Erdene reined her horse in and her warriors stuttered to a halt.

Where is Altan? Where is Hexa? Bleda thought, his eyes searching the riders for his brother and sister, and then his feet were moving as he ran to his mother, Ellac stumbling behind him, trying and failing to catch him.

Erdene saw him and shook her head, but it was too late, and in heartbeats Bleda was at her side, staring up at his mother, bears and giants towering about him.

‘Altan and Hexa?’ Bleda called up to his mother as he grabbed her boot.

Erdene looked down at him with an expression Bleda had never seen before.

Shame.

She blinked, as if not recognizing Bleda for a moment, then Erdene’s eyes snapped into focus.

‘Run,’ his mother said to him.

Bleda didn’t know what to do; his mind and heart were filled with the Sirak iron code, which told him to wear his courage like a cloak, to live free and fight to the last breath for his Clan. To show no sign of weakness or fear, and to never, ever, surrender. But his mother had spoken. She was also his queen, and she had told him to run.

He turned, looked around wildly, saw the camp in chaos, giants and bears everywhere. Others were arriving, columns of normal-sized warriors on foot, clad in black leather, with huge, rectangular shields upon their arms, silver wings embossed upon them. They spread in tight-packed lines about the camp, surrounding everyone within it, and their shields came together with a resonating snap. Bleda glimpsed shadowed faces in silver helms, smaller figures appearing amongst them: children, he realized, offering water skins after a hard march. As he stared, he saw a figure staring back at him, pale and fair-haired, a girl, holding a water skin up to a warrior, even as she stared straight at him.

Shadows flitted across the ground and the sound of wings filled Bleda’s ears as the Ben-Elim swooped low. One flew lower than the rest, great wings beating as he hovered above Erdene and Bleda a long moment, grass and dust swirling, then he alighted gently upon the ground. He was tall, taller than any man Bleda had seen, his hair raven-black, wearing a coat of bright mail and gripping a spear in his fist. Blood crusted the spear’s blade.

‘Is this him?’ the Ben-Elim asked, eyes lingering on Bleda a moment, then rising to Erdene.

Erdene was silent for so long that Bleda thought she would not answer.

‘You must be strong,’ Erdene said to Bleda.

Fear trickled through Bleda, then, at something in his mother’s voice, and in the way the winged warrior had looked at him.

He tried to master his fear, to control the prickling in his eyes that threatened tears.

No. I am Sirak. I am son to Erdene, Lord-of-all-she-sees.