T’morol’s dark eyes were fixed on Mathok, cold and impervious to surprise. ‘We are to ride from this battle, Warchief?’

‘To preserve the Holy Book, such flight may be a necessity, old friend. Come the dawn, we hover ... on the very cusp.’

‘To gauge the wind.’

‘Yes, T’morol, to gauge the wind.’

The bearded warrior nodded. ‘The horses are being saddled. I will hasten the preparations.’

Heboric listened to the silence. Only his bones could feel the tingling hum of a sorcerous web spanning the entire oasis and its ruined city, the taut vibrations rising and falling as disparate forces began to move across it, then, with savage disregard, tore through it.

He stirred from the cot, groaning with the stab of force-healed wounds, and climbed shakily to his feet. The coals had died in their braziers. The gloom felt solid, reluctant to yield as he made his way to the doorway. Heboric bared his teeth. His taloned hands twitched.

Ghosts stalked the dead city. Even the gods felt close, drawn to witness all that was to come. Witness, or to seize the moment and act directly. A nudge here, a tug there, if only to appease their egos . . . if only to see what happens. These were the games he despised, source of his fiercest defiance all those years ago. The shape of his crime, if crime it was.

And so they took my hands.

Until another god gave them back.

He was, he realized, indifferent to Treach. A reluctant Destriant to the new god of war, despite the gifts. Nor had his desires changed. Otataral Island, and the giant of jade — that is what awaits me. The returning of power. Even as those last words tracked across his mind, he knew that a deceit rode among them. A secret he knew but to which he would fashion no shape. Not yet, perhaps not until he found himself standing in the wasteland, beneath the shadow of that crooked spire.

But first, I must meet a more immediate challenge – getting out of this camp alive.

He hesitated another moment at the doorway, reaching out into the darkness beyond with all his senses. Finding the path clear – his next twenty strides at least – he darted forward.

Rolling the acorn in his fingers one last time, he tucked it into a fold in his sash and eased snake-like from the crack.

‘Oh, Hood’s heartless hands . . .’

The song was a distant thunder trembling along his bones, and he didn’t like it. Worse yet, there were powers awakened in the oasis ahead that even he, a non-practitioner of sorcery, could feel like fire in his blood.

Kalam Mekhar checked his long-knives yet again, then resheathed them. The temptation was great to keep the otataral weapon out, and so deny any magic sent his way. But that goes both ways, doesn’t it?