The voices behind her finally drew her attention. Sergeant Whiskeyjack stood over Quick Ben and the other soldier, both of whom still knelt at Hairlock's side. Quick Ben clutched an oblong object, wrapped in hides, and was looking up at his sergeant as if awaiting approval.

There was tension between the two men. Frowning, Tattersail walked over. 'What are you doing?' she asked Quick Ben, her eyes on the object in the wizard's almost feminine hands. He seemed not to have heard, his eyes on the sergeant.

Whiskeyjack shot her a glance. 'Go ahead, Quick,' he growled, then strode off to stand at the hill's edge, facing west – towards the Moranth Mountains.

Quick Ben's fine, ascetic features tightened. He nodded at his companion. 'Get ready, Kalam.'

The soldier named Kalam leaned back on his haunches, his hands in his sleeves. The position seemed an odd response to Quick Ben's request, but the mage seemed satisfied. Tattersail watched as he laid one of his thin, spidery hands on Hairlock's trembling, blood-splashed chest. He whispered a few chaining words and closed his eyes.

'That sounded like Denul,' Tattersail said, glancing at Kalam, who remained motionless in his crouch. 'But not quite,' she added slowly. 'He's twisted it somehow.' She fell silent then, seeing something in Kalam that reminded her of a snake waiting to strike. Wouldn't take much to set him off, I think. Just a few more ill-timed words, a careless move towards Quick Ben or Hairlock. The man was big, bearish, but she remembered his dangerous glide past her. Snake indeed, the man's a killer, a soldier who's reached the next level in the art of murder. Not just a job any more, this man likes it. She wondered then if it wasn't this energy, this quiet promise of menace, that swept over her with the flavour of sexual tension. Tattersail sighed. A day for perversity.

Quick Ben had resumed his chaining words, this time over the object, which he now set down beside Hairlock. She watched as enwreathing power enveloped the wrapped object, watched in growing apprehension as the mage traced his long fingers along the hide's seams. The energy trickled from him with absolute control. He was her superior in the lore. He had opened a Warren she didn't even recognize.

'Who are you people?' she whispered, stepping back.

Hairlock's eyes snapped open, clear of pain and shock. His gaze found Tattersail and the stained smile came easily to his broken lips. 'Lost arts, 'Sail. What you're about to see hasn't been done in a thousand years.' His face darkened then and the smile faded. Something burned in his eyes. 'Think back, woman! Calot and I. When we went down. What did you see? Did you feel something? Something odd? Come on, think! Look at me! See my wound, see how I'm lying! Which direction was I facing when that wave hit?'

She saw the fire in his eyes, of anger mingled with triumph. 'I'm not sure,' she said slowly. 'Something, yes.' That detached, reasoning part of her mind that had laboured with her throughout the battle, that had screamed in her mind at Calot's death, screamed in answer to the waves of sorcery – to the fact that they had come from the plain. Her eyes narrowed on Hairlock. 'Anomander Rake never bothered to aim. He was being indiscriminate. Those waves of power were aimed, weren't they? Coming at us from the wrong side.' She was trembling. 'But why? Why would Tayschrenn do that?'