‘Is it any wonder I remain wary?’
She waved a hand. ‘I will brush aside your temerity, Hanako of the Scars, Slayer of the Lord of Temper. My husbands can rot. I will take a lover, to spite them all. I might choose you, Hanako, what do you think of that?’
‘I see three deaths awaiting me, since surely my dying once will not be enough.’
‘What? Oh, them. Think on that some more, youngling. They already know I travel with company – oh, Erelan would give them no cause for jealousy, as his only love is the warrior’s vanity. But you, Hanako. Young, handsome, and are you not the tallest brave in the village? The strongest? Did you not just this morning tear the lower jaw off the Lord of Temper? And then break his neck? No, dear lover to be, it seems even you cannot light a fire to their heels. But look – is that a glimmer ahead, through those branches? Is the sun not directly above us?’
‘There is no way to—’
‘Hush! It is my blessing to experience synchronicity in life. Perfections meet wherever I make my island. Smile
sweetly, and show sure hands in the spreading of soap and oil, Hanako, and I might let you walk upon my shore.’
There to fetch up like a half-drowned man. ‘I fear that lake will be as cold as was the stream.’
‘A challenge to your manhood, then.’ A moment later she halted and raised a hand.
Company ahead? Well, it seemed a decent lake. Perhaps the Dog-Runners have made a camp upon its shoreline.
Erelan edged up to join them, and then, drawing his long-handled mace, moved ahead in a low crouch.
Glancing across at Lasa Rook, Hanako saw her meet his gaze in the same instant, and she rolled her eyes. They set out after Erelan Kreed, stepping carefully.
The treed trail ended a dozen paces ahead, pushed up against a scree of low boulders crowded with the leavings of high floods in the past. Erelan had crept up against this bulwark and was peering through a skeletal skein of branches. From the shoreline just past him, something was thrashing in the shallows, and it sounded big.
Hanako reached for his father’s sword – which he had foolishly left near his bedding as he ventured off for his dawn meeting with the Lord of Temper – which now formed the spine to his bedroll. Sliding it from its scabbard, he studied its dull, pocked length. The single edge was ragged, notched. There was a distinct leftward curve visible along its backed reach. The history of this blade was one of successive failures. It was no wonder he hesitated unsheathing it.
Lasa Rook settled a hand on his scabbed, slashed and swollen forearm. ‘Leave this for Erelan,’ she whispered. ‘See how he charges himself with delight?’
They drew closer, until they fetched up alongside their warrior companion. Through the latticework of tangled brush, Hanako looked out upon a winged, scaled monstrosity. It favoured one forelimb and bled from a haunch as it staggered clumsily in the shallows. The massive head at the end of its long, sinewy neck was pitching wildly, tilting to one side.
Erelan’s eager words came in a hiss. ‘Blinded in the right eye. I but wait until it makes itself blind to the shore.’
‘Why not leave it be?’ Hanako asked.
Erelan grunted. ‘See that axe – there upon the strand? Torn out from that forefoot?’
Lasa gasped. ‘Oh dear, that weapon belongs to my beloved Ravast!’
‘Look then,’ Erelan continued in a rough growl, ‘to the blood on its maw – the gore slung between fangs!’
‘My husbands have been devoured, and not by me!’
Erelan straightened suddenly. ‘This warrior avenges you, Lasa Rook!’ Leaping up on to a boulder, he readied his mace, and then jumped down on to the pebbled wrack and raced forward.
The monster heard nothing as it slapped at the water. Its blinded eye was turned to the shoreline, and so it saw nothing of Erelan’s furious charge.
The heavy mace struck the beast’s head, just behind the blinded eye. The impact was sufficient to crush its orbital, its flared cheekbone, and one side of the creature’s skull.
Blood sprayed from its nostrils and it lurched away with a drunken stagger.
Erelan struck again, this time with a blow coming from high above, straight down on to the flat of the creature’s head. The mace buried its striking end in the skull, halted only by the weapon’s bronze-sheathed shaft. Pitching suddenly on to its side, the dying beast coughed out a heavy gush of blood. Legs kicked fitfully as Erelan wrenched free his mace. He clambered on to the monster’s back, perching atop one shoulder, and swung a third time. The snap of the bones of the neck was sharp, echoing out across the lake’s waters.
The creature slumped in twitching death.
Hanako set out, Lasa following, arriving on the pebble-strewn beach in time to see Erelan draw out his gutting knife and begin carving into the carcass’s chest.
‘He seeks the hearts,’ said Hanako, ‘in keeping with his warrior’s—’