For the first time Yanderman admitted to himself what must lie at the back of Duke Paul’s mind. Never a man to be satisfied with half-measures, the Duke. If a problem caught his attention, he would worry it till its back was broken, or at least till he knew it was insoluble with present resources.

Surely-and Yanderman felt a quiver of alarm-nothing would content him short of marching into the barrenland to see if there was anything there.

Legend said there had been, once. Legend was turning out far too accurate for comfort, too-what with confirmation of the former existence of vast cities, time-beaten but still rich with metal and glass, what with Granny Jassy’s uncanny fore-knowledge of the terrain they had traversed since leaving Esberg.

Suppose the remaining legends proved true, as well! The tale went that in the old days when man went to other worlds (but what other worlds? Where was there room for them?) they walked at last, instead of travelling in machines. And some of those “other worlds” were strange, perilous places.

He had heard descriptions from Granny Jassy, but to him the words she parroted made no more sense than they did to her. He would have left it there; Duke Paul would not.

Vaguely, however, a few consistent threads of narrative emerged. A sickness-a kind of contagious insanity. A disaster. The building of a barrier around the place from which you-walked to other worlds, too late to stop the plague from spreading. Just as Lagwich had once been merely a stone fort and no town, possibly the barrenland had been … the barrierland?

And a man had come out of it. Within living memory.

How would you move an army of two thousand men across territory without usable food or fuel, even for three or four days? How would you organise water? That was the worst problem. Water so bulky and indispensable to a marching man …

Streams, maybe. Streams in the barrenland itself. Take animals along and test the purity of the water on them. But a sickness might take days to show itself, and …

Maybe leapfrog a party across the bare ground: half the men carrying provisions, breaking off at the end of the day’s march and coming back, leaving the others to continue with the extra rations-but this would mean you’d reach your goal with a fraction of the original force to meet any challenge …

Yanderman was still wrestling with the problem when he fell asleep.

VIII

His father was still snoring on the other side of the room when Conrad woke up. One of the town’s watermen was crying in the street outside. Cautiously, wanting to try his knee before he risked hurting it again, he went down and traded half a lump of soap for a pail of fresh water. It was stupidly extravagant when he could have gone to the stream himself, as he usually did, but his leg was very painful.

Washed, he ate what was left from the night before-his father must have been too drunk to be hungry when he came in-and went with his sacks to collect the ash Idris had promised.

Her mother and brother were busy with her in the kitchen, racking the new loaves; it was not until he had filled two sacks and got dust all over himself as usual that Idris had a chance to whisper to him in a corner.

“Have you heard the news about the foreigners?”

“Who’d tell me, except you?” Conrad countered sourly.

“Why, it’s unbelievable! There’s a great army of men coming here, two thousand of them it’s said, from a city far to the south!”

“Fourteen days’ march,” Conrad muttered, thinking how close he had come to having this news direct from Yanderman. Blast Waygan!

“Idris!” A shrill interruption from her mother. “Are you talking to that no-good boy again? There’s work to do, have you forgotten?”

“Coming, mother! One more sack and that’ll be all!” Idris put her head close to Conrad’s again. “Won’t it be exciting? All the strangers from the south! They’re sure to visit the town while they’re camped here!”

“Idris!” her mother exclaimed. “Leave Idle Conrad to get on with it by himself-he’s quite capable.”

“But mother! Conrad’s hurt his knee!”

“That’s his lookout. You do as I tell you!”

“Go on,” Conrad urged her with a sigh. “This won’t take me long.” He gave her a smile and picked up the first sack; somehow, to prevent her feeling bad about it, he stopped himself from limping as he carried it to the door.

The news must have travelled with the speed of the wind, for as he trudged towards the gate of the town, his sacks of ash trailing behind him on a sledge of crossed branches, and paused at intervals to collect dollops of stale fat and grease from kitchen doors, he heard several people discussing the good effect the army’s visit would have on trade. Old Narl, the weaver, was less optimistic than most; Conrad heard him say grumpily to a friend, “I don’t like it! That many men could take all we have, not bothering to leave payment.”

“What could we have that they want?” the friend said cynically.

Soap made by Conrad? The presumptuous thought crossed his mind as he moved out of earshot. And yet … why not? It was good soap; men who had marched for two weeks would welcome a chance to clean up properly. If he made as much extra as this load of ash would run to, then he could salt away a little profit from selling it to the army camp, hide the cash where his father couldn’t find it and spend it on beer.

Soon he was lost so deeply in thought that he ignored Waygan’s usual mocking greeting from the gatehouse and all the shouts from the youths and girls working in the fields. It was not so warm as yesterday, and there were clouds in the west.

The moment he came in sight of his soap-vats, though, his reverie was broken.

The vats had been overturned-more: scattered. They were made of inch-thick pottery, and even when empty they were hard to lift; full, they could only be tilted on their bases of smooth round stones. Yet something had tossed them aside like so many drinking-cups. And the pans in which yesterday’s soap had set had also been broken up.

Clearly, a thing had come from the barrenland and wrought this havoc. It was unlikely to have gone back.

Conrad realised sickly that in his panic to get home last night before the bridge was drawn up he had abandoned his bow and arrows. He was not a good shot, but merely to have a weapon would be reassuring. Lacking anything better, he snatched up a couple of large, sharp-cornered rocks from the edge of the path and stared about him. His blood was very loud in his ears, and he cursed the fact, fancying he might be deaf to the noise of the thing if it approached.

But there was no sign of movement nearby.

Cautiously, he went closer to the vats. The soap had been spilled from the setting-pans before it was hard, and there were marks on the ground suggesting that the creature had walked around in it, perhaps surveying the damage, before making off. Conrad had never seen animal feet like these-the prints were of a kind of hoof forming three sides of a near-perfect square, with a short pointed projection forward from each of the closed corners. But that was small wonder. Few of the things which came from the barrenland resembled anything that had gone before.

The marks led away among the rocks, growing fainter. The soap was hard, which meant the trail was some hours old. His confidence oozed back.

Letting fall the rocks he had picked up, he ran to where he had left his bow and arrows. But the thing had trodden on the bow, breaking the shaft. He had six arrows intact, and nothing to fire them with.

He balanced them on his hand, irresolute. Before he tried to set up his vats again, he decided, he ought to make sure there was nothing lurking among the rocks. Two out of three things moved by night, but that was slim odds. Breathing hard, moving awkwardly because of his stiff knee, he began to walk in a spiral outwards from the vats.