One line of the pens was built against a high wall, green with thick vines and hanging purple flowers. Hamil led them through the courtyard to a set of steps built into the wall and they climbed them. Meical came out of a stable, saw them and followed after.

The view at the top was not what Corban expected.

The branches of Drassil’s great tree stretched out over the wall to cast dappled shadows over a deep meadow that ringed the fortress, a wide open space – or killing ground.

‘That is not natural,’ Corban observed, pointing to the open meadow.

‘It is not,’ Hamil said with pride. ‘It was Tukul’s undertaking, and took us many years to clear the trees and undergrowth so far back from the wall. On the south side of the fortress we have tilled fields of wheat, maize, rye. The harvest was good.’

‘It is an amazing feat,’ Meical said.

‘So it is,’ said Corban, ‘and it will be most useful to us if Nathair and Calidus come against us here.’

‘They will,’ Meical said.

‘You are sure?’ Corban looked at the Ben-Elim.

‘Yes.’

Corban took a deep breath. ‘I have been so focused on just getting here that I have given little thought to what we will do now that we’ve arrived. We must talk of what comes next.’

‘We should,’ Meical and Balur said together, and Hamil nodded his agreement.

‘But for now let us settle, find our places here, rest. Soon we will make our plans.’

Corban woke feeling unsettled, a pale grey light seeping into his chamber. It was the first night he’d spent in a bed since they’d left Dun Taras with the warband of Domhain, and yet he’d slept poorly.

A year ago. And my back aches more now, after one night upon a mattress stuffed with goose feather and horsehair than it did sleeping rough on the floor.

But his broken night’s sleep was not just down to the mattress. He had dreamed again of the Otherworld. It had been similar to the last time, where he had been walking in a green valley, a lake in front of him, waters still and pure, and behind him tall cliffs that reared as high as the bloated, blood-red clouds.