They were high in these northern mountains now, the Salt range. They parted thick hanging cloud banks as if walking through an underworld of mists. Banners of the opaque fogs wove about them like the sinuous bodies of dragons. For brief moments she would note how loose her mail coat hung from her; how her hair lay tangled about her face and shoulders; how ragged her leather boots had become, yet she walked on, uncaring. K’azz promised their fate lay ahead. The secret of the Vow – which was clearly now a curse.

They came to a high meadow, a clearing that had once been a series of cultivated fields, now long abandoned, and they spread out. K’azz, on her right, was a vague silhouette in the low churning clouds, as was Bars on her left. A burned empty husk of a Greathall emerged from the mists ahead. Whatever tragedy had happened here had been wrought long ago. Saplings grew within the tumbled logs.

Past the overgrown remains of the burned hall stood a modest log cabin, sod-roofed. Here two figures rose from the tall grasses to confront them. Enormous they reared, to Shimmer’s eyes, both far taller than any normal man or woman, yet both obviously young in years. The lad wore supple tanned leathers and possessed a thick curled mane of russet hair and a beard to match. The girl was equally sturdy, in hunting leathers, her long blazingly red hair plaited.

The lad drew two hatchets to stand protectively before the girl. ‘You’ll not take us easily, damn you.’

K’azz raised his open hands. ‘We intend no harm. We seek the heights and those who live there.’

‘You intend no harm?’ the lad repeated, incredulous. ‘You who have slain all our kin?’

‘We have slain no one. We are mercenaries out of lands far to the west.’

The lad frowned his disbelief but rubbed his eyes then examined them more closely. He jerked a nod. ‘I am sorry. For a moment there I mistook you for … for someone else.’

‘What has happened here?’ Shimmer asked.

The lad slipped his hatchets into his belt then gestured to the cabin. ‘Our parents lie within, side by side.’

‘And these others you speak of,’ K’azz said, ‘they did this?’

The girl shook her head. ‘Nay,’ she said, her voice dull, yet full of wonder. ‘They simply chose to go. They bade us seek our elders in the heights then lay down together side by side.’

‘I am sorry,’ Shimmer offered.

The lad shook his head. His great mane of wild hair blew in the strong winds out of the north. ‘No. We do not weep. It is good to see them here together, holding hands. So loving, yet so different. Yullveig the Fierce they called her, and Cull the Kind. Apart too much in life – together now in death.’