‘What happened to them, King?’ The question sprang to Lenk’s lips easily, instinctually. ‘Where are they?’

‘What?’ Togu’s smile was crushed under his sudden frown. ‘Who?’

‘Lenk …’ Kataria placed a hand on his shoulder, but he could not feel it.

‘The humans,’ he said, ‘where are they now? Where did they go?’

‘They are’ — Togu’s lips trembled, searching for the words — ‘not here. They …’ He swallowed hard, a sudden fear in his eyes. ‘They are …’

‘ Shi-i ah-ne-tange, Togu!’

The voice rang out through the hut like a thrown spear, its speaker following shortly through the front door. While it was impossible to slam a leather flap, the Gonwa that emerged, tall and limber with the ridges on his head flaring, certainly gave it his all.

Lenk could only guess at the thing’s gender, of course, and that came only from his booming voice as he shoved his way between the two companions, sparing a glare for both of them. With an arm long and lean like a javelin, he thrust a finger at Togu, using the other hand to pat at a satchel strung about his torso.

‘ Ah-ne-ambe, Togu! Sakle-ah man-eh!’

Togu spared an indignant glare for the Gonwa, which quickly shifted to Bagagame as the littler lizardman came scurrying behind, gasping for air.

‘ Bagagame!’ the king boomed. ‘ Ah-dak-eh mah?’

Bagagame made a reply, his voice going far too rapidly to be discerned. In response, the Gonwa stepped up the tempo of his own voice, his ire flowing freely through his words. Togu tried to dominate them in speed and pitch both, roaring over them as they blended into a whirlwind of green limbs and bass rumbles.

‘Who’s the big one?’ Lenk asked, glancing sidelong at Kataria.

‘How am I supposed to know?’ she growled, fixing him with a very direct scowl. ‘What was that?’

‘What was what?’

‘That. What you just did.’

‘I asked him-’

‘ Youdidn’t ask him anything.’

He strained to keep the shock beneath a stony visage hardened by denial. She couldn’t have heard, she can’t hear that, her ears aren’tthat long … are they?

The argument between the lizardmen seemed to end in a thunderous roar as Togu shouted something and thrust a hand to the rear door. The Gonwa swung a scowl from him to the companions before nodding and stalking off to the back, Bagagame following with a nervous glance to Togu. The king himself hopped off of his throne and grunted at the two non-scaly creatures in the room.

‘Forgive the interruption,’ he said as he disappeared into the gloom. ‘This won’t take long.’

‘Huh,’ Lenk said. They were gone, but their voices carried into the hut, only slightly diminished by the walls between them. ‘What, exactly, do you suppose reptiles argue about?’

He turned to her and saw her lunging toward him, hands outstretched. Before he could even think to protest, question, or squeal and piss himself, she took him roughly by his head, pressing her fingers fiercely against his temples and pulling him close. Their foreheads met with a cracking sound, but they were bound by shock and narrow-eyed anger, neither making a move to resist.

‘Stop,’ she said swiftly.

‘What?’

‘ Stop.’

‘I don’t-’

‘No, you do. You are. That’s the problem.’

‘I really don’t think-’

‘Then don’t. No more thinking; no more speaking. Don’t listen to anyone else. No one else.’

He felt his temples burn, warm blood weeping down in faint trickles. He saw a bead of sweat peel from her brow, slide over her snarling lip as she bared her teeth at him.

‘ Only. Listen. To. Me.’

The warmth from her brow was feverish, intense, as though his skin might melt onto hers and come sloughing off when she pulled away. His whole body felt warm, hot, unbearable yet entrancing, all-consuming. It swept through him like a fire, sliding down his body on his sweat to send his arms aching, shoulders drooping, heart racing, stirring his body as it drifted lower and lower until it boiled his blood away, leaving him light-headed.

And, as such, he could only nod weakly.

‘It’s going to be over, soon.’

She sighed, the heavy breath sending her scent roiling over him, filling his nostrils, one more unbearable sensation heaped upon the other that threatened to send him crashing to the earth. Her grip relaxed slightly, her hands sliding down to rest upon his shoulders.

‘I’m going to take care of everything.’

She stepped away from him, turning her attentions back to the portal as the Gonwa came storming out first. Togu and Bagagame emerged from behind, looking alternately weary and shocked. The taller creature paused in front of the companions, whirling about to level his bulbous, yellow-eyed glower upon them.

‘ Togu,’ he uttered softly, ‘ Shi-ne-eh ade, netha.’

He raised his hands slowly, deliberately dusting his palms together.

‘ Lah.’

And with that, he spun again, the companions having to step aside to avoid his whipping tail as he stalked out the front door. They turned to Togu, each baffled. The king merely sighed.

‘Hongwe,’ he said, gesturing at the vanished Gonwa. ‘Proud boy. His father was, too.’

‘And that was … what?’ Lenk asked.

‘A disagreement,’ Togu replied. He looked up with a weary smile. ‘So … you truly wish to leave, then?’

They both nodded stiffly.

‘Then you and Hongwe agree,’ he said, nodding sagely. ‘And so, I must respect the wishes of my guests and my people. Tomorrow, you depart. Tonight, we offer you a Kampo San-Bah.’

Lenk frowned at the word. It sounded ominous in his ears.

‘And that is?’

‘A party, of course!’ the king said, grinning.

‘Ah.’

Funny, he thought, that the word should get even more menacing with the definition.

Gariath had never particularly understood the reverence for elders that some weaker races seemed to possess. Celebrating the gradual and inevitable weakening of body and mind that ultimately ended in a few years of uncontrolled bodily functions and a mound of dirt just didn’t seem all that logical.

Of course, it was different for his people. A weakened Rhegamind was still sharp; a frail Rhegabody was still strong. And while weaker races praised senility as wisdom, the Rhegaundoubtedly grew craftier with their years. Taking these traits, and only these traits, into account, he could see how an elder might be revered and respected.

However, when he factored in how incredibly annoying elders, particularly dead ones, could be, he figured he was justified in regarding them with a level of contempt just a hair above ‘intolerable’.

‘How long has it been since you saw the sun shine like this, Wisest?’

He growled in response, not looking up. ‘Is that rhetorical?’

‘Philosophical.’

‘There are an awful lot of words to say “pointless”, I’ve found.’

The fact that he didn’t even have to see the elder’s teeth to know he was grinning, with a profound smugness that only someone who had died and come back could achieve, was just number eleven on an itemised list of irritating traits that was quickly growing.

‘Have you not noticed your surroundings, Wisest?’ the grandfather asked. ‘There is beauty in the land.’

Senseless optimism. Number five.

Gariath stopped in his tracks and looked up, regarding his companion, the grandfather growing slightly translucent as a beam of light struck him. Narrowing his eyes, he looked up and out from the river, its stream reduced to a shallow half-a-toe high. The forest rose in great walls upon the ridges of the ravine he stood in, fingers of brown and green sticking up decisively to present a unity of arboreal rude gestures at him. Sunlight seeped through them, painting the ravine in contrasting portraits of black smears and golden rays.