There was a muffled rasp and a thumping noise from the prisoners. Dion rounded on them angrily, about to castigate them for their impiety. And stopped. They had been precastigated with extreme prejudice. Enth stood by them, a knife in his hand that gleamed wetly. The pair of Doomsayers were sagged together, heads lolling drunkenly, and both of them awash with red that slicked their skins and soaked into their bindings.

“What…?” she whispered.

“What did… Why did you…?” Lief got out, bug-eyed. “We didn’t need to…”

Enth looked at the knife in his hand, then back at them all. “It was permitted,” he said simply.

“You murdered them!” Harathes snapped, leaping to full righteousness from a standing start. “You filthy animal.” He tried to loom at Enth, waiting for the man-spider to cringe away, but Enth just stood there, staring past him as though he was the least relevant thing in the world. Instead, that glassy black gaze met Dion’s.

“They were of the Dark,” he said.

“You can’t even know what that means,” she told him, skin crawling to hear him say the words.

“I know what it means. It means they can be killed,” Enth stated flatly. “My people are of the Dark. They can be killed by Men. The Ghants are of the Dark. They can be killed by Men. Perhaps Friend Lief is sad they are killed, but it is too difficult not to kill them: they are killed. These were servants of the Dark Lord. They are to die.”

“We were going to spare them, because they helped us,” Dion said weakly.

“Helped you?” Enth echoed vacantly.

“They told us where Darvezian was.”

“And if the Ghants had told you, they would have saved themselves?” There was a tremor building up in the creature. “No,” it said. “No. It is because these were Men. Dark Men. Evil Men. But Men. So you save them.”

“Enth, we tried, with the spiders. You tried,” Lief said softly.

A full shudder went through the man-spider, a convulsion that drove the knife into the body of the dead man by sheer muscle reflex. “I tried,” Enth hissed. “I tried and I couldn’t save them. From you. I couldn’t save them from you. Dark, Light, I don’t know these things, but they were not servants of your Darvezian. These, these were, and why, why should they live, when my people, when my people are dead, are dead, all dead.”

“Enth, please just put the knife down,” Lief whispered, because the man-spider’s hand was making a mince of the dead man’s shoulder and chest, spasmodically carving and cutting.

Enth’s fingers twitched wide, the blade dropping to the floor, and then he had whirled and lashed out at the wall, beating his fists against the black stones, shattering one of the red lamps. A sound came out of him: something utterly inhuman; something utterly comprehensible, frustration and rage and grief.