‘I don’t? How old would the boy have been by now? Same as Arathan, or close enough.’ He saw the effect of his words, like blades crossing her face, and it sickened him. ‘Sister, I am sorry.’

But her eyes had gone flat. ‘Children die. A mother gets over it, as she must.’

‘Feren—’

‘The failure was his father’s, not mine.’

‘I know. I did not mean—’

‘Grief led his hand to the knife. Selfishness sank it into his own heart.’

‘Feren.’

‘He abandoned me when I needed him the most. I learned from that, brother. I learned well.’

‘Arathan is not—’

‘I know that! Is it me who’s been chewing dead meat all afternoon? Am I the one worked into a black rage? I had a son. He died. I had a husband. He is dead, too. And I have a brother, who thinks he knows me, but all he knows is a sister he has invented – go to her again, Rint. She’s easy to find. Bound to the chains inside your head.’ She lifted a hand as if to strike him and he steeled himself against the blow, but it never came, and moments later she was walking back to the fire.

He wanted to weep. Instead, he cursed himself for being a fool.

A figure appeared at the rise on the other side of the river. Massive, towering, clad in thick plates of leather armour, a clutch of spears balanced over one shoulder, a heavy sack held in one hand. His head was bare, his hair unbound and lit like fiery blood in the glare of the setting sun. He paused for a moment and then lumbered his way down to the ford.

And Rint knew this Azathanai, though he had never seen him before.

The lone warrior among the Azathanai. The one known as Protector. Though whom he has fought is a question I cannot answer. Thel Akai halfblood, mate to Kilmandaros.

This is Grizzin Farl.

The water barely breached his heavy boots.

‘Draconus!’ he bellowed. ‘Is this how you hide from all the world? Ha, I had not believed the tales – now see me for the fat fool I am! But look, I have ale!’

* * *

He came among them like a man with nothing to fear and nothing to lose, and only much later – years later – did Arathan come to understand how each fed the other and could in turn fashion sentiments of both admiration and great pity. But with his arrival in the camp, it was as if a giant had descended from some lofty mountain crag, down from some wind-whipped keep with echoing halls and frost at the foot of wooden doors. Its master had grown weary of the solitude and now sought company.

There are those from whom pleasure exudes, heady as ale fumes, inviting as the warmth of a fire on a cold night. They encourage amusement with but a glance, as if jests fill the world and the company they share cannot help but fall into that welcoming embrace.