Assail

CHAPTER IV

A storm caught them while still west of the southern Bael coast. Master Ghelath saw them through, bellowing commands, solid on the deck though chilled blue from the spray. The towering cliff-high waves would have overpowered Havvin at the tiller arm had not Bars and Amatt taken hold to follow the canny old pilot’s orders.

Storms were one of the main reasons Shimmer hated these deep ocean crossings. It seemed to her that no frail construct such as a ship should dare challenge the might of such vast depths and lengths of open water. The pitching and yawing below decks made her sick; that and the clattering of loose equipment and the ominous groaning of the mere finger-widths of timber that separated her from the cold dark depths. The noise and stink of vomit drove her to seek the fresh air above decks — even when ‘fresh’ meant gale-force winds and driving sleet.

She found Lean and Sept taking their turn at the tiller arm, following Havvin’s commands yelled above the crashing of waves. K’azz was also above decks, an arm round the mainmast, staring forward into the roiling cloud cover. She climbed the stern to the pilot’s side, noting the length of line that secured him to the tiller arm. The old man, his long white hair a plastered layer upon his knobbly skull, sent her another of his intimate winks.

She planted her legs wide, lowered her head against the blowing spray, and offered him an uncertain frown.

The old man laughed his amusement. ‘Know you why Master Ghelath named her Mael’s Greetings?’ he called.

‘No,’ she shouted back.

‘Because Mael, having sent his greetings, need not send them again!’ and he cackled anew.

Sailors, she thought. The oddest sense of humour.

The pilot sliced an arm forward, yelling, ‘That one! Straight on!’ Lean heaved her considerable bulk against the arm while Sept pulled. ‘Further!’ Havvin urged. ‘Hard o’ port!’

‘I don’t remember volunteering for this,’ Lean gasped as she strained.

‘Beats marching,’ Sept grinned.

Lean, her jaws set, shook her head. ‘Never the right weather, is it? Always too hot or too cold. Too wet or too dry.’

Shimmer saluted them and headed back below. If they could still joke, then things were in hand. She descended the steep ladder to find Bars and Blues awaiting her at the bottom. Water poured down over her shoulders in one last chilling wash. ‘I’m beginning to hate these journeys,’ she told Bars.

‘I’m with you, Shimmer. Only way to get anywhere, though.’

They braced themselves on nearby timbers in the darkness of the low deck. Water sloshed about their boots. ‘And you, Bars,’ she asked. ‘Where were you in Assail lands?’

The man grimaced at the memory. ‘Exile Keep. On the shores of the Dread Sea. Turned out to be two inbred families of mages battling each other for control of the coast.’ He paused and ran a thumb along a scar on his chin. Blues’ eyes glittered in the dark as he waited and watched, just as Shimmer did. ‘Somehow they got it into their crazy paranoid heads that we were plotting to take the keep, or some damned fool thing like that. Both the families turned on us. Every last one of them. Anyway …’ Bars cleared his throat. ‘Cal an’ the rest withdrew. Pulled ’em all off so me and my Blade could escape in a local’s fishing skiff. That was the last I saw of them. Headed north along the Anguish Coast.’ He lowered his head to study the knuckles of one hand.

‘That was Cal’s plan, wasn’t it?’ Blues said gently. Bars nodded. ‘So stop beating yourself up about it. The plan worked. Now we’re back because of it.’

Bars curled the hand into a tight fist, lowered it. ‘Right.’

Ah, Bars, Shimmer thought. Always feeling everything so keenly. Like a raw exposed nerve. The man’s emotions were like a storm; it would be attractive if it were not so exhausting.

‘Where’s K’azz?’ Blues asked.

‘Up top. Watching the storm.’ Shimmer shook her head, mystified. ‘It’s like he’s not afraid one whit. Just curious. As if he wants to experience it.’

Blues snorted. ‘Well I’m damned afraid, if he’s not. Don’t like being out of sight of shore. Too far to swim.’

Of course, Shimmer reflected, being a mage of D’riss Blues wouldn’t like being out of sight of land. ‘We’re none of us happy sailors,’ she said.

The two chuckled their appreciation. ‘That’s for damned certain,’ Blues agreed, and he peered up nervously through the open hatch to the black churning mass of clouds above.

The next day the storm passed to the north and Mael’s Greetings, sails tattered and seams leaking, limped under oar to the south-east. Havvin was aiming for an island he had sketched into his personal rudder from descriptions and stories he’d heard over the years in sailors’ taverns in Delanss, Strike, and the Isle of Malaz.

Ghelath and K’azz ordered head-counts and were relieved to find that no one had been lost during the four days and nights of the storm. All the Avowed and ship’s crew not rowing were then pressed into labouring at the pumps and buckets in a continuous struggle to keep Mael from delivering his final greetings to his namesake. Shimmer was too busy to return to questioning K’azz regarding their destination. Indeed, she welcomed the distraction of exhausting physical work and threw herself to the task; she found ocean crossings, when not terrifying, damnably boring.

Three days later the call went out from the crow’s nest: land to the south-east. At first no one else could see it as what had been glimpsed were the merest tops of what proved to be tall mountains that seemed to rise straight out of the sea.

Havvin nodded as if expecting this and explained that such were the accounts he’d heard: an island of mountains nearly free of any land a person could stand upon. It was therefore often referred to as the Pillars. He skirted the island’s coast, circling to the north-east. Soon a narrow ribbon of beach, or strand, came into view and he threw over the tiller. Approaching, they saw numerous plumes of smoke, and presently spotted the long dark shapes of four oceangoing vessels anchored close to the shore. Their cut was unfamiliar to Shimmer. They appeared to be broad-beamed merchant ships adapted into war-vessels, with archers’ platforms added fore and aft.

‘Do you know those ships?’ she asked Ghelath, who shook his nearly bald head.

‘K’azz?’ she asked her commander, who was standing with Ghelath. He also shook a negative.

Bars came climbing the short stairs to the quarterdeck and joined them; he looked unaccountably grim. ‘I know them,’ he said. ‘And I wish I didn’t. They’re Letherii.’

Shimmer was impressed. Lether? She’d heard much of them but had never met any. ‘Accomplished merchants and businessmen and women, I hear.’

Bars gave her a strange look, then muttered beneath his breath: ‘That’s one thing you can say about them.’

‘Four vessels armed for war …’ Ghelath pointed out.

‘We have no choice,’ K’azz said flatly. ‘Put in and we’ll go ashore to see about repairs.’ Another might have taken offence at K’azz’s now belatedly stepping in to give commands, but all Shimmer could think was: about damned time.

Ghelath shook his head, dubious, but signalled Havvin.

The pilot took them to the stretch of the narrow shore farthest away from the Letherii vessels and ordered the anchor dropped. An informal landing party of Ghelath, K’azz, Shimmer and Gwynn drew together. Others could have joined, but with K’azz and Shimmer departing Blues elected to remain, and no other Avowed expressed an interest in negotiating with the Letherii. At the last moment, however, Bars slid down the rope ladder to join them in the launch. He looked ill-tempered already, and Shimmer wondered just what the man was expecting. They would merely be foraging for supplies and water, or, if necessary, purchasing them from the Letherii.

They drew the launch up the strand and headed towards a stand of tents. The narrow strip of flat land proved to be something of an armed camp. Troops were in the process of erecting a palisade of timbers that had possibly been salvaged from a fifth, wrecked, ship. The palisade, Shimmer noted, faced inland, where precipitous cliffs of a chalky white stone rose like walls themselves.

A party came down to greet them; one far larger than theirs, she noted.

‘Welcome.’ The party’s spokesman hailed them. He was bearded and wore banded iron armour that was polished to a bright gleam. Closer now, Shimmer saw that his armour was engraved with intaglio swirls and that the trimmings of his mantle and collar were of silk and white fur. ‘I am Luthal Canar, of the Canar trading house, of Lether.’

‘Greetings,’ Ghelath answered. ‘Ghelath Keer, Master of Mael’s Greetings.’

‘K’azz, of the Crimson Guard.’

Luthal nodded cheerily to them, while his party of some forty soldiers spread out around them. All were armed with crossbows. ‘Yes. Welcome to my island.’

‘Your island?’ Bars spoke up sharply, and he sent Shimmer a significant glance.

The man opened his hands in a sort of shrug of apology. ‘Well. The private property of the trading house of which I am the appointed representative.’

‘I see,’ K’azz murmured.

Luthal’s answering smile was wide, but hard, rather like the blade of a knife. ‘So I am sorry to say you are trespassing on a private commercial establishment. Luckily, we of Lether are not barbarians. We have not attacked you. We are enlightened. Our laws contain provisions for the peaceable restitution of crimes against property.’

‘Here we go,’ Bars grumbled to Shimmer beneath his breath.

Ghelath had been blinking rather confusedly for a few minutes and now he gazed about, his face reddening. ‘Establishment?’ he burst out. ‘What by Mael’s breath do you mean, an establishment? This is an island!’

Luthal nodded his pleasant agreement. His men, now ordered in double ranks, raised their crossbows. The front rank sank to one knee. ‘I agree that on the surface this piece of property might resemble an island. But it is in fact a mine.’

‘A mine,’ Ghelath mimicked mockingly. ‘A bloody mine?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And what by Hood’s dead grasping hand could you possibly mine here?’

‘Shit.’

Ghelath blinked anew, startled. Shimmer frowned at Bars. K’azz, for his part, was eyeing the distant cliffs as if studying them for climbing.

‘What was that?’ Ghelath asked, obviously completely lost.

Luthal had not lost his convivial façade, which Shimmer now recognized as the Lether way of conducting business. It was the bland merchant’s mask that covered chicanery, deceit, chiselling, theft, slavery and murder. The man gestured to the ground. ‘Bird shit, to be exact,’ he explained. ‘You are standing on it. This entire shore is made up of layer upon layer of bird shit. And it is really quite valuable.’

Ghelath waved that aside. ‘Well, we have no interest in your damned shit. We just want to purchase supplies for repairs.’

It seemed to Shimmer that Luthal’s smile became even more smooth. ‘Purchase, you say? That is not necessary. Because, you see, the penalty for trespassing is confiscation of your vessel.’

‘Confisca- What?’ Ghelath grunted, appalled. He lunged for the man but K’azz caught him by the back of his shirt. The forty crossbowmen tensed, adjusting their aim.

K’azz slowly raised his open hands. ‘I understand. We broke your laws — and this your price.’

‘We didn’t know you’d claimed the entire damned island,’ Bars ground out.

‘Ignorance is no defence before the law,’ Luthal observed. ‘Surely you are not such a complete barbarian that you are unaware of this concept?’

To the Letherii, K’azz may have appeared unmoved. But Shimmer read his anger in his fixed expression and the deep lines bracketing his mouth. ‘We are not unaware,’ he answered. ‘Seeing then that we require a ship … may we purchase one of yours?’

It was Luthal’s turn to appear confused. The man lowered his chin to study K’azz from beneath his brows. ‘I believe in truth you do not understand. The confiscation of your ship includes all cargo, chattels and equipment on board. Considering this, I do not see what you could possibly possess as collateral to guarantee such a purchase.’

‘None the less, I wish to enter into a contract with you for the purchase of one of these vessels.’

‘And do you accept the price for default upon such a debt?’

‘I do.’

Shimmer grasped his shoulder, hissing, ‘What are you doing?’

‘I know what I am doing, Shimmer,’ he answered firmly.

Luthal crossed an arm over his chest and propped his other elbow upon it to tap a finger to his chin. ‘I set that price at one hundred peaks.’

‘One hundred!’ Ghelath burst out. ‘That’s absurd! That must be half the coin in all of Lether!’

‘One tenth, I estimate,’ Luthal answered, his gaze fixed upon K’azz, one eyebrow arched.

‘I accept your price.’

‘Very well.’ Luthal held out his hands as if such a mass of coin could fit within them. ‘Produce it.’

K’azz dug in a pouch at his side then dropped a single coin into the merchant’s hand. Luthal examined it, nonplussed. ‘A Quon quarter-moon? What jest is this?’

‘A tip above the asking price. I believe you set the price at the sum this entire beach would fetch at current rates on the market in Lether. I assure you that I could take this beach from you should I wish. However, I have restrained myself, thereby giving it back to you. Price paid by anyone’s measure.’

Luthal lost his smile; he glanced to his crossbowmen then returned his narrowed gaze to K’azz. ‘I do not accept your assurances. I consider you forfeit of the amount and you and your crew indebted to me.’ He raised a hand to his archers.

‘What of a trial of payment?’ K’azz asked sharply.

The merchant paused, then lowered his hand. He studied K’azz. ‘A trial?’

‘Is that not in keeping with the laws of Lether?’

‘Well, yes …’

‘And the debt is considered discharged should I succeed?’

Luthal chuckled, but his eyes remained flat and hard. ‘If you should succeed … yes.’

‘Very well. I accept payment by trial.’

Luthal waved his guards forward and they took hold of K’azz. Shimmer felt just as confused as Ghelath. ‘K’azz, what is this?’ she demanded.

He glanced down at her. ‘Do not interfere.’ Then his face softened and he added: ‘Promise?’

She grated her teeth as she watched the guards yank him away. ‘If I must,’ she murmured savagely. Infuriating! She had thought that after Jacuruku all his secrecy would be done with. But it seemed that after all nothing had been resolved. What had he gained from Ardata in any case? A name. A location. Nothing more. Assail. A place he was then seemingly completely unwilling to travel to. And now that he was so close — despite his every effort! — he would rather indulge this pompous Letherii merchant.

Someone was laughing and she spun to see the scarecrow figure of Cowl approaching along the beach. He was clapping silently and chuckling his eerie unnerving laugh. It was all Shimmer could do to restrain herself from slapping the man. She looked to Bars, who was frowning as he watched K’azz being marched off. ‘You know what’s going on,’ she accused him.

Grimacing, he lowered his gaze and nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well?’

He glanced up. His lips were pressed tight but he eased them, sucking in a breath. ‘Seen one of these trials while I was in Lether.’

‘Yes?’

He cleared his throat and dragged a hand across his chin and his growing russet and grey beard; he appeared to be searching for the best away to present what he’d seen. ‘They load the debtor up with chains and weights and drop him into one of their canals. If he’r she can walk the canal, then they’ve discharged their debt.’

Shimmer felt her brows rising in growing disbelief and horror. ‘And has anyone ever managed this feat?’

‘Ah — only one, as I heard tell.’

‘This is absurd.’ Shimmer dismissed him to chase after K’azz.

‘You swore to obey,’ Cowl called in warning.

Shimmer felt again the grating jagged blade the man’s voice drew down her spine. She slowly turned to face him. ‘You would have him killed?’

Something strange crossed the man’s features, almost a secretive knowing amusement, and he chuckled anew. ‘I would have his orders followed,’ he said, still laughing.

She looked to the knot of Lether soldiers escorting K’azz, and Luthal following after, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Well,’ she murmured. ‘There’re no canals here.’

Bars cleared his throat. Having her attention, he motioned to the waters of the lagoon beyond where the Lether ships rested at anchor.

‘Oh, dammit, no …’

Indeed, the soldiers were taking K’azz to the launches drawn up on the beach. ‘What do we do?’ she asked.

The big man hunched his rounded shoulders, considering. ‘Well,’ he ventured at length, ‘I believe you can request to witness the trial.’

It turned out that Letherii law allowed two individuals, relations or acquaintances of the accused, to witness their trial. Shimmer and Blues attended. Avowed brought Blues to the island and rowed them across to the flagship of Luthal’s merchant flotilla. To Shimmer’s eyes the proceedings in no way resembled a trial as she knew it. K’azz stood bound while stone weights were hung upon him by way of stout rope. No questions were posed. No charges were read. No opportunity was given for a response from the accused. She supposed that being away from civilized lands, Luthal had dispensed with such finer points of the law.

All the while she held K’azz’s gaze. She knew her expression conveyed her questions, doubts and fears. He answered with calm forbearance. He even raised a bound hand, as far as he could, to further reassure her.

Meanwhile, Blues at her side was seething. ‘What is this Togg-forsaken nonsense?’ he muttered. ‘We should step in …’

‘He doesn’t want any bloodshed.’ And she noted the many Letherii soldiers about the deck, all with crossbows cocked and readied.

‘No bloodshed in drowning, that’s certain,’ he growled.

‘Those are his orders.’

‘Seems he really does want you in command, Shimmer.’

She glanced to him, the grey-blue hue of his face even darker in his anger, and had opened her mouth to dismiss such a thing when Luthal spoke.

The guards turned K’azz to face the ship’s side, out over the water of the lagoon, towards the shore. ‘The indebted has chosen a trial,’ Luthal began. ‘In order to win free of his obligation he merely has to carry his burden underwater to the shore. It is his free choice. No one forced the accused to take on these debts and burdens. The lenders and creditors are the innocent aggrieved parties in this exchange.’

Luthal coughed into his fist and nodded to the guards. Seeing his expression of untroubled solemnity, it occurred to Shimmer that the man actually believed the nonsense he was spouting. As if watching one’s children starve, or struggling to salvage a lifetime of work, wouldn’t force anyone to do anything. No, there was no coercion at all in the battle to keep a roof over one’s head and survive in this world. Such a belief — and the circumstances that allowed it — must be a convenient and soothing balm indeed.

‘Let the trial begin,’ Luthal announced, and the guards pushed K’azz over the side.

Shimmer and Blues lurched forward, but K’azz shot them a glare over his shoulder as he slipped from sight and shouted, ‘No!’

The pair halted, exchanging looks of disbelief and horror. It was as if both had fully expected that somehow K’azz would escape, reverse the proceedings, or otherwise win through as he always had in the past.

Flanked by his guards, Luthal approached them. His expression was sad, but behind it Shimmer read satisfaction and an untouchable smugness that almost tipped her into a blind fury. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, obviously not sorry at all. ‘However, justice had to be done. The dept is now abrogated and discharged. You and your crew are free to land on the beach — though fees must be levied for such occupation, of course.’

Shimmer stared at the man, stunned by his false assurances of sympathy, his lofty, breathtaking arrogance. Free to land on the beach! Oh yes, quite free. Or equally free to stay on their slowly sinking vessel and drown. Obviously, they were free to choose! No possible coercion here at all.

She longed to stab the man through his uncomprehending skull, but then they’d be forced to kill the rest of them as well — which was clearly what K’azz had wished to avoid. She’d even moved her hand to the worn grip of the dirk at her belt when shouts of disbelief and alarm sounded from the ship’s side.

Luthal’s sailors and soldiers crowded the rail. Shimmer was hardly paying them any attention. She’d already decided to return to Mael’s Greetings and from there launch an attack upon one of the Lether vessels, sinking all the rest as well if it should prove necessary.

Which was what they should have done in the first place! She glanced to Blues and the man edged his head up and down in the slightest of nods. So it was decided, without any words, as only two who had campaigned side by side for years could decide.

As for K’azz and this absurd manner of throwing away his life … what could he have been thinking? Had he hoped for a different sort of trial? That Luthal was bluffing? She had no idea — she only felt tired by it all. Now she wished he hadn’t come with them after all. If the man had wanted to kill himself, he should have simply gone ahead and thrown himself into Lake Jorrick.

Luthal suddenly pushed himself back from the side and hurried to her. Anger darkened his features and he jabbed a finger out over the waters. ‘What trickery is this?’ he demanded.

She blinked at him, her brow crimping. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Do not play coy — you outlanders with your magery and magics. This is simply unacceptable.’

She and Blues brushed past the man. The crossbowmen tracked them with the iron tips of their quarrels as they crossed to the side. Rather reluctantly, she glanced down; she had not wanted her last vision of the man to be of him drowned under fathoms of water.

The lagoon, or stretch of shallowing water, was a clear pale turquoise over the rising slope of the beach, probably because of the sand floor. Shimmer imagined that slope to be quite steep beneath the vessel as it dropped off precipitously into deep midnight blue. Far below there appeared to be a dark figure struggling, moving side to side with a kind of exaggerated gait. For lack of anything else it resembled some sort of monster of the deep making its ungainly way to the land. Yet she wasn’t absolutely certain: the motion of the waves partially obscured it, as did the sunlight glinting and glimmering from the surface.

‘I dismiss this trial as a corrupted test,’ Luthal announced.

Shimmer continued to watch the dark wavering figure as it made its slow laborious way up the white sand slope. To one side lay the half-buried rotting hull of a wreck. Peering down, she noted a number of other such skeletal remains littering the deep lagoon bottom. ‘You mentioned no such provision in the trial,’ she answered, rather distractedly. She fought to keep a smile from pulling at her lips: why hadn’t he told her? Obviously he’d worked out some sort of solution with Gwynn, or Petal, or perhaps all the company mages combined.

‘It is understood,’ Luthal huffed. ‘Everyone knows this.’

‘Sadly, we outlanders are ignorant of such niceties. Everyone knows this.’

Luthal peered over the side and his eyes fairly goggled at the progress the figure below was making. ‘You cannot mean to hold to such an absurd demonstration!’

‘I agree that your practices are absurd. But you insisted.’ The merchant adventurer appeared ready to order his crossbowmen to fire upon her. ‘Perhaps we should take the boat to shore,’ she suggested. ‘To see how the trial ends.’ Luthal snarled under his breath, but he snapped an order to the sailors and they set to lowering rope ladders to waiting launches.

Shimmer found it uncannily odd to find herself floating over her commander’s head while he struggled below to heave his load of stones up the submerged slope. Who was aiding him? she wondered. Could it be Petal on Mael’s Greetings? Or Gwynn? Yet neither of these had ever confessed to any knowledge of Ruse magics. It certainly was not Blues here beside her, frowning down at the water, apparently as completely perplexed as she. However, it occurred to her that the Warren of High Denul, the healing and manipulation of the flesh, could also serve to sustain K’azz. And every Crimson Guard mage, out of necessity, possessed some familiarity with the healing magics of Denul. Perhaps Petal was even now completely engrossed in maintaining K’azz’s breath. This must have been what K’azz had in mind from the beginning; why the man had pressed so hard for a trial. He’d worked it out with the company mages but had not included her. She had to admit to feeling a touch put out.

Didn’t he trust her?

The boat ground ashore and Luthal and his escort of six guards clambered out. She and Blues followed; the guard kept a steady bead on them with their crossbows as if they would throw themselves upon Luthal. She ignored them. Together they all awaited K’azz’s arrival. Other than they, the beach was deserted. When she and Blues had headed out, Ghelath and the rest of the Avowed had returned to the Greetings, there to await the outcome of the trial — and to avoid any further fees the Letherii might invent to level upon them.

Out of curiosity, Shimmer peered about at the so-called ‘establishment’. What immediately came to mind was an impression of general shabbiness. That, and the temporary, transient character of everything. No buildings of any sort had been erected. Canvas tents, pole-framed, stood here and there. Fire pits were in evidence everywhere. The Letherii soldiers — private hired guards, she corrected herself — lounged about in the shade of the tents, all but those manning the palisade that ran across the inland edge of the beach. The entire band appeared scruffy, ill-fed, and lacking in any discipline.

They would prove no challenge should Shimmer choose to act.

K’azz, however, held his company to a higher standard. No mere brigands were they to simply take what lay within their power to take. And Shimmer found that she agreed, though it galled her to have to endure the smug self-righteousness of Luthal.

The palisade troubled her. Clearly they were not alone on the island. Who were the locals? Hostile in any case, she assumed. And the palisade itself was not built simply of logs. It was an uneven mishmash of adzed timbers and sections of what appeared to be decking and hulls of ships. The entire construction was made up of bits and pieces of salvage from many wrecks.

She studied the rising pillar-like slopes above and noted that while grasses and low brush covered the rock, anything larger was entirely absent. Not one tree grew here — or they’d all been harvested for cooking or building. Had K’azz seen this earlier when he’d been studying the island?

A grunt of outrage from Luthal drew her attention to the lagoon. A dot had emerged from the waves: K’azz broaching the surface. Hunched forward, the man doggedly carried on, step after laborious step. And the shifting sands couldn’t be helping.

His shoulders emerged, each looped by the numerous ropes supporting his load of stones.

‘Impossible …’ Luthal murmured at Shimmer’s side. His voice, she noted, held a touch of awe. He turned to her, now scowling. ‘This is your foreign Warren-magic.’ He swept a hand down in dismissal. ‘This is illegal. You are forfeit.’

‘Forfeit?’ Blues snarled. ‘You set a trial. We pass it. Now you back out?’

The crossbowmen, Shimmer saw from the corners of her eyes, were spreading out in a semicircle facing them. K’azz was now only knee-deep in the surf. With each step the stone weights hung upon him clattered and knocked as he heaved himself up the steep grade of the beach. Shimmer tried to catch his eye but his head was lowered in his struggle to stay erect.

‘Mistrial!’ Luthal shouted. ‘I call mistrial! Outside influence!’

Shimmer had had enough. ‘Oh, shut the Abyss up.’ She ran down into the waves to help K’azz. Together, she and Blues half dragged their commander the rest of the way until he sank to his knees. The stones rattled and Shimmer noted the deep gouges the ropes had pressed into his shoulders. Blues had already begun cutting.

‘This proves nothing,’ Luthal continued, his voice rising.

K’azz heaved himself to his feet. Shimmer was amazed to see that he was not even out of breath. He pushed back his sodden hair and studied Luthal. Shimmer knew him well enough to read the fury in his narrowed impassive gaze.

‘You will not honour even your own laws?’ he ground out. His voice was level but Shimmer heard the disappointment, and disgust.

The Letherii showed only defiance, arms crossed, his expression one of arrogant superiority. ‘You did not follow the spirit of the law,’ he objected.

Shimmer found the man’s blindness to his own hypocrisy breathtaking. Moreover, he was obviously incapable of even understanding the possibility of it.

K’azz appeared to have reached the same conclusion as he blew out his breath and wiped the remaining water from his face. ‘Very well. Since there is no way we can ever satisfy you … we shall go.

‘Go? You cannot go — there remains the matter of the debt!’

For the first time a hard edge crept into K’azz’s voice: ‘I fulfilled your trial yet I choose to forgo the hundred Peaks. Consider yourself lucky not to be the one indebted.’

Luthal’s mouth twisted as he tasted the sourness of his position. Curtly, he waved them off. ‘Go then. Renegers. Men and women of bad faith. I cannot do business with those who refuse to honour even the most basic laws of commerce.’

Blues drew breath to answer but K’azz wearily raised a hand for silence. Together they walked to the small skiff that Ghelath had left pulled up the shore.

‘They gonna shoot us from behind?’ Blues murmured to K’azz, without looking back.

‘I suspect not,’ K’azz answered. ‘That would precipitate a pocket war between our forces. Bad for business.’

‘You’ve shown some restraint yourself,’ Shimmer observed.

K’azz nodded his tired agreement. ‘I gave the man every chance, Shimmer,’ he said. ‘Witness that. Every chance.’

Back on board Mael’s Greetings, Shimmer immediately sought out Gwynn and Petal. She found them already together at the ship’s side. ‘How did you do it?’ she asked. They exchanged surprised, and rather alarmed, glances.

‘We thought …’ Petal began, ‘that is … we were just discussing how Blues could have managed …’

‘But he didn’t do it.’

‘As I said,’ Gwynn cut in, looking satisfied. ‘I detected no active Warren-manipulation at all.’

‘Yet there must have been something,’ Petal murmured. The possibility that there hadn’t been seemed to terrify him.

They looked past her, nodding their greeting, and she turned to see the man himself flanked by Blues and a second figure: the scarecrow-tattered High Mage Cowl, wearing his usual mocking smile.

Of course. Cowl.

The one mage she’d forgotten. And why? Because she so very much wanted to forget the bastard. Ghelath edged his way forward through the gathered Avowed as they congratulated K’azz. ‘We can’t sail,’ he complained. ‘The moment we leave the bay we’ll wallow and capsize!’

‘Yes, Master Ghelath. Unship the oars. Make for the nearest Letherii vessel. It’s time to collect a down payment on my debt. Bars — organize a boarding party. Minimum bloodshed. Just throw them overboard.’

Bars gave a savage grin and saluted. ‘’Bout goddamned time.’ K’azz caught Shimmer’s eye. ‘Every chance, Shimmer,’ he said, as if by way of apology.

‘I understand.’

‘I’m doing them a favour, actually,’ he added, and he motioned to the island. ‘You saw the palisade? The guards?’

She frowned, puzzled. ‘Yes.’

‘I could order their other ships sunk, yes? But I won’t. That would condemn them all to death. Seems the locals don’t want them here — and there’s no food or water on that narrow strand of shit.’

He gave her a small smile then and turned away, heading for his cabin. Cowl remained behind and she caught his eye, beckoning him aside. When they had a modicum of privacy, she asked, her voice low, ‘How did you do it?’

The man’s maddening, mocking grin deepened. ‘Do what?’

She bit down on her irritation. ‘Sustain him.’

The mage appeared to be enjoying the discussion so much he had to wrap his arms around himself. ‘I did no such thing, Shimmer.’

‘No?’ She did not bother to hide her confusion. ‘You didn’t? Then who …?’

‘No one did. That is, other than K’azz.’

‘K’azz? But he is no mage — is he?’

‘He is not.’

‘Then … how?’

The man just smiled all the more. And he slowly turned away, grinning and chuckling. Shimmer wanted to strangle him. But that had been tried before: Cowl had had his throat cut and been strangled by Dancer himself. Yet he’d lived. Somehow he’d lived. Was that the secret these two shared? If so, she felt a new sensation stealing over her. She realized she no longer simply feared for her commander. She faced the closed cabin door. Now, she knew a strange new sensation: now she felt a rising dread of her commander.

K’azz — what are you becoming?

* * *

Burl slept poorly after his confrontation with Gaff and the crew. Over the following nights he jerked awake at every slight creak of hull timber or tick of wood from the cabin panelling. Whellen still slept soundly, as if under some sort of spell. The crew worked quietly, subdued and watchful. It did not help that there was so little to do; the Strike hardly moved at all. Only the weakest of icy winds urged it on.

As the days passed, Burl quit his cabin less and less. Why bother? There was nothing to see or do. And he did not like the way the crew watched him; as if these troubles were all his fault. He suspected that they were planning to throw not only Whellen overboard, but him as well for protecting the man. As the days passed, he became certain of it. He took to sitting facing the door to his cabin, sword across his lap. He even slept in the chair, jerking awake and snatching up the weapon whenever he nearly slid from his seat.

Hunger finally drove him out. He gave the form of his still immobile First Mate one last glance, then eased open the door. Sword out, he edged out on to the mid-deck. The soft diffused light of the day made him think it was late afternoon, though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard the ship’s bell.

To his surprise and horror he discovered the deck empty of any crew. Not one soul was in sight. He drew breath to bellow his outrage but something choked his throat, some nameless dread and suspicion: if everyone was gone then couldn’t who or what ever did it — couldn’t it — still be about?

He hunched into a fighting crouch, sword raised, and padded onward as quietly as he could. When he edged past the mainmast some instinct, or faint rustle, made him glance upwards and he thought he caught a glimpse of movement there at the lip of the crow’s nest high atop the mast. A pulled-away dark lump against the ice-blue sky that might have been the silhouette of a head.

He tried one leaf of the cargo hold doors but found them secured somehow from within. Strange, that. He searched the bows and found that indeed the ship was empty of all crew. He came across no sign of violence or struggle; no blood, scattered gear, or damage. Everything was secured, tied down and squared away. It was as if the crew, after taking care to ready for ship’s inspection, then piled into launches and abandoned the vessel. But that was not quite so: the two small-boats remained in their moorings.

Gaff’s description of the ghost ship returned to him then and he shivered something clutched his throat, almost cutting off his breath. They’d found it looking clean and in order — simply empty of all souls. Gaff had even mentioned unfinished meals on the common table in the galley.

As if everyone had merely walked away … or been taken.

He shook his head to clear it of such fancies. This was no ghost ship. He and Whellen were here. He returned to the stern and the narrow companionway. Here he found the door to the stores closed and barred. He banged upon it.

‘Open up, damn you! This is Burl! The captain! I order you to open up!’

He waited, but no one answered. He raised his fist once more but froze as he sensed someone there, listening, perhaps pressed up against their side of the door. ‘Who’s there?’ he murmured, lowering his voice. ‘Who is it? Gaff? Are you there?’

Something shifted behind the door, cloth brushing against wood. ‘Gaff is gone,’ came a strangled whisper.

‘Gone? Gone where?’

After a long silence he thought he heard a gasped, ‘Taken.’

‘Taken? By who, man? Who? Answer me!’ He waited, listening. Only his harsh breathing sounded in the companionway, that and the weak creaking of the timbers as the vessel coasted onward over the still waters. ‘Who?’

A voice, speaking perhaps through choking misery, sobbed: ‘Maybe you!’ The sobbing climbed into abject weeping and someone slid down the boards of the door.

Burl flinched away as if the man’s fit were somehow contagious.

He climbed to the deck, perhaps hoping for open clean air, but he was not refreshed. The atmosphere was chill and dead. His breath plumed about him in a cloud. On a hunch, he started up the rigging for the crow’s nest. When he was halfway up the head reappeared above and a voice called, high and strangled: ‘I’ll jump! I swear! Come no closer!’

Burl was angry at himself for not being able to identify the crewman, so choked with terror was the voice. Was it Juth? Or maybe Bolen? ‘That you, Bolen?’ he called.

‘Stop or I’ll jump!’ the voice shrieked.

Burl halted. He raised a hand. ‘All right! I’m stopping. What is it? What’s stalking the crew?’

The man was weeping. ‘I don’t know! Could be anyone!’ The head ducked from sight. ‘So keep away!’

Burl cursed under his breath. Anyone? And why? What’s to gain? A lone person can’t possibly sail a damned ship. It didn’t make any sense.

He started back down the rigging. On the deck a suspicion took him and he ducked into the cabin: Whellen still lay within. He went to the galley and collected a handful of dried biscuits then returned to the cabin, shut the door, adjusted the chair once more to face the entrance and sat, sword across his lap.

He chewed on a biscuit and waited for whatever was stalking the crew to come for him.

Some time later, he jerked awake at a noise — or at least he thought he heard a noise. He thought it sounded like a splash. He straightened on numb stiff legs and reached for the latch. Then he remembered something and stopped to look: Whellen still lay beneath his blanket. Hoar frost gleamed on the coarse wool weave. Burl clenched and unclenched his hands to warm them, then pulled open the door. The iron latch was so cold it burned his fingers.

Again he found the deck empty. The waters of the Sea of Dread remained calm — unnaturally so. Any body of water of its size ought to have considerable waves. The sky above was darkening into twilight. Stars shone through and Burl blinked and rubbed his eyes as he gazed at them: he recognized none of the constellations. Where was the Rudder? The Cart? The Great Cowl? It was as if he were staring up at another sky.

He spun, raising his sword: for a moment he’d been certain someone was behind him. Indeed, he still had that prickling feeling that someone was watching him. Glancing about to be sure he was alone, he sheathed the sword, then started up the rigging. This time no one challenged him. He reached the crow’s nest and peeked within: empty. Perhaps what he’d heard had been a splash. He climbed back down.

Everywhere he checked it was the same: doors that were formerly locked and barred now hung open. None showed any sign of having been hacked or forced. The stores and armoury were empty, as was the hold. As far as he could determine Whellen and he were now the only two souls on board the Strike.

He returned to the mid-deck.

This time he was not alone. Another stood at the side, facing away out over the limpid waves. A familiar blanket lay draped about his shoulders: Whellen.

So. Now it was his turn. Someone had slain the rest of all the souls on board and now only the two of them were left alive. And Burl knew it wasn’t him; he raised his weapon and advanced upon the man. ‘You’ll not find me so terrified,’ he called.

Whellen turned and Burl was surprised by his expression. He’d expected a snarl or gloating, but the man just looked sad and worn. He wasn’t even armed.

‘I’ve been dreaming,’ he said, and his gaze slid away to the sea.

This drew Burl up short. The blade quivered as he shook. ‘Dreaming? Dreaming of what?’

‘Of dread.’

Now he was certain the man was mad. He’d harboured an insane murderer. Against all the crew’s exhortations, he’d sheltered the man. What a fool he’d been. He probably deserved to die far more than they. He clenched the shortsword in both hands but still it shuddered. ‘Why?’ he managed, his throat almost choked off, so dry was it.

‘Why?’ Whellen echoed, thoughtful, his gaze still narrowed upon the iron-grey waters. Then that gaze shifted to Burl and in it he read only the grief that bowed the man’s shoulders. He appeared sorrowful beyond tears. ‘You think I did all this,’ he murmured, and gestured to indicate the ship.

‘Who else?’

‘Not you then?’ he asked, and a sort of weak smile plucked at his lips, as if acknowledging a poor joke.

Burl swallowed his terror and redoubled his sweaty grip upon the blade. ‘What kind of lunacy is that? Listen to yourself.’

‘I mean, are you certain the crew is gone? Perhaps it is just you who is gone.’

‘What?’ Burl didn’t want to listen to any of this craziness, but he could not bring himself to run him through in cold blood. Perhaps it hadn’t been him after all. ‘What do you mean, man? Speak sense, damn you to the Enchantress! I mean it … or I’ll kill you!’

‘I mean that there have been no murders here. No one has killed anyone.’

‘Bullshit! What happened to everyone, then?’

The first mate raised his open hands and examined them. ‘It’s this place, Burl. It’s where we are.’ He gestured to the waters, the sky. ‘We don’t belong here. It’s not for us. That’s what everyone’s been feeling. As if an enemy has been stalking every one of us. But that enemy is just our own fears.’

Burl almost thrust his blade through him for concocting such a preposterous story, no doubt to squirm out of his guilt. Yet somehow he wasn’t entirely convinced that this man was the murderer. Hadn’t he lain ill or in a faint all this time? Or had he been duped somehow? Perhaps he had an accomplice … and Burl snatched a quick glance behind. Seeing nothing, he wet his lips and muttered a weak, ‘I don’t believe you.’

Whellen nodded his understanding, or acceptance. ‘There is no way I can convince you, is there?’ he murmured softly, as if he were speaking to himself. He shrugged to drop the blanket from his shoulders. ‘Except perhaps this way.’

‘What?’ Burl answered. But the man wasn’t listening. He merely gave Burl one more nod, as if in farewell, and leaned backwards. Burl lunged, snatching at him. ‘No!’ But all he touched were the man’s sandals as he slipped over the side to fall to the water below.

Burl leaned down, reaching, his hands empty.

The Sea of Dread was a particularly clear sea, and Whellen remained visible for some time as he sank, staring upwards, his face a pale oval, in no way panicked or desperate, only so very sad. Or regretful. As if all this were nothing more than an unfortunate accident of fate. Burl watched until the man’s outline disappeared into the murk of the depths. Then he threw himself away from the side as if it burned to the touch. He snatched up the sword and continued backing away until he reached the door to his cabin, then he quickly jumped within and slammed the door.

‘Now we’ll know for certain,’ he whispered, fierce, as he readied the chair and sat once more, sword across his lap.

‘Now we’ll know!’ he shouted at the door and whatever things were gathering beyond. ‘If no one comes — we’ll know!’

He wet his lips, clenched and unclenched his hot grip on the weapon. ‘Come on!’ he screamed at the door. ‘Come on!’

He listened, but all he heard was his own hoarse breathing. He took one clumsy hacking swing at the door, croaked, ‘Come on!’ He listened again while he held his breath. Something was there. He was certain of it. Why wouldn’t it come? Why this agony of waiting? Won’t it just end it?

After a time he could no longer hold his chest tight and his shoulders sank. His face was chilled by tears. ‘Come on,’ he moaned, utterly exhausted by the waiting.

Gods, man — won’t you just end it?

* * *

They crossed the West Whitewater on the second day of climbing. It ran steep and swift out of the high valley. Orman’s breath caught as he stepped ever deeper into its icy course. He carefully picked his way between submerged boulders while the torrent surged as high as his waist. The charging water pulled at his legs and he relied upon Boarstooth to keep his footing.

Ahead, Old Bear seemed to have merely leaned into the course and bulled his way across. His ragged bear cloak had danced and whipped atop the waves as the stream appeared to be attempting to yank it from him. He climbed the opposite bank, guffawing, slapping at his sodden leathers, and Orman could actually hear his great booming laughter over the roar of the mountain stream. The Reddin brothers followed, while Gerrun brought up the rear.

They climbed steadily, half the time descending steep rocky ridges as the Old Bear’s path took them from one high valley to a higher, until it seemed to Orman as if the snowcapped peaks of the Salt range loomed directly over his head. Legendary birthplace of the Icebloods themselves. What the old legends named Joggenhome. They were now long past the point where the ghosts first came to him as a boy, and this time he saw them too: grey translucent figures in the distance, watching from among the trees and rocks. Many held spears, some shields. Some wore helmets and mail coats, others only leathers and ragged cloaks. He would have remarked upon them but for seeing the others ignore them — and so he chose to as well.

On the third evening they ate a stew of rabbit and roots and berries that the Reddin brothers had collected. One of the brothers cooked it in a smallish iron pot over a fire, and they served it out in wooden bowls. Orman’s bowl warmed his hands in a very welcome manner. The other brother tossed over flatbreads, like cakes, that they’d baked overnight in the ashes of yesterday’s fire.

Old Bear sat in the glow of the fire, hugging his spear. His ruddy lined face seemed to glow like heated metal in the dancing light.

From what Orman could remember of his father’s tales, they were currently in lands claimed by either the Sayer clan or the Bain clan. ‘Which Hold is this?’ he asked Old Bear.

The man’s single dark eye shifted to him. He nodded at the appropriateness of the question. ‘We are in Sayer Hold.’ He gestured north-east with his crust of bread. ‘Next valley over lies within Bain Holdings. Further east climbs the Lost Hold, though I’ve never met a Lost. They say they’ve hired many mercenaries to fight for them these last years. Must have a lot of gold, those Losts …’ Orman knew most of this already from his father, but he was quiet, taking it all in once more from the mouth of Old Bear himself — a figure out of legend he’d never imagined he’d meet again.

The old man shifted to point west. ‘The Heels. I have treated with the Heels and visited Heel Greathall. Beyond them lay the Myrni.’ He shook his hoary head. ‘Never met any of them.’

‘Will they challenge us?’ Orman couldn’t suppress a slight tremor of dread at the thought. He’d never been this high in the Holdings before. Retreat was no longer an option for any of them.

Old Bear circled a crust of bread in his bowl, stuffed it into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully. At last he opined, ‘I have lent my spear to the Sayers now and then. We should be allowed passage.’

‘And the stream. Is it the Upper Clearwater?’

Old Bear’s gaze shifted to Gerrun across the fire where the little man sat with his booted feet stretched out close to the embers. ‘It is. The seam is high in the headwaters. Gold lies strewn down the water’s course where it falls from rapid to rapid. Is this not so, Shortshanks?’

The little man smiled thinly. ‘It is.’

‘Will we reach it soon?’

‘We are moving quickly. Another two days, I should think.’ The old man tilted his head to examine him with his one good eye. ‘You are keen to collect your gold, are you?’

Orman looked to the fire. ‘I will need money to travel. I cannot stay in the north.’

The old man nodded his assent. ‘That is true. You are now outlawed. Kinslayer. You have claimed Boarstooth. Your name will now be added to your father’s, and Jorgan Bain’s before him.’

Orman was not pleased by the man’s light tone. ‘You would mock me?’

Old Bear held up a hand. ‘Not at all, lad. I am merely repeating the tale that is no doubt making the rounds of the taverns even as we speak. Boarstooth has returned to the Holdings — a tale worth the telling.’

Orman could not be certain the man was entirely in earnest. He didn’t think any of this was worth telling at all. He picked up a branch and poked at the fire. ‘That was not what I wanted to happen.’

Old Bear produced an apple from within his cloak. He bit down loudly and chewed while he regarded the fire. ‘I know, lad,’ he said. ‘These things rarely go the way we want them to.’

The next day they traced a course up the valley. The way was stony, steep, and rough. A stream had once run here, but it had long since dried up or shifted course. They came to a pond no bigger than a stone’s throw across where pines grew thick and the air was heavy with their scent. Standing in the water, as if awaiting them, was a ghost.

Old Bear raised a hand, signalling a halt.

The Reddin brothers moved to either side of Orman so that the three of them formed a triangle, back to back. Of Gerrun, Orman saw no sign. Run off, the faithless bastard. Best that they found out this early, he supposed.

Old Bear approached the ghost alone. It was a woman. Tall and slim, her opaque form wavered slightly as if caught in an otherworldly wind. Orman wondered why she’d chosen to stand in the pond. She wore a thick cloak of some sort of animal hide clasped by a large round brooch, like a shield. Her hair was full and long and bunched like a mane itself. For some reason he imagined it must have been black.

The two spoke; or at least she spoke to him. She raised an arm to point to the east. Old Bear nodded and backed away. The woman’s form wavered and disappeared.

‘There is a trespasser,’ the old man announced, returning to them. ‘From the east.’

‘A trespasser?’ Orman repeated. ‘What is that to us?’

Old Bear studied him. ‘The Sayers will allow us to cross here, but not for free. This is their price. We must … look into things for them. Do you refuse? Would you turn back?’

Orman looked to the Reddin brothers; they too studied him, but not narrowly, not frowning. Merely coolly evaluative. He shrugged his indifference. ‘No.’

‘Very well. Let us go greet our visitor.’ Old Bear gestured with his spear that they should spread out and head east across the valley towards the ridge.

‘What of Gerrun?’ Orman asked the nearer of the Reddin brothers — he still didn’t know which was which. This one waved vaguely southwards before continuing on, unconcerned.

Orman hefted Boarstooth. Fine. I can play that game as well. Though he had many more questions, such as what were they to do with the trespasser should they find him or her? He pushed his way through the tall grasses and brush in silence.

Ahead, the woods thickened in a mixed forest of pine, aspen and cedar that climbed the valley’s slope. A voice called from the trees. ‘Greetings! I have come to talk! Is that a senile old bear I see with you?’ Orman halted, crouching for cover.

To one side Old Bear stepped out from dense brush and cocked his head to examine the woods. He shouted back: ‘Is that a young cub come to receive yet another lesson?’

A figure emerged, tall and lanky, and loped down from among the trunks. Orman had the impression of the relaxed bounding of a wolf. The fellow closed on them, his grin exposing prominent teeth in a long jaw. Kinked brown hair blew about his head. He wore leathers that had seen hard use, and tall moccasins climbed to his knees. A longsword and two fighting dirks hung at his waist.

He and Old Bear embraced. ‘What about that lesson then?’ Old Bear rumbled.

‘Your heart would burst, I fear.’

‘What brings you to Sayer lands?’

The fellow glanced to Orman, or, more precisely, to the weapon in his grip. ‘News.’

Old Bear followed the man’s glance, then gestured to where one of the Reddin brothers was closing. ‘Kasson,’ he said, then of the other: ‘Keth.’ So, it’s Keth in the sheepskin leggings, Orman told himself. Old Bear gestured to him: ‘Orman Bregin’s son. And the last one is named Gerrun.’

‘He must be the one trying to get behind me,’ the young man said, grinning all the more.

Old Bear let out a long-suffering sigh, waved to the trees. ‘Get in here, Gerrun!’

The newcomer glanced again to Boarstooth. ‘So it is true.’

‘Yes.’ Old Bear cleared his throat. ‘Fellows, this is Lotji Bain. He is nephew to Jorgan Bain.’

Orman started, and tensed his grip upon Boarstooth’s haft.

‘I knew your father,’ Lotji told him.

‘You did?’

‘Yes. He visited Bain Hold.’ He pointed to the spear. ‘I see that the whispers are true. Boarstooth — as you call it — has returned to the Holdings.’

‘You cannot challenge upon Sayer lands,’ Old Bear rumbled in warning.

Lotji gave an easy laugh. ‘No.’ He waved Orman to him. ‘However, if you wish to step on to Bain lands I would gladly meet you.’

‘That is not our mission,’ Old Bear quickly cut in.

Orman was relieved. For his part, he had no intention of accepting a challenge from anyone. Not to mention that he’d had no time to practise with the weapon.

Lotji laughed again. It was an easy laugh, but Orman detected a strong grating of iron beneath. ‘As you wish.’ He backed away. ‘We will see one another again, I am sure, Orman Bregin’s son.’ He raised a hand in farewell. ‘Until then.’

They watched him go. As he entered the denser growth another figure stood from cover to one side. Gerrun. Old Bear turned to Orman. He was pulling thoughtfully on his thick tangled beard. ‘Well, Orman,’ he said, low and rumbling. ‘What do you think of that?’

‘I think I need to practise.’

The old man threw his head back and roared with laughter. The echoes boomed out across the valley. He slapped Orman on the back and started off once more. ‘I think we can help you with that, my lad. I truly do.’

Two days later they came to the high valley of the Upper Clearwater. The mountain stream ran milky with run-off from the icefields and snowpack above. It rushed and surged into the valley from the rock cliffs above. The valley itself was long and comparatively flat. The pale-green stream meandered among silt channels and sand bars, chaining and twisting, until it reached the bottom where the valley dropped off through a gap in another ridge line. From there the river continued on its course until eventually, far below, it emptied into the Sea of Gold.

It was cold here and spray seemed suspended in the air, chilling them. Snow lay in the shadows behind rocks and trees. Their feet crunched through thin layers of ice over the soil and compressed snowmelt.

They startled an elk cow and the brothers took off in pursuit, but Gerrun called out that he would stalk it and the brothers returned. Old Bear led them to a long bare gravel bar — a stranded shoreline where the river once ran, bordered by tangled brush. The old man used his spear to push through. They walked the gravel in a crunching of stones. Old Bear paced with hands clasped on his spear behind his back. He was peering down at the rocks as if searching for a particularly pretty one. The brothers and Orman couldn’t help but glance down also.

‘This is it,’ Old Bear announced, gesturing to encompass the stream bed. ‘This valley. This is the richest deposit in the Sayer Holdings. A season’s gathering and sifting here will leave any man rich beyond measure — rich in coin, at any rate.’ He beckoned to Keth and pointed to the rocks with his spear. ‘Here. What do you see?’

Keth knelt, then grunted. He rose examining something in his fingers, and indicating that Orman should hold out his hand. Grinning, he dropped something into the palm.

It was a gold nugget, still wet and half covered in silt. It felt unnaturally heavy for its size. Like a lead sling bullet. Orman was astounded. Without effort Keth had found the largest nugget he’d ever heard of. What more riches might lie hidden here?

He blinked to see Old Bear watching him through his slit eye. The fellow cleared his throat. ‘As you’ve no doubt gathered by now, we serve the Sayers, Gerrun and I. We brought you here to offer you lads a choice.’

He peered off across the valley, squinting. Took a great breath, planted the butt of his spear in the gravel and set both hands upon it. ‘Two paths stand before you. Here, you can collect as much gold as you wish. You can return with it to the townships and be rich men — for a time. Or you can come with me and swear your spear to the Sayers and live defending the Holding — for a time. The choice is yours.’

The Old Bear scanned the valley and what he saw seemed to disgust him. ‘But tell me … do you wish to be a slave to gold? Do you wish to live on your knees scrabbling in the dirt like a dog? For do not fool yourselves: that is what those who are enslaved to gold must do. If not here, then elsewhere. Always chasing after it. Never possessing enough. Grasping, hoarding and fearful for what you do have. Lusting, envious and covetous of what you do not.

‘Or … do you wish to live as a man? Never needing more than the good sword or spear in your hand? Slave to no one or no thing? For all the Sayer require of you is your word and that you swear to live and die by it. Nothing more. For nothing more than that need be asked of a man or woman with honour.’

Still looking away, he asked, ‘What say you?’

Orman glanced to the brothers, who exchanged flat looks. Keth rested his hand on the worn leather-wrapped grip of his sword; Kasson let out a long breath and shifted to a more relaxed stance. Orman realized he was beginning to read the brothers. They would prefer to stay.

He studied the broad valley. How much gold might be hidden here? Shiploads? It was enough to leave him dizzy. Yet somehow it left him unmoved as well. He examined the dull nugget. So much struggle, blood, and scheming spent by those in the towns below just to grasp the barest fistful. A lifetime’s worth of toil and sweat. Yet here it lay scattered about like so much chaff. He could only shake his head at the absurdity of it. So what if he were to descend into Mantle, or the cities beyond such as Holly or Lillin, with a great fat sack at his side? Once word got out he carried such a fortune he’d be dead within the hour. Useless. Utterly useless to him.

The decision, he realized, had been made for him long ago. For he now understood it to be the same one his father had made.

He tossed the nugget back to the gravel bar. ‘I would swear my spear to the Sayers — if they will have it.’

The brothers nodded their agreement.

A broad smile split Old Bear’s craggy features. He slapped Orman on the back with a resounding smack. ‘Good, good! I am glad. Very glad.’ He waved them onward. ‘Come, then. Let us travel higher, to the Hall of the Sayer. You will swear your fealty and we will feast and drink until we pass out.’

They climbed for three more days through dense forest of spruce, pine and birch, ever upwards. The lingering snow cover thickened. Orman’s breath plumed in the air. He tore a ragged piece of cloth he carried and wrapped his hands. Distant figures shadowed their advance. They were too far off and too hazy for him to be certain whether they were real or ghosts. He wondered if perhaps half the ‘ghosts’ sighted by travellers were in fact Icebloods — or the other way round.

They ate well. Gerrun carried a haunch of venison wrapped in burlap and leather. The cold allowed it to keep for longer than usual. Old Bear pointed out plants and roots that could be boiled or cooked in the fire. They slept huddled up next to the embers and took turns keeping watch.

Orman came to look forward to his time standing through half the night. The sky seemed so very clear from this extraordinary height. So high were they, and the Salt range was so very steep, that he thought he could even make out the glimmering reflection of the Sea of Gold, far to the south. He felt that he could reach up and touch the stars. It was cold, yes, but it was bracing and enlivening. He did not know how to say it exactly, but he felt strong. His senses — his hearing, his sight, even his sense of smell — all seemed keener than before.

On the fourth night a ghost came to him. It emerged from the trees and walked straight up to him. As it came closer he felt a shiver of preternatural fear as he realized that it was certainly not human. Very tall and broad it was, even more so than the Icebloods. It wore clothes of an ancient pattern: trousers of hide, a shirt that was little more than a poncho thrown over its head and tied off with a coarse rope. Hides were similarly tied around its feet. It carried an immensely tall spear, which Orman realized was the bole of a young tree topped by a knapped dark stone that bore an eerie resemblance to the spearhead of Boarstooth.

The figure stopped in front of him. Its hair was a great unkempt mane twisted in leather. Beads and pieces of bone hung within it. The face was long and broad, the jaw heavy. The teeth were large, the canines especially pronounced. For some time it stood regarding him in silence. Orman wondered if it could see him at all. He saw now that the figure was female, thought its hips were not broad and its chest not especially prominent.

‘I am come to give warning,’ she suddenly announced, startling him.

‘Warning?’ he managed through a dry and tight throat.

‘A time of change is coming,’ she continued as if he had not spoken at all. ‘Old grudges and old ways must be set aside, else none shall survive. Pass this warning on to your people.’

My people? ‘Why me? I am not — why speak to me?’

‘You carry Svalthbrul.’

Svalthbrul? Ah. He looked to Boarstooth and she nodded. ‘I am sorry,’ he began, ‘I do not know how old you are, but much has changed-’

She looked away, to their surroundings, scanned the night sky. She shook her head. ‘The stars remain. The mountain remains. Little has changed.’

‘But …’ He stopped himself as she turned away and started walking.

‘They will come before summer,’ were her last words over her shoulder.

The next morning Old Bear announced that if they pushed hard, they should reach Sayer Hall that day. Orman walked in silence for much of the time. The way was steep for most of the morning; he used Boarstooth as a walking stick to aid in his climbing. Then the slope smoothed out and the forest returned.

He gnawed on the question of whether to broach the subject of the ghostly visit with Old Bear. It seemed fantastic. Why should some ghost come to him when he was not even of the Icebloods? Surely it must have been a dream — or a delusion. Perhaps just holding such an ancient weapon brought the fancy upon him. He decided to keep quiet about it and not risk the old man’s scepticism, or mockery.

Old Bear led them onward to a trodden path through the woods. After a time the wilderness gave way to cleared fields bearing the stubble of last year’s crops. Cows grazed here. The straight lines of what looked to be an orchard of apple trees lay on the left. Woodsmoke hung in the air. A distant figure was minding the herd — a youth, perhaps.

Ahead, up the gentle grassy slope, rose a tall building constructed of immense tree trunks. A Great hall. Its roof was covered in faded wooden planks and a great thatch of grasses grew upon it as if it were a field itself. A crowd of ravens walked and hopped about the roof like a troop of guards. A wide dark opening dominated the front. The sun’s last amber light struck the building almost from below, so low in the west was it compared to their present height. For a dizzying moment Orman had the impression that they were somehow separate from the world far below.

He was also struck by how familiar the farmstead seemed. Just like home. Old Bear led them on towards it, chickens scrambling outraged from his path. A woman emerged from the doorway. Her hair hung in a long black braid over one shoulder, and she wore tanned leathers. A long-knife stood tall from her belt.

Old Bear raised an arm in greeting. She lifted her chin in response. Orman wondered where everyone was. Back home a hall like this would have been busy with the comings and goings of family, servants and hearthguards. So far, all he’d seen had been the cowherd and this woman. Old Bear led them up the wooden stairs to the threshold.

The woman was tall, like all Icebloods. Orman thought that some would consider her plain and mannish with her thick bones and wide shoulders, but he saw a haunting beauty in dark eyes that seemed full of secret knowledge as she, in turn, studied him.

Old Bear bowed. ‘Vala,’ he greeted her, ‘these are the Reddin brothers, Keth and Kasson. And this is Orman Bregin’s son.’

The woman’s eyes closed for a moment and she nodded as if she’d already known. Her dark gaze shifted to Boarstooth. ‘You carry Svalthbrul,’ she murmured, her voice deep and rich. ‘As the Eithjar — our elder guardians — whispered.’

Orman simply nodded. ‘It comes to me from my father.’

She closed her eyes again. ‘I know.’ She raised an arm to the broad open doorway. ‘Enter, please. You are most welcome. Warm yourself at our poor hearth. Food and ale will be brought.’

Before they could enter, a great pack of shaggy tall hounds came bounding out to Old Bear. Standing on their hind legs they were nearly fully as tall as he. They barked happily and licked his face while he swatted them aside. They sniffed at Orman and the Reddin brothers and nuzzled their hands as if searching for treats.

Old Bear pushed on in. The interior proved to be one great long hall. The ceiling of log rafters stood some five man-heights above Orman’s head. Halfway up the hall’s length lay a broad circle of stones enclosing an immense hearth where a banked fire glowed. Smoke rose lazily to a hole in the roof far above. Beyond the hearth stood a long table flanked by wooden benches. Past the table, at the far end of the hall, rose a sort of platform, or dais, supporting three oversized chairs carved of wood: crude thrones of a sort, if that was the right word. Furs and hides lay draped everywhere, even underfoot. Tapestries featuring scenes of nature, trees, streams, the mountains themselves, hung on the walls.. Most were dark with soot and half-rotten. What looked like bedding, rolled blankets and more furs, lay bunched up next to the walls.

Old Bear eased himself down at the long table and began searching through the clutter of half-stripped bones and old bread, wooden bowls and drinking horns. He picked up a stoneware jug, peered inside, and grunted happily. He selected a drinking horn, dashed its contents to the floor, and filled it anew.

Orman and the rest watched from next to the hearth. Catching sight of them there, Old Bear impatiently waved them forward. ‘Come. Sit. Eat.’ He pointed to Gerrun and waved him from the hall. ‘Go see what needs doing, hey?’

Grinning, Shortshanks gave an elaborate courtly bow and wandered off. Old Bear chortled at the bow. Orman leaned Boars-tooth against a bench and sat. The Reddin brothers sat on opposite sides of the table, facing one another. ‘Where is everyone?’ Orman asked.

Old Bear was gnawing on a chicken leg. ‘Hm? Everyone? Well, now. That’s a good question. ‘Never were too many Sayers to begin with. Down to five now. You’ve seen two of them. Vala, and maybe you spotted her son, Jass. Buri is eldest, but we see him rarely. Always out patrolling the Holding, he is. That leaves Jaochim and Yrain. Master and mistress of the Hold.’ He swivelled his one eye about the hall. ‘Not in at present.’

‘That is all?’

‘Mostly. A couple of servants, Leal and Ham. And one other spear, Bernal Heavyhand — heard of him?’

Orman felt his brows rise in surprise. ‘Yes. Father spoke of him. I thought he was dead.’

‘Not yet. Works as our smith. Game in the leg from the battle of Imre’s Ford.’

Orman glanced away. That battle had seen the shattering of Queen Eusta’s supporters — his father included. He helped himself to a drinking horn and a share of the warm ale. He sipped the rich malty beer while studying the faded tapestries, the smoke-darkened rafters, the floor of packed dirt covered in straw, and the hounds growling and gnawing on bones under the table. He decided that he’d probably just made a very great mistake. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. But this certainly wasn’t it.

Should’ve taken the gold and his chances down south.

He glanced to the Reddin brothers, but their faces were always so closed it was impossible to see whether they shared his dismay. They sat quietly, peering about the hall, neither eating nor drinking.

Old Bear finished the dregs in his drinking horn and wiped the back of his hand across his beard. ‘Well,’ he announced. ‘It has been a long day’s journey.’ He gestured to the rolls of furs and blankets against the wall. ‘I plan to sleep soundly this night.’ He stood, stretching and groaning, and crossed to a pile of bedding which he dragged next to the hearth. He wrapped his old bear cloak about himself and lay down. Two of the huge shaggy hounds padded over and curled up next to him. Orman could only tell which was which from the colours of the ragged pelts: the hounds were an iron-grey, while Old Bear was a ruddy brown.

The brothers shared a glance then followed suit. They unrolled blankets on opposite sides of the broad hearth, set their spears down next to the bedding and began unbuckling their leather hauberks.

Orman, however, did not feel the call of sleep. Restless, he walked down the hall to the doors and stepped out into the gathering dusk. The air was already quite chill. The cold of night came quickly in the heights. Below, the sweep of dark forest descended on and on to end at an arc of glimmering black — the Sea of Gold. Beyond, he thought he could make out the jagged silhouette of the Bone range.

Above, the sky was clear but for a few passing scraps of cloud. The stars seemed so bright and crisp he again had the impression that they were gems he could reach out and pluck. He stood still, enjoying the cold breeze upon his face. While the hall was enormous, far larger than his uncle’s, which was the largest outside Mantle town, he’d felt enclosed and uncomfortable within. He much preferred to be outside.

Noise of a footfall brought his attention to a figure climbing the stairs. It was the youth he’d glimpsed minding the cattle. The lad might be younger than he, but stood fully as tall, though lean and gangly. Orman thought him perhaps thirteen. He carried a spear much too large for him.

The youth gave him a solemn nod. ‘Welcome to Sayer Hall. I am Jass.’

Orman inclined his head. ‘Orman.’

The youth faced the south, gestured down the valley slope. ‘You are just come from the southern lands, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have been to Reach?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have been to Mantle town?’

‘Twice. When I was young.’

‘They say there is a keep in Mantle. A Greathall, but built of stone. Is this so?’

Orman glanced to Jass and caught him studying him; the lad quickly looked away. ‘Yes. Taller even than your hall.’

The youth pulled at his lip. ‘I thought it a story. You have been to Many Saints?’

‘No.’

The lad frowned, disappointed. ‘But you have seen the shores of the Sea of Gold?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Is it true that they are lined in gold?’

Orman smiled to himself. ‘There is some gold in the sands of its beaches. But it is mostly gone now, sifted out over the years. You would like to see the southern lands? Broken Sword? Lillin?’

The youth looked affronted and clasped the spear in both hands. ‘Not at all. I’m just curious, that’s all.’

Orman worked to keep his face expressionless. How things were the same everywhere! How like himself and his own friends, yearning to see distant lands. Yet this one was an Iceblood — one of the legendary fiends of his own upbringing. Forest demons and child stealers. Dwellers in the misty forests of Joggenhome. He remembered how the mothers of his homestead invoked the name to quiet their children. ‘Behave! Or the Icebloods will take you!’ Now, standing next to one of their kind, all he could think of was how very similar this lad seemed to him.

He inclined his head in farewell. ‘Good night, then.’

Jass answered the gesture with a formal short bow. ‘Good night. You may sleep well. I will guard.’

Orman turned away to hide his smile. ‘My thanks.’

*

He awoke to licks in the face and dog breath. Groggy, he pushed the hound away and sat up, wiped his mouth. An old heavy-set woman was setting out bread and jugs on the long table. Leal, he assumed. She gave him a nod in greeting. Apart from the two of them, the hall was empty.

Great bellows and roaring sounded from without. Leal chuckled and shook her head. At his puzzled look, she pointed to the rear. He headed that way. To either side of the slight dais slim passages led to the very rear of the building. Here doors opened on to private chambers. Beyond these, he came to a kitchen area and further narrow doors that opened out to the rear. The bellows and laughter were coming from there.

He stepped out to find a yard of piled firewood, outdoor ovens and fire pits, a chicken coop, outhouses, and a large garden plot. The roars were coming from Old Bear, naked-chested, squatting in a wooden tub while an old man poured jugs of water over him. So hairy was the man over his chest, back and arms, it was as if he still wore his bear cloak. Watching were the Reddin brothers, Gerrun, and a great bald bull of a fellow, with arms as thick as Orman’s thighs, a reddish-blond beard, and gold rings in his ears. He wore a thick leather vest that could pass as armour, and buff leather pants. Seeing Orman, he limped over and extended a hand as large as a mattock.

‘Greetings, lad. Bernal-’

‘Heavyhand. Yes. Old Bear told me you were here.’

‘Ah.’ He eyed Orman up and down, nodded to himself. Orman raised a questioning brow. ‘I see him in you,’ the man said. ‘Your father.’

‘My thanks.’

The huge fellow nodded thoughtfully. ‘He was a good friend.’

Old Bear spluttered and gasped anew. ‘That is quite enough, Ham,’ he gasped. ‘You enjoy your chores too much, I think.’

‘One must take pleasure from one’s work, sor.’

‘You look like a sad bear that has fallen into a river,’ Bernal called out.

Old Bear pointed to him. ‘You are next.’

Bernal laughed and waved him off. ‘I think not. I have work to do — can’t swan the day away with baths and shaves,’ and he limped off around the side of the hall.

Old Bear peered about, looking very alarmed. ‘Shaves? Who mentioned shaves? There will be no shaving this bear.’

Keth and Kasson, side by side on a bench, their arms crossed, sat grinning at him. Gerrun called out: ‘If we shaved you the only thing left would be a heap of hair.’

Ham threw Old Bear a blanket. ‘If you insist, sor. No blade is up to the task in any case, I fear.’

Leal stepped into the yard and half bowed. ‘The morning meal.’

Old Bear straightened from the tub and threw his arms out to her. ‘Come to me, my dove of love!’

The old woman let out a squeak of terror and ducked back inside.

Orman saw that, impossible as it might seem, the man was twice as hairy from the waist down.

They ate a morning meal of barley porridge and apples. Then Old Bear announced he’d trounce them with any weapon they cared to name. They sparred with spear and staves, then moved on to wooden practice swords. Orman found that while Old Bear could, literally, overbear any of them, his technique with the spear was poor. With the sword he was useless. He wielded it like an axe. After a few bouts Orman began to wonder how on earth the man had lived so long through a lifetime of battle.

With the Reddin brothers it was the other way round. In just a few moves they always had the better of him. Just when he thought it could not be any more embarrassing Kasson reached behind his back to draw twinned long-handled hatchets that he then employed to systematically destroy Orman’s defence with spear and sword. Orman was amazed by the weapons. The brothers could weave the spiked and bearded axe-heads to catch swords and yank them aside or deliver a killing thrust that could penetrate mail armour.

As if this humiliation was not enough, it was then Gerrun’s turn to beat him armed only with a knife. ‘You let me in,’ the little fellow warned him. ‘Never let a knife-fighter get inside your reach.’

Orman waved him away. ‘This is stupid. No one is going to come at me with a knife when I hold a sword.’

Old Bear growled from where he sat on a bench, quite winded. ‘If all they have is a cooking pot then that’s what they’ll come at you with!’ He gestured Gerrun forward. ‘Again.’

They practised through the full day, taking breaks in which they discussed various techniques and moves. It was during one of these rests that a thought occurred to Orman while he sipped water from a ladle. He looked to the Reddin brothers. ‘You two marched north with Longarm’s Fifty,’ he said. ‘When you were here, in the Blood range, did you … you know …’ He motioned to Sayer Hall.

The brothers shook their heads. Keth studied the edge of one of his hatchets, sheathed it at his back. ‘The Bains,’ he answered, low.

‘The Bains,’ Orman repeated. ‘Did you face, you know, that one — Lotji?’

‘We didn’t,’ Kasson said. ‘But we saw him fight.’

‘And?’

The brothers exchanged a look, said nothing.

Old Bear loudly cleared his throat. ‘Lad,’ he said. ‘It’s one thing to learn how to fight. Any fool can do that. But it’s a damned ugly business, risking death and hurting people. Few really enjoy it. But that one does. To him, it’s a game. As in the old days, when the fighting was constant between the clans. Now there’s too few of them.’ The old fellow pulled his fingers through his scraggly beard. ‘He misses those days, I suppose,’ he mused. Rousing himself, he slapped his hands to his thighs and stood. ‘Now, more spear work, I think. Try to keep us at a distance, hey?’

Orman groaned inwardly, but he understood what they were doing. He was carrying Boarstooth: he would be the mark of anyone they met.

In the evening they ate a meal of freshly baked bread, a steaming soup of boiled vegetables and barley, baked pheasant, apples, and weak beer. Old Bear was in a great humour. He entertained them all with the story of Ruckar Myrni and the slaying of the ice-drake in the heights of the Salt range, and all the frozen maidens he found greatly in need of warming. ‘You can be sure,’ he finished, ‘that Ruckar thawed the heart of each of them!’

Noise at the entrance brought their attention round. Vala was there with Jass. She pushed him in and followed behind. The lad’s light brown hair was slicked back, and he wore a belted shirt of mail that was far too long for him and a large knife at his hip, its ivory handle wound with silver wire. They climbed the platform at the end of the hall, where Vala sat in the centre chair while he stepped forward to stand before her.

He shot one uncertain glance back to her, and she nodded for him to continue. He faced them once more. ‘Greetings,’ he began, and cleared his throat. His voice was still a touch high. ‘I am Jass Sayer. In the name of our clan I welcome you to our hearth and hall. I understand that there are those among you who would pledge your spear and arm to guard our Holding. Would these men stand forth?’

Orman recognized the formula — though it was an oddly archaic form. The swearing of the hearthguards. Keth and Kasson also no doubt knew it. He looked to them. They shared a glance, then Keth stood and approached the raised dais. It came up to his knees.

Jass clasped his hands behind his back. With the aid of the dais he stood eye to eye with the rather tall Keth. The lad glanced back to Vala. She mouthed something. He turned back. He cleared his throat once more, obviously quite nervous. ‘Say your name so that all within may know it,’ he said.

‘Keth, Reddin’s son.’

‘Keth, Reddin’s son, we Sayer swear that these lands, this hall, our Holdings, shall be your home so long as you shall defend it. Do you pledge your spear, your arm, and your heart to its defence?’

‘I do so swear.’

A cold breeze tickled Orman’s neck and he turned, sure that someone had passed behind him. But no one was there. He had the sudden feeling that more far more Sayers than Vala and Jass were now present in the hall as witnesses to this swearing.

‘Very good. We accept your pledge and give our own.’

He turned back to Vala and she handed him a basket. From this he took a small round bread and gave it to Keth. Then a small cake of salt. And finally a tiny round object that flashed gold — a ring. These Keth gathered up.

‘Welcome, Keth, Reddin’s son. Guard to our hearth, hall, and Hold.’

Keth sketched a slight dip of his head and backed away.

Kasson followed and exchanged the same pledge. Then Orman approached the dais. Jass gave him a shy smile. ‘Say your name so that all within may know it,’ he repeated.

‘Orman, Bregin’s son.’

The smile was whipped away. Jass gaped, then spun to Vala. She gave a straight-lipped nod to indicate that he should continue. He slowly turned back and Orman saw wonder in the lad’s eyes. He wasn’t certain what he’d said or done wrong — was Bregin unwelcome here?

The lad appeared quite shaken. He had to clear his throat before he could go on, and when he did speak again it was distractedly, his voice faint and weak. Orman received his bread and salt and gold ring from the lad’s hands, then gave a small bow and returned to his seat.

Jass sat down in the chair on Vala’s left. He still could not take his eyes from Orman. Vala leaned forward, calling, ‘Leal! Ale for our hearthguards! Let them never know need or want here within our walls.’

‘Yes, m’lady.’ The servant woman disappeared into the kitchens, while Old Bear swatted the Reddin brothers and Orman about the back and shoulders.

‘Well done! Well done. Now you need not kill yourself sweating for starvation wages among the lowlander filth. Serve well and you will be rewarded!’

Leal returned carrying a large tray bearing flagons. Gerrun jumped up to ease the heavy burden from the elderly woman’s hands then shooed her back for another. He thumped it down on the table and Old Bear rescued a jug that was about to fall.

Keth took up a round loaf of bread, tore off a piece and thrust the rest at Orman, who was slow to take it as he was watching Vala and Jass. The two had their heads together, Jass imploring, animated, she soothing and calm, a hand at his shoulder. They must have reached some sort of agreement as he pulled away from her hand to jump from the dais. He came to Orman’s side. ‘May we speak?’ he asked, his voice stiff and very formal.

Orman nodded, still rather bemused. ‘Of course.’

Jass motioned to the front. Orman followed him outside.

They stood side by side again, both peering out over the sweeping descent of this shoulder of the Salt range. Evening was gathering once more, and the wind was cool and damp. Orman reflected that spring was coming to the heights. Soon all the passes would be open.

In time, Jass took a breath and raised a hand to point down-slope. ‘Jaochim says there are many more fires below and lights upon the Gold Sea. Is this what you saw in the south?’

Orman thought of his ghostly visitor and her words: a time of change was coming. He nodded. ‘Yes. Many foreigners are coming. They want the gold on your lands.’

‘We will defend our Holding,’ the youth said, utterly assured. ‘It is us and we are it.’

‘Of course.’

The young man answered Orman’s nod. He swallowed, his jaws clenching, and Orman could see he was steeling himself to raise something. ‘Here we are once more,’ the youth observed. ‘Studying the night.’ Jass turned to him, his eyes almost level. ‘Orman,’ he said, ‘I am the son of Vala Sayer. But I am only half Sayer, as I am also my father’s son. I am Jass, Bregin’s son.’ He held out his hand.

Orman could not breathe. The outstretched hand. So small, he thought. So vulnerable. Then for some reason his vision swam and his chest burned like a forge. Finally, with difficulty, he managed to swallow the lump that was throttling him and he took the hand in his and squeezed.

‘Greetings and well met, elder brother,’ Jass said.

‘Well met, little brother,’ he choked out.