Nimander was the first to hear a sound behind him and he spun round, sword hissing from the scabbard.
Kallor.
The old warrior walked towards them. ‘You kicked them awake,’ he said.
‘We were sightseeing,’ said Skintick, ‘and though this place is miserable we kept our opinions to ourselves. In any case, we were just discussing what to do now.’
‘You could stand and fight.’
‘We could,’ agreed Nimander, glancing back at the mob. Now fifty paces away and closing fast. ‘Or we could beat a retreat.’
‘They’re brave right now,’ Kallor observed, stepping past and drawing his two-handed sword. As he walked he looped the plain, battered weapon over his head, a few passes, as if loosening up his shoulders. Suddenly he did not seem very old at all.
Skintick asked, ‘Should we help him?’
‘Did he ask for help, Skin?’
‘No, you’re right, he didn’t.’
They watched as Kallor marched directly into the face of the mob.
And all at once that mob blew apart, people scattering, crowding out to the sides as the singing broke up into wails of dismay. Kallor hesitated for but a moment, before resuming his march. In the centre of a corridor now that had opened up to let him pass.
‘He just wants to see that altar,’ Skintick said, ‘and he’s not the one they’re bothered with. Too bad,’ he added, ‘it might have been interesting to see the old badger fight.’
‘Let’s head back,’ Nimander said, ‘while they’re distracted.’
‘If they let us.’
They turned and set off at an even, unhurried pace. After a dozen or so strides Skintick half turned. He grunted, then said, ‘They’ve left us to it. Nimander, the message seems clear. To get to that altar, we will have to go through them.’
‘So it seems.’
‘Things will get messy yet.’
Yes, they would.
‘So, do you think Kallor and the Dying God will have a nice conversation? Observations on the weather. Reminiscing on the old tyrannical days when everything was all fun and games. Back when the blood was redder, its taste sweeter. Do you think?’
Nimander said nothing, thinking instead of those faces in that mob, the black stains smeared round their mouths, the pits of their eyes. Clothed in rags, caked with filth, few children among them, as if the kelyk made them all equal, regardless of age, regardless of any sort of readiness to manage the world and the demands of living. They drank and they starved and the present was the future, until death stole away that future. A simple trajectory. No worries, no ambitions, no dreams.
Would any of that make killing them easier? No.
‘I do not want to do this,’ Nimander said.
‘No,’ Skintick agreed. ‘But what of Clip?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘This kelyk is worse than a plague, because its victims invite it into their lives, and then are indifferent to their own suffering. It forces the question — have we any right to seek to put an end to it, to destroy it?’
‘Maybe not,’ Nimander conceded.
‘But there is another issue, and that is mercy.’
He shot his cousin a hard look. ‘We kill them all for their own good? Abyss take us, Skin-’
‘Not them — of course not. I was thinking of the Dying God.’
Ah. . well. Yes, he could see how that would work, how it could, in fact, make this palatable. If they could get to the Dying God without the need to slaughter hundreds of worshippers. ‘Thank you, Skin.’
‘For what?’
‘We will sneak past them.’
‘Carrying Clip?’
‘Yes.’
‘That won’t be easy — it might be impossible, in fact. If this city is the temple, and the power of the Dying God grants gifts to the priests, then they will sense our approach no matter what we do.’
‘We are children of Darkness, Skintick. Let us see if that still means some shy;thing.’
Desra pulled her hand from Clip’s brow. ‘I was wrong. He’s getting worse.’ And she straightened and looked across to Aranatha. ‘How are they?’
A languid blink. ‘Coming back, unharmed.’
Something was wrong with Aranatha. Too calm, too. . empty. Desra always considered her sister to be vapid — oh, she wielded a sword with consummate elegance, as cold a killer as the rest of them when necessity so demanded — but there was a kind of pervasive disengagement in Aranatha. Often descending upon her in the midst of calamity and chaos, as if the world in its bolder mayhem could bludgeon her senseless.
Making her unreliable as far as Desra was concerned. She studied Aranatha for a moment longer, their eyes meeting, and when her sister smiled Desra answered with a scowl and turned to Nenanda. ‘Did you find anything to eat in the taproom? Or drink?’
The warrior was standing by the front door, which he held open with one hand. At Desra’s questions he glanced back. ‘Plenty, as if they’d just left — or maybe it was a delivery, like the kind we got on the road.’
‘Someone must be growing proper food, then,’ said Kedeviss. ‘Or arranging its purchase from other towns and the like.’
‘They’ve gone to a lot of trouble for us,’ Nenanda observed. ‘And that makes me uneasy.’
‘Clip is dying, Aranatha,’ Desra said.
‘Yes.’
‘They’re back,’ Nenanda announced.
‘Nimander will know what to do,’ Desra pronounced.
‘Yes,’ said Aranatha.
