‘Poor old Oleg,’ Artan sighed, ‘Hedging and oracular to the end. Thank you, Kiska. I’ll keep these speculations in mind.’

‘But I’m coming with you, aren’t I?’

‘Great One below, no.’

‘What?’

‘Hattar, tie her up more securely.’

‘At once.’

‘Wait—’

A gag whipped across her mouth and yanked tight. The plainsman tied her elbows to her sides, pushed her down and bound her legs.

From the cavern opening Artan said, ‘Goodbye. Give my regards to your Aunt.’

Kiska cursed him through the gag. Hattar stood over her. He studied his handiwork. They were alone in the cave.

He knelt beside her, took out his fur hat and pulled it down over his long oiled hair. ‘If you are any good, you’ll work your way out of these bindings. If you do, don’t follow us. If I find you pursuing us again, I’ll clip your feathers, little bird. You understand?’

She cursed him to the most distant of Hood’s Paths. He chuckled – at her predicament she supposed – and left. She was alone.

For a few moments she lay still, listening to be sure she was indeed on her own and that he wasn’t watching from the opening. Then she concluded this was foolish, that he wouldn’t hang around here with his master gone, and began wriggling. She twisted and waggled her hands to wedge a thumb at just the right angle against a rock, then pressed. It dislocated with a crack and a familiar jab of pain. Then, using the edges of stones – even the walls themselves – she teased and plucked and coerced the rope coils at her wrist down toward her fingers. After that it was easy to accomplish the rest.

Throwing off the rope at her legs, she was free. And in much less time than that bastard Hattar planned on, she was sure. Not pursue them! She’d follow all right. She’d get ahead of them! She’d show what she could accomplish. No one left her trussed up like a prize pig at a banquet.

She’d climb up to Rampart Way, then sneak into the Hold. Climb the wall itself if she had to. Just as she did years ago to see if she could. Aunt Agayla’s warning then flashed into her thoughts: do not enter the Hold! But Artan would be there. And besides, if there were great things happening, and even greater powers contending, no one would pay her a mind.

CHAPTER FOUR

OLD ENEMIES, OLD FRIENDS

ALONE ORANGE EMBER FLICKERED DULLY WITHIN A maelstrom at the heart of an icy ocean. It bobbed and surged with each heave of the fisherman’s oars that cracked and clattered off chunks of ice. Circling at a distance, Riders plunged and reared, darting in close then submerging. Javelins of ice hurled at the skiff burst into clouds of mist. The fisherman forced his chant through lips frozen to his teeth.

One Rider dared to lunge within the circle of calm surrounding the fisherman. Wave-borne, it reared close only to howl and beat at its arms as its glittering pearl armour melted, then it plunged beneath the boiling surface. Far off, amid the whitecaps and rafts of ice, five indigo-robed Riders watched, conferring. They cradled amethyst wands at their chests. Cold pulsed from them as an expanding sphere. Kneeing their churning wave-mounts, they dispersed. One raised its wand to the south.