Vesna turned back and gripped Isak’s forearm. ‘She’s right, Isak: it doesn’t matter now. Mihn’s made his choice, and we need to move.’
Isak snarled and grabbed the Farlan hero by his throat. ‘Doesn’t matter?’ he rasped, lifting Karkarn’s Mortal- Aspect clean off the ground. ‘It fucking does matter to me.’
Vesna hung limply in Isak’s one handed grip — he knew the young man’s temper well enough — but before either could say anything Legana moved around Vesna and gently rested her fingers on Isak’s shaking arm.
‘ Mihn decided to delay them. Do not waste the opportunity he has given you. ’
‘Sounds easy coming from a heartless bitch like you,’ the white-eye snapped.
‘ One who has also tied herself to both of you,’ she replied calmly. ‘ One who knows he’s not dead yet, and if we get clear, wears no armour. He might still be able to swim to safety.’
Isak’s face tightened as he fought the urge to lash out. Just the idea of Mihn sacrificing himself again sent his memory back to the floorless prison in Ghenna’s lowest pit; where the pain he remembered in his bones had been allayed only by the sound of Mihn’s voice cutting through the clouds of terror.
‘I have to go back for him,’ he gasped, releasing Vesna and tottering backwards.
‘No,’ Vesna croaked, ‘it’s too late for that.’ He physically pushed Isak towards the ice, and the white-eye was unable to resist for the first few steps. Then he found himself staring dazedly at the white ice beneath his feet. He opened his mouth to argue, but at that moment Doranei and Veil both kissed the knuckles of their sword-hands and saluted, even as they turned and faced the ice road.
‘See you when the killing’s done, brother,’ the two men muttered together.
They joined Isak, the rest close behind, and Isak closed his mouth and put one hand to his sternum where Xeliath’s scar was, the link Mihn bore. Legana was right: Mihn would be able to jump from the bridge — but he would be trying to hold off an entire army. Even with his skill, it was asking too much to see the man alive again, but the least Isak could do was not spend his life in vain.
‘I’ll see you again, my friend,’ he whispered to the night, ‘even if I have to reach into the Dark Place itself and drag you back out.’
With that he turned and strode out across the blackness of the lake.
Mihn slipped around the pillar and pinned the spear against it, stepped in and drove an elbow into the soldier’s face. The man released his weapon and staggered back as a straight kick to his sternum knocked him flying into a colleague and they both collapsed in a heap.
Before anyone could bring a crossbow to bear Mihn had ducked back behind the shrine, a set of three trees no taller than Isak with their branches intertwined. Instead of arrows a voice came from the other side, speaking the local dialect in crisp, precise tones.
‘Stop, all of you — withdraw.’
Mihn waited a moment, checking the figures on the ground nearby. Two were unconscious; a third was pawing at his throat as his crushed throat slowly asphyxiated him. There were more just around the shrine. Three he knew were all dead, and the reason the Black Swords in the front hadn’t rushed around the shrine en masse.
‘Will you not come out, brother?’
Mihn closed his eyes a moment. The voice evoked memories of crisp snow on the ground and incense in braziers, priests chanting slowly and the calm voices of the blademasters who’d trained him. He stepped out from behind the shrine, half-expecting to be killed immediately, but the soldiers had all stepped back.
There were five left waiting for him: a balding and bedraggled Menin wearing dirty mage’s robes of blue and yellow loitered at the back, while Priesan Horotain of the Sanctum was flanked by a pair of Harlequins, a man and a woman. The one who’d spoken stood in front of them all. Like Mihn, the man had once been a Harlequin but was now something more. Both were dressed in black, a colour no Harlequin would wear; both were tattooed to signify new allegiances.
‘We are not brothers,’ Mihn said at last.
Venn cocked his head. ‘True: you were cast out, I believe.’
‘And you abandoned your people,’ Mihn countered. ‘The greater shame is yours.’
Venn laughed and took a step forward. Priesan Horotain looked confused by the exchange, which was being conducted in a language he would never have heard before, but one look from the white-masked Harlequins kept him silent.
‘ “Shame belongs to he who beholds it; child of one’s own envy and malice.”’
Mihn rested the butt of his staff on the ground, ready at a moment’s notice to bring it back up, but right now his counterpart was keen to talk; if that bought Isak more time to escape, he was happy to listen to whatever the black Harlequin might have to say.
‘In my years of wandering I have learned a few things,’ he said to Venn. ‘One is that there is a quotation for every instance, words to fit whatever action one might need to justify. Increasingly, I find the solace of others’ words diminishing.’
‘I justify nothing,’ Venn corrected him, ‘but shame has always been the most foolish of notions. When the Land is being reshaped and the Gods themselves quake, what meaning does shame hold?’
There was a slight smile on the man’s face, perceptible in this light only to another student of expression and stance, but one Mihn recognised easily enough. ‘Tell me,’ he asked conversationally, ‘how long have you been thinking about this eventual meeting? How long has pride pricked at your side, wondering when we might cross swords?’
‘Oh, I admit it readily,’ the other said, giving a small bow. ‘I have looked forward to this day ever since I heard Lord Isak had taken a manservant with a Harlequin name — Mihn ab Netren ab Felith, I believe you were known as?’
Mihn inclined his head. ‘I know you only as Venn.’
‘If we were kings, you would confess I had you at a disadvantage perhaps,’ Venn ventured, ‘but such niceties are as foolish as shame. Venn ab Teier ab Pirc is the lineage my father bestowed upon me.’
‘I recognise the name. The blademasters mentioned you in passing.’
‘In passing?’ Venn scoffed. ‘I was their master long before they ever realised it.’
Mihn smiled. ‘Your pride was mentioned, yes. It is one of the ways in which I am your better.’
‘No one is my better,’ he spat, ‘a fact I will gladly prove.’ He turned to one of his colleagues. ‘Marn, give him your swords.’
There was a moment’s hesitation; Mihn could imagine the shock hidden behind her mask: a Harlequin’s blades should never be wielded by another. It was a testament to the thrall she was under that the woman paused for only a moment before reaching for the blades sheathed on her back.
Mihn raise a hand to stop her. ‘There is no need,’ he said. ‘I will not use another’s swords.’
‘It will be no test of my skills if you are not properly armed,’ Venn declared. ‘It must be a fair fight.’
‘No fight is truly fair — it would be no more so if I took her swords.’
‘I suppose so,’ Venn agreed after a moment. ‘How long is it since you used the blades? You have walked the wilderness for many years now; that dulls any edge.’
‘My apologies, you misunderstand,’ Mihn said. ‘It would be unfair on you.’
The anger was clear in Venn’s eyes as the former Harlequin took in Mihn’s boast, even if his voice remained level. ‘You make a bold claim — you think yourself the King of the Dancers?’
‘Others did,’ Mihn replied, inclining his head in acknowledge ment. ‘The masters who taught me, many elders of the clans. I have long since realised they were mistaken.’
‘Even before you met me — how perceptive of you.’
Mihn shook his head. ‘No, there was no King of the Dancers; no prophecy of our own to warm hearts while we watched the Land and those who truly lived in it. It was just a fairytale to bind the clans together; to give them hope of what might one day be. Whether or not you make the claim, it is this hope alone that gives you sway over the rest.’
‘Defiant to the end. I am glad,’ Venn announced, ‘I had thought to honour the failed hopes of the clans by allowing you to die blades in hand, but if you prefer your staff, so be it.’
‘Wait,’ Mihn interjected before Venn could draw his swords, ‘I will take a knife, if you permit it.’
The black Harlequin paused, wary of a ruse, then gestured for someone to toss Mihn a dagger. Marn did so, pulling one from the belt of a nearby soldier and throwing it for Mihn to pluck from the air. He inclined his head in
