Just before he reached her, M’Meska landed close by and plugged an arrow into one of the trolls’ backs. The second one gasped as Jaya managed to land her sword in its belly.
‘Stay in my wake,’ he told her, pulling her roughly to him. It was difficult to form words through the fug of frenzy. ‘I can protect you better when you’re close.’
‘I don’t need your protection,’ she muttered back. ‘Though I will guard your back if that’s what you mean.’
Then he moved onwards, his sword ready to meet any blow, or cut and rend, or stab and slice. Sometimes the pattern offered up different paths, and he chose the way that best protected his friends, though his awareness of that choice grew dim as ecstasy filled him. How good it felt, his senses awash with screams and the taste of fear, the smell of sweat, and above it all the pounding of his own heart.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Though he cast his gaze back and forth, eager to find another enemy to skewer, all the trolls lay dead. Hiza whooped, giving Bel a clap on the shoulder. Bel was annoyed with him for interrupting this moment, knocking him prematurely back to himself. The bloodlust, not yet truly sated, sought another way out …and he opened his mouth to roar triumph.
Losara watched Bel with great curiosity. For his own part, he had not done much throughout the fight, mainly kept an eye on everyone to make sure they were safe. He’d nudged a spear off course once or twice, and tripped several trolls in his ethereal grip when they had looked like landing blows, but apart from that, he’d held back from getting involved. His desire had been to watch Bel in action, and it would not have been served by blasting all opponents instantly to smithereens. He’d also had to be careful about what spells he’d used, avoiding anything that would obviously appear as shadow magic to the naked eye.
Now he considered Bel, standing over the bodies of the fallen, his feverish eyes rolling in search of more death.
He is not happy the fight is over.
Losara remembered the dreams in which he had experienced fights in Drel Forest through Bel’s eyes. Although the feelings they had evoked were gone, intellectually he remembered the need for blood, the joy of the dance, the way it had filled him with a sense of perfect belonging and purpose.
It must be hard to return from such a place , he thought.
The look on Bel’s face did not contradict him.
Sleep was evasive for the rest of the night. Gellan and Fazel levitated the bodies away, off the ridge into the forest, but the camp still stank of death. Bel lay with open eyes, experiencing the same melancholy that had come on him after Drel. Back then he had told himself that what he felt was guilt over failing to protect the other members of his troop. That was why he’d gone back to the keepers …it wasn’t because he lacked the courage to face the fact that he enjoyed killing so much. No, not at all.
He tried to remember the words of his father after he had returned to Kadass. Corlas had spoken of fighting Battu at the Shining Mines, of how the bloodlust could be a good thing, how it could help a man survive and win – not quite the same as Bel’s growing desire for any excuse to unleash violence.
Also Bel did not think Corlas experienced it in the same way he did, for his father had never mentioned any patterns or paths tugging at him.
Tonight he had managed to keep a part of himself anchored, and had had the presence of mind to protect Jaya – which he would continue to do whether it annoyed her or not. But the frenzy had taken him over so fast, he didn’t trust himself to be able to exert control every time.
He hugged her tightly, and she grunted.
‘Promise me something,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Whenever we get into a fight, you come and stay close to me. The way I get, I don’t know if I’ll always think to protect you.’
He did not know if she fully appreciated what happened to him in a fight. He had tried to explain it to her one night at The Wayward Dog, but had gained the impression she thought he was exaggerating. He had let it go at the time as he’d been unsure himself, having only experienced the phenomenon a couple of times. After tonight, however, he was growing more certain that this special ability of his was here to stay.
‘I can look after myself,’ she retorted. ‘I survived long before you came along. I do not need any man to be my chaperone through life.’
‘But Jaya,’ he said, irritated himself now, ‘I am the fighter. In the moments I spend treading the pattern of a fight, nothing can touch me. And if you’re behind me, I’m hoping nothing will reach you either.’
‘Like I said,’ she answered, ‘I’m happy to watch your back.’
‘If that’s the way you want to put it. It matters little to me as long as you do it.’
‘Don’t make it sound like an order, or I won’t.’
‘Arkus, Jaya, I’m only concerned for your safety because I love you. Why are you being like this?’
‘Never mind. Just go to sleep, Bel.’ And she rolled away.
Even as the camp grew quiet, Bel could not sleep. He had flown so high that the return to earth was difficult. Not only that, but some sense of the pattern seemed to remain, faintly, an unspooled thread leading off the ridge and down into the forest. It was not insistent, for there was no immediate danger, and it was fading. Soon he would not be able to follow it.
Let it go , he thought, but his yearning was strong. Carefully he rose, and stole over to the edge of the ridge. It was not far down to the forest from here, some ten paces or so, and the slope was gradual enough to climb. He glanced back to make sure no one was watching. Fazel would be out there somewhere, but Bel did not care right now what Fazel thought. He lowered himself over the edge and clambered down to the forest.
At the bottom he found the ground splattered with trolls, where Gellan and Fazel had dumped the carcasses. He made his way into the trees, past a staring corpse wearing a twisted snarl. His path was clearer now that he trod it, and some way through the trees ahead he caught a glimpse of movement. As he drew closer he saw it was a troll still alive – must be that one I hurled off the cliff – and limping slowly away from the camp, bruised and broken.
The troll heard him, looked around, and yelped in fear. It tried to run, grunting as it put pressure on a bad leg, its gangly arms flailing as it grasped at branches to steady itself. The result was pathetic and uncoordinated, and it did not take Bel long to catch up with the creature. It turned to see him right upon it and its legs gave way in fear. It fell and didn’t get up, lying before him, cringing.
‘Please,’ it said in a thick voice. ‘I go away. Not come back.’
‘That’s right,’ said Bel, and stabbed it through the eye.
The pattern’s last remnant fell away.
The moment was not enough to return him to his prior state; it was more like a crumb of sweetness when he wanted a whole cake. Feeling the emptiness all the more, Bel trudged back to camp.
A watching shadow slipped along after him.
Some distance to the south-east, six strange figures bounded across the moon. They moved almost in their natural shape, though they were thinner and had no tendrils. Much of their muddy selves had been diverted into lengthening their legs, giving them wide, distance-crunching strides.