“Is there something you wished to ask me, then?”

“Your tongue seems to have softened a little since we last spoke. That is encouraging. Perhaps it was the wine that spoke then, was it?”

Had the Bloodheir known what barbs of invective seethed behind Anyara’s clamped lips, clamouring for release, he would not have been so encouraged. But she was determined to maintain a placid demeanour. The days when she could afford to speak without thinking, and without care for the thin skin of others, were gone.

“Anyway, here is the matter that concerns me.” Aewult leaned forwards in his great chair, resting his elbows on its carved arms. “Your brother seems to have disappeared. And I have heard – this is not something to be repeated in other ears, lady – I have heard that my father’s Chancellor, who followed in your brother’s wake, has suffered a most unfortunate accident.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Anyara lied.

“Indeed. I am sure. As, no doubt, Roaric in his little tower will be when he hears of it. Neither of you as sorry as I am, I suspect. Not, I can assure you, as sorry as my father is going to be when word reaches Vaymouth. And my father’s anger can be a terrible, terrible thing. You understand my difficulty?”

“I am not sure I do.”

“Ah. I am told Mordyn Jerain was taken to Highfast, but whether he will live or die I do not know. He was gravely injured, my lady. Gravely injured. Nobody seems to know how or why this has come about. Perhaps your brother might be able to shed some light in the shadow. I would ask him if I could. But I am told he is no longer at Highfast. We do not know where he is, and cannot ask him the question. Can we?”

“I do not know where he is, if that is what you want to ask me,” Anyara murmured. To have this loathsome man scratching at wounds so raw and painful was sickening.

Aewult’s dissatisfaction was obvious in his face. He sat back in his chair, tapped his heel a few times at the hard earth beneath him. He stared at Anyara, his brow clenched into a frown.

“She’s lying,” said Ishbel.

“Don’t you dare…” Anyara snapped, all restraint lost and forgotten in that one moment.

“Quiet! Quiet!” Aewult cried. To Anyara’s relief and bitter pleasure, he turned his ire on Ishbel. “Keep quiet. Don’t interfere in this. It’s not your place.”

The woman’s face burned, and Anyara saw in that angry glow a promise of lifelong enmity. She did not care; relished the thought, almost.

“I was not served as well as I thought to be by your esteemed captain Taim Narran, in the battle,” Aewult said. “And our cause was not served at all by your absent brother. The High Thane’s Chancellor himself, riding after your brother, has been struck down by some unknown hand. I find myself suspicious; my trust thinning. There are questions here that require answers. Sureties that must be given, I think.”

“Sureties?”

“Indeed. You, in fact. If your brother cannot be found, I must invite you to attend upon your High Thane in Vaymouth. To give reassurances and to offer some explanation. There must be some explanation, you understand, for recent events. Good faith must be demonstrated. Loyalty proven.”

Anyara’s mind was racing. For all that Aewult appeared calm and collected, there was panic in this. He feared the blame, and judgement, and shame, that would come from defeat, and from the loss of the infamous Shadowhand. He was lashing out in all directions, fumbling for others to shield him from it all: condemning Taim Narran, pushing Roaric to utter rebellion or disloyalty, casting the Lannis Blood in the role of traitors or cowards. It was clumsy, blundering, but dangerous too.

“You cannot refuse,” Aewult said quietly. “You know that, of course. I speak for my father in all things. And I wish you kept close to my Blood, lady, henceforth. Until matters become clearer, at least. I have already sent to the Tower of Thrones to have everything you might need brought out. I am sure Roaric will understand that you choose to be the guest of the Haig Blood for a little while.”

And I, thought Anyara, am not at all sure that he will.

III

Like an immense shoal of fish seething in the shallows of some cold ocean, the great army of the Black Road swirled over the snow-blanketed lower reaches of the Glas valley. It was hungry, and eager, and incapable of remaining still. More companies kept coming south across the Vale of Stones, many of them now the trained warriors of the other Bloods, whose Thanes scented triumph and did not wish to see it solely claimed by Horin and by the Inkallim. As every new band arrived it was swept up into the army, and caught up in the frenzy of anticipation.

Kanin had taken part in every discussion amongst the supposed masters of this ever-growing force, but he had said little. There were too many people, and too much hunger both physical and spiritual, assembled here for any conclusion to have been reached other than the obvious: to rush on down the coast, give battle at every opportunity, pursue their collective fate to its utmost limits. An unspoken consensus had been reached, that no culmination was any longer possible save one that was vast and violent. Temegrin the Eagle had whined and obstructed, raised objections and reservations, all to no avail. He alone imagined that events could any longer be the subject of reasoned debate. The Black Road had hold of them, and would carry them helplessly into whatever future lay ahead.

Many tributaries were feeding the rising flood of enthusiasm. Kolglas had been overrun and sacked. Drinan had been burned, its inhabitants slaughtered, by White Owl Kyrinin. The vanguard of the Black Road army was already on the borders of Kilkry-Haig territory, poised to sweep on past the little town of Hommen. And nowhere in all this frenzied, impulsive advance had they encountered more than token, delaying resistance. The great army of the Haig Bloods they had faced, and beaten, in the snow outside Glasbridge had crumbled away.

All these victories served to stoke the fire that burned in every heart, but none had greater impact than the news from further south: Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig was dead, cut down in his own feasting hall by the Hunt Inkall. The Battle was fighting side by side with the commonfolk; the Hunt was killing the greatest foes of the Black Road; the Lore marched amongst the warriors, lending their authority to the struggle. Temegrin, the timorous Eagle, could vacillate all he wished, Kanin reflected as he marshalled the meagre remnants of his own Blood’s army on the fields outside Glasbridge. His solitary counsel of restraint would be drowned out. Futile.

There were only a few hundred swords left for Kanin to command. Such was the price his Blood had paid to open the way. He had heard that Vana his mother had dispatched another two or three hundred warriors – the very last that could be spared – but they were not here yet, and there was no time to wait. The Glas valley was emptying, disgorging its conquerors on down the coast towards greater prizes.

Kanin rode along the front rank of his spearmen, drawn up with admirable precision across the grass. They were hungry, like everyone else, and tired. He could see that in their faces. But they made no complaint, showed no reluctance. Many hundreds of their comrades had died since they had marched out from Hakkan all those weeks ago. Perhaps more than any other company in this great patchwork army, they desired an ending – clear, dramatic – to all of this that made sense of what had gone before. There were even a few dozen Tarbains: dishevelled and subdued, clustered behind their glowering chieftain. Their desires, no doubt, revolved around loot more than glory or fate’s vindication. Still, they would serve. Every spear that marched behind Kanin made his Blood’s place in this war a fraction less tenuous and inconsequential.