Karnak rubbed at his eyes and let the silence grow. This was the question he had feared.

'There is a time for hard decisions, and we have reached it. Our presence here may give the people hope, but it is false hope. Skarta is indefensible. Egel knows it, I know it – and that is why he raids the west, to keep the Vagrians on the move, to disconcert them and hopefully to prevent a large-scale invasion here. But we are pinning down troops desperately needed elsewhere. We will leave a token force of some 200 men … but that is all.'

'The people will be wiped out,' said Jonat, rising to his feet, his face flushed and angry.

'They will be wiped out anyway,' started Karnak, 'should the Vagrians attack. At the moment the enemy waits for Purdol to fall and they won't risk entering the forest. Holding Purdol is the best chance for Skarta and the other Skultik towns. Egel will be left with just under 4,000 men, but there are others coming in from the mountains of Skoda. We must win him time.'

'I know what you are thinking: that it is madness. I agree with you! But the Vagrians have all the advantages. Every major port is in their hands. The Lentrian army is being pushed back. Drenan has fallen and the routes to Mashrapur are closed. Purdol alone holds against them. If it falls before Egel breaks clear, we are finished and the Drenai will be wiped out. The Vagrian farmers are being offered choice Drenai lands, merchants are planning for the day when all of our lands will be part of Greater Vagria. We are doomed people unless we take our fate in our hands and risk everything.

'Quite simply, my friends, there is no more room for manoeuvre. Bereft of choices, we must hold the tiger by the throat and hope that he weakens before we tire. Tomorrow we ride for Purdol.'

Deep down Gellan knew the venture was perilous, moreover a tiny spark of doubt told him that Karnak's real reason for wanting to aid Purdol owed more to personal ambition than to strategic sanity. And yet …

Was it not better to follow a charismatic leader to the gates of Hell, rather than a mediocre general to a dull defeat?

The meeting ended at dusk and Gellan wandered to his tiny room to pack his few possessions into canvas and leather saddlebags. There were three shirts, two sets of woollen leggings, a battered leather-covered hand-written Legion manual, a jewelled dagger and an oval wooden painting of a blonde woman and two young children. He sat down on the bed, removed his helmet and studied the portrait. When it had been presented to him he had disliked it, feeling it failed to capture the reality of their smiles, the joy of their lives. Now he saw it as a work of rare genius. Carefully he wrapped the painting in oilskin and placed it in a saddlebag between the shirts. Lifting the dagger, he slid it from its scabbard; he had won it two years before when he became the first man to win the Silver Sword six times.

His children had been so proud of him at the banquet. Dressed in their best clothes, they had sat like tiny adults, their eyes wide and their smiles huge. And Karys had spilt not one drop of soup on her white dress, a fact she pointed out to him all evening. But his wife, Ania, had not attended the banquet; the noise, she had said, would only make her head ache.

Now they were dead, their souls lost to the Void. It had been hard when the children died, bitter hard. And Gellan had retreated into himself, having nothing left with which to comfort Ania. Alone she had been unable to cope and eighteen days after the tragedy she had hung herself with a silken scarf … Gellan had found the body. Plague had claimed his children. Suicide took his wife.

Now all he had was the Legion.

And tomorrow it would head for Purdol and the gates of Hell.

Dardalion waited silently for his visitor. An hour ago the Drenai general Karnak had arrived at the meadow, and had sat outlining his plan to aid Purdol. He had asked if Dardalion could help him, by keeping at bay the spirits of the Dark Brotherhood. 'It is vital we arrive unnoticed,' said Karnak. 'If there is the merest whisper of my movements, the Vagrians will be waiting for us.'

'I will do what I can, Lord Karnak.'

'Do better than that, Dardalion. Kill the whoresons.'

After he had gone, Dardalion knelt on the grass before his tent and bowed his head in prayer. He had stayed thus for more than an hour when the Abbot came and knelt before him.

Dardalion sensed his presence and opened his eyes. The old man looked tired, his eyes red-rimmed and sorrowful.

'Welcome, Lord Abbot,' said Dardalion.

'What have you done?' asked the old man.

'My Lord, I am sorry for the pain you feel, but I can only do what I feel is right.'

'You have sundered my brotherhood. Twenty-nine priests are now preparing for war and death. It cannot be right.'

'If it is wrong, we will pay for it, for the Source is righteous and will suffer no evil.'

'Dardalion, I came to plead with you. Leave this place, find a far monastery in another land and return to your studies. The Source will show you the path.'

'He has shown me the path, my lord.'

The old man bowed his head and tears fell to the grass.

'I am powerless, then, against you?'

'Yes, my lord. Whereas I am not against you at all.'

'You are now a leader, chosen by those who would follow you. What title will you carry, Dardalion. The Abbot of Death?'

'No, I am not an abbot. We will fight without hate and we will find no joy in the battle. And when it is won – or lost – we will return to what we were.'

'Can you not see the folly in your words? You will fight evil on its own ground, with its own weapons. You will defeat it. But will that end the war? It may stop the Brotherhood, but there are other brotherhoods and other evils. Evil does not die, Dardalion. It is a weed in the garden of life. Cut it, burn it, uproot it, yet will it return the stronger. This path of yours has no ending – the war merely changes.'

Dardalion said nothing, the truth of the Abbot's words hammering home to him.

'In this you are right, my lord. I see that. And I see also that you are correct when you name me "Abbot". We cannot merely become Soul Warriors. There must be order and our mission must be finite. I will consider your words carefully.'

'But you will not change your immediate course?'

'It is set. What I have done, I have done in faith and I will not go back on it, any more than you will break your own faith.'

'Why not, Dardalion? You have already broken faith once. You took an oath that all human life –all life, indeed – would be sacred to you. Now you have slain several men and have eaten meat. Why should one more act of "faith" concern you?'

'I cannot argue with that, my lord,' said Dardalion. 'The truth of it grieves me.'

The Abbot pushed himself to his feet. 'I hope that history does not recall you and your Thirty, Dardalion, though I fear that it will. Men are always impressed by acts of violence. Build your legend carefully, lest it destroy all we stand for.'

The Abbot walked away into the darkening dusk where Astila and the other priests waited in silence. They bowed as he passed, but he ignored them.

The priests gathered in a ring around Dardalion and waited while he concluded his prayers. Then he looked up.

'Welcome, my friends. Tonight we must aid Lord Karnak, but above this we must learn about ourselves. There is more than a chance that the path we follow is the road to perdition, for it may be that everything we do is against the will of the Source. So we must hold in our hearts the strength of our faith and the belief in our cause. Tonight some of us may die. Let us not travel to the Source with hate in us. We will begin now by joining in prayer. We will pray for our enemies, and we will forgive them in our hearts.'