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He turned to find the Thel Akai woman now at his side, her gaze fixed on Korya and Arathan.
‘I’ve seen the girl,’ she continued. ’Tiste make my skin crawl. I don’t know why. She wanders your camp, stirring up trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
The woman shrugged. ‘She mocks them. Hood’s followers.’
‘The easy disdain of the young,’ Haut said, nodding. He paused, and then added, ‘I don’t know how they got into the Azath House.’
The woman was now regarding the huddle of battered Seregahl. Her lip curled, but she said nothing.
The gate slammed open off to their right and a moment later a figure stumbled into view. Haut drew a sudden breath, and then stepped forward.
A Jaghut, his clothes rotted, his leathers stained with mould. Roots threaded his long, unkempt hair, and soil had mottled the skin of his face and arms. Five hundred years buried beneath the yard had not treated him well. Sighing, Haut drew closer, and then spoke. ‘Gethol, your brother will be pleased to see you.’
The Jaghut slowly shifted his gaze, glancing briefly at Haut and then away again. He brushed feebly at the dirt covering him. ‘Not dead yet then.’
‘He’s working on it.’
Gethol spat mud from his mouth, and then coughed and looked over to the Seregahl. ‘Five went down,’ he said. ‘That should do.’
‘The house has the old god?’
‘Well enough.’ Gethol coughed and spat again.
‘Ah,’ said Haut. ‘That is a relief.’
‘Where is Cadig Aval?’
‘Dead. Apparently.’
‘Yet there are living souls in the house. I could feel them.’
Haut shrugged. ‘There are, but not for much longer. Will that be a problem?’
‘How should I know? No, the house will prevail. This time.’
Returning his attention to the two Tiste in the tower window, Haut waited until he was sure that Korya was looking at him. He waved her down. A moment later both figures pulled back from the window, drawing the shutters closed.
Gethol asked, ‘Where is he then?’
‘In the Tower of Hate.’
Gothos’s brother grunted, and then said, ‘Why, it’s as though I never left.’
* * *
‘This fire is dying,’ Cred said, leaning closer to study the hissing pumice stones in the bronze bowl. ‘Not my magic, not my prowess, but the fire itself.’ He straightened and looked around. ‘See how the firelight dims everywhere? Something is stealing the heat.’
Brella scowled across at him. ‘Then we starve.’
‘Or learn to eat things raw, as the Dog-Runners do,’ said Stark.
‘They cook their food like anyone else,’ Brella retorted. She turned her attention to the younger woman. ‘A simpl
e walk through the camp would have shown you that. Instead, you cling to ignorant beliefs as if they could redefine the world. I see belligerence settle in your face, so downturned, the frown and the skittish diffidence in your eyes – so like your mother, may the Sea Hoarder give peace to her soul.’
Cred grunted. ‘Stark’s mother would have defied the very water filling her lungs. Oh, but I admired her for that. In the days before magic, when helplessness haunted us all.’ He gestured at the ebbing glow in the brazier before him. ‘The ghosts of that time return. And all the driftwood gone from the strand, nothing but grasses in the plain inland. I sit here, facing all that I have lost.’
