‘What kind of question is that? Am I not the man who travelled hundreds of leagues to rescue a Lentrian princess?’
‘I am not a princess.’
‘And I am no hero.’
‘You took on a Joining.’
‘Yes. But then from my first blow he was dying. I have poison spikes in my gauntlets.’
‘Even so, not many men would have faced it.’
‘Tenaka would have killed it without the gauntlets. He’s the second fastest man I’ve ever known.’
‘The second?’
‘You mean you have never heard of Decado?’
*
Tenaka built up the fire and then knelt beside the sleeping Renya. She was breathing evenly. He touched her face gently with one ringer, stroking the skin of her cheek. Then he left her and walked to the top of a nearby rise to stare out over the rolling hills and plains to the south as the dawn sun crested the Skein mountains.
Forests, rivers and long meadows swept on into a distant blue haze, as if the sky had melted and linked with the land. To the south-west the defiant Skoda mountains pierced the clouds like dagger points, red as blood and shining proud.
Tenaka shivered and pulled his cloak about him. Void of human life, the land was beautiful.
His thoughts drifted aimlessly, but always Renya’s face returned to his mind’s eye.
Did he love her? Could love be born with such speed, or was it just the passion of a lonely man for a child of sorrow?
She needed him.
But did he need her?
Especially now, with all that lay before him?
You fool, he told himself, as he pictured life with Renya in his Ventrian palace – it is too late for that. You are the man who stepped off the mountain.
He sat down on a flat rock and rubbed his eyes.
What is the sense to this hopeless mission, he asked himself, an edge of bitterness washing over him. He could kill Ceska – of that there was no doubt. But what would be the point? Would the world change with the death of one despot?
Possibly not. But the course was set.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Renya, moving up to sit beside him and curling her arm around his waist. He opened his cloak, lifting it around her shoulders.
‘I was just dawn-dreaming,’ he said. ‘And admiring the view.’
‘It is beautiful here.’
‘Yes. And now it is perfect.’
‘When will your friend be back?’
‘Soon.’
‘Are you worried about him?’
‘How did you know?’
‘The way you told him to stay out of trouble.’
‘I always worry about Ananais. He has an instinct for the dramatic and a sublime belief in his physical talents. He would tackle an army, convinced he could win. He probably could too – a small army anyway.’
‘You like him a great deal, don’t you?’
‘I love him.’
‘Not many men can say that,’ said Renya. ‘They feel the need to add “like a brother”. It’s nice. Have you known him long?’
‘Since I was seventeen. I joined the Dragon as a cadet and we became friends soon after.’
‘Why did he want to fight you?’
‘He didn’t really. But life has dealt harshly with him and he blamed me for it – at least in part. A long time ago, he wanted to depose Ceska. He could have done it. Instead I helped to stop him.’
‘Not an easy thing to forgive,’ she said.
‘With hindsight, I agree.’
‘Do you still mean to kill Ceska?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even if it means your own death?’
‘Even then!’
‘Then where do we go from here? To Drenan?’
He turned to her, lifting her chin with his hand.
‘You still wish to travel with me?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s selfish, but I am glad,’ he told her.
A man’s scream broke the dawn silence and flocks of birds rose from the trees screeching in panic. Tenaka leapt to his feet.
‘It came from over there,’ shouted Renya, pointing north-east. Tenaka’s sword flashed into the sunlight and he began to run, Renya only yards behind him.
A bestial howling mingled now with the screams and Tenaka slowed his run.
‘It’s a Joining,’ he said, as Renya caught up.