on his face. A faint breath of wind danced across his cheek like a ghost’s lament, as unnoticed as the discordant song of cicadas all around. He watched the orange smears of cloud as though searching for meaning in their patterns, but they answered no questions. The beauty of the sunset was similarly lost on him. Styrax had always been a man of the dawn, as the mysteries of the darkness were slowly unveiled. Any fool could enjoy dusk, thinking it heralded the reward of another day survived. Great men preferred dawn.
‘You found me at dawn, Fate,’ he said to the sunset. ‘You sought me out when I was barely a man and told me I had a future like no other.’ He raised a wineskin and drank, but when he lowered the skin, he realised his thirst had not been assuaged, and tossed it carelessly behind him, prompting a snort from the wyvern crouched nearby. The beast sat low on its hind legs, dusty-blue wings half-outstretched as though ready to catch the dusk wind. A voice in the back of his mind told Styrax he too should shake out his muscles, loosen the knots in his body with a few repeated forms with his sword. He did nothing. He felt like the weariness of his soul was a well of ice deep inside him.
The hillside was almost bare; low, gorse-like bushes with pale green leaves providing the only cover for the birds that nested there. Their nervous calls punctuated the summer evening, frantic chirps coming from all directions as though they were attempting to confuse the massive predator that had landed in their midst.
‘You told me it was a future you could not affect, that the choices were mine alone. All this has come about because I willed it.’ Styrax gestured to the Land around him, the open fields and olive groves, the glinting stream and serried ranks of sheltered vines. ‘So who could be blamed for Kohrad’s death but I? The Farlan boy? He sought to wound me; to distract me from the fight ahead, or excise the motive for conquest. As much as he deserves the lonely tortures of Ghenna, he was only reacting to my own actions. Thus the blame is ours to share.’
He walked forward a few paces until he reached a big boulder and sat. The weight of years had never before pressed so hard upon his shoulders; it had increased tenfold since Major Amber had roused him from his murderous grief. Now Styrax slumped forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared down at the dirt. It was dry and dusty on the hillside, what little water in the soil used up by the bushes. He paused as six pairs of dark eyes peered up at him: some sort of game-bird, with grey mottled plumage. Her five brown chicks were looking anxiously up from underneath their mother’s wing.
‘Hello, supper,’ Styrax whispered. The bird bobbed its head in response, a nervous, wary reaction to the sound, no doubt, but one that filled him with a sudden sense of kinship. ‘Oh, see now I can’t eat you,’ he continued reproachfully, ‘not when you’ve welcomed me so respectfully.’
From somewhere behind the bird was an urgent chirrup, and the call was taken up in all directions, producing a sudden riot of sound. The cacophony was interrupted by the voice of someone calling, ‘My Lord?’ from further down the hillside.
The wyvern gave a hungry hiss, followed a ragged flapping sound as it hurriedly folded its wings in readiness to leap. The white-eye whispered a few soft words and a drift of magic slithered off his tongue. The wyvern quietened immediately, needing little encouragement to settle back down. It had flown for several hours that day and it was tired - no matter how tasty a morsel General Gaur might be.
‘Come, my friend,’ Styrax replied, not bothering to get up from the boulder, ‘how fares my war?’
‘About as hard as we anticipated,’ the beastman said, trudging up the slope towards Styrax. He had a plain breastplate strapped on and his axe was slung on his back, ready for battle. ‘And you?’
Styrax’s gaze hardened, but the look had no effect on his long-time friend. He opened his mouth to speak, then the sight of Kohrad’s body appeared in his mind and momentarily paralysed him. He looked away, unable to meet Gaur’s bronze-flecked eyes any longer. ‘Bored by the Circle City,’ he said at last.