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Recoiling, the beast stumbled back – tearing the axe from Ravast’s grip – and then rolled on to the carcass on which it had been dining. The stripped cage of the carcass’s ribs splintered and collapsed like brittle sticks, carrying the creature over on to its folded wings.
Tathenal raced past, between Ravast and Garelko, swinging his blunt-tipped, two-handed broadsword, chopping deep into the thrashing beast’s left thigh.
The creature continued rolling until it slammed into a massive boulder. The impact lifted the rock and sent it tumbling off the ledge beyond. A moment later the beast followed, vanishing – with trailing tail – from sight. Concussions shook the ground as the boulder made its wild descent to the treeline far below.
Then there was a thundering, snapping sound, and they saw the monster sailing out on its broad wings, skimming over the forest’s canopy. Its flight was erratic, as the head was strangely tilted. Ravast’s axe gleamed bright in the sunlight, firmly wedged between the talon-clad fingers of one hand.
Tathenal lifted up his sword to show the others the three scales still clinging to the blade’s edge.
‘Very well, Garelko,’ said Ravast, ‘not just shadows.’
‘Lasa camped here,’ Garelko pronounced, scanning the ledge. ‘Look, see how she kicked out the hearth’s coals, same as she does at home. Our wife’s habits make a trail we need no hound to follow.’ He slung the staff over on to his back once more and set off down the trail. The others followed.
‘Oh no,’ Garelko continued, ‘as I was saying, there is little charm in our dear wife. Deadly allure? Oh, indeed. That whimper-enticing heft of her thigh when sitting with folded legs, so smug an invitation for a man’s hand? How could we deny that? And what of the …’
The conversation continued, as the three husbands made their way down towards the forest.
It was nearing midday.
* * *
‘My husbands are in no hurry, it seems,’ said Lasa Rook, ‘and for that they will pay dearly. Am I not enticing enough? Desirable enough?’ She edged close to Hanako, until their shoulders were pressing. ‘Well?’
‘You are these things, Lasa, and more,’ said Hanako, struggling to keep his eyes on the trail.
‘Of course,’ she went on, ‘they are angry with me, and rightly so.’
Behind them, Erelan said, ‘You did not even leave them a note.’
‘Ah! Not what I was thinking about, to be honest. Thrice, now, I’ve almost burned down the house. There is a careless imp in me – oh, do not look so shocked, Hanako! I will admit to my flaws, no matter how attractive and endearing they might be! In any case, the imp has a temper, too, as each night it and I must witness – yet again – my three husbandly oafs shovelling down the wretched fare I set before them. Have they no taste?’
‘They must have,’ objected Erelan, ‘since they married you!’
‘Ha ha! I am ambushed. Then I shall say it so: in the years since their lucid moments of appreciation, they have let themselves descend into dullardly obtuseness, into vapid venality. Their palates belong to dogs, their grunts are those of pigs – is it any wonder the imp snarls and kicks at coals until the rugs smoulder on all sides?’
‘What cause this vengeance of yours?’ Hanako asked.
Her shoulder pushed him hard enough to make him stumble. ‘So spake the virgin to marriage!’
Erelan laughed his uncertain laugh, and Lasa rounded on him. ‘And you! O warrior who wears everything he conquers! Where is your wife? What? None ever waved an inviting hand? How is it we supple reflections have not swooned in answer to your stolid prowess? Your pride of glory and the rotting trophies you hang from your person?’
Hanako dared not glance behind him to see the effect of her tirade on Erelan Kreed. He was thankful enough that she’d already dismissed him.
‘Your wit is a song to my ears, Lasa,’ Erelan said, ‘and so I laughed.’
‘You’ve not met my wit,’ Lasa warned in a low tone. ‘And you should thank the hoary rock-gods for that.’ She swung round again. ‘Bah, I need a bath. Hanako, dear youngling, when we reach the lake – unless it was ever a mirage, designed solely to haunt a woman’s need for a decent toilet – will you indulge my body with soap and oils?’
‘What of your husbands?’
‘Well, they’re not here, are they? No! The fools are probably well off the trail I set them. Picking berries, perhaps, with lips of blue as they natter endlessly about everything and nothing. Or they have found slabs on which to lie in the sun – as they often do when guarding the flocks. To think, they imagine that I can’t see them up in the hills! I have the sharpest eyes, Hanako. The sharpest! No, they are indolent and smug, slovenly and lazy.’
‘I will attend to you at the lake, then,’ said Hanako.
She pushed up against him once more. ‘Will you now?’
‘You tease me unduly, Lasa Rook.’
‘I but tease out what hides in you.’
