I am not like the others here. I am filled with regret when they are not. For them, no redemption should be offered. Take their lives in return for what they did.

But I yearn to make it all right again. I dream of doing something, something to unravel what happened, and what I did. I whispered to her. I begged her, and she answered with her last breath. Was there a word in it? I don’t know. I will never know.

There was a man who loved her, who sought to marry her. But I was the last man in her arms. Ugly Narad, shuddering like an animal. I know you hunt me, sir, whoever you are. I know that you dream of finding me and taking my life.

But you’ll not find me. I’ll do that much for you, sir, because I tell you, taking my life will offer you no release, no peace.

Instead, and this I vow, I will find something right to fight for, and set my life into the path of every murderer, every rapist, until I am finally cut down.

The echoes of laughter reached through his silent promises and he cringed. His was the face of war. His was the body that raped the innocent. And every desperate whisper to the fallen was a lie, and the way ahead was filled with smoke and fire, and he moved through it like a standard, a banner awaiting the rallying cry of killers.

There had been a boy once, not ugly…

Rint watched as the last stone was placed atop the cairn. Ville stepped back, slapping the grit from his hands. The short grasses on the hill glistened with morning dew, like diamonds scattered on the ground. Here and there flowering lichen lifted short stalks holding up tiny, bright red crowns, each one cupping a pearl of water.

He thought again of that headless body and found it difficult to recall Raskan’s face. The moccasins were folded and bound and lying nearby. They would accompany the messenger to House Dracons. Rint’s gaze drifted over them, and then he spoke. ‘Headless and bared of feet, we yield what remains of Raskan. We leave him alone now, upon this hill. But he has no eyes with which to see, no voice to utter his losses, and not even the voice of the wind will mourn for him.’

‘Please, Rint,’ said Galak. ‘Surely there must be softer words for this moment.’

‘He lies under stone,’ Rint replied, ‘and so knows the weight of that. What soft words would you like to hear, Galak? What comforts do you yearn for? Speak them, if you must.’

‘He was a child of Mother Dark-’

‘His soul abandoned to foreign fate,’ Rint cut in.

‘He served his lord-’

‘To be made a plaything for his lord’s old lover.’

‘Abyss take us, Rint!’

Rint nodded. ‘It surely will, Galak. Very well then, heed these soft words. Raskan, I give voice to your name one more time. Perhaps she left some of you in the embers of the morning fire. Perhaps you looked upon us through flames, or when the wind’s breath fanned the coals, and you saw us bearing your body away. I doubt you think of honour. I doubt you are warmed by what respect we muster for the body you left behind. No, I see you now as made remote to all our needs, to all our mortal concerns. If you look upon us now, you feel only a distant sorrow. But know this, Raskan, we who still live will carry your regrets. We will wear the burden of your untimely death. We will harvest the unanswerable questions and grow lean on what little they offer us. And still you will not speak. Still you will grant us no comfort, and no cause for hope. Raskan, you are dead, and to the living, it seems, you have nothing to say. So be it.’

Ville was muttering under his breath through all of this, but Rint ignored him. Finished with his words he turned away from the cairn and walked over to his horse. Feren followed a step behind him and before he set foot in the stirrup her hand settled on his shoulder. Surprised, Rint glanced at her. ‘What is it, sister?’

‘Regret, brother, is gristle you can chew for ever. Spit it out.’

He glanced down at her belly and nodded. ‘Spat out and awaiting a new mouthful, sister. But in you I have reason to pray. I look forward to seeing you a mother again.’

She withdrew her hand and stepped back. He saw her lips part as if she was about to speak; instead she turned away, striding to her horse and mounting up.

‘None of us are unfamiliar with death,’ Galak said in a bitter hiss as he swung on to his horse. ‘We each face the silence as we must, Rint.’

‘Will you face it with every word in winged flight, Galak?’

‘Better that than harsh and cruel! It seems all you do is cut these days.’

Rint settled into the saddle and took up the reins. ‘No, all I do is bleed.’

They set out, pushing deeper into the ancient hills. The old lines of rise and descent had been carved through in places by thousands of years of hoofs from migrating herds, and down these tracks floods had rushed in the wet seasons, exposing bedrock and an endless wash of bleached bones and the crumbling cores of broken horns.