Seren led Buruk and his servants towards a squat stone building with high, slitted windows, the entranceway three steps from ground level and flanked by Blackwood columns carved to mimic hammered bronze, complete with rivets and dents. The door was Blackwood inlaid with silver and black iron, the patterns an archaic, stylized script that Seren suspected contained shadow-wrought wards.

She turned to Buruk. ‘I have to enter alone to begin with-’

The door was flung open, startling her, and three Edur rushed out, pushing past her. She stared after them, wondering at their tense expressions. A flutter of fear ran through her. ‘Send the Nerek back,’ she said to Buruk. ‘Something’s happened.’

The merchant did not argue. He gestured and the three Nerek hurried away.

Instead of entering the guild house, Seren and Buruk made their way to the centre street, seeing more Edur emerging from buildings and side alleys to line the approach to the noble quarter. No-one spoke.

‘What is going on, Acquitor?’

She shook her head. ‘Here is fine.’ They had a clear enough view up the street, two hundred or more paces, and in the distance a procession had appeared. She counted five Edur warriors, one employing a staff as he limped along. Two others were pulling a pair of sleds across the slick stones of the street. A fourth walked slightly ahead of the others.

‘Isn’t that Binadas Sengar?’ Buruk asked. ‘The one with the stick, I mean.’

Seren nodded. He looked to be in pain, exhausted by successive layers of sorcerous healing. The warrior who walked ahead was clearly kin to Binadas. This, then, was the return of the group Hannan Mosag had sent away.

And now she saw, strapped to one of the sleds, a wrapped form – hides over pieces of ice that wept steadily down the sides. A shape more than ominous. Unmistakable.

‘They carry a body,’ Buruk whispered.

Where did they go? Those bundled furs – north, then. But there’s nothing up there, nothing but ice. What did the Warlock King ask of them?

The memory of Feather Witch’s divinations returned to her suddenly, inexplicably, and the chill in her bones deepened. ‘Come on,’ she said in a quiet tone. ‘To the inner ward. I want to witness this.’ She edged back from the crowd and set off.

‘If they’ll let us,’ Buruk muttered, hurrying to catch up.

‘We stay in the background and say nothing,’ she instructed. ‘It’s likely they’ll all be too preoccupied to pay us much attention.’

‘I don’t like this, Acquitor. Not any of it.’

She shared his dread, but said nothing.

They crossed the bridge well ahead of the procession, although it was evident that word had preceded them. The noble families were all out in the compound, motionless in the rain. Foremost among them were Tomad and Uruth, a respectful space around the two Edur and their slaves.

‘It’s one of the Sengar brothers,’ Seren Pedac said under her breath.

Buruk heard her. ‘Tomad Sengar was once a rival of Hannan Mosag’s for the throne,’ he muttered. ‘How will he take this, I wonder?’

She glanced over at him. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I was briefed, Acquitor. That shouldn’t surprise you, all things considered.’

The procession had reached the bridge.

‘Ah.’ Buruk sighed. ‘The Warlock King and his K’risnan have emerged from the citadel.’

Udinaas stood a pace behind Uruth on her right, the rain running down his face.

Rhulad Sengar was dead.

He was indifferent to that fact. A young Edur eager for violence – there were plenty of those, and one fewer made little difference. That he was a Sengar virtually guaranteed that Udinaas would be tasked with dressing the corpse. He was not looking forward to that.

Three days for the ritual, including the vigil and the staining of the flesh. In his mind, he ran through possibilities in a detached sort of way, as the rain seeped down behind his collar and no doubt gathered in the hood he had not bothered to draw up over his head. If Rhulad had remained unblooded, the coins would be copper, with stone discs to cover the eyes. If blooded and killed in battle, it was probable that gold coins would be used. Letherii coins, mostly. Enough of them to ransom a prince. An extravagant waste that he found strangely delicious to contemplate.

Even so, he could already smell the stench of burning flesh.

He watched the group cross the bridge, Fear pulling the sled on which Rhulad’s wrapped body had been laid. Binadas was limping badly – there must have been considerable damage, to resist the sorcerous healing that must already have been cast upon him. Theradas and Midik Buhn. And Trull Sengar, in the lead. Without the ever-present spear. So, a battle indeed.

‘Udinaas, do you have your supplies?’ Uruth asked in a dull voice.

‘Yes, mistress, I have,’ he replied, settling a hand on the leather pack slung from his left shoulder.

‘Good. We will waste no time in this. You are to dress the body. No other.’

‘Yes, mistress. The coals have been fired.’

‘You are a diligent slave, Udinaas,’ she said. ‘I am pleased you are in my household.’

He barely resisted looking at her at that, confused and alarmed as he was by the admission. And had you found the Wyval blood within me, you would have snapped my neck without a second thought. ‘Thank you, mistress.’

‘He died a blooded warrior,’ Tomad said. ‘I see it in Fear’s pride.’

The Warlock King and his five apprentice sorcerors strode to intercept the party as they arrived on this side of the bridge, and Udinaas heard Uruth’s gasp of outrage.

Tomad reached out to still her with one hand. ‘There must be a reason for this,’ he said. ‘Come, we will join them.’

There was no command to remain behind, and so Udinaas and the her slaves followed Tomad and Uruth as they strode towards their sons.

Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan met the procession first. Quiet words were exchanged between the Warlock King and Fear Sengar. A question, an answer, and Hannan Mosag seemed to stagger. As one, the five sorcerors closed on him, but their eyes were on Rhulad’s swathed form, and Udinaas saw a mixture of consternation, dread and alarm on their young faces.

Fear’s gaze swung from the Warlock King to his father as Tomad’s group arrived. ‘I have failed you, Father,’ he said. ‘Your youngest son is dead.’

‘He holds the gift,’ Hannan Mosag snapped, shockingly accusatory in his tone. ‘I need it, but he holds it. Was I not clear enough in my instructions, Fear Sengar?’

The warrior’s face darkened. ‘We were attacked, Warlock King, by the Jheck. I believe you know who and what they are-’

Tomad growled, ‘I do not.’

Binadas spoke. ‘They are Soletaken, Father. Able to assume the guise of wolves. It was their intention to claim the sword-’

‘What sword?’ Uruth asked. ‘What-’

‘Enough of this!’ Hannan Mosag shouted.

‘Warlock King,’ Tomad Sengar said, stepping closer, ‘Rhulad is dead. You can retrieve this gift of yours-’

‘It is not so simple,’ Fear cut in. ‘Rhulad holds the sword still – I cannot pry his fingers from the grip.’

‘It must be cut off,’ Hannan Mosag said.

Uruth hissed, then shook her head. ‘No, Warlock King. You are forbidden to mutilate our son. Fear, did Rhulad die as a blooded warrior?’

‘He did.’

‘Then the prohibitions are all the greater,’ she said to Hannan Mosag, crossing her arms.

‘I need that sword!’

In the fraught silence that followed that outburst, Trull Sengar spoke for the first time. ‘Warlock King. Rhulad’s body is still frozen. It may be, upon thawing, that his grip on the sword loosens. In any case, it seems clear the matter demands calm, reasoned discussion. It may in the end prove that our conflicting desires can be resolved by some form of compromise.’ He faced his father and mother. ‘It was our task, given us by the Warlock King, to retrieve a gift, and that gift is the sword Rhulad now holds. Mother, we must complete the task demanded of us. The sword must be placed in Hannan Mosag’s hands.’