And yet, there was something off about him, she thought as she studied him with ears upraised. His skin appeared stretched a bit too tightly. His jaws opened with mechanical precision instead of morbid enthusiasm. The disgust on her face was plain as another wave of roach reek hit her nostrils, but he showed no particular joy at the discomfort he caused her.

This was all strange enough without considering his stare. There was intensity behind it, as ever, but it was not a fire that flickered and burned. His stare was hard and immutable, a stone that pressed against her.

‘So are you,’ she said, observing him coolly as he shovelled another handful of innards into his jaws.

‘You sound disappointed,’ he grunted through a full mouth.

She was, she admitted, if only slightly. Things certainly didn’t get lesscomplicated with a hulking reptile still alive. She was certainly surprised to see him, given his rather obvious intent on dying the last time she saw him.

Still, she took some satisfaction in his appearance. It merely confirmed her previous suspicions: If Gariath was alive, Lenk would be, too.

And if Lenk is alive …

Gariath’s neck suddenly stiffened. He looked up, ear-frills fanning out. She started, unsure whether to run. He made no movement beyond sitting, ear-frills twitching, as though hearing something she could not. This, noting the differences between their ears, she found disconcerting.

‘Angry?’ He glanced to the air at his side. ‘Maybe. Probably. I don’t care.’

‘Are … you talking to me?’

‘If I was talking to you, I’d be angry.’ He cast a sidelong glare to the emptiness. ‘As it is, I’m only mildly irritated.’

While there were many oddities one could accuse Gariath of, madness was not one of them. What dribbled from his mouth on insect ichor might have soundedlike lunacy, and she wasn’t ready to discount that it was, but it was uttered with such clarity that he was not possessed of even in his more lucid moments. He was serene. He was coherent. He was calm.

That unnerved her.

‘You look upset,’ he observed.

She said nothing. ‘Concerned’ and ‘observant’ were two other qualities one never accused Gariath of having.

‘Understandable, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I’m standing in front of a lizard who, up until moments ago, I thought dead and was pleased for it, because, as of a few days ago, said lizard tried to kill me by bringing down a giant snake on my head.’ She sneered. ‘Maybe a little upset, yeah.’

‘What?’

‘I just said-’

‘Not you, stupid.’ He held a hand up and looked to the side again, shaking his head. ‘No, she always sounds like this. Stupid humans cry about things like near-death experiences.’ He laughed morbidly. ‘No, no. They call it “attempted murder”.’ He snorted. ‘Babies.’

She stared at the nothingness beside him intently, straining to see what he saw. It became evident that trying to do so was as futile as trying to see what crack had split his skull from which this sudden lunacy leaked out.

She took a step back warily.

‘Going somewhere?’

She slowed, but did not freeze at his growl. ‘Back to tracking.’

‘Tracking what? The other humans?’

‘ Thehumans, yes.’

‘Pointless. I can’t smell them. They’re probably dead.’

‘Given that you tried your damnedest to kill them, that’s definitely possible.’

‘They’re always snide like this, too,’ he growled to the air once more. ‘Hmm? No, you wouldn’t think so, but the pointy-eared one gets uppity about the other ones, too. Or at least, the other one.’

She felt the stab in his words surely as she felt the ire rise in her glare, seeking to leap out and impale him. The ichor on his unpleasant smile and the lunatic calm in his stare, however, convinced her to instead turn around, walk toward the opposite bank and hope he did nothing more than continue to stare.

‘Never seen you run before,’ he grunted after her.

‘I’ve never seen you talk to invisible people before, so I suppose we’re even,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘And for the thousandth time I remind you, knowing full well you don’t care or can’t understand, I’m a shict.’

The question came just as she set foot back onto damp soil, voiced without accusation, without malice, without anything beyond genuine curiosity.

‘Are you?’

And she froze, turned around so slowly she heard her vertebrae creak.

‘What … what did you say?’

‘You’re not going about this the right way, you know,’ he replied with a shrug.

‘You can’t possibly-’

‘I do,’ he replied, ‘and I can tell you that more dead bodies, theirs or yours, won’t make your ears any pointier.’

‘And I’m supposed to listen to that?’ It was unwise to snarl at him so, to bare her teeth at him challengingly, but she didn’t care. It was likewise unwise to allow the tears to form in the corners of her eyes, but she could not help it. ‘You expect me to believe that you, of all people, think violence isn’t a solution?’

‘I don’t expect you to do much more than die,’ he replied with coolness not befitting him. ‘Someone else expects you to do so in a more meaningful way.’ He blinked, then looked to the air with incredulousness. ‘Really? How do you figure that?’

‘Who-?’

‘Right.’ He nodded once, then turned to her. ‘But this isn’t it, we agree. No matter who dies, you’re still what you are.’

Walk away, she told herself. Run, if you have to. He’s a long way gone and he was rather far away to begin with. Go. Run.

Sound advice. She should have cursed her frozen feet, her eyes set against his. She should have done anything, she knew, besides open her mouth to him. But she could not help it, just as she couldn’t help the genuine curiosity in her voice.

‘What am I?’

‘Well, Idon’t care,’ he replied sharply. ‘But whatever you are, whatever you’re planning, it won’t work.’

‘You know nothing of what I’m planning, of what I have to do.’

‘You don’t knowwhat you have to do. Isn’t that why you’re being such a whiny moron?’ He leaned closer; the weight of his stare became oppressive, drove her back a step. ‘What happens when you do it? When you kill Lenk? Your thoughts won’t get any more quiet.’

‘What do I dothen?’ She was far past concern for how he seemed to know her plans, far past baring her teeth or hiding her tears. ‘What does your lunacy tell you? Because I’ve been thinking with sanity and logic, and I can’t come to any other conclusion. Thishas to happen. Hehas to die.’

His expression didn’t change. The stone of his stare became one of body. His tail ceased to sway, his claws ceased to twitch. He stared without words, for he had no more for her.

And she had none for him. His might be a serene madness, but it was still madness. And she still knew what she must do.

She turned about swiftly this time, stalked back to the river. She hadn’t even lifted sole from stone this time before she heard him growl.

‘There, see? I told you she wouldn’t listen.’

She heard him rise, wings flapping, claws stretching, leathery lips creaking with the force of his snarl.

‘Now, we do things myway.’

In an instant, the sun was drowned behind her, choked by a shadow that bloomed like a dark flower over her. She had no thought for reasons why, only instinct. She heeded it as she leapt backwards.

He was Gariath. He didn’t know why. Reasons were for weaklings.

The ground shook as he fell where she had stood. His claws raked the rock and his wings flapped, sending up a cloud of granite-laced dust. She whirled, narrowing her eyes against the grit as he turned to face her, eyes bright and burning.

She wasn’t surprised; sudden and irrational violence was simply what he did. Still, she felt compelled to ask.

‘What’s it matter to you?’ She crouched, a cat ready to spring, ears flattened against her head aggressively. ‘Sad that you won’t get to be the one to kill them?’