‘A lie! But no, I must stuff my outrage into a bag, a bag such as the curious sack the Trell carries – such a curious sack, that! Is there another fragment trapped within it? The possibility is ... possible. A likely likelihood, indeed, a certain certainty! I need but turn this ingenuous smile on the Jhag to show my benign patience at his foul insult, for I am a bigger man than he, oh yes. All his airs, his posturing, his poorly disguised asides – hark!’ Iskaral Pust spun around, squinted into the forest beyond the boulder.

‘Do you hear something, High Priest?’ Icarium asked calmly.

‘Hear, here?’ Pust scowled. ‘Why ask me that?’

Mappo asked Apsalar, ‘How far into this wood have you gone?’

She shook her head. Not far.

‘I’ll take point,’ Fiddler said. ‘Straight ahead, I take it, past this rock?’

There were no alternative suggestions.

They set off, Fiddler ranging ahead, crossbow readied at hip-level, a Moranth quarrel set in the groove. Icarium followed, his bow still strapped on his back, sword sheathed. Pust, Apsalar and her father were next, with Crokus a few paces ahead of Mappo, who was the column’s rearguard.

Mappo could not be sure of matching the Jhag’s speed in responding to a threat, so he removed the bone mace from his sack. Do I in truth carry a fragment of this warren within this tattered ruck? How fare my hapless victims, then? Perhaps I have sent them to paradise – a thought to ease my conscience . . .

The Trell had travelled old forests before and this one was little different. The sounds of birds were few and far between, and apart from insects and the trees and plants themselves, there was no other indication of life. It would be easy enough to lose grip on imagination’s reins in such a place, if one were so inclined, to fashion a brooding presence from the primeval atmosphere. A place to ravel dark legends, to make us no more than children shivering to fraught tales . . . bah, what nonsense! The only brooding thing here is me.

The roots were thick underfoot, a latticework revealing itself here and there through the humus, spreading out to bridge the gap between every tree. The air grew cooler as they journeyed on, abandoning its rich smells, and it eventually became apparent that the trees were thinning out, the spaces between them stretching from a few paces to half a dozen, then a dozen. Yet still the knotted roots remained thickly woven on the ground – too many to be explained by the forest itself. The sight of them triggered hints of a vaguely disturbing memory in Mappo, yet he could not track it down.

They could now see five hundred paces ahead, a vista of sentinel boles and damp air tinted blue under the strange sun’s spectral light. Nothing moved. No-one spoke, and the only sound was their breathing, the rustle of clothing and armour, and the tread of their feet on the endless mat of entwined tree roots.