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Náli took a few more deep breaths, got his lungs steady, finally, and then stood. Dusted bits of grass off his trousers. “That’s a neat trick,” he told Valgrind.

“Kirik.”

“Come on, then.”

The diamond began to shiver against his chest as they crested the hill, and found the village sprawled homely and drowsy before them. Smoke twined up from chimneys and flocks of doves scudded along like low clouds, alighting on the sod rooftops. The lovely din of laughing children and the tinkling of cow bells was as alluring as ever, but as they started down the dusty cart path toward the village, Náli found that he wasn’t nearly as nervous about getting stuck here as he normally was. Valgrind’s tail swish-swished through the grass behind them, stirring up dust from the path, and Náli reached to pat at his shoulder as they walked, simply because he wanted to.

At the outskirts of the village, they encountered their first humans. Dead humans. Souls who’d crossed over. Náli didn’t know the specifics. He watched, half-amused, half-annoyed, as a woman pinning up her laundry caught sight of them. Her mouth fell open, wooden laundry pills spilling from her lips to the ground. Her hand flew to her throat. Her chest heaved beneath her apron as she dragged in a breath.

“Kindly don’t scream,” Náli said. “Screaming is so tedious.”

She screamed.

Valgrind screamed back, shaking his frills.

The woman whirled and went sprinting into the village, skirts lifted high, shouting incoherently.

“Now you’ve done it,” Náli muttered, and earned a cold lick on the side of his neck.

The sleepy little village erupted into chaos. Children were snatched indoors; window shutters clapped as they were slammed from the inside; women screamed, chickens darted, dogs barked. A man jumped into the road, brandishing a scythe.

Náli gave him an unimpressed stare. “You’re dead, friend. What are you going to do with that?”

Swing at him, apparently.

Náli ducked with a curse.

The scythe landed on the road before him, just as the air parted overhead with a whistle. He glanced up in time to see Valgrind slap the man across the middle with his tail, and send him flying back into the side of a house. He hit with an oof of expelled breath, then slid down to lie crumpled against the timbers.

Another man charged with a yell, this one wielding an old, rusted sword of a crude design not seen in Aeretoll for generations. He carried it awkwardly, up and too far back, exposing his entire front to attack.

Not that Náli had a weapon. He pushed up on his feet, dusted off his tunic, and wondered if he could actually be injured or killed here. If nothing else, he could trip the poor fool and send him sprawling; no one who launched an attack in that way was any sort of fighter.

He didn’t have to do anything, though. Valgrind rounded on the man with a snarl, and breathed out a plume of blue ice. The man froze mid-step, fully encased; he’d only had time for his eyes to go wide in shock before he was rendered a statue.

Náli sighed. “That was a bit excessive.”

It did the trick, though. The last few onlookers flung themselves indoors; Náli heard more than one security bar drop into place. Then they were alone in the street.

Náli picked up the abandoned scythe just in case, and on they walked to the heart of the village.

The smoke pouring from the longhouse chimney had an oily, rolling quality, thick and quick-coming…as though the fire inside had been doused. Scythe propped on his shoulder, Náli entered without knocking, and found the place in a state of total disarray. The fire in the center of the house had been smothered: with sand in places, and with the dumped contents of the cook kettles in others, the light from the windows gleaming on the puddles that had overrun the pebble trough. The air stank: from the hissing smoke and steam coming off the ruins of the fire, and from whatever had been cooking before, something sharp and unpleasantly herbal. The shaman was there, hurrying toward the back door, arms loaded with scrolls, long hair snarled and tangled, as if he’d been tugging at it.

“You!” Náli shouted, angry anew because he didn’t even know the man’s name. He’d spent his whole life attending him, and knew him only as the shaman. “Stop right there!”

The shaman cast a terrified look over his shoulder at Náli, reached the door, and yanked it open. The bastard was fleeing.

Or, rather, he intended to. Valgrind thrust his head through the door and shrieked in the shaman’s face. Náli couldn’t keep the smirk from his own face as the man shouted in alarm, tripped backward over his own long robe, and landed hard on his backside. The impact jarred the scrolls loose, and they went tumbling and rolling across the floor.

Náli closed the distance between them quickly, and stepped on the back of the shaman’s hand as he was reaching for a scroll, pinning him in place. When white-rimmed eyes lifted to meet his, Náli hefted the scythe. “Do not test me,” he said in his most commanding tone. “I don’t care if you’re already dead: I think you can die again, or you wouldn’t be running like a coward.” He tilted the blade so the light caught its wicked curve. “Am I right?”

The shaman’s lips trembled as he drew breath. “I-I-I don’t – no one has ever – and you brought your…” His gaze flittered to the door, where Valgrind had folded his wings and was trying to wedge his way through.

“Oi, don’t get stuck, you great oaf,” Náli said.

“Kirik.”

“No, stop it. Just stay out there.”