They returned to tramping through the snow. ‘Let us collect our scattered people,’ K’azz said as they pushed onward through the drifts. He offered Blues a joking smile. ‘Shall we split up to do so?’

Blues waved his arms in alarm. ‘Gods no! No more goddamned splitting up!’

Shimmer’s quiet smile was so fierce it almost hurt her lips. It was good to have K’azz back with them.

*

Orman watched the mercenaries, the Crimson Guard, wading their way through the snow down the ice-field. Beyond them, far down the serpentine slope, the Imass, the Army of Dust and Bone, had already disappeared. How odd it seemed to him now that he should pity them, his former enemy, labouring as they did beneath an endless curse. Yet endless no longer. Their Summoner had come. Perhaps, then, they would find deliverance.

They might no longer be enemies – at least for the time being – but he hoped never to see them again.

He turned back to his people. What he now saw as his extended family. Keth and Kasson followed, walking just behind at each shoulder. He planted Svalthbrul and examined these three: all survivors like himself. All knowing the true perils and secrets of these heights.

He nodded to them. ‘It seems these upper slopes are ours once more. I doubt we shall ever see the Army of Dust and Bone again. If their queen has her way they shall remain of the dust and the earth. So, my offer stands. Shall we rebuild a Greathall and hold it together?’ He looked to Baran and Erta of the Heels.

The brother and sister exchanged bruised and exhausted glances. Baran pulled on his tangled beard. ‘The question is where? These valleys are all scraped clean of trees and soil.’

‘If I may,’ the Myrni girl, Siguna, began timidly, ‘there are woods on the slopes farther to the west.’

‘What of the heights?’ Baran asked.

‘We must guard them still,’ Orman answered. He understood now what Jaochim and all the other elders had been doing all this time. Guarding the Holdings, yes, but more important barring the way to these heights and the secrets they contained. The hidden places that mustn’t be opened. He would honour that heavy purpose and guard these secrets. Perhaps, in time, he would come to be feared or cursed by the lowland newcomers as a hoarder of mysteries. But better that than the end of the world come again – perhaps in truth.

‘And the Matriarch?’ Erta asked.

‘She will remain. She will call us if she needs us.’ He studied the Myrni girl, turning his head slightly to see her better. ‘You will guide us west, then, Siguna?’

She bowed. ‘Yes, Orman.’

One last thought struck him and he turned to Baran. ‘Oh – I have heard that the Losts were last seen alive to the east. Will you hunt them out?’

Baran bowed also, smiling behind his beard. ‘With pleasure.’