Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Ten: Firebull

Hap had known Koen for two years. They hadn't been separated since they met, had been through everything together, had come to the point where they were so used to each other's habits that they could pre-empt what they would each do in a given situation. He would have thought that that meant conversation would dry up after too long, having said everything there was to talk about and knowing each other so well.

Yet his apprentice still seemed to have so much to say.

"If you lit a Fleshmonger's mane on fire, what would it smell like?"

"In all likelihood, burnt hair," Hap replied. "I wouldn't advise you try it."

He sighed as Koen hopped over several crates and landed neatly on the other side. Hap's leg pained him more by the day, and seemed worse when he watched Koen bounding about with all the energy of a youth that seemed like a distant memory to him. His walking stick tapping on the road was the only sound all around, echoing off the warehouse walls on either side of them.

The only noise aside from the incessant chatter, that was.

"So its poison wouldn't smell of anything if you burnt it?"

"I doubt you'd notice anything within the three seconds it would take to knock you out," Hap said.

"Oh yeah." Koen stopped leaping over barrels and cargo crates, enthusiasm dimmed, and slowed to match Hap's pace. "There is that."

Hap rolled his eyes and turned the corner, not looking back to see if Koen cottoned on that he had changed direction. The buzzing presence of his aura was all he needed to keep tabs on the boy, and it never left his shoulder, bombarding him with an energy that made him feel tired in comparison.

"Where are we going again?" Koen asked. "And did we have to come through here?"

"If you hadn't made such a stink about travelling through the Barrens, we wouldn't have," Hap said. "And I seem to remember you promising not to complain about the alternative route before we left."

"Your memory's failing," Koen said, even as the lie showed up as a shimmer of mirth in his aura. "I did no such thing."

Hap grunted. He didn't like coming in through the West Gate any more than Koen did. Several square miles of steelworks, stonemasons and warehouses surrounded the gate, meaning that anyone who tried to pass through who wasn't a tradesman was treated with even more suspicion than at any other. Unspoken had a hard enough time getting in as it was.

He suspected Koen's reasoning was less complex; his apprentice just hated silence, and the steel district had it in plentiful supply at night.

"As for your question," Hap said, sensing Koen grow fidgety and moving to intercept another spiel of rhetorical nonsense, "I said we would meet Nika here when the seasons turned. He's staying in the city this year."

"He never stays in the dark season."

"And I think everyone has told him that since he decided to," Hap said, "Don't make a nuisance of yourself."

"I wasn't going to ask him," Koen said, indignant. "I was just saying. What's different this year?"

"I suspect the usual," Hap said, checking the position of the East Moon over the top of the warehouse. It was around midnight.

Koen cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck through his hood. "Yddris?"

Hap inclined his head.

"Not surprised it took so long this time," Koen said. "I thought Nika was actually going to..."

"Koen," Hap said. He didn't raise his voice, but Koen fell silent immediately. "Enough."