“What if you kill off their leaders?” I asked. “The Ice Islanders fighting in Kellarin last summer gave up at once when their commanders died.”

“Then Elietimm have less in common with the Men of the Mountains than they claim,” responded Sorgrad with contempt. “Anyatimm are trained to take over any task if another man’s injured, be it in the diggings, on the trap line or fighting lowlanders in the Gap.”

“They’re paying a lot of heed to Pretty Boy though,” mused ’Gren. “I bet him catching an arrow in the throat would give them pause for thought. A mob’s only as strong as whoever’s holding it together, ’Grad, you know that.”

“What about the Sheltya?” I suggested. “Especially if they’re using aetheric magic to keep everyone together.”

Sorgrad grimaced. “You’d be swapping silver for copper, my girl. Killing Sheltya gets you staked out on a mountainside alive for as long as it takes the ravens to find you and peck out your eyes and liver. Kill Sheltya and that army will be out to avenge a blood feud.”

“What about this Ice Islander?” Nervousness gnawed at the pit of my belly.

Darni looked at Sorgrad. “Would blood loyalty extend to him? I’ll bet half the wealth of Hadrumal he’s at the bottom of this mischief.”

“Even if he’s claiming to be Sheltya, he’s not born to any soke this side of the ocean, let alone the Gap,” replied Sorgrad slowly. “Everyone can see that from his face and hair. They’d probably look to avenge his death, but I can’t see it ranking as blood insult.”

“Family’s everything in the mountains,” ’Gren nodded. “The knife cuts both ways; if you’re not family, you’re nothing.”

“So what if we take the Elietimm enchanter out of the balance?” I persisted. “The Sheltya stay neutral normally, we know that.” I felt my way cautiously through this. “For them to get involved, something must have stirred them up. Given what we saw at the Hachalfess, the Sheltya reckon to be cock of the dunghill, so it would have to be someone out of the ordinary run of the runes. It has to be the enchanter, doesn’t it?”

“He could well be a key link holding a lot of this together,” Sorgrad looked more cheerful. “It’s got to be worth seeing what happens if we snap it.”

“So the three of us go up into the heights and deal with him,” suggested ’Gren. “You lick these Folk into shape, Darni, and stop Pretty Boy’s little army getting any deeper into trouble in the meantime.”

“I’d certainly take any road that offered a short cut through this,” muttered Darni. “I’ve no troops for a pitched battle.”

“I’m sorry but I really cannot agree to this.” We all looked at Usara and the wizard’s fair coloring betrayed him. “I need Sorgrad here,” he said, getting defiantly to his feet and letting his spell fade unheeded. “Planir told me I was to use my powers together with Gilmarten and any other mage I could find locally.”

“I’m no mage and neither you nor your Archmage has any claim on me,” replied Sorgrad in a level tone.

“I understand you could never explore the potential of your wizardry, given your birth and upbringing,” Usara continued as if Sorgrad had not spoken, “but even untrained as you are we can drill you in some simple spells.”

“No,” said Sorgrad.

Usara stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t make myself clear?” Sorgrad’s eyes were cold and hard. “No.”

“This is no time to be stubborn, man. You are mage-born!” Usara’s puzzlement soured toward anger. “You have a duty to use that wizardry and I cannot imagine a more crucial time for you to accept your responsibilities!”

“I have no duty to an accident of birth,” replied Sorgrad with contempt. “I bear no more responsibility for it than you do for losing your hair. My loyalty is to my blood and my friends.”

“Even if your attitude leaves these people dead on the Forest floor?” demanded Usara hotly. “When your cooperation could have saved them?”

’Gren stirred and I gave him a warning glare; I had another rune to turn this hand. “What exactly did Planir say?” The wizard was momentarily disconcerted as I claimed his attention by standing between him and Sorgrad. It wasn’t the most sensible place to be but someone had to stop this from turning into a fistfight.

“I asked what I was supposed to do, given there wasn’t another mage hereabouts beyond Gilmarten—and me,” Usara replied crossly. “Planir said not to be so sure of that and then he broke the link. He must have meant Sorgrad, that’s all there is to it.”

“Says who?” demanded ’Gren belligerently. “How’s he ever even heard of my brother?”

“I told my Archmage that I had discovered magebirth was not unknown among the Mountain Men, as we have always supposed.” Usara lifted his chin defiantly. “That you seem unaccountably able to suppress your elemental affinity—” he shot Sorgrad a look of annoyance and suspicion—“is something better left until we return to Hadrumal. We can explore that peculiarity there.”

“You can forget that, mage,” said Sorgrad disdainfully. “I’m not going to Hadrumal as long as I’ve got a hole in my arse.”

Usara squared up to Sorgrad like a bantam taking on a fighting cock. “Planir said—”

“Why do you say magebirth is unknown among the people of the mountains?” Gilmarten’s courteous question in his soft Soluran lilt cut through Usara’s ire like a knife through cheese. The mage was still looking relatively dapper after our rough couple of days, though the loss of his hat meant he was a little sun-scorched around the face.

“Because it is, I mean, they don’t.” Usara looked bemused.

“They do in Solura.” Gilmarten looked a little self-conscious. “At least, I have met mages of both half- and quarter-Mountain blood and heard tell of at least one pure-blooded.”

“Something else you lot in Hadrumal got wrong?” ’Gren taunted.

“What about Forest blood?” Usara’s question was half a heartbeat behind my own.

“Something else you don’t know, Sandy?” asked ’Gren silkily.

The Soluran wizard nodded. “It’s the same as far as I know; uncommon, but not unheard of.”

“There’s your answer then.” I spoke hurriedly to stop ’Gren stirring the fire any higher. “If you want to get yourself a new apprentice, we see if there’s someone here with the…” I couldn’t think how to phrase it. “Somebody mage-born.”

“We have methods of teaching by rote in my tradition that could certainly offer these people some means of protection,” offered Gilmarten with a nervous smile. Usara looked obstinate but also unsure, aware that the ground had somehow shifted under him.

“Let’s get a grip on the reins here. Squabbling among ourselves is just handing advantage to the enemy,” said Darni firmly. “We need to know who we are fighting, so ’Sar, scry out the closest valleys. See which are mustering for a fight. You two, you know the mountains and you know fighting; the hunters here know the woods. We need to draw up a map tying everything together. We’ll want at least one trained mage in any fight but if we can find mage-born folk hereabouts who can defend their own, that’ll free up more fighting men and women. Gilmarten and Livak, go and see what you can find out.”

Darni’s bull-headed assumption of command at least broke the deadlock. The big fighter headed for Bera and ’Gren followed, Sorgrad walking more slowly, expression unreadable. Usara sniffed crossly as he bent over his scrying bowl but the irritation in his face gradually waned as he wrought his magic.

I turned to Gilmarten, who smiled uncertainly at me. “Let’s start with Harile,” I suggested. “He’ll probably have some ideas about who might be mage-born.”

We went into the gray gloom of the cave mouth. “Harile?”

“Over here.” He picked his way through the pallets and blankets wrapping tightly packed bodies. “What can I do for you?”

“Usara’s scrying out your enemies,” I pointed out the mage hunched over his bowl. “If you’ve something to dull pain without addling his wits, it would help.”