It was not long before he was carried out into the night and left under the stars, listening to the sound of hoofbeats fading into the distance. Fading, dying …

Still the sound of hooves on dry earth filled him with sadness.

He had no name and no future.

Yet something had come from the mountains and drawn him into the darkness …

There were many of them, skittering and screeching, touching and pinching, and he had grown among them through the Darkness years, rarely seeing the light of day.

And then, on a summer morning, he heard a lilting cry from Outside echoing down a crack in the rocks and reverberating in the tunnels of the mountain heart. He was lured by the sound and he climbed out into the light. High overhead, great white birds were wheeling and diving, and in their cries he felt his life encapsulated. From that moment he saw himself as Kai and he spent many hours each day lying on the high rocks watching for the white birds, waiting for them to call his name.

Then began the Long years as his strength grew. Nadir tribes would gather near the mountains and pass on to greener meadows and deeper streams. But while they camped he watched them, seeing the children at play, the women arm-in-arm and laughing as they strolled.

Sometimes he strayed too close and the laughter would become familiar screams and the hunters would ride. Kai would run, and then turn, and rend and tear until he was alone once more.

How many years, he wondered, had he lived thus?

The forest in which he now sat had been a small wood of slender trees. Was that a long time? He had no terms of reference. One tribe had camped for longer than most and he had watched one young girl as she grew to womanhood, her hair turning grey and her back becoming bent. They lived such short lives, these Nadir.

Kai stared at his hands. Special hands these, he knew. Slowly he unwrapped the bandage from his arm and plucked out the stitches Waylander had placed there. Blood eased from the wound, then ran freely. Kai covered the gash with his hand and concentrated deeply. A strong sense of heat grew over the area, like a thousand tiny needles probing the flesh. After several minutes he removed his hand … And the gash was gone, the skin supple and unblemished by scab or scar. Removing the bandage and stitches from his leg, he repeated the process.

Strong again, he rose smoothly to his feet and breathed deeply. He could have killed the wolves eventually, but the man had helped him, and given him the knives.

Kai had no need of knives. He could run down an antelope and destroy it with his hands and tear its warm flesh with his fangs. What need of shiny metal?

But they were gifts, the first he had ever received, and the handles were pretty and handsomely carved.

He had owned a knife once, but within a short time it had turned from shining grey to red-brown and had become brittle and useless.

He thought of the giver – the short, small man on the horse. Why had he not screamed and attacked? Why had he killed the wolves? Why had he bandaged the wounds? Why had he given him the knives?

All were mysteries.

Goodbye friend. What did it mean?

Over the years Kai had learned the language of men, piercing the jumble of sounds into linked sentences. He could not speak, for there was no one to listen, but he could understand. The man had said that he was hunted. Kai could understand that.

By beasts and men? Kai wondered why he had made the distinction.

He shrugged and sighed. Strangely he felt more alone today than yesterday.

He missed the small man.

Karnak was asleep on the floor of the great hall, a single blanket pulled across his massive frame. The log fire in the wide hearth had shrivelled to glowing cinders as the Drenai general lay on a goatskin rug, lost in dreams of childhood and the birth of ambition.

Despite their riches Karnak's family retained a puritan streak and early in their lives the children were taught of the necessity for self-sufficiency. Young Karnak had been apprenticed to a shepherd to the north of the family estates and one night, while camped high in the wooded hills, a great grey wolf had stalked the flock. Karnak, at the age of seven, took a stout staff of unshaped wood and walked towards the beast. For several seconds it stood its ground, yellow eyes fixed on the advancing child, then it had backed away and run into the darkness.

When Karnak returned home he told the tale to his father with great pride.

'I knew of it,' said his father coldly. 'But you have lessened the deed by bragging of it.'

For some reason he never forgot his father's dismissal and the scene returned time and time again to haunt his dreams. Sometimes he dreamt he fought off a dozen tigers, and crawled to his father dying of his wounds.

Always the old man responded with icy indifference.

'Why are you not dressed for dinner?' he would ask the blood-covered boy.

'I have been hurt by tigers, father.'

'Still bragging, Karnak?'

The sleeping man groaned and opened his eyes. The hall was silent, yet some sound had disturbed his slumber and now a faint drumming noise came to him. Karnak lay down, pressing his ear to the rug. Then he pulled the goatskin aside and pushed his ear to the stone.

Men were moving below ground … a lot of men.

Karnak swore and ran from the hall, snatching his axe from the great table of oak. In the corridor, several soldiers were rolling dice. And he called them to him and ran on towards the dungeon stairwell. A young warrior with a bandaged arm was just coming up the stairs and Karnak stopped him.

'Find Cellar and get him to bring a hundred men to the dungeons now . You understand? Now!'

With that the general hurled the man from him and raced down the stairs. Twice he almost slipped on the slime-covered stone and then he was into the narrow prison row. The door at the end of the row led to a wide chamber and from the back of this room Karnak could see the rough-hewed entrance to the mountain tunnel. Wiping his sweating palms on his green tunic, Karnak hefted his axe and ran through the torch-lit chamber and into the tunnel. The air was cold here and water glistened on the dark jagged walls. The tunnel was narrow; only three men could walk abreast. Karnak stopped to listen and a soldier walked into him from behind and cursed.

'Be silent!' hissed the general.

From some way ahead they could hear the whispering sound of stealthy footfalls on the rocky floor. Dancing torch shadows leapt from the far walls where the tunnel curved to the left.

Karnak lifted his axe and slowly, reverently, kissed both blades.

The Vagrians rounded the corner – to be met by an ear-piercing scream and a flashing axe of silver steel that smashed the ribs of the leading warrior. Torches were dropped as men scrambled for their swords, then more screams filled the tunnel as the axe swept and scythed the milling men. Booted feet trampled the torches to extinction and in the darkness terror grew. For Karnak the way was easy – he had fought his way in alone among the enemy, and anything he struck was likely to be hostile flesh. For the Vagrians it was a nightmare in which men stabbed comrades, or felt their swords clattering from stone walls. Confusion became chaos and the invaders fled.

Suddenly a short blade stabbed into Karnak's face, bouncing from his left cheekbone and lancing into his eye. He staggered back. The hurled knife fell to the floor and he clasped his hand to his face, where blood gushed from the eye-socket. With a curse he stumbled on after the Vagrians, screaming and yelling, the noise echoing ahead like the rage of an angry giant.

The pain of his ruined eye was intense and the darkness almost total, but still he ran, his axe held high. Ahead the tunnel widened and the darkness lifted slightly.