The K’Chain Che’Malle stood nearby, hulking and motionless like a pair of grotesque statues. Yet Masarch imagined that they were listening, even as he and his companions were.

‘The land left the sky. The land settled onto stone, the very bone of the world. In this manner, the land changed to echo the cursed sorceries of the Shamans of the Antlers, the ones who kneel among boulders, the worshippers of stone, the weapon-makers.’ He paused, then said, ‘This was no accident. What I have just described is but one truth. There is another.’ A longer hesitation, then a long, drawn-out sigh. ‘Shamans of the Antlers, gnarled as tree roots, those few left, those few still haunting our dreams even as they haunt this ancient plain. They hide in cracks in the world’s bone. Sometimes their bodies are all but gone, until only their withered faces stare out from those cracks, challenging eternity as befits their terrible curse.’

Masarch was not alone in shivering in the pre-dawn chill, at the images Redmask’s words conjured. Every child knew of those twisted, malevolent spirits, the husks of shamans long, long dead, yet unable to truly die. Rolling stones into strange patterns beneath star-strewn night skies, chewing with their teeth the faces of boulders to make frightening scenes that only appeared at dusk or dawn, when the sun’s light was newborn or fading into death-and far more often the boulders were so angled that it was at the moments of dusk that the deep magic was awakened, the images rising into being from what had seemed random pecules in the stone. Magic to murder the wind in that place-

‘In the time before the plains descended, the shamans and their dread followers made music at the sun’s dying, on the night of its shortest passage, and at other holy times before the snows came. They did not use skin drums. There was no need. No, they used the hide of the earth, the buried forest beneath. They pounded the skin of the world until every beast of the plain trembled, until the bhederin burst into motion, tens of thousands as one, and ran wild through the night-and so they too echoed the music of the Shamans of the Antlers, feeding their dark power.

‘But the land fell away in the end-in grasping eternity, the shamans slew the very earth itself. This curse is without rest. This curse would close about our necks-each and every one of us here-this very night, if it could.’

Redmask was silent for a time then, as if allowing the terror to run free through the hearts of his audience. Eventually he resumed. ‘The Shamans of the Antlers gathered their deathless warriors then, and set out to wage war. Abandoning this plain-and from that time, only those who fell in battle were returned here. Broken pieces. Failed and withered as the plain itself, never again to reach or even look skyward. Such was their curse.

‘We do not forgive. It is not in us to forgive. But nor will we forget.

‘Bast Fulmar, the Valley of Drums. The Letherii believe we hold it in great awe. They believe this valley was the site of an ancient war between the Awl and the K’Chain Che’Malle-although the Letherii know not the true name of our ancient enemy. Perhaps indeed there were.skirmishes, such that memory survives, only to twist and bind anew in false shapes. Many of you hold to those new shapes, believing them true. An ancient battle. One we won. One we lost-there are elders who are bold with the latter secret, as if defeat was a knife hidden in their heart-hand.’ Redmask shrugged at the notion, dismissing it. Pale light was creeping close. Birdsong rose from the low shrubs.

‘Bast Fulmar,’ Redmask said again. ‘Valley of Drums. Here, then, is its secret truth. The Shamans of the Antlers drummed the hide of this valley before us. Until all life was stolen, all the waters fled. They drank deep, until nothing was left. For at this time, the shamans were not alone, not for that fell ritual. No, others of their kind had joined them-on distant continents, hundreds, thousands of leagues away, each and all on that one night. To sever their life from the earth, to sever this earth from its own life.’

Silence, then, not a single warrior even so much as drawing breath. Held-too long-

Redmask released them with another sigh. ‘Bast Fulmar. We rise now to make war. In the Valley of Drums, my warriors, Letherii sorcery will fail. Edur sorcery will fail. In Bast Fulmar, there is no water of magic, no stream of power from which to steal. All used up, all taken to quench the fire that is life. Our enemy is not aware. They will find the truth this day. Too late. Today, my warriors, shall be iron against iron. That and nothing more.’

Redmask then rose. ‘Release the truth-to every warrior. Then make ready. We march to battle. To victory.’

Courage surged through Masarch’s chest, and he found he was on his feet, trembling, and now moving off into the fading gloom, whispering his words to all that he passed. Again and again.

‘Bast Fulmar sings this day. It sings: there is no magic. There is no magic!’

Stablers gathering the horses and leading them across the courtyard behind her, Atri-Preda Yan Tovis left the reins of her mount in the hands of an aide, then strode towards the estate’s squat, brooding entrance. Thirty leagues south of the port town of Rennis, Boaral Keep was the birthplace of the Grass Jackets Brigade, but that was a long century past and now some third or fourth son of a remotely related Boaral held this fortress, clinging to the antiquated noble title of Dresh-Preda, or Demesne Lord. And in his command, a garrison consisting of barely a dozen soldiers, at least two of whom-at the outer gate-were drunk.

Weary, saddlesore, and feeling decidedly short on patience, Yan Tovis ascended the four broad, shallow steps to the lintel-capped main doors. No guard in sight. She wrenched the latch clear, then kicked open the heavy door and marched into the gloomy foyer within, startling two old women with buckets and khalit vine mops.

They flinched back, eyes down, hastily genuflecting.

‘Where is Dresh Boaral?’ Twilight demanded as she tugged free her gauntlets.

The hags exchanged glances, then one attempted some-ihing like a curtsy before saying, ‘Ma’am, he be well sleeping it off, aye. An’ us, we be well cleaning up his supper.’

A muffled snort from the other servant.

Only now did Yan Tovis detect the acrid smell of bile beneath that of lye soap. ‘Where then is the Master at Arms?’

‘Ma’am,’ another curtsy, then, ‘he be ridin’ off wi’ four soljers, west as they say, t’reach the coast fast as a clam squirt, an’ that’s a cloud ain’t e’en settled yet.’

‘He left recently then? What was the reason? And how far is the coast from here?’

‘Ma’am, would be unner a bell, fast-goin’ as he was.’

And the reason?’

Another mysterious exchange of glances, then, ‘Ma’am, coast be well black an’ whispery of late. Got fishers vanishin’ an’ demon eyes flashin’ from the deeps. Got islands be well ice an’ all, pale an’ deathly as the innards of a murderer’s skull.’

‘The Master at Arms rode off after superstitious rumours?’

‘Ma’am, I be well ‘ave a cousin on the shore-’

‘The ditsy one, aye,’ interjected the other hag.

‘Be well ditsy but that don’t matter in this, in this being the voices of the sea, which she heard an’ heard more’n once too. Voices, ma’am, like the ghosts of the drowned as she says, havin’ heard them an’ heard them more’n once too.’

Two of her sergeants were now behind the Atri-Preda, listening. Twilight loosened the strap on her helm. ‘This Master stays sober?’ she asked.

‘One a them hast, be well an’ all.’

‘It be him,’ the other agreed. ‘An’ that a curse what make us worse at bad times of the night like now-’

‘Shush you! This ma’am be a soljer outrankin’ Dresh himself!’

‘You don’t know that, Pully! Why-’

‘But I do! Whose nephew dug latrines for the Grass Jackets, be well he did! It’s ranks an’ neck tores an’ the cut of the cape an’ all-’