‘Then we have a trail awaiting us.’

‘Yes.’

The groom returned with her horse. She resigned herself to a long, wearying ride. But she was determined to witness this pursuit. Anyway, better the horse than the whore. If that Durav had eyes open this night, well, I might have stayed in the fort. A most handsome young warrior.

I wonder if Finarra and Faror shared him out there in the wilds?

Amused by the thought, she climbed into the saddle and took up the reins.

The others were ready. The gate was opened once more this night, and they all rode out.

* * *

Ensconced in the commander’s private room, modest as it was, Ilgast Rend settled in the rickety chair, wincing as it creaked beneath him. Opposite him, in a matching chair, Calat Hustain asked, ‘Your thoughts on what she had to say, Lord?’

Ilgast rubbed hard at his eyes, blinked away swimming blots of colour, and then scratched down through his beard, considering. ‘I spared them no room, commander.’

‘Ah, of course. The efforts at healing must try you, Lord. I admit to a sense of wonder, at this rare skill with earth and heat, moulds and roots. Upon battle’s field, I have seen miracles performed with sharp knife and gut and thorn, but this mysterious sorcery you have found in such mundane things, it is most astonishing.’

‘There is power in nature,’ Ilgast replied, ‘and what is often forgotten is that nature lies within us as much as it does out there, amidst high grasses or shoreline. To heal is to draw across the divide; that and nothing more.’

‘It is said that such power grows.’

Ilgast frowned at the suggestion, not because he would deny it, but because the notion – which he himself sensed – disturbed him. ‘It was ever my belief, commander, that we who blinked the mist clear from our eyes, and so saw truly the flow of life, were but privileged, by quirk of temper or gift of vision. We beheld a power in constancy, yet one unaware of itself. Of no mind, if you will. Neither living nor dead; rather, like the wind.’ He paused, chewing on those thoughts, and then sighed and shook his head. ‘But now, I grow to sense … something. A hint of deliberation. Purpose. As if, in taking from the power, it shifts a shoulder and sets regard upon the taker.’

‘That is … strange, Lord.’

‘As if in looking down into the river,’ Ilgast continued, his frown deepening, ‘one discovers the river looking back up at you. Or a stone returning stern attention. A glance catching the eye of earth, or sand.’ He rubbed vigorously at his face again. ‘It leaves one startled, I tell you, as if in an instant the world is unmade, and all its comforts are revealed as false, and the solitude we’d thought private was in truth played out before a silent audience; and the minds that gave thought to all we did, why, they think nothing like us.’