‘What of it?’ Badlands asked.

Stalker began cleaning his blade on a handful of grass. ‘I mean it’s coming to a head – isn’t it, Fish? What do you say?’

The bard drew breath to speak, but checked himself. Kyle almost thought his expression fearful before he suddenly turned away.

‘Speak, damn you!’ Stalker yelled. ‘Or hold your tongue from this point onward!’

The bard suddenly swung round, his lips clenched so tight as to be almost white.

From the edge of his vision, Kyle caught Jethiss stepping out of the dark. The Andii had his hands raised, open. ‘We are all of us run ragged. Our blood is high. Perhaps now is not the time …’

But Fisher had drawn himself up straight and with both hands pushed back his long, sweaty grey-streaked hair. ‘You would have me speak, would you? Very well. All I have are suspicions, hints, lines from old sagas, but what I dread may be very real. I fear both what lies ahead and what lies behind. And for the life of me, I cannot say which is the lesser of the two! Omtose Phellack is stirring. And why? What could raise its ire? Badlands,’ he demanded, pointing, ‘I spoke of this before and you dismissed it – who is the old enemy?’

The Lost brother’s brow wrinkled in confusion at first, but then understanding came and he snorted his scorn. ‘You can’t be serious, man!’

‘I fear it!’ Fisher answered, insistent. ‘And we are leading them on higher!’ He turned to Stalker. ‘And what sleeps in the heights?’

Stalker scowled in obvious rejection of the bard’s words. He turned away and raised his head to the heights gleaming silver through breaks in the forest’s canopy. He was quiet for a time as he smoothed his long drooping moustache. ‘You’re letting your imagination get the better of you – jumping at maybes and phantasms.’ Yet his tone told Kyle that he was half convinced. ‘We’d better talk this over with the others.’ As if struck by a thought, he faced Jethiss. ‘My thanks for getting us out of there.’

The Andii inclined his head a fraction. ‘No – it is I who should thank you.’ He glanced to Fisher. ‘Calling upon whatever it is in me that allows this manipulation has jogged free more of my memories. I believe I now know why I am here.’

Strangely, instead of being pleased, as Kyle had thought he would be, the bard actually appeared wary. He offered a subdued, ‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’ Jethiss turned to Kyle. ‘Our people once had a champion who carried a blade that guarded us. Now we are without such a protector. I believe I have been sent to remedy that lack. I believe I have been sent for a sword.’