And still the howling built. It rent the canvas of the tents in the camp, snapped guide ropes. In the distant corrals to the west, the horses broke down the fences and fled in terror.

Galar was a battered kite in the rising storm of those terrible voices.

‘Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that.’

Abruptly, the howling stopped. Galar plunged earthward, and in the moment he struck the ground, blackness engulfed him.

‘Never, and never again.’

Chapter Twenty

TWENTY

ENDEST SILANN LOOKED old, as if his youth had been torn away, revealing something aged with grief. Many times Rise Herat had seen a face stripped back by the onslaught of loss, and each time he wondered if suffering but waited under the skin, shielded by a mask donned in hope, or with that superstitious desperation that imagined a smile to be a worthy shield against the world’s travails. These things, worn daily in an array of practised expressions insisting on civility, ever proved poor defenders of the soul, and to be witness to their cracking, their pathetic surrender to a barrage of emotion, was both humbling and terrible.

The young priest had come to his door like a beggar, fingers entwined on his lap and twisting ceaselessly, as if he held newborn snakes in his fists; and in his eyes there was a wretched pleading; but even this was of the kind that expected no largesse. How could one help a beggar who saw no salvation in a coin, or a meal, or a warm bed at night?

Rise had stepped back in invitation and Endest had shuffled past, moving like one afflicted by a host of mysterious ailments, proof against any medicine. He selected a chair near the fire and sat, not yet ready to speak, and studied his writhing hands. And there he remained.

After a time, the historian cleared his throat. ‘I have mulled wine, priest.’

Endest shook his head. ‘I close my eyes to sleep,’ he said, ‘and meet the same horrid dream, as if it but awaits me.’

‘Ah, that sounds unpleasant. Perhaps a draught to make you senseless would help.’

He glanced up with red-shot eyes, and then looked down again. ‘I have no certainty of this world, historian. This is the dream’s legacy, its curse upon my wakefulness – even now I am haunted and so in need of reassurance.’

‘Set hand upon stone, priest. Feel wood’s familiar grain, or the cool flank of a clay vessel. None of these things are uncertain. But if you would look to us soft creatures who move through this world, then I fear you will find us ephemeral indeed.’

Endest’s hands parted and made fists on his lap, the knuckles whitening, but still he would not look up. ‘Do you mock me?’