knife in yer lung. You’ll just make it worse, and you already pissed yerself, which ain’t fitting for a man o’ the cloth.’
Yeren peered over Certinse at Kerek’s corpse. ‘Good thing you lot ain’t priests of Death,’ he said brightly, ‘I hear some o’ them dabble in a bit of necromancy on the side. Wouldn’t want anyone callin’ up yer spirit and askin’ who did this.’
Certinse felt a chill start to seep into his legs. He tried to push Yeren away, but the slightest movement sent a spike of pain down his back and he could do nothing to fight the man.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Yeren continued in an almost sympathetic voice, ‘but I can’t be dealin’ with any o’ that “last dying breath” crap. We’ll stand here ’til you pass out, which shouldn’t be long now, and I’m sure yer beyond savin’ - better that than I stick you a dozen times to make sure.’
Certinse listened dumbly to the sequence of his death, unable to respond or even move. Suddenly words from his childhood appeared in his memory, prayers of repentance he hadn’t spoken in earnest for decades. Yeren watched his lips move fractionally and nodded, as though his concerns had been confirmed.
‘Close yer eyes now, Old Bones hisself won’t be long.’
CHAPTER 9
Ilumene couldn’t stop himself grinning. Despite the early hour and the dew seeping into his breeches, he found himself waiting with a handful of others to ambush a deranged dragon — it was so daft, it was hilarious. They lurked under a damaged roof in the ruined building nearest to the Byoran tunnel in the Library of Seasons. Next to him stood the immortal mercenary, Aracnan, who was by contrast, still and entirely emotionless. He looked asleep but Ilumene knew that sleep eluded him, no matter how tired or how hard he tried.
Aracnan was meditating as a way to deal with the pain the King’s Man had inflicted upon him, using his millennia of experience to block out the fire in his veins. His hairless skin looked different now, greying and stale where once it had been ivory and full of unnatural vitality. He had lost none of his bulk, but the toll of his shoulder injury was evident to all. Ilumene had fought with the King’s Men long enough to know the poison they had used — and the festering hole that would have opened up when Aracnan tried to heal himself with magic.
The stink of Aracnan’s flesh was revolting, but Ilumene had spent the summer months in Rojak’s company, while the minstrel decayed from the inside out as Scree slowly collapsed. After that he could endure any stink.
‘This is crazy,’ whispered one of the soldiers for the fourth time that morning. ‘Styrax has gone mad with grief.’
His taciturn companion, a white-eye with a mass of scars on his face and throat, grunted in agreement. It was the most noise the man made, and Ilumene was starting to wonder if that was all he could say.
Ilumene’s grin widened even more. ‘You think?’
He looked over at the valley wall, twenty yards to the left of the Akell tunnel entrance. Tethered to the rock was a thick-shouldered fighting dog. It had been unmuzzled ten minutes ago, but instead of barking to draw the dragon’s attention it had settled down and contentedly gone to sleep.
‘Foot-traps?’ the soldier hissed. ‘Ballistae to pin its wings? Soldiers on foot? That’s no way to hunt a fucking dragon!’
Ilumene shrugged and patted the crowbill axe he’d brought from the Ruby Tower’s armoury. There was a second strapped to his back and a normal axe on the ground behind him; the crowbills were the best thing a man on foot had to pierce a dragon’s scales, but if he did, the weapon would most likely lodge there and he’d best have a back-up ready.
‘Something of a speciality of yours, is it?’ Ilumene asked lightly.
Major Fenter Jarrage, of the Knights of the Temples, was in full battle armour, which told Ilumene that the man hadn’t thought too hard about what they were about to do. The white-eye was too, but he looked far stronger and quicker. Despite being the poorest fighter of the four Jarrage nodded emphatically, as though he were a veteran leading a squad of recruits. Just around the cover were four more noblemen from Akell and Fortinn — they were all past forty summers and they were dressed in gaudy hunting leathers, so Ilumene hadn’t bothered with their names.