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‘Every time this happens,’ he snarled ‘Every time someone dies, every tihs and rolls their shoulders and goes back to living I’ve done that and I’ If this is how life must be, then I choose death!’
‘It is that way for a reason, Wisest You have duties to your ancestors’
‘More excuses! More stupidity! Duty and honour and responsibility!’ He howled and stos done, for trying to excuse away life and all its pain! I have served a are supposed to I have tried to be a Rhega when there are no more I have tried and … and …’
His fist ca a hole in the driftwood beside the elder He jerked it out with a shriek, wooden shards lodged in his fist that wept blood as his eyes wept tears He collapsed to his knees, pressed his brow against the wood and drew in a staggering, wet breath
‘It’s too hard, Grandfather I don’t knohat I’m supposed to do anyain ‘I can’t kill myself’ Another bloody-handed blow ‘I just … can’t’
It wasn’t often that Gariath flinched at a touch All the steel and iron that had cursed his flesh in crimson words, all the scars and bruises they had left behind had never made him so much as tremble But they had struck shoulders that were broad and proud, arms that were thick and fierce
The hand that rested upon him noas upon shoulders that were broken and bowed, ar limp and bloody at his side
‘Wisest,’ the elder whispered ‘We are Rhega The rivers flow in both our blood and we feel the saonies, as we have felt since ere born of the red rock I don’t ask you to do this for you or for rip on Gariath’s shoulder ‘I tell you to do it for us For the Rhega’
‘What,’ Gariath asked, weak, ‘am I supposed to do?’
‘Live’
‘It can’t be that easy’
‘You know it isn’t’ The elder rose up, walking toward the shore ‘You’ve spent so otten what living is like’
‘It’s hard’
‘I will help you where I can, Wisest,’ the elder replied with a suides to life than the dead’
‘Such as?’
After a moment of careful contemplation, the elder scratched his chin ‘What of Lenk?’
‘Dead’
‘You’re certain?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘Consider where you would be without him,’ the elder replied ‘Still where you buried your sons? Or buried yourself, if whoever killed you had enough respect not to skin you alive and wear your face as a hat? Hoas it youLenk’
‘And hoas it you ht find you?’
‘Are you saying I need Lenk?’ Gariath growled, slightly repulsed by the idea ‘He is decent enough to deserve a good death, but he’s still stupid and weak … still huet hio next? How can I even--?’
‘Many questions,’ the elder said with a sigh, ‘demand many answers For now, liht between lives Choose one, then make another choice’
‘What kind of choices?’
‘In time,out each pace beneath him ‘The choice to seek out my elder stone is one, but that is far away in time and distance The hardest choice’ – he paused and drew a line in the earth with his toe – ‘is to recognise that you will never be as alone as you hope to be’
‘I don’t understand’
‘That’s the point of cryptic , pup,’ the elder muttered ‘But we don’t have time to discuss it The much more immediate choice must happen within your next fifty breaths’
‘What?’ Gariath creased his ridges together ‘What choice?’
‘Whether to move or not Forty-five breaths’
‘What, like … ibberish?’
‘More immediate Forty-two breaths’
‘Why forty-two?’
‘The tide co me another fifteen to tell you all of this, and the Akaneed, which has been known to hurl itself upon a beach to get at its prey at distances up to twenty-six paces, has been waiting for the afore you …’ The elder glanced over his shoulder ‘Two breaths’
It only took one for the water to rise up in a great blue wall, the Akaneed’s eye scorching a golden hole through it Its jaere parted as it erupted onto the shore, bursting through the liquid barrier with a roar that sent great gouts of saltyfrom between rows of needle-like teeth
It took Gariath another to leap backwards as those great teeth snapped shut in a wall of glistening white A low keen burbled out of the Akaneed’s gullet, cursing the dragon, it writhed upon the sand, trying to shift its massive pillar of a body back into the surf
‘Huh’ The elder observed the younger dragone ‘You jumped away Nerves, perhaps If you still want to die, I’m sure he won’t think it a hassle to coarded the spectre through narrowed eyes I He folded his wings behind his back, raised his one-horned head up to aze that shone hard as rocks
‘Make your choice, Wisest’
And, with the sound of a snort and claws sinking into wood, Gariath did
His reat beasts awakening fro to the earth But it tore free, resigning itself to its fate
His roar matched the Akaneed’s, matched the sound of air rent apart as the wood howled Both were rendered silent by aout to lie upon the earth like unsown seeds, and a keening shriek that followed the Akaneed back into the ocean Blood leaking fro only a on into the endless blue
The breath that ca in his massive chest, was not one he had felt in days His hands trembled about the shattered piece of wood he still held, as though they had never known the life that coursed through them When he did finally drop it, that life sent his ar …
His body thirsting for more
This is what it a? More death? More violence? This is what it is to be alive?
‘Not the answer you’re looking for, Wisest,’ the elder chih for now’
When Gariath turned about, nothing but sand and wind greeted hi to even suggest that the elder had ever been there And yet, with each breath that Gariath took, the scent of rivers and rocks continued to permeate his senses
Perhaps he should be concerned that he felt alive again only when he was grievously wounding son that his road in life was destined to run alongside a river of blood Or perhaps he should just take pride in having knocked the teeth out of a giant snake that had now failed to kill him twice
Philosophy is for idiots, anyway
His concerns left his up froainst his palm He would keep these, he decided, as a rea