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‘Ah, then, about that lizard?’
‘Oh, only that I found one has made a home of my cottage. It now regards us from the rafters, directly above you, in fact.’
Ravast slowly looked up, to see cold, glittering, unblinking eyes fixed upon him.
‘Hence my warning about you three taking your seats as quickly as possible,’ Raest added. ‘Such are the responsibilities of a host, trying as they might be.’
‘I never much liked mutton,’ confessed Garelko as he slurped.
‘Which is insane,’ snapped Tathenal, ‘since we are sheep herders.’
‘Yes, well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Two belly-bulging meals a day for how many decades? Each one knobby with mutton. That said, this meat here’s gamey, suggesting a wild sheep rather than our gentled breeds of the north. Thus, both overly sweet and roiling pungent. My bowels shall be busy tonight.’
At the groans of both Ravast and Tathenal, Raest cursed under his breath and took another mouthful of his mulled wine.
‘I remain curious, Raest,’ Tathenal said after a moment or two, ‘about this sober study of yours. Have you Jaghut not surrendered the future? What more remains to be contemplated?’
‘Why, the past, of course. Of the present, best we say nothing.’
‘But, kind sir, the past is dead.’
‘That’s rich, from you fools so eager to hasten through Hood’s gate.’
Ravast interjected, ‘Oh, sir, we do nothing of the sort! Indeed, we pursue our wife, with the very aim of bringing her back home before she strides through that sordid portal!’
‘The pathetic moan of disappointing husbands the world over, no doubt. And is your wife buxom, sensuous in an indolent if slightly randy way? Golden-locked, blossom-cheeked, full-lipped and inclined to snoring?’
‘Yes! All those things!’
‘In the company of a Thel Akai brave, big enough to break you all into pieces? A true warrior of a man, wearing nothing but rags and yet freshly scarred and scabbed from head to toe?’
Garelko choked on his stew. Ravast realized that his jaw now hung, leaving his mouth gaping. He managed a dry swallow and then looked to both Garelko and Tathenal. ‘Did you hear that? She’s had her way with him! Torn his clothes to shreds! Clawed and bitten and scratched in her lustful frenzy! She’s never done all that to any of us, damn her!’
‘We are undone,’ groaned Tathenal, lowering his head into his hands. ‘Cuckolded, cast aside, flung away, dismissed! No match to young Hanako, Thief of Love! Hanako the Ravished, the Pawed and Clawed, the Smarting yet Smug!’
Raest observed them all, now sipping gently from his tankard. ‘And the other one, dragon-fevered. Met them a few nights past, on my way here. We shared a fire. For this reason and only this reason, I do return the favour.’
It was a moment before Ravast frowned. ‘Dragon-fevered? Is this some new southern plague, then?’
‘Oh, a plague to come, I’m sure. He’ll live or he won’t. Mayhap you’ll find a cairn beside the trail below. Or not. Or, just as likely, the stiff corpse of this Hanako, his throat lustfully gnawed right down to the vertebrae. All skin rent from his flesh, and a smile upon his ashen face.’
‘You shatter our resolve,’ moaned Garelko, pulling at what remained of his hair. ‘Husbands? Should we perhaps consider returning home? Leaving her to … to him? I admit, I am defeated. Left behind, indeed. She’s used us up, worn us out, and now blithely moves on – even you, Ravast, young as you are, not warrior enough for Lasa Rook! Aaii! We have lost the battleground between our wife’s ample legs!’
Ravast found that he was trembling. Outside, the rain had begun, lashing down amidst trees that thrashed in the gale. Lightning flickered through cracks and joins; thunder followed. ‘No, Garelko. We shall confront her! We shall bear witness to her face, to her confession, to that cruel triumphant glint in her eye.’
‘A knife in my heart would be kinder!’
‘A flood—’
‘Enough about the flooding, Tathenal!’ snapped Ravast. He thumped the tabletop, rattling the bowls. ‘She would stride merrily into the realm of the rock-piles? Fine then, and three boots to her plush backside to send her on her way!?
?
‘Ladies of Fury,’ sighed Garelko, ‘her plush backside!’
‘This is all rather pathetic,’ Raest said from his chair. ‘But highly entertaining.’
At that moment thunder hammered the ground, so close as to seem to have come from just outside the cabin’s door. Everything shook and with an alarmed hiss the venomous lizard fell from the rafters and landed heavily on the tabletop, where it writhed briefly before righting itself and glaring about, head snapping from one side to the other.
