‘No. This face you see has been mine now for some time. Well, it’s always been mine. No.’ He hesitated, and then shrugged. ‘He spoke cruel words. He cut me with them, again and again. Even the others took pity on me. Anyway, he was not well liked, and none regretted his death. None but me, that is. Those words, while cruel, were all true.’

‘In your eyes, I can see,’ Glyph said, ‘you yearn for my arrow.’

‘Yes,’ the man whispered.

Slipping the arrow’s notch from the string, Glyph lowered his bow. ‘I have been hunting Legion soldiers,’ he said, stepping forward.

‘You have reason,’ the man said.

‘Yes. We have reasons. You have yours, and I have mine. They wield your sword. They guide my arrows. They make souls leave bodies and leave bodies to lie rotting on the ground.’ He brushed the cloth hiding the lower half of his face. ‘They are the masks we hide behind.’

The man started, as if he had been struck, and then he turned away. ‘I wear no mask,’ he said.

‘Will you kill more soldiers?’ Glyph asked.

‘A few, yes,’ said the man, collecting up his sword-belt and strapping it on. ‘I have a list.’

‘A list, and good reasons.’

He glanced across at Glyph. ‘Yes.’

‘I name myself Glyph.’

‘Narad.’

‘I have some food, from the soldiers. I will share it with you, for the kindness you meant when burying my beloved family. And then I will tell you a story.’

‘A story?’

‘And when I am done with my story, you can decide.’

‘Decide what, Glyph?’

‘If you will hunt with me.’

Narad hesitated. ‘I am not good with friends.’

Shrugging, Glyph went over to the hearth. He saw that Narad had taken away the stones that had ringed the ashes and cinders, adding them to the cairn. He set about finding some smaller stones, to build up around the hearth and so block the wind while he set to lighting a fire.

‘The people who fished the lake,’ he said as he drew out his fire-making kit and a small bag of dried tinder.

‘This is your story?’

‘Not theirs. But of the Last Fish. The story is his, but it begins with the people who fished the lake.’

Narad removed his sword again and let it drop. ‘There’s little wood left to burn,’ he said.

‘I have what I need. Please, sit.’

‘Last Fish, is it? I think this will be a sad story.’

‘No, it is an angry story.’ Glyph looked up, met the man’s misaligned eyes. ‘I am that Last Fish. I have come from the shore. This story I will tell, it has far to go. I cannot yet see its end. But I am that Last Fish.’

‘Then you are far from home.’