The ancient undying warrior offered the answer of his accumulated millennia of wisdom: he lifted his bony shoulders in a small shrug. ‘She guessed some would.’

Silverfox felt a fury mounting at that betrayal. Within her, the mountain-shaking ire of Bellurdan bellowed anew at those who had defied her command, while an icy vow from Nightchill whispered: never forget nor forgive. Yet she and Tattersail still could not believe that there would be those who would put their ancient enmity first – even after the lessons of Genabackis and the benediction of the Redeemer who had granted the T’lan Imass the possibility for hope once more. This clinging to the past troubled her young soul the most. ‘It is so utterly needless,’ she murmured, watching the embers burn themselves out.

Pran Chole did not answer. After a moment she glanced up to see that she was alone.

Certainty chilled her spine then. Gods, no. Not again. I can’t go. Can’t bear to witness it all again. It tore her apart to see it. But she should; if her words could sway just one …

She threw open the loose hide flap and ran for the breakers crashing beyond the intervening high dunes.

She found Pran Chole standing knee high in the foaming surf, facing the empty ocean. ‘Who comes!’ she shouted over the wind and the surge of waves.

‘I know not,’ he answered, as phlegmatic as ever.

She scanned the water, dark and webbed beneath the chill stars and passing courses of clouds. Her hides, sodden from her thighs, pulled upon her, heavy and clinging. Then darker shapes came emerging from the trough and fall of the waves: ravaged skulls, broken caps of bone and cured leather; the jagged stone tips of spears; the humped shoulders of animal hides. T’lan Imass strode forward from the surf, some dozen or more.

‘They are of the Kerluhm,’ Pran Chole murmured tonelessly. He pushed into the waves.

Though she was dreading it, the news still made her clench her fists and press one to her breast. Gods, no! More of them. Will they not stop coming? Why not others?

Pran Chole raised a hand of bone and cured leathery skin. ‘Greetings, Kerluhm,’ he called. ‘I am Pran Chole of the Kron. We honour you.’

‘I am Othut K’ho,’ one answered. ‘We honour the Kron.’ A ragged cape of sewn animal skins hung from this one’s bare bone shoulders. He turned to Silverfox and lowered himself to one knee in the surf. The others of his band joined him. ‘Summoner,’ he murmured as softly as Pran. ‘We honour you as well.’

She raised a hand for pause. Now, she knew, she had to command when her every instinct urged her to plead. ‘My thanks, Othut. If you honour me I must ask you agree to forestall any action until I have explained fully.’