Gamet sighed, walked over to the horse. He was so weak, he had trouble pulling himself onto the saddle. The others waited with maddening patience. Face burning with both effort and shame, Gamet finally clambered onto the horse, spent a moment searching for the stirrups, then took the reins from Temul. ‘Lead on,’ he growled to Keneb.

They rode parallel to the wall of roaring sand, eastward, maintaining a respectable distance. Two hundred paces along they rode up to a party of five sitting motionless on their horses. The Adjunct, Tene Baralta, Blistig, Nil and Nether.

Sudden fear gripped Gamet. ‘Adjunct! A thousand warriors could be waiting on the other side! We need the army drawn up. We need heavy infantry on the flanks. Outriders – archers – marines—’

‘That will be enough, Gamet. We ride forward now – the sun already lights the wall. Besides, can you not hear it? Its shriek is filled with fear. A new sound. A pleasing sound.’

He stared up at the swirling barrier of sand. Yes, that is what I could sense earlier. ‘Then it knows its barrier shall fail.’

‘The goddess knows,’ Nether agreed.

Gamet glanced at the two Wickans. They looked miserable, a state that seemed more or less permanent with them these days. ‘What will happen when the Whirlwind falls?’

The young woman shook her head, but it was her brother who answered, ‘The Whirlwind Wall encloses a warren. Destroy the wall, and the warren is breached. Making the goddess vulnerable – had we a battalion of Claw and a half-dozen High Mages, we could hunt her down and kill her. But we can achieve no such thing.’ He threw up his hands in an odd gesture. ‘The Army of the Apocalypse will remain strengthened by her power. Those soldiers will never break, will fight on to the bitter end. Especially given the likelihood that that end will be ours, not theirs.’

‘Your predictions of disaster are unhelpful, Nil,’ the Adjunct murmured. ‘Accompany me, all of you, until I say otherwise.’

They rode closer to the Whirlwind Wall, leaning in the face of the fierce, battering wind and sand. Fifteen paces from its edge, the Adjunct raised a hand. Then she dismounted, one gloved hand closing on the grip of her sword as she strode forward.

The rust-hued otataral blade was halfway out of its scabbard when a sudden silence descended, and before them the Whirlwind Wall’s stentorian violence died, in tumbling clouds of sand and dust. The hiss of sifting rose into the storm’s mute wake. A whisper. Burgeoning light. And, then, silence.

The Adjunct wheeled, shock writ on her features.

‘She withdrew!’ Nil shouted, stumbling forward. ‘Our path is clear!’

Tavore threw up a hand to halt the Wickan. ‘In answer to my sword, Warlock? Or is this some strategic ploy?’

‘Both, I think. She would not willingly take such a wounding, I think. Now, she will rely upon her mortal army.’