The na’kyrim laughed, and the laugh flowed over Wain like water. It was a living, liquid thing. An unnatural thing, she thought, not remotely human. Not remotely mirthful.

“I am so very tired of being refused,” Aeglyss said. He hung his head, letting his arms fall back to his sides. “So long I had nothing else…” he jerked his head sideways, wincing, like a man beset by a stinging insect “… nothing else.”

Wain glanced at the warriors who flanked her. On every face she saw some intimation of the confusion, the disquiet, that writhed beneath. She knew it was in them because it was in her too; it was in the very walls of this decrepit courtyard. Aeglyss was breathing it out with the spent air from his lungs, breathing it over them.

“Get down,” she heard him say, and her legs and arms were already obeying him. For a sluggish moment she was an observer, watching her body as it swung out of the saddle to the ground. She shook herself, and was standing there by her horse’s head, holding its reins.

Aeglyss swayed a little. One of the Kyrinin beside him put a hand under the na’kyrim ’s elbow until he had steadied himself. Wain considering climbing back onto her horse, but she feared how that might appear to the warriors she led. She kicked wet earth over the campfire burning by her feet. The flames hissed and died almost at once. The sunlight was strong here in the stone-enclosed space of the courtyard, undiluted by the wind. It was even a little warm on the side of her face. There was a stench on the air, of dank decay, rotten vegetation. She glared at Aeglyss.

“Oh,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to argue with you, Wain. You were always less cold than your brother. Life, possibilities, always burned more strongly in you. Even when you were children.” He was looking at her out of the corner of his eye now, a harsh little smile curling his mouth. “Ha. Where did that come from, I wonder? There’s so much that… comes to me now, and I don’t know how, or why. I was always afraid of madness. Always. Is this it, do you think?”

“There’s nothing new…” Wain began to say, but cut herself short as Aeglyss took a long stride forwards.

“No!” he cried. “Not madness. Just the woodworker, learning the use of a new tool; an archer learning the bend of a new bow. And no,” softly now, soft in Wain’s mind, “everything’s new, that’s what you should say. Nothing’s the same, not ever. I’m not the same, Wain. This blunted blade you cast away has been sharpened. Do you doubt me?”

“I don’t doubt that you are… different.” And that much was true. His sheer presence, his mere proximity, set such thoughts and doubts crawling around in her mind, like ants nesting in the back of her skull. He had never had this kind of effect on her – on anyone, as far as she knew – before.

Some of her warriors had dismounted. Others were pressing in through the gateway behind her. They wanted to fight, she knew. They were afraid of Aeglyss, of this invisible cloud of potency that enveloped him. She had enough strength here, perhaps, to overcome the halfbreed and all his woodwights. If Kanin had been at her side, he would not have hesitated. And yet something in her quailed at the image of such slaughter, as if it would be a betrayal of a gift offered up to her by fate.

“No, you don’t,” Aeglyss said. “I can see it in you, I can smell it on you. You think there is something here.”

He turned and pointed to one of the White Owl warriors: a muscular man with a mass of writhing lines tattooed on his face.

“See? The son of the Voice herself. He and his a’an – my spear a’an now. The White Owls accept me as one of their own. The whole clan is my spear a’an, my beloved people. But I am Horin-Gyre too, not just White Owl. By my father, I am of your Blood, Wain.”

“That means nothing. What is it you want here? Have you come to offer us another alliance with your tame savages? You know the time for that has passed.”

“Oh, I offer that. That, but much more.” To her astonishment, Aeglyss knelt then, and bowed before her. It was so unexpected that she could only stand and stare at the crown of his head, the long hair that fell forwards and hid his face.

“I am become a new man,” he murmured. “Servant of all desires. There are thousands coming. I can feel their footsteps in my mind, I can catch the scent of their ardour on the wind. War is to follow, war beyond all reason; unending, unmaking. And I will ride its currents like a bird on the storm. Let me bear us all up on my wings, Wain.”

And in her heart then she felt a great hunger stir, a longing for the future and all its tumultuous possibilities. She saw the Black Road rushing like a living thing out from this shattered city and bearing them all on its broad back into a vast and endless plain, lit by a glorious fiery light, strewn with the corpses of the faithless. So, she wondered, is this how it is to be? Is this the shape of our fate? And a small, faint voice within her, not entirely her own, whispered, Yes, yes, this is how it is to be.

II

“Is it true?”

Aewult the Bloodheir was shouting at Anyara, his face so close to her own that she could smell the hot memory of his last meal. A blush of anger had coloured his rough, stubbled cheeks, a film of spittle coated the creases of his lips. His rage was clearly profound.

“Has your brother marched?” Aewult demanded. “Where are his warriors going? Kolglas?”

Anyara pulled her head back a fraction. However potent the Bloodheir’s anger might be, she had her own stores of irritation to draw on. She planted a firm hand on his chest, applying just enough pressure to make sure that he noticed it. To her astonishment, and alarm, Aewult struck her arm aside.

Coinach was there at once, drawing her aside, putting himself between her and the Bloodheir. The shieldman stood tall, one hand on Anyara’s arm, the other on the pommel of his sword. He and Aewult stared at one another, Aewult’s eyes burning with indignation and threat, Coinach’s cold and calm. At once horrified and excited, Anyara reached to pull her shieldman back, but another intervention came first.

“So long as you are under my roof, Bloodheir, you will not raise a hand against the sister of a Thane.” Ilessa oc Kilkry-Haig’s voice was imperious, all confidence and control.

It was enough to cut through Aewult’s befuddling rage. He looked towards Lheanor’s wife. Ilessa was seated at a broad table, papers scattered all over its surface. A gaggle of her Blood’s officials – storesmen, oathmen – shared the table with her, every one of them staring at Aewult nan Haig. Anyara had been seated at that same table, discussing with Ilessa how best the Lannis folk who had fled into Kilkry lands might be fed and housed, when Aewult burst in. From the first moment of his furious entry, it had been as if he did not even see Ilessa or any of the others; his eyes – his demands and accusations – had been only for Anyara.

“I might raise a hand against that Thane himself, were he here,” Aewult snarled, “but he isn’t, is he? That’s the point. And neither’s his little army.”

He did not sound at all repentant, but he did take a couple of paces back.

“I don’t much care what the point is, or what dreadful wrong you think Orisian oc Lannis-Haig has done you,” Ilessa said. “You are a guest here, and will conduct yourself accordingly. I would expect no less of even the Thane of Thanes, and your authority does not yet match your father’s.”

Aewult made a faint grunting noise and turned his attention back to Anyara. She was still half-shielded by Coinach, who appeared unwilling to rely solely on Ilessa’s words to restrain the Bloodheir.

“You can tell your guard dog to stand aside, my lady,” Aewult muttered. He did not deign to look at Coinach now. “If I caused you offence, I regret it, but I’ll not have a shieldman putting himself in my face, certainly not a woman’s shieldman.”