He looked around for Igris. The shieldman was hanging back, muttering something to another of Kanin’s escort.

“Igris! We’re still short, are we not? I thought another hundred at least.”

“Some…” The shieldman looked uneasy, fumbling for words.

“Come on,” Kanin snapped. “Where are they?”

“With your sister, sire. Eighty of them, I was told.”

“Eighty?”

“Yes, sire. The… the halfbreed is awake again. Your sister and him have come out of the city. They’re by the river.” The shieldman gestured in a vague northerly direction.

Kanin was incredulous.

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“We only got word…” Igris began, but Kanin was already wheeling his horse away and digging his heels into its flanks.

His path through the chaotic army was constantly obstructed. Here it was a wagon of charcoal, bogged down in a slick of deep mud; there a mule driver furiously beating one of his animals that had fallen, exhausted or injured; next a column of Lannis captives – mostly women – being marched for no obvious reason from one place to another. In places there were thick forests of tents sprouting from the fields, and hundreds upon hundreds of people swarming about them. Kanin rode past a gigantic, roaring fire, around which Tarbains were shouting and gesticulating while a small group of Inkallim looked on.

As he drew closer to the Glas River, and to Glasbridge itself, Kanin found his path becoming clearer. There were still little encampments scattered about the fields, and small companies moving back and forth, but here, so far to the rear, he was amongst the dregs and detritus of the army. Many of these people would be going no further. They were the injured, the enfeebled, the mad or the predatory. He saw one man sprawled half in and half out of a ditch, insensible through drink or sickness. Dark water reached to his thighs. He might be dead come nightfall, unless someone dragged him out. No one was likely to, Kanin guessed.

There were plangent cries from the sky above. Kanin looked up, and saw vast, straggling arrowheads of seagulls passing overhead. They were coming down the line of the river, making for the open sea.

He brought his gaze back down and saw what he had come searching for. Out of place amongst the disorder all around, an organised column was moving northwards along a faint track that ran parallel to the river. Kanin kicked his horse on and as he drew nearer he could see that the company was a strange mixture. There were dozens of ragged figures – commonfolk of the Gyre Bloods who had come across the Stone Vale on their own initiative – and plenty of warriors too. Some, Kanin saw in disgust, were indeed drawn from his own Blood. And leading the way were twenty or thirty Kyrinin, with two figures riding at their head: Wain and Aeglyss.

The mere sight of his sister riding alongside the halfbreed was enough to reawaken Kanin’s anger, never far beneath the surface these days. Every morning he woke to find his mind already teeming with bitter thoughts of Aeglyss. At any moment during the day when there was nothing to distract him, he could be seized by a surge of despair at the thought of losing Wain. For he had lost her, in all meaningful senses. Ever since her return to Glasbridge, she had chosen to incarcerate herself, never leaving the na’kyrim ’s side while he lay insensible. Again and again Kanin had sought her out; always, when he did so, she was distant and uninterested. It was as if everything they had shared since they were children, all the connections and understanding they had accumulated between them, had never been. Nothing had ever caused him quite such pain.

He walked his horse into the ranks of marching White Owls without a moment’s hesitation, using its strength to barge them aside and plough through to his sister. He heard what he imagined were hissed curses directed at him, and felt his horse start at a blow across its haunches, but he ignored them. He had eyes only for Wain.

She looked round as he fell in beside her. Her expression was blank. She was neither pleased nor perturbed by his arrival.

“What is happening?” he asked her.

Aeglyss, a little way ahead, spoke without looking round.

“Please don’t delay us, Thane. We have important matters to attend to.”

Kanin bit back his fury and contempt, keeping himself focused upon Wain.

“Where are you going?” he asked her.

“To Kan Avor,” she said flatly.

“Why?”

“Because it is the heart of things,” Aeglyss called back over his shoulder. “Because it is empty, and should be filled. Because others are coming to meet me there, with a precious cargo.”

“Kan Avor is empty because it waits for Ragnor oc Gyre to take his rightful place there,” Kanin snapped, “not so that some deranged half-wight can foul it with his presence.”

“Come with us, brother,” Wain urged. There was almost some life in her voice with those words. They carried need in them, but not affection.

“No. You come with me.” He reached out for the reins of her horse. She did not resist as he steered her out from amongst the files of Kyrinin. Aeglyss, though, turned his own mount – a thin, miserable-looking animal – towards them. Kanin saw the halfbreed’s face for the first time then, and it was an unpleasant sight. He might have risen from his sickbed, but he still looked like a man upon the very threshold of death. His eyes had sunk back into his skull, pouched in dark pits.

“Do not try to impose your will here, Thane,” Aeglyss said. In the same moment, Kanin felt a shaft of piercing pain flash through his head and lodge there like a hot blade driven into his temple. He winced and involuntarily closed his eyes for a moment.

“Let her go,” he heard Aeglyss saying, and found that both his hands were back on his own reins. He blinked, still beset by throbbing pain, and saw Wain turning back to rejoin the column. They were all marching on, as if nothing had happened. Even, Kanin saw, the dozens of warriors of his own Blood.

“Stand aside,” he shouted at them. Some looked up at him, and he saw doubt, fear perhaps, on many faces. Several faltered and even halted, sending disruptive ripples through the column.

“Come away from there, all of you,” Kanin cried. First one or two, then ten and twenty, fell out of their marching order and came across the muddy grass towards their Thane. Aeglyss was still there, watching with a cruel smile on his face.

“Pay him no heed,” the na’kyrim said to the warriors. “You know where we are going, and why. You know where fate’s course will be decided.” He almost whispered it, yet Kanin heard the words clearly above the tramp of feet. He felt the immense weight of command they carried, the overwhelming will that informed them. He understood for the first time that Aeglyss truly had changed into something more than he had once been.

“Stand still,” Kanin shouted, aware of the edge of alarm that distorted his voice. “You will not defy your Thane in this!”

Some of the warriors were already turning away from him. Others hesitated, looking in confusion at him or at Aeglyss or their comrades. Growling, enraged, Kanin side-stepped his horse towards Aeglyss.

“If you think you can usurp my authority…” he began, but the na’kyrim was already returning to the head of the column.

“The authority here is your sister’s, Thane, not mine. Wain! Let him see.”

The dullness he saw in Wain’s eyes as she halted her horse and stared back was enough to break Kanin’s determination. Never had she seemed so lifeless to him, so empty.

“Get back in line,” she shouted. “We march to Kan Avor.”

The warriors did as she commanded them, and Kanin lacked the will to challenge Wain’s command in their presence. He watched the motley band snaking past him for only a few moments, then spun his horse about. The pain his head was subsiding, but not that in his heart.