The gypsy nodded cheerfully. ‘It was Dameon he followed so he ought to tell you that part of our tale.’

I nodded impatiently, eager to hear how Dameon had persuaded him to go back.

‘I had met up with Rasial and Gavyn as I told you, and we were just setting off together when Ahmedri came riding up,’ Dameon said. ‘He had tracked me, he said, because he knew I was coming to find you. I suppose he heard Rushton talking with Alad about our supplies. The tribesman said he had to find his brother’s bones and that he had been commanded to stay with you until you found the coercer Miryum and freed her, for it was she who would tell him where they were. I was at a loss, for neither Rushton nor the dream voice had mentioned him, and yet I could see no way to prevent him following us. Also, neither Rasial nor Faraf seemed troubled by the thought of him or his horse accompanying us. Later I had cause to be very glad of his company, for while Gavyn led us here, it was Ahmedri who made cookfires and found ways for us to cross places where it seemed no horse could go.’

‘What happened to him?’ I asked.

‘Why, he is here in the valley,’ Swallow said. ‘Like Rasial and the boy, he spends a good portion of his time foraging – not together, for neither he nor the lad seem to have much use for human company.’

I scowled. ‘I don’t know why Ahmedri thinks following me here is going to help him find his brother’s bones.’

‘Maybe Miryum came up into the mountains with his brother’s body,’ Swallow said. ‘But whether or not, Ahmedri is convinced that Straaka will come to you in your dreams to tell you where Miryum is. It is hard to argue against that when all of us are here because of our dreams.’

His words gave me pause. I had never considered the possibility that Miryum might have brought Straaka’s body into the mountains. It was just possible she could have managed it, for the coercer was prodigiously strong and she would have been able to use a travois some of the time, but it would have been a gruesome journey with a decomposing body. And how would she then have been taken captive? There were no humans in the mountains, other than us, and no beast took captives.

I noticed Swallow and Analivia watching me expectantly, and felt an uneasy surge of anxiety at the knowledge that, although all of them had come into the mountains after having struggled separately and alone with doubt and fear and disbelief, they were now looking to me to guide them. Yet how was I to guide them when they seemed to know all I knew?