Hearing a scream from the direction of the caravan, he slid the sword into the scabbard on his back and mounted up. The stallion responded to his touch as if the man in the saddle had been riding him for years, spurring into a swift gallop. The caravan had been partially scattered by the raiders’ initial charge, a dozen camels strung out along the verge of the old Valkerin-built road, either baying in alarm or nuzzling at the inert forms of slain owners. The tall man was surprised to see the corpses of several raiders amongst the fallen, some pierced by arrows, others evidently claimed by a blade, but one so gruesomely disarranged they were barely recognisable as human.

Ahhh, the voice said as the sword emitted a sense of pleased recognition. There are other hungry souls here. Though, not so hungry as you, my liege…

“Don’t call me that!” the tall man snapped. It was by now an old admonition, one he knew the voice would continue to delight in ignoring.

He slowed the horse to guide it through the remnants of the caravan, passing plundered bundles that leaked silk, oils, spices and sundry other wealth onto the sands. There were more corpses here, but also some survivors. A portly man scrabbled about on the road’s edge, gibbering barely comprehensible entreaties as he scraped coins from the dust. Further on a woman and child stared up at him from the shadow cast by the bulk of a slaughtered camel, eyes bright and unblinking in the gloom. A thin man with a ragged wound on his forehead stood guard on the pair, brandishing a long knife, the blade red down to the hilt. From the stricken but resolute expression on his lean features, the tall man divined him as being fully expectant of death. But still he stood, unwilling to abandon the woman and child.

Hearing the ring of steel on steel, the tall man spurred on, passing through a pall of displaced dust to draw up short at the ugly scene before him. The beast was about seven feet long from nose to tail, with long shaggy fur that covered its torso but left the legs bare. Raising a broad snouted head from the open chest cavity of a raider’s corpse, it snarled, triangular jaws widening to emit a high-pitched yip of warning.

Oh my, the voice sighed in admiration as the hyena slunk away from the corpse, eyes still locked on the tall man. He recognised it as hailing from the crags near the northern coast, a far larger breed than its plains-dwelling cousins to the east, also notoriously vicious and intolerant of human company.