‘All those I could reach.’

‘Thank you.’

Irritation wrinkled the Bonecaster’s features. ‘As I said – I did not do so to soothe your conscience.’

Silverfox fought to subdue her own annoyance. ‘None the less … thank you.’

Something heavy fell to the ground behind and Silverfox turned; her mount had collapsed. Its side shuddered for a time, drawing in and out like a bellows. Then this too stilled.

Two Imass broke ranks to jog onward down the hillside. Silverfox turned an eye on Pran Chole. ‘What is this?’

The mummified mask that was the Bonecaster’s face remained immobile as ever. He extended a stick-thin arm, no more than bone sheathed in leather, towards the camp. ‘You have need of a horse.’

Silverfox thought about that, then tilted her head. Yes, she supposed she did.

Chapter XI

CHAPTER XI

THE PRAIRIE WAS one of tall grasses whipped by a chill wind. Tall menhirs leaned drunkenly like a giant’s set of toys tossed and forgotten across the landscape. Why Shimmer found herself here, she had no idea. The sky was clear, a hard frosty blue, with the moon low in the south. Strangely, the moon looked different: larger, and far less mottled. Another bright object also blazed in the day’s sky, something that trailed a long train of fire behind, just as the Visitor had. To the north – if indeed that direction was the north – lay a horizon to horizon wall of snow and deeper azure blue glowing ghostly in the moonlight.

She wondered if this was Hood’s demesne, his Paths, where the dead wander eternally, forever wringing their hands as they bemoan past choices, mistakes and lost opportunities.

As if on cue, a figure rounded one of the nearby markers and approached. He was grey-haired and bearded, in long tattered brown robes that bore scorch marks and a scattering of burn holes across the weave. She recognized Smoky. One of the Crimson Guard dead. What they called their Brethren.

It occurred to her at that moment that in fact the Brethren constituted by far the majority of the Crimson Guard. The chained spirits of their dead, held to the mortal realm by the power of the Vow they swore to K’azz. The Guard, then, could in truth more accurately be regarded as an army of the dead.

Smoky gave her a nod in greeting. ‘Shimmer.’

‘Where are we?’

The mage scratched his chin beneath his scraggly beard. ‘We don’t rightly know. Most of us think it’s the spot we swore the Vow – only how it looked long ago.’ He shrugged. ‘No one knows for certain.’

‘You’re remarkably unconcerned about it all.’

‘I’m dead, ain’t I?’

‘Why am I here?’

He regarded her more closely. ‘Looks to me like you’re making up your mind.’

‘Making up my mind? About what?’

‘About where you belong.’

‘Making up my mind? You mean, about whether I’m dead or not?’

‘Something like that.’