Ryll had left her halfway up the sloping floor, well away from the bodies. She went down, looking for one of the torches. The bloody smell grew stronger. Her hand struck something rigid – a dead soldier.
Tiaan ran into three more bodies, then a tunnel. She must be near the second, third or fourth tunnels, for that was where the battle had been. After working that information into a mental picture of the chamber, she knew where to look. The bundle of tarred sticks must be to her left.
It was a surprisingly long time before she found them. She came up against the back of the dead lyrinx, slipped in a puddle of jellied blood and lost her mental map. Trying to get it back, arms out, she walked slap-bang into the torches.
One had a sticky patch of tar on it that had not burned. Striking sparks into a pinch of tinder, Tiaan used the small flare to light the torch. The flame dazzled her. Seeking out the tar pot she replenished the torch and in its smoky light searched the cavern from one side to the other, and the tunnel that led back to the outside. She did not find the amplimet.
Nor did she find her pincers, used to draw the bolt from Ryll’s neck. The empty space in her toolkit was like a freshly pulled tooth. She found bloody evidence of the place Ryll had fallen, the muck he’d heaved up afterwards, and even a mark on the floor, in purple blood, that had the outline of the pincers. Both pincers and bolt were gone.
Ryll appeared behind her. She let out a strangled cry. The light in his hands came from the amplimet, reflecting eerily off skin now coloured in washes of yellow.
‘What are you doing with my crystal?’ she said wildly. Withdrawal had made her reckless.
He gave a mild, toothy smile. Did that mean he was amused, or hungry? ‘I can’t see in pitch dark,’ he rumbled.
Tiaan, regretting the tone of her voice, edged backwards.
The smile broadened. ‘I’m not going to eat you, little human.’
Not very reassuring. ‘Wh-where have you been?’
‘Checking the tunnels to make sure no one came after me.’
‘Was anyone coming?’
‘Not that way!’ With his injured hand, he indicated the passage back to the crystal mine. The regenerating fingers were now the size of a child’s. ‘The rocks have moved. The tunnel is blocked.’
‘What did you do with my pincers?’
‘What?’
‘The tool I pulled the bolt from your neck with. It was lying just there.’ She showed him the bloody outline.
‘I did not touch it,’ he said.
‘It was with the bolt. You must have taken them.’
‘I did not. Why would I?’
‘Then someone has been here!’
‘One man came back – the leader. I can smell him. But he went again.’
Fear pricked her. Gi-Had must have come looking for her and found the artisan’s pincers. Helping the enemy was a capital offence and now he had evidence of it. Tiaan put her hands over her eyes, trying to think. She could not. She was too afraid. When she opened them, Ryll was staring at her.
‘What do you want me for?’
‘My debt of honour,’ he replied.
‘You saved my life. The debt is paid!’
‘Not if you’re going to die as soon as I go.’
‘You have a stern moral code,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Indeed! Otherwise, why have a code at all? I will escort you home.’
If she went back, Gi-Had would probably have her executed for treason. ‘I no longer have a home.’
He looked thoughtful. ‘Where do you wish to go?’
Tiaan felt panicky. Where could she go? All destinations were equally hopeless. In that case she might as well attempt the impossible and head for Tirthrax. No doubt she would die on the way but at least she’d be keeping her promise to Minis. It made her feel better. ‘I want to go south! Over the range to Tarralladell.’
‘Have you family there?’
‘No, but further west, in the mountains of Mirrilladell, I am going to find a man I have never met.’
‘Ah! An arranged mating?’
Tiaan blushed. ‘In a way; not yet, but I hope …’ She did not go on. It was too unreal.
‘To cross the mountains in this season …’ he mused. ‘Well, south of here they are smaller, and there are passes, but even so,’ he gave her a sideways glance. ‘It will not be easy.’
‘I can’t wait till spring. I might be too late.’
‘To my mind, if he cannot wait that long to mate with you,’ said Ryll, ‘he is not a good choice.’
Again that disturbing use of the word ‘mate’. She had to remind herself that lyrinx were alien, with an entirely different culture and way of life. Perhaps love was meaningless to them. ‘I didn’t ask your opinion,’ she snapped.
‘You could take ship around the Horns, then sail across the inland sea.’
Tiaan consulted her mental map of Lauralin. ‘At this time of year? That would be as dangerous as going over the mountains, and the entrance to Tallallamel may be frozen over. Anyway, no ship would take me. I have no papers.’ However she went, travel was expensive. Would she have enough to go so far? She had no idea. She had not opened Joeyn’s money belt but surely there could not be much in it.
‘You speak our language well, Ryll,’ she said tentatively, using his name for the first time. Naming him seemed to change their relationship.
‘I was brought up with captive humans, so as to learn. I am one of the most fluent.’
He regarded her steadily. She could not meet his gaze. Her world kept turning upside down.
‘May I have back my crystal?’ She had to work hard to keep the quaver out of her voice. He tossed it to her and as soon as she caught it Tiaan felt better.
‘What do you know about the tetrarch?’ He was looking at her intently.
‘What is a tetrarch?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I’ve never heard the word before.’
Ryll held her gaze for a moment, said ‘No matter,’ and stalked across the cavern in that strange, sway-backed stride. She watched him all the way. What did he want from her? The secrets of power – hedrons and controllers? Was the tetrarch a similar kind of device?
Ryll bent down, put his foot against something on the floor, and wrenched. There came a gruesome butchering noise. He stripped the trouser leg off a haunch of soldier and began to feed noisily. Tiaan wanted to vomit. The creature really was a beast, for all that it could talk.
The lyrinx tore off a piece of meat that would have fed her for days, chewing and swallowing with a few head-back gulps.
Tiaan gagged. Once he had what he wanted he would eat her too.
Ryll strolled back, gnawing on a thigh bone.
Putting her arms across her face, she turned away.
‘Are you sick?’ he asked.
‘You’re eating my people!’ she screeched.
‘They were not your friends, surely?’ Ryll seemed surprised.
‘Eating human flesh is disgusting!’
‘It tastes good to me.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with it! It’s just wrong to eat it. It makes me want to vomit, seeing you …’
‘Only human flesh?’ he enquired, cracking the bone over his knee and hooking out a quivering length of marrow with one claw. It went down with a slurp.
‘And scavengers and carrion eaters,’ she conceded, unable to look.
‘Do humans see themselves as carrion eaters?’ said Ryll with a puzzled frown. Waves of colour washed over his skin, like watercolours being mixed on wet paper.
‘Certainly not! It’s just that … human flesh is sacred to us.’
‘Would it help if I ate where you could not see?’
‘I’d prefer you didn’t eat us at all.’
Shrugging, Ryll tossed the bones to one side. ‘I will take you into the mountains.’
She did not believe him. The creature was toying with her. She had to escape. ‘Now?’
‘Later tonight. There was a thaw today. As soon as it sets hard we will go.’
Tiaan slept badly, with unpleasant, fractured, crystal dreams. She woke to find Ryll standing over her. With the torch fluttering, he looked particularly menacing. She jumped up. ‘What do you want?’