The creature twitched, a snarl in its tone as it replied, ‘You could be no worse than my last masters. I am Talamandas, born of the First Hearth in the Knotted Clan. The first child birthed on this land – do you know the significance of that, mortal?’

‘I am afraid not, Talamandas.’

‘My previous masters – those damned necromancers – had worked through, mortal, were mere moments from discovering my true name – worked through, I tell you, with brutal claws indifferent to pain. With my name they would have learned secrets that even my own people have long forgotten. Do you know the significance of the trees on our barrows? No, you do not. Indeed they hold the soul, keep it from wandering, but why ?

‘We came to this land from the seas, plying the vast waters in dugouts – the world was young, then, our blood thick with the secret truths of our past. Look upon the faces of the Barghast, mortal – no, look upon a Barghast skull stripped of skin and muscle ...’

‘I’ve seen ... Barghast skulls,’ Quick Ben said slowly.

‘Ah, and have you seen their like ... animate?’

The wizard scowled. ‘No, but something similar, squatter – the features slightly more pronounced—’

‘Slightly, aye, slightly. Squatter? No surprise, we never went hungry, for the sea provided. Yet more, Tartheno Toblakai were among us ...’

‘You were T’lan Imass! Hood’s breath! Then ... you and your kin must have defied the Ritual—’

‘Defied? No. We simply failed to arrive in time – our pursuit of the Jaghut had forced us to venture onto the seas, to dwell among iceflows and on treeless islands. And in our isolation from kin, among the elder peoples – the Tartheno – we changed ... when our distant kin did not. Mortal, wherever land proved generous enough to grant us a birth, we buried our dugouts – for ever. From this was born the custom of the trees on our barrows – though none among my kind remembers. It has been so long ...’

‘Tell me your tale, Talamandas. But first, answer me this. What would you do ... if I freed you of these bindings?’

‘You cannot.’

‘Not an answer.’

‘Very well, though it be pointless. I would seek to set free the First Families – aye, we are spirits, and now worshipped by the living clans. But the ancient bindings have kept us as children in so many ways. Well meant, yet a curse none the less. We must be freed. To grow into true power—’

‘To ascend into true gods,’ Quick Ben whispered, his eyes wide as he stared down at the ragged figure of grasses and twigs.

‘The Barghast refuse to change, the living think now as the living always did. Generation after generation. Our kind are dying out, mortal. We rot from within. For the ancestors are prevented from giving true guidance, prevented from maturing into their power – our power. To answer your question, mortal, I would save the living Barghast, if I could.’