“They’re not coming, are they?” Turin swallowed, hard. The words were hard to say. “Lieutenant Carfax, the others … you’ve been scoring trees, marking the safest route, ever since Mantuas died. I’ve watched you. If they were following, we’d have heard them by now.”

“Mayhap.” The tracker’s eyes were shuttered in the mask of drying mud that coated his face. “If they captured Malthus’ Company … if they did, lad, it may be that they found more pressing business lay elsewhere. Mayhap they seek to catch the Dreamspinner’s thoughts, aye, or his ravens, to make a report to General Tanaros, aye, or Lord Satoris himself.”

“Mayhap.” Waist-deep in water, Turin tilted his chin and gazed at the sky, a heated blue against the green leaves of the mangroves. Birds roosted in the treetops, but only the kind that were born to this place. High above, the sun blazed like a hammer. Haomane’s Wrath, beating down incessantly on the birthplace of Satoris Third-Born, who had defied his will. Banewreaker, the world named him, but he had always honored his word with Staccia, ever since Lord Vorax struck his bargain over a thousand years ago. What other Shaper had done as much since the world was Sundered? If matters went awry now, it meant something had gone grievously wrong. And Turin had a bad feeling that it had. “I don’t think so, Hunric.”

Water splashed as the Staccian tracker shifted, settling his own pack on his shoulders. “Well, then,” he said, his voice hardening. “We’ll have to press on, won’t we?”

FOURTEEN

FOURTEEN

A HUNDRED BANNERS FLEW IN Seahold.

There was the trident of Duke Bornin, of course, argent on a sea-blue field. And there were others; a dozen of his liege-lords, the barons and earls who held fiefdoms in the Midlands. There was the spreading oak of Quercas, the gilded stag of Tilodan, the harrow of Sarthac, all declaring their allegiance with pride. All had been seen in the city of Seahold, though never at once.

Not the Host of the Ellylon.

It had been a long time, since the Fourth Age of the Sundered World. Altoria had reigned and the Duke of Seahold had sworn fealty to its Kings when last these banners had been seen in the city.

It was a glorious sight

Pennants and oriflammes hung from every turret, overhung every door of Castle Seahold. In the marketplaces, merchants displayed them with pride, hoping to stake some claim by virtue of symbolism to Ellyl patrols. In the streets, companies of Ellylon passed, carrying their standards with sombre pride. There was the argent scroll of Ingolin, the thistle-blossom of Núrilin, the gilded bee of Valmaré, the sable elbok of Numireth, the shipwright’s wheel of Cerion … all of these and more, many more, representing the Houses of the Rivenlost, personified by their living scions and grieving kin alike.

Above them all hung the Crown and Souma of Elterrion the Bold.