At least they travelled through the constant cover of the dense clouds that hugged these high slopes of the Salt range. Eventually, during the morning – if he judged aright the diffuse yellow glow of the sky – Cal-Brinn called a halt and they collapsed where they stopped to lie panting, sucking in great shuddering breaths of the frigid air. Water skins made the rounds.

The Crimson Guard captain came to where Kyle, Fisher and Jethiss sat leaning against the backrest of a toppled fir. ‘Sleep,’ he told them. ‘We will keep watch.’ He moved on. Kyle did not argue, and neither did his companions. They rolled themselves into whatever cloaks or blankets they had managed to salvage or pack. In Kyle’s case, it was an untanned bear hide he’d rolled and roped over his back before the fight. He lay down and his thoughts went to the lowlands, to the shores of the Sea of Gold. What was happening there? Were Lyan and Dorinn safe? Of course she might not even be there – she might have accompanied the army north. But somehow he did not think so; these Lether officers and soldiers were claiming the north for themselves. To them, she and her Genabackans were outsiders. Perhaps even a threat.

Some time later he was woken by the poke of a spear-butt and he sat up, shivering, bleary and coughing. The sun was a smoky, silvery orb among the clouds. Tendrils of steam rose in wisps all about, and a clawing cold wind slithered down across them from the heights.

‘The weather is strange,’ he commented to Fisher.

The bard did not appear pleased; in fact, he had been in an uncharacteristically grim mood since they fled the Greathall. ‘It is no weather,’ he replied.

By now Kyle was accustomed to having to draw information from this man the way one must shake coins from a miser. A strange manner for a bard. ‘Then what is it?’

Fisher drew a hard breath as if he would rather not say, but then he allowed: ‘It is power coiling and tensing. Preparing itself for an unleashing. An invocation of Omtose.’

Kyle noted Jethiss paying close attention. ‘What will come?’ the Andii asked.

‘I do not know for certain what form it will take,’ Fisher admitted. ‘But I fear the worst it might.’

Stalker and Badlands emerged from the dense fogs. ‘They are with us still,’ Badlands announced.