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Chapter Text

The boy practically ran out of the war tent once his message had been delivered, barely even waiting to see if his Commander wanted to send a response back. He didn't, as it happened, but still. Very unprofessional.

"You know," Carthian murmured, resting his chin in his hand. "I keep forgetting how people react to you. Normal people, I mean."

Spindle stepped forward from the corner he'd been not-so-inconspicuously lurking in, looking down at the seated man with something that might, possibly, have been amusement. Or perhaps anger. Hard to tell, sometimes.

"Implying that you are not normal?" the half-demon asked archly, raising something that, had it had hair, would have been an eyebrow. As it was, it was a smooth arch of paper-white skin over bone, over eyes as washed-out and cold as spring waters. Eyes that Carthian rather fancied currently shone with humour.

"I spend quite a large portion of what little free time I have with you, don't I?" He smiled, waving a hand absently. "My reputation for sanity is rapidly approaching the negative. I do hope you're happy, by the way."

Spindle grinned, with a lot of teeth, setting his hip against the edge of the desk. Which, thankfully, was solid enough to bear it. An extravagant luxury on campaign, such a piece of furniture, but, well, Carthian was a Lord, and moderately well off. "I was under the impression that insanity was more or less promised to you, when your god sent you to join me."

"It was mentioned once or twice, yes. Or perhaps twenty." He flashed a grin, letting it take the edge off, and sat back in his (unfortunately rather more rickety) chair. He was tempted to prop his boots on the desk, but decided he'd rather not risk it. Neither the chair nor, perhaps, Spindle would take it well. "Though really. How am I supposed to get any work done, when all my subordinates practically piss themselves in terror whenever you're in a room with me?"

The half-demon looked at him for a second, eyes suddenly narrowing, and Carthian carefully let no change flicker over his expression. Not even when Spindle stood and twisted towards him in one fluid, oddly angular movement, leaning suddenly and somewhat menacingly over him. He settled for raising a questioning eyebrow instead, and taking a quiet moment to be grateful that he hadn't put his feet up.

"And you ... aren't? Afraid of me?" Spindle rumbled, leaning close with a sharp little grin, his tongue flickering out briefly as though to test the air for the scent of Carthian's fear. Which was present, certainly. But nowhere near as much as outsiders, and perhaps sanity, might suggest.

"Absolutely terrified," he deadpanned, mild as milk and very carefully, very visibly, not smiling. "I tremble in terror whenever you're near me."

Spindle blinked at him, studying him. Then laughed faintly, like the sound of crumbling bone, and reached to touch lightly at Carthian's knee with one silver fingertip, just over his boot. His weapon hand, bright and gleaming above the leather. "Trembling in your boots, are you?" he murmured. "And here I thought servants of the Danfar were supposed to be honest ..."

"Now see here!" Carthian shot back, in a very credible impression of offense. "I'll have you know my god has never once complained about my service!" Not within mortal hearing, at any rate. Whatever the gods said to each other was another matter entirely. "It's the truth, sir!" A grin, flickering there and gone again. "Do I not seem frightened to you?"

The half-demon smiled at him, a shattered gleam of teeth. "I'm not sure," he mused, watching Carthian thoughtfully. "Perhaps you believe you have your god's favour, and are in no danger?"

And that ... that was a rather more serious accusation. A rather more serious and dangerous implication. Best to nip that one in the bud, Carthian thought. Best to stop that right there.

"In my experience," he said, and for once there was no humour in his voice, "men who walk to battle sure in the knowledge that their god will not let them be hurt tend to get killed rather shortly afterwards. By their own stupidity as much as anything else." And then, a small smile, to lighten it. "Gods are lazy, you see. The less work you make them do, the more they favour you. So, yes. I think I have my god's favour." A sharp, deadly little grin. "For however long I can make sure he doesn't have to show it."

Spindle laughed at that. Threw back his head, long and harsh. At the sound of it, outside the tent, someone dropped something that sounded heavy and full of tools. Carthian winced mildly. Really, his men simply must start acting professionally around the demon.

"Your god must be very tolerant," Spindle noted, when the laughter had died back, still chuckling intermittently. "I didn't know the Danfar let such cavalier men be his soldiers."

Carthian waved a hand lightly. "Troubled times," he dismissed. "Though, admittedly, it might have something to do with the fact that I am the oldest servant of any god still in active service and not tied to a desk. Mostly because I'm the oldest soldier still alive to be in active service." A rueful twist of his mouth. "At a doddering 48 years old. Heh. Most of the war servants tend to be dead before they're forty, these days."

Spindle tilted his head, frowned down at him. "Good at it, then?" he asked casually. "Staying alive?"

Carthian smiled thinly up at him. "I have been moderately successful," he agreed. "Some luck, some judgement. The occasional flash of insanity in the right places." He shrugged. "As I said. The gods mostly favour those who favour themselves. I have yet to have any god need to show me overt favour."

Silence, for a second. Then Spindlebone leaned close again. Touched that deadly silver arm to his knee once more. Just gently. "And what of demons?" he asked, very softly. "Have there been any demons, to show you favour?"

Carthian froze for a small second. Uncertain. Was that ...? But no. Certainly not. And irrelevant either way.

"Not to my knowledge," he answered shortly. In part an answer to Spindle's nature. Not the demon. The treachery. Letting the half-demon know he was not depended upon, so that he need not yet betray them. And partly honestly, because after forty eight years he was still alive, and for a reason. "I imagine, though, that the favour of demons would be much like the favour of gods." A small, faintly cynical little smile. "There largely so long as it is not needed?"

Spindle looked thoughtful, for a second. Thoughtful and dangerous, an angular, deadly figure leaning over Carthian, that cold, metallic hand still hovering at his leg. A hand that could sprout a blade the way a seed sprouted a vine, in far shorter a time. But fair enough. Carthian had had his own small blade in his sleeve since first he had been assigned to the half-demon. Well, no. Since after his first battle with the forces of darkness, really, some thirty-five odd years ago.

He'd always been something of a fast learner. And a knife no-one expected you to have was always a bonus to a situation.

"Much like the favour of gods, yes," the half-demon said at last. Musing, light. Almost, Carthian thought, amused at the thought, that gods and demons should be so alike. Or, perhaps, that gods and half-demons should be so alike. Pale eyes flicking towards Carthian with a gleam of suspicion and a grudging flare of amused respect. "Though you really should show your fear more, if that's the case. Wouldn't do to look overconfident, now would it?" A smile like a blade of ice, but there was challenge in winter eyes, and almost anticipation. Almost hope.

Carthian grinned, bladed all his own, and reached down to tap the back of a silver hand imperiously. "Where would the fun be in that?" he asked. And then grimaced, mildly. "Besides. It seems my men will be showing enough fear for all of us, at least where you're concerned."

Spindlebone laughed, pulling himself to his feet and standing back from the desk. Back towards his favourite corner. "Maybe they're smarter than you are," he opinioned. "Or saner."

Carthian shrugged, smiling lightly. "Perhaps," he agreed, and settled his chin back in his hand.

Chapter Text

The silence as the other Commanders left the war tent was deadly. Spindlebone was fully aware of this fact, having made it so. So, it seemed, was Carthian. The Commander's pose as he watched the retreating backs of his colleagues, leaning back against his desk with his hands in plain view, was deliberately relaxed. Far too much so.

Oddly, of the others, it was the Mechanist, the woman Alest, who lingered long enough to look back, to glare warningly at Spindle and glance a silent offer of aid to the War Servant. Not the boisterous war-mage, the man who had engendered the threat in the first place. Spindle found that ... curious. But he had another matter to deal with first.

"I'll be across for inspection later, Alest," Carthian said softly. Optimistically, with a wry little flicker of a smile in her direction. She frowned, eyes still fixed on Spindle, obviously not buying this. But, as Spindle was rapidly beginning to learn, few enough in this Gods' army actually questioned the older man once he had made his wishes clear. So, after a moment, she left. With ill grace.

And Spindlebone was left alone with his prey.

"So," he murmured, into the heavy silence a few moments later, watching the almost-invisible thrum of tension through his companion's frame. Not moving. Not just yet. Save that threat for a little later. "Do your subordinates often greet you with a kiss?"

Carthian turned his head to look at him, otherwise motionless, flashing Spindle a small and somewhat weary smile. "Well, Brist has never suffered overmuch from a sense of decorum. Or, really, much of a sense of anything. But to answer the question you're actually asking ... Yes. He is an old lover." A crinkle about his eyes, that creased grin. "Or, should I say, a young lover, and brief, who has long since left for greener and less wizened pastures."

"Then you are ...?" Spindle asked slowly, the implication heavy.

"Obviously so," the man answered. Lightly, just for contrast. But not unaware.

There was silence for a moment. Spindle left it, content for now to watch the man, the line of his shoulders, still loose and easy. To see if silence should weigh on him and break that calm readiness. To see if knowledge of the threat of Spindle's reaction should nudge some shiver of fear from him.

Carthian, for his part, simply watched him back, green eyes clear as glass and a small smile on his lips. Spindle ... almost admired that. Just a little.

"And your gods?" he asked, very quietly. Allowing himself to prowl forward a little, footfalls light as air. Enjoying, briefly, the threat of it, for all his prey didn't react. "How do they feel about this?"

The War Servant raised his eyebrows, appearing mildly amused, as if the question had no bearing at all. Spindle enjoyed that. Oh, he did. "Well," Carthian answered, "Jaelmud and Telmat aren't fond of the thought, but then I don't serve them. Not directly, anyway. And the Lady Malat, of course, has been courting The Sobrona for the past two hundred years. Difficult to decry something when one of your most powerful allies engages in it, isn't it?" Then he smiled, rather more cynically, and shrugged. "At least openly, that is."

Spindle peeled back his lips. A glitter of metallic teeth. "And your god," he pressed, stalking nearer. Looming close.

Carthian let his eyebrows beetle down, a frown, as if to ask why it concerned him. But he answered readily enough, and without fear. "The Danfar has never raised the matter with me one way or another," he said, frankly. "If it matters to him at all, I suspect he has chalked it up to a necessary price for dealing with me in the first place."

That ... Spindle laughed, briefly, at that. Just for that answer. "A tolerant god indeed," he murmured, wondering briefly if the Danfar had sent him this, of all humans, to see which of them should eke an uncontrolled reaction from the other first. He was beginning to suspect that among the 'prices' for dealing with this man, as Carthian put it, was a certain degree of frustrated annoyance, be you god, demon or man.

It was probably why, despite himself, Spindle somewhat liked him.

"Hmm," Carthian agreed, mildly. Tilting his head back to smile up at Spindle, still propped casually against the desk. "And you?" A vague smile, to disguise the fact that he had tensed, just slightly, the canted boot pressed back against the leg of the desk to better propel the man in his lunge. Should he need it to. Neither fear nor much distrust was showing. Simply ... a waiting readiness for any eventuality. Marvellous. "Does it trouble you?"

Spindle tilted his head, licking his lips absently. Did it? Did it trouble him? He could see why it would be thought. All those he had lost to his father's cruelty, all those he had loved, had been female, or friend only. He could see ... why it might be thought. Oh yes.

"And if it did?" he asked, with a gleam of teeth, and the shifting of a silver arm. Just to watch the stillness become absolute, and the glass-green eyes become serene. Just for that.

"Then that would be a pity," Carthian murmured, eyes fixed to Spindle's and nothing, absolutely nothing, in his expression. "And here I had thought you almost didn't dislike me." A grin, just the edge of teeth, tension perfectly leashed, and Spindle thought, suddenly, how many of his kind must have seen it, seen this, just before the end. Just before the man struck. How many demons and dark-servants and the odd black mage might have looked into glass-green eyes, and not seen the knife coming for the stillness of the man.

"I don't," he said, into that bladed stillness, into the knife-edge behind the man's eyes. Carthian ... blinked. Only once. Uncertain, but not unready. Spindle grinned. Real and without threat, standing back a little. "Dislike you. I don't."

And there, just there. A vague frown, beneath the mildness of the expression. A little confusion in that so-confident gaze. Hah. Yes. Oh yes. He did like this man. But, he thought, he was also in agreement with the Danfar. Someone must startle something from him, at least once in a while, or there could be no enduring him. None at all.

"That is ... good?" Carthian said, slowly, not quite disguising the question in it. He was still poised, still ready. A wise distrust, maybe. Or possibly simply habit. "I aim to please, my lord demon." Hah! "But it does not ... quite answer my question?"

Still so wary, and not unconcerned. Spindle had heard that the War Servants were more ... tolerant, of such things. Out of sheer pragmatism if nothing else: secrets were more deadly than any dislike when your enemies sought to set you upon each other, so they endeavoured to have none. But it was obvious Carthian was not unused to defending himself because of it.

Or, perhaps, that Carthian was simply not unused to defending himself against demons, whose reasons for assault could be most anything, and it was Spindlebone himself he feared, not the mistrust and violence towards his nature. Either way, though.

"I am not troubled," Spindle said quietly. A small assurance, one he could well afford. For pragmatism's sake, if nothing else. And he did, he truly did, like the man. Mild as milk, and so very deadly. The oldest War Servant yet standing. Oh yes. He did like Carthian. But as he said. The man deserved the occasional perturbation. "Though ... if you would permit a question?"

And now, there was visible wariness. Not for his life, for which the man seemed to feel little to no fear at all. But for ... something else. Something not yet discovered. Spindle repressed a smile.

"You said yon mage left you for 'greener pastures'," he noted, tilting his head and letting prurient curiosity filter into his tone. Prurient, but genuine. Forty-eight was no age at all, even for humans. And though weathered, the man was far from 'wizened', with only a feathering of grey through russet hair, and no sign of a failing body. He would not last long as a warrior, against the things he fought, if there were. "You are not so old as that."

A little disappointingly, the wariness disappeared at that. Though the wry amusement that filtered in to replace it, with just a faint touch of bitterness, maybe a little resignation, was certainly interesting enough itself.

"I'm a War Servant," Carthian explained, with a dark little twist of his mouth. "We don't live past forty, remember? And I ... I am eight years overdue my death at the hands of darkness." A faint little smile. "More, really, if you count from when I first fought. I was a little younger than most." He looked up at Spindle, then. Bright humour in calm eyes, clear and unadorned. "There will only be so much longer I may dodge fate, and no partner I might take who would not know it. So. Do you blame them, then, for seeking greener and less dangerous pastures?"

Spindlebone tilted his head, looking down at him. At ease, for now, but always only a moment from that calm, deadly stillness. Always only a moment from the blade. "And yet," he said softly. Musingly. "Yet you do not seem resigned to death."

Carthian laughed. Rough and amused, and with that so tantilising edge of darkness. "Oh, no indeed," he grinned, standing suddenly, fluidly, tapping lightly at his hip. One weapon. The most visible, at least. "No, sir demon, not just yet." Watching him warily, laughingly, dangerously. "Whoever wants me can see how far they get, never fear." And then, a long, slow darkening, something grim slipping forward. "And, to that end ..."

Spindle smiled darkly in echo. "He did not look back," he murmured softly, delighted, in that part of him so used to treachery, that the man had noticed. "None who knows of me would expect me to react differently. And he did not look back."

Carthian nodded. Sighed, as though terribly disappointed. "Brist's band is marching guard on Alest's war-battery. Heading for the High Plains, and some of the more critical engagements. Even if he did not succeed in placing me, personally, in danger ..." A small smile for Spindle then, nodded acknowledgement. "Well. At least not for the moment ..."

"Treachery from that quarter might still cost far too much," Spindle finished, nodding. "You know you have no proof?" A depreciating grin of his own. "Only the agreement of a demon that it is likely. That will not get you very far."

Carthian smiled at him, and it promised such danger, Spindle could not help but delight. "Well, I promised Alest an inspection. How about we start from there, and ... see what happens."

Spindle grinned, tapping his weapon hand against his thigh, and followed the man out of the tent.

Hmm. Yes. How about, indeed.