EPILOGUE

It had been well worth the Inconvenience of the journey. Not only had it afforded him with the opportunity to hone his tactical skills but, more importantly, he had gained personal experience of a whole new race.

Yes, Xinthua Tzequal considered his decision to investigate this small matter to have been a wise one. These sea folk, or coastal apes as he’d decided to rename them, were fascinating animals. So fascinating, in fact, that he was contemplating subjecting their humble species to his full attention for the next few decades.

It was a shame that battlefield necessity had compelled him to kill their shaman, but that was only a short term setback. Already, his skinks had been dispatched, scurrying northwards to the small colony of the creatures that clung so tenuously to the coast. When they returned, their captives would provide months of interest.

The mage let this thought spin lazily through his mind. His eyelids lowered contentedly as it vanished into the stillness of his consciousness, leaving behind it a void, a blank immensity of pure, unsullied awareness in which he bathed like a chameleon in sunlight.

The novel sound of sobbing brought him back from that blissful emptiness. Xinthua swallowed and blinked, the myriad lenses of his eyes adjusting to the failing evening light. The skinks, it seemed, had found a survivor after all in the coastal waters. They had shackled the noisy creature to the palanquin which had held their previous captive, and the mage priest watched with interest as it tested its paltry strength against the solid gold of its chains.

Xinthua hummed with pleasure.

“Your success pleases me,” he told the first-spawned, sending the skink’s crest rising into a vermilion fin of delight. “Now bring the dissecting tools. I wish to examine this specimen fully.”

Far above, the red ball of the sun disappeared over the tangled horizon of the jungle. The azure heights of the sky faded to the sheer black of the universe beyond, the stars glittering with an icy splendour that cared nothing for the pain of the world below.

Night drew on and the stars grew brighter. They lit the steaming depths of Lustria’s interior with a pale luminescence, turning her swirling mists into blinding fogs. They burnished the waves that battered against her shores, setting their crests alight with a white fire that was fierce enough to match their rolling thunder.

And, out in the black expanse of the midnight ocean, they glowed upon the stained sails of three fleeing ships. They billowed and snapped gleefully, the canvas as fat with wind as the ships’ bellies were with gold.

In the crow’s nest Florin shivered, and sniffed happily at the clean salt tang of the air. Around him the rigging sang, humming a discordant lullaby in the darkness.

Or perhaps, he considered, as he lay back and wriggled his toes, it was trying to warn him of dangers to come. It was all the same to the Bretonnian. After all, whatever lay ahead couldn’t possibly be any worse than the living nightmares which thrived within Lustria’s dark heart. Nothing could be that bad.

Nothing at all.

The thought brought an easy smile to his face and he stretched, and sighed. Then he wrapped the ragged remains of his cloak around him and drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

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