‘No. Let’s not be seen to be here. I’m certain that the street is being watched from the upper floor of the house.’ Then she leaned against him, filling his nostrils with the woody fragrance of her hair. ‘You can hold my hand, though,’ she offered. ‘For some reason, I’ve always been a little afraid of the dark.’

‘Of course,’ he said, taking her small hand in his big one. They sat together for perhaps another quarter of an hour as the street outside grew darker.

Suddenly Sephrenia gave an agonized little gasp.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked in alarm.

She did not immediately reply but rose to her feet instead, raising her hands, palm up, above her. A dim figure seemed to stand before her, a figure that was more shadow than substance, and a faint glow seemed to stretch between its widespread, gauntleted hands. Slowly it held forth that silvery nimbus. The glow grew momentarily brighter, then coalesced into solidity as the shadow before her vanished. She sank back into her chair, holding the long, slender object with a curious kind of sorrowful reverence.

‘What was that, Sephrenia?’ Sparhawk demanded.

‘Another of the twelve knights has fallen,’ she said in a voice that was almost a moan. ‘This is his sword, a part of my burden.’

‘Vanion?’ he asked, almost choking with a dreadful sense of fear.

Her finger sought the crest on the pommel of the sword she held, feeling the design in the darkness. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was Lakus.’

Sparhawk felt a wrench of grief. Lakus was an elderly Pandion, a man with snowy hair and a grim visage whom all the knights of Sparhawk’s generation had revered as a teacher and a friend.

Sephrenia buried her face in Sparhawk’s armoured shoulder and began to weep. ‘I knew him as a boy, Sparhawk,’ she lamented.

‘Let’s go back to the chapterhouse,’ he suggested gently ‘We can do this another day.’

She lifted her head and wiped her eyes with her hand. ‘No, Sparhawk,’ she said firmly. ‘Something’s happening in that house tonight – something that may not happen again for a while.’

He started to say something, but then he felt an oppressive weight that seemed to be located just behind his ears. It was as if someone had just placed the heels of his hands at the back of his skull and pushed inward. Sephrenia leaned intently forward. ‘Azash!’ she hissed.

‘What?’

‘They’re summoning the spirit of Azash,’ she said with a terrible note of urgency in her voice.

‘That nails it down then, doesn’t it?’ he said, rising to his feet.

‘Sit down, Sparhawk. This isn’t played out yet.’

‘There can’t be that many’

‘And what will you learn if you go up the street and chop the house and everyone in it to pieces? Sit down. Watch and learn.’