‘Not what I think? What I saw ain’t possible, and it’s damn sunny for that to be a ghost!’
‘Mihn,’ Jachen called warily, ‘what’s going on?’
‘Lower your weapons and back off,’ Mihn said firmly. He was unarmed but a steel-capped staff rested against the door just a few yards away. ‘Marad, I mean it - back away now, or I will put you down.’
‘The fuck’re you t’give me orders?’
Jachen looked at Mihn’s expression and grabbed the soldier by his collar. Without a word he dragged Marad back and Ralen followed.
Only then did Mihn relax and push the reluctant dog away towards the cottage.
While Marad still spluttered with anger, Jachen dropped his own sword and yanked the glaives from his soldiers’ hands.
‘Astonishing,’ Morghien murmured, as if oblivious to the confrontation, staring open-mouthed at the cottage.
‘His mind remains fragile,’ Mihn said in a quiet voice. ‘You cannot begin to comprehend the horrors he has endured. You will all compose yourselves, and you will not speak until I permit it, do you understand me?’
The three Farlan exchanged looks. Jachen agreed at once, but Marad, still stunned, remained silent until Jachen glared at him. Eventually both soldiers nodded while the witch, standing beside of the water, watched them impassively.
‘Better,’ Mihn said after a while. He collected his staff and gave Marad a warning look before stepping inside the cottage. The Farlan could hear soft murmuring, as if Mihn were coaxing the occupant out as he would a deer.
At first all Jachen saw was a huge stooped figure wearing a cloak made of rags, arms wrapped protectively about its body and head held low. Hulf ran straight to him, dancing around him with obvious delight before taking up a protective position between him and the soldiers.
Jachen could scarcely believe he was looking at a man. He was massive; even stooped he towered over Mihn, and he was far wider. One shoulder was dropped low, which reminded Jachen of men he’d known with broken ribs. Even when the man pushed back the hood of his cloak, the scars and the anguish on his face made Jachen the last to recognise him.
‘Gods of the dawn,’ Ralen breathed, sinking to his knees as though all strength had fled his body.
And in the next moment Jachen felt his heart lurch as the cold hand of terror closed about it.
The man recoiled - his timid movements so different to how he once was, but unmistakable all the same.
‘My Lord,’ Jachen said hoarsely, almost choking on the words as he dropped to one knee.
Isak looked at him and frowned, incomprehension cutting through his distress. ‘I don’t know you,’ he mumbled before wincing and putting his hand to his temple. ‘I can’t remember you.’
‘There are holes in his mind,’ Mihn explained, putting a hand on Isak’s arm to reassure him and draw him forward. ‘We had to tear out some of his memories.’
‘Why?’ Jachen found himself asking, fearing the answer he might receive.
‘Because there are some things no man should remember,’ Morghien said, as though in a trance, ‘some things no man could remember and remain a man. Merciful Gods, are you brave or utterly mad?’
He shivered and in unison Isak cringed slightly, screwing his eyes up tight before the moment passed.
Jachen didn’t even hear the question. He continued to gape, lost in the astonishing sight of a man he knew without question to be dead. Mihn brought Isak a little closer and now Jachen could see the scars on his face and neck, the broken nose and ragged, curled lip, the jagged line of his jaw and a fat band of twisted scarring across his throat.
His lord had once been handsome, for all the white-eye harshness, but no longer. If the signs of torture continued all over his body, Jachen couldn’t see how any man could have survived —
He felt his breath catch. No man could have survived it; Isak had not survived it. He had died on the field outside Byora, without these scars, or the broken look in his white eyes.
‘How?’ he breathed at last.
‘The hard way,’ Mihn said grimly, ‘and not one taken lightly. The rest can wait for later. Go see to your horses.’
Jachen didn’t move. He was still lost in the pattern of pain etched onto a face he once knew. Isak returned the look with difficulty.
‘I see you in the hole in my mind,’ he whispered, his scarred forehead crumpled with the effort. ‘I’m falling, but the war goes