Valour by John Gwynne

who still had a fist twisted in Jace’s hair. He pulled the lad’s head back and cut his throat.
    ‘Take him out in the lake and sink him with something heavy,’ Lykos said, stepping away from the blood pooling at his feet. He poured himself a cup of wine.
    ‘Don’t you want to let his body be found, show Fidele what happens to squealers?’
    ‘No, wouldn’t put it past that bitch to put me on trial for murder,’ Lykos said.
    Deinon chuckled, stooped and slung Jace’s corpse over his shoulder, heading for the door.
    Lykos sat in his chair and started drinking. It was full night now; the exhilaration of the conflict with Jace drained away. He was feeling weary – no, exhausted. Sleep would follow soon.
He gulped more wine down, afraid.
    ‘Father, who and what have I become?’ he muttered, cocking his head to hear an answer. When no response came he shrugged and continued drinking. Eventually he dozed off, still
sitting in his chair.
    He woke screaming, eyes bulging. Thaan poked his head through the door.
    ‘You all right, chief?’
    ‘Wha . . . ? I. Yes,’ Lykos mumbled, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.
Making deals with a devil was sure to have a down side
. He reached automatically for his jug
of wine. Only a few dregs were left but he slurped them back. ‘Good news for you,’ he said. ‘There’s a change of plan. We need to round up the Jehar and take them to Ardan,
and – even better for you – after that we’ll get to crack some heads. A lot of heads.’
    ‘Ardan?’ Thaan said.
    ‘Aye, Thaan. Ardan. We’ve been summoned.’

CHAPTER EIGHT
EVNIS
    Evnis absently plucked at the petal of a rose, let it drift onto the stones at his feet. ‘Everything is turning to ash, Fain,’ he whispered.
    He was standing before a stone cairn, weak sunlight streaming across the walls of Dun Carreg into the courtyard. The sounds of his hold waking stirred about him. Dogs were barking in the
kennels, children teasing them with scraps from the tower kitchen. The smell of baking bread and ham frying wafted about on the breeze. The sun had not risen long enough to burn the chill of night
away and Evnis shivered, pulling his cloak tighter about him. He took a deep breath, an attempt to steady himself for the coming day, but no matter how he tried to calm himself, to focus on what he
must do, all his swirling thoughts returned to one thing.
    Vonn.
    Where was his
son
?
    They had argued, in the keep before the fortress fell, after he had told Vonn something of his plans. All Vonn had wanted to talk about was the girl from Havan, Bethan the drunkard’s
daughter. Evnis had told Vonn to put her out of his mind, to focus on what was important, but that had only made Vonn worse. He had stormed out into the night. And now he was gone, disappeared in
the chaos of Dun Carreg’s fall, before Evnis could talk to him and put things right.
    Please, Fallen One, do not let him be dead
. Evnis had spent most of a day searching, checking every corpse that had been piled in the streets, questioning survivors. Some had spoken of
seeing Vonn with Edana and her handful of protectors.
    He blew out a long breath. His son with Edana, with Brenin’s daughter. In other circumstances the irony of it would have made him smile.
    It was two nights since Dun Carreg had fallen, since Owain’s boar of Narvon had replaced Brenin’s wolf. He remembered little of his fight with Brenin: it had been a red haze, over a
year’s worth of pent-up rage and grief spilling out in a few moments. Until his knife had pierced Brenin’s chest, anyway. He remembered that clearly enough, could never forget it; the
brief resistance of cloth, skin and bone, then the hot pulse of blood, Brenin’s strength fading so quickly, like a bird taking flight. There was a flutter of something in his gut.
Shame?
Perhaps
. Certainly Fain, his gentle-hearted wife, would not have approved. But she was not here now, her corpse rotting beneath the cairn he