It was tall, one of the thin, red-painted ones they bred beyond the mountains, and the sweat on its long, skeletal neck made it ghostly in the sisters’ light. It walked forward and stopped just beyond the flicker of the fire. Staring into the dark, Raffi could just make out the rider: a dim, bulky figure muffled against the cold.

No one spoke.

Raffi glanced into the trees. He couldn’t sense anyone else. He tried to look into the wood with his third eye but he was too nervous; only shadows moved. The rider stirred.

‘A fine evening, friends.’ His voice was deep; a big man.

Galen nodded, his long dark hair swinging. ‘So it is. You’ve come far?’

‘Far enough.’

The horse shifted, its harness clinking softly. The rider urged it a few steps forward, perhaps to see them better.

‘Come to the fire,’ Galen said, dangerously.

The horse’s fear was tangible, a smell on the air. It was terrified of the cromlech, or perhaps the invisible web of earth-lines that ran out from it. The man, too, sounded tense when he spoke again. ‘I don’t think so, keepers.’

Galen’s voice was quiet as he answered. ‘That’s an unlucky title. Why should we be keepers?’

‘This is an unlucky place. Who else would be living here?’ The rider hesitated, then swung himself down from the saddle and came forward a few steps, unwinding a filmy, knitted wrapping from his face.

They saw a powerful, thick-set man, black-bearded. A crossbow of some sort was slung on his shoulder. He wore a metal breast-plate too; it gleamed in the light of the moons. Dangerous, Raffi thought. But nothing they couldn’t handle.

The stranger must have thought the same. ‘I bring no threat here,’ he went on quickly. ‘How could I? There’s no doubt an armoury of sorcery aimed at me as I stand.’ He held up both hands, empty; a jewel gleamed on the left gauntlet. ‘I’m looking for a man named Galen Harn, a Relic Master.’ He glanced at Raffi, expressionless. ‘And for his scholar, Raffael Morel.’

‘Are you now.’ Galen said bleakly. He shifted; Raffi knew that his leg would be aching, but the keeper’s face was hard. ‘And what do you want with them?’

‘To pass on a message. West of here, about twenty leagues, in the foothills where the rivers meet, there’s a settlement. The people there need him.’

‘Why?’

The rider smiled, wryly, but he answered. ‘They found a relic, as they were ploughing. A tube. When you touch it, it hums. Small green lights move inside it.’

Galen didn’t flicker but Raffi knew he was instantly alert. The horseman knew too. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ironically, ‘that if you should see this Galen, you might tell him. The people are desperate that he come and deal with the thing. None of them dares go near it.’