‘I could take you in my talons, Kanyn Thrall of the Thel Akai, and stretch your soul across the wound.’
‘Come close and you will rue it.’
‘Look into my eyes, Kanyn Thrall. In them you may see … a warning.’
‘I see nothing but witless—’ In the last moment, he caught the reflection in those massive, reptilian orbs. Bellowing, he wheeled, but not in time, as a second dragon, skimming low over the Second Temple, lunged upon him, snapping down its talons to close about the Thel Akai.
The creature flung Kanyn Thrall into the air, and crooked wings lifting like sails to buffet the air, caught him a second time, talons punching through his scale armour to bite into his flesh. The axe spun away.
Kanyn was thrown to the ground, the impact breaking his right leg beneath the knee. He howled in pain, rolling on to his side, glaring down at the two glistening, snapped ends of the bones jutting through the skin.
The second dragon landed with a heavy thump beside the huge stone, its tail flicking from side to side. ‘Curdle, my love! I’ve told you about taunting Thel Akai!’
A new voice spoke from behind Kanyn. ‘And I told your lover about injuring my companions.’
The new dragon twisted its head round. ‘Ardata! Speaking of lovers, where is yours? She was a reluctant soul to be sure. Resisting the snare we made for her. Mayhap she escaped, but into what? Why, the Vitr, and that is a most forgetful sea! No matter, enough of us made use of her.’
Swathed in animal skins so old that patches of hair were missing, Ardata sedately approached with all the grace of an empress, until she stood over Kanyn Thrall. Glancing down, she frowned. ‘That’s an evil break. Lie still. We’ll have to deal with it and the rest of your wounds in a mundane way, since I’ve yet to explore this Denul Warren.’ Her thin face bore the deep lines of all who chose to dwell too close to the Vitr, although she had assured him that such details quickly faded with distance. ‘Youth is restored, my friend,’ she had told him, ‘although your old man complaints are another matter.’
Funny woman, ha ha. The Thel Akai studied her plain-featured face through the haze of pain, even as she spoke once more to the second dragon.
‘Telorast, you and Curdle were banished once from this realm. Do not expect to linger long this time around, either. You are still the biting fleas on the hide of this world.’
‘Hear that, love? The dog is of a mind to scratch. Are we frightened?’
‘Where have you been?’ Curdle demanded.
‘South of the Vitr, beyond the stubborn plain. I visited a modest fort, occupied by quaking Tiste, now as black as that plain’s grasses. Most curious.’
‘The Suzerain.’
‘No doubt. In any case, I chose a sweet form to entice them and so learned much. Light is born anew, Curdle, and the Tiste are divided between it and Dark. There is civil war. Isn’t that quaint?’
Curdle rose slightly, arching her spine as her wings unfolded. ‘And the Grey Shore?’
‘An uglier birth in the offing, beloved. Still in its throes.’
‘It will be ours!’
‘Shhh! The spiders are listening!’
Ardata turned as the Tiste guest joined them. The man held his sword, eyeing the dragons. ‘Put your blade away,’ she said to him. ‘Feed the brazier within the temple. Set two of my thin blades into the flames. Then, fetch water from the well and find something we can use to make splints. Is any of that beyond you?’
The young Tiste scowled. ‘No.’
‘Go, then. We will join you shortly.’ She swung back to the dragons. ‘Your ambitions overreach, again.’ She paused, and her voice hardened as she added, ‘You misused the Queen of Dreams, and that I will not forget.’
‘A threat?’ Telorast laughed, the hissing mirth filling Kanyn’s skull. ‘Feed us another Thel Akai, then.’ A moment later she sembled into the body of a Tiste woman, onyx-skinned, radiant, and naked. ‘Look at me, Curdle! There are pleasures to be found in this modest morsel! Match me in kind, so that we may clasp hands and beam most becomingly! In that smug way of couples no matter what the world. Come, let us preen!’
Curdle blurred as well, drawing inward to coalesce into another Tiste woman, this one taller than her lover, heavier-boned.
‘You’re somewhat fat,’ Telorast observed, pouting.
Curdle smiled. ‘I like it. More weight to throw around. In a crowd of Tiste, others will step from my path. Is that civil war over yet?’
Telorast shrugged. ‘White-skinned and black-skinned, at odds. Armies on the march, blah blah.’
‘Nothing worth our attention, then.’