‘No one needs me,’ said Takaar and he looked to his left at nothing but rainforest vegetation. ‘You know full well why I came here. It was to prove to you that I was not under your control. That I could act on my own. It has hurt you, hasn’t it? Not having me on the edge of the cliff with your hands on my back ready to push. I would laugh in your face but laughter eludes me.’
‘Who-’ began Katyett.
‘Later,’ said Auum. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘It’s not complicated at all,’ said Takaar. ‘Auum ignores our companion. I hope you won’t be so rude.’
Katyett was reprieved from the necessity of a response by Pelyn breasting into the small clearing. She didn’t notice Takaar or Auum.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ she said.
‘How right you are,’ said Katyett.
‘What?’
Katyett pointed across. Pelyn looked over at Takaar. She caught her breath and tensed. Katyett watched emotions she recognised very well pass across her face. She swallowed and turned back to Katyett. Her eyes were dry but there was a tautness in her face and a tremble in her voice.
‘Um. Faleen’s tai have taken down another three men across the camp. They’re getting closer, quartering the forest. It’s only a matter of time before we are overflown.’
‘Yniss, spare me. We don’t need this,’ said Katyett, reaching out a hand of comfort, which Pelyn took and squeezed briefly before dropping.
‘They’ll have found our base before nightfall at this rate. We need to be ready. We’re due to surrender at dawn as it is.’
‘Surrender. Right. I’ll eat my own jaqrui pouch first. As for ready, I’m not sure that’s possible. How close are the flyers? We can take out the land scouts but those damned flying mages are the real problem.’
Pelyn considered. ‘It’s not as if they can see much through the canopy. They’re looking for partial clearings like this. They won’t see it until they come over the hills south or around the tall slopes north. And they are close to those, but they have to keep changing scouts, like they get tired or something, or have done their spell. If our luck turns, the next one could find us before we eat again. Time to get bows up to the canopy roof?’
‘Don’t ever speak to me like that! You don’t even know these people. How can you judge them?’
Takaar’s voice split the relative calm. Pelyn flinched violently, her concentration on her task broken. She made to walk to Takaar but seemed unable to decide if it was a good idea.
‘Maybe you can calm him. I didn’t do a very good job,’ said Katyett.
‘What did you do, punch him?’
‘No, I shouted at him while banging his head against the ground.’
Pelyn snorted back a laugh. Takaar’s head snapped up and he scrambled to his feet. He shook off Auum’s hand and walked forward a couple of paces.
‘Pelyn, your laughter has been lost to me for too long.’
Katyett watched Pelyn and saw a mirror of herself. Loss, confusion. Fury. Exhilaration.
‘I can’t think of a single thing to say,’ said Pelyn. ‘After all this time. Pathetic, isn’t it? And I replayed this moment so many times. But I thought you dead. Sometimes I wanted you dead. I was ready for you to be dead.’
‘There are a thousand ways to die in this rainforest, did you know that?’
‘What does that -?’
‘I investigated many of them, you know.’ Takaar turned and beckoned Auum to him. ‘Here are some. Ways to kill a thousand men. But we need to be close. Yes, as close as that, and we may smell their sweat, but that is a price worth paying to smell their mouldering corpses the day after, is it not? Hmm. I win again.’
Pelyn turned to Katyett, shaking her head in confusion.
‘I think he has voices in his head, ’ Katyett said.
‘Right.’
‘And we don’t have time to pander to him. Say something. Just don’t bang his head on the ground.’
Pelyn made a face. ‘I’ll try not to.’
‘And be tactful,’ said Katyett. ‘He’s fragile. Odd.’
Pelyn nodded. ‘Takaar, a moment, please?’
Takaar was searching through a stitched leather bag from which the strong odour of fish billowed out. He made a triumphant sound and pulled out a clay pot with a wooden stopper in it. He bounced it from hand to hand.
‘Be careful with that,’ said Auum.
‘In here is the death of thousands. Thousands upon thousands more, if we go harvesting.’ Takaar’s eyes gleamed with something akin to zeal. ‘You don’t think I’m right in the head, do you, Pelyn?’
‘That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Pelyn carefully. ‘Takaar, we have little time.’
‘The men are coming. They will unleash a storm on this forest that we may not survive. And I may not lead. Do not ask that of me. There, satisfied that my pride is under control?’
‘I’m not asking you to lead us,’ said Pelyn. Takaar looked crestfallen, as if he were about to burst into tears. ‘But we do need your help. Will you help us?’
Takaar clicked his tongue in his mouth. He sucked in air over his teeth and shook his head rapidly. Katyett felt sorry for him. Sorry for all of them. She’d placed so much hope on Takaar and here he was, barely clinging on to sanity if he was actually clinging on at all.
‘A cloak with a hood,’ he said abruptly.
‘You want one?’
‘Evidently. We cannot encumber ourselves further with my being recognised by others, can we?’
There was relief in Pelyn’s posture. ‘No, no, of course not. Perhaps one of the dead humans…’
‘Ideal.’
Katyett frowned. They were taking a huge risk involving him. Merrat was already unhooking one of the light traveller’s cloaks from a dead mage. She handed it to Pelyn, who passed it on to Takaar.
‘Good.’ Takaar set off towards the camp, the TaiGethen and Pelyn trailing in his wake. Auum fell in beside Katyett. ‘Now then. You mentioned being overflown. How is that possible? I must see this for myself. Auum, put this away.’
The clay pot was tossed casually over his head. Auum snapped out a hand and caught it. He held it carefully for a while before returning it to the sack slung over his shoulder.
‘What’s in there?’ asked Katyett.
‘The pot or the sack?’
‘Well both, but let’s start with the pot.’
‘Yellow-backed-frog poison. Takaar says they secrete it from their skin. Touch it and die. Put it on the end of an arrow or something and kill your enemies very quickly.’
Katyett raised her eyebrows. ‘He’s harvested the stuff? Aren’t we taught just never to touch one?’
‘That was the guts of my training on the subject. But Takaar, as he is very fond of saying, has had ten years with little else to do but study his guilt and all the ways to end his life should he be brave enough to do so.’
Katyett smiled. ‘I expect you’ve had quite a journey. What’s he like, really? Like he is now?’
Auum’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Truly I never know from one moment to the next. He’s utterly unreliable in his mood and attitude. I’m not sure he really knows why he is here. Sometimes on the journey he appeared so calm and lucid that I forgot he was ever other than that. The next instant, raging and jabbering to the voice he can hear or withdrawing so far I can get nothing from him. Not even a pace in the right direction.’
‘He’s a serious risk, isn’t he?’ said Katyett, lowering her voice too.
Up ahead, Takaar and Pelyn were talking. Pelyn was clearly ill at ease. Auum touched Katyett’s arm and gestured they fall back a little way. Katyett had not realised she was trembling all over.
‘Takaar could win us this fight or he could bring disaster down on us. But he has all his old strengths in there somewhere. I pity the rogue Ynissul who mistakes his oddness for weakness. His combat skills are undiminished.’
‘Had a fight, did you?’
‘He tried to kill me. Serrin stopped him. Serrin is safe, by the way. I’ll tell you about him later.’
‘As you wish. Listen to me. Things have been getting much worse here. The rogue Ynissul are not what you need to worry about. Takaar has guessed it but not the scale.’
‘I’m listening.’
Katyett related the recent history of Ysundeneth, watching the dismay deepen on Auum’s face.