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‘If neither resists, all will be well.’
‘And if one proves … reluctant?’
‘The mere recognition of necessity lends one wisdom, don’t you think? Enough to ease the pain of such reluctance.’ He paused, and then added, ‘At last, something manifest to give breadth to your prayers?’
‘Why, yes,’ Rise Herat snapped. ‘How thoughtful of you.’
‘Does this tapestry possess a name, by any chance?’
‘Threaded upon the back. “The Last Day”.’
‘Ah. Nothing else, then?’
‘No. I would think,’ Rise bitterly added, ‘nothing more was necessary.’
* * *
He felt her touch upon his shoulder, and then she spoke. ‘You heal quickly, my love.’
‘I was once beset in a like manner,’ Draconus said. ‘Back then, it was hounds.’ He hesitated, feeling her essence closing gently around him. ‘Hounds are cleverer than panthers. The assassin was new to his curse. He left too much to their instincts. Cats hunt in the manner of pinning or binding their prey, clinging tight, jaws about the windpipe, until the prey suffocates. But hounds … well, as I said. They are cleverer.’
‘Yet you survived both.’
He said nothing for a long moment, and then sighed heavily. ‘My love, what would you have me do?’
Mother Dark’s embrace was all-consuming, impossibly tender, and in utterly engulfing him she took away the world: the forest and standing stones, the unfinished wagon and its chains, the pools of blood upon the ground. ‘Beloved, my heart is for you. As it was, as it is, and as it shall ever be.’
He nodded. ‘As you will, then.’
‘You tremble. Does my touch hurt you?’
‘No.’
‘Then … what?’
He was thinking of the D’ivers hounds, all those centuries past. Assailing him from all sides. Even with the fullness of his power, they had nearly torn him apart. ‘Nothing of import,’ he said after a moment. ‘Just memories.’
‘Let not the past haunt you, my love. In that realm, we are all ghosts.’
‘As you say.’
She kept the world away for some time, and he was content with that.
* * *
‘They don’t look much like wolves,’ Sergeant Savarro said to her husband.
The huge man tugged at his beard. ‘Surprised they ain’t ate up those little ones we brought along.’
Savarro grunted. ‘No. Seems they like other children just fine. Playing with ’em like they was pups or something.’
Veered into their canine forms, a dozen Jhelarkan hostages tumbled with the children of the refugee families from the Warden’s fort. The new snowfall in the compound was all churned up by their antics, and high-pitched squeals and shouts joined the chorus of mock growls. The scene was appallingly bucolic.
‘It ain’t so bad,’ Savarro continued.
‘You’re trying too hard,’ Ristand said, grimacing. ‘You should’ve let me change my vote. We should’ve stayed a night or two and then got us out of here. They now call this place Howls for a fucking good reason. The mules are so scared they stopped eating.’
She sighed. ‘That’s what makes me so sick of you, you know that? You keep changing what happened to suit what you’re thinking right now. Fucking men.’
