The road out of the hills passed one of the old watchtowers, a flat-topped stump built of dressed stone blocks and standing close to a crossroads, looking out across tawny grassland towards the lake. A relic from the time, not so long ago, when bears from the forests to the north had raided the territory, slaughtering livestock and people in crazed sprees of bloodlust that ended only when they had been trapped and killed. As Pilgrim approached, weary and dusty, the low sunlight in his eyes, two men rode out of its shadows. It took him a few moments to realise who they were: Creed and one of the rovers who had shared the bowl of sweetroot beer with him in the strangers’ lodge. They were perched on the broad shoulders of dray maras, riding them saddleless with rope halters, urging them forward before Pilgrim could turn his own mount, pulling up on either side of him.

The rover, a large, lumpen older fellow with a pure white pelt and pink eyes, cradled a stout length of wood. Creed held a knife down by his thigh, its blade chipped from black obsidian and wickedly hooked. He smiled at Pilgrim and said, ‘Do you believe in fate? Because at this moment I surely do.’

‘I’m still not minded to hire you,’ Pilgrim said. ‘I’m sorry, but there it is.’

‘Oh, we’re past that,’ Creed said. ‘It wasn’t nice, the way you turned me down and rode off all haughty and proud. Like I was nothing and you were everything. I was angry, and rightly so, but after a while I got over it and thought, why not go anyway? Head out on my own. So I made my plans and gathered up some supplies, and I persuaded Gentle here, who works in the stables, to part out a ride for me. And he decided to come along, having had enough of this place too. And here we are, and here you are, riding by where me and Gentle were resting up.’

‘Waiting for cover of darkness,’ Gentle said.

His voice was slow and deep. A scar pulled one eye half-closed, made him look sleepy, but Pilgrim reckoned that he was at least as dangerous as Creed.

‘You can’t tell me the Mother didn’t intend this meeting,’ Creed said. ‘One way or another, you are going to help me after all.’

Pilgrim ignored him and addressed Gentle. ‘I know fine well what it is to be different. That some think people like you are bad luck, cursed by the Mother, simply because you lack pigment in your pelt and your eyes. My tribe took you in and gave you work because we don’t hold with that kind of cruel superstition. And this is how you repay our kindness?’

The big man shrugged. ‘There are better things than working in someone else’s stables.’