It was not long before the carcass was stripped down to the bones. Galak rolled up the antelope’s hide and offered it to Rusk, along with the antlers and the long bones. Grunting, the Jhelarkan leader gestured to his hunters and as one they rose.

‘Your company is bitter,’ he announced. ‘We return to the night. Remember our generosity, Borderswords, and tell the tale of this meeting to your hunters, so that they may at last understand courtesy.’

‘It is a thought,’ Rint allowed, ‘that we might work best together. To hunt the great herds and to share in the bounty.’

‘Rint, there are no great herds.’

The figures withdrew from the fire’s light, and in moments were gone.

Ville spat into the flames. ‘I think he lied,’ he said in a growl. ‘About those armies. He would stir us to alarm and fear.’

Galak said, ‘We well know that there is an army at House Dracons, Ville, just as he described. He may have thrown more than a few truths into his words to us.’

‘And Abara Delack? Why would any army, rebel or otherwise, occupy Abara Delack?’

‘We don’t know,’ Rint said, wanting to end this debate. ‘We’ve been away for too long. There is no point in speculating. Listen, our bellies are full for the first time in months. Let us sleep now, with the aim of riding hard on the morrow.’

‘I hope,’ said Ville, ‘the hunt went well.’

* * *

Lieutenant Risp studied the blockish silhouette that was Riven Keep. The solitary tower, which rose from a clutter of lower buildings huddled around it, showed a single, faint light, coming from a room on the top floor, just beneath the peaked roof. There was a low wall, she had been told, surrounding this ancient fort, marked by banked revetments. To assault Riven Keep an army would find itself descending steep ditches forming a treacherous maze beyond the walls, all under arrow fire from the revetments, and crowding into chokepoints where the ground underfoot would be uneven and even retreat would prove impossible. It was well, she concluded, that they were not facing an enemy aware of the threat drawing close.

The village below Riven Keep formed a half-circle round the hill, and these houses sprawled to the very edges of community pastureland. Risp could smell the smoke in the cool night air. Twisting in her saddle, she squinted at the waiting soldiers of her own troop. Weapons were drawn but held at rest across saddles and thighs. No one spoke and the only sound came from the occasional shift or snort from a horse. Beyond her unit waited others, all equally silent, gathered in mounted squares in the basins to either side of the road.