They watched until there was nothing but ash and ember, until the silver fittings were nothing but meaningless blobs of metal. Then they rose together, as the sun began to cast its first faint light across the treetops, and walked in weary silence back to their tents.
ALLIES TO THE PRINCE
‘WHAT WRONG with you lot? You look like you drink too much mead. Sól? You been sneaking brew?’ Sólmundr didn’t bother to open his eyes, just waved a lazy hand in the Aoire’s direction. The warrior was sprawled on a blanket, baking gently in the sun, Boro snoozing by his side. The other Merron were picking their way around him with tolerant amusement as they went about their chores. Úlfnaor directed a questioning look to Wynter and she shrugged noncommittally; better he think they had been at the wine than know what they had really been up to.
It had been almost midday when the sounds of camp and the airless fug of the tent had finally roused her. She had pushed herself from her bed, blear-eyed and swollen-headed from lack of sleep, only to find that both Razi and Christopher were still snoring lightly into their blankets, dead to the world. She had roused them as best she could. Since then, all three of them had sat slumped outside the Merron tents, as listless and fragile as soldiers after the feast of St Barbara.
We should have stayed abed, thought Wynter as Razi cracked his jaw with an enormous yawn.
‘I should get going,’ he murmured, ‘I have things to arrange.’
Christopher’s head drooped and his beaker began to slip slowly from his fingers. Wynter was eyeing this with weary glee – anticipating his no doubt colourful reaction to a lap full of tea – when the warhounds distracted her by growling and climbing to their feet. The hackles rose on their great necks and they lowered their heads, eyeing the alley between the tents. Sólmundr sat forward, the rest of the warriors tensed, and all the lazy relaxation left the air as David Le Garou came to the mouth of the alley.
He was alone, leaning at the corner of the tents like a derelict drunk, looking across the Merron to where Razi sat. ‘I would speak with you, al-Sayyid.’
Razi, his face impassive, did not bother getting up.
Christopher carefully placed his beaker on the ground. ‘Good morning, David,’ he said. ‘Ain’t you pretty today? Weren’t no one around to brush your hair for you?’
Le Garou regarded him with loathing, and Christopher grinned, hard, bright and defiant. Wynter had to stop herself from crying out, Stop that, Christopher! She wanted nothing more than to throw a cloak over his head, so that he would be hidden and wouldn’t aggravate this dangerous creature any further. There was something in Le Garou’s dishevelled condition that made him seem even worse than before, as though the loss of some of his veneer had brought his evil closer to the surface. Wynter’s sword, still sheathed, was lying on the ground behind her. She shifted her hand until she felt the hard reassurance of its hilt beneath her palm.
Le Garou tore his eyes from Christopher and back to Razi. ‘I would speak with you,’ he said again.
Razi crossed his ankles, leaned back on his elbow and laced his fingers. He shrugged lazily. ‘I’m a little busy,’ he said. ‘But I could spare a brief moment. Are you unwell, David? You’re a touch pasty.’
The Wolf was slightly worse than ‘a touch pasty’. His eyes were red and sore-looking, his hair a dull tangle around his grey face. With a scowl of discomfort, he pushed himself from the tent and stepped, squinting, into the sunshine. The hounds immediately blocked his way, their fur bristling into stiff ruffs, their bared teeth dripping. The Merron hummed to themselves and went about their business, doing nothing to clear David’s path.
‘Call them off,’ he said. Then again, with impatience: ‘Call them off, curse you! I have no tolerance for games this morning.’
At Úlfnaor’s nod, Hallvor called the dogs and she and Wari took them down to where the others were tending the horses.
‘Merron scum,’ hissed David, staggering across the clearing and easing himself down onto Hallvor’s abandoned seat. Sólmundr and Úlfnaor exchanged a look, but remained silent. David sat swaying for a moment, his eyes shut, then he reached into his belt-purse, fetched out both sets of snake bracelets and laid them onto the fire-stones.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘I’ve been told that these belong