‘On your feet then, and I’ll stick you if there’s any nonsense. Come on, little lion man, back to the pit where you belong.’

Dalip managed to get upright, and started the long walk back to his cell. Despite the knife at his back, he did his best to look around him. The central tall tower, with its conical roof. The more substantial gatehouse to the right. The two mountains, one behind him and one ahead, looming over the circular wall. An arched bridge leading from the main tower’s first floor to the shorter nearby cluster of buildings where he’d fled from, and was being led back to.

It was all a little ramshackle, like everything had been new once, a couple of hundred years ago, and now it was fading, slowly being returned to the ground from which it had been raised. But it was still formidable. And guarded by a dragon.

They’d reached the door. With an extra push between his shoulder blades to send him sprawling, it was slammed shut behind him, and bolted top and bottom.

‘Pick the table up.’ A toe jabbed his ribs. ‘Be quick about it.’

He did it, and he set the stools around it, and waited for the next instruction.

‘Why are you here?’ asked the guard.

Dalip remained mute.

‘That’s better. Next choice is whether you want to live for a short time or a long time.’ The guard sheathed his knife, and squinted at Dalip. ‘I’m guessing a long time, right? You don’t look like a kid who wants to die any time soon.’

‘I still don’t understand why you’re doing this to me.’

‘Because she’s seen it in the stones, in the leaves and the feathers, lion man. She’s seen you. And she’s right, isn’t she? There’s plenty of fight in you.’

‘I’ve never fought anyone, ever.’

‘Then you’ve wasted your time. You were born for this.’

‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to fight.’

‘You need a teacher. I’ll find you someone.’

‘No,’ said Dalip without thinking. He didn’t want this stinking, pig-faced lackey or anyone connected with him.

‘Suit yourself.’

‘Stanislav. The other man you took. I want him.’

They stared at each other, and eventually the guard broke first. ‘All right. He doesn’t seem the sort, but why not?’

15

15

They were walking through the forest below Crows’ tumbling tower.

‘Can you find your way back?’ he asked her, and she turned around to see the way they’d come.

‘I reckon.’ The ground sloped up, either side of them, and if she gained a ridge-top, she thought she’d be able to see the ragged battlements easily.

‘Then we haven’t gone far enough.’

‘You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you?’