Rage choked me at the thought that anyone would dare to treat her so. But questions clamoured in me, too. Who was the man and how had she fallen into his hands, and why had they come to the high mountains? The terrain was so familiar that I was certain we had passed through the very ravine I was now looking down on.

The man stopped and watched as Dragon struggled painfully to her feet. I could see fresh blood on her knee glistening black in the moonlight. He shook the rope impatiently and Dragon turned and went on, now limping. I kept my eyes on the man as they began to walk again, waiting for the moon to show me his face. When it did, I did not recognise it, but he seemed to be wearing a tattered rebel band around his upper arm. The colours would have told me who his chieftain was, if I could have made them out, yet surely he must be one of Malik’s men. Not all of them had been captured after the fall of Vos and Malik in Saithwold. Or maybe he was one of the men allied with Jude, who had escaped capture during the rout at Sawlney.

But how could Dragon have been taken when she could so easily have defended herself with her powerful coercive ability? Even if she had been taken by surprise initially, she could later have used it to free herself. And why had the man brought her into the mountains? It must have something to do with me, for it was simply too great a coincidence to believe that he had brought her to the mountains by chance.

The man caught my full attention again when he suddenly took two staggering steps forward and slapped Dragon hard enough that her head rocked on her shoulders. Was he drunk? I wondered, trembling with impotent rage.

‘What is it? What is happening?’ Swallow asked, shaking me and dragging me from Gavyn’s mind so roughly that I retched.

Seeing their drawn and anxious faces I bit back a snarl and mustered my will to steady myself before explaining that Gavyn had seen Dragon being herded roughly through the mountains as the captive of an unknown man.

‘Saw her when?’ Swallow asked, glancing at the boy who was picking at a scab on his knee, oblivious to our exchange.

‘I think he saw her in a true dream,’ I said. ‘And I recognised the terrain. They were not far from the valley of the Skylake.’

‘Do you speak of the girl that is the true queen of the Red Land?’ Analivia asked incredulously.

I nodded. ‘It was night in the vision but from the glimpse I got of the moon, I’d say he was there a two or threeday ago, which means they will be a good deal closer by now.’

‘Closer … you think they are following us?’ Dameon asked.