before the hunt began in earnest.
Dorian rolled over. His side hurt immensely. When he touched it, it was wet but with a clear pus instead of blood. The burning blade had cauterised the wound even as it made it.
He had no idea whether he would live or how much internal damage there really was. Looking around the chamber he could see he was lucky to be alive. Every other druchii that had been present was dead, including Cassandra. She lay on her back, eyes open, but glazed as if she was staring in wonder at the tent ceiling. Her face looked normal but her body was ruined.
Dorian crawled over to where she lay and took her hand. It was cold. Soldiers flooded into the room, glaring around at the scene of carnage.
‘What happened, general?’ one of them asked. Dorian struggled to answer them.
‘An elf with a burning sword,’ he said. ‘He killed us all and took the Everqueen.’
His soldiers looked at him as if he were raving, but they could not see any other explanation. ‘Find him,’ Dorian ordered. ‘Find him or you are all for Malekith’s torturers.’
He was already for that himself, he realised. The stranger had done him no favours letting him live. He lay there on the ground, holding Cassandra’s cold hand, and found that he did not care all that much.
‘Put those on,’ Tyrion said.
He pointed to the body of the dead elf soldier he had dragged into the undergrowth. Alarielle looked at the corpse in distaste but she began to strip it of the wargear.
‘Did you kill her?’ she asked.
‘I cut her throat,’ said Tyrion. She looked at him with distaste.
‘That was not very chivalrous,’ she said. He understood why she was saying it. She understood the necessity of what he had done but she was still shocked by it. She felt the need to vent her feelings, to do something to relieve her tension and fear. If that meant she despised him, so be it. He could live with that.
‘This is not a tournament,’ he said. ‘This is war. People will die. You will send them to their deaths and you will smile while you do it.’
‘I already caused a death, didn’t I?’ She indicated the dead warrior with her foot. ‘I killed her when I sent you to get me a disguise.’
‘Get used to it,’ he said, knowing he was being brutal, but knowing also that he needed to make her understand the reality of the situation. ‘It will be the first of many.’
‘You enjoy this, don’t you, Prince Tyrion?’
The answer was too complex to be gone into here so he just said, ‘Yes. It is what I was born for.’
‘Blood of Aenarion,’ she said softly. He was surprised to hear pity in her voice. She stripped and put on the soldier’s undergarments then her leather tunic and then her armour. Tyrion stood close and helped her do it. She had no experience with this sort of gear, so much was obvious. As he helped lace up the jerkin, they were close as lovers. He was suddenly very aware of her presence.
They stepped apart. ‘We need to go,’ he said. ‘They will be looking for us now.’
What had been a place of pleasure had become a place of terror. Corpses were strewn everywhere, cut down in flight, in combat, while they had slept, while they had been drunk. The dark elves had spared no one. They had killed like maniacs, as senselessly as a wolverine in a henhouse.
Tyrion felt his heart become colder. A great rage was building up in him. This was not how a war should be fought. His expression became as cold and grim as a true son of Naggaroth. The Everqueen looked upon his face and shuddered. He did not care and he did not want to explain to her how he was feeling.
‘This was not war,’ she said. Tyrion agreed with her. This had gone far beyond war. It was a murderous venting of long suppressed rage.
‘It is now,’ he said. ‘This is what war looks like now.’
She shot him a sidelong glance. ‘Do they really hate us so?’
‘Apparently.’
They followed a path deeper into the woods. Tyrion had no idea where they were going. He was not familiar with this place. He was merely trying to get as far away from pursuit as possible. ‘Do you know where we are?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘We are on the old game trail to the Glade of Promises.’
‘Beyond that?’
‘What do you