Shaking his head, Strings pushed her away. ‘I – I don’t know!’

‘What did he say? Tell us! He had a message for us, yes? What did he say?’

‘For you? Nothing, lass – why, who in Hood’s name do you think that was?’

‘Sormo E’nath!’

‘The warlock? But he—’ Strings staggered another step back. ‘Stop that damned singing!’

The Wickans stared.

And Strings realized that neither was singing – neither could have been – for it continued, filling his head.

Nether asked, ‘What singing, soldier?’

He shook his head again, then turned and made his way back towards camp. Sormo had no words for them. Nor did he. Nor did he want to see their faces – their helpless desperation, their yearning for a ghost that was gone – gone for ever. That was not Sormo E’nath. That was something else – Hood knows what. ‘We are awakened.’ What does that mean? And who’s waiting for me in Raraku? My kin – I’ve none, barring the Bridgeburners – gods below! Quick Ben? Kalam? One, or both? He wanted to scream, if only to silence the song that whispered through his head, the dreadful, painfully incomplete music that gnawed at his sanity.

Raraku, it seemed, was not yet done with him. Strings silently railed. Damn all of this!

To the north, through the smoky wreaths of the encampment, the mantled hills of Vathar seemed to unfurl the sun’s golden light. On the ridge behind him, the wolves began howling.

Gamet settled back in the saddle as his horse began the descent towards the river. It had not been long enough for the land to entirely swallow the victims of the slaughter that had occurred here. Bleached bones gleamed in the sandy mud of the shoreline. Fragments of cloth, pieces of leather and iron. And the ford itself was barely recognizable. Remnants of a floating bridge were heaped on it on the upstream side, and on this barrier more detritus had piled. Sunken, waterlogged wagons, trees, grasses and reeds, now anchored by silts, a hulking, bowed mass that had formed a kind of bridge. To the Fist’s eye, it seemed the whole thing was moments from breaking loose.

Scouts had crossed it on foot. Gamet could see a score of mud-smeared Seti on the opposite side, making their way up the steep slope.

The forests on both sides of the river were a mass of colour, their branches festooned with strips of cloth, with braids and painted human bones that twisted in the wind.