‘Pardon?’
‘Snap out of it, man. What do you think it means that we discover such powerful agents of the shadow this far north at the very same time we happen to be passing through?’
‘Oh!’ said Losara. Lying had never been a strength of his, but he needed something convincing. ‘I …well …’
Blessedly not waiting for him to finish, Bel looked off towards the woods. ‘After me, no doubt …sent by my other. Do they mean to ambush us in the woods? If so, why advertise their presence first? Are they so arrogant they think it easy to best the blue-haired man, and care not if I know they await me?’
‘And,’ said Losara, ‘are you so assured as to think Mireforms represent no threat to you?’
‘Of course not! Do not twist my words.’
‘You put much faith in these patterns of yours. Sometimes too much, I fear.’
‘Would you have us turn back?’ said Bel. ‘Give up?’
For a moment Losara wondered if he could convince Bel to do just that, but doubted Bel was asking the question seriously.
‘No,’ he said.
‘I realise you are worried,’ said Bel, ‘by opponents who are resistant to magic. And I worry,’ he glanced at Jaya, who had stooped down to talk to the little girl, ‘about how well I can protect you all when I’m lost in the dance. I should never have brought her,’ he added to himself. ‘She would not stay behind, but I should have been stronger.’
‘Maybe,’ said Losara, thinking of his own little Lalenda, tucked away safe in Skygrip.
‘There is something else I find troubling,’ said Bel. ‘And I’m going to have to ask you to trust me on this, and not ask the reason why.’
‘All right,’ said Losara.
‘The Shadowdreamer does not want to kill me.’
Clumsy, Bel , thought Losara, staring at him long and hard. Any half-decent mage, given that information, may be able to guess the reason why . It made him uncomfortable enough that Fahren probably knew it, from witnessing his exchange with Bel after the murder of the Throne.
‘I’d be very careful,’ he said, ‘who you share that with.’
‘Of course,’ said Bel. ‘I do not tell you lightly. But you understand my confusion – why would Losara send these creatures after us, if not to destroy me?’ His eyes blazed with realisation. ‘They want the Stone!’
Again Losara was impressed by his counterpart. Straight away he wondered why. Was he surprised because he thought of himself as intelligent, and therefore how could Bel also be intelligent? Perhaps there were different kinds of intelligence – cunning, logic, wisdom, instinct?
‘We must leave at once,’ Bel decided. He turned to the others. ‘Everyone,’ he announced, ‘we need to move fast. Grab your things and let’s get going.’
‘But Bel,’ said Hiza, ‘we can’t just leave these people. At the very least we have to help them build the pyre. Why don’t we stop here for the night?’
‘I wish we could,’ said Bel, failing to make himself sound genuine, ‘but those Mireforms are after the Stone. If we delay, we may never catch up with them.’
Hiza saw the determination in Bel’s eyes, as did they all. There would be no arguing.
Losara was struck by an idea. ‘Bel,’ he said. ‘Remember what you said just now about being lost in the dance?’
‘What of it?’
‘Why don’t we leave some of our group here? Jaya and Hiza could stay and help these poor folk. That might also put them out of harm’s way,’ he added more quietly.
Bel thought about it for a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘What if the Mireforms come back?’
That statement sent Seb gibbering all the more, and Kera clutched the little girl tightly.
Hiza shot Bel a look of annoyance. ‘Nice choice of words, hero.’
Bel looked surprised at that, and Losara thought it must be rare that his friend spoke out against him.
‘I am sure the monsters will not return,’ said Losara, though whether he was trying to convince Bel or calm the villagers, he wasn’t sure.
‘How can you know that?’ said Bel.
Because I will tell them not to.
‘Because once they have a prize as important as the Stone, they will flee. Mireforms are not stupid. They won’t do anything that impedes their progress.’ Or so I thought, he added to himself.
‘Well then, if we have to chase them, there’s no guarantee we’ll be coming back this way to pick anyone up. So everybody must go.’
And lo, I am not served by a lie , thought Losara.
Jaya was overwhelmingly relieved by Bel’s adamant refusal to stay and help – or to leave her and Hiza as had been suggested. Why had she been lumped into that? Was it assumed that just because she was a woman, she was the one who would be the most caring? Rot to that , she thought.
Looking at the traumatised girl, she knew that the right thing to do was help these people as Hiza wanted, but in truth she would be glad to be away from here. Other people’s problems were not hers – that was the way it had always been, that was the way it would stay.
She had to admit that this place disturbed her. The others seemed to be taking it in stride, the carnage and bodies and ripe funk of death. While she considered herself to be made of stern stuff, and had seen the effects of violence before, the scene here was something outside her experience. It reminded her a little of watching cattle being butchered for the Zyvanix wasps, back when she’d been a farm girl growing up in Cindeka. It was so overt and colourful – whatever the monsters had been, it was plain they’d really enjoyed themselves. For the first time on this journey, she began to feel as if maybe she was in over her head.
She was also unnerved by the part of her that whispered how easy it would be to ransack the houses for anything of value. No one would even care, and maybe that was the problem. It wouldn’t be stealing, it would be looting, exploiting a bad situation. The idea did not sit well, and the usual glint of potential gold in her mind’s eye seemed for once dull and unattractive.
And the little girl, with her tear-stained cheeks and fearful eyes, made some forgotten instinct reach for attention.
She isn’t mine. She isn’t my responsibility.
Jaya glanced at Bel. Would it be different if she had children of her own? If she ever decided she wanted them, that was, and she wasn’t sure she did. She shook her head to rid it of such unhelpful thoughts. That decision was a long way off, and there was plenty standing in the way between now and then.
For a start, a wood full of vicious monsters.
For a while it was easy to follow the Mireforms’ trail through the trees, as they had broken branches and trampled undergrowth with reckless abandon. Then, abruptly, all signs of passage disappeared.
‘Must have changed form,’ muttered Bel. ‘Curse them.’
‘Well,’ said Fazel, ‘they were headed towards the lair, so I suggest we keep going in the same direction.’
‘Lead the way,’ said Bel. ‘And not at your regular pace either.’
Fazel nodded and moved ahead, his hollow bones springing lightly over roots and rocks. Losara wondered briefly if he should order Fazel to send them off course, but what did it matter, when they would not catch up to the Mireforms anyway? Bel pushed on fiercely, but they had entered the woods too late in the day, and it wasn’t long before they laboured in growing darkness.
‘Fazel,’ called Bel, ‘can you put up a light spell?’
‘No,’ said Fazel. ‘No mage of the shadow can cast a light spell.’
Losara heard the words and knew he was in trouble. Fazel had chosen them deliberately too, he was sure.
‘Gellan,’ called Bel. ‘We need light!’