‘Yet Hood sits there and says nothing.’
‘Nonetheless.’
After a long moment, the Thel Akai named Erekol made a motion that might have been a shrug, and then stepped back into the gloom, and moments later was gone from all sight.
The Seregahl leader was still grinning. ‘Many are our challengers. We dispense with each in our own time.’
‘Ah,’ murmured Hood from where he sat by his fire, ‘then it is true, then, what Siltanys Hes Erekol had to say. Unwilling to disassemble this glowering pack so delighting in its strut and raised hackles.’
The leader scowled. ‘We are an army. An elite company. We fight as one. Let Erekol collect up more of her kind and then choose the field. We will slay her and every fool with her. But you, Hood, what reason this mocking and insult? Have you not proclaimed us your vanguard? Have you not recognized our ferocity?’
‘I have doubts,’ Hood replied. ‘Many formidable warriors have now joined my … legion. Many are worthy of taking the vanguard.’
‘Gather them up,’ the Seregahl leader growled. ‘In sufficient number to stan
d before me and my kin. This will answer your doubts.’
‘At the loss of too many worthy allies,’ Hood said, shaking his head. ‘Did not Captain Haut speak to you of this ancient enemy? Did you not acknowledge the irritation of its endless roaring in your skulls? I would send you to it, and charge you with silencing the vile creature. Show me your prowess in this manner, Seregahl, and the van is yours.’
The leader grunted, drawing from his back his massive twin-bladed axe. ‘This we can do!’
Haut cleared his throat. ‘Very well then, my friends. If you will follow me?’
‘Lead on, captain!’
When the echoes of the troop’s footfalls finally fell away, the Thel Akai woman reappeared, striding up to face Hood with the hearth between them. Her broad, wide-cheeked face was flat and colourless in the reflected light. ‘The games you indulge in, Hood.’
‘Ah, Erekol, do join me, whilst I explain the lancing of boils.’
‘I could do that as easily as some ancient hoary god trapped under a tree. One at a time, as I said.’
Hood studied her for a long moment. ‘I know something of your tale. Your … reasons. But have you not a surviving son?’
‘Left in the care of others.’
‘Are you here in the name of vengeance alone, or do you seek to join my legion?’
‘Your legion? Your mob of fools, you mean.’
‘I have not yet decided on a title.’
She laughed, and then settled into a squat. ‘Vengeance,’ she said. ‘The Seregahl spring their cowardly ambushes, and Thel Akai husbands weep. I’m fed up with their shit, and all those obnoxious proclamations. Thus, I am here to kill your vaunted vanguard, and yet you defy me again and again. What am I to make of that?’
‘Where is your son?’
‘Aboard a stout ship.’
‘In what sea?’
‘West. They ply the Furrow Strait, hunting dhenrabi.’
‘Near the High King’s lands, then.’
She shrugged. ‘Thel Akai fear no one.’
‘Unwise. The High King has set his protection upon the dhenrabi, and their breeding waters.’
‘My son is safe. What matters it to you, Hood?’