‘Chosen One,’ Mathok rumbled, ‘Korbolo Dom and Coltaine fought nine major engagements – nine battles – on the Chain of Dogs. Of these, Korbolo was clear victor in one, and one only. At the Fall. Outside the walls of Aren. And for that he needed Kamist Reloe, and the power of Mael, as channelled through the jhistal priest, Mallick Rel.’

Her head was spinning, panic ripping through her, and she knew L’oric could feel her trembling.

‘Sha’ik,’ he whispered, close by her ear, ‘you know Tavore, don’t you? You know her, and she is cold iron, isn’t she?’

Mute, she nodded. She did not know how she knew, for neither Mathok nor L’oric seemed able to give a concrete definition, suggesting to her that the notion derived from a gut level, a place of primal instinct. And so, she knew.

L’oric had lifted his head. ‘Mathok.’

‘High Mage?’

‘Who, among us, is cold iron? Is there anyone?’

‘There are two, High Mage. And one of these is capable of both: Toblakai.’

‘And the other?’

‘Leoman of the Flails.’

Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas lay beneath a sheath of sand. The sweat had soaked through his telaba beneath him, packing down his body’s moulded imprint, and had cooled, so that he now shivered unceasingly. The sixth son of a deposed chief among the Pardu, he had been a wanderer of the wastelands for most of his adult life. A wanderer, trader, and worse. When Leoman had found him, three Gral warriors had been dragging him behind their horses for most of a morning.

The purchase price had been pathetically small, since his skin had been flayed away by the burning sands, leaving only a bloodied mass of raw flesh. But Leoman had taken him to a healer, an old woman from some tribe he’d never heard of before, or since, and she in turn had taken him to a rockspring pool, where he’d lain immersed, raving with fever, for an unknown time, whilst she’d worked a ritual of mending and called upon the water’s ancient spirits. And so he had recovered.

Corabb had never learned the reason behind Leoman’s mercy, and, now that he knew him well – as well as any who’d sworn fealty to the man – he knew better than to ask. It was one with his contrary nature, his unknowable qualities that could be unveiled but once in an entire lifetime. But Corabb knew one thing: for Leoman of the Flails, he would give his life.

They had lain side by side, silent and motionless, through the course of the day, and now, late in the after’ noon, they saw the first of the outriders appear in the distance, cautiously ranging out as they ventured onto the pan of cracked salts and clay.

Corabb finally stirred. ‘Wickans,’ he hissed.

‘And Seti,’ Leoman rumbled in reply.

‘Those grey-armoured ones look ... different.’