a woman stifled a scream.
It was hard to accustom his eyes to the dark; the climb up the stairs had been
too fast-everything was still milky green to Crit’s fire-dazzled vision.
But Crit heard voices and slipped from the bay’s back, his sword in hand.
Together, man and ghost-horse ventured into the dimness; horse’s head snaked
low, man’s sword paralleling its questing muzzle.
“Dear gods, what’s that smell?” Crit muttered to himself.
And someone answered: “Strat. Or me, Critias. Which smell do you mean?”
And the voice of Stilcho was familiar to Critias, who had once thought him the
best of his kind of Stepson. Blinking, Crit strained to see the ruined visage of
the undead soldier. Stilcho was one of Ischade’s minions. He should have known
the witch would still have her talons in Strat, one way or the other.
He was going to swing his sword up, cut the one-eyed, ghoulish head from
Stilcho’s torso and hope decapitation would provide the poor soul what rest
Ischade had denied-not be cause he expected his poor quotidian blade to do the
job against magic, but because he was a soldier and he could only do what he was
trained to do, when his vision cleared enough to see that Stilcho’s face was
neither so ruined nor so hostile as it ought to be.
And a hand touched his right shoulder, squeezed, and rested there-Stilcho’s
hand, warm and with the pulse of mortal blood in it so strong Crit fancied he
could feel it coursing.
“That’s right,” said Stilcho softly through a mouth hardly scarred, “I’m alive
again. Don’t ask-“