‘Ah, then you take your direction from him?’
‘No,’ said Bel. ‘I mean …well, we respect each other. We work towards the same goal. He does not give me orders. I’m the blue-haired man.’
‘Ah yes, I forgot, it is Arkus’s orders that you follow. Seeing as we have nothing but time, perhaps you could tell me …what was it like to speak to a god?’
‘It makes you feel small.’
‘Oh. Does it?’
The question did not seem entirely for Bel. He hardly noticed, however, as he thought back to his meeting with Arkus. There was no harm in telling Gellan about it, he supposed, and anything was worth taking his mind off his growing impatience. Shrugging, he described everything he could remember about the encounter. Gellan was silent throughout, though he seemed intensely interested.
When Bel finished, Gellan remained thoughtful. They passed a particularly tall tree growing from the forest below, its upper branches level with the ridge. A fat possum emerged from a hole in the trunk, and Bel wondered if M’Meska had already hunted for dinner. A slight tingle rose in his blood – not a full rush, for there was no danger, only the promise of violence if he wanted it. Such an uncomplicated act , he thought – draw his sword, fling it, and the possum would fall . Then up ahead he saw rabbits swinging from M’Meska’s pack, a whole brace that she’d caught earlier that day – they had no need for more. Besides, even if they’d had no food at all, and he had killed the possum, what would that have accomplished? Both meal and weapon would have fallen to the forest floor, some distance below, with no telling if they could be easily recovered. He relaxed his hand, which he hadn’t even realised had gone to grip the hilt of his sword, and noticed Gellan staring at him.
‘You wanted to kill that possum, didn’t you?’ said the mage.
‘I forgot we had dinner already caught,’ he replied darkly.
The day grew long and they soon came to a stop. As the others went about setting up for the night, Bel wandered away to the edge of the ridge. Below, the treetops were eerily orange as the diminishing light of sunset reached them.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’
Gellan again, arriving soundlessly by his side.
‘I suppose so,’ said Bel, irritated by the mage’s continual presence. ‘They’re just trees.’
Gellan nodded. ‘Trees, yes. But look at the way the light makes all the tops shine in shifting bands, like waves.’
‘What of it?’ Bel could not see the point of these observations. ‘I’ve never been to the damn sea.’
‘I just mean there is a life behind things, sometimes. Even I …’ he glanced sideways at Bel, ‘who have seen many in my travels …am impressed by a sunset such as this.’
The blankness that nudged at Bel was quickly overtaken by anger. Gellan seemed to be pushing on him, as if trying to expose a seam in his character, a limitation of his broken soul …but no, that was just the weaver Iassia’s lies still eating at him. These thoughts were not worthy of consideration. There was nothing wrong with him, and Gellan was just blamelessly making conversation; Bel wished he wouldn’t.
‘I see only trees,’ he said, trying to sound jovial, ‘and a sunset like the one that will happen tomorrow, and yesterday, and the day after that. So no, this does not astound me especially. But I am only a simple warrior, not a great poet like you, Gellan.’ In those last words an edge of harshness crept into his voice. He let it hang there, trying to make up his mind whether to try to dispel it or not, then turned and stalked away.
Gellan thoughtfully watched him go.
Losara moved up the mountainside in shadowform, knowing he took a risk in slipping away. He’d instructed Fazel to maintain an illusion of Gellan sleeping peacefully while he was gone …but if someone tried to touch the mage, or wake him, they would find no substance to him. He could always claim it was a mage trick, he supposed – making himself insubstantial while he slept, for his own protection. Would they believe such wild and unbelievable lies? Bel seemed to trust him so far, even when he’d risked saying things that, to his mind, should have given him away immediately. But Bel wasn’t like Losara, which was in fact the whole point. His other had a kind of tunnel vision to him, always focused on the mission.
He cleared the lower vegetated regions and discovered a path of red–orange rock that would have been treacherous to traverse in physical form. It led up to a plateau, where he discovered what he sought. Littered around cave mouths were bones, of birds and mountain goats and who knew what else. A rock fireplace still smouldered, around which lay the silhouettes of spiny trolls. They were simple creatures, hostile to all, but rarely a problem because they lived up so high. Humanoid in stature, they had protruding jaws with upward-curving tusks, knobbed brown skin and dank red hair. Their torsos were small in comparison with their heads, their backs rife with mean-looking spines, and their limbs long and lithe. They wore a semblance of clothing – loincloths, loosely sewn furs and cloth remnants that had no doubt begun their lives as something else. Did he really intend to incite these creatures to their deaths?
I must learn more , Losara told himself, and stepped out onto the plateau.
Quickly he wove around himself an illusion of Bel, then stooped to pick up a spear from the ground. There was a grunting by the fire as his presence was noticed, and trolls began to rise. Giving a shout of what he hoped sounded like anger, he threw the spear at one of them. It flew wide and went clattering to the ground – certainly he did not share his other ’s excellent aim, Losara reflected wryly.
The trolls growled and advanced, some crawling on all fours. There was a scraping as other spears were lifted from the ground. Losara raised his hand to point away down at the land far beneath, where the tiny light of their campfire could be seen.
‘We come for you,’ he told the trolls. ‘To kill you and steal from you.’ He then made it appear as if Bel went sprinting back down the mountain, as he simultaneously melted back into shadow. The trolls sprang to the edge to find Bel gone, but now they saw the light, and they whispered to each other. They began to spring down the mountain, toad-like as they pounced from tree to rock. Losara was impressed with their speed.
He overtook them back down the mountain and reached the camp, where he slipped back inside the illusion of Gellan. As he took it over from Fazel, he made it fit the contours of his real body and opened his eyes with a gasp.
‘What is it?’ said Bel, sitting up on his bedroll.
‘Something approaches.’
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Bel. ‘What have you sensed?’
Before Gellan could answer there was a crashing in the bushes, and Hiza, who had been on watch, burst into view.
‘Trolls!’ he called.
‘Get down!’ shouted Bel, and Hiza dropped to his knees as a spear flew over his head. Trolls sprang from the darkness and landed amongst them.
Without thinking, Bel stepped into the pattern of the fight. He moved forward, slashing a second hurled spear from the air with his sword, then whirled low to slice out the thrower’s legs. Another troll came at him, spear held like a lance. Bel stepped smoothly sideways, hooked the troll under the arm as it rushed past, swung it around and hurled it yowling off the ridge. For a moment it seemed as if time stood still, as the hapless troll hung suspended over the sheer drop, its face a mix of rage and terror. Bel’s blood soared to boiling point.
He heard Jaya shout and twisted to see her fending off two of the creatures. They were taking turns to swipe at her with spears, while they bounced backwards out of reach of her sword. He tried to go to her but his feet did not want to obey, as the dance with death tried to lead him towards trolls closer to him. Although he greatly desired to charge them down, a part of him was able to resist, and he forced his way out of the flow to stagger towards her. Immediately a troll crashed against him, and he landed hard on his back. The next moment the creature was atop him, gnashing at his face with its tusks. He brought his hand up with enough strength to break the tusks back into its mouth, and rolled it off him to spring to his feet. Again the pattern pulled him away from Jaya and again he ignored it to go towards her.