Dust of Dreams

one.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Stupidity won’t work. Try that mace on your belt.’
    ‘That’s a smith’s hammer—’
    ‘And you’re a smith, so presumably you know how to use it.’
    ‘So long as my victim lays his head on an anvil, aye.’
    ‘Can’t you fight at all? What kind of husband are you? You Meckros—always fighting off pirates and such, or so you always said—’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Unless they were just big fat lies, trying to impress your new woman.’
    ‘I haven’t used a weapon in decades—I just make the damned things! And why do I need to anyway? If you wanted a bodyguard you should have said so in the first place, and I could have hired on to the first ship out of Lether Harbour!’
    ‘Abandon me, you mean! I knew it!’
    He reached up to tear at his hair and then recalled that he didn’t have enough of it.
Gods, life can be damned frustrating, can’t it just?
‘Fine.’ He tugged loose the hammer. ‘I’m ready.’
    ‘Now, remember, I died the first time because I don’t know anything about fighting, and I don’t want to die a second time—’
    ‘What’s all this talk about fighting and dying? It’s just a gate, isn’t it? What in Hood’s name is on the other side?’
    ‘I don’t know, you idiot! Just be ready!’
    ‘
For what?
’
    ‘For anything!’
    Withal slipped his left foot out of its stirrup and swung down to the littered sand.
    Sandalath stared. ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘I’m going to piss, and maybe whatever else I can manage. If we’re going to end up in a hoary mess, I don’t want fouled breeches, not stuck in a saddle, not riding with a horde of shrieking demons on my tail. Besides, I probably only have a few moments of living left to me. When I go I plan on doing it clean.’
    ‘Just blood and guts.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘That’s pathetic. As if you’ll care.’
    He went off to find somewhere private.
    ‘Don’t take too long!’ she shouted after him.
    There was a time, aye, when I could take as damned well long as I pleased.
     
    He returned and would have climbed back into the saddle, but Sandalath insisted he wash his hands in the sea. Once this was done, he collected up the hammer, brushed sand from it, and then mounted the horse.
    ‘Anything else needing doing?’ she asked. ‘A shave, perchance? Buff your boots, maybe?’
    ‘Good suggestions. I’ll just—’
    With a snarl she slashed her left palm. The air split open before them, gaping red as the wound in her hand. ‘Ride!’ she yelled, kicking her horse into a lunge.
    Cursing, Withal followed.
    They emerged on to a blinding, blasted plain, the road beneath them glittering like crushed glass.
    Sandalath’s horse squealed, hoofs skidding, slewing sideways as she sawed on the reins. Withal’s own beast made a strange grunting sound, then its head seemed to drop out of sight, front legs folding with sickening snaps—
    Withal caught a glimpse of a pallid, overlong hand, slashing through the path where his horse’s head had been a moment earlier, and then a curtain of blood lifted before him, wrapped hot and thick over his face, neck and chest. Blinded, flaying empty air with his mace, he pitched forward, leaving the saddle, and struck the road’s savage surface. The cloth of his jerkin disintegrated, and the skin of his chest followed suit. The breath was knocked from his lungs. He vaguely heard the hammer bounce and skitter down the road.
    Sudden bellowing roars, the impact of something huge against bare flesh and bone. Splintering blows drumming the road beneath him—the hot splash of something drenching his back—he clawed the blood from his eyes, managed to lift himself to his hands and knees—coughing, spewing vomit.
    The thundering concussions continued, and then Sandalath was kneeling beside him. ‘Withal! My love! Are you hurt—oh, Abyss take me! Too much blood—I’m sorry, oh,
I’m sorry, my love
!’
    ‘My horse.’
    ‘What?’
    He spat to clear his mouth. ‘Someone chopped off my horse’s head. With his
hand.
’
    ‘What? That’s your horse’s blood? All over you? You’re not even hurt?’ The hands that had been caressing him now shoved him away. ‘Don’t you dare do that again!’
    Withal spat a second time, and then pushed himself to his feet, eyes fixing on Sandalath. ‘This is enough.’ As she opened her mouth for a retort he stepped close and set a filthy finger against her lips. ‘If I was a different kind of man, I’d be beating you