‘Wasting your time? Why, Nappet, what else were you planning to do?’
‘We need water. Now we’re going to die out here, just so you could look at this piece of stone.’ Nappet lifted a battered fist. ‘If I kill you, we can drink your blood-that’ll hold us for a time.’
‘It will kill you in turn,’ Rautos said. ‘You will die in great pain.’
‘What do you know about it? We’ll cook you down and drink all that melted fat.’
‘It’s not just a statue,’ Taxilian repeated.
Last, who was not much for talking, surprised everyone when he said, ‘He’s right. It was alive, once, this dragon.’
Sheb snorted. ‘Errant save us, you’re an idiot, Last. This thing was never anything but a mountain.’
‘It was no mountain,’ Last insisted, brow darkening. ‘There are no mountains here and there never were-anybody can see that. No, it was alive.’
‘He’s right, I think,’ said Taxilian, ‘only maybe not in the way you think, Sheb. This was built, and then it was lived in.’ He spread his hands. ‘It is a city. And we’re going to find a way inside.’
The ghost, who had been hovering, swept this way and that, impatient and fearful, anxious and excited, now wanted to cry out with joy, and would have, had he a voice.
‘A city?’ Sheb stared at Taxilian for a long moment, and then spat. ‘But abandoned now, right? Dead, right?’
‘I would say so,’ Taxilian replied. ‘Long dead.’
‘So,’ and Sheb licked his lips, ‘there might be… loot. Forgotten treasure-after all, who else has ever come out here? The Wastelands promise nothing but death. Everyone knows that. We’re probably the first people to have ever seen this-’
‘Barring its inhabitants,’ murmured Rautos. ‘Taxilian, can you see a way inside?’
‘No, not yet. But come, we’ll find one, I’m certain of it.’
Breath stepped in front of the others as if to block their way. ‘This place is cursed, can’t you feel that? It doesn’t belong to people-people like you and me-we don’t belong here. Listen to me! If we go inside, we’ll never leave!’
Asane whimpered, shrinking back. ‘I don’t like it either. We should just go, like she says.’
‘We can’t!’ barked Sheb. ‘We need water! How do you think a city this size can survive here? It’s sitting on a source of water-’
‘Which probably dried up and that’s why they left!’
‘Dried up, maybe, for ten thousand thirsty souls. Not seven. And who knows how long ago? No, you don’t understand-if we don’t find water in there, we’re all going to die.’
The ghost was oddly baffled by all this. They had found a spring only two evenings back. They all carried waterskins that still sloshed-although, come to think of it, he could not recall where they had found them-did his companions always have those skins? And what about the broad hats they wore, shielding them from the bright, hard sunlight? The walking sticks? Taxilian’s rope-handled scribe box? Rautos’s map-case that folded out into a desktop? Breath’s cloak of sewn pockets, each pocket carrying a Tile? Nappet and his knotted skull-breaker tucked into his belt? Sheb’s brace of daggers? Asane’s spindle and the bag of raw wool from which she spun out her lacy webs? Last’s iron pot and fire kit; his hand-sickle and collection of cooking knives-where, the ghost wondered-in faint horror-had all these things come from?
‘No food, no water,’ Nappet was saying, ‘Sheb’s right. But, most importantly, if we find a door, we can defend it.’
The words hung in the silence that followed, momentarily suspended and then slowly rising like grit-the ghost could see them, the way they lost shape but not meaning, definition but not dread import. Yes, Nappet had spoken aloud the secret knowledge. The words that terror had carved bloody on their souls.
Someone was hunting them.
Asane began weeping, softly, sodden hitches catching in her throat.
Sheb’s hands closed into fists as he stared at her.
But Nappet had turned to face Last, and was eyeing the huge man speculatively. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘you’re a thick-skulled farmer, Last, but you look strong. Can you handle a sword? If we need someone to hold the portal, can you do that?’
The man frowned, and then nodded. ‘Maybe I ain’t never used a sword, but nobody will get past. I swear it. Nobody gets past me.’
And Nappet was holding a sheathed sword, which he now offered to Last.