Fall of Light (23 page)

Since the opening of the gate, since that sudden torrent that was either escape or a summons that could not be denied, Dalk had flown a wild cavort, striving to distance himself from his dragon kin. There had been clashes, mindless as ever, as each dragon raged against its own splintered nature. The histories and bloodlines that bound them all, heavier than any chain, tighter than any skin, made a fever of companionship.

Yet he had taken his lover anyway, high above these mountains, and after weeks of stalking. And he had then left her to fall away, satiated and wounded, wanting only to sleep in some solitary place. Where she could heal, and muse on the snarling spawn to come.

Was this instinct, this need to so claim a new world? So the rocks and earth would tremble to the sharp cries of the newborn, to make a home of the unknown. Or was every desire no less than the caged soul deafened by its own cacophony? Instincts could make for a host of regrets, and Dalk was still undecided on what flavour this deed would take. The voice within the mind that spoke to some
other,
and that other none but itself. In spiralling dialogue of endless persuasion, entire realms could be swallowed up, encompassed, mapped with delusions, and so claimed for one’s own.
And yet, for all this, the cage door does not open.

And so, we rule what we have always ruled, and every border beyond the limits of our skull is but an illusion. Now watch us fight for them. Watch us die for them. This is not majesty that fills graveyards, but sophistry.

We are new in this world, and yet have nothing new to offer it.

My eyes guide me, from one unfamiliar place to the next, but I cannot escape the place behind my eyes, this cage of self, and these words – these endless words!

Escape, or summons. The matter was yet to be determined. Magic burned bright in this strange realm, but flowed untethered. Currents charged nowhere, clashed without purpose.

In hissing savagery, talons scored deep, tearing loose scales that spun earthward. Jaws snapped and sank fangs into the thick muscles of the nape. The wings hammered in confusion, and I, gripping tight, felt her weight …

He would hunt anew.

I shall make this sorcery mine.

Moments later, as he sailed the high winds rising from the walls of mountains that faced the western sea, Dalk Tennes caught the scent of freshly spilled blood. Turning, he banked, and then began a lazy spiral earthward. Desire’s spending made for fierce hunger.

  *   *   *

‘There is some witchery in a wife’s silence,’ said Garelko.

‘It was the lure of a few more moments in bed,’ Ravast replied, nodding. ‘Had she forgotten us? Did she tend the garden, unmindful of how the morning lengthened? Why charge this sleep – so gleefully snatched – with her curse that is our guilt? I was restless in my somnolence.’

Tathenal laughed behind Ravast. ‘But not enough to prise open an eye! To look about, wondering, flinching at the cold hearth, hearing – with burgeoning consternation – the snores of Garelko.’

‘Ah, but those I am used to,’ Ravast said. ‘No more jarring than your beastly grunts. Still, what you say is true enough. We rejected the signs of amiss.’

‘Husbands live under that cloud with unceasing trepidation,’ Garelko said, as he led the small troop down the steep, rocky trail. ‘As upon a frozen lake, the ice beneath us is of unknown thickness. As in a forested trail, with the scent of cat all about, where every tautberry glows feline eyes to our overwrought imaginations. As upon a cliff’s edge, with the dread shadow of some winged monster sliding over us.’

At that last observation, Ravast snorted heavily. ‘So you go on about that, an event neither I nor Tathenal did witness. The sky was clear, the morning fresh, and if there was indeed a shadow, then some condor mistook the top of your head for a rival’s nest. But, upon closer inspection – the shadow that made you start – the wise bird saw no eggs worth mentioning.’

‘We are men,’ grunted Garelko. ‘Eggs are for breaking.’

‘We are husbands,’ corrected Tathenal. ‘Eggs are for juggling.’

Ravast sighed. ‘Amen to that.’

‘I was speaking of the witchery of a wife’s silence, my beleaguered brothers. Have you not seen her standing at the door, her back to you? Did your knees not tremble, as your mind scampered like a stoat back through the day, or was it last week? When you might have with blind bliss committed some slight?’

Ravast shrugged. ‘The heart that questions its own love will stew in the mildest season. Our bellies have been on fire for months now.’

‘Back to that again, Ravast?’ Tathenal drew closer and slapped Ravast on one shoulder – the one that did not bear the weight and show the edge of the slung battleaxe. ‘Her love for us is gone! Your moans will make felt from handfuls of wool, and so suffocate the very virtue whose death you fear.’

‘I wish you’d not mentioned wool,’ Ravast said in a growl. ‘Stapp was too eager to promise taking our flocks into his care. I do not trust that man.’

‘And when she stands beside you,’ Garelko resumed, ‘yet says nothing? Is that the warmth and comfort of companionship? Shall we bathe in her moment of sentimental foolery? That roaringly impossible instant when she’s forgotten all our past crimes? In saying nothing, she wields a menagerie of power. For me, why, I’d rather the whip of her words, the tirade of her temper, the crash of crockery against the side of my skull.’

‘You are a beaten dog,’ Tathenal said, laughing again. ‘Garelko, first of her husbands, first to her bedding. First to flutter and fold to the slightest wind of her displeasure.’

‘Let us not speak of her displeasing winds,’ said Ravast.

‘Why not?’ Tathenal asked. ‘A subject we three can share in a welter of mutual sympathy! The true curse of our union is her love of cooking, so dispiritingly mismatched to her talent. Have we not eaten better these three nights upon the trail? Is this not why not one of us has suggested we hasten our pace and so catch up to her? Are we not, in fact, revelling in the glory of well-made repast? My stomach is too dumb to lie, and my how easy it sits right now!’

‘Women,’ said Garelko, ‘should be barred from every kitchen. Our wife’s enthusiasm keeps her slim, when better she wallow in fat with grease painting flabby lips.’

‘Hah,’ growled Tathenal. ‘Even Lasa cannot bear too much of Lasa’s cooking. This is none other than her conspiracy that ensures her svelte demeanour. You have the truth there, Garelko. Should we ever catch her, we’ll turn this table. We’ll truss her up and chain her well away from the kitchen. We’ll give her a taste of decent food, and watch how she billows to our ministrations.’

‘This seems a worthy vengeance,’ said Ravast. ‘Shall we vote on this course of action?’

Garelko halted on the trail, forcing the other two to do the same. He swung round to face them, offering up an expression of disdain. ‘Listen to you bold whelps! A vote, no less! A course of action! Why, with such resolve we three could throw back a thousand charging Jhelarkan. But see her regard slide over us, and all resolve crumbles like a well-made pie!’ He wheeled round again, shaking his head as he resumed the march. ‘The courage of husbands is directly proportionate to the proximity of the wife.’

‘It need not be that way, Garelko!’

‘Ah, Ravast, you are a fool. How things need to be weigh as nothing to how they are. Hence, our bowed dispositions, our harried reflections, the flighty birds of our eyes.’

‘Not to mention your nestly hair.’

‘Assuredly that, too, Tathenal. And it’s a wonder I have any left.’

‘Less a wonder than a nightmare. Were you prettier in your youth, Garelko? It must have been so, since I am still waiting to witness a single moment of pity in our wife.’

‘Before marriage,’ Garelko said, ‘I was desired far and wide. I caught the eyes of mothers and daughters alike. Even our man-lover of a king could not keep his hands from me – and who among us could deny his eye for beautiful men?’

‘He’s the lucky one,’ muttered Ravast. ‘Or, was. Famous lovers should never grow too old. Better they die of burst hearts in a thrash of supple limbs and leaking oils. Such swans creep into the sordid.’

‘And still he preens,’ said Tathenal, ‘and so embarrasses us all.’

Garelko threw up a dismissive hand. ‘The fate of every ageing king. Or queen, for that matter. Or, to be fair, every hero.’

‘Bah!’ retorted Tathenal. ‘It is the fate of the young who cease being young. And so it is all our fates.’

‘And this is what now haunts our wife?’ Ravast asked. ‘Does she so fear the loss of her wild beauty that she would make death stand in the place of ageing?’

‘Suicidal defiance?’ mused Tathenal behind Ravast. ‘There is a certain charm to that.’

‘Charm and Lasa Rook do not sit well together,’ said Garelko. ‘Slovenly lust? Yes. Seduction and the promise of manly dissolution? Of course. Manipulation and sudden vengeance? Absolutely. That smile and those eyes that could make even a man-loving king tremble? Oh, we’ve seen it ourselves, have we not? Why, I do not imagine—’

Garelko stepped round a sharp bend in the trail at that moment, and the scene before him cut the words from his tongue. Following a step behind, Ravast looked up and halted.

Before them, on a broad ledge, a reptilian monstrosity had been feeding on a massive, skinned carcass, and now it lifted its gore-smeared head to face them. The beast’s hiss sprayed all three Thel Akai with a fine mist of blood.

As the creature’s long neck curled, raising the head high, Garelko brought round his iron-shod staff from where it had been slung across his back, and leapt forward.

Reptilian jaws stretched wide and the head lunged down.

Garelko slipped to one side and drove the heel of his staff into the beast’s right eye.

Roaring, it pulled its head back.

Battleaxe in his hands, Ravast ran up on to the sloped side of a boulder, gaining height as he did so. Seeing the creature lashing out with an enormous taloned hand, Ravast launched himself from the boulder. Axe blade met that sweeping hand, the edge driving between two fingers, slicing through the webbing and then deep between the bones.

Recoiling, the beast stumbled back – tearing the axe from Ravast’s grip – and then rolled on to the carcass on which it had been dining. The stripped cage of the carcass’s ribs splintered and collapsed like brittle sticks, carrying the creature over on to its folded wings.

Tathenal raced past, between Ravast and Garelko, swinging his blunt-tipped, two-handed broadsword, chopping deep into the thrashing beast’s left thigh.

The creature continued rolling until it slammed into a massive boulder. The impact lifted the rock and sent it tumbling off the ledge beyond. A moment later the beast followed, vanishing – with trailing tail – from sight. Concussions shook the ground as the boulder made its wild descent to the treeline far below.

Then there was a thundering, snapping sound, and they saw the monster sailing out on its broad wings, skimming over the forest’s canopy. Its flight was erratic, as the head was strangely tilted. Ravast’s axe gleamed bright in the sunlight, firmly wedged between the talon-clad fingers of one hand.

Tathenal lifted up his sword to show the others the three scales still clinging to the blade’s edge.

‘Very well, Garelko,’ said Ravast, ‘not just shadows.’

‘Lasa camped here,’ Garelko pronounced, scanning the ledge. ‘Look, see how she kicked out the hearth’s coals, same as she does at home. Our wife’s habits make a trail we need no hound to follow.’ He slung the staff over on to his back once more and set off down the trail. The others followed.

‘Oh no,’ Garelko continued, ‘as I was saying, there is little charm in our dear wife. Deadly allure? Oh, indeed. That whimper-enticing heft of her thigh when sitting with folded legs, so smug an invitation for a man’s hand? How could we deny that? And what of the …’

The conversation continued, as the three husbands made their way down towards the forest.

It was nearing midday.

  *   *   *

‘My husbands are in no hurry, it seems,’ said Lasa Rook, ‘and for that they will pay dearly. Am I not enticing enough? Desirable enough?’ She edged close to Hanako, until their shoulders were pressing. ‘Well?’

‘You are these things, Lasa, and more,’ said Hanako, struggling to keep his eyes on the trail.

‘Of course,’ she went on, ‘they are angry with me, and rightly so.’

Behind them, Erelan said, ‘You did not even leave them a note.’

‘Ah! Not what I was thinking about, to be honest. Thrice, now, I’ve almost burned down the house. There is a careless imp in me – oh, do not look so shocked, Hanako! I will admit to my flaws, no matter how attractive and endearing they might be! In any case, the imp has a temper, too, as each night it and I must witness – yet again – my three husbandly oafs shovelling down the wretched fare I set before them. Have they no taste?’

‘They must have,’ objected Erelan, ‘since they married you!’

‘Ha ha! I am ambushed. Then I shall say it so: in the years since their lucid moments of appreciation, they have let themselves descend into dullardly obtuseness, into vapid venality. Their palates belong to dogs, their grunts are those of pigs – is it any wonder the imp snarls and kicks at coals until the rugs smoulder on all sides?’

‘What cause this vengeance of yours?’ Hanako asked.

Her shoulder pushed him hard enough to make him stumble. ‘So spake the virgin to marriage!’

Erelan laughed his uncertain laugh, and Lasa rounded on him. ‘And you! O warrior who wears everything he conquers! Where is your wife? What? None ever waved an inviting hand? How is it we supple reflections have not swooned in answer to your stolid prowess? Your pride of glory and the rotting trophies you hang from your person?’

Hanako dared not glance behind him to see the effect of her tirade on Erelan Kreed. He was thankful enough that she’d already dismissed him.

‘Your wit is a song to my ears, Lasa,’ Erelan said, ‘and so I laughed.’

‘You’ve not met my wit,’ Lasa warned in a low tone. ‘And you should thank the hoary rock-gods for that.’ She swung round again. ‘Bah, I need a bath. Hanako, dear youngling, when we reach the lake – unless it was ever a mirage, designed solely to haunt a woman’s need for a decent toilet – will you indulge my body with soap and oils?’