Ivis watched as Anomander reached down with one hand to rest it upon the pommel of the sword at his hip. ‘Had I named it Grief, perhaps… but in this, why, I stand with young Wreneck. Vengeance, I said, avowed with a child’s bright eyes, so sure, so unerring with fiery conviction. Since that day, Ivis, I cannot but wonder, have I made a mistake?’

‘You seek Andarist, milord. You seek your brother, to make it right.’

‘We will speak, yes. But what words will be exchanged? I do not know. By all rights, I should turn back now, to Kharkanas. If my brother will hold to his sense of betrayal, let him continue. Are there not greater matters at hand than one man’s grief?’

‘Or another’s vengeance?’ Even as he spoke, Ivis cursed himself for a fool.

But, surprisingly, Anomander replied with a bitter laugh and then said, ‘Well spoken, Ivis. I admitted to fear, did I not? But it is the fear that drives me in pursuit of Andarist. The fear of unknown words, not yet spoken, which I now race to answer… as if every moment of silence between us pulls another stone from the bridge one of us must cross.’

‘So, in your courage, milord, you are the one taking the steps.’

‘Is that courage now, Ivis?’

‘It is, sir. All too often cowardice wears the habit of wounded pride.’

Anomander was silent for some time, and then said, ‘There was a priest. I met him upon the road. As it turned out, we were both upon the same pilgrimage.’ He paused. ‘The estate house my brother built is now a shrine. As if horror and blood had the power to sanctify.’

‘I believe it to be so, milord,’ said Ivis, his gaze dropping to study the barrows edging the killing field.

‘I saw something,’ Anomander resumed. ‘When the priest appeared upon the threshold of the house, blood started from his hands, from wounds that opened fresh, though he took no blade to them. Blood is answered with blood. It seems that faith will be written in what we lose, my friend.’

Uneasy, Ivis shivered. ‘I grieve for that priest, milord. Surely, he would rather bless with something other than his own blood.’

‘I am beset by dreams – nightmares – of that meeting. I confess, Ivis, that in my visions I come to the certitude that the wounds upon that man’s hands, with their tears of blood, are the eyes of a god. Or goddess. The priest raises them between us, his hands, the wounds, and my stare – which I cannot break – fixes upon those crimson eyes. What they leak arrives like a promise. In these dreams, I flee as would a soul broken.’

‘A place not holy then, milord, but cursed.’