The question the historian asked himself before falling asleep held a blunt finality: how long could Coltaine delay the inevitable?
He awoke at dusk, and twenty minutes later was on the trail, a solitary rider beneath a vast cloak of capemoths so thick as to blot out the stars.
Breakers rolled over a reef a quarter of a mile out, a phosphorescent ribbon beneath a cloud-filled sky. The sun's rise was an hour away. Felisin stood on a grassy shelf overlooking a vast beach of white sand, light-headed and weaving slightly as the minutes passed.
There was no boat in sight, no sign that anyone had ever set foot on this stretch of coast. Driftwood and heaps of dead seaweed marked the tide line. Sand crabs crawled everywhere she looked.
'Well,' Heboric said beside her, 'at least we can eat. Assuming those are edible, that is, and there's only one way to find out.'
She watched as he removed a sackcloth from the pack, then made his way down onto the sand. 'Watch those claws,' she said to him. 'Wouldn't want to lose a finger, would we?'
The ex-priest laughed, continuing on. She could see him only because of his clothes. His skin was now completely black, the traceries barely detectable even up close and in daylight. The visible changes were matched by other, more subtle ones.
'You can't hurt him any more,' Baudin said from where he crouched over the other backpack. 'No matter what you say.'
'Then I've no reason to stay quiet,' she replied.
They had water to last another day, maybe two. The clouds over the straits promised rain, but Felisin knew every promise was a lie – salvation was for others. She looked around again. This is where our bones will rest, humps and ripples in the sand. Then, one day, even those signs will be gone. We've reached the shore, where Hood awaits and no-one else. A journey of the spirit as much as of the flesh. I welcome the end to both.
Baudin had pitched the tents and was now collecting wood for a fire. Heboric returned with the sackcloth gripped between his stumps. The tips of claws showed through the bag's loose weave. 'These will either kill us or make us very thirsty – I'm not sure which will be worse.'
The last fresh water was eleven hours behind them, a damp patch in a shallow basin. They'd had to dig down an arm-span to find it, and it had proved brackish, tasting of iron and difficult to keep down. 'Do you truly believe Duiker's still out there, sailing back and forth for – what, five days now?'
Heboric squatted, setting the sack down. 'He's not published anything in years – what else would he have to do with all his time?'
'Do you think frivolity is the proper way to meet Hood?'
'I didn't know there was a proper way, lass. Even if I was certain death was coming – which I'm not, at least in the immediate future – well, each of us has to answer it in our own way. After all, even the priests of Hood argue over the preferred manner in which to finally face their god.'
'If I'd known a lecture was coming, I'd have kept my mouth shut.'
'Coming to terms with life as an adolescent, are you?'
Her scowl made him laugh in delight.
Heboric's favourite jokes are the unintended ones. Mockery is just hate's patina, and every laugh is vicious. She didn't have the strength to continue riposting. The last laugh won't be yours, Heboric. You'll discover that soon enough. You and Baudin both.
They cooked the crabs in a bed of coals, needing sticks to push the creatures back into the searing heat until their struggles ceased. The white flesh was delicious, but salty. A bounteous feast and an endless supply that could prove fatal.
Baudin then collected more driftwood, intending to build a beacon fire for the night to come. In the meantime, as the sun broke the eastern skyline, he piled damp seaweed on the fire and studied with a satisfied expression the column of smoke that rose into the air.
'You planning to do that all day?' Felisin asked. What about sleep? I need you sleeping, Baudin.
'Every now and then,' he replied.
'Don't see the point if those clouds roll in.'
'They ain't rolled in yet, have they? If anything, they're rolling out – back to the mainland.'
She watched him working the fire. He'd lost the economy of his movements, she realized; there was now a sloppiness there that betrayed the extremity of his exhaustion, a weakness that probably came with finally reaching the coast. They'd lost any control over their fates. Baudin believed in Baudin and no-one else. Now just like us he's depending on someone else. And maybe it was all for nothing. Maybe we should've taken our chances going to Dosin Pali.
