‘We are immune to your contempt, mistress.’

‘Hardly, you’ve been smarting ever since I reawakened you. Smarting? Indeed, seething.’

‘There are matters to be discussed,’ Mok said.

‘Are you sure? Would you by chance be referring to this tumultuous tempest barring our advance? Or perhaps to the fleeing remnants of the army that pursued us here? They’ll not return, I assure you—’

‘You have sent a plague among them.’

‘What an outrageous accusation! It’s been a miracle that disease has not struck them long ago, what with eating each other without even the civil application of cooking. Dear me, that you would so accuse—’

‘Garath succumbs to that plague, mistress.’

‘What? Nonsense! He is ailed by his wounds—’

‘Wounds that the power of his spirit should have long since healed. The fever within the beast, that so fills the lungs, is the same as that which afflicts the Pannions.’ He slowly turned to face her. ‘Do something.’

‘An outrage—’

‘Mistress.’

‘Oh, all right! But don’t you see the delicious irony? Poleil, Queen of Disease, has allied herself with the Crippled God. A decision that deeply affronts me, I will have you know. How cunning of me to loot her warren and so beset her allies!’

‘I doubt the victims appreciate the irony, mistress. Nor, I imagine, does Garath.’

‘I’d much rather you’d stayed taciturn!’

‘Heal him.’

‘He’ll not let me close!’

‘Garath is no longer capable of standing, mistress. Where he now lies, he will not rise from, unless you heal him.’

‘Oh, what a miserable man you are! If you’re wrong and he tries to bite me, I will be very upset with you, Mok. I will lay waste to your loins. I will make your eyes crossed so that everyone who looks at you and your silly mask will not be able to help but laugh. And I will think of other things, too, I assure you.’

‘Heal him.’

‘Of course I will! Garath is my beloved companion, after all. Even if he once tried to pee on my robe – though I will acknowledge that since he was asleep at the time it was probably one of K’rul’s pranks. All right, all right, stop interrupting me.’

She approached the huge hound.

His eyes were glazed, each breath a hacking contortion. Garath did not raise his head as she edged closer.

‘Oh, dear, forgive my inattention, dearest pup. I’d thought only the wounds, and so had already begun to grieve. You are felled by an unseemly vapour? Unacceptable. Easily negated, in fact.’ She reached out, fingers lightly resting on the hot, steaming hide. ‘There—’

Garath swung his head, lips slowly peeling back.

Lady Envy scampered away. ‘And that is how you thank me? I have healed you, dearest one!’

‘You made him ill in the first place, mistress,’ Mok said behind her.