun shone down with more intensity than it had before, focusing a great golden eye upon her. She gasped, beholden, and stared back at the eye, unblinking.

‘Is that it?’ she whispered. ‘Is that the answer? Is what I’m meant to do with this?’ She bit her lower lip to control the tremble that racked her as she raised her head and whispered with a shrill, squeaking voice. ‘Please, I just want to-’

A shadow fell. Light died. She blinked. Giant green orbs and bright white angles assaulted her senses, narrowing and twisting into horrible shapes as greasy yellow strands dangled down and pricked at her skin.

She recognised Kataria too late. Too late to keep herself from starting and far too late to avoid the shict’s forehead as it came down upon her own with a resounding crack. She cried out, clutching her throbbing brow and scrambling to get away. She raised herself on her rear, staring at the shict, caught between shock and anger.

Kataria’s own expression seemed settled on a grating, irritating grin.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Why did you do that?’ Asper shrieked.

‘Do what?’

‘You headbuttedme.’

‘Yeah, you looked busy.’

Asper stared intently at her. ‘How … how does that even-?’

‘You seem like you’re going to dwell on this for a while and leave me no opportunity to give you the present I brought you.’

‘What?’

The question was apparently enough of an invitation to spur the shict into action. She snapped her arm, sending a brown, multilimbed body into Asper’s lap. The priestess looked down at the gohmn, aghast; it was browned from cooking and, if the sticky substance dripping onto her legs was any indication, basted in something of origins she fiercely fought the urge to inquire over.

Instead, she merely scowled up, her distaste compounded as the shict brought a barbed roach leg to her teeth and tore a tough chunk from it.

‘Like venison,’ she said with a grin, her teeth white against the brown smear on her mouth, ‘except a tad roachier.’

‘I’m …’ ‘ Leaving’ would be a good thing to say, Asper thought, or‘ furious’ or‘ about to strangle you.’ ‘Not hungry.’

‘Eat while you can,’ Kataria said. ‘You don’t know how much you’ll miss basted bug meat when there’s no room for them on the boat.’

‘There’s a boat?’ Asper asked, eyes widening. ‘Sebast! He’s all right? He’s come?’

‘No, no,’ Kataria said, shaking her head. ‘Togu is lending us one to take back to the mainland … well, givingus one, since we can’t bring it back, obviously. We’ll set out tomorrow, Lenk says, after the party tonight.’

‘There’s a party now?’

‘A farewell celebration, I guess? Togu was insistent on it, so we figured it’d be less irritating to simply glut ourselves tonight and spend tomorrow defecating over the railing than arguing about it today.’

‘How … pleasant,’ Asper said, blanching. ‘Why would he be insistent?’

‘Neediness, maybe? Loneliness? A fierce desire to see half-clad pink skin instead of half-clad green skin?’ Kataria growled, taking another bite from the leg. ‘How am I supposed to know what goes on inside a lizardman’s head?’

‘Well, are they at least going to give us back our clothes?’ Asper asked, gesturing to the aforementioned pink skin. ‘If it’s a choice between coming back to the mainland dressed like thisor staying here …’ She paused and frowned. ‘I suppose drowning would be preferable.’

‘I feel like you’re worrying a lot about trivial things,’ Kataria said, licking the bug juices from her lips. ‘It’s quite annoying. You’re starting to sound like Lenk.’

Asper went rigid, fixing a hard stare on Kataria.

‘What,’ she asked, ‘do you mean by that?’

‘Nothing,’ Kataria replied, canting her head to the side. ‘I’m merely suggesting that you’re being overly stupid about things that don’t matter and very rude when I bartered, slaughtered, cooked and slathered a twitching roach for you.’ She sneered. ‘You’re welcome, by the way.’

‘There are justenough things offensive about that sentence that I don’t feel bad for it.’ Asper rose up, futilely trying to wipe the juices from her skin. ‘Or for leaving. Good day.’

She fought the urge to recoil as the shict leapt in front of her, but could do nothing to prevent the sudden beating of her heart. Kataria’s muscles tensed as she regarded the priestess with an unflinching stare.

She heard me, Asper thought. She heard me ask if I should kill Lenk. She heard me. And now she’s going to …Asper’s face screwed up in confusion as the shict’s softened, her green eyes quivering. Cry?

It certainly looked that way, at least. The savage humour, the feral grin, the bloodlust always lurking: all evaporated in an instant. Kataria’s mouth quivered wordlessly, fumbling for words to defeat this expression to no avail as she rubbed her foot self-consciously upon the moist earth.

Asper found herself unable to leave for the painful familiarity of it all. She hadn’t seen such a display since …

Since I saw myself in the river today.

‘I need …’ Kataria spoke hesitantly, shaking her head and summoning up a growl. ‘I wantto talk.’

‘Oh.’ Asper glanced over the shict’s shoulder. ‘Lenk went into the forest, last I saw.’

‘ Not to Lenk,’ Kataria snarled suddenly, then clenched her teeth, as though it pained her to spoke. ‘To you.’

‘What?’ Asper looked incredulous. ‘What did Ido?’

‘What is that supposed to mean? I just … I want that thing that priests do.’

‘The last time I tried to bless you, you bitme.’

‘I don’t want that. I want the other thing; the one where we talk.’

Asper looked at her curiously. ‘Confession?’

‘Yeah, that.’ Kataria nodded. ‘How’s it work?’

‘Well, with people of the same faith with something they seek atonement for, we usually sit down, they tell me their sins or their problem, and I listen and help if I can.’

‘Yes, yes!’ Kataria’s nod became one of vicious enthusiasm. ‘We need to do that!’

‘I’m not sure it’s-’

‘ Immediately!’

‘Look, we’re not even of the same faith!’ Asper replied hotly. ‘Besides, your problems always seem to be the kind that are solved by shooting someone in the eye. What makes this one so special?’

‘ Fine, then,’ Kataria spat as she turned away. ‘I’ll figure it out myself, as usual.’

The shict’s impending departure should have been a relief, Asper knew. After all, any problems Kataria was like to share were equally likely to be foul, unpleasant and possibly involving the marking of territory.

And yet, she couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of Kataria’s face as she turned away. A choked expression, confused, lost.

The shict had a question without an answer.

And the priestess had an oath.

‘Wait a moment.’ Her own words should have been a worry, Asper knew, but she forced a smile. ‘I can listen, at the very least.’

Kataria turned and stared as Asper took a seat upon a patch of moss, gesturing to the earth before her. With a stiff nod, Kataria took a hesitant seat before her. For an age, they simply sat, staring at each other with eyes intent and befuddled respectively. After waiting long past what would be considered polite, Asper cleared her throat.

‘So,’ she said, ‘what did you want to-?’

‘This is supposed to be anonymous,’ Kataria interrupted, ‘isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘I thought there were curtains or something.’

‘In a proper temple, yes,’ Asper replied. ‘But … look, even disregarding the fact that we’re in a forest, disregarding the fact that youasked meto do this, I’ve known you for a yearnow. Kat, I know you by voice and by smell both.’

‘What Ismell is a loss of principles,’ Kataria replied, far more haughtily than someone clutching a roach leg should be able to. ‘And you, my friend, are reeking.’

‘Oh Gods, fine!’ Asper loosed a low grumble as she shifted about in the earth, turning her back to Kataria. ‘There, is that better?’

A sudden jolt was her answer as Kataria pressed her own back against the priestess’.

‘Sort of.’ The shict’s hum reverberated into Asper. ‘Is there any way you could do this in a different voice so-’

‘ No.’

‘Fine.’

The shict’s snarl was the last noise she made for a long moment. In the silence that followed, it occurred to Asper with some mild dismay that she had never actually wondered what her companion felt like. She had always suspected that Kataria would be more relaxed, her muscles loose and breath coming in slow and easy gulps of air.

Someone who cuts wind with as much abandon as she does wouldhave to be relaxed, right?

But there was nothing but tension in the shict’s body. Not the kind of nervous tremble of dismay at having another woman’s bare flesh touching her own that now enveloped Asper, Kataria’s tension was muscle-deep, her entire body feeling like she had been twisted so tightly that she might explode in a bloody, stressful mess at any moment.

One more regret for ever having agreed to this, Asper thought.

‘So, did you want to talk about?’

‘What’s it like?’ Kataria interrupted.

‘What’s what like?’

‘Being a coward.’

‘What?’ Asper began to rise. ‘Did you get me to sit down just so you could insult me? Because it seems like a lot of work for something you already do standing up.’

‘Wait.’ Kataria’s hand shot out and wrapped with a desperate firmness about Asper’s wrist, yanking the priestess back to the earth. ‘I mean … I’ve watched you. When we fight.’ Her grip tightened. ‘You’re scared.’