Silverfox exited the stone portal like a swimmer broaching the surface after a too-long dive. She gasped for breath, lurching, grasping at the wall for support. The waiting ranks of the Ifayle and Kron flinched from her as they sensed her rage. She stormed off, up a grass-thatched dune, to a single figure standing alone, her long black hair whipping in the wind.

‘I am done with them,’ Silverfox announced, coming abreast of Kilava.

The ancient Bonecaster crossed her arms. ‘Strange how all those who meet the T’lan Imass eventually come to that conclusion. Those who survive, in any case.’

But Silverfox could not share the woman’s detachment. ‘Tell them to keep their distance. I will go on alone in this. Meet Lanas on my own.’ She paused. ‘That is, unless you wish to witness?’

Kilava pushed her hair from her wide face, the broad cheekbones and thick, almost brutal brow ridge. ‘I would witness.’

Chapter XII

CHAPTER XII

KYLE AWOKE TO the hiss of rain and uncontrollable shudders. He was sitting upright against the trunk of a tall spruce amid needles and twisted roots. Yet even here the night’s constant misting rain had found him as it came running down the trunk. He didn’t know the north of these lands, of course, but this was the wettest and most icy spring he could remember. Straightening, he muffled a groan and stretched, then pulled his sodden leathers from his legs and back. He needed a fire to warm up, but there appeared little chance of getting one going. He settled instead for that other way to warm oneself, and set off at a jog in an easterly direction.

Ground-hugging fogs snaked through the woods he threaded. Sodden leaf mulch and moss was silent beneath his soft-soled moccasins. Drops of the icy vapour fell from his hair to his shoulders and ran down the back of his neck. The day was dark, hardly warmer than the night. Banks of clouds obscured the heights where breaks in the tree cover allowed a view. He heard the strong pounding of run-off driving through deep ravines and chasms in the distant slopes, but could see only courses of haze that ran down from the heights like rivers themselves.

Strange spring weather. Felt more like autumn.

He crossed over to an easterly valley and started north. The bruises and stings from the clashes the night before – he’d jogged an entire day and night since – slowed him with cramps and a tightness round his chest. Pausing, his breath sending up great plumes of steam, he damned Lyan for a fool. She didn’t really think she’d come out on top, did she? Still, she was an experienced war commander – and how many of these Icebloods could there be left anyway? Perhaps it was worth the gamble.