‘So will it be Conall’s head on a spike alongside Halion’s on the morrow?’

‘No. Not yet, at least. I need him for the moment. I have to go – pressing needs elsewhere, and I really don’t like it here. So I’ll let him think he’s deceived me, leave him to rule Domhain for a while, see whether he can tame the dissenters. He may just get himself killed, of course, which will save me a job in the long run.’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t worry about everything.’

‘Better get moving,’ Braith said. ‘Else Halion’ll get away.’ ‘I want him to get away. And you’re going to follow him.’ Rhin said with a slow smile. ‘All the way to Edana.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

MAQUIN

Maquin crawled through the long grass, breathing in the scent of meadow flowers. Abruptly the grass parted and a wide plain dissected by a forked river opened up in front of him. We’re going to get wet. Again.

The grass rustled behind him and Fidele crawled up.

‘It’s big,’ she said.

‘Aye.’

‘I have ridden past it many times, and it never looked so daunting before.’

‘That’s because you and your honour guard could ride across a bridge that wasn’t guarded by Vin Thalun then.’

Beyond the river a forest followed the skyline into the east.

‘That is the forest Sarva, and beyond it is Ripa.’

Ripa. Our destination, and safety, according to Fidele.

And now we are nearly there. Just a river and a forest to cross.

They had been travelling for over two moons now, shadowing the main river most of the way from Jerolin. After the hounds and the jump into a river they had been carried a few leagues south. They’d hauled themselves out, shivering, battered and bruised but still alive, and gone to ground, hiding in a cave for a ten-night as they let the Vin Thalun pass them by. Since then they had avoided all pursuit, though they had glimpsed Vin Thalun corsairs patrolling the great river that flowed from Jerolin to Ripa.

Maquin scanned the plain below them. There was no bridge crossing the river, but he spied a ford. Movement on the river drew Maquin’s attention.

It was a ship’s prow, oars rising and dipping.

He recognized it as a Vin Thalun war-galley. He had spent enough time breaking his back rowing one all the way from Isiltir to the island of Panos. As he watched his hands itched, the memory of pulling at an oar triggering a host of feelings and memories. All of them unpleasant.