Nodding, Gripp had collected up the reins. With Pelk at his side, he rode on to the north track, plunging into the scorched forest. Kellaras had waited until he lost sight of them before swinging his mount southward.

It was now a week later. Kellaras haunted the Citadel, watching the rise of new rituals appearing among the priesthood, the processions at dusk and midnight, while at dawn the robed figures knelt with heads bowed, as if greeting with sorrow the unseen sun. He had witnessed the solemn snuffing of candles, the guttering of lanterns left to burn out the last of the oil. He had seen High Priestess Emral Lanear overseeing the daily obeisance and prostrations with glassy eyes.

And in the midst of all this, a growing paranoia suffused the Citadel, until the old royal keep acquired the habiliments of a prison. It was pathetic, as far as Kellaras was concerned. Particularly when faith was so simply and undeniably announced by a stain upon the skin. The endless spying could not even skirt the notion of potential blasphemies among the believers. Instead, it was raw in its politics, a secular jostling of power and influence around an indifferent centre. And through it all there was the reek of impending panic.

But today, word had come of a miracle in the city’s Winter Market, an unofficial procession led by Endest Silann – whose hands were purported to bleed without surcease. And then, providing proof to the tales told by surviving Wardens, a dragon had descended upon a square in the city, only to be sent away by the selfsame prophet of darkness.

Kellaras wished he was drunk, if only to weaken whatever credence such tales were worth. Instead, in answer to a summons, he stood in the ancestral family chamber of the Purake waiting for Silchas Ruin to take notice of his arrival. The white-skinned warrior was at a table, leaning over a large, ornately illustrated vellum map, one detailed enough to note elevations, with scrawled observations pertaining to ease of passage among various trails and tracks. The work was Kadaspala’s, devised in the wake of the wars against the Forulkan and the Jhelarkan, a belated gift the value of which had been questionable, at least until this moment.

Finally, Silchas Ruin stepped back, and slumped into a high-backed chair. He eyed Kellaras for a moment before speaking. ‘A dragon to mock our walls. A season to mock our rest. Have you seen Grizzin Farl?’

‘No, milord, not for many days.’

Sighing, Silchas gestured at the map. ‘We will meet the Legion at the Valley of Tarns. It is shallow and broad, the old riverbed wide and not too stony. There are defiles to the east of it, the tangled wreckage of a burned forest to the west. Tell me, do you think Lord Urusander will oblige us?’

‘He is reputed to be confident, milord.’ Kellaras hesitated, and then added, ‘The valley is known to him, since it is where he first mustered the Legion, before marching south to meet the Forulkan.’