Ammen nodded eagerly.

“The Shadowhand?” Ochan muttered. “Can’t be right. I’ll have that Urik’s guts if he’s lying about this. But then… there was… what was his name? Can’t remember. The one I got Urik to pick up. He was from Vaymouth, wasn’t he?” He looked up abruptly, his stare fixing on the wall in front of him. His arm fell away from Ochan’s shoulder. “Gods, he couldn’t have been Torquentine’s man, could he? It couldn’t be that fat slug who’s…” He lapsed into a pensive silence.

“Are we going now?” Ammen asked cautiously.

“Tomorrow, early. There’s one or two men I’ll need to talk to before we go. No telling how long we might be gone. But we’ll not stay here tonight. I know the watchmen on Polochain’s warehouse by the quay. You head down there after dark. Tell them I sent you. I’ll find you there, once I’ve done what needs doing.”

Ammen Sharp packed a travelling bag, and while he did so a smile broke unbidden across his face again and again. Tomorrow he and his father would be on the road together. Ammen was pleased and proud: his sisters would never be invited to share in this part of Ochan’s life. When his mother asked what was happening, Ammen told her they were going to Ive, and thought nothing of the lie.

He put his precious knife on his belt; crammed his wooden whistle into the pack, and his steel and flint, waterskin, stubby candles and the little crossbow he used to shoot seagulls from the rooftops.

It would be at least a full day’s journey to Skeil Anchor, more likely two now that the nights were stretching. If he was lucky, there might be bad weather to delay them, force them to hole up in a wayside inn; give him more time to be alone with his father, his sole companion in adventure.

V

Glasbridge was a carcass of a town, its heart torn out by the flood waters of the Glas. The river had shrunk back into its old channel many days ago but there were still slicks of filthy water, knee-deep mud and piles of debris all through the once-busy streets. Most of the houses closest to the river had been cast down by the torrent; only a few that had been built of stone survived and even they were gutted and crumbling. The waves along the seafront lapped heavily, burdened by the flotsam that had been spewed out into the sea by the flood. And by bodies. Even now, the sea was still returning a few corpses each day to the city. They bobbed like bloated sacks along the harbour, pale and putrid.

Most of what the waters had not ruined, fire had claimed. Everywhere the black shells of buildings and their smoke-stained walls told a tale of destruction. The Black Road conquerors of Glasbridge had been too few in number to control the inferno once they had set it loose, and had been disinclined to make the effort. The town could be rebuilt if fate and fortune allowed them the opportunity. For now, all that mattered was that the remnants of the Lannis Blood’s warriors could not gather here, and the other Haig Bloods could not use the harbour to bring spear-forested ships ashore.

Few people – the old, the very young, the sick and infirm – could be seen out on the ravaged streets, scrabbling amidst the rubble in search of food, clothing or lost relatives. They shared their search with the dogs and seagulls and crows that fought over every scrap of food. Many bodies were still hidden beneath the wreckage. Packs of dogs dug them out; they and the carrion birds and rats consumed them.

It was snowing as Kanin oc Horin-Gyre rode into Glasbridge. Big, fat flakes drifted like the seed-heads of countless winter flowers. They were blanketing the whole Glas valley, concealing its scars. Without any wind to drive them the flakes bobbed down in a lazy dance.

Kanin’s horse trod carefully along the city street, stepping over the shattered remains of a trader’s barrow. Like every one of the forty warriors who rode behind him, the Horin-Gyre Thane was hunched down against the weather. He wore a thick woollen cloak, looted from Koldihrve. The snow had piled up on his shoulders. Only his hands, protected by thick gauntlets, emerged from beneath the cloak to clutch the reins. The band of warriors came into Glasbridge silently. This had been the home of their Horin forebears before the Black Road’s exile, yet they showed no jubilation at its recapture after so long. Kanin’s mood defined that of those who followed him, and his had been grim for many days now.

The riders came to the place where a fine stone bridge had, until the town’s ruin, vaulted across the broad channel of the Glas. Now only the stubs of the bridge remained, jutting out from either bank. The water flowing between those banks was turbid and dark. The river was still carrying vast amounts of soil that it had stripped from the fields upstream of Glasbridge. Workers had already thrown a makeshift crossing over it, laying rows of planks across a series of small, flat barges.

Half a dozen spearmen appeared from out of the snow. They challenged the riders. Kanin shrugged back the hood of his cloak, scattering snowflakes, and scowled at them.

“Do you not know your own Thane?” he growled.

The spearmen bowed their heads, begged forgiveness.

“Where is my sister?” Kanin asked.

Reunion with Wain lifted Kanin’s spirits for a time at least. He embraced her, held her shoulders with his great gloved hands. Around them, in the yard of a wheelwright’s abandoned workshop, his weary band dismounted and stood by their horses. The thick snow was crusting the animals’ manes.

“I’d not thought to see you for a time yet,” Wain said to her brother.

“We rode hard,” he replied, examining her features with a keen eye. “I looked for you at Sirian’s Dyke. I did not think you would be camped in Glasbridge already.”

Wain glanced away. “The Dyke was broken. That eased our path.”

Kanin already knew the tale of the breaking of Sirian’s Dyke, and the flood that had swept the road to Glasbridge clean of Lannis warriors and cracked open the town’s defences; it had been on the lips of everyone they had met since they had descended out of the Car Criagar. He did not need to hear Wain say it to know that she resented the glory Shraeve and her Inkallim had won for themselves by destroying that great dam. Horin-Gyre and the Battle Inkall would never be the easiest of allies, and in the case of Wain and Shraeve mistrust was sharpened to active dislike.

“Let’s get out of this,” Kanin said, gesturing towards the snow-filled sky. “It’s been snowing or raining on me from the moment I left Koldihrve. I’ve had enough of it.”

“What happened, then?” Wain asked once they had settled in front of the fire in the absent wheelwright’s house. “I know it cannot have been all that you hoped, or you’d have told me already.”

A young girl – orphaned or abandoned in the chaos of Glasbridge’s fall and now pressed into service by Wain – brought them bread and bowls of mutton stew. There were ugly burns on the backs of her hands, a legacy of the conflagration that had come after the flood. Kanin tore the bread into chunks and dipped them in the unappetising stew.

“We cornered the Lannis children in Koldihrve. The boy and the girl were both there. I had…” He stretched a hand out towards Wain, closing his fist on air. “I had him within my reach, as close as you are now. But they escaped us. A Tal Dyreen trading ship carried them away.”

“You’ve got yourself a trophy, I see,” Wain said with a nod at Kanin’s brow.

The Thane put a hand to the long, half-healed cut there.

“A woodwight broke her bow on my head,” he muttered. “I’d’ve had the Lannis-Haig brat otherwise. I was so close, Wain. So close.” He shook his head.

“It’s done,” his sister said. “There’s no point in regretting fate’s path.”

Kanin made a vague effort at a smile. Wain’s resilience, her steadfast adherence to the creed, had always been a staff he could lean on. He knew she was right, and that he should mimic her calmness in the face of misfortune, but it had never come as easily to him. He had promised his father that the Lannis-Haig line would be extinguished. If fate would not permit him to fulfil that promise, he could not help but regret the fact.