‘Where we will resupply, yes.’ Then she pointed northward. ‘There, Gamet. Do you see it?’

He squinted, wondering what he was supposed to look at across the vast wasteland that was the Ubaryd Odhan. Then the breath hissed between his teeth.

A fiery wall of red on the horizon, as if a second sun was setting.

‘The Whirlwind,’ Tavore said.

Suddenly, the wind was much colder, pushing hard against Gamet where he stood.

‘Beyond it,’ the Adjunct continued, ‘waits our enemy. Tell me, do you think Sha’ik will contest our approach?’

‘She would be a fool not to,’ he replied.

‘Are you certain of that? Would she rather not face unblooded recruits?’

‘It is a huge gamble, Adjunct. The march alone will have hardened the Fourteenth. Were I her, I would prefer to face a battle-weary, bruised enemy. An enemy burdened with wounded, with a shortage of arrows, horses and whatnot. And by that time of final meeting, I would also have learned something of you, Adjunct. Your tactics. As it is, Sha’ik has no way to take your measure.’

‘Yes. Curious, isn’t it? Either she is indifferent to me, or she feels she has already taken my measure – which of course is impossible. Even assuming she has spies in our army, thus far I have done little more than ensure that we march in an organized fashion.’

Spies? Gods below, I hadn’t even considered that!

Neither spoke for a time, each lost in their own thoughts as they stared northward.

The sun was vanishing on their left.

But the Whirlwind held its own fire.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Power has voice, and that voice is the Song of the Tanno Spiritwalker.

Kimloc

He awoke to a faint, damp nuzzling against his side. eyes slowly opened, head tilted downward, to see a bhok’aral pup, patchy with some sort of skin infection, curled against his stomach.

Kalam sat up, suppressing the urge to grab the creature by the neck and fling it against a wall. Compassion was not the consideration, of course. Rather, it was the fact that this subterranean temple was home to hundreds, perhaps even thousands of bhok’arala, and the creatures possessed a complex social structure – harm this pup and Kalam might find himself beneath a swarm of bull males. And small as the beasts were, they had canines to rival a bear’s. Even so, he fought to contain his revulsion as he gently pushed the mottled pup away.

It mewled pathetically and looked up at him with huge, liquid eyes.

‘Don’t even try,’ the assassin muttered, slipping free of the furs and rising. Flecks of mouldy skin covered his midriff, and the thin woollen shirt was sodden from the pup’s runny nose. Kalam removed the shirt and flung it into a corner of the small chamber.