Haelan did remember him, the huge bald man with no neck, looked as if he could never be defeated. In blurred images he remembered Gramm trying to comfort him, then leaving the room and Tahir entering. He’d sat quietly, waiting for Haelan’s tears to run their course.

‘I’ll look after you,’ Tahir had said. ‘We’re two of a kind, you and me – the last of our kind. Me, the last of the Gadrai; you the last of your line. But things will be different from now on. You’re hunted – Jael knows we escaped Dun Kellen and he wants you dead. You’re the rightful heir to Isiltir, and Jael wants that crown – so you mustn’t be found . . .’

I know I’m hunted, Haelan thought. Once a group of warriors had been spied riding towards the hold. As they’d drawn closer Haelan had made out the banner that rippled above them; a lightning bolt on a black field, a pale serpent entwined about it. Jael’s banner. They have come to kill me, Haelan remembered thinking, the fear as he had seen them cantering along the road freezing him in the courtyard. Tahir had swept him up in his arms and run, hiding him in the cellars beneath the feast-hall’s kitchens. They had stayed there together, Haelan trying to control his shaking limbs, Tahir staring at the trapdoor, one hand permanently fixed to his sword hilt. It had felt like days before Gramm had opened the door and told them the warriors were gone. That had been over four moons ago.

The courtyard was heaving with activity. A score of warriors were climbing into saddles, horses stamping and blowing. Wulf, Gramm’s eldest son, shouted a call and led them clattering towards the gates. Haelan jumped out of their way, aiming for the shadows, trying to hide from Wulf’s eyes – the warrior had scolded him more than once for shirking his duties around the hold.

Haelan put his head down and ran across the courtyard, heading for the timber yard, which was situated in the far north of the settlement, beside the river. He sprinted along the edge of the feast-hall, pausing for breath as he crested the hill the hold was built upon. His eyes were drawn eastwards, towards Forn Forest, the river disappearing into the endless expanse of trees that consumed the horizon. Closer on the river Haelan saw line after line of felled timber bobbing in the water, like the body of some half-submerged creature, the current and long barges speeding it towards the hold.