Igris and others of his Shield had caught up with him, but he ignored them as he rode back towards the army. He saw Shraeve and two dozen of her ravens watching, like a flock of their namesake birds attending a carcass. And he did feel as though something was dying, though he did not know what it was.

As he drew near to them, the Inkallim moved off, following after Aeglyss, Wain and their motley company. Shraeve gave Kanin a wry smile and nod of her head as she rode by, but he barely registered it. One figure remained behind, standing in Kanin’s path: Cannek, the Hunt Inkallim, with two massive hounds sitting motionless on either side of him.

“A moment of your time, sire?” Cannek said.

“Not now.” Kanin twitched his reins, keeping his uneasy mount beyond reach of those dogs. There was nothing, at this moment, that he had to say to one of the Inkallim.

“Ah, a pity,” Cannek called. “Just this, then: if you ever want to discuss the halfbreed, you might find me an attentive audience. Remember that.”

Kanin glanced, reluctantly, down at the man. “What does that mean?”

“Only that he might prove an interesting subject for discussion. Shraeve, our fierce raven, certainly seems to think him of interest.” Cannek gazed after her disappearing form. “I do too, though perhaps in different ways.”

“Now is not the moment to play games, and talk in fogs.”

“Oh, this is no game, Thane. Not at all. I find some things strange, that is all. And I am not alone in that. It seems to me the mood has changed since that na’kyrim appeared. Do you not think so? There’s a certain bloody hunger, a certain shortness of temper, in the air; more than we might expect even from such an army as this. A certain disturbance of dreams, by all account. We – Fiallic, wise Goedellin himself – understood that the halfbreed’s place in things was to keep the woodwights in step with our purposes. That your sister had him harnessed. Yet now… well, it’s less clear who wears the harness. And I hear his unnatural talents are not quite so meagre as we once thought they were. He humiliated Temegrin quite thoroughly, by all accounts.”

Kanin stared at the Inkallim. Cannek had folded his arms, his hands embracing the knives that lay sheathed along his wrists. The man looked self-satisfied, smug almost; yet his gaze was serious.

“I am of the Hunt, Thane. It is in my nature, my upbringing, to see things that might not be there, to fear betrayals, conspiracies. Dissent. Tell me, am I seeing things that are not there?”

“Where is Shraeve going?” Kanin asked quietly.

Cannek flicked a brief glance after the receding Battle Inkallim.

“She is tasked with keeping a watch on the halfbreed. And – forgive me – on your sister. You are not alone in wishing to see Wain safe, you know. Our masters are curious; less certain than they were, just a few short days ago, of whether Aeglyss… matters or not. Perhaps Shraeve has her own interests, too. She has always, I think, been plagued by an enthusiasm for the most extreme twists and turns in fate’s path.”

Kanin eased his horse onwards. Cannek’s two hounds turned their heads to watch him move away, all feral, predatory attention.

“I am not in the mood for discussion,” Kanin muttered.

“As you wish,” he heard Cannek say behind him, lightly, as if it was a matter of little consequence. “Should you find the mood upon you, no doubt you will be able to find me.”

Kanin moved through the day in dreamlike detachment. Around him, the army roused itself into fragmentary motion. It moved, company by company, away from Glasbridge, tearing up the fields and tracks with its feet and wheels and hoofs as it went. Kanin allowed it to carry him with it. He rode amongst his warriors like flotsam on the current of war. He noted only in the most distant of ways the hamlets, cottages and mills they passed as they made their way down the coast, as shapes signifying nothing. He barely heard the pulsing sighs of waves on the rocky shore or the cries of gulls overhead.

He was moving away from Wain, and though it felt like disaster he did not know what else he could do. It was fate that bore his sister off down whatever path she was following: ineluctable, remorseless. It was fate bearing her away, just as it had cheated him of the chance to put an end to the Lannis line for ever. He knew it was fruitless to rage against the insensate force of the Black Road, but he could know that without feeling it, instinctively, in his heart. He found it impossible to accept that fate would enact itself through a halfbreed, through one who was himself surely faithless, empty of any urge save his own inhuman survival. Aeglyss. That was the rock around which the tides of Kanin’s thoughts surged. He could not free himself of the image of the na’kyrim, the memory of his vile voice.

They reached Kolglas in darkness. There were still bodies in the streets, still ruins smouldering. The town was in chaos. Houses were being emptied of goods, and cattle slaughtered in the main square. Kanin hated it, as on this day he hated everything. There was battle to be had, somewhere further on and further south, and what he wanted now was battle: the clarity of slaughter. He ignored the muted protests of his warriors, and marched them on into the night.

The boy was screaming, each lash eliciting a howl more piercing than the last. And each howl, Theor noticed, caused a faint twitch at the corner of Ragnor oc Gyre’s mouth. The two men – First of the Lore Inkall and High Thane of the Gyre Bloods – sat opposite each other across the dining table and did not speak. The sound of the punishment going on outside made conversation difficult. Ragnor sought to conceal his evident discomfort by concentrating upon the food, but it was a thin pretence.

The Lore Inkall did not indulge in excess, whether of food or drink or anything else, no matter how elevated the guest. Only salted fish, nut bread and apples had been served, on simple wooden platters, with a watery ale to wash it down. It was, no doubt, not much more to the High Thane’s taste than the beating outside was, but he would have known what to expect. He had chosen to invite himself to the Lore’s Sanctuary, after all. Had he wanted luxury, he could have asked Theor to attend upon him in his own halls in the city down below.

The sounds of distress subsided to a more muted sobbing, and then fell away altogether. Theor pushed his half-emptied plate to one side and leaned back in his chair.

“The boy was a thief and a hoarder of food. And worse, perhaps.”

“Worse?” the High Thane asked through a mouthful of ale-soaked bread.

“A would-be stealer of secrets, we think. He had coins hidden in his chambers that came, most likely, from Wyn-Gyre coffers.”

Ragnor smiled. He had recovered much of his composure, now that his ears were not being so harshly assaulted. “You accuse Orinn oc Wyn-Gyre of seeking to spy upon the Lore Inkall, First?”

Theor gave a consciously nonchalant shrug. “The Thane might have known nothing of it. The boy may be innocent of anything more than thievery. It does not matter. He has been punished. He will either learn from it, or not.”

“I imagine it matters to him,” Ragnor muttered.

“If he has the mettle required of a Lore Inkallim, he will come to understand that fate is blind to his innocence or otherwise, as it is to his suffering. He was whipped. It is in the past now, and of no consequence. He will resume his candidacy, and we will see in due course what fate has in store for him. Should he fail the creed again, he will die.”

The High Thane belched. Theor grimaced in distaste and looked away. Ragnor had never pretended to graces he had not been born with. Just as he did not, in recent years at least, pretend affection for the Inkallim that he did not feel.

Ragnor drained his tankard of ale, and peered into the empty vessel as if it contained some noisome dregs.