Renna was of a mind to leave the whining Naga behind – he’d served his purpose, and he’d only slow them now – but Kest put Guyrin down and peeled off his shirt. Once again, she took a moment to appreciate the boy’s heavy-muscled beauty. He handed the garment to the Naga, who pulled it on gratefully. Kest smiled at him. “I’m used to cold winters down south,” he said. “I’ll be fine.” Nira was practically groping the shirtless boy with her eyes. Hussy.
Gamarron strode into the black rocks nearby and found a shadowed overhang of black granite in the rocky ridge that paralleled their course. “Always check for asps,” he said, crouching low and peering into the shadow. “They dislike the cold as much as you do, and they aren’t shy about biting.” Apparently, the little cleft sheltered no asps, for he reached into it and pulled forth a gray, fibrous substance as wide as his hand and long as his forearm. He handed the stuff to Tychus, who accepted the gift with squeamish fingers.
“Eat it,” Gamarron. “It’s a fungus, and it has something that warms the body. It may not taste like much, but it will keep you alive and warm. It’s one of our staples in these parts.”
The Naga took a bite gingerly, chewing and swallowing with obvious displeasure. “I might as well be eating a wet shirt,” he complained, but he took another bite. “How can anyone live on this?”
“It’s better than dying,” responded Gamarron, resuming their course. “My people aren’t much interested in things like fine food or music or beauty. Staying alive takes too much of our energy. We fight the demons and scratch out meager lives from the rock. Those who cannot find themselves dead in short order.” The ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “You will never meet a harder people.”
“But surely you have something else you eat other than this?” objected Tychus, gesturing to the rapidly-diminishing fragment of gray in his hand. “Something with, you know, flavor?”
“There is a kind of yellow spore pod that grows in the caves here that we eat regularly,” the old monk replied over his shoulder. “It’s fleshy and soft, a good source of moisture. It provides a little variety.”
“And some taste?” the Naga asked, seeming desperate to find some object that he could understand in this foreign land.
“It’s much stronger,” Gamarron assured him. “It tastes like dirt.”
Tychus subsided into horrified silence and chewed his pallid fungus. No one else seemed inclined to talk, and Renna was grateful for it. Silence is better than the chattering of fools, and there are so many of them in this world.
Soon they came to the crest of a ridge, and Gamarron halted, looking down at the valley below. The others gathered alongside him. A gentle slope led down to a sheltered hollow in the land, and the little basin cupped a village in its palm. It was as close to peaceful as anything could be in this severe landscape. A dozen or more homes with black basalt walls and gray slate roofs clustered in the afternoon shadow of the mountain that rose behind it, and a lively stream flowed around the outskirts of the chalet, making a natural border. The black soil on the other side of the stream had been churned, though no crops were visible. There was no movement.
“Is this it?” Nira asked, huffing up from behind. “Is this your village?”
“Holdfast,” the savage corrected in a whisper.
Kest lowered Guyrin to the ground carefully with a grunt. “This can’t be it,” he told the girl. “His holdfast burned to the ground, remember? The demon lord did it.”
“Oh, right. But we’ve been walking nearly an hour. Is there some other village close by yours, old man? Where is everyone down there?”
Renna let them chatter and eyed Gamarron. He stood perfectly still. He did not shiver like the rest of them. He did not blink. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Still, she knew the man, and she could see something churning within him. She watched him carefully.
“What is that?” Tychus asked, pointing. There was a wide mound of detritus heaped together between two of the structures. It was the only thing that looked out of place in the peaceful, monochrome scene.
“Trash,” Nira said, shading her eyes. “Someone’s going to burn their trash. Maybe?”
A small sound escaped from Gamarron’s preternaturally still form, a tiny gasp of protest. Renna was sure that no one heard it but her. She looked more closely at the warrior monk, and saw a tear trickling down his face.
“That’s not trash,” Kest said in disgust, his unnatural eye picking out the details. “Those are bodies.”
Suddenly the odd shapes resolved themselves to her eyes, and Renna could see a hand sticking out of the pile, a foot, a face. All were many months decayed and partially mummified in the dry cold. There were children in the pile.
“This is my holdfast,” Gamarron said in a broken, shuddering voice. Looking back to him, Renna saw that every piece of him had started to tremble, and his fists were balled tight. His tears flowed freely. “Those are my people. I was wrong. Nothing ever burned here. I was wrong about everything, right from the start. I am so… very… sorry.”
He turned to his friends, the ones he had gathered and led all the way across the world… and attacked.
Chapter 20 The Savage King
Gamarron watched it all happen from deep inside himself. His hands closed on Nira’s throat of their own accord. Hopelessly, he tried to unclamp his clawing fingers, and they refused to respond. I should have known, he mourned. I should have guessed. The moment he saw his holdfast, unburnt and standing tall, the pieces had finally tumbled into place.
