‘You have brought us closer,’ Urugal eventually rasped. ‘Close enough to sense the precise location of what we desire. And there you must now go, Karsa Orlong. You have delayed the journey for so long – your journey to ourselves, and on to the path we have set before you. You have hidden too long in the company of this petty spirit who does little more than spit sand.’

‘This path, this journey – to what end? What is it you seek?’

‘Like you, warrior, we seek freedom.’

Karsa was silent. Avid indeed. Then he spoke. ‘I am to travel west. Into the Jhag Odhan.’

He sensed their shock and excitement, then the chorus of suspicion that poured out from the seven gods.

‘West! Indeed, Karsa Orlong. But how do you know this?’

Because, at last, I am my father’s son. ‘I shall leave with the dawn, Urugal. And I will find for you what you desire.’ He could feel their presence fading, and knew instinctively that these gods were not as close to freedom as they wanted him to believe. Nor as powerful.

Urugal had called this clearing a temple, but it was a contested one, and now, as the Seven withdrew, and were suddenly gone, Karsa slowly turned from the faces of the gods, and looked upon those for whom this place had been in truth sanctified. By Karsa’s own hands. In the name of those chains a mortal could wear with pride.

‘My loyalty,’ the Teblor warrior quietly said, ‘was misplaced. I served only glory. Words, my friends. And words can wear false nobility. Disguising brutal truths. The words of the past, that so clothed the Teblor in a hero’s garb – this is what I served. While the true glory was before me. Beside me. You, Delum Thord. And you, Bairoth Gild.’

From the stone statue of Bairoth emerged a distant, weary voice. ‘Lead us, Warleader.’

Karsa flinched. Do I dream this? Then he straightened. ‘I have drawn your spirits to this place. Did you travel in the wake of the Seven?’

‘We have walked the empty lands,’ Bairoth Gild replied. ‘Empty, yet we were not alone. Strangers await us all, Karsa Orlong. This is the truth they would hide from you. We are summoned. We are here.’

‘None,’ came Delum Thord’s voice from the other statue, ‘can defeat you on this journey. You lead the enemy in circles, you defy every prediction, and so deliver the edge of your will. We sought to follow, but could not.’

‘Who, Warleader,’ Bairoth asked, his voice bolder, ‘is our enemy, now?’

Karsa drew himself up before the two Uryd warriors. ‘Witness my answer, my friends. Witness.’

Delum spoke, ‘We failed you, Karsa Orlong. Yet you invite us to walk with you once again.’