“Rothe was a good man,” Yvane said. Her voice was heavy. For the first time since he had met her, Orisian thought he heard true, deep grief there. He looked at her.

“I don’t think he would regret having died in your defence,” she said.

K’rina coughed, spluttering out the water Eshenna had trickled into her mouth. Orisian looked across towards the two na’kyrim. Eshenna was distressed. She edged away from K’rina, defeated.

“No,” Orisian murmured. “He wouldn’t have regretted it.”

They came to the edge of the Veiled Woods amidst a misty rain that hid the mountains ahead of them. Everyone climbed up out of the forest onto open hillside with a collective sense of relief. For the first time in days Orisian heard something close to laughter in the voices of Torcaill’s men. Torcaill himself had an air of renewed determination.

“Where now?” the warrior asked Orisian.

Orisian looked back at the thicket from which they had emerged. Ess’yr and Varryn were still in there somewhere. There had been no sign of White Owls since dawn, and none of the Fox either.

“Eshenna,” Orisian called out. “Do you know where we are?”

She shook her head.

“Closest food and shelter is likely to be Stone,” Yvane muttered. “Never been there, but it’s on the Kyre, high on the western side of the Peaks.”

“We’ll try for there, then,” Orisian said to Torcaill. “And then Kolkyre, as fast as we can. Give the men a little rest, and food.”

“Might be best to put some more ground between us and the woods,” Torcaill suggested. “We could climb higher before resting.”

“No. Once we’re moving I don’t want us stopping until we have to. We’ll rest here for a little while.”

They settled on the damp grass just beyond an arrow’s reach from the trees. Torcaill shared out food and water amongst his men. Both were running low. No one had eaten as much as their hunger demanded since the day they had entered the Veiled Woods. Orisian sat facing down towards the forest, watching its edge through the drizzle. He waited as long as he thought he dared, then a fraction longer. He could hear the warriors behind him, further up the slope, growing restive. Just as he rose reluctantly to his feet, he saw what he had been hoping for: Ess’yr and Varryn coming out from amongst the trees. They loped up, heads angled away from the rain.

Varryn was injured, Orisian saw. A strip of hide was tied about his shoulder, holding a wad of moss or herbs over a wound. It did not seem to hamper him.

“The enemy falter,” Ess’yr said. “They have not enough heart for the chase. If they come further, it will only be few.”

“Good,” Orisian said, and smiled. “Good. We mean to go on, across the Peaks.”

Ess’yr nodded. “We will follow your trail. Guard your heels. Fox know high ground better than White Owl.”

Varryn spoke quickly and sharply to his sister in their own tongue. Orisian caught the tone, even if he could understand none of the words: argumentative, contradictory. Ess’yr murmured a soft reply. Varryn turned his gaze upon Orisian. There were flecks of blood laid over the warrior’s tattoos, tiny dark, dry spots across his cheek. There was no way to tell whether it was his own or someone else’s.

“I ask something of you,” Varryn said.

“What?” Orisian asked. Ess’yr was turning away, moving off across the fall of the slope. Orisian watched her go.

“Tell my sister you need us no more,” said Varryn. “Tell her it is done. There is no promise to hold her. No need.”

“You want to leave?” Orisian asked him, still unable to tear his eyes away from Ess’yr’s retreating back.

“You go where we are not welcome. Our fight is with the White Owl.”

Ess’yr squatted down, laying her bow and spear out on the grass. Orisian looked at Varryn. The Kyrinin’s gaze was intense and demanding.

“And Ess’yr does not want to go?” Orisian asked. “Is it the ra’tyn ? The promise she made to Inurian?”

“Tell her there is no need,” Varryn said.

“I don’t think your fight is only with the White Owl, any more than mine is only with Horin-Gyre,” Orisian said. “Things have changed. We’re not just fighting the old battles any more.”

“Nevertheless. I ask you to release my sister. She does not see clearly in this. She sees in you the… child, the memory, of the na’kyrim she loved.”

“Inurian,” Orisian snapped. “His name was Inurian.” He knew Varryn had never been fond of Inurian, had undoubtedly disapproved of his sister’s involvement with him. His temper was too easily stirred to let such things go unchallenged now.

“Will you speak to her?” Varryn asked, unmoved.

Orisian looked at Ess’yr once more. Could she hear what they were saying? He was not sure. She gave no sign of it, but he had grown used to a paucity of signs where the Kyrinin were concerned. She was balanced on her haunches, unstringing her bow, or replacing the string. She did it, as she did everything, with delicate, careful hands.

Nothing good had come out of all that had happened since Winterbirth, save perhaps this, Orisian thought. Save Ess’yr. He did not know whether she only saw in him a reminder of Inurian and, he found, he did not care. A multitude of thoughts jostled for his attention, each momentary and passing. If Varryn and Ess’yr went alone back into the Veiled Woods, or tried to make their way north, they would surely die. The distances were too great, the dangers too numerous. And he did not want this parting. He was selfishly afraid of it, of the loss it would entail.

“No,” he said. “We’re all fighting the same battle, even if you don’t believe it. I won’t send her away. I’ll not tell her – or you – either to stay or to go. She can make her own choices in this. We all do.”

Varryn stalked away from him without another word. Orisian hung his head for a moment, and then turned to tell Torcaill to ready the company for the mountains. He found Yvane staring at him. The na ’kyrim was sitting cross-legged, absently scratching the back of her hand and watching him with rare intensity.

“What?” he asked her.

She shook her head, and dropped her gaze to her hands. “Nothing.”

II

As they struggled through the Karkyre Peaks, Orisian was constantly beset by images and memories of the Car Criagar. Now, as then, there was snow and biting winds, though the cold was not quite as deep and his clothes offered more protection. Now, as then, he fought as much against grief and fear as he did against the elements and the brutal terrain. This time, though, he was possessed of an anger that had not been in him before. It was a hard and uncomfortable sensation, lodged like a splinter in his mind. He distrusted it, and doubted it, but could not – or did not want to – rid himself of it. He thought he had learned that vengeance could not heal his wounds, yet now he found himself craving it. The desire crept up on his weary thoughts every now and then, twisted them into the certainty that what was required was death, and yet more death. Every time he lapsed into such bitter reverie, he had to shake himself free of it. And every time he felt a little more distanced from himself, as if he was becoming a stranger inside his own skull.

They followed goat trails through the stone wilderness of the Peaks, and saw no one. They moved slowly. The paths were narrow and often little more than scratches on the sheer flanks of the mountains. Two of Torcaill’s warriors were carrying wounds that hampered them, and K’rina had to be helped and herded like a weak child. Eshenna too was tiring. They had to stop often, and rest as best they could on the exposed slopes.

There was little talk. It was not just weariness, Orisian suspected, but apprehension at the thought of what might await them once they left the Peaks behind. He felt like a sailor returning from a long voyage, without word of what to expect on his return, but filled with presentiments of ill tidings. He told himself that he would most likely find Aewult nan Haig triumphant, the Black Road driven back from Glasbridge and Anduran. He tried to believe it. And in any case, he wondered, if that was indeed what they found, what then would Rothe and the others have died for? Nothing more than the faulty instincts of their Thane?