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‘It doesn’t matter if we’re not welcome, or wanted. This is war, after all.’
‘Weren’t you listening? The dead have no need to fight, no reason worth fighting for.’
‘So we’ll give them one.’
‘Some woman jangled your jewels and stole your heart. That happens. It’s not a good enough reason to abandon the living world. Have you not noticed? Hood’s army has raised a standard of grief. But that grief is real, and serious. It’s the kind that crushes everything inside. In a way, they’re all already dead, or most of them, anyway. Especially Hood. But you, Arathan? Get over it. Get over yourself!’
‘And what about Haut, your keeper? Or Varandas? It’s not grief that’s brought them to Hood, is it?’
‘No. Just loyalty. And a sick sense of humour.’
‘But you’re not laughing.’
She crossed her arms. ‘I should have gone with the Jheleck hunters. Learned how to rut like a dog. And roll around on dead things. But I missed my chance. Regrets, like the ghost talked about. Who knows, maybe I’ll run into them on my way back to Kurald Galain. Worse things could—’
‘Did you hear that?’
The echoes of thunder reached them, and a moment later the walls groaned. The embers in the fireplace flared suddenly. Fierce heat gusted from the hearth, forcing both Korya and Arathan back a step, and then another. Sweat beaded the walls, and began trickling down.
The ghostly guardian reappeared in the entranceway. ‘See what you’ve done? More company. And me dead. What’s worse, no matter what the house thinks, you two won’t do as my replacement. Too restless, too eager to see the world. Too hopeful by far to be custodians to a prison.’
Frowning, Arathan approached the Bonecaster ghost. ‘A prison? Is that what these Azath Houses are? Then who built them?’
‘Now the whole yard’s awake. It’s all getting ugly. Stay here.’ The ghost disappeared again.
Arathan turned to Korya. ‘A prison.’
‘The Jaghut know that,’ Korya replied.
He nodded. ‘Yes, I think they do. But … the Azathanai? Why worship a prison?’
Shrugging, she moved past him and into the corridor beyond. ‘Find one and ask.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To the tower, get one of those shuttered windows open, and see what’s going on. You coming?’
He followed.
* * *
Haut watched as the Seregahl leader pulled himself over the low wall of the yard, tattered armour scraping as he rolled clear to thump heavily on the ground. Others were shouting as they clambered in his wake, leaving smears of blood on the stones, while from within the grounds terrible shrieks cut raggedly through the dusty air.
Haut stepped closer to the leader and looked down at the Seregahl’s face. Half of the man’s beard had been torn away, flensing the skin of his cheek. The look in his eyes was wild, his mouth opening and closing without sound. He had lost his double-bladed axe.
Haut cleared his throat and then said, ‘That’s the problem with ancient gods, I suppose. Their reluctance to just … die.’
Another Seregahl, missing the lower part of his left leg, the ruptured knee joint gushing blood, made a wild cavort of hops before falling seven or eight paces from the wall’s gate. Haut watched as the Thel Akai woman walked up to the cursing Toblakai and put the tip of her sword through his neck. The curses ended in a spitting gurgle.
‘Get her away from us!’ rasped the Seregahl leader, rolling on to his hands and knees. One hand scrabbled at his belt and drew out a knife the size of a shortsword. ‘Seregahl! To me!’
The others quickly moved in close around their leader, forming a defensive cordon. Many of them bore wounds from the grasping roots and branches of the frenzied forest of gnarled trees now crowding the house’s yard. And by Haut’s count, five warriors were missing. The Thel Akai woman stood over the corpse of the man she had just slain, eyeing the troop with an air of vague disappointment.
The tumult in the yard was dying down, although the occasional sharp retort of a snapping branch lingered. Someone was still busy in there. Glancing at the house, he saw that the shutters had been opened on the top level of the squat tower that formed one corner of the building. Two figures were leaning on the sill, their attention fixed on the yard below.
Haut frowned up at them.
‘How did they get in?’
