Making them pay what they owed her.

Cursing the name of Yulwei silently to herself, she followed the others up to the bridge. It looked ancient—pitted stones splattered with stains of lichen, the surface of it rutted deep where a cart’s wheels would roll. Thousands of years of carts, rolling back and forward. The stream gurgled under its single arch, bitter cold water, flowing fast. A low hut stood beside the bridge, settled and slumped into the landscape over long years. Some wisps of smoke were snatched from its chimney and out across the land in the cutting wind.

One soldier stood outside, alone. Drew the short straw, maybe. He’d pressed himself against the wall, swathed in a heavy cloak, horse-hair on his helmet whipping back and forth in the gusts, his spear ignored beside him. Bayaz reined his horse in before the bridge and nodded across.

“We’re going up onto the plain. Out towards Darmium.”

“Can’t advise it. Dangerous up there.”

Bayaz smiled. “Dangers mean profits.”

“Profits won’t stop an arrow, friend.” The soldier looked them up and down, one by one, and sniffed. “Varied crowd, aren’t you?”

“I take good fighters wherever I can find them.”

“Course.” He looked over at Ferro and she scowled back. “Very tough, I’m sure, but the fact is the plains are deadly, and more than ever now. Some traders are still going up there, but they’re not coming back. That madman Cabrian has raiders out there, I reckon, keen for plunder. Scario and Goltus too, they’re little better. We keep some shred of law on this side of the stream, but once you’re up there, you’re on your own. There’ll be no help for you if you’re caught out on the plain.” He sniffed again. “No help at all.”

Bayaz nodded grimly. “We ask for none.” He spurred his horse and it began to trot over the bridge, onto the track on the other side. The others followed behind, Longfoot first, then Luthar, then Ninefingers. Quai shook the reins and the cart clattered across. Ferro brought up the rear.

“No help at all!” the soldier called after her, before he wedged himself back against the rough wall of his hut.

The great plain.

It should have been good land for riding, reassuring land. Ferro could have seen an enemy coming from miles away, but she saw no one. Only the vast carpet of tall grass, waving and thrashing in the wind, stretching away in every direction, to the far, far, horizon. Only the track broke the monotony, a line of shorter, drier grass, pocked with patches of bare black earth, cutting across the plain straight as an arrow flies.

Ferro did not like it, this vast sameness. She frowned as they rode, peering left and right. In the Badlands of Kanta, the barren earth was full of features—broken boulders, withered valleys, dried-up trees casting their clawing shadows, distant creases in the earth full of shade, bright ridges doused in light. In the Badlands of Kanta, the sky above would be empty, still, a bright bowl holding nothing but the blinding sun in the day, the bright stars at night.

Here all was strangely reversed.

The earth was featureless, but the sky was full of movement, full of chaos. Towering clouds loomed over the plain, dark and light swirling together into colossal spirals, sweeping over the grassland with the raking wind, shifting, turning, ripping apart and flooding back together, casting monstrous, flowing shadows onto the cowering earth, threatening to crush the six tiny riders and their tiny cart with a deluge to sink the world. All hanging over Ferro’s hunched up shoulders, the wrath of God made real.

This was a strange land, one in which she had no place. She needed reasons to be here, and good ones. “You, Bayaz!” she shouted, drawing up level with him. “Where are we going?”

“Huh,” he grunted, frowning out across the waving grass, from nothing, to nothing. “We are going westwards, across the plain, over the great river Aos, as far as the Broken Mountains.”

“Then?”

She saw the faint lines around his eyes, across the bridge of his nose, grow deeper, watched his lips press together. Annoyance. He did not like her questions. “Then we go further.”

“How long will it take?”

“All of winter and into spring,” he snapped. “And then we must come back.” He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and trotted away from her, up the track towards the front of the group.

Ferro was not so easily put off. Not by this shifty old pink. She dug in her own heels and drew up level with him. “What is the First Law?”

Bayaz looked sharply over at her. “What do you know about it?”

“Not enough. I heard you and Yulwei talking, through the door.”

“Eavesdropping, eh?”

“You have loud voices and I have good ears.” Ferro shrugged. “I am not sticking a bucket on my head just to keep your secrets. What is the First Law?”

The lines round Bayaz’ forehead grew deeper, the corners of his mouth turned down. Anger. “A stricture that Euz placed on his sons, the first rule made after the chaos of ancient days. It is forbidden to touch the Other Side direct. Forbidden to communicate with the world below, forbidden to summon demons, forbidden to open gates to hell. Such is the First Law, the guiding principle of all magic.”

“Uh,” snorted Ferro. It meant nothing to her. “Who is Khalul?”

Bayaz’ thick brows drew in together, his frown deepened, his eyes narrowed. “Is there no end to your questions, woman?” Her questions galled him. That was good. That meant they were the right questions.

“You’ll know if I stop asking them. Who is Khalul?”

“Khalul was one of the order of Magi,” growled Bayaz. “One of my order. The second of Juvens’ twelve apprentices. He was always jealous of my place, always thirsty for power. He broke the Second Law to get it. He ate the flesh of men, and persuaded others to do the same. He made of himself a false prophet, tricked the Gurkish into serving him. That is Khalul. Your enemy, and mine.”

“What is the Seed?”

The Magus’ face gave a sudden twitch. Fury, and perhaps the slightest trace of fear. Then his face softened. “What is it?” He smiled at her, and his smile worried her more than all his anger could have. He leaned towards her, close enough that no one else could hear. “It is the instrument of your vengeance. Of our vengeance. But it is dangerous. Even to speak of it is dangerous. There are those who are always listening. It would be wise for you to shut the door on your questions, before the answers to them burn us all.” He spurred his horse once again, trotting out ahead of the party on his own.

Ferro stayed behind. She had learned enough for now. Learned enough to trust this First of the Magi less than ever.

A hollow in the ground, no more than four strides across. A sink in the soil, ringed by a low wall of damp, dark earth, full of tangled grass roots. That was the best place they had found to camp for the night, and they had been lucky to find it.

It was as big a feature in the landscape as Ferro had seen all day.

The fire that Longfoot had made was burning well now, flames licking bright and hungry at the wood, rustling and flickering out sideways as a gust of wind swept down into the hollow. The five pinks sat clustered around it, hunched and huddled for warmth, light from it bright on their pinched-up faces.

Longfoot was the only one speaking. His talk was all of his own great achievements. How he had been to this place or that. How he knew this thing or that. How he had a remarkable talent for this, or for that. Ferro was sick of it already, and had told him so twice. The first time she thought she had been clear. The second time she had made sure of it. He would not be talking to her of his idiot travels again, but the others still suffered in silence.

There was space for her, down by the fire, but she did not want it. She preferred to sit above them, cross-legged in the grass on the lip of the hollow. It was cold up here in the wind, and she pulled the blanket tighter round her shivering shoulders. A strange and frightening thing, cold. She hated it.