Are we . . . are we home?

The air belonged in a tomb, a forgotten crypt.

And she could see, and she knew. Kharkanas is dead.

The city is dead.

Blind Gallan—you lied to us.

Yan Tovis howled. She fell to her knees, into the numbing water of River Eryn. ‘You lied! You lied!’ Tears ran from her eyes, streamed down her cheeks. Salty beads spun and glittered as they plunged into the lifeless river.

Drop by drop.

To feed the river.

Yedan Derryg led his horse forward, hoofs crunching on the stones, and relaxed the reins so that the beast could drink. He cradled his wounded arm and said nothing as he looked to the right and studied the kneeling, bent-over form of his sister.

The muscles of his jaw bunched beneath his beard, and he straightened to squint at the distant ruins.

Pully stumped up beside him. Her young face looked bruised with shock. ‘We . . . walked . . . to this?’

‘Blind Gallan gave us a road,’ said Yedan Derryg. ‘But what do the blind hold to more than anything else? Only that which was sweet in their eyes—the last visions they beheld. We followed the road into his memories.’ After a moment, he shrugged, chewed for a time, and then said, ‘What in the Errant’s name did you expect, witch?’

His horse had drunk enough. Gathering up the reins, he backed the mount from the shore’s edge and then wheeled it round. ‘Sergeant! Spread the soldiers out—the journey has ended. See to the raising of a camp.’ He faced the two witches. ‘You two, bind Twilight’s wounds and feed her. I will be back shortly—’

‘Where are you going?’

Yedan Derryg stared at Pully for a time, and then he set heels to his horse and rode past the witch, downstream along the shoreline.

A thousand paces further on, a stone bridge spanned the river, and beyond it wound a solid, broad road leading to the city. Beneath that bridge, he saw, there was some kind of logjam, so solid as to form a latticed barrier sufficient to push the river out to the sides, creating elongated swampland skirting this side of the raised road.

As he drew closer he saw that most of the logjam seemed to consist of twisted metal bars and cables.

He was forced to slow his mount, picking his way across the silted channel, but at last managed to drive the beast up the bank and on to the road.

Hoofs kicked loose lumps of muck as he rode across the bridge. Downstream of the barrier the river ran still, slightly diminished and cutting a narrower, faster channel. On the flats to either side there was more rusted, unidentifiable wreckage.