Discover more about Warhammer Chronicles from Black Library

• THE LEGEND OF SIGMAR •

Graham McNeill

BOOK ONE: Heldenhammer

BOOK TWO: Empire

BOOK THREE: God King

• THE RISE OF NAGASH •

Mike Lee

BOOK ONE: Nagash the Sorcerer

BOOK TWO: Nagash the Unbroken

BOOK THREE: Nagash Immortal

• VAMPIRE WARS: THE VON CARSTEIN TRILOGY •

Steven Savile

BOOK ONE: Inheritance

BOOK TWO: Dominion

BOOK THREE: Retribution

• THE SUNDERING •

Gav Thorpe

BOOK ONE: Malekith

BOOK TWO: Shadow King

BOOK THREE: Caledor

• CHAMPIONS OF CHAOS •

Darius Hinks, S P Cawkwell & Ben Counter

BOOK ONE: Sigvald

BOOK TWO: Valkia the Bloody

BOOK THREE: Van Horstmann

• THE WAR OF VENGEANCE •

Nick Kyme, Chris Wraight & C L Werner

BOOK ONE: The Great Betrayal

BOOK TWO: Master of Dragons

BOOK THREE: The Curse of the Phoenix Crown

• MATHIAS THULMANN: WITCH HUNTER •

C L Werner

BOOK ONE: Witch Hunter

BOOK TWO: Witch Finder

BOOK THREE: Witch Killer

• ULRIKA THE VAMPIRE •

Nathan Long

BOOK ONE: Bloodborn

BOOK TWO: Bloodforged

BOOK THREE: Bloodsworn

• MASTERS OF STONE AND STEEL •

Gav Thorpe and Nick Kyme

BOOK ONE: The Doom of Dragonback

BOOK TWO: Grudge Bearer

BOOK THREE: Oathbreaker

BOOK FOUR: Honourkeeper

• THE TYRION & TECLIS OMNIBUS •

William King

BOOK ONE: Blood of Aenarion

BOOK TWO: Sword of Caldor

BOOK THREE: Bane of Malekith

• WARRIORS OF THE CHAOS WASTES •

C L Werner

BOOK ONE: Wulfrik

BOOK TWO: Palace of the Plague Lord

BOOK THREE: Blood for the Blood God

• KNIGHTS OF THE EMPIRE •

Various authors

BOOK ONE: Hammers of Ulric

BOOK TWO: Reiksguard

BOOK THREE: Knight of the Blazing Sun

• WARLORDS OF KARAK EIGHT PEAKS •

Guy Haley & David Guymer

BOOK ONE: Skarsnik

BOOK TWO: Headtaker

BOOK THREE: Thorgrim

• SKAVEN WARS: THE BLACK PLAGUE TRILOGY •

C L Werner

BOOK ONE: Dead Winter

BOOK TWO: Blighted Empire

BOOK THREE: Wolf of Sigmar

Discover more stories set in the Age of Sigmar from Black Library

~ THE AGE OF SIGMAR ~

THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 1

An omnibus by various authors

THE REALMGATE WARS: VOLUME 2

An omnibus by various authors

CONTENTS

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer

THE VAULTS OF WINTER

Principal Characters and Places

Prologue

WINTER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

SPRING

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

SUMMER

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Epilogue

TEARS OF ISHA

Principal Characters

AUTUMN

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

WINTER

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

THE COUNCIL OF BEASTS

Principal Characters

WINTER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

SPRING

Chapter Twenty-Three

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Gods and Mortals’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

THE VAULTS OF WINTER

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS AND PLACES

LOCRIMERE

Finavar the Darkling Prince

Jokleel younger brother of Finavar

Mormo and Mauro Finavar’s scouts

Gole tiny forest spirit that stalks Finavar

Thuralin old, crippled follower of Finavar

Alhena Thuralin’s daughter

Caorann Finavar’s oldest friend

Lord Beldeas highborn; Warden of Locrimere

Lady Ordaana highborn; wife of Beldeas

Death’s-head forest spirit that accompanies Ordaana

Hauran Quillwort Lord Beldeas’s advisor

Eremon captain of the Locrimere kinbands

Ilbrec guardsman

Elaeus elderly healer

THE SILVAM DALE

Sephian revered waywatcher

Princess Asphalia highborn, ageing spellweaver

Prince Elatior the Enchanter; highborn, ruler of the Silvam Dale

Isére Sephian’s former lover

Arthron guardian of the Wilding Tree

Tethea guard; deceased

ARIEL’S COURT

Ariel the Queen in the Wood

Laelia handmaiden; powerful mage

Khoron Belidae Ariel’s poet and counsellor

Naieth revered prophetess

Othu Naieth’s owl

Lord Alioth young noble, brother of Salicis

Lord Salicis young noble, brother of Alioth

THE KING’S GLADE

Orion Ariel’s Consort-King

Atolmis the Hunter High Priest of Kurnous

Olachas priest of Kurnous

Karioth priest of Kurnous

Ilaruss priest of Kurnous

Sélva priest of Kurnous

THE BRÚIDD (THE COUNCIL OF BEASTS)

Sativus forest spirit; resembles a great, noble stag

Adanhu forest spirit; resembles an enormous tree

Amphion forest spirit; resembles a great eagle

Drys forest spirit; resembles an enormous tree

The Wrach Keeper of the Dark Paths; the Blind Guide

Zephyr forest spirit; resembles a playful child

Merula forest spirit; resembles an enormous toad

Usnarr forest spirit; resembles a white wolf

Nembus forest spirit; resembles a horned serpent

BLOOD-KIN

Ghorgus Four-legs lord of the Blood-kin

Belakhor the Unseen bray-shaman

Arghob Blood-kin warrior

Morgharon Blood-kin warrior

THE VALE OF FINCARA (TURAS-ALVA)

Lord Cyanos ‘King’ of the alvaír

Elpenor alvaír warrior

Síngas alvaír warrior

THE KINDRED OF ARUM TOR

Prince Haldus Warhawk Rider; Lord of Arum Tor

Clorana Haldus’s daughter

BRANCHWRAITHS

Drycha

Liris

Melusine

THE DAEMON

Alkhor

DRAGONS

Tanos

Tamarix

HIGH ELVES

Aestar Eltanin high elf mage

Derasa Aestar’s eagle mount

OTHERS

Gavra and Aefa figures of asrai mythology

Nuin great eagle, ridden by Prince Haldus

Skólann great eagle, ridden by Orion

LOCATIONS

The Sínann-Torr prehistoric dolmens and sacred stones

Torr-Goholoth one of the Sínann-Torr

Torr-Marloch one of the Sínann-Torr

Torr-Cirrus one of the Sínann-Torr

Torr-Ildána one of the Sínann-Torr

Torr-Dobár one of the Sínann-Torr

The Tenderfoot Way entry to the Wrach’s ‘Dark Paths’

The Council Glade halls of the Everqueen

Cerura Carn mound of petrified branches near the Council Glade; a place of contemplation

Drúne Fell large hill, south of the Council Glade; the Lost Mountain

The Iuliss Vale kingdom in the south of the forest

The Idolan sacred lake at the heart of Locrimere, surrounded by a broad meadow

The Eomain Tarn mythical mountain pool, supposedly in the foothills of the Grey Mountains

The Wilding Tree enormous old hawthorn tree in the Silvam Dale, warped by asrai magic

Arum Tor lofty kingdom located in the Pine Crags

Cáder Donann highest peak of the Arum Tor; home of Prince Haldus

The Ìobrass Lord Cyanos’s ‘Great Work’

Líath-Mael river, of no fixed location

Coeth-Mara kingdom in the south of the forest

Dhioll Hollow location of the Torr-Ildána

The Gyre the Wrach’s ‘Dark Paths’

PROLOGUE

A daemon dropped from the sky. Its misshapen flesh was swaddled in a cloud of flies, smoke and carrion crows and as it fell it attempted to right itself, thrashing great, ragged wings and belching out a garbled laugh. The laughter grew, the rolling mass of flies blocked the sun and, for a moment, it seemed as though the daemon’s mirth alone would be enough to arrest its fall. Then the whole tangled mess was wrenched onto its back, revealing a second shape, clinging to its tattered gut: an enormous eagle, carrying a silver-clad rider. The bird was as torn and broken as the daemon. As they fell they painted the clouds with their blood, laughing and screeching as they plunged towards the forest below.

The silver-clad rider had the bird’s reins in one hand and a lance in the other. His armour was as ragged as the eagle’s flesh and his face was pale with agony, but as they plummeted the rider yanked desperately at the eagle’s reins and the bird managed another beat of its broken wings.

The struggling creatures lurched back up into the sky, narrowly missing the trees and looping back into the clouds. As they rose, the rider jammed his lance into the daemon’s sagging head. Glistening limbs exploded from the wound, edged with talons that rattled down against the rider’s armour. He calmly shook his head and began hacking at them with a longsword. The blade flashed and fell, sparkling in the morning light, and the eagle pounded its wings even harder, sensing that victory was finally within reach.

As they spiralled back up into the clouds, the daemon’s laughter grew hysterical.

The rider hesitated, lowering his blade and looking around; straining to find the source of the creature’s mirth.

From where he sat there was no way he could have seen the daemon’s sword: a slab of rusted iron, nestling in the bird’s chest feathers. His first warning was the explosion of blood that washed over him as the sword erupted from between the eagle’s shoulder blades.

They dropped again, faster this time, with the rider still hacking at the daemon’s rippling flesh.

A few seconds later they smashed through the canopy of trees and the daemon’s laughter was silenced. The force of the impact rippled through the ancient boughs, toppling trunks, scattering deer and filling the valley with dust.

Then there was nothing but echoes and the screaming of crows.

Aestar Eltanin drooled blood across his breastplate as he tried to rise. His legs trembled but managed to hold him as he clutched his stomach and moaned in pain. He looked down at his ruined armour and shook his head, then his eyes widened as he recalled his mount.

‘Derasa,’ he gasped, squinting through the forest gloom. He was in a small clearing, bordered by an impenetrable wall of bracken and brushwood. The air was thick with the stench of rotting flesh and Aestar grimaced as he looked for the source of the smell. There was a brackish, ominous-looking pool at the centre of the clearing but his gaze moved straight past it to a column of smoke and flies, rising lazily in the south. He tried to move but the thicket resisted. The tendrils wrapped around his shins and sent him crashing to the ground.

‘Derasa,’ he called, louder. His face was as long and elegant as the rest of him, but as he scoured the trees for his mount, his features grew ugly with fear. He realised it was not just the stink making the air so heavy, there was something else: malice, pouring down on him from all sides.

Aestar peered beneath the ancient yews, noticing how odd they were. The branches were twisted and claw-like, bristling with thorns as long as his fingers. There was no breeze, but the claws were creaking and moving; straining towards him.

He climbed to his feet, taking a metal sceptre from his belt and using it to free his legs. The knotted tendrils resisted, tightening their grip until he snapped them. As the broken thicket fell away it withdrew, worm-like, into the ground.

The sense of anger grew.

‘What kind of forest is this?’ His voice was muffled and flat and there was no reply. Aestar muttered a long, sinuous word and raised his sceptre. The rod was entwined with coils of silver filigree and at its end was a gleaming eagle’s head, holding in its metal beak a sapphire the size of a fist. Aestar blinked as the stone pulsed into life, throwing back the shadows and bathing the trees in cool, blue light.

There was a huge, tawny shape lying crumpled on the far side of the clearing. Aestar groaned as he saw his mount, broken and lifeless, her chest punctured by the shattered remains of a yew. He hurried towards the eagle but pain exploded in his left leg and he fell to his knees, sinking into the stagnant pond. He looked down and saw blood pouring from a deep wound in his thigh. For a moment, the pain of it confused him. As he watched the water turning red he imagined dozens of tiny shapes peering up at him: a bizarre collection of human, avian and insect faces, each no bigger than his thumb and carrying tiny, barbed weapons. They vanished as soon as he tried to focus on them and when he thrust his hand into the water he caught nothing but pallid weeds. He cursed and hobbled on, reaching the bird’s side and placing a hand on her blackened feathers.

‘Derasa,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘Live.’ He allowed his head to fall gently against her noble brow. ‘Live.’ She was already growing cold, but he kept repeating his plea all the same, unable to accept the truth. He knew he should move on, continue the fight, but he could not. As branches and leaves continued to land around him, Aestar remained motionless at the eagle’s side, paralysed by grief.

The snap of breaking wood dragged him from his reverie. He looked up to see movement in the trees: a flash of pallid green. Aestar’s expression hardened as an enormous, sagging face grinned at him through the trees.

‘Alkhor!’ he bellowed, wrenching himself from the eagle’s side and limping off through the bracken.

There was a crash as the daemon turned and fled, dragging its tattered wings through the forest and letting out a gurgling laugh as it vanished from view.

Aestar channelled his outrage through the head of his sceptre. A column of blue flame tore through the trees. ‘You’re mine!’ he cried, lurching through the mass of branches and roots.

The giggling daemon replied by pointing its huge, rusted sword at him. Disease poured from the pitted iron, twisting branches to create a corridor of blackened decay. Roots shrivelled, leaves withered and thousands of flaccid grubs erupted from the earth. The whole rotting mess hurtled towards Aestar with the force of a landslide.

Maggots and rotting vegetation smashed into Aestar. He tried to leap aside, but his wounded leg gave way and he fell again, rolling awkwardly into a steep defile and landing face down in a reeking brook. The ground shifted and bubbled as the corruption spread. Flies poured into his mouth, crows pecked at his face and filthy water flooded his wounds. He rolled onto his back, moaning and stabbing his sceptre into the mud, filling the gulley with fire.

Flies became dust and crows became smoke as Aestar’s fire met the daemon’s rot head-on. He rose to his feet, shrouded in light, numinous with fury and howling. ‘You are ended!’ He wiped the muck from his face and lifted his chin. ‘You are dead! I will crush your rotten heart.’

More laughter greeted his words, but as the daemon turned and ploughed on through the trees Aestar saw its torn wings pounding uselessly and realised how close he was to the truth. The daemon’s movements were erratic and pained. The combined assault of Aestar and his brothers had left it horribly wounded. He allowed himself a grim smile as he staggered off in pursuit, splashing awkwardly through the knee-deep water. His brothers had died. Hundreds of his kin had lain down their lives so that he might reach this point and none of their deeds would go forgotten. As he hobbled after the daemon Aestar swore an oath: he would survive. He would return home. After all these long years he would finally set sail for Ulthuan. He would tell the keepers of the White Tower how fiercely their students had fought; how bravely they had died. He would tell the Lords of Hoeth how he had tracked down this evil and cut it from the world.

Using roots as a ladder, he climbed from the gulley and raised his sceptre higher, throwing blue light deeper into the forest. ‘I have you,’ he muttered, catching another glimpse of the hulking shape. He scrambled on through the trees, but the daemon’s sickness was spreading. Clouds of spores were pooling beneath the eaves, blight was washing over the bracken and a wall of emerald smoke was rolling towards him.

Aestar placed a hand over his mouth and plunged on. As he ran, he called out another spell, pulling back the fumes with his sceptre. The air only cleared momentarily, but it was long enough for the mage to see another vast shape hurtling towards him from the daemon’s sword: dozens of crows, slicing through the smoke, filling the air with their scornful din. He raised his hands as they slammed into him. Most died, hitting him with such force their necks broke, but others remained alive, pecking at his face, clawing at his arms and beating their wings furiously against his armour.

‘What is the use?’ he roared, swinging at the birds and trying to stagger on. ‘Why prolong this when I have already…?’ Aestar’s words faltered as he saw movement to his right. ‘Who’s there?’ he gasped, struggling to free himself from the thrashing wings. There was no reply, but as he fought Aestar saw more shapes to his left: darting, sinuous shadows, moving at incredible speed.

‘What is this place?’ he cried, slamming his staff into the soil. More blinding light erupted from the sceptre and for a second the birds hung motionless in the air, their feathers rippling with flames. Then the light ceased and the birds dropped to the ground. The smell of cooking meat filled the air.

Aestar forgot his prey and stared into the darkness. ‘Who is that? Are you mortal?’ He stepped from the path, straining to make out the vague shapes. It was hard to be sure in the shifting smoke, but it seemed that the trees themselves were leaning towards him. No, not trees. These were giants of some kind, with tall, knotted coronets and lichened claws. The mage shook his head in confusion and redirected his light, trying to make out the towering figures in more detail. As his blue flame pierced the gloom the spectres evaporated, leaving nothing but vague shadows, and even they disappeared as he limped closer.

Before he had time to investigate further, pain exploded in Aestar’s back and he tumbled onto the soft, mossy earth. He rolled to one side, barely dodging a hammer-blow from one of the daemon’s enormous, rotting fists. ‘Fool,’ he muttered to himself, climbing painfully into the branches of a tree as the daemon leapt after him.

Alkhor’s enormous grin loomed from the shadows, preceded by a torrent of blighted leaves and noxious, fly-laden fumes. ‘I can still taste them,’ he boomed, allowing his six-foot tongue to flop from his mouth, drooling saliva across his pockmarked chins. ‘Your brothers’ bones in my gut.’ He gurgled with laughter and tugged at a sagging wound in his belly. To Aestar’s horror, the crimson innards parted to reveal a grey intestinal loop, stretched around part of a skull. ‘Is this your younger brother, or the elder one? Neither have much to say for themselves.’ The daemon’s laughter became more hysterical. ‘I don’t know if I can stomach much more of them.’

The daemon’s rot oozed across the ground and spread quickly up the tree in which Aestar was perched. The bark mouldered and peeled away and the trunk let out a low creak. Aestar jabbed his sceptre towards Alkhor, wrenching light from the gemstone and hurling it at the daemon.

Alkhor’s laughter became a choking cough and as it slumped against the trees they splintered, dropping the daemon onto its back and sending branches spinning into the air.

As the daemon crashed to the ground, Aestar felt his own perch start to give way. He leapt from the branches, landed on his injured leg and let out an agonised howl.

Alkhor tried to sit and point its battered sword at Aestar, but as it moved more trees collapsed and the daemon fell back, gurgling in annoyance as a branch knifed up through its throat, sticking out through its trembling chins like a horn.

Aestar saw his chance and swung his sceptre like a club, smashing it down into the daemon’s face. The silver eagle’s head sank easily into Alkhor’s flesh and Aestar’s magic flared even brighter.

Alkhor began to spasm and thrash on the ground, loosing its sword, shaking the trees with its vast bulk and filling the air with the sound of its fists drumming against the soil.

Aestar nodded with satisfaction as he kicked the sword into the brambles. ‘You are not worth one ounce of those you murdered.’ He jammed the sceptre deeper and his voice became gentle; pitying, almost. ‘Their lights could never be dimmed by such a one as you.’ Smoke started to pour from the daemon’s tar-black eyes. ‘All that they were, all that you destroyed, will be remade anew, and when I face them again I…’

His words trailed off as he sensed movement behind. Keeping the sceptre embedded in the daemon’s head, he looked back over his shoulder.

‘By the gods,’ he cried, feeling the strength go from his legs.

The shadows had spawned a vision: a beautiful noblewoman, with diamond-bright eyes and armour almost identical to his own. She smiled at him and he laughed in shock and relief. ‘Who are you?’ he cried.

She continued to smile as she stepped closer. ‘I am the forest,’ she replied.

Aestar frowned in confusion, as he realised that she was not alone.

The noblewoman was accompanied by a creaking, animated grove of wooden daemons, clad in thick, ridged bark and vicious, thorny spikes. Their gnarled flesh was inscribed with spiralling runes and as they approached, they opened their beak-like mouths and revealed long, sharpened branches, like the fangs of a wildcat.

Aestar was speechless with shock. He staggered back, shaking his head and leaving his sceptre embedded in the daemon. He realised that the noblewoman had vanished and where she had been standing there was now another one of the wooden spectres.

Aestar’s disbelief grew as the wooden creatures started to sing. No recognisable words came from their knotted throats, just the dry rattle of wind, muttering through the leaves of an old tree.

‘Wait,’ he said as they jerked and lurched towards him, their song growing more urgent. ‘Understand. This creature must be banished. I must kill it, or–’ He grunted in shock as the nearest of the monsters pierced his stomach with a branch–like limb.

‘I have to destroy its flesh,’ he tried to say, but blood was pouring from his mouth. He dropped to his knees, skewered by the branch. ‘I must avenge my brothers.’

Countless more creatures flooded from the darkness. They lifted Aestar like a hog on a spit, deaf to his gurgled cries. Dozens more hurried past and punctured the daemon with their twisted limbs, lifting it from the ground with ease. Then, once their victims were secure, they hauled them off through the forest, rushing through the trees with an odd, juddering gait.

Aestar continued shouting as they raced through the forest, begging them to let him finish his work, but Alkhor simply laughed. After a while other beings joined the parade: small, flitting creatures of gossamer and light, creeper-trailing moths and dragonflies with malicious, humanoid faces. Aestar realised that these were the creatures of his imagination – the shapes he had glimpsed in the pool and between the trees. ‘My mind has gone,’ he croaked, as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness. His thoughts began to drift as pain and blood loss overwhelmed him. The tiny, luminous beings swarmed closer and he imagined they were the souls of his brothers, come to demand justice. ‘I will end it,’ he groaned, straining to free himself. ‘I promise you.’

The creatures carrying him sensed his movement and jabbed another serrated limb through his armour, piercing his right shoulder and eliciting another howl of pain.

After several more minutes of agonising jolting and lurching, the forest daemons carried their captives into a small, steep-sided valley, with a crimson circle of beech trees at its centre.

Aestar was slipping in and out of consciousness, but as they neared the centre of the hollow he saw that the trees surrounded a dolmen: a trio of broad, black stones, scored with an intricate circular rune. He noticed also that beneath the stones was a deep, ragged hole. It looked as though the earth had exploded, tearing up through the turf to create a trench. He looked over at his enemy and saw that Alkhor was in great pain. The sceptre was still embedded in the daemon’s face and the magic bound within it was gradually causing Alkhor to shrivel and diminish. Its grotesque frame had already shrunk to half its former size and its lurid green flesh had faded to a pale, ashen grey.

‘I have to finish my work,’ croaked Aestar as the creatures lowered him into the hole beneath the stones. ‘The daemon’s soul will endure,’ he said, as he thudded into the grave. ‘I must send it back to the abyss.’ The creatures of bark and thorn gave no reply and turned their attention to the smouldering daemon, dropping it down beside Aestar in the hole. For a second, he thought he might have a chance to grab the sceptre and finish what he had begun, but before he could do so, the tree spirits wrenched the silver staff from the daemon’s head and passed it quickly back through their ranks, handling it gingerly with their crooked, brittle fingers.

‘No!’ Aestar tried to cry, but claustrophobia caused his breath to come in short, shallow gasps. He clawed at the soft earth. ‘I have not finished!’

The monsters gave no reply as they formed a circle around the hole and began to sing in the same sinister, creaking voices they had used earlier.

Alkhor dragged its ruined flesh closer to Aestar, pawing him with one of its atrophied, claw-like hands. ‘They mean to bind us together.’ Flies and drool fell from its mouth. ‘They sense your love for me.’ The daemon’s laughter grew wilder. ‘Do you promise to take care of me?’

Aestar whined with impotent fury and tried to grab Alkhor’s neck. His strength was gone and he had barely touched the daemon’s face before he fell back again.

As the wooden creatures continued to sing, Aestar saw that tendrils of ground-ivy were pouring down into the hole.

‘Why don’t they just kill us?’ he groaned.

The daemon’s laughter stopped and it shuffled even closer, so that Aestar could feel its rancid breath on his cheek. ‘Can’t you hear their song? Killing us would be wrong. It would unbalance their blessed idyll.’ The daemon laughed again as the ivy spread over its face. ‘They’re unsure what we are, so they’re going to give us to the forest. These old stones have some kind of power. They don’t understand it, but they intend to use it as a prison. The words of their song might not be to your–’ The daemon’s words were cut short as ivy poured into its mouth, but it continued to shake with laughter.

Aestar struggled desperately as the ivy pressed down over his face, but he only succeeded in dislodging the crumbling walls of the hole. Despair gripped him. Whatever the monsters believed, Alkhor would not be bound by a few old stones, whatever magic they contained. The daemon would never age or starve and eventually it would find a way out. Horror thrilled through his veins as he realised the extent of his failure. He tried to scream, but as he opened his mouth soil flooded in and silenced him.

The monsters’ song droned on. For a while Aestar could still see sunlight overhead, but then something else started to spread over the hole, plunging him into darkness.

The last shreds of light vanished and Aestar prayed to his gods, waiting for the blessed mercy of suffocation. Unfortunately, even in death his trials were not over. As his life slipped away, Aestar endured one final indignity. His final breath had barely left his mouth when he felt the daemon enter his thoughts and begin to explore, picking through his memories like a crow at a corpse.

WINTER

Gaurach-Dúin

The Season of Ice

Stillness

CHAPTER ONE

Winter was fading. As Sephian ran he felt all the fury of spring, drumming in his pulse. The first breath of a new year was already straining against the cold, filling the trees with hunger; fanning the flames of their wrath. It was a dangerous time to be abroad but Sephian felt no relief in his homecoming. As he hurried through the shifting dark he grimaced, glimpsing the gaudy lights of the Silvam Dale up ahead. It had only been three months since he last saw his home, and the thought of mingling with his kindred again, so soon, filled him with dread.

People. He shuddered, already picturing their ridiculous incantations and their smiling, pointless deceits. He assured himself that his visit would be brief. He would convey his message and flee, back to the mute, honest violence of the trees. More than ever now he craved their company. The great conjunction was approaching: Ostaliss, the Even-Night, when the forest shuddered back into life, filled with dreams of sunlight and blood. What more beautiful, exhilarating moment was there to be alive? He cursed his luck. As the spirits of day and night approached each other, preparing for their passionate, vernal embrace, he would be trapped in airless, enclosed rooms and smoky, crowded halls.

He reached the entrance to the valley and dropped to his knees, weak with pain and exhaustion. He had bound his arm with a poultice of dried leaves and the blood flow had lessened, but his head was still dangerously light. He pressed his palms against the steel-hard ground and muttered a prayer; begging the ghosts of the earth to sustain him a little longer.

After a few seconds, the earth began to shift and roll.

Sephian held his breath as the path closed in around him. Branches cracked and groaned as they crawled over the soil, reaching hungrily for his trembling limbs. Rather than leaves, they were clad in scraps of skin and hair – the remnants of last year’s victims. Sephian waited as long as he dared, feeling the first scratch of thorns against his skin, then he lurched to his feet and ran on.

The bloodstained branches reached after him for a moment, grasping and claw-like, then they withdrew into the shadows.

A long, winding greensward led him into the dale, canopied by silver birch trees that gleamed like bones against the darkness. As he passed beneath their naked branches he listened for a voice, a sign that they would forgive him yet another return to society.

He heard nothing and shook his head. Years of watching the forest had honed his instincts. He could feel its displeasure as clearly as the pain of his wound.

He noticed lights pulsing in the shadows: tiny spirits, ignited by the approach of spring. Sephian eyed them with envy, craving the freedom they flaunted so joyously, then, with a sigh, he approached a pale arch at the far end of the avenue. The gateway to his kindred’s shame; the realm of the Enchanter, Prince Elatior.

Sentries guarded the gate, silent, sombre and hidden in shadow. They made no move to question Sephian as he entered. He had already walked past them when he realised how odd that was. He had made no attempt to conceal himself. Why did they not stop him, or at least greet him? He paused, looking back at the pale arch, trying to discern the figures that watched over it. Then he shrugged and moved on, hurrying beneath another tunnel of plaited branches and heading for the halls of the prince.

Elatior weaved his spells beneath the roots of a sprawling goliath known as the Wilding Tree. Sephian grimaced as he approached it. What had begun life as a cruel, bristling hawthorn had been neutered and stifled by centuries of brutal charms. Prince Elatior had bound its heart, creating a living, hate-filled citadel; a memorial to his arrogance. Sephian could barely discern a trunk amidst its writhing, bastard growth.

Such conceit, he thought, placing his hands against the tortured bark and looking up through its branches. The Wilding Tree towered over him, brooding and mutant; a vile hybrid of thorn and leaf. Beech and willow had been threaded through its crown and Sephian grimaced at the sight of such cruelty.

In recent years, the Wilding Tree had grown taciturn, nursing its wounds in bitter silence. Only at the culmination of Prince Elatior’s most invasive rites would it cry out – cursing its captors with a brittle, outraged voice.

Sephian placed his hands on the knotted wood and smiled. However much the Enchanter might convince himself otherwise, Sephian knew that the Wilding Tree was only biding its time.

A day of reckoning would come.

At the base of the trunk roots fanned out across the earth, framing a gaping hole. There were no steps, just a void in the loamy soil. Sephian approached the hole then paused, noticing that he had gone unchallenged for a second time. ‘Arthron?’ he called into the shadows. ‘Does the dale sleep so heavily? Will no one welcome me home?’

Shadows rippled together like ink in water, forming a tall, slender figure – a hooded sentry with a longbow slung over his shoulder. ‘The kindreds have gathered below, watcher.’ He spoke in formal, singsong tones. ‘The princess is amongst us. She is wearing the shades of the past, in celebration of the coming thaw. The forest is blessed by her radiance.’

There was something odd in Arthron’s voice – a stiffness that added to Sephian’s sense of dread. He was used to the toadying descriptions of the old princess, but why did Arthron not use his name? Why did he address him as a stranger?

Sephian stepped closer, trying to discern the sentry’s face in the gloom, but Arthron shuffled awkwardly and averted his gaze.

‘I see,’ replied Sephian, confused by the guard’s discomfort. He turned back to the hole in the knotted roots and looked down into the darkness, feeling a vague, nameless fear. What was waiting for him down there? He cursed his own ridiculousness. However much he despised it, this abomination was his home. He nodded at Arthron, ignored the sentry’s distant gaze, and stepped into the void.

The tree cradled him in the darkness. Sephian had only dropped a few feet before he was caught. Thin, needle-like tendrils prickled against his face, and thick, creaking roots moved beneath him, rolling like waves. He was weightless in the arms of the Wilding Tree. The roots groaned and cracked as they carried him deep below the earth.

Sephian watched vast, hulking shadows roll past him. The magic of Prince Elatior’s magi had sunk deep. The tree’s roots were barely anchored to the physical world. Strange scenes flickered into view: faces and limbs, trapped into the shifting mass, ghosts of the past. Such distortion of time and nature filled Sephian with sadness. As the roots finally let him go, he hurried off down a gloomy avenue, eager to complete his errand as quickly as possible.

After passing through a slender archway, Sephian stepped out beneath a domed vault of root and thorn. The chamber had been summoned into being over two thousand years ago and over the centuries it had silvered and petrified. He looked up to see frozen veins of starlight snaking through the wood, filling the air with warmth and movement. Golden boughs of dried mistletoe glittered overhead, pulsing with the light of a forgotten sunrise, but, despite all of this, Sephian hurried on, racing through the antechambers, scowling under his hood, disgusted by wonders designed to astound.

He passed through another room, filled with towering columns of roots. They spiralled over his head, twisting into ephemeral, ever-changing statues. Today they had assumed the forms of gods: the snarling, stag-headed lord of the hunt, Kurnous; the laughing trickster, Loec; and the mother of life herself, Isha, wearing a gown of ivy and a circlet of shimmering fireflies.

Sephian swept on into the Tourmaline Hall, a vast chamber of shifting hues, in which hundreds of his kindred had gathered. The air was thick with herb-scented wood smoke and the pungent aroma of roasting game, and there were more fireflies here, drifting through the darkness in delicate cages of silk thread, painting the assembled crowd in columns of hazy light before plunging them back into pools of darkness.

Long, pale faces rippled into view as Sephian hurried past, fixing him with anxious glances and whispering his name behind delicate fingers: sorcerers, all of them, both lowborn and high, and all unwilling to meet his gaze. The few who were unable to avoid him nodded briefly before moving on and edging gratefully back into the shadows.

At the far side of the hall Sephian saw flashes of light. He frowned, unsure what he was seeing. It looked like the flicker of silent, distant lightning, trapped beneath the earth. The flares blinked across a circle of awed faces and Sephian’s heart sank. Princess Asphalia must indeed be present. Such a visit was rare, but always induced the most revolting, sycophantic displays. Perhaps this might be enough to explain the strange greeting he had received? Asphalia was adored and feared in equal measure and her strange magic rarely passed without incident. He stepped closer, noticing again how even the most familiar of his kindred shied away from his approach. Sephian had no desire to be part of their games, but such open hostility seemed odd.

Finally, he saw a face that he was sure would not turn away.

‘Isére!’ he called, conscious of how his voice rang out around the hall. Every conversation faltered as he rushed towards his former lover.

She smiled at his approach, but with little conviction. Her cinnamon locks were plaited with the feathers of a sparrowhawk and tied tightly back, hanging down between her ivory shoulders and giving her features an oddly severe appearance. Her cool, blue-grey eyes glittered in the shifting light and as Sephian pulled her close he realised that she had been crying.

‘Home so soon,’ she muttered, after a brief, chaste kiss.

Sephian shook his head, confused by her coolness. ‘Why does everyone look at me like a stranger tonight?’

Isére laughed. It was a sad sound. ‘What are you, if not a stranger?’ She shook her head as she studied him. His long, hangdog features were locked in their usual mournful expression. ‘Since when did you crave conversation? Surely that one sentence has exhausted your supply of words for at least a year?’

Sephian’s frown deepened. ‘Does every thought need to be spoken?’ He looked around in disgust. ‘Is it so bad to keep one’s own counsel?’

Isére shook her head in disbelief. She waved at the flickering lights around the princess. ‘Do not worry yourself, you’re just not the most exciting guest tonight.’ She turned away and looked anxiously at a distant silhouette.

Sephian felt his stomach knot as he realised it was her current lover.

‘You must learn a little humility,’ continued Isére, ignoring his scowl. ‘The forest does not revolve around you, however much time you spend praying to it. You may be the Enchanter’s favourite watcher, but you are as lowborn as me, Sephian. We still share that much.’

Sephian was too angry to speak for a second. Then he shook his head, trying to rid himself of painful memories. ‘I have news,’ he said, grabbing a necklace from around his neck and holding it up to her face. It consisted of several loops of gleaming, yellow incisors. ‘Five of these are new this evening,’ he said, rattling the teeth. ‘Harvested less than three miles from this spot.’

Isére frowned. ‘Outsiders, three miles from the Silvam Dale?’ There was a note of disbelief in her voice. ‘Surely a guard would have–’

‘It was Tethea’s corpse that alerted me to the trail.’ His voice faltered as he recalled the scene. ‘It took me a while to recognise her.’

Isére’s eyes widened. ‘Tethea is gone?’

Sephian muttered a prayer and looked up at the vaulted roots of the Wilding Tree. ‘Not gone, Isére, evergreen. A brave young handmaiden for Isha.’

Isére saw the bloody poultice on Sephian’s arm and blanched. ‘You’re hurt.’

Sephian shrugged.

‘You must speak to Princess Asphalia,’ she said, surprising him by gently stroking the poultice. Her eyes were suddenly full of pity. ‘She will give you an audience, I’m sure of it. You deserve that much.’

Sephian’s sense of unease grew. You deserve that much. What an odd choice of words. He looked over at the flickering lights. The princess was famously capricious. It was never wise to predict her mood. ‘Well, my news is important…’

‘She will see you,’ insisted Isére, leading him across the hall.

The princess was a spent force. Sephian had suspected it before most, but her powerlessness had become an undeniable fact over the last few years. Her decrepitude did nothing to deter the sycophants, though. As Sephian made his way through the simpering crowds, he felt as though he were wading through sap.

As he reached the princess he saw that she was floating several feet above the ground. Her arms were raised over her head and she was surrounded by tendrils of light, and the drifting skeletons of leaves. The dazzling shapes made it almost impossible to discern her outline. Blue wisps of light rippled around her naked body like fire, washing over the faces of her spellbound audience, and painting them with fanciful images of the past. It was an incredible display of power, but Sephian was no more fooled than any of the other spectators. Princess Asphalia was ancient and her power had long since deserted her. Her delusion was maintained by a row of pitiful figures slumped in the shadows – Elatior’s most powerful sorcerers, skewered by the tree’s grasping roots. Dozens of them, threading their magic through the princess, as their own bodies were slowly being torn apart. It was a gruesome charade, fuelled by terror, but Sephian understood the reasoning. If the princess’s happiness were not maintained at all times, Prince Elatior would hear of it. His response would be brief. Brief and bloody.

Despite himself, Sephian was beguiled by the display. Despite their agony, the magi had woven a powerful glamour. He saw diaphanous, rippling pictures of spring and new growth and even the wild hunts of the summer. He noticed with embarrassment that many of the scenes involved him. In recent years, he had become Prince Elatior’s most trusted advisor. His calm, earnest determination had earned him the respect of the entire kindred, if not the love. He knew that tales of his tireless wandering had spread even further, to the other kindreds of the forest. As he thought of this, Sephian felt suddenly amazed at the cool reception he had received.

‘Princess Asphalia,’ he cried, louder than he intended. ‘I bring news.’

The princess lowered her eyes and dropped from the air. The lights settled over her sagging flesh as a shimmering cloak.

The assembled crowd turned to face Sephian, but he saw that none of them were surprised by his interruption. They were all expecting him.

‘Sephian,’ said the princess, turning her incandescent eyes on him. There was a mixture of emotions on her lined, regal face: eagerness, excitement and something else, something quite unexpected.

She’s afraid of me, Sephian realised.

‘What news do you bring?’ she asked, keeping her voice flat and neutral.

Sephian hesitated, still shocked by the fear in her eyes. ‘I-I have seen outsiders, Princess, to the south.’

Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd and the princess looked around at her subjects with a wry smile. ‘And is that so unusual, watcher?’

Sephian turned on the sneering crowd and noticed how they flinched from his gaze. What do they see in me, he thought? Despite all their fawning and hand-wringing the asrai assembled around the princess were the most noble in the Silvam Dale. Few of them would have even acknowledged one so lowly as him before; now they were cowering before him. What has changed, he wondered?

Realising that the princess was still awaiting his reply, Sephian tried to calm himself and continue, reminding himself that the sooner his message was understood, the sooner he could leave. ‘Outsiders have reached the borders of the Silvam Dale,’ he announced. ‘Cloven ones. Creatures of Chaos. They have already slain Tethea and perhaps others.’ He shook his head, shocked by his own words. ‘The enemy has followed the secret ways to our home. They have navigated the darkest paths. They have discovered routes that should be known only to us.’

For the first time that evening, Sephian saw surprise on someone’s face. The princess’s odd expression was replaced by one of confusion. She turned to a figure at her side – an ancient silver-haired mage, clutching a long birch-wood staff. The mage was wearing a cloak of white ermine and a bleached, wooden mask that completely covered her head. The mask was carved to resemble the mournful, heart-shaped face of a barn owl.

‘That cannot be,’ stated the mage, her voice muffled by the mask. ‘No one can follow our most secret ways.’ She did not look at Sephian as she contradicted him, keeping her gaze fixed on the princess. ‘The watcher knows that better than anyone. The presence of outsiders, so close to your realm, can only be the result of luck.’

Sephian stepped closer and noticed, to his amazement, that the crowd edged away from him, as though his touch might poison them. Incredibly, even the princess took a step back. He paused, losing his train of thought at the sight of such strange behaviour. Then he shook his head and continued, ignoring the white-robed mage and keeping his eyes trained on the princess. ‘Your majesty, I have encountered the beasts of Chaos many times but I have never seen them advance with such confidence. Something is wrong. I must speak to the Enchanter.’

The princess looked concerned and seemed about to reply. Then the masked figure leant close and whispered urgently into her ear. Princess Asphalia nodded, and as she listened her fear was replaced by a look of growing excitement and pride. Finally, she turned back to Sephian and beamed at him. Her eyes were blazing with a mixture of sorcery and passion. ‘We thank you for your vigilance, Sephian.’ She looked at the vast wooden ceiling. ‘The gods and I will consider your words.’ She waved across the glittering hall to a distant flight of stairs. ‘Now you should rest.’

Colour rushed into Sephian’s face as he realised he was being dismissed. ‘Princess–’ he began.

‘Please,’ insisted the princess, her voice heavy with borrowed power. ‘Leave.’

Sephian felt the weight of her words like a physical blow. He looked around for support but saw a circle of stony faces. Even Isére showed no sign of recognition as he reeled past her. It hardly surprised him to see that the vast crowd had already parted to create a wide path for him.

His desire to leave overwhelmed him. The strange, oppressive atmosphere in the chamber was unbearable. As he marched past the rows of mute faces, he had to resist the urge to break into a run.

‘Tears of Isha,’ he muttered, emerging from the tree and taking a grateful gulp of the crisp night air. ‘What is happening this evening?’ He looked up through the dense, evergreen branches of the Wilding Tree and watched the stars wheeling overhead, as though they might give him an answer.

‘You should rest, watcher.’ The voice came not from the stars, but from the shadows.

Sephian nodded, making no attempt to find Arthron in the darkness. He trod heavily beneath the boughs, feeling trapped in a waking dream. Why had Isére let him leave alone? And where was everyone? The Silvam Dale was silent and dark. At this time there should be countless, irritating lights snaking between the trees and raucous songs echoing between the branches.

Full of confusion and doubt, Sephian wandered the glades and hollows of his home. Then, as quickly as he could, he left the sorcerers of the Silvam Dale and passed back into the wilds of the forest.

He paid no attention to his route, allowing ancient, shifting paths to lead him blindly onwards. His sense of foreboding faded as he yielded to the bewildering embrace of the forest. After just a couple of hours he knew that he was hopelessly, blissfully lost and sat down to rest for a while against the shattered bole of a poplar tree.

Sephian tried to sleep, but his thoughts were restless with images from the Silvam Dale. He was haunted by the nervous glances of his kindred. ‘Even the princess,’ he muttered, shaking his head and pulling his cloak tighter. To soothe himself, he listened to the voices of the forest – the breeze bustling through the undergrowth, the creak of the leafless boughs, the patter of hungry beasts – but still his sense of foreboding grew.

When sleep came it was a skein of dark omens. First he saw an enormous oak, oozing blood from its thick bark. Then he saw a barn owl, thrashing violently in a cage of stone. Finally he saw his own face, peeling away from his skull to reveal a dark mound of shaded grass, punctured by a long, silver knife.

In the false light before dawn Sephian awoke. A familiar sound was drifting through the forest – a horn blast that sounded like the long, lowing cry of a wounded beast. He peered into the grey, bruise-like void between the trees. ‘It can’t be,’ he muttered. The sound was answered by another, identical note, and then another, until the forest rang with the sound of hunting horns.

Sephian felt his pulse quicken as he climbed to his feet. Spring was still several days away, the Wild Hunt could not be abroad so early; and yet, the evidence was all around him. As the horns grew nearer, animals began to bolt – rats, squirrels, birds and deer exploded from the darkness and scrambled past him.

He vaulted lightly up into the branches of a tree, avoiding the stampede, and peered through the darkness. Sure enough, after a few minutes he began to see movement in the distance – the gleaming white flanks of stallions, smashing through the undergrowth.

‘By the gods.’ Sephian shook his head as he saw the horses’ riders – towering giants with spirals of horn snaking from their ivy-bound hair. Their faces were as pale and beautiful as the moonlight, but their eyes burned with a dark spectral fire.

‘The horned riders.’ Sephian recognised them immediately and his voice trembled with awe. ‘Priests of Kurnous.’

He watched in stunned silence as they thundered past, but then his sense of awe began to be replaced by the same dread that had driven him from the Silvam Dale. This time, however, it was no vague, nameless fear: he knew exactly what made his breath come in short, sharp gasps.

The riders were coming for him.

Suddenly, everything that had happened that evening made sense. As the drumming of hooves filled his mind, drowning out even his thudding pulse, Sephian realised that he was the riders’ prey.

The hunt was for him.

His excitement at seeing them vanished, washed away on a wave of primal terror. This was the fear he had seen in the eyes of the princess, and all the others too. They knew. The witches of the Dale had been afraid of him because they had seen his fate.

He was marked for death.

He turned and fled, dashing through the trees, leaping from branch to branch, before dropping to the ground and sprinting across the frost. He was a watcher. Even by the standards of the asrai, he excelled in the arts of concealment, but as the riders approached, filling the forest with their dreadful din, he forgot all that he knew, smashing wildly through the paths and glades, as clumsy and noisy as an outsider.

He had glimpsed the riders before, but only from afar. Their haunts were the deeps of the forest, where even he feared to tread. Their domain was as perfidious and strange as anything in the forest and it had turned them into something more than just asrai – daemonic beings with a half a foot in the spirit world.

Sephian felt sure that he knew the reason they had singled him out. He had failed them by mingling with the sorcerers of the Dale. ‘I had to return!’ he howled as he ran. ‘I had to warn the Enchanter! But I am not like him!’

The drumming of the hooves grew nearer, approaching from several directions, and the horns grew wilder, turning from a deep moan to an otherworldly howl.

As he ran, Sephian snatched a terrified glance over his shoulder. To his horror, one of the riders was already bearing down on him. His speed was incredible and even a brief glimpse was enough to still Sephian’s heart. Both rider and beast were glistening with blood and sweat, and draped in the trophies of their previous hunts: scraps of flesh and scalp trailed behind the rider like pennants as he raised his spear and prepared to catch a new trophy. He wore a tall spiked helmet of birch bark, but his ashen face was exposed. His eyes were rolling, feral and dark.

Sephian’s fear mingled with another sensation: rage. He had done nothing to deserve the wrath of Orion’s guardians. He, above anyone else in his kindred, observed the ancient precepts. He had never so much as stepped foot in the King’s Glade. ‘You’ve made a mistake!’ he gasped, leaping to safety just seconds before the rider thundered past and slammed his spear into the ground.

Sephian had lived by his wits for as long as he could remember. He had hunted and evaded all manner of creatures in Prince Elatior’s name. ‘I am not your prey,’ he cried, swinging on a low branch and flying back in the direction of the rider. As he hurtled through the air he drew his bow and arrow in a single fluid movement, loosing a shot before vanishing into the trees on the far side of the path.

The rider stiffened in his saddle and let out a cry that had no place in the mortal realm. Sephian’s arrow was buried deep between his broad shoulder blades and as he reined in his steed, the horned giant slumped awkwardly in his saddle.

Sephian watched in horror as the rider wrenched the arrow free, without a murmur of pain.

The other riders raced towards him and he ducked beneath a fallen tree, sprinting off down a narrow, icy gulley, knowing that the stallions would be too broad to follow. As he slipped and scrambled through puddles, the horns continued to wail, seeming to come from every direction at once.

A lifetime of wandering had sharpened his senses to an almost unnatural degree. A barely perceptible rushing of air alerted him to another attack and he rolled aside, scraping his skin painfully across a clump of frozen roots, but dodging the spear that whizzed past his ear and thudded into the side of the gulley.

A figure dropped into view, just ahead, and Sephian immediately drew a bead on the horned shape rushing towards him.

Before he had chance to fire, something made him pause.

Rather than hurling his spear, the muscle-bound giant dropped to one knee and held out his hand.

Sephian stumbled and lowered his bow, confused by the hunter’s strange behaviour.

He opened his mouth to ask for an explanation, but his words twisted into a howl of frustration as thick tendrils of ivy were thrown around his arms.

Sephian cursed his own stupidity.

He had been tricked.

Gentle hands bound him with more ivy and lifted him from the ground, fastening him to the trunk of a tree. Sephian struggled to free himself but the surrounding branches coiled themselves snake-like around his legs, fixing him firmly in place.

The kneeling giant rose to his feet and stepped closer, looming out of the darkness with his hand still outstretched. Seen close up, the rider was even more unnerving. The dark leaves in his hair were actually growing from beneath his pale flesh and knotting themselves around the slender horns that emerged from behind the birch-bark helmet.

‘My leaf-liege,’ said the rider, his voice a low growl. ‘You do not remember me. I am Atolmis the Hunter. My blood is your sap. My bones are your roots.’

Sephian ceased his struggling and slumped in his bonds, confused. Leaf-liege. What does he mean?

Atolmis stepped closer, drew a blunt wooden knife and pulled open Sephian’s cloak, exposing his chest.

‘Do not be afraid.’

He jammed the knife home.

‘Through death, you will live.’

Sephian tried to reply, but hot blood was already rushing from his mouth.

Atolmis’s jaw opened to reveal long, yellow teeth.

‘Orion,’ he growled, punching the blade deeper between Sephian’s ribs.

‘I have come to make you immortal.’

CHAPTER TWO

Raven-black, Finavar slipped through the dusk. Slivers of starlight lit his way, scattered across the hoarfrost by the skeleton frames of oak, elder and ash. As he dropped from the naked boughs a column of tiny figures trailed after him, glittering playfully in his wake like motes of dust.

Finavar moved in fluid silence, settling on the ground like a dancer. His tall, sinewy frame was almost naked, apart from a long loincloth and a dark cloak bristling with thorns and burs. In his right hand he held a bone-handled sword with an intricately worked leaf-shaped blade and at his belt he carried another one of identical design. His face was hidden beneath the deep folds of his black hood, but as he stood his pale limbs flashed in the moonlight, revealing a network of beautiful, knotted tattoos.

Finavar hummed cheerfully as he studied the frozen earth. He was in a small clearing and the tracks of his enemy were unmistakable. A deep, broad line of hoof prints that marred the frost; a scar in the whiteness, ripe with the smell of corruption. He flattened himself to the ground, traced a long, elegant finger over the tracks and mouthed the words of a song. Then he nodded. ‘Thirty or so, at most.’ There was no fear in his voice, only excitement.

‘Perfect.’

Finavar’s words scattered his glittering entourage like a bank of fog. As the shapes billowed around him their miniscule forms caught the light and were revealed in more detail: some were spiny and ridge-backed, some were scaled and serpentine, but all were hazed by a blur of gossamer wings.

Finavar paid them no heed as he stood and looked around the clearing. His gaze came to rest on pair of small, slender shadows that had followed him from the trees: a pair of polecats that circled him with liquid, snake-like grace. ‘Mormo. Mauro,’ he said, bowing with mock solemnity.

The creatures looked up thoughtfully at him but gave no reply, so he continued exploring the clearing. A few feet away there was a broad, stag-headed oak, as hunched and fierce as an old boar. He stepped towards it, raising his sword as he approached the trunk. He muttered a short poem, pressed the blade carefully between the ridges of bark, then drew it back and pressed the metal to his lips, closing his eyes as he savoured the taste of the thick sap. His tall frame stiffened as the tree’s essence mingled with his own. He tilted his head back, revelling in his growing strength, and as he did so his hood fell away, revealing a bright, youthful face and a tumble of dyed orange hair.

Finavar’s almond-shaped eyes flickered as the sap spread through his body. All along his pale limbs, the tattoos rippled and flowed, as through caught in a spectral breeze. He rolled his shoulders beneath the cloak, delighting in the sensation. Then, after carefully blocking the tree’s wound with a sliver of bark, he turned on his heel and sprinted from the clearing.

The outsiders had left a trail of destruction in their wake. Finavar’s lip curled at every broken bough and splintered root. He was still young – barely sixty summers old – but he was experienced enough to know that this was unusual. Even the most lumbering brutes tried to disguise their passing, but his current prey seemed happy to be found. It was as though they were announcing their presence with a proud, guttural roar.

Fools. Did they not realise the forest was waking? Had they forgotten that spring was just days away? Once the trees had shaken off their slumber, nothing would be safe.

I must act fast, Finavar decided, before the trees rip them apart; or Thuralin spoils my fun with some tedious words of wisdom. I will be ruthless. I will be decisive. He felt a rush of joy. He knew his kinband would follow. There was adventure here. His face lit up in a smile. What else mattered?

Finavar whistled as he ran: a low, musical trill that received an identical reply from somewhere to the east. As he passed through glittering hollows and frosted glades, Finavar vanished and reappeared, as fleeting as a tree spirit, with Mormo and Mauro racing after him like a pair of extra shadows.

He emerged into a narrow, moonlit valley and crouched at the confluence of two frozen streams, sniffing the air and trying to gauge the mood of the trees. There were paths in the forest, but they could rarely be trusted and never looked the same twice. Finavar, like the rest of the asrai, had learned to hear the voice of the forest and he closed his eyes for a second, listening to the trees. Then he peered at the trail of hoof prints he was following.

‘The enemy paused here,’ he said, as the two polecats snaked out of the trees and climbed up onto his shoulders. ‘They waited by the edge of the frozen water, then hurried on, leaving that channel of shattered ice that leads to the trees on the northern bank.’ As the polecats edged closer to his face, following the direction of his gaze, Finavar frowned. ‘They took just the route I would have chosen if I was seeking the fastest way home.’

Without looking up from the ice, he sensed movement further downstream and heard a soft exhalation of breath. ‘Tired, Caorann?’ he asked, keeping his gaze fixed on the tracks and barely raising his voice above a whisper.

The figure downstream let out a deep bark of laughter. His attire was as primitive as Finavar’s – tattoos and a loincloth and little else – but that was where the similarity ended. He was almost a foot taller than Finavar, with a broad, powerful chest and arms like knotted steel. By the standards of his kindred, he was a giant. He wore no cloak, but his long hair was just as oddly coloured as Finavar’s – a mass of greasy blue locks that hung down around his large, prominent jaw. ‘Only of your humour, Fin,’ he grunted. ‘But I’m quite happy to wait as you catch your breath.’ His tone was severe, but he could only keep his face straight for a few seconds, then his face cracked into a broad grin.

Finavar laughed and looked up to study his friend’s face. Nobody called him Fin anymore.

‘They made straight for our halls,’ said Caorann, following Finavar’s gaze and guessing his thoughts.

Finavar nodded and peered across the shattered ice, rising to his feet with a pout on his face.

‘Coincidence?’ suggested Caorann, resisting the urge to comment on his friend’s ridiculous expression.

Finavar shrugged and continued pouting. As he raised his voice to address someone else, his words took on a mocking tone. ‘And what do you think, Thuralin?’ He lifted his gaze to the far side of the stream.

A third figure emerged from the shadows. He was as wiry as the first two, and covered in the same circular tattoos, but his demeanour could not have been more different. Where the others were lithe and clear-eyed, Thuralin was stooped and saturnine. He had a crumpled, heavily lined face and a thin-lipped, down-turned mouth. The right side of his face was a silvery mass of scar tissue, clearly the result of a terrible burn, and the left side was hidden behind a featureless wooden mask. His left arm was as crooked as a withered tree and his one visible eye glared out from folds of sallow skin.

He looked appalled by the world.

‘They travel through the forest as easily as we do.’ His voice was a rattling wheeze. He dropped awkwardly to one knee and grabbed a handful of rotten leaves. They oozed dark fluid as he squeezed them in his fist and tilted back his head, allowing the liquid to pour into his mouth. After a while he opened his eye and rose back to his feet. ‘They are moving fast, too. Left unchecked, they will reach Locrimere within two hours.’

Finavar replaced his pout with a smirk. ‘Left unchecked?’ He turned to Caorann with his eyebrows raised.

Thuralin’s mouth continued to hang down, but his eye glittered. ‘Alhena will doubtless be with them by now, after you gave her such a long leash, but with luck she might keep her distance until you arrive; as should the boy. You have time to gather aid before you join them.’ His voice dropped even lower. ‘That would be my advice. Lord Beldeas would–’

‘Lord Beldeas,’ said Finavar, clanging his blades together, ‘is a fool. We cannot rely on him. We are more than enough, Thuralin. There are no more than thirty of them. There are five of us. Besides, we must strike fast, or your daughter will butcher the lot of them before we can even draw blood.’

He clutched a strand of rat’s hair, plaited into his own, and stared at Thuralin, daring him to argue. Then he sprinted across the ice, moving so lightly that his feet left no mark.

Caorann paused long enough to give Thuralin an awkward shrug, then he vanished too.

Thuralin hesitated, stroking his scarred face and glaring back towards Locrimere. For a moment it seemed that he might head off in the opposite direction to the others, then he shook his head and undid a small leather pouch slung around his neck. He took out a handful of seeds, fixing his gaze on the stars overhead. ‘How can I endure this fool? Even for the sake of my child?’

He moved his mask aside, revealing a drooping mess of scar tissue. Then he shoved the seeds into his mouth and closed his eyes. After a minute or so his shoulders relaxed and the pained expression dropped from his face. ‘I must. He is her best hope. When I am gone…’ The thought was too awful for him to finish.

With a final shake of his head, he moved his mask back into place and raced after Finavar.

Finavar felt the rat’s speed mingling with the strength he had borrowed from the oak. The shackles of his flesh fell away as he joined his spirit with the forest. Wintry boughs passed by in a grey-green blur and as he ran he adopted the grace of a rodent, dashing through the undergrowth. Within twenty minutes he reached his prey and, without pausing, he swung himself lightly up into the branches of an oak tree and looked down over a broad clearing.

The sight that greeted Finavar filled him with nausea. He had hunted outsiders on countless occasions, but their presence never failed to shock him. It was not their appearance, so much; the forest was home to creatures far stranger than hulking, bull-headed oafs. No, it was something far more profound. Their thick hides stank of disease and sweat, but they were empty; as hollow as a piece of rotten bark. However bestial they might appear, with their cloven hooves and their greasy manes, these children of Chaos were nothing more than a void – a wound in the forest’s soul.

Finavar sneered as he watched them. The leader was enormous – a scarred minotaur with human skin draped over its back and head, so that a screaming man’s face was stretched over its massive brow. Blood-streaked thighbones were dangling from its belt and as it moved they filled the air with a gruesome clattering sound. It hunched over what looked like the broken stump of an old tree and Finavar crept out further to see what it was doing.

It was grunting and snorting, as though in conversation with something.

The last traces of daylight had sunk beyond the horizon but the scene was picked out by the light of the twin moons and as the minotaur moved to one side, scratching angrily at its leathery neck, Finavar glimpsed a flash of light on the stump. It was pale spectre; a tiny glimmering spirit, crouched on a lichen-covered stone. He pouted again. The rock was carved with a circular design.

Finavar turned and looked questioningly at the radiant shapes hovering behind him. The spirits had followed him from the first sign of impending violence, as eager as ever to see bloodshed. One of them drifted closer: the skeleton of a tiny serpent, a slender opalescent chain, with a leering cadaverous grin and a filthy rosehip helmet. It shone with a faint lunar glow, as did its mount – a tiny, flittering wren.

The tiny serpent sneered back at Finavar, baring its needle-like incisors and brandishing a rose-thorn sword with its tail.

‘What’s this, Gole?’ whispered Finavar, pointing at the light beneath the minotaur. ‘Do your brothers betray their own home now?’

The serpent cursed, undulated violently and waved its thorn-blade in Finavar’s face, but then it steered the wren higher and studied the scene below. As it watched the exchange the pale fire in its eye sockets pulsed brighter. It waved its thorn-blade at the other spirits and they flew to its side, flickering nervously through the air as they watched the minotaur. They were clearly as confused as Finavar and immediately began quarrelling with each other in their shrill, rippling language.

Seeing he would get no useful answer, Finavar raised a finger to his lips and let out a musical fragment of birdsong. He received a reply from half a mile south then, over the next few minutes, he heard several other identical calls, each one coming from a little further away. He nodded in satisfaction, then, as the vile creatures below prepared to move on, he allowed himself to fall from the branch.

Finavar landed with mock clumsiness in the undergrowth and there was an explosion of snarls as the beastmen whirled around to face him. The minotaur towered over the others, but they were all hulking brutes. Their torsos were covered with scars, filth and blood, and their snouts quivered with excitement as they formed a circle around Finavar. Some were bull-headed, like the minotaur; others had curled, spiralled, ram’s horns coiled around their heads, and some resembled hunched, goat-legged humans, with crimson skin, straight black horns and mouths crammed full of fangs. They were all as scantily clad as Finavar, but where his flesh was pale and lithe, these creatures were hulks of knotted, oversized muscle, covered in greasy, tangled fur. As they huddled closer, raising crude, vicious-looking axes, Finavar saw hunger burning in their blood-red eyes, but they did not attack. They roared and churned the earth with their hooves, waiting for the minotaur to make the first move.

The towering creature barged through the crowd and Finavar grimaced; to see the monster in such close proximity made his head pound. It was over eight feet tall and had thick plates of spiked, hammered iron strapped around its enormous arms. Its massive, bovine head was hung low between grossly oversized shoulders and as it approached, the stench of decaying meat poured from its jaws.

The minotaur glared at Finavar with tiny, crimson eyes, then it raised its battered axe and let out a guttural roar, scattering birds from the trees and spurring its warherd into action.

As the monsters charged, Finavar turned and fled, sprinting down a frosty, leafless avenue.

The creatures thundered in pursuit and behind them came the minotaur, stomping heavily through the trees and bellowing as it realised its warherd were being led away from their original path.

To Finavar, their pursuit was as slow as ivy climbing a tree. He could easily have outrun them, but as the monsters crashed clumsily through the glades and gulleys, he made sure never to race too far ahead. Gliding wraith-like between the trees, he taunted them with snatches of song, leaving a trail of sinister melody that echoed around the glittering boughs, mocking their lumbering, awkward pursuit. He grinned as he considered the aptness of his words and the delicate phrasing of his melody.

Trail a tale of shallowbrains,

Cumbrous, rank and doomed;

Lead the dance of Everwood,

And leave their bones entombed.

Sing a song of jobbernowls,

Clumsy, fat and slow;

Feed them to the Everqueen,

The creeper and the crow.

After a few minutes the minotaur ceased its pursuit and bellowed furiously at the others to return, but Finavar’s song had driven them to such a frenzy that they were deaf to anything else. As the path grew narrower and more difficult, they started to pant and cough, stumbling over roots and reeling from jagged branches, but they would not stop. They could not allow this dancing, infuriating wraith to escape. The more difficult the pursuit, the more incensed and determined they became, howling and grunting as Finavar skipped down a gloomy network of avenues.

After another ten minutes of furious pursuit they emerged into a clearing – a circular patch of scrub and gravel that ended at a rocky outcrop, looking down over a sheer-sided drop that plunged sixty feet or more down to the valley below.

Finavar came to a halt at the edge of the drop and, with no place left to run, turned to face the beastmen.

They lumbered from the trees, panting and trailing their axes through the frost, but at the sight of their prey, stranded at the cliff’s edge, they howled in delight, raising their battered weapons and thundering their hooves against the frozen earth.

Finavar calmly drew his blades and adopted a low fighting stance, still grinning as the monsters approached. His smile was not directed at the beastmen but beyond them, to four slender figures stepping silently from the shadow of the trees.

The beastman closest to Finavar, one of the crimson-skinned monsters with a humanoid face, noticed the direction of his gaze and looked back over its shoulder, but before it had time to roar a warning Finavar’s kin began their dance.

Caorann and the others waltzed towards the monsters with astonishing speed, flipping and spinning through the air so gracefully that the beastmen seemed to be surrounded by spirits rather than mortal foes.

The brutish monsters tried to defend themselves with slow, lunging axe blows, but the shapes surrounding them were as vague and intangible as the winter breeze. As they danced, they picked up the tune of Finavar’s song, and as the bewildered beastmen lurched and stumbled, trying to grasp their attackers, the haunting melody swelled in volume.

The bloody dance did not last long. Finavar joined the lethal storm of flashing blades and, one by one, the beastmen dropped to their knees, clutching at cuts that erupted all over their bodies – deep, lethal wounds that seemed to appear from nowhere as the singing figures spun back and forth.

As the last of the monsters fell, Finavar was left to fight alone. The others had backed away, lowering their blades and watching his acrobatics in mute wonder.

Finavar performed a final, beautiful pirouette and sliced his sword through the last monster’s neck, sending its head spinning off the edge of the cliff.

‘So few!’ cried one of the dancers, leaping forwards and hacking at the dead bodies. Her head was shaven apart from a long, plaited ponytail and the combination of shaven head, blood-splattered face and furious snarl made her a fearsome sight.

Caorann grimaced at the gruesome display, but Finavar laughed. ‘You have them on the run, Alhena! Just a few more blows!’

Alhena was so consumed by bloodlust that she did not hear. Seeing that there would be no more sport, she crouched next to the bodies, drew a long knife and began to scalp them, whispering furiously to herself as she hacked and sliced.

After a few minutes, she noticed that she was being watched and stood up, wiping the gore from her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and glittering, as though on the verge of tears.

Finavar looked at her in wonder and she glared defiantly back. She was like a tightly stretched vine; always just on the verge of snapping. Her eyebrows were drawn up from her brow in a furious V and her ponytail was matted with blood. As she looked around at the others, she silently dared them to question her actions.

Finavar looked away and noticed that Thuralin was staring at the bodies, muttering under his breath. Finavar waved at the steaming corpses. ‘Do you still believe that we should seek aid?’ He laughed again. ‘Perhaps they’re only playing dead?’

Finavar’s brother approached. He was a slight, earnest-looking youth named Jokleel, barely out of childhood. He flashed a pleading glance at Finavar then turned to Thuralin. ‘What troubles you?’

Thuralin continued staring at the corpses in silence for a while, but the rest of the kinband waited for him to gather his thoughts. His agility might be gone, but only Finavar doubted his wisdom. He shook his head. ‘I’m not sure.’

Thuralin coughed so violently that his whole body rocked with the force of it. Then he tried to continue in a strained voice. ‘Something is odd. I cannot…’ His words trailed off as he noticed how closely the others were watching him. Even Alhena stopped to look anxiously at her father. He managed to stifle his cough and his face dropped back into its habitual scowl. ‘You do not want to hear my counsel,’ he muttered, turning to Finavar.

Finavar shrugged. ‘I know it anyway. You are alarmed that outsiders could beat such a direct path to Locrimere. You think we should rush home and raise the alarm.’

Thuralin’s scowl deepened. ‘You have skill with a blade, Finavar, I grant you that, but you do not see what’s in my head.’

Finavar laughed. ‘Thank the gods.’ He turned away and nodded to the bloody remains. ‘Prepare the bodies,’ he said. ‘The forest is waking. It will find nourishment even in these vile creatures.’

Caorann nodded and started hurling corpses into a pile, his huge frame making light of the work. The others joined in, but after a few minutes Alhena paused and raised her hand for silence.

Caorann and the others dropped the corpses and drew weapons.

‘There are more of them,’ whispered Alhena, turning to her father.

The others remained silent, listening carefully. After a couple of minutes they nodded, recognising the clumsy, arrogant sound of outsiders gouging their way through the forest.

Thuralin gave no reply, so Alhena turned to Finavar.

He gave her a nod and her eyes lit up. She bounded up the trunk of a tree and peered out through its branches.

‘By Loec,’ she gasped, looking back at Finavar with a shocked expression. ‘You should see this.’

Finavar and the others dashed across the clearing and climbed the tree, following the direction of her gaze.

Half mile to the east, a vast column of dun-brown shapes was carving its way through the trees. There was no mistaking the fact that they were outsiders. Their brutal weapons glinted in the moonlight as they snaked through the forest and some of them carried blazing brands, the light of which picked their grotesque forms out of the darkness. As the flames flickered across the column of figures, they revealed glimpses of humanoid and animal forms: men with the heads of goats and bulls and others that were a hybrid of man and horse, carrying long, barbed spears. Further back, half-hidden in the darkness, there were other shadows – things so immense that they towered over the trees.

Finavar shook his head and let out a low whistle. ‘They show some nerve, marching through the forest on the eve of spring.’ He turned briefly to the surly figure at his side, expecting a comment.

The old cripple remained silent but Jokleel gripped his brother’s arm. ‘Look where they’re heading.’

Finavar’s smile faltered as he realised which valley the outsiders were making for. They were headed back towards the home of his kindred. They were headed for the blessed halls of Locrimere.

‘We must move fast,’ he said, feeling a thrill of adrenaline as he realised the significance of the situation. ‘We have to stop them.’ His voice quivered. ‘Imagine what could happen if such an army stumbled into Locrimere.’

Caorann dropped to the ground and let out a booming laugh, amazed by Finavar’s daring. ‘Just the five of us, Fin?’ He looked around at the others to see how far their respect for his old friend would take them.

‘He’s right, father,’ snarled Alhena, flexing her fingers at the thought of more violence. ‘We could lead them in a dance they will never forget,’

Thuralin looked horrified. ‘Have you forgotten everything I taught you? You are a shadow-dancer, not some meat-headed human. You do not charge headlong at your foes like–’

‘We will do this,’ interrupted Finavar, mirroring Alhena’s wild stare. ‘I order it.’ He dropped to the ground and looked defiantly at the old wardancer.

Thuralin glared back.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Finavar. ‘You think we should run back to Locrimere with our tails between our legs and pray that Lord Beldeas will be interested in our story. You think we need to swell our ranks before tackling such a host, but you are wrong.’ Finavar’s face filled with elation. ‘We are the ones to stop them. And we will stop them now.’

Thuralin looked around for support, but the others were staring at Finavar with undisguised admiration. ‘There are five of us,’ he muttered.

‘Make for Locrimere then,’ said Finavar, waving at the trees. ‘I want no reluctant allies. I did not recruit you, Thuralin. You practically begged me to take you and your daughter under my wing. You can leave at any time.’

Before Thuralin could reply, Finavar waved in the direction of the beastmen. ‘Perhaps word of an army this big might drag Lord Beldeas from his halls.’ He sneered in disgust. ‘Somehow I doubt it, but if you do manage to free him from Ordaana’s clutches, tell him that I am his most loyal servant.’ Finavar’s voice was full of scorn. ‘Tell our noble warden that I will keep the enemy from his glades, while he indulges his lunatic wife.’

Thuralin winced at the mention of Ordaana. Then he shook his head and held out his good hand to his daughter. ‘I made a mistake,’ he said, his words thick with phlegm. ‘We would be safer travelling alone than with this clown.’

Finavar laughed.

Alhena blushed and stepped back, lowering her gaze.

Thuralin stared at her in shock. ‘You would defy your own father to indulge the whims of this…’ His words trailed off as he glared at Finavar.

Alhena kept her gaze fixed on the ground and tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I’ll find you, father, as soon as we are done.’

Thuralin stared at her for a few more seconds. Then he shook his head and limped off through the trees.

Finavar barely noticed him go, gazing into the distance with his eyes gleaming. ‘Take different paths. We cannot risk failure. We cannot risk letting this army arrive unannounced. Imagine such a thing – outsiders, marching right into the heart of Locrimere, tainting our most sacred groves with their foul stink.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The safety of the kindreds is in our hands.’ He drew his twin blades and stared at them, trembling with excitement.

Alhena looked tormented as she watched her father leave and started to follow him, but then she stumbled to a halt. ‘I will find you, father,’ she called.

‘But Fin, what about this?’ asked Caorann, nodding to the mound of corpses.

Finavar shrugged. ‘Whatever happens is meant to happen. Fate has determined that the bodies will remain on display – as a warning, perhaps.’

He raised one of his leaf-shaped blades and pointed it at the distant valley. ‘The forest will take what it needs. We have work to do.’

CHAPTER THREE

Dawn arrived, dripping pale fingers of light through the branches, and still the torture continued.

Sephian slipped in and out of consciousness as the riders worked at his torn flesh. The pain was like nothing he had ever endured, but his captors had somehow managed to keep him from the quiet mercy of death. The one who had spoken, Atolmis, seemed to be a shaman of some kind. As he gouged runes into Sephian’s chest with his thin wooden knife, he growled commands at the other riders and muttered dark, meaningless rhymes. Even if he hadn’t been bewildered by the pain, Sephian could not have understood him. The words were familiar, yet strange, like an elaborate, obscure dialect of the asrai tongue, mingled with a mixture of animal grunts and odd moaning chants.

Every now and then, Atolmis would cease his ministrations and peer into Sephian’s face. At these moments, Sephian felt as though he was trapped in a nightmare. Atolmis’s face was similar in some ways to his own, but in other ways it was hideously transformed. The rider’s head was almost twice the size it should be and strands of living ivy were wrapped in spirals beneath his pale skin. Even the tall birch-bark helmet that framed his face had merged with his scalp, spreading tiny roots that bulged and snaked beneath his thunderous brow.

‘What are you doing to me?’ groaned Sephian as Atolmis summoned the other tall figures to approach. They were carrying bundles of sharpened sticks that flashed ominously in the morning light.

Atolmis paused and brought his face closer. His eyes were death-deep pools of hunger. They had no whites or irises, just a pair of enormous pupils flecked with shards of crimson. As he breathed over Sephian, the struggling waywatcher gagged on a heady aroma of potent herbs, ripe berries and raw, bloody meat.

‘My lord,’ said the giant, managing to suppress some of the wildness in his rumbling voice. ‘We are preparing you for the great conjunction.’ He stretched out one of his fingers, pointing a long, curved talon at the approaching figures. ‘Olachas, Karioth, Ilaruss and Sélva are going to dress you for spring.’

As the other horned riders approached the blood-drenched tree, Sephian moaned in horror. Then he was a sacrifice. He closed his eyes and begged for unconsciousness to take him. They were preparing the way for Orion. They were feeding this sacred tree with his blood.

The riders pressed closer, and gently pulled opened the knife wounds made by Atolmis.

Sephian screamed as they used the sharpened sticks to thread leaves and roots beneath his skin, working at his flesh like industrious tailors. He tried again to wrench himself from the trunk of the tree, but the ivy was like iron. Just as he thought the pain could get no worse, Atolmis placed a garland of holly and mistletoe around his neck and began forcing the berries into his flesh, stabbing the fruit into his skin with his long, ridged talons.

Finally, amidst all the pain, Sephian began to guess the truth.

As the riders tore at his flesh and planted their gifts beneath his skin, he could hear nothing but deference in their voices. Most of what they chanted was gibberish, but over and over he heard the words Orion and King.

At first, Sephian had thought his ordeal was the result of some terrible mistake, but as the fruit’s flesh mingled with his own, other ideas began to form. The pain in his limbs remained, but deep in his chest another sensation began to grow: a burning heat that was oddly pleasant. It felt like the midday sun, beating down on his exposed heart.

He looked down at his ruined body, forgetting the pain for a moment. The horned riders had peeled back whole sheets of his skin, leaving his veins and organs exposed, but they did not stop there. As his skin hung down around his legs, they sewed strands of mistletoe around his viscera and sheathed his organs with ivy leaves, chanting and grunting to themselves as they worked.

Sephian realised that the pain was becoming oddly bearable. In fact, the burning in his chest was almost exhilarating. He ceased his screaming and relaxed his body, allowing the horrific mixture of sensations to wash over him.

Atolmis paused for a second, noticing the change. His lips curled back in a feral grin, revealing teeth that were as long and ridged as his talons. ‘The King is stirring,’ he growled, then he returned to his work with even more enthusiasm.

Sephian did not even notice this last comment. Something was beginning to happen.

As his thoughts centred on the sensation of sunlight in his chest, memories began to surface in his mind. Memories that were too varied to belong to just one life, yet they were all undeniably his. He pictured himself leading the horned riders in a glorious hunt. The memory of it filled his tattered flesh with vigour and he ached to be free of his bonds so that he could relive the chase. To his dismay, the images faded as quickly as they came. But when he looked once more into the black, rolling eyes of Atolmis, he saw that they were not strangers. This daemonic being was not his killer, but his servant.

Atolmis continued to grin. ‘Patience, my lord.’ He nodded at the white-clad branches that surrounded them. ‘Winter is dying. Soon we will ride.’

The butchery of his flesh had taken no more than an hour, but as Sephian drifted into oblivion, he felt as though whole lifetimes had passed. With his last vestiges of wakefulness, he was vaguely aware that Atolmis and the others were loosening his bonds. He imagined that he would rise, powerful and king-like, from the wreckage of his body, but he tumbled to the ground, as feeble as a newborn.

The riders lifted him carefully from the blood-soaked earth and placed him on the back of one of their horses. Then he knew no more.

CHAPTER FOUR

As Finavar ran, a late snow began to fall, tumbling gently from the ink-black sky. It settled on the frosty ground and glittered on the hood of his barbed cloak. He smiled as the flakes needled his skin and then he thanked the forest for its benevolence – not only had it graced him with cool, invigorating snow, it had also provided a guide. Up ahead, a nightjar was gliding through the treetops, a sombre, long-tailed ghost, pausing only to catch the odd moth as it headed off to investigate the disturbance to the east.

Fast as he was, Finavar could not keep up with his guide for long, but even once the bird had disappeared from view, Finavar continued following its haunting song as it drifted down into the valley.

Later on, he would make excuses for his lack of prescience, telling himself that the song of the nightjar had beguiled him in some way, but the truth was simple: he was hurrying, blinded by his excitement, and his enemy was patient.

He saw the axe seconds before it bit and he managed to leap aside, but the shock of the attack unbalanced him. With uncharacteristic clumsiness he caught his cloak on a low-hanging branch and stumbled. He rolled painfully across frost-hard roots and slammed into the trunk of a tree, shaking a cloud of snow from its branches. His blades slipped from his fingers and spun off into the darkness. Mormo and Mauro vanished into the undergrowth.

The minotaur strode forwards with a thunderous bellow, consumed with bloodlust at the sight of its fallen enemy. It grabbed Finavar by the throat and lifted him easily from the ground, slamming him against the tree trunk with such force that Finavar’s breath exploded from his lungs.

Finavar drew his knife and plunged it deep into the monster’s exposed chest. Its hide was so thick that he could barely drive the weapon home, but he forced with all his strength and waited to see the creature fall.

The minotaur paused for a moment, lowering its massive, horned head to study the blade. Then it snorted, wrenched the knife free and hurled it to the ground.

Finavar struggled to escape, but the minotaur’s iron-like grip defeated him and he cursed bitterly as the monster drew back its axe for another blow.

Blood rushed from the minotaur’s head as a gleaming, leaf-shaped blade sprouted from its brow.

The monster tightened its hold and Finavar felt something give in his throat. Then the minotaur’s head snapped backwards as the blade was removed and the beastman reeled away from the tree, dropping Finavar to the ground with a pained grunt.

‘Sorry,’ said Alhena with a sarcastic smile, stepping back as the monster toppled to its knees. Then she flipped gracefully through the air and landed a few feet away, after jamming her sword in the minotaur’s throat. ‘I realise you were only toying with it.’

Finavar gasped as he climbed to his feet. There was a deep, grinding ache in his left shoulder but after rolling it back and forth he decided there was no break. He grimaced and as he slumped against a tree he considered how odd Thuralin’s daughter was. She had just saved his life, but her snarl was almost as worrying as the minotaur’s.

Alhena’s eyes remained staring and wild as she approached him, but she softened her expression slightly. ‘Let me see,’ she said, stepping closer and placing her hand beneath Finavar’s black cloak. She was not gentle and he grimaced as she prodded the injury. ‘Painful, but not fatal.’ She withdrew her hand and looked at the still twitching hulk of the minotaur. ‘It could have been worse.’

Finavar wondered at her skill. Thuralin might have raised a monster, but she was a monster of incredible grace. He gave her a nod of thanks and staggered off through the snow, looking for his swords.

Alhena returned to the dead minotaur and wrenched her weapon free. Then, after a moment’s thought, she stabbed it back into the open wound with a string of vile curses. After removing the blade for a second time, she scoured the surrounding trees for signs of any other assailants. ‘Strange, that it would stalk you like that. Outsiders rarely show such cunning.’ She sneered at the slumped remains of the minotaur, still trembling with rage.

Finavar looked up at the network of leafless branches; pale fingers, stretched over a void. ‘Everything seems strange this evening.’ He winced as he rolled his shoulder again, then dashed back into the trees. ‘Come, Alhena, we are neglecting our guests.’

As they headed down into the valley, they took different paths. Alhena passed ahead of the invading army, swinging and vaulting through the treetops and circling around to their left flank; Finavar, meanwhile, moved silently down past the whole deafening horde, until he reach the whelps and curs of the rearguard. Once there, he began to scatter little snatches of song in the darkness, planting odd lilting phrases at the edge of the beastmen’s hearing as he dodged between twisted, ancient yews.

At the sound of his voice, some of the monsters began to falter, baring crooked fangs at the shadows and howling in annoyance at the ghostly presence that moved around them.

Finavar felt a thrill of excitement as he realised the scale of the invasion. He had never seen such an enormous host: a lumbering, galloping legion of mismatched animal parts, smashing carelessly through the trees, filling the forest with noise and stench. The momentum of the beasts’ charge was such that even his most mocking, eloquent phrases could not halt their advance. Every time his words caused a monster to pause, some hulking overseer would grab the straggler by the throat and hurl it forwards, bellowing furiously at any sign of delay.

‘What would drive them on like this?’ he whispered, swinging higher up into the trees, hoping for an answer. Up at the head of the column, he thought he saw a possible explanation: a flicker of light, dancing in and out of the shadows and occasionally alighting on the shoulders of an enormous brute marching at the head of the army.

That must be their leader, thought Finavar, peering at the distant figure. It was even more heavily muscled than the rest of the horde and its ancestry seemed to be a grotesque, Chaos-spawned muddle of man and boar. As it looked back over its army, Finavar saw its face: a blunt, bristled snout, a pair of crooked tusks and a low, heavy brow, topped by a foot-long horn that curled up from a shaggy mane. Like most of its followers, the mutant’s legs were hoofed and goat-like, but its chest was bull-broad and clad in thick iron chainmail and crudely hammered plates of brass and copper. As the other beastmen lumbered through the forest, this rattling hulk of metal and fur roared commands at them, spraying drool and blood across an enormous double-headed axe.

How does it know its way? wondered Finavar, swooping silently through the branches and alighting on the next tree. He could still make out a tiny wisp of light drifting ahead of the column and he turned to look suspiciously at the spirits that were still trailing after him. Gole, the skeletal, wren-riding serpent, sneered back at him.

Finavar’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Caorann singing. His voice was as clear as a woodlark and as it drifted from the shadows Finavar could not help but smirk, knowing what a brute his friend was. He saw him briefly, slipping in and out of the trees, teasing the outsiders. His coils of blue hair marked his passage, but his movements were so fast that even the most skilled marksman would have found it impossible to track him.

Boar-face paused, raising a spiked fist as it scowled at the trees ahead. The forest erupted with the sound of clattering armour and belched roars as the whole army ground to a halt.

Finavar smiled as he heard another, equally beautiful song, drifting from the trees to the left of the beastlord. ‘Alhena.’

A third song rang out from the forest to his left, just a few feet away from beastmen. ‘Jokleel,’ he gasped, delighted by his brother’s daring. Caorann had always doubted the boy. He thought he lacked the killer instinct required to serve Loec, but here was proof to the contrary. Jokleel was moving as fast and fearlessly as any of them.

Finavar’s heart filled with pride and he leapt through the trees in the direction of his brother’s song, but before he had gone far, boar-face let out a furious howl. A slender, fast-moving shape had waltzed from the trees; a blur of silver blades that immediately vanished from view, leaving a pile of bleeding beastmen sprawled in its wake.

Finavar nodded, amazed again by Alhena’s furious skill. He felt more certain with every day that he was right to shelter her. Thuralin was a tedious old fool, it was true, but he would put up with any amount of grumbling to have Alhena at his side.

On the far side of the army another shape spun into view. Finavar recognised Caorann’s vivid blue locks as he flipped and danced from the trees, mocking the creatures with a song about their empty skulls.

As the outsiders charged furiously at Caorann, they failed to notice that Alhena had appeared again, hacking wildly with her blades and accompanied now by Jokleel.

By the time Caorann vanished back into the whirling banks of snow, still laughing and singing, the rest of the kinband had butchered a whole swathe of the army and were already racing back towards the shadows that spawned them.

As he hurried to join the fun, Finavar added his own voice to the chorus, finally causing some of the monsters to break ranks and lumber after him.

The column started to break up. The monsters whirled and flinched from the shadows, bewildered by songs that came from every direction. ‘We can take them all,’ cried Finavar, laughing as he ran, with no idea if he was right.

He stumbled to a halt, and crouched beside a clump of snow-draped hawthorn bushes. ‘What’s this?’ he gasped, staring in shock at the leader of the army. The hulking creature had raised its axe and pointed it at the trees, and the weapon was draining thick worms of mist from the branches. Banks of the stuff rippled through the air, shimmering with inner fire as it seeped into the trees.

Finavar had never seen beasts of Chaos wield this kind of sorcery. ‘That’s the work of a spellweaver,’ he muttered, lowering his blades.

His dismay grew as the horned monster wrenched back its axe, like a fisherman hauling in his catch, and dragged Caorann into view.

To Finavar’s horror, his friend was tightly bound by the tendrils of mist. As the beastlord heaved back his axe, Caorann bounced and rolled across the frozen ground, cursing, unable to free himself.

Finavar, Alhena and the boy immediately dropped into view and sprinted towards the vapour. Their smiles and songs were gone, replaced by silent rage.

Before any of them could reach the scene, boar-face strode towards its struggling prey and hacked down with its axe.

As the monster struck, the strange mist evaporated, releasing Caorann from its grip.

Freed from his bonds, Caorann tried to dodge the blow but, agile as he was, there was not enough time.

The axe sank deep into his shoulder, pinning him to the ground with a dull thunk.

Blood gushed from the wound and Caorann blacked out, slumping back onto the ground as the beastlord yanked the blade free for a second strike.

Before Caorann’s kinband could reach him the rest of the army intercepted them.

Now that the asrai were drawn out into the open the monsters had the advantage. They howled victoriously and rolled towards them like a wave of fur, horns and battered iron. Only Finavar managed to break through. He flipped up over their heads in a bewildering series of twirls and rolled to a halt beside his wounded friend.

The boar-faced one let out a grunt of laughter, towering over Finavar and levelling its axe at his head. Mist slipped from the blade but before the monster could complete its spell it snorted and dropped the weapon, backing away in confusion.

As the monster reeled backwards, two small shadows dropped from its arm and scattered into the darkness.

Finavar muttered thanks to Mormo and Mauro and hefted Caorann onto his shoulder, cursing his friend’s weight as he sprinted for the trees.

Dozens of the outsiders were busy with Jokleel and Alhena but plenty remained to block Finavar’s route to safety. He lashed out as he ran, but, encumbered as he was, his movements lacked their usual grace.

One of the red-skinned humanoid creatures dodged Finavar’s sword and slammed a brass-studded mace into his stomach.

Finavar’s breath exploded from his lungs and he crashed to the ground, sending Caorann rolling across the churned earth.

The monsters surged forwards, but as Finavar clambered to his feet they dropped to their knees, clutching at their chests and throats.

Without pausing for an explanation, Finavar hauled Caorann back onto his shoulder and continued racing back to the trees. As he ran, he felt the breath of arrows, whistling past his face and slamming into his assailants.

‘Thuralin!’ he gasped, reaching the cover of the trees and glimpsing a scarred face glaring out at him from a dark, thorny gulley.

The old wardancer replied with another wave of grey-flecked arrows. Dozens of them flew from the trees, slaying everything that tried to follow Finavar into the forest.

CHAPTER FIVE

Sephian rose through an ocean of dreams. He watched seasons come and go in the blink of an eye, dragging lime-green shoots from the ground, filling them with life, twisting them into beautiful copper-coloured blades and then scattering them across the ground. He saw this cycle, repeated endlessly, at ever-faster speeds until the world became a blur of birth and death. Finally, just as he thought he could bear it no more, the blur became a point of light, and at the heart of the light was a female face: Isha, the mother of everything. In a moment of heart-pounding revelation, Sephian realised the whole forest was nothing but a single bead of dew, glittering on her freckled cheek. As he strained to see her more clearly Sephian felt he was on the brink of an even greater revelation – something that concerned himself and black rocks, rearing up from snow. His elation vanished, replaced by a terrible guilt, and he reached out with his mind, edging closer to an explanation.

The light grew brighter and the revelation vanished. Sephian awoke with a hoarse groan. He could remember nothing of the dream, except the awful sensation of guilt. ‘What have I done?’ he gasped, filled with horror.

‘So many things,’ growled a voice from somewhere.

Sephian remembered the daemon riders with a shiver of fear. Their horned shapes were up ahead in the shadows, mounted on their gleaming steeds. They had bound him to another piece of wood, attached it to their stallions by thick strands of ivy and were dragging him through the forest. Every jolt sent explosions of pain through his shredded flesh.

‘How am I alive?’ he gasped, looking down at the bloody mess that had once been his body. Along with the ivy, the riders had sewn oak leaves into his skin. The leaves had been preserved somehow and they were as dark and glossy as if it were still midsummer. Little of his torn skin was now visible. The areas not covered by leaves had been clad in the same spikes of birch bark that adorned the riders’ heads.

Sephian squinted through blood-filled eyes at his captors. They were silhouetted against a shimmering glare, shining from somewhere up ahead. As they turned their proud, horned heads to look back at him, they scattered silver blades of moonlight across the ground.

‘Not far now,’ growled the same voice, and Sephian recognised that it was their leader, the one called Atolmis.

He looked past the riders to the light and realised it was this that had dragged him from his dreams. At the memory of his dream he felt another rush of guilt, but as he tried to recall the reason for his shame, the dream slipped even further from his grasp.

The riders came to a halt in a grove of linden trees, gathered at the foot of a steep escarpment. The leafless trees were standing like tall, stately guardians around a wide, moonlit pond. The water was utterly still and so brightly lit that it resembled an enormous silver coin, hidden in the forest by a celestial miser.

Atolmis and the other riders dismounted and approached their groaning prisoner. When they were just a few feet away, one of them paused and handed something to Atolmis. Sephian strained to see what it was, terrified to discover what new agony he must endure. The object was a red, misshapen ball of some kind.

‘An oak apple,’ he muttered, as the moonlight revealed it more clearly.

Atolmis gave no answer as he stepped closer, but began to chant a simple poem instead.

Sephian heard only snatches:

Ebb and tide,

Drifts away.

Heath and bough,

Must decay.

Flaxen hair,

Turns to grey,

Every life,

Has its day.

There was another flash of pain as Atolmis leant over Sephian and shoved the oak apple into a wound in his chest. The pain no longer had any meaning to Sephian. His scream was mere force of habit. The pleasing warmth growing in his chest had eclipsed everything else and it grew even more intense as Atolmis jammed the new, wooden heart into place.

The other riders loomed over him. Their long, wild faces filled with eagerness as they placed their hands over Atolmis’s, covering Sephian’s chest with their enormous, clawed fingers and joining in with the droning chant. Then, at a nod from Atolmis, they freed Sephian from his bonds and carried him to the edge of the pond.

‘We have seen you, my lord,’ said Atolmis, as they reached the broad expanse of ice. ‘Now the forest must sanction your birth.’

Sephian shook his head in confusion, but the blood loss had left him too weak to answer and he could do nothing but groan as Atolmis gently laid him down on the ice.

Strands of ivy were still wrapped around his shoulders and arms, and Atolmis hurled them across the pond, to be caught by the other riders. Then he took a spiralled antler from his belt and blew into it. The horn blast echoed around the grove and the riders hauled the ivy, sliding Sephian out across the ice.

He had gone no more than a few feet when it exploded beneath him and he dropped, tumbling voicelessly into the freezing depths.

For a long time, Sephian moved through the void without any sense of direction. He tried to keep his mouth closed and hang onto his last gasp of air, but as he let it escape, he realised that he was far too cold to be alive anyway. Rather than pain, or bitterness, he felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment. He was, after all, nothing more than a sacrifice.

He called himself a fool for suspecting anything else and waited for the end.

After a while, Sephian had the strange sensation that, rather than falling, he was now rising through the water. A silvery, undulating ceiling appeared over his head, glinting with moonlight.

I’m returning to the surface.

He saw rippling figures, passing back and forth on the other side.

The riders.

Then, as he moved closer, he saw that the shapes were too varied to be his captors – some were lithe and small, while others were great, slow-moving hulks. They were animals of some kind. He glimpsed tawny-coloured wings and broad, dappled hides and even the antlers of a great, ivory-coloured stag.

Sephian broke the surface of the water with a gasp and felt warmth washing over his frozen skin. He kicked his legs, feeling oddly invigorated. Without pausing to study his surroundings, he swam quickly across the pond, climbed out through a clump of weeds and stepped up onto the grass.

He was back in the same moonlit clearing, but everything had changed. The ice had vanished, replaced by clouds of frothy green linden blossom and rippling, flower-strewn grass.

Sephian gasped in confusion. In the few minutes he had been in the water, spring had arrived. No, he realised, as the linden blossom began to fall and carpet the grass with petals, it’s already summer. Sephian shook his head as a whole summer passed before his eyes and the leaves began to wither and bronze.

‘What is this?’ he muttered. Only then did he remember the animals he had glimpsed from beneath the water.

He whirled around, turning his gaze from the shifting seasons back to the pool. As autumn became winter and returned, full circle, to spring, the twin moons remained motionless in the sky. Whole years were passing in the space of a single evening. The beasts he had seen were still there, he thought, but now that he had emerged, they were little more than shadows, drifting amongst the tall, smooth trunks of the linden trees.

Sephian stepped towards the shadows and then paused, remembering that his body had been torn apart by the riders. He looked down and saw, to his amazement, that his body was whole again. His naked flesh was almost entirely unmarked. In fact, he realised, he felt better than ever. Only one sign of his torture remained. The oak apple sunk deep in his chest was just visible beneath his skin. He gently tapped the hard, knotted canker, feeling no pain.

‘I could return to the trees,’ he muttered, suddenly remembering his eagerness to be alone. ‘The riders are done with me.’ He felt a rush of excitement. ‘I will never go back to the wretched Silvam Dale.’

‘Listen: he serves himself,’ whispered a quiet voice, ‘no one else.’

Sephian flinched at the sound. The voice was sibilant and full of derision. He stared at the shadows, but as the trees rippled and creaked in the breeze, the shapes remained impossible to make out clearly. He thought he saw a stag, but as he squinted into the gloom it seemed to change into an enormous boar. The other shadows were just as confusing: a pair of colossal wings fanned out from a long serpentine lizard of some kind, or was it a squat, glowering toad?

As Sephian staggered back towards the pond he glimpsed a whole menagerie of other creatures, eagles, wolves and deer; but they all morphed into something else as he tried to examine their details.

‘The auguries cannot lie,’ replied another voice. The words were high-pitched and musical and as they zipped through the air, they caught falling leaves and spun them around, before they turned to snow and then a gentle spring shower.

Sephian followed the sound and for a second he saw a blond-haired child, no more than eight or nine years old, with golden, sparkling eyes and copper-coloured leaves in his hair. The child skipped through the moonlight, watching him with playful, mischievous eyes, then vanished, merging with the other shifting shapes that filled the grove.

‘Prophecies can be interpreted in many ways, Zephyr, you know that.’ This third voice was a low, rolling belch that shook the ground, giving the impression that its owner was a creature of enormous weight. ‘I sense that something is wrong. There is a cloud hanging over his future: a secret.’

Sephian whirled around, unnerved by the feeling that he was on trial and trying to make out this new speaker. For a second, he made out a toad the size of a small hill. Its pale pink skin resembled old leather and was covered in hundreds of wart-like lumps, but its eyes glittered youthfully as it met Sephian’s gaze. Then it shuffled back into the dark and rippled into something slender and winged before vanishing from view.

Sephian felt a cool breeze rustle through his hair as the childish voice piped up again. ‘After all that bloodshed, he lives.’ Sephian felt the wind brush against the oak apple embedded in his chest. ‘And he has the fruit of the Sorrow Tree filling his veins. Why waste our time, Merula?’ Sephian glimpsed the child again, drifting through the boughs of the linden trees. ‘The riders have chosen him. We could be away by now.’

There was another low, rumbling belch, but this time there were no words, just a thunder of disapproval.

‘Patience, Zephyr,’ replied the hissing, quiet voice, still dripping with menace. ‘We have been lied to before. Just ask Drycha. This one cares only for solitude and freedom. He has no interest in our welfare. If Tanos were here, he would incinerate such a mewling wretch.’

Sephian turned in the direction of the whisper and saw a shifting column of mist, drifting towards him. The light changed and he saw, quite clearly, a small, wizened figure, wearing the mist as a cloak. He was hunched and frail and the face within his drifting hood was oddly mobile. His features were mostly hidden in shadow, but Sephian caught a glimpse of white, sightless eyes as the figure became vapour once more. Before he vanished, Sephian noticed that he was leaning heavily on a staff. The staff was topped with a lump of black, polished stone and the fingers resting on it seemed far more undulating and numerous than they should be.

Sephian sensed a towering shadow, spreading like branches over his head.

‘The Wrach is right,’ stated a fourth voice. This sound was strong, booming and full of pride. It echoed from every direction, louder than any of the previous speakers. ‘We can be sure of nothing. The great drakes no longer deem us worthy of their time, but we do not need Tanos to recognise a weakling. How can someone who was caught so easily be powerful enough to rule such scattered folk? Sativus, what do you say? Do you see this “cloud” over his future?’

There was a thud of hooves and a flash of white antlers, somewhere to Sephian’s left.

‘His heart is a windfall, taken from the foot of the Sorrow Tree,’ replied a clear, noble voice. ‘Who but Orion could survive such a thing? The riders’ auguries have never lied. What do you think, Amphion?’

‘He is weak,’ replied another voice from the branches; a thin, cruel screech. ‘Just like all their kind.’

This latest accusation came from a drifting mass of amber light. At first, it was as intangible as all the other creatures but as it spoke it started to take form. Sephian glimpsed something huge and avian, with four enormous wings, clad in feathers of fire. Briefly, the bird met his eye and Sephian winced. Its eyes burned with a hatred so fierce it took his breath away.

Sephian turned away, full of panic. These beings, even more than the riders who caught him, were everything he aspired to be. Even half-glimpsed it was clear that they embodied all the timeless beauty of the forest. Their voices were laced with wild power and they shone with the light of Isha. They, more than anything else, were fragments of her being.

‘I can be whatever you need me to be,’ he cried, desperate to please them. This was not the deluded sorcery of the Silvam Dale – this was the very soul of Isha, he was sure of it. This was the true heart of the forest. ‘What do you ask of me?’ he cried.

The voices fell silent and the shadows vanished, slipping back beneath the trees.

Sephian staggered around the grove, peering between the trunks. ‘Wait,’ he moaned. ‘Don’t leave.’

To his enormous relief, he saw a flash of white and heard the clear, noble voice ring out again. ‘He hears us. Who else but the King could sense our presence?’

Sephian flinched as he sensed an enormous shape looming over him. He thought for a moment that a tree was falling as the booming voice rolled around the grove.

‘Nonsense. I have often made myself known to the Queen’s court, Sativus, as I know you have.’

A powerful white stag trotted into view, abandoning the shadows and revealing itself fully to Sephian. It was over eight feet tall and its white, twisted mass of antlers stood even higher, like a gleaming ivory crown. It turned a pair of shining, amber-flecked eyes on Sephian.

‘Until now, I had not chosen to reveal myself and yet he heard me just the same.’

Sephian dropped to his knees, astounded by the majesty of the stag. ‘My lord,’ he whispered. ‘I do not know who you are, I–’

‘Do not kneel,’ said the stag, with obvious distaste.

Sephian did not see its mouth open, but he knew the creature had spoken.

‘It is not becoming for a king,’ it continued.

The golden-skinned youth appeared at the stag’s side and grinned at Sephian. ‘Listen to Sativus,’ trilled the boy, before spinning off around the grove. ‘You will need to assume the correct mantle, if you wish to rule.’

Sephian watched the boy’s dance for a moment, trying to think of a suitable reply, then he saw another pale, four-legged shape approaching. This one was smaller than the stag, and as it padded through the bracken he realised it was a wolf; a wolf that looked as cool, grey and serene as a piece of ice.

‘The forest needs a king,’ it said, stopping a few feet away, ‘not another pompous noble. Can you wield real power?’ It revealed its teeth in a snarl. ‘Are you a hunter?’

Sephian climbed to his feet and saw that dozens of creatures were now emerging from the trees, no longer making any attempt to conceal themselves. Some resembled animals he could recognise – deer, wolves, bears, otters and eagles – but others were stranger. He saw the hooded, blind figure with the writhing flesh and the golden youth with the autumn leaves in his hair, but there was also some kind of horned snake and a group of towering, confusing shapes, assembled from the boughs of twisted trees and bristling with sharpened leaves.

‘Are you a hunter?’ they asked, speaking with one voice.

Sephian nodded eagerly in reply, not sure what they were asking of him, but desperate to please them. ‘I will do anything,’ he gasped.

As they formed a circle around him and began to shepherd him back into the pond, he heard the doubt that still remained in many of the voices and it filled him with pain – a pain far greater than anything he had endured at the hands of the riders.

He tumbled back into the water, feeling weeds dragging at his calves as the stag, Sativus, trotted out after him.

‘You must be strong,’ it said, lowering its head as Sephian sank beneath the surface; studying him calmly down the length of its long, glossy face. ‘If you are Orion, be fearless.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘Lord Beldeas, you have surpassed yourself.’

The voice came from a tornado of spiralling shapes. Thousands of glittering, pewter-coloured moths were fluttering through the air, creating a shimmering statue – a thirty-foot likeness of a beautiful asrai noblewoman. Her face was delineated in perfect detail, with high angular cheekbones and a disdainful sneer. She looked down over a grove of moonlit yew trees with hooded, pitiless eyes.

An asrai of more normal proportions stepped out in front of the display. Lord Beldeas wore long, jade-coloured robes, embroidered with delicate copper thread, and his regal brow was crowned with a circlet of copper hawthorn leaves.

‘But what will she think?’ His words were soft and considered. He clasped his hands together and stepped into the light, so that the moths were spinning and dancing around him, buffeting his fine, white hair. Even by the standards of asrai nobility, Beldeas was painfully thin. His shrewish features nestled beneath a large forehead and his cheeks were so drawn and sunken that he resembled an animated corpse.

‘I have never seen such an eloquent declaration of love.’ Lord Beldeas’s advisor, Hauran Quillwort, shook his head as he studied the display. Quillwort was as tall as Beldeas, but he seemed even more so, due to an elaborate collar of knotted ash that rose above his head. Unusually for an asrai, his glossy black hair had been cropped into a neat bob and his face was delicate, or even pretty, with sensuous, full lips and an expression of mild, theatrical surprise. His robes were the same shade of green as his lord’s, and as he neared the moths their radiance shimmered across his chest, revealing an impressive collection of silver and gemstones. ‘Before the incident, Lady Ordaana was fascinated by nature, in any form. I’m sure this incredible art will remind her of her past – and her love for you.’

Lord Beldeas shook his head. ‘I have no idea what fascinates her now. Neither do I understand this sudden change of heart.’ He shrugged. ‘But if we are to appear at Ariel’s court, I will not look like a fool. I must make some attempt at reconciliation.’

He sighed. ‘Of all the things she has done though, this is the most perverse.’ He turned to Quillwort. ‘Surely the past should be left to its own devices? She has her life and I have mine. How does she imagine we can resurrect such dead love?’

Quillwort smiled. ‘A gift like this is sure to smooth over any indiscretions. If there is to be a reunion, then you have–’

‘I appreciate your advice,’ interrupted Beldeas, ‘as ever, but really – so much has happened. How can she expect us to become what we once were?’

‘What exactly has she requested?’

‘That we attend the festival of Ostaliss, Quillwort, and stand together, smiling, before the Queen, and her Consort-King, while their entire court sniggers at us. She wishes me to act as though we are lovers again – as though our union is as vital as it was all those centuries ago, before her “accident”.’ He shook his head. ‘What does she hope to gain?’

Quillwort looked to the south, towards Ordaana’s ruined grove. It was impossible to see the damage from here, but all of Locrimere knew the harm she had caused. Tales of death and madness had a habit of lingering.

‘Lord Beldeas, perhaps she really does wish to repent and begin again. You are both highborn, my lord. The statutes of marriage must bend to your will, not the other way around. Ordaana will understand that even your most recent indiscretions are quite natural for a person of such magnificence.’ Quillwort waved a bejewelled hand at the trees. The heart of Lord Beldeas’s kingdom stretched up around them in enormous spirals, like the coiled leaves of a colossal fern. They were standing at the centre of a whole city, consisting solely of green, looping towers, and, even now, hours before the dawn, hundreds of lantern-carrying figures could be seen, moving up and down its bewildering curves. Locrimere was one of the largest kingdoms in the forest, home to thousands of asrai. From this distance Beldeas’s subjects looked like tiny embers, drifting through the mile-high towers of their home.

‘You are surrounded by such adoration,’ continued Quillwort. ‘How can you be expected to refuse every offer of devotion? All of Locrimere loves you, Lord Beldeas. One misstep is completely understandable, and Lady Ordaana will realise that. She was nothing before she became your bride. Without you by her side, she could never have stepped foot in the court of the Queen.’

Lord Beldeas shrugged. ‘Of course, you are right, Quillwort. But you are not, thank the gods, female. We will never fully understand what goes on in Ordaana’s mind. For all these centuries she has refused to speak to me, never mind attend Ariel’s court together; now she wishes to return and act as though nothing has happened. There must be some reason. She must hope to gain something.’ He coughed awkwardly. ‘And besides, my own situation is more complicated than you might realise.’

Quillwort allowed himself a brief smile, but as Beldeas looked up at him, he adopted a concerned expression. ‘My lord?’

Beldeas scratched at his skull-like head. ‘Well, it is nothing of significance. Do you remember the servant you brought back from the Pine Crags, the one with the beautiful singing voice?’

‘Yes?’ Quillwort dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘What of her?’

Beldeas raised an eyebrow.

Behind him, the moths, forgotten for a moment, began to drift. Within seconds, the floating sculpture lost an elbow and a section of its left forearm. The diaphanous creatures began to spiral off into the night, like scraps of silver leaf against the black vault of the heavens.

Quillwort placed a hand over his mouth to hide another smile. Once he had calmed himself he removed his hand and stepped closer with a concerned expression on his face. ‘You don’t mean…?’

Beldeas nodded.

Quillwort flinched as moths fluttered in his robes and hair. ‘Well, what of it?’ He batted away some of the moths. ‘You cannot blame yourself. I have no doubt that she threw herself at you. Your love for your people is well known and it would have been cruel to spurn her. And besides,’ he placed a hand on his lord’s arm, ‘what could Lady Ordaana expect? After all these years? You weren’t to know she was planning a reconciliation.’ He looked up at the crumbling sculpture. ‘And if she wishes to begin again, this present is easily enough to atone for your recent indiscretion.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Of course.’

Lord Beldeas nodded. ‘You’re right. After all, she has crimes of her own to consider. This should be penance enough.’ He turned his attention back to the statue and began plucking currents of magic from the air. As he snapped his wrists and fingers, the moths drifted back into position, recreating the beautiful image. As he worked, he began to smile, but after a few minutes he frowned and gave his advisor a quick glance. ‘Why did you ask to see me?’

Quillwort frowned. He seemed genuinely confused. ‘I…’ He pursed his lips and clapped his hands together. ‘What was it, Quillwort?’ he asked himself. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It was nothing important.’ He waved vaguely in the direction of Locrimere’s spiral towers. ‘Do you remember the young orphan, Finavar?’

Lord Beldeas nodded vaguely, without ceasing his work. ‘Yes. Something of a joker isn’t he? Talented though, from what I hear, despite being from,’ he paused, unable to completely hide his distaste, ‘the lower orders.’ He laughed. It was a soft, mirthless wheeze. ‘Isn’t he the bard who calls himself a prince?’

‘Indeed, my lord. Or at least his followers do and he does nothing to dissuade them. They call him the Darkling Prince.’

‘Yes, that’s it.’ Beldeas shook his head in disbelief as he moved the final few moths into place. ‘Just because he wears some kind of fancy cloak. I have the utmost respect for our songsmiths but, however skilled they might be, art is no substitute for noble birth. People are so easily impressed by fripperies and tricks.’ He stepped back to admire his handiwork. The statue was, if anything, even more impressive than before, but Beldeas frowned again. ‘Why are we discussing this person?’

Quillwort shrugged. ‘If it were left to me, my lord, I would never have troubled you with such a thing, but Eremon insisted I interrupt you.’

At the mention of his most senior captain, Lord Beldeas raised his eyebrows. ‘I see. Eremon. What exactly did he want you to interrupt me with?’

Quillwort spoke quickly, sensing he had exhausted his master’s patience. ‘Finavar and his little clan have returned from the borders. They encountered outsiders while they were travelling home – mutants of some kind; servants of the Chaos gods.’

Lord Beldeas looked up at the sky. The twin moons were almost directly overhead, sending shafts of light down through the twisted branches. The light fell on a cloak, folded on the grass at the far end of the grove. ‘She will be here soon,’ he muttered, smoothing down his gleaming white hair and flicking a leaf from his robes. Then he remembered his advisor and paused, looking irritated. ‘Yes. Outsiders, you say.’ He gave Quillwort a thin, insincere smile. ‘Do I really need to be bothered with such a thing, when I have so much on my mind already?’

Quillwort clasped his hands to his chest and closed his eyes, looking mortified. ‘I beg your forgiveness, my lord. Apparently, the outsiders were travelling in greater numbers than usual and they were making straight for Locrimere.’

Beldeas looked at Quillwort, maintaining the same frozen grin. ‘And?’

‘Eremon had an idea that you might want to lead the kinbands out to deal with them.

Lord Beldeas shook his head and looked back at the spinning mass of moths. ‘Ride to war? Now?’ He shook his head. ‘I am hardly one to shirk from my duties, Quillwort, but really, I think such a small matter could be dealt with by Eremon.’

‘Of course, my lord, I understand completely.’ Quillwort began to edge away, then paused, cringing like a scolded dog. ‘There was just one other thing…’

Lord Beldeas’s smile finally began to falter and some colour crept over his skeletal face.

‘The orphan, Finavar, almost lost one of his friends in the encounter – someone called Caorann. Apparently he was terribly wounded and Finavar holds himself responsible. He has asked to lead the kinbands into battle, at your side, so that he may repay the monsters for what they have done to his friend. Eremon and I both told him it was ridiculous to think that such a lowborn could lead–’

‘By the gods, Quillwort,’ snapped Lord Beldeas, his soft tones finally gone. ‘What do I care who fights and who doesn’t?’ He took a deep breath and held it, then exhaled slowly. When he spoke again his voice was under control and the hideous smile had returned to his face. ‘Ordaana wishes to reignite our marriage and attend the rites of spring. She wishes to speak to me, Quillwort, after all this time. Much as I would love to spend my time dealing with this border skirmish, I really think I will have to remain here.’ The colour drained from his face and his voice grew softer. ‘If Eremon is no longer able to deal with military matters by himself, ask this Finavar character to lead the kinbands.’

Quillwort laughed, but then realised that his master was being serious. He hesitated at the edge of the grove. ‘Let a fatherless lowborn lead your armies?’

‘You should know by now, Quillwort, that I have faith in all my subjects, whatever their parentage. And you are always telling me what an incredible warrior he is. Let him have his revenge.’ He raised his hands in a pleading gesture. ‘And let me finish my work.’

Quillwort shook his head in confusion and opened his mouth to reply, but after seeing the dangerous gleam in his lord’s eyes he shrugged and backed away. ‘Of course,’ he muttered, disappearing into the dark.

Lord Beldeas stood for a while, keeping a sickly smile on his face as he watched Quillwort leave. Then, when his advisor had vanished from view, he took a deep sigh and turned back to his living, floating piece of sculpture. Despite all the distractions, the statue now resembled Lady Ordaana once more. He smiled in satisfaction. He had captured just the right expression of bitter contempt. ‘Could we really begin again?’ He sat cross-legged on the grass and waited for the real Ordaana to arrive. ‘There were, after all, only a couple of indiscretions on my part. I will assure her she need never doubt me again.’

His thoughts began to wander as he remembered the pretty young servant from the Pine Crags. After a few minutes, a mischievous smile spread across his face as he recalled his most recent dalliance. He relived the encounter in his mind, running his fingers across his sunken cheek and closing his eyes with a gentle sigh.

Beldeas was so lost in his lurid memories that he did not notice his wife entering the clearing, a few minutes later. The real Lady Ordaana was even more beautiful than the likeness drifting overhead. Her hair was a gleaming sweep of silver, framing a delicately sculpted, angular face, high cheekbones and an arched left eyebrow that gave her a permanently quizzical expression. Ancient, aristocratic lineage shone through her ivory skin and her long, graceful neck was accentuated by a shimmering chain of silver, ending in a locket bearing the symbol of Locrimere: a pair of knotted black yew trees. She studied Beldeas for a few minutes from beneath heavy, lidded eyes then looked at the moths in utter disbelief. Her husband was rocking gently back and forth with his eyes still closed. Ordaana saw the cloak, folded neatly beneath the sculpture, and took it with a nod of satisfaction. She paused, on the verge of speaking to her oblivious husband, then she reconsidered, tucked the cloak under her arm and slipped silently back into the trees.

‘He’s a child,’ she said, speaking in hollow, icy tones. She was addressing a tiny wooden spectre following her through the undergrowth. It was a twitching bundle of thin, stick-like limbs that clicked and snapped as it hurried through the forest. Its movements were as clumsy and spasmodic as a marionette and its head resembled a tall, wooden skull. As it lurched and clattered in the wake of her robes, it pulsed with a faint light.

‘Children do not have such appetites.’ Its voice was the sound of branches, creaking in the wind.

‘True.’ Ordaana looked pained. ‘If he was not so concerned with his own desires he might have understood my actions. All the forest knows how shamefully I was slighted, apart from him; apart from my own husband. Even after all these years he has never once enquired what drove me to such despair.’

The spirit giggled as it lurched after her.

Ordaana marched on through the darkness until she came to the borders of her private groves. It was easy to see where her realm began. It was a black desert in the heart of the forest. Where trees had once stood, there was now a rippling, flinty mess of dust and scorched stumps. In some places there were still thin trails of smoke drifting up towards the stars, a constant reminder of Ordaana’s violence.

She was blind to the desolation and strode on, heading for the single, enormous yew that remained standing at the centre of the clearing. Its bark was little more than charcoal, but Ordaana’s sorcery had kept the tree roughly intact. Pale light was leaking through cracks in its trunk, and slender figures could be seen moving inside.

‘Leave me,’ said Ordaana as she entered. Her voice was quiet but dangerous, and her guards scattered into the night, bowing as they fled. She paid them no heed and climbed down a wide spiral stair into the network of chambers beneath the tree.

The passageways were littered with the evidence of her rage: piles of black ash that had once been beautiful gowns, and charred limbs of furniture, reaching from the ground like the remnants of a cremation. There were items of ruined jewellery too: diadems and crowns, warped by immense heat into odd, ugly shapes that glittered in the lamplight. All of it was coated in a thick layer of ash.

Ordaana paused at the sight of a necklace, miraculously intact amidst the carnage. She stooped to pick it up and her sneer grew even more pronounced. The necklace was a delicate cord of gold chain, designed to resemble a sprig of mistletoe, with pearls in place of the berries. It was small enough to fit a child. As she stared at the necklace, tears glittered in her eyes. Then, a sapphire glow pulsed between her fingers and the metal began to slump in her palm. As the light grew, her hands began to tremble, scattering molten gold from her fingers.

Her twig-limbed companion let out another giggle and clattered quickly back towards the stairs.

‘When will I forget you?’ gasped Ordaana, hurling the liquid remnants of the necklace down the passageway, engulfed in a column of blue fire. Flames and liquid metal exploded across the wooden walls and Ordaana’s elegant frame was wracked by a fit. ‘When?’ Her back arched and a whine slipped through her clenched teeth. The light flared in her eyes and spread across her alabaster skin, covering her limbs with crackling energy. An anguished moan slipped from her lips. ‘How can I live?’

‘Because you must,’ came a voice from the darkness. The words were soft, and kind, and they seemed to come from every direction at once.

Ordaana froze. Her fit passed as quickly as it came and the light vanished. She crouched low to the ground, peering into the shadows between the lanterns. ‘You came back,’ she whispered, wiping away her tears.

‘We made a pact, Ordaana. Where I come from, such things are not taken lightly.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Close by, as always.’

Realising which direction the voice was coming from, Ordaana hurried down the passage, skipping lightly over her ruined possessions and stopping in front of the shattered remnants of a door. ‘Here?’ she hissed, touching a clump of dusty cobwebs.

She snatched back her hand as the webs began to ripple and shift. It was as though a breeze was tugging at the threads, but there was no breeze this far beneath the tree.

‘I see you!’ she whispered, as the web assumed the shape of a lordly, handsome face.

The shimmering face smiled. ‘And you will never know what that means to me, Ordaana. After all these long centuries of imprisonment, I had given up hope of being seen by anyone – let alone one of my own kind.’

Ordaana placed her fingers gently on the web, her eyes filling with tears. ‘You must think me so heartless, Aestar.’ Her sharp, perfect diction faltered as she caressed the face. ‘I am so concerned for myself, I never once asked about your suffering. To be bound, beneath the earth, for all these years. I cannot imagine how you have remained so sane.’

The web shook its shimmering face, sending dozens of shiny black spiders scuttling into the darkness. ‘I carry within me the vision of my entire people. Every Ellyrian song, every Sapherian poem; they are as much a part of me as my own heart. Those epic rhymes preserved my soul until…’ He stumbled over his words, seemingly overcome with emotion. ‘They preserved my soul until your despair cracked my prison walls and gave me the one thing I had forgotten: hope. If not for your grief, I would still be alone, silent and undiscovered beneath the roots of these ancient trees.’

Ordaana traced a finger over the billowing face. ‘Let me find you, Aestar Eltanin.’ She breathed his name like a prayer. ‘Tell me exactly where you are imprisoned. You have seen the power I wield. I could lift the curse that binds your–’

‘No!’ snapped the voice. For a moment the gentle tones vanished, replaced by something harsher, something more desperate. ‘No,’ repeated the web, a little softer. ‘I am too weak. It would be the end of me. Your rage has created a link between us – a hairline crack in the walls of my prison – but you could never fully uncover me. And even if you could, it would mean my doom. I would be revealed to Ariel and she would destroy me. She would not let me survive a second time.’

‘But why? You represent all that is most noble in us. You and your kind are our ancestors. Why would the Queen wish you dead?’

‘For the same reason she imprisoned me, all those years ago. I know the truth. I have seen your doom. This forest will fall and your people will fail. Unless you return to your real homeland, the asrai will be no more.’

At the thought of the Queen, the pain returned to Ordaana’s face. ‘Ariel is deluded.’ She spat the word out, like a piece of bitter fruit. ‘But why would she ignore your warning? She cast me aside, but I do not believe she would see her own people die.’

The web shivered and the face faded from view for a moment, before returning with even more clarity, revealing a pained grimace. ‘I once thought the same, but I was wrong. She will heed no warning; not if it might drag her people away from her rule. She is jealous, Ordaana, and terrified by the idea of sharing power. She would never allow me to speak openly. That is why we must continue what we have begun.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It is difficult work, Ordaana, I grant you, but it is the only hope the asrai have left.’

Ordaana’s hand faltered and fell away from the web. She looked down at the floor, her eyes wide. ‘But it is so dangerous, Aestar. To sacrifice Locrimere, just so that–’

‘So that your people might survive. It is a small price to pay if we are to unseat Ariel. Think what she did to you, Ordaana. Think how she cast you aside, on the slightest whim. What does that tell you? Every action reveals a part of the soul.’

Ordaana’s anguished expression returned. ‘The Queen is a liar.’ She trembled as she recalled the ease with which Ariel had turned her back on years of devotion. The ghostly fire returned to her flesh as her mind slipped back through the years. ‘How could she have said those things? How could she call me unsuitable? After everything I did for her.’

‘Because her heart is a thorn bush, Ordaana. Perhaps she was once one of us, but what is she now? She is a monster and we must unseat her.’

‘But is this really the only way? To involve such creatures?’

‘Only for the briefest time, believe me.’ The web shimmered with silver light and the whole passageway filled with ghostly images. Crumbling, ancient stones rippled across the wood, huddled in gloomy, hidden groves. ‘There are secrets down here, Ordaana. I have not wasted my time. All these long centuries I have been searching. No one else knows the locations of these old sites. No one else could tap into this web of power. As those beasts follow your guidance, they will begin to wreak havoc and reveal just how powerless the Queen really is. Then, with my help you will become more powerful than anyone the kindreds have ever known. As Ariel falls, you will rise. You will become the true sovereign of your people. You will be the one to crush the enemy and lead the asrai from the ashes of the forest. With me by your side you will lead this lost nation back into the welcoming arms of its true home, Ulthuan. You will go down in the annals of history as the glorious Queen Ordaana, who managed to reunite the children of Asuryan!’

At the mention of the Creator God, Ordaana’s eyes flashed with pride. She raised her chin and closed her eyes. ‘Can it be true?’ she whispered, as the flickering lights washed over her skin. ‘Queen Ordaana. I have always felt I was destined for some great purpose – that I had some great deed to perform. Beldeas may have failed me, but now I see the true path.’ She opened her eyes to reveal that they were bright with tears. ‘Ariel has brought this on herself. I loved her more than she could ever know. No handmaiden ever served a queen more faithfully. Whatever I did…’

She looked around at the blackened remains of her home and her voice faltered. Her hands began to shake again and she turned her gaze to the floor. Her voice dropped to a horrified whisper. ‘I did a terrible thing, Aestar Eltanin. I created such imbalance. How could I ever pay for such a crime?’

‘This is your chance to atone. Don’t you understand? This is your chance to redress the balance. I have seen more than you know, Ordaana. I know what happened here, but fate has thrown us together. With me by your side you can save your entire race; what is one crime when placed against such an act of heroism?’

Ordaana looked up. Tears were now flowing freely down her face, but the glimmer of hope had returned to her eyes. She gently stroked the glittering web. ‘Perhaps you are right. And besides, if I had remained by Ariel’s side, if I had committed no crime, I would never have known you, Aestar Eltanin.’

‘Our meeting was fated.’ The web undulated and revealed a sombre, stern face. ‘But there is just one risk to be removed, Ordaana; one final canker.’

She nodded, slowly. ‘Orion.’

‘Orion. Remember what we agreed, Ordaana. This will be the hardest trial of all, but there is no other way. Show me the blade.’

Ordaana drew a silver knife from her robes and peered at its long, serpentine blade. The metal had been engraved with a series of strange-looking symbols, as Aestar had instructed. She held it up to the web. ‘I will remember.’

For a while she seemed to be in some kind of trance, staring at the knife as though it contained her entire future. As she watched, strands of the web rippled around the blade, covering it in luminous tracery. The glyphs shimmered and the weapon began to ring, like crystal tapped with a spoon.

A clattering sound interrupted Ordaana’s thoughts.

The lights died and the handsome face vanished, leaving nothing more than a dusty spider’s web.

Ordaana whirled around, levelling her knife at the shadows and disguising her fear as outrage. ‘Who dares to bother me?’

A spindly, foot-high figure lurched into view, clicking and clacking as it approached. It answered with a nervous giggle.

Ordaana lowered the knife, sighing with relief. ‘Death’s-head.’

Then she turned back to the web and held her palm against it for a second, knowing the face would not return. There was no need. She knew what to do. For the first time in centuries she felt hope. Could there really be a way to ease her guilt, or at least to atone?

‘Come,’ she snapped, waving her knife at the twitching bundle of sticks. ‘We have work to do. The creatures have almost reached the next stone. You need only lead them a little further.’ She caught her reflection in the blade of the knife and paused, surprised by the passion in her own face. ‘Then you must bring them here.’

‘Locrimere could burn down around his ears without him noticing,’ laughed Finavar. His eyes were wild and his sinewy frame was covered in mud and fresh scars. ‘Why do you make excuses for him? You know he sees nothing. Nothing beyond the nearest pretty face, that is.’

He was standing in a large chamber, constructed from a single enormous leaf curled around itself in a long spiral to create a tunnel-shaped guardroom. The chamber was at the foot of Locrimere’s southernmost tower and the view from its lower end revealed the bare treetops of the surrounding forest. Finavar jabbed his finger at them. ‘The creatures were headed straight for our home.’ He stared at the captain of Locrimere’s Guard, still grinning. ‘Do you understand? Something is leading them here.’

Eremon’s face had clearly never had to endure the indignity of a smile. His crude, heavy features could have been chiselled from a piece of old granite. They were little more than a collection of harsh, brutal lines centred around a heavy brow and a pair of dark, brooding eyes. He showed no flicker of emotion as he surveyed the wardancers, other than perhaps a slight curling of his thin lips.

One of his guests, a ferocious-looking girl, was draped in fresh, bloody scalps. There was a constant dripping sound as blood pattered from the scalps onto the glossy green floor and Eremon shook his head in disbelief. She looked feral. All of them were covered in wounds of some kind, but no trace of sympathy stirred in him, except perhaps for the old cripple. He might once have been a figure of some dignity. Despite his terrible deformity he was attempting to hold himself with pride and carried a bow of the most incredible, delicate workmanship. He had his head down, trying to keep his face hidden, but Eremon could still see a faint yellow tinge to his mutilated face. Zeuzera, he guessed, with a mixture of disgust and sympathy. He has numbed his pain with fern seed. He will not survive long.

Most offensive of all though, in the captain’s eyes, was Finavar himself. Even his long, thorny cloak offended Eremon. The lowborn youth wore it as though a few yards of barbed black cloth were enough to confer royal status. He grinned from his hood with his chin raised and absolutely no trace of respect. If you surround yourself with such rogues and villains, thought the captain, decent folk will soon begin to see you for what you are. I will teach you your place, Eremon thought, feeling his blood pounding in his ears; skilled or not.

‘That is not possible,’ he replied, keeping his voice calm and level. ‘Our halls are hidden from all outsiders. You must be mistaken.’

Finavar threw back his hood and raised his voice. ‘You are not listening to me, Eremon! They were being led straight towards us.’

Eremon tensed at the young lowborn’s tone, but he waited for a few seconds before replying, determined not to raise his voice. Once he felt calm enough to speak, he said: ‘Are you saying that one of our own kin is leading creatures of Chaos to Locrimere?’ The captain managed to suppress the rage in his voice, but not the ridicule. ‘Do you seriously expect me to believe such a thing?’

‘Believe what you like, but the evidence is here!’ Finavar jabbed a finger at the blood that covered his scarred chest. ‘Caorann is almost dead!’ His grin faltered as he recalled his friend’s pain. ‘He is a master of the shadow dance; a dutiful servant of Loec. Do you think such a warrior falls easily?’

The captain spoke over his shoulder, addressing the row of guards standing impassively behind him. ‘Quite the opposite, Finavar. I am intrigued to know more. If this invading army is as impressive as you claim, why would you decide to lead one tiny kinband against them?’ He looked back at Finavar with an exaggerated frown. ‘Five of you, against a whole army? That seems reckless, even by the standards of the famous Darkling Prince.’

Finavar held the captain’s gaze. ‘On any other day we would have taken them.’ His voice cracked. ‘Caorann should never have fallen, but the creature leading them was communing somehow with the forest.’ Finavar shook his head, confused by his own words. ‘It was wielding the power of our own magi. I have never seen such a thing.’

The captain’s chest swelled as he considered the rabble arrayed before him. Then, after a few seconds he shook his head. ‘I have heard tales of your arrogance, Finavar, from many lips, but I am still surprised to see it for myself.’ He strode forwards, finally letting his calm mask slip, and jabbed his finger into Finavar’s slender chest. ‘How can you dare march in here with this group of,’ his voice became a growl, ‘outcasts, and ask to lead our kindreds to war? Have you forgotten who you are?’

As soon as the captain approached Finavar, Alhena drew her blades and gave him a ferocious glare.

After a second’s hesitation, Jokleel and Thuralin did the same.

Immediately, the guards arrayed behind Eremon lifted their longbows and trained arrows on the bloody rabble.

‘I know who I am, Eremon,’ snapped Finavar, blind to the impending violence. ‘A guardian of the forest. But what exactly are you? Other than the lackey of a fool.’

Eremon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he stepped back and indicated that the guards should lower their bows. ‘There will be no bloodshed here.’ His voice was calm again. ‘I suggest you leave, Finavar,’ he said, looking at Alhena’s wild face, ‘and return in better company.’

‘You are as blind as Beldeas!’ cried Finavar. ‘And as deranged as Ordaana.’

At the mention of Ordaana, Eremon drew his sword, muttering a bitter curse.

‘Wait!’ cried a thin voice.

The guards parted, allowing Quillwort to enter. His elaborate, winged collar quivered as he dashed across the room and placed a hand on Eremon’s sword.

Eremon stepped back and lowered the blade, embarrassed by his display of emotions.

‘I have spoken to our father, the warden of Locrimere,’ announced Quillwort, flinging his bobbed hair back from his face. ‘He has deemed it appropriate for Finavar to lead some of our kinbands out of Locrimere. His heart is filled with pain at the thought that outsiders might stumble across our most holy glades. His work consumes him, but he assures me that he will not rest until he hears that these vile interlopers have been slain.’

Eremon was unable to hide his shock. ‘Are you sure? Was that really Lord Beldeas’s intent?’ He looked at Finavar and the colour drained from his face. ‘Are we really to entrust our defence to such a rogue?’

Finavar ignored the captain and grabbed Quillwort’s forearm. ‘It will be done. No trace of their foul stink shall reach these borders.’

He turned to his friends and the grin returned to his face. ‘We will repay them tenfold for what they did to Caorann, I promise you.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘He has returned.’

As Sephian clambered from the ice, he recognised the deep growl of Atolmis, welcoming him back to the sharp, damp air of a dying winter. Before the horned giants could reach him, Sephian drew himself erect and tried to adopt an imperious glare, remembering something about needing to assume a mantle. As he did so, his limbs erupted with pain. He gasped and stumbled and saw that his flesh was once more hanging in shreds. He was robed in a sticky mess of thorns, blood and oak leaves and the strength he had felt while talking to the beasts had vanished.

Atolmis and the others caught him as he fell and stopped him crashing to the icy ground.

‘I knew you from afar, my king,’ rumbled Atolmis, bringing his terrifying face close to Sephian’s. ‘And I knew the forest would recognise you.’

‘But they thought me weak,’ gasped Sephian, daring to meet Atolmis’s immemorial gaze. ‘The wolf, and the child and the other things.’ He pulled the giant rider closer, his voice full of urgency. ‘I must convince them. Do you know them?’ Somehow, even after all the dreadful things Atolmis had done to his flesh, Sephian felt as though he could trust this black-eyed giant. He saw that all the pain inflicted on him was the price he must pay: a rite of passage that would enable him to join the radiant beings he had seen through the ice.

The embers in Atolmis’s eyes flared for a second, but he shook his head. ‘I do not know them. I will never see what you have seen.’

Sephian whimpered as the riders lifted his limp, dripping body from the edge of the pool and carried him towards the patiently waiting stallions.

‘I must prove myself,’ he muttered, but as pain and delirium overcame him, he realised he was already forgetting what he had seen on the other side of the water.

‘Spring is coming,’ said Atolmis, as they rode away from the grove, making for the heart of the forest. ‘It is time you returned to your home.’

‘The Silvam Dale?’ gasped Sephian, his voice full of horror.

‘No,’ replied the giant, ‘the King’s Glade.’

To a casual observer, the clearing would appear a little odd perhaps, but nothing more. The circle of oaks at its centre might look a little too sprawling and labyrinthine. The quality of the light might appear strange. The shadows did not quite correspond to the movements of the plants and trees, rippling across the matted thicket with a life of their own; looming and fading as though thrown by invisible dancers.

But Sephian was a spirit in flux.

He was a liminal soul, hung between two worlds, and he now saw everything more clearly. The trees blazed with golden fire: veins of sunlight that threaded through the bark, tracing the outlines of hunters and bounding, wild-eyed animals. As Atolmis led Sephian further into the King’s Glade, he gasped and dropped to his knees.

He was in the company of gods.

The figures standing beneath the golden boughs resembled Atolmis and the other riders, impossibly tall and lashed together by thick, knotted muscle, but they were something altogether more wonderful and terrifying. They towered over their high priest, Atolmis, and their heads were crowned with enormous, ridged antlers, almost indistinguishable from the twisted, glittering branches behind them. Their lower legs resembled the hindquarters of stags, with thick, battered hooves, and their broad angular muscles seemed carved from slabs of mossy wood. Their whole bodies were tinged a pale, arboreal green, engraved with serpentine spirals and, despite the winter chill, their broad shoulders were garlanded with spring flowers: beautiful foxgloves and bluebells that quivered in the breeze. They each held a tall, ivy-bound spear, and hanging in the centre of their chests was an emerald: a flawless green sphere, surrounded by leaves of glinting brass.

Sephian struggled to hang on to his sanity as he looked at each of the faces in turn. Here were the long centuries, laid out before him. Here were the kings of a dozen ages, come to pass judgement. Each of the figures was filled with a majesty so feral that Sephian’s body shook as he tried to meet their gaze. These beings were the soul of the forest, just like the beasts he had seen beneath the pool. Their faces resembled those of the asrai highborn – long and noble, with tall, leaf-blade ears and wide, thoughtful eyes – but these beings were no mere mortals. As the lights rippled across the clearing, they passed through the green-skinned gods like smoke. Sephian realised that he could even see trees through their flesh. They were spirits. They were the ghosts of the Wild Hunt.

‘Orion?’ he breathed, hardly daring to speak the name.

The answer was immediate: a hoarse, rumbling growl that came from all their throats at once. ‘Soon,’ they answered. ‘Spring is coming.’

Tears rolled freely down Sephian’s face as the ghosts of Orion began to sing. Their voices rose and fell in a deep, bewildering chorus, filling his head with tales of their doomed, magnificent lives. As they sang, flames bled from their skin, filling the glade with dazzling light, until it seemed as though a constellation of stars had fallen from the heavens.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dawn came to the forest, revealing a crust of silver frost and a pale, hooded figure. Finavar was crouched in the sparkling fork of an old ash tree, running his fingers over the branches, tracing the outline of tiny buds. Spring was just days away and his spirit soared as he considered what that meant. Soon the forest would be draped in green, preparing the way for Orion.

Finavar closed his eyes for a second, trying to picture the King in all his terrible glory, wondering if this year, finally, he might catch a glimpse of him. Then pain drew his thoughts back to the present. Several of the buds had latched, leech-like, onto his hand, drawing dark jewels of blood from his skin. He snatched his hand free, sucked at the wound and spat out the blood. Most of the trees carried some kind of poison. Finavar had learned long ago to take no risks.

He eyed the tree suspiciously for a moment, waiting to see if would do anything else. Then he rose to his feet and whistled. After a few minutes a pair of small, sinuous shapes rushed up the tree. The polecats looped once around the trunk, ran along his arm and settled in the folds of his black, spiny cloak. He smiled as they nestled against his body for warmth. ‘Mormo and Mauro,’ he whispered, ‘most perfect of guides. I have need of you again this morning.’

He placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled a long, trilling note.

Even before the echoes had faded, the forest around him sprang into life. Hundreds of lithe, blue-grey figures slipped through the trees. Despite their numbers the asrai advanced like a gentle breeze, rippling through the leaves with such grace that not a blade of grass was flattened by their passing.

Finavar grimaced at the sound of wood breaking above him. He turned to see his friends waiting patiently in the upper branches. They had surrounded him in silence, apart from Thuralin, who was scowling at his own clumsiness.

‘The kinbands are at your command,’ breathed Alhena, her eyes glittering with emotion. ‘Lord Beldeas has trusted you with the safety of his entire kingdom.’

Finavar laughed. ‘Ignore the drivel that falls from the mouth of Hauran Quillwort. I do not know how this has come to be, but it is certainly not because Lord Beldeas has any trust in me.’

‘The Warden of Locrimere is a fool,’ agreed Thuralin, with surprising vehemence. ‘He is more concerned with matters of the bedchamber than matters of war. It has always been the same. He is a degenerate rake. He has no interest in his duty. I would imagine that is why we have been given this chance.’

Alhena nodded, used to hearing her father’s bile when discussing Lord Beldeas. ‘It is that spineless worm Eremon that I despise. If he is so high and mighty, why does he do the will of such a fool? Where is his dignity? He must know that Beldeas does not care what happens to Locrimere.’

‘Eremon is far from spineless,’ said Thuralin, glaring at his daughter.

Finavar gave Jokleel a wry smile, amused by the old warrior’s sour tone.

As always, his brother’s gentle manner was a sharp contrast to the charged emotions of the others. There was a reptilian slowness to his gaze; an odd languor to his words. He whispered a prayer and took Thuralin’s hand, gently removing it from his featureless mask. His wide blue eyes were full of compassion. ‘I feel your pain, Thuralin. Perhaps if you told us something of your past, I could help?’

Thuralin shrugged off Jokleel’s grip and sneered at him. ‘My past is my own, boy.’

Alhena scowled at Jokleel with as much fury as her father.

‘Are you ready for this, Thuralin?’ snapped Finavar, noticing the hurt in his brother’s eyes. ‘They will not find the trail without us. Are you with me or not?’

Thuralin blushed furiously and his voice grew even more hoarse than usual. ‘I am ready.’

‘Good.’

Finavar squeezed his brother’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile, knowing he would be tormented for days by the thought he had upset someone. Then he dragged Mormo and Mauro from the warmth of his cloak and held them up in his palms, placing a kiss on each of their heads. ‘Take us to the largest of them.’ He held the polecats close to his face and whispered. ‘Take us to the one with the face of a boar. Let us teach it what happens to the enemies of our friends.’

The polecats stared back at him with stern, thoughtful expressions; then they hurried from the tree, vanishing quickly into the shadows.

The asrai advanced in silence. They were dressed in sombre hues to match the colours of the fading winter, and they moved with almost as much grace as the Darkling Prince himself. Even perched high in the trees they were invisible, merging seamlessly with the leafless branches and the cold, hard sky.

The lurching horrors below had no inkling of the impending attack.

Finavar vaulted to the top of a tree, surveying the scene with satisfaction. The dancers of Locrimere had come equipped with bows and they had already picked their targets. Now they were waiting patiently for his signal. However this strange situation had come to be, there was no denying that he now commanded a force larger than he could ever have imagined. Finavar felt a rush of excitement, elated to be at the head of such an army; then he remembered Caorann and his grin faded. His lack of caution had almost cost the life of a dear friend; still might, he realised, remembering the severe expressions on the faces of the healers. He looked back through the trees at the remaining members of his kinband. Like the others, they were waiting silently for his order to attack. No one seemed to doubt his ability. Even old Thuralin was watching for his lead. ‘I will make them pay, Caorann,’ Finavar whispered.

He pulled his hood low over his mass of flame-coloured hair and crept out further on a branch, intrigued to know why the outsiders had paused. The largest of them – the one with the boar-like snout – had stooped over a hulk of mossy stone and was conversing with something.

Wisps of fog were drifting through the air, filled with glittering, ember-like spores. Finavar rose carefully to his feet and leapt silently into the next tree. From here he could make out a tiny, spindly stick figure, moving through the mist. He was still too far away to make out any details, but he was sure it was a spirit of some kind. No mortal creature would move so oddly. It had a head like a gleaming, elongated skull and its twig-like limbs glimmered with pale fire – quite unlike the sparkle of the frost. Once again, Finavar felt a twinge of doubt. How had an outsider managed to turn one of the forest’s own spirits into a servant?

The twig-thing nodded and leapt from the stone, dashing back into the undergrowth with a clicking sound.

The leader of the outsiders backed away from the rock and turned to face its grunting horde. It lifted its enormous double-headed axe and let out a guttural belching sound. The cry was so loud that a cloud of rooks and crows erupted from the trees, circling up into the pale sky with a series of peevish caws.

Finavar felt a dull rage building in his chest as he studied the creature that had mutilated Caorann. Then he frowned. It looked even more powerful than he recalled. Its armour-clad bulk towered over the other outsiders and there was something else odd: the ghostly light that shone from the tiny wooden spirit also illuminated the beastman’s mantle of fog.

‘Is it part of the forest?’ whispered a voice in his ear.

Finavar turned to see that Alhena had crept up beside him.

‘Magic is bound to its flesh.’ Her voice trembled with a mixture of confusion and outrage. ‘How?’

Finavar felt a rush of pride. Alhena deferred to him so naturally now. When Thuralin had first emerged from the forest, his daughter had glared like a savage; now she addressed him like a brother.

He looked back at the roaring creature. He could not deny that it seemed different from the beasts of Chaos he had seen before. ‘It has something to do with that spirit,’ he muttered. He looked around the branches of the tree and laughed quietly to himself. As he expected, the promise of an impending battle had won him a spectral entourage of his own. A cloud of tiny, sparkling faces peered back at him through the branches.

He recognised the one called Gole and summoned it towards him. The skeletal serpent was no bigger than Finavar’s hand and it hesitated for a few minutes, snapping the reins of its winged mount and baring its teeth. Then after a while intrigue got the better of it and it flew closer, alighting on a branch near Finavar’s head. It babbled and squeaked at him in its own strange tongue; then, seeing his blank expression, it reluctantly spat out a few words he could understand.

‘Name of Death’s-head,’ it hissed, writhing uncomfortably in the morning light.

‘What?’

‘Name of Death’s-head,’ it repeated, waving its rose-thorn sword at the scene below.

Finavar nodded eagerly, surprised that the spirit was being so helpful. ‘The largest of the outsiders is called Death’s-head – the one with the face like a boar?’

The spirit howled in annoyance, screwing its face into a furious grimace. The sound that emerged was no louder than a squeaking hinge, but Finavar looked anxiously at the enemy to see if they had heard.

The creatures were still unaware of the rows of arrows trained on them, so Finavar turned back to Gole and held a finger to his mouth. ‘What do you mean?’

The spirit waved at its radiant, gossamer flesh and then waved at the stump near to the leader of the beastmen. ‘Name of Death’s-head.’

Finavar shrugged and turned to his brother with an exasperated expression.

Jokleel rocked back on his heels and allowed his eyes to glaze over. He reached out to Gole and muttered a soft prayer. The venomous little thing glared back at him.

For a few seconds, Jokleel was oblivious to everything but the spirit. He repeated his prayer several times until it became a kind of moaning plainsong. Finally, he focused his gaze back on his brother.

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Gole is saying that the outsiders are being led to Locrimere by something called Death’s-head.’

‘Of course.’ Finavar nodded, remembering the stick-thing’s elongated skull. His face crumpled into the same childish pout he always wore when he was puzzled.

There was an explosion of noise from the gulley below.

The boar-faced creature had climbed up onto the tree trunk, raised its axe over its head and filled the clearing with drifting mist. As the fog washed over the surrounding forest it flickered with light, revealing the rows of asrai, crouched amongst the trees.

At the sight of their enemy the mutants launched into action, hurling spears and axes and charging through the undergrowth.

The asrai loosed their arrows but the element of surprise was gone and several of them tumbled from their perches, clutching wounds.

‘Not again,’ hissed Finavar, drawing his twin blades and turning to the other wardancers. ‘Keep the others off me while I put an end to that creature’s tricks.’

He leapt from tree to tree, dodging past the archers as they fired into the grunting ranks below, making for the creature at the head of the column.

Even without the element of surprise, the asrai were terrifying. Their limbs blurred as they fired arrow after arrow with incredible precision. The air filled with a lethal, glinting rain, and whole rows of the beastmen dropped to their knees, pierced by dozens of feathered shafts.

Finavar paid no attention to the carnage erupting around him and stayed focused on his target. The enormous brute towered over the other creatures and the single great horn that curved up from its brow made it easy to follow, even as the army broke into a confusing mass of struggling shapes.

There was a sudden, blinding flash of light and Finavar stumbled.

He reached out blindly and managed to grab a low branch, muttering a prayer of thanks to Loec as he did so. For a few seconds he was hanging in full view, blinded by the glare. Then the light faded and he saw that it was the mist, pouring from the axe of his prey.

Cries rang out as the fog settled around the archers and scorched into their skin; then the monster slammed its axe down into the trunk, dragging its captives from the trees and sending them crashing across the frozen ground.

Finavar cursed as dozens of his kin tumbled into view, cocooned in the monster’s magic and powerless to defend themselves as the other beastmen bore down on them. Finavar looped back up onto a branch and continued racing towards the source of the fog with the other wardancers close behind him. All around them, archers were being wrenched from the trees and slammed down onto the ground. The clearing was already becoming clogged with the dead of both sides. ‘By Loec,’ he said, ‘I will see this creature dead!’

He dropped from the trees and began sprinting through the carnage, moving so fast that the monsters barely registered his passing. The archers on the ground were trying desperately to defend themselves but the beastmen were in a frenzy: axes fell, horns gored and hooves stomped as they saw a chance to finally lay hands on their elusive foes.

Light flared again and Finavar stumbled to a halt, blinded.

Lumbering shapes loomed over him and he lashed out with his blades, leaping into the air and arching his back in a graceful dance of death. He felt the swords bite, slicing through armour and bone and filling the air with blood, but as his attackers fell away, more rushed to replace them.

Finavar dropped into a crouch, surrounded by a wall of leering faces.

The beastmen lunged and hacked, but Finavar slipped between their blows, leaping onto the shoulders of the first attackers and spinning over their heads in a blur of sharpened metal. Even his barbed cloak acted as a weapon, slashing the faces beneath him as he somersaulted through the battle.

Finavar looped and tumbled, lunged and dived, but it was not enough. As the mist continued to flood the trees, more of the asrai tumbled into view and fewer arrows thudded into the beastmen. Seeing a chance for butchery on a grand scale, the monsters bellowed and tore into their dazed attackers. Finavar whirled around and made for the leader, flipping and vaulting across the crowds.

As he landed before his prey, Finavar saw that the monster was readying its weapon for another burst of sorcery. The blade of the double-headed axe was blazing as it leeched magic from the moss-covered trees.

Before the brute could unleash its spell, Finavar dived through the air and brought both his blades down towards the beastman’s face.

The creature was fast.

Finavar’s blades clattered against its axe and the weapon shed its power, throwing Finavar back with a thunderclap.

Finavar found himself sprawled supine on the ground, his ears ringing from the blast.

The monster loomed over him, hefting its axe back for another strike and shaking its pig-like head. Blood and drool sprayed from its tusks.

Finavar rolled aside as the axe sank into the earth and lashed out with his one remaining blade. The sword clattered harmlessly across the monster’s chainmail and Finavar backed away, readying himself for another lunge.

To his delight he saw the other three wardancers whirling around him in a circle, holding back the rest of the beastman army with a flurry of sword strikes and kicks. Alhena was delirious with pleasure, grinning as she hacked and lunged. The boy fought with less enjoyment, but no less skill, severing throats with a mournful ballad on his lips. Thuralin grimaced as he fought. Every jump and strike caused him obvious pain but Finavar was surprised to see that he killed more than any of the others. His ruined arm was strapped uselessly to his chest and his moves were a crude imitation of their beautiful waltz, but he moved with a cunning economy that bewildered his opponents. Between the three of them they quickly cleared a circle in the centre of the battle, leaving Finavar free to engage his foe.

The hulking, boar-faced creature saw that it was suddenly alone with Finavar, but made no attempt to lunge at him. It held its axe aloft instead, catching the threads of mist that were still spiralling from the trees.

Finavar flipped across the ground and spun into the air, slashing his sword at the monster’s wrists.

It wrinkled its snout and laughed.

Light bounced off the head of the axe and knifed into Finavar’s eyes, so that his blow went wide and he crashed back down to earth with an explosion of breath.

Finavar rolled clear, dodging another axe blow, and howled in frustration, springing back up with such force that he knocked his opponent from its feet and sent them both rolling back across the space cleared by his kinband.

The creature smashed the haft of its axe into the side of Finavar’s head and blood exploded from his ear.

He rolled away, spitting curses.

As Finavar rose woozily to his feet, Thuralin cried out in a strained voice. ‘We are being slaughtered!’ He ducked beneath a spear thrust, downed another two beastmen, then whirled to face Finavar. ‘Show some sense, boy! The sorcery has undone us. It’s a massacre!’

Finavar shook his head furiously, enraged that the old warrior would speak to him in such a way. ‘That’s not possible,’ he spat, but as he looked back at his opponent he saw that the creature was still hurling and dragging great nets of fog from the trees, wrenching dozens of archers from the branches and scattering them at the feet of its army.

‘I almost have him,’ he gasped, diving at the mutant again. As before, the monster’s magic pulsed from its blade as he neared it, sending Finavar’s sword strike wide and leaving him sprawled on the ground.

‘Finavar!’ cried Jokleel, as the wall of beastmen finally broke through their defence and flooded the space they had cleared for him. The gangly youth flailed desperately with his swords, losing his footing as the numbers overwhelmed him.

The sight of his brother in danger caused Finavar to panic. He fumbled his blades, dropping one of them. He stooped and caught it before it hit the ground, but when he looked again there was no sign of Jokleel.

He saw Thuralin tumble past him, fending off blows as he made for a scrum of figures.

Finavar gasped, only realising that he had been holding his breath when he saw Thuralin drag his brother to safety.

The old cripple glared at Finavar through the mayhem, shaking his head as he defended Jokeel.

Finavar looked around and spotted Alhena. She was clearly unaware that the tide was turning. As the enemy flooded over them she continued smiling; stabbing, kicking and biting the monsters as they crushed against her.

‘We must fall back,’ gasped Thuralin, hauling Jokleel to Finavar’s side.

‘We must not!’ cried Finavar, throwing himself again at the boar-faced shaman.

This time there was no need for magic. The crush of bodies was now so great that Finavar could not even reach his opponent. He stabbed and punched furiously, but the beastmen were tumbling over each other to attack him and he found himself unable to do anything but fight for his life. As he whirled around, parrying and lunging, he realised he could no longer even see the other wardancers.

‘Jokleel!’ he cried.

‘We must retreat,’ came a hoarse reply from somewhere to his left.

Finavar tried to see through the melee but it was impossible. Blood, iron and fur filled his vision.

‘Father!’ cried another voice.

He realised it must be Alhena and grimaced. He saw a brief glimpse of her lowering her blades and dashing to Thuralin’s side, her face filled with concern, then she vanished in the crush.

An image of Caorann’s terrible wound flashed into Finavar’s mind. His kinband followed him with utter devotion. He knew that as long as he fought, they would never flee. He rolled across the ground, sending a row of beastmen to their knees, then flipped back over his shoulders and landed on their backs, trying to get a better view.

His heart sank as he saw what had become of his great opportunity. The forest had become an abattoir. Strands of glowing fog were still dripping from the trees and most of the archers had been dragged into view. Hundreds of them lay dead or dying at the feet of the beastmen.

The creature with the face of a boar was now several dozen feet away, laughing and snorting as it continued to haul in its catch. It caught Finavar’s eye and snorted with disdain, holding up a struggling victim.

The crowd swelled again and Finavar fell backwards, losing his remaining sword as the monsters tumbled on top of him.

A female scream sliced through the din.

‘Retreat?’ The word slipped into Finavar’s head like a criminal. ‘I cannot,’ he whispered, picturing the mocking sneer on Eremon’s face. He hauled himself up through the press of bodies and wrenched a crude, jagged knife from the hands of a corpse.

There was no sign of his kinband and, to his horror, Finavar saw that hardly any arrows were coming from the trees. Some of the archers were bolting from the clutches of the beastmen, dashing back into the trees, clutching terrible wounds.

He leapt and punched back the way he had come, looking for a sign of his friends but seeing none. Then, at the edge of the trees, he paused and looked back. The monsters were making no attempt at pursuit. The boar-faced giant was already leading them back on their original path. Flushed with victory, the creatures began roaring and howling as they smashed through the trees in the direction of Locrimere.

Finavar remembered the name Caorann had given him. ‘Face me!’ he howled, leaping onto the shoulders of one of his attackers. ‘I am the Darkling Prince!’

Before the monster below him could act, Finavar had leapt onto the shoulders of another beastman. He raced lightly across the battlefield, dancing from shoulder to shoulder as easily as if he were crossing the stones in a river.

Up ahead, the boar-faced monster paused and looked back in surprise; it was clear that it had considered the battle over. It barely had time to recognise that, as he ran, Finavar had hurled his borrowed knife, sending it spinning and flashing across the rows of horns, shields and battered helmets.

There was a thud as the blade sliced neatly into the sorcerer’s brow. The knife sank to its hilt and sent the snorting giant stumbling back into its guards.

For a few seconds an odd silence descended on the scene as the beastmen watched their leader stumbling backwards with a confused expression on its face.

Then the brute collapsed, hitting the ground like a felled tree.

For a few more seconds the beastmen remained motionless, looking at their dead leader in stunned silence.

Finavar took advantage of the pause and turned to the trees. He was still standing on the shoulders of a beastman as he raised his arms to the morning sun.

‘Guardians of the forest!’ he howled with a broad, blood-splattered grin. ‘Defend your home!’

The outsiders finally lurched into action, but by the time any of them thought to reach for Finavar he was gone – spinning gracefully across the battlefield, landing kicks and punches as he went.

At the sound of Finavar’s call, the asrai turned to see that the pulsing mist had vanished with the fall of the creature that had been wielding it. A smattering of arrows began falling again. Within seconds the smattering became a shower, then a storm as they returned in force.

Hundreds of the beastmen began dropping to the ground as they saw the full, untrammelled force of the asrai archers.

A long, undulating whistle drifted through the carnage and made Finavar’s grin even broader. He bolted for the trees, climbed the first one he reached and peered out across the canopy of leafless branches. Seeing nothing, he raised his fingers to lips and let out an identical whistle.

Far in the distance he saw a flash of pale skin and raised his fist in salute ‘Alhena!’ he cried. She was too far away for him to see if she was wounded or not, but if she was still able to scale trees, he doubted she was too badly hurt.

Another whistle and then another rang out and Finavar was so overwhelmed by relief that he almost wept. Thuralin and Jokleel had survived the bloodbath too and were racing back towards him.

He embraced his brother, realising how close to death he had led him.

After a moment he looked up and saw that Thuralin was glaring at Alhena.

‘You lowered your guard,’ he said, his voice trembling with fury.

Alhena hung her head in shame. ‘I saw you fall.’

The mention of his weakness seemed to enrage the old warrior even more. ‘You must remember what I taught you!’ He was on the verge of saying something else, but his fury turned into a violent cough. ‘I will not always be here to remind you,’ he managed to say eventually.

Finavar looked at him in silence, recalling how well he had fought. Then he turned and nodded at the grey-clad shapes moving past them. The asrai were revelling in the chance to avenge their fallen kin, firing into the mass of struggling beastmen with incredible speed. ‘We’re missing all the fun,’ he said, managing a tentative smile. ‘I’m sure even Eremon wouldn’t begrudge us a bow or two.’

The others did not manage to return his smile but they nodded and gathered weapons from the fallen, then joined the attack, firing with almost as much accuracy as Eremon’s archers.

As the morning sun crept higher, the slaughter continued. Seeing they could not escape, the beastmen lumbered into the trees, trying to find their invisible attackers. But as they entered the forest, they found themselves bewildered by the shadows and dazed by snatches of gentle music.

For nearly an hour the archers poured death down on the outsiders and Finavar’s strength began to fade. Some of the soldiers were beginning to exhaust their supply of arrows and many of them were bleeding from their fingers. He noticed an archer spying eagle-like from the top of a sycamore tree, and climbed up towards him.

‘Surely there cannot be much more of this,’ he said. ‘How many do you see? When do they end?’

The archer lowered his bow and looked down at Finavar. His face was drawn with exhaustion and there was fear in his eyes. ‘There is no end.’ He waved for Finavar to approach.

The treetop was slender and Finavar had to climb with care. Once he was settled he peered out into the growing light. From this height he could see the whole length of the valley surrounding Locrimere. At first he thought the sunrise was playing tricks on him. It looked as though dozens of new rivers had burst their banks and were flooding down from the Grey Mountains.

He pulled his black hood lower to shield his eyes from the glare. ‘Is that… Is that an army?’ he gasped.

The archer nodded. His voice was hollow. ‘An invasion.’

Wounded, she thought, as a voice rang out through the trees. It was a pitiful, whining plea that filled her with disgust. She shifted through various forms, becoming a hawk for a while, gliding over the frozen boughs, then a ferret, bolting across the ice. Finally, at the sight of her prey, she dressed herself in pale, naked skin, long, glossy locks and a smile warm enough to melt the frost.

‘Who’s there?’ gasped the fallen warrior, spitting blood and peering into the shadows. He reached around for a weapon as she approached, clearly too weak to stand. His longbow was lying in pieces at his feet, as broken as his body, so he began scrabbling in the leaves for something else to use, but when he saw who was approaching he froze, shaking his head in amazement and forgetting his weapons. He studied her long, sylphic body with undisguised admiration. ‘What kind of death is this?’ His voice was a hoarse whisper as he sat up against a tree and wiped the blood from his eyes.

One of Ariel’s runts, she thought, stooping down next to him and stroking his bloody brow. Felled by the creatures from the north. Clogging these old roots with his worthless, foreign blood.

The wounded archer closed his eyes, soothed by her gentle touch. As she took him in her arms, the morning shone through her flawless skin and flooded his grateful eyes.

‘So beautiful,’ he sighed, leaning closer for a kiss.

As his mouth pressed against hers he froze. Rather than the soft, yielding lips he expected, he found himself kissing cold, rough bark.

He turned away in disgust, spitting moss onto the ground and trying to pull away.

Her grip was as hard as oak.

‘What are you?’ His dreamy expression was replaced by a terrified grimace as he saw her true, gnarled features.

‘I am the forest,’ she replied softly, snapping his neck like a piece of kindling.

CHAPTER NINE

‘The Darkling Prince! I cannot believe this. Have you heard? They are all singing his name!’ Eremon’s upper lip curled in a sneer. ‘They say he’s a hero.’ He paused halfway across a broad, grassy amphitheatre and looked down over Locrimere’s most sacred place: a deep, sombre lake; a placid jewel known to the asrai as the Idolan. After a few moments he sighed and turned from the water to the figure at his side. ‘To hear them talk, you’d think he’d won a battle, not fled from one. And all this rubbish about vast numbers and lumbering giants is clearly an exaggeration. This is all just another one of his ridiculous tales.’

Hauran Quillwort smiled awkwardly. ‘From what I hear, he only agreed to draw back when there was no other option. The kinbands exhausted every arrow and spear, so they were clearly fighting something. Finavar and his friends remained to fight alone for as long as they could.’

Eremon shook his head in disbelief. ‘Please, Quillwort, tell me that you at least are not enamoured by this knave.’

Quillwort looked around to make sure they were not being overheard. It was late afternoon and the folk of Locrimere were already at play. Spring was starting to break through the late winter chill and the asrai were in celebratory mood. Most of them wore flowers in their hair: the tiny petals of cowslips and forget-me-nots, woven into their matted locks. The air was still sharp enough for Quillwort’s breath to trail behind him in a glittering cloud, but most of Lord Beldeas’s subjects were scantily clad, or even naked, and they carried no weapons; safe in the haven of Locrimere’s innermost sanctuary. Other than during festival rites, no blood had ever been spilled on the shores of the Idolan and few imagined that it ever would be. Quillwort saw nothing but joy in the eyes of his kindred. Laughing, dark-eyed musicians serenaded groups of ivy-clad dancers who sang and whirled in time to the music, tumbling through the long grass, drinking heady fruit wine and practising rites that would soon be seen across the whole forest. The festival of Ostaliss was only days away. Soon the spheres would align for the Even-Night. The Queen would emerge once more, shrugging off a winter-long slumber to embrace her immortal beloved: her Consort-King, Orion.

Quillwort forgot Eremon’s question for a moment as he gazed at the bucolic scene. Then he looked back at the captain’s scowling face and recalled the ignoble task allotted to them. ‘Heroes do not last,’ he replied, with sadness in his voice. ‘Especially those born without the advantage of noble blood.’ He leant closer to Eremon and lowered his voice. ‘Finavar cannot hinder our plans. In fact, if his story is true, then he may even be of help. Beldeas and Ordaana have already left for the rites of spring.’ He smiled and tapped the hilt of Eremon’s sword. ‘While they rekindle their love and welcome Ariel and Orion to the Council Glade, who will be defending Locrimere? Who will lead us to victory? You, Eremon. We should pray that Finavar’s story is true.’

Eremon looked doubtful, but made no attempt to interrupt.

‘And then, if an unexpected tragedy deprives us of our Lord and Lady, your claim to the throne will be irrefutable. The saviour of Locrimere will become the Warden of Locrimere. Who could question such a decision?’

Eremon rubbed his scarred jaw and considered his friend’s words. ‘Perhaps.’ He lifted his chin. ‘It is crucial that I am not seen as some opportunist. I must be the kind of noble leader we have been lacking. I do not want it thought that I am merely taking advantage of Beldeas’s misfortune.’

Quillwort looked down at a knife tucked into his belt and frowned. ‘We have to engineer his misfortune first.’ He shook his head, trying to vanquish the unpleasant image he had conjured. ‘Noble is exactly how you will be seen, Eremon. Nobody can doubt your suitability. After all these centuries of misrule, you will be heralded as a hero. Finally, Locrimere will have the leader it deserves.’

The sneer returned to Eremon’s face. ‘I can prove nothing while that wretched villain is being hailed as our saviour.’ He looked into the middle distance. ‘They would probably consider him a more suitable replacement for Beldeas.’

‘He is a fatherless orphan.’ Quillwort smoothed down his robes and looked at the figures dancing nearby. ‘Only you can lead Locrimere as it should be led, in the way Beldeas has so miserably failed to do, but you will need the love of his people. And that might not happen while this ridiculous bard is dazzling them with his so-called wit.’

‘Then what do you suggest?’ Eremon’s voice was brittle.

‘Let him go. Let him run his pointless errand. Anything. Just make sure you have Locrimere to yourself when these beasts attack. If he thinks he can just waltz into the Council Glade and address the King, let him try. Think of the outrage he will cause. Let everyone see what an ill-mannered lowborn he is, while you remain here and face the enemy with dignity. Once you are victorious, no one will question your right to rule; Finavar, meanwhile, will be disgraced.’

Eremon raised his eyebrows. ‘You have a talent for this. I must remember to keep you close when I become the Warden of Locrimere.’

Quillwort paled. ‘I do not enjoy this deceit. What I do, I do for Locrimere.’ He tapped his chest so fiercely that his jewellery rattled. ‘My heart is pure, but I have put all my hope in you, Eremon, not this dancing jester. It will take a person of dignity to rid us of Beldeas and his poisoned wreck of a wife. That is the reason for all these lies, Eremon. I do not make a habit of betrayal.’ He clasped his hands together, clearly distressed. ‘I am not proud of what we are doing.’

Eremon gave a slight bow. ‘Forgive me, Quillwort. I did not mean to make light of your sacrifice.’ He threw back his broad shoulders, shrugging his leather armour into place. ‘I know you would not dirty your hands if there was any other way and I understand your pain, but you should be proud. The safety of Locrimere is in our hands. Consider what an honour that is.’ He nodded to the guardhouses, hanging above the far end of the meadow. Finavar and his kinband were already gathered at the edge of the Idolan, waiting to hear Eremon’s decision. ‘Let us send this fool on his ridiculous errand. Then I can begin to make my mark.’

CHAPTER TEN

Ordaana stumbled through a veil of shadows, taunted by distant laughter. Strange music echoed through the trees: low, mournful horns and the glacial tinkling of harps, a bewildering jumble of melodies that spiralled and rose, without the slightest trace of discord. If her purpose were not so dreadful, Ordaana would have tumbled into the arms of the forest and wept for joy. She was nearing the Oak of Ages: the verdant heart of the Queen’s realm. This was the core of the forest’s power, where nothing remained solid or fixed. As the equinox approached, the spirits became wilder and stranger than ever. Dark, spectral figures called to her from under every bower, tantalising her with glimpses of impossible, beautiful futures. If not for her desperate errand, Ordaana would have gladly answered their call, happy to lose herself in Ariel’s strange halls. What bliss it would be to dance with the spirits of the Council Glade, and forget her past. But Ordaana’s determination was even more potent than her shame. All the grief in her soul drove her on, through the beguiling visions, through the noble trees, through the spiralling notes, all the while clutching a long, rune-covered knife to her chest.

For hours she searched, tearing her robes on centuries-old thickets and numbing her feet in long-forgotten brooks. Finally, she dropped to her knees and cursed. Standing in front of her was a stunted, wizened-looking hawthorn bush, and crumpled in its roots was the rotten corpse of jackdaw. ‘I have been here before,’ she groaned. She could not be mistaken. One half of the jackdaw’s face had shrivelled away to reveal an empty eye socket and Ordaana could not mistake the way it seemed to be winking at her.

‘Where do I go?’ she moaned, her voice full of panic. The highborn of the forest were already gathering to welcome Ariel and Orion. Beldeas would be too busy flirting to notice her absence, but others would soon start to talk. She must return before the priests of Kurnous emerged to honour their Chosen One. If she were absent for the start of the observances, the whole of Ariel’s court would wonder why. She looked up at the stars for guidance but it was useless. This close to the Oak of Ages, time itself became merry, waltzing and swooning like an intoxicated youth. The heavens were a confusing mess of stars long forgotten and stars yet to be born. ‘Aestar Eltanin,’ she whispered, ‘guide me! I need you!’

There was no reply and Ordaana stretched out her fingers in a furious spasm. Blue light began to drip from her hands, catching like flames in the lemon-coloured folds of her gown. ‘Guide me!’ she groaned as her magic crackled through the grass and merged with shifting gloom.

A wet cracking sound caused her to pause and look back at the old hawthorn bush.

She grimaced in disgust.

The maggots burrowing through the corpse of the jackdaw seemed to have been affected by her rage. They were wriggling and bubbling beneath the bird’s feathers, causing it to jerk and twitch.

She shuddered at the repulsive sight. ‘Perhaps this way,’ she wondered aloud, turning to face a tunnel of lichen-clad trees, but then she shook her head, full of doubt.

‘Ordaana.’

She froze and sighed with pleasure. The voice was rasping and strange, but unmistakable. ‘Aestar!’ She looked around at the trees for a cobweb or some other drifting shape that might reveal his face. ‘Where are you?’

‘Down here,’ came the reply, and Ordaana realised that the rotten jackdaw had climbed to its feet and was staring at her with its single clouded eye.

She recoiled in disgust, struggling to believe what she was seeing. Could her noble guardian really appear to her in such a foul guise? ‘Aestar?’ she whispered, stepping gingerly back towards the teetering lump of bloody feathers.

The tiny corpse hobbled towards her. As it moved, its little bones cracked and popped, shedding gobbets of dark, clotted blood. ‘Don’t you recognise me, Ordaana?’ The dead bird tilted its head on one side and fixed its milky retina on her. ‘Surely a little decay is not enough to confuse you?’

Ordaana dropped to her knees, shaking her head fiercely and shuffling towards the twitching jackdaw. ‘No, of course not, Aestar, but I would not have associated you with…’ Her voice trailed off and she shrugged awkwardly.

‘There is beauty in everything, Ordaana. You should know that.’ The jackdaw lifted its misshapen head, revealing the oily, shimmering feathers of its breast. ‘Death is as much a part of the forest as anything else. It is simply an agent of change.’

‘Of course.’ Ordaana amazed herself by blushing. If anyone else had spoken to her in such a way, she would have been outraged, but Aestar was so dignified and noble she hated to think she could have disappointed him. ‘I was confused.’ She waved at the shifting pall that surrounded them. ‘Ariel’s magic is muddying my thoughts.’

The jackdaw continued looking at her in silence for a moment. Then it turned and nodded its head, indicating the avenue of trees that Ordaana had almost headed down earlier. ‘You are almost there, child. Just a few more minutes and you will reach the oak.’ The bird let out a ragged, cawing laugh. ‘Then you will be confused. And I cannot help you there. I will not be able to approach such a place. My eyes were not made for such visions.’

‘Almost there!’ she gasped, leaping to her feet and approaching the trees. ‘And then I just need to pierce the shadow, is that right?’ She looked back at the hawthorn bush and saw that the bird was lying on its side again, exactly as it was when she first saw it. ‘Very well.’ She gripped the knife even more tightly and hurried on through the trees. After a few minutes she heard voices and snatches of music coming from up ahead. Many of the voices were familiar and she realised she was approaching the Council Glade from behind. Soon she would see the Oak of Ages in a way few others had ever done, from the direction of the Queen’s most secret glades.

A sound rang out through the trees: the crunch of hooves grinding into frosty soil.

Ordaana gasped and drew out the cloak she had demanded from Beldeas. The stitches rippled as she threw it over her shoulders, then they rose out of the cloth, forming a spiralling mesh of leaves, enveloping her so completely that she merged seamlessly into the undergrowth.

As the last of the leaves fell into place, a terrifying figure rode into view. A seven-foot giant, smeared in blood, human scalps and animal hides. He was riding bareback on a beautiful white stallion and his head was crowned with a pair of thin, spiral horns.

Ordaana knew the rider by name: Atolmis the Hunter, High Priest of Kurnous, immortal equerry to the King. She felt a rush of terror as she realised how close she had come to being discovered. Of all the beings in the forest, none would judge her actions more harshly than Orion’s own guardian. A vision flashed into her mind; a memory of the last time she saw Atolmis. It was the heart of the summer, and the Wild Hunt was abroad. Atolmis was riding at Orion’s side. Both of them were draped in wreaths of flowers and robes of oak leaves, and both of them were drenched in blood, trailing their terrified victims behind them in a dreadful, screaming mound. Atolmis was laughing hysterically, surrounded by pale, spectral hounds. Ordaana shuddered, bringing her attention back to the present, but unable to fully escape the memory of the hounds, snarling as they tore through the undergrowth.

Atolmis reined in his horse just a few feet from Ordaana, scouring the trees with his enormous black eyes. His pale features were covered in fresh, ritualistic scarring, and thin trails of blood ran down his face like a grille. ‘Olachas,’ he said, looking directly at Ordaana, his voice a low growl.

She heard the sound of another horse approaching and held her breath, terrified that she might fall back on a branch and reveal her presence.

The second rider’s horse passed within inches of her trembling arms and came to a halt next to Atolmis. He was equally wild-looking, but his reply was a calm rumble. ‘The Silver Glade has been searched by Sélva. Karioth has scoured the eastern meadows.’

Atolmis looked up at the whirling heavens. ‘He is the Chosen of Kurnous, Olachas. We have never been mistaken.’

Olachas frowned. ‘Of course.’

Atolmis nodded. ‘Of course.’ But as they rode from the clearing, Ordaana noticed that beneath his heavy brow, his eyes were full of doubt.

He senses something, she thought, with a thrill of pride. The riders’ auguries have foreseen the success of my curse, but Atolmis is too arrogant to question his own judgement.

Once she was sure the riders had gone, Ordaana removed the cloak and the leaves became stitches once more. She hurried on down the avenue of trees. After a few minutes she saw a mountainous shape looming out of the shadows. Seen from behind, the Oak of Ages resembled a wall of shifting images. It was impossibly broad and, after thousands of years of ritual and magic, it bore little resemblance to a tree. Perhaps to the eyes of an outsider, it might have appeared as a hulking mountain of root and branch, but Ordaana, like the rest of the asrai, was part of the forest, and her soul was inextricably bound to the strangeness at its core.

As she approached the kindreds’ most sacred totem, Ordaana saw all life displayed before her. The tree’s roots were a bottomless pit, crawling with every spirit that had ever tumbled from the mortal realm; vast armies of lost souls stared up at her from an inky void, a host of drawn, ashen faces, filled with loneliness and regret. Rather than a trunk, Ordaana saw the entire world: oceans and mountains and scorched desert plains, spiralling around each other in an endless dance of death and rebirth. In place of a crown, the tree bore the slowly spinning heavens.

The faintest shadows of gods and daemons cavorted in the branches, dazzling Ordaana, even in their most subtle forms. She had witnessed the sight before, but always in a crowd, at the height of a ceremony, in the heart of Ariel’s procession. Seeing from this new vantage point, without the guidance of ritual and prayer, Ordaana was quite overwhelmed, dropping to her knees and forgetting all about her vile errand. She saw a hammer of moonlight, pounding against an enormous anvil, filling the grove with flashes of lightning. ‘Vaul,’ she breathed, recognising the long, anguished face of the weaponsmith, as blind and dazzling as the stars exploding beneath his hammer.

Next Ordaana saw a shade of the Loremaster, Hoeth, poring over his forgotten texts and reading the impossible language of the heavens, devouring wisdom with bottomless, ancient eyes. Moving behind the Great Scholar was a dark, undulating figure; lithe and graceful, tripping through the vaults of the tree with a devious smile. ‘Loec,’ she breathed, ‘the Shadow Dancer.’ He rolled and flipped gleefully through the heavens, as light as a falling comet, illuminating a vast pantheon of gods and demigods. Ordaana shook her head in wonder, unable to name even half of the spectral figures moving through the tree’s upper branches.

Finally, as she lay on the grass, utterly overcome, she saw a being so dazzling that even the other gods faded into insignificance. What she had at first mistaken for the spiralling arms of galaxies, were actually the all-encompassing wings of a phoenix. ‘Asuryan,’ she breathed. As she spoke the name of the Father God, Ordaana suddenly remembered the noble face of Aestar. Along with his face came all her other memories and Ordaana snatched her gaze from the tree, desperately trying to drag her thoughts back to the Council Glade.

She sat still for a moment with her eyes clamped tightly shut. Without the distraction of the tree, she noticed sounds, emerging from the other side of its enormous trunk. Hundreds of voices were drifting through the trees, all of them full of excitement and anticipation. ‘The opening ceremony is about to begin,’ she gasped, opening her eyes and scouring the grass for her knife. The glinting blade was still lying next to her, so she snatched it from the grass and rose to her feet. ‘I am almost out of time.’

Ordaana hurried around the trunk, keeping her gaze fixed on the grass, so as not to be distracted by the beguiling visions overhead. As she went, she replayed Aestar’s instructions through her head and silently mouthed the words he had taught her back in Locrimere. After a few minutes, she reached her goal: an oily pit of darkness, directly behind the tree, thrown by the light of the twin moons. On the far side of the oak, the voices were growing louder and more frenzied. She heard the clanging of gongs and the sound of harps being tuned. The highborn were almost assembled, ready to welcome their king and queen, but she remained calm, crushing the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. Of all the asrai present, only she knew the truth. Only she could lead them back to their true home. The thought gave Ordaana courage as she stepped deeper into the darkness and raised her knife.

‘In the heart of the shadow,’ she whispered, reciting Aestar’s instructions, ‘where light never falls.’

She plunged the blade into the tree’s shadow. As she did so, she uttered a long, garbled incantation. The knife sank deep into the muddy earth, but there was no obvious effect. Ordaana wondered if she had remembered the words correctly. Then, as she peered anxiously at the ground, she noticed it was starting to ripple around the silver blade. It was as though the patch of soil around her feet had become a miniature, windswept ocean. She nodded, feeling a strange mixture of pride and foreboding.

The sound of hooves drummed through the trees and Ordaana gasped, pulling her cloak back into place. To her horror she saw that the blade was clearly visible, glittering beneath her cloak of leaves. She tried to draw it from the ground, but it was stuck fast. She tugged desperately at it, remembering what Aestar had said: the success of the curse would depend on its secrecy. Still, the knife would not move. Tears of rage and frustration welled up in Ordaana’s eyes. The cloak’s magic would only work if she remained absolutely still, but she needed to assume her place at Beldeas’s side.

Atolmis entered the glade. He was looking in Ordaana’s direction but, rather than approaching her, he dismounted and dropped to his knees, lowering his horned brow in a prayer to the figures moving overhead.

To Ordaana’s delight, the ground beneath the knife suddenly opened, mouth-like, and swallowed the blade. The metal flashed once, then sank deep into the ancient soil. By the time Atolmis had finished his prayers and started towards her, there was no trace of her curse.

Atolmis moved on, unaware of her presence.

Ordaana backed carefully away and slipped into the trees, disappearing from view just seconds before the pale lemon of her dress became visible once more. She raced through the forest, knowing that her time was almost up. The dawn was just seconds away. Ariel and Orion were about to emerge and greet their adoring subjects.

Ordaana’s pulse began to race and she was sure she could already catch the scent of blood on the air.

Spring had come.

SPRING

Éorann-Ostallis

Quickening

The Season of Birth

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Orion became aware of sound, before anything else: hundreds of voices, chanting his name. They were singing glorious ballads and long, rousing epics, describing his past in glorious, extravagant detail.

He smiled in the darkness.

As their adoring syllables caressed his formless limbs he felt them start to solidify and grow. He sighed with pleasure as broad muscles spread across his chest and back. Tendons snaked around them like ivy, and his spine stretched and grew, creaking like old bark as it snapped into place. He felt his scalp burst as hard, shoot-like horns slid through his skin, spiralling up from his head to form wide, tangled antlers. For a long time, centuries it seemed, he revelled in the sheer visceral ecstasy of birth, stretching and flexing his limbs.

Then, as the coils of his brain formed and ignited, he remembered another name: Sephian. Orion’s pleasure faltered as he recalled a vague sense of shame. Had there had been some suggestion of weakness, some implication that he was not fit to rule?

As Orion’s features tumbled into position he opened his mouth and howled in defiance. He called out with such animal rage that his dark, arboreal womb shook and splintered around him. The chorus of voices faltered and the music ceased, but still Orion roared. ‘I will show you power!’ he bellowed, railing against his unknown accusers. His freshly formed body shook with wrath.

‘I will teach you to kneel!’

As Orion roared, his fury spiralled. The sound of splintering wood merged with another noise. At first Orion thought it was his own booming roar, but soon he realised it was hounds, dozens of them, joining their wild clamour to his. It was a fierce, hungry sound that filled his quickening heart with joy.

‘Orion,’ said a voice in his ear. The words were soft, but somehow managed to drown out the din he had raised in the dark.

He turned to one side, delighting in the feel of his thick, tendon-wrapped neck.

His roar faltered and ceased as he looked into the eyes of a god.

The shape beside him was incandescent: a mantle of shifting stars, draped around a shimmering face. Orion flinched and closed his eyes, blinded by the light. ‘Isha,’ he said in a low growl.

‘The forest is us,’ said the voice. ‘We are the forest. You have nothing to prove.’

Orion tried to look again and found the stars were already fading, revealing a face less celestial, but no less beautiful. Before he closed his eyes, he glimpsed pale, flawless skin, high, aristocratic cheekbones and a sad, distant gaze.

‘Ariel,’ he said, correcting himself. Even meeting her eyes so briefly was enough to send his thoughts tumbling into the past. Ariel. His queen. In an instant he saw all the long centuries they had shared. He saw a passion that had spanned thousands of years, born of innocent youth. Their love had so intoxicated them that they embarked on an adventure neither of them understood. As he took her hand, so familiar and dear, Orion remembered the true weight of his crown. Ariel’s immortality was bound to the forest. Without these ancient trees, she could not exist. If he failed her, if he lacked the power to enforce her rule, she would die. He felt his pulse beginning to pound as his fury returned but, as he opened his mouth to roar, Ariel silenced him with a soft, lingering kiss.

For a second, Orion resisted, torn between lust and a desire to answer the baying of the hounds; then he threw his arms around her, abandoning himself to a new kind of ecstasy.

For a long time Orion forgot everything beyond the darkness and Ariel, but finally, as their passion faded, he realised that the voices outside had returned and multiplied. Hundreds were chanting in unison now, their voices as wild and unhinged as spring itself. Orion knew what was waiting for him, beyond the dark, and his newborn flesh tingled with anticipation. He was old and new; a mewling pup and wizened crone. He had lived for thousands of years and he was about to be born for the first time.

As the chorus spiralled into a rousing crescendo, Orion felt Ariel take his hand and lead him forwards. At first they were stepping through the heavens. Orion looked down and saw his hooves, treading lightly across the cosmos. Comets and stars folded in his wake as he followed Ariel in a celestial dance. Then he felt ground beneath his hooves, a soft, pungent carpet of rotting leaves that oozed and squelched beneath the weight of his mortal flesh. As they walked, Orion saw light pouring in through a hole in the void: an enormous gateway that allowed the morning to wash over him, bathing his body in warmth and light. The sensations felt utterly new and Orion sighed with pleasure, turning to see Ariel at his side. As the darkness fell away, he saw that his queen was an impossible beauty: a mixture of warm, mortal flesh and glimmering insubstantiality. She was naked, but her hair trailed around her in such a bewildering web of gold and silver that it was impossible to make out her true form. He noticed two tall shapes rising up from her shoulder blades and realised that they were the fluttering, tawny wings of a hawk moth. She caught his eye and gave him a shy smile, before nodding at the archway ahead of them.

Orion followed the direction of her gaze and saw figures moving through the glare, framed by the archway. He felt a rush of impatience and hurried forwards, dragging Ariel after him.

She laughed, softly, squeezing his hand as they stumbled out into the light.

The music ceased and silence descended, broken only by the sound of Ariel, laughing quietly.

For a second, Orion was blinded by a crimson sunrise. He grunted in confusion, holding his hands up before his face. Then his eyes grew accustomed to the bloody glare and he saw that they were standing on a wide, grassy dais, at the centre of a circular clearing, surrounded on all sides by enormous oak trees. The dawn light was bleeding through the branches, reaching across the lawn and washing over hundreds of nobles. The highborn of the forest were spread out around the dais, standing beside rows of scented balefires. The flames went untended as the asrai stared up at the beings they had summoned.

Orion began to understand Ariel’s mirth as he surveyed his subjects.

They were terrified.

Every single face was white with fear. The lords and ladies were draped in their most beautiful spring finery: robes of the palest lemon and dresses the colour of new-sprung leaves that flapped and drifted in the morning breeze. Their trailing locks were plaited with bluebells and their wooden, splinter-like crowns blazed crimson with the fire of the rising sun. But, despite all of this, they resembled nothing more than quaking vermin, cornered by a hound.

Orion started to laugh. He was delighted to find that his voice was a rolling, powerful roar that caused the asrai to cower even further away from him. Some dropped to their knees and all averted their gaze. As his body shook with the pleasure of being alive, Orion looked down at himself. The memory of Sephian’s shredded, bloody skin faded as he saw what he had become. His body looked as though it had been carved from the tallest, most venerable oak in the forest. His hindquarters were broad and powerful and ended in enormous, ridged hooves. His chest was clad in thick, angular muscles and his whole body was tinged a beautiful lichen green. He looked back and saw that he and Ariel had emerged from an oak that towered over the others. Its shape was hard to define and it seemed to shift from his gaze, as though it were not entirely enamoured of the material realm. Orion knew which tree he was looking at and suddenly he felt all the glory and power of his new life. He let go of Ariel’s hand, raised his fists to the fading winter’s light and howled.

As Orion’s cry echoed around the forest, the balefires guttered and danced and a fierce breeze struck up from nowhere, sending several of the asrai stumbling to their knees. The roar swelled in volume and Orion realised he did not wish it to ever stop: he would drive the world to its knees with one, endless, life-affirming howl. As he filled the forest with noise, Orion felt his heart pound with a nameless, wonderful fury.

‘Listen,’ said a voice in his mind. The words were no more than a whisper, but they cut through Orion’s cry and caused him to pause. He recognised the gentle tones and ceased his cry, turning to see that Ariel was still smiling at him.

‘They are welcoming us,’ she said.

Orion looked back at the cowering asrai and realised that one of them was reciting some kind of poem. He was a pale, delicate-looking youth, dressed in worn, rust-coloured leather. The name Khoron Belidae popped into Orion’s mind and he felt that this was someone he disliked; an artist of some kind, whose florid, flamboyant tone was already starting to irritate him.

‘Bidden but never bound,’ recited the fey-looking noble, ‘we implore thee, our most sacred mirrors of Kurnous and Isha, that thou seest the loyalty in our bosom and that thou seest the hunger in our souls and that thou seest the joy in our welcome and that thou seest the blessing in our gifts. Both mortal and divine, we beg that you deem us worthy; that you abjure the mystical realm and, for a brief season of…’

Orion shook his head at the ridiculous, pompous youth, so clearly in love with his own voice. He pictured himself in simpler times, racing through the trees with his young lover at his side. There had been no elaborate rituals then; no nauseating, tousle-haired poets. ‘How did we get here?’ he said, turning to Ariel with a bemused expression.

‘That’s what you always say,’ she replied, with another gentle laugh.

Orion frowned and looked at the other nobles.

Many of them had backed away to the far side of the clearing and some were crumpled on the ground, terrified by the ferocity of his howl. As the echoes faded, and Khoron Belidae droned on, they climbed nervously to their feet and edged back towards the King. Orion realised that many other faces were familiar to him. They peered back at him from the past and present; from countless ages of the world, the dutiful subjects of his endless reign.

He saw an old spellweaver, her eyes clouded by age. She was one of the few who had not abandoned her place by the fires and he realised it was because her sight was gone. Princess Asphalia, he thought with a shock, remembering the clear-eyed beauty she had once been. He looked to her side and saw her husband, Prince Elatior – the one they called the Enchanter. Despite the terror he must be feeling, Elatior looked just as Orion remembered him: gaunt, immobile features with lidded, disdainful eyes. There was something vague and insubstantial about the Enchanter. The morning light shone through him, as though he were a figure painted on canvas, rather than a corporeal being of flesh and bone. He and his wife were drifting a few feet from the ground, shrouded in tendrils of rippling light. Sprawled around them were their servants and slaves, whimpering into their robes. Orion felt a vague sadness at seeing Asphalia so diminished and turned his gaze elsewhere.

On the other side of the clearing he saw another familiar face: a low-browed, powerful-looking warrior, with a broad, bare chest and thick bronze torques coiled around his biceps. The torques had been cleverly wrought to resemble eagle wings, sweeping up from his arms, but the most striking thing about him was the ritual scarring that covered his face: deep, circular grooves that spiralled down from his forehead and surrounded his eyes, adding to his ferocious appearance.

‘Prince Haldus,’ growled Orion, glimpsing memories of the warrior in battle, riding an enormous bird of prey. ‘A rider of hawks.’

As he studied Prince Haldus’s intricately scarred face, Orion recalled the name of the warrior’s home, way up in the Pine Crags: Arum Tor. He was about to call out, and demand that the warrior introduce himself, but then he noticed something odd. Behind the warrior from Arum Tor was another pair of familiar faces. They were dressed in pale yellow robes edged with intricate copper thread, and they wore expressions of the most absurd haughtiness. Lady Ordaana, he recalled, fixing his gaze on one of them. Her robes were dishevelled and torn, but it was not that Orion found strange; most of the celebrants bore some sign of their night-long excesses. No, it was something else he found odd. She had the most curious expression on her face. Whilst everyone else was either staring at the ground in fear or peering anxiously at him, Lady Ordaana had her eyes locked on the glittering vision at his side. She was staring at the Queen with the most intense passion.

Orion stepped forwards, causing several nobles to gasp and scramble away. He intended to summon Ordaana to his side when yet another familiar face caught his eye.

He laughed as he realised it was Atolmis. It seemed absurd that he had recently been so afraid of the horned rider. Atolmis managed to briefly meet his master’s eye, looking up at him with an expression of awe and pride. He towered over the assembled nobles, but Orion, in turn, towered over him.

‘You will grow stronger yet,’ said Ariel, speaking inside his head once more. ‘Come midsummer, and the great conjunction, you will become something more. You will return here to claim your weapons and begin the Great, Eternal Hunt.’ Her voice was full of pride. ‘Even the forest will not hold you.’

Orion closed his eyes and let out a long, rumbling sigh of pleasure, picturing all the glories that lay ahead of him. Then looked back at Atolmis, and remembered how he had transformed him. He strode forwards and grasped Atolmis’s shoulder. Then, after a moment’s thought, he took his spear.

Atolmis shook his head and rose to his feet. ‘My-my lord,’ he stammered. ‘Such a weapon is not worthy of you.’

Orion nodded. ‘It is worthy.’ He tightened his grip on Atolmis’s shoulder and stared at him in silence. Then he turned away and noticed a pair of tall, serpentine thrones, made of knotted roots, placed beside the Oak of Ages. He thudded across the grass and slumped in one of them, still cradling Atolmis’s spear.

Ariel followed and sat beside him. Then she nodded at the huddled crowd, indicating that the rites could continue.

After a few minutes musicians emerged from the trees, plucking hesitantly at harps and breathing lightly across their flutes. Being careful to avoid Orion’s thunderous gaze, the bravest of the highborn crept forwards and knelt at Ariel’s feet, proffering gifts of honey and wild flowers and hanging delicate wooden beads across the arms of her throne.

Seeing that Orion made no move to attack, more of the asrai returned from the trees, joining drums and voices to the odd, lilting tune. As Ariel’s sad smile washed over them, the highborn grew more confident and soon they were whirling back and forth across the grass, pounding their drums with wild abandon and leaping across the balefires.

As the sun rose slowly into the sky, the birds of the forest joined their voices to the celebrations and Orion remembered what it was to be warm. For a while he watched the dancing and the rituals with bemused indifference, happy to know that the Queen was being worshipped as she had been for countless centuries. Her handmaidens had emerged from the trees – sylph-like mirrors of her splendour, who fussed and fawned over her golden limbs, adjusting her tresses, whispering secrets into her ears and causing her musical laughter to ring out across the clearing. She saw Orion watching and smiled back at him, pursing her lips as though they were sharing a private joke.

Orion’s attention drifted and he let his gaze wander over the weapon in his hands. As he studied the grain of the wood, a face suddenly drifted into a view – a scene from a half-forgotten memory. The face was as pale and gnarled as the birch wood and, as it grew in his mind, Orion felt a terrible dread, welling up from the core of his being. The sound of the singing faded away as the ashen face glared back at him, filled with scorn. Who is it? he thought. Who doubts me? As his panic grew, Orion hunched over the spear, gripping it so tightly that it began to splinter and crack.

Ariel looked over at him and her smile faltered. She moved her handmaidens aside and leant towards her king. ‘Orion, my love?’

Orion did not hear but kept glaring at the spear. A low growl rumbled up from the depths of his chest. Who is it?

Then a single voice rang out through the din of the spring rites. Orion’s sharpened senses picked out two words amongst thousands; two syllables that caused him to sit up in his throne: ‘the Wrach’. The name released a torrent of images into Orion’s mind. He pictured the creatures he had seen on the far side of the frozen pond, all the strange beings that had found him so badly wanting; the blind old man, wreathed in fog, called the Wrach was just one of them. Orion’s stomach knotted as he recalled the child with autumn leaves in his hair; the lumbering, wooden giants; the revolting toad; the stag; the serene, doubting wolf; all the lords of the forest; all the bestial judges that doubted his strength to rule. As he remembered their scornful faces, their terrible accusations flooded his ears. ‘There is a cloud hanging over his future,’ said one voice. ‘He is weak,’ said another. Orion’s panic grew. If he failed, Ariel’s rule would end. She would die. He was sure of it. All those centuries they had shared would mean nothing. Their lives would wither and fade. He had to prove the creatures wrong. He had to prove his strength. He lurched to his feet, his heart pounding as he jabbed his spear at the crowd, scattering handmaidens and nobles as he lurched across the grass.

‘Who said that?’ he howled.

The light in the clearing dimmed and a strange groaning sound came from the surrounding trees.

The asrai stared at Orion in abject terror and even Khoron Belidae ceased reciting his endless poem.

Ariel’s handmaidens turned to her with questioning glances, but she looked just as confused as anyone else present. She leant forwards with a question on her lips but before she could speak Orion roared again.

‘Who said “the Wrach”?’ Orion’s enormous body shook with rage and several nearby branches cracked and splintered. The light dimmed even more and a deep, creaking rumble came from beneath the ground. Some of the nobles began bolting for the trees. Others dropped back to their knees, terrified of the daemonic being in their midst.

Only one figure remained standing, unbowed by the strange pall that had flooded the clearing. It was a stranger; tall and lean and clad in a long black cloak. As the nobles scattered around him, he waited in silence, dark and gaunt as a crow.

Orion fixed his blazing glare on the youth. His senses seemed already to have passed beyond the merely physical and he knew immediately that the stranger was not of noble blood. He was a common bard and should never have been admitted to the rites of Ostaliss – not without an invitation from the Queen. Orion sensed a mystery in him. Why did he stare back so proudly?

‘You?’ bellowed Orion, thudding across the grass and jabbing the spear at the hooded figure.

The bard staggered under the weight of the question.

‘Who are you?’ demanded Orion.

As Orion approached, the stranger could not hold his gaze and was forced to lower his head. ‘My lord,’ he replied, his voice trembling. ‘I am Finavar. I am… well, that is… in Locrimere they call me the Darkling Prince.’

Orion heard a gasp from his right. He turned to see the couple he had noticed earlier. Lord Beldeas and Lady Ordaana dropped their looks of haughty disdain and replaced them with expressions of stunned disbelief.

‘Did you bring this to the Queen’s glade?’ he asked, rounding on them.

Lord Beldeas’s eyes seemed to hide beneath his vast expanse of forehead. ‘My lord, I-I…’ As he tried to face the demigod looming over him, Beldeas’s reply became a stream of incoherent apologies.

‘Lady Ordaana?’ said Ariel, gliding across the grass and taking the hand of her former handmaiden. She pulled Ordaana close, her face full of affection and surprise. ‘Is it really you? I did not see you, hiding back here.’ There was pity in her voice. ‘You have returned, after so many years.’ She squeezed Ordaana’s hand. ‘They told me of the fire.’

Ordaana’s usual refinement and poise abandoned her. Her flawless skin flushed pink and she attempted an awkward smile that did not suit her angular features. ‘My queen,’ she said, managing at least to maintain her crisp, icy diction. ‘After what happened, I did not know if you would care to see me.’

Ariel closed her eyes for a moment, before throwing her arms around Ordaana’s tall, brittle body. ‘My love does not fade so easily, Ordaana.’ She glanced back at the handmaidens crowded around the root thrones. ‘You may not be my handmaiden, but you will always be my friend.’

Ordaana looked over at the handmaidens. Her gaze rested briefly on one in particular: the Queen’s new favourite, Laelia. ‘Thank you,’ she replied, not quite managing to hide the pain in her voice.

Ariel frowned and was about to say something more when Orion interrupted.

‘Who is this?’ he demanded, grabbing Finavar by the shoulder and hauling him closer.

Seeing that her husband was still unable to speak, Ordaana replied for him, keeping her gaze somewhere near Orion’s blood-splattered hooves. ‘He is not here by our bidding, I assure you, my lord. I can only imagine–’

‘Eremon allowed me to come,’ exclaimed Finavar, with his hood trapped in Orion’s enormous fist. He tried to look at his king, but one glance at such close quarters made his head pound. To his horror, he realised that blood had started rushing from his nose and ears. He turned to Lord Beldeas with a pleading expression. ‘He agreed that my message was urgent enough to warrant the interruption. We need help. Locrimere needs help.’

Lord Beldeas turned to his wife, horrified that he might be associated with someone who had earned the wrath of Orion. ‘I assure you we have nothing to do with this insolent rogue,’ he said, facing Ordaana as he spoke, unable to address the magnificent beings looming over him. He clasped his hands together. ‘The name is familiar, but I would never have summoned him into the presence of your majesties; not during the rites of the Even-Night.’

Finavar wiped the blood from his face and shook his head. ‘Eremon needs help.’ He raised his voice, sure that the great Orion would help if he could just make him understand. ‘The cloven ones are marching on Locrimere, my king. It is a host greater than anything I have ever heard of. Eremon cannot hold them alone, but if you were to lead the Wild Hunt against them, they would be destroyed.’

The colour drained from the faces of Beldeas and Ordaana. Finavar’s breach of court protocol was horrific. How could he think to advise his king?

‘Ridiculous,’ said Ordaana, raising her chin. ‘A few goat-headed outsiders are no threat to Locrimere.’

Orion stooped so that his face was just inches from Finavar’s.

‘What do you know of the Wrach?’ he asked, ignoring Finavar’s talk of invasion.

Finavar struggled in Orion’s grip, straining to avoid the King’s dreadful gaze. ‘Eremon, the captain of Locrimere’s kinbands, allowed me to bring you this news. He cannot stand against such numbers.’ He looked over at Beldeas again. ‘They are already tearing through the southern glades. They have some kind of–’

Orion stood up straight, grabbing Finavar by the throat and lifting him from the ground. ‘The Wrach,’ he said, his voice low and dangerous.

Finavar gasped and began to cough up thick gobbets of blood. Beldeas and Ordaana backed away, trying to distance themselves from their subject.

‘I needed to reach you fast,’ groaned Finavar, trying to stretch his face away from Orion’s. ‘I knew that only you could help.’ Finavar waved back towards the trees. ‘My brother advised that we take the Dark Paths.’

Orion nodded. He was aware that the bards of Loec had their own routes through the forest; some safer than others.

‘We travelled by the Tenderfoot Way.’

Orion gave no sign of recognition, so Finavar continued, still trying desperately to avoid his gaze. ‘Such paths are hazardous. One may travel leagues and still emerge on the day after you entered.’ He paused. ‘Or three centuries earlier.’

Orion tightened his grip on Finavar’s throat.

‘The Wrach is also known as the Blind Guide!’ exclaimed Finavar, kicking his legs wildly. ‘He leads where sight is no use.’ His voice became a thin croak. ‘He has a piece of stone for an eye. It leads him through the forest.’

Orion stared hard at Finavar and lowered his voice, recalling the milky irises of the figure beyond the pool. ‘The Blind Guide?’

Finavar tried to nod, seeing that he had finally caught Orion’s attention. ‘His eyes… are… They are… as white as pearls.’

Orion remained motionless for a moment, with Finavar still dangling from his grip. Then he nodded and dropped him. ‘Show me.’

Finavar thudded onto the ground, clutching his neck and coughing violently.

Ariel stepped to Orion’s side. ‘The celebrations have only just begun.’ She placed her hand on Orion’s arm and smiled. ‘Who is this Blind Guide, that would take you away from your queen?’

Orion backed away and lifted his chin, looking at Ariel down the length of his regal nose. ‘There are spirits in the forest who would deny our rule.’ His eyes blazed. ‘I will return, as soon as I have proven myself.’

Ariel’s smile faltered. ‘My love, what do you mean? The trees are full of spirits. They are as much a part of us as we are of them. You do not need to prove anything.’

Orion nodded at Finavar and the youth clambered to his feet, staggering off towards the trees, still coughing and spluttering.

‘I will return as soon as I can,’ repeated Orion, refusing to meet the Queen’s gaze and storming off into the forest.

As he shouldered his way through the low-hanging branches, Orion tried to keep his gaze fixed on the slight figure of Finavar, bounding through the trees ahead of him, but he was haunted by visions of the beasts beyond the pool. They crawled from his memory and watched him from the branches and scrub, whispering accusations and sneering at him. They looked so real, so hateful, that Orion began to snarl and lunge as he ran, struggling to believe they were illusions. Finally, smashing through the bracken, he saw an even stranger vision: himself, bloody, but proud and clutching what looked like a piece of dark, raw meat – a glistening red lump, trailing a cluster of pale, artery-like tubes.

Amongst all the strangeness of the morning, this latest vision did not even seem odd, but the defiance Orion saw in his own eyes filled him with determination. ‘You are bound for glory,’ the other Orion seemed to be saying. ‘You cannot fail.’ He nodded at himself and picked up his pace, fixing his stare back on the hooded bard, allowing the beasts to fade and wither back into the shadows.

After a while he heard horses and began to smile. As his riders approached, thundering through the trees to his side, Orion realised that only two things mattered.

He was alive.

He was hunting.

Finavar scrambled back through the trees, coughing and spitting blood as he staggered through the undergrowth. ‘What have I done?’ he muttered, hearing the sound of Orion behind him. After a few minutes he paused and leant against a tree, plucking up the courage to look over his shoulder. Orion was still there, striding after him, his twisted antlers tearing through the branches and his hooves pounding across the quickly thawing earth.

Finavar clutched his shock of dyed hair as he saw other shapes emerging from the gloom: huge, ivy-clad riders, with tall birch-wood helmets and spiral horns, riding pale stallions. ‘By the gods, Fin,’ he muttered, lurching on through the trees. ‘Orion.’ He laughed in amazement. ‘I am leading the King to war.’

Finavar picked up his pace, keen to impress Orion with his skill. As he ran, he let out a low whistle. After a few minutes he glimpsed a pair of small, dark shapes, dashing through the undergrowth ahead. He grinned with bloody teeth. ‘Find the others,’ he called. ‘Take me back to the old stones.’

Orion and his riders followed Finavar for the rest of the morning, maintaining an ominous silence. The only sound was that of hooves and breaking wood.

Finally, Finavar leapt down into a small rocky crevasse ending in a jagged cluster of stunted hawthorn trees. The sun was now directly overhead and as he scrambled down the slope, Finavar watched Mormo and Mauro race across the rocks and halt beside a group of figures huddled in the shade of the trees. At the sight of Finavar’s guides, they leapt to their feet and hurried out into the sunlight, drawing their swords and calling his name.

Alhena moved the fastest, her face taut and fierce. Next came the boy. This far from Locrimere, his brother seemed more childlike than ever, with his anxious eyes and small, delicate face. Behind them came Thuralin, limping across the rocks and wearing his perpetual, crumpled scowl.

Alhena stopped a few feet away from Finavar and cursed as she saw the blood smeared across his face. Then her mouth dropped open as she saw the figures that had appeared at the edge of the crevasse.

‘The Wild Hunt,’ she muttered, allowing the tips of her blades to clatter against the ground.

‘Stand aside!’ cried Finavar, as he hurried past. ‘Hide yourselves.’ He clapped his brother on the shoulder and grinned at him. ‘Orion is amongst us!’ Then he shoved him towards the slope.

The blood on his face, and the towering figures riding down the slope behind him were more than enough warning. Jokleel and the others scrambled up the incline and hid themselves from view as he charged on towards the clump of trees.

Finavar stumbled to a halt, looking at a cluster of sun-bleached stones. He grimaced as he studied them. To travel by the Dark Paths had been his brother’s idea, and it was the boy who had known about the stones. Finavar shook his head. There was something odd about Jokleel. There was an old wisdom in those, large, thoughtful eyes; a wisdom Finavar had never quite understood. When Jokleel explained that the stones were portals of some kind Finavar had not even thought to doubt him, or wonder how he knew such things.

The sound of voices dragged Finavar back into the present. The riders had dismounted and, along with the King, they were marching down the gulley towards him.

Finavar hurried on, making for the tall, crooked dolmen: an enormous slab of granite, supported by two others, forming a window onto the trees at the far side of the gulley.

He came to a halt beneath it and lowered his gaze, feeling his pulse start to pound as the riders approached.

He felt Orion’s presence looming over him as the horned giant stepped beneath the dolmen. The King had to stoop to fit his antlers beneath the slumping capstone. The sound of his breathing echoed between the stones.

‘The Wrach lives here?’

Finavar cowered from Orion’s rumbling tones, noticing as he did so that his friends were peering down at him in disbelief from the top of the incline.

‘This is where the Wrach left us,’ he gasped, finding it suddenly hard to breathe. ‘These stones are one of the gateways to his paths. He has a key – a black stone that he keeps on the end of a staff.’

Orion said nothing for a few seconds, scraping one of his talons across the rounded, dusty stones. The sun was beating fully on them now and it was possible to make out the remains of a circular inscription: an ancient hieroglyph of some kind, depicting branches knotted together in a thick wreath. Orion sighed. It was a heavy, growling sound that could have implied pleasure or irritation.

‘Torr-Goholoth,’ said Atolmis, removing his wooden helmet and stepping beneath the dolmen. Like Orion, he had to stoop, but rather than irritation, there was a note of excitement in his voice. ‘That would make sense.’

Orion turned to face Atolmis. ‘You know this place?’

Atolmis frowned, momentarily confused by his lord’s ignorance. Then he recalled that Orion was effectively a newborn. ‘There are many such standing stones buried in the forest. Naieth, the Queen’s prophetess, sometimes speaks of them. She refers to them by an old name, the Sínann-Torr, but in truth I think even she knows very little about them. They are hard to find, and old; older even than our own waystones. Naieth says they are older than the forest itself.’ Atolmis shrugged. ‘I know nothing of that, but I do know that they are restless – especially at this time of year. They follow no rules of nature. We could return tomorrow and find this place gone.’ He fixed his black, bottomless eyes on his king and pulled back his lips in a revolting grin, revealing his long yellow incisors. ‘Torr-Goholoth is rarely far from its twin, Torr-Marloch. You might remember that stone, even if you do not recall these.’

Orion frowned. His memories were still a jumble of fragments. At the mention of Torr-Marloch he saw a glimpse of an earlier life. He saw himself as he was centuries earlier, drenched in blood, standing on a flame-licked rock, holding a lifeless, broken corpse aloft, egged on by a roaring crowd. He nodded as the scene grew clearer in his head, but almost immediately, a fresher memory replaced it. He saw the beasts from the pool, sneering at him as he staggered back into the water, pleading for their faith.

Orion forgot the stones and turned to his equerry with a look of sudden recognition. ‘You could take me back to them!’

The smile vanished from Atolmis’s face. ‘Who?’

‘You know who. You let them judge me.’ Orion’s voice was hoarse with bitterness. ‘You led me to them. You could do it again.’

Comprehension dawned in Atolmis’s black eyes. ‘Ah, I see.’ He hesitated and glanced at Finavar, unwilling to speak in front of a lowborn. ‘You saw that which no mortal could comprehend. You saw the Brúidd.’ There was a note of awe in Atolmis’s voice. ‘The Great Gathering. The portal is open once a year – at the time of the trial. If we were to return to the pool now, you would find nothing but weeds and mud.’

Orion continued staring at Atolmis.

Atolmis shrugged. ‘My knowledge is limited. The Queen could tell you more. My leaf-liege, you saw the remains of what came before us. You saw the last remnants of the Council of Beasts.’

Orion bridled at his servant’s humble tone. ‘What came before is unimportant.’ He clenched his fists. ‘I am here now.’ He grabbed the ivy that snaked from beneath Atolmis’s skin and hauled him closer, until their faces were almost touching. ‘Who rules this forest?’ His voice was a furious whisper. ‘This Brúidd, or your king?’

Atolmis hesitated. There was fear in his eyes, but it was mixed with something else. ‘There are different ways to rule,’ he answered finally. ‘They say that Ariel consorts with one of them: a prehistoric spirit called Sativus. He is chief amongst the Brúidd. He–’

Orion shoved him back against the old stones, filling the air with dust. The name Sativus filled him with nausea, throwing him back to the awful scene by the pool. ‘How can animals question my right to power?’

Atolmis shook his head fiercely. ‘No, my lord, you do not understand. They are not animals. They are not at all what they appear. Their physical–’

‘You!’ snapped Orion, whirling around and looking back at Finavar. ‘How do I use these rocks? How do I find this Wrach?’

Finavar blanched and raised his hands. ‘I do not know for sure.’ He looked anxiously up at the ridge, where his brother was hiding. The truth was that the boy was the only one who had known what to do, but Finavar did not have the heart to summon such a gentle youth into the presence of Orion. He tried to meet the King’s gaze again, desperate to know his mind. Finally he managed to bear the briefest glimpse. Orion’s eyes were two furious slits of emerald, glittering with sylvan fire. Finavar gasped as they bored into his mind. ‘We waited,’ he replied, turning away, ‘until sunset. Then we hummed an old melody. And then we slept. The Wrach was willing, so when we awoke, at midnight, the branches had sprung to life.’

‘Branches?’

Finavar nodded and waved at the faded circular symbol on the stone. ‘The Wrach’s key unlocks whatever sorcery links these stones.’ He grinned apologetically. ‘I do not understand how.’

Orion turned back to Atolmis with a raised eyebrow.

Atolmis studied Finavar, cowering in his spiny black robes on the floor of the dolmen, gazing lovingly at his king. ‘The bard speaks the truth, my lord. I have heard many such tales. They say the Wrach can manipulate the forest’s hidden spaces. You yourself once told me that the Wrach has a talisman – a fragment of a magic stone, with which he commands these old ruins. He is powerful.’ He paused, sounding unnerved. ‘But such things have never concerned you before.’

Orion did not seem to register this last comment, distracted by the mention of the Wrach’s stone. He recalled how the spirit’s odd, elongated fingers cascaded over the head of his staff. ‘I cannot wait until nightfall.’

Atolmis shrugged. ‘If the Wrach allows you onto the Dark Paths, you will have all the time you need. You could return to Ariel’s court before you even left.’

Orion nodded vaguely, but his thoughts had drifted into the past again. He felt a chill of shame as he remembered pleading with the Brúidd. ‘I will do anything,’ he had said, like a cringing infant. The shame of it was almost too much for him to bear and as he turned back to Atolmis it took all his strength to resist tearing him apart. ‘Then I will wait.’ He crouched on the rock and turned to Finavar. ‘And you will sing.’

After Orion left the clearing the celebrants waltzed on, and after watching the King disappear into the trees, Ariel herself joined the dance.

The musicians drummed with renewed enthusiasm as the Queen turned from the trees and, with a single beat of her delicate wings, dropped right into the heart of the dance. She spun and twirled across a carpet of flower petals as her handmaidens formed a circle around her, holding hands and spinning in the opposite direction. As they danced, the Queen and her handmaidens flickered with silver fire, lighting up the awed faces of the highborn who pressed closer. To those who had remained awake it seemed that they were in the presence of stars and comets; the heavens themselves seemed to be rotating before them on the grass.

As she danced, Ariel closed her eyes and allowed her attention to wander. While others sang and talked, she remained quiet, revelling in the eternal sameness of her court. At first she could only hear the fawning tributes of those subjects who were nearest to her, but her senses quickly moved on to the more interesting conversations being held beneath the trees. She smiled to herself. Gossip, she decided, was as unchanging as the cycle of the seasons. She heard one noble boasting of some adorable new slaves: human children, snatched from the outskirts of the forest. Their infancy would now be eternal, blessed, and spent in the service of asrai lords. ‘They have such intelligence in their eyes,’ exclaimed the noble. ‘I swear, you could almost believe they were born in the forest.’

Then another perennial topic caught Ariel’s ear: the folly of youth. The shocking appearance of the wardancer, Finavar, was the subject of much debate. They were outraged by his flaunting of protocol and his arrogant demeanour; most of all, though, they were galled by his assumed title. ‘The Darkling Prince!’ they scoffed. ‘Have you ever heard of such a thing? From a rough-hewn lowborn, with no trace of nobility in his blood!’ Ariel’s smile grew as she heard the force of their contempt. She heard mention of all the usual scandals: whispered secrets, forbidden trysts and shameful, hidden vices. Lord Beldeas’s name was on everyone’s lips. He had spent the winter amusing himself in a manner that delighted the other nobles. They feigned disapproval, of course, but it was all too clear that they revelled in his exploits. Ariel resisted the urge to laugh as she heard Beldeas’s velvety tones, not far from where he was being discussed. He was boasting to one of her servants, telling her how he had recently produced a wonderful piece of artwork, using nothing but moths.

Ariel spun faster through the dance and threw her thoughts even wider. As she listened harder, she heard one refrain that did not seem quite so amusing. Buried amongst the idle notes of flattery and gossip, there was another, darker theme. At first she disregarded it, but the same phrases were repeated so many times, eventually she started to pay heed.

‘Outsiders, right on our borders. I’ve never seen such a thing.’

‘Creatures of Chaos, marching straight through the heart of the Iuliss Vale.’

‘Bull-headed things. Easy enough to kill, of course, but we found the last of them near Drúne Fell. How could they have reached such a place?’

Ariel’s smile faded. The highborn only mentioned these events briefly before moving on to other, more exciting matters, but Ariel felt unnerved by them. It sounded as though some of the kindreds had suffered heavy losses. Outsiders had been seen across the length of the forest, and some of the sites mentioned were right in its heart. The Iuliss Vale was a few short leagues away. The peaks of Drúne Fell were even closer. Such places had not seen violence since the Winter of Woe. The thought that they might be changed in some way appalled her.

As the dance spiralled around her, Ariel allowed all the strength and passion of the nobles to flood her mind, cleansing it of worry. Their thoughts bled through her like sunshine piercing a leaf. She closed her eyes as she danced and let them lift her mind up, over the treetops and down into the surrounding valleys. Spring was already taking hold. Shoots were slicing through the loamy soil; tiny spears of green were sprouting through dead, coppery bracken. The dance whirled faster and Ariel’s thoughts flew further. The crowns and domes of her kingdom spread out before her and the Queen felt all the potency and permanence of the forest. The thought calmed her. The outside world had long been pitted against the asrai, but her rule was as endless as the stars. Besides, Orion was born again and nothing else mattered. With the King by her side, she could endure anything.

Ariel was about to begin another dance, when she saw a tall, antlered figure, striding back through the trees. ‘Orion,’ she gasped, grinning with relief. ‘You decided to stay!’

CHAPTER TWELVE

The rock had not been easy to find. The indifferent centuries had left it as hunched as a crone, and clad in thick, velvet robes of lichen and moss. Only the most determined gaze could have picked it out, hidden as it was amongst a grove of solemn, moonlit boughs.

The Blood-kin were nothing if not determined.

Most of them remained hidden beneath the surrounding trees, glaring suspiciously at the old rock, but three stepped close enough to touch the circle carved into its surface. The first was a swaggering brute with a broad, hunched back and a meat cleaver in each hand. It was dressed in filthy rags and scraps of tattered skin and, at first glance, looked no different from those beneath the trees, with a broad, humanoid torso and a snorting bovine head. It was only as the monster emerged from the shadows that its particular mutation was revealed. Its waist rose from the scarred, muscled body of an enormous bull.

‘Another firestone,’ it said. Its voice was a low grunt and as it spoke it scratched furiously at its flanks. Weevils and mites glittered in its hair and scurried across its long, wide back. ‘The sticks told us right, again.’

The second of the three figures nodded in agreement. It was short, slight and leaning heavily on a crooked staff. This creature was much harder to discern. Its tattered robes were midnight black and as its hooves pounded across the clearing the light rippled away. It was as though even the moons were reluctant to examine it too closely.

‘I told you right, Ghorgus,’ it rasped. Its voice sounded like a badly oiled hinge.

The four-legged monster gave no reply and turned to the third figure. This one was taller than the other two. Its origins were clearly just as vile, but its bestial hindquarters were clad in thick plates of armour and its chest was almost as wide as the stone looming over them.

‘What does Morgharon say?’ asked the creature with the body of a bull.

The third figure drew itself to its full height, clearly revelling in the way it dwarfed the other two. It lifted a roughly hewn club, bristling with shards of iron, and waved it back the way they had come. ‘Morgharon has brought the Blood-kin here.’ Then it pounded the club against its metal-clad chest, indicating the foul glyphs daubed across the iron plates. A dull clanging sound filled the clearing. ‘Morgharon is in the eye of the gods. Morgharon sent the fae back to their flowers. Even the hooded dancer could not stand against me. Morgharon deserves to share the prize this time.’

The creatures waiting beneath the trees heard Morgharon’s claims and began to snort and low with excitement. As they pressed closer, raising their cruel weapons, it became clear that there were as many beastmen around the stone as trees. They stared hungrily at the three figures, sensing that it might be time for a new chieftain.

The four-legged creature called Ghorgus nodded. Its reply was full of grudging respect. ‘Perhaps Morgharon has earned the right to touch the firestone this time.’ Ghorgus turned to the shadowy figure with the staff. ‘What does Belakhor the Unseen think?’

Belakhor waved its staff at the trees. Vague, enormous shadows were arrayed around the clearing – taller even than the old oaks that surrounded the stone. ‘We can sip at the flames, but the full draught is not for us.’

Ghorgus nodded eagerly but Morgharon sneered, clearly forming other ideas. ‘Look at how that boar-headed oaf pissed his chance away. You should put your trust in Morgharon.’

This claim was met by a ripple of grunts and laughs from the figures under the trees.

Ghorgus looked amused rather than threatened, and turned back to the hooded figure with the staff.

Belakhor the Unseen stepped closer to the stone and planted its staff in the ground, clutching the knotted wood with both hands. Even standing in the centre of the clearing, the creature was hard to see. It was as though the shadows had become caught in its robes and dragged along with them. The beastman began to mutter under its breath. A series of repugnant, guttural snorts fell from its hood, and the figures beneath the trees began to shuffle and pant, excited by the power rippling through their fur.

Belakhor barked, belled and snorted, reciting its spell with such force that its staff began to rattle. The wood was draped with an odd collection of trophies and fetishes: snail shells and bird skulls clattered against gore-drenched rags and the remnants of a human ribcage. As the spell continued, the rattling grew louder, Belakhor’s words became more urgent and a pale glow began to emerge from beneath its hood. Finally the shaman let out a bitter curse and lowered its staff. ‘This stone is too big. The fae-magic cannot escape. It must be moved back. It has to fall.’

Morgharon strode forwards, barging the other two aside with its enormous bulk. ‘Morgharon is in the eye of the gods.’ It growled at the crowds beneath the trees. ‘Morgharon will move the stone.’

The snorts and jeers grew louder, egging Morgharon on, but Ghorgus made no comment as the brute dropped its club on the ground and slammed its shoulders against the old rock.

Belakhor lifted its staff and continued the spell, muttering the words with even more urgency as Morgharon strained against the stone. The staff pulsed with light again and this time the waystone responded. The moss beneath Morgharon’s fingers lit up in a circular, knotted design.

As the stone flared brighter it illuminated the beastman’s snarling features, revealing the determination in its tiny, feral eyes. Morgharon began to groan, applying more and more pressure to the rock, leaning its whole, enormous weight against it.

Then, as Morgharon’s groans became a furious howl, the chieftain, Ghorgus, plunged its meat cleavers deep into Morgharon’s back.

The giant figure grunted in surprise and slumped heavily against the rock.

The creatures beneath the trees gasped.

Belakhor the Unseen showed no sign of surprise as the Blood-kin’s chieftain wrenched its meat cleavers free and struck again, hacking this time into Morgharon’s thick neck.

The bray-shaman’s magic swelled as the giant figure dropped to its knees, spraying blood but still clutching the rune-covered stone.

Ghorgus’s cleavers rose and fell for a third time, hacking Morgharon’s head from its shoulders and sending an even thicker fountain of blood gushing over the stone.

The blood glittered in the moonlight as the chieftain grabbed the severed head from the ground and turned to face the crowds beneath the trees, holding the still gasping head aloft.

As the creatures flinched back into the shadows, Ghorgus’s four hooves drummed against the soil. ‘Ghorgus is the king! Four-legs is the Blood-kin!’ The chieftain galloped towards the watching crowds and yelled ecstatically. ‘Who else wants my crown?’

As Ghorgus thudded and cantered around the clearing, waving Morgharon’s severed head, the warherd raised their axes and clubs and roared their approval. ‘Four-legs!’ they howled, stamping their hooves on the ground and rattling their weapons, filling the forest with a dreadful din. ‘Four-legs! Four-legs!’

Ghorgus’s victory dance was infectious and soon the beastmen plucked up the courage to approach, emerging from the trees and clambering over the stone. They danced gleefully on Morgharon’s corpse and stole pieces of armour, quick to forget the hopes they had recently invested in the brutish giant. Then they grabbed leather flasks from their tattered robes and doused Ghorgus in spirits, before drinking thirstily.

Only one figure remained indifferent to the orgy: the small, hooded shape of Belakhor the Unseen, hunched next to the stone, still muttering furiously and clutching its crooked staff. Morgharon’s blood had filled the hieroglyph on the stone’s surface with fire. After a while the whole stone began to pulse with pale, glowing mist, lighting up the vile celebrations that surrounded it. As the mist flashed brighter Belakhor looked around for the chieftain.

Ghorgus had a flask in each hand and was glugging furiously at the pungent spirits. After every few swallows it had to pause to laugh, recalling how easily Morgharon had fallen for the trick devised by Belakhor.

‘Ghorgus,’ called Belakhor, lifting its voice over the din.

The chieftain lowered the flask and snorted furiously. ‘Is it ready?’

Belakhor nodded, tapping the blood-slick stone with its staff. There was a note of excitement in its screeching voice. ‘There is more here than any of them.’ The creature snickered in its hood. ‘Morgharon’s blood has served you well, Four-legs.’ The monster glanced at the shadows looming over the clearing. ‘Take your reward before we feed our pets.’

Ghorgus thudded up to the stone. ‘Now?’ it asked, readying its meat cleavers.

The hooded figure nodded and uttered one last, foul syllable.

As the mist flared, Ghorgus Four-legs hacked down with both cleavers and the blades clanged against the rock.

There was an explosion of light that sent the chieftain staggering back across the clearing.

Belakhor’s frail body was lifted from the ground and slammed into the whirling crowds.

A blinding light filled the clearing, followed almost immediately by pitch darkness. The celebrations ceased and the beastmen fell silent, blinking and cursing as they staggered blindly back towards the trees.

Ghorgus Four-legs lay sprawled on the ground, dazed by the blast and looking vacantly at the branches overhead. Then the creature shook its head and looked down at its bloody cleavers. The pitted metal was now shrouded with the same mist as the old rock. Ghorgus started to laugh. The vapour was even snaking up through the veins in its scarred forearms. ‘The fae-magic is in me!’

The hooded bray-shaman hurried over and knelt by the chieftain’s side. It threw back its black hood and there was a flash of white as its head was revealed. All that rested on its shoulders was the bleached, bloodstained skull of a ram. ‘The firestones are getting more powerful as we get deeper into the forest,’ it said, looking at the arched path through the trees ahead of them. ‘We are on the right path.’ The bray-shaman tapped one of Ghorgus’s cleavers with its staff. ‘Try it.’

The chieftain leered back at Belakhor and stood up. Then it closed its eyes, raised the weapons to chest height and held them out at arm’s length, muttering another vile incantation. The blades pulsed even brighter and spewed thick columns of fog into the trees.

The Blood-kin muttered and hissed, still shocked to see their chieftain using the strange magic of the forest.

Ghorgus’s words grew in volume and ferocity and then the chieftain hauled back the meat cleavers towards its chest. The trails of mist lashed back into the clearing, dragging with them clumps of bushes and branches and a whole menagerie of creatures: rats, voles and foxes tumbled across the bloody earth, then scampered back into the shadows as Ghorgus lowered the weapons and allowed the mist to evaporate.

The chieftain turned to the skull-headed shaman with its crimson eyes blazing. ‘You were right, Belakhor. This power is greater.’ Ghorgus bellowed with excitement, jabbing the blazing weapons at the moonlit clouds. ‘Four-legs is the king of the forest!’

Belakhor pulled its ram-skull head back beneath its hood and nodded. ‘We have reached the greatest of them. The stick-thing was right. We can cease our wandering. The Blood-kin will be homeless no more.’

At this the figures waiting beneath the trees began to howl again, rattling their weapons against their crude wooden shields and stamping their hooves on the ground.

‘Quick,’ came a thin, rustling whisper, from somewhere near the stone.

Ghorgus and the others had already lost themselves to another frenzied dance and did not hear the voice for their own hooting din.

Belakhor, however, whirled around and hurried back towards the shattered stones, peering into the shadows.

The shaman was rewarded with a glimpse of a foot-high figure: a tiny cluster of twig-like limbs topped with a tall, skull-shaped head. The spectre glittered as Belakhor crouched next to it.

‘What did you say?’ hissed Belakhor.

The bundle of sticks giggled as it clattered jerkily up onto the smouldering remains of the stones, slipping briefly in Morgharon’s cooling blood. ‘The firestones are not a toy, cloven one,’ it said in its odd, rasping whisper. It reached the tallest fragment of stone and pointed at the giant shadows waiting in the trees. ‘Feed them.’

‘Of course.’ Belakhor stooped closer to the spirit. ‘And then do we unleash what we have gathered?’

‘Not yet! You must come further! There are bigger firestones.’

Ghorgus noticed the strange light and rushed over. ‘What does it want?’ The chieftain’s voice was full of suspicion and it lifted one of its still-glowing cleavers.

Belakhor stopped the chieftain with a raised hand. ‘Wait. It says there are even bigger stones, further in the forest.’

Ghorgus sucked its yellowed fangs and lowered its voice, staring at the trees. ‘And then the forest will be ours?’

The flickering shape on the stone nodded at the shadows. ‘Soon you will have all the power of the firestones. Just a few more to go. Locrimere is all that stands in your way.’ It clenched one of its tiny fists. ‘Crush it.’

Ghorgus frowned. ‘What is Locrimere?’

The spirit giggled again and nodded at Ghorgus’s meat cleavers. ‘A sheath for your blades.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Few sounds could have dragged Caorann from such a deep sleep, but the bright, ringing tone of Eremon’s war horn was one of them. The sound cut into his nightmares and dragged him, trembling, from his bed of skins and straw.

‘Fin, wait,’ he groaned, lurching naked across a gloomy chamber, pursued by dreams of towering, goat-headed monsters and screaming friends. ‘There are too many of them!’

‘Wait,’ cried a voice, full of alarm.

Caorann staggered and dropped to his knees. Only then did he wonder where he was. He looked around and saw that he was high up in one of Locrimere’s lofty spiral towers. Through an opening at the far end of the room he could just glimpse the distant crowns of the forest. The treetops were capped by a sliver of dawn light. Caorann frowned, wondering how long he had slept.

Crooked, calloused fingers clasped his shoulders, catching him just before he dropped onto his face. ‘You are too weak, Caorann,’ said the voice.

Caorann turned to see a familiar face. ‘Elaeus,’ he gasped, meeting the concerned gaze of Locrimere’s oldest healer.

‘Your friends have left you in my care,’ said Elaeus, with a gentle smile. ‘And I will not incur the wrath of the Darkling Prince. You must rest.’

Caorann’s frown deepened. As he looked around he saw dozens of other, similar chambers, but they were all empty. ‘Fin has left me behind? Where has he gone?’

Elaeus helped Caorann to his feet and ushered him back to his bed. ‘Eremon has allowed him to greet Ariel and Orion with tidings of war.’ He frowned. ‘A strange decision, if you ask me. Who ever heard of a lowborn demanding an audience with our immortal sovereigns?’

Caorann flopped back into the bed and closed his eyes, trying to recall how he had arrived in Elaeus’s care. His chest was tightly bandaged in linen and every inch of his frame was bruised, but he could not for the life of him remember why. Panic gripped him as he peered into a featureless void. Then the fog began to clear and he saw a brief glimpse of battle. He gasped. ‘The cloven ones. They are in league with the forest.’ The horn rang out again and Caorann opened his eyes, grabbing Elaeus by the shoulders. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

Elaeus shook his head and smiled. ‘There is nothing to be afraid of, Caorann. Eremon is summoning a gathering of the kindreds.’ He looked around at the jars of salve, tassels of dried herbs and poultices hanging from the walls. ‘If my skills lay in another direction I might be able to see for myself.’ He waved in the direction of Locrimere’s southernmost borders, and a note of awe softened the time-worn gravel of his voice. ‘I imagine it will be just like the harp songs you and Finavar like to sing. There will be a great, glorious battle. Eremon has been preparing for days. The blood-rites have all been observed. I hear that he has the steel of Khaine in his eyes.’

The healer clenched his fist and stared at it for a second, wishing it clutched a longbow. His frail old body grew tense and he spoke through clenched teeth. ‘How wonderful to have a warrior at our head for a change.’

Caorann understood the allusion and frowned. ‘Then where is Lord Beldeas? And Lady Ordaana?’

Elaeus opened his fist and exhaled, relaxing his muscles. ‘They left before Finavar and the rest of your friends.’ He sneered. ‘They had other matters to attend to. Apparently, it was essential that they see in the new year in the presence of the other highborn, whatever danger might be threatening Locrimere.’ A distant look came into his eyes. ‘Perhaps they could stay in the Council Glade forever, and leave us in more capable hands.’

Caorann shook his head and was about to reply, but then he wrinkled his nose and scowled. The sharp, acrid smell of burning pitch had entered the chamber.

Elaeus focused back on the present and noticed Caorann’s grimace. He looked back over at the opening. ‘There is something odd on the wind.’ He rose from the bed and crossed the room. He had taken no more than a few steps when he gasped and clutched his pale robes. ‘By the gods,’ he groaned, leaning heavily against the wall.

Caorann climbed to his feet and quickly dressed himself in a loincloth. Then he limped to the healer’s side. As he looked out he saw a scene far worse than the nightmares he had just escaped. The coils and curlicues of Locrimere’s towers were ablaze. Hundreds of flaming arrows were pouring out of the forest, flickering like fireflies in the early morning gloom.

‘How can this be?’ gasped Elaeus, leaning out and peering at the fires. ‘Why are the sentries not doing something? Where is Eremon?’

Caorann peered at the flashes and sparks erupting in the trees. ‘Look!’ he snapped, pointing at an odd shimmer of light, mingled in with the flames. ‘That is what I saw with Fin. It is just the same.’

Elaeus shook his head desperately. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘The creatures of Chaos have turned the forest against us,’ said Caorann, scouring the chamber for his weapons. The two blades were lying near the bed, so he snatched them from the floor and slid them into his belt. Then, with a groan, he lowered himself from the chamber and out onto a walkway, heading for the forest floor.

Elaeus continued shaking his head, watching the distant fires with a shocked expression. Then, after a few minutes, he realised his charge had left and was halfway to the ground. ‘Wait!’ he cried, leaping out of the chamber and vaulting down through the branches. ‘Caorann! You must remain here!’

Caorann gave no reply and hurried on down the walkway. His chest was throbbing painfully but his head was much clearer. As he dropped to the ground, he saw that Locrimere was abandoned. Every glade and avenue was empty. Everyone is at the borders, he thought, hobbling off in that direction. So why is Locrimere going undefended?

Elaeus caught up with him and grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to halt. ‘You are too weak to be of any use, Caorann. You need rest!’

Caorann rounded on him with a snarl. ‘Am I to lie dozing while outsiders destroy Locrimere?’ He shrugged free of Elaeus’s grip and pointed at the trees up ahead. There was a waist-high blanket of smoke, drifting beneath the boughs. ‘Can you rest while our home burns?’

Elaeus looked at the forest and reeled away from Caorann, his face full of anguish.

‘Forgive me, old friend,’ said Caorann, softening his voice and grabbing his friend’s arm. ‘I know you meant well, but we must find out what is happening. Perhaps what I saw with Fin may be of some help?’

Elaeus nodded slowly, but was too shocked to reply. He allowed Caorann to lead him on into the smoke, muttering dark oaths under his breath as they went.

A squall of embers followed them as they hurried through the trees and an ominous heat washed over their faces. Soon they heard sounds of battle and the crackling of burning wood. Arrows whistled past, wrapped in pitch-soaked rags and spitting flames. Branches exploded as the arrows struck home and asrai voices rang out, calling desperate commands.

Caorann handed one of his blades to Elaeus and held the other before him like a beacon as he limped through the thickening smoke. The fumes filled his lungs and when he coughed his chest was wracked by a dreadful pain. Elaeus was still at his side though, so Caorann gave no sign that he was struggling and hurried on, holding his hand over his mouth.

After a few more minutes, they began to glimpse slender figures dashing through the trees, some sparsely clad like Caorann and covered in tattoos, others wearing green leather armour and olive-coloured cloaks.

At the sight of Caorann’s vivid blue hair and tattooed limbs, one of them cried: ‘Bard! Is the Darkling Prince with you?’

Caorann shook his head as he reached a group of guards and realised that he knew the one who had called out. ‘Ilbrec,’ he said. ‘Where is Eremon?’ Nausea was washing over him and he felt as though a hot brand was being forced against his chest. As he leant weakly against a tree, he noticed that his linen bandages were dark with blood.

Ilbrec noticed his pain and his eyes filled with sympathy. ‘Of course, you are Caorann. I did not recognise you.’

Another wave of flaming arrows whistled through the trees, thudding into trunks and branches all around them, and they ducked behind one of the larger trees.

‘Eremon was leading the attack,’ gasped Ilbrec, his hands shaking with shock, ‘but the Chaos creatures are using sorcery.’ His eyes flicked anxiously around the group. ‘It is like they have one of our own magi in their ranks.’

‘How could that be?’ asked one of the other guards, a note of hysteria in his voice.

‘It could not be,’ stated Caorann flatly. The agony in his chest gave his voice a certainty he did not feel. ‘There must be some other explanation. Some other kind of sorcery.’

‘But what?’ asked Elaeus, leaning closer to Caorann.

‘The power comes from the creature that leads them,’ gasped Ilbrec, peering back into the smoke. He grimaced. ‘It is a vile union of man and bull, and it carries a pair of axes that feed on the forest. They hurl mist into the trees.’ He grabbed Elaeus and shook him. ‘It captured hundreds of our kin and then–’

‘Yes,’ interrupted Caorann, placing a hand on Ilbrec’s shoulder and trying to calm him. ‘I have seen such a thing.’ He looked down at his bloody bandages and finally remembered how he had been wounded. ‘We must stop this bull-thing, then. It is our only chance.’ He stared at Ilbrec. ‘Where is it?’

Ilbrec blanched and recoiled from Caorann’s grip. ‘You cannot stop it!’ he cried. ‘Did you hear me? It dragged hundreds of guards from the trees. They were butchered in seconds.’ He waved his longbow at the arrows whirring through the smoke. ‘You have never seen such a host! They are in the thousands, Caorann. Even Eremon could not–’

‘Which way?’ boomed Caorann, rising to his full height.

Ilbrec blushed and lowered his bow, ashamed of his outburst. ‘Very well,’ he muttered, looking as though he had just volunteered for his own execution. ‘I can show you.’ He looked at Elaeus, hoping he might be a voice of reason, but the old healer remained silent.

‘This way,’ said Ilbrec, nodding to the next grove of trees.

With the other guards in tow, they dashed through the banks of smoke, glimpsing groups of archers as they went. The voices they heard were odd and muffled and nobody paused to acknowledge them as they passed.

As they approached the borders of Lord Beldeas’s realm, the scene grew far more disturbing. Hulking, goat-headed beastmen were charging through the glades, spreading fire as they went and hacking down anyone they met. Many of them stumbled, dropping to their knees with arrows embedded in their necks or their tiny, crimson eyes, but they were so numerous that most hurried on through the smoke, making for the heart of Locrimere.

Ilbrec and the other guards shot as they ran. Even in such a state of panic, their marksmanship was incredible. They were vaulting over flaming stumps as they fired, but not a single shot went wide.

Caorann cursed as an outsider exploded from the hedges to their right. He lashed wildly with his leaf-shaped blade and opened the monster’s throat, sending it reeling back into the smoke. The thing died immediately, but Caorann had wrenched open his chest wound and incredible pain washed over him. He groaned as the world went black.

He awoke seconds later, sprawled in Elaeus’s arms and surrounded by asrai. They had abandoned their usual tactics of slipping in and out of the trees, and formed a static circle around the fallen wardancer. They were clearly exposed, huddled on the side of a small hill, and the beastmen were quick to single them out. Dozens of the monsters began loping out of the shifting gloom, leering and snorting and brandishing brutal weapons.

At a nod from Ilbrec, the asrai raised their longbows and loosed a volley of arrows. Every shot found its mark, but there were already dozens more of the beastman approaching. The asrai moved with lightning speed, preparing to shoot again, but the monsters were already on them.

Caorann still had his sword in his hand and lurched to his feet, severing the throat of the first creature to reach them and slamming his forehead into the face of the second.

Elaeus downed a third with a brutal backhanded slash.

Ilbrec and the other guards dropped their longbows and drew blades of their own, hacking furiously at the axe-wielding monsters pouring over the hill.

The asrai slipped between their hulking opponents with ease, but as they fought, dozens more thudded through the trees, bellowing victoriously and waving tattered, bloody scalps over their heads.

A guard fell, with blood spurting from his plates of leather armour. As he dropped to his knees the other asrai rushed to his side, but before they could reach him, a beastman’s axe thudded into his face, shearing half his head away.

As the guard died, Ilbrec’s foot landed in the beastman’s face and sent the monster spinning back through the air.

Elaeus howled as he saw Ilbrec vanish beneath a wave of blades, fur and teeth. He shouldered his way through the fighting but, before he could reach his fallen friend, the haft of an axe crunched into his frail chest and knocked him flat on his back. His sword slipped from his grip and, as he tried to roll clear, the old healer saw to his amazement that it was not just the axe’s haft that had struck his chest; the blade was embedded deep between his ribs and his robes were quickly turning crimson. He drew a breath but before he could let out a scream the axe was wrenched free, taking his life in a spray of blood and splintered bone.

More of the asrai fell as the monsters continued to flood over the hill.

Caorann ignored his pain, vaulting up onto the shoulders of a beastman and flipping through the air.

He landed several feet away and gagged as blood rushed up from his chest.

The beastmen hacked down the last remaining asrai and lurched in his direction, grinning wildly.

Caorann ran, weaving drunkenly through the trees, with no idea which way he was heading. Battling figures whirled past him, shrouded in smoke and trailing terrified screams. The fires were spreading quickly now, leaping from tree to tree, and above it all, Eremon’s horn was still ringing out.

Despite the agony and grief that threatened to overwhelm him, Caorann picked up his pace and managed to leave his attackers behind. The smoke had transformed Locrimere and after a few minutes he paused, unsure which way to go. Eremon’s horn rang out again and he realised it was not as far away as he had thought – it was just the smoke making the sound seem distant. He tightened his blood-drenched bandages and headed off in a new direction.

After crossing a high, slender footbridge, Caorann finally recognised where he was. He had reached Locrimere’s spiritual heart: the peaceful wildflower meadow surrounding the waters of the Idolan.

It was peaceful no longer.

The air was clearer here and Caorann was able to see a pitched battle, raging through the long grass. Hundreds of archers were assembled on the southernmost side of the meadow with their backs to the lake, filling the air with arrows and howling commands. The other side of the field was swarming with outsiders. Ranks of goat- and bull-headed monsters were advancing, trailing tattered banners and cowering behind shields that bristled with arrows.

Caorann groaned at the sight. The Idolan was surrounded by burning glades and beastmen were pouring into it from every direction. He heard the sound of hooves clattering across the bridge behind him and raced on, making for the lines of archers. As he ran Eremon’s horn rang out again and then he saw the captain himself, at the front of the asrai lines, clutching a torn banner emblazoned with a pair of black yew trees.

The wardancer was drunk on pain and blood loss and as he approached the ranks of archers, his peripheral vision vanished, leaving him only a dark tunnel with light at the end.

‘Eremon,’ he croaked, raising his bloody sword as he ran.

The captain was wearing a tall leather helmet and his face was mostly hidden, but Caorann caught a glimpse of blazing eyes and a firm, set jaw.

Eremon was drenched in blood and dying soldiers were stacked against his legs. He nodded at Caorann and was about to reply when light flashed in the smoke. It scorched Caorann’s face and sent him spinning back onto his knees, then it coiled around the ranks of archers and wrenched dozens of them towards the advancing beastmen.

Caorann climbed to his feet and hurried on, but when he looked again, there was no sign of Eremon, or his banner.

The ranks of asrai collapsed as the outsiders tore into them, bellowing victoriously as they swarmed across the meadow.

Pain exploded in the back of Caorann’s head and he dropped to the ground. As darkness threatened to wash over him for a second time, he noticed that the sun had finally lifted above the treetops.

I will not die on the first morning of spring, thought Caorann.

He dragged his aching body back onto its feet and staggered on into the battle.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As the sun dipped beneath the trees, Finavar’s voice began to falter. He had recited the same incantation so many times that the words had taken on an odd, meaningless quality. The rite was starting to make him feel as though he was losing his mind. He had other reasons to question his sanity. Orion, Consort-King of the asrai, was slumped at his feet – a great snoring mound of immortal, antlered muscle, wrenched from the dreams of his childhood. Watching over the King was a figure no less terrifying: Atolmis the Hunter, whose black, pitiless eyes glared at Finavar every time his voice failed.

The other riders were sleeping next to their king, snoring just as loudly, but Atolmis clearly had no intention of leaving Orion unguarded and had remained awake.

After the first couple of hours of Finavar’s song, his kinband had plucked up the courage to approach. At the sight of more tattooed warriors Atolmis had clutched his spear and growled. For a second it looked as though blood might be spilled, but Finavar had explained that they could help with the ritual and somehow managed to calm the situation.

Thuralin, Alhena and Jokleel were now hunkered next to Finavar, adding a little harmony to the repetitive phrase. At first, they had stared at the horned giants in awe, unable to believe what they were seeing, but long hours had passed since then and, as the light faded and the King showed no sign of waking, the others started to quietly ask questions of Finavar, taking it in turns to maintain the song.

‘Did you speak to him?’ whispered Jokleel, his eyes glistening with wonder.

Finavar nodded, and his chest swelled with pride. He could barely believe it himself.

Thuralin leant closer. His gloomy features were a sharp contrast to the boy’s youthful stare. ‘Locrimere is doomed if we do not return soon. And we need to return with an army in tow.’ He massaged his crippled arm and looked anxiously at the figures sleeping under the dolmen. ‘Even the King could not face such a host alone.’

Finavar shuffled back so that Jokleel was between him and Atolmis and he took a break from singing. ‘Orion is not coming to Locrimere yet,’ he whispered.

The old wardancer narrowed his single eye. ‘What?’

Finavar shrugged. ‘He wishes to find the spirit who brought us here. He will not listen to talk of anything else. I made one mention of the Wrach and he demanded I lead him to the Dark Paths.’ His eyes widened. ‘He has some great purpose.’

Thuralin shook his head. ‘How will that help Locrimere?’

Finavar spoke without taking his eyes off Orion. ‘We have no need of an army. Once the King is ready to join us we will butcher those mongrels by the thousand.’ He pictured himself, riding to battle beside Orion. ‘He is a god made flesh. He is the Lord of the Wild Hunt. Why would we need anything else?’

Thuralin continued to frown as he picked up the tune and gave Jokleel a chance to speak. ‘No, Finavar,’ Jokleel insisted, staring at the horizon. ‘He does not intend to help us.’ He closed his eyes and held his hands up to catch the breeze. ‘I can feel it. We still need an army. Perhaps you could return to the Queen’s court and beg her for help?’

Finavar was about to reply when Orion sat bolt upright. His eyes were still closed, but he levelled one of his fingers at the side of the dolmen. The faded inscription had grown as dark as a bloodstain. As they watched, the branches began to writhe and undulate, as though they were alive.

‘He is here!’ cried Orion, with his eyes still closed.

The tune faltered and came to a halt as the four singers backed away in alarm.

Atolmis frowned in confusion as the other riders climbed to their feet. Their eyes were also closed but they were facing in exactly the same direction as Orion, staring at the black inscription.

‘My lord?’ asked Atolmis, but Orion suddenly stood and barged past him.

Atolmis watched in alarm as Orion and the other sleepers stumbled off towards the trees. ‘Wait,’ he grunted, hurrying after them, but before they even reached the line of trees, Orion and the others rippled oddly, like stones dropping through water, then they vanished completely.

Atolmis staggered to a halt, shaking his head.

Finavar and his brother looked at each other in recognition. There was an earthy, herby aroma on the air that they all recalled. It was the smell of the Dark Paths, the smell of time being wrenched out of true.

Alhena shook her head in dismay, staring at the spot where Orion had last stood.

‘They have gone,’ called Finavar to Atolmis, grinning with pride. ‘The Wrach was willing.’

Atolmis turned and glared at him in disgust, appalled that such a person would dare address him. He walked back without a reply and stared at the wall of the dolmen. The hieroglyph was faded and motionless once more. He grunted and shook his head, then stepped out of the dolmen and mounted one of the horses, leading the others behind him as he rode back down the gulley.

As Finavar watched him go his smile faded, and, once Atolmis had disappeared back into the trees, he turned to his kinband. ‘I thought he would take me with him.’ He looked at the three faces staring back at him: Thuralin’s gloomy frown, Alhena’s vicious scowl and the boy’s soft, mournful stare. He laughed and shook his head. ‘Look at you! My own personal storm clouds!’ He threw his arms out and embraced them in a fierce hug. ‘Do not fear! There is hope!’ He grinned idiotically. ‘I have already made the acquaintance of a king today.’ He looked at the trees. ‘He will return, I am sure and then he will ride with us, but, in the meantime, I think I should make the acquaintance of his queen.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Although he would never show it, Orion felt afraid. As he strode away from Torr-Goholoth he found himself in a world he could not explain. It was midday and he was surrounded by fields of rippling, windswept corn. There were only two breaks in this ocean of gold. One was the path before him, a broad expanse of dark, glossy cobbles that caused his hooves to clatter and clang as he walked; the other was the hunched stones of Torr-Goholoth.

With a rising sense of panic, Orion realised that there was not a single tree in sight.

‘Where have I come?’ He stared at the sun-drenched fields and the cloudless sky. ‘Is this the Tenderfoot Way?’

The forest might have gone, but three of his priests had followed him into his dream. They stared back at Orion with confusion in their black eyes. He was starting to recall who they were. They had served him faithfully through the centuries. Sélva, the tallest, wore a cloak of shimmering grey wolfskin. Like the others, he had veins of ivy running beneath his pale skin and a pair of slender horns that curled up from the sides of his wooden helmet. Beside him was Olachas. He wore no helmet, and his straw-coloured hair was bound in long plaits, woven with feathers and dried flowers. Rather than a spear, Olachas carried a longsword that shimmered slightly as it caught the light. Orion remembered that it had a name, Baecor, and that it was alleged to contain some kind of ghost, or soul. The third of them was named Ilaruss. His face was completely hidden by his helmet but Orion recognised him easily by the long, jagged scar that stretched from his belly to his neck; a memento from a previous year’s Wild Hunt.

Sélva waded into the waist-high corn and shook his head. ‘My lord, the Dark Paths do not just lead to other places. They lead to other times.’ He turned to Orion. ‘Perhaps we have slipped forwards into another era? Or back, to the dawn of the world?’ He nodded at the dolmen. ‘Perhaps we are in the era when the stones of Torr-Goholoth were first laid?’

‘My lord,’ said Olachas. ‘If this is not what you sought, perhaps we could just return through the stones?’

Orion shook his head. He knew he could not return until he had wiped the doubt from the Wrach’s strange, pale face; or silenced him forever. He turned away from the others and looked back up the road. At the horizon, it vanished into a rippling heat haze, but a few miles to the east of it Orion thought he made out a patch of darkness in the fields; a building of some kind.

‘Follow me,’ he grunted and headed off into the corn. As he strode through the field, he had to resist the urge to stoop. Never in all his many lives had he felt so exposed. Without the cover of trees the sky seemed alarmingly vast. The King had the strange sensation that it might fall on him at any time. He was conscious that the priests were following, though, and kept his antlers proudly raised. ‘There is something in the corn,’ he cried, lifting his chin. ‘This spirit guide must be here somewhere – the wardancer would not dare lie to me.’

Orion walked for what seemed like hours, scattering hares and mice before him as he marched though the corn. He was sure he had travelled for several miles but the dark shape never seemed to be any nearer. He walked for so long that the sun rolled across the sky and began to sink towards the horizon. His pulse started to hammer in his temples and he juggled his spear from hand to hand, itching to vent his rage on something. How could it be that the dark shape always remained the same distance away? Finally, just as he was about to suggest they try heading back to the road, Orion realised that he had reached his destination.

He let out a howl of frustration. Standing before him were the stones of Torr-Goholoth and the beginning of the same long, cobbled road. The only difference was that the dolmen was now silhouetted against a grey, cooling dusk and the fields of corn now looked like a sea of silver, rather than one of gold.

Orion hurled his spear at the old rocks and it bounced off them with a clang.

‘Show yourself!’ he cried, climbing up on top of the dolmen and scouring the gloomy fields. ‘Accuse me, as you did before!’

Sélva and the others looked at each other in confusion.

As Orion’s cries faded into the half-light, they seemed to be answered.

The King’s horned equerries climbed up beside him on the sunken capstone and saw a white shape, drifting out of the darkness towards them. A pale mist was rippling across the fields, rolling and churning in the hollows and sending thin tendrils up into the pewter-coloured sky.

Orion dropped to the ground and grabbed the battered spear he had taken from Atolmis. The tip was bent out of shape, but the weight of it felt good. As the fog tumbled towards him, he recalled every damning phrase that had been levelled at him by the Brúidd. He hoped that the strange weather was a sign that they were about to appear. He recalled the great stag, Sativus, looking down at him as he cowered in the pool, and prayed for a chance to face the creature under less shameful circumstances.

Orion stepped away from the stones and approached the corn, peering into the fog. ‘Show yourself!’ he cried, holding his spear aloft. ‘Let us see who is weak!’

There was no reply, but before Orion could repeat his demand, agony exploded in the calf of his right leg. He looked down and saw that a slender white snake had slid out of the corn and fastened its jaws upon him. The pain was sharp and deep. Orion reached down with a curse and wrenched the snake free, hurling it back into the corn. It was only as the serpent flew from his grip that Orion noticed how odd the corn looked. He had thought the field looked white because it was drenched in moonlight, but he realised now that the corn had vanished, replaced by thousands of anaemic, writhing snakes.

He cursed as another one clamped onto his leg, igniting his flesh with a fierce heat.

Sélva dropped from the stones and hacked down with his sword, slicing the snake free.

‘Face me, you coward!’ cried Orion, as they both backed towards the dolmen. He glared at the banks of fog. ‘Who is the mewling wretch now?’

‘Still you.’

The voice was no more than a whisper and it came from behind them. It came from the shadows beneath the dolmen.

Orion whirled to see that the fog had pooled between the stones and formed into a small, hunched figure, leaning on a staff. At the sight of the hooded old man, Orion felt all the fury and shame of their last encounter. His frame shook as he levelled his battered spear at the Wrach. Then, as he stepped closer, he saw the reason for the creature’s odd, shifting flesh.

The shape beneath the robes was constructed entirely of writhing white snakes.

Orion’s lip curled in distaste. The Wrach was nothing more than a bundle of serpents held together by tatty robes. ‘You will kneel to me,’ he snarled. ‘For I am the King. I will have your allegiance.’

‘You are a false king,’ hissed the Wrach. There was a clump of pallid, worm-like snakes where his mouth should be and as he leant on his staff, they rippled into a snarl. ‘You will fail us.’ Some of the snakes’ tongues flickered from his lips. ‘I can smell it.’

‘You are a liar!’ Orion strode forwards with his spear raised. ‘Kneel to me!’

‘I will not,’ whispered the Wrach. As he spoke, the fog spiralled around him and obscured him from view.

Orion thundered through the dolmen and found that it was empty. He howled again, jabbing the spear into the remnants of fog. ‘I am the King!’ he roared, arching his back in fury.

‘Prove it,’ came the Wrach’s whispered reply.

Orion spun around and glared out at the squirming, white landscape. The mist had rolled back to create a drifting avenue over the rippling snakes. At the far end of the avenue, about half a mile from where Orion was standing, was the hooded old man, still leaning heavily on his staff.

‘Come to me,’ said the Wrach. His voice was still a sibilant whisper, but it echoed around the stones of Torr-Goholoth.

Orion lurched down the slope towards the mass of snakes, but Sélva grabbed his arm and held him back.

‘Look at your leg,’ said the Wild Rider as Orion turned to glare at him.

Orion looked down and cursed. Where the snakes had attacked his leg, his flesh had shrivelled away, revealing the glistening tendons beneath and a flash of white bone.

‘Of course, you cannot,’ came the mocking whisper. The Wrach raised his staff and the entire ocean of snakes lifted their heads. ‘There would be pain. And you are afraid.’

Orion strained against Sélva’s grip, but his servant held firm. ‘Even if you manage to reach him, you would die.’ Sélva shook his head. ‘Is he worth your life? What has he done?’

‘He doubts me,’ growled Orion, freeing himself from Sélva’s grasp.

‘Of course,’ continued the Wrach, ‘you could easily leave.’ He waved his undulating staff at the stones behind them. ‘The forest is waiting.’

Orion and the others turned to see that Torr-Goholoth now looked onto a peaceful wooded glade, full of dappled sunlight and the sound of birdsong.

‘I will not let him mock me,’ snarled Orion, furiously massaging his brow.

Olachas stepped to his side. ‘My lord, Sélva is right.’ He waved his sword at the snakes. ‘Their venom would destroy you.’

Orion dropped to his knees, breathless with rage. Then, as he pawed the ground in desperation, an idea struck him. He recalled something Atolmis had said earlier, while they were talking to the lowborn bard. Perhaps there was a chance, he thought; a way to prove himself to this wretched creature.

‘Wait here,’ he muttered, without looking up.

Olachas and the others looked at each other in confusion but, before they had chance to react, Orion launched himself into the fog.

He landed heavily in the rolling mass and gasped as dozens of fangs punctured his skin.

‘Wait!’ cried Olachas, rushing to the edge of the snakes, his voice a wild screech. ‘They will kill you!’

Orion remained crouched and motionless. Agony flooded his limbs and for a second he thought he would be unable to even take the first step. Then he crushed his doubt. I am equal to anything, he told himself and leapt forwards, racing towards the distant figure of the Wrach, with snakes trailing from his limbs like ghostly pennants.

As he raced down the corridor of fog, dozens more fangs sliced through his skin and the pain blossomed at an incredible rate, but there was no trace of doubt in him now. He divorced his thoughts from the agony and locked his gaze on the hunched, robed shape of his enemy.

The Wrach shook his head in disbelief as Orion charged through the snakes, but he made no move to withdraw. As the King staggered towards him, the Wrach sounded shocked, but no less disdainful. ‘You are braver than I thought,’ he whispered, ‘and far more stupid.’ As Orion towered over him, the Wrach raised one of his arms. Dozens of slender serpents trailed from his voluminous sleeve, masquerading as fingers. He pointed the longest of them at Orion’s chest. ‘You have killed yourself,’ he said, turning his whisper into a reedy laugh.

Orion looked down and saw the snakes’ venom had acted with incredible speed. His skin was melting into a bloody slush and pooling around his hooves. His organs were visible and blackened, pouring with smoke and the stink of decay. He gasped and dropped to his knees, allowing the white snakes to tumble over him, tearing into his face and neck.

The Wrach nodded, seeing that all his doubts had been well founded. ‘I have killed you.’ He sounded almost sympathetic.

With seconds of life remaining, Orion dragged his thoughts away from the pain and forced himself to recall his plan. ‘You cannot kill me,’ he gasped, through bloody teeth, ‘if I was never here.’

The Wrach shook his head, confused.

With a final, agonised curse, Orion rose up and raised his hand to strike the Wrach across the face.

The blind spirit raised his staff to defend himself.

Orion changed the direction of his blow and, rather than striking his hooded enemy, he grabbed the ball of black stone that topped his staff.

‘Wait,’ gasped the Wrach, as Orion wrenched the talisman free. ‘You don’t understand!’

Orion replied with a punch. He hammered the lump of stone into the Wrach’s face. His fist tore through the knotted snakes and burst out the other side in a shower of blood and coiled serpents.

The spirit toppled to the ground and rolled away.

Orion staggered after him, thrown forwards by the momentum of his punch. He saw the fog gather around the Wrach and lift him back to his feet, restoring his head to its former shape. Then the spirit’s robes fell away, revealing a contorted spiral of writhing snakes, rearing and hissing furiously as they tried to regain humanoid form.

‘You have no idea what you have!’ howled the spirit.

Orion’s ruined body was collapsing in on itself. Blood was spraying from hundreds of open wounds and his head was lolling drunkenly on his broken shoulders.

‘Kneel to me!’ he gasped, holding the stone aloft.

The Wrach screamed horribly and tried to reassemble himself, reaching for the stone.

Orion smashed the mass of snakes to the ground. ‘Kneel!’

The Wrach made a pitiful attempt to do as Orion requested.

The King let out a long sigh of satisfaction then turned away and fixed his gaze on the stone. It was polished to such a sheen that it resembled a pool of oil, glittering in his fist. It even seemed to be rippling, as though currents were drifting through its centre. He saw his mutilated face, glaring back at him. The flesh was falling away and he realised he had seen this moment before, in a dream. He held his nerve and stared deeper into the stone, picturing other shapes moving through the void.

With a stomach-wrenching lurch, Orion’s mind plummeted into the blackness and whirled away on the currents of time. He saw a torrent of places and people: a bewildering collection of scenes that left him reeling. For a second he felt an awful doubt; had he set himself an impossible task? What did he know of the Wrach’s Dark Paths? How could he navigate such places? Then, with a gasp, he glimpsed a face he knew: a blazing point of light, surrounding a pair of bottomless, mournful eyes.

He threw his thoughts at Ariel like a spear.

And vanished from the world.

Orion smashed through the bracken and lashed out furiously, thinking for a moment that he was still surrounded by snakes. Then, as he came to a halt, he opened his eyes and saw a beautiful grove of oak trees, dappled by midday sun. At its centre was an oddly-shaped hill, and he grunted in recognition. The turf looked as though it had been draped over stone slabs, just like the ones at Torr-Goholoth. ‘This is one of his gates,’ muttered Orion, stamping a hoof on the turf and feeling the hard rock beneath.

He heard voices and looked through the trees. Beyond the oaks there was a wide clearing, surrounding a raised grassy dais and a pair of tall root thrones. Hundreds of figures were gathered on the lawn, watching a tall figure stride away from them.

Orion gasped as he saw the figure more clearly. He realised that he was watching himself, a day earlier, marching away from the Queen and heading off to find the Wrach.

As his earlier self approached, Orion caught his eye and raised a fist, displaying the Wrach’s bloodstained talisman as a warning, dangling a nest of dead snakes from his fingers.

As he looked deep into his own eyes, Orion felt of rush of joy. He had cowed one of his accusers. The Wrach could never again question his divinity. I am the master of time, he thought, clutching the stone tighter and feeling drunk on the possibilities it presented. As he watched his former self continue on his way, he felt a pride so powerful it bordered on awe. They were all wrong, he realised, taking a deep, shuddering breath. I am destined to rule this forest; and I will rule it more surely than they ever could. They will kneel to me, all of them, before I am done.

He looked down and saw, without surprise that his body was unmarked. Then he started to climb down towards the clearing, ready to begin his rule in earnest.

As Ariel saw Orion emerging from the trees, her eyes lit up with excitement and surprise. ‘Orion! You decided to stay!’

As Ariel embraced the King, Ordaana felt a rush of nausea. The crowds on the dais were still reeling from the King’s earlier outburst but as their sovereigns talked and Orion’s rage seemed to pass, the highborn resumed their ritual dance. ‘What ridiculous games we play,’ Ordaana muttered under her breath. She and Lord Beldeas had been swallowed up by the surging crowd and she felt no need to hide her distaste. ‘How we grovel and fawn. We debase ourselves like worthless chattel, even though Orion would tear any of us apart as quickly as look at us. And Ariel can barely recall our names.’ She ran a trembling hand over her immaculate silver hair. ‘They crave nothing but our subservience.’

Beldeas frowned at his wife’s bitter tone. Most of his attention was fixed on one of Ariel’s handmaidens, but he could not help noticing Ordaana’s bile. He turned to face her. ‘My love, this is ridiculous. You adore them, more than anyone. You always have.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I am not such a fool as you might think. You may wish to play the part of dutiful wife again, but I know you did not marry me through love.’ He waved at the surrounding nobles. ‘Our nuptials bought you entry into this world. These “ridiculous games” are all you have ever wished for.’

Ordaana stared at her husband with hatred and disbelief. Even now, he was unaware of the hurt she was carrying. He had never asked her why she was no longer required as one of the Queen’s handmaidens. He did not even seem to have noticed that she was not up there, next to Ariel’s throne. She was on the verge of explaining everything when she noticed something odd. Beldeas’s beautiful green robes were behaving strangely. As he edged closer to her, she noticed that the bronze-coloured stitching around his collar had slumped out of shape. She peered at the needlework in confusion for a second, then realised she was seeing the noble face of Aestar Eltanin, gazing back at her from her husband’s chest. He was looking at her with stern disapproval.

Ordaana was too shocked to speak for a moment and Beldeas frowned. Then she snapped her mouth shut and gave Aestar a subtle nod.

‘Forgive me,’ she said, meeting her husband’s confused gaze. ‘Of course, you are right. I do adore them. I have more respect for our king and queen than anyone.’ She attempted a brittle smile. ‘That dreadful bard has unnerved me, that is all.’

Beldeas grimaced, recalling how the youth had embarrassed them. He looked over at the trees and saw to his relief that, although Orion had returned almost immediately, there was no sign of Finavar. ‘I’m sure he will not dare show his face again.’ Beldeas felt a brief flush of shame as he recalled giving Finavar control of the kinbands. Perhaps he was responsible in some way for this pretend prince’s arrogance? He dismissed the feeling. Of course not. How could he have predicted that the vile youth would show up at court, ranting about invasions and annoying the King?

‘I understand completely,’ he said, softening his voice and taking Ordaana’s arm. ‘When we return home I will order Eremon to arrest the wretched outlaw. Such behaviour is unforgivable.’ He shook his head. ‘The very idea of a lowborn, here in the Council Glade… It is quite awful. I do not…’

Beldeas’s words trailed off as he noticed he had lost his wife’s attention. She was watching Ariel and her Consort-King as they made their way back to their thrones. As they moved through the whirling crowds, Ariel scattered greetings like gifts, lighting up the awed faces of her subjects with a single well-placed word, but Orion had no interest in pleasing his guests. He barged through the crowds without any sign of recognition, glowering intently at something he was clutching in one of his hands.

‘The King looks well,’ muttered Ordaana, as she watched them take their seats, surrounded by a fluttering entourage of spirits and handmaidens.

‘Of course.’ Beldeas did not notice his wife’s odd tone. ‘Imagine what the summer solstice will bring.’ As Beldeas admired the scene, his gaze fell back on the Queen’s beautiful handmaidens and his attention wandered. After a few minutes of pleasant daydreaming he turned to find that his wife had vanished into the crowds, swallowed up by the dance. He shrugged and allowed to the music to drag him off towards the thrones.

Ordaana hurried through the crowds towards the edge of the glade, her heart pounding. Had she placed the knife in the wrong place? Or had she recited the incantation incorrectly? Something had clearly failed; Orion showed no signs of illness or frailty. In fact, he looked more virile and powerful than in any previous spring. What would he become at the time of the summer solstice? Panic gripped her. Aestar Eltanin would think her such a fool. How could she have failed in such a simple task? Would he find another disciple to help him?

She reached the towering oaks that bordered the glade and lost herself in the shadowy groves beyond. Even here, the trees were crowded with highborn. Many of them were sprawled idly across the roots and branches, either locked in the arms of their lovers or simply contemplating the beauty of the Queen’s realm. Ordaana hurried past them, ignoring their languid greetings and making for a secluded hollow, half a mile from the Council Glade. She reached the gloomy spot and sat down, perching on the mossy bole of an alder tree. After scouring the shadows and assuring herself she was alone, Ordaana began to mutter. ‘I anointed the knife, I recited the incantation, I stabbed the shadow of the tree; why is there no effect?’

‘Patience, Ordaana,’ came a reply from the darkness.

Ordaana recognised the voice immediately and rose to her feet. ‘Aestar! Where are you?’ As the words left her mouth, she realised she could already see him. There was a tangled clump of branches and leaves on one side of the hollow and, as she watched in delight, it reared up from the ground, adopting a tall, humanoid form and stretching out its arms in greeting.

‘You have performed your task admirably, like a true daughter of Asuryan.’

Ordaana edged closer, with even more awe in her eyes than the nobles she had left paying homage to Ariel and Orion. Aestar remained in the shadows, but she could just about make out his long, imperious features, gazing down at her.

‘But,’ she glanced anxiously into the trees, checking again that they were alone, ‘if the curse was successful, why does Orion seem so powerful? He nearly split the ground with his voice.’

Twigs snapped and popped as Aestar nodded in reply. ‘Exactly! This is all just as I had hoped.’ He reached out with one of his brittle, mossy hands and stroked Ordaana’s perfect silver hair.

She closed her eyes as the cold bark moved lower and caressed her cheek.

‘Misguided as they are,’ he explained, ‘Ariel and her Consort-King are the envoys of gods. If we were simply to butt heads with the King, he would crush us. Nothing would change. Your kindreds would remain, withering in this doomed forest.’

Ordaana felt childlike before such ancient, noble intelligence and, try as she might, she could not understand. ‘Then what was the use of my curse?’

Aestar Eltanin smiled graciously and squeezed her shoulder. ‘We are not trying to smother the fire, child, we are trying to stoke it. Understand this: Orion’s strength is Ariel’s weakness. Your curse was not intended to drain him of energy, it was intended to add to his vigour.’ Aestar paused. ‘And fuel his wrath.’

Ordaana shook her head, still confused.

‘The Queen’s reign is predicated on one thing,’ he continued. ‘Harmony. As long as she can maintain balance, the forest will permit her to remain. Equilibrium is the key. You are all here under sufferance, Ordaana. Perhaps Ariel has forgotten it, but you should not. If it suited the forest’s needs, it would abandon Ariel without a moment’s pause.’

The creaking shape stooped closer to Ordaana. ‘Your curse has sown doubt in Orion’s mind. However Ariel tries to placate him, he will desire now nothing more than to prove his dominion. And the harder he tries, the more he will turn the forest against Ariel.’

Ordaana gripped her master’s brittle hands, starting to understand.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘My own mother wouldn’t know me now!’ cried Finavar, turning on the spot with his arms raised. ‘Even if I had one!’

The wardancers were standing by the side of a small, glittering brook, on the borders of the Council Glade. They were close enough to hear snatches of song and harping, but they had been denied entry to the Queen’s court. Even Finavar’s most winning smile had failed to sway the stern-faced sentries. It seemed that his uninvited appearance earlier in the day had earned him enemies.

Alhena was crouched like a cat on a branch above his head. ‘Why are we wasting time here?’ She tugged angrily on her single plait. ‘Locrimere needs us.’ She sneered and looked south through the trees. ‘Our home is in the hands of Eremon. What hope is there in that?’

Finavar waved proudly at his disguise. He had removed his distinctive black cloak and painted his entire body white. He had also fashioned a mask from bark and painted that white. The outfit was completed by a leering, red, toothy grin, painted across the mask. ‘But am I not the perfect Bel-Geddon?’

Thuralin looked as gloomy as ever and gave no reply, but Jokleel’s gentle features creased into a smile. ‘Indeed you are, brother. No god could wish for a better attendant.’

Finavar grinned behind his mask. ‘Quite! And what more suitable character is there for this festival than Bel-Geddon?’

Jokleel nodded, still smiling. ‘He is Loec’s favourite attendant. And everyone knows he’s a herald of spring. And he’s funny.’

‘Exactly,’ said Finavar. ‘Even those humourless sentries would not dare refuse such a guest!’

Thuralin massaged the heavy lines of his face and gave Finavar a despairing look. ‘What exactly do you hope to achieve by telling jokes? The minute you take off that ridiculous mask, you will be removed, or worse. How can you gather support if you can’t even admit who you are?’

Finavar shrugged. ‘I have yet to solve that particular problem, but I’m sure I will find a way. If I can just get near the Queen again, I can make her realise the seriousness of this attack.’ He shook his head. ‘You should have seen the courtiers, Thuralin. They are utterly self-absorbed. They can see nothing beyond the boundaries of that glade and their own pretty robes. They were far too busy swooning over each over to heed my warning.’

‘Of course they were!’ cried Alhena, slapping the branch she was perched on. ‘So why don’t we leave them to their ridiculous pageants and get back to Locrimere while there is still time?’

Finavar shook his head. ‘Until Orion returns, the Queen is our best chance. If I can just get close to her, I’m sure she will listen. She saw how much credence Orion gave my message. Just think: if Ariel requested it, we could have a thousand archers at our disposal. Two thousand! Who knows how many?’ He looked up at Alhena. ‘Trust me. I’m sure I can make her listen. Then we will head straight for Locrimere.’ He looked around the faces of the three wardancers. ‘Just give me one hour, then we will go.’

Alhena dropped from the tree and stepped to Finavar’s side. ‘And what if you don’t return?’

Finavar grinned again. ‘Think of a way to come and find me.’

Before Alhena could answer, Finavar turned on his heel and dashed through the trees, adjusting his wooden mask as he went.

Hooded sentries were waiting at the edge of the Queen’s Council Glade and Finavar came to a halt a few feet away with a flamboyant bow.

A few of the guards raised their eyebrows at the sight of his bright white limbs and his leering, toothy grin.

‘I think my foal has a sore throat,’ muttered Finavar, stepping up to them.

The sentries kept their gaze fixed straight ahead.

‘Well, it’s certainly a little horse!’ cried Finavar, performing another exaggerated bow.

None of the sentries smiled, but one of them relented and stepped aside, waving for Finavar to enter the glade.

He hurried past, before they took too close a look at him, and entered the broad, grassy clearing. The ritual of Ostaliss was still in full swing. Finavar saw wardancers from other parts of the forest, flipping and twirling through the crowds, scattering rhymes and trailing tiny, glittering spirits. Robed magi were crowded on the royal dais, paying homage to the Queen and summoning visions from the smoke-filled air with their long, pale fingers.

Finavar headed for the heart of the crowd, spouting rhymes and jokes as he went. The lords and ladies were a far more appreciative audience than the sentries; drunk on sorcery and heady wine, they grasped Finavar by his gleaming arms and spun him around, ordering Bel-Geddon to make them laugh. Finavar punned and rhymed, but never stopped for too long in one place, moving all the while in the direction of Ariel’s throne.

The sound of harps and flutes swelled as the celebrations became more raucous. Finavar found himself snatched and dragged in different directions by gangs of red-faced, wild-eyed devotees, draped in garlands of spring flowers and howling their praises at the Queen and King in the Wood.

Finally, with petals and ribbons plastered across his white body paint, Finavar reached the centre of the royal dais and staggered out in front of the Queen.

He stumbled to a halt in shock. Sitting beside Ariel, in his tall root throne, was Orion, conversing angrily with Atolmis the Hunter.

Finavar forgot his role as a playful deity and stared in amazement. He knew Atolmis would head back to the celebrations, but Orion should be halfway across the forest by now, wandering the strange paths of the Wrach. His pulse raced. This was even better than he had hoped. He had proved to Orion that he was no fool. Surely now he would be ready to lead his hunt to Locrimere?

There was another row of sentries arrayed before the thrones, selecting who should be able to approach Ariel and Orion, and as Finavar shook his head in confusion he noticed that they were staring at him suspiciously. To his dismay, one of them nodded in his direction and muttered to another one of the guards.

Have they recognised me, wondered Finavar? He immediately reassumed his role and began regaling the nobles nearest to him with the most lurid, bawdy jokes he could recall. The lords and ladies frowned and he realised that, in his panic, he had struck the wrong note and offended them. As they muttered their disapproval, he quickly backed away into the crowd, desperate not to be removed before he had chance to garner help. As he shouldered his way back, away from the thrones, he wondered how Orion could have beaten him to the Council Glade. The Wrach must have led him astray and sent him back to where he started. Finavar peered through the crowd at the huge, antlered figure of Orion, hunched on his throne like a cornered beast, snarling orders at his equerry, Atolmis. That must be why he looks so furious, decided Finavar, emerging from the crush of bodies and finding himself next to one of the blazing ceremonial fires. The Blind Guide has evaded Orion and hurled him back to his queen.

The faces around the fire were flushed with drink and as Finavar looked through the flames he met eyes that were glazed and distant. The celebrants’ faces had an ethereal quality that made Finavar doubt they would be as suspicious as the Queen’s guards. He was safe, for the moment, but what use was that? He needed to catch Orion’s attention somehow. He sat down on the ash-covered soil and pouted, wracking his brains for an idea. The guest next to him was a drunken harpist, swaying and muttering to herself as she plucked a clumsy, staccato melody from the instrument in her lap.

Use the gifts you have been given, thought Finavar, grinning to himself.

He grasped the harpist’s shoulder and leant close, giving her a broad grin. ‘Play me something I can sing to.’

The harpist ceased playing and struggled to focus on Finavar’s white mask. After a few seconds of looking confused she grinned back. ‘Bel-Geddon!’ She nodded her head and tried to adopt a serious expression. ‘Whatever you, I, whatever you request, O servant of the gods, I play shall…’ Her words trailed off and she frowned, unsure what she had been trying to say. ‘Play-I-I. I will play for you!’ she managed finally, proud that she had managed a coherent sentence.

Finavar rose to his feet and nodded. ‘The Lamentations of Gavra,’ he demanded, clearing his throat.

The harpist frowned. ‘Really?’ She looked around at the wild scenes that surrounded them. ‘On the first day of spring? Have a heart, Bel-Geddon! Is that… Are you sure? Is the… Is that the song the really you want?’

Finavar nodded eagerly. ‘Trust me. Do I not know the will of my own masters?’

The harpist raised her eyebrows, trying unsuccessfully to look disdainful, but she did as she was requested and began playing the mournful tune.

The other guests groaned as they recognised the music but Finavar lifted his voice over the crackling flames and within a few seconds they had closed their eyes and were sighing with pleasure. The Darkling Prince had a voice of such poignancy that it transformed even the simplest lullaby; and the Lamentations of Gavra was no simple lullaby. It told the tragic story of a double suicide, alleged to have occurred many centuries earlier, during the bitter war known as the Winter of Woe. As the harpist’s shimmering strains grew louder, Finavar sang the maudlin tale. The myths of the asrai recorded how Gavra the Black and his brother, Aefa, were led to ruin by their terrible arrogance. As the Winter of Woe grew more hopeless the forest called on them for aid, but the brothers remained in their own kingdom, claiming that they were too busy to leave. It was only after several days had passed that the self-obsessed nobles discovered that their wives, ashamed of the brothers’ cowardice, had left to join the defence of the forest. The two brothers, filled with shame, rushed to the battle but arrived too late. The fighting was over and their wives had already been slain.

As Finavar’s song reached its heart-rending climax, the lords and ladies of the asrai fell quiet, touched by the warm, plaintive tones of his voice. Even those kneeling before Ariel and Orion turned around, intrigued to see who would dare to sing such an inappropriate song at the festival of Ostaliss; and sing it so beautifully.

To Finavar’s dismay, Orion continued talking urgently to his equerry, tapping one of his talons on something in his fist and seeming quite deaf to the music; but Ariel turned from her handmaidens and frowned, listening intently to Finavar’s song.

Everyone who looked for the source of the song was surprised. They expected to see a regal noble, but they saw instead a scruffy, bedraggled performer, daubed with white paint, wearing a crooked mask and plastered with flower petals.

Seeing how her audience had grown, the harpist rose drunkenly to Finavar’s side and played the final chorus with a dramatic, slightly clumsy flourish.

Finavar ignored the harpist’s mistake. His voice soared through the final phrases, describing how Gavra and Aefa bound themselves with heavy stones and stepped into the bottomless waters of a mountain pool, known as the Eomain Tarn. He stared at Orion as he recounted how the brothers’ shame only died as they drowned beneath the cool, still waters.

As the music ceased, the Council Glade fell quiet.

Orion was still oblivious and Ariel had lowered her gaze to her lap. Finavar thought he saw her wipe a tear from one of her pale cheeks.

Hundreds of nobles held their breath and waited, along with Finavar, to see what would happen next.

The Queen dried her eyes and gazed through the crowds in the direction of Finavar. For a few dreadful seconds he felt all the weight of her timeless gaze. Then she turned to one of the iridescent figures hovering by her throne and began whispering. The handmaiden nodded sadly and looked over at Finavar. Then Ariel smiled wearily at her subjects and indicated that the celebrations should continue.

Another musician struck up a jauntier tune and the nobles resumed their wild, ritualised dance, relieved that the awkward moment had passed.

Orion remained engrossed in his conversation with Atolmis and had not even noticed the interruption.

Finavar’s shoulders slumped and he dropped back down beside the fire. He had been sure his song would capture Orion’s attention. He had hoped it might illustrate a point – that the call to war should be ignored at one’s peril, that life was about more than celebration – but his tale had clearly fallen on deaf ears. If anything, the festival was now even wilder. It was as though the nobles wished to expel the memory of Finavar’s gloomy song by dancing even more energetically. The sun was now directly over the glade and scented fumes hung low over the dancers, shrouding their delirious excesses in shifting robes of grey and gold.

The figures sitting by the fire glared at Finavar and the harpist.

The drunken musician shook her head in disbelief as she sat down next to Finavar. ‘Lamentations?’ she groaned. ‘What were you, what, what were you thinking?’ She leant closer to the wardancer, peering at his mask. ‘What kind of Bel-Geddon are you? I thought you were going to turn that dirge into a… I thought it was some kind of joke.’

Finavar was too busy wracking his brains to pay her any attention.

Colour flooded the harpist’s cheeks as she saw that she was being ignored. With the wild grace of the drunk, she lashed out and sent Finavar’s mask spinning into the flames.

Finavar cursed as sparks and ash exploded all over him. ‘What have you done?’ he gasped, pressing his hands to his face and looking anxiously at the nearest dancers.

‘You shouldn’t wear to deserve that costume,’ slurred the harpist. ‘You’re not funny.’

Finavar panicked as he remembered he did not even have a hood to hide beneath. He sat on the grass with his head in his hands, unsure what to do next. His conversation with Orion had been witnessed by dozens of nobles. It would only take one of them to recognise him and the sentries would drag him from the clearing, or maybe even imprison him.

‘You should be careful,’ said a voice from above. ‘A song like that has the power to wound.’

Finavar’s heart sank as he realised he already been recognised. He looked up, expecting to see a scowling guard, but saw instead a flutter of damselfly wings and a shimmering, sylph-like figure, hovering a few feet above him. Finavar clambered to his feet, backed away and bowed, realising he was face to face with one of Ariel’s handmaidens. Her limbs trailed a web of spectral, glittering ivy and she wore a flashing diadem of fine plaited silver. Her hair was roughly cropped in a boyish mop and her pretty, elfin face was locked in a wry, crooked smile.

‘Was your intention to make my lady weep, Darkling Prince?’ Her uneven smile grew more pronounced, forming dimples in her pale cheeks.

Something about the dimples made Finavar unable to speak for a moment, then he shook his head and bowed again. ‘Forgive me…’

‘Laelia,’ said the handmaiden, still smiling.

‘Forgive me, Laelia,’ muttered Finavar. Only the asrai’s most powerful magi were allowed to attend Ariel, and Finavar was not fooled by her youthful, playful appearance. He knew she was far more dangerous than any sentry. ‘I will leave immediately,’ he said, bowing again. Behind him, the drunken harpist climbed to her feet and bowed too, glaring at Finavar with even more disgust.

‘No, stay awhile,’ said Laelia, placing a firm hand on Finavar’s shoulder. ‘I would like to talk.’ She gave him a look of mock suspicion. ‘As long as you aren’t intending to sing again.’

Finavar’s heart sank. So it was to be imprisonment of some kind. He had no idea how the Queen dealt with unwelcome guests, but he doubted it would be a pleasant fate. He nodded sadly and met Laelia’s eye. Even with the threat of imprisonment hanging over him, Finavar could not remain entirely downhearted. ‘I think a song might actually be less dangerous than one of my jokes.’

Laelia laughed. It was a genuine, unforced sound and Finavar relaxed slightly.

‘Come,’ she said, taking his hand and leading him through the crowds. A few of the nobles paused at the sight of her. To see one of the Queen’s own sorcerers so close was a rare privilege; something to boast of when they returned to their own kingdoms. They were so distracted by the sight of the winged handmaiden that they did not pay much attention to the bedraggled entertainer hurrying after her.

Laelia led Finavar down a quiet, leafy arbour for half a mile or so and said nothing more to him. They eventually emerged in a grove to the south of the Council Glade. The trees surrounded a tall mound, topped by a pile of splintered branches and logs. There was something strange about the wood and Finavar peered at it in confusion. He realised that the logs had been transformed into chunks of gnarled rock, but that was not the strangest thing about them: they looked oddly mobile and shimmered with a silvery light. As he looked closer, Finavar thought he could make out images – scenes and faces, captured in the shifting stone.

Laelia’s damselfly wings folded behind her back as she sat at the bottom of the mound and indicated that Finavar should do the same.

He dragged his gaze from the mound and sat awkwardly next to her, noticing that she was still looking at him with the same crooked smile. ‘Am I so ridiculous?’ he asked, pouting slightly.

Laelia looked at his bedraggled frame and raised her eyebrows.

Finavar looked down and saw that his white paint had smeared in several places and the ash from the fire had turned what remained into a speckled grey mess. His pout became a smirk. ‘You needn’t answer,’ he said.

Laelia sat in silence for a while, watching birds fluttering and spiralling through the grove.

Finavar shuffled awkwardly next to her, anxious to know what his punishment would be for sneaking into the Queen’s presence a second time. After a few minutes his thoughts wandered. He pictured his doe-eyed little brother, waiting anxiously for his return; then he remembered the deathly pallor he had seen on Caorann’s face as they left him in the care of Locrimere’s healers. He wondered if there was any way he could pass a message on to his kinband before he was imprisoned. To lose their trust seemed more terrible to him than anything else.

This far from the Council Glade the sounds of celebration were distant and muffled and Finavar noticed an odd atmosphere in the grove. He looked up at the pile of stones and felt a strange chill. There was something sinister about the sculpture. Such artifice was unnatural. He wondered who might have placed it here.

Finally, sensing Finavar’s discomfort, Laelia turned to face him. The crooked smile was gone, but there was still a hint of mischief in her eyes. ‘Do you know this place?’

Finavar shook his head.

‘Cerura Carn,’ she said, looking up at the pile of petrified logs. ‘Even amongst the court of the Queen there are few who remember its purpose. Atolmis the Hunter perhaps; Naieth the Prophetess, certainly. She comes here often, especially during the festival rites.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper, as though the stones could hear. ‘The logs were placed here after the Winter of Woe and preserved by the will of the Queen. The carn is a memorial, but it is also a living prophecy.’ She looked at Finavar’s fidgeting legs and his twitching fingers. ‘And it is a place of quiet contemplation. Here we may remember the price of our forest home and give thanks.’ She gave Finavar a meaningful glance. ‘Naieth once told me that the wives of Gavra and Aefa are buried beneath this mound, so I thought perhaps you should see it for yourself.’

Finavar blanched and stared at the strange rocks. ‘Surely such people never lived? I thought the song was nothing but a story.’

Laelia shook her head. ‘All songs contain a truth, one way or another. You, of all people, should know that. Your version was fanciful, certainly, but the deaths occurred. My lady witnessed them first hand. They died defending these very glades.’

Finavar recalled the pain he had seen on Ariel’s face and felt a dreadful guilt. ‘She knew them?’

Laelia nodded. ‘Of course. They were sorcerers; handmaidens to the Queen, just as I am.’

Finavar cursed his stupidity. ‘I had no idea the song carried such meaning.’

Laelia looked at him closely. ‘All words carry meaning, bard, however sweetly sung.’ She shrugged. ‘It is fortunate though, in a way, that you sang that particular tune. My lady was unaware that you had returned.’ She looked at Finavar and the humour in her eyes sparked again. ‘Thanks, no doubt, to your elegant disguise.’

Finavar remained silent, eager for Laelia to reach her point.

‘But your song caught her ear in a way that no other would have done and she realised that we were once more in the presence of the child who feels able to question the will of her Consort-King.’

Finavar raised his chin and adopted an uncharacteristically severe expression. ‘I am no child. And I never meant to defy Orion. I only wanted to warn him.’

Laelia’s humour vanished. ‘It is your warning that piqued my interest. My lady has heard other tales, similar to your own: rumours of an enemy that knows more than it should. She gives them little credence.’ The handmaiden looked uncomfortable as she questioned the will of her queen. ‘She believes her rule is as assured as the cycles of the moon, but something in these rumours scares me.’

Finavar stared excitedly at Laelia, delighted that his warning had found an audience at last. ‘I have seen these creatures. They are like nothing I have seen before.’ Forgetting himself for a moment, Finavar grabbed the handmaiden’s slender arm. ‘It’s not just the numbers that are so alarming, Laelia: they know the forest. They know the routes to our halls and they know how to steal power from the branches of trees.’ He waved in the direction of the Council Glade. ‘They may even know the way to Ariel’s court.’

Laelia withdrew her arm but smiled as she did so, amused by Finavar’s ignorance of court protocol. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘And this is why you felt it was acceptable to enter the Council Glade, and disturb the rites of spring.’

Finavar nodded, not even noticing the disapproval in her voice. ‘I thought Orion would help.’ He looked anguished as he recalled the vast army that was descending on his home. ‘I wished to find aid, before it was too late. Locrimere is on the verge of ruin, but Lord Beldeas does not seem to care.’ He shook his head in exasperation. ‘And Lady Ordaana would rather die than speak to one such as me.’

The crooked smile returned to Laelia’s face. ‘Surely that at least is a blessing.’

Finavar smirked. Then his eyes flashed with hope. ‘Do you think you could persuade the Queen to aid me in some way? Then perhaps Orion would follow? What do you think? Would Ariel loan me even a fraction of her power?’

Laelia’s smile grew. ‘Well, she didn’t send me here just to entertain you, Finavar.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Spring came to the shores of the Idolan, blackened by fire and hungry for revenge. As Caorann lay bleeding on his fallen kin, he laughed. Figures were bursting from the smoke in all directions: immense, inhuman goliaths and hunched, spindly wraiths, shadowy beings of thorn and bark that raced through the crimson dawn, towering over the ranks of minotaurs. Awful sounds filled the air, loud enough to be heard over the fire that was still raging through Locrimere: the harsh crack of breaking limbs and moist tearing of flesh.

Caorann lifted himself up onto his elbows and watched the reborn forest rise up to defend itself. ‘Of course,’ he croaked, still laughing despite his pain. ‘Ostaliss.’ He knew that somewhere, on the far side of the forest, Ariel and her Consort-King were emerging from their winter-long slumber. And as they performed the ancient rites of spring the world around them was returning to life; not just the tangible world of fronds and sap, but the hidden realms of shadow and magic – the ancient heart of the forest, pounding with hate and hunger.

Caorann stared in wonder as a brittle, wooden ocean flooded through the smoke, crushing and devouring everything that moved. Many forest spirits were bound within the rotten bark of dead trees – bark that was now black and glinting as a result of the outsiders’ pitch-soaked arrows. They vented their outrage in a frenzy of lurching and stabbing, flinging goat-headed bodies through the air and tearing them apart in jagged wooden jaws. Despite their size, the spirits had a vague, intangible quality that made it almost impossible to see them clearly. It was only as they paused next to one of the beastmen that their shape could be even guessed at, and after a few seconds of wrenching and crunching they were gone again.

Another sound rang out through the carnage: a defiant horn blast that dragged Caorann to his feet. ‘Eremon,’ he gasped, wiping a string of blood from his mouth. He and the grizzled old captain had never seen eye-to-eye, but now, just knowing he was still alive made Caorann deliriously happy. ‘He still stands,’ he muttered, staggering off through the glittering, ember-filled smoke. Even in daylight it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, but the asrai had long ago learned to navigate by instinct. Caorann paused only to grab a sword from one of his fallen kin, before hurrying in the direction of the lake.

After a few terrifying minutes spent dodging between grinding, ghost-like shapes, he glimpsed a stretch of water, flashing through the pall. As he emerged from the smoke, clutching his wounds and swaying like a drunk, Caorann heard dozens of voices cry out in greeting.

Spread out along the shores of the Idolan, fighting furiously for the soul of Locrimere, were the remnants of Eremon’s army. Less than three hundred were left to raise a cheer for Caorann, but at their head, still clutching his ragged banner, was Eremon himself. His helmet was gone and his armour was in tatters, but he was as straight-backed and determined as ever, and as he hacked and lunged with a battered sword, he even managed to nod at Caorann.

At first the wardancer could see little reason for hope – the asrai were surrounded by vast numbers of the braying, goat-headed monsters and it was impossible to see how Eremon could keep them alive much longer – but as Caorann neared the rows of archers he frowned. What he had at first taken for strands of mist, rising up behind them from the lake, were actually serpentine figures: coiled, writhing monsters of weed and silt that slid past the ranks of asrai and unfurled themselves into the smoke, joining the tree spirits in their orgy of destruction.

Caorann hacked wildly as he approached the asrai lines. His blows were weak and clumsy with pain, but as he made his way through the crowds of beastmen, it did not matter. All their attention was fixed on the creaking, whirling spirits smashing through their ranks. Caorann saw brutish, bull-horned creatures torn apart by strands of pondweed and animated, sharpened roots piercing the chests of goat-legged monstrosities. He shouldered his way through the carnage, sure at any moment that he might be snatched up by one of the tall, groaning shapes looming through the smoke. After what seemed like an age, he finally reached the shore of the lake. The lines of archers parted as he approached, allowing him to stumble past and collapse behind them, still clutching his bloody chest.

Most of the archers could only spare him the briefest words of welcome as he tumbled to the ground, but one lowered his longbow and stooped by his side. It was a pale, bloody-faced youth, with copper plaits of hair and wide green eyes. ‘Your chest,’ he gasped, placing a hand on Caorann’s sodden bandages.

Caorann shook his head. Then he waved at the battle raging around them. ‘Why is Eremon making his stand here? There is nowhere to pull back. There is no cover.’

The young archer nodded at the expanse of water. ‘He spent the night communing with seers and prophets. They laid a stern command on his shoulders. They reminded him that the Idolan must never be polluted by beastman flesh.’ He glanced at the mounds of fallen archers that surrounded them. ‘Eremon said we must hold this spot until the dawn, at whatever cost. The forest demands it.’

Caorann nodded, seeing the sense in Eremon’s decision. Tactical decisions should never be a matter of cold logic. Wisdom would not be revealed by drawing lines on the ground, but by listening to the will of trees.

The youth waved his bow at the figures rushing through the crimson smoke. It was a nightmarish scene; jagged, ethereal shapes were rending and hacking their way across the hazy, burning meadow, while the numbers of beastmen grew ever more incredible. But there was a glimmer of hope in the youth’s eyes. ‘And now spring has come, and Locrimere is rewarding Eremon for his loyalty.’

Caorann nodded again, then flinched, as a cold clammy figure slipped from the water and rippled past him. It was moving with unearthly speed, but he managed to glimpse barb-like talons and rolling, watery eyes, before the shape vanished into the smoke, eliciting a chorus of bestial howls as it looped and lassoed its way through the battle.

The youth helped Caorann to his feet, picked up a bow from the ground and handed it to him. ‘Lend us your skill. There is hope now. The spirits are abroad once more.’

Caorann dropped his sword to the ground and grasped the bow. It was scorched and blood-slick, but he could see it was still true. ‘Of course,’ he gasped, wrenching a quiver from a nearby corpse.

The young archer lent him his arm and they hobbled back towards the fighting.

Caorann aimed into the whirling mass of bodies and smoke, firing as he walked. He smiled grimly as his arrow found its mark. For a while he abandoned himself to the cool thrill of revenge, picturing the kind, crumpled face of Elaeus. For a while, the asrai were free to fire on the enemy without need to defend themselves; the beastmen were far too busy fending off the forest spirits to deal with the thin waves of arrows that were whistling through the smoke.

After a few minutes, Caorann had exhausted his arrows so he looked around for another quiver. As he did so, he noticed that Eremon had lowered his own bow and was scowling at the far side of the clearing.

Caorann followed the direction of his gaze and felt a thrill of joy. An even taller shape was lumbering through the smoke: a colossal silhouette that had appeared behind the beastman army. There was something unique about this spirit, though, and Caorann could understand why Eremon looked so puzzled. Unlike the other giant shapes, this goliath was draped in shifting light.

‘Locrimere will defend its own,’ gasped the young archer at his side, grinning as he caught sight of the newcomer.

Caorann shook his head and looked over at Eremon again, noticing that the captain was now scowling thunderously. ‘That thing is not of the forest…’ muttered Caorann as the immense shape strode through the rolling smoke and loomed into view, ‘…whatever it is.’

The lines of asrai cursed and faltered as they saw the shape clearly. The giant figure resembled the beastmen at its feet, ox-headed, cloven-hoofed and draped in human bones and skin, but it had been magnified to insane proportions. It reared over the tree spirits, more than thirty feet tall and crowned with enormous, horizontal horns. As it entered the smoke-wreathed battle it glared down at the mayhem with an enormous, cyclopean eye.

‘Isha preserve us,’ Caorann heard one of the archers say. ‘What is it?’

Eremon howled another furious order, demanding that the kinbands maintain their fire, but some of the archers were too shocked to obey. As they watched the giant approaching through the smoke, they lowered their bows and backed towards the water, muttering prayers under their breath.

Caorann frowned as he watched the monster’s advance. It moved with odd, lurching bounds, shaking embers from the surrounding trees as it pounded across the sacred meadow. Its movements were random; there seemed no logic to its erratic lunges and it appeared confused by the crowds surging around its legs. Then Caorann gasped as he saw the giant fix its lantern-like gaze on a forest spirit: a ghostly blackthorn, tearing and hacking its way through the battle. The giant beastman abandoned its erratic wandering and leapt with shocking speed, reaching down with unnerving accuracy and wrenching the spirit from the ground. There was a groan of splintering roots as the monster lifted the thrashing shape up into the air and bit into it like a choice cut of meat.

Caorann watched in horror as the cyclopean creature gorged itself on the spirit. As it did so, the light in its enormous eye blazed even brighter. Then it fixed its malevolent gaze on another forest spirit, wrenched it from the ground and destroyed it with a snort of pleasure. It was as though it could see the ghostly spectres with more ease than its own army.

‘Its eye,’ muttered Caorann. ‘It is not fixed on this world. It sees the realm of the spirits.’

‘Blind it!’ he cried, raising his bow and loosing an arrow into the smoke. But his words were lost in the clamour of the battle.

As the giant lumbered across the meadow, the tide of the battle started to turn. As soon as the cyclopean monster captured a forest spirit, the beastmen were able to attack too. In a matter of minutes, dozens of the writhing shapes were torn apart and cast into the growing flames.

Caorann shouldered his way through the ranks of archers and after a few minutes he reached Eremon’s side. The captain’s brutal, heavy-browed face was covered with fresh scars, and he was knee-deep in corpses, but there was no trace of fear in his eyes as he turned to face the wardancer. As he took in Caorann’s blood-drenched bandages and countless other wounds, he softened his glare a little.

‘You should not have left your bed,’ he growled, loosing another arrow.

Caorann could not help but smile. Barked and furious though they were, the captain’s words were the closest he had ever come to speaking kindly to him. Caorann realised that he must have made a good impression on the tough old veteran.

‘If we wait here, we’ll die,’ he said, matching the captain’s gruff tones. ‘We have to advance.’ He pointed his bow at a hill to the north of them, still free of fire. ‘If we could make that vantage point we would be in range of the giant.’ He nodded to the writhing, splintering shapes in its hands. ‘And we would have a chance of saving them.’

Eremon grimaced as he looked at the ranks of beastmen between his archers and the hill, but he nodded all the same. He turned and stared at Caorann for a moment. ‘But will we save ourselves?’

Caorann shook his head, unsure what to say. Breaking through the beastman army would result in horrific casualties, but he could not bear to watch the forest’s soul being torn out by such a vile creature.

Eremon looked around at the flaming towers of Locrimere. Left unfought, the fires were tearing through the glades and groves of their home. He clenched his jaw and nodded, then clapped a hand on Caorann’s shoulder. ‘You have a heart of oak. And you are right.’ He took a deep shuddering breath. ‘Whether we live or die will be decided by the gods, not me, but we cannot stay here and watch the forest die.’

He drew his horn from his belt. As the flames raged higher he let out a long, true note and ordered the asrai to advance.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘It should work,’ said Orion, turning the blood-slick stone in his hand. ‘Such power is fit for a king, not a beast.’

The festival rites were over. The only strains of music were quiet, wistful airs and most of the lords and ladies of the forest were sprawled across the royal dais in an exhausted stupor. Behind them the sun was sinking, framed by the silhouettes of branches and a vivid, turquoise dusk. There was still a devoted group of supplicants fawning at Ariel’s feet and Orion had to keep his voice low to avoid being overheard.

‘Am I not the King?’ he growled, staring at Atolmis.

Orion’s equerry was standing next to the throne, peering at the Wrach’s talisman. His black eyes were full of doubt. ‘The Brúidd are the guardians of these things. Only they understand them. No one else knows the mind of the forest. Even our most skilled magi would struggle to–’

‘Do I not have dominion? Am I not the lord of every leaf, branch and beast?’ Orion’s shoulders were trembling as he placed a hand over the hard lump buried in his chest. ‘Did you not select me, Atolmis, out of everyone, for this duty?’

‘Of course,’ said Atolmis. ‘You are my leaf-liege.’ He hesitated. ‘But without the strength of the Brúidd the forest would fall apart.’

Orion only heard the first part of Atolmis’s reply. ‘And yet, I had to prostrate myself before those creatures.’ He glared at the lifeless stone. ‘I had to endure all their ridicule and doubt.’

He looked over at Ariel, graciously listening to the nonsense spewing from her awestruck subjects. Her head was tilted to one side and she maintained a benign smile, even as they smothered her with tales of their tedious, melodramatic little lives. She looked up for a moment and caught his eye. For a moment, everything fell away and they were alone, standing beneath the boughs of the Oak of Ages at the dawn of their reign; victorious and blazing with passion, filled with hope. Even then, Orion realised, all those long centuries ago, there had been something otherworldly in Ariel’s eyes. Her gaze had always been fixed on the unknowable.

I will never fail you, he thought, feeling again the weight of his burden.

The Queen’s smile was unfaltering and she held out a hand to him.

It was immediately grabbed by the dreamy-eyed poet, Khoron Belidae, who covered it with kisses and began regaling her with some ridiculous tale.

Ariel held Orion’s gaze for a second longer and then she began to laugh, softly, as the crowds moved between them.

Orion turned back to Atolmis with his heart pounding. His voice was low and urgent. ‘There was a child. He had golden eyes. He treated me as though I were some kind of pathetic fraud.’ Orion shivered at the memory. ‘They called him Zephyr.’

Atolmis stepped back and shook his head. ‘I know nothing of such things.’ He nodded to Ariel. ‘Your queen would be able to tell you more than me. She has communed with the Brúidd for centuries. She knows the forest’s spirits more than anyone else. Ask her about Sativus.’

Orion grimaced. The thought filled him with nausea. How could Ariel have anything to do with such a being? The idea of discussing it with her made his head spin. ‘Who else knows of them?’

Atolmis looked out across the Council Glade. The lawn was a network of long shadows and it was hard to make out the crowds with any clarity. ‘Perhaps Naieth, the prophetess, but she rarely mingles with her own kind. You will see her on Midsummer’s Eve. She will come to pay her respects, and witness the start of your Wild Hunt.’

Orion peered at the polished stone. ‘I cannot wait until summer.’ He met the eyes of his equerry. ‘I am no fool, Atolmis. I understand what you have done to me.’ He looked around at the sprawled remnants of the festival. ‘You have bound me to the seasons. I have no time. I must win the allegiance of these wretched spirits now.’

Atolmis narrowed his eyes, unnerved by Orion’s words. ‘But have you won the allegiance of the Wrach, my lord?’ he asked. ‘Or just his hatred?’

Orion leant back in his root throne, stretching his broad, ivy-clad chest. ‘I made him kneel, Atolmis, I made him kneel. That is enough. He will not question my strength again.’

Atolmis looked again at the bloody stone. ‘But at what cost?’ Pain flashed in his eyes. ‘Sélva and the others have been left to wander the Dark Paths. They may never find their way back without the Wrach to guide them. Without that key you hold, who knows what strange shores they will wash up on?’ He pointed one of his talons at the stone. ‘That is no toy.’

Orion was about to reply when he noticed that someone was edging hesitantly towards the throne.

Atolmis backed away and Orion looked up to see who would dare approach him. As the noble rose from a deep bow, Orion realised it was one of the guests he had noticed earlier: the bare-chested warrior with golden, wing-shaped torques coiled around his biceps and a network of scars gouged into his face.

‘Prince Haldus,’ said Orion. ‘A rider of hawks.’

The guests who were still crowded around the thrones ceased their babbling to watch the exchange.

Ariel nodded at the warrior and as he bowed in her direction she smiled in recognition.

‘Orion, Lord of the Deepwood Host,’ replied Prince Haldus. His voice was gruff and his cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. As he spoke, he kept glancing around at the assembled nobility, clearly uncomfortable in their presence. He dropped awkwardly to one knee, in a clumsy attempt to observe the etiquette of the Queen’s court. He spoke slowly and carefully. ‘You remember me. I am honoured.’

Orion felt an immediate kinship with the warrior. His rough manners set him apart from the crowds. He clearly had no interest in their gossip or poetry and Orion wondered what had brought him to the Council Glade, when he would obviously prefer to be anywhere else.

Orion scoured his memory. After a few seconds he pictured the two of them riding together, many years ago, way above the eaves of the forest. Orion could almost feel the wind howling around his face as they plunged through the rain towards an unseen prey, laughing wildly as they hurtled towards the trees. As he returned his gaze to the kneeling prince, Orion realised that, despite his awkwardness and his scowl, this warrior was a friend; more so than any of the other nobles present. He softened his voice slightly. ‘We hunted together.’

The prince’s scarred, weather-beaten features flushed even darker and he continued staring at the ground. ‘Yes, my lord. Many times. Since I was but a boy.’ He dared to meet Orion’s eye for a second and his thin, cracked lips gave the slightest hint of a smile. ‘Perhaps, come the summer, we will hunt again.’

Orion leant back in his throne, still clutching the Wrach’s carved, black eye. He realised that the whole gathering was watching the exchange and filled his voice with the same ferocious tones he usually used. ‘What do you want, Prince Haldus?’

‘My lord, I…’ His words trailed off and his scowl deepened as he struggled to speak clearly. He coughed nervously and began again. ‘Please forgive me, but I have come to offer you my aid.’

‘Your aid?’ Orion tightened his fingers on the stone and lowered his voice to a rumble. ‘What need do I have for aid?’

The threat in his voice was tangible and several nobles backed away. Finavar’s disappearance had not gone unnoticed. There were already rumours that Orion and his equerries had devoured him.

Prince Haldus remained on one knee but kept his voice slow and deliberate. ‘The King has no need of aid but he does, on occasion, indulge his most loyal subjects by allowing them to serve him.’

Ariel pursed her lips in a smile, clearly amused by the warrior’s diplomacy.

Orion leant forwards in his throne, keeping his voice low. ‘What do you want?’

‘My lord, as my subjects wintered in their lofty eyries, I have travelled.’ His blushes deepened. ‘I wished to escape my duties for a while.’ He coughed again. ‘At first, all I wished was a chance to be alone, but as I crossed the forest I began to witness sights that troubled me deeply.’ He looked from Orion to Ariel and back again. ‘While you and the Queen slept, the winter snows have been red with blood.’

Orion narrowed his eyes and his breathing quickened. ‘Are you afraid of blood, Haldus?’

‘Of course not, my lord.’ He paused and spoke even slower, desperate not to be misunderstood. ‘This is not the natural cycle of life and death.’ He waved at the sky. ‘From the clouds I see things others might miss.’

Ariel’s smile vanished and she leant forwards, listening intently. Courtiers and nobles pressed closer, eager to hear the exchange.

Orion remained silent.

‘My lord,’ said Prince Haldus. ‘This winter I have travelled the length of the forest, from the Grey Mountains to the Wildwood, and everywhere I look, I see signs of destruction. The creatures of Chaos are taking your kingdom for their own.’

He paused, choosing his next words with particular care. ‘And they could not do such a thing without help. Someone has betrayed us.’ He looked around at the shocked faces of the nobles. ‘The halls of your subjects are in danger. If you do not unite the kindreds under your banner, the whole forest is at risk.’

Scorn and ridicule poured from Ariel’s courtiers.

‘Unite?’ cried one of the nobles. ‘Is he saying we cannot defend our own?’

‘Ridiculous!’ cried another one of the highborn, flinging back his robes in outrage. ‘Are you giving us orders, barbarian? Would you tell us how to defend our own glades?’

After a while the nobles fell silent, waiting to hear how Orion would respond to such strange ideas. There was no sign of emotion in his eyes, but his mind was racing. This was the first time they would see how well he carried his mantle of kingship and he filled his voice with scorn. ‘Our borders are a snare, Prince Haldus. Any mongrel that stumbles through them is sport, nothing more. If it pleases me I will hunt such things down. If it does not please me, I will not. Either way, there is no threat.’

Orion’s words were met with applause and laughter and the nobles continued to glare at Haldus, appalled by his suggestion that they should bind their armies together in some way.

Orion returned his gaze to the stone in his fist and seemed to forget all about Prince Haldus.

He heard Ariel pick up the conversation. There was an incredulous tone in her voice.

‘You said we had been betrayed?’

‘Yes, my queen,’ replied Haldus. ‘All through the winter I have been watching. Outsiders are travelling through the forest as confidently as if they were born beneath its boughs. They follow secret routes only an asrai could know of. This is why we must join arms together.’

At the mention of secret routes, Orion thought of the Wrach, and his old stones, but he remained silent.

‘Who would betray their own queen?’ asked Ariel, genuinely confused.

The prince shook his head, looking distinctly uncomfortable. ‘I cannot be sure, your majesty.’ He hesitated. ‘But I believe it must be a member of this court.’

There was another chorus of gasps from the nobles and some of them placed hands on their weapons.

Ariel held up a hand and the crowd fell silent. ‘So,’ she said, utterly bemused, ‘you came here to offer us your aid.’

The prince’s discomfort grew. He glanced hesitantly at Orion, but the King was muttering to Atolmis and seemed uninterested in the exchange.

‘I came to pay my respects and offer to help the King unite our armies. I intended to lead him to the outsiders, so that he might see for himself. Every mile they cross sees them grow more powerful.’

He glanced around and singled out two slender figures, standing at the edge of the dais. ‘That young bard, Finavar was right – the halls of Lord Beldeas and Lady Ordaana are already in grave danger. There is an army gathering outside Locrimere unlike anything I have ever seen. Alone, the kingdoms will be unable to–’

‘Did you see the beasts?’ snarled Orion.

Haldus shook his head, confused. ‘Beasts, my lord?’

‘Beasts.’ Orion turned to Atolmis, his voice full of bile. ‘What did you call it? This council of spectres that claim to rule my forest?’

Haldus struggled not to flinch as Atolmis stepped from behind the throne. He was almost as terrifying as Orion, with his featureless black eyes and his bloody, ivy-clad skin.

‘The Brúidd,’ he replied, his voice a low growl.

Ariel’s eyes widened and she rose from her throne. ‘What has he told you, my love?’ She frowned. ‘Why do you speak of them with such hate?’

Orion could not meet his queen’s eye, remembering again all the shame of his encounter by the lake. He leant forwards instead and stared at Haldus. ‘They are like the ghosts of animals: freakish serpents and bloated toads that speak in mockery of our own language, wolves made of moonlight and eagles that speak gibberish.’

Haldus shook his head, looking over at the Queen for an explanation, but she was too shocked by Orion’s bile to speak. Then Haldus raised his eyebrows. ‘Did you say a great eagle?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘An eagle that speaks?’

Orion nodded and leant forwards in his throne.

‘I have heard of such a thing,’ said Haldus, ‘but not while I was abroad.’ He pointed to the far side of the clearing. ‘Less than half a mile from here is my own mount, Nuin. She is truly a great eagle. There is no more noble creature in…’

The prince’s words trailed off as he saw that Orion was shaking his head.

The nobles began to jeer and laugh as they realised Haldus was losing Orion’s interest. Several of them barged past the prince, causing him to stagger away from the throne.

As the King turned away and began to speaking to Atolmis again, Haldus looked desperately at Ariel for support, but she was whispering furiously to one of her handmaidens.

‘You must act, my king,’ he said. ‘The forest is in grave danger.’

Orion barely seemed to hear him and Haldus was jostled further back by the nobles.

‘An eagle that speaks?’ he called, raising his voice above the tumult.

Orion looked back at him.

‘Perhaps you are talking about Amphion.’

Orion leant forwards again. ‘Amphion?’

Haldus barged his way back through the crowd and knelt before Orion’s throne again. ‘There is a kingdom in the Pine Crags, a lonely vale by the name of Fincara. The kindreds who dwell there are a strange people. They pay homage to a spirit named Amphion. I have always dismissed the tales that come from that place, but my daughter Clorana delights in them.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘She recites them incessantly. In the stories, Amphion appears in the form of an enormous eagle, and speaks to the people of Fincara in their own tongue.’

Orion stood up, towering over the prince. ‘What else does she sing? Does your daughter sing of its wings, or its plumage?’

Haldus wracked his brains for the details of his child’s stories. ‘Yes. There was something else: Amphion has two pairs of wings.’ He shook his head and scowled. ‘And there is something about its feathers. I believe Clorana said they are sculpted from fire.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

For the first time in his short life, Orion felt free. The forest was gone. It had sunk beneath him in a haze of grey cloud and all that remained was the endless, blinding azure of the evening sky. Skólann’s enormous bulk was beneath him and she was no longer trembling. The giant eagle had grudgingly accepted her new rider and she was at ease once more, and revelling in the power of her enormous wings.

As she soared up into the blue, Orion leant forwards, as Prince Haldus had instructed, gripping her between his thighs and muttering the gentle phrases he had learned. He looked to his left and saw the prince was only a few feet away; close enough for Orion to see the wind rippling through the feathers of his mount. The trailing spines of Haldus’s headgear and the swirling scars on his face made him resemble a spirit of the air and his eyes were blazing with excitement. The awkwardness that had marked him out in the Council Glade had vanished. He rode Nuin so lightly that he and the bird seemed to be joined; a single glorious being, gilded by the sun’s fading light.

As he caught Orion’s gaze, Haldus hopped up into a crouching position and looked back at him without a trace of servility. For a brief moment they were equals beneath the spring sky and Orion felt as though he had slipped back into a previous life. He revelled in the sensation, happy to enjoy the simple, physical pleasures of the wind on his face and Skólann’s warm feathers beneath his legs.

They flew in silence for several long, blissful hours, heading east towards the Grey Mountains, a jagged row of snow-capped peaks that marked the furthest reaches of the forest. Then, as the sun sank lower and the skies shifted slowly towards a deep cobalt, Prince Haldus called out, pointing his longbow to the foothills below and a patch of open land beside the silver ribbon of a small brook.

Orion nodded in reply, attempting to maintain his magisterial demeanour, but wondering how he could steer Skólann back down through the clouds. Then, as Prince Haldus guided his mount down towards the ground, Orion sighed with relief. Skólann needed no encouragement to follow her sister’s descent.

Orion gripped her feathers a little tighter and leant back as she dived through the clouds, letting out a long, gleeful screech.

‘This is all that matters,’ said Prince Haldus, leaning closer. They had built a small fire beside the brook and the light was rippling over his face, picking it out from the evening gloom. The lines on his thunderous brow had softened and, with the flames glittering in his eyes, Prince Haldus looked as happy as the supplicants of the Council Glade. But his was a different kind of happiness, Orion realised. Haldus was not dazed by intoxicating herbs or drunk on fruit wine. His cheeks were red, but only as the result of the wind and warmth of the fire, and his voice was calm, unlike the wild songs that filled Ariel’s court. He spoke with the same ponderous care as before, but there was a new edge of emotion in his voice. ‘To be in the heart of the forest, alone.’ He stretched his limbs and groaned with pleasure. ‘To feel the exhaustion of a long day’s riding.’ He looked up the stars that were unveiling themselves overhead. ‘Far from one’s duties and obligations.’

Orion recalled that he and Prince Haldus shared a bond: they both had kingdoms and subjects that hung shackle-like from their limbs. He nodded and lay back across the damp grass, hypnotised by the flames. ‘Do you crave nothing but escape? There are many tales of Arum Tor. All of them mention its beauty.’

Haldus continued gazing into the fire, considering his reply carefully before he spoke. ‘Arum Tor is as much a part of me as my family and my kindred. And yes, my king, it is beautiful beyond anything you could imagine.’ He closed his eyes for a second, picturing the lofty eyries of his home. ‘Perhaps one day I will show you my halls at the roof of the world: Cáder Donann, the jewel of Arum Tor. Its reach is so high that you might believe you were in the realm of the gods.’

He opened his eyes and peered into the inky darkness pressing in around the fire. Two huge shapes were just visible at the edge of the trees. ‘It is the nesting place of the noblest eagles; birds of true dignity. They would rather die than bring shame on their race. If you called the kindreds to war, the great eagles would lead your armies. I promise you.’

Orion realised that he could remember Cáder Donann. With every hour that passed, he saw his previous lives a little better and he smiled as he saw Haldus’s home, perhaps even more clearly than the prince himself. Then he recalled all the countless generations of princes that came before Haldus, riding to war on raptors that could trace their proud ancestry even further back than the asrai.

The combination of the fire and his kaleidoscopic memories weighed heavily on Orion’s eyelids. He spread his massive frame further across the grass, relaxing each of his tired muscles one by one and relishing the sleep that loomed over him. Then, as he turned onto his side, Orion felt the eye of the Wrach, secreted in a deerskin pouch attached to his belt, digging into his thigh. At the memory of the Blind Guide his tiredness vanished. He sat up and shook his head, ridding himself of drowsiness.

‘Tell me again of Amphion,’ he said.

Prince Haldus looked disappointed by the question. ‘I know nothing of the spirit itself, or if it even exists for sure. All I know are songs and legends.’

Orion felt his muscles tensing as Haldus entered another one of his long, deliberate pauses.

‘These are the facts I do know,’ said the prince after a few moments, sitting upright. ‘Since long before I was born the Vale of Fincara has trod a lonely path; it is sundered from the other asrai of the Pine Crags. Many centuries ago they ceased paying fealty to my ancestors and severed ties with all the other kindreds of the forest.’

He looked away, then stared down at his rough, calloused hands. ‘The lord of Fincara no longer attends the festivals of the Council Glade – whether it is the rites of spring, or the summer solstice. You will see no envoys from his realm; not a single kinband.’ He shook his head. ‘Beyond that, my knowledge is little more than rumour and conjecture. My waywatchers tell me that Cyanos, the current lord of Fincara, has styled himself King of Turas-Alva.’

‘Turas-Alva?’

‘It is an ancient name for the Pine Crags.’

Orion was unable to hide the impatience in his voice. ‘And the spirit, Amphion?’

Prince Haldus met Orion’s eye again, and chose his next words with care. ‘These are the rumours I have heard. Lord, or “King” Cyanos does not attend festivals like Ostaliss because he considers himself quite above such things. He believes that he is a regent in his own right and therefore does not need to pay homage to the King and Queen in the Woods. The kindreds of Fincara do not even consider themselves asrai any more. As I mentioned, they refer to their home as Turas-Alva, which means the Land of the Sky. They imagine themselves an entirely separate race. They call themselves alvaír, or the Children of the Sky, and Lord Cyanos has become, by all accounts, very strange. Even more than the other kindreds that surround his realm, he is obsessed by birds and flight, and the nature of the wind. And like his father before him, he is a hoarder of strange antiques – obscure texts left in the forest by our forefathers. Apparently his years of research have enabled him to transform his flesh in some way, some vile tribute to his master – a forest spirit that he worships under the name of Amphion. The same spirit my daughter sings of. I’m told that Cyanos is so enamoured of this being that he pays no heed to true gods such as Asuryan.’ He paused and glanced at Orion. ‘Or even Kurnous.’

Orion leant even closer to the fire, clutching the stone in his pouch.

Haldus continued. ‘I cannot be sure if the avian spirit he worships is the same as your Bru…’ Haldus frowned, unsure of the name.

‘Brúidd,’ growled Orion, tasting the word like a poison. ‘Atolmis called them the Council of Beasts.’

Haldus nodded. ‘The Council of Beasts. I cannot be sure if we are describing the same being, but the details are oddly similar.’

‘Four wings.’

‘Four wings and the odd markings that resemble flames.’

‘It was a kind of brindle,’ said Orion, ‘but the feathers were red and gold and they shimmered.’ He was now leaning so close to the fire that his mantle of ivy was beginning to smoke. ‘It must be the same creature.’

Haldus frowned. ‘It is the same description, certainly, but I cannot be sure that Cyanos really sees such a thing. Who knows what effect all his strange collections have had on him. I have never spoken to him myself. I have heard rumours and songs, nothing more.’ He grimaced. ‘Scrolls and books have no place in the forest.’

He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed by his own vehemence. ‘My advisors say I should wage war on Fincara, or open up some kind of negotiations.’ As he described such onerous duties, Haldus looked quite nauseous. ‘But I would rather spend my time on the wing, where I can forget such complicated matters.’ He looked up at the stars, and gripped the knife at his belt. ‘I would rather be hunting by your side, my lord, than playing political games. Should I be ashamed of that?’

Even through the filter of his rage, Orion noticed again the bond he shared with Haldus. They both felt the weight of an inheritance they could not escape. He shook his head and softened his voice again. ‘How long until I can see this “King” Cyanos for myself?’

Haldus shrugged. ‘We are already in the foothills. By midday tomorrow we shall reach the Vale of Fincara.’

Orion gave no reply and for a few minutes they were both lost in their own thoughts.

Haldus prodded at the fire with a stick, sending a cloud of sparks spiralling up into the darkness and flooding the riverbank with a brief flash of light. The flare picked out a row of tiny shapes that had gathered at the foot of the trees, not far from the sleeping eagles. Haldus frowned for a second, unsure what he was seeing. Then he noticed that the shapes had faint, glimmering wings and spiny, twig-like bodies. He realised the forest’s tiny spirits were intrigued by his companion. The sight of them reminded him why he had originally approached the King.

‘My lord,’ he said, stirring Orion from his thoughts. ‘My reasons for travelling the forest this winter were selfish, I admit, but what I told you in the Council Glade was true. I have seen armies of beastmen larger than anything I have ever heard described.’

Orion looked up. The prince’s words were almost identical to Finavar’s and the memory of the wardancer immediately conjured another image: a row of bestial faces, jeering at his weak, ruined flesh.

Haldus took another long pause before he continued, and the frown returned to his low, heavy brow. ‘Will you do nothing?’ His question was so quiet it was almost a whisper.

At first it seemed that Orion had not heard. He continued looking blankly through Haldus, as though he had slipped into some kind of trance. Finally, after a few minutes, he refocused his gaze and nodded. ‘I will do something,’ he said. ‘I will prove to this forest that it is mine.’ His voice rumbled from his chest. ‘I will teach the Brúidd that the Queen and I are the twin beating hearts of this realm. They must pay fealty or die.’

Haldus looked pained. ‘And the outsiders? Will you hunt them?’

Orion revealed his long teeth in perfect mimicry of Atolmis’s vile grin. ‘I will hunt everything.’ He reached into the fire and gripped a flaming log. His skin rippled in the heat, starting to blister, but then something odd happened. The fire burned a deep red where it touched his hand, then it became a bright white, pulsing across his knuckles. After a few minutes, Orion withdrew his hand and held it up in the moonlight. It was completely unharmed.

‘I am becoming strong.’ He turned his hand back and forth and stared at it in awe. ‘All the strength of Kurnous is in me.’ He turned his gaze back on the prince, remembering something Ariel had said.

‘By summer there will be nothing that can stand against me.’

They awoke with the dawn, stiff from the cold and covered in a filmy layer of dew. The fire had died and the spirits had vanished with the stars. Orion climbed to his hooves and stretched his powerful arms, looking down at the rippling stream. He saw his reflection and for a moment he was confused. In his dreams he had been Sephian, the wanderer from the Silvam Dale; weak, powerless and mortal. The vision that glared back at him from the water’s undulating mirror was a god in the making. It seemed incredible, but Orion was sure he had grown during the night; surely his antlers were taller and more knotted than before? And weren’t his talons thicker and more ridged? They looked like they could tear through rock.

‘My lord?’ said Haldus, indicating the cold remains of last night’s meal – a brace of hares they had caught in the neighbouring meadow.

Orion wolfed down the food in one grunting mouthful and followed Haldus back to the eagles.

As he approached Skólann she eyed him calmly for a few seconds and then lowered her head. Orion felt a rush of pride. The noble creature was going to let him fly without any encouragement from Prince Haldus. He muttered a few words of thanks as he climbed onto her back, attempting to temper his brutal growl.

Smaller birds exploded from the trees as the two great eagles pounded their wings and launched themselves into the morning light.

Haldus led the way, steering his mount low over the treetops, following the backs of the foothills as they tumbled towards the looming mass of the Grey Mountains.

After several hours of wordless flight across the canopy of the trees, Prince Haldus called out a warning and headed up through the clouds.

For a while Orion was enveloped in greyness. Then, after a few minutes, they cleared the clouds and Orion saw a scene of such beauty that for a few seconds he forgot to breathe. The Pine Crags sheared up from the foothills; jagged, unforgiving, blazing in the morning light and draped in a cloak of gloomy fir trees.

Prince Haldus looked back over his shoulder, and as he saw the look on Orion’s face he beamed with as much pride as if he had wrenched the rock from the ground with his own hands. As they banked to the north, across the sheer face of the peaks, he pointed his longbow at a crevasse – a deep, brutal gash in the mountainside, surrounded by dozens of circling hawks.

‘Fincara,’ he called, straining to be heard against the buffeting wind.

Orion nodded eagerly in reply and leant forwards for a better look. The crevasse was deep in shadow but, as they looped down towards it, he began to make out caves in its walls and more birds, drifting lazily in the thermals.

Haldus steered his mount straight down towards the narrowest part of the gulley, plunging like a stone, with no sign of slowing as he neared the rocks.

Skólann followed suit, dropping into a steep dive, and Orion had to clutch wildly at her feathers to avoid tumbling from her back.

Hawks and ravens scattered as the great eagles plunged into the chasm and were enveloped by the cool shade within.

Haldus landed his eagle on a narrow bridge of rock, jutting out like a jetty from the side of the ravine thousands of feet above the valley floor. The bridge was a geological wonder: a needle-like sliver of granite that arched across the chasm, linking the great hulks of mountain on either side. A few seconds later Skólann landed a few feet away, scraping her talons across the rock and letting out an indignant screech as she came to a halt, facing a tall, gate-like opening in the wall of the mountain.

As soon as the eagle had settled, Orion dropped from her side and paced across the bridge, filling the ravine with the sound of hooves against stone.

Prince Haldus dismounted and hurried after him.

‘Wait, my lord,’ he called. ‘The caves will be guarded.’

Orion gave no answer and strode onto a broad lip of rock at the far end of the bridge, making for the cave opening.

‘A weapon!’ he cried, without turning.

Haldus hurriedly drew a sword from his belt and held it out to his king.

Orion snatched it from his grip and swung it back and forth through the crisp mountain air, creating a thin whistling sound as he disappeared into the gloom of the cave.

It seemed to Orion that he had entered a forest glade. Then, as his vision grew accustomed to the dark, he saw that the tree-like columns surrounding him were actually towering fingers of rock and the dappled light came from hundreds of tiny holes in the cave’s ceiling, spilling sunlight down through the shifting, dusty air.

Tall, long-limbed guards hurried towards him: asrai, certainly, but clad in strange, tawny-coloured robes of feather and moss. Even stranger than their cloaks were the masks they all wore: hoods of animal hide with long snouts of carved bone, designed to resemble the beaks of eagles.

The guards carried slender wooden javelins, but as they neared Orion they lowered them in confusion and fear. Even after centuries of isolation, the asrai of Fincara could recognise such a ferocious, snarling likeness of Kurnous, God of the Hunt. The image of the horned god was carved deeply into their ancestral memory and it filled them with dread.

A few of the guards turned on their heels and ran back into the darkness, taking word that a spirit had fallen from the heavens, but most edged closer, staring at Orion in awe through the sagging eyeholes of their masks.

Prince Haldus hurried to Orion’s side. The lights flickered over his face as he drew an arrow and the guards muttered nervously at the sight of his mutilated skin.

‘Which of you is Cyanos?’ cried Orion, filling the cave with his feral roar.

The guards turned to one another in wonder, clearly amazed that this green-hued monster could speak a language they understood.

After a brief, whispered debate, one of them broke ranks and approached Orion with his spear raised.

‘Are you a god?’ he asked. His dialect was odd, and the words were interspersed with strange clicking sounds, but the meaning was clear.

‘I am Orion: Consort-King of the Queen, Master of the Wild Hunt and Lord of the Deepwood Host. The blood of Kurnous is in my veins.’

The guard seemed unsure whether to attack or bow. He looked back at his companions for guidance, but they looked as confused as he did. ‘I am Síngas of the alvaír,’ he replied eventually. A noticeable tremor entered his voice and he lowered his gaze. ‘The King of Turas-Alva does not receive guests.’

Orion replied with such violence that the guard took a few steps back. ‘I am not his guest. I am his king.’

Síngas cowered but kept his javelin raised. ‘Word of your arrival has been sent, but King Cyanos will not–’

‘Step aside,’ growled Orion, striding forwards and raising the sword he had taken from Prince Haldus.

The guards cowered but held their line, raising their javelins with trembling hands and pressing closer together as Orion approached.

Orion paused, shaking his head in amazement. ‘Would you deny your king?’ he asked, looking up and down the line of hooded figures.

‘Cyanos is our king,’ replied Síngas, raising his chin, despite his fear. ‘And he does not receive guests.’

Orion let out an odd, snorting bark and drew back his sword.

‘Wait, my lord,’ said Prince Haldus, placing his hand on Orion’s arm.

Orion hesitated and Haldus moved past him, holding up his hands as he approached the line of guards.

‘I am Prince Haldus of Arum Tor,’ he said to the one called Síngas. ‘My father fought alongside Cyanos’s father at the Battle of Amathíon Head, when your king was still a boy. Even here, I’m sure that must still mean something. If you mention my ancestry to your master, I am sure he will admit us.’

Síngas replied in a sneering tone. ‘We remember the princes of Arum Tor.’ He threw back his feathered cloak and raised his voice, so that the rest of the guards could hear. ‘We remember how you took our bravest sons and sacrificed them, so that Ariel’s children could continue nestling in their pretty little bowers, whether they’re wanted there or not.’

The disdain in the guard’s voice emboldened the others and they began to advance, training their javelins on Haldus and Orion.

‘We remember how the Prince of Arum Tor grovels to those who have planted themselves in ground that has no love for them.’ The guard’s bile grew as he stepped closer, jabbing his javelin as he approached. ‘You and your kind are not fit to–’

Síngas’s words became a wet gargle as his head flipped back. He dropped to his knees as his head fell away, still contained in its strange hood as it bounced across the rock.

For a few seconds the other guards were unsure what had happened; Orion’s sword had moved so fast that they only realised what he had done when he drew back the blade for a second strike.

One of the guards drew back his javelin to fling it at Orion.

Prince Haldus moved faster. He stepped back and calmly fired an arrow.

Before the guard could loose his javelin he reeled backwards with the arrow sunk deep in his throat.

There was a brief pause, then the shadowy cave exploded into violence. The guards threw themselves at Orion and Haldus, lunging and jabbing with their slender spears and drawing long, curved knives from their belts.

Orion lashed out with the sword a few times and then seemed to find it an encumbrance. He sent it clattering to the ground and tore into his opponents with talons, fists and antlers. As he wrenched necks and gored faces, the King roared. It was a cry of pleasure.

Prince Haldus continued to edge slowly backwards, loosing arrow after arrow as he walked, dropping every figure that emerged from behind the pillars of rock.

The cave was filled with the sound of grunting and tearing and the clatter of Orion’s hooves.

Guards continued to pour from the shadows, but none could land a blow on the King. His movements were as wild and frenetic as a cornered animal.

After several minutes of fruitless carnage, one of the more clear-thinking guards ordered a retreat, forming a second row several feet away from the fighting.

As Orion continued to snarl and punch, Prince Haldus lowered his longbow for a second, realising that the alvaír were about to launch dozens of javelins at Orion, regardless of who else might be injured.

He whirled around and squinted out through the entrance of the cave, to the slender bridge of rock outside. The two eagles were still waiting patiently on the ledge and he raised his fingers to his lips, summoning them with a shrill, sustained whistle.

The enormous birds responded immediately. They launched themselves into the air with a single beat of their vast wings and hurtled towards the cave.

The alvaír stumbled and lowered their javelins, crying out in fear as the eagles swooped through the cave mouth and crashed into them.

There was a flurry of talons and feathers as the eagles attacked. Their wings were edged with sharpened bone and they tore open the guards’ chests, sending their weapons clattering across the stone floor. Their beaks hammered back and forth like pickaxes and their steel-tipped talons grasped and tore.

The line of guards collapsed. Several of them fell, clutching at mortal wounds and wailing in fear, and the rest dropped to their knees, begging for mercy. Not one of them fought back.

Prince Haldus frowned. Terrifying as the eagles were, the response of the guards seemed odd. Rather than defending themselves, they wailed pitifully at the sight of the enraged eagles, drawing invisible symbols in the air and begging the birds for forgiveness. Haldus considered their strange, bird-like masks and long, feathered robes and guessed the reason: they saw the eagles as gods. His own kindreds revered their noble winged mounts but, in their isolation, the kindreds of Fincara had taken such beliefs to an extreme conclusion.

The eagles turned to face Haldus. Their feathers were slick with blood but none of it was their own.

Orion downed his final opponent with a fierce backhanded blow. Then he raised his bloody fists and howled, surrounded by a mound of bodies. He was too lost in the moment to notice the strange sight of the kneeling guards, fawning and pleading with the eagles.

Haldus sprinted across the body-strewn cave towards the eagles. As he reached their sides he scowled at the cowering guards. ‘Take us to your king!’ he cried, pointing at the eagles. ‘Or face the wrath of your gods!’

The alvaír looked at each other. Several of their bird masks had been torn away and their pale, bloody faces were filled with terror, but none of them seemed willing to accede to Haldus’s demand.

Orion lowered his head. Blood flew from his antlers as he turned to look at Prince Haldus, finally noticing that the remaining guards were all kneeling in a half circle around the eagles.

Seeing their hesitation, Haldus turned to the eagles and made a subtle clicking sound with his mouth.

The birds stepped towards the guards, unfolding their enormous wings.

The alvaír wailed again and one of them raised his hands to Prince Haldus. ‘We will do as the spirits command!’ The other guards nodded their heads in desperate agreement. ‘Tell your masters.’

Orion trotted across the mounds of corpses and stood next to Prince Haldus, shaking his head at the oddness of the scene.

Haldus raised his eyebrows at Orion, then he turned back to the guards. ‘One of you must lead us to your king. The rest will remain here and attend to the spirits.’ He waved to the eagles with his longbow. ‘If we do not return safely, their fury will be like nothing you have seen so far.’

The guard who had spoken climbed hesitantly to his feet. ‘I am Elpenor,’ he said ‘I will lead you.’ His eyes were straining with terror and his words tumbled from his mouth. ‘King Cyanos would not deny such a command. I did not realise you were envoys of gods. Forgive me, I…’ His words trailed off as he looked at the pile of bodies Orion had left. He shook his head. ‘We did not realise.’

Orion was still trembling from the frenzy of his attacks and as he turned his gore-splattered face to Haldus, he revealed his long teeth in a snarl. ‘What game are you playing? I do not need tricks to gain entry.’ He nodded to the dead and dying, sprawled between the columns of the cave.

Prince Haldus bowed to the King. ‘My lord. Forgive my impertinence. I merely thought that we could spare any more bloodshed and save a little time.’

Orion continued to scowl at the prince for a while. His chest was still heaving from the exertion of the fight and he was flexing his claws, clearly itching for more violence. He gave a grudging nod, but the snarl remained on his face.

Prince Haldus bowed again and turned back to the cowering guard. ‘Take us to Cyanos.’

A spiralling coil of stairs ran up through the heart of the mountain. After a steep climb, Orion, Prince Haldus and the guard emerged on a ledge of rock, way up in the clouds and high enough to be dusted with a layer of snow. As Orion looked up at the surrounding peaks, his breath snaked around his face and trailed after him like a scarf.

Elpenor hurried ahead, snapping orders to figures that loomed out of the mountain mist. The other alvaír watched in amazement as Orion clattered past them, his blood-splattered antlers held high and his emerald eyes blazing.

‘This way,’ called Elpenor, directing them to another long stair. They climbed again, for longer this time, until they were high enough to look down over the clouds, which were so motionless Orion felt that he could step from the mountain and walk towards the horizon. It was late afternoon, and as they climbed higher, the sun was sinking lower, painting the white peaks with amber light.

The air grew thin and, after nearly an hour of climbing, even their guide grew short of breath. He paused for a while on a jagged precipice, panting slightly as he leant against the rock and looked warily at the ivy-skinned giant climbing towards him.

Orion and the prince were both growing lightheaded and they slumped against the icy granite, glad for a chance to rest.

After a few minutes, Prince Haldus peered up to the summit and saw another series of cave mouths. ‘Is it true,’ he gasped, keeping his gaze fixed on the caves, ‘that Cyanos has changed?’

Elpenor frowned at him with a mixture of confusion and fear. ‘Changed?’

Prince Haldus looked at the guard’s feathered cloak and his strange, blood-splattered mask. ‘Physically, I mean. In Arum Tor there are rumours. They say that his long years of worship have changed his flesh in some way.’

Elpenor drew back his shoulders and nodded proudly. ‘It is true; after years of religious study King Cyanos has begun the ascent to divinity. Amphion has adopted him as a son and begun remaking him in his own image. He also made him a gift of the Silverwood – a spear carved from the tusk of the great drake, Tamarix.’ The guard’s eyes glazed over at the thought of his king. ‘At first, not all of the kindreds understood the importance of King Cyanos’s Great Work, the Ìobrass, but with the Silverwood in his hands, none could deny him. It is a weapon from the dawn of the world. There is a vein of Tamarix’s fire running right through it. Nothing is impervious to its bite.’ The guard lowered his head for a moment, awed by his own words. Then he sighed with pleasure. ‘Every life given will be worth a hundred taken. We will burn in the flames of Amphion’s wrath.’

Prince Haldus frowned. He had heard legends of the Silverwood, but he could make no sense of the guard’s other words. ‘The Ìobrass? What is that? I have–’

Orion had been staring out at the clouds, but at the mention of Amphion he rounded on the guard. ‘Tell me of your god,’ he said, interrupting Prince Haldus’s question. ‘What does this Amphion look like?’

The guard cringed under Orion’s intense gaze and muttered his reply into his mask. ‘He is the father of all the great eagles. His feathers were forged in the fires of the summer sun.’

Orion nodded eagerly. ‘And how many wings? How many wings does he have?’

‘Four,’ replied the guard, as though the question were ridiculous. ‘One for each of the seasons.’

Orion grasped Prince Haldus’s shoulder. ‘We have found him.’

Elpenor stared at Orion, as though he were only now recognising the strangeness of his appearance. He muttered a prayer under his breath, then turned and nodded to the remaining stairs. ‘This is the final ascent. We have almost reached the High Hall of King Cyanos.’ His voice was filled with awe. ‘Perhaps you will be permitted a glimpse of Amphion yourself.’

They emerged on a broad spur of rock, dusted with snow and ending in a tower-like peak, networked with caves and tunnels so that it resembled a piece of bleached, worm-ridden wood. Word of their arrival must have somehow reached Cyanos, because hundreds of archers were waiting for them. They wore the same masks as Elpenor and they had formed into two long lines, leading all the way to the tower. Every one of them had a bow trained on Orion and the effect was of a bristling, arrow-lined corridor.

Prince Haldus cursed under his breath. If the archers decided to loose their arrows there would be nothing he or Orion could do. He wondered whether they should return to the steps and summon the eagles but, before he could suggest the idea to Orion, he realised that the King was already halfway down the avenue of archers, striding between the two lines as though he were in no danger at all.

Haldus spat another curse and hurried after him, dragging Elpenor with him as he went.

‘Where is your king?’ Orion snapped, turning briefly to face the guard.

Elpenor nodded to the base of the tower. There was a wide tear in his mask that revealed an inane grin. ‘He has come to meet you.’

Orion squinted at the distant figure, but the light was fading fast and he could not be sure what he was seeing. He picked up his pace and after a few minutes he began to make out the figure more clearly. For a second, his heart raced. In the half-light he thought it was Amphion. He saw a pair of broad, glittering wings that unfurled briefly and shimmered in the gloom. Then he recalled that the spirit he met in the grove of linden trees had two sets of wings, not one. Also, as he approached the tower of rock, he realised that the figure waiting for him was no eagle, but a king.

As Orion approached King Cyanos, he barely noticed the rows of archers and spearmen that flanked him. The king’s appearance was so striking that for a brief moment, Orion forgot everything else. The king was much taller than his guards, as tall as Orion in fact, and he was unusually beautiful, even by the standards of the asrai. His hair was long, black and parted in the centre, in sharp contrast to his bone-white face, and his eyes were an odd, piercing green. His chest was clad in a breastplate of black, burnished iron, hammered to resemble the feathered breast of a bird, and he carried a long, sharpened piece of bone that was as tall as he was. Dozens of objects were clasped to his belt and chest: scrolls, pouches and odd, glass-fronted cases, all covered in intricate, indecipherable glyphs. Oddest of all was the enormous pair of wings folded behind his back, glimmering with an oily blue sheen.

Despite his severe appearance, King Cyanos greeted Orion with a smile of such gentleness that they might have been the oldest of friends.

‘The Lord of the Deepwood Host,’ he said, nodding his head in place of a bow. ‘This is an honour I never expected.’

Orion narrowed his eyes as he studied the king of the alvaír. He had expected violence or resentment, but not this disarming, softly spoken welcome. He kept his gaze locked on Cyanos’s, expecting him to look away, but to his annoyance Cyanos continued smiling calmly back at him.

‘I have come in search of a forest spirit,’ said Orion. ‘A great eagle, by the name of Amphion.’

King Cyanos’s smile faltered. For a moment he was too surprised to speak. He shook his head. ‘Can I have been mistaken about you? Perhaps…’ He waved at the surrounding mountains. ‘You have come to the right place, Orion. Turas-Alva is the one kingdom in all the forest where my father has been made truly welcome.’ He waved his bone spear at the tower behind him. There was a wide cave mouth at its base. ‘Let me show you what we have wrought in his honour.’

With that, King Cyanos turned and strode into the tower.

Orion moved to follow but Prince Haldus grabbed his arm. ‘My lord.’ He waved at the hundreds of archers and spearmen that surrounded them. ‘Is this wise?’ He looked suspiciously at the tower. ‘We have just butchered dozens of his guards. If he knew we were coming, he must also know that we are enemies.’

Orion wrenched his arm free and scowled at the prince. ‘Cyanos would not dare lay a finger on me.’

Before Haldus could protest further, Orion vanished into the cave mouth, hurrying after their mysterious, winged host.

He looked around to face a row of expressionless masks. Then he let go of Elpenor and followed Orion, still muttering under his breath as he went.

The tower was ablaze with light. Countless sconces lined the walls, filled with crackling fires. The first cave was a small antechamber but, as the king led them further, they entered a cave so vast that the light of the braziers was unable to reach the ceiling. The centuries had wrought a kind of natural clerestory and more archers looked down at Orion and Prince Haldus, following them with their arrowheads as the king led them through the flickering shadows.

At one point they passed an opening in the wall of the cave, revealing another chamber filled with rows of leather-bound books and strange, enormous paintings showing oceans and continents. Orion and Haldus both frowned at the sight. Such things were the hallmarks of outsiders, with their stone-built colleges and their ink-smeared scribes. Why would an asrai noble indulge in such strange pursuits?

Finally, as they the exited the far side of the chamber, Orion and Haldus saw the hollow centre of the tower. The peak was a dormant volcano lined with hundreds of caves. At its centre was a sight more incredible than anything they had seen so far.

‘My Great Work,’ announced Cyanos, holding out his arms to encompass the vast shape that loomed over them. ‘The final penance of the alvaír: the Ìobrass.’

Hunched in the heart of the mountain was a colossal statue. It had been sculpted to resemble a great eagle, gazing up at a distant patch of sky. Orion’s head swam as he considered the work that must have gone into creating such a vast, absurd structure. The whole thing was hollow and its surface was a network of stone bars. It was a huge, beautiful cage and at its base there was a single door.

Orion frowned as he looked closer and saw movement. Eagles and hawks were gliding back and forth inside the enormous sculpture and there were other shapes sprawled across the floor of the thing. As the torchlight waxed and waned, Orion struggled to see them clearly at first, then he grunted in surprise. The shapes were corpses. They were in various stages of decomposition and some of them were little more than skeletons, picked clean by the birds circling overhead.

‘What is this?’ asked Orion, noticing that the cage-like statue had four wings folded behind its back. ‘Is this where Amphion lives?’

Cyanos was still smiling, but there was now a slight hesitance in his voice. ‘This is our last hope for repentance.’ The white bone of his spear flashed in the torchlight as he pointed it at the crumpled remains in the statue. ‘With every life we offer, Amphion grows a little stronger, but these offerings are only a precursor to what will follow.’ He closed his eyes and clutched the spear to his chest, clearly moved. ‘By the summer solstice the Ìobrass will be complete. Then we will offer our final sacrifice and atone for your wrongs.’

‘Ìobrass!’ hissed Prince Haldus, finally recognising the statue’s obscure name. ‘Sacrifice.’

‘Exactly,’ replied Cyanos. ‘At the time of the solstice we will fill the Ìobrass and offer our bodies as kindling. We will not only atone for your crimes, but we will fill Amphion with such power that he will cleanse the forest of all its foes.’ He glanced meaningfully at Orion. ‘Whatever form they take. And then, the forest will live.’

Dozens of voices echoed from the shadows overhead, repeating the king’s final words: ‘The forest will live.’

Orion shook his head in disgust. ‘You mean to sacrifice yourselves?’

The king nodded, but his smile had vanished. ‘We will join our souls to Amphion’s and ascend into the unknown. It will be as it was written: the lifeblood of the alvaír will create a being of such incredible power that nothing will stand against it. The forest will be free. As it was in the beginning. Your crimes will be forgotten.’

The sound of Orion’s hooves rang out as he stepped closer to the king. ‘My crimes?’ His voice was low and full of menace.

‘Of course.’ Cyanos frowned. ‘Why have you come here, if not to atone for your crimes? Surely you wish forgiveness for what you have done?’

Orion shook his head. ‘What have I done?’

Cyanos’s voice remained soft, but his odd, green eyes flashed dangerously. ‘What have you done? Is that a joke? You have violated the forest, Orion. You and your queen have imposed yourselves on a world that was never meant for you, and in doing so you have wounded it so horribly it can barely hope to survive. But surely you know this?’

Orion was about to reply when Cyanos gasped in surprise.

‘Drop your bows!’ cried Prince Haldus, pulling back Cyanos’s head and pressing a knife to his throat.

Cyanos’s voice grew taut. ‘Be careful.’ He tried to pull back from the knife. ‘Think of what you’re doing. I must remain alive until the solstice.’ The colour drained from his face. ‘By the gods! You could ruin everything.’

The archers that surrounded them gasped and looked at each other in horror. Some did as Prince Haldus demanded, lowering their weapons, but others stepped closer, on the verge of firing.

‘Tread carefully,’ said Cyanos, holding up a hand to his guards. The smile returned to his face, despite the knife at his throat, and he extended a hand to Orion. ‘You were brought here. Don’t you see? Amphion has offered you a chance to atone. The forest is dying because of you. Your illegitimate reign has left it unable to defend itself. You have disturbed an equilibrium that existed for thousands of years before you came. The beasts of Chaos are roaming, this very minute, through the trees. We must give the forest back.’

Orion shook his head and was about to reply, but King Cyanos was growing more impassioned with every word.

‘Imagine what would happen if you joined us!’ He waved at the statue, almost slitting his own throat as he turned to face it. ‘Imagine if your soul met ours in the flames. This must be why you have come! Think what a wonderful symmetry it would make. The King – the very being responsible for the ruination of the forest – offering his strength to the Great Eagle. The Brúidd’s power would be restored. They would be invincible once more.’

There was disarming, simple honesty to Cyanos’s words and Orion noticed that Prince Haldus was looking confused.

‘I am not here to prostrate myself before those animals,’ he snarled. ‘I am here to subdue them.’ He turned to the anxious-faced guards huddled in the doorway. ‘Your king is a either a lunatic or a liar, and he is leading you all to a pointless death.’

Some of the guards looked outraged and raised their bows again, but others were clearly unnerved by Orion’s words, looking anxiously at each other for reassurance.

‘Lies,’ said Prince Haldus, shrugging off his doubt and pressing his knife back against the King’s throat.

Just as it seemed blood would be spilled, a warm breeze flooded the caves, causing the torches to gutter and spit.

Cyanos trembled with fear and excitement. ‘He’s here.’

Orion whirled around but saw nothing.

The breeze blew harder and many of the torches were extinguished: hundreds of them, all around the inner walls of the mountain, fluttered and died, plunging the caves into darkness.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Orion. He could just about make out Haldus and the king, but everything else was a confusing shroud of shifting shadows.

‘It is not my doing,’ replied the king, his eyes straining in the dark.

Orion was about to demand an explanation when he noticed a new source of light. It was coming from the base of the cage-like sculpture: a faint, amber glow, that shifted and writhed in the breeze. It flickered across the pools of blood and grew in brightness, like a miniature sunrise. Then it settled and stretched out, growing larger and assuming the form of a great eagle with four wings that glimmered and rippled, like the embers of a fire.

‘Amphion,’ cried Orion, forgetting all about the impasse between Haldus and the alvaír. He grabbed King Cyanos’s arm. ‘How do I enter the cage?’

The king’s face was rigid with fear and he was unable to tear his gaze away from the dazzling creature. ‘Stairs,’ he gasped, pointing vaguely into the darkness.

‘Wait here,’ ordered Orion, catching Haldus’s eye briefly, before striding off along the circular balcony that surrounded the statue. As he went he reached out to the wall and snatched one of the few torches that were still blazing, using it to light his way through the gloom.

No arrows were fired as he clattered down the stairs. Several of the guards had backed away at the sight of the spirit, muttering prayers under their breath, and the rest were unable to target Orion in the flickering light.

It was a short climb and within a few minutes Orion reached the entrance to the statue. This close he saw how cleverly designed the thing was. It was an enormous mesh of slender stone columns and thick oak beams, built over a mound of kindling that must have taken years to collect. Once locked inside, it would be impossible for a sacrificial offering to change his mind and flee. Cyanos and his alvaír would have no opportunity for second thoughts once the flames took hold. For now, however, the gate was left open and Orion strode inside, hypnotised by the creature taking shape before him. Despite the feelings of anger and shame it evoked, Orion could not deny that Amphion was beautiful. In the linden grove he had only half-glimpsed its form, but now it revealed itself quite clearly: spreading its four shimmering wings and throwing back its head to let out a deafening screech.

Orion staggered to a halt a few feet away from his prey and held up his torch. There was no doubt – this was the spirit he had seen by the pool. It was also, however, much larger than he remembered.

Amphion reared up over his head, spreading all four of its wings to their full, impressive span and fixing its coal-black eyes on him. ‘Are you lost, little king?’ Its voice was a thin shriek, and as it spoke its wings erupted into flames, creating such a blast of scorching air that Orion had to lean forwards to stay upright.

‘You are my subject, Amphion!’ cried Orion, levelling one of his talons at the eagle. ‘I demand your fealty!’

‘You mewling runt,’ laughed the eagle, hopping towards him. ‘Why would I worship you?’ It lowered its head until its eyes were level with Orion’s. ‘You are the weakest in a long line of weaklings.’

Orion’s mind flooded with hatred. He lunged at the towering creature, trying to land a punch, but Amphion continued laughing as the blow passed straight through the shimmering blaze of its feathers.

Orion cursed and staggered across the floor, realising that the spirit was as intangible as smoke. He dropped to his knees and found himself staring at the mounds of dry kindling beneath the statue. Then he let out a short bark of laughter as an idea occurred to him.

‘How long has Amphion been ruling you?’ he asked, waving his torch at the rows of anxious faces staring down at him. ‘How long have you been working towards this sacrifice?’ He curled back his teeth in what could either have been a grin or a snarl. ‘Just a few months now, and it will be the summer solstice. Then Cyanos’s Great Work will be complete. Is that right?’

Amphion turned its head on one side, fixing Orion with one of its eyes.

‘But what if there’s nothing left by then?’ Orion dropped his flaming torch through the grilled floor.

A chorus of wails erupted from the figures watching overhead.

The torch looped and fluttered, then landed in the kindling with an explosion of sparks.

Orion turned to Amphion and pointed up at the masked figures. ‘Their souls are not yours to take.’

‘By the gods!’ wailed Cyanos, still trapped by Prince Haldus’s knife. ‘The Ìobrass! Get down there! Stop the flames.’

A few of the alvaír shuffled towards the stairs, but most did nothing, clearly terrified. Orion’s torch had already caused a small fire and the mound of kindling was the size of a hill. Even if they crawled beneath the statue, it would be impossible to climb through the sticks and branches to reach the torch.

Orion watched proudly as flames spread beneath him. ‘I will teach you to kneel,’ he growled, glaring up at Amphion.

To his amazement, the enormous eagle began to laugh again. It threw back its beak and let out a series of hysterical shrieks. ‘Do you think I care about this? Do you think I care about these idiots and their pointless rituals?’

The alvaír on the stairs paused in confusion and even Cyanos ceased his yells.

Amphion spread its wings, indicating the cage-like statue. ‘This hideous thing would never have channelled their souls. It is just another example of your people’s idiocy.’ A note of disgust entered the spirit’s voice. ‘Do you really think I would mingle my essence with such pathetic, unnatural creatures?’

Up on the balcony, King Cyanos slumped back into Haldus’s grip, shaking his head.

Haldus lowered his knife and managed to catch Cyanos before he collapsed.

Cyanos recovered and rushed to the edge of the lip of rock. ‘My lord! Why are you saying such things?’ His face was ashen as he jabbed his spear at the statue. ‘We have built the Ìobrass, just as the old texts described. Every detail has been attended to. Our sacrifice will atone for Orion’s hubris. The books of our forefathers say–’

‘Your forefathers were fools,’ screeched Amphion, whirling around to face the king. ‘Every one of your miserable lives could never atone for what has been done to the forest.’ The eagle looked around at the rows of guards and archers, wailing and clutching their masks. ‘But it would have given me some satisfaction to watch you all burn.’

Orion shook his head in frustration. The flames were spreading quickly beneath him, sending columns of smoke up into the statue, but he realised it was pointless. Cyanos had been deceived. Whether the cage burned now or at the summer solstice made no difference to Amphion. It was all a lie.

As the flames began to reach up through the grilled floor of the Ìobrass, Prince Haldus called out in alarm. ‘My lord! Leave the cage!’

Orion looked around and saw that fire was racing across the mound of kindling. Anger erupted in his head, with even more violence than the flames. He could not leave without bending Amphion to his will, but the towering eagle was already spreading its wings – embracing the flames and pulsing with golden light as it looked down at him, still shaking with mirth.

A terrible, agonised scream sliced through the tumult.

Orion looked up to see Cyanos, transformed by grief and shock. His gentle smile had been replaced by a horrified leer and he was stumbling like a drunk. ‘A lie?’ he kept repeating, shaking his head. ‘A lie?’

Prince Haldus had backed away from him, forgotten in all the excitement and unsure what to do.

‘Of course it was a lie!’ screamed Amphion. ‘How could you hope to atone for thousands of years with one absurd sacrifice?’ The eagle fixed one of its eyes on Orion again. ‘Although I was quite looking forward to watching them try.’

King Cyanos let out another horrible screech. Then he spread his jet black wings, launched himself from the balcony and hurled his spear.

There was a flash of white as the shaft of bone sliced through the whirling smoke and sank into Amphion’s shoulder.

To Orion’s surprise, the weapon did not pass through Amphion’s rippling feathers, as his punch had done; the enchanted weapon lodged deep in its flesh and sent it fluttering back across the floor of the cage.

Amphion’s laughter twisted into a croak as it crumpled to the floor.

Orion had to leap clear as the eagle collapsed towards him, causing the columns of smoke to billow and roll.

‘What have you done?’ cried Amphion, writhing in pain and shock and straining to reach the spear. However much it struggled, it could not reach the weapon.

‘Take back your gift!’ cried Cyanos, hovering outside the cage with tears glittering in his strange green eyes. His voice was filled with even more pain than Amphion’s. There was such horror and desolation in his words that even Orion paused to stare at him. ‘The Silverwood can pierce anything! It seems you were honest about that, at least.’

Amphion screeched again, thrashing its wings and trying to dislodge the spear.

The flames had now spread right across the mound of kindling. The few alvaír who had obeyed King Cyanos’s orders were now starting to climb back towards the balcony, seeing there was no hope of extinguishing the fire. Orion, however, had other ideas. Rather than make for the door of the cage, he raced back through the smoke and leapt into the air.

Amphion was too lost in pain to notice his approach and only realised what was happening when it was too late.

Orion latched both of his hands around the shard of dragon tooth and rammed it down with all his strength.

There was an awful grinding sound as the weapon sank even further through the eagle’s shoulder and into the stone beneath, pinning Amphion to the floor.

Orion rolled clear, tumbling through the flames, and came to a halt a few feet away.

Amphion screamed, straining its back and thrashing its wings, but the spear was now buried deep in the stone and would not move.

Orion staggered back to Amphion’s side and jammed the spear even deeper, filling the cave with another grinding screech. The heat was incredible but he paused long enough to lean over his horrified foe.

Amphion glared back at him.

‘I am your king,’ said Orion in a calm, flat voice.

Amphion arched its back and thrashed its wings furiously, trying again to free itself from the floor, but when it slumped back the spear had not moved an inch.

Orion nodded. ‘I will leave you to think.’

He raced across the floor of the cage and left Amphion to the flames, slamming the door behind him as he went. He paused briefly to say: ‘Perhaps by the summer you will see things more clearly.’

As Orion climbed back up the stairs, the whole mountain was filling with smoke and heat. The Ìobrass was built to burn. The flames were already washing over the walls.

Prince Haldus was waiting for him at the top of the steps, his countenance more severe than ever. The alvaír that had not fled were utterly dazed by what they had seen and made no move to attack him. ‘My lord,’ he said, grasping Orion’s hand and hauling him back onto the lip of rock. ‘What have you done?’

‘I have shown the Brúidd who rules this forest,’ he replied, wiping ash from his face and looking past the prince.

King Cyanos had landed on the balcony and slumped to his knees. He was sobbing violently, utterly destroyed by Amphion’s treachery.

Orion stepped to his side, grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet.

Cyanos stared at Orion with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Let me die,’ he whispered.

‘I will not.’ Orion’s voice had all the weight and authority of an ancient oak. ‘You will live. And you will serve your king.’

Cyanos shook his head, his eyes full of bitterness and confusion. ‘How can I serve a king that has wrought such harm on his own realm?’ His words lacked conviction and as he spoke them his eyes were filled with confusion. He began to choke on the fumes billowing around them. He continued speaking, but in a monotone – as though he were reciting a text. ‘While you and Ariel exist, the forest has no hope of survival.’

‘The Queen and I are the forest’s only hope. It has always been so and it always will be.’ Orion pointed through the smoke and flames, to the struggling shape of Amphion. The great eagle had vanished, replaced by a bewildering succession of thrashing, screeching creatures – bears, hounds, unicorns and wildcats – all straining to free themselves from the Silverwood, but Orion’s unnatural strength had jammed the spear so deep into the stone that it would not move. ‘These beings despise me,’ Orion’s revelation came to him only as he spoke it aloud, ‘because they cannot survive without me.’ He pulled Cyanos close, fixing the king with his emerald eyes. ‘They are perfidious. They are unknowable. They are like foxes, cowering in a den. But I will bend them to my will. I will bring every creature in the forest to heel. That is my burden.’ He placed Cyanos back down on the floor and considered him. ‘Can you carry it with me?’

‘My lord, we must leave,’ cried Prince Haldus.

Smoke and embers billowed around Orion and Cyanos, but they kept their gazes locked on one another: Orion’s full of pride and certainty, Cyanos’s full of doubt, and the beginnings of awe.

‘My lord!’ repeated Haldus, as the remaining guards barged past him and fled from the cave.

Orion gave no reply as the flames rushed closer, keeping his eyes locked on the king of the alvaír, letting his question hang over them.

Cyanos looked down at the writhing shapes in the cage. The creatures were snarling and spitting, but could not free themselves. Despite all his rage at Amphion’s betrayal, Cyanos could not help but feel pity. Pity quickly led him to disdain, and he shook his head. ‘I have been deceived. After all these years I have–’

His words were interrupted by a violent fit of coughing as the smoke filled his lungs.

Prince Haldus called out for a third time, but still Orion would not move. Flames were now licking across the stones, but he kept his gaze locked on Cyanos, waiting for him to continue.

The fit passed and Cyanos turned back to Orion, his eyes full of terror and shame. ‘I am a fool. I have failed you.’

Orion replied with a slightly softer voice. ‘The year is still new, Cyanos.’

A faint glimmer of hope appeared in Cyanos’s eyes. Then another fit of coughing rocked his body. This time it was so violent that he dropped to his knees.

Orion lifted Cyanos as easily as a child and threw him over his shoulder. Then he strode from the cave.

As Orion emerged onto the snow-covered mountainside, the alvaír swarmed around him. They watched in stunned silence as he placed their king on the ground and looked back at the spire of rock. Smoke was belching from its peak and embers were drifting through the air.

Orion looked around at the crowds of dazed figures pressing around him. ‘The eagle will remain, even after the fire has died. You must stand guard. All of you. Watch over Amphion until I return for him. If you do this, you will earn my forgiveness.’

‘You are not our king,’ cried one of the alvaír.

Orion’s eyes flashed. He drew back his shoulders and was about to reply, but another voice called out before him.

‘We will not fail you,’ gasped Cyanos, clambering to his feet and placing a hand across the black metal of his breastplate. ‘We will earn your forgiveness.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

For a long time she wept; hot, bitter tears that rolled down her face as she staggered through the ruins. Then she laid herself down in the ashes and robed herself in blood, assuming the form of a wounded archer: one of Ariel’s simpering whores, frail, beautiful and rotten with lies.

She picked a spot where she knew she would be seen; a wide, smouldering patch of grass on the side of a hill, drenched in pale, morning light. She glanced at Liris and Melusine and they withdrew, fading back into the smoke, obscuring themselves amongst the butchered trees. Then she clicked her limbs into grotesque, unnatural angles and waited to be found.

The wait was not long. They came from the south, grunting and jeering and trampling through the wasteland they had created. Hate pulsed through her veins, but she quashed it, remaining on the ground and acting the part of a febrile, muttering victim, waiting to be put out of her misery.

There was an explosion of growls as the outsiders reached the hillside. There were two of them: hunched, axe-wielding mongrels, with spiralling ram’s horns and gore-splattered hooves.

Centuries of hunting had taught her many things, some more pleasant than others. Vile as they were, the words of the outsiders made sense.

‘And here’s one for you, Arghob,’ cried the first of them, its voice a guttural snarl of laughter.

‘Finally!’ roared the second creature, lurching towards the hillside and staring hungrily at her broken body. The monster was clearly drunk. Its first attempt to approach her sent it veering off to the far side of the clearing, where it stumbled over a burnt stump and fell onto its face.

The first outsider rocked with laughter, snorting snot and alcohol. ‘Useless worm!’ It grinned and licked some blood from its axe. ‘Let me deal with this.’

The drunkard lurched to its feet and rushed back towards the hill, shoving the other creature aside as it raced towards its prey.

She loosed a little power and the outsider stumbled to a halt, its eyes rolling in their sockets. Only once she was sure she had it under control did she loose her grip and allow it to approach.

It fingered the haft of its axe as it studied her, sensing that something was amiss. Then bloodlust washed away its doubt.

‘You’ve had all the fun,’ it growled to the other creature. ‘This one’s mine.’

As the beastman stepped over her, she spoke to it in her most pitiful, whining voice. ‘Why here?’ she asked.

The monster’s grin faded. It had not expected to be addressed in its own tongue. ‘What?’ it barked, grabbing her by the throat.

She flopped pathetically in its grip. ‘Why have you struck here?’

The other monster trotted closer and clutched its head, trying to clear its throughts. ‘Kill her.’ It looked nervously around at the trees. ‘Remember what Four-legs said. The plan is secret.’

‘Idiot,’ snapped Arghob. ‘She’s going to die anyway. Let’s tell her. She can die knowing there’s no hope.’

The monster pulled her face closer, so that she could smell a previous victim on its breath. ‘The forest is for us now.’

‘How?’ she groaned, trying to sound afraid. ‘How can you overcome the magic of the Queen?’

‘Four-legs has a friend.’ The monster pressed the edge of its axe against her blood-slick neck. ‘Four-legs has magic of his own.’

‘The magic of your dark gods has no power here.’

The monster shook its head and grinned. ‘This is other magic. Old magic. Magic from the time before gods. Magic of the firestones.’

For a moment she forgot her glamour and the creature flinched, catching a glimpse of the truth. Then she whined again, filling her voice with sorcery. ‘Firestones?’

‘Stop talking, moron,’ hissed the other monster. ‘Kill her.’

Arghob frowned, sensing something was wrong.

The monster drew back its axe to strike but it was already too late.

The pain was incredible, but even more powerful was the sense of confusion that flooded Arghob’s tiny brain.

The last thing Arghob saw was its own headless torso, lying far below on the hillside, jerking and pumping blood across the grass.

She watched Liris and Melusine with delight as they tore the two monsters apart in a frenzy of thorns and sharpened roots. She shared their joy as they unleashed their pent-up rage. Then, as the bloody remains slopped onto the hillside around her, she considered what she had learned.

‘Firestones?’ she whispered, abandoning her disguise and cladding her limbs in cold, knotted bark. Her voice was trembling as she turned to face her sisters. ‘Could they have discovered the Sínann-Torr?’

Finavar strode from the trees with his head held high and a grin on his face. He felt as though he were a line from a song. The figure by his side shone with a cool, lunar glow and glided so lightly through the grass that her feet rarely touched the earth. Laelia had the light of Ariel in her gaze and the strength of Isha in her wings. She had led them home in less than a day, taking bewildering, impossible routes that Finavar had tried desperately and unsuccessfully to remember. Even the Wrach’s Dark Paths seemed slow and wearisome in comparison.

Thuralin, Alhena and Jokleel emerged from the trees behind them, shaking their heads in mute surprise as they recognised the borders of Locrimere. They had barely spoken to Finavar during the journey, stunned, yet again, by his daring. As Laelia dropped lightly to the ground and began to speak, they huddled a few feet away, not daring to approach.

‘Now, at least, you should know where you are.’ The handmaiden graced Finavar with one of her crooked smiles and waved at the tree-lined valley spread out below them.

Finavar blushed and nodded. ‘We will see the towers of Locrimere from the top of the next rise. It is a few more miles at most.’ He smiled. ‘Then, perhaps, I can introduce you to a wonder of the forest: the sacred heart of Locrimere – the Idolan.’ He looked through the thick mesh of branches and recalled how his thoughts of Locrimere had changed. Until a year ago, he was snubbed and reviled – a figure of ridicule at best. But he was Finavar the fatherless no more. He looked back at his kinband and basked in their gaze. He had a family now. He was their Darkling Prince and he could see the respect in their eyes. He had braved the court of the Queen and returned with a sorceress in tow. He laughed to himself, remembering that Eremon had told him to return in better company. What would the old captain think when he saw Laelia?

He was about to hurry down into the valley when Laelia placed a hand on his arm. The smile faded from her face as she pointed at the sky. ‘It is mid-morning, and we are facing east.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Why is the sky so dark?’

Finavar shook his head and peered up into the gloom. ‘Storm clouds?’ he muttered, but there was doubt in his voice.

‘We are too late,’ said another voice.

Finavar and Laelia turned to see that Jokleel had approached. He turned to face them with his odd, lizard-like slowness and spoke with the same leisurely drawl he usually employed, but his eyes were wide with fear and his hands were shaking. ‘We are too late, Finavar. The battle is already lost. They are all dead.’

Laelia looked closely at Jokleel, intrigued by his strange, ethereal manner. ‘How do you know?’

Finavar grabbed Jokleel by the arms. ‘Calm yourself, brother. How can you be sure?’

Jokleel pulled away and dropped to his knees, sinking his fingers into the earth. A strange keening sound came from the back of his throat. ‘The darkness is smoke,’ he said, staring at the soil. ‘They burned everything. Everything.’

Finavar looked back across the valley and his pulse began to race. ‘Smoke? It can’t be. The whole sky is black. How could there be so much?’

He looked at the others, but nobody needed to answer his question. The reason was obvious, and dreadful. Only the destruction of an entire kingdom could account for such a blaze.

They raced down into the valley and clambered up the opposite slope, with Jokleel staggering after them.

Locrimere was gone, replaced by a vast, smouldering expanse of black.

Finavar groaned in pain and dropped to his knees.

Laelia turned away.

‘No,’ gasped Alhena, clutching frantically at her shaven head. ‘It cannot be.’

Thuralin’s countenance grew even more dour than usual. He peered through the shifting haze and glimpsed a stretch of water. ‘The Idolan,’ he muttered.

Finavar followed the direction of his gaze. The ancient meadows that surrounded the sacred lake were as blackened as everything else. He stared harder and realised that amongst the trails of smoke there were banners: broken, tattered and bearing the heraldry of Locrimere.

Laelia forced her eyes to take in the horrendous sight. Then she looked down at Finavar, hunched by her feet, crippled by grief.

‘Caorann,’ he whispered. ‘I left him to die.’

Thuralin placed a hand on the youth’s shoulder and spoke with an uncharacteristic note of kindness. ‘Perhaps not. They may have fled, before the cloven ones arrived.’

‘Eremon would never flee,’ Finavar replied. ‘Not while there was hope.’

‘What if there was no hope?’ insisted Thuralin.

Alhena let out an anguished gasp and staggered down the hillside, horrified by the destruction of a home she had never known. ‘It cannot be!’ she howled, drawing her blades and hacking wildly at the air.

No one made any effort to call her back and, after a few seconds, they followed suit, dashing towards the ruined trees with tears in their eyes.

Quickly, they began to find bodies. Many of them were so charred it was impossible to recognise asrai from outsider, but some were clearly the remains of their kin: long, elegant limbs, twisted into unnatural shapes by the heat of the blaze.

They walked in silence, stunned by the desolation, and eventually they stepped out into the meadow that surrounded the Idolan. The blaze here had been less fierce, with no trees to burn, and the bodies were horribly recognisable.

Most affected of all was the boy, Jokleel. He stared wide-eyed at the corpses, muttering and singing to himself as he staggered through the burnt grass. ‘How could we ever redress such an act?’ he whispered. ‘It is too much. Too much.’

Finavar trudged wearily towards the lake, muttering to the pair of polecats following him through the carnage. ‘We should have stayed. We should have died with them.’ He turned to the creatures, as though expecting an answer, and noticed that one of them had paused and was staring through the smoke, as though it were hunting something. Finavar narrowed his eyes and peered in the same direction.

‘Your weapons!’ he hissed, drawing his swords.

The others rushed to his side.

‘What do you see?’ asked Alhena, curling her lip and raising her blades.

‘We’re not alone,’ whispered Finavar, nodding at a hunched silhouette moving awkwardly through the smoke towards them.

Laelia nodded and raised her staff. Light shimmered along its length, pulsing through tendrils of ivy and snaking along the copper filigree. As the light grew, Laelia closed her eyes and mouthed the words of a spell.

Finavar and the others watched in awe as the smoke rolled away to form a shifting corridor between them and the approaching figure.

Caorann nodded sadly at them through the haze. He seemed on the verge of cracking a joke, but the words failed him and he simply trudged towards them.

Finavar howled in relief and sprinted towards his friend.

Caorann was covered in fresh wounds and he winced as Finavar hugged him. ‘Have a heart, Fin,’ he groaned, managing a faint smile.

The others rushed to his side, shaking their heads in wonder.

‘What happened?’ asked Alhena, looking around with her blades still raised.

Caorann was about to reply, when he caught sight of Laelia. ‘My queen,’ he gasped, trying to bow but only managing to lower his head.

Laelia glided to his side and placed a hand on his back, dimming the light of her staff as she did so. ‘I am no queen,’ she said with a wry smile, ‘and even if I were, you have been through too much to hang your head. Please, sit. Tell us your story.’

Caorann looked up at Laelia’s words, but his eyes were still full of doubt.

Finavar helped him to a seat, winking as he did so. ‘Even lowborn wastrels like us can have powerful friends. Let me introduce my travelling companion: Laelia, handmaiden to the Queen.’

Caorann shook his head in disbelief, but as he saw the smile on his friend’s face, he let out one of his deep, booming laughs. ‘By Loec, you have some nerve, Fin.’

Finavar replied with a smirk.

Thuralin hobbled to Caorann’s side and waved at the blackened ruins that surrounded them. ‘Please, tell us what happened.’

Caorann flinched at the sight of the old warrior. In the time since he had last seen Thuralin, he had become even more twisted and stooped and the portion of his face that was visible behind his mask looked even more lined with exhaustion. The distance of time allowed Caorann to realise something for the first time. He’s dying, he thought, staring at Thuralin’s ruined, scarred face. His eyes flicked to Alhena, wondering if she realised.

‘Please,’ said Jokleel, stumbling over with a dazed expression on his face. ‘What happened here?’

Caorann shook his head and told them his sorry tale. Eremon had led the defence with bravery and determination, but eventually it was the enemy’s decision to move on. On the second day of fighting they had suddenly withdrawn. It was as though they had no interest in Locrimere itself, and had attacked with the sole purpose of slaughtering Eremon’s army. With that achieved, they charged north through the glades, leaving a pitiful group of survivors left to trail after them, seeking vengeance.

‘But you remained,’ said Finavar, still clutching his friend’s shoulder. ‘Why?’

‘It was Eremon’s decision,’ replied Caorann. ‘We were wrong about him, Fin.’ He shook his head and looked out across the mounds of corpses. ‘He may be highborn, but he is nothing like Lord Beldeas. He has a good heart.’

Finavar shook his head. ‘But why did he leave you behind?’

‘I told him you would return.’ Caorann looked up at Finavar with a meaningful glance. ‘And that you would bring help. I persuaded him that you are not as foolish as you might appear. You have done a good job of convincing him otherwise, but he now knows you are a true master of the shadow-dance, and he wants you by his side.’

‘By his side?’

Caorann nodded and met Jokleel’s tearful stare. ‘Eremon is undefeated. Locrimere may have fallen, but its heroes have not. He is stalking the enemy through the forest, striking at their flanks whenever they pause. Eremon will never let them forget the crime they have committed here.’

Caorann waved at the bloody rags that covered his chest. ‘I am not at my best, so we agreed I might serve him best as a messenger.’ He grinned. ‘Eremon humbly requests your company, Fin. The enemy are making for Drúne Fell. Loec knows why, but with your help, Eremon plans to make their journey a painful one.’

‘Eremon lives,’ said Alhena, trembling with excitement and clutching the hilts of her twin swords. ‘And he is not alone. The fight is not over.’

Caorann nodded.

‘Who is this Eremon?’ asked Laelia, turning to face Alhena.

As the handmaiden’s gaze fell on her, Alhena’s cheeks flushed with colour. She refused to lower her gaze, though, and stared defiantly back. ‘He is the witless captain of Locrimere’s kinbands.’

‘I see.’ Laelia started to give Alhena one of her crooked smiles, but it was met with such a ferocious glare that she quickly abandoned it. ‘Then I may still be of some help.’ She looked down at Caorann, who was still clutching the bloody bandages that covered his chest. ‘Give me your hand.’

Alhena and Thuralin glanced at each other. They had both heard stories of the magic wielded at Ariel’s court, and they were relieved they did not have to proffer their own hands.

Pale fire rippled from Laelia’s fingers and spread across Caorann’s chest. He gasped and threw back his head, and when the light faded the pain was gone from his eyes. The lines of his face softened and he climbed to his feet, taking a deep breath and stretching out his limbs. ‘My lady,’ he said, bowing low, with as much grace as he ever had.

Alhena clenched her jaw and when she spoke it was clear she struggled to keep her voice soft. ‘Are we just going to stand here?’ She turned to Finavar. ‘Are we going to trust vengeance to a fool like Eremon?’

Finavar looked up from his miraculously healed friend with doubt in his eyes.

Laelia gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘I will follow you, whatever you decide.’

Finavar looked around at the ashes that surrounded them and rage flickered in his eyes.

Alhena watched his fury grow with elation. Her whole body was trembling with emotion and she wrapped her fingers around the hilts of her swords.

Laelia looked carefully at Finavar. ‘We cannot balance one act of violence with another. The scale of this is beyond anything–’

‘We must avenge them,’ interrupted Alhena, keeping her stare fixed on Finavar. She waved her swords at the mounds of corpses. ‘We must.’

Thuralin tried to speak, but his words became a hacking cough. Once the fit had passed he wiped his mouth and looked at Finavar. ‘If Eremon lives, we cannot just leave him to his fate. Caorann is right.’ He glanced at his daughter. ‘The captain has a noble soul. We must find him. We must help him.’

Laelia was about to disagree again, but she hesitated. ‘I owe you an apology,’ she said to Finavar. ‘You were right to interrupt the rites of spring. This is the murder of an entire people. If Locrimere can fall, nowhere is safe.’ She looked at the mounds of bodies and shook her head. ‘The Queen did not foresee anything of this magnitude, but she sent me to aid you. What would you do, Finavar? This is your kinband. You must lead them.’

Finavar did not respond for a moment. Then he nodded and looked to the north.

SUMMER

Sólis-Leith

Burning

The Season of the Hunt

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘It had to be done,’ said Ordaana, hauling herself over a boulder and leaving behind a smear of blood. Her voice was hoarse and her face was ashen. Above her were the sun-drenched slopes of a mountain and below her was the forest, basking in the heat of a summer’s afternoon. As she crept along a narrow precipice she kept one hand pressed against her robes, trying to stifle the flow of blood from a wound in her side. She looked exhausted. Her angular cheekbones strained against her taut, pale skin and her hair was a tumble of knotted silver.

There was a clattering as Death’s-head appeared. ‘The four-legged one has arrived.’ The little bundle of sticks gave a screeching, grinding laugh. ‘Even with Ariel, they will not be able to stop him. There is nothing they can do without Orion.’

Ordaana gave no reply and looked up the slope. Drúne Fell: the Lost Mountain. A slender, crooked peak looming over the trees, several miles from the foothills of the Grey Mountains. It was as though it had been ostracised on account of its ugliness. From her vantage point on the mountain’s western face, Ordaana could see for several miles. Looking in this direction it seemed as though nothing was wrong. The forest was an explosion of growth and movement. The glossy crowns of Ariel’s oak groves were clearly visible and swallows were drifting overhead, chasing each other lazily through the sky. There was something timeless and torpid about the scene, but Ordaana knew what she would see from the south side of the mountain and the thought of it made her heart pound.

‘Perhaps not,’ she said, with fear in her voice, ‘but I must be sure.’

She peered up to the summit. Only the most arrogant of Ariel’s subjects would have dared such an outrage: to drag the Queen from her sacred glades and lead her to this raw, wind-blasted peak. If Orion had been present, they would never have dared, but his constant absence was part of their complaint. No one but Ordaana could understand it. All spring he had ignored the call of his disciples and roamed the forest. Now summer had come and still he was absent. Hints and rumours followed in his wake, ominous tales of a belligerent king, at war with his own domain. The forest rang with dreadful sounds: the cracking of bones and the hollow screech of spirits dragged from their dens. A few kindreds dared to hunt the hunter, but they found themselves facing a beast, blood-slick and feral, his eyes full of hunger. As the summer solstice grew nearer, there were rumours that he might even abandon the Wild Hunt.

Ordaana shook her head and continued her weary ascent. ‘I must be sure,’ she repeated. As she climbed, she waved at her clattering familiar, ushering it back into the shadows.

After half an hour of scraped knuckles and stubbed toes, Ordaana finally reached the broad shoulder of granite on which the lords of the asrai had gathered. The wind here was even fiercer and she had to lean into it as she walked, struggling to keep her slight frame upright. There were eight of them. Her spineless husband, Lord Beldeas, was the nearest. He looked ridiculous amongst such company, with his feeble, ungainly limbs and his pallid, academic air. He was clutching a sword in his hands but Ordaana noticed, without surprise, that there was no trace of blood on the blade.

The figure by his side could not have been more different. Prince Haldus was bare-chested and bronzed from his years on the wing and, with his spiralling mask of scars, he looked every bit the warrior. He was scowling as fiercely as ever, and still looked uncomfortable in such august company, but Ordaana knew he had forced this gathering. With the forest burning and Orion gone, the nobles had finally listened to his warning.

Standing behind Prince Haldus was another hawk rider. He was a stranger to Ordaana, and a mysterious one at that. He had arrived with Haldus and no one could remember seeing him at Ariel’s court before. He was tall, with the features of an aristocrat, but he kept his gaze fixed on the ground and when, occasionally, he lifted his eyes, they were full of shame. His chest was encased in a cuirass of black metal, hammered into the shape of feathers, and he had announced himself simply as a servant of Orion. During the skirmishes of the spring he had fought with astonishing ferocity, but he had given no other name and refused to explain the bloody, bandaged stumps that arched up from his back.

To Ordaana’s eyes they looked like the remnants of wings.

Beside the stranger there was a pair of young brothers from the north of the forest: Lords Salicis and Alioth. Ordaana had known them since they were children and could not help but pity them. From the gleam in their eyes it was clear they considered this gathering the beginning of a brave adventure, rather than the extinction of their race.

Kneeling beneath the glittering presence of the Queen was her rakish poet, Khoron Belidae, speaking in mellifluous tones to another kneeling figure: the elderly warden of the Silvam Dale, Prince Elatior.

They were all too engrossed in their conversation to notice Ordaana as she clambered over a lip of rock and began staggering towards them. Before addressing them she paused and looked to the south, studying the subject of their discussion.

The forest below her was horribly wounded. Black, smouldering lines networked its face, all pointing towards the mountain. Acres of trees had been put to the torch and a host of figures was moving through the smoke. Ordaana gasped as she saw the full extent of her treachery.

‘What have I done?’ she hissed, growing rigid with panic. Then she calmed herself, repeating the stern words of Aestar Eltanin. ‘She is a monster and we must unseat her.’ She had come straight from talking to him and as she thought of his regal face her nerve steadied. This was her chance.

From this side of the mountain she could hear the battle. Horn blasts and screams drifted on the wind, seeming closer than they actually were. She peered down the ragged slopes and saw where the enemy had been halted. Waves of arrows were pouring from the glades on either side of them and shadowy figures were dancing through the boughs, waltzing through the ranks of ram-horned brutes and lumbering minotaurs.

Ordaana sneered at the thought that one of her own wretched subjects was leading the defence. ‘Darkling Prince,’ she muttered, her voice full of disdain. All through the spring she had heard tales of his supposed bravery. Since the fall of Locrimere, he had fought alongside Eremon, hounding the cloven ones as they tried to advance through the forest, delaying her plans at every turn.

She flinched as a voice called out her name. She had been so lost in her thoughts of Finavar that she had forgotten the nobles gathered behind her.

Her husband dashed to her side, his face full of concern. ‘Are you wounded?’ He frowned at the stain on her robes. ‘What happened? I told you to remain in the Council Glade.’

She waved at the gathering. ‘And leave you to lead our defence?’ she sneered. ‘When did you last kill anything, Beldeas?

He immediately forgot her injury and his face flushed with pride. ‘Our great kingdoms are about to join as one.’ He waved his bloody sword down the slope. ‘Prince Elatior’s kinbands have almost reached Eremon’s lines. When our forces meet, we will halt the advance completely.’

‘Eremon?’ Ordaana’s voice remained cool, but her disbelief was clear. ‘Do you really believe he is leading our soldiers? Haven’t you heard? That wretched orphan leads our subjects now.’

‘What does it matter?’ Beldeas raised his voice so that the others could hear, adopting a lordly tone. ‘Whoever leads the assault, we have a duty to preserve the forest, Ordaana. This revolting horde must go no further. Prince Haldus was right all along, I knew it. We must stand as one. The Queen herself intends to aid us in the final attack.’

Ordaana could not believe what she was seeing. Her husband was as deluded as the youths from the north. He had never shown the slightest interest in warfare, but now his eyes were gleaming with excitement. He clearly had no idea of what was waiting for them down there. She met the gazes of the other nobles and realised that they all wore the same ridiculous expressions. Only Prince Haldus and his companion looked troubled; the rest wore their bloodstains with pride and were clearly itching to rejoin the battle.

‘Then what are you doing up here?’ she asked, resisting the urge to laugh at them all.

Beldeas raised his chin and gave Ariel a deferential wave. ‘Before the Queen would spare any more of her handmaidens, she wished to see the threat with her own eyes. Prince Haldus suggested–’

‘More handmaidens?’ interrupted Ordaana, raising one of her eyebrows. For a moment she forgot that she had been released from the Queen’s service and wondered if Beldeas was referring to her. Then she recalled that she was a handmaiden no longer and felt a rush of shame.

Beldeas nodded eagerly and grinned. ‘Do you think that Finavar would have been so successful on his own? In her wisdom, the Queen foresaw this whole situation.’ Beldeas did not notice how horrified his wife looked at this idea. ‘So, when she sent him away from the Council Glades, she made sure he did not go alone – he returned to Locrimere in the company of her most powerful mage.’

Ordaana shook her head and was about to ask who this mage was, when she noticed that the Queen was drifting across the mountaintop towards her, followed by a cluster of her adoring subjects.

‘You are wounded, Ordaana,’ said Ariel, dropping lightly to her side. ‘You must return with me.’ She waved at the battle below. ‘We have seen enough of this bloodshed. We must leave Prince Haldus and the others to their games.’

Ordaana bowed and kissed her queen’s hand. Only then did she see the fear in Ariel’s eyes. At first she thought it was fear of the monsters that were crushing against the mountain, but she quickly realised that Ariel was not even looking at the battle. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Had she uncovered her betrayal? Was she about to take her revenge? ‘Yes, my lady,’ Ordaana replied, filled with dread.

Ariel took Ordaana’s arm and led her away from the assembled warriors, taking her across the small plateau without a word of farewell to the others.

‘Let me,’ said the Queen, pausing at the edge of the lip of rock. She placed her hand over Ordaana’s wound and muttered a soft prayer.

Ordaana felt a flash of heat in her side as the wound closed. When she looked again, even the tear in her robes had vanished. Ordaana blushed as she saw the Queen’s expression. There was no accusation in her eyes, only concern. ‘I met some of the creatures,’ Ordaana muttered, feeling utterly ashamed, ‘as I made my way up the mountain.’

Ariel frowned, as though confused by something, then she nodded and indicated a natural stair that led down the far side of the mountain.

As they climbed, Ordaana noticed how distracted Ariel seemed. She did not ask her any more questions, but just stepped lightly at her side, gazing out across the treetops with a pained expression on her face.

After a few moments, Ordaana plucked up the courage to address her. ‘Is it the battle, my lady? Is that what troubles you?

Ariel did not respond for a while, keeping her gaze fixed on the horizon. Then after a few minutes she seemed to realise she had been addressed. ‘I’m sorry, Ordaana.’ She turned to face her. ‘What did you say?’

‘Is it the battle that troubles you, my lady?’

‘Ah.’ Ariel shook her head. ‘No, not that.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I have no doubt that Prince Haldus will hold them together. At least until they have all claimed ownership of the victory.’

Ordaana tried to smile back, but she was so nervous she might laugh that it was more of a grimace. She had always known that Ariel had little grasp on reality, but she was still shocked by this casual tone. How could she fail to see the danger that was hanging over her?

‘Then, what?’

Ariel’s smile faded. She dropped to Ordaana’s side and looked down at her. It was clear from her expression that she wished to unburden herself. ‘You must not speak of this,’ she said, placing a hand on Ordaana’s shoulder.

Ordaana shook her head, fighting another terrible urge to laugh as she realised the Queen was about to confide in her.

Ariel lowered her voice. ‘Orion has grown strange to me, Ordaana. I no longer recognise him.’

She paused, shocked by her own words. ‘I am afraid of him.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Finavar laughed as he sprinted from the trees. His prey saw very little: a barbed cloak, a flutter of black, and then he was on them. His blades flashed in the dappled light as he flipped and rolled, slicing throats and severing limbs. Others figures followed in his wake, performing the same lethal dance; a whirling storm of limbs and steel. The creatures grunted and tried to parry, but the fight was lost before they realised it had begun. Within seconds the clearing was still once more, and carpeted with a mound of steaming bodies.

Finavar’s cloak settled over him as he dropped into a crouch, surveying his work. ‘Another twelve,’ he said, counting the corpses. His face was barely recognisable. Usually it was open and animated; now it was locked in a determined scowl.

There was movement all around them. Ram’s horns and spears flashed through the gaps between the trees; there was a whole army passing by, but Finavar’s kinband killed in ghost-like silence, and before they were spotted, they would be gone. The same scene was being repeated many times throughout the foothills of Drúne Fell. The survivors of Locrimere were avenging their home.

‘Next?’ snapped Finavar, turning to his companions.

There were five figures gathered around him. Thuralin, Alhena, Caorann and Jokleel were covered in fresh scars and their faces were drawn with exhaustion, but they looked at the fifth of their number as eagerly as Finavar.

Laelia was the only one present whose demeanour had not changed over the last few months. Her delicate frame still shimmered with otherworldly light and, as she dropped lightly to the ground, she wore the same crooked smile that had first greeted Finavar. ‘Do you wish to rejoin Eremon?’

Finavar shook his head, watching the shapes rushing past the clearing. They had little time before they were discovered. ‘Not yet. We keep moving until we hear his call, as we agreed.’

Laelia nodded. Eremon’s plan was to avoid a head-to-head battle for as long as possible. ‘Haunt them like wraiths,’ he had roared, as they began their shadow war against the outsiders. ‘Hide your faces. Show them your blades.’

Laelia closed her eyes and her skin shimmered with light, throwing shadows across the broken remains of the outsiders. ‘Half a mile to the west,’ she said, waving through the trees. ‘There is another of the giants.’ She grimaced as she pictured it: a grotesque, cyclopean monster, lurching hungrily after the forest spirits, devouring their energy with disgusting relish.

Finavar’s only reply was to launch himself off in the direction she indicated, vaulting over a wall of twisted bracken and vanishing into the shadows.

The others were ready and sprinted after him.

Seconds later, dozens of outsiders crashed into the clearing. The monsters howled in frustration as they saw a still-twitching pile of corpses and no sign of those responsible.

Finavar slowed to a jog, then came to a halt beside a brisk, glittering stream. The water rippled and gurgled over dozens of corpses, hunched brutes with the symbol of the enemy branded into their hides – interlocking ram’s horns, formed into an eight-pointed star.

‘What is it, Fin?’ asked Caorann, eyeing the surrounding trees. ‘We cannot wait here.’

Finavar looked up through the branches, studying the bright face of Drúne Fell. ‘Do you see that?’ He scaled a nearby tree for a better view. ‘Eremon has found us some friends.’

The others followed his gaze and saw that he was right. There was a haze in the air. Banks of arrows were raining down from the crevasses and peaks of the mountain.

Laelia raised her arms and drifted up through the branches. She smiled as she glimpsed groups of archers, rushing down the slopes. ‘There are hundreds of them.’

There was a crack of breaking wood and Finavar turned to see a pair of crimson, goat-legged runts, with stunted black horns and axes in their hands. They staggered to a halt as they saw the figures looking down on them from the trees.

The first of them snarled and raised its axe, preparing to cry out a warning, but before it could speak, it stumbled back into the trees, a long, leaf-shaped blade buried in its throat.

As the second tried to run, Alhena dropped into view and loosed her second blade. It flashed through the air and slammed, hilt-deep, into the face of the monster. The thing reeled around the clearing for a few minutes, gargling blood and clutching at its face; then it dropped to the ground and lay still.

Finavar gave Alhena a brief nod as she wrenched her blades free and began gouging at the mouths of the monsters. Since the fall of Locrimere, her trophy-taking had become even more demented. Her wiry frame trembled with excitement as she added to her morbid assortment of teeth, fingers and dripping scalps.

‘They’re gathering on the mountain,’ said Laelia, turning away from Alhena with distaste and looking at the distant figures.

Thuralin was standing a few feet away. His face looked more lined and weary than ever and he was leaning heavily against a tree. He seemed on the verge of collapse, but then he drew some seeds from his pouch, and as he crunched them between his teeth, a little colour returned to his sunken cheeks. ‘We should join them. We could fight like this forever, stalking them in shadows, but to face such a horde in open battle would require all the kindreds of the forest.’

Finavar nodded eagerly. ‘Perhaps that’s what we’re seeing.’ He stared at each of them in turn, his eyes bright with mania. ‘I knew the King would not forsake us. He must have been gathering the kindreds.’ He waved one of his blades at the figures on the mountain. ‘Don’t you see? The Wild Hunt has begun. Orion is here.’

Jokleel turned hopefully to Laelia. ‘Could it be?’

The smile faded from Laelia’s face and she gave no reply.

Thuralin saw her hesitance and sneered. ‘The King is chasing ghosts. He has no time for the living.’ He nodded at the foot of the mountain. ‘But if Eremon has chosen to make his last stand here, we should fight by his side.’ Then he turned and limped off through the trees, making for the slopes of Drúne Fell.

The Lost Mountain had long ago grown accustomed to war. Its foothills formed the shape of a horseshoe and were peppered with a network of caves and tunnels. For centuries Drúne Fell had been the asrai’s final bulwark against the few invaders who made it this far into the forest. As Finavar emerged from the trees, trailing his kinband behind him, he wondered if Alhena might be right. The bloody rag that had once been Eremon’s banner was flying from a lip of rock, overlooking a meadow of tall grass, swarming with archers and spearmen. Finavar saw kindreds from every kingdom of the forest. He had never seen so many assembled in one place. As he climbed to the top of a small hill he saw hundreds more, flooding from the trees and racing towards Eremon’s banner. He ran his fingers across the tips of the chest-high grass and shivered with hope.

Who could summon such a gathering, but the King?

He turned and looked back into the forest. The sun was dipping towards the treetops and throwing long shadows out over the valley. Dusk was upon them but as yet, the enemy had not emerged from the trees. Their handiwork was unmistakable, however – plumes of smoke that filled the sky for miles around and the explosive crack of falling trees, ringing out every few minutes and cutting deep into the hearts of every asrai present. There was no mistaking the enemy’s route – they were making directly for the mountain.

Finavar frowned. ‘Why here?’ He looked across the valley at the twisted face of the mountain. ‘Why Drúne Fell?’ Then, as Caorann and the others reached his side, he nodded. ‘The standing stones.’

‘What?’ Alhena was looking at the gathering army with undisguised awe, but Finavar’s words made her pause. ‘Standing stones?’

Finavar nodded. ‘It has been the same every time. They always make their way to one of the dolmens – like the one we showed Orion. Do you remember?’

‘Yes, I’ve seen them, but what does it matter?’

Finavar shrugged and peered up at the mountainside. ‘There must be a collection of the stones on Drúne Fell, or on the far side.’ He nodded at the ragged banner. ‘We should take our place beside Eremon. They will be here soon.’

As they climbed to the outcrop, Finavar spied the weathered, craggy face of Eremon. He looked surprisingly well. In the months since the fall of Locrimere, the veteran had mended his leather armour and regained his proud, straight-backed posture. The anguished look that had haunted him for years had evaporated in the face of honest, desperate warfare.

It was not Eremon’s health that gave Finavar pause, though, it was the figures by his side. There were dozens of nobles standing on the rock, all of them grilling Eremon for news of his campaign, but only one of them was familiar to Finavar and his stomach turned at the sight of him: Lord Beldeas, the dispossessed warden of a realm that no longer existed.

‘Ah, here is our prince,’ said Beldeas, with an insincere grin on his skeletal face.

‘Finavar!’ Eremon had been engrossed in his conversation with the nobles and had not noticed the hooded youth until he was a few feet away. He rushed towards him and grasped his hand. ‘Loec be praised.’

Finavar’s face remained stern, as he recalled how Beldeas had forsaken him at the festival of Ostaliss, but there was clear affection in his eyes as he shook Eremon’s hand. The enmity that had once existed between them had long since vanished. Over the last few months they had saved each other’s lives on several occasions. As Caorann approached, Eremon grasped his shoulder in a tight grip. The bond between the three of them was unmistakable.

Lord Beldeas’s smile faltered for a moment, but he forced it back into place as he turned to face the other nobles. ‘My shadow-dancers are the pride of the forest. They are the finest warriors you could hope to meet. See how wisely I choose my servants.’

Finavar turned from Eremon and, ignoring Lord Beldeas, he bowed to the other nobles. He studied each of them in turn, undaunted by their regal stares. He saw the two young brothers and immediately dismissed them as unimportant. The excited gleam in their eyes told him everything he needed to know – they were pampered children, even younger than he was, with no idea of war, or loss. They were both dressed in the most incredible finery – long ermine cloaks, amber necklaces and tall, elaborate headdresses crowned with carved, looping antlers. They were the cream of asrai nobility and Finavar doubted either of them would see the dawn.

He looked past them to someone less easy to place. He had straight black hair, parted in the middle, he was almost as tall as Caorann and he wore a haunted-looking expression on his face. His wiry limbs had clearly been hardened by years of combat, but he only met Finavar’s gaze for a brief moment, before looking back at the ground. Strangest of all were the two stumps jutting out from the back of his black cuirass. Finavar recognised pain in his eyes, mingled with determination. He felt a rush of empathy. If they were not on the edge of a battle, he thought, it might have been interesting to learn the stranger’s story.

Then he turned to the final noble. He recognised Prince Haldus from the festival of Ostaliss – his scarred, furrowed brow was unmistakable, as were the winged torcs that snaked around his biceps – but Finavar sensed a change in him. At the rites of spring he had been awkward and reticent, but now, on the edge of battle, he looked proud, and quite at ease. All eyes were on him and, however much Lord Beldeas waved his arms and boasted, it was clear where the power lay.

Prince Haldus waited for Beldeas to finish speaking then stepped over to Finavar. ‘You are the pebble that started a landslide, Finavar.’ His mouth remained almost closed as he spoke and it was clear he did not enjoy giving praise. ‘You have shown great bravery. Your interruption of the spring rites shocked us all, but without your example I might never have dared to address the King.’

Finavar clenched his jaw. ‘Perhaps if I had shown a little more foresight this army could have mustered in time to save my home.’

‘The past is gone, Finavar, but you are here now. You can fight now.’ Haldus raised his spear and waved it at the figures crowding round them. ‘What happened on the shores of the Idolan will not be repeated. These curs wish to defile one of our most holy sites – a place called the Vaults of Winter. It lies just beyond these peaks.’ His eyes glittered. ‘But they will not be expecting to meet us.’ He raised his chin. ‘The highborn have been summoned.’

‘Summoned by Orion?’ asked Finavar, unwilling to abandon such a long-cherished hope.

A shadow crossed Prince Haldus’s face and his voice faltered. ‘Our king is pursuing other matters.’ He waved at another group, gathered further down the ledge of rock. They were clad in an assortment of flowing robes and lustrous furs and had huddled around Laelia, whispering excitedly and waving at the forest. ‘But Ariel has blessed us with some of her handmaidens. The forest has been generous. I never dreamt of such a gathering.’

Finavar’s shoulders dropped and he gave Caorann and Eremon a questioning glance.

They did not reply, but Prince Haldus noticed the exchange. ‘What is it? Eremon?’

Eremon shook his head. ‘Orion or not, we will gladly fight by your side.’

Prince Haldus’s expression darkened. ‘But you think we will fail?’

Eremon hesitated, noticing how many faces had turned in their direction. Dozens of nobles had gathered on the rock to see the infamous lowborn who styled himself the Darkling Prince.

Eremon drew back his shoulders and shook his head. ‘We will not fail, but you must understand what we face. These creatures have grown strong. The forest is feeding them somehow – lending them its magic. And there is something with them. Something we faced in Locrimere.’

There was a flicker of doubt in Prince Haldus’s eyes, then he remembered his audience and raised his voice. He waved at the magi gathered around Laelia. ‘What magic is more powerful than the servants of the Queen? Ariel’s handmaidens will hurl the very soul of the forest against these runts. We will stop them here. They will not reach the Vaults.’

Eremon looked at the magi and nodded. ‘You’re right.’ He turned back to Prince Haldus. ‘Nothing is more powerful than the magic of the Queen.’ He turned to Finavar and Caorann with a grim smile.

‘The running is over. We face them here.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ghorgus cursed. Smoke was leaking from its hide and blisters were bubbling across its muzzle. There were flames racing through the forest, but they were not to blame. No, the smoke was coming from inside. Ghorgus felt an odd mixture of emotions as it considered the changes overtaking its flesh. The most noticeable was the pale glow – it had begun leaking from its hide after the fall of the fifth stone. Now, weeks later, it had become incandescent, and uncomfortably hot. This was the cause of Ghorgus’s shroud of smoke, not the fire in the trees. The monster was slowly being cooked from the inside out.

The hunched, hooded figure at Ghorgus’s side spoke up. ‘What?’ Belakhor’s dry screech cut through the din of the army below.

Ghorgus sneered back. ‘Nothing.’ The pain was not worth mentioning; not when the other symptoms were so wonderful. With every stone they toppled, Ghorgus moved closer to godhood. Godhood. That was the only suitable word. As the old magic bled from the rocks, it flooded Ghorgus’s mind, throwing light onto hitherto unknown corners and sparking ideas at once strange and wonderful. Each thought blossomed, flower-like, as the monster focused on it, and then rippled through its flesh, adding thick layers of muscle and other, stranger powers. Ghorgus began to laugh as it considered what lay ahead. The bundle of sticks said there was another collection of firestones in a frozen cave, somewhere beyond the mountain to the north of them. Ghorgus shivered with delight, considering what another draught of magic would do to their pets.

Ghorgus’s mind filled with visions of a forest devoid of the fae. With Belakhor’s help, Ghorgus would become the new King in the Woods: a tyrant with the strength to rule the whole kingdom. Ghorgus glanced furtively at the hunched shaman. Perhaps even Belakhor would be unnecessary. After all, why should a god share its power?

Belakhor turned and light flashed on the bleached bones of its skull. Ghorgus had the unpleasant sense that the shaman had guessed its thoughts.

The ram’s skull stared at him with its empty sockets. ‘We are close now. So close.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Orion waded through the knee-deep waters of the Líath-Mael. The river looked as ancient and venerable as ever, but, like much of his kingdom, he knew it was a beautiful lie. He crashed through its dark, white-topped currents, recalling how many times he had encountered it unexpectedly, snaking through far-flung corners of his realm. Always, it appeared to be a permanent fixture of the landscape, and always it vanished, to reappear miles away, with a hint of laughter in its inky depths and a new horizon glittering across its surface.

Orion’s hunt had lasted months and his skin was covered with mementos of his conquests: scars, weals and bruises, all worn with pride. While feuding lords and squabbling princelings fretted about warfare, Orion had been busy, carving his name across the knotted heart of the forest. Four of the Brúidd had already knelt before him, grovelling for mercy as he ground them beneath his hooves. Now his hunt had led him far to the south-east, near the halls of Coeth-Mara, and the kingdom of Lord Aldaeld.

Orion had never encountered the Líath-Mael so close to the Wildwood and he paused for a moment, sensing that something was not right. What business did the Líath-Mael have here, in this most dangerous corner of the forest? The river might be perfidious, but it was no fool. The Wildwood was a realm of ruin and loss. The Líath-Mael knew better than to wind through such a place.

He paused and placed his hands in the fast-moving water, trying to understand its reasoning. Despite the afternoon sun, it was deathly cool and as he peered closer, he noticed pale shapes drifting by. He reached out and grabbed one, lifting it up into the morning light. It was a fish: a silvery, foot-long trout that flopped pathetically in his grip. It was not dead, but it had made no move to evade him. Orion frowned as he turned the fish over in his hands. Its belly was twitching with dozens of tiny, black, arachnid limbs. They scuttled and recoiled as Orion ran a finger over them. He cursed and dropped the fish back into the water. It drifted away, trying to swim but enfeebled by its hideous mutation.

Orion growled under his breath. His sense of unease grew as he studied the other shapes drifting past. The forest was a place of magic and wonder, but the grotesque shapes moving through the river spoke more of disease than of sorcery. His lip curled as a clump of pale, tubular limbs floated past. They were coiled around a bloated, sack-like head, and as it rolled and tumbled, Orion glimpsed an anguished, humanoid face. He waded after it, but the Líath-Mael was not willing to indulge him, and its currents snatched the creature away.

There was a crash of breaking wood as Atolmis emerged from the trees further downstream. ‘My lord,’ he called, levelling a spear at the trees on the far side of the river.

Orion’s doubts were fogotten as he glimpsed a flash of gold, slipping through the forest gloom. This latest prey had eluded him for weeks, but the chase was almost up. The summer solstice was only days away and Orion was delirious with power. He leapt easily from the river and bounded into the trees. As he ran the forest carried him – an extension of his own flesh, lifting him with glossy green tresses and dropping him onto a deer path that wound between the trunks.

The sound of his hooves rang out, thudding down onto the path, and Orion’s prey looked back at him.

Orion’s heart pounded as he saw its face. It was crouched in a patch of sunlight, watching his approach with disbelief and terror. Doubtless the thing had never dreamt Orion would be so tenacious. In all the long miles of pursuit, this was the closest he had managed to come to the spirit and now that it was almost in his grasp he saw that it was not as he remembered. It still resembled a lithe youth with golden, shimmering skin, but its crown of autumn leaves was gone, replaced with a circlet of summer flowers. Its eyes were as gold as its flesh.

Orion paused and frowned. Something was flickering in the corner of his vision; it looked like blue flames rippling through the trees, but when he turned to examine it, it was gone. He shook his head and returned his attention to his prey.

‘Zephyr,’ he said, edging slowly closer and attempting to steady his breathing.

The spirit recoiled at the sound of its own name.

Orion smiled. ‘You did not expect me to remember you.’

The spirit was rigid with horror. ‘What do you want with me?’ It stared at Orion’s ivy-clad antlers and long, filthy talons.

Orion knew that Atolmis would be circling around behind the spirit, along with the other equerries. Just a few more minutes and they would have the thing surrounded. All he needed to do was keep it from bolting. Again, he thought he saw blue lights, somewhere in his peripheral vision, but this time he ignored them, putting them down to the strange power that was transforming his body.

‘Would you say I have assumed the correct mantle?’ Orion drew himself erect and threw back his chin.

‘What?’ The spirit shook its head, not recognising its own words. ‘What mantle?’

From the corner of his eye, Orion saw Atolmis and the others moving silently into place, but the spirit was staring intently at the King and failed to realise the danger.

‘You doubted me,’ whispered Orion, ‘but now you will kneel, like all the others.’

The spirit edged closer, looking horrified. ‘All the others? What do you mean? What have you done?’

As the spirit stepped closer, Orion prepared to pounce. ‘I have spent the spring hunting you all down, one by one,’ he said, lifting his spear.

Understanding flashed in Zephyr’s eyes and it whirled around, finally realising it was surrounded.

‘Let me show you how to treat your–’ Orion’s words became a strangled cough and he staggered backwards, with thick roots wrapped around his throat. The blue lights flashed again but this time they blazed inside his skull.

He howled as he was dragged back along the deer path, as powerless as a newborn.

‘Who dares to…?’ he began, clutching at the roots, but his words trailed off as the lights faded and he saw what was happening to him. The path was erupting, vomiting roots and vines and lashing them around his body. He whirled around as the tendrils tightened web-like over his face.

Orion’s stomach lurched horribly as he tumbled into the hole that appeared beneath him. Then his thoughts grew dark as consciousness slipped away.

The last thing he saw was Atolmis, staring down at him in horror as he plummeted beneath the earth, feeling his flesh disintegrate.

‘Help her out!’ cried a voice, from somewhere nearby. ‘She’s in pain.’

Orion opened his eyes, expecting to see the earth and roots, but seeing something else instead – something equally strange. He was in a small clearing, filled with hundreds of pulsing lights, all of them emanating from a tall mound of branch-like stones. There was a female figure trapped inside the mound, wreathed in blue flames and howling in pain. As she screamed, a bird thrashed back and forth above her head. Orion realised it was an owl, and the thought filled him with a dreadful sense of déjà-vu. As his vision cleared, he saw other figures crowded around the prisoner in the stones, attempting to grasp her flailing hands.

Orion felt a rush of relief as he saw that Ariel was standing near the screaming woman. She had her back to him but her mantle of glittering tendrils and her tall, shimmering wings were unmistakable. His head was spinning from his flight across the treetops, but he realised that the other figures were handmaidens and advisors. There was another noblewoman he could not immediately place. Her gaunt, angular face was a sneer of disdain, and her hair was a jumbled mess of silver tresses, which had once been plaited in some complicated style. She looked as though she had recently been involved in a fight. Her robes were in tatters and there was a dark stain just below her ribs. She looked briefly at Orion and her eyes flashed with emotion. They were filled with either hatred or lust, but Orion was too dazed to be sure which.

‘I have her!’ gasped a young nobleman, reaching into the stones.

Orion recognised Khoron Belidae – the effete youth who had almost ruined the festival of Ostaliss with his endless poetry. He had grasped the screaming figure in the mound and Ariel and her handmaidens rushed to help him.

Orion remained slumped on the grass, watching with a bemused expression as the stones rippled and undulated, before spitting their prisoner out into the clearing.

One of the handmaidens caught her and as she lowered the woman gently onto the ground, her cries finally ceased and Orion saw her more clearly as she turned to face him. She had an intense, piercing gaze and wore delicately woven robes of spun gold, decorated with hundreds of intricate runes. As she clambered to her feet, she leant heavily on a staff of knotted twigs.

Naieth, thought Orion, realising whose hands had wrenched him all the way from the south of the forest to the Cerura Carn: the Queen’s most powerful sorceress. Who else would dare to drag him beneath the earth, just as he was about to seize his prize?

He cursed and tried to stand, but his legs collapsed beneath him and he felt a dreadful wave of nausea. He thought for a moment that he might make himself look even more ridiculous by vomiting, but managed to steady himself by crouching on the ground and taking deep slow breaths.

‘Take a moment to rest,’ said Naieth, stepping towards him. She was still leaning on her staff and it was clear from her pained expression that she felt as terrible as Orion.

‘What have you done, witch?’ He glared at her. ‘How dare you summon your king in such a way? I am not an errant child.’ He tried again to stand but was still too weak and fell back. ‘Who gave you the right to–?’

‘My king,’ interrupted Ariel, stepping between the two of them and dropping to her knees at Orion’s side. ‘You must forgive me. I asked Naieth to do this.’ Her eyes were wide with concern as she grasped his hand. ‘I have heard such strange stories, my love. I had to see you. I need you, my king.’

Orion’s rage faded a little as he saw the fear in Ariel’s eyes. ‘It is almost Sólis-Leith,’ he said, managing to keep his voice low. ‘I would have returned then. Could it not wait?’

Ariel waved at the others, watching anxiously from the foot of the mound. ‘They have told me such tales, my love. Prince Haldus told me that our reign is danger; that outsiders are threatening the sanctity of the Council Glade. He has gathered an army without you.’

Orion climbed slowly to his feet and grasped her by the shoulders. ‘Our reign is eternal.’ He struggled to dampen the fury in his words, enraged by the thought that the hawk rider had spread such rumours. ‘If I am left to finish what I have begun, nothing can harm us.’ He ran a bloody talon across the pale perfection of her cheek. ‘We are one, my queen. Nothing can come between us.’

Ariel nodded and attempted a hesitant smile.

‘Are you already dealing with this threat, then, my king?’ asked Naieth. She tapped her staff against the mound of stones. The lights were quickly fading, but images were still drifting inside and Orion caught a glimpse of a laughing, gold-skinned child, sprinting along a deer path.

Naieth’s eyes were narrow. It was clear that her question was loaded with accusation.

Orion’s veins were throbbing with strange vitality. The nearer he got to midsummer, the more powerful he felt. It was intoxicating and wonderful, but such unnatural vigour did not lend itself to quiet debate. Naieth’s tone was like a spark set amongst kindling. He reeled away from Ariel, threw back his head and howled until his whole body shook.

Khoron Belidae and the handmaidens cowered away from him, backing off beneath the trees, but Naieth stood her ground, closing her eyes and grasping her staff with silent determination until Orion fell quiet.

Before Ariel could stop him, Orion thudded across the clearing and levelled one of his talons at the sorceress. ‘I am dealing with the real threat!’

His face flushed and he waved at the runes on her golden dress. ‘These shades and phantoms you worship would tear us apart if they could.’ He pointed at the surrounding glades. ‘They have no love for me, or my queen. They are the ones who must be brought to heel.’ He waved dismissively. ‘Not bull-headed runts, snuffling in the undergrowth. I know the stories and they do not interest me. Come the Wild Hunt they will flee like rats, but until then I have more important matters to attend to.’

Naieth dared to open her eyes and meet Orion’s furious, blazing stare. She nodded at a carved stone, tied to his belt. ‘And is this why you destroy things you could never hope to understand? I see you have stolen the eye of the Wrach and thrown his paths into chaos. Is that how you intend to prove yourself? Destroying the things you profess to rule?’ She pointed at the stone. ‘Such tools are beyond us, Orion; they were not made by mortal hands. You will never control it.’

Orion’s frame stiffened with rage. Naieth was infuriatingly accurate. Try as he might, he had never been able to replicate his initial success with the stone. Every time he tried he found himself peering into a black void. He glared at Naieth, but could think of no reply.

‘Orion, my love,’ said Ariel, her eyes clouded by doubt. ‘Is this true? What have you done?’

Orion turned to face her and his rage was briefly replaced by shock as he realised how unearthly his queen had become. She seemed half phantom. A terrible thought crossed his mind: Are we still one? Unlike him, her life was a continuous stream. There was no cycle of death and rebirth for the Queen – she simply lived and lived and lived. For thousands of years, she had been becoming less Ariel and more Isha. Since they emerged from the Oak of Ages, Orion had not taken the time to really study her face. He did so now and balked at what he saw. Her gaze was as vague and distant as the stars. She had no idea of how precarious their rule really was. He stepped closer and peered into her eyes, desperate for a sign of recognition.

She saw his concern and her face broke into a gentle smile.

For a second Orion saw a bright speck of Ariel: a precious stone of mortality, glittering in the inferno of her divinity.

His pulse steadied and he nodded at her.

They were one; unbroken.

‘I have done nothing.’ His voice was calm. ‘Other than remind our subjects that they owe us fealty.’

As they realised Orion’s wrath was under control, the others stepped back into the clearing. Orion noticed that the silver-haired noblewoman was still studying him closely and he finally recalled her name. ‘Ordaana,’ he said.

She bowed low to the ground, looking deeply uncomfortable. Her pale face flushed with colour and she hurried to Ariel’s side.

‘The forest is not our enemy, my love,’ said Ariel, still smiling.

‘The Queen is right,’ said Khoron Belidae, stepping to the Ariel’s side and throwing up his arms in a dramatic, encompassing gesture. ‘You are the forest: every oak, every alder, every blessed, bleating fawn.’

Orion shook his head, irritated by the poet’s dreamy tone. This was exactly the kind of thinking that made Ariel feel so remote. He grew even more irritated as he saw the delight with which Ariel greeted the poet’s words.

Orion felt his bile returning. ‘Why have you dragged me here?’ He turned to Naieth so that he did not have to look at the poet any more.

Naieth studied him in silence for a moment then stepped back towards the stones. ‘Let me show you.’

Orion’s anger grew as he studied her, but he held it at bay. He was intrigued, despite himself, to know why she had put herself through such pain. Summoning him had clearly been agony for her.

Naieth leant the head of her staff against the mound and closed her eyes. Light rippled through the knotted twigs and passed into the stones, causing them to stretch and unfurl like new leaves. As the mound rippled away from the staff, Naieth held out her hand and said: ‘Othu’. There was a flutter of wings and Orion recalled the owl he had noticed earlier. The bird flew from its cage and settled on Naieth’s forearm, swivelling its head to study him as its mistress worked her spell.

The sorceress kept her eyes closed and more of the light leaked from her staff into the ancient memorial. After a few moments, a circular window formed at the heart of the cairn and Naieth raised her staff, so that the eye-shaped carving at its head was hovering in the centre of the space. Spokes of light arced out from the wood, turning the window into a corona of blue fire. The light grew so fierce that some of the handmaidens had to avert their gaze.

Orion stepped closer, fascinated by the display. As he peered into the blaze he began to make out shapes, smashing through an inferno of burning trees: a vast host, swarming around the foothills of a mountain. ‘Drúne Fell,’ he breathed, recognising the jagged peaks and realising how close this scene was to where he now stood.

Naieth nodded and twisted her hand, causing the lights to flicker and change, revealing a new image. Orion saw Haldus and the other nobles of Ariel’s court, preparing for battle. When he last saw them they had been clad in pale robes and circlets of flowers, chanting hymns to the new year, but now they were dressed in blood and scarred leather, howling desperate commands as they raced into position.

Orion saw that many of them would go into battle already wounded. As he wandered the forest, hunting down the Brúidd, his people had been fighting for their lives. He felt a vague doubt. Many of his courtiers were fools, but Haldus was a noble soul. He did not deserve to be abandoned.

Then, as quickly as it came, Orion’s doubt was gone. He could do nothing while the Brúidd still doubted his power. Everything else could wait.

Naieth gasped and the lights dimmed. She reeled back from the stones and Orion barely managed to catch her before she dropped to the ground. She slumped in his arms and groaned.

Ariel rushed to her side and took her hand. ‘Naieth, you must rest!’

The sorceress freed herself gently from Orion’s grip and managed to support herself with her staff. She looked more exhausted than ever and her copper-coloured hair was plastered across her pale, sweaty face. ‘What did you see?’ she said, turning to Orion.

The King sneered, conscious that all eyes were on him and determined to hide his moment of doubt. ‘Yes, yes – outsiders, in the heart of the forest, as you said. I understand.’ He shook his head. ‘They would not last an hour against me.’

‘Then lead us.’ Naieth’s voice was an urgent whisper. ‘Lead your subjects to war. Haldus is not a king. He can’t do this alone.’ She waved at Orion’s ivy-clad limbs. His green-tinted flesh was glimmering with arboreal power and his muscles were like slabs of oak, carved and worked with the most intricate spiralling designs. ‘Now is the time to strike.’

She placed a hand on his arm. ‘Soon you will be at your most powerful. Sólis-Leith is only days away. But once autumn comes…’ She left the thought unfinished.

Orion recoiled from her touch and pounded across the clearing to stare out at the trees. He knew exactly what Naieth was referring to. The mention of the summer solstice caused his heart to race, but also reminded him how short his time was. Half the year had almost passed. The thought terrified him. He had no fear of death, but what if he were to die with his work unfinished? He turned to look at Ariel. What if he failed to subdue the forest spirits before he laid himself out to die? The distant look was back in Ariel’s eyes. She had no idea how precarious her rule was. Her mind was in the heavens and the trees; she could not defend herself.

‘I must finish what I have begun,’ he said, taking a deep breath. ‘Then, when Sólis-Leith comes, I will truly become the King.’ He glanced at Naieth. ‘I will run no errands, witch, but when the Wild Hunt begins, nothing will stand against me.’

A low, bestial rumble came from his chest. ‘Nothing.’

The handmaidens flinched at the sound of Orion’s rage, but Naieth nodded calmly. She had expected this response and had her argument prepared. She opened her mouth to reply, but Ordaana chose that moment to speak up.

‘My queen,’ she said, bowing low again. ‘What is this Sínann-Torr you mentioned? Perhaps the prophetess would know something more on the subject?’

Naieth frowned, annoyed by the interruption. ‘Yes,’ she snapped, ‘the Sínann-Torr. Echoes of a previous world. A link to the other realms.’ She shrugged. ‘Somehow these outsiders are using them to create a bond with the forest. That is how they have come so far.’

She turned back to Orion, but saw that the mention of old stones had distracted him. The King was now examining the carved rock attached to his belt and muttering under his breath. Naieth stepped towards him, eager to draw his attention back to Haldus and the battle at Drúne Fell, but before she could speak, Ariel replied to Ordaana.

‘Ah yes,’ she said, smiling gratefully at Ordaana. ‘The forest rings with that name: Sínann-Torr.’ She placed a hand on Naieth’s arm. ‘Perhaps the Chaos creatures are making for another one of these stones? Perhaps that is their goal, rather than my sacred glades?’

Naieth nodded impatiently. ‘Yes, my queen, that is quite possible. They have found several of the ancient sites: Torr-Dobár and Torr-Cirrus have been defiled in just the last week.’

The thought of such ancient power distracted her for a moment and she lowered her gaze, recalling what she knew of the stones. ‘There is a legend of a keystone, located to the north of Drúne Fell. It was hidden deep in the Vaults of Winter, long before we came to the forest. The ancient runes referred to it by various names, but I have always known it as the Torr-Ildána. It is said to be hidden in a place called Dhioll Hollow.’ She shook her head in frustration and scowled at Ordaana for changing the subject.

Ordaana raised her voice and glanced at Orion. ‘The Vaults of Winter.’ She spoke slowly and clearly. ‘The place forbidden to us.’

Orion had been moving slowly back towards the trees, bored by the talk of old stones, but Ordaana’s choice of words caught his attention. ‘Forbidden?’

Ordaana nodded. ‘One of the places in the forest we would never dare enter.’

Orion laughed. ‘There are no such places for me.’

Ordaana turned to Naieth with a raised eyebrow.

The sorceress blanched as she saw where Orion’s thoughts were leading. ‘My king, your forebears swore long ago never to enter the Vaults of Winter. It is the dark heart of the forest: a repository for its most closely guarded secrets. All of the old accords between the asrai and the–’

Orion held up one of his hands to silence her. ‘What would happen if the outsiders reached this final collection of stones – this Torr-Ildána?’

Naieth glared at Ordaana, then reluctantly answered Orion’s question. ‘The Sínann-Torr are scattered across the forest. Some of our most potent magi have devoted their lives to the mystery of them but, even now, we have little idea of how many there are, or who made them.’

Despite her frustration at this distraction, Naieth began to warm to her theme. ‘In my youth I spent decades trying to decipher the runes carved into the few stones we know of, but it is a thankless task. They are born of an intelligence that bears no relation to our own. The most I could discern was a repeated mention of something called the Gyre, or the Dark Paths – a circular web of magic linking the ancient sites, centring on the one known as Torr-Ildána.’

Orion stepped closer to her and stooped until their faces were level. ‘And what does this have to do with the outsiders?’

Naieth shrugged. ‘They are able to find these sites with ease. It is almost as though the forest wants them to discover its secrets.’

‘Of course,’ growled Orion. ‘The forest is loaning them the power to overthrow my rule.’

Ariel shook her head, horrified by the suggestion. ‘That cannot be.’

‘What will happen if they reach the final stone, this Torr-Ildána?’ repeated Orion, keeping his gaze fixed on the sorceress.

She sighed. ‘Well, if the legends are true, and the Torr-Ildána is some kind of keystone, they would tap into the heart of the Gyre. Whatever power links these old stones would be theirs.’

Orion threw up his hands. ‘So why all this talk of Drúne Fell?’ He shook his head. ‘If you are truly afraid of these runts then it is clear what I must do.’

Naieth’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes! If you join Prince Haldus and the others at Drúne Fell, you can prevent them reaching the final stone. You can halt this–’

‘I must enter the Vaults of Winter.’ Orion drew back his antlers and stared at the sky. ‘I must find these old stones and take the power for myself; or at the very least prevent the outsiders taking it.’

Naieth moaned in horror and grasped his arm. ‘No. No you must not. That is not what I meant. Understand me, Orion, your forebears swore an oath. The Vaults are forbidden, and for good reason. The balance of life is precarious. If you enter the forbidden–’

‘Forbidden?’ Orion snatched back his arm. ‘What king is forbidden from his own realm?’ He began pacing around the clearing, churning the earth with his hooves. ‘Again, the spirits seek mastery over me.’ His voice rose in volume. ‘Again, they would bind me to their will.’

‘Orion,’ said Ariel, stepping to his side with fear in her eyes. ‘Something has changed in you. You are different.’

As the Queen placed a hand on Orion’s arm his lips curled back in a snarl and he drew back his fist.

There was a hiss of alarm from the handmaidens and they raised their staffs defensively.

Orion froze, seconds away from striking Ariel’s face. His mouth fell open as he realised what he had nearly done. Then he backed away to the edge of the clearing, staring at his fist as though it were not his own.

As the handmaidens rushed to Ariel’s side, Naieth hastened past her, following the dazed-looking Orion. She lowered her voice, sounding almost sympathetic. ‘You’re not thinking straight, my king. Make for Drúne Fell. Otherwise your subjects will die. They cannot hold back this threat without your aid. Would you leave them all to their fate?’

Despite his shocked expression, Orion replied with certainty. ‘And what if some of the outsiders are already inside the Vaults of Winter? Have you considered that? Do you think they will honour your old accords? They will take whatever they find there and hurl it against us; whatever happens at Drúne Fell.’

He looked at Ariel with an apology in his eyes, but she did not meet his gaze, so he turned away and glared at Naieth. ‘I will find this Dhioll Hollow,’ he tapped the rock tied to his belt, ‘somehow. And I will harness the stones for myself.’

He filled his lungs and drew back his shoulders. ‘I will be king.’

The sorceress blanched and shook her head, but her fear betrayed her. ‘You would never find it. I’m the only living soul who could show you the way and I will not take you. The path to Dhioll Hollow must stay hidden, even from you.’

The King laughed and looked at the Wrach’s stone again. ‘Then I will use a different kind of guide.’ He strode towards the mound of stones and looked through the rippling window in its side. The remnants of Naieth’s spell were still coursing round its frame and a torrent of images was rolling through the air.

‘Wait!’ cried Naieth, guessing his intent. ‘You have done enough damage already.’ She pointed her staff at the rolling coils of light.

Orion ignored her plea and unclasped the black stone from his belt. He saw that flashes of light were flickering inside the talisman. They were coiling and spinning around the stone in a way he had never seen before. He looked back at Ariel. ‘Our rule will not fail.’ His voice was husky with emotion. ‘I will not fail.’

Ariel shook her head, unnerved by the fear in Naieth’s eyes. ‘My love,’ she said, but before she could continue, Orion stepped inside the stone sculpture and gasped as blue fire enveloped him. He lifted the stone and raised his voice over the sound of the flames. ‘Come for what is yours!’ he cried.

The light flared brighter and Orion heard a hideous grunting sound. At first he thought a huge beast had appeared next to him inside the cairn, but then he realised it was his own breath. As his eyes grew accustomed to the glare, he saw that the world outside had stopped. Ariel, Naieth and the others were still watching him in horror, but they were as motionless as the rocks above his head. Naieth was frozen in the act of pointing her staff at him, a look of abject terror on her face. Ariel was caught mid-stride, dashing across the clearing, and the others were preserved in the same instant: either cowering or reaching out to him. Only Ordaana looked unafraid. If anything, the expression fixed on her face was one of triumph.

Orion realised that his breath seemed so loud because there was no other sound. The world was silent. His ragged gasps were ringing out in a void. He climbed from the stone in confusion and looked at the sky. A pair of swallows were painted across the clouds, as static as everything else. ‘What do I do?’ he said, turning to Naieth.

She could no more reply than the grass. The prophetess had been petrified, as surely as the stones behind him. Orion leant closer and saw that even the tiny strands of her copper hair were motionless, trailing behind her head like delicate metalwork.

Fascinated, he reached out and touched her face. Her skin was warm and yielding. She was a living statue. Orion moved around the clearing, feeling a growing sense of anger. The old witch been able to harness the stones, why could he not?

As he strode around the clearing something caught his eye, back down the avenue of trees leading to the Council Glade. His breathing quickened as he realised something was moving in the stillness: a shape, drifting between the rigid shadows.

He crossed the clearing and walked beneath the canopy of trees, keeping his gaze fixed on the undulating shape. As he passed Khoron Belidae, he lifted a spear from the poet’s lifeless fingers and tested its weight. It was a good weapon, tipped with a large metal blade. He grunted in satisfaction and continued on his way.

As he approached the shape, a low growl rumbled in his chest. The movement he had seen was a hooded robe, fluttering despite the absence of a breeze. The robe was draped over a small, familiar figure with long, numerous fingers that rippled and coiled as they reached out towards him.

‘Have you have learned,’ asked the Wrach in a thin, rasping voice, ‘what a weakling you are?’

Orion felt an overwhelming urge to hurl the spear, but he kept it at his side, remembering his purpose. ‘Have you already forgotten,’ he replied, ‘that you are my subject?’ He raised the weapon. ‘Need I prove myself a second time?’

The Wrach wheezed with laughter. ‘Your proofs are meaningless. What do you want?’

Orion held up the stone. ‘To enter the Vaults of Winter. Take me there and I will return this useless rock.’

The spirit looked up, revealing the pale, writhing mess of its face. ‘The Vaults of Winter?’ There was hesitation in its voice.

‘Do not play ignorant, serpent,’ snapped Orion. ‘You see everything. You know the way.’

The hooded spirit waved at its blind eyes and shrugged. ‘I see nothing, weakling, remember.’

Orion nodded. He had expected this. He tightened his grip on the stone. Strands of ivy rippled beneath his skin as his muscles swelled.

‘What are you doing?’ The Wrach stepped closer and reached out with a nest of snapping, sibilant fingers.

Orion gave no reply but pressed harder on the stone, closing his eyes and hunching his shoulders as he applied all his newfound strength.

There was a cracking sound and a trickle of black dust fell from his fist.

‘Stop!’ screamed the Wrach, breaking into a run. ‘I know the way! I will take you!’

Orion was unable to stop at first, delighted by the power throbbing in his arm. He felt the stone beginning to break. Shards of it splintered off, slicing into his skin, but even the pain gave him pleasure. Then, as the Wrach stumbled to a halt in front of him, he nodded and relaxed his grip, holding the stone out before the Wrach’s face. It was bloody and cracked, but otherwise intact.

‘What have you done?’ The Wrach sounded utterly horrified.

Orion closed his meaty palm around the stone again and raised his eyebrows.

‘I will take you!’ The spirit wrapped dozens of serpentine fingers around Orion’s forearm. ‘If you swear to return the stone!’

‘Take me and the stone will be yours.’

Still, the spirit hesitated. It let out a strange hissing sound and caressed Orion’s arm. ‘But the Vaults? Really? Why there? You will find nothing but pain in those cold pits. I could show you glens of such beauty–’

Orion grabbed the Wrach’s hood, pulled it close and hissed, ‘The Vaults.’

The spirit slumped pitifully in Orion’s grip and replied in a flat, defeated voice. ‘Of course. Press the stone to my flesh.’

Orion grimaced as the Wrach’s robes sprouted dozens of white snakes. They quickly enveloped his forearm and wrapped around the stone. He was about to speak, but then he noticed another horrible sensation, prickling against his shoulders and chest. Snow. He looked up in wonder. The sky overhead was midnight black, but filled with colossal, drifting banks of whiteness.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, glaring at the spirit. ‘I did not ask…’ His words trailed off as he realised that the forest was gone, replaced by a dazzling, snow-covered mountainside. He stepped back, remembering to keep a firm grip on the stone. He could see nothing but snow, rocks and heavy, low-hanging clouds. A bitter north wind lashed against him and he felt it more keenly than a sword blow. It sliced through his skin and clamped around his organs. ‘Is this it? Is this the Vaults?’ He wrapped his arms around his chest, still clutching the spear in one hand and the stone in the other.

The Wrach shook its head and pointed at a steep crevasse, a few feet away.

Orion frowned and lurched across the mountainside, still clutching his chest. ‘This cold,’ he muttered, ‘it burns.’

The Wrach nodded but gave no reply as it followed Orion towards the crevasse.

As he reached the edge, Orion knelt and leant out over the drop, peering down into the shadows. The thick banks of snow made it hard to see clearly, but it was plain that there was no easy way down. The chasm was sheer-sided and glittering with frost and ice. There were a few footholes and ledges but no visible bottom.

‘The stone,’ said the Wrach, extending a writhing limb of serpents.

‘What is this?’ Orion waved at the crevasse. ‘I’m no eagle. How do you expect me to find my way down there?’

‘There is no other way.’ The Wrach kept its hand outstretched. ‘You swore you would return what you took from me.’

Orion hurled the stone back across the ice with a sneer. ‘Take the useless thing.’

The Wrach unfurled one of its limbs and caught the stone before it vanished in the snow. The spirit sighed ecstatically as it fixed the black orb onto the head of its staff.

‘How do I reach the Vaults?’ demanded Orion, jabbing his spear at the sheer drop.

The Wrach backed away into the dark and the snow, shaking its head.

Orion leapt to his feet and followed, keeping his spear raised. ‘You said you would lead me to the Vaults of Winter!’

There was one last reply as the hooded figure vanished into the blinding whiteness. ‘Take back your slaves,’ said the spirit. ‘Ask them to carry your corpse.’

Orion cursed and turned back to the crevasse. ‘There is no way down,’ he said, studying the treacherous climb. Then the wind lashed across the slopes even more ferociously and Orion felt the dreadful pain again. The cold was leaching the life out of him. He looked around for shelter, but it was obvious there was only one place to go. He strapped the spear to his back, dropped to his knees in the snow and prepared to climb. The nearest ledge was thirty feet away and the descent was gleaming with ice.

‘Impossible!’ he cried, looking around for a sign of the Wrach. ‘No one could survive such a drop!’ It was only then that he noticed three figures, emerging from the snowstorm. ‘Sélva,’ he said, recognising the wolfskin cloak and tall birch-wood helmet of his equerry. Behind him was Olachas, with his flaxen plaits and his glittering longsword. And finally came Ilaruss, his face completely hidden behind his wooden helmet.

Orion climbed to his feet and waded through the snow to greet them.

The equerries knelt at the sight of their king and Sélva held out his hand. ‘My lord,’ he said. ‘I just watched you vanish into a field of snakes. Now you are here.’ He looked around in confusion. ‘In the snow.’ He peered at Orion’s green-tinged flesh. ‘And unharmed.’

Orion indicated that his servants should rise. ‘The Brúidd are playing games with us. I left you months ago, at Torr-Goholoth. Spring has passed since then. Midsummer is almost upon us.’

Sélva narrowed his eyes. They were as black and pitiless as Atolmis’s. The surprise left his face and he nodded. ‘The Dark Paths follow their own seasons. Only the Brúidd fully understand such things.’ He pressed his palm to his chest. ‘How can we serve you, leaf-liege?’

Sélva’s words needled Orion even more than the cold. Only the Brúidd can understand such things. Bile rose in his throat. Even his own equerries considered the Council of Beasts more powerful than their own king. ‘We climb,’ he growled looking back at the crevasse. ‘Then we destroy.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Figures hurried across the slopes of Drúne Fell, picking vantage points and checking weapons. Despite the horrors of the last few months, Finavar could not help but smile. He had never imagined he would see such a thing. The ridge where he crouched was lined with hundreds of survivors of the battle for Locrimere, shadow-dancers like himself; lithe, tattooed figures, clutching their leaf-shaped blades as they waited in the dark for Eremon’s order to attack. Their captain had a banner raised above his head: a slender pennant fluttering in the warm summer’s breeze, emblazoned with the mark of their fallen kingdom – two black yews, on a field of pale green. The hiding was over. The children of Locrimere now waited in full view of their enemy, their eyes glittering as dangerously as their blades.

Finavar relished the chance to finally look his enemy in the eye, but he understood that they were little more than bait. Prince Haldus had placed his full strength out of sight. Before the outsiders could climb to Eremon’s banner, they would discover the true size of the army waiting for them in the gloom. At the foot of the mountain was the entrance to a passage, the fastest route through the foothills to the Vaults of Winter, and Haldus had positioned the bulk of his force there: hundreds of spearmen, proud, stern-faced guardians of the Queen’s glades, wearing thick leather body armour and helmets as they waited silently in the trees. They were led by the pampered young nobles, Lords Salicis and Alioth, and Finavar noted with surprise how well the brothers had scattered their force – the spearmen were gathered in great numbers, but the minotaurs would have no inkling of their presence, right until the moment the spears started to fly.

And that would not be the only surprise. Laelia and the magi were also waiting in the trees, and in the caves above Finavar’s kin were hundreds of archers – marksmen from right across the forest, united under the command of the scowling Prince Haldus. Death would come from the air in other ways, too. There was no sign of the pale stranger in the black cuirass, Lord Cyanos, but Finavar knew Prince Haldus had sent him off to the eastern slopes to prepare his own forces for the attack.

Caorann noticed Finavar’s pouting expression and smiled. ‘The Darkling Prince,’ he said, waving at the noble figures that surrounded them. ‘Finally you are moving in the correct circles.’

Finavar laughed. ‘Did you see how much it pained that prince to address me?’ He adopted a haughty expression and mimicked Haldus’s stiff tones. ‘You have shown great bravery.’

Caorann grinned and shook his head in mock despair but, before he could reply, the enemy broke from the trees.

A wave of hunched, lumbering runts led the attack: goat-legged fiends with crimson flesh and crooked, wiry limbs. They sprinted across the valley in ominous, frenetic silence, their eyes fixed on Eremon’s banner as they approached the trees at the foot of the mountain. They carried spears and crude iron swords and the ram’s horns curled around their heads were dark with asrai blood.

Finavar and the other asrai on the ridge looked to Eremon. Their dour-faced captain held up his hand and shook his head, indicating that they should wait. They all understood his reasoning: grotesque as they were, these puling wretches were not the true army.

Finavar tensed as the monsters reached the line of trees. For a few seconds they continued their advance, dodging quickly through the shadowy boughs. Then Lords Alioth and Salicis made their move. Lithe figures dropped from the shadows and launched themselves at the enemy. Some threw their spears, others rammed them through throats and chests, flinging their victims aside before racing on to another target.

Finally, the creatures broke their silence. Howls of pain filled the trees as the asrai tore into them.

Finavar knew the plan, but gave Eremon another hopeful glance.

The captain’s expression remained implacable and his hand was still raised in silent command.

Finavar itched to join the fun, but he held his position and continued watching from afar.

After a just a few minutes, the fighting was already nearing a conclusion. Finavar glimpsed a flash of garish colour in the dark and realised he was seeing the two young popinjays leading the final defence.

No more than a dozen of the monsters survived to stagger from the trees and scramble back towards the forest, trailing broken weapons behind them and limping pathetically.

Finavar looked up to see if Prince Haldus would stop them reaching safety, but his archers remained hidden. Not an arrow was loosed.

The ominous silence returned and it felt to Finavar as though even a loud breath would echo around the curve of the foothills. Then he flinched as a deafening noise filled the forest: a harsh braying of tuneless horns that came from dozens of different directions.

Caorann looked at Finavar and raised his eyebrows as the forest spawned an army of unbelievable size. These were no stooping runts; these were hulking, armour-clad brutes with wide, bull-like horns and the thick, muscled legs of cattle. They stomped through the gloom in their hundreds, if not thousands, pounding drums, bellowing along with the tuneless din of the horns and clutching spitting torches and massive, spike-laden axes.

Finavar shivered as he imagined such a wave of muscle and hate smashing into the spearmen below. He looked at Eremon again. The captain’s face still showed no sign of emotion and his hand was still raised.

The minotaurs marched slowly across the valley, and as they reached the survivors of the first attack they clubbed them mercilessly to the ground, mocking them with snorts of derision and trampling them under leaden hooves.

As they approached the trees, Finavar saw them more clearly and realised that the monster at the head of the army was almost twice the size of the others, and clad head-to-toe in plates of hammered iron. The creature was almost as wide as it was tall and the combination of its bulk and thick metal armour caused the ground to shake as it moved. Like the others, it carried a massive, two-handed axe, but this weapon glowed with a light that caused Finavar to shiver.

The outsiders reached the trees at the foot of Drúne Fell and Finavar heard a rippling note of birdsong. Finally, Prince Haldus was summoning his first surprise.

The minotaurs smashed into the trees and found them bristling with spears. The huge, armoured captain bellowed and raised its axe, ordering a charge, filled with bloodlust at the sight of the spearmen. As the monsters’ hooves thudded across the baked earth, they did not notice that a new sound was filling the valley.

Finavar and Caorann gasped as they saw something they had only ever sung about: riders, from every corner of the forest, mounted on beautiful, palomino steeds. The horses were so pale they gleamed in the dark, flooding the valley like a moonlit river. The riders barely seemed to touch them as they rode – few were even holding their reins, clutching spears, pennants and bows instead as they hurtled towards the beastmen.

The monster in the plate armour was so enraged by the spearmen dancing through the trees, that it did not notice the riders until they had sliced through the flanks of its army.

Horns wavered and drums ceased as the minotaurs were attacked from all sides. As the riders harried their flanks, Alioth and Salicis led the spearmen out to greet them, attacking the vanguard with a bristling wall of spears and glaives. At that moment, up on the slopes of Drúne Fell, Prince Haldus whistled for a second time and his archers loosed a black cloud of arrows at the stranded minotaurs. Simultaneously, the forest erupted as Laelia and her coterie of sorcerers teased it into life. Their incantations took physical form, dragging hungry spirits from the ashes and elms.

Finavar felt his pulse hammering in his ears, as though his own flesh was responding to the summons. He looked hopefully at Eremon and, to his delight, the old soldier finally sliced his hand through the air, freeing the kindreds of Locrimere to begin their dance.

Finavar howled and flipped over the rocks, lifting his voice in song as he plummeted towards the battle.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

She waited, savouring the quietness of the snow, nursing centuries of bitter hurt. Behind her lay a network of caverns; glittering and dark, filled with lies, a perfect tomb for a false king. She had ordered her sisters to stand down and Orion would blunder in, unaware that they were sneering at him from the shadows. She stretched the long, knotted bark of her limbs and sighed with pleasure. She had always known that he would come. Such arrogance was bound to undo him eventually, and finally, after all these centuries, her patience would be rewarded. She turned to leave, muttering a prayer to all those she was about to avenge.

‘My lord,’ came a voice, ‘is this wise?’

She paused and let out a hissing sound. He was not alone. She turned and stepped out towards the foot of the ravine, staring through the snow. There were four silhouettes approaching, not one. All of them were broad, and heavily muscled, but one was taller than the others, with a crown of knotted antlers. He has his lackeys with him, she thought. This might ruin everything. She tensed her wooden flesh and crept back towards the caves.

‘Do you question your king?’ replied Orion, emerging from the snow.

He had a metal-tipped spear in his hand and pointed it at the wall of cave mouths. ‘This is my realm as much as the King’s Glade. Why should I avoid it?’

One of the other figures shook his head. ‘But, my lord – the Vaults of Winter. Nothing has ever emerged from here but madness. Why would you deliberately court such danger?’

Orion raised his chin. ‘It is not your place to question me, Sélva.’

She crept closer, keeping to the shadows. To her horror, she saw that, despite his fierce tone, there was doubt in Orion’s eyes. Out here in the snow, away from his blessed trees, he was finally unsure of himself.

Another underling stepped to his side. ‘Naieth the Prophetess knows the history of these caverns. They are forbidden for a reason, my lord.’

Orion clenched his jaw, enraged by the mention of the copper-haired witch, but the doubt still lingered in his eyes.

Sensing that her moment of revenge might pass, she decided to intervene. How could she ensure he did not leave? What could blind him to madness ahead? She smiled. Of course. His rage. What could be more sure? She dressed herself in the gleaming, flawless hide of a white stag and trotted out to greet him.

They were still at the far end of the ravine, thirty feet or more away, but echoes carried oddly across the snow, and they immediately looked up at the sound of her hooves. She raised the proud, cervine head she had adopted and came to a halt in the centre of the gulley, watching Orion with regal disdain.

The King recoiled, clutching his spear in both hands. ‘It’s you,’ he gasped. ‘Sativus.’ He looked at his guards. ‘Can you see this?’

They nodded and raised their weapons, stepping closer to their king, looking at her in amazement.

She struggled to hide her delight. Even after all these centuries, he had not learned to recognise her.

‘Turn back,’ she said.

Orion’s face flushed a darker green. ‘Do you still doubt me? After everything I have already achieved?’ He pointed his spear at her and raised his voice to a howl. ‘I have crushed your snivelling curs in my fist. Whatever hold you might have over Ariel, I am still your king, Sativus!’

She wanted to laugh with delight at the rage in his voice, but she shook her head instead. ‘You are unworthy, Sephian. You are weak. You must turn back.’

At the sound of his former name, Orion’s doubt visibly evaporated. He arched his back and howled into the snowstorm, tortured by the thought of his past. Then he raced down the gulley towards her.

She turned and galloped back into the caverns, filling the ravine with the sound of clattering hooves as she disappeared into the gloom.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Orion plunged through the darkness, pursuing the stag as it bounded into a network of frozen caves. He was blind to everything but the white flanks of his prey. As he thundered through the caves, strange, rippling shapes arched over him, but he paid them no heed, moving with such speed that his equerries were unable to keep up.

The caves were not entirely dark. As Orion ran he passed through columns of light, leaking through cracks overhead and refracted by minerals in the rock. The lights threw glittering shapes across Orion’s face, twisting his expression into a leering grimace. The white stag always remained a few feet ahead of him and, after a while, Orion began to tire. The cold air was thin and insubstantial and his chest began to ache with every ragged breath. Finally, with a last, bitter curse, he tumbled to his knees and watched Sativus vanish around a bend.

For a few moments, Orion could do nothing but kneel on the ground and gasp for air. The cold seeped into his flesh like poison, draining him of vigour. After a few minutes, still struggling to catch his breath, he finally looked around. Passageways trailed off in every direction: some tall and magnificent, punctuated by glittering stalactites and stalagmites, others so narrow that Orion could never have shouldered his way inside. Every surface glittered, either with ice or crystals, and, as Orion looked around, his breath pooled in thick clouds of vapour, adding to the mysterious appearance of the caves.

‘Orion,’ he spat, using his own name like a curse. He suddenly felt a fool. What had driven him to race after the stag like that? Without even waiting for the others? He had no idea what kind of place he had entered. Why did he not pause to consider his actions properly, in a manner more suited to a king? He glimpsed Naieth and the others, warning him to avoid this place, and a dreadful doubt filled him. Why was he so determined to ignore them? Now that he looked back over the first half of his new life, he realised that all of his decisions had been made in a blind rage. Is this normal? he wondered, looking down at his hands, as though they belonged to someone else. Fragments of the Wrach’s stone were still embedded in his broad, leathery palm, and he regarded them like the spoils of a crime. ‘Orion,’ he muttered again.

He hauled himself to his feet and called out. ‘Olachas! Ilaruss! Sélva!’

He thought he heard a distant reply, but the sound quickly faded and he could not be sure if it was real or just an echo. His sense of foolishness grew. He had abandoned them for a second time, to who knew what fate. Seeing there was nothing else for it, he turned and headed off in the direction he had last seen the stag, muttering under his breath as his hooves clattered across the frozen rock and he entered another gloomy corridor.

Orion quickly lost track of time. The caverns were bewildering and endless, looping and climbing through the mountains and often bringing him back to places he had already seen. He despaired of ever finding Sativus, or the Dhioll Hollow and the Torr-Ildána. As the hours rolled by, it seemed the best he could hope for was to find a way back to the cave entrance. Every now and then he paused, sensing movement nearby, but each time he looked there was nothing – beyond perhaps a slight shifting in the cave walls, like water rippling over the rock.

Finally, Orion spotted a route that he was sure he had not explored: a tunnel that shone brighter than any of the previous ones. He hurried down it, wondering if he had found his way back to the mountainside. As he entered the tunnel, Orion was dazzled by the ferocity of the light, and stumbled to a halt. Once his vision had cleared, he realised that the far end of the cave did indeed open onto the outside world. He grunted in relief. Perhaps he could still find the others and return to the Council Glade. There was no reason for him to lose face. He would simply explain that the Vaults of Winter were empty, dreary caves, containing nothing of value beyond a few glittering rocks. And if that pallid youth, Belidae, decided to make comment, he would witness the wrath of a king. As the oppressive atmosphere of the caves bore down on Orion, the idea of returning to the forest filled him with renewed energy and he hurried towards the light.

As he staggered from the cave mouth, Orion’s excitement grew. Somehow, he was back in the forest. A mangled grove of oak trees surrounded him, nestled beneath the slopes of the mountains, and for a few seconds Orion thought he had returned home. Then he realised that this could not be his home. The trees were bare and draped in thick drifts of snow. Horror gripped him. This was a place he was never intended to see: the forest in the depths of winter. Like all of his kind, he understood the reign of the King implicitly: he was Kurnous incarnate. He was a living avatar of a god, but he was bound to the seasons, born with the spring and gone by the first frosts of winter. This was no place for him. The sight of naked, frosted branches turned his stomach and caused his head to pound. As the snow settled on his antlers and his furious brow, he felt it draining even more life out of him. He suddenly felt as though he could barely hold his spear.

He stumbled back the way he had come. Even the caves seemed preferable to the forest in winter. There must be another way, he decided, but as he trudged back through the snow, something caught his eye: on the other side of the clearing were two figures, locked in an embrace. He seemed to be witnessing some kind of tryst beneath the snow-clad boughs.

He paused and called out in greeting. The figures gave no reply and Orion looked warily at the frozen trees again. Then, with a shake of his head, he trudged away from the cave mouth and headed in the direction of the lovers.

As he approached, Orion’s distaste mingled with shock. ‘It cannot be,’ he growled, gripping his spear tighter and picking up his pace, but as he reached the two figures his suspicions were confirmed.

It was Ariel, and coiled around her, snake-like, was her advisor, Khoron Belidae: pale and effete as ever and whispering gently in her ear.

‘What are you doing?’ roared Orion, but still they did not hear. As he reached the tree, he realised that they were discussing him.

‘It is meaningless,’ whispered Khoron. ‘Let him rage. Let him stomp. You, my queen, my Ariel, are the true, immortal heart of this forest. When the sun grows weary and falls from the sky, you will remain: preserved, unchanging, by the love of your people.’

Ariel blushed and lowered her gaze, clearly flattered by her advisor’s words. ‘But he is not himself, Khoron. Each year he comes to me, filled with the wrath of summer, clearing away our foes and leading the Wild Hunt, but I have never seen him so erratic before. All through the spring he has been persecuting the forest spirits. Why would he do such a thing?’ She looked up, and for a moment Orion thought she must have seen him, but she showed no sign of recognition. ‘In my dreams I have seen my oldest friend, Sativus. He has become a beautiful white stag.’

Khoron nodded encouragingly, and gently turned Ariel’s face back towards his, until their lips were almost touching.

‘Sativus warned me,’ Ariel continued, oblivious to Khoron’s lascivious expression. ‘He said that Orion has been transformed in some way. That he is more dangerous than ever before.’

Khoron stroked Ariel’s cheek. ‘I have seen it myself. The King has become a stranger to all of us. He no longer understands his role.’ He shook his head. ‘Or his queen.’

Orion howled in frustration. He had always suspected this fawning dandy, but to see such treachery with his own eyes was more than he could bear. He hurled his spear at the poet.

The weapon passed through his chest and slammed into the tree.

Khoron winced and clutched his robes.

Orion stepped closer, preparing to finish the job with his talons.

‘I believe that wine has taken a dislike to me,’ said Khoron, backing away from Ariel and frowning.

Ariel laughed. ‘You drink like a true poet.’

Orion cried out as he saw that the spear was still embedded in the tree and had left no mark on Khoron.

‘I think I may need to lie down for a moment,’ said Khoron, nodding towards the heart of the forest.

Ariel smiled and took his arm. ‘Let me help you.’

As they stepped lightly through the trees, Orion howled and hurried to his spear. To his horror, the cold had left him with so little strength he was unable to wrench the weapon free. ‘I will kill him,’ he said and heaved again. Still the spear refused to move. He looked around and saw a rock, about the size of his fist, jutting out of the snow. Incensed by rage and jealousy he hammered the stone down against the shaft of the spear. It finally came free, but as he snatched it up from the snow he realised that Ariel and her advisor had vanished from view. He raced deeper into the forest, trying to catch sight of them, but it was no use. The further he ran, the darker and colder it grew and the more tightly packed the trees became. The forest was his home, but seen like this it was a stranger to him. He felt a palpable enmity creeping through the ice. As he staggered through the frosted bracken he glimpsed movement in his peripheral vision, but when he looked it was gone. He remembered that he had had the same sensation in the caves. ‘Who is that?’ he cried, whirling around. ‘Sélva? Is that you? Olachas?’

There was no reply, so he hurried on, hoping to find a familiar landmark, but the snow was now falling so heavily, and the trees pressed so closely around him, that he could no longer even see the mountains. His anger grew as he pictured Ariel nursing Khoron Belidae. Why had he come to such a cursed place? He wondered again at all the choices he had made and shook his head furiously, trying to jostle his thoughts into some semblance of order. This only added dizziness to his list of problems and he closed his eyes for a moment, trying to steady himself as he ran.

Orion’s stomach lurched as the ground gave way. He opened his eyes and realised that what he had taken for solid ground was an outcrop of snow, hanging over a sheer drop.

He fell in glittering silence, wrapping his arms around his head as he spun through an explosion of snow.

The painful landing he expected never came and, after a few moments, Orion realised he did not feel cold any more. He saw a smoke-filled hall, crowded with jostling, indistinct figures. A familiar face was looming over him, smiling in disbelief.

‘Isére?’ he gasped, recognising his first love. He locked his gaze on her lidded, blue-grey eyes and tried to ignore the rolling sensation in his stomach.

‘Sephian,’ she said, stifling a laugh as she held out her hand, ‘are you drunk?’

Orion looked around and saw that he was in the bowels of the Wilding Tree – back in the Tourmaline Hall, surrounded by the devious, gossiping sorcerers of the Silvam Dale. ‘Sephian?’ he gasped.

Isére frowned as she helped him to his feet. ‘You are drunk! Have you forgotten your own name?’

Orion looked down at his body and saw that he had been transformed. The slabs of green, ivy-threaded muscle were gone, replaced by a slender frame, clad in mud-splattered robes and wearing worn leather slippers. ‘My spear,’ he gasped, looking at his empty hands.

‘You never carry a spear,’ said Isére, peering at him in confusion. ‘What did she say? Has she bewitched you?’

Orion shook his head in confusion. ‘Who?’

Isére nodded to a wall of flickering lights on the far side of the hall. The place was too crowded and smoky to see clearly, but Orion could just about make out a frail figure, wreathed in light and drifting above the crowd.

‘Princess Asphalia,’ said Isére. ‘I thought she was all show, but she has clearly dazzled you.’ The smile dropped from her face. ‘Did you pass on your news? Did you tell her about the outsiders, and Tethea?’

Orion was about to reply yes, but then groaned in dismay. This was more than he could bear: to be mortal again, a simple wanderer, serving the witches of the Silvam Dale. As Isére shook her head in confusion, he broke from her grip and barged through the crowd, shouldering his way through crowds of sneering faces, dazzled by the light of the fireflies drifting overhead.

‘Sephian?’ cried Isére, but he did not pause, breaking into a run as he spotted the stairs at the back of the hall. The forest. He needed to be back in the forest. He needed to escape the cloying, scented smoke and clear his head.

He raced up the winding staircase of knotted branches and emerged into the cool, crisp air of a dying winter. The twin moons were gliding overhead and he followed their light through the trees, making for the deeps of the forest. No one challenged him as he left the agonised hulk of the Wilding Tree, but he noticed the sentry, Arthron, watching him from the shadows, his face still hidden beneath his hood.

Orion ran on, unsure who or when he was. The name Sephian echoed in his mind, and he grasped desperately at memories of all that had happened to him during the spring and summer. Could he have dreamt everything, as he lay swooning in the roots of the Wilding Tree? Had Princess Asphalia beguiled him?

As his thoughts raced down various avenues, he lost track of his route and barely noticed that the air was becoming colder again and that the trees were coated in snow once more.

The sound of voices dragged Orion back into the present. He stumbled to a halt and listened, realising the sound was familiar. It was a low, rumbling chorus: dozens of powerful voices joined in a melody so lachrymose and beautiful that it snatched his breath away. ‘Orion,’ he muttered, changing direction and racing down a winding tunnel of yews towards the sound.

They remained as he had left them: the Lords of the Deepwood Host, assembled in the King’s Glade to pass judgement on him, godlike and blazing with stellar fire.

Orion knelt before them, peering through the blaze in an attempt to discern their expressions. He saw that they were each subtly different: some more feral, some more haughty and some more stern than their twins.

‘Guide me,’ he said, holding out his hands.

They did not seem to notice his presence, but as their voices rumbled on, Orion recognised words in their droning round song. They were singing of Prince Haldus and the Darkling Prince, left to die on the slopes of Drúne Fell, as their king chased the ghosts of his past.

He groaned and clutched his head in his hands. Their judgement was plain: they had found him wanting. He had failed them miserably. Nothing he had done had proven his worth. He plucked a knife from his belt, filled with despair. As the chorus circled around his thoughts, he lifted the knife and studied the keenness of the blade. Perhaps if he ended his life here, in the King’s Glade, a new Orion would emerge; one more worthy of Ariel?

As Orion studied the blade, an image flashed into his mind. Cyanos had hacked off his own wings with this knife, before handing it to Orion as a sign of his fealty. Other images arrived in quick succession. He saw Cyanos’s shame as he handed over the bloodstained weapon. He had been appalled and awed by Orion’s victory over the spirit, Amphion. Then Orion saw the eagle spirit itself, pinned like an insect to the floor of Cyanos’s stone prison. His shame began to fade as he stared at the knife. He saw the Wrach, cowering before him, begging for mercy as he took the black polished stone from his staff. Then he saw the other spirits he had hunted down, binding them to the will of Kurnous, as surely as if he were the god himself.

The song faltered and the lights faded.

Orion stood and raised the knife over his head. ‘This is a lie,’ he said, realising the truth as soon as he uttered it. ‘Sephian is cold in his grave. I am the Lord of the Deepwood Host. I am the King. I am Orion.’

As Orion’s voice grew in strength, the trees of the King’s Glade began to broaden and lose their colour.

‘I am the King!’ he roared, and the trees became the frozen walls of a cave. The crowned figures shimmered and merged into a single shape, hunched in the darkness.

Orion realised that he had never left the Vaults of Winter. He was still surrounded by columns of ice-clad rock and bathed in the rainbow colours of the crystals that lined the walls. His spear was still in his hand and his body was still his own: sinewy, green-hued and threaded with vines. Sephian’s robes and slippers were gone, replaced by a loincloth and a pair of thick, ridged hooves. He had been beguiled, but it was Sativus who had planted the illusions in his mind, he was sure of it.

‘Face me!’ he bellowed, levelling the spear at the figure in the shadows.

‘You must leave,’ answered the shadows, without approaching. The voice was odd and inhuman, like two slabs of rock scraping against each other.

‘You are my subject, Sativus,’ said Orion in a quieter voice, calmed by the accuracy of his guess – the images that had tormented him were a glamour, nothing more, and he had seen through them. Sativus had been proved wrong. There was nothing in the forest he could not face.

The figure stepped into the shifting light and revealed itself.

It was not a stag; in fact, for a moment, Orion strained to understand exactly what it was. It was as though the wall itself were moving towards him. Then the stranger abandoned its stooped posture and straightened its back, drawing itself to its full height. Orion realised that the figure was not hunched in the cave, it was the cave. He reeled back in shock as the walls and ceiling collapsed, assuming the form of a colossal humanoid figure. The snow-filled sky was revealed as the cave unravelled, collapsed and stood up, with all the grinding din of a landslide.

Dust and pebbles rained down on Orion and he was forced to shield his face with his arms. Then as the rocks settled he peered up through the whirling banks of snow and dust, trying to understand the thing that was towering over him. He saw a stone goliath of absurd proportions. As it stretched its limbs and pulled back its enormous shoulders it resembled a mountain chiselled into the shape of a man, with a broad outcrop for its chest and a crumbling, snow-capped peak for a head. Beneath its craggy brow was a pair of dazzling lights that passed for its eyes and, rather than hands, its arms ended in two hammerheads of rock.

‘By the gods,’ muttered Orion as he realised the impossible scale of giant. As he peered at its jagged torso, he noticed something carved into its chest; some kind of circular design, he thought, but with all the dust billowing around it, he could not be sure.

The stone giant looked down at Orion with a sombre expression and spoke with a voice so booming that more rocks tumbled from the remaining walls of the cave.

‘The asur are forbidden.’ It formed the words slowly and with obvious difficulty. It turned its head, shedding clumps of snow and soil, and spoke even slower. ‘There. Was. A. Vow.’

The words were so loud that Orion had to clutch his hands over his ears, but as he did so, he glimpsed something on the far side of the giant’s feet. There was a small valley beneath him, on the other side of the giant, and at its centre there was a circle of beech trees. Despite the unnatural winter the trees were dressed in glossy red leaves. It was hard to see clearly through the dust and snow tumbling from the giant, but he thought he could make out a structure of some kind.

He peered through the haze and gasped. There was no mistaking it. There was a dolmen in the centre of the trees, on top of what looked like a burial mound. The stones were polished and black, just like the orb on the Wrach’s staff. ‘Torr-Ildána,’ he said, stepping towards the valley.

He had reached his goal.

‘A vow,’ boomed the stone giant, stepping sideways and crashing one of its feet down in front of Orion.

‘Who are you to block my way?’ cried Orion, reeling back into the remains of the cave. Once he was steady, he pointed his spear at the mournful face looming overhead. ‘You have no power over me.’

‘I am…’ the giant hesitated, struggling to find the right word, ‘the protector.’

Then its other foot slammed down and barred the entrance to the valley.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Finavar whirled through the air, his blades held at shoulder height, gleaming in the moonlight as they sliced through iron, flesh and bone. All around him arrows found their mark, thudding into the tiny black eyes of the minotaurs. The skill of the archers was incredible. Even in the dark, not a single shot went wide. Finavar and his kindred fought with wild, animal grace, secure in the knowledge that they would never be mistakenly hit.

Finavar’s black cloak fluttered around him as he waltzed through the fighting, its barbs shredding the skin of his foes and hazing his movements. His lumbering, armour-clad opponents lurched after him, snarling curses and swinging their axes, but by the time they struck he was gone, flickering above their helmets like fire.

Dozens of similar figures vaulted after him, hacking and slashing as they careered through the enemy lines: the wild children of Loec, unleashed at last. Their dance might end in victory or death, but either way it would be a thing of heartbreaking beauty. There was a flash of blue as Caorann rolled across a row of shoulders and plunged his twin blades into the neck of a roaring brute.

Behind him came Thuralin, gasping and wheezing as he fought, but still too fast for the enemy to catch. His daughter was at his side, pausing every now and then to rip bloody trophies from her gasping victims.

As Finavar and his kin performed their vicious dance, the riders continued to harass the enemy flank, charging in fluid, seemingly random waves that left the minotaurs reeling and confused.

Finavar paid no heed to the cavalry or even the dancers behind him. His gaze was locked on a towering shape at the rear of the enemy lines. It was a grotesque mixture of bull and man, like all the other outsiders, but it towered over the rest of the army, as tall as an oak and staring back at him with a single enormous eye that blazed like another moon, hovering over the battle. There was no mistaking the repugnant light. Finavar knew from his conversations with Eremon and Caorann that this was the villain who had torched their home. As he vaulted through the battle, even Alhena and the others fell behind. His face was locked in a stern pout as he considered each footfall and sword strike with hair’s-breadth precision, but with every particle of his being he was singing. His fluid, tumbling movements were a hymn to the glory of war. If he were struck down at this moment, he would achieve the most perfect, most beautiful death he could imagine. This was all that he had ever dreamt of: a moment to serve the forest with all the skill and grace he could muster.

As he neared the cyclops, Finavar saw that it was lumbering wildly through the dark, smashing and rending anything it encountered and screaming gibberish to itself. Every now and then it would pause to swing wildly at the air, as though battling foes only it could see.

It’s insane, thought Finavar, landing briefly on the ground and dashing across the bloodstained earth. He ducked and weaved around the bellowing minotaurs, moving so fast that most of them barely registered his passing.

Finavar was nearing his goal when the towering cyclops suddenly strode off through the battle – not in flight, but making for something that Finavar was unable to see. The enormous monster crossed the battlefield with great, loping strides, its grotesque eye locked on the trees below Drúne Fell.

Finavar struggled to keep up, but as he ran he saw what had drawn its attention. Near the foot of the mountain, where the enemy lines were smashing through rows of asrai spears, the earth had sprung to life, heaving like an ocean and sprouting dark, coiled limbs.

‘Laelia,’ said Finavar with a grin. Such powerful sorcery could only be the work of the Queen’s handmaidens. As he watched in amazement, Finavar saw great, crumbling behemoths of root and soil, lashing out of the ground and dragging dozens of minotaurs to their deaths.

His smile faltered as the cyclops waded frantically through the battle, heedless of the damage it caused its own troops as it made for the patch of writhing earth.

Finavar forced his aching limbs into one last sprint, trying to intercept the giant before it reached Laelia.

As he neared the disturbance, Finavar saw that he was right: it was Laelia, drifting several feet above the trees with her arms raised and her head thrown back. Her wings were fluttering behind her and light was coruscating between her extended fingers. The other magi were drifting at her side and beneath their dangling feet the earth had become a heaving vortex, groaning as it rotated, dragging outsiders underground with thrashing roots. Dozens of the minotaurs had already tumbled into the pit, clawing desperately at the soil as the knotted tendrils grasped and crushed.

Laelia’s voice was raised in song and her eyes were closed. Her boyish mop of hair was fluttering around her face and her wiry limbs were jerking with erratic, spastic movements.

Finavar realised that she was consumed by the ferocity of her own spell, and unaware of the giant shape striding towards her. His fear grew as he realised he might not reach the cyclops in time to stop it.

He bounded across the back of one of the howling minotaurs and hurled himself though the air, diving for a patch of open space at the heart of the battle.

The air exploded from his lungs as a fist connected with his stomach.

He crashed into the toiling ranks of monsters and rolled across the earth.

For a second he was too disorientated to rise and was still crumpled on the ground, gasping unsuccessfully for breath, as his attacker lurched into view.

It was a mountain of scarred muscle, with a thick crest of hair from the small of its back to the top of its bull-like head. Two long, iron-capped horns swooped down from its forehead and its massive fists were clad in plates of thick, studded iron.

Despite the pain of his screaming lungs, Finavar managed to roll aside before the monster’s fist destroyed his face. As he flipped back up onto his feet, Finavar brought both his blades down on the minotaur’s wrist.

Rather than severing the monster’s hand the blades clattered against the iron bracers and sent a shock of pain jangling up his arms.

He cursed and staggered back, raising the blades in front of his face as the monster punched again. He parried the blow, but knew his luck would not hold. Spinning lightly across the heads of an army was one thing, but fighting for his life on the ground was another.

He leant to one side in a feint, suggesting that he was about to flee.

The minotaur lurched after him, and Finavar dodged in the opposite direction, placing his feet onto the monster’s back and launching himself off through the battle.

Axes and fists flew after him, but he flipped clear and vaulted up into the air, trying to glimpse Laelia.

To his horror, he saw that he had moved even further from the Queen’s handmaiden, whilst the cyclops was only moments away from her. Its stream of gibberish had grown so violent that its head was jolting with the force of its words, spraying arcs of drool through the air.

‘Laelia!’ he cried, but it was no use. She was still consumed by the power of her spell. Her head was still thrown back and the ground beneath her was a volcano of tendrils and broken bodies.

Finavar looked back at the cyclops and saw that its eye was pulsing with light and rolling wildly in its socket. Its mouth was hanging open in anticipation as it neared its prize.

After landing in another open space, Finavar placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled, hoping desperately that he was not too late.

Nothing happened.

The cyclops was now just a couple of strides away from Laelia but Finavar was forced to back away as the surrounding minotaurs spotted him and lunged in his direction.

Desperate, Finavar whistled again. ‘Loec bless you!’ he cried, as he saw a pair of tiny shapes race up one of the giant’s legs. The polecats were like mites compared to the enormous bulk of the cyclops, but to Finavar their undulating movements were unmistakable.

The cyclops was oblivious as Mormo and Mauro scuttled higher, circling its enormous gut and making for its jowly face.

Finavar laughed as the polecats reached their goal. They raced across the monster’s massive eye and sank their claws into its flickering pupil.

The cyclops threw back its head and roared. The sound was ear-splitting and the surrounding figures stumbled to a halt, looking up to watch as the cyclops clawed desperately at its eye. It clamped its hands over the bleeding orb and staggered backwards, spraying a mixture of flames and blood from between its fingers.

At the sound of the cyclops’s roar, Laelia and the other sorcerers opened their eyes and finally saw the monstrosity that was looming over them.

Laelia gasped in alarm and let out a cry of command, levelling her finger at the monster. As one, the magi redirected the currents of magic rippling through their flesh. The earth detonated and a forest of tendrils slammed against the cyclops, enveloping its limbs and lashing around its face.

Finavar stumbled to a halt, looking anxiously for two tiny shapes on the staggering giant.

The cyclops roared again, arched its back and wrenched the net of roots from the ground, showering the sorcerers with earth and turning its bloody eye back on them.

Laelia cried out another command, but before the words had left her lips, the cyclops reached down and clutched one of the handmaidens. Her body exploded in a cloud of blood and, as Laelia wailed in horror, the cyclops stuffed the mangled corpse into its mouth.

As the cyclops ate, light blazed through its skin and it moaned in ecstasy, pawing at its face and shivering with pleasure as it swallowed its still-twitching victim.

Laelia repeated her command with still greater vehemence, and now the sorcerers had time to respond. The ground erupted with even more violence and this time, as the net of roots hurtled towards the cyclops, they took the form of humanoid creatures, crying out in rage as they latched onto the monster’s face.

The cyclops tried to wrench itself free for a second time but the roots held firm.

The brief pause that had gripped the battle evaporated and the armies threw themselves at each other, crashing around the feet of the struggling cyclops.

Finavar was still unable to see any sign of Mormo and Mauro and he felt an awful dread. Had he sent them to their deaths? Such an action would have terrible consequences, he was sure of it. Then, as he scoured the cyclops for a sign of the polecats, he saw something unexpected.

‘Eagles,’ he gasped, watching sleek, dark shapes drop from the stars. Finavar dodged another axe blow and raced towards Laelia and the magi. As he ran he snatched glimpses at the sky. Raptors were diving from the heavens, with archers crouched between their pounding, steel-tipped wings.

Finavar laughed as he saw the noble in the black cuirass riding the first of them. As the one-eyed goliath struggled to free itself, Lord Cyanos’s mount locked onto its face and tore away a section of its cheek. As it did so, Cyanos loosed an arrow, at point-blank range, into the centre of its pupil.

Fluid and light sprayed from the wound and the cyclops roared in pain.

It snapped free one of its arms and reached out to grasp its attacker, but Cyanos’s mount had already swooped clear, taking its rider with it.

The cyclops wrenched the arrow from its eye, spraying another column of blood and fire.

Finavar ran on, still making for Laelia, but, as he neared the sorcerers, he realised there was no way he could reach Laelia through the heaving vortex. He also realised that there was no longer any need. She and the five remaining sorcerers were lashing root after root around the struggling cyclops.

Finavar ducked beneath an axe blow, plunged his blades into the chest of his attacker and ran on, past the sorcerers and into the trees. He vaulted up into the branches and looked out across the heaving crowds, watching in amazement as the hawk-riders continued diving and looping, tearing chunks from the cyclops’s face and allowing the riders to fire dozens of arrows into its enormous, rolling eye.

Pain shuddered through the colossal creature and, with a last desperate lurch, it wrenched one of its legs free and stamped down on the circle of magi.

There was a screech and a flash of light and another handmaiden died, pulverised beneath an iron-shod boot.

Laelia howled with grief. Only four of her sisters now remained.

To Finavar’s horror, she launched herself through the air on a tide of branches, landing on the cyclops’s chest.

As the monster ground its boot into the handmaiden’s corpse, its eye blazed brighter and it let out another roar of pleasure. As the light grew, so did its strength and it wrenched free its other leg, forcing the remaining handmaidens to break their circle and scatter.

Laelia rode across the cyclops’s chest on a wave of verdure and thrashing roots, screaming curses as she went.

Alarm flashed in the monster’s eye but its arms were still held fast and, before it could react, Laelia drew back her arms and made a throwing gesture. Vines tumbled from her palms, smashing into the cyclops’s face and flooding its bloodstained mouth.

At the same moment, Lord Cyanos swooped back into view and loosed another arrow into the monster’s pupil.

The combined assault was too much.

The cyclops’s body went slack and it let out a low, guttural moan.

The combatants behind saw the danger, but most were too crushed to move aside as the gargantuan creature rocked back on its heels and smashed to the ground.

A cheer erupted from the asrai as they watched an eagle swoop back up into the clouds, carrying both Cyanos and Laelia to safety.

Finavar began to cheer with them, but almost immediately fell silent. From his vantage point in the tree he was able to see what they could not: a wall of enormous figures striding out of the distant forest. He slumped against the trunk of the tree and groaned. Just one cyclops had almost turned the battle against them but, as he peered across the enemy lines, he counted dozens, all blazing with hunger as they strode towards the slopes of Drúne Fell.

Finavar cursed his stupidity. As the absolute hopelessness of their situation overwhelmed him, he could not shake the feeling that he was to blame. He pictured a pair of polecats, lying somewhere, broken in the mud.

‘We cannot win,’ he gasped, watching the giants advance.

‘There are too many.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Orion cursed and rolled across the frozen rocks, his arms singing with pain. He had tried to jam his spear into the shin of the stone giant, but had succeeded only in jarring his nerves and buckling the blade. He looked up, expecting the goliath to strike back, but it continued studying him with the same mournful expression.

‘The asur are forbidden,’ it repeated, keeping its feet firmly planted at the entrance to the valley.

‘You do not understand,’ cried Orion. ‘Those stones must be destroyed. Outsiders are coming. They mean to steal this power.’ He waved at the circle of trees and the dolmen at its centre. ‘You must let me through!’

The giant gave no reply.

Orion groaned in frustration and sprinted across the rocks, attempting to circle around the guardian’s legs.

As he neared the side of the gulley, the giant punched one of its hammer-like fists into the ground.

The blow landed a few feet away from Orion and enveloped him in a cloud of dust and spinning rocks. He rolled across the ground, scraping skin from his legs and arms and howling in rage.

As soon as the dust settled he bolted in the opposite direction, but the giant simply pummelled the ground with its other fist, sending Orion rolling back down into the caves.

As he thudded against the shattered walls he cracked his head against the rocks and sprayed blood across his chest.

He remained there, slumped in the snow, breathing heavily. Then he leapt up and hurled his spear at the stone giant’s face.

The giant shuddered as the weapon clattered across its eye and Orion bolted in the opposite direction, trying again to circle around its enormous legs.

The giant punched and Orion tried to block the blow, raising his own fist.

There was a flash of pain as he flew back across the ground and rolled to a halt, groaning in pain. Then, as he staggered clear, Orion stared at his throbbing fist.

‘By the gods,’ he muttered.

It was shrouded in pale, shimmering mist.

He stood and wiped the blood from his face, ignoring the fragments of antler lying next to his hooves, and looked up at the snowstorm. Something flickered at the edge of his thoughts – a faintest ghost of an idea. When his fist connected with the giant he had felt something more than just pain.

Was it power?

Far on the horizon, beneath the leaden mass of clouds, there was a thin sliver of gold. For a moment, Orion could not understand what it was, then he realised that dawn was rising from the forest. Even the Vaults of Winter could not entirely blind him to the power of the summer sun. Something stirred in his chest at the thought of summer. Any day now it would be Sólis-Leith. As he staggered through the bloody snow, he pictured the rites of summer. He would be anointed. He would be armed. He would become Kurnous incarnate: Lord of the Wild Hunt.

Suddenly, the howling of the storm reminded him of hounds.

He stood, fixing his eyes on the distant shred of summer, and as he did so, he felt his strength returning. He threw back his head and wallowed in the memory of every summer he had known; every glorious hunt. Fire kindled in his wooden heart, sending a shiver through his battered limbs. ‘I will not fail you,’ he whispered, as the oak apple thudded in his chest. He gasped as the power surpassed anything he had previously felt. Midsummer was hours away.

Orion took a deep, shuddering breath and closed his eyes. As he plumbed the depths of his growing power, he realised it was more than just physical. His thoughts were as crisp and bright as the snow. He found he could see everything with incredible clarity. Previously disconnected thoughts began to coalesce, sending shoots of ideas spiralling through his mind. He saw, in quick succession, the stones of Torr-Goholoth, carved with a circle of branches; he saw the chest of the stone giant, engraved with the same symbol; he saw Atolmis’s bottomless black eyes as he explained how the Wrach used his stone to weave through time; and, finally, he pictured the palm of his own lacerated hand, filled with shards of the Wrach’s glittering talisman and trailing pale mist.

He nodded as everything came together as one: the black of the carving, the black of Atolmis’s eyes, the shards of stone in his hand and the gauntlet of mist around his fingers. They expanded to fill his mind until he saw a single, polished stone, engraved with a spinning circle.

He smiled and opened his eyes.

Kurnous had looked down on his child and revealed the truth. He had anointed him with the light of the summer sun. Orion’s doubt melted away as he saw everything that had previously eluded him.

‘I will not fail,’ he whispered, stepping towards the giant.

The giant’s expression remained unchanged as Orion broke into a sprint and raised his bloody fist.

‘I will not fail!’ howled Orion as he raced across the rocks, throwing up clouds of snow with his hooves.

‘I will not fail!’ he roared, reaching the giant’s legs and punching with all his strength.

His fist exploded with pain.

Blood showered his face and chest.

Orion howled, but stayed upright and wrenched his hand free.

The giant stumbled backwards, letting out a booming curse.

As the giant swayed to one side, Orion bounded up a steep incline and leapt through the air.

The giant raised an arm in front of its face, but Orion aimed lower, hammering his bloody fist into the circular symbol on its chest.

There was a flash of light and a plume of glimmering mist.

Emerald blood pumped from Orion’s fist as he landed heavily on the ground, but strands of magic were also bleeding through his skin.

Orion shivered with a mixture of agony and ecstasy as he saw the answer Kurnous had sent to him with the dawn. As his blood rushed over the stone, it was flickering with cold, unnatural fire. He was delirious with pain, but he knew what this was. He knew that he was not hallucinating.

‘The eye,’ he groaned, his voice hoarse with pain, picturing the shards of black stone embedded in his flesh – shards of the black stone used by the Wrach to manipulate the Sínann-Torr. The fist he had smashed against the giant still contained the magic of the Blind Guide; the key to the ancient stones.

Orion raised his ruined fist and let out an incoherent howl as he saw the symbol on the giant’s chest twitch into life.

‘I will not fail!’ he cried again, feeling his body swell with power.

Orion staggered away from the giant, raising his fist higher. As he did so, another glut of blood poured from between his fingers, but he barely noticed the pain. All his attention was now fixed on the cords of pale mist trailing from his hand to the giant’s chest.

As the fog grew, the giant’s eyes blazed sapphire and the branches carved into its chest shivered even more violently.

As Orion raised his bloody fist the giant did the same, mimicking his movements like a colossal marionette. Orion turned to face the valley, and the dolmen at the centre of the trees, and the giant followed suit, letting out a cry of alarm as it did so.

Orion paid no heed to the giant’s rumbling protests and strode towards the valley.

Strands of mist flashed between Orion’s fist and the symbol on the giant’s chest, and despite its obvious horror, the guardian of the caves was unable to resist, crashing through the snow and descending into the valley with all the noise of an avalanche.

Orion’s power grew as the distant band of sunlight flashed in his eyes. He raised his fist again, and hammered it down.

With a despairing cry, the giant did the same, smashing its fist straight through the ancient stones of Torr-Ildána.

The valley shuddered.

There was silence, then blinding light, then a roar as loud as the ocean.

The explosion slammed into Orion, lifting him off his feet and hurling him through the air. He hit the ground hard and, as he passed into unconsciousness, he saw the face of his queen, smiling at him through the flames.

‘I will not fail,’ was his final thought.

‘I know,’ she said.

Lights pulsed from the shattered rock, washing over the snow-covered slopes and flickering through the clouds. As the light grew, the valley began to collapse. The burial mound, already crooked from the giant’s blow, slumped in on itself, spewing clouds of ancient dust. Fragments of dolmen rolled into the surrounding drifts, followed by rocks and stones from the gulley walls. Within seconds, the stream of pebbles became a torrent of larger boulders, bouncing and clattering from the slopes.

As the landscape dissolved, the stone giant swayed back on its heels, shaken by a series of enormous, grinding tremors. It staggered away from Torr-Ildána, looking at its fist in horror.

The earth groaned and screeched and the giant stumbled again. The reverberations of its blow were growing, rather than fading, and as it staggered away from the caves the giant began shedding great slabs of limestone. Its fist splintered, dropping enormous digits to the ground, then its shoulder slumped and tumbled down the length of its arm, smashing against its feet like broken crockery.

The giant tried to pick up its pace but its legs cracked and folded beneath it, sending its whole colossal mass smashing to the ground. It struggled for a while, reaching up to the tumultuous sky, then the leaves carved into its chest unfurled and its arm fell apart.

There was a final, brittle crack as the giant’s head tumbled from its neck, then it lay still.

The avalanche did not end with the death of the giant. A while later, as a masked figure staggered from the caves, he was forced to cower beneath a lip of overhanging rock, peering out at the destruction.

He wore a tall birch-wood mask that hid his face, revealing only a pair of thin, spiral horns that jutted out of his forehead. He had a spear in his hands and, after a few minutes, he used it to haul his way up the trembling rocks, and looked down into the valley.

A voice called out to him from the caves, but it was drowned out by the noise of the falling stones.

The masked figure looked back. ‘What?’

‘What do you see, Ilaruss?’ cried the voice from the caves, as another priest of Kurnous staggered into view.

‘Stay back!’ replied Ilaruss, using his spear to block a boulder that was about to slam into his face. ‘The mountains are falling!’

He turned back towards the caves, but as he did so, he heard another voice: a pained burst of guttural words that emerged from the entrance to the valley.

Ilaruss hesitated, peering into the banks of dust and snow.

There was still a glimmer of light amongst the piles of rubble, like fire trapped beneath the rocks.

Ilaruss staggered through the shifting snow, batting away more stones with his spear and glancing anxiously at the surrounding slopes. He was still several feet away from the light when Orion climbed from the wreckage of Torr-Ildána.

The King was a vision of bloody defiance: his skin was smeared with gore, his hand was pulverised, his antlers were broken and his spear was lost, but Ilaruss saw none of this. He saw the immortal Lord of the Wild Hunt, rising to greet the dawn. He gasped in shock. His master had become his god. Where there had once been doubt and rage, now there was only the white heat of eternity, blazing through Orion’s eyes.

Ilaruss lowered his gaze in awe.

‘My lord,’ he gasped, falling to his knees.

Orion glared down at him and his voice rang out over the avalanche, trembling with pride. ‘Now I am king.’ He looked at the distant line of sunlight. ‘Take me home, Ilaruss. Take me to the Oak of Ages. Summon the hounds.’ He tilted back his head and closed his eyes, breathing heavily.

‘I am ready to hunt.’

CHAPTER THIRTY

Silver light poured down through the branches, filled with the power of the infinite. It shone first on a circle of priests, flashing across their wooden masks and in the bottomless pits of their eyes. Then, as the moons aligned overhead, the light fell on the figure kneeling at their feet: a trembling, scarred ruin with shattered antlers and a broken, bleeding fist. The tree had endured the ritual countless times and as the soul of a god descended through its branches it shivered, recognising the dreadful hunger of Kurnous, come again to taste blood.

There were nine disciples and their droning chant was led by the High Priest, Atolmis, whose spear was resting on Orion’s shoulder. At the crescendo of their song, he drew a knife and dragged it across his naked chest. The other priests followed suit and, as the blood fell, they caught it and hurled it over Orion’s back. The blood slapped against his skin, the moonlight flickered and Orion shuddered in pain.

The priests closed their eyes, sensing that Kurnous was amongst them, and knowing it was not their place to look upon divinity.

As the blood ran down his back, Orion’s bones cracked and elongated. He gasped but did not cry out, despite the agony.

Atolmis began the song again, raising his voice to drown out the sound of Orion’s splintering bones. It was a droning round tune that was joined after a few moments by another voice.

Ariel stepped slowly into the Oak of Ages with her head lowered. She was dressed in a long white mantle, girdled by wreaths of larkspur, and in her hair she wore a chaplet of delicate blue vervain. She carried a cloak that shimmered in the moonlight: an intricate weave of leaves and spun gold that rippled between her fingers like water.

The song reached another solemn crescendo as Ariel entered the circle and stood over her immortal, blood-drenched lover.

Sensing her presence, Orion tried to stand. At first he was unable to rise. His body was still wracked by a series of jolting changes and he stumbled, dropping heavily back to his knees.

Ariel looked pained, but remained motionless.

Orion tried again to rise and this time he succeeded. He towered over his disciples and his queen, swaying slightly as he looked up at the shafts of moonlight. Then he turned his gaze on Ariel. His was face contorted by pride and pain but he managed a nod of recognition.

She nodded in reply, still singing as she floated gently into the air and placed the cloak of leaves over his shoulders.

Orion’s spine gave one last crack as he shrugged the cloak into place. He was now nearly ten feet tall and as he looked down at his disciples power rippled from his flesh, filling the chamber like a heat haze.

At a nod from Atolmis the priests stepped back into the recesses of the chamber, fading into shadow as Orion walked past them. The final transformation of his flesh was complete and as he approached the centre of the tree he stretched his enormous limbs and smiled. There was no trace of his injuries and he could feel his oak-apple heart pounding in his chest, fierce and virile. The weariness that had overcome him in the Vaults was a memory.

At the centre of the tree there was a natural alcove and a broad, uneven shelf of root. Lying on the wood was a gilded horn on a strap of vines and, next to it, there was a spear, its blade inscribed with an intricate network of knotted runes. Orion took the horn and slung it around his neck. Then he lifted the spear, tested its weight and turned to face Ariel and the priests.

‘The Wild Hunt has begun,’ he said, striding from the tree.

Hundreds of nobles were assembled on the moonlit dais outside, clutching torches and wearing masks of birch wood, painted to resemble the snarling faces of animals. As Orion emerged, they threw petals before his hooves and garlanded him with flowers, but he was deaf to their prayers, peering through the ranks of masked figures, looking for something.

After a few minutes of staring into the darkness, he raised the gilded horn to his lips and let out a long, lowing note.

The nobles gradually fell silent until the only sound was the crackling of their torches and the echoes of the horn blast.

Then, from deep in the trees, there came a reply: a chorus of baying howls, ringing out from every direction.

Orion blew his horn for the second time and, around the edges of the clearing, the shadows rippled into life. Grey, rangy hounds emerged from the trees, sniffing and growling as they caught the scent of his divine blood. They padded around the masked figures for a while, with moonlight flashing in their eyes. Then they began circling Orion, regarding him with cool, wary intelligence.

Behind Orion, Atolmis stepped from the Oak of Ages and saw the hounds. He revealed his yellow incisors in a grin and thrust his spear into the air. ‘Kurnous has risen! Let the Wild Hunt begin!’

The nobles raised their torches into the air and joined their voices to the cry of the hounds. ‘Orion!’ they screamed, delirious with bloodlust. They drew knives and spears and crowded around their king, howling his name like a warning. ‘Orion!’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Finavar clasped his head in his hands, still picturing the dead polecats. How could he have been so callous? He climbed higher in the tree, staring at the approaching goliaths, sure that he was responsible. There were too many to even count. How could they face such a foe? The handmaidens were scattered and grieving and, below him, the kindreds were locked in desperate battle. The darkness was alive with screams and the clanging of swords as the Battle of Drúne Fell raged on, oblivious to his pain.

Something caught Finavar’s eye and he forgot his shame for a second. The night was punctuated by countless lights – the flicker of enemy torches, pale, moonlit steeds and, in the distance, the vile, cyclopean eyes, swaying towards the fighting like a row of lanterns – but it was something else that caused him to pout in confusion. On the far side of the battle, beneath the eyes, there was a small cloud of mist. It was not impressive in itself, but what caused Finavar to stare so was the fact that each time the mist flickered with light, the lantern-like eyes pulsed in time with it.

He climbed out along a branch and peered into the dark. The outsiders had scorched everything in their path and the distant trees were shrouded in smoke but, after a moment, he saw it again: a faint pulse from between the trunks that seemed to drive the towering monsters forward.

‘Something is controlling them.’ Finavar’s smile returned as an idea began to form in his mind. Loec had not abandoned him, he decided, he had simply set him a challenge. If he could reach that distant light, and extinguish it, he would atone, in some way, for the death of his two scouts. To Finavar’s mind, the logic was clear.

He climbed to the crown of the tree and held his swords aloft, calling out to the eagles swooping across the battlefield. His voice was lost in the clamour of the battle but his weapons flashed in the moonlight, and, after a few minutes, a pair of the raptors swooped away from the fighting and flew in his direction.

‘I knew it,’ he said, waving his blades even more wildly, sensing the hand of Loec guiding the eagles to him.

The eagles dropped to the ground at the foot of the tree and a mocking voice called up to him. ‘Has the Darkling Prince abandoned his subjects?’

Finavar recognised the brooding, scarred face and the coiled, wing-shaped torcs on the rider’s arms.

‘Prince Haldus!’ he gasped, leaping down from the tree. Beside him on the second eagle was the stranger in the black armour.

‘We must act quickly!’ cried Finavar, hurrying towards them.

Haldus’s face was grey with pain, but his eyes remained defiant. ‘I have the enemy exactly where I want them. Many brave souls have passed to the Unknowable Realms, but, by dawn, we shall have cleansed these abominations from our home.’ He closed his eyes, overcome with emotion. ‘Did you see it, Finavar? Did you see the power of Ariel’s handmaidens?’ He shook his head. ‘Their bravery has saved us all.’

Finavar’s only reply was to point one of his swords across the battle, to the distant lights emerging from the trees.

Haldus shook his head, seeing nothing, but the other rider spoke up.

‘What is that?’ asked Lord Cyanos, peering through the darkness.

‘More of the one-eyed creatures,’ whispered Finavar. ‘Dozens more.’

The colour drained from Prince Haldus’s face as he saw the truth of Finavar’s words. ‘So many,’ he said, his voice a hollow croak. He stared at Cyanos in shock and for a second it looked as though he might fall.

‘There is still hope,’ said Finavar, throwing back the hood of his cloak and stepping closer to them. ‘This is the will of Loec, I know it. I created disharmony in the forest. I sent innocent creatures to die on my behalf.’ He grimaced at the memory of it. ‘But Loec has shown me a way to redeem myself. With your help I can lead us to victory.’

Haldus shook his head and looked again at the blazing eyes swaying from the trees. They were already nearing the battle and their grotesque silhouettes were starting to take shape. ‘What are you talking about? What creatures?’ His voice was hoarse. ‘How could you stop such things, when even Laelia, with all her power, struggled to halt even one of them?’

Finavar lowered his blade and pointed to the foot of the trees. ‘That’s how.’

Haldus saw the mist, flickering in the darkness, but continued shaking his head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Watch,’ said Finavar. ‘See how it flashes in time with their eyes.’

Haldus stared at Finavar as though he had lost his mind, but Cyanos nodded slowly in recognition.

‘I have read of such things,’ he said quietly, clearly ashamed by his admission. ‘By themselves they are blind; they see only what we do not, the hidden realms beyond our own. Something must be guiding them to us. Something is driving them on.’

Finavar nodded eagerly. ‘Exactly.’ He nodded to the eagles, watching them intently from a few feet away. ‘Take me to that cloud of fog, Prince Haldus. Help me kill whatever it hides. I’m sure that’s the answer.’ He placed a hand over his tattooed chest. ‘Loec has spoken to me.’

Prince Haldus saw the wild passion burning in Finavar’s eyes and nodded. ‘When you first blundered into the rites of Ostaliss I thought you were an arrogant fool, Finavar – an arrogant fool who was about to ruin my one chance of speaking to Orion.’ He grabbed Finavar’s arm. ‘But I was wrong. You have stayed true when many would have faltered.’

He looked down at the archers and spearmen, slowly pushing back the enemy. As yet, they were still unaware of what was wading towards them out of the darkness, but the pounding of the giants’ feet was already starting to shake the ground. It would only be a few more minutes before the asrai glimpsed the horrors bearing down on them.

‘We must be fast,’ said the prince, turning and summoning Finavar up onto his eagle. ‘There will be a rout. They will not pit themselves against such things.’

Finavar laughed as he climbed onto the bird’s back. ‘Then they have more sense than us.’

Haldus shook his head as he climbed up beside Finavar and allowed himself the briefest smile. Then, with the lightest of touches, he launched the eagle into the air.

Finavar continued laughing as the summer breeze whistled around them. He tried to explain that he had never ridden an eagle before, but his breath was snatched away as Haldus and Cyanos sent their mounts hurtling across the battlefield.

The speed of the eagles was dizzying and Finavar found himself clutching onto Haldus as they rode. Beneath him he saw the entire battle spread out like a map, and he saw that to the warriors on the ground it must look as though victory was at hand. Emboldened by Laelia’s magic, the spearmen were forcing the enemy slowly back across the valley towards the forest. Eremon’s banner was everywhere at once as he raced through the heaving ranks of beastmen, leading the kinbands onwards with a booming, defiant cry. The riders at the enemy flanks were also gaining ground, with their pennants held high as they galloped through the carnage. At the foot of Drúne Fell, Laelia and the surviving handmaidens had unleashed all their grief and outrage in a torrent of roots and vines – devouring whole swathes of the enemy with their wild sorcery. It seemed as though the forest itself had risen to answer their call. Shattered, lifeless trunks were moving through the gloom, snapping bones and rending flesh as the magi waved them on. It should have been a glorious sight, but Finavar shook his head in pity. None of them had seen the doom that was lumbering towards them.

The one-eyed monsters were blind to the eagles’ approach and Haldus steered a path so close to them that Finavar saw their enormous faces in far more detail than he would have liked.

‘That way!’ he tried to call out, but his words were lost beneath the buffeting of the wind.

Before he could try again, he saw there was no need – Haldus had already ordered his mount to dive, heading straight for the light flickering beneath the trees, with Cyanos plunging after them.

As they approached the ground, Finavar began to make out a pair of figures in the mist, hiding in the trees and watching the distant battle. The pulsing light was leaking from their flesh but Finavar only caught the briefest glimpse of them.

There was a flash of light as one of the figures raised a staff, then the world turned on its head.

Haldus’s mount screeched in pain and tumbled over in an awkward loop.

It shed its two riders and narrowly avoided crashing into the trees, then continued screaming as it soared back up into the night sky.

The second eagle went spinning off into the darkness, with Cyanos clinging desperately to its back.

Hot agony exploded in Finavar’s face as he slammed into the ground. Instinct drove him up onto his feet, dazed by the impact, but relieved to find he could stand. Blood poured from his nose and he could tell from the pain that it must be broken. He whirled around like a drunk, unable to get his bearings.

The figures he had seen beneath the trees were still there. He had landed fifty or sixty feet away, at the edge of the drifting fog. He looked the other way and saw that he was just as far from the battle. Here, behind the enemy lines, there was an odd quiet, punctuated only by the groans of the dying, sprawled around him on the scorched turf.

Finavar spun around, looking for Prince Haldus, but there was no sign of him in the dark and all he managed to do was send another glut of blood flying from his nose. He reached up to touch his face. As he thought, the bone was broken.

With a quick, brutal movement, he snapped it back into place.

The pain was intense, but seemed to steady him somehow and Finavar turned back to face the two figures, deciding to look for Haldus once he had completed what he set out to do. He looked down and found, to his surprise, that he was still clutching one of his swords. He raised it and ran silently across the grass.

The smaller of the two figures raised its staff again and Finavar ducked, expecting another blast, but none came and he stumbled to a halt, looking around in confusion.

There was no sign of the strange light, but he sensed that something had happened. There was a charge in the cold, clammy mist. It tingled across his skin. Whatever they were, the two figures beneath the trees had clearly spotted him.

‘Think, Fin,’ he whispered, looking around at the mounds of corpses for some kind of inspiration. The blank stares of the dead only unnerved him more and he decided there was nothing for it but to continue running with all the speed he could muster and hope he was equal to whatever he found beneath the trees.

Before he had taken a step, Finavar slammed to the ground for a second time.

He rolled, feeling a sharp pain in his back where something had smashed into him. Then he climbed awkwardly to his feet and saw a large mass approaching through the gloom – a deepening of the shadows. It looked as though a hill was lurching towards him.

Whatever it was, the creature with the staff had clearly summoned it, so Finavar backed away, keeping his sword raised.

The shape approached at an alarming speed and, as it loomed out of the darkness, Finavar lowered his sword, dumbfounded. A mass of slug-like flesh was scuttling towards him, carried by dozens of spindly insectoid limbs. It was almost as large as the one-eyed giants and a pair of enormous fly’s wings was mounted on its glistening back. Its drooping, misshapen face was such a mess of horns and tusks that Finavar could not even be sure if the thing had eyes.

Finavar backed away, clamping his eyes shut and trying to block out the hideous sight. The thought that such a thing could exist was more than he could bear and he dropped to his knees, groaning in horror.

‘Fight, lowborn!’ cried Haldus, grinning fiercely as he sprinted from the darkness and jammed his spear into the monster’s heaving flank.

The thing reared up in pain and scuttled backwards like a spider, spewing black blood from the wound Haldus had left in its side.

The sight of Prince Haldus snatched Finavar from the brink of madness. The eagle-rider looked quite calm as he paced after the undulating monster, raising his spear to strike again.

Finavar realised that the grotesque thing was between them and the figures beneath the trees. They were clearly afraid to face him themselves. The thought gave him hope and he rose to his feet, snatching his sword from the ground as he raced to Prince Haldus’s side.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The hunt rode on, smashing through the trees like a river, wrenching up roots and tearing down trees, killing everything in its path. Animals were ahead and behind, some fleeing, some hunting and all drunk on the blood of Kurnous. The baying of the hounds was indistinguishable from the baying of the lords. Violence rippled through them like laughter, making it impossible to distinguish animal from noble; they were all one, hunter and hunted, bound together by a chorus of hitching screams.

At the heart of it was Orion himself, surrounded by his horned riders and drenched in the blood of his subjects. Shreds of fur, leaf and skin trailed from his teeth and his eyes had rolled back into his skull so that only the whites were visible. He thundered on, racing through the Council Glade, past Cerura Carn, through lakes, hollows and dykes, running so fast that even the horses could barely match his pace.

They headed south, growing more ferocious. The nobles began to murder their own kin, tearing throats and smashing skulls, consumed by glorious hunger. Others were dragged to the ground by the hounds, still howling with excitement as the dogs ripped open their flesh.

The delirium was overwhelming, and Orion let go of everything bar a single name: Drúne Fell. He punched, snarled, clawed and spat, but kept those words fixed in his head. He could not recall the significance of the place, but he knew it was his goal. He knew it was the culmination of his hunt. There he would find prey worthy of this consuming hunger; prey worthy of a god. He looked back and glimpsed a moment of bloodshed: nobles and hounds, frozen in mid-air, wild-eyed and maniacal, ripping at each other’s faces. He saw nature unfurled in all her wild rage and it was magnificent.

Overhead there was a rolling mass of birds, screaming, thrashing and tearing at each other as they tumbled in his wake. Orion looked up to revel in their fury and realised that the sky was growing lighter. He lowered his horn and howled as the longest day began.

Midsummer had come.

He would greet it with slaughter.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The monster lashed out with a jumble of segmented legs.

Finavar dodged to one side, focusing on the thing’s limbs, trying to spare himself a glimpse of its hideous face. As a leg jabbed towards him, he stepped easily aside and hacked down with his sword, slicing through its thick, glossy skin and drenching himself in black gore.

The monster reared back in pain and Prince Haldus raced beneath it, jamming his spear at its sagging guts. The thing moved with surprising speed and flicked out another of its limbs, sending Haldus tumbling across the ground.

The prince’s spear flew off into the gloom and he cursed as he climbed to his feet, realising he was now unarmed.

The monster lunged after him, but Finavar jammed his sword into the side of its face, eliciting another gout of inky blood. Then he dashed clear before the creature could catch him in its gaping jaws. His breathing came in ragged gasps and, as he circled around towards Haldus, he noticed that his sword was buckled and useless. He hurled it to the ground and groaned in frustration. They had been fighting the grotesque hulk for what seemed like an age, with no success.

As he staggered to the prince’s side Finavar shook his head and pointed at the battle. ‘Look,’ he gasped.

Haldus snatched a glimpse back towards Drúne Fell and grimaced. The sun was finally starting to rise and they could see the fighting with horrible clarity. The one-eyed giants had now reached the asrai lines and were stamping through them with glee, wrenching tiny figures from the crowds and stuffing them into their mouths. What had looked like a victory, just half an hour earlier, now looked like a riotous retreat. There was no sign of Eremon’s banner and the kindreds were being forced back into the foothills.

Finavar shook his head and was about to speak when the monster lurched into action again. It let out a moist, belching roar as it threw its whole shivering mass forwards.

Prince Haldus sprinted in one direction and Finavar took the other, grabbing the prince’s spear from the ground as he went.

The monster opened its mouth wider and vomited a long, fleshy neck that ended in a second, smaller mouth, crammed with rows of needle teeth.

Finavar jammed his spear into the mouth.

The teeth sank into the wood and, as the neck flew back towards the larger mouth, Finavar was lifted from his feet and hauled along with it.

He let go of the spear, but not before he was sent tumbling towards the nest of thrashing limbs.

The monster batted him to the ground, raised its bloated bulk and prepared to drop onto its prey.

Prince Haldus launched himself onto its back and punched a knife through its thick hide.

The monster screamed and reared up in pain.

Finavar rolled to safety, then cursed as he saw the vile thing hurl Prince Haldus to the ground and spear him with one of its legs. He sprinted back towards it, still trying to keep his gaze from its face.

As he approached, he saw that the monster had torn a hole through Haldus’s arm. The prince was thrashing wildly on the ground, clutching the wound. Blood sprayed from his arm as the monster drew back its leg and prepared to stab again.

Finavar dived through the air and hauled the prince to safety, seconds before the leg pierced him a second time.

Blood rushed over Finavar as he dragged the prince across the ground.

The monster turned and followed with a horrifying slowness as Finavar looked around desperately for a weapon.

There was nothing. Even the prince’s knife was still embedded in the creature’s back. Finavar’s heart pounded in his chest. Haldus was barely conscious, struggling weakly in his arms and muttering gibberish as blood continued rushing from his awful wound.

Finavar’s jaw tightened as the monster reared over them. He rose to his feet, preparing to fight with his bare hands.

He looked up to face his enemy but, as he did so, he saw the thing’s face in all its grotesque glory: folds of glistening, mutant flesh, filled with countless mouths and rows of jagged teeth. Finavar cried out as he saw, in the middle of its head, a pair of terrified, human eyes, looking down at him. Finavar found this more dreadful than anything – the thought that the creature must once have been a mortal man was too hideous to bear. As the creature raised its legs to kill him, he found himself watching the scene with numb dispassion. An overwhelming sense of unreality came over him as he waited to die.

A shape flashed along the side of the monster’s bulky torso, then vanished from view.

Finavar burst into a fit of high-pitched laughter as the monster’s side flopped open, ejecting great mounds of white blubber.

The monster lurched backwards with a roar, but as it did so, a second shape hurtled past, spinning along its back. But, again, it vanished before Finavar could make it out.

The monster’s cry became a piercing shriek as its back exploded in a shower of gore.

The sound echoed strangely through the fog and Finavar moaned in dismay. With the creature distracted, he began dragging Prince Haldus across the ground, hauling them both along with one hand and clutching Haldus’s awful wound with the other.

A third figure raced into view and bounded onto the monster’s head. This time he remained in place long enough for Finavar to see his face.

‘Caorann!’ said Finavar in a dazed voice.

Caorann glanced anxiously at him, then hammered a spear down between his feet.

There was clanging sound and the weapon buckled uselessly against the monster’s hide.

Caorann grimaced and leapt clear, with the still-screaming monster lurching after him.

Finavar saw three other figures line up alongside Caorann, raising their swords to face the monster down. Thuralin looked more cadaverous than ever, Jokleel was drenched in blood from a gash across his forehead and Alhena was limping, but they all wore identical looks of fierce determination. Finavar felt an overwhelming sense of relief as he saw his brother still standing. He staggered towards him, wondering how badly he was hurt. Then he paused and frowned in confusion.

‘How did you find me?’

Jokleel managed a brief grin and waved at two slender shapes circling his feet.

Finavar laughed at the sight of the polecats but, before he could say anything, the monster attacked again.

The kinband had done little more than enrage it and, as Finavar staggered towards them, they were forced to scatter, spinning and flipping out of reach as the thing’s legs lashed out at them.

As the monster lunged and slashed, Finavar rolled clear. As he rose to his feet a few feet away he noticed the two distant figures beneath the trees. The one with the staff was still waving it back and forth, snatching strands of light from the air and hurling them into the growing dawn. As it gesticulated, Finavar saw the distant giants responding, stomping through the battle and butchering Haldus’s fleeing army.

Finavar’s joy at seeing his friends faded as he saw that the battle was almost over. The asrai were now openly fleeing into the mountains, or being hacked apart by the jeering minotaurs. Countless hundreds of them were already dead. It was a loss that would take generations to heal.

Something else caught his eye. To the west of the mountain a group of figures had emerged from the trees. Despite their small numbers, they were charging in the opposite direction to everyone else, heading straight for the heart of the battle.

The monster was still busy fighting Caorann and the others, so Finavar watched, fascinated, as the distant figures smashed into the enemy’s flank and began ploughing through them. He shook his head, thinking that such a small group of reinforcements would be dead within minutes. The longer he watched, however, the more confused he became. The newcomers grew in number as they advanced, rather than diminishing. As the morning sun began to creep over the corpses and tattered banners, it picked out the figure at the head of the group and Finavar cried out, raising his fist to the heavens.

‘Orion!’ he howled.

Finavar’s despair evaporated. This was all of his childhood dreams come true: the King of the Woods, at the head of the Wild Hunt, tearing through the bloody dawn towards him.

‘Orion!’ he yelled again, punching the air repeatedly, his voice cracking with emotion.

At the sound of Finavar’s cries, his kinband backed away from the grunting monster and looked across the valley.

‘Is it really him?’ gasped Jokleel, rushing to Finavar’s side, his eyes wide with awe.

Finavar enveloped his brother in a hug. This was a moment they had both imagined as children, but never expected to see.

‘I knew he would come,’ said Finavar, grinning at Jokleel with tears in his eyes.

Prince Haldus managed to climb to his feet, clutching his tattered arm and swaying drunkenly as he watched the figures heading towards them. The circular scars around his mouth splintered into a grin as he saw who was approaching.

Finavar turned to look at the prince and noticed as he did so that the hooded figure beneath the trees had lowered its staff and lurched out into the morning light to watch, followed by a large, four-legged beast of some kind. The monster, meanwhile, finally ceased its thrashing and belching. Its tiny, terrified eyes rolled in its head as it stared out across the battlefield.

Hunting horns rang out over the battle as Orion approached. After a few minutes, Finavar’s smile faltered. The image thundering towards him was not quite as it had been in his dreams. A cloud of birds were spiralling and swooping around Orion’s antlered head, thrashing wildly and screaming as he led them on, tearing each other apart as they tumbled after him. Behind the King were dozens of riders: horned priests with blazing eyes, smeared in blood and sweat as they howled along with Orion’s horn.

All around them were the nobles of the Council Glade, but they were barely recognisable as the celebrants Finavar had seen at the rites of spring. Their faces were hidden behind ferocious wooden masks and their robes were in tatters or just abandoned.

They had become animals.

Their bodies were gored and bruised, but so full of unnatural vigour that they did not register the pain. Their mouths were crammed with hunks of raw flesh and their heads were shaking violently as they charged across the valley.

Finavar took a step backwards as he realised why the group was growing larger. As Orion ploughed through the enemy ranks, animals were stampeding from every direction to join his charge: an army of wolves, boars and foxes was pouring from the forest and tearing into everything they encountered.

Orion blew his horn and the animals attacked, falling on beastmen, asrai and each other, consumed by a desperate hunger.

The outsiders tried to put up some kind of defence, regrouping and raising crude, iron-rimmed shields, but it was hopeless – the hunt smashed through them, tearing, snarling and howling in a shower of dismembered limbs.

The sound of the riders’ hooves rolled through the valley like thunder but above it all was the keening of Orion’s horn, summoning more of his subjects to the slaughter.

Finavar felt dazed as the stampede pounded towards him. Then, with the host almost on top of him, he felt his heart begin to pound. A terrible hunger for violence washed over him and he howled, joining his voice to the wild-eyed nobles and the storm of screaming birds. He lost all thoughts of survival, or even self, and became an animal; abandoning himself to wild, bloody rage.

As the Wild Hunt enveloped them, Finavar and the others joined the charge, lashing out furiously, clawing at sweating flanks and gouging the faces of the nobles nearest to them. The violence was intoxicating, and wonderful.

‘Orion is here!’ howled Finavar, seeing that victory was theirs. ‘The Wild Hunt has come!’

In a brief moment of clarity, Finavar realised they were rolling over the hulking monster he had just been fighting. The hunters flayed it in seconds, tearing the great mass apart like a cut of meat and leaving its legs twitching on the ground, torn clean from its quivering bulk.

The hunt did not pause but made straight for the two figures beneath the trees. The four-legged one – Finavar now saw that it was a mutant bull, with the arms and torso of a man – tried to flee, but countless animals crashed into it, pounding it into the ground. Then, a few seconds later, Orion reached it and wrenched its pulverised body from the blood-drenched earth, tearing it apart with his teeth, grunting and slavering as he fed on its glistening organs.

The charge faltered and milled around the King as he ate.

Finavar dived hungrily onto a passing shape without knowing what it was, and sank his teeth into soft flesh. Blood washed over his face and he moved on, desperate for another kill. As he did so, a light flashed somewhere nearby and he glimpsed the hooded figure with the staff, blasting columns of fire at the wailing, gore-splattered hunters. He saw that it was struggling. With each move it made, flames burst from its robes. It seemed as though the creature was being torn apart by its own power.

Orion allowed the remains of his meal to slip from his jaws as he lurched towards the flashing mist.

He passed close by and Finavar knew that he was in the presence of Kurnous. The King was enormous – towering over the frenzy he had created and pulsing with his own sylvan light. His teeth were bared in a snarl and his body was naked apart from the shredded remains of his victims. As he thudded towards his hooded prey, the outsider levelled a blast of light at him, more powerful than any it had summoned previously.

Orion finally staggered to a halt as the magic slammed into him.

The light rippled over the King like water, causing him to snarl and reel; but as the hooded creature worked its spell, far more light was tearing through its own flesh. Smoke and flames rippled from its hood, and after a few seconds it was unable to bear it any longer.

With a howl of pain and frustration, the beastman hurled its staff to the ground and reached into its hood.

Orion reacted immediately, hurling himself at the smouldering figure and grabbing it by the throat. With a triumphant roar he lifted it into the air, so that its hood fell back, revealing a bleached ram’s skull.

Orion raised his prize even higher and turned to face the writhing mass of animals and nobles crashing around him. Their screams rose higher and Finavar joined his voice to the throng, howling until his throat was raw and his eyes were streaming with tears.

Once he was sure he had the attention of the mob, Orion grasped the ram’s head with his other hand and crushed it. The bones exploded in a cloud of dust and fire. Then Orion threw back his shoulders and howled at the dawn.

The mist beneath the trees vanished, slipping back under the boughs in seconds.

Finavar joined the others in a desperate struggle to reach Orion’s side, kicking and biting in a bestial scrum of pounding fists and strangled barks.

Orion fed on their passion, trembling with ecstasy as he shook the still-twitching corpse. Then he hurled it to the mob and charged on, leaving them to pull it apart with their torn fingers.

Finavar hurried after his king, still screaming wildly as he watched Orion attack everything within reach. The King paid no heed to what he killed. If it was before him, he smashed it to the ground and wrenched open its flesh.

As he ran, Finavar glimpsed something that shocked him out of his bloodlust: an image that wrenched him back to his own mind like a plunge into an ice-cold tarn.

He staggered to a halt as the rest of the hunt thundered on into the forest, still wailing along with Orion’s horn.

Before leading the charge off into the distance, Orion had flung one of his victims onto the side of a small hillock and, as Finavar stepped towards it, the corpse’s pale face stared back at him in silent accusation.

It was Jokleel.

Finavar dropped to his knees, just a few feet away from his brother’s corpse, unable to go any closer.

As din of the Orion’s hunt faded, heading deep into the forest, it was replaced by another sound: the gasps of the dying he had left behind. With the King gone, their bloodlust vanished, leaving the mutilated nobles nothing but their agony. As horror and panic consumed them, they began to scream, pawing uselessly at their terrible wounds and begging Finavar for help.

Finavar heard nothing. He stared at his little brother, lying broken on a mound of earth. Orion had torn Jokleel’s throat out, leaving his head to flop back at a hideously unnatural angle, lolling behind a fountain of dark blood.

Finavar tried to say his brother’s name, but his own throat was ruined from howling and all that emerged was a groan.

He slumped down into the gore-drenched mud, curled into a ball and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Ordaana staggered across the battlefield, clutching her head in hands, numb with shock. She’d been so close, but after Orion had carved his way across the valley, everything had collapsed around her ears. The lights had vanished from the giants’ eyes and they had lost all sense of direction, howling in frustration as they staggered blindly through the battle. With the giants careering back and forth, the Queen’s handmaidens were free to unleash all their fury, wrenching coils of ancient root from the earth and summoning animated husks of deadwood from the trees. The outsiders might still have succeeded, had Orion’s charge not dragged every fleeing kinband back from the slopes of Drúne Fell. At the sight of the King, their thoughts of retreat were replaced by a terrifying hunger for violence and victory. They slammed back into the mutants with all the ferocity of Orion’s Wild Hunt.

‘Are you hurt?’ asked an archer, rushing to her side.

She shook her head, staring at him in mute shock.

He took her arm. ‘My lady, the fight is over.’ He waved his longbow at the fleeing mutants. ‘The King has routed them. Nothing can stand against the Wild Hunt.’

‘Leave me,’ she muttered.

‘Are you sure you aren’t hurt?’ He looked at her torn robes. ‘I can fetch you some help. Wait here while–’

‘Leave!’ hissed Ordaana, and white flames shimmered across her skin.

The archer recoiled, gave her an awkward bow and backed away into the cheering crowds.

Figures jostled by Ordaana, howling victory songs as they barged past. ‘I failed him,’ she whispered, staggering back towards the foothills.

She was just a few feet from the trees when the full horror of it hit her. If she had failed Aestar Eltanin then there was no hope for any of them. The asrai were doomed. The reign of the Queen would remain unchallenged and they would continue on their slow, inexorable path to extinction. All she had done was lead them to a terrible slaughter. She looked around at the mounds of bodies. Hundreds of kinbands had been butchered and it was all her fault. She had led the outsiders to Drúne Fell. She had done nothing more than diminish her dwindling race even more. She moaned in horror as another thought hit her. If she had failed Aestar, she would never atone for what she did, all those years ago.

Tears filled her eyes and she fell to her knees in the mud. Her mind slipped back through the centuries as she remembered the scene she had struggled so long to suppress – the terrible crime that filled her dreams. She saw flames spreading through her home at the heart of Locrimere; flames ignited by her own bitter curses. She recalled the panic she had felt as she realised her daughter was trapped, somewhere inside the furnace she had created.

‘Alhena!’ she cried, pulling anxiously at her tattered robes and looking up at the sky. ‘Alhena, my child. Forgive me. I never meant for you to die.’

Ordaana began to cry, deep, shuddering sobs that shook her slender frame. Then, after a few minutes, she thought she heard someone crying with her. No she realised, not crying but laughing. She opened her eyes and looked around.

A few feet away lay the severed head of one of the mutants. It was a grotesque, bovine thing, with thick, shattered horns and three glassy eyes. It was laughing hysterically, spilling blood from its neck as it rolled across the ground towards her.

Ordaana gasped and rose to her feet, drawing her knife and staggering towards the head.

As she did so, she heard more laughter coming from behind her and turned to see the body of an asrai spearman. He had been torn in half and his torso ended in a ragged mess of skin and intestines, but he was laughing wildly, slapping the ground around him and shaking with mirth. His eyes had rolled back into his head, but he still seemed to be staring at Ordaana.

She reeled away from him, but found that wherever she looked, there was another bloodless face laughing wildly at her misfortune. Worst of all, she realised, was the fact that the soldiers hurrying past her, eager to join the victory celebrations, were oblivious to her plight. None of them seemed hear the braying chorus of laughter.

‘Ordaana,’ cried a voice from the distance.

Her panic grew as she saw her husband, Lord Beldeas, striding through the carnage towards her. He had a look of insufferable pride on his face and Ordaana realised that she could not face him. She could not face any of her kind again. She knew that she would be unable to hide what she had done. The magnitude of this crime was too great. She turned and fled into the hills, still sobbing as she dashed towards the rising sun.

She ran wildly with no sense of direction, and soon lost track of time. Her feet were torn and bleeding and her breath came in ragged gasps, but nothing was as painful as her shame. Finally, somewhere in the depths of the forest, she caught her foot on a root and tumbled into a ditch. Brambles tore at her skin and caught in her hair, but she relished the pain, knowing it was a fraction of what she deserved. She came to a halt in a pool of stagnant water, pressed her face into the mud and prayed for death.

Hours passed and death never came. Insects crawled over her skin and the water soaked her robes, but she remained horribly alive. Finally, her aching limbs forced her to roll onto her back and look up through the brambles at the cloudless sky.

‘Who drove you to this?’

The voice came from the mud beneath Ordaana’s head and she screamed in shock.

She tried to sit, but the hook-like thorns prevented her from rising, scraping the skin from her face as she turned to face the mud.

Writhing in the filth was a black, bloated slug.

‘Aestar,’ she gasped, picking the slug up carefully between her finger and thumb and holding it close to her face.

‘Who drove you to this despair?’

Ordaana felt a glimmer of hope. There was no anger in the voice. If Aestar had forgiven her failure, perhaps they could begin again? Perhaps, even now, she could make amends.

‘Is there still hope?’ she asked, her voice trembling and weak.

‘The outsiders are defeated. Orion is more powerful than in any previous age.’ The slug writhed between her fingers. ‘There is no hope, Ordaana.’

‘But Aestar,’ she wailed, finally managing to sit up. ‘You said–’

‘I said many things,’ replied the slug. ‘All of them were lies.’ The slug writhed again. ‘Even my own name.’

Ordaana was gripped by a sudden nausea as she began to guess the truth.

‘My name is Alkhor,’ said the slug, its voice quivering with barely controlled mirth. ‘Aestar’s soul sustained me for a while, but I eventually had to let it go, back to whatever rock he has bound it to. For a long time I despaired. I knew what I needed to do. I knew only Orion would have the strength to free me, but I needed a friend, someone to lead him to me. And you and your kind are so slavishly devoted to your precious forest I despaired of ever finding an ally. Then, finally, when I felt the pain of your loss, Ordaana, I tasted freedom. What keener pain could there be than a mother who murdered her own child? Your hurt was like a beacon. I followed you into the pits of your despair, waiting until you reached the very lowest ebb. Only then did I approach.’

Ordaana screamed and crushed the slug in her fist. She felt its flesh burst against her palm, then she wrenched herself upright, ignoring the pain of the thorns as they lacerated her skin.

She managed to free herself from the ditch and stumble off though the trees, trying to wipe the remains of the slug on her robes and sobbing hysterically when the tacky liquid refused to come away.

It was now mid-morning and the forest floor was dappled with sunlight. In her tear-filled vision, the patches of sunlight became flames, rippling across the walls of her home. The lights were so dizzying and her grief so overwhelming that, after another hour of directionless running, Ordaana stumbled again, landing this time on the bank of a glittering stream.

She lay there for a moment, taking hitching, shallow breaths. Her peripheral vision grew dark and she curled into a foetal position as unconsciousness threatened to take her.

‘Who drove you to this?’

At the sound of the voice, Ordaana’s breaths grew even faster. She saw that the surface of the stream had risen up over her head: a tower of foetid water with ragged wings, a battered sword and a leering grin.

‘Answer me,’ said the daemon, with a voice borrowed from the rushing sound of the water.

Terrified and confused, Ordaana plumbed the depths of her despair, trying to recall the beginning of her fall.

‘Ariel,’ she said after a few moments, recalling how perfect her life had been until the Queen spurned her. The rage and grief that had drawn this daemon all stemmed from one act of betrayal. All her woes could be traced back to that one point – even the death of Alhena. She had caused the death of her own child, but Ariel had driven her to it. Her breathing grew more regular, steadied by a growing sense of injustice. ‘Everything began with Ariel,’ she said, keeping her voice to a whisper, afraid that the forest spirits would hear her blasphemy.

‘Then there is hope.’

Ordaana looked up at Alkhor, trembling with fear and exhaustion. The immaculate, refined noblewoman was gone, replaced by a filthy, bloodstained wreck. Her eyes were raw from crying, her skin was covered in weals and her hair looked like an abandoned nest. ‘Orion lives. I can never face my own people again. What hope can there be?’

‘Just one,’ said the daemon, raising its sword so that the blade of water flashed in the sunlight. ‘Revenge.’

Ordaana felt her body stiffen with hate as she pictured Ariel’s face. For a long time she was too enraged to speak. Then, finally, she managed two words. ‘Yes,’ she sobbed, glancing nervously at the daemon. ‘Revenge.’

Alkhor closed its eyes and smiled. Then it climbed up onto the riverbank and stepped back into the physical realm. As it approached Ordaana, the daemon’s cloak of water rippled away, slipping from its limbs and leaving behind a thing of flesh and blood.

Ordaana recoiled in horror.

Alkhor had almost taken the form of an asrai nobleman, but not quite. Its limbs were crooked and unnaturally long and its body was devoid of skin, so that its glistening cords of muscle were clearly visible. The daemon smiled a lipless smile, and spoke in a moist, buzzing voice. ‘Come to me.’

Ordaana crawled through the mud, still sobbing, then she gasped as the daemon reached out with one of its long arms.

Alkhor pressed three fingers against her exposed shoulder.

Ordaana gasped in pain and tried to pull back, but found that she could not.

Her skin began to bubble and darken beneath the daemon’s fingers.

After a few seconds, Alkhor stepped back to admire his handiwork. Where he had touched Ordaana there was now a perfect triangle, made of three bruise-dark fingerprints.

‘What does it mean?’ wailed Ordaana, trying to look at the sigil. She watched in horror as a fly emerged from one of spots, breaking through the soft, rotten patch of skin and launching itself into the air.

The daemon’s smile grew wider.

EPILOGUE

She picked her way through the snow and the rubble, bristling with rage as she climbed down into the valley. The circle of beech trees had been torn apart by the blast and there were still flakes of ash drifting on the breeze. She pressed her bark against each of the ruined trunks in turn, absorbing their agony; allowing their souls to pass through hers. How could she have been so wrong?

She looked over at the scattered remnants of the stone guardian. How could Orion have achieved such a thing?

Liris and Melusine were waiting a few feet away, respecting her grief, and she turned to face them, wizened and crooked with hate. She wanted to cry out, to accuse, to rail, but words failed her. She turned back to the ruins of Torr-Ildána and climbed up onto the shattered stones; stones that had contained Alkhor for so many centuries. There was a gaping hole in the snow beneath them, marking the place where the daemon had crawled free.

‘We can bring it back.’ Melusine’s voice was hollow with fear. ‘We can bind it again – as we did before.’

Drycha shook her head as she considered what Orion had unwittingly unleashed. ‘There are too few of us now. We lack the power. Alkhor will destroy us all.’ She spat the words. ‘Orion has doomed us.’

Her branch-like fingers traced over the rock. There was something carved into it: a broken fragment of a circle, designed to resemble a wreath of knotted branches. ‘But I will make the false king pay before I am done. We will not die alone.’

TEARS OF ISHA

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

SURVIVORS OF LOCRIMERE

Finavar the Darkling Prince

Jokleel younger brother of Finavar

Thuralin old, crippled follower of Finavar

Alhena Thuralin’s daughter

Caorann Finavar’s oldest friend

Lord Beldeas highborn; Warden of Locrimere

Lady Ordaana highborn; wife of Beldeas

Death’s-head forest spirit that accompanies Ordaana

Hauran Quillwort Lord Beldeas’s advisor

Eremon captain of the Locrimere’s kinbands

THE SILVAM DALE

Princess Asphalia highborn; senile old spellweaver

Prince Elatior the Enchanter; highborn ruler of the Silvam Dale

Varamus spellweaver; servant of Prince Elatior

THE COURT OF THE EVERQUEEN

Ariel the Queen in the Wood

Laelia handmaiden; powerful mage

Naieth revered prophetess

Lord Salicis deceased noble

THE KING’S GLADE

Orion Ariel’s Consort-King

Atolmis the Hunter High Priest of Kurnous

Sélva priest of Kurnous

Luabh, Fuath and Druan Orion’s spirit guides

THE BRÚIDD (THE COUNCIL OF BEASTS)

Sativus forest spirit; resembles a great, noble stag

The Wrach Keeper of the Dark Paths; the Blind Guide

Zephyr forest spirit; resembles a playful child

THE FIÙRANN

Mälloch the Elder lord of the Fiùrann

Sibaris young wardancer

THE VALE OF FINCARA (TURAS-ALVA)

Lord Cyanos ‘King’ of the alvaír

THE KINDRED OF ARUM TOR

Prince Haldus Warhawk Rider; Lord of Arum Tor

BRANCHWRAITHS

Drycha

Liris

DAEMONS

Alkhor

Ganglion

Bule

DRAGONS

Tamarix

OTHERS

Clara human sorcerer from the Amber Hills

Coeddil ancient forest spirit

AUTUMN

Ros-fothar

The Sallow Season

Waning

CHAPTER ONE

An old woman stumbled through the dusk. She was bowed by rain, buffeted by wind and leaning heavily on a tall crook. She looked like a scarecrow, cut loose and sent tumbling across the wind-blasted heath. Her gangly body was draped in pelts and her face was hidden beneath the battered remains of a stag’s head. A snake’s skeleton rattled around her neck and her crook was a femur, carved with runes and topped by spiralling ram’s horns. In her other hand she clutched a length of twine that was leading her through the heather.

‘Here?’ she asked, digging her heels into the mud and leaning back against the wind.

She looked quizzically at the bones but they gave no answer. She was about to speak again, but the length of twine jerked taut and dragged her on, leading her through the waist-high shrubs towards an ominous wall of darkness at the edge of the heath.

The old woman’s name was Clara and it was clear she had travelled a long way. Her head nodded beneath the weight of her hood and, as she neared the boundary of the field, she stumbled to her knees, cursing under her breath as the twine slipped through her fingers.

She scrambled to her feet and howled into the storm. There were words in the howl, but they were hoarse and slurred – the sound of a dog, attempting to mimic its master. The stag’s head slipped back to reveal a lined, snarling face that was almost as fierce as her voice.

Clara lurched on through the rain, chasing the twine as it snaked through the gloom.

She saw that the wall of darkness was a row of densely packed trees – the borders of a forest, stretching off in either direction; a forest so vast she could see no end to it. The trees disappeared into the banks of rain and mist, shifting as she tried to focus on them and every thirty feet or so, they were punctuated by a tall, white standing stone. The stones gleamed in the half-light, like a row of bared teeth.

‘Everwood.’ She spoke to her necklace again, her voice full of awe. ‘He’s brought me to the blessed Everwood.’ She stared at the dark, ugly trees, knotted with briars. ‘By the gods. Am I really up to this?’

Rainwater blurred her vision and the trees shifted again. They were straining against the stones, as though trying to hurl down their ancient guardians. Clara shivered and let out another canine howl. Then she reached into a leather sack, searching for the one thing that she knew would calm her. Despite her fear of the forest, she stepped closer, sheltering from the rain as she removed a fragment of human skull from her sack. Some moonlight had broken through the gloom and she could just about make out the words carved into the cranium.

‘I’m the one,’ she growled, nodding furiously and spraying rain from the antlers of her hood. ‘It has to be me. This will prove it. I know I can do this. I know I can.’

So much had happened since the skull’s owner had passed away, but Clara’s certainty remained: only she should replace him. She had been chasing the light since long before the others were born. Only she could be trusted to lead them. Only she could be trusted to wield that much power. The Brothers of the Amber Hills would see it, eventually, however much they snarled and glowered. There would be no more doubts. No more sniggering in the shadows. After this, they would see what she was worth – that she was truly one of them. She had crossed so many borders, both physical and spiritual. She had gone further than all of them. No one else in the brotherhood would attempt something as dangerous as this.

‘Clara,’ she spat, even more urgently, repeating her name like a mantra, imagining the sound issuing from dozens of grudging throats.

Once her heartbeat had steadied, she looked around for the length of twine. At first she struggled to locate it in the dark, but then she saw the other end of it, several feet away, knotted around the throat of a rain-sodden fox.

‘Tolmun,’ she snapped, reaching out through the rain.

The fox remained motionless, watching her intently.

‘Is this really the place?’ She waved her crook at the impenetrable wall of trees. ‘The Everwood? Is that what it will take?’ She let out a gravelly laugh. ‘By the gods, I’ll need some nerve.’

The fox gave no reply, but Clara knew this was right. The winds howling through the eaves carried more than just the scent of rotting leaves. There was power in the dark. Such power. She could smell the deep, heady aroma of it, leaking into the mortal realm. Vast draughts of magic surrounded her: lightning-charged and lethal, coiling through the heather like a serpent.

She looked back at the wind-battered fox and croaked with laughter. ‘I suppose we’ve faced worse, eh? Come on, let’s get this over and done with.’

The fox remained motionless, staring at her in expectant silence.

Clara looked pained for a moment, then laughed again, this time with more genuine amusement. ‘Of course. You’re right. I must perform the rite alone. If I am to rule, only I can carry this burden.’ She glanced slyly at the fox, clearly hoping she was wrong, but the animal remained motionless.

Clara sighed and reached out to touch its head.

The fox flinched and Clara did the same. ‘Tolmun,’ she whispered, ‘have you forgotten yourself in there?’ The idea filled her with another sickening wave of fear. Should she really do this? Could she really harness the Everwood? Was she risking too much? Could she forget herself, like Tolmun? Her fears threatened to send her scrambling back across the field. Then she remembered the sniggering doubt of the Amber Brothers and her resolve hardened.

She pursed her wrinkled lips and made a gentle clucking sound, holding out her hand to the fox again. After a few minutes of nervous pacing, it finally held steady and allowed Clara to release the twine from its neck.

As the animal bolted into the night Clara raised an open palm in farewell, wondering which of them would survive the longest.

‘You’d better watch out for those peasants.’ Clara grimaced as she recalled the red-faced morons who stared at them from the walls of Garonne. She had hidden her tattoos and marks of allegiance, pulling the stag hood as low as she could, but she knew from experience that it would only pique their interest. They would crawl out of their neat little houses once the rain cleared and come looking for the mysterious fur-clad stranger.

She caught a glimpse of the fox as it crested a hill and she called out, her voice feral. ‘Tell the Amber Brothers! Tell them what I’ve achieved! Tell them I’ll return!’

The rain doubled in force, as though in mockery of Clara’s words, and she was forced even further beneath the trees.

‘Be quick, Clara,’ she muttered, rummaging in her sack again. Her auguries had been clear: midnight would see a powerful storm of magic. The cause was unknown – a whim of the gods, perhaps – but it would dwarf the squalls currently whipping through the trees. The full weight of it would tear her apart, but if she could perform her rites before the storm hit she could borrow the power she needed and flee.

Clara shivered as she peered into the forest. Who knew what was rising from the darkness? Who knew if she could really harness it? Her gift was as strong as ever, stronger maybe, but her flesh had been ravaged by the decades. The older she got, the more it felt as though the power wielded her, rather than the other way around. Her memories were a jumble of human fear and animal hunger. Since her apprenticeship in the Amber Hills she had stretched herself to the limit – always attempting to prove her worth, assuming ever-wilder forms, throwing her soul into the strangest of hosts. She looked at the brooding trees.

‘I can do this,’ she muttered. ‘I can do this and then I can rest.’

Lightning flickered on the horizon, followed by a low rumble of thunder.

Clara’s heart began to pound and she laughed again. It was too late to doubt herself. She had never sensed such raw hunger. Something truly wild was coming. Something unstoppable.

‘Be quick, you old goat,’ she said, rummaging in her sack again. She took out a small ebony box, carved with stylised arrows and sealed with a bronze clasp. With an anxious glance, she stepped further into the forest, sheltering beneath a hunched old oak. Once she had found a patch of ground that was relatively dry, she placed the box on the ground and opened it. Something tiny was moving inside, but she ignored it and took out a piece of waxed cloth. There were more symbols on the cloth – a circle, punctuated by eight compass points and overlaid with another stylised arrow. She flattened the cloth onto the rotting leaves and muttered under her breath.

Clara gasped as light shimmered between her crooked fingers, almost as bright as the lightning overhead. The flesh of her hands glowed a warm, blood-red and she saw a delicate network of vessels, pulsing beneath her puckered skin.

‘By the gods,’ she muttered, flexing her fingers and looking up into the rain. Even this, her most humble of rites, felt incredibly potent. The wind was almost entirely Aethyr. She had never encountered such a thing. The entire spectrum of magic was howling around her ears. Instinctively, she closed down her senses. To perceive the entire beauty of it would unhinge her mind; kill her maybe. She focused her thoughts on the thin current she called her own. It was her finest, oldest friend. The Amber Brothers had the most pompous, archaic names for it: Garrack, Ghurrag, Ghur, Gur-maan, but they meant nothing to Clara. She knew it simply for what it was: the hunger of the beast. To Clara it appeared as it had done since she was a little girl, all those years ago in the backstreets of Altdorf. She saw golden fragments of light, coiling through the air like fireflies, eddying and spiralling in the dark.

As she studied the display, the tingling in Clara’s flesh grew stronger. Her soul was straining against its bonds, craving change; craving wildness.

Clara cursed herself for being so easily distracted and returned her attention to the piece of waxed cloth. Her incantation had merely been intended to flatten it and make it rigid, but as she looked down she saw that it was blazing with amber light, and the symbols around the circle were trembling, as though preparing to launch themselves into the air.

‘Tolmun,’ she said, her voice cracking with a mixture of fear and amusement. ‘Where have you brought me?’

She reached into the box and drew out a length of fine thread. As she held it up to the moonlight, she saw that her companions were still intact. Tied to the end of the thread, by a complicated series of tiny knots, were eight spiders. They twisted and skittered as Clara studied them, revealing a daub of paint on each of their abdomens. Each daub was a different colour, and Clara felt a swell of pride at the skill she had shown in marking them so accurately. Even now, riddled with arthritis, she was the best of all of them.

Thunder rolled again, louder this time, and Clara flinched.

‘Right,’ she said, carefully lowering the spiders onto the circular design, while keeping hold of the other end of the thread.

The spiders began to roll and thrash their limbs. The unguents in the box had subdued their natural belligerence but now, exposed to the magic-charged breeze, it returned in force. Three of the spiders were immediately locked into a ball, and four of the others began circling each other, but one made straight for the edge of the circle. Clara grinned. She had a guide.

The spider settled on the symbol denoting south-south-east and Clara looked in that direction. A few hundred yards away there was a length of shattered white rock, buried deep in the heather. She looked at the edge of the forest and realised there was a gap in the waystones.

‘Of course,’ she muttered. ‘One of them has fallen.’

As she stared though the dark, she saw that the trees were already extending their reach: roots and creepers were snaking through the grass like grasping fingers.

‘There’s a crack in the dam,’ she whispered, her eyes bright with awe.

She scooped up the fighting spiders with trembling fingers and popped them back in the box.

Then she picked up the remaining one and held it before her face. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, before popping it in her mouth.

She grimaced as it danced across her tongue. Then she crushed it against the roof of her mouth and gulped it down.

Again, the magic was more potent than she had expected. The soul of a spider would usually give her a little burst of frenetic energy, a nimbleness in her fingers, nothing more; but tonight it made her feel as though she could scale trees. Her crooked old limbs sang with energy and the clouds rolled back from her rheumy eyes.

Before the effect wore off, she packed away her box and scuttled back out into the rain, moving incredibly fast and occasionally dropping to all fours as she went. As the lightning flashed she blinked in and out of view and, for a brief second, as one of the flares picked her out, it looked as though her limbs had multiplied and segmented, elongating as they threw her across the heath.

Clara reached the fallen stone and placed her crook against it. It was covered with the kind of symbols and runes that would have usually fascinated Clara but she ignored them and closed her eyes. Midnight was approaching fast. She needed to make her attempt and leave.

As she ground her crook against the stone it began to pulse with the same golden light she had seen moving through the forest. She laughed as the power lanced through her palms and raced into her chest. The feeling was intoxicating. She closed her eyes and savoured the sensation.

‘By all the bloody, blessed gods,’ she breathed, tilting back her head as magic rushed into her brain. ‘This is it.’

For a second, Clara was so lost to the power of the growing storm that she forgot herself. Her face rippled in the darkness and began to assume another, more bestial shape. Her shoulders swelled and hunched, sprouting clumps of fur.

‘No!’ she snapped.

The transformation ceased and her shoulders dropped back into place.

‘I’m human.’ She snatched the fragment of skull from her bag and stared at it, determined to remember her purpose. ‘I’m Clara.’

She returned her attention to the crook and began to recite her invocation. She had been practising for weeks as she travelled south from Altdorf and the words tumbled easily from her mouth. She prayed to whichever gods would listen – begging their indulgence – begging leave to fulfil her destiny. Willing them to grant her power, one last time. The winds of Aethyr responded to her pleas, whipping around the shattered waystone and clawing at her ragged furs.

Lightning flashed overhead and a ball of light began to form in the stone.

Clara opened her eyes and saw power stirring in the charred rock. She touched her head, channelling flames from the storm; flooding magic into her skull.

To her delight she felt a sentience entering her mind – something noble and powerful; something that heard her pleas. ‘I can help you, Clara,’ it seemed to say, as her vision filled with blinding light.

‘What must I do?’ she cried, straightening her tired old back as the magic grew stronger.

There was no reply but a face swam into view, haloed by the blazing lights. The face was benign and proud, and for a while Clara failed to notice that it was not human. Then, as her palms began to blister and throb, Clara realised that she was facing a stag – a white stag, of unbelievable beauty. As she held the creature’s gaze a new sensation entered her limbs. It was as though the animal’s sentience had charged her blood somehow and begun changing her body. It raced through her veins, filling her with vigour.

Then she realised the stag was about to speak to her.

‘Witch!’ screamed a hoarse voice and Clara felt something connect with the side of her head.

The power vanished and Clara found herself sprawled on her back, lying in the wet heather, staring up at the stars.

A face swam into view. For a second Clara thought she was still looking at the white stag, but as the blood cleared from her eyes she saw a furious peasant looming over her, clutching a brutal-looking club.

‘What have you done, witch?’ howled the peasant, gesturing at the storm.

There was another explosion of pain in Clara’s head and she lost consciousness.

‘She’s one of them. A daemon worshipper.’

Clara awoke with a start. She looked out across a moonlit, rain-lashed heath and realised she had no idea where she was, or who she was. Instinctively, she tried to reach for the bone in her sack, but the sack was gone and her arms were bound.

Fear gripped her as she discovered she was tied to a broken stump of white rock. She felt a flash of recognition at the sight of the peasants, huddled in the rain, rifling through her possessions. Her prized collection of animal skulls and wooden fetishes were scattered across the grass. One of the peasants, a hulking simpleton with a face like boiled meat, was holding her crook up into the moonlight, grinning idiotically at the runes carved along its length.

‘Nah, she’s just a lousy conjuror,’ he said, waving the crook at Clara. ‘Look at her! She’s senile. The only danger is that she might accidentally piss on you.’

Another peasant grabbed Clara’s hair and yanked her back, pointing at the side of her head.

‘Then what’s this?’

‘It’s where you hit her, you idiot.’

The man, not visible to Clara, sounded almost hysterical. ‘It’s the bloody rot is what it is. The mark of Chaos. She’s barely human. They’re all alike. It’s them what bring the rot down on our heads. With all their spells and books.’

At the mention of spells, Clara’s memory began to clear. An image of the white stag flashed into her mind and she felt a brief return of the sensation she had experienced before – an odd, exhilarating rushing feeling in her veins. The animal had touched her soul, she was sure of it. Could her spell have worked? Had she channelled the power of the Everwood?

Thunder rolled overhead and Clara remembered something else.

‘We need to leave,’ she said, through a mouthful of blood.

The man nearest to her stooped, so that his face was directly in front of hers.

‘The witch is trying to speak!’

Clara saw a sallow-faced youth with lank, straw-coloured hair and feverish, sunken eyes.

‘I told you we should have gagged her.’

The youth started looking around for a piece of cloth.

‘A storm is coming,’ Clara said, straining against her bonds.

The peasants jeered.

‘A storm is coming?’ cried the bald brute. He shoved the youth aside and waved at the columns of rain slamming into the hillside. ‘You need to work on your premonitions, old girl.’ He grinned at his friends. ‘I think the idea is to predict things before they happen.’

The other peasants laughed and then continued rummaging through Clara’s belongings.

Clara shook her head, sure that something dreadful was about to emerge from the trees. ‘Not that kind of storm,’ she said, but her words were drowned out by laughter and rain.

‘Here,’ cried the pale youth, ‘perhaps your magic bloody hat will shut you up.’ He rammed the stag hood down over Clara’s head, wrenching it so low that it covered her face.

Clara’s panic grew. Strands of power were tugging at her furs and ruffling her hair. She could feel the night straining at its seams.

‘We need to leave,’ she repeated, shaking her head so that the stag’s head fell back a little, enabling her to see.

The peasants had found her leather purse and their faces lit up as they poured out the coins.

‘I know you’re possessed,’ whispered the ill-looking youth who was still crouched by Clara’s side. His eyes were rolling with excitement and he had a butcher’s knife in his hand.

‘Maybe I should let these bloody daemons out?’ he said, his lips trembling as he raised the blade to Clara’s throat. ‘What do you think, old girl? Shall I rid you of them?’

Clara looked past the youth into the streams of power pouring from the trees. The peasants were clearly blind to the Aethyr but where the stone had previously stood, she saw a familiar thread of amber lights, snaking through the glare. She reached out to it with her mind.

Her body went into a violent spasm and her head jolted back, spilling pale fire from her eyes.

The youth gasped and backed away, lowering his knife.

Clara felt her bones starting to lengthen and she sighed, giving in to a pleasure she had long denied herself.

Lightning flashed right overhead and the youth began to scream.

Clara felt a grim satisfaction as her ribs broadened and cracked.

Then the other peasants began to scream and Clara opened her eyes to revel in their fear.

To her surprise, none of them were looking at her. They had dropped her belongings and were staring slack-jawed at the trees behind her.

The youth at her side was now crying. He had dropped his knife to the ground and was clutching at his face in shock.

Clara strained and twisted herself around the waystone until she could see what had scared them.

The forest was gone.

Clara’s breath caught in her throat. Where rows of trunks had once stood there was now a tsunami of leaves and light.

Clara moaned in fear. The scale of it was beyond comprehension. It was as though the realm of the gods had fallen into the mortal world. Branches, earth, rain and sky were all rolled into one glistening whole, tumbling towards her like an ocean, crackling with arcane power; but it was not this that made Clara groan. The wave of destruction was being ridden by an army – a host of wailing, blood-drenched daemons.

Clara joined her scream to those of the peasants. The figures racing towards her were impossible. They could not exist. Her mind crumbled in the face of such outlandish beings.

She saw a rain of maleficent imps, each no bigger than her fist, with leering, giggling faces and cruel, tiny blades. She saw the husks of dead trees, blazing with inner fire and reaching out with splintered claws. She saw animals of every kind; torn, bleeding and wild with hunger, but all clawing deliriously as they were carried along by the verdant storm. She saw pale, impossibly slender men, with almond-shaped eyes and hideously alien features. They were howling songs to the wind and they were all horribly wounded, trailing blood as they ran, but their faces were ecstatic, and as they tumbled towards her, Clara realised that they were not men at all, but something beyond nature – something quite beyond her understanding.

The vanguard of this unholy parade was a group of figures even more horrific than the others: horned riders, adding to the roar of the storm with the sound of hunting horns and pounding drums. Some of them wore tall masks of splintered birchwood and rode pale horses, draped in bloody scalps; others sprinted on foot, tearing at the creatures nearest to them with long, curved talons.

And towering above everything was the spirit that finally caused Clara to scream a prayer and clamp her eyes shut. There was a giant leading the charge: an ivy-coloured monster, with tall, knotted antlers and the hindquarters of a stag. Its face was a mask of rage and its eyes were like braziers. Snapping around its heels was a pack of rangy hounds, their eyes flashing with the same unearthly light as those of their master.

Clara slumped in her bonds, abandoning all hope of escape.

The peasants were still screaming and she looked up to see that they were trying to flee through the grass. It was pointless and pitiful. The whole hillside was shuddering with the force of the storm. As the daemons tore from the trees and thundered through the grass, the peasants stumbled and fell, screaming for mercy as the immortal host crashed over them.

Clara’s frail body shook as the spirits smashed against the stump of rock she was tied to. She felt her skin blister as they screamed past, laughing and snarling as they went.

The peasants’ cries became hysterical as the spirits and animals dragged them from the ground, tearing their bodies to shreds as they thundered through the rain.

Clara’s bonds held her in place and, although it shook and creaked, the stone held firm. She dared a glimpse at the carnage and saw that the emerald giant had paused to attack one of the peasants, grunting and snarling as it skewered him with a spear.

The rest of the monsters continued flooding past the stone without even glancing at Clara and she began to wonder if she might survive after all. They were making for a cluster of distant lights on the far side of the valley: Garonne. Her stomach turned as she realised the carnage that would ensue once the daemons reached the fortified little town. Garonne’s defences would be meaningless against such beings.

Clara held her breath as the host roared past her, feeling more hopeful with every second that passed.

Then her heart stopped.

The antlered giant had turned to face her.

A peasant was still hanging from the giant’s spear as it stepped towards Clara, shouldering its way back against the tide of monsters and churning up the muddy field with its hooves.

Clara struggled desperately but her bonds were still too tight. She could do nothing but watch in horror as the giant approached.

She muttered a prayer as the monster came to a halt a few feet away and stared at her down the length of its nose.

‘Merciful gods!’ screamed the skewered peasant, clutching at the spear with one hand and reaching out to Clara with the other. His belly was torn wide open and he was trying desperately to force his steaming innards back into place. ‘Help me, you bloody witch! Do something! Don’t let it kill me!’ His voice became a hitching whine as his life spilled out onto the grass. ‘Please! By the gods!’

Clara was only vaguely aware of the man’s cries. The giant was still staring at her, oblivious to the man dying on its weapon, and Clara could see nothing but its blazing eyes.

Then, to Clara’s horror, the giant spoke. The idea that such a nightmarish creature would use language was even more grotesque than the sight of its violence. The giant’s voice was low and grinding, and the words were gibberish – a sing-song, meaningless doggerel – but something about the sound was oddly familiar. She knew she was about to die, but for some reason all she could think about was the odd poetry of the monster’s voice. She wracked her brains, trying to place where she had heard the low, rolling vowel sounds before.

The monster pointed at her head and spoke again.

The strange language conjured an image in Clara’s mind: a group of men, dressed in the same furs and bones she wore, huddled around a brazier, conjuring images from the flames. Sorcerers, she thought, recalling the Amber Brotherhood, back in the hills north of Altdorf.

He’s speaking the language of Ghur, she realised. It sounds like one of our rites.

Her thoughts evaporated as the giant dropped its victim and strode closer, narrowing its incandescent eyes.

The peasant flopped to the ground like a gutted fish, either dead or close to it, and the monster reached for Clara’s throat.

The old woman closed her eyes and prepared for death.

There was a snapping sound and Clara felt herself being lifted from the shattered stone.

She opened her eyes and saw that the giant had torn away her bonds and dragged her onto her feet. Seeing the creature’s face so close up was like seeing the world in the shards of a broken mirror. Its features were vaguely humanoid, but grotesquely oversized and brutally carved, like a crudely wrought totem, chiselled from a piece of green wood. The monster’s head was almost twice as large as Clara’s and its eyes were like emeralds, glittering in the dark. Clara suddenly found it hard to breathe. She caught the smell of raw meat on the monster’s breath and her legs collapsed beneath her.

The monster caught her easily in one hand and, with the other, snatched the stag’s head and held it up into the moonlight.

Clara dangled helplessly in the monster’s iron grip as it stared at the stag’s head. She realised that the thing was more than just a feral brute. There was a fierce intensity in its narrowed eyes and it studied the stag horns as though they were familiar.

The monster’s lips curled back from its teeth and it glared at Clara, as though accusing her of something.

‘I didn’t kill it,’ whispered Clara, knowing she was wasting her breath. How could she reason with such a thing?

The sound of hunting horns rang out and the monster looked over its shoulder, staring at the glittering host thundering down into the valley.

Clara gagged as the monster tightened its grip on her throat, then fell heavily to her knees as the monster dropped her, turned, and charged down the hillside after the other daemons, discarding the stag’s head as it vanished into the rain.

Clara watched the nightmarish shapes for a while as they thundered away from her. Then, as the noise and fury began to fade, she started to laugh. The peasants lay all around her, broken, bloody and dead; discarded like the remnants of a meal but, somehow, she was alive. How could that be? Why had they let her live?

It was only as her panic subsided that she noticed the terrible pain of her head wound.

Agony and confusion pooled in Clara’s mind as she dropped, senseless, into the mud.

CHAPTER TWO

The god flew through a storm. It was fleet-limbed, weightless and snatching at the firmament. Its name was Kurnous and its fury was as bottomless as its hunger. Centuries passed, or perhaps seconds, as time and the cosmos fled before it, scrambling into burrows, cowering in dens and massing in great towers; screaming for mercy as Kurnous returned the world to a state of raw beauty. There was only hunter and hunted. There could be nothing else.

Then, something changed.

The god glimpsed a flash of silver – a blade emerging from a pool of pitch. Pain flashed in its chest, quickly followed by a dizzying rush of sensations: the breeze, whistling through the dark, and rain, needle-cold against its skin.

As the physical world began to bite, the Otherworld began to fade. Spirits and gods withdrew, taking decorous bows and giving their places to storm clouds and hunched, wind-lashed trees. The impact of hooves on turf shook through its legs and the god slipped into a dream. It dreamt that it was not a god at all, but a being of flesh and bone – a mortal sprinting through a tempest, with blood pulsing through its veins and air burning in its lungs.

The god dreamt that it was a simple king, called Orion.

The dream unnerved the god, but it charged on, down into a moonlit valley. Its subjects spiralled around it as it ran: faces and limbs, crumpled beneath divine hooves; the slow, the old and the weak, all crushed by their king. Kurnous’s heart drummed with the beat of their passing souls, bound to them by hunger and religion. Some of the spirits stayed with Kurnous, howling alongside the bodies of the living; waving spears of mist and blades of tempered moonlight. The god looked up and saw that the Otherworld was still there: a mantle of stars, overlaid with countless, bewildering constellations.

The air was filled with wonders, but as the god reached the valley floor it glimpsed something all too real. The landscape had been brutalised – defiled by the industry of mortals. They had built one of their vile halls: a squat, ugly fastness of chiselled stone and butchered trees. It guarded the end of the valley like a hulking boar, bristling with pennants and gilded with glittering casements. Kurnous’s pulse quickened, then, to the god’s delight, it realised its mortal subjects were already making for the stronghold, howling and screaming as they scrambled through the flood.

The god paused, grasping at the fragments of a dream and realised that the truth was this rainy hillside. The truth was this panting frame. He was Orion.

‘What’s happening to me?’ he whispered.

Lights flickered overhead, distracting him from his thoughts. At first, Orion paid them no heed, assuming that his friends, the spirits, were simply echoing his outrage with their incandescent flesh. Then he saw hunters falling. Not because of him, but because of arrows – arrows with steel heads that flashed through the lightning-charged air. Bloodstained nobles spun backwards across the grass, leaving a spray of rain behind them as they died.

Orion raised his horn and filled the valley with sound.

The hunters answered by racing even faster towards the structure, but the closer they got, the more of them that fell and the more Orion’s outrage grew.

Who would dare stand against the Wild Hunt?

Sharp heat flared across Orion’s chest and he stumbled – more from shock than pain. The rites of midsummer had lifted him beyond the petty concerns of flesh. What kind of sorcery could have power over him?

He slowed to a jog and looked down at his chest.

There was nothing there, but in his mind he glimpsed a flash of silver again. The image was brief, but it seemed to be a knife. He picked up his pace and ignored the pain. Kurnous was in his bones. He could still feel the god’s spirit, as real as the rain. He was invincible.

Orion had only gone a few more feet when the same sensation erupted in his chest. Along with the pain came something more potent: doubt. Was there something he had misunderstood? Something beyond the hunt? Something he had forgotten? Someone?

An idea crept into Orion’s thoughts – a terrible idea that he immediately tried to suppress. He saw an image of curling leaves, edged with copper. There was something awful about the image, something that filled him with dread. He crushed his doubt with a howl and charged on. The feel of bones, crunching in his fist, would set him right.

The hunters answered with ecstatic screams, delighted by his wordless command and, from somewhere up ahead, he heard his hounds, howling back at him, leading him through the dark.

On either flank of the charge were riders, mounted on pale, ghostlike steeds. Orion recognised his feral priests, with their tall, jagged masks and thin, spiralled horns. The one named Atolmis raised his horn and let out a long note, spurring the horses on. They rode so fast it seemed as though the storm had hurled them through the darkness. They tore ahead of the main group, crossed the final half-mile and crashed through the huddle of buildings around the keep.

Some of the outsiders were still racing towards a pair of huge gates, clutching belongings and livestock as they slipped and stumbled through the mud. Atolmis and the other riders tore through them, leaving spears embedded in backs and faces, before circling around to retrieve their weapons.

By the time Orion and the others arrived, the riders had already dragged their spears free and spurred their horses on, making for the quickly closing gates.

Arrows flew out to greet them, but Atolmis and the others moved with bewildering speed, jamming the hinges with their spears.

Seconds later, Orion arrived and smashed the gates apart with a delirious howl.

The hunt poured over his shoulders and flooded into a cobbled square.

Outsiders were waiting. Crowds of wide-eyed, white-faced men clutching scythes and clubs, huddled behind metal-clad soldiers with iron helmets on their heads, garish shields on their arms and terror in their eyes.

Orion was oblivious to these details as he bowled into them, sending shields and bodies clattering across the cobbles.

His huntsmen followed: lords and beasts, still snarling as they collided with the wall of shields.

Some of the outsiders buckled under the impact, but many held their ground, driven to heroics by fear.

Above this onslaught screamed diaphanous spirits, flooding over the battlements, hauling archers from the walls and casting them down onto the soldiers in the square.

Orion finally came to a halt, his way blocked by a crush of bodies and shields. He lashed out wildly, revelling in his rage. These people. This building. They were like white noise in his head. They were like a flaming brand, jammed into his skull. Everywhere he looked he saw perversion and constraint. They had brought order and artifice to the wildness of the forest; now he would bring the wildness of the forest to them. Wood, teeth and bones crunched beneath him and a glut of warm blood washed over his forearms as he jammed his spear into the wall of screaming faces.

Then, for a third time, pain knifed into his chest, accompanied by the flash of silver, but this time the feeling was different: final, somehow. He knew he would not feel it again.

Orion wrenched himself free from the flailing bodies and staggered back into an open space, trailing limbs and scalps as he reeled towards the gates.

He looked down at his muscle-lashed limbs, smeared with blood and soil. They looked utterly alien to him.

What’s happening to me, he thought again, looking back at the heaving throng and feeling another shadow of doubt. Something had changed. For a brief second, the spirit world disappeared and he saw the battle for what it was – a pitiful orgy of violence.

One of the outsiders had followed him and Orion saw his opponent clearly for the first time. Until that moment, he had seen prey and nothing more. Now he saw a panting, bloody mortal, desperate for life.

The warrior was taller than the others and clad from head to toe in links of metal, so that no part of his flesh was visible. His face was hidden behind a grilled, bucket-shaped helmet and he was holding a two-handed sword that was almost as tall as Orion. He wore the same gaudy colours as the other men, but the images emblazoned on his tabard were worked in far more detail and gilded with golden thread.

As he strode towards Orion, he called out in a deep pompous voice, levelling his sword at Orion’s face.

The words were gibberish but Orion guessed their meaning: this petty interloper was attempting to order him away from his own realm.

Orion’s doubt vanished, replaced by fury.

He tried to draw himself to his full height but, infuriatingly, his knee gave way and he dropped awkwardly to the ground. He cursed bitterly. How could such a thing happen to the spirit of Kurnous?

The outsider had a clear chance to strike, but he lowered his sword and waited patiently for Orion to rise, calling out another pompous command.

Orion’s anger spiralled as he realised the outsider had deliberately given him a chance, as though he were facing some pitiable cripple.

Rather than standing, as the man was expecting, Orion launched himself through the air, antlers first.

The pair of them rolled across the cobbles and the man howled in pain. One of Orion’s antlers had torn a hole through his chainmail and blood was rushing from his side.

Orion jammed the haft of his spear across the man’s throat, meaning to crush the life out of him, but the knight was faster, hammering the hilt of his sword into the side of Orion’s face.

Incredibly, Orion found himself on the ground again. He stood and looked down at his body. The image of bronzed leaves flashed into his mind again as he realised the green tint was fading from his skin. He backed away, shaking his head in horror. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘It can’t be.’ But he could not deny that his body looked smaller; frailer, even. As the battle raged around him Orion began to guess the meaning of his dreams. He let out a howl of such fury that his opponent briefly lost his nerve, lowering his sword and taking a few steps backwards.

Orion launched his spear at the knight.

The man hacked down with his sword but Orion’s strength was too great and the spear gouged a deep wound in his chest.

The man rolled clear, clutching the wound. Then he collapsed onto the cobbles, loosing his sword as a fit of coughing overtook him.

By the time Orion reached him, the man was trying to rise. Despite the blood rushing from his chest, he was still refusing to accept defeat. Once he had made it to his feet, he wrenched his helmet from his head and turned his face to the stars, taking a deep, ragged breath. His agony had clearly done nothing to dampen his courage. He glared back at Orion, as determined as ever. His armour was torn to shreds and his pain was obvious, but he clearly did not intend to back down.

The force of the storm dipped for a second and Orion hesitated, struck by the bravery of the outsider. The man’s proud demeanour moved him somehow, reminding him of a world beyond the frenzied bloodlust of the hunt. He realised that since the moment he left the Oak of Ages, on Midsummer’s Eve, he had seen nothing with this much lucidity. Summer had passed in a blur of rage and bloodshed. He could recall nothing with any clarity. His pulse quickened as he wondered what he might have done in Kurnous’s name. Images of crazed hunts filled his mind. He glimpsed groves and meadows, torn apart by his rage – filled with maddened howls and butchered flesh. He saw proud, ancient spirits, begging him for mercy. Suddenly his actions seemed to be those of a lunatic. What had driven him to such a rage?

For a few seconds the two opponents faced each other in silence; a sliver of calm at the heart of the battle. Then Orion held out one of his clawed hands, drawing the knight’s attention to the carnage that surrounded them. The outsiders were being torn apart. It had taken a matter of minutes for the hunters to butcher almost half of them.

The knight turned, shedding more blood and almost falling as he did so. He took in the full horror of the scene, then he looked back at Orion with a frown, sensing that something was being offered.

‘Flee,’ snarled Orion, confused by his own generosity. The words felt odd as they left his mouth. ‘Leave my home. While you can.’

The lure of the hunt remained. Orion could feel its pull, like a powerful tide, demanding more violence and blood, but he realised to his shock that it was fading. He could refuse its call.

Orion’s words must have been unintelligible to the knight, but he nodded, recognising a rude kind of chivalry. The idea of retreat obviously appalled him, but as he looked back at the bloodshed he nodded with more certainty.

The entire weight of the forest was still pressing against Orion, urging him to butcher and kill, but the voices were definitely weaker; more distant.

The knight saw that his chance might soon pass. He gave Orion an awkward, crooked bow, that almost sent him toppling to the ground; then he turned to his men, calling out a command and waving at the broken gates of the keep.

The relieved outsiders did not need telling twice. They scattered like vermin, but the knight remained, lifting his sword from the ground and swaying as he turned to face Orion. He clearly did not allow himself the same chance of escape he had offered his men. Before he had taken a few steps though, blood loss overtook him and he fell to the ground again, slumping awkwardly against a pillar and gasping in pain. His sword clattered across the flagstones.

Some of the hunters stormed after the fleeing outsiders but most turned to stare at Orion, sensing the change in him. A column of dazzling spirits spiralled around his body like fireflies, lighting up his doubt-filled features, while others gathered around the fallen knight, intrigued by his bravery.

A white stallion barged its way through the crush, ridden by a solemn-faced Atolmis. He dismounted and stepped to Orion’s side.

‘Autumn is almost over,’ Orion said quietly.

The high priest gave no reply.

‘I’m dying,’ said Orion, looking at Atolmis with rage in his eyes.

As the echoes of violence faded into the night, the power of the hunt began to seep from Orion’s flesh. After months of headlong pursuit, he finally felt his heart begin to slow. Every bruise and scar suddenly screamed out for attention. Exhaustion, long held at bay by adrenaline, washed over him. He stumbled back against a wall as the celestial spheres began turning around him again, filling the stronghold with a strange lustre – a dazzling vortex of stars and gods that blinded him to everything else.

As the king gave in to his fatigue, his hold over the hunt slipped. The gore-splattered nobles looked down at their ruined bodies in horror, coming to their senses like sobering drunks. The glittering spirits dispersed, filling the sky with lights and taking the knight with them as they headed back towards the trees. The animals bolted, pounding across the cobbles and thundering off into the night.

Atolmis had dismounted and, as Orion swayed, on the verge of falling, Atolmis caught him and lowered him gently to the ground.

The crowd started to disperse as the asrai remembered that they had names, families and lives. Several of them collapsed, clutching at terrible wounds they had been unaware of until that moment; others staggered off into the rain with glazed expressions on their faces.

‘What have I done?’ asked Orion.

Atolmis and the other priests remained silent, watching him with featureless black eyes until sleep took him.

Orion awoke, bathed in autumn light. He looked up at tall, ivy-clad walls, struggling to remember where he was. Then, as he saw the knight’s bloodstained helmet lying a few feet away, the previous night came back to him.

He groaned. Every part of his body ached and as he looked down at his wounds he cried out. Where once there had been broad, ivy-lashed muscle, there was now a bruised, battered body that looked scarcely any different from that of a mortal. The emerald hue had almost vanished from his skin and his frame was a fraction of its former bulk.

Orion lay there on the cold stone, unwilling to rise and face the day. He saw nothing ahead of him but pain and loss. Then he noticed voices muttering, talking to him in deep, rumbling tones of disapproval. He looked around but the voices were from somewhere deep in his consciousness. They were familiar, and he found it oddly comforting to realise that they had always been there – he had just chosen this moment to listen. The voices urged him to rise and shrug off his fear. He was hearing the ghosts of his former lives, speaking to him from the heart of the forest – guiding him from the Oak of Ages.

He listened to them for a while; then something tugged at his memory – something from the previous night that stood apart from all the wildness and rage. He shook his head and willed the voices to be silent. Something had halted him in his tracks and it had seemed incredibly important. The idea needled at him. What had he seen, out there in the valley?

He rose and stretched his limbs, wincing at the cuts and grazes that covered them. He could no longer deny the truth. The year was ending and so was he. While he had abandoned himself to dreams of violence and godhood, his life had slipped away. His eyes widened as he allowed the idea to sink in. It was over. Already. Self-pity threatened to overwhelm him, so he focused on the mystery of the previous night. What had he seen?

Orion’s hooves clattered across stone as he staggered towards the gates of the keep. As he neared the shattered wood, figures sprang up to greet him. Atolmis and the other riders had watched over him during the night and they bowed at his approach.

‘My lord,’ said Atolmis, hastily gathering his things. ‘Do we hunt?’

Orion shook his head and barged past him, lurching out into the fields. The valley was grey in the morning light and the air was still.

Orion peered out into the gloom and realised that retracing his steps would be easy. There was a clear path of destruction, leading back up the side of the valley and into the forest. The hunt had left a trail of crushed grass, broken bodies, shreds of clothing and dark pools of blood.

Without a word of explanation, he hurried up the slope, staring at the ground as he went; desperately trying to recall what had made such an impression on him. What could have been striking enough to stand out amongst such madness?

The riders mounted their pale steeds and followed at a discreet distance, their calm, considered demeanour a sharp contrast to their manic charge of the previous night.

After a half an hour or so of fruitless searching, something finally caught Orion’s eye – a length of white stone, lying on the sodden grass. He felt a flash of recognition and dashed over to it, wrenching a tattered hood from near its broken base. It was made from the head of a stag.

Orion recalled everything in a moment – he saw the outsider, bound to the rock and wearing this grubby hood, but more importantly, he realised why the hood had disturbed him so.

‘Sativus,’ he said.

Hooves thudded up the slope behind him and he recalled his priests. ‘My lord?’ asked Atolmis.

‘He had faith in me,’ he muttered, staring in confusion at the ragged hood. ‘Why did I pit myself against him? Why did I hunt such ancient beings?’ He turned to face Atolmis and his voice became a snarl. ‘Why didn’t you stop me?’

There was no emotion in Atolmis’s black eyes. ‘I am here to serve. It is not my place to question you, my king. Besides, what would I have stopped? The rites of the summer gave you your purpose. Our songs filled you with the blood of Kurnous. He lives, through you. He hunts, through you. You have led us in his name, and all summer we have–’

‘I forgot myself!’ cried Orion, waving the hood. ‘I tried to bring the Brúidd to their knees. What kind of madness was that?’ His eyes darkened. ‘And I sense that I did worse things. How can I make amends?’ He waved at his scarred flesh, his words full of bitterness. ‘I’m dying and weak. What can I do now?’

‘You are far from weak, my lord. Your blood has cooled a little with the passing of summer, that is all. Kurnous is still with you. In fact,’ Atolmis looked up at the clouds, ‘you must be closer now to the gods than ever before. I imagine that, for you, the veil is already wearing thin.’

Orion followed his gaze and saw what he knew Atolmis could not: the air was indeed teeming with spectres. It took all his willpower to ignore them and keep his gaze fixed on the physical plane. He knew that, if he let them, the spirits would enrapture his soul again and the next time he awoke it would be in another ruined keep, or on a mound of butchered flesh, and he would be a little bit closer to death.

‘How long do I have?’

Atolmis was unruffled by his king’s fury. ‘You are immortal, my lord.’

‘My flesh is already wasting away. How long will I live, Atolmis?’

Atolmis dismounted and stepped to Orion’s side. Then he placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘My king, you have performed deeds others could not achieve in a thousand lifetimes. You have held a mirror up to your subjects and shown them the truth of what they are: proud, noble, but most of all wild.’ He leant close and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Do you understand? You are more than you were – more than just flesh and bone; you are everything that defines us.’

‘And now you expect me to just waste away?’

‘No, my king.’ Atolmis’s voice was suddenly edged with passion. ‘This body is nothing. It needs only serve you until the winter solstice then, after the flames take hold, you will be free: no longer burdened by this physical vessel. Your bier will lift you from the temporal realm, to dwell forever in the Oak of Ages, watching over your people from the true heart of the forest.’

Orion sneered and threw the hood to the ground. After a few moments he looked up at the lowering sky. Luminescent beings stared back at him, separated from the mortal world by only the thinnest veneer of reality. Winged and majestic, they called his name, summoning him to their golden glades. They seemed to be mocking him.

‘Have I ever lied to you?’ demanded Atolmis, with more emotion in his face than Orion could ever recall seeing before. ‘Do you trust me?’

Orion stared back into the featureless black of Atolmis’s eyes and, after a few seconds his fury began to fade. ‘I trust you,’ he muttered, mirroring Atolmis’s gesture by placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘I always have.’

‘Then I will remain your guide, for as long as you need me.’ Atolmis dipped his head in a slight bow and stepped back.

There was something timeless about the high priest that eased Orion’s mind, but he had not forgotten the stag’s head. ‘How can I find Sativus, Atolmis? Where are his halls? I must make amends before I die.’

Atolmis shrugged. ‘All of the forest is his home.’

‘But how do I find him?’

One of the other riders, Sélva, muttered something and Atolmis glared at him.

‘What?’ demanded Orion, noticing Atolmis’s disapproval. ‘Speak up.’

‘The Mage Queen, my lord. She has often taken counsel from the Spirit King.’ Sélva’s voice was hesitant as he felt Atolmis’s furious gaze on the side of his face. ‘She must have some way of hunting him down.’

Orion reeled backwards, his face filled with anguish. Ariel. His immortal love. He had forgotten her. Despite everything they had shared, the hunt had entirely wiped her from his thoughts. Since the time of the solstice he had abandoned her to whatever fate threw her way.

‘The outsiders,’ he said, staring at Atolmis in alarm. ‘They’re leeching power from the ancient stones. They’re turning it against her!’

Atolmis smiled. ‘You killed them, my lord, every last one. Search your memory. You braved the Vaults of Winter. You destroyed the guardian of the Torr-Ildána. Then we returned you, victorious, to the Oak of Ages, where you were reborn again as Kurnous.’

He leant forwards, clearly excited by the memory. ‘At the time of the great conjunction, you summoned Luabh, Fuath and Druan and began the Wild Hunt, scouring the forest of its foes and freeing those of us who had become too weak to live.’ He closed his eyes, picturing the scene. ‘You tore them from the forest like a canker.’ He laughed. ‘The only threat was in the minds of your subjects. I never doubted you for a minute.’

Atolmis’s praise only added to Orion’s feelings of dread. He found that his priest was right, the memories were all there, cowering shamefully at the back of his thoughts. He saw the pitiful sight of the stone giant, collapsing to its knees in Dhioll Hollow, horrified by the destruction of its ancient ward. Why had he ignored its pleas? Such blind determination now seemed like madness. The giant had guarded the Torr-Ildána for thousands of years. Why would it have performed such a terrible duty if not for some great purpose? Orion shook his head, sensing that he perpetrated a great wrong.

He frowned. ‘Luabh, Fuath and Druan?’

Atolmis nodded, sombre-faced once more. ‘Your spirit guides, my lord – the hounds of Kurnous. You will see their kind again, when next you hunt.’

Orion nodded, recalling the hounds with a mixture of fear and affection. During the madness of the hunt, his soul would fragment, racing ahead of his flesh in the bodies of the hounds. They were part of him, he realised – the wildness of his soul in physical form. As he recalled the sound of their mournful voices, his fury returned and he looked across the corpse-strewn hillside to the gloomy borders of the forest.

He raised his chin and spoke to the morning breeze. ‘If weeks are all I have, then weeks will have to suffice. Before my time is done, the Spirit King will have faith in me once more. No flames will touch my flesh until I have undone the harm I have wrought. I will find Sativus.’

He stomped off through the long grass, levelling his spear at the forest. ‘I must speak with my queen.’

The forest had changed. Orion sensed it the moment he stepped beneath its eaves. Superficially, things looked as they always did at this time of year. Many of the trees had already shed their leaves, carpeting the ground with copper and gold, and the air was cool, damp and fusty with leaf mould; but, as Orion travelled further into the gloom, his sense of alarm grew.

‘What’s that smell?’ he asked, snorting with distaste. There was something sweet and foetid on the breeze – a thick, cloying stink that seemed to hang in the air.

Atolmis shook his head. ‘It smells like something rotting – a corpse, maybe.’

Orion strode on through the trees, wondering what kind of corpse could create such a stink.

For the rest of the morning he followed his nose, heading in the direction of the sweet smell. As he trampled through bracken and brushwood, he sniffed and prodded at trees, feeling increasingly more agitated. As he travelled deeper into the forest Orion saw that many of the trees were showing signs of change. Some of them were grotesque-looking hulks, bloated out of all recognition by lurid brackets of fungus and armies of teeming mites. Decay was part of life, but something about this was clearly unnatural. Clouds of lemon-coloured spores were drifting beneath the eaves and, as they alighted on Orion’s chest and arms, they left angry blemishes on his skin. During the fury of the hunt, he had barely registered the forest at all, but now he wondered at how alien it seemed. He had returned to an old friend and found he could no longer recognise its face.

After a couple of hours, Atolmis called out to him. ‘My lord, look.’

Orion turned and let out a grunt of surprise. Not far from where they stood was a small clearing, picked out of the forest gloom by a shaft of soft, russet light, peppered with tiny, drifting shapes.

‘What are they?’ muttered Orion, changing direction and heading for the clearing. ‘Spores, or spirits?’

As he neared the patch of open sky, Orion realised that the clearing reeked of decay. He had to hold his hand over his face as he crossed the final few yards and stepped out into the golden light.

At the centre of the clearing were the hulking remains of an old oak. Its hollow trunk was several feet wide but most of its branches were gone, so that it resembled an enormous, rotten barrel. As Orion crossed the clearing and saw the bark more closely, he realised that it was rippling and shivering with life. He peered closer and grimaced. The wood was riddled with grubs: pale, ghostlike things with fleshy, dimpled bodies that glistened as they caught the light. He looked up and saw that the shapes drifting overhead were more of the grubs, with broad, buzzing wings and barbed, needle-like tails. His sense of alarm grew. He had never seen such blight in the forest before. It felt like something alien had crept into his realm while he slept.

‘Slugs?’ muttered Atolmis, riding into the clearing with the other priests, but it was clear from his tone that he was as unnerved as Orion.

Orion scratched at the dead bark and cursed, immediately regretting his action. There was nothing but grubs beneath, thousands of them, writhing and oozing at his touch. As he watched in disgust, he realised that what he had taken for a large mound of them was actually the segmented back of one enormous creature. He was about to withdraw his hand when the lump of pallid-flesh burst out of the rotten wood and latched itself onto his chest.

The thing was as big as a hound and Orion laughed in disbelief as its weight sent him staggering back across the clearing.

His humour died as he noticed a dark trail of blood, flowing down his stomach from where the grub had latched onto his skin. He wrenched the thing free and hurled it to the ground. Then he strode forwards and slammed his spear into its flesh.

As the creature writhed and squirmed beneath him, Orion saw that it had left a moist, suppurated hole in his chest.

He turned to Atolmis with a quizzical expression but, before he could voice a question, a loud cracking sound filled the clearing and the stink tripled in strength.

The priests’ horses reared in alarm, almost throwing their riders, and Orion whirled around to see what could have spooked them.

The trunk had disintegrated as dozens of huge grubs wriggled and heaved themselves from the ground, some of them as big as horses.

Orion grabbed his spear just in time to defend himself.

The first of the grubs burst open on the spearhead, showering him with pale, jelly-like innards.

Fluid slapped against him and Orion cried out in disgust.

As he wiped the filth from his face, another one of the grubs enveloped him, smothering his face with its quivering bulk.

Orion staggered backwards and pain exploded all over his body. The flesh of the giant slug burned with the same acid as the spores he had encountered earlier in the morning.

He struggled desperately with the thing, attempting to wrench it away from his face as his lungs began to scream for air.

He glimpsed movement through the thing’s pale flesh, then he gasped with relief as it was hauled away from him.

Atolmis had pierced it with his spear and, as Orion crashed to the ground, trying to catch his breath, Atolmis wrenched his weapon free and stabbed the thing again.

Blubbery innards slopped across the ground but, before Atolmis could retrieve his weapon, another one of the creatures slammed into him. This one had enormous, tacky wings on its back, slick with mucus and filling the air with an angry whirring sound.

Atolmis toppled backwards beneath its weight and vanished from view as it smothered him.

Orion reeled as another grub slapped against him. For a while he could think of nothing but his desperate struggle to keep the grubs off his face. He lunged and stabbed, and soon there was a mound of torn flesh lying around him on the ground.

A chorus of alarm reminded him of his priests.

He whirled around to see they were huddled next to one of the largest grubs, howling and cursing, but holding their spears back.

Orion felt a rush of fear as he realised he could not see Sélva.

He rushed across the clearing and barged through the priests, groaning in disgust as he saw why they were holding back their spears. The grub had entirely enveloped Sélva. The horned priest was clearly visible through the creature’s translucent flesh, struggling desperately to free himself.

Orion shoved the others back and raised his spear. He singled out the end of the grub that seemed most likely to be a head and prepared to strike.

Before he could attack, the creature suddenly doubled in size, changing from milk white to a deep crimson.

Orion and the priests froze in shock as they realised what had happened. Sélva’s body had burst – disintegrated by the grub’s stomach acids.

It had digested him.

As Orion stared in horror, the sated grub lifted its bloated mass free and rolled away, leaving a trail of bloody slime.

Orion bellowed with rage and stabbed it repeatedly with his spear.

The others rushed to his side and did the same, covering the forest floor with chunks of hissing, acidic flesh, not caring where they punctured the bloated grub, knowing that Sélva was beyond harm.

Once they were done, Orion and the others backed away, clutching their spears and waiting for another attack.

None came, but the remains of the tree were shuddering as it prepared to vomit another creature from its roots.

‘Leave,’ snapped Orion, glaring at his priests, not prepared to lose another one. Then he turned back to the tree, grasping his spear in both hands and crouching low to the ground.

The priests had no intention of deserting their king, but as they readied their weapons the remains of the tree collapsed inwards, emitting nothing more menacing than a cloud of spores.

Quiet descended on the clearing, broken only by the heavy breathing of Orion and the buzzing of the smaller grubs, spiralling and banking through the air.

Orion remained crouched and ready for battle, staring at the slumped remains of the tree. ‘I knew it.’ He sounded dazed. ‘I knew that smell did not belong in my forest.’

Atolmis and the others stepped over to the remains of the bug that had consumed Sélva. They picked at the glistening mess in disconsolate silence for a few moments, then Atolmis turned to Orion, his face contorted by pain.

‘My lord, we must take him to the King’s Glade. We cannot abandon him to the Endless Vale.’

Orion was still staring at the remains of the tree. ‘What?’ He turned to see that all the priests were looking at him.

He spoke in a hoarse whisper, staring at the clotted lumps that had once been Sélva. ‘The Endless Vale?’

Atolmis nodded. ‘He gave himself to you, my king. Now his soul must be allowed to find peace. Only in your sacred halls will he find the forgetfulness he needs.’

Orion could barely recognise Atolmis’s voice, it was so choked with emotion. He delved into his past. The Endless Vale. The words triggered a memory, as much a sensation as an image. He recalled blinding, colourless patches of light punctuated by tall, black, serried ranks of shadow. The memory was sinister and illusive, like a half-recalled nightmare.

‘We’re no longer what we were,’ said Atolmis. ‘We’re no longer simply mortal.’ The other priests nodded in agreement as Atolmis waved at the surrounding trees, becoming more animated. ‘We can’t bind our souls to whatever rock or branch we choose. Even the Oak of Ages would not suffice. We would never escape our memories of the hunt. We would never forget what we did. We would join the ranks of the rootless dead. Sélva will only find rest in one place.’

Orion gave the tree one last wary glance, then he walked over to the priests and looked down at the bloody slop pooling around their feet. Grief welled up in him and he recalled the rider as he first saw him: powerful and strange – his guide to a new life. Without the priests he would still be a wandering mortal named Sephian.

He tried to hide his grief by speaking in harsh, gruff tones. ‘What exactly would you take, Atolmis?’ He waved at the pool of blood.

The priest looked wounded by his king’s tone, but he gave no reply, other than to drop on one knee and pluck something from the grub’s still-twitching carcass.

He held it out to Orion and the king saw that it was a narrow, spiralled horn – one of the pair that had previously crowned Sélva’s head.

Orion glimpsed the patches of light and dark again and realised that he knew where Atolmis was referring to. He had seen the Endless Vale. He stared at the horn for a while, unsure what to say, then the pain of his acid-scorched skin reminded him how urgent his errand was.

‘I have no time for detours.’ He waved at the autumn leaves. ‘The year is fading. I must speak to Ariel. I must know where Sativus hides himself before I am too weak to face him.’

The priests looked at each other in shock and Atolmis shook his head.

‘My king,’ he said. ‘We must not abandon Sélva. He joined his spirit to the Wild Hunt. He has committed violence in your name, this year more than ever. He will never know peace if we fail to perform the necessary–’

‘Take him where you will!’ Orion could feel the seconds passing through him like knife wounds. ‘I must leave.’

Atolmis gave a stiff nod, clearly holding back an angry reply.

Orion saw the hurt he had caused and regretted it, but he could think of no way to undo it. Sélva was dead. The thought hit him again with such violence that he thought he might vomit. Every death in the forest suddenly seemed to be his responsibility.

‘Perform your rites,’ he snapped. ‘Go where you must. I have to leave.’

Atolmis looked horrified. ‘Our purpose is to watch over you.’ He glanced at the horn in his hand. ‘If you will it,’ his voice faltered, ‘we will leave Sélva to his fate. If you think finding Sativus is so important, we must accompany you.’

Orion clutched his head. Everything seemed to be slipping away from him. For a few moments he stood there in silence, unsure what to do. He could not bear any kind of delay, but he needed his priests at his side.

‘My king?’ said Atolmis, after a few moments.

‘I will come for you when I’m done.’ Orion grimaced at his own decision. ‘Wait for me in the King’s Glade.’ He looked down at his spear, his face full of doubt. ‘I’ll find Sativus alone.’

CHAPTER THREE

Finavar woke in the early hours. Moonlight picked out the shape of his brother, lying at the entrance to the cave, and for a moment he forgot everything. He opened his mouth to speak, then paused, remembering the truth. Even in silhouette, it was obvious that Jokleel’s position was odd. His head was tilted back at a hideously unnatural angle and his limbs were spread across the ground in an awkward jumble.

Finavar climbed to his feet and stood swaying in the dark. He was naked and as he stepped towards the mouth of the cave, the moonlight revealed how skeletal his body had become. His skin was stretched taut over his ribs and his hip bones gleamed like blades. The vertebrae of his spine were clearly visible. His hair – once a mane of flaming locks – was now plastered to his skull-like head in greasy, matted clumps.

He crouched next to the grey, waxy shape that had once been his brother and tried to arrange it in a more natural position. Then he sat and cradled Jokleel’s head, humming a gentle lullaby and attempting to shoo away the flies that constantly filled the cave. He had wrapped Jokleel in a ruddy shroud of leaves and berries in a vain attempt to disguise his unnatural end.

‘Soon,’ he whispered, to his brother’s frozen grimace. ‘Soon, we will be together.’

Finavar had retained enough sense to know that he could never take his own life but, after countless weeks without food, and untreated wounds all over his frail body, he knew that nature would soon take its course.

A sound rang out from the trees below and Finavar cursed. ‘Why won’t you leave us to die?’ He laid Jokleel’s mouldering corpse gently on the ground and crept to the cave mouth, scowling down through the treetops.

At first he could see nothing but shadows and the grey, rolling foothills of Drúne Fell; but then, after edging cautiously down the mountainside, he saw two small shapes snaking through the trees, watching him with tiny, button-bright eyes.

He cursed again, grabbed a stone and hurled it at them.

His aim was poor and the stone clattered harmlessly against a tree trunk, but the eyes vanished.

‘I have no need of guides,’ he tried to say, but his words became a gasp as he collapsed back against the rock, his pulse racing from the effort of throwing the stone. ‘Find a new master,’ he managed to say after a few seconds.

It took a few minutes for him to catch his breath; then he turned to climb back into the cave.

Another sound echoed across the rocks and he paused, peering down through the trees.

Finavar’s face paled as he saw a figure, sat beside a small brook. From this distance it was impossible to make the person out with any clarity, but when laughter rang out again, he realised it was a female voice. There was something familiar about the sound and he stared into the darkness, feeling a growing sense of dread.

As he watched, the figure shifted and there was a flash of light. It looked as though she were holding a mirror in her hands.

Finavar turned and looked anxiously at Jokleel’s remains, just visible within the cave mouth.

Then the laughter rang out a third time, sounding even more familiar, and he decided he would just climb a little way down the mountainside for a better look, then return to watch over his brother.

It was only as he climbed over the ledge and began to descend that Finavar realised how weak he was. His wasted arms could barely hold him as he reached for handholds and edged along ridges, and his legs trembled under his weight. The going was slow but he finally reached the forest floor without mishap, and crept through the trees towards the brook.

Someone was sitting by the edge of the water, clad in a ragged, hooded cloak and whispering furiously to herself. Every few moments she would touch her shoulder and laugh – a shrill, hiccupping sound that echoed through the darkness.

There was hardly any moonlight in the clearing but, every few minutes, she would turn an object in her hands and moonlight would flash across her face, revealing fine, imperious features and a knotted mass of silver hair. Her cloak was filthy and her eyes were sunken and wild, but her sneer of disdain was unmistakable.

Finavar gasped as he recognised the Lady of Locrimere. ‘Ordaana!’ he cried.

The noblewoman leapt to her feet, threw back her hood and held out the object in her hands.

Finavar saw that it was a long, silver knife. The hilt was clogged with dark lumps of soil, but the blade gleamed with an inner light, revealing a line of delicate sigils along its length.

‘Death’s-head,’ said Ordaana in a taut, brittle voice. She levelled the knife at Finavar. ‘I have been seen.’

Finavar cowered and looked over his shoulder at the slopes of Drúne Fell. He was so weak and confused that for moment he did not realise Ordaana was referring to him.

‘Who are you?’ she snapped, edging across the clearing with the knife still pointed at his face. ‘What do you want here?’ She glared at him as she approached, then looked back over her shoulder and called out again. ‘Death’s-head!’

Finavar held up his hands and stepped backwards. ‘I meant no harm.’ He turned to leave, then caught his foot on a root and collapsed to the ground.

Ordaana stared at him for a few seconds; then, as she saw his frail, naked body more closely, she laughed. ‘By the gods, I think you’re even more pathetic than I am. What are you?’

‘I’m Finavar.’ He climbed awkwardly to his feet, with his hands still held out before him. ‘I meant no harm.’ He tried again to leave.

‘Wait!’ Ordaana grabbed his shoulder. ‘Finavar?’ She scowled. ‘Don’t I know that name?’

Finavar’s heart sank. He had no desire to reminisce. Why had he not just stayed in the cave and waited for death?

Ordaana continued staring at him and he reluctantly nodded. ‘Yes, my lady, you know me. I am one of your subjects. I’m a shadow-dancer. Before it burned, Locrimere was my home.’

Ordaana blanched and let go of his shoulder. She tried, uselessly, to pat down her nest of silver hair and smooth out the tattered remains of her robes. Then she waved at Finavar’s emaciated body. ‘I took you for a wanderer, or a roaming seer.’ Then she narrowed her eyes and approached him again, pointing the knife at his narrow chest. ‘But why would I know your name? I was never in the habit of remembering my subjects.’

Finavar looked wistfully up at the distant cave mouth, sensing that he would not escape for a while yet.

Ordaana followed the direction of his gaze and flinched. ‘Is there someone else up there? Others from Locrimere?’

Finavar shook his head. ‘None that still breathe.’

This seemed to calm Ordaana and she continued interrogating him. ‘Why do I recognise your name?’ She stared at his face. ‘You even look a little familiar. Are you sure you’re just a lowborn?’

Finavar stared back at her, his eyes gleaming and wild. ‘Some of your subjects called me by a different name: the Darkling Prince.’

Ordaana’s eyes widened and then she laughed again. This time the sound was a thin shriek and her body shook with the force of it. ‘You? The mighty Darkling Prince?’ She hugged herself, trying to stifle her laughter. Her shoulders refused to cease their shuddering and Ordaana reeled away from Finavar, shaking her head violently.

As she whirled around the clearing, Finavar saw his chance and began to edge back into the trees.

‘Wait!’ Ordaana rushed after him and dragged him back into the clearing, still laughing at the sight of his wasted limbs.

‘Sit with me for a moment,’ she demanded, shoving him to the ground. ‘Amuse your lady once last time, bard.’ She dropped to the ground beside him and leant towards him with an eager expression on her face. ‘I sense that you’ve ruined yourself almost as effectively as I have.’

Finavar slumped against a tree, too weak to resist. ‘I have no tales left to tell, my lady.’

‘Tell me your own tale, I order it!’

Finavar shrugged. ‘I’m dying,’ he said, flatly.

Ordaana laughed again, rolling onto the ground. Then she sat up and clapped him on the back. ‘Oh, but you’ve lost none of your wit, versifier!’ She waved at his protruding ribs. ‘Do you think I can’t see that?’ She leant closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘But why? Tell me what happened.’ There was a note of hunger in her voice; desperation, even. ‘Tell me what has driven you to such despair. The last time I saw you, you were quite the young firebrand. Now you’re a withered vine. What changed?’

Finavar glanced up at the cave again.

Ordaana clutched his bony hand in hers. ‘Then I will let you leave, I promise. I will not deprive the mighty Darkling Prince of his final rest.’

Finavar sighed, seeing he would not escape without some kind of explanation.

‘My younger brother, Jokleel, lies in that cave. He’s dead. I killed him.’

Ordaana’s laughter seemed on the verge of overwhelming her, but she managed to stifle it and nodded for him to continue.

Finavar stared back at her, unwilling to share his shame.

Ordaana squeezed his hand tighter, until he could feel the bones grinding against each other.

‘What do you care of my story?’ Finavar’s eyes glittered in their sunken pits. ‘I’m a lowborn. What is my life to you?’

‘Tell me!’ hissed Ordaana, her lips curling back from her teeth.

Finavar closed his eyes for a moment. The last thing he wished to do was recount the tale of how he failed Jokleel, but he could see Ordaana would accept nothing else.

He began slowly, hesitating over his words, teasing the facts out like splinters. ‘We were foundlings. Jokleel had no parent but me.’ He licked his cracked lips and looked at everything but Ordaana’s face. ‘But when he was a child I would sing to him – tales of Orion; legends of Ariel’s Consort-King.’ He sneered. ‘I told him we could never be orphaned with such a noble being watching over us.’

Ordaana winced at the mention of Ariel, but Finavar continued without noticing, his voice sounding more confident as he warmed to his theme.

‘Jokleel had no love of violence, you understand, or war. He saw the things that I was blind to. He was in tune with the forest in a way I could never fully understand; but I ignored that, arrogant fool that I was, and taught him the Dance of Blades. I taught him everything that came so naturally to me, assuming it must be right for him too.’ He clutched his head in his hands. ‘I told him that we could prove our worthiness to the king by becoming the finest shadow-dancers he had ever seen.’ A bitter laugh fell from his lips. ‘My brother was born wise and I turned him into a fool.’

‘You said you killed him.’

Finavar kept his head in his hands. ‘Not with my own hands, but I killed him just the same.’

Ordaana looked vaguely disappointed, but nodded for him to continue.

‘We proved our skill. Many times. We danced like Loec Himself. Jokleel never truly revelled in it – the violence, I mean – but I kept him close and we made a name for ourselves. Others joined us and we finally achieved our goal.’ Finavar lifted his head from his hands and looked up at the mountain. ‘We were here at Drúne Fell when the Wild Hunt rode out. We were here by Orion’s side when he destroyed the outsiders. We proved our worth. And, in the midst of the battle, Jokleel received his reward.’

‘Your brother died in the battle? Is that what you mean? Is that all you have to tell?’ She threw Finavar’s hand back into his lap. ‘What tragedy is there in that? He made a heroic end of himself. He died covered in glory.’

‘There was no glory!’ Finavar glared at Ordaana. ‘Jokleel was butchered. Butchered by his own king. Cut down by the one person I raised him to trust.’

Ordaana nodded, slowly, and the sneer dropped from her face. ‘I see.’ She glanced up at the inky void of the cave mouth. ‘You sacrificed your brother to a false king.’

For a few moments, Ordaana relaxed. Her shoulders dropped and the taut, manic edge slipped from her features. She looked at Finavar with something that might have been pity.

They sat there in silence for a while. Then Finavar frowned. ‘A false king?’

‘Of course. We have all been lied to, Finavar, not just you.’

Ordaana sat back up and waved at her torn robes. ‘Who do you think drove me to this state?’

‘Orion?’

‘Ariel! The other half of that venomous lie.’ The sneer returned to her face. ‘Naieth and the “wise” have fooled us all into worshiping beings that have no love for us. What Orion did to your brother is just a glimpse of the disdain they have for us, Finavar. They care for nothing but their own immortality. We are cattle to them. Cattle. As long as they rule we are doomed. They will be the death of the asrai, if I do not stop them.’

Even from the pit of his despair, Finavar could not quite accept this. He began to protest but Ordaana spoke over him.

‘I know them, Finavar,’ she said. ‘I served that wretched queen for lifetimes. I know everything about her. Everything. And she cast me aside like an old gown. She ruined me on a whim.’

Finavar recalled what he knew of Ordaana – that she had returned from the court of the Mage Queen one summer, furious enough to burn down her own sacred glades. And she had never returned to serve again.

‘What happened?’ he asked, intrigued despite himself.

Ordaana took a deep, trembling breath. ‘I took a lover, Finavar. Is that such a terrible crime for a noblewoman? My drooling rake of a husband bedded half of Locrimere. Was it so awful of me to seek solace in the arms of another?’

Finavar could think of nothing to say. The protocols of the highborn were a mystery to him.

‘Ariel felt that my infidelity was indecorous; inappropriate for a lady of her court. Can you believe that? Indecorous!’ Ordaana’s voice rose to a higher pitch and tiny blue flames began to crackle between her fingertips. ‘My lover was a noble. More noble than Beldeas could ever be. More noble than that wretched queen, certainly.’ She stared into the past, recalling her lost love. ‘He was a prince from the north – a dancer, like yourself, but highborn and proud.’ Her voice grew husky with emotion. ‘And he loved me. Truly loved me. Loved me enough to risk everything. Loved me enough to give me a child.’

As Ordaana recalled her lover, the blue flame rippled up her arms and flashed in her tear-filled eyes.

Finavar gasped and backed away, but Ordaana was too lost in her tale to notice.

‘Can you believe that such a wanton creature as Ariel, who takes a new lover every spring, decided that I was unworthy of her?’ She reached out and grabbed Finavar’s shoulder again, holding him in place. ‘She banished me, Finavar. She sent me home like a scolded child, covered in shame. She made a fool of me. How could I show my face at court after that?’

‘And the fire?’

Ordaana flinched. ‘You know of the fire?’ She shook her head, remembering that Finavar was from Locrimere. ‘Of course you know.’ Her tone changed. The rage ebbed away, to be replaced by something else. Shame, perhaps. ‘Like your poor brother, I had been trained to serve.’ She held out a hand and for a second the whole clearing pulsed with blue light. It blazed from every leaf and stem until Finavar had to shield his eyes. Ordaana lowered her hand and the light faded. ‘I’m charged with the lifeblood of that witch, Finavar. Can I be blamed if my rage carries more consequence than that of a less noble soul?’

She hugged herself and rocked back on her heels. ‘Was it my fault that curses turned to flames in my mouth?’

Finavar nodded, relieved to see that the blue fire was fading from her flesh. ‘So you burned your glades in a fit of rage. It was Ariel’s rejection that–’

‘I didn’t know she was in there!’ Ordaana’s words spiralled into a thin screech and she no longer seemed to be addressing Finavar. ‘I didn’t know!’

‘Who was in there? Ariel?’

‘My daughter,’ giggled Ordaana, rolling into the mud at the edge of the brook. She thrust her hands into the ground and smeared her face with soil. Then she sat bolt upright and turned to face Finavar, her face completely expressionless.

‘I murdered my own child.’ She stared at him with mud dripping from her cheeks. ‘Do you see? Now do you see the real meaning of tragedy? Do you see what pain really is? I did not lie to someone, as you did. I set her home alight and she burned. I murdered her. My own blood. I murdered her, Finavar. I murdered–’ Her words stopped suddenly and her head dropped onto her chest.

For a moment, Finavar saw something beyond his own loss. As he watched Ordaana, trembling with grief and guilt, he felt a wave of simple pity. Then he frowned. ‘My lady,’ he said, softly.

She was too lost in her grief to hear, so he repeated himself a little louder.

‘My lady.’

Ordaana’s head snapped up like a marionette and she stared at him.

His voice faltered under the intensity of her gaze. ‘Ariel and Orion – you said they would be the doom of the asrai.’

For a few seconds she stared at him in silence. Then she spoke in a calm voice, as though nothing had happened. ‘Of course. Naieth has convinced us all that we need to be ruled, but we do not. The last hope of the asrai is rebellion – to throw down those deluded tyrants and rule ourselves.’

There was a rustling of leaves on the other side of the clearing and Ordaana rose to her feet. ‘Some guardian you are, Death’s-head. I could have been murdered a hundred times for all you care.’

What Finavar had mistaken for a bundle of sticks, walked across the clearing and bowed to Ordaana. He realised it was a forest spirit of some kind, no taller than a foot or so, glimmering with the same light he had seen flashing across Ordaana’s fingers. The thing’s name obviously came from the shape of its head – a long, bone-like sphere that wobbled on its brittle neck.

‘Have you found the route?’ Ordaana asked.

The spirit nodded, peering around its mistress to look at Finavar.

‘Do not concern yourself with that.’ She nodded at the trees. ‘Show me the way.’

The spirit still hesitated, looking at the knife tucked into Ordaana’s belt.

‘Yes!’ she said, losing her patience. ‘I have it! Now show me the way back.’

Finavar dragged himself onto his feet and lurched towards Ordaana. Now that she was about to leave he suddenly wished to hear more of her strange ideas.

‘You said you would stop them,’ he said.

Ordaana looked back in surprise, as though she had already forgotten him.

‘What?’

‘You said you would stop Ariel and Orion.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Did I?’ She placed a hand on the silver knife and pursed her lips. ‘Perhaps I said too much.’ She gave the spirit a meaningful glance, then stepped closer to Finavar and drew the blade.

He shook his head, realising he was far too weak to defend himself. He tried to back away but tripped and sent himself crashing to the ground again.

Ordaana stared at him for a moment then another violent burst of laughter rocked her body. ‘What does it matter?’ She laughed so hard that tears began to course through the mud on her cheeks. ‘Look at you. You’re already dead.’ She clutched her shoulder and, as quick as it came, the laughter ceased and she adopted a stern expression. ‘What does it matter?’ she repeated, in a much quieter voice.

‘Enjoy your death,’ she said and strode from the clearing, muttering to herself as the wooden spirit clattered after her.

Finavar lay on the ground until she had vanished from view, then he let out a long, relieved breath. He knew that Ordaana had been seconds away from killing him and, to his enormous surprise, he was glad she had not. He looked down at his skeletal body. Perhaps he wanted to live after all. But why? What purpose could he serve? Everything he believed had been proved wrong. He played through the conversation in his head and realised that in amongst the madness of Ordaana’s grief there was a kernel of truth. He tried to imagine a forest free of Orion’s tyranny; a realm in which his brother’s life would never have been taken so cruelly; a realm in which the asrai kneeled to no one.

He used a low-hanging branch to drag himself back onto his feet. Then he looked back up at the cave. Perhaps there was more that he could do than waste away in a meaningless vigil? Perhaps there was a better way to remember his brother’s death? He stood for a long time by the brook, considering Ordaana’s words and his place in the forest. His life was forfeit. Apart from Ordaana, nobody even knew he had survived the battle. The thought gave him a strange feeling of weightlessness.

As Finavar climbed slowly up the face of Drúne Fell, he was followed by the dawn, rippling and tumbling over the ancient stone, throwing back the shadows that had haunted him for so long.

CHAPTER FOUR

The garden reeked of death. As she crossed the final few miles, Ordaana had no need of her guide and strode ahead, leaving Death’s-head to clatter into the daemon’s strange, incipient realm alone.

It was early morning and, as the autumn light broke through the branches, Ordaana saw how busy Alkhor had been. A whole swathe of the forest was defying the season and springing into new life – moulded to the daemon’s will. Trees that should have been naked were bloated with vibrant fungal growths and twisted into narrow, looping avenues – all painted a lurid shade of purple and pink by tiny, cilia-like flowers. As Ordaana hurried beneath them, she saw that a pattern was starting to emerge: a vast, irregular spiral of rotting boughs, reaching out into the leafless forest and filling it with the daemon’s sweet-smelling contagion. Clouds of lurid yellow spores filled the air, settling on everything, so that Alkhor’s garden resembled the nightmare of a lunatic confectioner – grotesque, swollen mounds, dusted with garish colour and hazed by shifting veils of flies.

Ordaana stumbled to a halt, bewildered by the maze of yellow and pink. ‘What is he making?’ she whispered. Then she heard another sign of Alkhor’s presence: the harsh cawing of crows. She changed direction, hurrying down another coiled corridor, then paused, drawing her knife.

One of the mauve trees had split open, spilling its contents across the path. Its bark was moist and sponge-like, and it had fallen away to reveal a writhing mass of grubs: worms, maggots, lice and ticks, all pouring out of the dead tree and rippling across the ground towards her.

It was not the smaller bugs that made her pause; there was something else, something still trapped in the bark – a long, segmented abdomen, as thick as her waist and thrashing with hundreds of ink-black legs.

She edged closer, keeping the silver knife levelled at the rotten trunk.

The gleaming, armoured mound shifted and more of the bark tore open, sending thousands more of the smaller grubs tumbling to the ground.

Ordaana hissed and froze again, sensing that the thing was about to wrench itself free. Dozens more of its legs were now visible, rippling like grass in the breeze and clawing at the soft bark.

‘It will not harm you,’ came a voice from the air.

Alkhor’s voice, like everything else about the daemon, had changed. The crisp, refined tones it had adopted when masquerading as Aestar Eltanin were gone, replaced by a throaty gurgle, always on the verge of laughter.

‘Really?’ she muttered, her tone full of disdain, but she edged forwards just the same, keeping her knife drawn as she passed the mound of grubs and followed the sound of the crows.

The heart of the garden was a spiral of trembling terraces, all painted dazzling yellow by the clouds of spores and occupied by a lurid carnival of moving shapes. The trees themselves were in motion, heaving their crumbling bark in a convulsive dance; lurching this way and that like drunks struggling to hold down the contents of their stomachs. The circular terraces were also moving. The grassy mounds were rolling like a luminous tide, still forming into whatever outlandish shapes Alkhor had in mind. The air was a blur of spores and flies and, above it all, screaming their approval, were hundreds of saffron-coloured crows.

As Ordaana climbed and stumbled down the shifting banks, she heard another sound beneath the cawing of the crows: a cheerful, melodic humming that led the garden’s lurching dance. She peered through the yellow haze and made out a hulking shape, moving in circles through the centre of the mounds.

She held some of her torn robes over her face as she continued climbing, trying to shield her mouth from the clouds of flies that surrounded her. Then, as she reached the very centre of the garden, and entered the final circle, the air was suddenly clear. It was as though she had broken the surface of a yellow lake and emerged into the air. Alkhor was waiting to greet her and, for a moment, she wondered if she could force her eyes to take the daemon in.

Alkhor’s appearance had been gradually changing since it first appeared to her after the battle of Drúne Fell and now she could hardly recognise it. Her errand had taken her less than a week, but Alkhor had doubled in size while she was away. All pretence of humanoid form was gone. Alkhor now resembled one of the bugs she had seen falling from the rotten trees, only much larger, and built around a pockmarked grin and a pair of tiny, glassy eyes, embedded like cherries in an enormous, dough-like mound of grey. There was another change. As Alkhor grew in size, it seemed to be fading from the world. There was a vague, insubstantial quality to its flesh, and in some places, she could see through its skin to the trees on the far side of the clearing.

‘Ordaana!’ cried Alkhor, extending a pair of ragged wings from its back and lurching itself into the air.

The daemon’s trembling bulk hovered over her, borne by spindly, pounding wings that could not, in any sane world, have carried the weight of a fly.

‘I knew you wouldn’t fail me.’

Ordaana nodded, still struggling to look directly at the daemon, and brushed her fingers across the knife’s hilt. ‘The Eternal Guard took pity on me.’ She sounded vaguely embarrassed by her admission. ‘I told them I had been attacked by outsiders and had come to consult with Naieth. None of the lords were there, anyway. Prince Haldus has gone back to his mountains and his hawks, and Captain Eremon and the others are all racing around the forest with Orion. ’ She sneered as she chose her words. ‘They are basking in the light of Orion’s glorious rage.’

Alkhor nodded, still grinning and clearly not listening to her. ‘Have you seen how quickly things are progressing?’ The daemon drew its rusted sword and waved it at the maze of rotting trees. ‘See how my garden grows, Ordaana, see how it grows!’

Ordaana had to concede that the sight was impressive, if disgusting. ‘What is it?’

Alkhor laughed kindly. ‘Of course, you do not have the pleasure of knowing my grandfather – so how could you recognise him?’

Ordaana frowned and looked again at the ridged, purple tunnels that surrounded them. ‘Your grandfather?’

‘Of course! What subject could be more worthy of an artist’s time? And that’s just what a gardener is, Ordaana – an artist who works with life itself, in all its wonderful guises.’

The daemon saw that Ordaana was still confused and tried to adopt a serious expression. ‘Forgive me, I’m not being clear.’ The daemon waved at the bulging, tuber-like growths. ‘This is a portrait of my grandfather’s most beautiful feature – the part of him that illustrates his genius more than any other. The part of him that I first saw.’ Alkhor could contain its ebullience no longer. ‘It is his stomach, Ordaana! I am recreating the wonderful, intricate workings of his gut.’

Ordaana grimaced as she realised that the pinkish tunnels of trees were intended to resemble muscular, quivering orifices and curtains of mucus-lined membrane. Her own stomach turned and she felt an overwhelming urge to flee, but she steeled her herself and glared at the daemon as it landed beside her. ‘Is it time, then?’ She gripped the knife. ‘Are you ready to strike?’

Alkhor laughed. It was a rattling, liquid sound that shook the daemon’s entire bulk. ‘Strike? Oh, my queen, my eager queen; there will be no “strike”.’

Ordaana turned to face the daemon and the awful absurdity of her position suddenly struck her. She was talking tactics with a winged, bloated monster in a purple, stomach-shaped garden filled with groaning trees and whirring clouds of flies. Alkhor’s mirth seemed quite an apt response and she began laughing too. Great spasms shook her body and tears poured from her eyes. ‘Why not?’ she laughed. ‘You have a stomach-shaped garden – what more could a general need?’

Alkhor’s enormous face lit up, delighted by Ordaana’s joke. ‘Exactly!’ The daemon gasped, struggling to speak for laughing. ‘An army marches on its stomach!’

The daemon rolled onto its back and Ordaana slumped next to it, laughing just as violently with tears pouring down her cheeks.

After a few minutes, the two of them fell quiet and Ordaana’s face locked in a dazed grimace.

Alkhor was oblivious to her pained expression and continued speaking in cheerful tones. ‘The knife is just the first part of the puzzle, my queen.’ The daemon spread its ragged wings. ‘It may look impressive, but it has taken the last of my strength just to begin this haven. I’ve barely started and even now I can feel myself being hauled back to the palaces of my grandfather. All you see here is a fraction of his beauty, Ordaana. A fraction! This will be my greatest creation, but it will take time, my queen.’

Ordaana’s stomach turned again ‘You’re a messenger of the Dark Gods – immortal and all-powerful. Surely you mean to crush Orion,’ she gripped the silver knife, ‘and let me deal with his simpering queen.’

Alkhor reached out with one of its small, flaccid limbs, flopping a claw on Ordaana’s shoulder. ‘You are sweet, my queen, but I am far weaker than you imagine. What little power I have is being used just to hold me here. You must understand, my true home is with my grandfather, in that most heavenly of gardens. It was only the enchantments of the tree witches that fixed me beneath those old stones and now, thanks to your curse, Orion has unlocked me from their prison. My ballast is gone, Ordaana. Left as I am I will soon fade completely from your world.’

Ordaana gripped the daemon’s claw, noticing how easily her fingers sank through the blubbery flesh. ‘You must not leave!’ she cried, staring into the daemon’s glinting eyes. ‘You promised me! You promised me revenge!’

Alkhor’s face rippled into a grotesque parody of concern. ‘You will have your revenge, my queen – just not yet. While I remain here, in this little paradise, I can cling to life a little longer, but for me to do any more, there is something you need to help me with.’

‘Anything!’ cried Ordaana. ‘What must we do?’

Alkhor chuckled. The sound was like an underground stream, gurgling over rocks. ‘We must cement our union. We must start a family, my queen. Then I will know you are true. Then I will know I can trust you with my secrets.’

Ordaana backed away, staring at Alkhor in horror.

Alkhor looked away, adopting a coy, coquettish expression. ‘Oh, my queen. How sweet of you! No, I don’t mean that. Not exactly, anyway.’

For a while, Alkhor could do nothing but laugh. Then, once it was calm, the daemon nodded at the silver knife in Ordaana’s belt. ‘Our family will begin with a simple cut, Ordaana.’

‘You want me to cut you?’

Alkhor grinned. ‘If you would. I must remain here if I am to cling on to your mortal realm, my queen, I must finish my work, but I am so weak. As this garden spreads, Ariel’s fawning lickspittles will discover it and try to prune it back. I need to have absolute faith in you, Ordaana. I will need you to lead my children! You will be my most trusted servant. My proctor!’

Ordaana looked mystified. ‘Children?’

Alkhor giggled. ‘As we spread our delicious contagions, our brood will grow. We will garner children of the most delightful perspicacity. They will bring order and logic to this wilderness. They will create, codify and count, my queen; create, codify and count!’ The daemon reached out with one of its withered limbs and stroked Ordaana’s face. ‘Tell me: why do you think I sent you to retrieve the knife?’

Ordaana grimaced at Alkhor’s touch, but resisted the urge to flee. She shrugged. ‘We used it to curse Orion. The curse was successful and Orion freed you from your prison. Now that the curse is no longer needed, you wish to have the blade back.’

Alkhor shook its head. ‘There was more to it than that, my queen. I placed a part of myself in that blade.’ The daemon pointed at the intricate glyphs that ran down its length. ‘Those characters are beyond translation but, in the tongue of my grandfather, they spell my name.’

Ordaana raised an eyebrow.

Alkhor grinned. ‘My name, Ordaana; even an innocent like you can understand. It has the power to part the molecules of my flesh; it can touch me, in a way no other weapon could.’

Ordaana was about to ask a question when Alkhor reached down to its sagging gut and lifted a roll of fat, revealing a glistening lump of purple intestines.

‘Cut a piece,’ gurgled the daemon. There was a repugnant smirk on its face.

‘What?’

‘Cut a piece free,’ giggled Alkhor, reaching into its own bowels and wiggling the mass of tubes. ‘See what happens.’

Ordaana shook her head in disbelief. Then, feeling a sudden hatred for the daemon, she decided to do as it requested.

She raised the knife, stepped forwards, grabbed a warm, sticky loop and sliced it free.

Oily blood rushed over her hand and she hissed, hurling the chunk to the ground.

‘Thank you, my queen,’ said Alkhor in a husky, affectionate voice.

The daemon lowered its gut back into place and shooed Ordaana away from the piece of meat.

She did as she was instructed and began to ask a question.

Alkhor silenced her with a raised claw and hunched over the piece of intestine. With a muttered oath, the daemon took its pitted, iron sword and placed it across the tube, squeezing more blood from it with the weight of the blade.

Ordaana was mystified by the daemon’s actions but, as Alkhor continued to mumble, clouds of spores began to spiral overhead, forming a lurching, yellow tornado that trailed down the blade of the daemon’s weapon and surrounded the lump of viscera.

Ordaana’s robes began to ripple and snap, caught in a breeze that had sprung from nowhere. She edged back towards the daemon, sensing that something momentous was about to happen.

To her disappointment, nothing did.

Alkhor continued muttering, and the spores carried on circling, but nothing else changed.

Minutes passed and Ordaana grew impatient.

‘What are you doing?’ she snapped, stepping closer to the daemon.

Alkhor gave no response, still hunched over the bloody lump.

Ordaana tried several times to get the daemon’s attention, but it was useless. Alkhor seemed to have slipped into some kind of trance – muttering and burbling to itself like a drunkard.

Ordaana’s rage grew and she clawed at her tattered robes.

Finally, as the morning passed and the afternoon wore on, Ordaana’s exhaustion overcame her. She sat down, leant against one of the bloated trees and stared at the daemon in disbelief. What kind of lunatic had she bound herself too? How could Alkhor grant her revenge? It was a giggling moron, playing with its own innards like a child with some dolls.

Sleep eventually washed over her, but at various points in the night she woke to see Alkhor, still hunched over the piece of intestine, its face underlit by a flickering yellow glow and its toothless mouth spread in a manic grin.

Finally, in the deep watches of the night, she was woken by a loud crashing sound and a hiss of escaping air.

Ordaana lurched to her feet, holding the knife out before her, wondering for a moment where she was.

She saw the great bulk of Alkhor, slumped on the ground, drooling and staring at the spore-filled heavens, exhausted by its magic. The daemon was insensate and staring at the sky. Its wings were crumpled awkwardly beneath its back and the hissing sound came from somewhere between its folds of flesh.

Ordaana climbed to her feet and looked around. The mauve of the garden looked even more surreal drenched in moonlight. ‘What am I doing?’ she muttered, looking back at Alkhor. ‘How can this thing grant me revenge?’

She stepped closer, noticed movement on the ground and stooped to investigate.

‘Isha preserve us,’ she gasped.

Lying next to Alkhor was a tiny, panting daemon, no bigger than a rat. It was made of glistening, white flesh and looked up at her with lidless, black eyes that were a perfect match for Alkhor’s; but where Alkhor resembled an enormously obese grub, this was part canine and part soft, slimy gastropod. There was a far more profound difference, though. Where Alkhor was ghostlike and indistinct, this slug-like creature was horribly present. There was a physicality about it that made it even more grotesque than the enormous hulk that lay next to it. As it squirmed and shuffled in the mud, there was no denying that the tiny daemon was as much a part of the world as its bed of rotting leaves.

For a moment, Ordaana saw the daemon as it truly was – a repulsive little lump of fat and claw with a mass of tentacles for a face, but then, as she considered her part in its creation the present and past became jumbled in her mind. As she stared at the pathetic little creature, she realised it was smiling at her. The smile triggered something in her memory and then she began to see it as something else; something she had long dreamt of.

‘Alhena,’ she breathed, her eyes wide with astonishment. ‘My child. I thought I’d lost you.’

As Alkhor gurgled in the darkness, Ordaana scooped her new offspring into her arms and held it tight, her slender body rocked by deep, heaving sobs of joy.

The white, blubbery lump nestled in her arms and her skin began to blister at its touch, but she was oblivious, smiling blissfully as she crushed it tighter to her chest.

‘I will never let you die. Whatever happens. I will never let you die.’

CHAPTER FIVE

They entered the grove at midnight, handmaidens, twelve of them, dressed in sombre colours and holding flaming bundles of birchwood. As they stepped from the trees and crossed the royal dais, moonlight revealed robes adorned with berries and pressed flowers, and faces hidden behind masks, carved to represent forest spirits. A ghostly carnival of animals seemed to be gathering in the darkness: boars, wolves and ravens, their features rendered in bold, angular lines. They met in silence at the centre of the dais and held their torches over a mound of ferns and copper-coloured leaves. As the flames lit up the heap they revealed a pitiful collection of objects: broken arrows, single shoes, remnants of bloodstained clothes and cracked, wooden masks.

Once the twelve had assembled they turned to face a towering mountain of bark and shadow, looming over one end of the clearing: the Oak of Ages. A white-robed figure was standing in the arch of its roots, watching in silence as they took their places.

One by one, the torchbearers raised their brands and began to hum. The sound was a gentle drone at first, but it quickly swelled in volume and complexity, becoming a roaring, wordless threnody, filled with mourning and pathos.

As the sombre chorus climbed towards a crescendo, the figure in white raised its arms and the sound tripled in volume, shaking leaves from the trees and causing the torches to sputter and snap.

The melody reached its climax and drew the figure in white from the tree. Ariel drifted, smoke-like through the air and took her place in the circle. She wore no mask, but she had black tears painted on her pale cheeks and her hawkmoth wings glittered with dew and spiders’ webs.

The final strains of the music died away.

‘Lord of the Forest,’ said Ariel, addressing a handmaiden in pale blue robes and a fox-shaped mask. ‘What would you ask of us?’

‘I ask only that you protect,’ replied the handmaiden. Her mask was designed in such a way that it covered her ears, nostrils and mouth, and when she spoke her voice sounded flat and unnatural as it resonated through the wood.

Ariel repeated the question to each of the twelve and received the same answer each time. All of them had their ears blocked and they spoke in dull, loud tones.

Ariel dropped to one knee and lifted a torn dress from the mound of objects. ‘And what if we are sundered from our souls?’

The twelve handmaidens answered in turn, placing their flaming brands into the mound as they spoke. ‘We will bind you to the trees. We will bind you to the earth. We will bind you to the air. We will bind you to the lakes. We will bind you to the pools. We will bind you to the birds. We will bind you to the grass. We will bind you to the leaves. We will bind you to the roots. We will bind you to the beasts. We will bind you to the flowers. We will bind you to the hours.’

As each of the torches dropped into the mound, the flames grew, until, after a few moments, Ariel and her handmaidens were forced to step back.

Ariel took the hands of those either side of her and the others followed suit, until the whole circle had linked hands. Then she looked up at the stars and spoke again. Her voice became less formal and it was clear she was no longer simply reciting a prayer. ‘Bravest of friends, the slopes of Drúne Fell will always ring with the sound of your final words. We will hear your breath on the summer breeze and see your tears in the morning dew. In the gossamer and in the gloaming we will see your faces. While the asrai endure, you will endure. While there are trees to grow and a sun to shine, your sacrifice will never be forgotten. Whatever the manner of your death, we will not abandon you.’

As the word ‘endure’ left Ariel’s lips, the flames pulsed brighter and smoke plumed overhead.

It quickly became apparent that it was no ordinary smoke. As it rose from the shoes and broken weapons it fragmented, spiralling in a dozen different directions and paying no heed to the breeze. As the flames raged higher, the smoke’s true nature was revealed.

‘The lost of Drúne Fell.’ Ariel’s voice was filled with awe as a host of shadowy figures gathered above her. Dozens of them were drifting through the darkness. Their bodies were represented by only the most vague outlines, but their souls flickered, as bright as cinders on the breeze. As they rolled and tumbled through the air, Ariel caught glimpses of their faces. Some were familiar and some were unknown, but all were filled with gratitude.

‘Let the Binding begin,’ she said, lowering her head.

The handmaidens renewed their song, but this time it was laced with the notes of a new, less morbid tune. It spoke wordlessly of eternal peace and the endless beauty of the forest.

The shadowy figures responded by rising higher and drifting away from the flames, heading towards the enormous oak at the edge of the royal dais.

As the ghosts neared the tree Ariel joined her voice to the chorus and the flames blazed even brighter, throwing back the shadows and revealing the dead as they once were: noble young warriors and powerful, beautiful handmaidens. At their head was a proud young prince, dressed in an elaborate costume of eagle feathers and luxuriant, flowing hides.

Ariel’s painted tears were smeared by real ones as she recognised Lord Salicis – a brave captain of her Eternal Guard. He bowed his head in gratitude as Ariel guided him towards the Oak of Ages. She could feel his soul crying out to her in relief as he led the ghosts to the sanctity of the tree. She called on every realm of the forest to reach out and mark their passing. ‘Watchers of the Northern Sentinels, guide them home.’ As she spoke, the stars overhead rippled, as though seen through water. ‘Lords of the Crags, guide them home.’ Again, the air was filled with a strange lustre as her subjects sent their prayers. ‘Ladies of the Crystal Mere,’ continued Ariel. Then, as she named the southern reaches of the forest, she began to frown. Her words dragged power from the trees, but it was strange. The streams of magic were laced with a gaudy, saffron mist. The ghosts of yellow spores eddied around her, gleaming in the moonlight. Her frown deepened as a sweet, cloying aroma drifted from the shadows. ‘Guardians of the Wildwood,’ she tried to say, but her words were mumbled and confused.

Then her voice stopped dead.

The chorus faltered and the masked figures around the fire looked up in surprise.

‘My queen,’ said the figure in the fox mask. ‘The Binding is not complete.’

The spirits began to disperse, drifting across the grass, losing their way without the beacon of Ariel’s voice.

‘Something is in the forest,’ said Ariel, quietly.

‘My queen?’

Ariel looked up, her face drained of colour. ‘Something is here, Naieth.’

The singing ceased completely and the noblewoman at Ariel’s side looked up in alarm. ‘You must complete the rite, my queen. They will be lost.’

Ariel shook her head and staggered away from the fire, looking at the edges of the clearing as though expecting an enemy to emerge from the shadows. She looked up at the ghost of Salicis, her eyes glittering, and was about to speak to him, when a new sound filled the Council Glade.

Salicis began to scream.

The sound was like knives on stone.

The handmaidens reeled away from the fire, discarding their masks and clamping their hands over their ears.

The young noble clutched at his spectral robes as though they were burning him and his limbs started jerking and thrashing, as though caught in a powerful wind. At the sound of his cries, the other spirits began to wail, clawing at their faces and grasping at the air.

Ariel watched in disbelief as the funeral rites descended into chaos.

The spirits floating overhead pulsed with sickly, yellow light and began to fall, hitting the ground with a series of heavy thuds.

‘They live,’ gasped Ariel as she saw how tangible Salicis’s body had become. His blissful, diaphanous face was gone, replaced by an ashen, bloodstained grimace.

‘No,’ replied Naieth, dashing to Ariel’s side. Like some of the others she had discarded her mask and she stared at Ariel with fear in her eyes. ‘They do not.’

As the bodies continued thudding to the ground, Ariel saw that their eyes were clouded and white, and their wounds were puckered and dry.

Ariel watched in horror as Salicis stood on trembling, broken legs and screamed even louder, sensing that the peace he almost attained had been snatched from him. His wounds were dreadful enough, but Ariel noticed something else as he lurched across the grass, back towards the funeral fire. As the firelight washed over him, Ariel saw that growths were swelling from his torso and limbs – grey, spongy discs, like brackets of fungus.

‘We must destroy them,’ cried Naieth, grabbing Ariel’s shoulder. ‘My queen, they cannot be allowed to defile the sacred glade!’

Ariel shook her head as the undead warrior staggered towards her. ‘We must bind them to the Oak of Ages. Their deaths were unmarked. We can’t just–’

One of the handmaidens cried out in horror as Salicis reached her. She had reached out to comfort the screaming corpse but it immediately threw her to the ground, pummelling her face with the hilt of its broken sword and screaming even more wildly.

Another of the handmaidens raced to help, but within seconds a whole mob of the corpses had piled on her, wrenching, stabbing and howling as they tore her apart.

‘My queen!’ screamed Naieth. ‘We must do something!’

Ariel shook her head, horrified. She held one of her hands aloft and the ground erupted, filling the air with a forest of crumbling roots.

‘Bind them to the earth instead!’ she cried, directing the roots to the front row of spirits and enveloping them in knotted tendrils.

Every one of the nobles was a powerful spellweaver. They were Ariel’s closest handmaidens and at her command they raised their palms to the sky, summoning a tornado of coloured growth, tearing magic from the earth and turning the Council Glade into a maelstrom of thrashing tendrils.

Hundreds of roots crashed into the corpses and dragged them to the ground. There were more falling all the time though, and as fast as the handmaidens could weave their spells, more of their fallen kin slammed to the ground and staggered towards them, each one more mutated than the last.

Ariel moaned in horror as another handmaiden was dragged into the mass of wailing spirits. They were so incensed by their abandonment that they had no idea they were butchering their own kind. Their blank eyes rolled in horror and fear as they crushed the life from the handmaiden.

The combined effort of the spellweavers was now hurling dozens of the undead onto the ground, but the violence of the spell had torn the clearing apart. Many of the corpses tumbled into chasms that opened up from nowhere.

The surviving handmaidens drifted up into the night sky, still weaving roots as they rose.

‘This is an abomination!’ cried Naieth, still at Ariel’s side. ‘We have to stop them!’

Ariel closed her eyes for a second as she considered the significance of her next command.

‘Drive them into the fire!’ she cried, her voice shrill with pain. ‘Destroy them.’

The handmaidens responded immediately, lassoing the spirits and hurling them onto the flaming mound, turning it into a funeral pyre.

The screaming doubled in volume as the flames took hold, but Ariel and the handmaidens were resolute, flinging their brothers and sisters to a second death.

The bodies caught like kindling and flames erupted into the night sky.

‘Burn them!’ howled Ariel, her voice hitching as she saw Salicis’s body collapse in the fire.

The loss of their sisters drove the handmaidens to a vengeful frenzy and the tide finally started to turn. Within minutes, they had dragged half of the undead warriors into the flames, tearing the glade apart as they cleansed it of screaming dead. Finally, as the last of the spirits smashed into the fire, filling the night with sparks, the handmaidens dropped to the ground, exhausted and wide-eyed.

Ariel fell to her knees, trembling with shock. The glade was unrecognisable. Where once there had been a perfect circle of grass, there was now a brutalised mess of churned earth and ragged trenches. The fire was still blazing, drenching the scene in a hellish, bloody hue. As the firelight flickered across the upturned soil, it revealed gruesome remnants of the spirits – limbs and organs, glistening on the ground like a hideous windfall. To Ariel’s horror, she saw that some of the body parts were still making a pitiful attempt to reach the Oak of Ages. Some of the severed limbs were dragging themselves across the ground, like clumsy, spasmodic snakes.

Seeing that Ariel was too dazed to react, Naieth ordered the handmaidens to gather up the remnants and throw them on the fire. Then she hurried to her queen’s side and took her hand.

‘What happened here? What did you see?’

Ariel continued staring at the carnage for a moment; then she recognised she was being addressed and looked at Naieth.

‘What?’

‘My queen. You saw something, just before the spirits turned against us. What was it?’

Ariel shook her head in confusion. Then her eyes widened as she recalled the moment before the battle. She whirled around, staring at the surrounding trees.

‘Something has been born, Naieth.

‘It’s the Old Enemy. The Plague Lord. He’s here again.’

CHAPTER SIX

A doe paused at the centre of clearing, draped in autumnal gold. Sunlight bled through its slender frame, causing its outline to glimmer and shift. It looked like a piebald ghost, barely discernable from the copper-clad trees. Steam plumed from its nostrils as it lifted its head and looked warily at the shadows, its body taut with fear.

Finavar was a few feet away, crouched in the upper branches of an oak, silently training an arrow on the animal’s flank. He had remained motionless for nearly an hour, confident from the tracks below that his prey would return. His chest was bound with scraps of old bark and he had joined his spirit to that of the oak, allowing his lungs and heart to slow, keeping time with the slumberous pulse of sap, winding its way through the ancient trunk. He was one with the tree: sombre, patient and powerful. It was only as he tried to draw back the arrow that he remembered the true state of his body. His arm shook and his fingertips burned as he prepared to fire.

The doe looked directly at the oak, sensing danger.

Finavar looked deep into the doe’s enormous eyes, preparing to let the arrow fly, then he recalled the face of his brother.

His thoughts slipped back to Drúne Fell, and his final goodbye.

He had laid Jokleel out on a bed of leaves by the brook and dressed his remains in an autumnal shroud. He had woven moss into his hair and smeared the juice of hawthorn berries across his sunken cheeks. He had sung the tale of Jokleel’s short life with tears streaming down his face. Then he had packed his brother’s hands full of earth, so that his flesh would remain bound to the forest; not doomed to wander through the underworld, searching endlessly for a soul.

Finavar had waited until the sun was at its zenith, so that Jokleel would leave no shadow behind when he entered the afterlife, then he lit a spark in the leaves and stepped back to watch the flames unfurl themselves across his brother’s skin.

‘To the forest, a gift,’ he whispered, trying to steady his voice. ‘A guardian, tireless and true. A soul of purity and wisdom. A child born of your roots and…’

His words had trailed off as the fire took hold. It had seemed, for a second, as though Jokleel had raised his head.

Finavar panicked. What if he was wrong? What if Jokleel had only been sleeping? Don’t be absurd, the logical part of his mind had replied. The boy’s dead. His flesh has been rotting for weeks. But Finavar could not shake the idea that he was burning his brother alive.

As the flames reached higher, the bed of leaves began to collapse and the body had shifted again, with a sudden, jerking motion.

Finavar had howled in fear and leapt forwards, reaching into the flames. The brittle, autumn leaves had already made a fierce blaze and he had gasped as pain exploded across his hands and forearms.

The heat had been too great and Finavar had lurched back from the fire, thrusting his arms into the brook and collapsing into the mud at exactly the same spot where Ordaana had fallen.

As he looked back at the fire he had seen Jokleel’s body jerking and shifting in the heat.

‘Jokleel!’ he had cried, reaching out with his throbbing fingers.

The fire was short-lived. Jokleel’s slight corpse could not sustain it for long and it soon began to die down, spitting and hissing as it lifted the fat from his bones.

Once the flames failed, Finavar had climbed to his feet and stared at the scorched remains. The momentary madness passed and knew he had done the right thing. He had muttered a few more words of prayer, committing Jokleel’s spirit to the trees and the earth. Then he had stooped and picked up a lock of hair from the ground, kissing it as he made a final, binding promise to his brother.

The doe bolted, snapping Finavar back into the present.

He cursed as the animal disappeared from view. ‘I must stay focused,’ he said. The words fell from his cracked lips in a hoarse whisper. After weeks without food, his thoughts were vague and unruly. He knew that he must eat soon, or his promise would die with him, but it was so hard to keep his mind in one place.

He dropped from his perch, staggering as he landed.

The sound of his fall disturbed something behind him and Finavar’s instinct threw him around, his bow raised.

A long, sinuous shape darted through the grass.

Finavar loosed a shot, mouthing a charm as he did so.

To his surprise, the shot was true and a rat rolled across the ground with the arrow through its side, coming to a halt a few feet away.

Finavar closed his eyes in relief, then begged the rat’s forgiveness as he dropped to his knees and snapped its neck.

Along with the bow, Finavar had salvaged a sword from the battlefield and he used it now to skin the animal, talking to the rat as he did so. He explained that he would waste no part of its flesh. Then he ate the animal raw, grunting hungrily as the stringy, still-warm meat slipped down his throat. As he ate, he recalled the horror of the battlefield. He had returned looking for weapons so that he could defend his brother’s corpse from scavengers, but he fled almost immediately, overwhelmed by the sight of so many corpses. Between them, Orion and the outsiders had turned Drúne Fell into a slaughterhouse.

Once he had devoured everything he could, Finavar cleaned the rat’s skin with his knife and draped it over a branch to dry. Then he spread the sticky bones across the grass, knowing that others would find sustenance in them after he had gone.

Finavar could not remember the last time he had eaten and he felt a rush of energy as the rat’s spirit mingled with his. He could have found no greater way to break his fast. As the rodent’s energy flooded his limbs, he thought again of Jokleel’s charred corpse.

‘I will free us,’ he said, wiping the rat’s blood from his lips and pointing his sword to the north of Drúne Fell. ‘The Council Glade must fall,’ he said, as though speaking to a gathering. ‘Ariel’s reign must come to an end. All these years we have defended ourselves from outsiders when the true threat was here, at the heart of the forest. I will hold true to my word, brother. I will lift this vile curse. I will show the asrai the truth.’

His stomach turned and his throat filled with bile, but he swallowed hard and held the meat down. ‘I promise you Jokleel, I will survive. I will rid the asrai of this burden. I will rid us of Orion.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Orion ran for a long time before he realised he was not alone. It was only as he reached the deepest haunts of the forest, where the tangle of brushwood and ferns slowed his pace to a painful jog, that he noticed three shadows, keeping pace with him through the night.

He paused at the crest of a bracken-filled hollow, panting and trembling as he eyed the shadows. The days had passed in a blur and he was finding it increasingly hard to distinguish spirit from flesh. The Otherworld loomed constantly at the edge of his vision and strange vistas bled through the earth, causing him to duck and weave around beings that could not exist. The ghosts of Orion rumbled constantly in his thoughts now – muttering obscure, gnomic phrases every time he paused. With so many intangibles, Orion had begun to disregard anything that did not bend and snap beneath his hooves. Most of the visions were vanquished by a shake of his head, but as he peered at the three shadows they remained solid and vivid, skulking through the trees as he tried to discern them.

Orion looked down and saw that his chest and forearms were streaked with fresh blood. He scoured his memory and found nothing but daemons and ghosts. ‘The hunt,’ he breathed, realising he had lost himself again. What had he killed as he ran? He looked closer and saw scraps of skin and fur beneath his talons. ‘The hunt,’ he repeated and the voices in his head rumbled in reply.

The shadows answered with three mournful howls.

Orion felt a rush of emotion as he realised that his hounds had followed him. They were as strange to him as anything else but, with the year dying around him and his strength falling from his limbs, living companions of any kind suddenly seemed wonderful.

‘Fuath,’ he cried, reaching out into the darkness.

One of the shadows rippled and broke away from its companions, skirting the edge of the hollow and padding to Orion’s side.

Orion hesitated as the creature approached, unnerved by its appearance.

The hound was twice the size of any normal dog and where its eyes should have been were a pair of furnaces, leaking ruddy flames around the animal’s head. Its jaws were huge and its slavering lips curled back as it approached, revealing a row of long, vicious teeth. The hound let out a low growl as it reached Orion and greasy, matted hair bristled along the length of its back.

Orion sensed the other two hounds emerging from the trees behind him but he kept his gaze locked on Fuath.

‘You are mine to command,’ he said, trying to reassure himself, but he sensed his mistake before the words had left his lips. Whatever manner of beings they were, the hounds served no one; not even a king. Seeing them now, away from the clamour of the hunt, he saw that they were as ethereal as the visions that had haunted his journey north. They were caged in flesh and bone; imprisoned in the bodies of hounds, but they were far from mortal. The flames licking from their eye sockets were just a glimpse of their true nature. They, more than anything, were the soul of the Wild Hunt.

Orion realised that he was barely their equal, never mind their master.

Fuath sat and the other two followed suit. The low growls continued, but the hounds seemed to relax.

‘I must find my queen,’ he said, looking at each of them in turn. ‘But my mind is…’ He frowned, unsure how to explain himself. ‘I am confused.’

Orion had the overwhelming impression that Fuath was about to speak. The dog had tilted its head to one side, as though considering his words.

‘We are one,’ said Orion, and this time he knew he was right. Whatever sorcery had bound his soul to the Wild Hunt, ruled the hounds too. They understood him in a way no mortal could. They, at least, should know that he would not have chosen to act as he did.

‘I must make amends,’ he muttered. ‘Will you lead me to Ariel?’

The hound narrowed its eyes at the word ‘amends’, as though in disapproval.

‘I must fulfil my destiny,’ said Orion, trying a different tack.

The hound continued staring at him for a moment, then it lowered its head in what seemed like mute agreement.

Orion was about to speak again, when all three of the hounds dashed away, heading north along the edge of the hollow and vanishing into the trees.

Orion smiled and raced after them, struggling to keep up as they leapt over branches and raced down mist-shrouded gulleys.

The act of chasing the hounds threw Orion back across the centuries and, as they raced north, he tumbled into the past. He saw countless, bloody hunts; trees filled with the bodies of those he had slain: animal, asrai and human. But there was something profoundly different about the hunts of the previous years. Every act of violence he perpetrated added to the untamed beauty of his people – it made them more perfect; more alive. When he raced with the hounds, he pushed the asrai a little further from the linear, crushing ugliness of civilisation. He knew it was right. He knew it was his purpose. Atolmis’s words came back to him as he ran, and suddenly they made sense: ‘You are everything that defines us’.

The thought of the priests filled Orion with grief, quickly followed by determination. The high priest had chosen him, all those months ago, to perform the ultimate duty. ‘I will not fail,’ snarled Orion, racing faster after the hounds. ‘I will prove you right, Atolmis. I will become the king.’

As the hours passed and Fuath led him back to more familiar glades, Orion found himself dwelling on his actions over the summer. He saw the stone guardian, smashing its ancient ward at his command; then he recalled the rotten oak, and the grub that devoured Sélva. A horrible doubt pressed over him. Was it too late? Had he already destroyed the kingdom he was sworn to protect?

A lazy, golden dawn was falling through the branches as Orion reached the glades of Ariel’s court. He recalled the distant, unearthly gaze of his queen and crushed his doubt. ‘I will become the king.’ He bared his teeth in a snarl as he broke through the trees. ‘Once Ariel has led me to Sativus, everything can be as it was. I will heal the wounds I have created. I will heal the forest. I will show Sativus he was right to trust me.’

A few minutes later, Orion staggered to a halt at the edge of the clearing, dumbfounded.

The royal dais had been destroyed. Where once there was a perfect disc of grass, there was now a patch of raw, churned earth and exposed roots. At the centre of this wasteland were the still-smouldering remains of a great fire. A column of smoke reached up to the clouds and filled the air with an acrid stink, adding to the autumn haze and forcing Orion to narrow his eyes as he picked his way across the upturned soil.

The hounds waited in the trees, leaving Orion to advance alone. As he approached the smouldering pyre, Orion saw scraps of flesh and armour scattered across the soil. His sense of disbelief grew. Violence in the sacred glades was unheard of. Not even the most determined outsiders had ever reached this deep into the forest and, even if they had, Ariel’s handmaidens would never allow them enter such places. Orion stooped to examine a tattered robe and frowned. It was of asrai design.

He peered through the smoke-filled air and sensed that it was full of rage. The whole glade was taut with pain. The Otherworld was even closer here. He could see the trees’ souls, shimmering in a maelstrom of colours.

Orion dragged his consciousness back to the present and saw that there were figures silhouetted by the remains of the fire, their heads bowed in prayer.

He gripped his spear as he advanced, furious that anyone would defile Ariel’s halls in such a way.

As he neared them, one of the figures cried out, her voice a mixture of pain and hope.

‘Orion!’ cried Ariel, gliding across the clearing towards him, trailing smoke from her tawny wings.

As his queen approached, Orion felt the strength go from his legs. The weight of their past crushed him. The hunger of the hunt fell away and he dropped to his knees.

Ariel landed on the grass and stared coldly at him. Then her eyes widened as she took in his scarred flesh and withered limbs. ‘You’re wounded.’ She bowed her head for a moment and when she looked up her expression had softened. ‘You gave them everything, again.’

Orion recoiled from the pity he saw in her eyes. He had abandoned her and she looked at him with compassion. No words of accusation could have cut him more deeply.

‘I failed you.’

Ariel’s gaze hardened again. ‘Is it true, then? Have you destroyed the Council of Beasts?’

Orion was about to answer, when he noticed handmaidens, gathering around them, bowing their heads in respect. Their robes were tattered and bloodstained.

Orion stood, and managed to meet Ariel’s gaze. ‘What happened here?’ he asked, looking at the churned trenches that surrounded them.

Ariel’s voice was unusually brittle. ‘We should talk.’ She signalled for one of her handmaidens to approach.

Orion backed away as he saw who it was. ‘Naieth!’ His pulse raced and the voices in his mind growled a warning.

The prophetess gave him a look as cool as Ariel’s. ‘My king.’

Rage and shame collided in Orion’s mind. At their last encounter Naieth had begged him not to enter the Vaults of Winter and he had dismissed her like a fool. He had been so sure of himself then; so powerful. To meet her in his current state, weakened and haunted by the knowledge of his mistake, was almost more than he could bear. He met her eye and, to his horror, he saw that even she pitied him.

‘Why don’t you gloat?’ He glared at the copper-haired sorceress. ‘You know what a fool I am. You know what I did.’

Naieth ignored his question and her expression remained unreadable. ‘My king,’ she said, waving her staff at the corpses, ‘the most unwelcome messenger is amongst us. We are beset by phantoms and apparitions.’ Her eyes widened and she spoke with uncharacteristic simplicity. ‘We have been attacked.’

Orion realised that, rather than being calm, her face was rigid with emotion. He could not tell if it was grief or rage.

‘What did you do?’ asked Naieth. She looked at the bodies in the mud and then back at Orion. ‘Why are you here now? Where are your priests? Where are the Wild Riders?’

Orion stared at her, mute with anger and shame.

‘Where is Atolmis?’ Ariel demanded.

Orion looked away, picturing the gruesome death of Sélva.

Naieth watched him closely, then looked at her queen.

‘Come,’ said Ariel, taking both of their arms but refusing to look at Orion. ‘We have much to discuss.’

Orion yielded and the three of them made their way through the crowd, stumbling across the brutalised clearing, and entering the enormous oak.

As they stepped through the vast antechambers of the tree, Orion recalled his glorious birth, just months earlier, with Ariel at his side. He remembered the proud roar he had unleashed as they stepped out onto the royal dais, on the first day of spring. How strong he had felt then; how potent.

The tree groaned and shifted around them as they walked, assuming a profusion of different shapes and leading them to places none of them had seen before. Blades of moonlight sliced through the gloom, alighting on roots the size of hills and bark as old as mountains, leading them deeper into the ancient, heavy blackness.

Ariel’s flesh shimmered as she moved through the dark, rippling across the roots until, after several minutes, she came to a halt. She muttered something and Orion gasped as silver veins pulsed across the walls, lighting up a large, circular chamber. The lights grew brighter and Orion saw that the room was lined with a ring of seats, each one a misshapen lump of knotted, polished root that resembled a different kind of animal. The roots were twisted around bones: gleaming, bleached ribcages and femurs, and as the light shifted, Orion realised that the roots were moving – expanding and contracting as though breathing. There were serpentine runes carved into the earth and it was clearly a meeting place of some kind – a room of governance or prayer, like the chapterhouses he had seen in the outsiders’ stone temples.

‘Where have you brought us?’ he asked, finding it suddenly hard to breathe. The air in the chamber was heavy, as though not intended for mortal lungs. The little he managed to gulp down left him feeling light-headed and, as he studied the creaking chairs, he felt the Otherworld pressing closer than ever before. Ariel’s silver light pulsed and undulated across the walls, throwing odd shadows. It seemed as though there were figures sat in the chairs, watching them.

Ariel’s eyes brightened as she looked around the room. ‘I have brought us nowhere. The Oak decides, as always.’ She looked at Naieth, who was staring at the empty chairs. ‘But I know where we are.’

Naieth nodded, matching Ariel’s half-smile. The lights were glinting across her rune-covered robes, and as she approached one of the chairs it looked as though she were wreathed in white flames. She placed one of her hands on the chair and Orion saw that her nails were several inches long, curling around her fingers like coils of yellow smoke. She stroked them across the chair and looked back at Ariel, her eyes gleaming.

Orion was finding it increasingly hard to breathe and did not notice their excitement. The shadows were closing in on him and taking shape; pawing at him with broken limbs and accusing him with mute, desperate screams. As Ariel and Naieth gently examined the circle of chairs, treating them like holy relics, Orion thudded across the chamber and sat heavily in the nearest one, feeling as though he were assailed by dozens of silent attackers.

Ariel was too busy studying the room to notice his distress. ‘Why would the tree bring us here?’ She turned to look at Orion and the suspicion came back into her eyes. ‘Why did you come back to me now? Why on this particular evening? What did you wish to discuss?’

Orion tried to reply, but his breath was coming in short gasps and all that emerged from his throat was a hoarse groan.

Ariel stepped to his side. ‘This is the very heart of the Oak.’ She placed a hand over Orion’s throat and he immediately felt his airways start to open. ‘The air here belongs to another time.’ As her fingers stroked his face, it seemed as though she was going to ask him something kinder. Then her expression became cool again. ‘You will grow accustomed to it in a moment.’

‘And what of the ghosts?’ He waved at the shadows. ‘Will I grow accustomed to them?’

Ariel and Naieth looked at each other in surprise, then Naieth nodded. ‘You see further than you did, my king. You see things we do not.’ There was a trace of humour in her voice. ‘Winter is approaching. Soon we will face the longest night.’

Ariel blanched at the mention of winter and glanced at Orion’s scarred limbs. Then she looked around the chamber and repeated her question. ‘What did you return for? There must be some reason the Oak has shown us to this particular chamber.’

Orion shuffled uncomfortably in the chair, looking at the dried blood that covered his body. Every inch of him was plastered with signs of the Wild Hunt. ‘Naieth was right. I should never have entered the Vaults. I created an imbalance. I disturbed the soul of the forest.’ His words were barely audible. ‘I destroyed the Torr-Ildána.’

Naieth lifted her hand to her mouth.

Ariel shook her head. ‘Destroyed?’ For a moment she was unable to meet her king’s eye. ‘That can’t be. The stones are protected.’ She gave Naieth a pleading glance. ‘Aren’t they?’

Orion let out a bitter laugh as he remembered the stone giant, crumbling before him. ‘They were protected.’

‘You killed the guardian?’ Ariel’s voice was hollow.

‘You cannot imagine what it’s like to be filled with this power!’ Orion clapped his hands against his head and closed his eyes, trying to drive the spirits from his mind. Visions of the forest replaced them, rolling across his thoughts, filled with the hunger of the hunt. He was a hawk, diving for its prey, hurtling towards the earth with wind screaming through its feathers. He was a fox, shivering in the snow, tearing at a frozen, week-old carcass. He was a wolf, howling in the darkness. He was hunger, rage and violence, all bound into one. His pulse began to race as reality fell away, revealing a parade of ghosts, calling him to abandon the physical world and let the hunger consume him – to abandon himself to the eternal hunt. He felt his resolve slipping. He would brave anything to escape the pity and hurt he saw in Ariel’s eyes.

‘Orion,’ said Ariel. ‘How did you manage to destroy the guardian?’

‘I used the power that binds all of us.’ He glanced at Naieth. ‘She knows what I mean, the web at the heart of the forest. It has no beginning and no end. We cannot escape it. The spirits weave it into our dreams. The one named the Wrach – the Blind Guide – he knows its source. He knows how to bend it to his will.’ Bitterness twisted Orion’s words into a snarl. ‘He claims to be a simple guide, but he is a liar.’

Naieth removed her hand from her mouth. ‘These are all guiles and feints, Orion, guiles and feints. Such maps and prophecies do not haunt the Great Weave. The Dark Paths have no true guide, whatever the Wrach may claim. Even to the Brúidd the Gyre is no more than a shadow.’

Ariel frowned. ‘You used this web to destroy the stones? Why? Why would you do such a thing?’

Orion was deaf to her question. At the mention of the Brúidd he turned his thunderous gaze on Naieth. ‘I am not the cause of all this!’ He began pacing around the chamber, lashing out at the shadows. ‘Something drove me to do things I would never have done. If not the Wrach, then someone else! By Kurnous, I never would have unleashed…’ His words faltered and he stumbled to a halt, staring at his bloody skin.

‘Unleashed what?’ Naieth strode after Orion and held her staff aloft. Light blazed from the knotted twigs, throwing harsh shadows across his face.

Orion continued staring at his hands and gave no reply.

‘My king,’ said Naieth. ‘You must speak openly now. The last stars of the asrai are fading. Morning is almost on us. Your lords are scattered and divided. While Prince Haldus was leading us to victory we fought as one. He forged your subjects into a weapon worthy of your name, but Haldus has returned to his mountain peaks, and your people are divided once more. Whatever dangers we face, we will face them with you alone to lead us. Your hunt has scattered anyone else who could have aided us – Lord Beldeas and his Lady Ordaana, and their captain, Eremon – they have all been scattered to the four winds by your rage, along with any of their subjects who survived the fall of Locrimere.’ She looked back the way they had come. ‘And now, after a night such as this, it seems that even the dead are weary of your rule. The sweet music of this dell has become a fractious din. We have been attacked tonight by the ghosts of our own children.’ Her voice faltered. ‘With all my memories and foresight even I have never heard of such a thing. None of us have. We are wilted and weeping, my king. We were attempting to preserve those sundered from the Oak, but we were attacked by the very souls we were trying to protect.’ She waved her staff at Ariel who was still watching Orion with a pained expression. ‘And your queen sensed…’ Her words faltered and she turned to Ariel.

Ariel looked confused and shook her head.

Orion frowned. ‘What?’

Ariel stared back at him. ‘Something has been born into the forest; something that should never have lived.’ She looked back at the entrance to the chamber. ‘I can’t place it, but it reeks of ruin. And it’s so hungry. It wants to grow.’

Naieth gripped Orion’s arm. ‘What did you unleash? What were those old stones protecting? You are in the evening of your year, Orion, you must speak quickly. What did you see?’

Orion pulled away from her and lashed out at one of the chairs, scattering roots and twigs across the chamber. His tone was bleak. ‘I saw nothing.’

‘Then why are you here?’ demanded Ariel.

He grabbed her arms. ‘To mend what I have broken! Whatever happened here and whatever happened at the Torr Ildána, I can mend it. We don’t need Prince Haldus or Captain Eremon or anyone else.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Take me to Sativus. Take me to the Spirit King.’

‘Orion,’ gasped Ariel, looking at his hand. His flesh had scraped away from the bone when he punched the chair, leaving the knuckles exposed. Blood was flowing quickly down his wrist. The wound was far too serious to be the result of one blow. There was panic in her voice. ‘What have you done?’

Orion glared at his hand in disgust. He recalled punching the stone giant and realised that his body was rebelling against him – recalling wounds it should have forgotten. ‘This is why I returned!’ he hissed. ‘Do you see? I’m fading. I have no time left, Ariel. I must find Sativus now. Soon I will be too weak.’

Ariel’s eyes widened at the pain in Orion’s voice, but she shook her head. ‘The Council of Beasts is not the enemy. There is something else.’ She grimaced. ‘It is rancid and eager, but it is newborn. The Brúidd are as old as the forest; older maybe. I do not claim to understand them, but I’m sure they mean us no harm. You have pitted yourself against our only friends.’

Orion tightened his grip on her arms. ‘Understand me – I do not mean to hurt Sativus. I mean to undo what I’ve done.’

Ariel looked shocked and Orion realised she had glimpsed the fear in his eyes. He loosed his grip and staggered back into the shadows, furious that he had shown such weakness in front of her. ‘I must find him,’ he muttered.

Ariel dropped into one of the chairs, looking baffled by Orion’s behaviour. The wood was formed into the shape of a raven and as Ariel slumped back, it reached forwards with a creaking sound, stretching its wooden wings around hers. ‘I cannot betray him,’ she whispered.

Orion peered at her through the shadows, unsure if she meant him or Sativus. He realised with a sudden, nauseating clarity that he depended entirely on her. If Ariel refused him, he was helpless. He was her protector no longer. The tables had been turned. Power lay in her hands, not his. The thought terrified him.

Ariel turned to Naieth, her face pale. ‘The tree brought us here for a reason. The message is clear.’

Naieth looked appalled. ‘My queen, you cannot do as he asks. Do not be dazzled by your past. It is a beautiful dream, nothing more. Think of what he has done. Think of how his divinity has taken flight. He has ordained nothing but death for us, Ariel. You must shake him free. You must loose his bloody grip, or he will sever every tie that binds us to the Great Weave. He destroyed one of the Brúidd. He would strip the boughs bare if we let him. When I speak to the spirits I hear nothing but rage. Their anger leaks from every shoot and bough. He is their blackest night. They despise him.’ Her voice rose in pitch. ‘How could you lead him to Sativus?’

Orion looked up from his fist, shocked by such open treason. Then he frowned. ‘What do you mean I destroyed one of them?’

Naieth saw his outrage but was unable to calm herself. ‘The stone guardian! It belonged to the oldest Council of the forest, the same as Sativus and the others.’ She clutched her staff in both hands and light flared again. ‘It was a soul from the morning of the world, a piece of the forest’s enduring heart, and you unfurled it to the cosmos.’

Orion’s sense of dread grew.

Ariel looked over at him and he saw, to his disgust, that the pity was back in her eyes. ‘Do you know where we are?’ She waved at the circle of chairs. ‘Do you recognise this place?’

He shook his head, barely listening, still wondering if Naieth’s accusation could be true.

‘It is called the House of Dominion. It is the meeting place of the Brúidd.’ Ariel looked at the misshapen chairs with undisguised wonder.

‘No,’ said Orion, ‘you’re wrong.’

Ariel and Naieth looked at him in surprise.

‘I saw their meeting place.’ He stared at the ground as he spoke. ‘They meet by a pool in a sacred grove – a grove of linden trees.’ He shivered at the memory of it. ‘They are surrounded by the changing seasons. Snow turns to sun in a moment and the leaves wither as they emerge.’ He looked up at Ariel. ‘This is not the place.’

Naieth gave Ariel a sideways glance and answered for her. ‘You heard a distant echo. You saw a ghost. The Council of Beasts is a withered relic of former greatness. The House of Dominion was once the centre of the forest, when the Brúidd were still united. I see them in my dreams. Few still live.’

She raised her staff of twigs, throwing shadows from the chairs and across the walls. Bestial shapes reached over the ceiling, as though preparing to pounce. ‘Even to me their movements are obscure.’ She narrowed her eyes and stepped towards Orion. ‘But I believe they gather in spring, to pass judgement.’ She reached Orion’s side and fixed her piercing eyes on his. ‘Is that what you recall? They are your measure, my king. Does that fill you with dread?’ She touched his arm with one of her long nails. ‘Does it needle you?’

Orion’s fingers suddenly itched to commit violence. Ariel’s witch had an unnerving way of peering into his soul. He sneered. ‘What does it matter when I saw them? Why are we in their chamber?’

The certainty faded from Naieth’s gaze and she looked back at her queen.

‘I understand why,’ said Ariel. ‘The message is clear. We need help.’ She looked up at the chamber’s knotted ceiling, and the feral silhouettes rippling across it. ‘As in all things, the Oak of Ages has shown us the answer.’ She glanced at Orion. ‘You have released an agent of change into that which must not be changed. If we wish to undo the harm you have caused, we will need the help of the spirits. The Brúidd will know what to do. Sativus will know what to do. It has always been the way. At times of great need I am led to this chamber. If the Oak is willing, its roots lead me to Sativus. The path is never the same twice, but it is always true.’ She kept her gaze locked on Orion, and her expression hardened. ‘Are you true, Orion? Will you beg him for forgiveness? Will you convince him that we are worth saving?’

Orion felt her words like a physical blow. Rage boiled in his veins and, despite himself, a refusal sprang to his lips, but he stifled his fury. Ariel’s expression was like steel: cold and implacable. He had only ever seen love, humour and deference in her eyes, but now he saw what lay behind them: bottomless, immortal power. The most he could manage was a slight nod of his head.

‘Orion,’ she said, her voice echoing around the chamber. ‘Whatever you have done, we are, as we always were, one with the forest.’

The words were laced with magic and Orion felt the shadows pressing in on him again, snatching his breath from his throat.

‘We are the forest,’ said Ariel, her voice throbbing from the wooden walls. ‘You must mend what you have broken.’

Naieth shook her head in disbelief. ‘You think the Oak would lead him to Sativus? That it would draw the hunter to his prey?’ She waved her staff at Orion’s scarred body. ‘Don’t be blinded by your love. He knows nothing but hunger.’

Ariel kept her fierce stare locked on Orion. ‘He knows more than that.’

Orion dropped heavily into one of the chairs. Suddenly, nothing made sense. He had seen Ariel as a prize to be protected, as a fragile burden, but now, as her fury pressed him back into the chair, he realised that he could barely meet her eye. All the power he had glimpsed in the Otherworld was pulsing from her irises. The visions he had being trying to evade were already here, blazing from her flesh.

‘I…’ He found it painful to drag the words out, but his queen’s implacable gaze forced him on. His fury swelled again as he pictured the white stag, but it quickly faded, leaving him looking at his own wasted flesh. The signs of his mortality were undeniable. His time had almost passed and he had achieved nothing but harm. His only chance was Ariel. ‘I have been wrong,’ he muttered, massaging his throat and snatching short breaths.

Naieth was furious. She rounded on Ariel and finally unleashed the bile she had been stifling since Orion’s return. ‘He’s not your sweet-tongued lover, he’s a monster.’ Her staff trembled in her grip. ‘Kurnous has hollowed out his soul. He is sinew and hate. Take him to Sativus and we will be lost. The seasons will be heavy with blood.’

‘You have forgotten your place, Naieth.’ Ariel’s voice was taut. ‘Does a handmaiden give instructions to the Mage Queen? Does she slander her queen’s consort?’

Naieth’s eyes were straining with emotion, but she lowered her staff and said no more.

‘We have faced such things before,’ said Ariel, allowing a little softness back into her voice as she turned to Orion, ‘but we faced them together. There is no hope unless we embrace the duality of our nature. As a king and queen, we are nothing; as an instrument of the forest’s will, we are everything.’

Orion looked dazed. His head was filled with images of violence and destruction, all perpetrated by him. ‘Perhaps she’s right,’ he muttered, waving at Naieth. ‘I feel as though someone has been acting through me. I feel,’ he hesitated, ‘out of control.’

The king’s shoulders drooped and the strength seemed to go out of him. For a moment, he was Sephian once more – a simple waywatcher, stained with the blood of his people.

Ariel looked at him in silence for a moment. Then she shook her head and took a deep breath. ‘Naieth is wise in many things, but in this matter she is blind.’ She glared at the handmaiden, warning her not to interrupt. ‘I have been with you through the centuries, Orion. I have watched you bind us to the wild, thorny heart of this forest.’ She frowned. ‘But this year I sensed a change. At our very first embrace, I tasted poison in your kiss.’

Orion stared at her. ‘Poison? What do you mean?’ He rose and staggered to her side. ‘I would never harm you.’

‘Not me,’ she said. ‘You have been poisoned. You have been changed. There is a madness in you I cannot recognise.’ She looked back at the entrance to the chamber. ‘When the ghosts of Drúne Fell began to scream, I felt it again – the same madness – the same hatred.’ She looked deep into Orion’s eyes. ‘The Old Enemy is in the forest and, somehow, it is in you. Someone, or something, has led you astray, I’m sure of it.’

Orion was about to defend himself but the words faltered in his mouth. He knew that the madness had left him, but why should she listen? Why should she believe him after all that he had done?

Naieth could contain herself no longer. ‘These are not the wiles of Chaos. There is Kurnous-kindled wrath burning in his breast, as it should, but his flame cannot be allowed to sever us from the forest. Even eternity cannot–’

Ariel silenced her with another glare. ‘Something else is at work.’

She looked back at Orion. ‘Will you meet Sativus in peace?’

A furious reply flew to Orion’s lips, but he clamped them shut and gave himself a moment to think. He took a deep steadying breath and reminded himself that Ariel was his only hope. He nodded.

Naieth was about to speak again but the tree was too fast.

The queen gasped as roots exploded from the ground, enveloping all of them and filling the chamber with noise and movement.

Naieth staggered backwards, clamping a hand over her mouth as soil pounded against her face.

The roots spiralled around Ariel and Orion, lifting them both from the ground.

‘My queen!’ cried Naieth.

‘Find the newborn,’ said Ariel, her voice slicing through the din. ‘Find out what has entered the forest.’

The ground began to judder and Naieth had to lean against a wall to steady herself. She squinted into the maelstrom, trying to make out Ariel’s face, but the king and queen were hidden by the tempest of roots.

‘We will return, with Sativus at our side,’ said Ariel. Her voice sounded as though it were coming from the earth itself.

‘Find out who has defiled our forest, Naieth. Find out who has poisoned my king.’

The roots thrashed wildly around the chamber and Naieth staggered backwards, shielding her eyes.

The thrashing and crumbling continued for several minutes, then, finally the movement ceased and the chamber fell quiet.

Naieth wiped the soil from her eyes and saw that Ariel and Orion were still standing in the centre of the room.

As the roots withdrew into the earth, Ariel looked around in confusion. ‘The Oak is not willing.’ She frowned at Naieth. ‘Why has the tree brought us to this chamber only to deny us passage? Is Sativus to be hidden from me?’

Naieth was too shocked to speak for a moment. Then she jabbed her staff at the king. ‘The forest will not permit it. The Great Weave bars Orion from joining you. It will not send him into the presence of a Spirit King. It is his bloodlust that prevents you.’

Orion backed away, shaking his head, but Ariel was resolute. ‘You do not see everything, Naieth. We must seek his aid together, I know it. If Sativus speaks to Orion, all will be made clear. He will see that we have not betrayed him – not in any true sense. We have all been tricked.’

As the ground continued heaving and groaning, Ariel stepped to Naieth’s side. ‘The Oak’s intent is clear. I must take Orion to Sativus.’ She took Naieth’s hand. ‘If my charms will not suffice, there must be another way.’

‘Sativus answers to no one. Nobody can see his movements. Nobody can see everything.’

Naieth was about to answer when the walls collapsed.

There was a deafening, grinding roar as the chamber tumbled and rolled over them. Soil, bark and roots slammed into them and for a while they were helpless, tumbling through a maelstrom of sound and movement.

None of them could say afterwards how long they fell, but when the turmoil ceased, they found themselves blinking and gasping under a cool, pewter-coloured sky. A network of dark branches framed the cloudless vaults, and as he looked up, Orion laughed.

‘Your blessed tree is playing games with us, Ariel.’ His head was still spinning as he staggered down a branch as wide as a road. He peered over its side. Far below were the churned remains of the Council Glade. They were so high that the funeral pyre was little more than a small, blackened smudge.

Ariel stepped lightly from the branch, beating her wings and lifting herself into the air. ‘Naieth?’ she asked, looking back towards the trunk of the tree.

Naieth saw something further down the branch and her eyes widened in shock. She was about to speak, then she clamped her mouth shut and looked away.

‘What?’ demanded Orion. ‘Speak up.’

Naieth’s face coloured and she ignored Orion, turning to look at Ariel. ‘Only the dead, my queen, are truly unblinkered. Only they see all routes.’ Her eyes were full of fear. ‘But we have seen enough necromancy for one night.’

Ariel shook her head. ‘What do you mean? I will not summon the dead.’

As they spoke of the dead, an image flashed into Orion’s mind – rows of harsh, bright lights, surrounded by ink-black shadows. ‘You cannot bring them here, but what if we go to them?’

Ariel looked aghast. ‘What do you mean?’

Naieth narrowed her eyes. ‘Would you risk your own, lingering span then, my king? Would you cross the pale threshold?’

‘What choice do I have?’ Orion waved at his wasted limbs. ‘I have no time left.’ His voice rattled with emotion. ‘I must act now or the whole forest dies with me.’

Ariel shook her head, looking from Naieth to Orion. ‘What do you mean? What risk?’

‘He speaks of the Endless Vale.’ Naieth kept her gaze locked on Orion. ‘He seeks those without roots. He seeks the timeless wit of the dead.’

Ariel recoiled. ‘The Endless Vale? What made you think of such a pitiful place?’

He massaged his temples and looked pained. ‘Sélva has fallen. Some kind of plague is eating through the south of the forest. It…’ His words faltered and he shook his head.

Ariel and Naieth turned to each other in horror, but Orion continued, oblivious to their shock.

‘The priests told me they must return his remains to the King’s Glade, or he would spend eternity wandering the Endless Vale.’ He looked at Naieth with desperate hope in his eyes. ‘You have seen something that put you in mind of the dead. You are keeping something from us. If the dead see all, lead me to them. I could cross this Endless Vale. I know I have seen the place before. My memories are vague, but I’m sure I have been and returned. And if I’ve been there once, I could go again. The dead could lead me to the Spirit King.’

Naieth glanced anxiously along the branch and gave no reply.

Ariel stared at Orion. ‘It is not possible. You are immortal. Such a fate is not set aside for you.’ She turned to her handmaiden. ‘Is it, Naieth?’

Naieth gave no answer and Ariel frowned, turning to look at her. ‘Is it?’

Naieth was too busy watching the branches to answer for a moment. They were coiling themselves into new shapes, like snakes preparing to strike. She noticed Ariel watching her and registered the question. She drummed her coiled nails on her staff. ‘There are ways. Death is only another season. Even the soul of a god can be cast to the wind.’

Ariel looked appalled. ‘What kind of power could send Orion to the realm of the damned?’

The prophetess was clutching her staff of twigs and blinking as she stepped out further into the light. The violence of the tree had left her hair and robes in disarray and, as she turned to face Ariel, she looked utterly wild. ‘The tree of life is also the tree of death.’ She spat a leaf from her mouth and wiped away the remnants with the back of her hand. ‘The king asked and it would appear that the tree has replied.’ She pointed her staff to a small hollow where the branch split into three. ‘Even a spirit as old as his can join the ranks of the dead.’ She turned to Orion. ‘If you are prepared to take leave of your senses.’

Ariel and Orion looked where she was pointing. There was nothing unusual about the fork in the branch. It was as mossy and decrepit as the rest of the Oak. The hollow was carpeted with dead leaves and a few tiny flowers – a little cloud of blue vervain, still clinging to life, despite the autumn chill.

Naieth walked past them and nodded at the flowers. ‘The Oak has led us to the Tears of Isha.’ She knelt and brushed the tiny petals with her staff. ‘A poison fit for a god.’

Orion stepped to her side and looked at the flowers. He knelt beside her and reached out to touch one.

‘Wait,’ snapped Naieth, grabbing his wrist and glaring at him. ‘The shadow of your life would be set free from its master. You would forego yourself, Orion. Are you sure? Would you really abandon life so carelessly?’

Ariel landed a few feet away with a nervous laugh. ‘He is immortal, Naieth. What harm can flowers do him?’

‘These are rare blooms, my queen. They have the power to unshackle even the mightiest of souls.’

Orion stared at the tiny flowers. ‘And what then?’

‘Yet again, you would create a terrible imbalance. The seasons are your measure and your guide. The twilight of the year is the twilight of your soul.’ She frowned. ‘But if you taste the Tears of Isha, you will fall free now, before midwinter comes. You will enter a Kingdom of the Soul. You will cross into that Endless Vale that you have seen in your dreams.’

There was doubt in Ariel’s eyes again. ‘Would you really do such a thing?’

He glared back at her. ‘If it will undo what I have done, yes. The dead could lead me to Sativus. You said yourself that we must seek his aid.’ There was desperation in his voice. ‘I have no time, Ariel. How else will I find him? The tree has brought me here. Its meaning is obvious.’ He looked up at the heavens, pain written across his face. ‘I have seen what you have only felt, Ariel. The forest is diseased, and it is because of me. And the rot is spreading. I must undo what I have done before it’s too late.’

Naieth looked at Ariel with a raised eyebrow. ‘The Oak of Ages does not dream idly, my queen.’

Orion looked at her with an expression of unusual calm. The tumult had vanished from his emerald eyes, replaced by a cool certainty. ‘I’m sure of it – my purpose was not my own. Until now, something has driven me to madness.’ He addressed Naieth without rancour. ‘You do not see it, but I am myself once more.’

Ariel knelt beside them and looked at the flowers. ‘And, if he did this, if he descended into shadow, how would he find his way back? How would he return?’

Naieth paled. ‘He would do business with the dead. They are trapped in a nightmare and they will seek wakefulness.’ She grimaced. ‘They are bound in a silken dark and they would feel his pull. They would be moths to a flame.’

She stared at the king. ‘You would need to conceal your true power. If your presence became known every soul that was ever damned would come looking for you. They would lie, beg and fight to leave that timeless hell. You would have to remain hidden, or…’ Her words trailed off and she looked back at the clump of vervain.

‘Or what?’ asked Orion.

Naieth laughed. It was a cheerless sound. ‘I cannot believe I would sanction this,’ she whispered, ‘but the Oak of Ages has wisdom far beyond mine.’ She shook her head and spoke louder. ‘If you did this, you would tread paths more meandering and beguiling than you can imagine. You would see nothing but lies and illusion. And if you forgot your purpose, even for a moment, you would forget yourself. You would become as lost as all the others. You would never return.’

She reached down and cut a flower with a coiled, yellow fingernail. Then she laid it on the head of her staff.

‘Be aware, my king, that this would not happen through doleful choice, or guileless chance. Nothing is unmarked by prophecy, nothing. There are no decisions. There are no mistakes. There is only fate. The wiles of the forest are behind all that we do, as sure and noiseless as the roots beneath our feet. If you go it will be for a reason. You will need to broker forgiveness if you are ever to return. You will have to earn your freedom. Somehow, you will need to become the succour of despair.’

Orion drew back from the flower, confused by Naieth’s warning.

Naieth studied him closely. She seemed oddly excited. ‘Any one of the dead could show you the way, but the price will be terrible and promises meaningless. You must be sure of your guide. You must find someone you can trust. Someone who does not simply wish to escape their doom. Someone who could offer you forgiveness.’ She held the flower towards him and glanced at Ariel. ‘It is an act of madness. And the Oak demands it.’

Orion stared at the flower for a moment, then snatched it and dropped it into his mouth.

Ariel shuddered and looked away.

For a second there was no effect.

Orion wondered if Naieth had played a joke on him.

Then his eyes widened as he realised he could not breathe. He tried to draw in air but it was as though he no longer had lungs to fill.

Panic gripped him, but he remembered that Ariel was watching and adopted a calm expression. He felt the strength starting to fall from his limbs, so he sat carefully on the branch.

Ariel and Naieth looked down at him, Ariel with horror and Naieth with intrigue.

He looked up at Ariel and realised that, in all his fury and guilt, he had forgotten something.

‘I’m sorry,’ he tried to say, but no sound emerged.

Ariel stooped to his side, her eyes full of pain.

The world turned white.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was like rediscovering a long-forgotten flavour. As Finavar moved in for the kill, his taste for violence came flooding back.

His body was still painfully thin, but as he slipped through the branches cords of muscle snaked around his limbs, hurling him easily through the trees. He still wore no clothes, but his body was draped with relics of his recovery: scraps of bloody skin and necklaces of teeth that looped around his chest and neck. Even his greasy locks were plaited with the claws of his last meal – a wildcat that had led him a merry dance for almost a whole morning. After weeks of stealth and half-remembered skill, Finavar was growing stronger. His vitality was returning, along with his hate.

Today’s hunt was not for food. To his outrage, he had discovered that most rare of tracks: human footprints. A group of outsiders had somehow reached deep into the forest. These glades were the most sacred of all the asrai kingdoms. Kindreds of all kinds, whichever gods they worshipped, agreed on one inviolable rule: no one but asrai could see such places and survive. The thought thrilled Finavar. This would be his first true test.

He dropped onto a narrow path, bordered by towers of blackthorn and carpeted with the bloody pulp of fallen fruit. The sun was directly overhead and as it broke through the network of branches it transformed the path, turning it into a grid of gleaming gold bars and trembling silhouettes.

Finavar padded silently through the shadows and crouched near the foot of the hedge. The outsiders were close. In a few seconds they would turn a corner and appear before him. He could hear the clatter of metal armour and the strange, angular sound of their voices. Even their scent was unnatural: an acrid, sweaty stench that drifted ahead of them.

He stepped back into the hedge, knowing that even the slightest shadow would be enough to hide him. His filthy limbs would be invisible to such blinkered eyes. No species was as blind to its surroundings as man. Finavar felt a trace of pity for them as he imagined the world they inhabited: a flat, soulless mirror for their pride, and nothing more. Then he recalled the atrocities they were capable of: trees butchered for no reason and lashed to lifeless stone, creating vile tributes to their own egos. He shivered, picturing what might happen if such monsters were ever allowed to return home, carrying news of the forest’s most intimate treasures.

Thorns scraped against Finavar’s skin and he felt a shiver of sentience – a ghost of spring’s wrath. The branches tried to envelop him, creaking and snapping as they circled his arms, but he shrugged them easily away. The forest’s vigour was gone; lost with the last days of summer. The smell of winter was already on the breeze and there was nothing for the trees to do but quietly seethe.

The outsiders trudged into view. They were churning up the boggy path with their iron-shod boots and the man at the rear of the group was dragging a sack along the ground. Finavar felt brief disappointment as he saw that there were only five of them. Then he reminded himself that he was far from recovered. Only a few weeks ago he had been on the verge of starvation. Five would be enough. Besides, they were a determined-looking bunch. Leading them was a hulking youth in an iron breastplate. His skin seemed barely able to contain his massive frame. It looked to Finavar as though a bear had taken the flesh of a human and decided to wear it as a suit. The youth’s face was a furious mess of sunburn and broken blood vessels, and the smell of wine oozed from his pores. In one hand he held a battered broadsword and in the other he had a heavy cudgel.

A light breeze struck up, rippling through the leaves, and Finavar moved in time with it, lifting his sword in a fluid movement that went unnoticed by the outsiders, even as they passed directly in front of him. He drew a breath to begin his song and exploded from the hedge with a whooping cry, plunging his sword into the man with the sack.

The others whirled around, drawing swords and howling curses.

They saw the wounded man topple to the ground, clutching at his chest, but Finavar had already vanished from view, slipping back into the blackthorn before they had chance to see him.

The man in the breastplate yelled a command and the outsiders formed a defensive circle, standing back-to-back with their swords raised.

Finavar crouched in the shadows, surprised to find that his muscles were trembling. He felt a brief moment of doubt then quashed it, emerging further down the path with his bow raised, training an arrow on the men.

His slender frame was half submerged in shadow but they saw enough to recognise the face of their own death.

The men bolted. Two raced towards Finavar with their swords raised and the other two fled.

Finavar loosed three arrows so smoothly that he barely seemed to move.

Three of the men tumbled to the ground before they had taken more than a few steps. Each of them had an arrow slotted neatly through the centre of his neck.

The one in the breastplate was still charging towards Finavar as he drew a fourth arrow and prepared to shoot.

Finavar’s muscles trembled again and he stumbled, sending his arrow whirring off through the trees.

He cursed. The dizziness passed as quickly as it had come, but before he could draw another arrow the outsider smashed into him, sending them both tumbling back across the path.

Finavar rolled clear, but pain exploded in his jaw. The strength went from his legs and he crashed to the ground again.

As Finavar tried to rise he saw the outsider lift his sword. The hilt was bright with blood where it had connected with his face and he was about to bring it down again.

To Finavar’s horror, he realised he was too light-headed to dodge the blow.

A voice rang out through the trees and the man froze, mid-strike, to look back down the path.

The sack was wriggling and jolting across the ground.

The outsider shook his head in confusion, before turning back to finish what he had begun.

He cursed as he saw that Finavar was now standing several feet away.

Even such a brief hesitation was enough for Finavar. As the outsider lunged after him, Finavar rushed forwards and waltzed around him, brushing the man’s throat as he did so.

The outsider whirled around in confusion, bewildered by Finavar’s speed. As he did so, a flash of red fanned out from his neck.

He let out a gurgled cry as he realised his throat had been slit.

Without even pausing to watch his victim topple to the ground, Finavar kept his sword raised and strode down the path towards the trembling sack, determined not to be caught out a second time.

He shook his head in disbelief as a figure rose from the sack. It was one of his own kind – a young shadow-dancer, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a spiral of tattoos that looped around his wiry frame.

Finavar did not recognise the marks of kinship on the warrior’s skin, and his hair was plaited in a strange, complicated style, but wherever he came from, Finavar was amazed he had been caught by such unworthy foes. To be taken by outsiders was a transgression of the highest order. Finavar would have been shocked to find any of his kin caught in this way, but to see a wardancer – a servant of Loec – bundled into a sack filled him with shame.

‘How could you allow such a thing?’ he cried, grabbing the youth by the arm and glaring at him. ‘They could have tortured you.’ His fury grew as he noticed that the boy’s breath stank of wine. ‘They could have learned our most treasured secrets. How could you let such morons take you alive?’

‘I had them,’ said the youth, but his cheeks flushed red as he backed away from Finavar. He stared at him with reproach in his eyes. ‘Who are you?’

Finavar realised that the wardancer was little more than a child and his anger grew. If the boy was too young to perform the Dance of Blades he should have stayed at home with his mother. ‘You should be ashamed,’ he snapped, waving at the five corpses that surrounded them. ‘How could you fall into the hands of such simpletons?’

The youth looked at the bodies. ‘They were part of a much larger group,’ he said, with a note of petulance in his voice. He raised his chin defiantly and adopted a fighting stance. ‘I was allowing them to take me back to their fellows. Then I would have butchered them all.’

Finavar laughed bitterly. ‘You were going to kill them all by yourself?’

The youth kept his chin raised and glared back at Finavar. ‘I was merely waiting for the right time to strike. If you hadn’t blundered in, I would have found where the rest of them are camped out.’ He pointed at the gash along Finavar’s jaw. ‘And I wouldn’t have let them split my head open.’

Despite his rage, Finavar began to find the situation funny. The boy was defiant, foolhardy and more than a little drunk; but he was brave. Finavar lowered his sword. ‘What do you call yourself, young servant of Loec?’

The youth noticed the change in Finavar’s tone and relaxed. ‘It was kind of you to intervene. You weren’t to know my plans.’ He placed a hand across his tattooed chest and gave a slight bow. ‘I’m Sibaris, of the kindred of Fiùrann, from the Glade of Liath.’ The defiance dropped from his face, replaced by a tentative smile.

Finavar could not help warming to the boy. Had they met just a month or two earlier they might have even been friends. He could not bring himself to smile, however; in part because the youth reminded him so much of Jokleel. ‘I know Liath. I travelled through there once as a child, with my brother.’ He hesitated for a moment, then said: ‘I have no kin.’

The boy’s face lit up. ‘Then you must join us. The kindred of Fiùrann, I mean. We have need of friends at the moment, and you clearly have some skill.’

Finavar wondered what he meant by needing friends, but he decided a discussion would only delay him further. ‘We would not see eye to eye,’ he said, turning to leave. ‘Farewell, young Sibaris.’

The youth dashed after him and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Wait. If you cannot lend us your help, you must at least join us for the feast.’ He patted Finavar’s hollow cheeks, uninhibited as only a drunk can be. ‘It looks like you could use one.’

Even as he shook his head, Finavar realised how much he craved some companionship and a friendly face. For as long as he could remember, his only conversation had been with a corpse, a lunatic and himself. ‘Feast?’

Sibaris frowned. ‘You really are a stranger. When the bright moon waxes full it will be the time for the Dance of the Whitebeam.’

Finavar shook his head, none the wiser.

‘The Feast of the Two Branches!’ Sibaris laughed at Finavar’s confusion. ‘That settles it. You really must attend. I would be a poor host indeed to let you pass through Liath without witnessing such an important night. I beg you to–’

Finavar’s moment of weakness passed and he held up a hand to silence him. ‘I travel alone.’ He nodded at the corpses. ‘But I will help you deal with this before I leave.’ Finavar was suddenly keen to move on, but he was reluctant to leave without ensuring the bodies were prepared in the correct way.

Sibaris’s expression hardened and he gave Finavar a stiff nod. ‘Very well.’ He grabbed the nearest corpse and began dragging it towards the trees.

Finavar’s worst suspicions were immediately confirmed. The youth was drunk and dangerously unprepared. ‘Wait!’ he growled. ‘Think where we are, boy. This close to the borders we must be sure to leave a clear warning.’

Sibaris blushed again. ‘Of course.’ He drew a knife.

‘I’ll do that. You gather the deadwood.’

Sibaris threw the corpse to the ground and stormed off into the trees, scowling at Finavar as he passed.

Finavar shook his head in disbelief and set to work. He unfastened the breastplate from the large human and laid it on the ground to use as a bowl. Then, as Sibaris grunted and sighed his way through the trees, Finavar dug up some clay from the path and placed it in the piece of armour. Once he had enough, he took his sword and used the tip to open a vein in his arm. As the blood drummed onto the metal, he pounded it with his other hand, making a paste with the clay. As he worked, Finavar sang a low, monotonous dirge.

‘You would have enjoyed the feast,’ muttered Sibaris, returning briefly to drop some branches on the path.

Finavar gave no answer, so Sibaris headed back into the trees. ‘Even with all our troubles, we will make sure it’s a night to remember.’ He grinned. ‘Liathian wine is without equal.’

Still ignoring him, Finavar traced his finger around one of his tattoos. It was the rune of Loec, his patron god. He prayed for the protection of his lord as he stemmed the blood flowing from his arm. Then he tied the wound with a tourniquet of leaves.

‘It’s the night on which the Lord of the Greenwood moves amongst us,’ said Sibaris, ‘to keep us safe.’ He frowned at Finavar. ‘Surely you have a similar festival in your own realm? We mark the fact that autumn is turning to winter, on the night when the dead are closer to us than at any other time. They come with the Lord of the Greenwood to reward the bravest of the Fiùrann for their courage. Many of us have needed bravery recently, so he should be very pleased.’

Finavar nodded vaguely and turned his attention to the corpses. He removed their clothes and armour, and piled them in the centre of the path. Then, once they were all naked, he took the crimson paste he had made and began to paint runes over their skin, still singing his mournful dirge.

Once they were all covered with intricate, spiralling designs, he put the paste down and drew his knife again.

‘That will suffice,’ he said as Sibaris returned with another bundle of sticks. Then he plunged his knife into the chest of the corpse he was cradling. Still-warm blood rushed over his arms and pooled on the ground.

Sibaris nodded, drew his sword and began working at another one of the corpses.

They sliced with quiet efficiency, peeling the dead in one piece, as if they were preparing fruit. Once they had done they spread the painted skins across the ground. Then they scooped up the bloody mess that remained and piled it on top of the clothes and armour.

Finavar grabbed a handful of the sticks Sibaris had gathered and wedged them inside one of the skins, wiggling and adjusting them until he had made a bloody, drooping mannequin with empty sockets for eyes. He took his gruesome creation and walked over to the trees, seeking a suitably prominent place to position his warning. Then he looked back at Sibaris with a frown. ‘What did you say?’

Sibaris was on the ground, jamming sticks inside another one of the skins. He looked up in surprise. ‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘Earlier, I mean. What did you say earlier?’

Sibaris shook his head. ‘I said you would have enjoyed the feast.’ He tried a tentative smile. ‘Are you thinking you might attend the rites?’

‘After that,’ snapped Finavar. ‘You said someone would reward you.’

‘Yes,’ Sibaris grinned. ‘The Lord of the Greenwood!’ The youth’s eyes were bright with religious ecstasy. ‘The Divine Consort. He comes every autumn to mark the passing of the season. He leaves the Wild Hunt and comes to solemnise the Dance of the Whitebeam. It is a site that many travel to see. Surely you have heard of it?’

Finavar dropped his bloody doll to the ground and his voice became a hesitant whisper. ‘The Lord of the Greenwood will be here?’

‘Exactly. Mälloch the Elder conducts the ceremony.’ Sibaris smirked as he mentioned Mälloch’s name. ‘He admits only the very bravest, but you have proved yourself worthy.’ Sibaris waved at the sacks of skin they had made. ‘You have helped me, stranger, so I will happily vouch for you.’ He grinned. ‘Mälloch’s soul is more ancient than any in the forest, even Naieth herself is young in comparison. He has little time for common folk but,’ Sibaris’s smirk became a grin, ‘he is my great-grandfather. I’m sure he will listen. Besides, there will be many other strangers at the ceremony.’

‘The Divine Consort?’ Finavar could hardly believe what he had heard. He had never expected to find the king so soon. He looked down at his skeletal limbs. He had struggled to overcome even a small group of outsiders, how would he find the strength to avenge his brother? ‘Am I ready?’ he wondered aloud. Then he shook his head. ‘Only fate could have brought me here.’

Sibaris frowned, unsure of his meaning.

‘I will come,’ said Finavar.

Sibaris looked stunned and delighted at the same time, but before he could ask for an explanation. Finavar nodded at the abattoir they had created. ‘Once we’ve finished with your “victims”.’

The evening began strange and grew stranger. The Fiùrann were a fiery collection of young wardancers and, as they sang slurred drunken elegies from a moonlit hilltop, Finavar tried to be carried along by the wildness of their tales. A moment of escape would have been a blessing, but it was not to be. He soon noticed an odd stiffness to their songs – a forced jollity that never quite rang true. The journey had taken a night and day, and Sibaris had talked the whole time, boasting of the delights that lay ahead – of the wild debauchery of his clan, but as soon as Finavar emerged from the trees and entered the crowd, he knew that something was wrong.

Most of the shadow-dancers barely acknowledged his presence as they leapt and twirled across the grass. The rite had drawn poets and songsmiths from throughout the region. There were even travellers from other realms of the forest, so Finavar hid himself in the crowd, just another pair of ears for their songs and jokes.

As he moved through the strangers his sense of unease grew. The celebrants eyed each other warily as they met and some of them wore masks. To hide one’s face in battle was normal, but in a gathering such as this it seemed odd. Finavar noticed that some of the masked figures also wore pouches of dried flowers around their necks, soaked with lavender oil, and after giving him the briefest of greetings they would press the pouches to their noses and take a deep, nervous breath.

Intrigued, Finavar made his way through the dancers to the top of the hill, where he found the lord of the Fiùrann – a tall, hawk-nosed noble named Mälloch the Elder. As his kindreds reeled around him, Mälloch remained sprawled languorously across the grass, his long limbs enveloped by an enormous bearskin. As the others recited poems and acted out battles he lay quietly in the dark, watching the proceedings with a troubled, distant expression.

Despite the cold, most of the wardancers wore little more than Finavar – loincloths and the odd animal skin – but beneath his bearskin, Mälloch wore a soft leather tunic, embroidered with an intricate, spiralling design, and where the others carried short, leaf-bladed swords, he carried a long, curved blade, with a swan’s neck handle made of carved ivory. It was clearly of foreign manufacture and a thing of great beauty. Even after all he had been through, Finavar found himself eying the exotic weapon jealously as he approached. He noticed that the noble wore two scabbards, both of the same curved shape, but one of them was empty. He wondered what had happened to the blade’s twin.

Mälloch looked as youthful and handsome as any other asrai noble, but when Finavar reached him he saw that Sibaris had not exaggerated – Mälloch’s great age was unmistakable. His skin shone with antiquity. As he moved he shimmered, like gossamer caught in the moonlight. The same light was visible in the surrounding trees – fine strands of silver that flashed and tinkled in the breeze.

Finavar briefly met Mälloch’s eye as he passed him. The noble studied him closely and Finavar felt his confidence wavering. He turned away and accepted the wine that was offered to him, seeking courage for what lay ahead. He quickly found that his emaciated body was no match for the heady drink. His head began to spin and, as the night wore on, he found it harder to follow the words of the songs. He decided that the Liathian food might be a safer option and began to wolf down every leaf-full of nourishment he could grasp. As the food hit his stomach a wonderful sense of wellbeing flooded his body. He realised he could not remember the last time he had eaten anything that could accurately be described as a meal.

As midnight approached, the mood of the gathering grew even tenser. There was a single dead tree at the summit of the hill. Its bark was the colour of the moon and it had only two branches – a pair of thick, gnarled limbs that reached out like arms from either side of the trunk. As the wardancers recounted tales of glory and heroism, they circled the rotten husk, addressing prayers to its leafless crown. As they whirled back and forth, Mälloch finally began to pay attention, leaning forwards and staring intently at the display. As he did so, the light of the moon began to blaze brighter, breaking through a gap in the clouds and surrounding the tree in a column of silver.

Finavar could not tell if it was the wine or Mälloch’s sorcery, but the light seemed unnaturally bright. The crowd gathered on the hilltop vanished into shadow until all that was left was the illuminated tree, the endless, circular dance, and Mälloch’s eyes, blazing in the twilight.

There was a lone drummer sat beside Mälloch, and as the moon grew brighter she played harder, driving the dancers into a frenzy of flailing limbs and howled verses. Periodically, Mälloch would raise his sword in a lacklustre gesture, waving it vaguely in the direction of one of the dancers. The dancer would then step away from the tree, shaking their head in disappointment as the darkness enveloped them.

The combination of light, noise and alcohol left Finavar feeling quite bewildered. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked, turning to Sibaris who was sitting beside him on the grass. ‘When does the Lord of the Greenwood appear?’

The youth’s face gleamed like ivory as he turned to Finavar. Unlike the others, he was grinning with genuine excitement. ‘Mälloch is choosing. He must decide which of the supplicants will be offered to the Dàrragh.’

Finavar shook his head, feeling as though he were speaking to Sibaris through a thick fog. ‘The Dàrragh?’

‘The tree!’ Sibaris waved at the dead whitebeam, silhouetted in the shaft of moonlight. ‘My great-grandfather must choose an offering for the Divine Consort. Two will be bound to the tree but only one will become the Child of the Whitebeam.’

‘And the other one?’

‘The other one will receive a lesser reward. He will travel with Mälloch to the Rites of Spring. He will enter the court of the Mage Queen and join the ranks of the highborn. He will become a great lord of the forest, like Mälloch himself.’

Finavar looked back at the dancers. Their bodies were painted red with vermillion and they wore circlets of dried roses. He nodded. The details of the rite were strange, but the ritual was essentially familiar. One of the dancers would be sacrificed to feed the soul of the tree, killed for no reason in the name of Orion and the Wild Hunt. The thought sickened him. It was another example of all that was wrong with their sovereign.

He took a deep breath and tried to steady his breathing. The drumming was building to a crescendo and he guessed that Orion would soon appear.

Mälloch finally rose to his feet, threw back his bearskin and sauntered into the column of light. He waved his sword again, leaving just two of the crimson dancers to circle the tree. Then he lifted his other hand and muttered a charm.

There was a chorus of gasps as the surrounding forest lit up. Hundreds of silver flames pierced the darkness, shimmering and sparkling with the same light that shone through Mälloch’s skin. As they drifted through the darkness, washing up the sides of the hill, they lit up the faces of the assembled asrai, and painted them all as ghosts. As the flames approached, Finavar saw that they contained faces – glimpses of fallen warriors.

Mälloch was half hidden in shadow but as Finavar heard him mutter another command, he saw that the noble still looked distracted and distant, as though his thoughts were far from the hilltop ritual.

The ghosts entered the column of moonlight and began to spiral around the two remaining dancers, trailing from their limbs like pennants as they rolled and tumbled across the grass.

‘He will be here soon,’ whispered Sibaris, leaning close to Finavar.

Finavar felt a rush of panic. What did he hope to achieve? He recalled the ferocity of the king’s hunt and realised it was absurd to think he could avenge his brother in his current state. He was still far too weak to consider such a thing. He shuffled back into the crowd and took another drink of wine. Tonight was not the time to strike. Orion would butcher him. He would just become another sacrifice. He must be patient.

As the spirits surrounded the two dancers, they began fastening them to the limbs of the tree, binding them with strands of creeper and moss. The eyes of the dancers were rolling drunkenly and Finavar doubted they understood what was happening.

Finavar found himself gripped by a potent mixture of tiredness, alcohol and grief. His face twisted into a sneer. The sight of such pathetic devotion made his stomach turn. He thought of how passionately Ordaana had spoken and he suddenly wished she were with him. All his life he considered her insane, but now he saw where the real madness lay.

He rose to leave, but Sibaris hissed in alarm and dragged him to the ground. Finavar felt too exhausted to resist, so he took another slug of wine and tried to relax, waiting for the inevitable bloodshed.

Mälloch remained silent for a long time, studying the two figures bound to the tree. Then he began to address the crowd in rich, rolling tones. ‘Summer must pass, but life remains. In the earth and in the sky, the gods will linger, through the frost and snow, waiting to be born again. Even in times of great trial…’ His voice faltered, and he looked down for a second, seeming to lose his way. When he spoke again his words were quieter and less sure. ‘Even in these dark times, we must remember that we are one with nature. What befalls the forest, befalls the children of the forest. We cannot forsake our duty, however onerous it may seem. If we are to overcome this evil we must bind ourselves closer than ever before to the heart of the Eternal Realms.’

Finavar frowned and turned to Sibaris. ‘Evil?’

Sibaris’s smile faltered but he gave no reply and held his finger to his lips.

Mälloch waved his sword at the two stranded figures who were staring back at him. ‘Would you be a Child of the Whitebeam? Would you join your soul to the forest?’

The two dancers nodded, but Finavar noticed that they were starting to sober up. Their religious fervour was starting to be replaced by expressions of fear.

‘Only one of you may pass beyond. Are you willing to offer your souls? Will you submit yourselves to the judgement of the Divine Consort?’

The dancers nodded again, but the fear in their eyes was now unmistakable, and Finavar noticed that one of them was testing the strength of his bonds to see if it was too late to change his mind.

Finavar shrugged off Sibaris’s grip and rose to his feet again, disgusted and unable to watch any more but, before he could leave, the lights failed, plunging the hill into darkness.

He stumbled to a halt and looked back at the tree.

The moonlight was still there, but it had dropped to a more natural level, and after the glare of the spirits, he was almost blind.

There was a hiss of indrawn breath and he realised someone was approaching from the far side of the tree: a tall, powerfully built figure with a crown of antlers. The newcomer towered over Mälloch, who dropped to one knee and handed over the ceremonial sword.

As Finavar watched the scene, his mind filled with images of Jokleel’s death. He recalled again how casually Orion had butchered his brother.

The horned shadow approached the tree with a horribly slow step.

One of the dancers began to whimper and sob, and the other cried out. ‘Mälloch! I’m not sure. Wait!’

Mälloch remained silent, and as the antlered figure raised the sword, the noble closed his eyes.

Finavar’s plans of escape evaporated as hate flooded his drunken thoughts. He was vaguely aware that Sibaris was howling at him in horror. Then he realised why. He was sprinting across the hilltop, sword raised, screaming a curse as he hurtled towards the tree.

Mälloch was still kneeling as Finavar reached him. He stood, with an amazed expression on his face, but was too slow to prevent Finavar from crashing into the Lord of the Greenwood.

Screams and howls erupted from the crowd as they realised what was happening.

Finavar lashed out wildly with his sword and felt it connect with something hard.

His prey tried to back away, but Finavar moved with preternatural speed.

He jabbed the sword again and forced it into something more yielding.

Before he could strike a third time, Mälloch grabbed him by the shoulders and wrenched him back, hurling him across the grass as the crowd raced towards him.

Finavar spun around and prepared to attack again, knowing he only had seconds before he was overwhelmed.

He froze in shock.

The Lord of the Greenwood was backing away from him. His hands were raised defensively. Even glimpsed in the half-light, Finavar knew it could not be Orion. He peered through the gloom as rough hands wrestled him to the ground, knocking his sword from his grip. He looked back and saw to his amazement that he had attacked someone dressed in a suit of carved wood: a collection of wooden plates, painted and scored to resemble the angular muscles of the king. The antlers were real enough, but they were fixed to a scored wooden mask.

Punches and kicks rained down on him but, for a moment, Finavar was too shocked to defend himself. The executioner was an imposter. He could see fear and shock looking back at him through the eyeholes of the mask, before the figure backed away into the darkness and vanished from view.

Then, realising he was in danger of being knocked unconscious, Finavar leapt to his feet and performed a graceful, vicious pirouette that scattered his attackers with a series of well-placed kicks.

Finavar grinned as he realised his skill had not entirely left him.

He landed briefly on the ground and then leapt on one of his attackers with a flurry of punches.

‘Wait!’ said Mälloch, in a deep, commanding voice.

Despite his excitement Finavar froze and looked back at the noble.

The crowd were incensed but they grudgingly obeyed Mälloch’s order. Most backed away but a few took hold of Finavar’s limbs, eyeing him nervously as they did so.

As his rage faded, Finavar registered the pain that covered his body and winced.

Mälloch loomed over him. ‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ He had retrieved his sword from the grass and he rested the tip of it on Finavar’s throat. ‘Do you understand? You have done a great, great evil. This rite has gone uninterrupted since the days of your forefathers.’ His voice was calm, but his lips were quivering with rage. He waved at the moons. ‘The moment of giving has now passed. It’s gone, stranger. There will be no Child of the Whitebeam this year. You have undone a year’s worth of dutiful stewardship.’ He looked down the hill, where the silhouette of the fake Orion could still just be seen, hurrying back into the forest. The noble’s eyes were wide with shock. ‘The spirits of the forest will be furious at this betrayal,’ his voice cracked with emotion, ‘at the time when we are most in need of their help.’

‘He must pay with his blood,’ cried someone in the crowd. ‘There must be balance.’

‘There must be balance,’ agreed one of the red-skinned wardancers, still lashed to the tree. There was obvious relief on his face, but he acted aggrieved. ‘We have enough troubles as it is. The tree must be fed,’ he muttered, still straining against his bonds.

Mälloch pressed his blade further and Finavar whispered a prayer.

Then the noble closed his eyes and withdrew the blade. He shook his head and backed away. ‘The moment has passed. It would achieve nothing.’ He glared at Finavar. ‘Whoever you are, you will not make me a murderer. Times are dire enough.’

‘Wait!’ cried a shrill voice. ‘The tree!’

Finavar turned and saw Sibaris, pointing at the dead whitebeam.

There was a splash of red across the trunk where Finavar had cut the fake Orion, and the bark was bubbling and cracking beneath it like a blister.

Mälloch rushed to examine the stain. He was silent for a few seconds, then he nodded in relief. ‘You’re a fool, Sibaris, but an observant one.’ He waved at the two wardancers bound to the branches. ‘Cut them down. Quickly.’ Then he pressed his sword into a crack in the bark and whispered a series of hurried oaths.

Mälloch’s servants freed the wardancers from the tree and helped them away.

As the stain spread across the ashen bark, the tree began to grind and creak and the two arm-like branches snapped into shapes that would have crushed the dancers if they had not been removed. The movements grew in violence, until the tree seemed to be caught in a silent gale, lashing and thrashing as its bark turned from grey to crimson. Rather than diminishing, the blood grew in volume as it spread across the tree.

The crowd backed away, muttering to themselves, but Mälloch’s tall frame remained motionless, hunched over the blade he had pressed into the bark.

Then, after a few moments, the tree became still.

Mälloch shook his head and withdrew his blade from the trunk. ‘It’s hard to be sure.’ He eyed the branches suspiciously. ‘Something has happened, but I’m not sure exactly what. Perhaps it will be enough.’

He turned to Finavar and abandoned his formal tones, speaking in simple disbelief. ‘What in the name of Isha were you thinking?’

Finavar sensed that Mälloch might be reasoned with, but he shocked himself by saying: ‘If you had ever seen the real Orion you would not endorse this ridiculous lie.’

The asrai holding Finavar gasped at his unrepentant tone and forced him roughly to the ground, but Mälloch only raised an eyebrow.

‘Some of us here have been lucky enough to join the Wild Hunt.’ He waved his sword at the shadowy figures gathered around the tree. ‘But none of us feel the need to disrupt ceremonies older than we are.’

‘Then perhaps you should question your judgement.’ Finavar glared drunkenly at Mälloch.

‘This is an outrage, lord!’ cried someone in the crowd. ‘He must be punished!’

‘Judgement of what?’ asked Mälloch, looking genuinely intrigued.

‘Your king,’ answered Finavar flatly.

There was a hiss of indrawn breath and many of the asrai drew weapons, but Mälloch shook his head and waved for them to be lowered again. ‘I do not follow you, stranger. What right does a subject have to judge his king? By what standards could we measure the immortal Lord of the Wild Hunt? Besides, why do you refer to him as our king?’ He frowned. ‘What master do you serve?’

Finavar felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as he realised he was too proud to back down. ‘I serve no master but my own conscience. I would give my life for my kin, or to protect the forest; but I will never again kneel to a false king. Orion is a murderer. He cares nothing for any of us.’

Mälloch kept his tone even and tried a wry smile. ‘Liathian wine is potent. Perhaps you have drunk a little too deeply, friend. Why else would one of Orion’s own subjects speak against him with such fervour?’

‘I am not his subject,’ snapped Finavar. ‘And neither are you. You’re his slave.’ He sneered. ‘Until you become his prey, that is.’

There were more shocked gasps from around the hilltop, but Mälloch looked concerned. He looked again at Finavar’s horribly wasted body and shook his head. ‘What happened to you? What drove you to form these strange ideas?’

Part of Finavar’s mind screamed at him to take advantage of the noble’s pity and say no more, but grief and anger spoke through him. Before he knew quite what he was doing, he began telling Mälloch his whole shocking tale – the tale of a bloodthirsty king, and the murder of his deluded subjects. Without realising it, Finavar quoted Ordaana’s bitter claims almost verbatim, denouncing not just Orion, but the eternal queen and their entire court.

There was such rage in Finavar’s voice that no one dared to interrupt until he reached the bloody conclusion, describing the slaughter of his brother in graphic detail; then he finished his story and the crowd fell silent, staring at Finavar in shock and disgust.

A few lone travellers gathered their things and slipped away into the shadows, muttering their disapproval as they headed back into the trees, but most stayed to see what happened next, turning to their lord to see his reaction.

Mälloch remained calm as Finavar finished his story. Then he lowered his head and massaged his temples, looking weary rather than enraged.

‘Leave us,’ he said to his subjects, gesturing to the trees with his sword. ‘I wish to talk to the stranger alone.’

Most of the wardancers leapt to obey, slipping into the darkness like ghosts, but those holding Finavar hesitated.

‘My lord,’ said one of them. ‘He’s dangerous.’

Mälloch raised an eyebrow, and the wardancer blushed and backed away.

As the crowd dispersed Finavar and Mälloch were left alone in the pool of moonlight.

‘You too, child,’ said Mälloch, keeping his eyes locked on Finavar.

Sibaris was standing a few feet away, watching anxiously. ‘My lord,’ he said, clasping his hands together. ‘This is all my fault. The stranger was a great help to me. I invited him to join the feast. If you want to–’

‘Leave,’ said Mälloch. His voice was no less commanding for being quiet.

The young bard was about to protest, but then he nodded and vanished as gracefully as the others.

Mälloch stared at Finavar with an expression that was hard to read. ‘People have been banished to the Wildwood for less.’

This close up, Finavar noticed again how ancient the noble was. Mälloch’s eyes bore the brilliance of centuries. His irises were the silver of moonlight.

Finavar was annoyed to be so intrigued by the noble and snapped his reply. ‘Indeed,’ he said, his voice made coarse by drink. ‘And have you ever wondered at that? Banishment to the Wildwood is a death sentence. No one can survive in such a place. Did you ever wonder why questioning our rulers is such an unspeakable crime?’

He waved at the darkness that surrounded the hill, indicating the silvery ghosts of trees, just visible in the moonlight. ‘Does Orion make the grass grow? Does he make the stars shine? Does he do anything, in fact, other than keep his people locked in an endless cycle of bloodshed?’ Finavar’s words rose in pitch until he was almost shrieking in Mälloch’s face. ‘Why should we revere him? Why should we worship such a monster?’

Mälloch opened one of his palms and held it out to Finavar.

For a moment, Finavar stared at it in confusion. Then he noticed a network of fat, wormy scars, running from Mälloch’s palm, all the way up his arm, before disappearing beneath his bearskin.

‘I rode with the Wild Hunt,’ said Mälloch. ‘I was old, even then, and I can recall some of what I did, how I clawed and stabbed, how I killed.’ His words became more abrupt as he tried to hide his emotion. ‘I do not know what manner of beast clawed me. I only know that I survived and it did not.’

Finavar’s rage faltered in the face of such a confession. His shoulders dropped. ‘Then you know it as well as I do.’ His voice was trembling. ‘For all these centuries, we have been tricked. Orion may be immortal, but as he hunts, we die and the whole bloody mess goes on.’

Mälloch shook his head and his words grew softer. ‘There is no trick, stranger, and we do not die. I came to this forest before even Ariel had stepped beneath its boughs – and long before she found her immortal lover. I have seen the way of things. I have seen the seasons come and go. Remember the teachings of Naieth. We are haunted by the ghosts of our past.’ He turned his penetrating gaze back on Finavar. ‘In the forest, everything is immortal.’

Finavar sighed as he saw what a fool he was being. No one, not even a survivor of the Wild Hunt could ever understand him. It was pointless. He had attacked someone in a wooden suit and outraged a whole clan for no reason. ‘I should not have come,’ he muttered, looking at Mälloch with a pitiful expression. ‘Will you let me leave? I promise never to return.’

Mälloch narrowed his eyes. ‘What is your name?’

Finavar hesitated, then shrugged. If the noble intended to punish him in some way, they would have to resolve it with blades; withholding his name would make no difference. ‘Finavar,’ he said, ‘of the fallen realm of Locrimere.’

Mälloch stared at him in shock, then let out a short bark of laughter. ‘Of course!’ He kept his grip on Finavar’s shoulder as he repeated the name. Then he let go, stepped back and looked at Finavar in silence, rubbing his jaw as he considered him.

Finavar found both the laughter and the silence annoying. ‘What do you mean “Of course”? Have we met?’

Mälloch shook his head. ‘We have not, but the tales of the Darkling Prince are sung across the forest.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘But it seems the songs have lied to us about one thing. You live, Finavar.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You live and you still fight like a daemon.’

He fell silent again for a few seconds, considering something, then nodded his head in a stiff bow. ‘I’ve gathered my captains nearby, Finavar – no more than hour’s run from here. Would you join us? If there is any truth at all to your legend, I would value your advice.’

Finavar’s words were slurred by alcohol and emotion. ‘I’m not fit to be in your company. Your captains do not want to hear my advice.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I would not make a good impression.’

Mälloch smiled and, for a moment, it seemed as though constellations were spiralling deep in his eyes. ‘We should keep you away from the wine, certainly.’

Finavar was confused by the noble’s smile. ‘Why do you need my advice?’ He looked at Mälloch’s hand. ‘You have enough experience of your own.’

Mälloch shook his head. ‘I have need of warriors, Finavar, like never before. That was my purpose here tonight. I do not have the time to spend an evening in such idle pleasure. Others have been dying while I lay watching this dance. But I knew, as on every previous year, there would be a gathering of skilled warriors.’ He paused. ‘And you have skill like nothing I have seen before. The songs did not lie about that.’ His eyes glittered playfully, as though he were about to share a joke. ‘There’s another thing. There’s something I would like to show you. Something of yours that you might wish to retrieve. Something that might help ease your pain. A friend has kept it safe for you.’

Finavar clenched his jaw. ‘There is only one thing that will ease my pain, and it cannot be granted by Mälloch the Elder.’ He glanced at his sword, lying a few feet away. ‘If you knew the thoughts I harboured, I doubt you would have any desire to shelter me.’

Mälloch let out a low rumble of laughter. ‘My eyes are not that old, Finavar. Even a dotard like me could not be blind to your purpose. You just attacked someone because you believed he was the king. If espionage is your game you should try a little harder to hide your plans.’ He grasped Finavar’s shoulder again. ‘Join us, for one day. See how great our need is.’ He saw the refusal in Finavar’s eyes. ‘If you wish to leave the following morning I will set you on your way, without a word of censure.’ He lifted some of the bearskin to his lips and kissed it. ‘I swear it.’

Finavar considered the offer. A noble’s word was unbreakable, and if he was serious about hunting down Orion he would need to fully regain his strength. He had almost died at the hands of a few meat-headed outsiders but he had felt his old grace returning as he fought Mälloch’s guards. A day or two’s safety, with a ready supply of food and weaponry might be all he needed to recover. These were the logical reasons he gave himself for considering Mälloch’s offer but, much as he would deny it, it was the words ‘ease your pain’ that really enticed him. Was such a thing possible, even now?

‘What did you wish to show me?’ he asked, unable to hold the question back.

Mälloch gave no answer. He simply turned and started climbing down the side of the hill, waving for Finavar to follow him into the darkness.

Finavar grabbed his sword and skulked after him. After a few minutes he heard the noble laughing softly to himself. ‘The Darkling Prince, indeed. Perhaps Sibaris is not so stupid after all.’

CHAPTER NINE

A light rain fell across the forest, drumming against its fallen leaves and splintering the apple-green surface of its pools. It was late afternoon and as the shower turned into something more determined it broke through the trees and ran down the back of Clara’s neck. The old woman was crawling through a waterlogged glen, following the course of a small beck. A thick, clinging mist hung over everything and it was impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction. As the rain ran down her back, Clara looked up with a grimace. Wan light washed over her face, revealing a ghastly, corpse-like pallor, a snarling demeanour and a bloody scar on the side of her skull. As the eerie light shifted around her, the old woman scratched anxiously at her head. The wound was already covered with angry red weals and as she scratched more of her skin came away, revealing bright, bloody bone.

‘It has to be this way,’ she muttered, pulling her deerskin higher and continuing to crawl. The light at the far end of the glen was brighter and a little more wholesome, and Clara was sure it must mark the end of the forest. Perhaps it was even the lights of Garonne. She had no desire to encounter more peasants, but it would be a relief to see some good, honest bricks and mortar. Her encounter with the forest daemons was a blur but she knew that, even in her blind panic, she could not have fled that far beneath the trees. It was worrying that she had failed to find her way out already. Hours had passed since she ran into the forest and somehow she had failed to find her way back to the heath.

The Everwood was famously capricious.

Clara had the unnerving feeling that she had travelled farther than she intended.

‘I’m almost back,’ she said, a little louder, as though speaking the words out loud would make them reality. She lifted her snake-bone necklace to her mouth and gave it a fierce kiss. Then she waved her crook, trying to clear the mist, but it was useless; autumn had the forest firmly in its dank grip. Everything was muffled and vague. Clara’s confidence remained unshaken, though. Her memory of the event was sketchy, but she knew without a doubt that something wonderful had happened to her. The image of the white stag still lingered in her thoughts and her limbs still tingled with unnatural power. The sheer terror of her encounter with the daemons had confused her for a while, but now she remembered her purpose. She was destined to rule. She scratched at the wound again, unleashing another trickle of blood. If she could just master the peculiar energy coursing though her, she would return home a hero. She would have the Amber Brothers locked firmly in her grip

As she considered this, Clara felt the strange energy gathering in her palm. She looked down and let out a surprised curse. Her hand was no longer her own. It had been transformed into a powerful, leathery claw, complete with powerful-looking talons.

‘What’s this?’ gasped Clara.

Never, in all her years of arcane study had she been able to mould her flesh so easily. The merest thought had transformed her fist into a new shape. Her pulse raced as she considered the power she had been given.

Then she noticed that the transformation was not complete. Her excitement seemed to have fed the change and, as she watched in amazement, her forearm withered and blackened into the foreleg of a bird.

Clara’s elation began to be edged by fear.

‘Enough,’ she muttered, glaring at her mutating limb.

The dark scales continued to climb her arm.

Clara hissed the words of a spell, ordering her arm to regain its natural shape, but there was no response.

The change had now reached her shoulder and broad, tawny feathers began knifing through her skin and gathering beneath her robes, straining at the seams.

Panic gripped Clara as she realised the power was beyond her control. She raised her crook and screamed her most powerful oath, snatching amber flames out of the morning air and setting the staff alight.

Finally, the mutation slowed.

She barked out the words of the spell a second time, with even more vehemence, and, to her relief, the feathers began sliding back beneath her skin.

Clara shook her head and clamped her eyes shut. ‘What have you done, you old fool?’

Then she looked again at her arm and saw that it had almost returned to normal. Her breathing slowed and her panic subsided.

‘They have never seen power like this,’ she said. ‘My claim will be beyond reproach.’

She glanced nervously at the trees. ‘As long as I can leave soon.’ She felt sure that, once she was beyond the forest’s boundaries, she would be able to better harness the energy she had taken from the stag.

‘Let me leave,’ she gasped. She touched the scar on her head, realising that she had clawed at it again. ‘I appreciate your gift,’ she said, softening her voice, ‘but now you must let me go.’

She grabbed the crook and rose to her feet, abandoning any pretence of stealth and running through the sodden grass. Suddenly, nothing seemed as important as leaving the forest behind and returning to humanity.

As she ran, she failed to notice that one of the forest shadows had broken free and was following her through the gloom.

As Clara neared the end of the glen, she saw that she was right – the trees grew thinner as she reached the borders of the forest and shafts of pale light were visible through the rain and the mist.

Her heart raced and she realised just how afraid she had been. The forest air was stifling and oppressive, and as she reached the open hillside she gasped like a drowning man, rescued from the pull of the tide.

Strangely, despite all her hours of wandering, Clara had emerged at exactly the same point she entered the Everwood. She sighed with relief and collapsed on the wet grass. Then, as she sat up and looked down the valley, she frowned.

She was sure, from the shape of the valley, that she was in the same place, but there was no sign of the dead peasants. In fact, where their bodies should have been, there was now a smart cobbled path, snaking through the grass. ‘This must be a different valley,’ she muttered, shaking her head. But then, as she peered through the rain, she saw the squat outline of Garonne. Confused, Clara stumbled up a small incline, trying to get a better look at the keep. Her confusion grew. The shape of the fortified town was unmistakable, but something incredible had happened to it. During the few hours Clara had spent in the forest Garonne had aged so badly it had become a ruin. Its walls had slumped and tumbled, and in some places collapsed completely, and where the gates had once stood there was now a misshapen, lichen-covered maw. One of the towers had tumbled, spilling its stones across grass that had already risen up and enveloped them.

Clara groaned. ‘I’m bewitched!’ She whirled around and jabbed her crook at the trees. ‘What have you done to me?’ The trees watched her in silence but she knew the answer. Travelling south she had heard all the local folk tales. As she warmed himself by the hearths of friendly strangers, she heard stories of foolhardy travellers, entering the Everwood never to be seen again. And there were other legends. A gruff old farrier had cowered at the mention of the place and relayed a story of adventurers, thought long dead, staggering from the trees centuries after they were last seen, returning home with lunatic tales of forest daemons and attempting to reclaim estates from their stunned ancestors.

‘Where have you sent me?’ she demanded, looking down the valley at the oddly perfect road and the ruined keep.

Again, there was no reply, but as Clara looked down the road, she saw movement.

There was a shape on the horizon, a carriage, rattling over the cobbled road towards her. It was little more than a dot beneath the vast, lowering clouds, but it was travelling fast. Within a few seconds she began to make out four horses, hurling it through the rain.

‘I’m saved,’ she said, hobbling down the grassy hillside. The grass was slick with rain, but she used her crook to steady herself and reached the road with a triumphant laugh, sneering over her shoulder at the trees.

The coach raced through the dull, grey valley, shrouded in spray and growing larger every second. Clara began to make out a smart-looking carriage, painted deep, bottle green with a golden chalice emblazoned on the doors. The design was unlike anything she had seen before. The footboard was constructed to resemble the wings of a swooping eagle and the coachman’s seat was the bird’s back. The whole thing was constructed so ingeniously that, if not for the clatter of hooves and wheels, Clara might have believed an enormous bird was racing towards her.

As she reached the side of the road, Clara could already make out the coachman himself. His livery was as strange as his vehicle – he wore a simple, fitted jacket and a plumed cap – but the sight of a human face was enough to drag a yelp from Clara’s lips. She raised her crook and waved it frantically over her head.

‘Hey!’ she cried, stumbling out onto the road.

The coachman saw her and slowed the horses a little as she approached. He leant forwards on his seat and squinted through the drizzle.

As the coach slowed, Clara stepped out into a patch of pale sunlight, still waving her crook. The coachman was just a few feet away and he saw her clearly for the first time. ‘Ho there! What are you doing out here? The forest isn’t safe.’

‘Friend!’ cried Clara, stepping closer to him. ‘I’m lost. Take me to the nearest town, I beg you.’

As Clara approached him, the driver’s expression changed.

‘By the gods, what are you?’ he cried, drawing back in horror. Then he yanked the reins and drove the horses on with a howl.

The carriage jerked forwards and a shutter rolled down in the carriage door, revealing a furious woman’s face.

The face at the door looked just as horrified as the coachman’s and the shutter slammed back up again.

‘Stay where you are, daemon!’ yelled the coachman as the carriage pulled away.

‘Wait!’ cried Clara, waving her crook in panic.

The sound of hooves rang out through the valley.

As the carriage sped away, Clara saw the terror in the coachman’s eyes.

She stumbled after him, but in a few more minutes his face was hidden from view. The coach went thundering down the road, even faster than when Clara had first spied it on the horizon.

Despair and shock washed over her. The driver had been so shocked. Why had he been so afraid?

Clara dropped to her knees with a groan, letting her crook clatter onto the road. For a few seconds she was too shocked to think straight. Was her appearance so wild as to scare innocent people?

‘Why were they so afraid?’ she groaned, looking up into the whirling cords of rain.

‘What difference does it make?’ asked a piping, childish voice.

Clara flinched in shock. Then she clambered to her feet and stared up into the downpour. It seemed as though the rain had spoken to her. ‘Who’s there?’

The voice had come from just a few feet overhead, but Clara could see no sign of its owner.

‘Too many darknesses have passed, old woman,’ said the voice, quivering on the breeze. ‘You could never have returned anyway.’

‘Who is that?’ Clara peered into the rain. Then she staggered off the road and looked back at the trees. She suddenly had the horrible idea that the forest was speaking to her. ‘What do you mean, I could never have returned?’

The breeze picked up, snatching dead leaves from the forest floor and spinning them up into the rain, making a glinting, waist-high column of copper and gold.

‘You’re not one of them any more, old woman.’

Clara lurched back towards the trees, her eyes locked on the little tornado. ‘Who’s speaking?’

The spiral of rain and leaves vanished for a moment, then reappeared just a few feet away, fluttering in the downpour. As it moved briefly into the light, Clara glimpsed a vague shape in the tumult: the shimmering ghost of a child, smiling mischievously at her. The spectre was only visible for a second, but it was enough to terrify her.

She looked back at the road, wanting to flee, but something stayed her in her tracks. She touched her wound and wondered if it had unhinged her mind. She was talking to the rain. ‘Not one of them?’ she asked, with desperation in her voice.

The ghost child waltzed into view again with a tinkle of fluid laughter. His skin burned like an autumn sunset and as he spoke, his features shifted and rolled, as though even his bones were unable to stay still. ‘We’re playing games, old woman.’ He laughed, stepping fully out into the light, so close that Clara could have touched him. Then suddenly, his expression darkened. His face became a furious snarl. ‘You know what you’ve done! You’re a villain! You’ve stepped too often into skins that do not belong to you.’

He jabbed a trembling finger at Clara and crumpled leaves flew from the digit, flashing in the rain. As they tumbled around Clara they assumed the shapes of animals. ‘You’ve travelled further than you should, old woman, and it’s left a mark on your flesh.’ His rage grew and he slapped the side of his forehead. ‘The doors open both ways. What goes in comes out! I can see your soul, Clara.’

Clara’s stomach turned and she thought for a moment she might be sick. ‘I’m human,’ she said, slapping her sodden robes. ‘I’m human.’ A note of desperation entered her voice. ‘Why did they flee from me?’

The spirit’s expression changed again. The mirth and the rage had both vanished, replaced by a look of heart-rending grief. ‘He fears what he doesn’t understand, Clara, like all of them. His heart is hardened by the paucity of his learning.’ The spirit glanced at a puddle of water at the edge of the forest. ‘He fears your strangeness.’

An awful feeling of dread welled up through Clara. Why was the ghost looking at the pool with such a mournful expression? What was in there?

She trudged slowly through the mud, dreading what she might see, but unable to resist.

As Clara looked down into the puddle she was blinded for a moment by the moonlight. She could make out her silhouette and nothing else. She let out a sigh of relief. Her fear suddenly seemed ridiculous. What had alarmed her so?

Then as she grew more accustomed to the glare, Clara’s vision cleared and she saw her face in more detail. She winced as she saw the bloody wound where the peasant had clubbed her. Then she noticed something else and hissed. Her eyes had changed. They were no longer hers. They were glassy and inhuman – the eyes of an animal. They were obscenely wide and the pupils had become two tall, narrow slits.

‘What have you done to me?’ she screamed, whirling around and looking for the ghost child.

The glimmering column of leaves was now hovering by the edge of the road and Clara could just make out the strange little spirit, staring back at her. ‘What have I done?’ The innocent little face twisted into a hurt pout. ‘Why does the blame always fall at my door? Zephyr is always the guilty party.’ Tears glistened in the spirit’s eyes. ‘I know nothing of life and yet everyone accuses me. Zephyr did this. Zephyr did that.’

Clara shook her head, dazed by the ghost’s bizarre behaviour. As the column of dead leaves weaved back and forth across the heath, the spirit wailed disconsolately, clutching at its golden locks and shaking with dismay.

Despite the surreal situation, Clara began to feel oddly guilty. The ghost child had dropped to his knees and was sobbing violently. ‘What do I know of the world? How will I ever learn if people see me as the source of all ill? What do I know of vice?’

Clara stumbled through the heather and gorse, holding out a placating hand. ‘Forgive me,’ she muttered. ‘I am afraid, that’s all.’ There was a tremor in her voice. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me.’

As she reached the spiral of leaves the child looked up at her. His expression was completely transformed. The tears had vanished, replaced by a disgusted, imperious sneer. ‘How dare you address me?’ The child looked down the length of his tiny, upturned nose. ‘You filthy little mortal. Do you think I care about your wretched existence?’

The leaves flurried and tumbled around Clara’s face, blinding her for a moment, and when she looked again, the ghost had vanished.

‘Wait,’ she gasped. With the spirit gone, it suddenly occurred to her that, left as she was, she could never return home. She would be dragged before a magistrate and handed over to witch hunters. Her heart pounded. ‘They’ll burn me alive,’ she muttered, spinning around and looking for the golden child.

‘Of course!’ came a reply from the rain. The voice was full of laughter again – verging on hysterics. ‘You’d be a bonfire before you’d gone two miles.’

‘Then help me!’ cried Clara, spinning around and looking up into the sparkling banks of rain. ‘Tell me what to do!’ She dropped her crook and clamped her palms over her hideous eyes. ‘How can I be normal again?’

The child was suddenly at her side, just inches from her face, and when it spoke its voice was devious and wheedling. ‘You’d like my help?’

‘Yes!’ cried Clara, howling with fear and rage. ‘Make me human again, for pity’s sake!’

The spirit’s lips were next to Clara’s ear. ‘I did not make this mess, old woman,’ it whispered, ‘but perhaps I can unmake it.’

‘Yes!’ gasped Clara, reaching out to grab the glittering shape. Her fingers clutched air and she saw that the spirit was back beneath the canopy of the trees.

‘What did you see?’ asked the youth, with the same scheming expression on his face. He held his hands over his head and spread out his fingers. ‘Was it, by any chance, a great, white stag?’

For a moment, Clara was too shocked to speak. Then she nodded. ‘How do you know? Was that you? Did you come to me in another guise? Are you the spirit of the forest?’

The golden youth looked suddenly demure, looking away with a coy expression. ‘In a sense.’

Clara grabbed her crook and raced back towards the forest. ‘Then you could make me human again!’

The spirit slipped away into the trees, with Clara staggering after.

‘There might be a way,’ said the voice, becoming a tumble of leaves again.

‘Wait! Show me!’ cried Clara as her frail shape was swallowed by the gloom of the forest.

CHAPTER TEN

Something was wrong. Drycha cursed as she waded through the mire, flexing her crooked claws; itching to lay them on the root of her pain. Flies gathered around her like mist, pluming in hollows and rolling over sunken paths. They looked like natural insects but Drycha was not so easily fooled. She knew the seasons too well. Autumn was turning to winter. Swarms of flies should not be whirring through the trees. As she squelched and popped through the mud, more of them erupted from the reeds, filling her eyes and gathering in her wooden mouth.

There was a loathsome stink on the breeze but she waded on, undeterred, struggling through another waste-deep bog and climbing a small knoll for a better view. The plague of flies continued for as far as she could see, hazing the air and giving the vale an odd, ghostly pallor.

‘What is it? What do you see?’ Liris creaked and groaned as she followed, dragging her knotted bark up the slope, moving with a series of spasmodic jerks and bounds. ‘Fawn? Calf?’

Drycha reached out, extending her wooden talons into the cloud of flies. She sent her mind coursing through roots and branches, feeling pain and confusion in every tendril she entered. ‘No.’ As she lowered her claw, her features cracked and folded into a grimace. ‘It is a bear.’

Liris looked appalled as she reached her side.

They both paused for a moment at the crest of the knoll, listening to the awful keening sound. It was a high-pitched, repetitive shriek, so loud that it sliced through even the din of the flies.

Liris folded and unfolded her brittle limbs as she circled Drycha, making a clicking clacking sound. ‘What could have dragged such a sound from her? What could hurt her so?’

Drycha shook her head. ‘The whole vale has become strange to me.’ Her voice was almost a whisper. ‘I can barely recognise it. There is growth where there should be decay and life where there should be death.’

Liris snapped and cracked her limbs again, clearly distressed. ‘How can the forest be strange to you?’

‘He has done this.’ Drycha’s voice was full of venom. She hurried down the far side of the knoll and re-entered the bog with a splash.

The sun was directly overhead by the time they found the bear and there were no shadows to spare them the horror of its plight.

The animal was sprawled at the basin of a small gulley, half submerged in the mud and screaming like a hungry infant.

Drycha and Liris paused a few feet away, too horrified to speak.

The creature’s left side was intact, although partly hidden in the mud, but the other side of the animal was hideously transformed. Its fur had fallen away to reveal a mound of buboes and pustules. The bear’s flank had swollen into a bloated, angry-looking sack and beneath its skin Drycha and Liris saw shapes, swimming through the pus.

The bear tried to rise as they approached, sensing danger, but it was too weak to move. The most it could do was glare at them and continue screaming.

Tears tumbled down the ridges of Drycha’s face. She clawed at her own features, scraping bark from her cheeks and whispering a curse.

Then she climbed down into the gulley and rushed to the bear’s side.

It made a pathetic attempt to lash out as she approached but she easily dodged the blow, placing her knotted claws on its chest.

As the animal struggled to raise its paw and lash out again, Drycha began to sing. Her voice was a dry, whispered drone, but the melody was gentle – a wordless lullaby, dragged from the nearby trees. The tune rustled from the copper-coloured leaves and caused the bear to slump back into the mud, finally ceasing its terrible screech.

The bear lowered its paw and as its body relaxed it turned towards Drycha.

She leant close to the creature’s ruined head and brushed her claws against the ragged wound. ‘Sleep, great spirit. Suffer no more.’

The bear’s breathing began to slow.

Liris was sobbing too, but she joined her voice to the rustling chorus and climbed down into the gulley.

Drycha extended one of her arms with a series of cracking pops and cradled the animal’s head. Then she raised her other arm and placed it against the bear’s skull.

‘Sleep, old friend,’ she whispered. ‘Your rest is well-earned.’ As the words left her mouth, the arm she had placed against the bear’s skull formed into a sharpened thorn and shot forwards. There was a crunch of breaking bone and the animal stiffened, then its head dropped back into Drycha’s arm.

The bear took one last, rattling breath and lay still.

Drycha stared at the lifeless creature for a few seconds in silence, watching its blood pool around her knees. Then she leant back and screamed. She screamed with such ferocity that her neck splintered and vines fell from her trembling lips.

Liris dropped to her knees to join her in her grief, and for a long time neither of them could do anything but weep.

Finally, as the sun drifted across the sky and shadows began to stretch across the waterlogged glade, Drycha ceased her cries and lowered the bear’s head to the ground.

‘Not even in my darkest visions…’ Drycha’s words faltered as she tried to comprehend what she had just seen. She clutched her head in her hands. ‘Look at what they’ve done to us.’ Her voice cracked as she rose to he feet. ‘Look at what he has done to us.’

Liris could not remove her eyes from the bear. ‘You think this is the work of Orion?’

Drycha’s voice was as brittle as her twitching claws. ‘Who else? The trespasser king is more of a halfwit than we ever dreamt.’ She pointed at the infected corpse. ‘This is what we have kept buried for all those centuries. This is what he has unleashed on us. This is the result of his arrogance.’ She clawed at her own face again and her words became a jumble of incoherent curses. Then she closed her eyes and spoke with quiet passion. ‘The pain of our sister will be nothing to the agonies I will inflict on him.’

She nodded at the bear’s corpse and raised her claws. With a thought, she formed them into razor-sharp blades. ‘We must remove this loathsome blight from her flesh. Her spirit is old and strong, and it will not rest for long. We must make sure she returns to us whole; free of this taint.’

Liris nodded. There was a creaking sound as she transformed her own limbs into the same shape. Then there was a wet tearing sound as they began their work.

They emerged from the gulley nearly an hour later, slick with blood and the remnants of burst pupae. Drycha pointed through the trees, to where the clouds of flies were at their most impenetrable. ‘The taint is strongest at the centre of the vale.’ She ran her tongue over her ridged lips, as though she could already taste violence. ‘It is one of the interlopers’ hovels. If the blight can overtake a spirit as noble as Ursa, think what it could do to the feeble souls of the outlanders.’

Liris was about to reply, but Drycha was already moving, filled with righteous indignation, wading through the mud and flies, her back stooped as she powered through the bog.

As they reached the centre of the glade the extent of the corruption became apparent. The trees were coated with yellow spores and several of them had buckled under the weight of enormous fungal growths – bloated, pungent discs jutting through branches and trunks. Drycha paused before a hunched sycamore tree. Its bark was rippling like the surface of a wind-lashed pool. She stepped closer, shaking her head in disbelief, gently scraping the bark with one of her claws. The tree burst open at her touch like a piece of overripe fruit.

Drycha flinched as slithering, slippery shapes tumbled from the hole. Hundreds of grubs tumbled into the mud and the tree began to convulse and shake.

Drycha had to shield her face as the trunk fell sideways and tore apart, spraying larvae and rotten pulp against her.

The clouds of flies thickened, making it almost impossible to see.

Drycha turned and fled, heading off down another path with Liris close behind.

They raced through the mire, splashing through puddles and the remains of decayed trees.

As she ran, Drycha sensed currents of magic zipping through the boughs. She immediately recognised the feeble sorcery of Ariel’s witches, intended to disguise the entrance to their grubby little den. She laughed at the clumsiness of their efforts. Only the blindest of travellers could fail to notice the canopied avenue and the well-worn seats of its guardians.

She nodded to Liris and they slipped into the cover of the trees, delighting in how much more effective their own disguises were. They became shadow and thorn, ghostlike and silent as they neared the sentries.

Drycha was bound by her master not to hunt the asrai, but she could not prevent her limbs bristling as she crept towards the first sentry’s perch. She had promised not to openly attack the halls of the asrai, but after her encounter with the bear it took all of her effort not to pounce on the watcher as she slipped through the lengthening shadows.

She had almost moved past the guard when Liris grabbed her wrist and halted her in her tracks.

Drycha glared at her.

Liris frowned and nodded to the fork of the tree that the sentry used as a perch.

The cloud of flies was particularly thick there, but as Drycha peered through the haze, she realised why Liris had paused.

The sentry was completely visible, even through the miasma of insects.

Drycha mirrored Liris’s frown. Ariel’s runts were fools but this was clumsy even by their standards. The sentry’s legs were hanging from the branch in full view of the path below.

She turned and crept back towards the tree, her body bristling with sharpened wood.

The smell grew worse as she approached. It was the same stink of putrefaction that had surrounded the bear. She knew, before she was anywhere near the tree, that the sentry was dead.

They emerged from the bracken and scoured the path for any living guards.

There were none, so Drycha climbed lightly up through the branches and lifted herself up beside the dangling sentry.

She hissed in disgust.

The guard was as bloated and pustulent as the bear. His limbs were swollen sacks of liquid and, like the bear, there were grubs swarming beneath his skin. His chest had collapsed into a wet mush and, where his lungs should have been, there was a mound of pale, wriggling shapes, rummaging blindly through his rotting skin. His face was grey, his cheeks were sunken and his eyes had been replaced with two ragged sockets.

There was a raven in the tree, cawing angrily at Drycha, and she had no doubt where the eyes had gone.

The smell was overpowering and Drycha dropped to the ground.

‘It is as we always thought,’ she said, turning to Liris. Her eyes were dead and her voice was flat. ‘Orion released no simple spirit. He has unleashed a fragment of the Plague God. He has unleashed the Old Blight.’

Liris shook her head, but before she could reply, Drycha raced down the path, making no effort to disguise her passing.

Liris rushed after her and they soon found more bodies sprawled in the undergrowth.

The scale of the disaster was obvious to Drycha. Ariel’s runts were obsessive about their funerary rites. They would never leave bodies to the elements like this, for all to see.

She pressed on without stopping to examine any more bodies. It was obvious from even a cursory glance that they had all died the same pitiful death. The path became a crevasse and eventually led to a seemingly featureless hillside.

Again, Drycha laughed at their pathetic illusion, but this time the sound was hollow and short-lived. She slipped through the hidden entrance to their home and found herself in a vast tunnel of roots. She rarely entered such places and her breath quickened as she saw the atrocity they had created. The roots of countless living trees had been plaited into a mile-long hall, lined with shimmering, fireless torches. It would have been a repulsive sight at the best of times, but now, filled with clouds of buzzing flies, it made her head spin. Many of the lights had failed, making it hard to see and as she made her way down the hall she slipped and realised that the ground was slick with blood. She continued, a little slower, and after a few minutes she began to make out corpses in the gloom – all of them mangled and bloated into bizarre, misshapen lumps of meat.

Drycha paused and crouched low to the ground. She had heard a sound, coming from somewhere up ahead. She signalled for Liris to hold still and then she strained to hear beyond the buzzing of the flies. The sound came again and she recognised asrai voices, screaming in pain and rage.

Liris rushed towards her, but she waved for her to stop again and continued listening. The cries rang out again, accompanied this time by the sound of blades clattering against stone.

It sounded like there were a few survivors somewhere up ahead, but who were they fighting?

Drycha pressed on through the gloom, peering down every archway she passed. The doorways were constructed of the same knotted root as the main passage and were lined with the same torches, but they had all been plunged into darkness. All of them bore some sign of the plague, but Drycha was sure that the survivors were still up ahead.

Finally, the hallway narrowed to a point, ending in a tall, thin doorway. It looked as though there had once been a door, but now there was just a mound of damp, shredded wood, teeming with grubs and beetles.

Drycha paused at the threshold, staring into the darkness beyond. Lights flickered on the far side of a vast chamber. It looked like blades, swinging through the gloom and catching the faint light of the few remaining torches.

Fury overwhelmed Drycha as she considered the ruin Ariel and Orion had wrought on her home. She turned to Liris and saw that they had shared the same idea. They nodded at each other and entered the room. A few lonely survivors would never be missed. Oaths could be forgotten.

The bodies were heaped in mounds. It was too dark to see the flies clearly but they were like a living wall, thick and unyielding as Drycha fought through the seething, humming air.

The survivors had been backed into a corner and they were loosing arrows and knives with wild abandon, howling and screaming as they tried to defend themselves. There were less than a dozen of them left and they were all horribly diseased. It was obvious that none of them would survive, even if they defeated their attackers.

Drycha became one of them as she reached the skirmish, dressing herself in soft skin and stiff, leather armour. There was a faint light from the passageway outside and she struggled at first to see exactly what they were fighting, but as she reached the fighting she stumbled to a halt, amazed by what she saw.

They were fighting themselves.

The asrai were so maddened and blinded by rot that they had turned on each other, hacking chunks out of their own kind and loosing arrows at their dying kin.

The scene was so pitiful that Drycha’s fury left her. One of the asrai spotted her in the gloom and called out for help, but he was immediately cut down by his brothers.

Drycha had arrived just in time to witness the end. Within a few more minutes, most of the combatants had collapsed, clutching at pulsing growths and open wounds.

As the last couple lunged and hacked each other to the ground, she abandoned her disguise and left the chamber, waving for Liris to follow.

They raced from the fly-filled charnel house, moving as quickly as they could. When they stumbled back out into the forest, Drycha was trembling with barely contained rage. ‘Orion’s blunder was at the start of the summer,’ she said, looking at the slumped, rotten groves that surrounded them. ‘It’s barely autumn.’ She shook her head. ‘What use are Ariel’s promises now? All those proud claims of guardianship! What will they guard as they butcher their own diseased brothers? Finally, they have abandoned their ridiculous pretence at servitude. They will spend the winter dying – murdered by their own king.’ She waved at the rotten trees. ‘And by spring there will be nothing left.’

Liris shook her head. ‘The forest is eternal.’

Drycha snarled. ‘We have been betrayed. When the new year comes we will be strangers in our own home. The false king has given us away. We are gifts to the Lord of Flies. We are his plaything.’ She closed her eyes, trying to see beyond the spores and diseased wood. ‘There must be some way we can make him pay for this. I will not die so easily, Liris.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘He will know what to do.’

There was fear and excitement in Liris’s voice. ‘The Ancient One?’

Drycha nodded, flexing her claws.

‘His mind is elsewhere,’ said Liris, clutching her own limbs again. ‘His thoughts wander paths we cannot follow.’

‘He will know me.’ Drycha felt her mood lift even at the idea of her master. ‘His dreams are long and full of import. He will have seen this day. He will know what to do.’

Liris looked doubtful, but Drycha grabbed her by the arm and hauled her off down the path, jumping lightly over the corpses. ‘I will see the false king die before me,’ whispered Drycha as she ran. ‘I will see him die.’

Summer lingered within the borders of the Wildwood, as though even the cold were afraid to enter. The leaves were still glossy and thick, cladding the trees’ interlinked arms in a thick, impenetrable coat. It was dusk by the time Drycha reached her supposed prison, but even at midday the Wildwood was a tenebrous pit; a realm of shadows and heavy, ominous silences.

Drycha paused before entering and sent Liris on her way. Liris might be willing to enter her home, but she would be unlikely to leave. Even in the half-light, it was possible to make out the slender stone columns that punctuated the edge of the Wildwood. Ariel’s witches had poured every ounce of their artifice into these crude, granite sentinels and few spirits could pass through their net, but Drycha was no ordinary soul. Her memory was longer than Ariel could ever imagine and she had deciphered the secret of the stones in a few short decades. She now travelled the forest as easily as she ever did. She had never fully abandoned her gloomy home though. It harboured magic far more interesting than the wards that contained it. There were beings hiding within its borders that straddled countless worlds and a hundred different pasts. One in particular was dearer to her heart than any other denizen of the forest. Despite her fury and pain, Drycha smiled as she passed the rune-carved stones, knowing she had returned to the true heart of the forest.

The gloom enveloped her and she allowed her physical self to dissipate, becoming one with the sluggish breeze and merging her voice with the petulant screech of eagles, drifting somewhere overhead.

Creatures of enormous size slithered through the dark. Ignorant to the passing of centuries, they pursued errands that could make sense only to themselves, never dreaming that they should have become extinct thousands of years earlier. Insects the size of hawks whirred past, drumming the air with flashing, tessellated wings and scattering coloured lights across the ground. The earth heaved and crumbled over the spines of subterranean behemoths, tunnelling to realms undreamt of by even the most learned minds.

Paths unfurled at Drycha’s feet but she ignored all of them. The Wildwood had a sentience of its own and its goals rarely coincided with those of its guests. Drycha knew that, if she allowed it to, her ancient host would lead her to wonders that would destroy her mind and leave her howling at her own shadow.

So she listened for the song of the forest: bewildering, labyrinthine rhymes, taught to her many years ago, during the first years of her incarceration. Each stanza suggested, in some oblique way, a different route to the one before, and Drycha circled and weaved as she listened, navigating the forest to the rhythm of the words, ignoring even the most tempting visions. For Drycha’s untamed soul, the Shadow-glades were a drug. If she indulged herself with even the smallest draught it would be enough to leave her intoxicated, so she followed the ancient tune like a rope, allowing it to haul her back to her master.

It took three days and four nights, all passed in darkness, before she found him. He was hunched in shadow at the bowl of a natural amphitheatre, surrounded by his dutiful handmaidens. They were wraiths of bark and thorn, like Drycha, and they were kneeling in the trees, twitching and shifting with excitement, as though watching him perform a grand soliloquy. Drycha wondered at the sight of them. She had never seen such a crowd gathered to worship him. Perhaps she was not the only one to have heard his call? The Ancient One, as ever, was motionless. Drycha stumbled to a halt as she saw him. For a while she was unable to approach. It had been many years since she had allowed herself the pleasure of his company and even now, surrounded by a whole crowd of supplicants, she could feel his calming presence speaking directly to her heart.

The centuries had gradually stripped him of form, leaving little more than a mountain of shadows and a vague rustle of leaves, but the song of the forest radiated from him, flooding the amphitheatre with its silent refrain, filling Drycha with courage.

While the Ancient One lived, there would always be hope.

She raced down the slope and allowed his tune to soak through her tired limbs.

Some of the other branchwraiths looked up as she knelt beside them, but they quickly lowered their heads again, lost in adoration of their lord. Drycha saw that their prayers must have been continued for years. Their legs had taken root, sinking into the ground and creepers had stretched over their backs, binding them to the earth.

Drycha assumed the same posture, taking physical form so that she could bend it in homage to her master. Her wooden knees cracked as she knelt and her wrists clicked as she extended her claws in prayer.

‘Coeddil,’ she whispered. ‘Ancient father. What must I do? Guide me.’

There was no audible reply, but the silent song grew in magnificence, soothing Drycha’s quivering limbs and dazzling her with visions. The images were a confused jumble of faces and colours, but Drycha understood the protocol. She relaxed her limbs and took slow, deep draughts of the cool forest air. As her heart slowed, Coeddil’s song began to make more sense.

Beyond the borders of the Wildwood, time hurried on; the impatient hours threw stars across the heavens and rolled the sun across the sky, but here, in the deepest watches of the Shadow-glades, the days went forgotten. Drycha gave herself to the slow, heaving rhythm of Coeddil’s song, and gradually, as the grass grew over her trembling limbs, the Ancient One’s meaning became clear.

First he sang of the endless web – the essence of the forest, binding the present to the past and weaving it into the future. As the melody washed over her, Drycha saw everything with perfect clarity: what they did to the forest, they did to themselves – a promise here, a betrayal there, all would be remembered, changing and directing their fate and shining back at them from the meres and springs of the forest. Then the tune grew darker in tone. The threads had been torn. The gossamer that bound them was hanging loose, sending the natural order into a chaotic whirl. She glimpsed, quite clearly, the false king, Orion, as he blundered through the Vaults of Winter, destroying the ancient keystone of the Sínann-Torr.

Drycha bristled with hate at the thought of her enemy, but the Ancient One soothed her with the glacial magnificence of his song. ‘The forest is forever,’ it seemed to say. ‘What is done will be undone. Everything has been foreseen. Every misdeed is simply another strand of the web.’

Drycha drifted free from the tyranny of time. She had been knelt in prayer for several weeks, but she was no more aware of the fact than she was aware of the birds that settled on her shoulders. Every portion of her soul was joined to her master’s song.

Her rage passed as she understood how insignificant Orion was in comparison to Coeddil’s fathomless wisdom. The outlanders were insects, barely registered by her master’s magnificent vision. The Ancient One’s song showed her, for the first time, exactly what Orion had done. His blunder had set off a chain of events that spread far wider than she could have ever imagined. As his song rolled silently around the amphitheatre, she pictured the crudely chiselled waystones surrounding the Wildwood. At first she struggled to grasp the details of Coeddil’s meaning, but as his rhymes tumbled over her, she realised that it was his old refrain: everything is linked; everything is part of the Great Weave. The strands of magic severed by the false king had lashed out through time and space, reaching even this far corner of the forest. The spirits of the Shadow-glades had been trapped for countless centuries, but now there was a crack forming in the dam.

Drycha’s heart began to race again as she pictured a new vision of the future – one in which the branches of the Wildwood stretched beyond their prison.

Coeddil allowed this idea to settle in her thoughts before changing his melody and throwing her mind down another avenue. She plummeted though a dream of rotten flesh and swollen growths. She swam through a black plague, watching in horror as it flooded the forest; twisting, corrupting and destroying everything she loved. The vision was dizzying and terrifying but Coeddil cast her even further – hurling her mind through clouds of flies and crows, to the borders of a revolting labyrinth. It was a spiralled garden, grown from towering mounds of fungi and bubbling lakes of larvae. Holding court at the centre of this garish scene was the being she caught all those centuries earlier. When at first she laid eyes on it she had failed to understand the full horror. She had been young then, and naive. How could she have dreamt its true nature? But now, as she looked at it through the bitter lens of old age she understood. It was far more than a monster; far more than a villain. It was the outstretched claw of a god.

Again, the melody changed. She watched in horror as the rotten garden grew, spreading its lurid, rubbery grasp across the trees; transforming everything it touched.

Drycha recoiled. Why was her master showing her this? Was there no hope?

Coeddil remained silent, but his inky mass billowed across the hollow, caressing her gnarled flesh and silencing her cries.

Drycha slipped back into the dream and saw her master’s reply to her question. As the rotten garden spread, the Wildwood rushed to meet it. With the borders weakened, it was free to extend its thorny grasp, spreading the Shadow-glades north, smothering the daemon’s power and plunging the whole forest into wild, blessed darkness.

Drycha gasped, awed by the thought of it. ‘The Wildwood unbound,’ she whispered, as the shadows caressed her. It was more than she could have dreamt of – a way to lock down the whole forest. A way to reclaim what had been lost. The scale of Coeddil’s vision was dizzying. If such dreams were made reality, the plague would not be the only threat to be driven back. Drycha sighed with pleasure as she imagined Ariel’s runts, cowering in their hovels, with the Wildwood scratching at their doors – a prison turned on its creators.

She lurched to her feet and cried out a wordless thank you.

As she opened her eyes, she saw that it was not only shadows that had gathered around her. The other branchwraiths had risen from their prayers and formed a circle around her. There were hundreds of them, she realised, looming out of the gloom and reaching out to her with knotted claws. Their jagged mouths were open wide, moving in time to the Ancient One’s silent song, and their presence was suddenly explained: Coeddil had summoned them for her.

He had built her an army.

The year was almost over. Each morning the trees gave up a few more of their leaves and shrank from the cold, hardening breeze, until there was nothing left but steel-cold bark. As Liris waited for Drycha’s return, she watched a succession of pale sunrises, each weaker than the last and, one by one, she sensed the forest spirits starting to slip away from the mortal realm. She kept her vigil in silence, unmoving and unmoved, invisible to even the keenest sighted of the animals that passed by. Frost crept over her limbs, hardening her joints and freezing her eyes, but still she did not shift position. Then, after the nineteenth darkness she cleared the ice from her eyes and creaked her body into motion.

Something was happening to the borders of the Wildwood.

The trees were moving against the breeze. As Liris watched in amazement, the wall of trunks bowed and juddered, then began to move. At first she thought the whole Wildwood had become mobile, but she quickly realised her mistake. With a hiss of delight, Liris realised she was watching hundreds of her sisters – branchwraiths – marching out to meet the frozen dawn. Cold sunlight flashed across a row of clenched talons and hunched, brittle backs, before retreating into silhouette as her sisters spread their reach, throwing the forest into shadow. It was an army of root and thorn and, leading them on, full of terrible pride and wrath, was Drycha.

Liris lurched and loped through the bracken to greet her.

Drycha’s face splintered into a merciless smile. She did not pause as she reached Liris, but hauled her along with the others, locking her fingers with Liris’s.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Liris.

‘The asrai have failed us,’ replied Drycha, smashing through the forest, spreading shadow as she went. ‘But the Ancient One has not.’ She gestured to the clatter of brittle limbs that surrounded them. ‘We must retrieve what was always ours.’

She stared at Liris, her eyes wild. ‘We have kneeled for too long. The Wildwood is rising.’

Liris shivered with joy. Then she frowned and looked up at the pale heavens. The clouds were pregnant with snow. She could taste it on the breeze. ‘The year is almost over,’ she said. ‘We will soon start to fade.’

Drycha nodded. ‘We must work fast. If the forest is to survive until we return, it must become as fierce as the Wildwood.’

She waved her army forwards.

‘It is time to spread our roots.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Orion opened his eyes. He was in a forest devoid of colour – a vale of ink-black and blinding white. There was nothing to soften the brutality. He sat up and heard the dry crunch of dead leaves. To his surprise he realised the sound was coming from his own skin. He looked down at his body and saw that it was as bleached, brittle and dusty as everything else.

‘I do remember,’ he said, surprised by how ragged his voice sounded. As his eyes became used to the harsh light he saw a plain of pale dust, divided into thousands of perfect squares, delineated by arrow-straight rows of white, barren trees that trailed into the distance and vanished over the horizon. ‘I have been here,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. One of the trees was within arm’s reach and he reached out to tap it with his claw. He nodded. ‘Bone.’

Something moved beside him and Orion gasped as he saw that Ariel was sitting beside him, grimacing at the leafless wasteland. She gripped Orion’s arm. ‘We are fragments of Isha and Kurnous. We have travelled from our home to the Endless Vale, seeking an audience with Sativus, who is our friend.’ She stared at him. ‘Whatever else we forget, we must remember that.’

Orion shook his head in dismay. ‘What have you done?’ Like him, her flesh was a fragile white shell. Her wings had crumbled away and her robes were a funeral shroud. The sight of her face, so drained of life, so unrecognisable, was terrible to see. He turned away, feeling both pained and humbled as he realised she too must have eaten one of the flowers. She had chosen to follow him.

Ariel gently turned his face back towards hers and stroked his broken, dusty brow.

‘I’m still in here,’ she said, with a smile that sent a crack across her cheek.

He forced himself to meet her eye and, after a few seconds, he saw a shimmer of colour, somewhere deep in the centre of her bone-white pupil – a flash of deep-blue sky. It was only there for a second, but it was enough. ‘And so am I,’ he said, willing her to trust him again.

For a moment they did nothing but look at each other. Then Ariel leant forwards and let her lips scratch against his. ‘I know,’ she said.

Orion tried to sigh with pleasure, but he realised there was no air. They were in a vacuum. The place was not silent though; there was a constant murmuring sound at the edge of his hearing. It sounded like leaves rustling in a breeze, but there were no leaves to be seen. ‘What is that?’ he asked, turning to Ariel.

She looked around at the shadows. ‘Whispers,’ she said, after a few moments. ‘The whispers of the damned.’

Orion grimaced as he realised she was right. The sound was made up of thousands of voices, all whispering at once. The words were urgent and panicked, and they tumbled over each other in a desperate torrent.

‘We are immortal.’ Orion straightened his back and tried to block out the sound. It was impossible to ignore. The panic in the whispers was contagious. It tingled over his bleached shell and filled his mind with anguish. He looked down the featureless avenue of trees. ‘Whatever they are saying has no meaning for us. We’re only passing through. I will not allow you to endure this place for long.’

Taking hold of Ariel’s hand he strode off down the colonnade. ‘Let’s find our guide.’

They walked for a few minutes, but it was impossible to tell if they had covered any distance. Each dusty square was identical to the last and, despite the inky shadows, there was no sun to navigate by.

After a while they began to notice figures watching them from the shadows. Some were huddled in groups, and some were alone, but all of them peered suspiciously at them as they passed. The figures kept themselves well hidden in the darkness, and it was hard to see them in any detail, but the further Ariel and Orion walked the more eyes they noticed glinting beneath the trees.

Orion paused at the sight of one of the figures. For a second, it stepped out into the light and he glimpsed it more clearly. It was a young warrior, made of the same gleaming bone as the trees. Orion only saw him for the briefest moment, but there was an intensity about his stare that worried him.

Orion peered at the lost soul for a moment, then growled and hurried on, dragging Ariel after him.

She looked at him in confusion, but before she had time to question him another sound emerged from the trees, mingling with the torrent of whispers.

Ariel turned to the right as a burst of song rang out.

Orion nodded in reply and they changed direction, following the distant tune.

The song continued and they realised it was nearer than they first imagined. It was a soaring hymn – dozens of voices, joined together in a haunting, lachrymose union.

Ariel saw more figures gathered on the horizon. Then, noticing Orion’s wrapt expression, she gave him a warning glance. ‘Remember what Naieth told us. The rootless dead are not to be trusted.’ She waved her hand at the air, indicating the soothing melody. ‘They are not at peace – however beautiful they might sound. Do not reveal your power to them.’

Orion nodded in reply, ashamed that he had been so easily beguiled. His spirit self was not blessed with weapons, but he flexed his claws as they neared the source of the music.

They crossed a few more of the squares and found themselves face-to-face with the music makers.

Life in the forest was full of wonders, but even Ariel and Orion struggled to understand the scene that was waiting for them. A choir of corpses had gathered in the dust: seven bone statues, in various stages of collapse. Some might once have been asrai, others had clearly been animals, but now they were little more than crumbling relics. Some had almost disintegrated, leaving little more than legs and spinal column, or a powdery, broken face.

This close up, the sadness of the music was almost unbearable.

Orion turned to Ariel with a stunned expression.

Her face remained impassive as she approached a brittle white shard, singing with wild desperation.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, placing a hand on the singer’s arm.

The corpse’s face was still fairly intact and, at Ariel’s touch, its colourless eyes rolled in her direction, moving with a dry scraping sound. There was a look of horror written on its death mask but it continued singing, and after a couple of seconds it fixed its gaze back on the desolate landscape.

Orion’s lip curled at the sight of such disrespect. ‘Your queen is addressing you,’ he snapped, grabbing the corpse’s arm. ‘Dead or not, you will–’

There was a brittle crunch and the limb shattered, dropping to the ground in a cloud of dust.

The singer reeled away from Orion, clutching its ruined stump in horror.

The chorus faltered as the corpses saw the broken arm, but the tune was quickly re-established, even if the voices seemed less confident than before.

All the dead singers were now watching Ariel and Orion with panicked, sidelong glances but none of them stepped backwards.

The corpse with the shattered arm stared at Orion in disbelief, then stepped hesitantly back into position, joining its voice to the others.

‘What are you doing?’ Orion asked, attempting to raise his voice over the song.

There was no reply from the singers, but another voice answered, from the shadows behind the choir.

‘What could be more tragic than to die unnoticed?’

It was a low, rattling, female voice. It sounded as though a large animal were speaking to them. ‘Who deserves a death unmarked by tears?’

Ariel and Orion peered through the crumbling figures, trying to see who was speaking.

It was hard to tell if the speaker was mocking the singers or pitying them. ‘No eulogies were sung for them, you see, so they’ve written their own. They’re trying to sing themselves home. They’re trying to fly on the wings of a melody. They want to find a way back up into the forest; a way up from the bowels of this blessed oak. They think that if the song is beautiful enough, their families will hear, and pick up the tune. They want only to be remembered.’ The voice paused, and when it spoke again, there was a suspicious edge to it. ‘What do you want?’

Ariel and Orion edged carefully around the choir, looking for the source of the voice, but all they found was a glimmering curtain of mist, drifting through the shadows.

‘Who asks?’ demanded Orion.

There was no reply.

Ariel nodded down the avenue of bones and Orion saw that the mist was gathering a few dozen feet away from them, forming a pool of shifting vapour.

Orion frowned and headed down the avenue, forgetting the dead singers and focusing on the mist. ‘Tell me your name,’ he said.

There was still no answer and, as they neared the place where the mist had gathered, Ariel took his hand.

‘Tread carefully,’ she said, with a flash of warning in her eyes.

He nodded, then stepped forwards, allowing the fumes to completely envelop him.

The world of bone and ash vanished, replaced by an ocean of tumbling shadows.

There was a figure in there. It was as bleached and dusty as the choir, but far more intact.

‘Why speak and then hide yourself?’ Orion kept hold of Ariel’s hand as he stepped deeper into the mist, towards the figure.

As they approached the stranger, Orion muttered a curse. It was a young wardancer. The same gloomy-looking ghost he had seen earlier. The spirit had an earnest, worried look and he was staring intensely at Orion. He was slight, even by the standards of a wardancer, and his eyes were wide and full of doubt.

Orion stumbled to a halt as he noticed the corpse’s throat – it had been torn open, as though by a wild animal.

An inexplicable feeling of dread washed over Orion as he met the corpse’s stare.

‘Do you recognise him?’ The ground shook with the power of the voice.

Orion whirled around feeling inexplicably guilty. ‘Perhaps.’ He tried to hide his doubt by speaking in strong, confident tones. ‘What does it matter? I know what you want. Your soul has been plunged into this pit and you wish to find a way out. That is why you spoke. You are wondering if we might be able to help.’

He peered into the drifting haze, looking for a sign of the voice’s owner.

When he looked back, he saw that the youth with the torn throat had vanished.

‘No matter how many centuries pass,’ said the female voice, ‘none of you will grasp the truth.’ There was anger in the voice, and bitterness. ‘You will remain outlanders, doomed to live in ignorance, blind to the nature of the prize you have destroyed.’

Orion sneered. ‘Then you will be happy if we leave you here, caged in your own shadow?’

‘I am not “caged” in anything.’ The voice grew louder and more feral, shaking dust from the ground. ‘I banished myself from the world; the world did not banish me. I came here through choice, not happenstance.’

Ariel flinched as a shape moved through the mist, just a few feet from away from her. It was little more than a flicker of movement, but it implied something vast; something slithering.

Orion saw her alarm and peered into the shifting clouds, following the movement. ‘Why would anyone choose to sever their soul from the forest?’ He tried to keep his voice neutral, not wanting to give anything away, but his disbelief was obvious.

‘Perhaps you could tell me?’ The voice became low and venomous again. ‘Why are you not whispering the same pathetic pleas as all the others?’ A note of suspicion entered the voice. ‘Who are you?’

There was another movement behind them and Orion whirled around, trying to catch a glimpse. Again, he saw nothing more than a suggestion of great size.

‘The dead see everything,’ said Ariel, trying to follow the movement. ‘Surely there’s nothing we could tell you that–’

‘I am not dead,’ interrupted the voice, verging on a roar. ‘I did not die.’

For a brief second, they glimpsed eyes in the mist – two enormous slits of malice, glaring down at them from the height of a tall tree. They vanished almost as quickly as they appeared.

Ariel and Orion turned to each other in shock. Each pupil had been larger than one of the dead trees.

‘Then you do not wish to leave?’ Orion remembered Naieth’s advice: they could only trust a guide who did not seek escape from the Endless Vale.

The mist trailed away from them and pooled a few dozen feet away, in another square of trees.

Orion rushed after the pale tendrils but, before he had taken more than a few steps, Ariel paced a hand on his arm and brought him to a halt.

‘Look,’ she whispered.

Hundreds of the crumbling ghosts were gathering in the trees, muttering and whispering and edging towards them. The strident, confident tone of Orion’s voice had drawn them out. They were mostly still keeping to the shadows, but some were becoming bolder and edging out into the light, staring at Ariel and Orion with desperate hope in their eyes.

‘Have they guessed who we are, I wonder?’ she asked.

Orion was about to reply when the voice rang out again.

‘Guessed who you are?’

Orion stepped back into the mist and spoke in defiant, strident tones. ‘What do you want, stranger?’

The mist drew back again and, as it rolled across the dust, they caught a brief glimpse of a long, pitted talon. ‘I want peace – peace from the tyranny of my past. And I want to forget.’ The voice’s fury grew. ‘But even here, I cannot.’

Orion noticed that the talon had reappeared and this time it remained static. He nodded to Ariel, willing her to distract the stranger for a moment.

She nodded and stepped away from him. ‘Why do you wish to forget?’ she called out.

There was a pause but, as he stepped further into the mist, Orion saw that the talon was still visible.

‘I wish to forget my foolishness.’ The voice was close and Orion saw Ariel flinch. ‘I had a chance,’ it continued. ‘I could have kept your kind from my home. I could have preserved what we had,’ the voice faltered, ‘but I trusted the others. I believed the lies of the false king and queen and allowed their ruin into the forest.’

‘Lies?’ asked Orion, edging towards the shape.

‘The lies of that whore-queen, Ariel, and her goat-legged pet.’

Orion froze and clenched his fists. Rage flooded his whole body and he trembled with the effort of holding back a reply. He managed not to speak but it was no use – his actions betrayed him as clearly as any words. His fury had been seen.

A vast shape emerged from the mist and shadow. It was the head of a giant serpent, with ivory scales and eyes like oval stars. ‘You’re angry,’ it said, drooling mist from its jaws. ‘Why should you be angry? I think I can guess.’ Its voice was now filled with delight and, as a mountainous bulk rose up behind the creature’s head, it began to laugh.

‘I knew it,’ roared the great drake, sending Ariel and Orion staggering backwards with the force of its breath. Its mouth was lined with foot-high teeth. ‘The Mage Queen has come to free you all!’ It lifted its head higher and addressed the whispering ranks of the dead. ‘And she has brought her Idiot King with her!’

‘Orion,’ breathed Ariel in shocked tones, grabbing his shoulder.

He turned to face her and cursed in surprise. The crowd of pale figures had doubled in size and the dead were now hurrying though the mist towards them. As they registered the drake’s words their whispers became a roar.

Orion grabbed Ariel’s arm and led her down another featureless avenue but, before they had gone more than a few yards, a slab of white-scaled flesh slammed down in front of them, blocking the way. The impact caused them both to stagger and, once they had steadied themselves, they saw the drake’s head swing into view, its eyes blazing with mirth.

‘Surely you don’t wish to leave before your subjects have had chance to pay homage?’

Orion looked back and saw hundreds of desperate faces, charging out of the mist.

He turned back towards the dragon and kicked furiously at its serpentine loop of scales.

There was a loud crack and Orion was enveloped by dust.

The drake withdrew and Orion was about to summon Ariel on, when the creature’s head plunged through the mist towards him.

Fumes blasted from between its teeth, slammed into Orion’s chest and sent him tumbling backwards. The mist snaked around his limbs and chest, binding him like a net and pinning him to the floor.

Ariel raised her hands trying to summon help from the surrounding trees, but they remained motionless.

The dead were almost on them, now. As Orion rolled across the ground, trying to free himself, he caught a glimpse of their shattered faces. They were contorted by terrible hope. They thought he was going to save them. He howled in rage and shrugged off the tendrils of mist, clambering to his feet just seconds before the crowd reached them.

He and Ariel looked at each other in shock.

‘There are too many,’ he said, stepping in front of Ariel and preparing for the impact.

Just as the dead were about to reach them, a shape rushed by and caused them to falter.

The leaders of the crowd toppled to the ground, clutching at cracked shins and splintered spines. The rest of the crowd tried to plough on but lost their footing amongst their prone companions. There was a great smashing and clattering as they fell.

‘This way,’ said a soft voice.

Orion saw the doe-eyed young wardancer again, standing at the entrance to another avenue. The youth was pale and haunted, but his expression was nothing like those of the howling savages trying to clamber over each other to reach him. This spirit was mournful rather than crazed, and Orion felt sure he recognised him.

A strange sense of guilt made Orion falter, but Ariel had no such qualms. Seeing a chance to escape, she dragged Orion towards the youth.

Before they could reach him, the wardancer raced off down the avenue, and Ariel dragged Orion after him.

The dead were only momentarily stalled and as Orion glanced back over his shoulder he saw that the crowd had regained its momentum and was thundering after them.

‘Face your subjects!’ roared the drake, crashing down before them. As it landed it shattered dozens of the bone trees, revealing its coiled shape fully for the first time. The creature’s bulk was bewildering, but Orion only half registered it. Something about the youth’s expression needled him – it reminded him again of Naieth’s words. ‘You will need to broker forgiveness,’ she had said, and Orion sensed that the wardancer might be the soul he needed if they were to find Sativus. He raced towards the white serpent and threw his shoulder against one of its forelegs.

The drake screeched as its flesh shattered.

Orion gasped as his shoulder cracked open, dropping lumps of bone to the dusty ground.

He stayed upright, despite the pain, and drew back his fist to strike the drake’s other foreleg.

The dragon was faster, unleashing another blast of fumes. They coiled around Orion’s limbs and began eating into his brittle body.

Ariel reached his side and muttered an oath, placing her hands on his mist-shrouded body.

The tendrils withdrew, but before she could help Orion to his feet, the drake thrust its head towards them, clamping its jaws around Orion and wrenching him up into the air like a dog with a scrap of meat.

Ariel whirled around, looking for some kind of weapon. She found only tormented faces, pouring down the avenue towards her.

There was a horrible cracking sound as the drake threw back its head and crushed Orion between its rows of teeth.

Dust and bone tumbled from its jaws and Orion howled in pain, feeling his body collapse.

There was a flash of movement as the young wardancer reappeared.

He bounded up the coils of the serpent’s body and leapt at the monster’s head.

The drake was ecstatic, gurgling with pleasure as it ground Orion between its teeth, and it failed to notice the danger that was hurtling towards its face.

The wardancer jabbed a shard of rock into one of its colourless pupils.

The drake howled, keeping Orion locked between its jaws as it recoiled in pain.

As the creature lurched from view, the wardancer tumbled through the air.

Seeing that he would be shattered when he hit the ground, Ariel reached out to the tendrils of mist. Some vestige of life answered her call and, for a moment, she was able to weave the strands into a net.

The wardancer landed safely but, seconds later, the drake’s head smashed against the ground, destroying a square of bone trees and causing the crowds of dead to stumble and fall for a second time.

The drake had fallen in a square about forty feet away from where Ariel was standing and she raced through the trees towards it, followed by the wardancer.

As they reached the great drake they saw that it was lying on its back, shaking its coiled body across the broken trees and howling furiously. Orion was lying in a crumpled heap a few feet further on.

The wardancer leapt over the drake, hauled Orion from the ground and began dragging him away from the square. ‘This way,’ he called, glancing back at Ariel.

She hurried after him and it seemed that the drake was too lost in agony and rage to care.

They had not gone more than a few feet, however, when Orion wrenched himself free of the wardancer’s grip and lurched back towards the dragon.

Ariel howled a warning.

The crowds were pouring into the square from all sides.

Orion paid no heed, staggering and swaying towards the thrashing coils of the serpent’s body.

As he neared the dragon, a few of the bone-spirits attempted to lay hands on him, but he ploughed through them, grabbing something from the ground as he went.

For a moment he was lost from view, then the dragon’s head reared up from the crowd, letting out another deafening roar. Orion had picked up a shard of bone and jabbed it through the monster’s throat. As it reared and howled, the dragon’s neck splintered. For a moment it continued rising higher over the trees, trying to shake Orion loose. Then its neck gave way and its head came free.

There was a deafening crash as the drake fell, headless, to the ground, and the pale crowds scrambled back into the trees, desperate not lose their own fragile flesh.

Seconds later, Orion staggered out of the swirling clouds of dust, heading back towards Ariel and the wardancer. ‘I will not have you called a whore,’ he growled as he reached Ariel’s side.

The wardancer looked back at the square. As the dust settled, the dead were already massing again, looking around for a sign of their king.

‘You must follow me,’ he said.

Ariel and Orion saw him close up for the first time. Like everyone else, his spirit body was a brittle shell of bone, but his was more intact than most – as though he had only recently arrived in the Endless Vale.

‘Who are you?’ demanded Orion.

‘There’s no time.’ The stranger gave Orion an imploring look. ‘Follow me. We can talk later.’

Orion hesitated, sensing that there was unresolved business between them – some bond he could not place.

‘Orion,’ said Ariel, her voice sounding hollow. She was staring at his chest. ‘This is no time for false pride.’

He looked down and saw that the dragon’s teeth had torn him apart. There was a gaping hole between his ribs that created a window on the bleached landscape beyond. There was also the tip of a tooth, several inches thick, embedded deep below his right shoulder. There were several other places where his torso had been broken. It looked as though one bad fall would cause his whole body to collapse.

‘You must remain whole if you mean to return,’ said the wardancer.

‘I have to return!’ snapped Orion. ‘I must reach Sativus.’

The youth’s eyes widened, then he nodded. ‘Sativus. Of course.’ He turned to the crowds racing towards them. They were only seconds away. ‘If we do not move now, they will destroy you. You will never see Sativus again.’

Orion looked furious. ‘Then lead the way!’

The youth moved with incredible speed, racing along the avenues in a bewildering, convoluted dance of lefts and rights. As he led them through the Endless Vale, it became a blur of silver and grey and, over time, it began to change, as though the wardancer were moulding it somehow with his movements. As the wardancer weaved and looped around the featureless trunks, they glimpsed flashes of pale blue overhead and patches of dun brown underfoot.

The whispers began to fade as they left the dead behind. Orion was comforted to realise that only the voices in his head remained – the cryptic utterances that had haunted him since his birth in the Oak of Ages.

After a long time, the wardancer finally came to a halt and turned to face them. ‘The spirit you fought was Tamarix,’ he said. ‘One of the great drakes.’

Orion was momentarily distracted by his surroundings. Now that they were still, he could see that the desolate landscape had almost entirely vanished. Bone had been replaced by heather and stunted clumps of grass. It was dusk and open fields lay before them, glittering with frost.

He did not catch the youth’s comment about Tamarix and said, ‘Is it so easy for the rootless dead to escape their hell? Why do they beg and plead so pitifully if it is possible to simply race back to the forest?

The wardancer shook his head. ‘There is no escape, my lord.’ He stepped into a patch of moonlight and it passed through him. ‘I am shadow and mist, nothing more.’ He gave them a sad smile. ‘I could lead you to the world, if I chose, but I cannot join you in it.’ He held up one of his hands and Orion saw that it was growing fainter by the second.

‘You could lead us back to the world?’ Orion frowned and looked across the starlit fields. ‘Surely you already have?’

Ariel shook her head. ‘Look at yourself.’

Orion looked down and realised that his body was still a pale, dusty shell, crumbling in the places where the dragon had crushed him. He stepped further into the field and realised that, as he did so, his flesh, like the wardancer’s, was beginning to fade.

‘What do you want of me?’ he demanded, rounding on the wardancer. ‘You must know that I cannot grant you freedom. The manner of your death has severed your soul from the world. Only the gods could alter your fate.’

The youth stepped closer to Orion. ‘The gods have brought you to me, my king. I knew you would come.’

As he looked into the wardancer’s wide, haunted eyes, Orion felt another wave of inexplicable guilt.

‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Jokleel. You do not know me, but my blood is on your hands.’

Orion tensed, but before he could reply, Jokleel continued.

‘I am not here to accuse you, or to seek revenge. I am here to ask that you redress an imbalance.’

To Orion’s horror, he noticed that his flesh was fading faster and, as it did so, the blue of the sky was changing to a featureless white.

Jokleel nodded. ‘You do not have long to decide, my lord. Will you aid me or not?’

‘I cannot free you,’ snapped Orion. ‘Your soul has been sundered from the Eternal Realms. Not even I can–’

‘I do not seek freedom for myself,’ interrupted Jokleel. ‘I seek it for my brother.’

‘Your brother?’

‘His soul is as sundered as mine, but his flesh is still whole. The Wild Hunt destroyed him as effectively as it did me, but he still lingers in the mortal realm.’ The pain in Jokleel’s eyes grew. ‘I can bear my fate, my lord, but I cannot bear his. He is walking a dark, dark path, and he is doing it in my name.’ Jokleel’s voice trembled. ‘And it will not stop there. Others will join him. I have seen it. Other souls will be lost in my name.’ He grabbed Orion’s arm. ‘I beg you, my lord – save him from his fate. I cannot endure the pain of his fall. I cannot be the reason for it.’

Orion glanced at Ariel in confusion. He had expected a plea for freedom, but not this. He looked back at Jokleel. ‘And if I swear to save your brother?’

Jokleel’s eyes filled with hope. ‘If you swear to save Finavar from himself, I will lead you back to the Eternal Realms now, and direct you to Sativus.’

‘Finavar?’ Orion wrenched himself free of Jokleel’s grip and stared at him. ‘I know that name.’

‘The Darkling Prince?’ asked Ariel.

Jokleel nodded. ‘We called him that, yes.’ He laughed, but it was a pitiful sound. ‘It was a joke. There was never anything dark about my brother. He was light and life. But now the name is all too accurate.’ Jokleel looked at Ariel and Orion in turn. ‘He seeks to destroy you.’

They stared back at him.

Jokleel ran a brittle tongue over his dusty lips. ‘He believes he must avenge my death and end your rule.’

‘Then he is a fool.’ There was no rage in Orion’s voice, it was simply a statement of fact. ‘We are aspects of the gods.’

‘Will you swear to save him?’

Orion frowned. ‘You wish me to aid my would-be killer?’

‘I wish you to save him from himself. And to save those who will follow him. His ideas will destroy either him or you, and I cannot have such deeds performed in my name.’

Orion shook his head, but Ariel nodded. ‘The Oak of Ages wills this, my love. It was clearly meant to be. We do not need Naieth to see that. You must do as Jokleel asks. There is an imbalance here that must be redressed.’

Jokleel nodded eagerly. ‘If you swear to save him, I will lead you to Sativus.’ He waved at their surroundings. The colours of the forest were fading fast and the rows of arrow-straight trunks were starting to appear all around them.

Orion tried to recall Finavar’s face. His memory was a bloody canvas, splattered with the tormented faces of spirits and mortals but, after a while, he saw the wild grin of the Darkling Prince. There was a fierce bravery in the wardancer, he realised, remembering how Finavar had dared to address him at the rites of spring, while the other celebrants were squirming in the grass. Perhaps by saving a soul like Finavar’s he could atone for his deeds of the summer?

‘I cannot guarantee his salvation,’ he said eventually, turning back to Jokleel. ‘I can only swear to do my best – to do all that is in my power to save him. Our fates are in the hands of the gods, Jokleel, whether they be Loec or Kurnous. If they have decided that your brother will fall into ruin, then I cannot oppose their will.’

‘But you will do all that you can?’

Orion nodded. ‘It would be an appropriate penance. I will try to save one who means me ill.’ He placed a hand over the shattered porcelain of his chest, touching the place where his oak apple heart should have been. ‘I swear to do all I can. If I can rescue the Darkling Prince by any means within my power, I will.’

Jokleel’s face was rigid with emotion. ‘Tell him I bear him no ill will. Tell him my fate is my own. Tell him I love him.’

Orion nodded, then listened carefully as Jokleel directed him home.

They struggled on through the muddy grass, Orion leaning heavily on Ariel for support. The air was hazed with icy drizzle and the bandages Ariel had bound around Orion’s chest were dark with rain and blood. A wound made by a great drake was like no other. Ariel’s charms had proved powerless to stop the bleeding and, every time they stumbled, another gout poured from between his ribs. It was twilight when they finally reached the place Jokleel had described – a steep-sided hill, topped by a small wood and surrounded by miles of sodden fields.

Orion shivered under the sky’s frigid gaze. He felt naked and exposed. The forest was as diverse as it was vast and there were many open places contained within its waystone boundaries. Broad meadows and even regions of barren scrubland were not unknown, but Orion had never grown to trust them as he had the other corners of his kingdom. He loved the deep, creeping eventide of the forest – the gloomiest hollows, where shadows lurked within shadows; not these leafless spaces. His life was rushing from him in fast-flowing rivulets, but it was the expanse of rain-lashed field that troubled him more than anything else.

The sun was setting as they approached the summit and the trees threw spindly shadows out to meet them. The wood was no more than half a mile wide, but the trees were densely packed and, even with most of their leaves gone, they blocked out the sky. Orion relaxed a little as he entered their cool embrace.

They headed to the far side, as Jokleel had instructed, and soon found what they were looking for – a semicircle of raised earth that marked the remains of an ancient keep. There was no trace of stonework, the ruin was far too old for that, just a deep, muddy ditch and a raised path. The trees refrained from crossing the old boundary, as though respecting some immemorial promise, leaving a shallow bowl of grass and dead bracken.

They tramped down into the centre of the ruin and studied the surrounding trees.

‘What now?’ Orion dropped heavily to the ground, wincing at the pain. ‘Do we perform a rite? Must we summon him?’

Ariel did not reply for a moment. Her face was pale with worry and she was staring at Orion’s ruined body. His limbs were so frail and his muscles so withered, that he looked more like an old cripple than the Lord of the Wild Hunt. His eyes were clouded and his breath came in short gasps. She was sure Sativus could help cure his chest wounds, but she knew that would not save him. She held out her hand and felt how cold the rain was. The season of ice was nearly upon them.

‘Ariel,’ snapped Orion, enraged by the pity he saw in her face.

She took a deep breath and looked around, dragging her thoughts back to the present. ‘No, my love, there is no rite – no ritual. The forest directs us, by whatever means it chooses, and then we simply wait.’

Orion nodded. Cold was seeping into his bones – icy fingers from the sodden earth. He could sense the forest dying beneath him, but he felt excitement rather than elation. Ever since he escaped the madness of the hunt he had been craving this moment. A chance to see the noble face of the one who ordained him. A chance to atone. He now craved nothing more than to convince Sativus of his worth. If he could do this one thing right, if he could make peace with the Great Stag, the forest could unite once more. Whatever damage he had wrought, whatever foes he had unleashed, could be driven back by the ancient alliance of asrai and forest.

‘The forest directs us,’ said another voice. It came from the shadows beneath the trees and Orion recognised it immediately.

‘Sativus,’ said Ariel.

The grim expression dropped from her face and she smiled. It was an expression of such simple joy that Orion pictured her as she once was – his mortal lover, with no duty other than to him. He tried to rise, and go to her, but agony knifed through his wounds and he stumbled.

Ariel rushed to his side and managed to steady him before he fell.

‘And yet,’ continued the voice, ‘we so often lose our way.’ The words were unmistakably the deep, rattling bellow of a stag.

There was a deepening of the shadows as a large creature approached. Neither Ariel nor Orion could see it clearly, but it was broad in the chest and crowned by a nest of magnificent antlers.

‘I have come to explain my actions,’ gasped Orion, sensing that the words ‘lose our way’ were directed at him. He stepped towards the shadow, trying to stand tall, despite his pain. ‘My mind was not my own. I believe that whatever spirit is plaguing us now–’

‘There was a tower here, once,’ continued Sativus, as though Orion had not spoken. ‘Those who came from across the sea planted it here. They believed, in all their wisdom, that the forest was theirs to rule. They believed that it was a thing to be owned.’

Ariel’s smile faltered. ‘You speak of the distant past.’

‘I speak of nature.’ There was now an edge of emotion to Sativus’s voice. ‘It is the nature of your kind, Ariel, to bind, to prune and to hunt. It is in your blood. It is in your bones. You can never be rid of it.’

Orion closed his eyes. He had been expecting just this kind of accusation. He looked to Ariel for guidance.

She looked confused and shook her head. ‘Sativus, dearest friend, why are you saying this? Why do you speak to me like I am a stranger?’

‘No tree can grow on this spot.’ Sativus sounded more enraged with each word. ‘The ground is changed. It has been poisoned for all eternity – wounded by the greed of your forefathers. Thus have you marked your passage through history, Ariel – warping and caging the beauty of nature.’

Ariel looked appalled. ‘Why are you saying such things? Every act we perform is balanced by another. Every deed is matched by another. You know the care we take, Sativus. You know that the forest has our allegiance. Why are you speaking this way?’

‘I understand why. You believe I have failed you.’ Orion gasped with the effort of remaining upright. A pool of blood had formed at his feet and his face had taken on a ghastly hue. ‘But you must know that Ariel was never to blame. The plague that has entered the forest–’

‘Is a blessing!’ The stag’s voice trembled with passion. ‘It will drive your kind away from us.’

Ariel put a hand to her mouth, then narrowed her eyes. ‘You believe the forest will be better for this plague?’

‘If it rids us of you, yes.’ Sativus began stepping from side to side, so that they heard his hooves, thudding into the earth. ‘Whatever change it brings is nothing to the evil your children have wrought.’

Ariel caught Orion’s eye and signalled that he should move back from the trees.

He frowned, but she glared at him with such intensity that he nodded and limped back into the centre of the clearing.

‘And what would you have us do, Sativus?’ she asked.

Orion noticed that there were tears glinting in her eyes.

Sativus became calm once more. ‘Would you do my bidding, then, Queen of the Oak? Would you heed my advice, as you did before?’

‘What would you have us do?’ she repeated, staring into the shadows.

Sativus continued speaking softly, but with a new urgency. ‘You could, even now, undo the harm you have wrought. Leave the forest. Take your spells and your horses and your fires and leave us in peace. Atonement is in your grasp, Ariel, but only if you go now. Place your dead lover on his bier, bid goodbye to the old year and lead your people away. Within a season your mark would begin to fade. Nature would reclaim its own. Life would begin again.’

‘And what of the plague?’

‘Disease is part of the forest, Ariel; you are not.’

Ariel nodded. Tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks. ‘Sativus,’ she whispered, so quietly that only Orion could hear. ‘My oldest friend.’

Orion was about to speak, desperate to explain his actions more clearly to Sativus, but before he could Ariel flew past him, spreading her arms as her feet lifted from the ground.

There was another thud of hooves, then Ariel uttered a single power-charged syllable and clapped her palms together.

The clearing was plunged into darkness. It was as though a drape had been thrown over the evening sky, muffling even the sound of rain, pattering on the fallen leaves.

Orion stumbled blindly forwards, attempting to follow Ariel.

Then the darkness was replaced by a blinding flash and he howled, shielding his eyes from the glare. His cry was matched by a scream so horrible he could not tell whether it came from Ariel or an animal.

The glare faded and Orion opened his eyes.

A hole had been wrenched in the circle of trees. Several of them had been twisted aside, as though by a powerful storm, revealing the figure that had been standing beneath them.

Orion gasped as he saw Sativus. The huge stag was utterly transformed. Its antlers were all that remained of its former shape. Where once it had been white and noble, now it was a mound of black, glistening sinew. Its hunched back now sported a pair of spiny bat wings and its tail was the armour-plated barb of a scorpion. The clear, intelligent eyes that Orion recalled had been replaced by studs of malice, rolling feverishly as Ariel drifted closer.

The same magic she had used to draw back the trees had also wrenched roots from the ground, pinning the stag to the spot.

The monster that had once been Sativus thrashed and heaved at its bonds.

‘You should leave,’ screamed the creature, abandoning all pretence of reason. Its voice was shrill and wild. ‘You cannot survive this war. You will all die.’

Orion saw that Ariel was shaking violently as she dropped gently to the ground. He raced to her side, wondering if the creature had wounded her, but as he reached her he saw that it was only grief that was shaking her body.

As tears flowed from her eyes, power coiled around her fingertips, wrenching more roots from the ground, and each one that rose gripped Sativus a little tighter.

Orion staggered to a halt as he realised what she was doing.

She was crushing the life from the Spirit King.

‘Wait!’ he cried, grasping her arm. ‘Think what Naieth said! You cannot harm him. The seasons will be heavy with blood. We must win back his allegiance. We must cure him.’

As Sativus began to rupture and snap Ariel turned to face Orion. Her eyes were red with grief and her whole body was shivering but when she spoke, her voice was heavy with power.

‘Sativus is dead.’

She closed her eyes, threw back her head and lost herself in the magic that was tearing through her.

Orion shook his head and was about to plead with her again, when Sativus gave an almighty bellow and charged, snapping free of its bonds.

The massive beast was making straight for Ariel and Orion realised that she was too consumed by her spell to realise.

The stag lowered its antlers as it thundered through the mud.

Orion bared his teeth in a grim smile and threw himself directly in the stag’s path.

It was like stepping before a falling tree.

Sativus smashed into him and they both rolled across the clearing, spraying blood, mud and leaves as they went.

Ariel howled in rage, drawn out of her trance just in time to see Sativus regain its footing and rear up over Orion’s prone form, preparing to dash his brains out with its hooves.

She summoned more roots and hurled them like spears, piercing Sativus’s flesh with knotted staves.

Sativus collapsed, covering the ruins with a spray of bones and viscera. For a moment, the spirit tried to rise, but its body was so badly torn that it collapsed as it did so. The torrents of blood became wisps of crimson light, bleeding through Sativus’s hide and mingling with the rain. Then the stag began to dissipate, becoming a spiralling mist of red and green.

Ariel watched in horror, shaking her head. Then, when Sativus’s remains had completely evaporated, she remembered her husband and whirled around.

Orion was lying at the centre of the clearing facing the sky. His back was arched in pain and there was bloody foam on his lips. His body was quivering and his eyes had rolled back into their sockets.

Ariel wailed and rushed to his side, but when she reached him, she was unable to touch his body. It was so torn and buckled that she could find no place to hold him.

She dropped to her knees a few feet away, with one hand extended, and began to weep.

She was so lost in her grief that for a while she failed to notice that the weather had changed.

The air was busy with silent, drifting feathers of snow.

WINTER

Gaurach-Dúin

The Season of Ice

Stillness

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ordaana lay in the dark, half asleep in the roots of a tree, imagining that flies were speaking to her. The words were amiable, soporific and lisping. ‘Hookworm, of fifteen varieties, emerging from the flesh of the joint cavity. Roundworm, of twelve varieties, covering the mucus lining. Lesser infestations of cankerworm, tapeworm, zeaspora, black pox, hair tongue and lung fungus.’

She ignored the flies, holding her child tighter for warmth and trying to regain the blissful nothingness of sleep.

The droning words continued, listing every conceivable fungal infection and disease. The voice was so lethargic that Ordaana might have succeeded in staying asleep if not for the other sounds that accompanied it. Nearby she could hear a clicking sound – bone, tapping against wood; an irregular pattern that caused her to flinch with every click. She clamped her eyes tighter but the sound drummed on. It was like a fingernail, tapping against her skull. And, in the distance, she could hear something equally jarring – a dull, repetitive clang, like two pans being banged together. The sounds combined into such an infuriating din that she accepted defeat and opened her eyes to glare at the insects.

‘Why can’t you just let me sleep?’

The endless clouds of flies were there, of course, but they were not speaking. She was being addressed by one of Alkhor’s servants – one of his muttering, shuffling lackeys. When she had asked, in disgusted tones, what they were, Alkhor had given her the name humans applied to them, seeming to find it incredibly funny. Humans called them tallymen, he explained, if they lived long enough to call them anything. This particular one was standing over her, fiddling with a tally stick and an abacus of finger bones. Like all of Alkhor’s brood, it was vaguely humanoid, but with an impossibly bloated stomach, a pair of ridiculous spindly legs, a single tusk sprouting from its skull and one, large cyclopean eye embedded in its forehead.

‘Ganglion,’ she muttered.

Ordaana would rather not have been on first name terms with such a being, but Ganglion’s particular gift made it quite unmistakable. It had explained, quite proudly to Ordaana, that Alkhor had blessed it with the blood pox. Constant bleeding beneath its skin made its body the colour of raw meat. The dark red was in sharp contrast with its eye – a lurid sack of yellow, laced with swollen veins and oozing a constant stream of pus.

‘Infinitesimal particles of white nose, loose eye and liver mould,’ it said, leaning so close that she could see the weevils rushing across its blackened tongue.

Ordaana groaned and backed away, struggling with the nausea that dogged her every waking moment. The thing spoke a language so base it hurt her ears, but Alkhor had cursed her with the ability to understand every loathsome word.

‘The tendons have erupted in thirty-seven places, Proctor,’ said Ganglion, using its counting stick to prod a lump of meat near her feet.

She hissed a curse and stood up. The moist white lump in her arms stirred and Ordaana gently stroked its tentacles, ignoring the way they reddened her skin. ‘Why must you tell me every wretched detail?’ She glared at Ganglion. ‘Build him his rivers. Keep working. I don’t care about anything else.’

A pockmarked lid rolled halfway down Ganglion’s eye. ‘The master’s work is meaningless if we do not catalogue it, Proctor.’ The daemon jabbed its counting stick into the piece of meat again. ‘The number and complexity of his gifts cannot go unrecorded.’ Ganglion tapped a thick, mildewed ledger, hanging beneath its swaying gut and continued speaking in the same, moist lisp: ‘Records must be kept, Proctor. Tallies must be made. Power exists only in the detailing of things. The forest is dangerously unkempt. We must bring order. By listing our successes can we–’

‘Where did you get that?’ asked Ordaana, pointing at the diseased meat.

The daemon in her arms stirred again and she patted its head until it withdrew its tentacles.

Ganglion’s blood blister face creased into a smile. ‘Another one of Ariel’s lackeys.’

Ordaana stared at the dripping mess, contorted by guilt. Then she pictured Ariel’s face and replaced the feeling with hate. ‘A lone scout?’

Ganglion had already returned its attention to the piece of flesh. There were white, glistening shapes moving through it. The daemon was deaf to Ordaana’s question as it counted them, clicking the beads of its abacus as it calculated the extent of the infection. ‘Flatworms,’ it said cheerfully. ‘And snail fever.’

Ganglion seemed oblivious to the fact that the worms were crawling from its own skin. The longer the tallyman examined the meat, the more infected it became.

‘Ganglion,’ snapped Ordaana, ‘was he alone?’

Ganglion smiled. ‘Far from it, Proctor. He was just the first. There are many more – guards, I think. We have been blessing them with our grandfather’s gifts. And those that were strong enough have now joined us in the work of counting and organising. We are now so numerous that we should complete the river before–’

‘Guards?’ Ordaana felt a cold dread in her stomach. ‘Guards of what?’

Ganglion frowned. ‘One of their haunts, I think. We will learn more as the river progresses.’

Ordaana clutched the silver knife fixed to her belt, itching to plunge it into Ganglion’s moronic eye. ‘What have you done? Show me quickly.’

The tallymen never moved with any great speed and Ordaana seethed as Ganglion sauntered through fly-crowded groves, down to the moonlit bank of a river. As she emerged from the shadows she pulled her tatty hood down low until her face was completely hidden.

The river was no ordinary waterway. It was a glut of steaming, yellow acid, eating its way through the frozen earth and spreading disease as it bubbled through the hoarfrost. Coiled, pale shapes moved beneath the surface. Ordaana grimaced as she made out vast, ridged monsters, burrowing through the earth and driving the river on.

Ordaana felt sick at the sight of it but Alkhor had explained its importance: for the daemon’s garden to resemble a working stomach, it must be fed by rivers of bile, pouring down from the north, flooding the groves Alkhor had cultivated to resemble a lower intestine. It was utterly, utterly insane, of course, but Alkhor had promised her a reward on its completion. The daemon had promised to reveal how Ordaana would take her revenge. She was clinging to that hope.

Figures were moving through the acid – rank, bandy-legged monstrosities like Ganglion. They each had the same cyclopean eyes and tusks, but there the similarity ended. Each of them was contorted by a different affliction. Where Ganglion’s skin was crimson, the others wore a whole rainbow of sickening hues. Some glistened with a pale sheen of white pus, while others were coated with a thick, yellow, fungal crust. All of them were working tirelessly, either widening the course of the river with their bare hands, or cataloguing the diseases that sprang up in their wake. Animals lay dead or dying all around them and as the tallymen progressed, their muttering, monotonous voices joined the buzzing of the flies in a nauseating chorus, punctuated by the dull clanging sound Ordaana had heard earlier.

While Ordaana slept, dozens more of the daemons had lurched into existence, each one born of a victim’s tormented soul. Ordaana shook her head in disbelief as she realised the true nature of her task: she was commanding an army of horned, muttering dullards. As they lumbered slowly onwards, they spread a variety of diseases, causing the trees nearest to the river to slump and split, like a platter of rotting food.

Ordaana peered through the gloom, following the course of the river. Its lurid yellow was easy to follow, even through the clouds of flies, and she saw that, as she slept, they had moved it on another half a mile.

‘Down there?’ she asked, jabbing her knife at where the river ended.

Ganglion had stooped to investigate a tree trunk. It was covered in fungus and Ganglion was nodding sagely. ‘Root rot. Water mould. Legweed.’

Ordaana gave the daemon a fierce backhanded blow that sent it sprawling across the grass.

Ganglion stood slowly and lidded its eye again.

‘Where is this “haunt” you’ve found?’ she demanded. ‘I’m not interested in your lists.’

The daemon gave her a lethargic, moist-lipped smile and pointed at the end of the river.

Ordaana hauled the daemon to its feet and shoved it on through the trees. ‘You might have ruined everything. If you have, your master’s wrath will be nothing compared to mine.’

Ganglion’s mouth trembled as it failed to find a suitable reply. The thought that it had failed Alkhor was enough to finally drive it into a slow jog.

They followed the course of the yellow river, past the diseased figures steering it onwards and climbed a small incline, just a few hundred yards from the end of the river.

Ordaana waved for Ganglion to keep low as they crested the hill and looked down across the trees. ‘Where did you see–?’ she began, but her words came to an abrupt halt as she saw what was happening below.

The tallymen had steered the river of bile into a broad, treeless basin and, as the yellow liquid pooled and tumbled across silver-clad rocks, arrows were raining down from the far side of the valley. Clouds of them were whirring through the air and thudding into the daemons.

Ordaana looked over their heads and saw a tower rising out of the darkness. It was impossible to see clearly but the arrows seemed to be coming from its walls, mostly aimed at an enormous, hulking figure, smashing its sword against the base of the tower.

‘What are they doing?’ she hissed, turning to Ganglion. ‘Why aren’t they fighting back?’ The daemons wading through the bile were ignoring the arrows piercing their bodies. As Ordaana watched in disbelief they carried on working with the same, plodding deliberation.

Ganglion gave her a blank look. ‘They are making the river, Proctor. And recording its effect.’

Ordaana closed her eyes, biting back a scream. ‘But they have been discovered.’ She pointed at the larger daemon – the one pummelling the base of the tower. ‘And what is that?’

Ganglion swelled with pride. ‘Bule is the Herald. He is the greatest of us.’

Ordaana stared at the giant daemon. It was vaguely the same shape as the others, with a protruding gut and crooked, ridiculous legs, but it was built on quite a different scale. Its back and arms were lashed with diseased, skinless muscle and even from a distance she could tell that it must be twelve feet or more high. With every swing of its black sword it smashed a little more of the tower’s foundations and summoned another wave of arrows.

Bule bristled with arrows but was oblivious to the danger. Every time a piece of the rock came free the daemon paused to examine it. As it turned the rocks in its fingers it made notes in a drooping ledger, ignoring the arrows thudding into its flesh. Rather than a single horn, this daemon had three great tusks and, dangling from the tallest of them, was a battered, brass bell. Every time Bule struck the tower the bell shifted, letting out another harsh peal.

Ordaana groaned as the sound rattled around her head. ‘What do you think those archers will do now?’ she hissed, wincing as she turned back to Ganglion.

Ganglion shrugged. ‘The Plaguefather’s gifts will affect them in different ways. Until we can calculate the potency of his blights I am unable to say how the archers have reacted to the river.’

Ordaana grabbed the daemon’s blood-infused head and hauled it to hers. The smell of sickness was overwhelming, but she gripped it tightly.

‘They will send news to their lord.’ She spoke in sharp, quick bursts. ‘Maybe they already have. Their kindreds will be arming themselves. Do you understand? They will come here in vast numbers. They will kill Bule. Then they will butcher the rest of you.’

A look of recognition slowly dawned in the daemon’s eye and it smiled, loosing a string of black drool from its mouth. ‘Bule will not die.’ It waved at the figures working in the river. It was true that most of them were ignoring the arrows embedded in their flesh and working on, but a couple were already so pinned with wooden shafts that they were struggling to move. ‘We do not die, Proctor. Our grandfather did not make us that way.’

‘And what about when they have dismembered you all, Ganglion? Or cast you all into a fire? Will you still be able to do your master’s bidding?’

Ganglion wiped the drool from its lips and stared at the distant, towering shape of Bule. Doubt appeared in its single, oozing eye. After a moment it spoke in a quieter, more hesitant voice. ‘What shall we do, Proctor?’

‘Kill them, you idiot. Kill every one of them. And pray you’re not too late.’

She shoved Ganglion back down the slope. ‘Tell them to stop counting for a minute. Make for the source of the arrows. Help Bule. I’ll do the rest.’ She pulled her hood down even lower. ‘And gods protect you if I’ve been recognised.’

Ganglion shook its head but stumbled down the hill, drawing a pitted sword as it went. An arrow whistled through the darkness and sliced into the daemon’s neck but, after a brief hesitation, it stumbled on, letting out a lazy, droning command. ‘Cease the count. Draw your swords.’

The workers below looked up from the rocky basin.

‘Defend Bule,’ lisped Ganglion.

As the daemons shuffled slowly towards the giant, Ordaana climbed to her feet, lowered her head and lifted her palms to the stars. Her voice rang out through the darkness and the forest buckled in response. Naked boughs heaved into motion, wood screamed in protest and the rings on Ordaana’s fingers flashed in the moonlight. ‘You will not take this from me,’ she hissed, bringing her arms down.

There was a deafening crash as trees exploded into life, sending branches and roots flying down into the murky pit. Dozens of tendrils spiralled through the darkness, speeding towards the source of the arrows.

Ordaana nodded as they lashed around the base of the tower. As the spindly-legged tallymen drew their swords and shambled through the gorge, she took her knife and levelled it at the face of the second moon.

The runes on her blade shimmered with green fire and the Chaos moon pulsed brighter, throwing a wave of sickly light through her weapon and splashing it up against the stone spire. Ordaana frowned as the structure was revealed. It was a crooked, ridged spike of basalt. It was clearly a natural phenomenon but its dozens of circular cave mouths were too uniform to be the work of nature. Ordaana recognised the hand of a powerful sorcerer.

‘I’ve seen this place before,’ she muttered.

An arrow thudded into a tree trunk just behind her and she dropped to the ground, feeling a growing sense of alarm. ‘Where are we?’ she said, peering through the grass.

She felt a rush of satisfaction as her torrent of roots and leaves slammed against the black tower, lashing around its frosty, angular walls, but her pleasure was short-lived.

As the vines and shoots snaked in through the cave mouths the tower began to defend itself. For a split second it simply vanished, sending Ordaana’s vines tumbling through the air, clutching at shadows like grasping hands. The vines had no sooner fallen to the floor of the basin when the tower reappeared, a few feet closer to the tallymen and completely unencumbered.

Ordaana gasped. She sensed sorcery, drifting towards her through the darkness. She could taste it – cold and metallic on her tongue. She grimaced and dropped back down into the grass, clutching her daemon child protectively to her chest. Someone was watching her from the black rock – a fierce sentience, charged with power.

‘What’s this, Alhena?’ she whispered, looking down into the nest of tentacles that passed for the daemon’s face. ‘Where have we come, my child?’

Down below, Ganglion was shoving the tallymen on across the rocky basin, his sword pointed at the black spire. As the other daemons lumbered slowly after him, the waves of arrows continued slamming into them. There were piles of fallen tallymen now, slumped over the rocks; not dead, but unable to rise because they were bristling with so many arrows. Meanwhile, the torrent of bile continued pooling around them, filling the pit with lurid, bubbling effluence as Bule hacked endlessly at the base of the tower, shaking its bell and filling the valley with a tuneless din.

Ordaana felt a rush of panic as she saw what was happening. ‘Whoever you are, you won’t take this from me.’ She climbed to her feet and held her hands aloft for a second time.

More roots exploded from the forest but, to Ordaana’s horror, she felt a whole host of magic-charged minds arrayed against her. They wrested control of the trees and hurled them back.

Ordaana groaned as a tide of rotten branches thundered through the air towards her.

She tried to turn and flee but there was no time. The branches smashed into her slender body and sent her tumbling back down the incline.

As she fell, twigs pierced her skin and lashed around her throat, causing her to cry out in pain. Her cries grew more desperate as the branches prised the little daemon from her arms and hurled it into the shadows.

‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Alhena!’ Panic threw her body into a violent fit and flames exploded from her flesh, incinerating her wooden bonds. By the time she thudded to a stop at the bottom of the slope, she was able to stagger free of the crackling remnants and lurch to her feet.

‘Alhena!’ she howled, lashing out with the silver knife and splitting the darkness apart with fire.

The brightness was enough for her to see that the monstrous tumult of branches had doubled in size.

‘My child!’ she cried, looking around and attempting to sprint back up the hill. Before she had taken a few steps, the forest swept her up and sent her tumbling back into the trees. As she rolled and bounced through the darkness, Ordaana felt a whole conclave of spellweavers watching her from the tower, bending their will against hers.

‘Who is this?’ she cried, hurtling backwards through the air. Then she slammed into a tree and lost consciousness.

She woke a few seconds later, with twigs clawing at her face.

The enchantment was more powerful than anything she had faced before. Leaves and moss enveloped her, spinning her around like a fly ensnared by a spider.

‘Alhena!’ she wailed again and more flames erupted from her body. Her bonds collapsed for a second time and she thudded onto the grass. Air exploded from her lungs. She lurched back onto her feet, clutching her blackened chest and scouring the shadows for a glimpse of her daemon ward.

There was no sign of the creature and when she looked back down into the pit she saw that the situation was even worse.

Bule had punched a hole in the rock and asrai were pouring from the tower: lithe, armour-clad spearmen, their stern, implacable faces gleaming in the moonlight.

They reached the floundering daemons and sliced into them, retaining their imperious expressions as they jammed spears into the monsters’ diseased bodies.

Rather than parrying the blows, the tallymen welcomed the attacks – opening their arms to the enemy and even pulling the spears deeper into their own bodies.

Ordaana watched in disbelief as the tallymen slumped against the spearmen, making no effort to fight back.

Then she remembered her purpose and looked back up the incline. ‘Alhena!’ she cried ‘Where are you?’

The smouldering wreckage of branches lay all around her, lighting up the hillside with a repugnant green glow, but there was no sign of the squid-like being she had carved from Alkhor’s innards.

Ordaana clambered back up the hillside, peering into the darkness, but was unable to find the little daemon. A few minutes later she reached the top of the incline and saw that the tallymen were gathering around the base of the tower.

She gasped, looking back to where the river was pouring into the pit.

To her relief, she saw the asrai spearmen, heaped in mounds where the tallymen had left them. They had sustained no wounds, but their corpses were contorted beyond all recognition. Some of them were already lumbering back into life, with single, unblinking eyes.

‘Black plague,’ she said, recalling the pus that oozed from Alkhor’s blighted offspring. ‘Of course.’ She realised then why Ganglion and the others had made no attempt to defend themselves. All they had to do was bring the spearmen close enough for their contagions to take hold.

Ordaana flinched as another arrow sliced through the air, just inches from her face. She crouched low and shook her head. Alkhor’s plaguebearers had reached the tower, but there was no way for them to gain entry. The hole made by Bule was only a couple of feet wide and, as the daemons shuffled blithely around it, arrows flew out, slamming into their misshapen bodies. One-by-one they were being paralysed, tumbling in front of the hole and blocking the entryway as Bule pounded at another craggy buttress, seeming to have forgotten about the battle.

Ordaana’s fear was not for the daemons.

‘What have you done with my child?’ she snarled, glaring at the shadowy column. The tower glared back and Ordaana saw the mass of branches and roots tumble back across the rocky basin, before disappearing beneath the foot of the tower.

‘Alhena,’ she gasped, scrambling down into the treeless gulley. She clutched her knife tighter as she ran, filled with panic. ‘My child!’ she cried, scouring the shadows.

Blistered hands reached up to her as she sprinted across the floor of the valley. The asrai who were still able to see begged her for help, their voices thick with blood and phlegm. She batted their hands away, keeping her gaze locked on the black tower.

The tallymen were still thrashing uselessly against the unyielding foundations, unable to wade through the bodies and reach the hole made by Bule. They had grasped the rock with their pallid fingers, trying to weaken it with disease, but the basalt did not rot as easily as flesh. Arrows continued slamming into their grotesque bodies, but Ordaana no longer cared. She barged through them and grasped the rock, sure there must be an entrance somewhere in the base of the tower.

She charged through the tumult, attempting to find an entrance, but there was none.

Undeterred, she cast her mind into the darkness, seeking currents of magic to harness. The air was alive with sorcery. It was pouring from the forest and flooding through the walls of the tower.

‘What are you doing?’ she muttered, addressing the minds pitted against her. Vast waves of power were soaking through the walls. She could see the air rippling and bending under the weight of it. Whoever was defending the tower was blessed with more skill than sense. No structure could withhold such energy and remain standing.

‘Pull back,’ she muttered, but her words were lost beneath the noise of the tallymen.

Ordaana backed away from the tower, shaking her head. As she walked, her robes lashed around her, caught in the tempest of power whipping through the valley. ‘My child,’ she muttered, sure that the trees had dragged the little daemon inside the keep.

She thought desperately for a way to gain entry, but there was now so much magic rippling across the black stone that it was almost impossible to look at it.

She was about to call out a command when the darkness vanished. The whole valley blazed white. Then the gloom returned, accompanied by screams and the screech of splitting rock.

The ground shuddered and Ordaana dropped heavily to her knees.

For a moment she could see nothing but the after-image of the explosion, then, as her eyes recovered, she saw that a new, much larger hole had appeared in the side of the tower.

The ground was littered with body parts, both daemon and asrai, and a cloud of smoke and dust was billowing around the hole in the tower.

Ordaana’s ears filled with a screaming sound. At first she thought it was the sound of the tallymen, calling for help, but then she realised the sound was in her head.

‘Alhena!’ she gasped, recalling her ward. She sprinted back towards the tower, bounding over the crowds of bodies thrown by the blast.

The wall of the tower was several feet thick, but it had collapsed like rotten wood.

As she staggered through the wreckage, Ordaana saw the remains of a grand chamber, and arrayed against the far wall were the asrai who had pitted themselves against her. There were three of them, slumped in enormous thrones of knotted birchwood. They were dressed in long, black robes and furs and their heads were crowned with circlets of hawthorn. It was clear from their intricately tattooed faces that they were highborn but, as Ordaana approached them, she saw there was no need to bow.

All three of them were dead.

Their heads had been thrown back by the force of the blast and there were thick lines of blood rushing from their nostrils. Their eyes had rolled back in their sockets and their wooden staves lay at their feet.

The chamber was full of spearmen. Dozens of them had been slain by the explosion that killed their masters, but many were still alive and, at the sight of Ordaana, they lurched to their feet, hurrying towards her through the rubble.

Ordaana could easily have defended herself. The air was humming with untrammelled magic and she would have no problems turning it to her will. Her thoughts were not on the spearmen, however.

At the foot of the steps that led to the three wooden thrones was a pile of severed roots and broken branches, and nestling in the middle of it was a mound of white flesh.

‘Alhena,’ gasped Ordaana. Her mouth fell open as she realised her progeny was the centre of the storm. The power hurtling through the valley was emanating from its nest of tentacles.

One of the spearmen was about to reach Ordaana when the daemon glanced up from the floor. The nest of tentacles that made up its face was still pulsing with the light that had destroyed the wall.

The daemon’s gaze hit the spearmen like a hammer blow.

His head snapped back and his neck cracked.

He collapsed to the floor with a whistling sound.

As he lay on the ground, struggling to breathe through his ruined neck, the other spearmen stumbled to a halt, staring at the daemon in disbelief.

Ordaana saw her chance and reached her mind out to the pile of roots and branches.

Before the spearmen could defend themselves, she hurled the tree wreckage at them.

Screams rang out as roots and branches formed into rough-edged blades and tore into chests and limbs.

The spearmen staggered back, trying to fend off Ordaana’s attack, but as they neared the crumbling hole they came face-to-face with Bule, clambering over the fallen stones with its mouth hanging slack and an enormous iron sword in its fist.

The asrai fought desperately but it was hopeless. Bule was followed by countless smaller tallymen and, in a few minutes, the last of the asrai were either wrapped in bristling boughs or crippled by disease.

Ordaana left the tallymen to finish them off and hurried to the nest of tentacles. ‘My child,’ she sobbed, staring at the daemon in shock. It had tripled in size.

‘Did you do this?’ She looked around, taking in the dead spellweavers in their thrones and the wreckage that littered the hall. Her voice trembled with pride. ‘Did you summon all this power?’

The daemon adopted an oddly coy pose, as though embarrassed, then it reached out to her, entwining one of its tentacles around her arm.

As Ordaana shook her head in wonder, the daemon focused dozens of eyes on her face. They stared at each other, lost in their love.

‘I can barely recognise you,’ Ordaana whispered, stroking the rubbery flesh that had knotted around her arm.

Once the killing was over, the tallymen drew out their mildewed ledgers and counting tools. As the asrai gasped their last breaths, the tallymen crouched beside them, picking cheerfully at the scabs erupting all over their bodies.

Bule began punching the walls from the inside, causing the whole chamber to tremble.

Ordaana tore her gaze away from the daemon and noticed something on one of the dead sorcerers. She climbed the steps up to the thrones, still grasping one of the daemon’s tentacles, and approached the corpse in the centre.

The tallymen had yet to cross the chamber and the spellweavers were still free of the plague. Their skulls had been smashed when their heads jolted back against their thrones, but their bodies were intact, and their robes had yet to rot.

Ordaana stepped closer to the corpse and snapped a necklace of wooden beads from around its neck. There was an intricately carved oak disc attached to it and, as she held it up into the light, the smile fell from Ordaana’s face. It was a beautifully rendered cameo of a stern-faced noble.

Ordaana paled.

There was a wet slapping sound as Ganglion climbed the steps to her side. The tallyman saw how grey her face was and frowned. ‘Proctor?’

Ordaana looked at the cameo and let out a strained laugh. ‘Your Plaguefather might have chosen the wrong route for his river.’

Ganglion stared at her with a vacant expression in its single, lidded eye. ‘No, Proctor. The Plaguelord’s stomach is perfect. The bile passes this way.’

Ordaana held out the cameo so that Ganglion could see the face. ‘Have you heard of Prince Elatior?’ She looked for recognition in the daemon’s face, but there was none. ‘They call him the Enchanter,’ she explained.

Ganglion’s expression remained blank.

‘This is the eastern gate of the Silvam Dale.’ She looked at the corpses in the thrones. Ganglion was standing several feet away from them, but their flesh was already beginning to bubble and blister. ‘This must be the Ravenstone. Alkhor is driving his river into a nest of witches.’ She pointed to the butchered remains of tallymen, piled outside the tower. ‘This is just a gatehouse. Do you understand?’ She nodded at the quickly mutating bodies in the thrones. ‘These are the least of Elatior’s servants. The least of them.’

She struggled to hold back laughter. ‘We’ve murdered the lords of the Ravenstone.’

‘Surely my own queen doesn’t doubt me?’ said a wet, gurgling voice.

Ordaana whirled around, recognising Alkhor’s mocking tones.

At first she could not work out where it was coming from, then she noticed that one of the black-robed corpses had climbed from its throne. Its head was hanging oddly to one side, due to its broken neck, so as it addressed Ordaana it was unable to face her, looking instead at the distant ceiling of the chamber.

‘Do you think I am no match for this Elatior you speak so highly of?’ The corpse stepped down from the throne towards her, swaying drunkenly as it walked.

Ganglion and the other tallymen stopped counting, dropped to their knees and pressed their faces to the floor. Even Bule stopped its endless pummelling and knelt, filling the chamber with another clang as it did so.

The squid-like mass in the centre of the chamber hauled itself towards the corpse and caressed it with dozens of limbs, muffling its words.

‘I told you we might encounter the odd naysayer.’ The corpse began giggling as its daemon child wrapped countless limbs around it. ‘But when they see how glorious and varied my garden is, they will understand why the odd sacrifice had to be made.’

Ordaana shook her head. ‘Elatior has significant power at his command.’ She glared at the rows of kneeling tallymen. ‘And you have given me an army of dunces. Elatior is ancient and wise. He will not allow you to send your corruption across his borders.’ She shook her head. ‘His seers will have foreseen your every move and he will have prepared a defence. I have known him since I was a child. Believe me, if you march into his realm he will be ready for you. He will have a plan.’

The corpse shook with laughter and its head flopped forwards onto its chest, sending it off balance. It was about to stumble down the steps when the tentacles wrapped around its legs held it upright.

‘I’m sure he will have a plan,’ chuckled the corpse. ‘If only I had some kind of friend who could take him into her confidence so that he shared his plan with her. Then I could know what he was thinking and our garden could continue to blossom.’

Ordaana shook her head in disbelief. ‘You think I could appear before him now? Look at me!’ She dropped to her knees and stared at her reflection in a pool of blood. She expected to see a monster – something as grotesque as the horrors that surrounded her. But, to her surprise, she saw the same sharp, angular features and disdainful eyes. She still looked the image of a refined, asrai noble.

‘You look beautiful, my queen,’ said the corpse, shambling across the chamber and flopping a lifeless hand on her shoulder. ‘Your husband will be delighted to see you.’

‘Beldeas?’ She spat the word as she climbed to her feet. ‘You’re sending me to him?’

‘Your people are afraid of change, Ordaana. I am filling their world with colour but they can only think in green. They have fled to the Enchanter, thinking he can keep the world as it was.’ The corpse shook with laughter again and held its hand in the air. The fingers were teeming with mites and bubbling with disease. ‘Nothing ever remains as it was. Isn’t that a beautiful thought? Everything passes. Everything changes. Everything is fleeting, Ordaana; everything.’

‘Beldeas is in the Silvam Dale?’

‘Yes, along with your subjects – those that survived the battle of Drúne Fell.’

Ordaana looked around at the ranks of kneeling tallymen. Disease was pouring from their rotten flesh, eating into wood and bone and filling the air with a cloying stink.

‘Can I really walk amongst my own kind?’ she said quietly. Without realising she was doing it, she placed a hand over her shoulder. ‘Will they not see what I have become?’

The corpse tried to shake its head but only succeeded in swinging its shoulders. ‘I have deprived you of my grandfather’s gifts for a reason. You look as plain and unadorned as the rest of them. They will embrace you.’

Ordaana clutched one of the tentacles that was wrapped around them both. ‘What of my child? What of Alhena?’

‘Alhena?’ Alkhor sounded confused for a second, then began to laugh. ‘Oh, I see – our child.’

Ordaana blushed furiously but remained insistent. ‘What will happen to Alhena if I go to the Silvam Dale?’

The corpse stroked the pulsing sack at the heart of the tentacles. ‘I will keep our child safe, Ordaana.’

Ordaana lifted the corpse’s head on its broken neck, so its eyes were facing hers. ‘And when will I have my revenge? You promised me. When can I end the rule of those monsters?’

‘When spring comes, my queen, your chance will come. They will rise from their slumber to find a kingdom on its knees. The Silvam Dale will fall and the other realms will follow in its wake. By the time Ariel and Orion return, they will have no option but to ride out and face us in the heart of my garden. Orion will be forced to lead his hunt into my hands, just as all my seeds begin to bear fruit.’

Ordaana shivered at the mention of the Wild Hunt. ‘But how will I kill them?’

The corpse jerked one of its hands at the silver knife tucked into Ordaana’s belt. ‘There is more to that blade than you realise. Do as I ask, Ordaana. Find out what the Enchanter has planned and report back to me. Once he is destroyed, we will talk more of revenge.’

Ordaana shook her head and stepped closer to the corpse but, before she could speak, the world went dark.

She tried to cry out, but something cold was pressing against her face and she realised she could no longer breathe.

She started to struggle.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Chains of Vaul. Finavar had sung the name in countless ballads – a series of enormous, interlinked roots, jutting out of the forest like the ribs of a long-forgotten giant. The tree they fed was long gone, but it must have been the size of a mountain – a gnarled goliath of a forgotten age. The step-like roots led down into a broad, gloomy valley and as Finavar’s gaze tumbled over them he grimaced. The day had barely dawned. The sun was pale and hesitant, hidden behind low, snow-laden clouds, but there was still enough light for Finavar to see that something dreadful had entered his home. He could not believe the scene that greeted him as he looked down from the root he was standing on. A broad expanse of lurid, yellow liquid had cut its way across the forest and flooded half of the valley. It was a revolting sight, accompanied by an equally disturbing sound: a chorus of shrill, screeching noises. It sounded to Finavar like thousands of eagles, screaming in pain.

He grimaced as he turned to the tall, brooding figure at his side.

Mälloch’s skin did not shimmer in the dull, morning light, but it retained an unworldly sheen, as though it were reflecting the rays of an older, braver sun than the one currently hiding in the clouds. Mälloch said nothing but pointed to some dark, bloated shapes criss-crossing the river.

Finavar peered through the early morning haze. ‘Are they making that noise?’ He frowned. ‘Are they insects?’

Mälloch shook his head. ‘Not like any I’ve seen before. They are as tall as I am. And they bleed an acid powerful enough to melt through flesh and bone.’

‘What is this, then, some kind of sorcery? What’s happening?’

Mälloch’s tone was grim. ‘It is a plague, Finavar, but a plague like nothing I have encountered before. No natural blight could cause such mutation. No natural infestation could create such a horror.’ He turned and waved at the pale horizon. ‘And it does not end here.’

Finavar stepped out onto the lip of the precipice and looked out across the valley to the wider forest. Sinister yellow lines were crossing the whole kingdom. They simmered and steamed in the morning light.

‘The rot will spread further if the Enchanter fails us,’ said Mälloch.

Finavar looked at him in confusion.

Mälloch pointed to a spire of black rock rearing out of the forest, several miles to the east of them. Then he turned his finger to an impossibly vast hawthorn tree, looming over the forest canopy. ‘The three guardians of the Silvam Dale,’ he explained. ‘The Chains of Vaul, the Wilding Tree and the Ravenstone. Each one impenetrable. Each one protected by the subtle arts of Elatior’s witches. They must not fall.’

Finavar looked back down into the valley, at the point where the river halted. There was some kind of mound where the yellow collided with the green. It was shimmering, as though with a heat haze.

‘Why does it stop there?’ he asked. ‘What prevents it moving on? Is that Elatior’s work?’

‘You will see soon enough. I called on my friends for aid, but their time is almost up. Winter is spreading its wings. You have arrived just in time to witness the final days of their great sacrifice.’ He turned to the ranks of asrai waiting behind him in the trees, cloaked in shadow, and raised his voice. ‘Tread carefully as we descend. Those of you who joined us at the feast, follow my lead. The Chains of Vaul must be treated with respect, especially now there is ice underfoot. One lapse of concentration will send you over the edge. And believe me, you do not want to find yourself on the wrong side of this river.’

He gave a subtle hand gesture and the asrai flooded from the trees, barely making a rustle as they raced down the crooked steps.

Finavar hurried after Mälloch down towards the valley floor. As they neared the river, a terrible stink filled his nostrils. It was like the sickly aroma of rotting fruit, mixed with something acrid that caught in the back of his throat. It seemed incongruous with the frozen landscape. At the same time, the screeching noise grew even more unbearable, causing his temples to pound. For a moment, Finavar forgot all about his dead brother and his desire for revenge as revulsion washed over him. The things he had mistaken for natural insects were enormous grubs, several feet wide and held aloft by spindly, whirring wings. The creatures were swooping back and forth across the garish yellow river, trailing strands of mucus from barbs that jutted from their abdomens. Some were clad in black, iron armour and others dangled long, twitching proboscises from their heads. Finavar shook his head in disbelief.

‘Watch your footing!’ growled Mälloch, steering Finavar down a different path, sheltered by a wall of leafless boughs. He saw where Finavar was looking and nodded, pointing at the banks of the river. ‘It’s not just the grubs you need to be wary of.’

Finavar paused and looked where the noble was pointing.

Shuffling through the dead bracken, shrouded in banks of lurid steam, were two-legged creatures – grotesque monsters with tusks sprouting from their heads and absurdly bloated stomachs. Each of them had a single yellow eye.

‘Daemons,’ whispered Finavar, appalled. Then he realised that Mälloch had not paused with him.

‘Keep moving!’ hissed Sibaris, leaping down the slope and nearly colliding with Finavar. ‘You don’t want to end up out here alone.’

Finavar let out a brittle laugh and pointed to the river. ‘I notice you didn’t mention this when you invited me to join your little clan.’

Sibaris’s jaw dropped as he realised who he was addressing. ‘You,’ he whispered, stumbling to a halt.

Finavar frowned, confused by the youth’s strange behaviour. His former cockiness was gone, replaced by a look of dazed awe.

‘You never told me your name.’ Sibaris’s eyes were wide and staring. ‘When we met, you said nothing of yourself. I didn’t know you were Finavar. The Darkling Prince. The hero of Drúne Fell.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘They said you were dead. They said you died fighting by Orion’s side, seizing victory with your final blow.’

Finavar cursed, wishing he had kept his name secret. Then he shook his head in disbelief. ‘Is that what they say of me? That I died fighting by Orion’s side?’

Sibaris nodded, staring at Finavar as though he were a holy vision. ‘You rescued his spear so that he could defeat the outsiders. Your injuries were too horrific for you to survive, but you gave Orion the chance he needed. The Darkling Prince. The hero of Drúne Fell.’ Sibaris placed a tentative hand on Finavar’s arm and his eyes glittered with excitement. ‘And now I will fight by your side.’

Finavar felt sick. ‘These are just the kinds of lies that keep us in chains.’ He shrugged off Sibaris’s grip. ‘We’re fed them as children, when we know nothing of the world. By the time you’ve grown any sense it will be too late. You’ll be just like the rest of us – too bound by ritual and magic to see what’s right before your eyes.’

Sibaris shook his head in confusion.

Finavar leant close, his skeletal features locked in a sneer. ‘I did not fall aiding Orion, Sibaris, I threw myself to the ground in despair when I realised what a vicious monster he is.’

The colour drained from Sibaris’s face. ‘He is the wild. He is our enduring soul.’

Finavar threw words like knives. ‘My brother was as young as you. He was brave. Like you. Orion ripped his throat out. Murdered him. He’s a killer. He’s the murderer of every–’

‘Stop!’ cried Sibaris, his eyes bulging ‘Don’t say such things!’ As he cried out, he grabbed Finavar by the shoulders.

Finavar staggered backwards.

There was a low cracking sound as the edge of the step gave way.

Finavar tried to steady himself, then felt his stomach turn as his left foot stepped back onto nothing.

For a moment they stared at each other in horror, their eyes just inches apart, then Finavar leant slowly back over the precipice.

Sibaris grasped desperately for him but slipped on the ice and ended up throwing his weight against Finavar.

In shocked silence, they tumbled out into the void.

Finavar came to the edge of a wide, grassy meadow – an ocean of glinting blades, silvered by the winter sun. Horses were racing by in their hundreds – as beautiful and swift as the breeze that followed them. Finavar watched them for a while, moved by their grace. Then he felt a presence behind him and turned around.

Jokleel was watching the horses with him. His wide, thoughtful eyes were full of pain.

‘Let me go,’ he said, without looking at Finavar.

Finavar was rocked by grief and tried to reply. His words emerged as a hacking cough and his mouth filled with blood. At the same moment, the sound of the breeze was replaced by a hideous, wailing screech.

He clamped his eyes shut and joined his voice to the scream. Then he opened his eyes.

The beautiful meadow had vanished. So had Jokleel. The scene that greeted him was altogether more shocking. He was sprawled awkwardly across the cold, jagged floor of the valley. The air was crackling and rippling – charged by the vast expanse of bile that was tumbling through the valley. The clouds had cleared a little and he saw, with hideous clarity, the row of figures that were lurching towards him across the rocks. Their bodies were vaguely humanoid but their skin was a shocking collection of sickly, pallid shades. A smell of pus and rotting flesh preceded them, filling Finavar’s nostrils and causing him to gag. Their limbs had a spongy, boneless quality but there was determination in their eyes and iron blades in their hands.

Finavar climbed painfully to his feet and hacked up another gobbet of blood. His bony limbs screamed in pain, but his legs managed to hold him and, as he flexed his arms, Finavar decided that they were unbroken.

The daemons were moving with calm deliberation, but they would be on him in a few minutes. Finavar saw, to his delight, that his blade was lying a few feet away. He clambered across the rocks and grabbed it, relieved to see that it was still intact. Then he staggered and gasped in pain. It was not his cuts and bruises that halted him in his tracks, it was the deafening screams. They had followed him from his dreams.

He looked around, trying to locate the source. A few hundred feet away, at the centre of the valley, he saw the dam that was barring the progress of the yellow acid. The barrier was shrouded in steam and heat haze, so Finavar was unable to make it out in any detail, but he was sure it was the source of the horrible sound.

As he tried to make it out more clearly, Finavar noticed another figure, spread-eagled across the rocks a few feet away from him.

‘Sibaris,’ he gasped, through another mouthful of blood. The youth appeared to be unconscious – at least he did not seem to be aware that several of the one-eyed daemons were ambling towards him.

‘Sibaris!’ cried Finavar, racing across the valley.

The boy showed no signs of hearing and Finavar cursed. He picked up his pace, surprised to find that he had almost recovered his old speed.

When he reached Sibaris, he saw that the boy’s eyes were open but his head was thrown back and he was staring blankly at the clouds.

Finavar felt a chill of recognition. The scene was horribly familiar. He dropped to his knees and lifted Sibaris’s head from the rocks. His hair was damp with blood but his eyes refocused, fixing onto Finavar’s.

‘The Darkling Prince,’ he gasped, with a faint smile.

‘Yes,’ replied Finavar through gritted teeth. ‘You need to stand.’

Sibaris continued smiling for a moment, then he looked around and took in his surroundings. The daemons were almost on them and his face drained of colour.

‘My leg,’ he gasped, wincing as Finavar helped him to his feet. There was a vivid red gash, just below his left knee. The bone was clearly visible through the torn skin.

‘Where are your people?’ asked Finavar looking at the shimmering dam. ‘Behind that?’

Sibaris was staring at the wound in disbelief and did not respond.

‘Where is Mälloch?’ snapped Finavar, turning the youth’s bloody face to his.

Sibaris swallowed hard and nodded. ‘Yes. They are gathered behind the dam. Mälloch is preparing for the next attack.’

Finavar nodded and threw Sibaris’s arm over his shoulders. ‘We need to move fast.’

Sibaris nodded, but Finavar hesitated, looking back at the daemons. They were less than twenty feet away. He could never outrun them and carry Sibaris at the same time.

‘Wretched child,’ he muttered, lowering Sibaris to the ground and turning to face the daemons.

As the monsters realised Finavar was not going to flee, their faces lit up with obscene grins. They began muttering an eager, droning litany.

Finavar struggled to hold his nerve as they approached. All of his senses screamed out at the wrongness of them. They were a tear in reality – a glimpse of the madness beyond. Their bodies were a mockery of real flesh. There were eight of them and, as they raised their swords, Finavar felt as though he were watching a painting spring to life. They were a garish fiction, clad in rotten flesh and belching heady, charnel fumes.

The first of them reached him and Finavar felt something else: elation. As he drew back his sword arm, vigour rushed through his muscles.

He sang a high, single note, fixing his gaze on the distant crowns of trees, looking down on him from the lip of the valley. He sang of life and the true, beating heart of the forest.

Then he leapt forwards, plunging his blade through the first daemon’s throat.

The daemon coughed and staggered backwards, reaching for its neck. With its other hand it brought down its iron sword.

The blade passed through air and clattered against the ground, sending the daemon off balance.

Finavar was nowhere to be seen.

The daemon whirled around, trying to spot its attacker and its head slipped sideways in an arc of thick, mustard-coloured blood.

Finavar dropped back into view. He had been clinging to the cliff face and landed behind the daemon with his sword held in both hands. The blade passed cleanly through the daemon’s reeling, headless body and sliced it from neck to groin.

The daemon collapsed into a steaming pile and Finavar dropped into a crouch, grinning as the rest of the daemons stumbled to a halt.

‘The Darkling Prince!’ howled Sibaris, clambering to his feet and pointing defiantly at them. ‘Know your killer, daemons! You fall to a hero!’

Finavar scowled, but had no time to refute Sibaris’s claims. The other daemons had overcome their shock and remembered that they were still seven against one. Now that they were closer he saw that they were covered in a strange assortment of objects – filthy, worm-ridden counting beads and rotten, sagging books that dripped grease and mites as they slapped back and forth around the daemons’ legs. Most worrying of all were the thousands of buboes and cysts that covered the daemons’ limbs. Finavar could smell the contagion pouring from their scabs. He knew intuitively that he could not let their glistening fingers touch his skin.

The daemons fixed their yellow eyes on him and formed a semicircle, keeping their blades held out before them.

Finavar could not help smiling. After weeks of exhaustion and despair, he finally had an enemy worthy of his hate, and the strength to fight.

He looked again at the distant trees and raised his sword to the sky.

As the daemons shuffled towards him, clogging his nostrils with their stink, his voice rang out over the chorus of screams. His song was pure and unadorned – a simple paean to nature and life.

The daemons hesitated for a moment and looked around, as though they expected some kind of response to Finavar’s call.

Seeing there was none, they rushed forwards with surprising speed.

Finavar dropped to the ground, wrapped himself into a ball and rolled forwards, passing between the legs of two of the daemons.

Before they had chance to turn around, he ran along the whole row of them, trailing his sword behind him so that the blade passed through the tendons of their legs.

As one, the daemons dropped to their knees.

As Sibaris looked on, wide-eyed with devotion, Finavar stepped lightly along the row of kneeling daemons and beheaded them.

The pus-covered remains struggled on, despite their lack of heads and Finavar spent the next few minutes dismembering them with quiet, graceful efficiency. Then he took a few steps back and dropped to one knee, resting his brow on his sword handle and closing his eyes in prayer.

‘Finavar,’ said Sibaris, staggering towards him.

Finavar looked up and glared at the youth, expecting more sycophancy.

Sibaris pointed towards the yellow river.

The fight had not gone unnoticed. Crowds of daemons were now shuffling across the rocks towards them. Finavar counted thirty at least in the first wave.

He nodded, climbed to his feet and began helping Sibaris towards the dam.

They covered half the distance in minutes and the screaming grew to such a volume that Finavar felt as though it might unhinge his mind. His teeth seemed to be pulsing in time with the dreadful sound and there was nothing he could do to block it out. They struggled on and, as they reached the dam, Finavar had to endure another assault on his senses.

When he saw the barrier from the precipice above he had assumed it was built of deadwood, or rocks, but now he realised it was alive. It was a living wall of bark and claws. Woodland spirits and wild animals had bound themselves into a dam, blocking the river at the valley’s narrowest point. Disparate beings of thorn and claw had crushed together to form an impassable barrier. And they were screaming in agony.

‘Look what allies my great-grandfather has at his side,’ said Sibaris proudly. ‘The spirits of the forest have answered his call for countless centuries. Few lords can boast such–’

‘They’re dying,’ said Finavar in desolate tones.

Sibaris stumbled over his words. ‘Well, you see, I think… My father has promised to oversee this. He has sworn to the Enchanter we will hold this spot, and we will.’ As he spoke he followed Finavar’s gaze and doubt crept into his voice. ‘Look at the progress we have made.’ He pointed out a vast mound of bodies at the foot of the green wall. Hundreds of the pot-bellied daemons had been hacked apart by Mälloch’s warriors, who were gathered behind and around the wall of thorns. Daemon flesh lay across the valley in broken, steaming heaps.

Finavar’s gaze remained locked on the dam. ‘The year is dying though, Sibaris. Look at them. Their power is spent. They’re in torment.’

The figures stemming the yellow tide were crooked with exhaustion and their gnarled, inhuman faces were elongated by agonised screams. This was the awful chorus Finavar had been hearing ever since they reached the valley.

Sibaris stared at the wailing spirits and his eyes filled with pain. Then he shook his head. ‘There was no other way. Elatior would not have requested this if there was. And he will be here any day. We will hold this valley until he arrives. We cannot fail.’ He looked at Finavar and the awe crept back into his voice. ‘Especially now.’

Another noise began cutting through the din – a whirring buzz from somewhere overhead.

Finavar stopped and looked up at the sky. ‘By Loec,’ he muttered. A group of the bloated, fly-like monsters were hurtling out of the yellow mist. They were the size of horses and clad in plates of jagged iron.

He bent down, threw Sibaris over his bony shoulders and sprinted towards the screaming dam.

Battle cries greeted them as they reached the wall. As he neared the enormous structure, Finavar stared at it in amazement. The whole thing was alive – a creaking mountain of agonised bark and tormented roots. Grim-faced archers peered out at them through slender gaps in the weave, shooting at the flying monsters.

As he reached the dying trees Finavar staggered to a halt, filled with horror. ‘Why don’t they flee?’ He could not believe what he was witnessing. Hundreds of ancient spirits were writhing in pain, grasping at trapped, howling animals as the acid washed against them. Jagged, mossy faces looked down at him, quivering in agony. ‘What holds them here?’

Sibaris nodded to the base of the wall. There was a flash of silver between the knotted roots – a long curved sword, identical to the one Mälloch wielded at the Feast of the Two Branches. Finavar could not mistake the beautiful swan’s neck handle.

‘My great-grandfather has bound them to this duty,’ said Sibaris proudly. Then he pulled Finavar on. ‘We must get through to the other side!’

‘How?’ exclaimed Finavar. The spirits and beasts were clawing at each other, deranged by their anguish. It looked as though they would shred anything that came within a few feet of them.

‘The spirits know their own,’ gasped Sibaris. ‘Keep going!’

Finavar glanced back over his shoulder and saw that the winged monsters were skimming low across the river, trailing flies and spores as they raced towards them. They were only seconds away.

He shook his head and raced on towards the mound of knotted, wooden limbs.

He grimaced as they neared the branches, expecting attack but, as Sibaris promised, the brittle mass snapped and jerked aside, forming a shuddering doorway for them to pass through.

He glimpsed faces, contorted by pain and exertion, as he passed through a tunnel of dead briars. The screams grew in volume and he thought he might lose his mind. Then they were through.

The scene behind the dam was little better. As the morning turned its sombre gaze towards them, it revealed the pitiful state of Mälloch’s army. Wardancers and other warriors were gathered behind the dying tree spirits, locked in combat with crowds of nightmarish beings. Some of the daemons had broken through the defence and there was a desperate struggle going on as the asrai attempted to repel them. Enormous, segmented grubs whirred overhead, carrying pot-bellied riders, while more of the daemons clambered slowly over the dam. Most were torn apart by sharpened, claw-like branches but, every now and then, one of the daemons would break through, with terrifying results.

Finavar collapsed to the ground, letting go of Sibaris and watching the scene in horror. One of the slow-moving daemons reached the lines of asrai and there was an eruption of screams and curses, followed by an explosion of growths and noxious gases.

The wardancers who were nearest cried out in horror, their bodies wrenched out of all recognition. The daemon was quickly hacked to the ground, but several of the wardancers were overcome by disease. They immediately began unfurling extra limbs and latching them onto those nearest to them, or birthing new heads from their chests and sinking elongated teeth into whoever was nearby.

There was a frantic hacking and jabbing until the corruption had been controlled.

Finavar looked around the battlefield. Many of the severed, mutated limbs he could see on the ground were clad in asrai robes and clutching asrai weapons.

‘What a pitiful mess,’ he said. The scale of the carnage threw his mind back to the battle of Drúne Fell, and the sight of his brother, sprawled on the mounds of dead with his throat torn open. I cannot die here, he thought. Jokleel cannot go unavenged. The screaming of the spirits combined with the howling of the fallen warriors and his head began to spin. He looked back up the wall of tree spirits and wondered how he could escape this hell.

‘You don’t mean to leave us?’ Sibaris was watching him closely. His face was ashen and he had clearly lost a lot of blood, but he was as defiant as ever. ‘This will pass. They attack in waves.’

Finavar grimaced at the sight of the youth’s leg wound. He leant across, tore away some of Sibaris’s cloak and knotted it around his leg. When he had stemmed the bleeding he looked back at the battle. ‘Where is Mälloch?’

Sibaris pointed to a limb of rock jutting across the valley floor, fifty feet or so behind the wall of screaming spirits. It created a natural second barrier and Mälloch’s tall figure was just visible talking to some other nobles. There were thirty or so warriors gathered around him, watching him intently as he pointed out vantage points with his curved sword.

Sibaris and Finavar made their way through the crowd and Finavar saw that his companion was right. The clamour was already dying down and as the asrai fell on the fallen daemons they stared at Finavar in shock.

The screaming sound was just as horrific on this side of the dam and as they climbed onto the limb of rock, Finavar stared at Mälloch with a furious expression on his face. ‘You can’t just leave them like that,’ he said, conscious that the crowd parted for him as though he were a highborn. The warriors were looking at him with the same wonder he had seen in Sibaris’s eyes. They were exhausted and most of them were injured, but his mere presence seemed to reinvigorate them. They threw back their shoulders and nodded proudly at him.

I must leave, he thought again. I will tell Mälloch I was mistaken. I won’t be their wretched mascot. I cannot die now. Not now.

Mälloch gave no sign he had heard Finavar and rushed to Sibaris, gripping his arm.

‘How badly are you hurt?’ he demanded, looking at the gruesome leg wound.

Sibaris’s face flushed with pride. ‘I am well. The Darkling Prince has tended to my wound.’

Mälloch looked unconvinced, but at the mention of Finavar he finally acknowledged the wardancer and summoned him to his side.

Before speaking to him he turned back to his captains. ‘Chloris,’ he cried, facing a grizzled-looking spearman in a cloak of white fur. Mälloch levelled his sword at the eastern side of the valley, where the Chains of Vaul climbed back up into the morning light. ‘We must ensure those archers are armed before the next attack. Tell your men to rest their spears and start fletching.’

The spearman nodded and hurried away, taking half of the assembled warriors with him.

‘Iol,’ said Mälloch, turning to a black-haired youth with crimson feathers in her hair. ‘Gods be praised that you made it.’ He gave her a grim smile. ‘Take your kindred to the western side of the dam. Ullin will be glad to see you again. He’s as brave as ever, but twice as foolish. He needs your help.’

She nodded and smiled proudly back at Mälloch. Then she dashed back towards the battle, taking the other half of the gathering with her.

With his captains dispersed, Mälloch turned to Finavar and his smile faded.

‘I’m not one for tall tales,’ he said, his voice a low growl.

Finavar stared at him, confused by the noble’s tone.

After a moment of awkward silence, Mälloch continued. ‘You may be the god-like hero of Drúne Fell or you may be a fortunate survivor with a silly name; it doesn’t matter to me.’ Mälloch waved at the crowds of warriors, hacking down the last of the daemons, executing their own kin and struggling to be heard over the screams of dying spirits. ‘But they believe you are something special.’ He stepped closer to Finavar and gripped his bicep. ‘Do you understand?’

Finavar was annoyed by the noble’s aggression, especially as he had just saved Sibaris’s life, but he nodded. ‘You want me to lead your subjects to a heroic death. The forest is about to fade away with the year and you want me to convince your warriors to hold their positions, until they are all…’ He looked around at the piles of limbs and shattered bones. ‘Until they are no more.’

Sibaris hobbled closer and was about to interrupt, but Mälloch glared at him and he kept his silence.

‘The Enchanter’s defences are almost prepared,’ said Mälloch, squeezing Finavar’s arm even tighter. ‘We cannot fail him now. We can’t lose everything when we’re so close to victory. We must hold this river back until he comes.’ Mälloch’s eyes were blazing. ‘I know you have your own story to tell, Finavar, but do you realise what will happen if I fail here? Whatever fate has in store for you, you cannot allow that, surely?’

The noble tried to keep his voice under control, but there was a faint tremor, hinting at his pain and loss.

Finavar looked back at the dying spirits and warriors and felt his resolve slipping. His heart sank as he realised he could not refuse. ‘I fared better with your food than your wine,’ he said. ‘My strength is starting to return. Perhaps I could help for a while.’ He looked at the hideous creatures massing at the far end of the valley. ‘But I cannot win this battle for you, Mälloch. They are too many and you are too few. I will stay until tomorrow.’

Mälloch closed his eyes and when he opened them again his expression was less stern. ‘Your heart is not as broken as you think.’

Finavar shook his head. He was unsure what Mälloch meant but he realised he had no stomach for that conversation. ‘I’ll see where I can be most use,’ he said, turning to leave.

‘Wait.’ Mälloch grasped his shoulder. ‘They won’t attack again now. Not until the sun starts to fall.’ His lip curled as he studied the bodies piled at the foot of the dam. ‘Whatever drives them has no sense of urgency. Our only blessing has been a chance to rest between each onslaught.’ He nodded to the figures dashing back and forth, gathering weapons and tending to the fallen. ‘My captains will see to the preparations. You have earned a rest.’

Finavar shrugged. He supposed it made sense for him to be as rested as he could be if Mälloch expected him to inspire his warriors.

He followed the highborn down from the natural wall into an enclosed area on the far side. Dozens of asrai were sprawled across the ground, either eating, sleeping or tending to wounds. Someone had gathered fallen wood and there were a few small fires to force back the winter chill.

Sibaris was still hobbling at Finavar’s side, glowing with pride, but as they approached a fire Mälloch shoved him in a different direction.

‘Get that leg tended to, boy. An open wound will be a death sentence when those daemons return.’

Sibaris looked crestfallen, but did as he was ordered.

Mälloch paused a few feet from the flames and waved Finavar on. ‘I told you there was something here that you would want to retrieve,’ he said, with a mysterious smile. ‘It has been kept safe for you.’ Then he turned away and began speaking to someone else.

Finavar frowned in confusion and turned back to the fire. There was a collection of pitiful-looking refugees gathered around the flames. They were all slumped wearily against each other for support and several were wrapped in bandages or poultices.

As Finavar’s gaze passed over the hooded strangers he saw nothing that could ease his pain. He felt a vague feeling of disappointment as he recalled Mälloch’s promise that he would find peace.

He laughed at himself. What kind of peace could he attain until he had slain his brother’s murderer? He found a space by the fire, sat down and allowed his muscles to relax, one by one. As he leant back onto his elbows, he let out an exhausted sigh.

One of the hooded figures on the other side of the fire glanced up at the sound and let out a bark of surprise.

‘So, even the dead cannot refuse Mälloch.’

The voice was dour and rattling, and Finavar recognised it immediately. ‘Thuralin,’ he said.

Despite the horror of his surroundings, Finavar could not help but smile as the old warrior threw back his hood. As always, most of Thuralin’s scowl was hidden behind a plain, wooden mask, and the other half was a rippling mess of scar tissue, but there was a glimmer of amusement in his eye.

‘It looks like you’ve finally grown into your name,’ he croaked, studying Finavar’s dark expression and his sunken, gloomy eyes. He shook the person sleeping next to him. ‘Alhena. Look who’s returned from the dead. It seems you were right after all.’

Alhena looked up in surprise and, as her hood fell away, Finavar felt as though he were dreaming. These were two faces he had never expected to see again. Thuralin, with his burned flesh and stooped, wasted body and Alhena, with her shaven head and wild stare. They were visions from another life; one that felt utterly lost to him.

He rose to his feet and stepped round the fire towards them.

They stood and looked at him in wonder.

For a moment he felt as though he could throw his arms around them – forget everything that had happened and embrace his past, but he could not. His past had died with Jokleel. These people had once been his family, but now they were as strange to him as anyone else hunkered by the fire. There was nothing but distance between them now.

Alhena wore the same fierce expression she always did, but her eyes were glittering in the firelight.

‘We thought you had died,’ she said, taking his hand.

‘I thought the same of you,’ he said, squeezing her hand briefly before withdrawing his grip.

They looked him up and down and were clearly shocked. His recent meal might have renewed his energy, but it had done nothing to renew his flesh. He was still a jumble of limbs and gaunt, hollow features.

There was an awkward moment as they realised this was not going to be a gleeful reunion. Finavar wanted to tell them how pleased he was to see them alive, but it felt somehow inappropriate. It was as though he were talking to strangers who resembled people he once knew.

‘What happened to you?’ asked Alhena.

Finavar looked at the ground. ‘I survived. Jokleel did not.’

Alhena’s expression softened. ‘We thought you were both gone. To see one of you again is more than we expected.’

Finavar met her eye. ‘Caorann?’

She glanced at her father and then looked back at Finavar with a pained expression. ‘After the battle…’ Her words trailed off and she stared into the middle distance, clearly upset.

‘After the battle,’ continued Thuralin on her behalf, ‘we became one with the Wild Hunt.’

Finavar looked at Thuralin’s hunched, wizened body. The old warrior looked closer to death than ever. He was so crooked and withered that Finavar could not imagine him walking, never mind fighting. ‘You rode with Orion?’

‘We rode with him and hunted with him.’ Thuralin closed his eye as he pictured the scene. ‘We lost ourselves for a while. And then, when we found ourselves again, Caorann was gone.’

‘Then he died?’ said Finavar, his pulse racing.

Thuralin shook his head. ‘I think not. We have crossed half the forest looking for him and, everywhere we go there are rumours of him.’

Finavar smiled in relief. Strange as his old friends seemed to him, he could not help but be pleased at the thought of Caorann, still out there somewhere in the forest. For a second he almost imagined he could hear his friend’s booming laughter, coming from beneath the distant trees. ‘You’ll find him,’ he muttered.

Alhena mirrored his smile, but Thuralin maintained his habitual scowl.

‘They say Lord Beldeas survived the battle.’ His scowl grew more pronounced as he spat the name. ‘Apparently he and Captain Eremon are just a few miles from here, offering their swords to Prince Elatior.’

Finavar laughed. ‘Eremon’s sword may be of some use, but our glorious Lord Beldeas was never one for a fight. What of the hawk lord, Prince Haldus?’

Thuralin nodded. ‘They say he has returned too.’

The old warrior looked more closely at Finavar. ‘You are changed,’ he said, and it was clear he was not just referring to Finavar’s weight.

Finavar looked awkward. He knew they would not understand how he felt. His ideas about Orion would seem like an obscenity to them. How could they understand that the king must die if they were ever to be free? Seeing that an explanation would be meaningless, he settled for a half-truth. ‘Grief weighs heavily on me, Thuralin.’

Thuralin looked closely at him, clearly unconvinced by the answer. ‘Will you join us again, Finavar? If anyone could track down Caorann it is you.’

Finavar shook his head, looking even more uncomfortable. He was about to reply when Sibaris reappeared with an inane grin.

‘Friends of the Darkling Prince!’ he exclaimed, dropping into a low bow.

Finavar frowned, irritated by his jovial tone. Then he noticed how easily the youth was moving. He looked at Sibaris’s wounded leg and saw that Mälloch’s healers had treated it far more effectively than he had managed.

Finavar reluctantly introduced Sibaris and, to his annoyance, Sibaris and Alhena immediately struck up an enthusiastic conversation. They were both barely out of childhood and they were quite unaffected by the pall hanging over everyone else. Even the endless screaming could not fully dampen their spirits. Finavar watched in disbelief as they shared tales of the recent battle and compared scars, as though the situation were nothing more than a game. After a few minutes they stepped away from the fire to study each other’s weapons and discuss combat techniques.

He looked back at Thuralin and saw the same despairing expression in his eye.

They laughed. It was a short, grudging kind of laughter, but it was enough for Finavar to realise how much he shared with the scarred old veteran. He had always mocked Thuralin’s cynicism, but it no longer seemed so very different from his own worldview.

Finavar picked up a stick and jabbed it into the fire, attempting to banish the gloom with a shower of embers. It seemed as though the day were never going to dawn. He looked around at the dying and the dead. With the stench of disease hanging in the air and the endless screeching of the dam, the scene was even more pitiful than the aftermath of Drúne Fell.

Thuralin noticed his expression. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, ‘but it’s only at moments like these, moments of utter tragedy, that I feel I can catch my breath.’

Finavar gave him a puzzled glance.

‘Don’t you feel that, Finavar? Life is so frantic – such a headlong tumble. It flashes by. I can never quite seem to catch hold of it. But at times like this, times of horror, it seems to freeze. When things are this dire the world becomes still; only for the briefest moment, but long enough that I can almost glimpse its true face. Then reality returns and I stumble on, hurled back into life’s ridiculous dance.’

Finavar looked at Thuralin’s ruined face. He had never heard him speak in that way. There was a refined edge to his words that broke through his ragged throat. Finavar tried to imagine him as he was before he was scarred. It occurred to him that there was a nobility to Thuralin that he had never really considered before.

‘I never asked what happed to you,’ he said.

Thuralin shrugged. ‘My memory of the hunt is unclear. After Drúne Fell we headed south, I can remember that much.’ His eye widened. ‘Haldus and Eremon were both there, I think. Orion was so full of blood and rage, though. Such rage. I never dreamt–’

‘No,’ interrupted Finavar. ‘I mean before that. Before you and Alhena came out of the forest and asked to travel with me. What happened to you before that? How did you and your daughter end up travelling alone, without any kin?’

Thuralin stared at him in surprise.

Finavar thought he must have offended the old warrior and was about to apologise when Thuralin shrugged again.

‘It’s strange that you should ask that now – now that it is too late. Maybe it is time to talk, though. What do I have to lose?’ He looked at Finavar’s emaciated body. ‘My hopes for you have come to nothing, so what will I gain from keeping secrets?’ He patted a pouch of seeds at his belt. ‘These have kept me alive longer than I deserved, but I doubt I’ll survive another winter.’

Finavar shook his head. ‘Your hopes for me?’

Thuralin looked at the others who were gathered round the fire. They were all either asleep or engrossed in their own conversations. Alhena and Sibaris were a few feet away, demonstrating their favoured methods of attack. He lowered his voice anyway. ‘I’ve never told Alhena the truth of her past.’ He gave Finavar a meaningful glance.

Finavar nodded to show he understood.

Thuralin stared at the fire. ‘It would not do for her to know her history.’

The old warrior fell silent again and his gaze returned to the flames.

Finavar thought that maybe he had decided against talking after all, but then, finally, he began to speak.

‘My youth was not so different to yours.’ He waved at his burned, crooked limbs and laughed. ‘Believe it or not, I was once famed for my skill as a wardancer. I was highborn, far from here, in the northernmost of the Eternal Realms. I had power and safety but, like you, I heard the song of Loec. He called to me in my dreams. I became a shadow-dancer and travelled the forest – singing his most beautiful, ancient lays and learning the Dance of Blades. My skill grew and so did my reputation.’

As he spoke, Thuralin’s hand gripped an imaginary hilt. ‘Nobles from every realm called on me for my wisdom and for my blade. I thought that no foe was worthy of my fear.’ He laughed – a dry croaking sound that quickly turned into a cough. Once he had calmed himself, he continued. ‘There was one foe I couldn’t have armed myself against, though – the oldest of foes; the one that catches us all. Love caught me in a trap more brutal than anything a daemon could have devised.’

His gaze fell back onto the flames and his voice fell so low Finavar had to lean closer to hear him.

‘I was blinded by passion. She belonged to another but I refused to see my crime. Even when…’ His voice faltered and he seemed unable to continue.

‘Even when what?’ demanded Finavar.

Thuralin looked away from the flames to where Alhena was sparring with Sibaris. ‘Even when she gave me a daughter.’

‘So Alhena is…?’

Thuralin nodded. ‘Her mother was married to a great lord. When she fell pregnant with my child he learned of the infidelity and did not even care.’ He closed his eye and massaged his forehead. ‘I did not see it then, but I think that was the first step towards my lover’s madness. Other disasters befell her after that and her love gradually slipped away from me. Until then she had been one of the Mage Queen’s most trusted handmaidens, but bearing an illicit child brought her into disrepute. The shame of it was too much for her. Her mind became venomous. She grew strange. She grew to despise me, and then she forgot me. To be forsaken by Ariel was more than she could bear.’

Finavar stiffened in shock. He had heard this tale before, from another mouth.

‘As her mind grew dark, I realised Alhena was in danger,’ continued Thuralin. He gave another hacking laugh. ‘What did I know of parenting? But I knew I had to act. My lover’s husband saw the danger but he cared nothing for Alhena’s fate. Finally, as my lover’s rage and despair grew, there was–’

‘A fire,’ interrupted Finavar. ‘She set her halls alight. She left Alhena to die.’

Thuralin froze and stared at Finavar.

Finavar nodded, sure he was right. ‘Your lover was Lady Ordaana.’

Thuralin mouthed a reply but seemed unable to form words. He looked to see if Alhena had heard. ‘How can you know that?’

‘She told me herself, just four nights ago. She didn’t think I would survive, so she confided in me.’

Thuralin’s lipless mouth curled back into a grimace.

‘But she does not know Alhena lives,’ continued Finavar. ‘She thinks she murdered her.’

‘And that is how it must remain!’ Thuralin grabbed Finavar by the shoulders and pulled him close. ‘She must never know that her daughter lives. Never!’ He was trembling with emotion.

Finavar tried to free himself from Thuralin’s grip, but it was like iron. There was such desperation in his eye that Finavar thought for a moment that he might attack him.

‘I will say nothing,’ he said, trying to calm Thuralin, but, even as he spoke, he pictured Ordaana’s tortured face and wondered if he could really be party to such a cruel lie.

‘Listen to me,’ whispered Thuralin. ‘Alhena lives because I gave her a chance to live. I took her from that palace before the flames could.’ He touched his deformed face. ‘I shielded her as I ran. I endured pain that would have killed her. And since then I have kept her safe. Ordaana has no idea that either of us still live. And I have trained Alhena to be more brutal than any wardancer alive. I’ve made sure that even when I’m gone–’ He hesitated, clearly horrified by the thought. ‘Even when I’m gone she will survive. I have trained her to be fearless, Finavar. You’ve seen how she fights – how she kills. I’ve made her that way. I’ve made her strong.’ He dug his bony fingers into Finavar’s shoulders. ‘But she must never know where she came from. It would be the end of her. Ordaana is cursed, Finavar, but Alhena need not be – as long as neither of them know of the other’s existence.’

Finavar looked over at Alhena. She was talking to Sibaris and laughing. For a moment he could imagine her as an innocent child.

Finavar turned back to Thuralin and saw the abject terror in his eye.

‘Why did you bring her to me?’ he asked, keeping his voice low. ‘After all those years rearing her by yourself, why did you ask to join me, Jokleel and Caorann?’

‘Loec punished me for my digression, Finavar. I shamed him so he let me burn.’ Thuralin looked at the pouch of seeds at his belt. ‘I found ways to sustain myself, but I knew I was fading. I knew I would not be able to protect her for much longer. I made her tough, but I thought that even she could not live alone. And I dreaded the idea of her returning to Locrimere and discovering her past. So, when I heard of the Darkling Prince – the famous, rogue Darkling Prince, travelling apart from his kin, I thought maybe…’ His words trailed off and his rage was replaced by a strange, awkward expression.

‘You thought what?’

‘I thought that if you saw her worth, and her beauty, once I was gone you might…’

Finavar laughed. ‘You meant to give her to me?’

Thuralin grimaced. ‘Nothing so crude. I thought that if I threw you together, you might wish to keep her by your side. And then, once I had gone, you might see more in her.’

Finavar looked up at the colourless sky, stunned by the old warrior’s words.

‘You can think what you like of me,’ growled Thuralin. ‘It’s meaningless now, anyway. You’re broken.’ He released his grip and sat back. ‘Your body might recover, but the rest of you will not. The fire has gone from your eyes, Finavar. Even if you wanted her I would not let you have her. You could not keep her safe.’ He looked at Alhena again. ‘I have filled her with rage. That will have to suffice.’

Finavar’s mind reeled as he pictured the impact of Thuralin’s lie. Ordaana’s mind was unhinged, it was true, but only because she believed she had murdered Alhena. There was such fear in the old warrior’s eye, though. How could he betray him? Besides, what good would it do now? His heart sank as he considered all the lies and hate that made up a life.

‘Rage is worthless unless it’s aimed in the right direction,’ he muttered.

Thuralin looked surprised by the bile in Finavar’s voice. ‘And which direction is that?’

Finavar waved at the wounded asrai and the teetering wall of forest spirits that was protecting them. ‘Look at the horrors we face from outside the forest.’ His voice became a snarled whisper. ‘And what aid do we get from our lord?’

Thuralin shook his head. ‘Mälloch? He has followed the guidance of Prince Elatior. He has led the defence at every–’

‘Orion,’ hissed Finavar, glaring at his open hands as though itching to lock them around a throat. ‘The lord who binds us to bloody ritual and leads us to slaughter, but does nothing to aid our cause.’

Thuralin stared at him, amazed.

‘He kills more effectively than any plague,’ continued Finavar, ‘and only rides to war when it suits his appetite.’

Thuralin recoiled from Finavar’s blasphemy and edged away from the fire. ‘You’re speaking like a fool.’ He rose to his feet, clearly disturbed by such strange ideas. ‘You should rest.’

Finavar blushed and fell silent, regretting his outburst. Then he leant back against a broken shield and tried to rest his aching limbs.

Thuralin stared at him for a while longer, as though he were about to say something else. He reached into a bag slung at his side and was on the verge of drawing something out. Then he shook his head, mystified by Finavar’s outburst. He sat down a few feet away and closed his bag again.

Finavar seethed quietly in the shadows, wishing he had said nothing. He fixed his gaze on the fire, trying to calm his thoughts and prepare himself for the battle ahead.

However much he tried to banish the image from his thoughts, he could see nothing but his brother, crumbling in a funeral pyre.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Someone shook Finavar and he sat up, groggy and confused, realising that he must have fallen asleep. He was haunted by a dream of giant grubs that morphed into old friends, who were in turn devoured by even bigger grubs. Then, as his eyes cleared, he saw the smouldering remnants of the fire and shivered, remembering that the truth of his situation was little better than his dreams. The screaming of the spirits had risen to an even higher register. Finavar groaned at the sound, clamping his hands over his ears. It was like a spear tip, twisting slowly in his skull.

Night had fallen. Only the fading embers of the fire enabled him to see the young warrior who was helping him to his feet. The stranger was pale with fear and staring intently at him, and Finavar sensed that there were other figures racing past – other asrai, slipping noiselessly through the dark.

‘What’s happening?’ he demanded.

‘Make for the Wilding Tree,’ said the ashen-faced youth. ‘The battle is lost.’ Then he let go of Finavar and ran after the others.

The noises grew louder and Finavar felt a rising sense of panic. He grabbed another passer-by and demanded an explanation.

‘Winter has come,’ replied the stranger, straining to free himself from Finavar’s grip. ‘The spirits are failing.’ His eyes widened as he looked back into the darkness. ‘The dam is collapsing.’ He ran off into the darkness and waved for Finavar to follow. ‘We make for the Enchanter. Mälloch says he is our last hope.’

‘Move!’ hissed another stranger as he ran by. ‘The daemons are upon us.’

Finavar staggered after the others, heading west down the valley. A silent host surrounded him. Shadowy figures whirled around him as he ran. He peered at them, wondering if he could spot Thuralin, but he only saw the faces of strangers, twisted by fear.

There was another deafening crash behind them and the sound of liquid – great torrents of it, boiling and rolling across the frozen earth. At the same time, the screaming of the spirits doubled in volume again.

Finavar staggered to a halt. He could feel the agony of the forest, echoing through the night. ‘I cannot allow this,’ he groaned, grasping at his head again. ‘This cannot be right.’

As the rest of the asrai fled from the noise, Finavar turned to face it. His limbs shook with the effort, but he began to drag himself back down the valley towards the dam. After a few yards the terrible cries forced him to pick up his pace and, soon, he was racing back towards the source of the din.

The dam was collapsing as Finavar approached – fifty-foot columns were tumbling towards him through the darkness. Trunks and carcasses slammed onto the ground, filling the air with flying debris and forcing him to weave and duck as he ran.

Acid was spurting through the gaps, spitting and hissing as the mesh of branches gave way, but still the spirits and animals did not flee. They remained in place, howling, shuddering and screaming as the liquid ate into them.

Finavar steeled himself against the din and raced on, leaping over tumbling branches and flashing claws. He was as keen-sighted as any of his kind and, even in the dark he knew where to head.

A clicking, ridged face loomed out of the darkness, its eyes rolling with pain. At the sight of Finavar it lurched forwards, extending a branch-like limb.

He dodged out of reach and ran on, vaulting another howling shape.

As he reached the foot of the wall he glimpsed his goal – a glimmer of curved steel. ‘Tear it down,’ he muttered under his breath. He felt as though he would be happy to die right now if he could just stop the screams. ‘Tear it all down.’

He crawled through the twisted branches and reached for the sword but, just as his fingers were about to latch onto it, the branches wrapped around him, sinking thorns and twigs into his skin.

‘I’m going to free you!’ he cried, but the spirits were too lost in pain to understand.

Finavar struggled to free himself, but the branches wrapped around his neck, crushing his vocal cords and silencing his cries.

The mass of talons and bark crushed him to the ground, just inches from his prize and Finavar felt the air explode from his lungs as they circled his chest.

Rage filled him and he tried to shake himself free, but it was no use.

Then he noticed that the strands of vine around his legs were snapping free, as though cut with a knife.

He managed to stand and force all his weight against his captors, leaning towards the sword.

More strands snapped free and then some of the branches holding him broke away too. He glimpsed a pair of fleet, serpentine shapes, weaving through the dark and, as the cords around his neck came free, he let out a bark of laughter, recognising his saviours.

There was a crashing sound, like waves breaking against rocks. The wall quivered, the screaming grew louder and another dark mass bore down on Finavar, thrashing in pain and fear.

With his chance about to slip away from him, Finavar hurled himself forwards into the shifting branches.

Needles of pain exploded across his face as he crashed against the spirits and animals but, to his delight, he felt his hands lock around the hilt of the sword.

More vines shot up to greet him, lashing around his face and neck but, before they could drag him down again, he wrenched the blade free.

The screaming stopped.

For a moment, the vines and branches continued crushing against Finavar’s skin, then they froze, sensing a change.

There was deep, rumbling, splintering sound as the wall disintegrated.

Spirits and animals, bound to their pain for so long suddenly exploded into movement, tearing up the ground as they fled from the acid that had been devouring them.

Finavar fell onto his back, still clutching the sword in both hands as the world collapsed around him.

For a moment he simply lay there, showered in snapping branches and enjoying the absence of screaming. Then he noticed that a circle of shadows was forming in the darkness around him.

He leapt to his feet and raised his sword.

The shapes edged closer and he saw a baffling collection of forest spirits – towering, bark-clad goliaths, with gaping jaws and blazing emerald eyes. They whispered a strange, rustling song as they moved closer and the sound was filled with rage.

Fury poured from their splintered mouths.

‘Wait,’ gasped Finavar, keeping the blade held before him. ‘I was not party to this. I did not bind you to this–’

Finavar’s words froze in his mouth as he realised that the spirits were nodding whatever passed for their heads and performing a strange kind of wordless bow.

They stood in mute genuflection, then one of them broke ranks, popping and clicking towards him.

Finavar saw that it was a peculiar marriage of bark and feather. The spirit was like a hunched powerful giant, clad in the paper-like bark of a birch tree, but its back sported enormous swan wings and its wooden face had a beaked, avian quality to it.

The strange-looking thing extended one of its limbs and unfurled a nest of long, wooden claws.

As Finavar looked into its eyes, he felt suddenly calm.

The spirit placed one of the claws on his chest but Finavar felt no fear.

Even when it dragged the claw downwards, drawing a thin line of blood from his skin he did not flinch, seeing nothing but respect in the spirit’s alien eyes.

Then they turned and raced away from him, joining the bristling stampede that was charging away from the yellow river.

Finavar stood motionless, his sword still raised, watching them with mute wonder. He was incredibly moved – sensing that he had just come close to something more wild and strange than anything he had seen in Orion’s hunt.

Then he saw the result of his work – a wall of yellow acid, tumbling across the remnants of the dam and rolling towards him.

He looked around, scouring the broken branches at his feet. ‘Mormo? Mauro?’

There was no sign of his guides so he turned and fled, sprinting back across the valley with corruption pouring in his wake.

Soon he began to encounter stragglers from the main retreat – asrai that were too weak, or too injured to travel as lightly as the others. He helped those he passed but did not pause. With the screaming finally gone, his mind was his own once more; he had rid himself of a kind of mania and could now focus on his true purpose – surviving long enough to avenge Jokleel.

The elation he had felt at freeing the spirits faded as he recalled his brother, but then, as his mind slipped back into melancholy, a new sound filled the valley – a whirring, beating hum that rushed overhead.

Finavar and his fellow runners glanced up. The clouds were low and thick, allowing no trace of moonlight, but Finavar could sense shapes moving through the blackness.

The air shivered as the enemy bore down on them.

Finavar picked up his pace, thanking the gods that some of his strength had returned.

A chorus of screams exploded to his left.

Finavar stumbled to a halt and raced to investigate.

There was a snarling sound and the unmistakable voices of asrai, crying out for help.

Finavar rushed back and forth in the dark, trying to locate his fallen kin, but the cries seemed to come from several directions at once.

The whirring grew louder.

Finavar shook his head and turned to a young archer at his side. ‘It’s no use,’ he said. As he spoke he realised that they were alone. ‘We’re lagging behind!’ He grabbed the archer by the shoulder and was about to start running when a flash of light blinded them both.

They reeled backwards, shielding their eyes and, after a few seconds, Finavar managed to make out the source – a dazzling sphere of emerald roots. Standing beside the inferno was a tall, hawk-nosed figure, gesticulating wildly.

‘Mälloch,’ gasped Finavar, lurching towards him.

As he neared Mälloch, Finavar saw that the spellweaver’s skin was blazing with the same light as the roots, pulsing in time to his spasmodic movements. As Mälloch worked his spell, the sphere grew smaller, wrapping itself around a shape trapped at its core.

Finavar grimaced as he saw Mälloch’s catch. It was one of the enormous flying grubs. As the net of roots and light tightened, the daemonic creature jabbed wildly with its barbed tail, trying to break free.

As the light flashed, it revealed bodies scattered across the earth. One of them was still moving so Finavar rushed to help. As he neared the prone figure he saw that it was a rider from the north, wearing leather armour and a helmet topped with a horse’s mane. The rider was rolling from side to side, clutching his stomach and moaning in pain.

As Mälloch battled with the daemon, Finavar dropped to his knees beside the fallen rider and grabbed his shoulder, trying to calm him.

‘Let me carry you,’ he said.

The rider flinched at his touch, then turned to face him. ‘The daemon,’ he groaned. His eyes were rolling with panic and his face was glistening with sweat, despite the cold. ‘My stomach.’

Finavar saw that there was blood spilling from between the rider’s fingers, spreading out across his jerkin.

Another shape whirred overhead, so close that Finavar could smell the greasy musk of its flesh. ‘There’s no time to treat you,’ he said, placing his arm under the rider and preparing to lift him. ‘We must catch up with the others.’

The rider nodded, fixing his eyes on Finavar’s. ‘I think I can stand.’

As the rider climbed to his feet, the being caught in Mälloch’s net broke free and hurtled at its captor.

Finavar dropped the rider, lifted his bow from his back and loosed an arrow, all in one fluid movement.

Even in the dark, his aim was perfect.

The arrow sank deep into the daemon’s eye and caused it to miss Mälloch by several feet.

The spellweaver stepped back, raised his arms and hauled another blazing cage from the ground, enveloping the monster again.

A groan of pain reminded Finavar of the fallen rider and he stooped to lift him.

The rider turned to face him and, as he stood, Finavar saw that his eyes had clouded over, turning a sightless milky blue, like the eyes of a corpse.

‘My stomach,’ muttered the rider and his words sounded muffled, as though his mouth were full of food.

Finavar looked at the wound again and gasped in disgust.

What he had taken for blood leaking through the rider’s fingers, was actually something far more disturbing – writhing, crimson tentacles that were crawling from the wound, wrapping themselves around the rider’s torso and reaching out to entangle Finavar. To his horror, he realised that each of them ended in an open, tooth-lined mouth.

Finavar let go of the rider and backed away, drawing another arrow and levelling it at the shapes tumbling from his guts.

The rider hissed furiously as he hit the ground, but he was only down for a moment. Dozens of the bloody shapes poured from his belly and they fanned out around his legs like a glistening skirt of meat, lifting the rider back onto his feet.

Finavar forgot to shoot as he watched the transformation that was overtaking the rider’s body. As the tentacles burst through his skin, his head began to swell and ripple. In a few seconds it had doubled in size and changed from an unhealthy pallor to a dark crimson hue.

Finavar gagged as a rotten smell filled the air.

The rider’s skull cracked into a new shape, popping his eyes and spewing optical fluid down his cheeks. He was only sightless for a brief moment. As his head continued to change, a single yellow eye blinked into view, right in the centre of his forehead, followed quickly by a coiled tusk that sprouted, shoot-like from the top of his head.

‘Kill it,’ whispered a shocked voice at his side.

Finavar turned and saw the young archer who had originally accompanied him.

Before he could answer, the archer sent an arrow whistling past his ear.

The shot was true, slamming straight into the chest of the shuddering rider.

The rider opened his mouth wide to laugh and revealed why his words had sounded muffled – his mouth was swarming with pulpy, writhing maggots. They tumbled from his mouth as the skirt of tentacles hurled him forwards, acting like spider’s legs.

Mälloch’s magic suddenly failed, plunging them all into darkness.

Finavar loosed his arrow into the night, without any idea of whether he had hit anything. Then he felt movement near his face and rolled away to the left, tumbling over the frozen earth before leaping to his feet and sprinting away into the dark.

After a few seconds he stopped and whirled around nocking another arrow to his bow, pointing it back the way he had come.

Screams rang out from every direction and the air was alive with movement.

There was a flash of light and he glimpsed a tall figure, perhaps Mälloch, wrestling with an indeterminate shape. Then the light failed again.

Finavar began heading back towards where he had seen the noble but, before he had taken a few steps, he felt something washing against his feet.

He dropped into a crouch and saw that thick, viscous liquid was spilling across the rocks.

He gasped in pain as it washed over his toes, causing his skin to blister and burn.

He stepped backwards but the liquid followed, rising up to his ankles.

I cannot die, he thought – not with my brother unavenged.

His bones throbbed painfully as he turned and fled, sprinting from the valley, deaf to the cries that rang out around him.

Then the light flashed again, somewhere to his left.

He stumbled to a halt and saw Mälloch quite clearly, dragging another daemon to the ground with his magic.

Finavar hesitated. Visions of the rider filled his head, but, try as he might, he could not leave Mälloch to his fate. He changed direction again and raced towards the light, drawing another arrow as he did so.

Soon he was running through the hissing, yellow acid, and he felt it eating into his skin. He ignored the pain and locked his gaze on Mälloch. As he approached, he saw other figures, picked out of the darkness by Mälloch’s sorcery. There were half a dozen asrai surrounding their lord, loosing arrows at the shape caught in his net.

Mälloch looked exhausted and the light was failing as Finavar reached him.

The daemon began to struggle free from its bonds.

The thing was huge and vaguely resembled an armoured fly, covered in blisters and scales.

Finavar did not slow down as he approached, sensing intuitively what was about to happen. Time crawled as the scene played out before him.

Mälloch gasped in pain and collapsed backwards, letting the last strands of his magic slip from his fingers.

In the dying light, Finavar saw the daemon lurch forwards and beat its tattered wings.

Finavar drew his sword and leapt at the daemon, carried along by the momentum of his charge.

He rolled as he jumped and brought his blade down in a fierce, two-handed slash.

The sword passed cleanly through the daemon’s abdomen, near to the bottom of its head.

The head came free in a spray of toxic gore.

Finavar landed on the far side of the daemon and rolled clear, just before it slammed onto the ground.

The headless daemon began to rise, but before it could do so, the other asrai, led by Mälloch, attacked. The thing was blind and disorientated, and they hacked it apart in seconds, taking care not to step too close.

The final blow was delivered by Mälloch himself. His blade, the twin of Finavar’s, pulsed with cold fire as he sliced the daemon in two.

Finavar climbed to his feet and jogged back towards the fight. To his amazement, he saw that the lumps of blubber were crawling towards each other, and merging back into a single mass.

Before they could reassemble, Mälloch dropped into a crouch, closed his eyes, placed one of his palms on the ground and muttered a prayer.

Then he stood and backed away, waving at Finavar and the others to do the same.

As they moved back the earth opened up, cracking into a series of deep fissures that swallowed the lumps of daemon before they could join together.

As soon as the fragments had vanished from view the fissures slammed shut again.

Mälloch nodded once, then collapsed.

Finavar joined the others in rushing to his side.

The noble’s eyes were closed and his face was deathly pale. Finavar noticed that the strange glimmer had almost vanished from his flesh.

‘You saved his life,’ said a trembling voice.

Finavar looked up to see that one of the other asrai hunched over Mälloch was Sibaris. The youth was staring at him.

‘This is him,’ said Sibaris, raising his voice and turning to the other asrai. ‘The Darkling Prince.’

There was a chorus of indrawn breaths and Finavar shook his head in disbelief.

‘I’ve saved nobody yet.’ He waved at the acid that was pooling in the hollows all around them. ‘We have to move.’

Sibaris nodded eagerly, obviously delighted to be taking orders from his hero. The others did the same and, between them, they lifted Mälloch from the ground.

Then they stood and stared at Finavar, waiting for him to speak.

‘Move!’ he yelled, shoving them away from the oncoming tide. ‘Take him to the Silvam Dale!’

They leapt to obey and Finavar jogged after them, glancing from left to right as he ran, wondering how they would face another daemon without Mälloch’s magic.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Only the ghosts remained. One by one Orion’s senses failed him, leaving only his voluble past. There was nothing else to hear, nothing to see – nothing to smell even; just his forebears, telling him the glorious tales of their lives – singing to him as they led him through the darkness. They surrounded him and sustained him, noble and determined, ablaze with the heat of their divinity.

As they travelled together, Orion realised that his former selves were no longer just words. Their songs drew powerful images in his mind – straight-backed giants, with broad, angular muscles and tall, knotted antlers. He slowed his pace, ashamed to be in their presence. What right did he have to walk among such proud kings? Their tales were epic and profound. Each of them had drawn the forest deeper into wildness. Each of them had bound their subjects tighter to Ariel’s rule. While his own tale was a tragedy at best.

Orion stumbled to a halt and looked down at his hooves. He saw that, as on the day of his birth, he was stepping through the heavens. Below him there were only stars.

‘I have failed,’ he said, opening his hands and staring at his broad, scarred palms.

The voices fell silent and he looked up. The other Orions were no longer walking ahead, but gathered around him in a circle. Their faces were both brutal and serene. Each of them was distinct, carved in the shape of the noble who had spawned their flesh, but they were clearly one. They stepped closer with a single, silent movement and Orion cowered under their gaze, until he realised there was no judgement in their eyes, only determination.

‘We do not fail,’ said one of them, lifting his chin.

‘But look at me.’ Orion waved his arm and summoned the world into view. Ariel was staggering through an icy hollow with his bloody remains in her arms. Her robes were stained with his blood and her wings were beating weakly. The body in her arms might have been a corpse if not for a barely perceptible tremor in its chest. As she staggered across the frozen ground, Naieth and her handmaidens gathered around her, leading her towards an unlit bier at the far end of the hollow.

‘I have nothing left,’ said Orion’s spirit to his fellows. ‘My body is broken. Sativus is destroyed. The balance has been disturbed. My hunt has ended in shame.’ He glared at the ghosts. ‘How can I not fail?’ He waved at the mound of sticks. ‘All that is left for me now is my fire.’

Another of the Orions stepped through the heavens to his side. This one was taller and carried a broad, battered axe. ‘We are the soul of the forest. We do not fail.’ He pressed the axe against Orion’s chest and gave him a meaningful glance. ‘And we keep our word.’

Orion shook his head in confusion, then forgot the ghosts as he saw Ariel and Naieth lifting his body onto the bier. He noticed that Atolmis and the other Wild Riders were there too. One of them was standing at each corner of the bier, stock-still, their heads bowed and resting on the shafts of their spears. A small crowd of mourners was gathered at the edge of the grove. He glimpsed a face beneath a hood and realised they were the lords of the twelve high realms – the great kingdoms that contained each of the forest’s smaller realms. They wore voluminous black hoods, crowned with wreaths of ivy and mistletoe. Their hands were blackened with charcoal.

It was not the great lords who caught Orion’s eye though, as he watched the rite from his vantage point in the heavens, it was the three hounds sitting patiently at the foot of his bier beside the stern-faced Atolmis.

They were staring directly at him.

Their gaze unnerved Orion. It seemed at odds with the rest of the scene. None of the mourners could see his soul, suspended in the starlight, but the hounds had eyes for nothing else. As Orion tumbled back towards his own body, the hounds followed his fall.

Orion gasped as he found himself encased in flesh once more. Every inch of him burned with the pain of his wounds. His chest was a sunken mess where the great drake had sunk its teeth into him and his legs were pulverised – destroyed by the last charge of Sativus. He could feel straw and branches needling into his back and he could see his breath, misting in the air above his face.

He tried to rise, but it was useless. All he managed to do was lift his head and cough up some blood.

Ariel gasped as she saw his eyes open.

‘My love!’ Her eyes were red from crying and she grabbed his hand. ‘Do not be afraid. We are together. I am with you. I will keep our home safe until you return.’ Her words were strained. ‘Whatever has happened was not your fault. I know that now. There was a poison in you, and I will find its source. I will find a way to stop this plague. I will be waiting.’

As she clutched his hand to her chest, Orion noticed hooded priests stepping silently from the trees, led by Naieth. They were holding flaming brands.

‘I give you my word,’ she said.

Her words shone into his mind, clearer than the winter sun. ‘My word,’ he managed to say though the blood.

Ariel frowned in confusion, but Orion could barely see her any more. He had realised what he must do at the very moment it became midwinter. He felt his soul disperse, like seeds from a pod. Everything he knew; everything he loved; everything he had done shivered from his flesh, scattering on the breeze to the four corners of the forest. He did not see as Naieth and the hooded priests pressed their fires into the bier. He was already a thousand other things.

As the flames enveloped his body he looked away from the grove and turned to face the circle of ghosts.

‘Now I understand,’ he said calmly. ‘We must keep our word.’

They nodded and, to his delight, he saw something he had long dreamt of.

They were looking at him with pride.

‘Finavar is the cornerstone of the imbalance. To save him is to save everything.’

The ghosts nodded and placed their hands on his arms.

As the myriad fragments of Orion’s being spread through the trees, one of them looked out from a pair of canine eyes. ‘I will fulfil my promise to you, Jokleel,’ he said as he felt Fuath’s paws pounding across the frozen earth, racing away from the funeral pyre. ‘I will save the life I destroyed. I will save Finavar.’

He paused briefly at the edge of the grove and looked back at Ariel. Her head was bowed in grief as her lover thrashed uselessly in the flames, reaching out to her for help as the skin blistered from his bones.

‘We will not fail,’ said Orion, but the words emerged as a long, mournful howl.

Ariel looked up in surprise and turned to face him. He knew that she could only see a rangy, greasy hound, snarling at her from the shadows but, as their eyes met, he felt a spark of recognition.

Then he turned and raced into the trees.

The flames burned until the morning and Ariel maintained a motionless vigil until there was nothing but smoke and glowing ash. One by one, the mourners left, placing their wreaths of mistletoe on the smouldering mound until there was only Ariel, Naieth and Atolmis. As dawn broke, the horned rider left her alone, then returned after a few moments, carrying a large, two-handled oak bowl, carved with images of wild-eyed stags.

Ariel dried her eyes and climbed awkwardly to her feet, dusting ash and snow from her face and turning to face the priest. She looked into his jet-black eyes and gave him a sad smile.

‘He is everywhere now,’ she said, running a finger across Atolmis’s cruel features.

Atolmis nodded his head, clearly moved by her words.

Ariel began scraping Orion’s ashes into the wooden bowl. She had only moved a few handfuls, however, when she paused. Her fingers had struck something hard and she lifted the object from the bier, holding it up into the light.

Atolmis frowned in surprise. They had enacted this scene more times than he could remember. The course of events was always the same but this was something new.

Ariel rolled the object back and forth between her fingers then nodded in recognition. She knew exactly what the sharpened point was and she knew why it had been unaffected by the flames.

Naieth had been standing a few feet away and she stepped to the queen’s side. ‘What is it?’

Ariel narrowed her eyes. ‘The tip of a dragon’s tooth,’ she replied, looking at the prophetess.

‘I have not seen this,’ said Naieth. ‘You have wandered beyond my sight.’ She closed Ariel’s hand around the tooth. ‘Such things did not arrive by mere chance.’

Ariel nodded and secreted the tooth in her robes.

The three of them were at a loss for a moment. The rites had occurred the same way since the dawn of Ariel’s rule and for a moment they were unsure how to continue.

Eventually, Naieth regained her composure and took a step back from the pyre. She spread her palms to the pale sky and intoned a few quiet words.

The final rose has faded,

The eaves will sing no more;

The waxen ground will keep you bound,

Death-pale until the thaw.

The familiarity of the ritual calmed Ariel and she nodded her head as she replied.

The waxen ground will keep us bound,

Death-pale until the thaw.

Then she placed the rest of Orion’s ashes into the bowl and turned to face the Oak of Ages. Atolmis stepped back to allow her clear passage, but she hesitated.

‘I promised him I would be waiting,’ she said, keeping her gaze locked on the tree.

Naieth lowered her hands, surprised by this second departure from the ritual.

‘Did I lie?’

Naieth glanced at Atolmis but his gaze was fixed on the ground. She flexed her hands, extending her fingers so that her long nails gleamed in the morning light. Then she stepped nervously to Ariel’s side. She tried to look directly at her, but the power of the Oak was already coursing through the Mage Queen’s veins. It was like trying to stare at the sun.

‘I have seen the future, my queen,’ said Naieth, choosing her words carefully, ‘but it was a silver moth, caught in the moonlight. The harder I stared, the less I saw.’

Ariel’s physical self was fading, but her voice grew more determined. ‘Will we survive?’

Naieth looked back into the trees. ‘While the forest sleeps, the enemy will advance. The spirits will retreat and we will be alone in the cold – without you or Orion to lead us.’ She closed her eyes. ‘But hope has a name. I have spelled it out in my dreams. There is one amongst us who might keep us safe until Orion’s return.’

Ariel turned her dazzling gaze on Naieth. When she spoke, the words had no sound, they simply lanced into Naieth’s thoughts with the sun. ‘What name?’

‘Prince Haldus.’

Ariel frowned and the light in her eyes dimmed for a moment as she tried to place the name. ‘The hawk rider? The warrior with the scarred face?’

Naieth nodded. ‘He does not see it, but he could unite us. He did it at Drúne Fell and he could do it again.’

‘And you saw Prince Haldus putting an end to this plague?’

‘No, I did not. Only Orion could do that. And even he would not achieve it alone. Without Sativus – without the forest spirits, I cannot see his route to victory. His path is lost in shadow.’ A slight tremor entered Naieth’s voice. ‘But my dreams were clear on one thing – if Prince Haldus dies, Orion will have no kingdom to return to.’

Ariel’s eyes flickered around the clearing and eventually alighted on one of the figures beneath the trees.

‘Laelia,’ she called.

Her handmaiden glided through the air and dropped to the ground, kneeling a few feet away from Ariel.

‘Do whatever you must to keep this hawk lord alive. Swear to me.’

Laelia kept her gaze fixed on the ash-covered ground. ‘I swear it, my queen.’

Arial nodded, but her eyes remained full of doubt. She was about to speak again when her robes pulsed even brighter and she found herself drifting towards the Oak of Ages.

As her flesh faded into sunlight Ariel began to smile, fixing her gaze on something the others were unable to see.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ordaana’s oxygen-starved brain filled with images. She saw her proud, straight-backed lover, Prince Thuralin, riding towards her through a blizzard of apple blossom, his handsome young face gleaming with hope and love. Then she saw Ariel averting her gaze as Naieth the Prophetess ushered her from the royal court. Then she saw her own beautiful halls at the heart of Locrimere, engulfed in flames. She was running back towards the inferno, realising, too late, what she had done. ‘Alhena!’ she heard herself cry, her voice twisted by panic and madness.

At the sound of her daughter’s name Ordaana’s limbs filled with vigour and she forced herself forwards, straining for air with her last vestiges of strength.

There was a soft tearing sound and crimson light flooded her eyes, blinding her for a second. She was still unable to breathe but she could see shapes moving by, far below.

She clawed at the red, yielding wall and, as her nails sliced through to the other side, she finally felt air flooding her lungs.

She took a deep breath and screamed in horror.

The forest was far below. She was hurtling through the clouds, hundreds of feet above the trees. Her ears were assailed by a loud droning sound and she felt herself sliding out of the hole she had carved.

She reached back into the darkness and grabbed onto something wet and soft. It shifted in her grip and whatever was carrying her juddered in pain.

The droning ceased and she found herself dropping towards the forest.

Her carriage of flesh whirled and tumbled, until Ordaana was completely disorientated.

She heard the snapping of breaking branches, mingled with another noise that sounded suspiciously like Alkhor, laughing.

Then there was a violent impact that knocked the breath from her lungs.

Ordaana lay still for a moment, unsure if she was alive or dead. She was lying on something that quivered as she moved. Then she realised that she could hear voices and the sound of horses thundering by. Her head was pounding and her back felt as though it were broken, but she found to her surprise that she was able to sit up. She had a moment of panic and reached for her belt. The silver knife was still there and she closed her eyes in relief. Then she looked around.

She was near a path that wound its way through barren, naked boughs. It was bordered by silver birch trees and canopied by empty white branches. She realised that she had seen this path before. She was at the borders of the Silvam Dale.

She climbed painfully to her feet and turned to see what she had been lying on.

‘By the gods,’ she muttered. Sprawled across the ground was an enormous dead fly, covered in plates of crudely wrought armour. She saw a gaping hole in its abdomen and realised that she had crawled from its innards.

As she shook her head in disgust, realising that her robes and skin were covered in the thing’s blood, she heard Alkhor’s laughter again.

Ordaana was about to cry out in rage, furious at being treated in such a way, when she heard more riders passing by, thundering down the avenue of trees.

She stepped away from the giant insect and ran through the trees, keen to put as much distance between her and the monster as she could. As she hurried through the snow-laden branches, her breath trailed behind her, describing her route through the forest.

She muttered in annoyance and, with a faint wave of her hand, drew a little magic from the branches, scattering her breath into the shadows. Power leapt easily to her fingers and she nodded in recognition. Most of Elatior’s subjects were spellweavers and, over the centuries, their rites had given his kingdom a strange, indefinable glamour. Nothing seemed to truly exist in the Silvam Dale – every bough and every face seemed to be the echo of something else. She allowed the magic to play across her palm, sparking and crackling in the folds of her skin. Even as winter drove the forest’s spirits into hibernation, there was immense power in the dale.

Intrigued, she hurried on and after a while she saw a pale arch that marked one of the entryways into Elatior’s kingdom. The sentries were hidden, but she had no doubt they were there and, after stepping out onto the path, she dropped to one knee and placed her palms on the frozen ground.

A guard slipped from the shadows. He was clad in thick leather armour and carried a spear that was taller than he was. ‘Are you injured?’

Ordaana frowned, then remembered the manner of her arrival. She stood and looked down at her bloodstained robes. ‘No,’ she said. ‘This is the blood of the enemy.’

The guard frowned and stepped closer, peering at her face.

Ordaana felt a chill of fear and let her hand move closer to the silver knife. Had she been seen, travelling with the daemons?

‘Lady Ordaana,’ said the guard, nodding his head in a bow. When he looked up, she saw that he was beaming. ‘Your people feared that you had died. Lord Beldeas has been tormented in your absence. They say he has not slept for weeks.’

‘Tormented?’ Ordaana muttered under her breath. ‘I somehow doubt that.’

She strode up to the guard. ‘Where can I find him?’

The guard stepped back and as he did so the wards that hid the dale fell away. A bustling scene sprang to life beyond the wooden arch. Countless hundreds of asrai were hurrying back and forth along avenues of lantern-lit trees. Many of them were wounded and they all wore glazed, horrified expressions on their faces. Ordaana’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the result of Alkhor’s work.

‘Your husband is at the council of war,’ said the guard and he pointed his spear over the heads of the crowds, singling out a mountainous shape, looming over the dale.

It was a tree – or, rather, a twisted hybrid of several trees – but it was the size of a small mountain, knotted together by sparking cords of magic. The air around it was liquid with sorcery, as though it were caught in a magnetic storm. Ordaana had the distinct impression that the tree was glaring at her. The colossal thing was lashed to the ground by dozens of ropes and Ordaana found herself wishing they were a little thicker. This brooding monster was clearly the source of the power she had felt.

‘He’s in the roots of the Wilding Tree, my lady,’ said the guard, looking as unnerved as Ordaana.

Ordaana had not entered the Tourmaline Hall for many decades and she quickly remembered why. She hurried between the columns of root, feeling as though she had entered the maw of a great beast. The cavernous hall creaked and strained around her, moaning like a trapped animal, and Elatior’s witches were huddled together in groups. The smoky air was charged with violence and there were figures bound into the walls, groaning in pain as they lashed the ancient tree to Elatior’s will.

After a while Ordaana began to see familiar faces in the crowd. In her time as Ariel’s handmaiden she had officiated at countless rites and festivals, meeting all the great families of the Eternal Realms. Dozens of lords and ladies recognised her as she slipped through the fug. Some of them stepped out into the shifting light to stare, clearly shocked that she was still alive.

She made for the brightest light, at the centre of the hall, where a circle of the most august nobles had gathered around their hosts, the Enchanter, Prince Elatior and his wife, Princess Asphalia. Ordaana hurried through the crowd but, as she approached the circle, she stumbled to a halt, seeing more faces that she recognised and feeling suddenly afraid. How could she speak to them knowing what she knew? She had betrayed them at Drúne Fell. She had given her soul to a monster. How could she hide that from them?

Her stomach turned as she saw her frail-looking husband, Lord Beldeas, as gaunt and rapacious-looking as ever, whispering to his advisor, the prim, bejewelled little popinjay Hauran Quillwort. Nearby, she saw other survivors from the battle of Drúne Fell. Prince Haldus the hawk rider was there, hiding behind his awkward scowl and his mask of circular scars, and he was accompanied by another hawk rider – the mysterious Lord Cyanos, still wearing the ornate, black cuirass that failed to disguise the stumps jutting out from his shoulder blades. Eremon was there too, the craggy faced captain of Locrimere’s armies. He was rigid with self-importance, just as she remembered him, and he was still proudly wearing the emblem of their fallen realm.

The nobles were all fixated on the luminous figures at the centre of the circle and none of them had noticed Ordaana, so she steeled herself and stepped forwards to address them.

She was just a few yards away when she noticed another face from the rites of Ariel’s court – a tall, hook-nosed highborn whose skin shimmered as he moved. She remembered that he was named Mälloch the Elder. Mälloch was wrapped in an enormous bearskin, but she could tell from his awkward stance that he, like many others present, had not reached the Silvam Dale uninjured. His eyes were rolling feverishly in their sockets and he was struggling to stay upright. He was leaning heavily on a wardancer who looked even worse than he did – a greasy haired wretch whose semi-naked body was little more than a pitiful sack of skin and bone.

As Ordaana stepped closer, the emaciated wardancer glanced in her direction and she almost screamed in shock.

It was the Darkling Prince – the doomed youth she had confided in on the slopes of Drúne Fell. How could he be alive?

Finavar stared at her in wonder and a smile trembled across his thin lips.

Ordaana’s stomach twisted as she recalled the things she had told him. He knew everything. He knew her plan to overthrow Ariel and Orion. He knew she meant to murder them. She was about to turn and flee when a horribly familiar voice called out.

‘Ordaana?’

Beldeas’s cloying, insincere tones managed to cut through the general hubbub and several of the nobles turned to face her.

Ordaana’s gaze was still locked on Finavar and, in desperation, she tapped into the tendrils of magic drifting through the chamber. She knew that performing magic in the Wilding Tree was like whispering an insult in Elatior’s ear, but she had no choice. She threaded two words onto a strand of consciousness and hurled them into Finavar’s mind.

‘Say nothing,’ she silently ordered him, leaning every ounce of her power into the command.

Before she could see Finavar’s response, her husband stepped between her and the wardancer.

‘I thought you were dead,’ he said, with a nauseating pretence of emotion. He caressed her cheek. ‘Are you injured, my love? What happened to you?’

Ordaana was about to call him a fawning, lying idiot when she remembered her purpose in the dale.

‘Beldeas,’ she said, nodding her head demurely and giving him her hand to kiss. ‘It was the thought of you that gave me the courage to survive.’

Ordaana was delighted by her husband’s confused expression. There was no irony in her voice but he had clearly sensed the lie; knowing all too well how much she despised him.

‘I have…’ His words trailed off as he stared into her eyes, trying to gauge her thoughts. He was about to ask something when he changed his mind and kissed the hand she had proffered.

Ordaana was about to confuse him with even more kind words when she remembered Finavar. She knew she had to kill him, but how? With so many eyes on her what could she possibly do? She stepped to one side and gave him a pleading look, hoping that he might see her as some kind of ally.

The wardancer’s eyes stared back at her from their sunken pits, but he gave her a barely perceptible nod and she relaxed slightly.

‘Say nothing?’ asked a voice in Ordaana’s head.

The circle of nobles turned and looked back at their blazing hosts and Ordaana realised that they had heard the question too. For the first time since she entered the Tourmaline Hall, she looked directly at the prince and princess.

Like Mälloch the Elder, their flesh had an odd, insubstantial quality. They glittered with the light of longevity and Ordaana was reminded of starlight, shining through a leaf. The princess also carried her age in the more prosaic manner of a human. Her back was stooped and her skin had sagged in a way that made her almost ugly. Such a thing was not usual for the asrai, and Ordaana assumed that Asphalia had withered herself as some kind of strange affectation. Her eccentricities were famed across the whole region. Prince Elatior, meanwhile, showed no signs of infirmity. In fact, Ordaana realised, he was a dreadful caricature of power and dignity. His face was quite grotesque in its magnificence – the features exaggerated and distorted, like those of an oversized statue. He towered over the other nobles and, as his eyes settled on hers, Ordaana felt all the dreadful weight of his arrogance.

‘Whom do you wish to silence?’ he asked, without moving his lips.

Ordaana sensed people moving away from her and she squirmed under his cold, expressionless stare. As the other nobles backed away, she realised that Elatior and his wife were drifting a few feet above the ground, levitated by thousands of tiny spirits woven into their robes. Clouds of glittering wings shimmered over their crumpled damask. Despite the season, there was a whole host of acorn-sized imps, flickering and whirring as they held their hosts aloft.

Ordaana bowed and shook her head. ‘My lord, I apologise for my rough manners.’ She waved at the crowds moving around them. ‘Such a large gathering quite overwhelmed me. Since the battle for Drúne Fell I have barely spoken to another soul. Hearing all these voices, talking at once, was a shock.’

The prince watched her with a bored expression, as though studying an insect that had crawled onto his sleeve.

Captain Eremon approached and gave her a stiff bow. ‘My lady.’

Prince Haldus and the others followed suit, but she noticed that Finavar had stepped back into the shadows. He was talking to a hunched old cripple, whose back was turned to her. Panic gripped her again. Who was he talking to? What was he saying?

‘The Goddess be praised,’ said Princess Asphalia, drifting towards her. ‘Your hair is quite beautiful. The second moon told me it was.’

Ordaana was about to laugh at the princess’s odd comment. Then she recalled the rumours she had heard about Asphalia. It was said that the centuries had claimed her reason, and that her husband refused to acknowledge the fact. The gossips said that those who questioned her state of mind did not survive for long. Elatior defended her honour with a ferocity that shredded skin from bones.

Ordaana tried to meet the princess’s eyes, but they seemed unable to settle on any one point.

‘How kind of you to notice,’ she replied, attempting to sound as though there were nothing odd in the exchange and simultaneously straining to see what Finavar was doing.

The princess leant closer and added, with an urgent expression. ‘All these twirling dances though, Ordaana, how can I forget?’

Ordaana nodded and smiled, then looked up at the Enchanter.

He was still watching her with lidded eyes. ‘I have heard of your skill.’ His tone was flat. ‘It is good that you came.’

Ordaana was about to reply, but Elatior turned back to the nobles and seemed to forget all about her.

Beldeas gave her a nauseating smile and took her arm, leading her into the circle.

She saw nobles from all twelve of the Eternal Realms, clad in a bewildering variety of furs, feathers and skins. Some, like Prince Haldus, wore little more than a few bands of hammered copper and a loincloth, but others wore the most incredibly flamboyant robes, woven from dried leaves and silver thread. There was a rustle of vines and silk as they huddled closer to Elatior.

Ordaana looked over at the centre of the hall. The chamber was designed in a series of spirals, coiled like fern leaves around a column of knotted root. It was over ten feet wide and reached high up into the vaults, where it fanned out in a series of looping, lichened arches that divided the hall. It was not the design of the thing that caught her eye, however, it was the ornaments at its centre. Three naked figures were hanging in the wood, their gleaming flesh painted with thousands of tiny, delicately rendered words. Even if the words were not so tiny they would still have been indecipherable. The skin they were painted on had been punctured by dozens of knotted tendrils so that it glistened with a sheen of fresh blood. The faces of these crucified figures were hidden behind wooden masks, carved to resemble cheerful, grinning faces, and it was hard to tell if they were dead or alive, but after a few seconds they nodded in reply and shifted slightly in their cruel nests.

As the crucified figures moved, Prince Elatior cast his gaze around the circle of nobles, his eyes blazing with triumph. ‘The wardens’ work is almost done. I will soon be able to harness the fury they have nurtured for so long.’

Ordaana stared at the figures, trying to decipher his meaning. She noticed that, as they writhed in agony, the walls of the vast chamber moved too. The whole, tormented mass of the Wilding Tree responded to their every pained breath. They are the anchor, she thought, sensing on a primal level that this was how Elatior controlled his living citadel.

She looked back at the prince and princess and saw that they were now blazing even brighter, causing their audience to shield their eyes.

Ordaana’s vision grew accustomed to the glare and she noticed that Elatior was painting a scene for them – images were drifting through the darkness towards her. Terror flooded her veins as she recognised the scene – Elatior was showing them the attack on the Ravenstone. As the lights rippled through the air they painted an image of Alkhor’s pot-bellied tallymen, wading through their river of luminous bile and smashing their way into the tower of black rock.

‘Such virtues,’ said Princess Asphalia, with a sad shake of her head. ‘Such pretty songs. If I had my time again I would drink twilight and nothing more.’

Ordaana ignored the ramblings of the princess and peered intently at the images, sure that they would reveal her at the head of the attack. She stiffened as she thought she saw her hooded self, dashing through the hole at the foot of the tower, but no one else seemed to notice. They were fixated on the asrai, battling desperately with the ranks of daemons.

‘The minions of the Plaguelord destroyed the tower and then they murdered its guardians,’ said Prince Elatior. ‘The river of acid is now approaching us from the north. It is days away, at most. We lost many of our kin in the battle. Even the slightest injury at the hands of the daemons is enough to corrupt bodies beyond all recognition. To fall is to become one of them.’

Some of the nobles nodded sagely, but those who had not heard of the battle gasped. The Ravenstone had stood watch over the Silvam Dale since before the coming of the asrai.

‘How did this happen?’ asked Prince Haldus. He looked uncomfortable as the other nobles turned his way, but he continued, despite his blushes. ‘The entrance to the valley is hidden. How did they find it?’

‘One of our own kin is leading them.’

There was a chorus of gasps but Haldus nodded grimly. ‘It was the same at Drúne Fell – the outsiders were led through the forest by a traitor. We never found out who it was.’

Ordaana’s face became a rigid, expressionless mask.

The Enchanter looked up at the walls of the chamber. ‘The Wilding Tree has prophesied this. I have known of this betrayal since the dawn of my rule.’ Pride flashed in his eyes and he took his wife’s hand. ‘We have been preparing for this day.’

Princess Asphalia smiled at her husband. The drama of the moment seemed to give her some lucidity and her eyes fixed on his. ‘The betrayal was prophesied, and so was the power of the tree.’

Ordaana felt her mouth beginning to twitch. Fear had given her a terrible urge to laugh, so she began massaging her jaw in attempt to hide her hysteria.

Elatior looked around the faces of his audience. ‘All the power of the dale has been poured into the Wilding Tree.’ He waved at the groaning shadows. ‘There is magic here beyond anything the Plaguelord has at his command.’

He glanced at the crucified spellweavers, straining to control his final weapon. Then he looked back at the nobles and changed the scene.

Mälloch the Elder winced as the Chains of Vaul sprang into view.

There were more shocked whispers as people saw the agony of the spirit dam.

Elatior waved his hand for silence. ‘Spare your pity. Mälloch and the Fiùrann sacrificed much so that we might prepare our defence. The forest had to play its part.’

As they watched the dam collapse, and the bile flooding into the valley, Ordaana noticed that Finavar had returned to the group. He caught her eye and she realised that he was oddly excited by her presence. The thought gave her hope. If she could convince him they were united against a common enemy, he would remain silent until she could remove him.

‘This river will reach us even sooner than we thought,’ continued Elatior. ‘We have been betrayed here, too.’

‘Then we should ride out,’ said Captain Eremon in a calm, stern voice, lifting his chin proudly as he spoke. ‘The warriors of Locrimere will be honoured to lead the defence.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Lord Beldeas, but his words did not carry the same conviction as his captain’s.

Elatior did not acknowledge either of them. ‘Winter is upon us. The daemons, and the traitor who guides them, will expect no reprisals from the forest. They will believe that the spirits are fading with the sun, as always, giving the daemons free rein to butcher and destroy, but…’ He glanced again at the three crucified figures, then up at the vaulted shadows of the Tourmaline Hall, where gods and stars were gazing down from the soil and bark. ‘But this year there is one spirit that will not sleep.’

‘The Wilding Tree is eight minutes older than anything else,’ said Princess Asphalia, nodding sagely.

Elatior smiled at her, as though her words were perfectly logical. ‘I have unlatched the Wilding Tree from the seasons.’ He looked around at the vast chamber. ‘It is no longer bound by nature. We will make our stand at the gates of the dale. And when the daemons come, I will let them think they are victorious.’

As Elatior spoke, the scenes drifting around his body illustrated his words. ‘We will draw them back into the very arms of the Wilding Tree, giving them the idea that we have abandoned hope – that we are penned in like rats. Then, on the dawn that follows the twelfth moon I will channel two thousand years of rage and turn it upon our foes.’

The ground shifted violently.

Several of the nobles stumbled and Elatior’s eyes flicked back towards the centre of the hall. Ordaana noticed a hint of emotion in his expression – an edge of fear, perhaps – but it was crushed immediately and replaced by his usual implacable mask.

As the prince stared at them, the crucified figures gasped in pain. Roots strained beneath their skin, sending more blood down their chests, but they remained in place, clenching their fists until the ground was still once more.

Elatior drew back his shoulders and addressed the entire gathering. ‘When the Wilding Tree’s rage pours through me it will be a force unlike anything you could conceive. The daemons might bring their rivers to our borders, but they will never emerge from the other side.’

Ordaana glanced nervously into the shadows. Was such a thing possible? What if Elatior really harnessed such power? The thought filled her with horror.

Elatior’s voice grew louder and the ground rolled again. The three agonised figures cried out from the column of root, speaking in time with Elatior and turning his voice into a deafening, tormented chorus.

‘Our sacrifice will be great,’ they cried, ‘but by the gods it will be glorious. Every life we give will be balanced by the destruction of this grotesque, unnatural spring. We will fight with furious determination and the daemons will never suspect a trap. We will only withdraw when dawn arrives. Then they will send their entire force into my remorseless embrace, charged with the power of the Wilding Tree.’

As the echoes faded, Elatior glared at the assembled crowds, awaiting their response.

Captain Eremon pounded his leather-clad chest and, after a moment’s delay, the other nobles did the same. They were too excited by Elatior’s words to pay Ordaana any heed so, as they pressed closer to the prince, drawing their weapons and pledging their lives, she glanced in Finavar’s direction and rolled her eyes towards an exit, slipping free of her husband’s grip and stepping away.

‘Are you leaving us so soon, traitor?’ boomed the chorus of voices.

Ordaana froze and her shoulders dropped. How could she have expected to go unnoticed? Elatior’s gaze was everywhere. She turned back to face the prince but, as she did so, she dropped her hand to her knife. She would not die easily.

To her surprise, no one was facing in her direction – least of all the prince. Elatior was pointing an accusing finger at the scrawny wardancer, Finavar.

‘Seize him,’ he cried.

Mälloch the Elder shook his head in dismay and none of the other nobles made a move to grab Finavar.

The Enchanter was not speaking to the nobles, however.

Finavar barely had chance to register his surprise before Elatior’s crucified witches obeyed their master’s command. They raised their wasted arms and, as they did so, strands of long grass speared up from the ground and spiralled around the Darkling Prince, binding his legs and waist and rooting him to the spot.

Finavar’s eyes widened in fear as the prince glided towards him, with his finger still extended. He was about to protest, but the grass rose higher and lashed itself around his head, gagging him.

‘You will betray us no more,’ said Elatior, glowering at Finavar.

Mälloch staggered between the furious prince and his prey, holding up his hand.

‘Finavar is no traitor,’ he gasped. ‘He saved my life. He fought as bravely as any of us.’

The Enchanter turned his furious gaze on Mälloch. ‘Old fool. Your mind is addled by pain. You are moments away from damnation.’

Mälloch’s cheeks flushed with outrage and he was about to hurl back an angry retort when Elatior continued, still speaking with the massed voices of his witches.

‘To omit a truth is to lie, Mälloch. How could you do that to me? For two thousand years I have been laying my plans. Two thousands years! All that time preparing the Wilding Tree for this victory. Do you think I have enjoyed it? Do you think I have enjoyed inflicting pain on this ancient spirit?’ His lips curled back from his perfect teeth as he waved at the sorcerers knotted into the column. ‘Do you think I have enjoyed torturing my own kin?’ He grabbed Finavar’s arm and shook him like a child. ‘I have worked tirelessly for this moment and when this treacherous rat almost undid everything you did not even tell me!’

Mälloch tried to approach the prince, but his injuries overcame him and he stumbled. If Prince Haldus had not stepped forwards to catch him, he would have fallen to the ground.

‘He ruined the Feast of the Two Branches, Mälloch,’ continued Elatior. ‘He ruined it! Every one of my auguries told me that the dam could hold for another night. All my plans revolved around that very fact. The spirits were not meant to flee, Mälloch – not yet!’ Elatior shook Finavar again. ‘He did this! If the rite had gone uninterrupted the spirits would have fulfilled their obligation to you. He saved your life from a threat he created.’

The last vestiges of colour drained from Mälloch’s face. ‘I thought the damage was only slight. I thought I had undone the harm.’

‘Really?’ Elatior’s voice was now trembling with rage. ‘Well, perhaps you did. With this worm in your midst it would have meant nothing anyway.’

Mälloch shook his head, leaning weakly against Prince Haldus. ‘He did nothing but help. He saved my life.’

Elatior managed to lower his voice, but that only served to make it more menacing.

‘So you keep saying, Mälloch, but tell me – what did he use to save your life?’

Mälloch frowned and looked at Finavar, trying to focus. ‘He used his sword.’ As Mälloch’s feverish gaze fell on the swan’s-neck handle at Finavar’s belt, his eyes widened in recognition.

Elatior nodded. ‘First, he disrupted the Feast of the Two Branches so that the spirits would no longer serve you. Then, when that failed, he used more direct methods. He undid your oath, Mälloch – he removed your blade and freed your servants from their duty. He betrayed us all.’

Mälloch looked dazed as he stared at the sword. ‘Why? Why would he do such a thing? Since midsummer, all I have heard are tales of his bravery at Drúne Fell. The forest rings with songs of his heroism. Why should he seek to undo us now?’

‘I know what drove him to this,’ said Ordaana, stepping back into the circle of nobles. Her voice was hesitant, but everyone turned to stare at her.

Elatior and the others had forgotten about her and they looked around in shock at the sound of her voice.

‘He told me himself that he desires nothing more than to see our kingdoms fall.’

Beldeas flushed with embarrassment at his wife’s outburst and clasped her by the shoulders. ‘My wife is confused,’ he said, smiling awkwardly and shepherding her away from Elatior. ‘She knows nothing of traitors, I assure you.’ He scowled at her. ‘She must be exhausted and confused after her adventures.’

Ordaana shoved Beldeas with such force that he lost his footing and ended up sitting on the floor. Then she strode towards Prince Elatior. ‘As I left the foothills of Drúne Fell I found this wardancer looting corpses, half mad from his injuries. I took pity on him and offered him my protection, but when he explained his plan, I was repulsed and left him to his bitterness.’

‘My love,’ said Beldeas, clambering to his feet. ‘Why have you never mentioned this before?’

Ordaana kept her gaze locked on Elatior. ‘He looked so wretched that I never dreamt he would survive. The vileness of his beliefs seemed unimportant when he was so close to death. I cannot understand how he still draws breath.’

Elatior dropped to the ground before Ordaana and grasped her arms. ‘What beliefs? What were his plans?’

Ordaana shook her head. ‘He spoke the most vile untruths, Prince Elatior, that I can barely bring myself to repeat them.’

Light shimmered across Elatior’s exaggerated features. ‘Repeat them.’

Ordaana nodded and looked at Finavar with an expression of pity. ‘I beg you to take pity on him, Prince Elatior. He has suffered greatly.’

Elatior lifted his chin and softened his voice. ‘Your noble sentiments do you credit, Lady Ordaana, and if his treachery were not so heinous, I might have acceded to them, but you must understand – thanks to him we are on the very edge of extinction. We cannot waver. Tell me what he said.’

Ordaana nodded. ‘During the battle for Drúne Fell, the Darkling Prince’s brother was slain. He fell as the Wild Hunt drove the enemy from the field and, as a result, he believes…’ Ordaana hesitated, doing everything she could to appear reluctant.

Elatior gave her a gentle nod.

‘Finavar told me that he considers our king to be a murderer. He believes that our only hope is to overthrow Orion and the Mage Queen.’

She paused for dramatic effect.

‘He intends to kill them.’

The voices in the hall fell silent and all eyes fell on Finavar.

Even Elatior looked shocked, but he quickly recovered his composure. ‘My suspicions were along those lines. I could see no other reason for him to disrupt the ceremony and destroy our defences.’

Ordaana gave him an anguished, pleading glance. ‘Please understand. My silence on the matter stemmed only from my belief that he would not survive. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to tarnish his name. When I heard the various tales of his bravery I saw no reason to gainsay them.’ She shook her head as she looked at Finavar. ‘I was sure he would be dead.’

Finavar strained desperately against his bonds, but they would not give. The magic of the Wilding Tree was too powerful.

An eerie silence hung over the hall as Elatior squeezed Ordaana’s shoulder. ‘I understand how much this has hurt you, Lady Ordaana, but rest assured that you have done your people a great service. We know, now, who has led the enemy to our most secret places. During the summer, when we were beset by outsiders, this rogue was seen at every battle. He was described as a hero and all along he was the cause of our pain. And now he has offered his assistance to an even greater foe. This plague that is destroying our lands is no natural blight. This is the work of Chaos and whatever daemon that is loose in the forest has been led at every turn by this wretch.’

Mälloch, Captain Eremon, Prince Haldus and all the other nobles stared at Finavar in shock. Some of them dropped their hands to their weapons, clearly itching to exact immediate revenge.

‘No,’ said Elatior, utilising his chorus of voices again, so that the word rang out through the hall. ‘To spill the traitor’s blood here would not redress the balance. There is only one punishment worthy of this crime.’ The tiny spirits in Elatior’s robes shimmered into life, lifting him up into the air, until he was beside Princess Asphalia once more.

They both looked out across the gathering and spoke as one, Elatior in a stern voice and Asphalia in wavering, musical tones. ‘He must be given to the forest. He must be given to the Wildwood.’

Ordaana closed her eyes and lowered her head, hiding her smile behind a pretence of sadness, but the other asrai in the hall nodded their assent.

Elatior glared at Mälloch the Elder. ‘Your negligence in this matter was bordering on betrayal, but I am not without mercy. You will take this so-called Darkling Prince to the Wildwood. You will perform the Rite of Banishment and see him torn from the world. Once I am sure you have performed this task, our friendship shall begin anew.’

Mälloch looked dazed as he considered the task he had been set. He glanced at Finavar, straining pitifully at his bonds, then he nodded and attempted an awkward bow.

‘The punishment is apt.’

Ordaana shivered as she emerged into the snow, but it was not only the cold that made her shake. She was teetering on the edge of hysteria. If Elatior’s claims were true, everything could be ruined. She had to speak to Alkhor. She had to warn the daemon.

She stared at the sky, waiting for her heart to stop racing. After a few moments, her hysteria lessened to a kind of heady giddiness as she considered her lucky escape.

The sky stared back. It was already a deep, sapphire blue that looked deep into her soul. She realised it would soon be dark. It had been midday when she entered the Wilding Tree and she felt like she had only spent a few minutes beneath its roots, but the day was already over. She pulled her robes tighter and hurried off through the falling snow, looking for a place that she could be alone and attempt to contact the daemon.

Crowds of asrai were moving beneath the snow-dusted trees, clutching hastily gathered belongings and carrying gruesome wounds. Ordaana watched them with pity in her eyes, then she remembered with a jolt that she was the cause of their pain – she was the enemy they were fleeing. For a moment she stared at the refugees in confusion, struggling to connect their suffering with her actions. As she discussed Finavar’s treachery with Elatior, she had almost believed her own lies. She had almost believed that it was Finavar who had brought Alkhor’s plague down on her people, rather than her.

She was jolted out of her reverie by someone waving at her from the root of a tree. The tree had an oddly morbid air. Figures were dashing back and forth through the dale, but none of them approached this particular yew. In fact, they seemed to give it a wide berth, averting their gaze as they passed by. It was crooked and stooped, as though battered by storms and, as with the Wilding Tree, there were openings between some of its roots leading down into the darkness. A small figure was signalling from one of these for her to approach.

Ordaana had lifted her hood when she stepped out into the snow and she could not imagine who would be able to recognise her, but she stepped closer anyway, intrigued. As she approached the tree, the other asrai paid her no heed. In fact, they seemed to go out of their way not to look in her direction.

She hurried on through the twilight and saw that the figure was moving in jerking, spasmodic fits, like a little marionette. She sighed with relief. ‘Death’s-head,’ she laughed, following the spirit down between the roots of the tree.

Steps spiralled down into the darkness and Ordaana had to summon a little magic to light her way. As she did so, she saw another cavernous chamber open out in front of her. Like the Tourmaline Hall, it was divided by tall columns of root that supported a distant, vaulted ceiling of knotted wood. That was the only similarity though. No fireflies were here to light her way and the slender thrones were all empty. There was another difference that made her pause and grimace halfway down the steps.

The air was thick with the smell of blood.

Death’s-head halted at the bottom of the steps and looked up at her, waving for her to continue.

As she approached, the light dripping from her fingers revealed how pitiful the spirit looked. Its limbs were pale and rotten and the light that usually leaked from its skull-like head had faded to a sickly glow.

‘The year is dead,’ said Ordaana, stepping closer. ‘It’s time for you to rest.’

The spirit clicked and clacked towards her, nodding weakly. Then it waved a twig-like bundle of fingers towards the centre of the hall.

Ordaana peered into the gloom. The darkness pooled at a certain point, becoming so impenetrable that even her sorcery could not throw it back.

‘Alkhor,’ she whispered, her words full of venom. She stepped forwards and glared at the shadow, sure of its meaning. ‘What do you intend to do with me now? Bury me inside a worm? Transform me into a bowel?’ She drew her knife and descended the remaining steps. ‘I am not your slave, daemon, I am a queen. You promised me revenge, not servitude.’

The shadow rippled, but gave no reply, so she frowned and began walking across the hall.

Ordaana paused again and lifted her skirts with a hiss of disgust. The ground was slick with blood and, as her light glinted across its surface, it revealed hundreds upon hundreds of pale shapes, piled in mounds.

She muttered a curse as she realised that they were corpses. Death’s-head had led her into a charnel house.

Many of the bodies were still bleeding, adding to the black lake around her feet. She realised that they must be the dead from the Chains of Vaul.

‘Why…?’ she began to ask, when she recalled how Alkhor’s tallymen utilised the asrai they killed – transforming them into willing, mutated servants. She nodded as she realised why Elatior was hiding his dead from the daemons – he was attempting to prevent the corpses of his own subjects turning against him.

She laughed softly, considering the shadowy presence at the centre of the hall. Clearly, he had failed. Alkhor was not so easily denied. ‘You have some nerve,’ she called out, ‘revealing yourself here.’

She walked across the chamber, pouring more light from her fingertips, but however she tried her magic could not penetrate the gloom. She could clearly sense an ancient malice though, glaring back at her from the corpses and, as she stepped closer, she heard the sound of low, ragged breathing, and something else – a crunching, thudding sound, like wood being splintered by an axe.

Ordaana had expected to hear a jovial, belched response – some kind of crude joke, perhaps, but not these ominous noises. She came to a halt, feeling the first twinges of doubt. She looked back and saw that Death’s-head was gone. There was nothing but her, the dead and the dark.

Despite all that she had done, something about the scene unnerved Ordaana. Then, annoyed by her own cowardice, she strode forwards and poured even more light onto the shadow, determined that it would not make a fool of her.

Her magic finally pierced the darkness and washed up against a mound of corpses even bigger than the ones she had already passed. Ashen, slack-jawed faces stared back at her with unseeing eyes, and grasping, lifeless fingers reached out towards her.

Ordaana barely noticed the corpses. Next to the bodies, the blood had gathered in a deep pool, and something was moving in the depths.

She stepped towards the pool and, with an overwhelming sense of dread, peered into it.

A nightmarish figure stared back at her. It was a hulking warrior, twice as tall as Ordaana and clad in serrated, brass armour. The brass was studded with spikes and scored with foul, crude-looking glyphs, and the warrior was holding a massive, two-handed axe. These details were lost on Ordaana, though. The thing that caught her attention was the warrior’s head. Its face was that of an enormous, feral dog, covered in matted, greasy hair with a long, canine snout. Its teeth were bared in a snarl and its eyes were a deep, furious red. Hanging around its neck was a thick brass chain, and at the end of the chain there was something quite incongruous – a delicate ivory bracelet, carved with roses and thorns.

Ordaana whispered some gibberish and held up her silver knife, but she found it impossible to tear her gaze away from the image in the blood.

Corpses surrounded the dog-headed giant. The same bodies that filled the chamber were also visible on the other side of the pool. They were massed in great heaps around the warrior’s feet and Ordaana realised that the crunching sound she had heard was coming from the monster’s axe, slicing though their necks. The warrior continued hacking as it stared out at her from the pool.

Ordaana looked back over shoulder, thinking that, to be reflected in the pool, the warrior must be standing behind her.

She saw nothing but shadows.

When she looked back at the pool of blood, Ordaana saw that the dog-headed warrior was clearly not in the cave with her. The landscape behind it was a psychedelic nightmare of colours and shapes. It was as though the monster were in the centre of an unfinished painting. She saw smeared, half-glimpsed vistas of fire and rock, bleeding into rows of screaming, tormented faces.

Her heart sank as she accepted the truth. She had drawn the gaze of another daemon.

‘What do you want with me?’ she gasped, taking some consolation from the fact that the daemon clearly did not belong to the same plane of existence as her. It was a ghost of some kind, watching her from its own hellish realm.

The monster carried on working – chopping methodically at the bodies, wrenching the heads free and slinging them into a pile.

Ordaana was hypnotised by the strange, gruesome scene, then she remembered where she was and looked around the cave in a panic. She could not be seen in the company of such a thing. There did not seem to be anyone else in the hall – anyone living, that is – but it occurred to her that more bodies could arrive at any time. She started to step back from the pool but, before she had gone very far, the daemon looked up at her.

Its eyes burned into her with shocking malevolence and she cried out in pain. She felt as though the force of its evil had scalded her and she found herself rooted to the spot.

The daemon carried on beheading the corpses as it addressed her.

‘The sluglord will fail.’ Its voice was a guttural bark and, as it spoke, flames drooled from its jaws.

Ordaana shook her head, terrified and confused. She realised that she had dropped her knife to the ground and was clutching at her hair.

The daemon waited for her to reply. When it realised she was not going to, its eyes blazed even brighter and it strode towards her. The surface of the pool strained and bulged like skin as the daemon tried to push its way into the real world.

Ordaana felt bile rising in her throat and she thought she might be sick, but still, she was unable to back away.

‘He is weak!’ roared the daemon, taking one of its claws from the axe’s haft and reaching towards her. ‘Only I can give you what you need!’

To Ordaana’s horror, the claw burst from the pool of blood.

As the daemon’s flesh entered the physical realm, it filled the chamber with a dreadful stink – a mixture of brimstone and toxic, metallic-tasting fumes.

Ordaana’s fear finally freed her from her paralysis.

She grasped her knife from the ground and fled through the hall, stumbling over the corpses and slipping in their blood.

Ordaana ran through the frozen dale, barging through hordes of refugees. She slid and scampered across the ice, broke through a wall of dead bracken and emerged into a broad, moonlit field, gleaming with a clean, white cover of snow.

She waded through the knee-deep drifts into the centre of the field and then dropped to her knees, clutching her head in her hands.

The cold seeped through her skin and into her bones and, after a few minutes, she sat up and began pacing across the field. The daemon’s appearance had terrified her. It was more disturbing than anything she had yet seen. The thing had radiated such malice that even the thought of its claw, bursting from the pool of blood, was too much for her to bear. She tried to drive it from her mind by staring at the expanse of glittering whiteness, but something kept drawing her thoughts back.

‘He is weak,’ she whispered through chattering teeth, remembering the daemon’s words and picturing the ridiculous, bloated form of her ally.

She looked up at the banks of snow whirling overhead, sparkling against the indigo heavens. ‘Perhaps he will fail me.’ The thought horrified her. She had done such terrible things. All she had to live for was the look on Ariel’s face as she took her life and the life of her king. Nothing else would matter, as long as she could end their reign – as long as she could see Ariel crawling at her feet, begging for mercy. But what use would Alkhor be when Elatior revealed the power of the Wilding Tree?

As the snow settled on her upturned face, Ordaana thought of the charge she had left in Alkhor’s care – their blessed offspring. She could not risk losing Alhena a second time. Besides, the idea of seeing the daemon in brass armour again horrified her.

‘Alkhor,’ she hissed, looking at black, sentinel-like trees. ‘Where are you?’

Her only answer was the breeze, whipping eddies of snow across the field.

‘I have news!’ she hissed.

She scoured the horizon for a sign of the daemon, but there was nothing.

She cursed under her breath and wondered what to do next. Finavar was certainly no longer a threat. Mälloch the Elder had sworn to take him that very night to the Wildwood – a fate that could only mean death. The Wildwood was the heart of the forest’s rage. The spirits contained within its borders were ever hungry for asrai blood. No one had ever survived such banishment. Elatior, meanwhile, was busy planning the impending battle with the other nobles. They believed that the only way to fool their enemy was to put up a determined defence; right until the moment they withdrew and sprang their trap. She had stood with them for a while, trying to garner more details of their tactics but, in the end, she had been forced to leave, for fear of revealing her treachery.

There was a rustling sound in the snow behind her and Ordaana flinched. She leapt to her feet and whirled around.

A raven was standing in the impression she had left, looking up at her. She was about to shoo it away, when she paused.

‘Alkhor?’ she asked, feeling vaguely ridiculous.

‘What is your news?’ replied the unmistakably amused tones of Alkhor.

Ordaana stepped towards the bird and was about to speak when it cawed at her in annoyance and launched itself into the air.

The bird vanished into the dusk and Ordaana shook her head in confusion.

‘Well?’ asked Alkhor again.

Ordaana looked around, trying to spot the source of the voice, but she had a horrible feeling she knew where it had come from.

She looked down at her shoulder and slipped her robe down her arm revealing the mark Alkhor had left on her flesh.

Then, for several moments, she could do nothing but scream.

Ordaana finally managed to calm herself by clamping her hand down over her shoulder but, after a while the movement against the palm of her hand became just as disturbing as the thing she was trying to hide so she took her hand away.

Alkhor’s sagging, beady-eyed face grinned back at her from her shoulder. One of the three marks had become the daemon’s mouth and the other two were now its glinting eyes.

‘You swore you would leave me intact,’ cried Ordaana, staring at the little face in horror. Her skin had puckered and darkened around Alkhor’s mouth and, as it replied, a miniature tongue flopped out of her flesh.

‘What harm is done?’ Alkhor struggled to speak for laughing. ‘I know how to be discreet. Who will even know I’m here? And think how close we will become. We can share everything.’

Ordaana stared at the face in disbelief, then dropped to her knees in the snow and began weeping.

Alkhor hooted along with her sobs, mimicking her desolated cries with a delighted grin.

After several minutes of this, the face started to look a little bored.

‘What have you learned?’ demanded Alkhor.

Ordaana managed to stifle her sobs. ‘Why am I doing this?’ she whispered, her voice full of horror.

‘You mean to destroy Ariel,’ said the daemon, ‘and I have promised to show you how.’

‘Then show me!’ Ordaana drew her silver knife pressing it against the face in her skin. ‘I know this blade can harm you! Tell me what I need to know or I’ll use it!’ Ordaana’s voice was a hysterical screech, but as soon as the words left her lips she blanched and looked at the surrounding trees, horrified by the thought she might draw attention to herself.

‘You might hurt yourself with that,’ said Alkhor, looking at the knife hovering an inch from its face. ‘It has more power than you think.’

Ordaana grew suddenly calm, noticing the mischievous tone that had entered the daemon’s voice. ‘What do you mean? What power? You told me that these symbols spell out your name. You said it can part your flesh. What else should I know?’

Alkhor smirked at her. ‘What is your news, Ordaana? What have you learned?’

She howled in frustration and hurled the knife into the snow.

‘Elatior is a proud fool. That is what I’ve learned.’

‘How so?’

Ordaana gave her shoulder a furious sideways glance. ‘He thinks Finavar is the architect of all this…’ She struggled to find words for Alkhor’s plague and simply waved in the vague direction of his army.

‘But what of his magic? Elatior is famed for his sorcery. How does he intend to use it against me?’

Ordaana’s eyes widened in fear. ‘All his magic has been bent on one purpose. He has used every ounce of it to torment the Wilding Tree.’

Alkhor laughed even harder. ‘What? Why would he use his magic to torture his home?’ The face puckered its lips as it tried to understand the noble’s reasoning.

Ordaana shook her head. ‘It explains the fury that pours out of that tree. The whole forest aches with it. I’ve never felt such pain.’

She remembered that Alkhor had been on the point of sharing something with her and continued with her explanation. ‘His plan is simple, but dangerous. He has tormented that tree for centuries in preparation for this event. His witches have long foreseen your arrival, and tomorrow, as our child leads the attack on the Silvam Dale, he plans to send the Wilding Tree into a paroxysm of rage and then harness that power – directing it at the shuffling morons that pass for your army.’

‘He is a fool.’

Ordaana gave Alkhor another sideways glance.

Alkhor attempted to look serious.

She shook her head, unable to understand the daemon’s indifference. ‘Can’t you feel how powerful that thing is? I can feel the strength of it from here. It could ruin everything.’ Ordaana’s voice rang out into a void and she realised that Alkhor’s breath had vanished from her ear.

She leapt to her feet and reached for her shoulder. The daemon’s face was gone, leaving just the triangle of three fingerprints that had always been there. She stared at the marks on her shoulder, but they were motionless.

Ordaana whirled around, scouring the snow for a sign of her master.

The raven had returned and was standing a few feet away. She knew immediately from the glint in its eyes that she was not mistaken this time. The bird was waiting next to a piece of metal jutting out of the snow. It was the handle of her knife.

‘I will savour Elatior’s death,’ said the bird, without moving its beak, ‘and then I will tell you a little more about this weapon that you fling around so carelessly.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘I will not believe it,’ said Sibaris as he helped Mälloch through the snow.

They had walked through the night and, with dawn just a couple of hours away, the snow was coming down thick and fast. It was hard to see more than a few feet ahead.

He looked back at the two figures behind them. One was their disgraced captive, Finavar. His legs had been freed so that he could walk, but the rest of his skeletal frame was tightly bound. Glossy green cords were lashed around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides and his head was bound so that he was completely gagged. Lady Ordaana had pointed out that if Finavar were allowed to speak he might attempt to influence his captors with more lies. Elatior had agreed and made Mälloch swear to keep him gagged until the rite was complete.

Walking behind Finavar, and prodding him with a staff every time he faltered, was one of Elatior’s witches. The spellweaver was called Varamus and, like the rest of the Enchanter’s inner circle, he wore a long, white, ermine coat and a wooden barn owl mask that made him almost invisible in the snow. Neither Mälloch nor Sibaris had seen his face and, on the few occasions he spoke, his voice sounded oddly distant, like an echo of a voice, rather than the voice itself.

They had the unnerving feeling that they were being accompanied by a ghost.

Mälloch winced as he stumbled through the drifts. ‘I heard it from his own lips.’ He looked sadly at his great-grandson. ‘Elatior was right. I am a fool. I was blinded by my need for his skill. I did not stop to consider the importance of what he said to me.’

‘But he was drunk!’

‘He told me that his brother was murdered by Orion and that he meant to avenge him. I should not have ignored such ravings. He was drunk and half-starved but he meant what he said. I thought he was just deluded by his grief. I did not dream that he was already leading an army against us.’

Sibaris shook his head wildly. ‘He wasn’t! Why would he then join us in fighting them if he was their leader? Why would he kill our enemies if he had led them to us?’

Mälloch gasped as another pain knifed through him. ‘How can we be expected to understand the reasoning of someone who intended to kill our king?’ He glared at Sibaris. ‘The details are irrelevant, child. He had my sword. Do you understand? He took it from the dam. He destroyed the one thing that was protecting us as we were trying to flee. He destroyed a defence that was already wavering due to his assault on the Feast of the Two Branches.’

Sibaris blushed and looked away, muttering to himself. ‘I will not believe it.’

‘It remains the truth, whether you believe it or not.’

Sibaris was about to reply when Mälloch stumbled to a halt.

They had reached the lip of a precipice, looking down over a small, steep-sided gulley, hunched over a frozen stream. The ice flashed in the moonlight, like diamonds, scattered across the snow. On the far side of the gulley there was a wall of densely packed fir trees, bristling and dark.

Their sinister companion prodded Finavar up onto the ledge and then turned to face Mälloch.

‘Do you need to rest?’ Varamus’s voice rang out oddly from the wooden mask.

Mälloch shook his head. ‘No.’ He frowned. ‘I was just…’ His words faltered as he stared at the trees opposite. ‘The forest is playing tricks on us,’ he said eventually, with a shrug. Then he nodded at Sibaris and the youth began helping him down the slope.

They crossed lightly over the frozen water and climbed the opposite bank but, as they passed beneath the branches of the fir trees, Mälloch’s frown deepened.

‘When would you expect to reach the borders of the Wildwood?’ he asked looking back over his shoulder.

Varamus shrugged. ‘Another five or six miles south of the stream, depending on the time of year – and the mood of the trees.’

Mälloch nodded, still frowning, but gave no reply.

They kept heading south for another hour. They had been travelling at a painfully slow pace, due to Mälloch’s wound but, as they headed further into the trees, they found the going even slower.

The trees pressed closer in on them with every step and the firs were replaced with knotted yews, oaks and holly that had formed a near impenetrable mesh.

The shadows grew darker rather than lighter and every branch seemed to bar their way. Some of them grasped out like hands, strangely sentient for the time of year, clawing at their skin and confusing their steps.

Eventually Sibaris cried out in frustration. ‘Where are we? And where is the wretched sun?’

Mälloch climbed down into a small hollow and stopped for a moment, leaning against a tree to catch his breath. Like Sibaris, his face and arms were covered in red weals and his hair was a tangled mess.

‘We should nearly have reached the stones by now.’ He tried to look up at the stars, but the branches overhead were too closely linked. He turned back to the spellweaver. ‘What do you say, Varamus?’

The spellweaver looked down at the shifting mass of trees. ‘The borders of the Wildwood should be very near here, but…’

Mälloch nodded. ‘But we should be stood in a patch of open meadow, not this unwelcoming scrub.’

Sibaris glared up at the white-robed sorcerer. Then he looked around the hollow and spotted a wych elm that was not quite as fierce-looking as the others. He climbed up its naked branches and peered through the darkness, trying to spot a landmark.

‘Finally,’ he exclaimed, pointing through the branches. ‘Look there. There’s a patch of white. It must be one of the waystones.’

Mälloch peered through the trees and shook his head as he glimpsed the stone. ‘This cannot be.’ He looked around at the knotted thicket.

Sibaris dropped to his side and took his arm. ‘What cannot be?’

Mälloch was about to reply when he noticed that one of his legs was bound by roots. They were coiling up from the tree he was leaning against – sliding towards his waist like snakes.

He cursed and wrenched them away, almost falling in the process.

Sibaris held him steady and led him back up the slope.

Varamus watched them struggling without making any offer of help.

Sibaris lowered Mälloch to the ground beside him for a moment’s rest and glared at the spellweaver.

Varamus ignored the youth and looked down at Mälloch. ‘My master’s prophecies warned of this time.’

Mälloch looked up at him in amazement. ‘You knew?’

‘We suspected.’

‘Knew what?’ Sibaris helped his great-grandfather into a sitting position. ‘What are you talking about?’

Mälloch waved at the hollow and the forest beyond. Even the shifting plain of snow could not entirely disguise the fact that the forest was moving. Roots and boughs were snatching at the darkness like cornered beasts. The whole region was alive, despite the season. ‘The Wildwood has come to us. That which was bound has been unbound.’

Sibaris recoiled, seeing the trees in a new light. His sense of dread now made sense.

‘Then we must leave!’ He looked at the others in shock. ‘The Wildwood is death. There is no escape.’

Varamus shook his head. ‘We’re safe for now. Whatever treachery freed the spirits has only recently occurred. He jabbed his staff at the hollow. ‘This is a minor tributary compared to the vast torrent that begins past the stones. Some mischief has weakened a portion of the ancient boundary, that is all.’ He shoved Finavar forwards towards the lip of the hollow. ‘Only one of us will glimpse the full horror of the Wildwood.’

Unable to see, Finavar stumbled and fell down the side of the hollow.

Sibaris raced after him and Mälloch lurched to his feet, drew his sword and rounded on the spellweaver. ‘His punishment is stern enough. Your cruelty is needless.’

The voice from behind the mask remained calm and distant. ‘Needless were the deaths of your kin, Mälloch the Elder, when this malcontent decided to betray you. It seems strange that you would defend their killer.’

Mälloch watched Sibaris helping Finavar to his feet and scowled. ‘His fate is pitiful enough. There is no need for us to behave like outsiders.’

Varamus shrugged and began climbing down into the hollow. As he did so, roots burst from the soil, attempting to fasten themselves around his legs. He simply tapped each one with his staff and they snaked back into the ground.

‘We should hurry,’ he said. ‘Until the waystones can reclaim their captives, this is no place to linger.’

The furious expression remained on Mälloch’s face, but he nodded. ‘He’s right, Sibaris. Help me down. Lead me to the stone. We must perform the ritual and leave, or we will share Finavar’s punishment.’

Orion kicked his legs against the branches and raced across the frozen ground. Thorns scraped his flanks and trees reached out for him, but he was already away, racing through the forest on Fuath’s powerful legs and reaching the bank of a broad river. As he padded closer he saw that there was no movement beneath the ice. It was just a hard, iron-coloured slab, brooding under a lacklustre dawn.

He paused at the edge of the river, sniffing the ice suspiciously but, almost immediately, the branches were back, clawing at his hackles and latching onto his paws.

He growled and bounded onto the ice.

It held firm and, after a few falls, he managed to remain upright.

He had reached the river at a wide bend and, once he had padded out into its centre, the branches and roots were unable to follow.

Orion turned and looked back at the forest, confounded by what he had seen. He had travelled this route a thousand times, for countless centuries, but now it was impassable. There was a time when he could have described the ancestry of every yew and alder, but now they were strangers. The branches bristled under his gaze, clicking and snapping as they formed into an impenetrable, thorny mesh.

He padded from side to side, swinging his head low to the ground. Something was badly wrong. He realised that, even if he had wanted to, he could not return the way he had come. With every second that passed, the trees crushed closer together, splitting the brittle winter air with their inhuman sighs. Until now, he had blamed this strangeness on the plague, but he began to wonder if it was something else. There was an ancient anger seeping from the dark – an old hurt that had been biding its time, waiting to strike. The trees had been poisoned against him.

Orion turned his back on the wall of trees and bounded across the ice, heading for the other side of the river. His ancestors were in his every thought now, speaking to him as he went. He heard their voices on the breeze and saw their faces in the skeletal remains of leaves. ‘Find the Darkling Prince,’ they said. ‘Mend what you have broken.’

He shook Fuath’s head as he ran on, breaking back into the forest with a defiant howl.

Anger smashed against him, along with a wave of brittle limbs, but he kept his eyes locked on the horizon. Light was slipping through the boughs. Dawn was approaching and the chorus of voices in his head grew more urgent.

Finavar’s time was almost up.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Elatior rode through the trees, trembling with anticipation. Behind him, he could hear the agony of the dale as the Wilding Tree readied itself for the dawn. The earth was groaning pitifully as mile-long roots coiled and heaved in the dark, straining to be free. When Elatior left the tree he spoke one last time to the three souls bound to its spine. They had looked to be on the point of collapse, but he knew they would survive a few more hours. He knew their power better than anyone. Their minds, so warped by the nature of their task, would never have recalled their past, but Elatior had not forgotten it. They were his older brothers and, like him, they carried the dangerously potent blood of their father, Ùrlar the Enchanter. Elatior knew that if any of his brothers had proven to be a little stronger, he would now be bound to the tree.

He had a silver-capped staff in one hand and a sword in the other and he was riding his beloved stag – a proud beast by the name of Criopus that twitched as he steered it forwards, sensing its master’s eagerness for the battle ahead.

Elatior looked along the riverbank that marked the boundary of the Silvam Dale. The army massing under his banner was a glorious vision of asrai power. As each kingdom fell, the shamefaced survivors were forced to join their strength to his, so that now, as he prepared for his day of all days, Elatior the Enchanter found himself with over three thousand warriors at his command. There were spearmen and archers from every corner of the forest, clad in bloodstained leather and muttering vengeful oaths. Moving between them were the lithe, bare-skinned devotees of Loec – the shadow-dancers, with their gaudy locks and tattooed skin.

On either flank, Elatior had positioned squadrons of horsemen, each one carrying a spear and longbow as lightly as if they were on foot, rather than crouched on the back of a restless, prancing stallion. And, waiting beneath the trees, out of sight, were Prince Haldus and his hawk riders, waiting for his call.

‘These are the longest stars,’ said Asphalia. She was sat beside him, on a beautiful dapple grey stallion that shimmered like polished steel. She had a bone-handled sword in her hand but, rather than looking at the battle lines, her eyes were fixed on the heavens.

Elatior followed her gaze, understanding her meaning instantly. The two of them had pictured this victory since their youth. Every night they had stood side-by-side, scouring the constellations, searching for guidance, but this would be the last time. This would be the last night they would ever spend waiting. In less than an hour the stars would be gone and the glorious day would begin.

‘Indeed,’ he said, his voice soft with love. Asphalia saw the world more clearly than anyone he had ever met. Her every utterance filled him with pride.

She turned to face him and he saw that she was afraid.

He leant over and placed his hand on hers. ‘We must only fight until dawn. We will not need some brutish, sweaty victory, my love. Prophecy shall be our sword; foresight our shield.’

He looked back at the Wilding Tree. Daylight was still an hour away, but the hulking goliath was already sensing the awful truth – already guessing the final insult that Elatior would use to break its sanity. When dawn came, Elatior and his brothers would hold the tree’s spirit in the mortal realm. As the forest’s last few spirits faded away, leaving nothing but frozen soil and leafless boughs, the soul of the Wilding Tree would remain, sundered from the Otherworld – bound to reality by the guiles of its wardens.

Elatior shook his head in wonder. Centuries of hate would be tipped over into unimaginable rage, just as he led the enemy within reach. Then, at the crucial moment, he and his brothers would wield the ancient tree like a holy blade – crushing the heart of the enemy.

He took a deep breath and held it, trying to calm his racing pulse but it was impossible. The wards that bound him to the tree were already filling him with power. Every time the Wilding Tree creaked in pain, a burst of energy rippled through him. It was intoxicating. The forest rippled away from him like an ocean. As the visions flooded Elatior’s brain, he turned his magisterial gaze on the other side of the river. Snow-capped trees bordered the bank opposite, glittering in the moonlight as one might expect at the onset of winter, but beyond the riverbank, things were not so normal.

Clouds were billowing from the forest like the petals of enormous, gaudy flowers. The fumes were a sickly mixture of grey steam, yellow spores and glinting banks of flies. Larger shapes were humming back and forth in the haze but as the tree’s power shone through Elatior’s eyes, he found it increasingly hard to see clearly.

He lifted a hand from the stag’s back and the silver tip of his staff blazed into life. It burned like a star, throwing back the darkness and causing his guards to gasp and shield their eyes.

Asphalia laughed as she saw the display. ‘You are uncounted.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘Uncounted.’

Elatior laughed along with her and raised the staff higher. Magic flashed across the frozen surface of the river and splashed up against the trees on the far side.

Beneath the branches, a nightmare was taking shape.

For a moment, Elatior could imagine it was just another vision, summoned into being by the power of the Wilding Tree but, as his guards gasped in disgust, he could not deny the truth of it.

Hundreds of beings were emerging from the trees and spreading out along the riverbank. Elatior saw countless shapes and sizes but realised that they were all uniformly grotesque. Most of the creatures were vaguely humanoid, but they were all clad in glistening, diseased flesh and draped in flies. The clouds of insects made it hard to discern the details of the creatures’ mutations, but this only served to make the scene even more disturbing. Elatior grimaced as his light rippled over half-glimpsed outlines of coiled tusks and oozing, rotten wounds. He moved the staff from side to side and the whole mess blurred into a lurching waltz.

Captain Eremon was standing by the river at the head of Elatior’s army, his expression as stern and unforgiving as ever. He was surrounded by the survivors of Locrimere and the banner of their fallen realm snapped above his head. He had begged to lead the defence and his eyes blazed as he turned towards Elatior with a silent question.

Elatior was drunk on the growing power of the Wilding Tree. His limbs were trembling with borrowed hate. He smiled at the captain, speaking so softly that only those nearby could hear.

‘Destroy them.’

Captain Eremon gave a stiff nod and lifted a long horn of carved bone to his lips.

A deep, single note rang out through the trees and the wardancers started to howl, clanging their leaf-blade swords and screaming like beasts. The feral cry spread down the lines and was picked up by the archers and spearmen, swelling into a roar so loud that it drowned out the sound of the horn. It was as though an ocean crashed through the forest.

Elatior’s smile grew as Criopus shifted beneath him, unnerved by the force of the sound.

Then he raised his staff higher, painting his warriors silver as they flooded across the ice.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Mälloch squeezed awkwardly through the branches, cursing as they pressed against him, tearing his bearskin cloak and scraping against his skin. With a final, angry grunt he wrenched himself free and staggered into a narrow clearing.

It was no natural space. As the Wildwood grew, it crushed the trees ever closer, obscuring any trace of the ground with a mesh of roots, creating an oppressive, airless gloom. The space Mälloch had entered was a grudging concession to the ancient power at its centre – a seven foot-tall pillar of white stone, carved with runes. In several places the runes were obscured by dark, ominous-looking stains.

The trees hunkered around it were like animals waiting to pounce, but the power of the runes kept them at bay, leaving a small circle of frozen ground – just enough to accommodate Mälloch’s party. Sibaris was the second to emerge, grimacing as he fought through the last few branches and tumbled free of their grasp. He was followed a few seconds later by Varamus, who hauled the still-gagged and blindfolded Finavar behind him and threw him onto the ground next to Sibaris.

‘There isn’t much time,’ said Varamus. The other three were panting with the effort of fighting through the trees, but Varamus’s voice retained an oddly distant quality and betrayed no sign of tiredness. ‘We must carry out the sentence.’

Mälloch glared at the spellweaver, outraged by his demanding tone, but he nodded all the same. ‘Fasten him to the stone,’ he said, turning to his great-grandson.

Sibaris looked up, his face streaked with blood, and did not move.

‘Fasten him,’ said Mälloch, his voice rumbling with power.

Sibaris paled and climbed to his feet.

He helped Finavar up from the ground and led him to the white pillar. Once there, he loosened the vines that held the prisoner’s arms, unravelled the tendrils and wrapped them around the stone, fixing Finavar firmly in place with a series of intricate knots and a whispered charm.

Once he was done he gave his great-grandfather a sullen, sideways glance and stepped away.

Mälloch glanced at the surrounding trees, noticing how they strained and clicked. They sensed he was about to offer them a victim. They could already taste blood. His lip curled in disgust, but he waved the figure in white to his side.

‘Speak the words,’ he said, drawing one of his curved swords. ‘I’ll make the mark.’

Varamus nodded and stepped closer to the stone.

Finavar tried to speak, but his words were muffled by his gag.

Mälloch sensed Sibaris’s gaze, burning into the side of his face, but refused to acknowledge it. He felt nothing but pity for Finavar, but he was determined not to be a fool a second time. The wardancer must be given to the Wildwood. There was no doubt in his mind.

Varamus drew a slender strip of carved birch from his robes and began to read from it, muttering a droning chant.

Finavar thrashed his head from side to side, trying to speak again. His words were still muffled and he strained at his bonds, trying to free himself from the stone.

Mälloch raised his sword and used the tip to start carving an image into the rock. He moved the blade in time to Varamus’s words, creating a spiralling trail of leaves on the surface of the waystone.

Sibaris muttered a curse as he saw the effect.

For every word Varamus read, and for every line Mälloch carved, there was a deep, cracking sound from the surrounding trees.

Mälloch sensed shadows looming over his head as he worked, reaching up over the struggling shape of Finavar. He noticed that even the prisoner’s bonds were writhing in time to the spell, drawing blood from Finavar’s skin as they moved.

Varamus’s voice droned on without any trace of emotion, but as his gaze neared the end of the strip of birch, the ground began to shake and the cracking sounds grew louder. A cage of sharpened, quivering branches had now formed around Finavar.

As the thicket pressed against him, Finavar let out a desperate, mute howl.

Mälloch grimaced as he carved the final piece of the rune and then stepped away from the stone.

‘Wait,’ he said, turning to Varamus.

Varamus paused his recitation and turned to the noble, his expression hidden by the wooden mask. ‘There is no time for your pity,’ he said, nodding at the shuddering trees. ‘You must give him to the forest. As you said you would. There are only a few words left.’

Mälloch looked around and saw the truth of his words. As the sky shifted from black to indigo, the forest was rising up around them, flexing thorns like claws and preparing to strike. In a few seconds the trees would take their prize.

Then something else caught Mälloch’s eye – something was watching them from the darkness. As he studied the shadows he caught a glimpse of movement that did not belong to the branches – something that shimmered with an inner fire. Doubt gripped him. Things were not as they should be. All Mälloch’s long years told him that he was missing something.

He turned back to the stone and saw that Finavar was now thrashing wildly against it, trying to free his gag.

Mälloch’s skin glimmered as he turned to Varamus. ‘I will not condemn him without giving him a chance to speak.’ He tapped the tip of his sword against the white stone. ‘I believe in his sentence as much as you, but to die like this – trussed up like a mute beast, is an affront to the gods. He is a servant of Loec. He is a bard! He cannot die without a final word.’ Mälloch glanced up at the growing light. ‘Will you answer to the shadow-dancer for this?’

Varamus shrugged and began to read out the last few words. Then he hesitated and glanced into the shifting darkness, catching the same glimpse of movement that had unnerved Mälloch.

As dawn approached, Mälloch realised that he could see the spellweaver’s eyes, glinting through the slits in his mask. There was fear in them.

‘What harm can it do?’ Varamus’s voice remained neutral. ‘Whatever pleas he makes, I will complete the rite. I will not let you free him.’

‘I have no intention of freeing him,’ said Mälloch, nodding at Sibaris.

Sibaris raced to the stone and removed the vines from Finavar’s eyes and mouth.

The wardancer could do nothing for a moment but gasp and blink.

Then he fixed his wild stare on Mälloch. ‘You’re banishing the wrong person!’ His voice was hoarse from days of not speaking.

Mälloch stared coldly at him and even Sibaris looked ashamed on Finavar’s behalf. They had expected a beautiful farewell, or an eloquent plea for forgiveness, but not this.

Varamus gave a disdainful laugh and then began reading out the final words of his spell.

Each syllable dragged more talon-like shapes from the forest. They creaked ominously as they arrayed themselves around Finavar.

He strained at his bonds and kept his gaze locked on Mälloch.

‘I’ve been a fool, but I see it now!’ cried Finavar. ‘I know what I said to you, but I am not the one bringing this plague down on our people.’ His voice became shrill with emotion. ‘Ordaana is the enemy. She is behind all of this!’

Varamus faltered. There was only one symbol left to read out from the stick, but the spellweaver was too shocked by Finavar’s words to finish.

‘Lady Ordaana?’ His voice was verging on laughter. ‘Of Locrimere? Why would she betray her own people?’

Finavar kept staring at Mälloch. ‘She believes Ariel drove her to madness. She thinks Ariel and Orion caused her to murder her own daughter. She wants revenge.’

Varamus shook his head and lifted the stick, preparing to read out the final word.

‘Wait,’ said Mälloch, holding up a warning hand. As he listened to Finavar’s impassioned plea, his feeling of doubt became overwhelming. ‘Perhaps we should–?’

Varamus shook his head and started to speak the final word of his spell.

The trees drew back, widening the clearing and flooding it with pale dawn light.

A shape exploded from the undergrowth and slammed into Varamus.

Mälloch and Sibaris cried out as they saw that an enormous black hound had latched its jaws around the spellweaver’s throat.

Varamus screamed and rolled, dropping the stick to punch the hound as his robes turned crimson.

The animal remained locked at his throat, snarling and growling as it tore into his flesh.

‘Finish the rite,’ he gasped, managing to push back the hound’s head for a moment.

Mälloch was horrified but shook his head. The sight of the hound had sent his mind tumbling back through the centuries to his time with the Wild Hunt. He knew without question whose beast he was looking at. He staggered around the clearing, looking from the slavering hound, to Finavar and then at Sibaris, who was looking equally stunned.

‘Orion,’ gasped Mälloch.

Sibaris stared at him in confusion.

Mälloch levelled his sword at the hound. ‘This is a herald of Orion. This is his very spirit.’ Mälloch’s voice trembled with awe. ‘Orion is amongst us.’

Sensing that its work was done, the hound loosed its hold on Varamus’s throat and backed away, crouching before Finavar and keeping its fierce gaze locked on the others.

Varamus rolled away, clutching at his throat and gasping for breath.

Sibaris rushed to his side and helped him into a sitting position.

Varamus stared at the hound in disbelief. His voice was a ragged cough. ‘It’s protecting him.’

Mälloch nodded in wonder. ‘Orion is amongst us,’ he repeated, his words little more than a whisper. He dropped to one knee and nodded his head in a bow, glaring at Sibaris until he did the same.

Finavar saw that he had been saved and slumped in his bonds, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

Varamus crawled next to Mälloch and Sibaris and attempted to bow, keeping a hand at his throat to stifle the blood.

For a moment the only sound was heavy breathing and the creak of the trees, then the hound snarled and leapt straight for Mälloch and the others, letting out a rattling snarl.

They cowered, then realised, as the animal raced past, that they were not its prey.

Mälloch turned and saw, for the briefest second, the faint glimmer of light he had glimpsed earlier. It was a spirit of some kind – a jumble of stick-like limbs, no more than knee-high, shimmering with magic and topped with an elongated, skull-like head.

The hound smashed into the odd little figure, but not before the spirit had lifted Varamus’s stick from the ground and read out the final word of the spell.

The hound snarled again as it tore the stick figure apart.

Mälloch and the others could not hear the animal’s rage, however.

As soon as the spirit uttered the final word of the charm, the Wildwood took its prize.

The trees looming over the stone launched a tide of sharpened branches at the white rock.

Finavar’s eyes widened in fear but, before he could even scream, the trees sliced into him.

To Mälloch and the others, it looked as though a tornado had entered the clearing.

There was deafening explosion of roots, leaves and branches.

After a few moments the turmoil ceased and Mälloch tumbled across the hard earth, coming to a halt a few feet from the waystone.

Finavar was gone. The whole rock was red with his blood.

Mälloch groaned and staggered closer. Finavar’s bonds were hanging loosely from the stone, along with several large pieces of his skin.

Beyond the stone the forest was a boiling mass of movement. Mälloch stepped closer but fronds lashed out at him, slicing into his skin like razors.

‘Keep back!’ cried Sibaris, dragging the noble back from the tumult. ‘There is no return from the Wildwood!’

Mälloch allowed the youth to steer him away from the thrashing trees and then dropped to the ground, shaking his head. Then he looked around in confusion.

‘The hound!’ he exclaimed, but all he saw was Varamus, lying still in a pool of blood, obviously dead.

Sibaris was staring into the roiling mass of shadows beyond the stone. ‘It followed him.’ His voice sounded hollow. ‘The hound went into the Wildwood.’

Mälloch stared at Sibaris. Then he sat down heavily and pressed his palms into his eyes.

‘Then they both died.’

Sibaris helped him from the ground and they saw that dawn was breaking over the forest. The trees surged and rolled like waves but, rather than crushing Mälloch and Sibaris, they flooded around the stone, heading away from them.

Sibaris saw a chance and raced back the way they had come, half carrying his great-grandfather.

As they scrambled through the undergrowth, they heard a long, agonised scream.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Captain Eremon reached the opposite bank of the river. Rage had driven him into a sprint and he was the first to see the enemy close up. He showed no trace of emotion as he met a wall of pockmarked flesh, coiled in rags of yellow cloud, but his soul was burning. He could hear Locrimere’s dead, howling for revenge at the back of his mind. He hesitated for a second, savouring the moment, then he let his sword arm fall, and fall again, hacking pallid limbs from hunched, fly-shrouded bodies.

The daemon host shuffled towards him, a grey-green tide of filth that would have quickly overwhelmed him, but, seconds later, the rest of the asrai crashed into them. There was a wet crunch as spears and swords struck home and Eremon grunted in satisfaction, hacking a head clean from its shoulders and kicking it back across the frozen river. The body toppled to the ground and Eremon turned to face the figure that was cowering in his wake. Lord Beldeas was wide-eyed with fear and his mean little features cringed beneath his pale expanse of forehead. He had replaced his emerald robes with thick plates of leather armour and the weight of it was clearly too much for him. He was struggling to move with the natural grace of his kind. It was only terror that had enabled him to match the speed of his captain.

‘We must hold the other side of the river!’ he gasped, clutching at Eremon’s shoulder and trying to drag him back the way they had come. ‘What madness drove you to charge? The Enchanter’s order was for the archers to fire – not that we advance.’

Eremon ignored his lord and gestured to the headless corpse at his feet. ‘They can be stopped!’ He lifted his voice over the din. ‘Behead them! Behead them and they will fall!’

The archers waiting on the dale side of the river chose that moment to loose their shots and the air grew dark.

Ranks of grotesque shapes stumbled and fell as the arrows found their mark and Eremon’s foot soldiers pressed forwards.

The Enchanter’s light pulsed through the gloom as more asrai joined the fight. The light flashed across lithe, tattooed flesh as the dancers of Loec waltzed into the battle, howling wild oaths as they advanced; tumbling through the other asrai like smoke and slicing into the enemy. They moved with such speed and grace that they seemed to fly, springing from head to head, whirling and singing as they carved the daemons apart. Eremon caught brief glimpses of their painted faces and gave another bark of satisfaction.

Eremon’s pride grew as whole lines of daemons fell to the ground, skewered by spears, bristling with arrows or hacked apart by the dancers’ blades. Then he glanced at the frail figure staggering after him. He sneered as he saw Beldeas trying to cower behind his own men, clutching his sword before him like a shield.

Eremon pressed on, chopping and lunging, dodging claws and battered iron. Flies and stench pressed against him and he thanked the gods for the strip of cloth wrapped around his face. For a while, his momentum carried him on a wave of blind fury but, as he started to slow down, stalled by the crush of rotten bodies, he saw more clearly what he was fighting. Bloated, pus-smeared faces leered at him from the carnage, studded with rolling, single eyes full of wry amusement. As he shouldered, stabbed and punched, he saw flies as big as dogs hurtling towards him, trailing cruel barbs and wielding serrated mandibles. The insects clicked and clacked as they attempted to latch onto him but he was too fast.

He kicked one fly to the ground, ducked beneath another and then plunged his sword, two-handed, into a third. Vivid, yellow blood spurted from the wound and he rolled aside before it could touch his flesh

Behind him, Lord Beldeas screeched, barely managing to dodge the spray.

Eremon faltered and the ranks of spearmen and wardancers caught up with him, crashing into the daemons, still singing as they came to a stop, halted by the mass of bodies.

Eremon was vaguely aware that he was no longer alone, but he was finding it hard to keep a grip on reality. The faces that surrounded him had become of a confusing blur of human, amphibian and insect. Some of the flies whirring overhead were enormous and, as Eremon struggled to press forwards, he saw that the whole army was protecting a core of enormous, blind grubs, digging up the forest floor and making a channel for the river. As the vast, slug-like monsters churned up the ground, hissing yellow liquid poured straight towards the Wilding Tree.

The daemons’ faces filled his thoughts and his head swam with images of bloated, diseased skin, puckered around mindless, yellow eyes. The thought of such creatures, oozing through his beloved forest was horrific. What had they destroyed to reach this far? What had they already ruined? As the river progressed it threw up teetering, fungal growths, clad in a sickening mixture of gaudy colours. The forest was ready to adopt its winter guise but the daemons were denying it – painting it instead in a revolting array of carnival colours.

Eremon clenched his jaw and plunged on, conscious that his soldiers’ eyes were upon him.

The other asrai swarmed after him and he began to make progress again, forcing the enemy back towards their precious grubs.

Then he stumbled to a halt and his sword dropped, forgotten against his leg.

Spearmen rushed to his side, defending him as he stared in shock.

At the head of the yellow river was a giant. The thing was similar in shape to the other daemons – skinny, ridiculous limbs, a vast gut and a single eye, but its head was crowned by three great tusks, one of which was topped by a swinging, brass bell. It was not the size of the thing that made Eremon pause, however, it was its stance. The giant daemon was standing stock-still with its scalloped, black sword pointing directly at Eremon. As the battle raged around it, the daemon had stopped to single Eremon out from the general carnage. Its eye was locked on him and its sagging mouth was quivering with laughter.

Beldeas followed Eremon’s gaze and saw the giant. He shook his head. ‘This is too much,’ he said, turning to leave. ‘We must return to the dale. This is madness.’

Eremon’s face drained of colour, but he latched a hand over Beldeas’s shoulder and dragged him back.

‘We must kill it,’ he said.

Daemons were pouring towards them from every direction but, as Eremon and Beldeas talked, a circle of kneeling spearmen had formed around them, protecting them from the gibbering mass.

‘We must stop that horror,’ said Eremon, glaring at Beldeas, ‘My lord.’

Beldeas scowled back at Eremon, but before he could reply, Eremon shoved him back into the fray and followed quickly after him.

Prince Elatior rode to the riverbank. Dawn had not yet arrived, but he could see Eremon quite clearly on the far side, lit up by the silver glow that was still pouring from his staff. The captain was hacking through the enemy lines, leading a spearhead of asrai up from the river and heading for the trees.

‘What is he doing?’ he asked in quiet, controlled tones.

He was surrounded by ranks of white-masked faces, but they gave no reply.

Princess Asphalia nodded. ‘His form is blurred by his pride. He has become your blade.’

Elatior nodded and replied in the same stiff voice. ‘But he is leading them away from me.’

One of the spellweavers spoke up. ‘Perhaps you should follow, my lord? You could destroy the enemy at Eremon’s side. Victory here, or victory there; what does it matter?’

Elatior turned his head very slowly, feeling as though a sudden movement would unleash something beyond his control. The rage of the tree was crashing through him. The others could see nothing unusual about his appearance, but he felt as though he were a sacred vessel, straining to hold a tempest. Even moving slowly gave him the odd sensation that the world was on the edge of collapse, like a cheaply made theatre set caught in a storm. It was wonderful. Beyond wonderful. He felt like a god. He wondered, actually, if he might not even be a god. And it was still not even dawn. When the Wilding Tree saw the true agony of its situation, the power and the fury would triple. He shivered with pleasure as he considered what it would feel like.

He glared at the masked spellweaver and started to speak. ‘My power is linked to the tree. If I stray from its roots–’

He stopped speaking as he saw the result of his stare – the spellweaver had gone into a spasm. As Elatior’s eyes passed over him, the mage’s bones cracked and popped out of their sockets, as though an invisible giant were rolling them between its finger and thumb.

It was dreadful to watch but Elatior could not tear his eyes away, and the more he stared, the more the spellweaver buckled and snapped.

The spellweaver tried to defend himself, grasping at the air and wrenching shoots from the earth, trying to launch them at Elatior, but it was no use. Crimson blossomed across his white robes as his body ruptured and split. A pitiful choking sound came from behind his mask.

The other spellweavers backed away in horror as he dropped, lifeless, to the ground.

Only Asphalia looked unconcerned. She nodded calmly. ‘Fate is gathering its own.’

Elatior closed his eyes and tried to steady himself. He had no desire to destroy his own witches. When he opened his eyes again, he kept his gaze neutral and did his best to suppress the currents surging through his mind. To his relief, he was able to look at the cowering mages without killing any more of them.

‘Make sure Eremon is not too successful,’ he said, regaining his soft voice. ‘The battle must end here, with me.’

The spellweavers nodded eagerly and hurried across the river.

Elatior stroked the neck of his stag and looked out at the battle. ‘I asked him to hold the river, not drive them away from me.’

Asphalia nodded to a lumbering, colossal shape, wading through the banks of flies towards Eremon. ‘The captain is approaching his final shore.’

Prince Haldus steered Nuin high above the clouds and the warhawk let out a piercing shriek. Far from the battle below they saw the edge of the dawn, simmering on the horizon. The light was already creeping through the leafless trees and flashing across frozen pools. Soon it would flood the groves of the Silvam Dale and banish the final shreds of autumn. Haldus muttered under his breath, annoyed that he had waited so long to launch his attack.

Nuin reached the zenith of her climb and rested on a thermal, allowing the air to hold her for a second, far from the frozen earth below. Haldus took a moment to look around. They were flanked by dozens of similar birds, all hovering as they waited to see his next move; all carrying riders of their own that could have been mistaken for the prince, with their tanned, weather-beaten skin and their trailing branch-like headgear, but Haldus’s grim scowl was unmistakable, made even more fierce by the spiralling designs he had gouged into his own face.

He hopped lightly onto his feet, feeling Nuin’s muscles shift beneath him as he crouched in readiness for her dive. He drew his bow and nocked an arrow into place, then turned to the other riders.

‘Whatever the Enchanter has planned, the forest will thank us for ending the lives of those winged monstrosities.’

Then he gave Nuin a gentle tap with his foot and clutched onto her feathers as she dived back down through the clouds. Wind screamed through his headgear and filled his eyes with tears, but as they plummeted towards the trees he saw the battle open up before him. Captain Eremon was turning a defence into an offence. He had already pushed the daemons back from the river and was now driving them back into the trees. The daemons had tried to spread their attack wider, but they had been met by squadrons of riders who were now thundering from the dale. Asrai had been pouring into the Silvam Dale for weeks and Eremon had a vast force behind him. The riders were one with their steeds, moving with seamless, fluid grace as they launched a volley of arrows into the huddled mass of the daemons.

Haldus felt a moment’s doubt as he recalled Elatior’s plan. He knew that the idea was to let the daemons reach the Wilding Tree and then turn its wrath against them and he could see quite clearly that Eremon was seeking his own glorious victory.

Haldus’s doubt was short-lived. As Nuin hurled him towards the earth, his limbs filled with vigour and his heart began to pound. This was what he lived for and everything else fell away.

As they neared the ground, Prince Haldus saw their target – enormous, armoured flies, carrying daemons through the air and attacking Eremon’s vanguard with cruel-looking barbs.

He gave Nuin a gentle nudge and she changed her direction, aiming her beak at one of the flying monsters.

Haldus was nearly thrown from his mount as it collided with its prey, but he managed to retain his balance and loose a few arrows into the creature’s thick hide before Nuin pounded her wings and launched them back up towards the clouds.

Haldus cursed as he looked back. The armoured fly showed no sign that it had registered the arrows.

He looked around and saw that the other hawk riders were having just the same problem. They were looping around the enemy mounts, launching arrows as they went, but the daemonic creatures were oblivious to their wounds.

Even worse, one of the flying creatures had latched onto a hawk with its mandibles and the two creatures, along with their grappling riders, were now plunging towards the battle below.

Haldus steered Nuin back into another dive.

She speared through the air, pursuing the wounded hawk and Haldus shot arrow after arrow as they fell.

Nuin’s speed was incredible and they were soon gaining on the falling bird, but the ground was hurtling up to meet them.

However many arrows Haldus fired, they seemed to have no effect so, at the last minute, just as they were about to hit the ground, he drew a sword and sliced the monster’s head from its abdomen.

The headless insect finally loosed its grip but it was too late. Haldus and Nuin screamed to safety, but the other hawk slammed into the forest floor, killing several combatants, as well as itself and its rider.

Haldus howled in frustration as Nuin flew him to safety, but the other riders redoubled their war cries as they saw the headless monster smash to the ground. They knew, now, what to do and they set about it with a wild fervour.

Hawks flew in from countless directions, slamming into the winged monsters and allowing hawk riders to hack away their heads.

For a while Haldus and Nuin lost themselves to the frenzy of killing. Then, after rising above the clouds and seeing the approaching dawn for a second time, Haldus recalled Elatior’s plan and saw that it was in danger of going disastrously wrong. The enemy was being driven away from the Enchanter and his tree, rather than towards them.

Prince Haldus quashed his bloodlust for a moment as Nuin flew back down through the clouds. Rather than seeking out another target, he looked for a sign of Eremon. He knew that the asrai would follow him without question. The captain needed to lead the others back.

For a moment he could not make Eremon out in the general scrum of monsters, then, when he finally spotted him, Prince Haldus cried out in shock.

The sky was turning grey as Eremon ducked and weaved through the enemy ranks. Dawn had almost come. Tusks, swords and claws lashed out at him as he ran, but he could not be stopped – not now he had seen his destiny. The giant daemon still had its sword levelled at him and a space had formed around it as the lesser daemons backed away, leaving a patch of exposed earth, hissing and steaming as the river of bile rolled closer.

Eremon glanced back and saw that the other children of Locrimere were following in his wake – pressing ahead of the other asrai and revelling in every head they took. He grunted to himself. This was it. If they saw him, now, defeating the most fearsome of the monsters, as Lord Beldeas cowered pathetically behind him, his claim would be secure. They would demand that he rule them.

Eremon’s dreams swirled around him as he hacked towards the giant. He would found a new Locrimere, greater than the first, and rule it in the way it was always meant to be ruled – with all the pride and vision of their ancestors. He would plant stands of silver birch, then bind them with ancient charms until they formed living, silver towers that reached for the clouds; glittering sceptres born of the earth’s–

Air exploded from Eremon’s lungs as something tripped him and sent him crashing to the ground.

‘What are you doing?’ howled Lord Beldeas, his eyes rolling. ‘We must return to the river!’ He paused to fend off a blow as daemons crowded around them.

Eremon clambered to his feet, cursing as his dreams scattered into the crush of bodies. He stepped to Beldeas’s side and parried a blow aimed at his head, before decapitating the attacker with a fierce backhanded swipe.

Eremon and Beldeas both staggered backwards, dodging more blows as they went.

As they reeled away from their attackers, their kinsmen arrived, meeting the enemy with a row of spear tips and giving Eremon a second chance to address his lord.

‘I will have its head!’ he barked, jabbing his sword at the giant. He lifted his voice above the clamour so that all could hear. ‘I will lead us to victory, Beldeas, if you will not.’

Beldeas’s face flushed with colour, but before he could reply, Eremon leapt back into the fray, shouldered his way through the enemy and burst into the clearing around the giant daemon.

He stumbled as he approached it, met by a wall of foetid stink and clouds of whirring flies. He waved his sword, trying to clear the air, but it was useless – the more he moved, the more he agitated the noisome atmosphere.

Behind him, the din of the battle rose to a new pitch, as the spearmen and dancers tried to break into the clearing. The tallymen held firm and Eremon realised he had been drawn into the heart of the daemons’ army. The ground beneath him was spitting and hissing and the whole scene lit up in a furious, yellow glare as the river advanced.

From out of this dazzling, swirling miasma, came the giant, drawing back its sword to strike and causing its brass bell to ring out again.

The sound of the bell hit Eremon with almost as much force as the sword blow that followed it. He was still reeling from the harsh sound when the daemon’s shard of black metal connected with his own sword.

He managed to parry the blow, but the force of it reverberated through his arms and sent him flying back through the air. He landed on the trembling earth with a howl.

The daemon loomed over him, still grinning, and drove its sword at Eremon’s face, hammering the weapon down towards him in a two-handed blow.

Eremon rolled aside, but he was too slow and the weapon caught his shoulder, slicing through muscle and pinning him to the ground.

Eremon’s blood flew across the earth, mingling with the yellow acid that was pooling around him.

He cried out again, and this time it was a wild, furious sound as he wrenched himself free, leaving behind a large hunk of flesh.

Eremon staggered drunkenly around the clearing, his left arm flapping uselessly at his side. As the daemon lurched after him, laughing, Eremon shook his head, trying to clear his head as pain, flies and fumes pressed in on him.

The other asrai redoubled their efforts to reach him, throwing themselves against the wall of rotting flesh, but it was no use – hundreds more of the monsters were flooding out to do battle, some still wearing shreds of asrai armour.

The giant daemon surprised Eremon by suddenly changing direction. It had been lurching with slow deliberation, but now it rocked back on its heel and brought its sword down towards him in a fast, backhanded swipe.

Eremon’s shoulder was a needlepoint of pain and he found, despite all the lunacy that surrounded him, that his dreams were suddenly more vivid than ever. As the blade whistled towards him, slicing through the yellow clouds of spores and flies, he pictured the white towers of his new Locrimere. He saw Beldeas and the others kneeling before him as a spiralling, ivory crown was placed on his brow. Visions and pain combined in his head, revealing the battle in vivid, blazing detail and ridding him of his doubt. He dodged the daemon’s blow with ease and the huge blade sliced uselessly into the ground, causing the monster to stagger past him and fall to its knees.

Eremon harnessed his momentum and rolled back towards his foe, plunging his blade into its throat.

The bell clanged again as the daemon tried to snap its head back to avoid Eremon’s sword.

Eremon was too fast.

His sword cut through Bule’s blue-grey skin and a nest of severed arteries flopped from the wound.

The daemon gurgled laughter as it climbed to its feet and rounded on him, spraying gore and profanities as it clutched its torn throat.

Eremon whirled around to face the asrai, holding his bloody sword aloft.

They roared in approval and pressed harder against the ranks of daemons, who began staggering backwards under their weight.

At the same moment, the river of bile began bubbling and steaming even more violently. Great geysers of acid arced up from its surface and scalding steam rolled over the combatants.

Eremon faltered for a moment and lowered his sword, peering into the tumult. The river was spreading quickly across the ground towards him and he could see the vast grubs that were driving it onwards, but there was something else – something was stirring in the depths.

He saw movement to his left and recalled his opponent just in time.

Bule’s wound was not enough to halt it. The daemon had one hand clasped around its throat, but the other was bringing its sword down towards Eremon’s face.

Buoyed by the cheers of the asrai, Eremon danced lightly out of harm’s way and drove his own blade deep into the daemon’s thigh.

Bule laughed again but, as Eremon yanked his blade to one side, splitting muscle and bone, the daemon’s leg folded beneath it and it crashed to the ground.

The bell rolled free, clattering across the ground and vanishing into the battle.

Bule’s drooping grin finally vanished and it moaned in fear as the bell tumbled away from its outstretched fingers.

As the daemon struggled to its knees Eremon appeared at its side. His expression was as severe as ever, but there was a strange light in his eyes as he glanced back at his kindred and brought his sword down through the daemon’s neck.

The asrai howled as Bule’s head came free and bounced across the ground towards them.

The giant body collapsed immediately, crashing to the ground at Eremon’s feet.

Eremon closed his eyes for a split second, savouring the moment, then wrenched his sword from the earth and staggered back towards his army.

To his dismay, he saw that he had misunderstood their cries. They were not howling victoriously, but in horror. They were staring past him at the river.

He turned around.

The bile had erupted, revealing a hulk of glistening, white, slug-like flesh.

Eremon shook his head in mute denial, unable to quite comprehend what he was looking at. Its flesh was translucent, rubbery and crawling with mites and, where its face should be, there was a mound of thrashing tentacles. As it rose from the bile, Eremon was reminded of something else – the monster moved with all the gleeful enthusiasm of a hound, bounding along to meet its master.

Eremon took a deep breath and clutched his sword tighter. He saw immediately that he could not defeat it, but he refused to back down – not with the eyes of Locrimere on him. He stepped boldly forwards, striding through the steam, smoke and screams; preparing to face death with all the dignity he could muster.

Shapes rushed by overhead, tearing open the clouds of flies and revealing a brief glimpse of the sky. Eremon stumbled, buffeted by the beating of powerful wings. Hope flooded his veins as he saw dozens of warhawk riders led by Prince Haldus, diving straight towards the monstrous being.

One by one they hurtled between the grasping tentacles, giving their riders the chance to launch arrows into the creature’s face.

The daemon showed no fear, or anger for that matter. Instead, it looked oddly excited by the newcomers and reached out to touch them.

One of the hawks was already carrying a wound and it lacked the speed of the others. The daemon’s limb brushed against its wing, sending the bird spinning off into the trees and Eremon saw it crash to the ground, crushing its rider as it did so.

The daemon rippled and surged onto the riverbank, panting and grasping at the airborne shapes.

Haldus and the others crossed the sky in a wide, graceful arc and then looped down through the clouds, making for the daemon’s face again.

They were intercepted by three of the armoured fly-like creatures that swooped into view and slammed into them.

Eremon shook his head as he took in the scene. It was like a fireside tale sprung to life. Monsters and daemons were everywhere, battling in the heavens and along the whole length of the dale. The asrai were surrounded on all sides. They had plunged deep into the enemy ranks but, as the casualties grew, so did the number of daemons, until the wardancers and spearmen became an island of sanity, stranded in an ocean of madness.

As flies and steam swirled around him, Eremon finally registered the true pain of his wound. His arm was almost completely severed and his armour was sodden with blood. His head grew light as the storm raged around him, but he staggered on towards the monster, dragging his sword behind him.

The lump of white flesh hurried eagerly towards him, but it was still thirty feet away when Eremon heard a thud to his left and paused.

Nuin’s gaze was unreadable but Haldus’s mask of scars could no longer hide his alarm.

‘You need to lead them back to the river!’ he cried, fending off attacks as he raced towards Eremon.

Eremon could not believe that victory had eluded him; that his dreams had been stolen from him.

‘You must!’ cried Haldus, dragging him back towards Nuin. ‘They’ll all die.’

Eremon looked back at his dying kinsmen and knew Haldus was right. He was about to accept defeat when Haldus gasped and loosed his grip.

‘Your shoulder!’ he cried, making the sign of Kurnous and backing away.

Eremon frowned and looked at his wound. Where the giant’s sword had cut him there was now a forest of pale, worm-like tentacles, sprouting from his exposed flesh. They were writhing like snakes and, where they had erupted from his skin, his limb was starting to change shape, twisting into a withered mockery of an arm. The skin was already dying and rolling back from his tendons.

Eremon’s head rocked back on his shoulders and he laughed. ‘And now I am damned!’

Prince Haldus stepped back and raised his bow, nocking an arrow into place.

Eremon looked back at him and the expression on his face was one of relief. He looked around at the battle with a strange glazed stare. ‘I have reaped my reward.’

Prince Haldus frowned, but kept his arrow trained on Eremon.

Eremon shook his head. ‘I’m not mad, Haldus. Perhaps I was, but now I see what a fool I’ve been.’ He was about to say more, but the fighting surged closer and he simply gave another laugh, waving Haldus back to his mount. ‘Take this,’ he said, unfastening his horn and throwing it to the prince. ‘Lead them back. They need you. They will follow you.’

Prince Haldus looked dazed and was about to speak again when Eremon wiped the gore from his face and strode away, heading towards the blazing yellow glare of the river and the mountain of white flesh.

Screams erupted from overhead as the monster caught another one of the hawks. It grasped it and turned it gleefully around in its tentacles. As the rider was crushed by the daemon’s writhing limbs, Prince Haldus leapt back onto Nuin and the bird launched back into the air.

Eremon picked up his pace as he neared the monster, breaking into a sprint as his feet broke the surface of the river. He could feel the acid eating into his flesh.

New visions filled his mind – a mindless, gaudy lunacy that threatened to overwhelm him, but he kept true to his purpose, raising his sword as he neared the towering beast.

He nodded as he heard his horn in the distance, blaring out across the battle, summoning the army back towards the river and the Wilding Tree, but he knew now that there was no return for him. His dreams had been proved lies. His pride had been misplaced. As his mind slipped into madness that one truth remained.

He reached the monster and it greeted him with grasping, coiling limbs.

Eremon found what he was seeking – the thing’s eyes. They were glinting, black beads, like the eyes of a crustacean, but he sensed delight in their featureless depths.

As he ran his head began to mutate, sprouting new growth from the centre of his forehead and flooding his mind with pain, but still he raced on, launching himself through the air with a final, bitter oath.

He collided with the monster like a stone hitting a pool.

Flesh rippled and burst around him and he vanished from view.

Dawn came, bringing the light of three suns. The first rose above the treetops, flooding the battlefield with cold, merciless light. It revealed a bright plain of mutated, twitching corpses and limbs. It made a silhouette of Eremon’s butchered army as they struggled back towards the Silvam Dale, trying desperately to regain the river as Prince Haldus swooped overhead, summoning them home with the lonely cry of Eremon’s war horn.

The other two suns were the eyes of Prince Elatior. White light was pouring from beneath his brow, lancing from his head with such power that his own guards had dropped to their knees and shielded their faces.

As Criopus bucked and pranced beneath him, Elatior leant back and extended his arms, shaking with the force of the power tearing through his body. Winter had come and the Wilding Tree had found its soul bound to the mortal realm. Its fury was beyond anything Elatior could have prayed for. And, thanks to the sacrifice of his brothers, every ounce of it was being channelled through him.

He looked down across the battle and could not distinguish asrai from daemon – they were mites, all of them, crawling in the shadow of his godhood. With a single thought he lifted Criopus from the ground, surrounding them both in a nimbus of blinding winter sunlight. As they passed over the corpse-crowded river he raised his staff and allowed a tiny portion of the Wilding Tree’s pain to leak from its silver cap. It threw back his arm and the whole valley shook with the power of this thought. Great fissures opened up along the length of the river and the same glare that was pouring from his flesh exploded from the earth. Daemons and asrai tumbled into chasms of blinding light and there was a grinding, rolling crash that sounded like thunder, trapped beneath the earth.

The world shifted and rolled. Trees were uprooted and vast shards of rock speared into the air as Elatior began to sing. It was the voice of death and ruin. It was the voice of the Wilding Tree, railing against its imprisonment and all the long years of torture Elatior had inflicted on it. Every rhyme drew more terrible light from the ground and sent more of the combatants tumbling from view. Asrai and daemons fell from the world and still Elatior sang, riding his blazing stag higher and singing ever louder until his voice drowned out the sound of the earthquakes, booming from the trees and sky and shaking the bones of the warriors below.

The three suns blazed brighter as the song grew louder and great swathes of the daemon army were destroyed. The white horror at its heart thrashed desperately around, clutching on to tumbling rocks and upturned roots.

Warhawks circled around the inferno that was Elatior, like heavenly bodies trapped in his pull. Some flew too close and erupted into flames, others were sent spinning to the ground by the force of his song.

Elatior steered Criopus towards the monster in the river. This lump of white flesh was the true enemy. All he needed to do was pour the tree’s malevolence against it and the battle would be over. He sensed it as clearly as he could hear the thoughts of every soul toiling below him. The pain of the Wilding Tree had given him sight beyond sight. He had rehearsed this moment a thousand times.

He drew back his staff and prepared to deliver the killing blow.

Then the light fell from his eyes and Criopus began to fall.

All along the length of the river, the grinding sound ceased and the earth became still.

For a moment, Elatior was unable to believe what he was feeling. His mind had grown as dim as his eyes. The visions and voices that had filled his thoughts were fading, like the echo of his song.

Panic gripped him as the stag plummeted towards the ground. He used every ounce of his failing power to steer his mount to the earth, landing behind the river on the borders of the dale.

The ground was a churned mess of troughs and craters, but he managed to guide Criopus down without harm. To his horror, he found that the tree’s fury had entirely left him. It had drained to a trickle and then ceased. He looked down at his limbs and shook his head in disbelief. He was mortal once more.

He howled and rode back through the trees, galloping over the corpses and splintered roots as the sun rose behind him.

The daemons climbed slowly to their feet and renewed their butchery as though nothing had happened, hacking and gouging their way through the remnants of the asrai army.

Criopus thundered through the trees, passing down avenues that had been twisted into strange, nightmarish angles by Elatior’s wrath. He continued howling as he neared the Wilding Tree, sensing that the bond between him and his prisoner had been irrevocably cut. The tree was thrashing and tearing at the ground, wrenching up huge tracts of soil, but he could feel no trace of its anger in his mind. After all his years of patient, painful sorcery, the tree was no longer his to wield.

‘What is this?’ he gasped as he rode towards the vast, writhing tree.

Rather than dismounting he simply drove Criopus on towards one of the pitch-dark openings between the tree’s roots and plunged them both into shadow.

Coiled, black violence enveloped him. The tree’s rage had made a whirling maelstrom beneath the forest floor. Criopus tumbled and rolled and eventually Elatior was pulled from the animal’s back and they were separated.

‘How can this be?’ he cried. The tree was completely beyond his control. It hurled him around like a rag doll, smashing him against soaring roots and knocking his staff from his grip.

Finally, after several terrifying moments, Elatior slammed down against cold, hard ground.

After the deafening chaos of the battle and his fall, he suddenly found himself lying, face-down, in silence. He watched an earthworm, writhing a few inches from his face and felt as though he had no more power than it did.

He realised there was a pale light coming from somewhere up ahead, so he climbed, painfully, to his feet.

Towering columns of root surrounded him. He was back in the Tourmaline Hall. It was empty, of course  – his people were all busy elsewhere, dying.

The hall was not totally silent, though. The place was humming slightly; a low rumble, just within earshot. Little clods of soil were landing on the ground and the skin on his face was quivering, like the surface of a windswept pool.

A figure dashed by, moving through the shadows near the hall’s central column.

‘Wait!’ he growled.

There was no reply but the figure froze near one of the archways that led back up to the forest. Whoever it was, they were standing stock-still, but he could still see the faint, slender outline of an asrai.

He staggered towards the centre of the hall, wincing as he went. The fall had done him serious harm, but he ignored the pain and picked up his pace, determined to know who was watching him.

As he passed the column, Prince Elatior let out a strange whining sound, like an injured animal. He saw why the tree’s power had escaped him. His brothers were still hanging from the column of root where he had left them, but their throats had been slit. Their heads were hanging down and their chests were dark with quick-flowing blood.

He rushed forwards and clawed at their lifeless bodies, trying to wake them. He pounded their chests and howled. Then he reeled away, clutching his head in his hands. The binding had been undone. After all these centuries of sacrifice, his work had come to nothing. The Wilding Tree was free.

The figure in the doorway spoke up. ‘I never meant to pit myself against you,’ said a crisp, female voice.

Elatior’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Ordaana?’

The tree shifted more violently beneath his feet, but the prince did not care. He staggered towards Ordaana, seeing her more clearly as he did so.

She was standing at the foot of a staircase holding a long, silver knife. It was glittering with blood.

‘The river must reach its destination. Nothing can be allowed to stop it. I will have my revenge.’ She looked at him with a furious expression. ‘And I will not allow you to harm my child.’

Elatior’s rage exploded out of him in another incoherent roar. He tried to step towards her, but found he could not.

‘I’m afraid I’m not the only one seeking revenge.’ She glanced up into the vaulted darkness.

Elatior followed her gaze and saw that the hall was shifting and rolling, assuming a new shape. He looked down and saw that his feet and calves were tightly bound by roots.

Ordaana nodded and backed away from him. Then she turned and sprinted up the staircase, vanishing from view.

Elatior howled again, dropping into a crouch so that he could claw at the roots holding him in place.

The low rumble grew louder, turning into the same thunderous song that had previously spilled from Elatior’s lips. The words that had elated him then, now filled him with dread. They were laced with venom. As the melody swelled louder the walls of the chamber began closing in.

In the fading light Elatior saw a face, rising up towards him from the shadows.

His pride fell away and he began to plead.

Nuin swooped low over the river as Prince Haldus lowered his horn. ‘Abandon the dale!’ he howled. ‘We cannot hold them!’

From his vantage point in the clouds, the prince could see what the wardancers and archers could not. The daemons were pouring from the trees in unimaginable numbers. The battle was lost.

As he skimmed over the heads of the asrai, he snatched an archer up onto Nuin’s back, then waved at his fellow hawk riders, signalling for them to do the same.

‘Withdraw!’ he howled, then he blew the horn again.

Eremon was right. Haldus’s cries were lost in the tumult, but the sound of the horn cut through and, with every blast, more of the asrai abandoned the defence. The god-like power that had been leading them to victory had vanished. There was no sign of the Enchanter.

Once he was sure that the retreat had begun, Haldus steered his mount back into the Silvam Dale, scouring the frozen glades for a sign of Prince Elatior. ‘What happened?’ he snarled, furious at the loss of so many asrai.

As Nuin tore through the air, heading towards the hulking mass of the Wilding Tree, Haldus had his answer.

The tree had uprooted itself and was crashing through the forest towards him. Magic was crackling along its branches and a great, jagged maw had opened up in its trunk, lined with long, splinters of bark. It was not the mouth that shocked Prince Haldus, however, it was the strange mannequin bobbing in the uppermost branches.

A corpse had been torn into six parts – head, torso and limbs – and the Wilding Tree was waving the pieces of flesh around as it approached the battle, shaking the body in such a way that it appeared to be performing a ridiculous dance.

‘Elatior,’ gasped Haldus as Nuin flew him past the jiggling remains.

The prince’s magnificent face was unmistakable, even when drained of blood and separated from its body.

The tree lashed out at Nuin and the bird barely escaped capture, soaring up into the clouds and forcing its passengers to clutch desperately at its feathers.

As he flew back over the slaughter, Haldus took a knife from his belt and gouged another rune into his brow, cursing the arrogance of his kin. His eyes filled with blood and the world turned crimson. As the retreat became a rout, Haldus wondered what hope they had left.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The rite had lasted for what seemed like an eternity when, finally, Atolmis stepped beneath the branches of the Sorrow Tree. It was midnight, as it always was, and the ancient oak was at peace. The rite had left the ground drenched with blood and as Atolmis approached the trunk his feet made a wet popping sound, pulling and releasing the sodden turf. He kept his gaze locked on the ground, terrified that he might glimpse one of his masters. Their judgement was made but he knew they were watching him patiently from the shadows – the Lords of the Wild Hunt, one for every year of Ariel’s reign. They were emanating so much power that he could feel it crackling through the air and tingling across his skin, like the precursor to a storm.

As he reached the trunk he saw the outline of a body, trapped in the glistening bark. It was quivering and muttering and its head bore no features – beyond the whorls and knots of the wood it had no face.

Atolmis dropped to the ground and intoned a slow prayer, feeling his knees sinking into the bloody ground. Then he reached into a leather bag that was slung around his neck. He withdrew a selection of dried flowers and pressed them, one by one into the bloody ground, forming a circle of eight points. Then, once he was sure they were in the correct position, he held out his hand to the tree.

The figure in the bark began muttering with more urgency and then, with a dry, cracking sound, it extended one of its arms and held something out to him.

Atolmis took the object and glanced briefly at it. As he expected, it was a hard, spherical canker – an oak apple. He rolled it in his hand for a moment and then placed it on top of one of the flowers. The meaning was simple – come spring, a portion of Kurnous’s soul would return to the forest, in the guise of that most glorious vessel, Orion. The oak apple meant simply this: the world remains unchanged.

Atolmis was sinking deeper into the blood but he did not feel afraid. The ritual was the same every year. There would be time.

He muttered another prayer and the faceless spirit held out another object. Atolmis glanced at it. It was a silver ring, decorated with a royal seal. He nodded. Again, the meaning was clear – the new king would be born of mortal flesh and, this year, that mortal would be some kind of prince.

Atolmis continued to pray and place the objects until he had the full name of his prey.

When he was done, he stared at the objects in shock.

By this point he had sunk to his thighs in the blood-soaked earth. He needed to take the oak apple and begin his search; he needed to leave, but he was too confused to move.

The tangible presence of the Orions remained and he felt the sudden urge to address them directly. It was madness, of course. Such a thing would mean his death.

He stared at the objects again, wondering if he could have misunderstood, but the meaning was clear. The next Orion was Finavar. The Darkling Prince was to become the Consort-King.

‘My lords,’ he muttered, breaking centuries of unbroken protocol.

As soon as his words left his mouth, Atolmis found himself blinking; blinded by morning light. He was standing beside an ancient waystone, surrounded by a circle of his fellow horned riders. The priests were all kneeling, with their faces pressed into the grass, but at the sound of his breathing, they looked up.

They were in a beautiful, sun-dappled hollow and the other riders looked at Atolmis with glinting black eyes, eager to hear his news.

‘Finavar,’ he muttered, staring at the bloody canker in his hand. ‘The Darkling Prince.’

One of the riders laughed. ‘Finavar? He is no more. Elatior fed him to the Wildwood. The trees have taken him. The spirits must have meant another Finavar.’

Atolmis shook his head. ‘I know who they meant.’

The riders stared at him as he sat down heavily on the grass, still clutching the oak apple. His face was grey. ‘The rite has failed. It has named someone who is no more.’

He looked at the sky.

‘There will be no new Orion.’

EPILOGUE

Clara flinched as she ran, clutching her bloody scalp with one hand and waving her crook before her with the other. She thought that several hours had passed since she had re-entered the forest but, as she stumbled out of the murk, she saw her mistake. Autumn was gone. She crossed a small clearing, crisscrossed by sunlit roots, and saw a beautiful midsummer’s day. The grey skies had been burned away; replaced by a blue, cloudless haze.

Clara muttered under her breath. While she staggered through the darkness, trying to keep up with the spirit, whole seasons had passed.

‘Wait!’ she gasped, reaching out to the golden shape that was vanishing back into the trees. ‘I can’t keep up!’

The spirit paused and grinned playfully back at her. ‘Of course you can. Just give yourself a little freedom.’

Clara shook her head in confusion and was about to reply, but the spirit spoke first.

‘Don’t deny it, old woman.’ The spirit waltzed on through the trees, vanishing from view, but leaving its taunting voice to hang in the golden light. ‘You can travel as fast as you like. You know what you have been given.’

Clara’s eyes widened as she realised what the spirit was suggesting. The further they went into the forest, the more vigour she felt coursing through her limbs. The power was growing stronger in her with every minute. ‘I cannot,’ she whispered, stumbling to a halt and looking down at her gangly limbs. ‘Not here. There would be no way back.’

‘Of course not,’ said the spirit, appearing at Clara’s side with a giggle. ‘You asked the forest for freedom and you have been offered it. Why refuse such a gift? Isn’t this everything you have always dreamt of?’ The golden youth nodded at Clara’s wrinkled, blemished arm. ‘What might you become if you were allowed to truly be, Clara?’

Before she could stop herself, Clara glanced at her arm, imagining something else. Without knowing why, she pictured a powerful, tawny wing, hurling her through the summer sky.

Almost as soon as the idea formed in her head, it began to form in her flesh. Her bones rippled and shifted beneath her skin, creating spiny protrusions all along her forearm.

‘No!’ she cried. ‘I cannot!’

She sighed with relief as her arm returned to its usual shape. ‘I won’t be forced to play your games.’ She spoke with more confidence than she felt. ‘I came here to gain power over my feckless brothers – not to lose myself in a dream.’

There was no reply and she realised that the spirit had vanished. ‘Wait!’ she cried again, sprinting across the clearing and back beneath the canopy of trees.

Darkness enveloped her and she glimpsed a flash of gold, slipping down into a gulley crowded with huge, lush ferns.

She raced after the spirit, smashing through the undergrowth with her crook.

The ferns pressed closer and Clara howled in frustration. She thrashed around in the leaves, batting them with her crook, but there was no sign of the spirit. She was alone once more, with no way of finding her way back to the borders of the forest. She trudged on through the trees, muttering curses under her breath, until something caught her eye. There was a flash of light from up ahead – a shifting, pallid flare that was clearly not sunlight.

Clara eyed the light suspiciously, sensing that this was the source of the power she could feel. ‘I need to leave this place,’ she muttered, but rather than moving away from the light, she set off towards it.

She heard the spirit’s laughter again, but this time she ignored it. ‘I will leave.’

She stumbled on, keeping her eyes locked on the distant glow. It pulsed and flickered through the gaps in the branches and, after a while, she began to wonder if, rather than open sky, she was heading towards a storm. With every flash, she heard a distant roar, like waves booming against a promontory.

‘The sea?’ She frowned and shook her head. ‘Ridiculous. Not even the Wildwood is that big.’

Escape seemed further away than ever, but curiosity drove her on and, as she neared the light, the spirit’s laughter faded, replaced by the roaring din of the lights. The sound grew more violent as she scrambled up a treeless incline. Clara was vaguely aware that summer had vanished again and that her feet were crunching over ice and frost, but by this point she could think of nothing but the light.

Clara reached the top of the incline and froze. For a moment she stood there, numbed by shock. Then she dropped to her knees and slumped against her crook.

Spread out beneath her was a valley, but it seemed to Clara as though she had reached the edge of the world; perhaps the edge of reason itself. She was looking down on a scene so strange and cataclysmic that it dragged a prayer from her lips. Rather than a sea, she was looking down on an ocean of nightmares. Daemons were pouring from the hills – thousands of them – lurching, one-eyed monsters, trailing flies and intestines as they plunged into a blazing yellow river. The colour of the river was so vivid that it hurt her eyes. The liquid sparked and blinked as it rolled over thousands of butchered warriors and the fallen were no less horrific than the daemons. They were the wild, willowy folk Clara had seen on the borders of the forest – pale, brutal wraiths with inhuman, leaf-shaped eyes. Some were still alive, howling as the river stripped flesh from their bones, and others lay heaped in mounds, decapitated and defiled by their necrotic foes.

It was a vision of such madness and ruin that Clara turned her gaze to the sky, unable to look upon such lunacy. The view overhead was just as shocking. Monsters were spiralling through the clouds, locked in furious battle – vast, screaming hawks swooped and dived through the fractured air, pursued by armoured insects clad in the same rotten flesh as the daemons in the river.

Clara felt her reason slipping and made a last, desperate attempt to understand what she was seeing. Beyond the nightmarish host she could still make out trees, sky and even mountains in the far distance. Perhaps this was not the end of the world, just a rupture in its surface? Clara realised that she was watching the end of a great, inhuman battle. The monsters with rotten bodies had defeated the feral, long-limbed warriors and now they were racing towards their prize.

She climbed to her feet and looked down the valley, beyond the battle, trying to see what they were heading for – to see what the spoils of such a war might be.

Further down the valley the vivid, yellow scar met another, more natural river. Where the two met there was a tower of swirling, gaudy fumes, framing a pair of shapes so monstrous that they dwarfed everything else. At the mouth of the valley a twisted goliath had risen up to assail the daemons. Clara giggled at the sight of it. It was a mountain of hate – a colossal hulk, carved from the carcasses of ancient trees, thrashing branches through the air and tearing up the ground with its roots. The air around it was crackling and shimmering, and Clara realised this was the source of the power she had been following. The soul of the forest had poured itself into a single, furious body and had pitted itself against the daemon host.

The second figure was almost as huge and far more disturbing. It was a sack of white, blubbery flesh that rippled as it lashed itself around the tree monster. Its face was a nest of tentacles and they were tearing at the tree spirit, filling the air with splinters and bark.

Clara could take no more. Beside these two goliaths even the lunacy of battle seemed tame. The white-fleshed creature was gradually tearing its opponent apart and, as it did so, gouts of magic poured from the splintered wounds, mutating the surrounding trees – twisting them into weird, otherworldly shapes. The whole landscape was losing its coherency and creating something new – something so absurd and revolting Clara knew that her mind must have finally given way.

She turned and fled.

She dropped her crook and scrambled back down the slope, turning her back on the pandemonium in the valley. As she ran, she picked up speed until the world became a seamless torrent of colours. Faster and faster she went, howling at the thought of all that she had seen.

As her speed grew, Clara realised that she could no longer feel the ground beneath her feet. It seemed impossible that she could travel so fast. She looked down, trying to understand, but her eyes were full of tears. The breeze had picked up and it was battering against her face and feathers.

Feathers? As the word formed in her consciousness her eyes cleared and she saw that she was hurtling through the clouds, way above the trees.

Her cries became a shrill, avian scream as she realised what had become of her.

Then she saw the forest more clearly and screamed again. The landscape was bubbling with disease. Huge tracts of land were boiling into new, grotesque shapes. Fingers of yellow acid had spread right across the forest, spewing fungus and blight as they burned through the trees. Clara’s screams grew wilder as she soared up through the clouds, seeing the full extent of the forest’s ruin. Tumours and cysts had torn through the earth, and vast armies of grubs were rising from the wounds, filling the world with noise and stink.

With the last shreds of her human consciousness, Clara realised she was witnessing a tragedy far greater than her own transformation. This was a disaster on a grand scale. The daemons had torn something ancient and beautiful from the world.

The Everwood was lost.

THE COUNCIL OF BEASTS

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

THE DEEPWOOD HOST

Ariel the Mage Queen

Orion the Consort-King

Finavar wardancer; the Darkling Prince

Jokleel wardancer; younger brother of Finavar

Sibaris wardancer; great grandson of Mälloch the Elder

Caorann wardancer; Finavar’s oldest friend

Thuralin old, crippled wardancer

Alhena wardancer; Thuralin’s daughter

Lady Ordaana highborn spellweaver; former Warden of Locrimere

Lord Beldeas highborn; husband of Ordaana

Prince Haldus Warhawk Rider; Lord of Arum Tor

Avernus Warhawk Rider; kinsman of Prince Haldus

Lord Cyanos Warhawk Rider; ally of Prince Haldus

Lord Thenot noble from the Alarin Hills; cousin of Prince Haldus

Clorana daughter of Prince Haldus

Damára former lover of Prince Haldus

Lord Findol noble from the Pine Crags

Lord Calaingor Warden of the Cromlech of Cadai; powerful mage

Lady Ailerann servant of Lord Calaingor

Calepine warrior from the plains of Cavaroc

Laelia Ariel’s handmaiden; powerful mage

Atolmis the Hunter Wild Rider; Pyrewarden; Priest of Kurnous

Olachas Wild Rider; Pyrewarden; Priest of Kurnous

Naeith revered Prophetess

Mälloch the Elder Lord of the Fiùrann

BRANCHWRAITHS

Drycha

Liris

Melusine

FOREST SPIRITS

Bruithír guardian of the Wildwood

Zephyr forest spirit; resembles a playful child

Sativus forest spirit; resembles a great, noble stag

The Wrach Keeper of the Dark Paths; the Blind Guide

Usnarr forest spirit; resembles a white wolf

Amphion forest spirit; resembles a great eagle

Tamarix forest dragon

Tanos forest dragon

DAEMONS

Alkhor

Ganglion

OTHERS

Clara human sorcerer from the Amber Hills

WINTER

Gaurach-Dúin

The Season of Ice

Stillness

CHAPTER ONE

‘Awake, Lord of the Wood.’

The voice was brittle and black with hate; a cruel rustle on the breeze.

Finavar opened his eyes and all he saw was darkness.

He cursed, but his words were lost as a raucous din rose up to greet him. Music. Wild stabs of sound that cut through the void. A tune so violent that he fell away from it, tumbling backwards over unforgiving earth. He clawed at the dark but there was nothing to claw – just the oily ghosts of his own retina.

‘Awake, brother,’ said the voice, coming closer and changing its tone. The hate vanished and Finavar wondered if it had ever been there. Perhaps he had imagined it? Perhaps it was just the echo of a dream? The words were soft now, conciliatory even. Brother. Did he have a brother? Memories circled in his mind; memories too sad to look squarely in the eye.

The music vanished and the words echoed around Finavar’s skull. Then he sensed a movement to his right and turned towards it.

Pain splashed, acid-like, across his skin. It twisted his fingers into claws, arched his back and revealed a surprising truth.

I’m not dead.

He was shocked by the idea and his lungs were far from convinced, refusing to drag anything into his chest. His memory was no kinder. However hard he tried to avert his gaze, it threw harrowing scenes at him. The ridiculous faith of his youth. A grinning fool, laughing defiantly as he led his followers to slaughter. An eager herdsman for the Consort-King.

Then he pictured the result of his hubris – the vision that had been cowering in the deepest recesses of his mind. It rose up before him in vivid blue and red: his little brother, Jokleel, lying on a branch with his throat torn open. Sacrificed on the altar of Orion’s rage.

The music struck up again and Finavar shuddered.

Another ghostly shape passed by.

‘Brother,’ said the voice again.

Surprise tricked Finavar’s lungs into life and he snatched a breath.

‘Jokleel?’ he managed to say.

His memories were a sickening kaleidoscope and he felt horribly weak. Could he be confusing nightmares with the truth?

‘You’re dead,’ he gasped, lurching in the direction of the movement.

As he grew accustomed to the darkness Finavar saw tall, crooked figures looking down at him. The music makers. For a moment he thought they were more cruel shadows dredged up from his past. Then he heard the crack of blistered, bark-like limbs and knew they were real. The sound cut through the music and froze him in his tracks. They were all around him. The darkness was alive. They moved closer and he made out shards of deadwood, jerking and sliding like armour. Splintered, silvery shells, wrapped around nothing. Where there might have been faces, there were just crooked, glimmering holes. Studs of pale, green fire. As the frigid lights turned towards him, Finavar saw nothing but hate.

‘Brother,’ came the gentle voice again and Finavar threw his thoughts at the sound, scrambling away from the deadwood choir. He had seen forest spirits before, of course, countless times, but these were different. The fury pouring from their eyes made him want to scream.

He crawled away from the spirits and realised that he was climbing a slope. The thought gave him a surge of hope. Wherever he was, it had shape, and form, and maybe it could be escaped.

The darkness lifted as he climbed, revealing something more familiar: a tumbling bank of hawthorn and fern, threaded roots and ancient, lichened trunks. These sinuous shapes were a mirror of the forest he knew, but the mirror was warped to the point of madness. Everything was knotted, brutal and life-crushing. And all of it was in motion – straining and coiling around him as he tried to climb. He wrenched himself free and shook his head. The forest was always hungry, but even at the height of summer, roots did not move with such speed.

The Wildwood.

There could be no mistake. His journeys had led him to the darkest heart of the forest. Along with the realisation came more memories. Before he had time to suppress the image, he saw the imperious sneer of Lady Ordaana. His pulse hammered. She had laid the entire forest’s doom at his feet. She had given him the mantle of betrayer. More memories followed in quick succession. He saw the lords and ladies of the Silvam Dale, horrified by his supposed crimes. He saw the fury of the Enchanter, Prince Elatior, as he banished him to the Wildwood.

Ordaana is the traitor! Pain and grief dissolved in a swell of outrage. He was furious that he had been so blind. She brought this plague down on us, he thought. I’m just the fool who failed to see it.

Needles of pain sliced into his arm as a branch crushed itself around him, sinking claw-like twigs into his muscles. As he wrenched his arm free, Finavar saw why his body was in such pain. Sheets of skin were missing from his torso – torn away, leaving an ugly patchwork of wounds. What little of his skin remained was slick with blood. He looked like a scrap of meat, left to rot after a feast.

Another memory. He saw the ancient noble, Mälloch the Elder and the impetuous youth, Sibaris. They had brought him here. They had bound him to the waystone and called on the Wildwood to take him, but they were not to blame. It was her. She had done this to him.

How could he have abandoned his friends and put his faith in such a lunatic? Finally, everything came back to him. He pictured his brave, devoted kinsmen: Caorann, with his booming laugh and his lust for life; Alhena with her dangerous, determined stare; even dour old Thuralin, crook-backed and bitter – they were his family. The only one he had ever known. Grief had driven him from his senses, but Ordaana had driven him from his kin. She had poisoned him until he no longer knew friend from foe.

‘I’ll find them,’ he said. Determination trilled through his veins. Whatever evil Ordaana had perpetrated, Finavar knew that she could not break the will of his kindred. Not if they stood together, as they once did.

Now, for the first time in months, he remembered courage. And it was a courage tempered by all that he had seen. It was no playful hunt that he sought; no childish game. He sought the salvation of his people.

After months of doubt and confusion, his mind grew clear.

He straightened his back and allowed a cold smile to cross his lips. ‘I will find them.’

He tried to move, but almost fell: his legs were bound. Soft, loamy earth had swallowed his feet and roots had shackled his ankles. Tall shapes loomed over him – the bark-clad singers had followed him up the incline.

Their long, crooked fingers stretched out towards him.

‘No!’ he howled and wrenched himself free, shedding branches and skin and sprinting up the slope. His soul was a tiny flicker of hope and he would not let it die.

Finavar reached the summit and found himself in a column of grey-green light, but even here there was no glimpse of sky; the brittle tracery overhead was just a frame for ever more distant canopies of leaves. And they in turn led to a remote, emerald vault that seemed to make up the heavens themselves. The forest towered over him. He felt like an infinitesimal sea creature, crawling across an abyssal ocean floor, destined to never glimpse the sky.

There was enough light, however, for Finavar to see how ruined his body was. What little strength he had regained during his hunt for Orion had been stripped away. Pennants of tattered skin hung from his ribs and stomach. The sight sickened him, but it only hardened his resolve. He pictured his friends as he had last seen them – Alhena and her father, rising from a campfire to greet him with love in their eyes. How could he have not seen that? Why did he argue with Thuralin? Even that frivolous youth, Sibaris, had believed in him. How could he have spurned such devotion in favour of Ordaana’s bile? In the oppressive gloom of the Wildwood, Finavar saw one thing clearly: his place was with his own kind. The poets and dancers. The children of Loec.

There was an explosion of sound to Finavar’s left and he whirled around, looking back down the path.

There was nothing to see. The musicians had vanished. He had simply trodden on a fallen branch and caused its leaves to rattle. Finavar peered back the way he had come. For a moment, he thought he saw something – dozens of smaller shapes, moving through the gloom, dragging a heavy load, but then they were gone.

Finavar shook his head. He had sung enough tales of the Wildwood to know that these paths crawled with malice. These were the roots of the world. There were beings in the Wildwood that lived outside of history – outside of nature, even. Any one of them would destroy him without a moment’s thought. Who knew what he might have glimpsed?

‘How am I alive?’ he wondered aloud. The spirits had looked at him so hungrily, but now there was only the liquid dark.

His flesh was in shreds but he still drew breath. The Wildwood was a death sentence, every child knew as much. How was he still able to walk?

Finavar looked down the opposite side of the slope and saw something smaller. Another figure. Pale and graceful as it raced away from him through the trees.

‘Brother.’

The word came to him so faintly he thought it might be the breeze.

‘Jokleel?’ he said, stumbling off in pursuit. He could recall his brother’s pyre with horrible clarity, but still his heart swelled. ‘Is that you?’

The figure slipped away into the shadows, and vanished from view, but, when he looked around, Finavar realised that he was now on a winding path. The trees and shrubs had parted to reveal a track gilded with dead leaves. They glimmered in the half light. Sheets of hammered copper. The lights dazzled and confused him. As he stared at the glinting shapes his mind slipped into the past. He was leading Jokleel through the cool glades of their home, Locrimere, singing songs of the Horned God, Kurnous and his bloody emissary, Orion.

Finavar frowned and shook his head. He tried to bring his mind back to the shifting gloom of the Wildwood. He sensed danger all around. ‘Why am I still alive?’ he wondered again.

He stepped further and saw that the path continued on into the forest, winding and rolling away from him. A pale rope, tossed across a night-black pool. The lights had left him confused, blurring memory, truth and dreams.

The darkness on either side pressed closer and fear threatened to overcome him. He wondered, for a moment, what had drawn him onto the path; then he pictured the face of his brother and hurried on.

‘I’m here,’ he whispered, cradling an impossible hope.

Drycha watched Finavar lurching towards her and felt a flicker of pity. The wardancer made a pathetic sight. He looked like a disparate jumble of bones that might fall apart at any moment. His eyes rolled, feverish and wide as they tried to latch onto hers.

Once she was sure he was following the right path, Drycha turned and raced away, trailing one last ‘Brother,’ before abandoning her disguise to the darkness.

Shadows rolled and tumbled in her wake as she glided through the undergrowth. Gradually, they formed into ranks of figures. Brittle-limbed wraiths, keeping pace with her as she moved. Her army had grown since she left Coeddil. She could barely comprehend the power she was wielding.

Liris clicked and clacked to her side. ‘We are holding them back,’ she said.

Drycha heard the shock in her voice but did not acknowledge it. ‘We must,’ she said simply, peering into the shadows.

She sensed that Liris was now afraid of her. The thought saddened her but she could understand. The Ancient One had shared something with her – only a fraction of his vision but enough that it had almost overwhelmed her. She was no longer the same as her sisters. The Ancient One had set her apart. He had apportioned a great task to her and given her the foresight to achieve it. At his bidding, the universe had unfurled itself at her feet. She could see everything. Even things she knew she should not. She had struck deals with those she despised and sworn sickening oaths, but her path was clear. The Great Weave of life was spread out before her like a cruel, bewildering tapestry. What a terrible, wonderful responsibility. Every thread of the weave was more intricate and beautiful than the last. She could focus on a single thread and lose herself for all eternity, so she kept her thoughts fixed on one spot; one fascinating detail. For weeks now she had been able to see it: Finavar, reborn as a god, his matted hair replaced by a magnificent crown of antlers. Finavar, charging through the forest on hooves that shook the leaves from the boughs.

Her master had revealed a truth known only to the most subtle of minds. This pathetic, dying wreck was destined to become a king. When she led him, finally, to his death, she would be unbinding the forest from centuries of misrule. The Shadow-glades would be free. Her sisters would grow, untrammelled by their feeble, mortal guardians. They would tear down the last of the waystones and lead the whole forest to war, with Finavar’s flesh as a banner. The Great Weave would tighten and crush. The forest would shrug itself free. Drycha would rid it of disease, mortals and plague and then she would tear the daemon from its heart.

From this one death, life would begin again.

The Ancient One and the other elders did not need these short-lived parasites to survive. Her master had shown her the truth. The ancients had endured since the beginning of the world. And they would endure again. She would pay back every brutal defilement the interlopers had inflicted on her precious wards.

The thought wiped away any trace of pity she felt for Finavar. Deaths hung around her like one of the interlopers’ pendants. Every pustule and tumour haunted her thoughts. Every lifeless creature stared back at her. She had let the daemon live, all those centuries ago. She had unwittingly preserved Alkhor’s power beneath the roots of the forest. She had sown it, like a poisonous seed. Every broken strand of the Great Weave was because of her actions. She stumbled to a halt and clutched her head. For a moment, her confidence failed as she felt the weight of her shame. She saw a once-powerful bear, bloated and torn apart by disease. She remembered the horror of taking its life.

Liris stepped to her side. There was a dry, scratching sound as her talons brushed against Drycha. ‘Soon,’ she whispered.

Drycha nodded and looked back at the pitiful figure of Finavar, lurching and weaving towards them down the glittering path. ‘Balance will be restored, Liris. His blood will repay what is owed. The blood of a king. It will be enough. In the Orchard he will give his life. However great his pain, it will be nothing to the healing it enables.’ She shivered, rattling her rough, wooden limbs. ‘And the pain will be great. Bruithír will see to that.’

They raced on. For half a mile on either side of the path a battle raged in silence. Finavar staggered on oblivious as Melusine and the rest of Drycha’s sisters kept him alive. Beings from every age of the world had caught his scent. They came hunting for his blood, things of leaf, scale, fur and flame, but the branchwraiths held firm. At Drycha’s silent bidding they pitted themselves against the unknowable. They battled a power that had prowled the forest since the forgotten age of the Old Ones. They fought and died, but for every branchwraith that fell, another ten rushed to fill the gap. Drycha’s army was a river, bristling and bustling through the darkness.

Finavar paused to catch his breath, leaning against a tree for a moment and peering down the track. He frowned. There was violence in the air. He could feel it tingling across his skin, but nothing had emerged from the shadows. He had been travelling for what seemed like hours and the forest had made no move to stop him. Confused as he was, he still knew that the Wildwood was a place of death. But it seemed that he was free to safely journey through it. He looked back over his shoulder. There was still no sign of the spirits that had greeted his arrival.

He heard a muffled crash, somewhere to his right. The sound was barely audible, but whatever had fallen was so vast that the ground beneath his feet shifted slightly. He stared harder into the darkness but, as when he first awoke, he could see nothing beyond the patterns drifting across his retina.

He stepped from the path, trying to see what had fallen, but roots flew up to meet him and forced him back. Only the path seemed safe. The lights dazzled him again and he reeled from side to side, trying to recall his purpose, or even his name. ‘The Darkling Prince,’ he croaked, after clutching his head for a few seconds. The name brought another, Jokleel, along with it. The name of his brother was enough to steady him. He stood still for a moment and took several deep breaths, remembering why he had started off down the path. Jokleel was somewhere up ahead, calling him on. Either that or his ghost.

Finavar nodded and continued on his way, treading carefully so as to avoid the dark mesh on either side of the path. Hours, seconds or years passed as he walked beneath those mountainous trees, until finally the landscape began to change. The trees thinned out. A little light splashed across the ground. The thicket fell away to reveal patches of open scrub and fruit trees, huddled together like wary crones. They reached towards him through the dark. Splayed, crooked fingers. Coils of smoke, glimpsed in a storm.

Finavar eyed the trees warily but breathed a little deeper, wishing to savour the open space. He immediately regretted it. The air was heavy with moisture and it left a bitter, metallic taste on his tongue. As he walked slowly past the ugly branches, he felt a warm mist settle over his skin. He stopped to wipe his face and when he looked down at his hand he saw it was bloody.

He grimaced and looked around at the trees. He had missed it at first, because of the endless gloom, but now, as he looked more closely, he saw that the fruit trees were coated with a crimson dew.

‘Brother.’

The voice was much clearer this time and there was an edge of fear in it – or pleading.

‘I’m here,’ Finavar whispered, hurrying on down the path. The track swerved around a mossy shoulder of rock and led down into a little valley, surrounded on all sides by the ancient, lichened fruit trees.

Finavar glimpsed a slight figure, racing ahead of him and he began to jog. But when he reached the valley floor, something caught his eye and caused him to pause again.

The trees were laden with fruit and the load was so heavy it was dragging many of the branches down until they were nearly touching the ground. Finavar stepped closer to one of them and tried to work out what kind of fruit it was.

The nature of the Wildwood had confused him. The tree was much further than he imagined. He forgot about the path as he hurried towards it and, as he approached the tree, he saw that, like everything else, it was absurdly huge. It loomed over him like a storm cloud and he felt blood dripping on his face as he looked up into the branches.

He slowly realised the true nature of the fruit. It was the pale corpse of an asrai warrior. The tree had melded its bark with his flesh, so that his body had become a sleeve for a thick, forked branch. Finavar felt bile rise in his throat as he saw ridges of bark beneath the warrior’s skin and a length of living branch, sprouting from between shattered shoulder blades.

His disgust grew as he saw that all the trees bore the same hideous fruit. He saw hundreds of corpses dangling overhead – most were asrai, but some were outsiders and all of them were frozen in a grotesque parody of life.

Finavar’s repulsion was fleeting. He understood the logic of such a display. He had left similar trophies himself many times – draping the skins of outsiders in trees was an age-old method of warning off trespassers from the forest borders. He had never seen the technique applied to his own kind, of course, and it appalled him to think that so many of his kin had fallen in battle, but he could respect the thinking behind the gruesome sight.

He turned to head back to the path. As he did so, a branch snapped beneath his foot and broke the eerie silence.

To Finavar’s horror, as the sound rang out, the skewered warrior overhead opened his eyes. He looked around in panic and fear, then spotted Finavar standing a few feet below him. The warrior began to scream and thrash, clearly hoping that Finavar might be able to help him.

Finavar reeled backwards, horrified. How could such a pitiful thing still be alive?

As Finavar backed away, the warrior’s shrieks grew louder and some of the other figures opened their eyes and joined in.

‘By the gods,’ whispered Finavar, clamping his hands over his ears. ‘They’re alive.’

He turned to race back to the path but it was gone. As the chorus of screams continued, he saw that there was nothing ahead of him but the terrible fruit trees.

‘Jokleel!’ he cried.

There was no sign of his brother, or his ghost but, as Finavar clambered up the side of the valley, trying to find a vantage point, something else caught his eye.

One of the trees further up the slope was falling. No, not falling – loping towards him.

Finavar’s disgust mingled with fear. Had one of the tree husks finally caught up with him?

He turned to run back down the slope, caught his foot on a root and tumbled, headlong through the shadows.

Finavar hit the valley floor with a painful crunch and immediately leapt to his feet. The confusion that had been muddling his thoughts had vanished along with the path. Despite the screams that were assailing his ears, he now saw everything with horrible clarity.

He was alone in the Wildwood. A freak chance had allowed him enough time to glimpse the awful nature of the place. Now he was going to die.

‘No!’ he snarled, picturing Ordaana, laughing at him with an arched eyebrow. ‘I will not die. I will not leave the forest to her.’

He looked back up the slope. Whatever he had seen was gone.

He sensed movement behind him and whirled around.

A figure slipped back into the shadows. Finavar was too slow to see his stalker’s face, but he saw enough to know it was not one of the tree husks.

Whatever it was, it had a heavy, powerful torso that shook as it moved, and it was moving on all fours.

He raced in the opposite direction, leaping over roots and fallen branches.

As he ran, he left behind the screams and made for a faint light at the far end of the gulley. ‘Jokleel?’ he called as he saw a slender figure pass in front of the light. ‘Is that you?’ Hope gave him speed and in a few minutes he had reached the end of the valley.

There was no sign of his brother, but the darkness had lifted. He looked up to see if there was sky overhead. There was nothing but more of the pale, stranded figures, hanging in the branches.

‘Jokleel?’ he said, sensing movement in the trees to his right.

Pain exploded as something connected with the side of his face. His head snapped backwards and he toppled to the ground.

His instincts stayed with him and he launched himself back up onto his feet.

Something whirred through the space where his head would have been.

There was a resounding thud as a thick, rune-carved shaft of oak slammed into the ground.

He looked up and gasped in surprise. His attacker resembled a hulking, powerful bear. But, rather than fur and muscle, its flesh was a torrent of shoots, stems and leaves. It towered over him, at eight or nine feet tall and its massive snout was contorted by rage, revealing a mouthful of curved, thorn teeth. Its eyes were coiled, black spirals of ivy. They bored into Finavar as the creature turned to face him.

Its weapon was a gnarled old quarterstaff, battered and stained and capped at either end with carved, fist-sized lumps of bone. And, as Finavar reeled away from the beast, it lifted the staff to strike again.

Finavar ducked and the quarterstaff cracked against a tree behind him.

He dived and rolled back down the path towards the fruit trees.

The bear-thing waded after him on its hind legs, swaying like a drunk as it raised its weapon.

Finavar feigned flight, then, as the staff came down, he ducked beneath it and bounded forward.

He dodged the blow but, before he could land one of his own, the monster lashed out with its other claw, slicing another piece of skin from Finavar’s chest and sending him crashing into the undergrowth.

Again, the quarterstaff pounded down and, again, Finavar was too fast. His skills as a wardancer were so ingrained he could call on them without thought. He sprang up, grabbed hold of a low branch and flipped up into the branches of a tree.

The monster let out a deep, rattling roar and slammed its bulk against the tree.

To Finavar’s amazement the whole tree came loose. Its roots tore up through the soil with a series of cracks and deep, protesting groans.

He dropped to the ground and shielded his face as the tree collapsed, showering him with branches and soil.

As the air cleared, Finavar whirled around, trying to locate the monster in the shadows.

It hurtled towards him like another falling tree and the air exploded from his lungs.

They both rolled across the ground and Finavar felt as though he were drowning in a dense clump of leaves. As he tumbled, his nostrils filled with the monster’s herby, verdant stink.

They came to a halt against a wall of raw earth, and a claw of tightly knotted vines wrapped itself around Finavar’s neck, crushing the air from his throat and slamming him back against the soil.

The monster lifted him easily from the ground.

His head spun with dizziness and lack of oxygen and, as he stared into the black pits that passed for the creature’s eyes, Finavar was reminded of his first meeting with Orion, when the tyrant king had done just the same thing – lifting him from the ground by the throat.

The monster drew back its quarterstaff, already stained with Finavar’s blood, and prepared to deliver a killing blow.

Finavar kicked his legs against the green mass but it was no use. His strength was quickly failing.

I cannot die.

Jokleel, he thought, looking past the monster into the trees beyond.

There was a figure there, watching, and Finavar’s heart raced. It was his brother, stepping from the darkness with a forgiving smile.

Then the shadows shifted and Finavar wondered how he could have been so wrong. How could he have mistaken such a thing for a brother? It was an ancient, hunched dryad. A knotted wraith of bark and thorn. She was not smiling but grimacing, bearing her splintered teeth in a desperate snarl.

Finavar’s stomach turned as he realised the truth. Whoever the spirit was, she had tricked him. She had led him to the lair of this monster. His brother was dead.

As he thought about the monster, it occurred to him that too much time had passed. Where was the final blow?

He looked back at the thing that was crushing the life from his body.

Its quarterstaff was frozen, mid-strike, and it was staring at him.

Finavar watched in confusion as the monster’s expression changed. The leaves that made up its face were coiling and rolling into a perplexed frown.

It loosened its grip slowly and allowed Finavar’s feet to touch the ground.

The branchwraith rushed forwards, allowing him to see all the outrage and bitterness of her cracked face. She was about to speak, but the bear monster held out a warning claw and she hesitated.

The bear monster still had its gaze locked on Finavar. Its face was wracked by confusion. It moved closer and sniffed him – sniffed his chest like an inquisitive dog.

To Finavar’s amazement the monster loosened its grip, shook its head and backed away from him.

Finavar crumpled to the ground.

The branchwraith screamed. It was an unearthly sound that cut deep into Finavar’s mind. The branchwraith was voicing a hurt so ancient and curdled that he almost wanted to go to her – to comfort her somehow. But the reason for her pain was his freedom and he retained enough sense to back away. He staggered away from the wall and the two strange figures that were watching him.

The bear-thing was still shaking its head in confusion, but it had clearly lost all desire to hurt him.

The branchwraith screamed and other dryads began slipping from the darkness. All of them stared at Finavar with panic and hate.

He looked around and saw that they were everywhere. Hundreds of them were emerging from the Wildwood, moving towards him with jerking, frenetic steps.

He shook his head in disbelief. The hopelessness of his situation was secondary to the pain of realising he had been duped. How could he have believed his brother was alive?

As the lurching shapes closed in on him, though, he could not shake the faint sense of hope that had kindled in him. He looked back at the bear monster. It was still watching him and, as their eyes met, Finavar felt as though the creature had seen the same spark.

Finavar stood, clambered up the wall of earth and crouched, cat-like, on its roof of overhanging turf. His mind was spinning as he looked around the orchard. The dryads were as numerous as the trees and they were all closing in on him, led by the one he had seen first. She had stifled her screams and was now approaching him with the same rigid, silent fury as the others.

Finavar should have felt hopeless. He was alone in the Wildwood, surrounded by hundreds of inhuman enemies. He was so drunk from lack of oxygen that his head seemed to be drifting several feet away from his shoulders. And yet, his pulse raced with the old thrill of adventure. He could feel youth, stirring in his ruined body. And something else. It was as though another sentience had joined itself to him – something powerful and benign.

One of the dryads moved with sudden speed, seeming to fold herself up the slope.

Finavar tried to back away but he was dangerously light-headed. He only managed to trip himself up and crash to the ground.

As the branchwraiths gathered around him, he began to laugh uncontrollably, seeing the ridiculous contrast between his inner sense of hope and the utter hopelessness of his situation.

The dryads splayed their thorn-like talons and moved closer, but Finavar could not stop laughing.

This seemed to enrage the leader of the wraiths even further. She lurched ahead of the others, drawing back her claws to strike.

An incredible din tore through the trees and she whirled around.

Finavar was no longer sure that the scene playing out before him was reality. He watched in amazement as more nightmarish shapes thundered into view.

They were tree-like things – forest spirits, like the dryads – but these were goliaths. Their faces looked down through the fruit trees and they batted the dryads aside like insects.

Finavar found it all inexplicably amusing. The giant spirits were smashing through the smaller ones in an attempt to reach him. The leader of the dryads made a last, desperate attempt to skewer Finavar but, before she could, one of the larger spirits slammed a tree-sized limb into her and sent her howling into the darkness.

The branchwraiths hurled themselves at the larger shapes: hacking, clawing and biting. Some of the larger spirits collapsed under the weight of their attackers, but the one who had defended Finavar scooped him up from the ground and waded off through the trees, carrying him as easily as a fallen leaf.

Reality swam around Finavar in waves as he glided through the treetops. He saw the frozen faces of the asrai, preserved in the branches. He saw the wild ferocious dance of the tree spirits, tearing and biting. He saw the confused expression of the bear monster, oblivious to the battle raging around it. Finally, just before he slipped into unconsciousness, he saw the face of his rescuer. It was long and flaked, like a piece of birch bark, but there was also something avian about it. The ridges were formed into a curved beak and there were white feathers sprouting from the paper-like bark. It had two glossy black eyes, framed by moss and soil, and they were watching him closely.

Finavar’s last thought was a thrill of recognition. He had seen this face before. He remembered seeing the weird amalgam of tree and bird, bowing, respectfully to him, after some kind of battle. He could not place the details, but he remembered the spirit had scratched a mark onto his chest.

Then there was just the darkness.

Scenes coalesced. Faces disintegrated. Everything formed into something else; new life from old. The pattern repeated endlessly until Finavar was teetering on the brink of a great revelation.

Then, as always, he saw the face of his brother. He tried to focus on it but, like everything else, it collapsed under the weight of his gaze and assumed a new shape.

It became a grizzled, canine face, with a blood-clotted muzzle and eyes like the winter sun, leaking cold flames into a grey dawn.

Dawn? Finavar dragged his eyes from the brutal-looking hound and looked around. He was in a clearing and there was sky overhead, clearly visible beyond the spider-like reach of the branches. A crisp breeze that tasted of snow washed over his face. The trees that surrounded him were lashed furiously together in an impenetrable crush. This was still the Wildwood, but there was no mistaking it – he was nearer to the borders. He could smell the forest – the real forest – somewhere nearby. Maybe no more than a mile or two. Hope stirred again.

He looked back and saw, to his disappointment that the hound was still there. It had not faded with his dreams. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and studied it more closely. It was sitting at the mouth of a cave, just a few feet away from him, breathing quickly as though it had just finished running. It was glaring hungrily at him. As he saw it more clearly, Finavar recognised the hound and felt a rush of fear and disgust. It was one of Orion’s spirit guides. One of the vicious beasts that led the Wild Hunt to slaughter. He tried to rise, to back away, but found he was too weak to stand. He looked down at his frail body and groaned. It was a wreck. His mind was still clinging to a kernel of hope, but his body was failing fast. Again, he felt the uncontrollable urge to laugh. He looked like something the dog had vomited onto the forest floor. He was a battered, bloody pulp.

Then he noticed that the hound was in no better shape. The blood that had matted its hair was its own. There were deep gashes in its side and its ribs were exposed – shocking and pale in the morning light. There was a key difference between the two of them, though. Finavar’s wounds left him looking pathetic and all too mortal, but the hound’s injuries only revealed how spectral it was. They leaked emerald-infused light into the clearing, splaying out from the animal’s body and flickering across a circle of trees.

No, Finavar realised, not trees. The tall, crooked shapes were moving and whispering to each other. Some clutched long, curved weapons in their wooden claws. As Finavar studied them he spotted the spirit that had rescued him from the orchard. It had stooped down, as awkward and swaying as an old man, with one of his hands resting on his aching back. Its weird, elongated face was just a few feet from the hound and they had their eyes locked on each other. There were no words, but Finavar sensed that they were communicating. Communing. Every few seconds the tree spirit would shudder and click into a different position and, each time it moved, the hound shifted on its haunches and snarled in response.

The light from the dog washed over the spirit and Finavar saw its eyes, flicking in his direction. They’re talking about me, he realised. It looked as though the hound was demanding something – demanding him. With every move it looked at Finavar, drooling bloody saliva as it snapped and growled.

The thing clearly wished to devour him, but Finavar was powerless to escape. All he could do was hope that the tree spirits refused to hand him over. After all, what love would they have for a servant of Orion? He looked at their strange, crooked faces. Did they understand how little Ariel and Orion cared for them?

His attention began to wander. He could feel a steady flow of blood rushing from his wounds and guessed that he was finally dying. The little flame of hope was still there, but it was guttering. As the brutal hound edged closer, he found it harder to understand how he would escape the Wildwood. His body was almost done. He could no longer move his legs and his torn skin was horribly cold.

The sun rose higher and, even as life slipped from his ruptured veins, Finavar savoured the warmth that washed over his face. He forgot about the monsters that were haggling for his life and closed his eyes. He pictured himself in open pasture, deep in the heart of the forest, dancing to the glory of Loec, singing for his playful lord.

Something shook Finavar’s body and startled him into wakefulness. The hound was still watching from the foot of the cave, but the tree spirits were now stooped over him, plunging him back into shadow. They must have won the argument, thought Finavar, but his thoughts were so muddled he could not remember if that was good or bad. What difference did it make? One monster or another?

This close, he saw how different the spirits’ faces were from the bark of trees. Their features were huge, strange and inhuman, but filled with emotion and intelligence. What he had originally taken for splits in bark, were actually runes, formed from their brittle flesh and glowing with faint light. He was so beguiled by the lights that it took him a little while to notice what they were doing.

He gasped and pulled away, realising as he did so that he had regained some of his strength. The whispering of the spirits grew in excitement and they held him fast, pushing him back to the floor.

The thing that had so alarmed Finavar was this: the spirits had torn open some of the runes on their limbs and were pouring treacly, sap-like liquid from them, into the symbol they had scratched across his chest. He stared at them with a mixture of horror and fascination, unable to grasp what they were doing. The same light that was leaking from the hound’s flesh was in the liquid entering his body.

The hound saw his movement and edged forwards, raising its hackles and letting a low, dangerous growl.

The spirit with the avian features raised a hand and the hound paused.

What power do they wield over it, Finavar wondered? How long can they hold it off? I need to be ready for when it strikes. I need to be strong enough to fight. His lip curled in distaste. If I have to die, it will not be at the whim of Orion.

He looked away from the hound and studied his body again, sensing that a transformation was taking place. He gasped. Where the liquid had entered his wounds it had formed a thin, bark-like crust. His skin was rebuilding itself.

‘What are you doing?’

His voice made him jump. It was strong and sure. Utterly unlike the pathetic croak he had expected.

The spirits bristled and rattled at the sound, but continued their work. If anything they were moving faster now – pouring more of their luminescence into his body and holding him even tighter.

Finavar found that his strength was returning with increasing speed. He tensed his muscles and the tree spirits had to lean all of their weight against him to hold him in place.

The hound snarled and began pacing back and forth, swinging its head from side to side.

Finavar’s vision filled up with the unearthly light. Every bough and leaf began to blaze. It was as though someone had held a candle behind a painting, so that the colours doubled in brightness. The world was suddenly aflame with green light. His pulse raced faster and, with a delighted laugh, he rose to his feet, hurling back the spirits, throwing out his arms and reaching out to touch the light.

His mind raced and, as the spirits tumbled away from him he saw that they were laughing with him.

Finavar turned to face the hound, flushed with his new-found power.

The animal held his gaze as he strode towards it, clenching his fists.

Finally, Finavar had the chance and the power to take his revenge.

The light was now rolling and blossoming through his thoughts and Finavar was still a few feet away from the hound when he realised the magic was going to overwhelm him. It raged so fiercely that it burned away reality. The candle had destroyed the painting, leaving nothing but light.

Finavar reached into the radiance, but it was too late. The world had slipped away.

CHAPTER TWO

‘What have I become?’ muttered Prince Haldus.

It was dusk, but the failing light could not shield him from the truth. A vast army was gathered in the valley below him. Nobles from all the great realms had answered his call, just as Naieth promised they would. The greatest asrai force ever assembled was now under his command. The fate of the forest was in his clumsy grasp. And everything told him that this was not his role. He was not born for plans, negotiations and tactics. His place was in the mountains with his hawks, or following his lord in the Wild Hunt – anywhere but here. But they had left him no option. The lords of the great council. Too proud to kneel to each other and too afraid to stand alone, they had knelt to him – their awkward, rough-mannered cousin from the mountains.

He was drifting high in the clouds, on the back of his enormous warhawk, Nuin, and he could see that even now, after months of plague and war, the asrai numbered in their thousands: archers, wardancers, riders and spellweavers from every realm of the forest. Banners that had never been seen together before now fluttered side-by-side, united by desperation and rage. Since the seasons had been replaced by endless blight, the great halls of the asrai had fallen. Some had burned, some had been torn down, but most had simply rotted – consumed by sorcery and disease.

He steered Nuin down through the clouds and landed on a knuckle of bare rock jutting up from the forest, just to the south of where his new army was gathering. There was a noble waiting to meet him – another warhawk rider, sitting on a raptor almost as huge as Nuin.

‘Lord Cyanos,’ said Haldus as he landed.

Cyanos dragged his gaze from the surrounding hills and nodded in greeting. His appearance was unusual for an asrai. His hair was straight and centre-parted and it was as black as the ornate breastplate that covered his chest. His cloak was bunched at the shoulders and Haldus knew that it hid a pair of stumps – all that was left of the wings that had once adorned his back. Even stranger than that were the objects dangling from his armour. Lord Cyanos carried dozens of odd fetishes that clearly had no place in the forest. As he turned to face Haldus, copper, clockwork devices clattered against his armour, jangling against astrological measures, metal-clasped cylinders and bunches of metal keys. And at his belt, he carried a small, leather-bound folio of vellum sheets, covered in printed text. With his gentle manners and studious air, Cyanos was as different from Haldus as it was possible to be, but they had become good friends just the same. Haldus recognised in Cyanos a fellow outsider. The gossips and players of Ariel’s court would shun this peculiar scholar as surely as they had always been appalled by Haldus’s lack of social grace.

They sat in silence for a moment, studying the shocking sights that surrounded them. They were in the far north, near the rolling Alarin Hills, but even here there was no respite from the plague. Large swathes of the hillside had been stripped bare by disease and there were foetid, fleshy growths jutting from the earth – pale domes of fungus that quivered in the breeze, shedding spores across the hills. It was terrible to see. The beauty of the forest had been replaced with a gaudy, diseased facade. There was no birdsong – just the same droning hum of flies that crowded every other valley. Everything noble and pure had perished, apart from the person they had come to find.

‘Lord Thenot lives here?’ asked Haldus, looking in disbelief at a pile of gnarled, leafless branches opposite. It was a kind of gate, but it looked like the work of humans – shoddy and crude, with none of the finesse or beauty of asrai craftsmanship.

Cyanos frowned and peered at his little book. ‘It did not always look this way. His halls have been ruined, Haldus, like everything else.’ He showed the prince an illustration of a beautiful, soaring gate made of living ivy, guarded by proud lords and warriors. ‘The plague has destroyed him.’ Cyanos waved back to the south. ‘I’ve told you what the prophecies say, prince. We must set watch over the Crowfoot Falls, but once you have placed your main force there, I can show you the way to the halls of a truly powerful ally. I know someone who can help you with this burden.’ His eyes flashed with hope. ‘We’ll only need a small force. There will be little or no enemy there. And then I’ll show you an ally who can actually stop this wretched plague.’

Haldus sighed. ‘I trust you Cyanos,’ he waved at the plumed, strutting figures below, ‘far more than any of Ariel’s courtiers, but we must at least investigate this place. Thenot is my cousin. He cared for me as a child after the death of my father. I need to know if he’s still alive.’ He looked embarrassed by the emotion that had crept into his voice. ‘Besides, we seek allies and there may be some survivors here.’

Cyanos gave him a gentle smile and nodded. ‘Then we must hurry.’ He waved at the ugly pink growths that littered the landscape and the clouds of flies that blurred the horizon. ‘We have already lost too much.’

Haldus and Cyanos crossed the valley and approached the gate to Thenot’s halls on foot, accompanied by hundreds of glaive-wielding warriors, all of them wearing plates of thick leather armour. Haldus despised showmanship or displays of power, but he knew that even here, in the halls of their own kin, there was danger. Whoever remained in Thenot’s halls must know that they faced a well-armed force of soldiers.

The gate was as broken and crooked as they thought, but it had been barred from the inside with fallen branches. It must have once been a grand sight, Haldus realised. It would have originally stood over fifty feet tall – a grand, spiralling arch of ivy and thorn, but now it was little more than sticks and rubble. As they approached, he heard a terrible din – the sound of a jeering, howling mob. Hoarse, furious voices rang out, accompanied by the hammering of fists on wood.

Haldus frowned at Cyanos, confused, then stepped closer to investigate.

As he got nearer, he saw shapes watching from the opposite side. None of them seemed willing to approach the gate though – waiting a few feet away from it, yelling and cursing.

‘Kinsmen!’ he cried, holding his hand aloft with the palm facing out. ‘I am Prince Haldus of Arum Tor.’ The din faded away as he spoke. ‘I come to you with the blessing of the Mage Queen and a promise to–’

Haldus’s words were cut short as an arrow whistled from a tower of branches, teetering at one side of the gate.

Haldus ducked aside and it thudded into the overgrown greenway he was standing on.

The howling of the mob began again. More arrows flew, but they landed behind the gate, driving the mob back. Voices cried out for mercy and freedom.

Cyanos hurried to Haldus’s side. ‘This is madness. We must leave!’

‘Wait,’ said Haldus, frowning. He peered at the figures beyond the mound of branches. ‘These are our kin. And they’re trapped somehow – imprisoned in their own halls.’

‘Why are you attacking those who would save you?’ he cried, stepping closer to the gate. This was not the first cold greeting he had received and he was growing tired of pride and stupidity. ‘Fight with us, not against us.’

‘Leave!’ cried a voice from the gatehouse. ‘Or the next shaft won’t go wide.’

The voice was ragged and pained, but it sounded familiar. ‘Lord Thenot?’ cried Haldus. ‘Is that you?’

‘There’s nothing here for you but death,’ replied the voice, sounding even more furious. ‘Leave now, cousin.’

Haldus shook his head. ‘We’re kin,’ he cried. ‘We will not abandon you–’

‘You will leave!’ came the reply as Lord Thenot stepped into view.

Haldus and the others gasped and backed away. Lord Thenot was essentially as Haldus remembered him, but the left side of his body had been transformed. The same pink growths that littered the hillsides had sprouted from his torso and his skin had been enveloped by a black, fungal covering. There was a moist, trembling lump of meat hanging from his body, like an external organ, but it was horribly animated, twitching and quivering and trying to speak.

To Haldus’s disgust he saw that the growth had a gaping mouth and three misshapen eyes. The thing was attempting to catch passing flies with a long, prehensile tongue.

Lord Thenot saw the disgust in Haldus’s eyes and grimaced – his face contorted by a mixture of shame and fury. ‘Yes,’ he cried over the noise of the mob. ‘This is what we are, cousin. Damned. You should leave now and pray–’

His words were cut off as he whirled around to shoot several more arrows at the howling mob below.

‘He’s killing his own people,’ gasped Haldus.

Cyanos looked just as disgusted, but he shook his head. He had been studying the gate through a small cylinder he had unfastened from his black armour. ‘He’s protecting us from them,’ he said, handing the object to Haldus.

The prince looked at the thing suspiciously, then, at Cyanos’s bidding, he held it up to his eye. There was a glass lens in the tube and Haldus felt as though he had been thrown towards the gate. Suddenly he could see right through the gaps and into the halls beyond. He muttered a curse as he saw that Thenot’s subjects were even more mutated than their lord.

‘I can only hold them back for so long,’ cried Thenot. ‘My arrows are running low and my mind is starting to wander.’ There was fear in his voice now. ‘I’m not sure I will want to hold them back for much longer. Do you understand? It’s taking me. I’m losing myself. I can barely remember my own name. You must leave cousin, while you still can. Do not be here when we–’ He broke off with a curse and loosed some more arrows at the figures below.

Haldus felt a sickening realisation. ‘We cannot leave them like this.’

Cyanos shook his head. ‘What can we do? It’s too late for them, prince. We must go where we can still be of use.’

‘I know it’s too late for them,’ replied Haldus, ‘but what about the rest of this realm? What will happen when Thenot weakens and his people spill forth from that hellish pit?’

Cyanos nodded. ‘They will spread their disease to their kin.’ He frowned. ‘But what can we do?’

Haldus peered through the looking glass again. ‘The halls are nothing but deadwood now.’ His voice was grim and he looked at Cyanos with a pained expression. ‘Remember your Great Work, Cyanos – the pyre you built when you were…’ his words faltered.

Cyanos looked awkward but he nodded. ‘I remember.’

Haldus looked back at the wooden fortress crouched in the side of the hill.

Cyanos stared at him in shock.

Haldus clenched his jaw. ‘Think, Cyanos. South of here is Endar Varian and the Moonspring Glades. Think how many souls will be damned if we don’t end this here.’

Cyanos looked appalled, but he nodded. ‘Of course, Prince Haldus. You’re right.’

As the sun set behind the Alarin Hills, the valley lit up with a light so powerful that it seemed dawn had come early. Prince Haldus watched from the rocky outcrop on the opposite hill. He had placed the first flaming brand at the foot of the gate. He knew that he could not expect his soldiers to do something he could not. Then, as he walked away, silhouetted by the flames, dozens of figures marched solemnly past him, carrying brands of their own, their eyes wide as they considered the terrible nature of their task.

‘What have I become?’ he whispered, as the flames climbed higher and the screams grew more desperate.

CHAPTER THREE

Finavar saw Ordaana, sitting beside a moonlit brook. He had crawled from his brother’s corpse to exchange vitriol with her, but even charged with grief he could not match her bile. She was railing and cursing, demanding the death of Ariel and Orion, claiming that they were the doom of the asrai. He had watched this scene before; this had all happened in the past. Even in dreams there was a part of him that knew this to be a memory. But this time he watched the scene with a different focus. As Ordaana ranted he studied her movements and noticed something new – something he had only half considered the first time. With every bitter word, every twitch, she scratched angrily at a mark on her shoulder. Once he had noticed this, he could think of nothing else. It overwhelmed him. He could see nothing but her hateful words and her fingers, clawing at the mark on her shoulder.

Finavar sensed the power in this tiny blemish. Three circles laid out in a triangle. They were the root of everything that had gone wrong. All the madness that had overtaken his people stemmed from these three points. He peered closer, terrified by the scale of ruin that was leaking from the symbol. Ordaana carried the end of the world on the surface of her pale skin. She carried the mark of damnation.

He reached out to touch it.

Finavar awoke with a painful series of jolts. His face was pressed into matted hair, heavy with animal musk and the thick aroma of blood.

He looked up and saw the forest rushing by. The dark, brutal crush of the Wildwood was gone. He was travelling through a winding gulley, crowded with waist-high ferns and weary, leafless trees. Overhead was an iron-grey sky, heavy with the promise of snow. It was early morning and the air was crisp.

I’m home, he thought.

For a moment he could think of nothing else. He had done the impossible. He had escaped the Wildwood.

Then he noticed that there was something else drifting on the breeze – a cloying undercurrent of damp and decay. Am I home, he wondered?

He looked down, wondering at the incredible speed he was travelling.

He was strapped to the monstrous hound. Thick vines had been used to lash him to the monster’s back, holding him in place even as it pounded through brushwood and pasture.

He grimaced. The animal stink appalled him all the more now that he realised where it was coming from. Orion’s guide. The killer’s favoured weapon. With his face just inches from the hound’s back, he could see through the countless holes in its flesh. It had clearly been through some terrible ordeal. He wondered how the creature was still intact, never mind running. Through the wounds he saw the same green light that had been poured into his own flesh. The idea that they shared some kind of enchantment horrified him and he strained against his bonds, trying to free himself.

The hound staggered as Finavar moved; its strength was almost gone. The thought gave him hope. He could not imagine what vile punishment Orion’s hound had planned for him, but he was determined to escape it. The hound’s breathing was quick and laboured, but he knew a wounded animal could find unexpected reserves of strength.

The hound picked up its pace, as though sensing that it was almost out of time.

It smashed through the thicket and pounded up the side of the gulley.

Finavar felt the strength of the spirits, still in him, along with the benign presence he had felt in the orchard. Something was stirring in his soul. He wrenched and struggled, breaking the bonds that held him in place.

He slipped around the side of the hound, almost free, but it continued racing up the slope, forcing its broken body into one last, desperate charge.

They reached the summit just as Finavar managed to break the remaining cords and kick himself free, sending the hound tumbling in one direction and himself in the other.

He rolled across hard, cold turf, but the strength he had regained had brought with it his old agility. He bounded up onto his feet and whirled around, dropping into a crouch and bracing himself for the hound’s attack.

No attack came. The animal was lying a few feet away and Finavar relaxed, seeing immediately that he was in no danger. The beast was on its side, panting heavily, gouts of blood and green fire pouring from between its ribs. Its limbs were folded in an awkward jumble, hardly connected to their shoulder joints.

The beast stared at him, but was unable to do anything other than lie there as he looked around for a weapon.

Finavar found a fallen branch and grasped it in both hands as he approached the hound.

The monster’s chest slumped as he approached. Its ribs were crumbling, as though the fire they contained was consuming them. The animal’s body took on an oddly deflated appearance as Finavar loomed over it.

‘You can tell your master I’m done with him,’ said Finavar, his face contorted by disgust. ‘I’ll not waste another day pursuing vengeance. He’s not worthy of my hate. I’ll do what I should have done at the beginning. I’ll return to my own kind and forget about all of you.’

It was only by speaking the words out loud that Finavar realised he was free. He had rid himself of a terrible burden. ‘I cannot undo what happened to Jokleel.’ He spoke with growing certainty. ‘It was not my fault. I cannot be responsible for the actions of my king.’

His voice grew louder. ‘I will not be devoured by this guilt. I will not become like Orion. I will not turn on my own kind.’

He stood proudly over the crippled animal, feeling as though he was speaking directly to the Mage Queen and her Consort-King. ‘Orion can do as he pleases, but I will fight for my people. I will fight for my home and the glory of Loec.’

He expected the hound to struggle, or attempt to attack him, but it just lay there, panting and staring past him, looking at something further up the slope.

He followed the direction of the hound’s stare and saw that they had climbed onto the foot of a larger hill – a huge grassy mound that jutted from the forest like the back of a prehistoric monster. At its summit there was a crooked dolmen, robed in ivy and lichen.

Finavar looked back at the hound. It met his eye briefly and then looked back at the hilltop and the stones.

He lowered his club, confused. There was no rage or judgement in the hound’s eyes, only relief. It glanced once more at the hilltop and then stiffened in pain and, despite all his hatred, Finavar felt a wave of pity.

The hound rolled into a tight ball and its breath became even faster and more ragged. Then, after a final snort, it fell silent and lay still.

Finavar stood there for a moment on the wind-lashed hillside, staring at the hound. The light faded from its body and Finavar knew it was dead. He felt a growing sense of doubt. The hound had made no attempt to attack him. And now, as its body collapsed, there was no trace of anger in its eyes.

Finavar stepped closer, shaking his head, sensing that he had missed something important. He reached out, as though to wake the hound.

At that moment, the light flared one last time, leaving nothing in its wake.

The hound was gone.

Finavar gripped his club tightly and sat on the grass. The flash of light had left an after-image of the hound’s corpse in his eyes and he pressed his hands against his face, trying to rid himself of it.

His thoughts whirled. So much had happened, he struggled to know his own mind. He was free of his oath to avenge Jokleel; he saw clearly now that he had been a fool, but what should he do? Every path had been obscured. Then he recalled his epiphany in the Wildwood. He must find his friends and regain what they had lost; then they must hunt down that treacherous worm, Ordaana.

He climbed to his feet, remembering the urgency of the situation. He knew now that Ordaana was behind all the ills that had befallen the forest. Who knew where her deranged plans would lead?

He looked back down the slope. The terrain looked familiar, but he could not place any of the landmarks. As he peered down into the grey, leafless gulley, he saw another after-image of the dead hound and was reminded of its final glance.

He turned to look at the distant group of standing stones. They were silhouetted against the leaden sky and he felt an odd sense of dread as he studied them. What had the hound wanted of him? Why had it brought him here? Why did it lead his gaze in that direction?

Once again, he had the sensation that he had missed something.

Finavar shrugged and began to climb the hill. At least from the summit he might be able to spot a familiar landmark.

As Finavar climbed, he realised what a terrible mistake he had made. There were no familiar landmarks. This was not his forest. It could not be his home. It was obscene. A mockery of nature. With every step he took, he saw a little more of the landscape and each new vista filled him with dismay.

There were pockets of natural forest, like the gulley below, but huge tracts of Finavar’s home were gone. It had been transformed into an eye-watering rainbow of colours. The world should have been in the grip of winter. It should have been dismal and dun, but Finavar saw a harlequin dance of carmine, copper and cadmium. Fingers of pale fungus speared up through the trees, topped with sapphire-blue cupolas and hazed by citrus-yellow spores. Purples and pinks danced across the horizon – teetering, pustulant digits, reaching up from wobbling, paunch-like hills. It was a hideous mockery of summer, but a summer without warmth or beauty, or the hosts of tiny spirits that should have filled the blooms of that season.

Finavar groaned as he climbed, moving faster to see the full horror of the transformation.

The rivers of acid he had glimpsed from the Chains of Vaul had now fanned out, covering the entire forest with ribbons of boiling, yellow poison. Wherever they flowed, an iridescent patchwork of mutation had sprung up. He found himself in a forest without sanity – a world in which rotten, gaudy blooms had destroyed the natural order.

Finavar clutched his head in his hands as he neared the summit, stumbling like a drunkard. The mutation was everywhere. Everything was infested and corrupted beyond recognition. He cried out as he saw, less than half a mile away, a monstrous, goitre-like growth that had boiled up from a riverbed, enveloping an entire valley. It was a mottled pink mound, quivering and silky like the belly of an enormous rat. The vile thing was littered with chimney-like carbuncles and they were belching flies into the air. Even at this distance, Finavar could tell that the insects were huge, like the ones he had seen at the Chains of Vaul, and they were moving with horrible deliberation: flying in neatly-ordered columns towards another fungal goliath – a slug-like limb that covered miles of the horizon.

‘Ordaana, what have you done?’ he snarled, continuing on towards the stones. ‘What have you taken from us?’

Finavar advanced over the other side of the hill: the situation was even worse than he had thought. Wherever the forest had resisted the advance of the florid garden, it had fallen to another threat. The dark, impenetrable glades of the Wildwood had burst from their boundaries and rushed out to meet the plague, creating an impassable barrier of thorns and roots and leaving nothing inbetween. The forest was shared between two equally dreadful invaders.

By the time Finavar reached the stones, he was trembling with rage. Whatever game Ordaana was playing, she had destroyed his home. He smashed his club against the old rocks and howled.

The branch broke in a shower of splinters and two shapes bolted from the shadows beneath the capstone.

Finavar recoiled, surprised by the movement. Then he laughed.

Watching him from a few feet away was a pair of polecats. Their fur had been scorched in a couple of places and one of them had lost part of an ear, but Finavar recognised his scouts immediately.

‘My friends,’ he said, bowing.

The sight of Mormo and Mauro distracted him from his rage for a moment. They looked back at him with the same calm, patient expressions they always wore. He recalled how he had driven them away after the death of his brother and felt a flush of shame. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, bowing again.

The polecats watched him for a few moments, as though gauging his sincerity, and Finavar saw that the change in them was more profound than he had at first thought. Their eyes now gleamed with the same odd light he had seen in the hound and there was something ghostly about them, as if they were only half present.

‘Did you follow me?’ he asked, amazed by their bravery. ‘Did you enter the Wildwood?’

The polecats rushed through the grass and climbed into his outstretched hands.

He pressed his face into their fur, savouring their scent and noticing again that they had been changed somehow. Finavar, like all of his race, could sense magic as clearly as the breeze, and he felt it now, pulsing through their tiny veins. Then, sensing that they wished it, he placed them back on the ground.

They immediately bolted back under the dolmen.

Finavar frowned. Orion’s hound had sent him to these stones; it had sent him to his friends. Once again, he sensed that he was on the edge of some great wisdom. It infuriated him to follow the train of thought, but he was beginning to doubt the dissension he had seen between Orion and the rest of the forest. Could it be that neither the hounds, nor Orion, were as vile as he thought? The dying hound had brought him to his guides, and one of the forest’s hidden links with the Great Weave. Orion’s servant had saved him from the Wildwood and shown him a route to… His thoughts faltered as he looked at the polecats. He could see their eyes glittering in the dark beneath the stones. A route to where?

He stepped closer and saw another surprise. Scratched into the dust beneath the stones was a rune. He recognised it immediately. It was the mark of his patron god, Loec. The meaning was clear – someone intended him to enter the dolmen and let it lead him where it willed.

As Finavar stepped closer he felt magic emanating from the rocks; it rippled over his skin like the charge of an approaching storm. He glanced back at the madness surrounding the hill and decided he had little choice. Besides, his guides were waiting silently for him at the threshold, clearly willing him to enter, and they had never betrayed him before.

Finavar laughed. After all the trials he had endured he was getting used to braving the unknown.

He strode forwards. As he moved, the polecats launched themselves after him and all three of them vanished from the hilltop.

CHAPTER FOUR

Leaves danced in the breeze, allowing a brief splash of sunlight to hit the forest floor. The light rippled across twelve smooth, yellow domes that filled the little glade. They were mushroom caps, each about six or seven feet in diameter. Their size was not the most unusual thing about them, however. Clara was far more unnerved by their cheerful, smiling faces. As she dragged herself higher up a tree, twelve pairs of eyes followed her progress. The eyes were essentially human in appearance, but each of them was as large as Clara’s face.

‘I don’t like the look of you at all,’ she whispered, settling on a bough and wishing she still had her crook. When she had first reached the clearing, just a few hours earlier, she thought the place relatively safe. The surrounding valleys were filled with things she was trying desperately not to think about, but this glade had seemed like a haven. Then, after what she was sure was only the briefest of naps, she had awoken to see these grotesque, fungal faces looking up at her.

She had arrived in the clearing as a bird – a jackdaw, she thought, and before that she had been a series of lumpen, shuffling toads. Before that, she was unsure – a fox, maybe, or perhaps a pine marten. She had a clear image of a fawn, emerging from a shattered oak, but she could not be sure if that was a vision of herself, or a memory of a more natural kind.

The forest was playing a game with her, she knew that now. Every time she managed to regain human form, it would fill her mind with visions so beguiling that they quickly overwhelmed her flesh. For a while she had lost herself utterly to these enchantments – subsumed by the wonders and horrors of the changing forest. But now she had learned to preserve a kernel of herself, buried so deep that it was untouched by the transformations tormenting her body. She was Clara. She was a mage from the Amber Hills.

And she was a damned fool.

Her wrinkles deepened as she considered what a mess she had made of things. All she had meant to do was snatch a little of the Everwood’s power and leave. By now she should have been ruling the Amber Brotherhood with one jabbing, rheumatic finger. But no – she had to let herself be outwitted by meat-headed peasants and then dragged into this lunatic’s daydream of a forest.

She looked down at the mushroom caps and grinned back at them, bearing her crooked yellow teeth in a furious, mocking grin.

To her horror, they all began to laugh – a low, gurgling sound that caused their rubbery flesh to quiver. Some of them were so amused they threw back their domes and revealed the rippling gills beneath.

‘By the gods,’ she said, ‘what do you want with me?’

The faces became suddenly quiet, but they gave her no answer. They stared at her with lidless eyes and their mouths hanging open expectantly. She noticed that they had rows of fine, needle-like teeth behind their lips. Then the breeze dropped and the tree canopy fell back into place, plunging them into darkness.

‘Bubbleblack, sicklesack,’ whispered voices from the shadows. ‘Crunch the bones and drink the sap.’

Clara stiffened in horror, knowing without a doubt where the words had come from. She was sightless for a moment and imagined that the faces were drifting up towards her, mouths wide and eyes rolling.

After a few minutes, she grew accustomed to the dark again and she was able to make out the twelve, pale blobs in the gloom. To her dismay, she realised that they were a little closer.

‘Bubbleblack,’ they whispered.

She climbed higher, still amazed by how nimble she was. For all the forest’s madness, she could not deny that it had filled her with the most wonderful vigour. Even while in human form, she was charged with magic. She could feel all eight winds of it whistling through her veins. She had never felt this young.

‘Think, you old goat,’ she whispered, peering into the shadows. ‘What did the ghost say to you?’ She closed her eyes, wracking her brains and trying to recall her exchange with the child in the autumn leaves. ‘He said there was a way.’

The spirit had been as deranged as everything else, but Clara had nothing else to pin her hopes on. Every step she took left her deeper in the forest and, even if she could return to the white stones that guarded its borders, she knew she could not leave – not in her current state. She needed to be made human again.

‘Where have you gone?’ she hissed, wanting to shout but terrified of what she might summon if she did.

‘Gone?’ asked a voice from behind her.

Clara jumped so violently that she almost fell from her perch. Once she had steadied herself, she turned around to look for the golden spirit.

At first she could not see it, then the breeze picked up again, letting in another shaft of light and throwing some dead leaves up towards her. A column of bronze and gold shimmered nearby and, as it flickered back and forth, she saw a familiar impish face.

‘Zephyr is with you, old human, do not fear.’

The spirit spoke with gentle concern, but Clara was wise to its tricks. Or perhaps tricks was the wrong word – the spirit seemed to be genuinely confused for most of the time. In one breath it would speak of helping her home and ridding her of mutation; in the next breath it would rant at all the injustices it imagined had been done to it.

Clara replied carefully, conscious that the wrong word would send the spirit fleeing into the trees. ‘Are we near the place you mentioned?’

The spirit child did not seem to hear. Since arriving in the clearing it had been looking around with a worried expression on its little face – taking in all the grotesque, bloated shapes that surrounded them. The twelve grinning mushrooms were not the only signs of the forest’s decay; there was barely a tree that had not been torn open by tumour-like growths of fungus and the ground was alive with movement – thousands of tiny grubs were washing through the glade. They were pale and maggot-like, but some of them moved on spindly, spider-like legs and others whirred by on humming wings. It was obvious, even in the fragile bursts of light, that they were not normal grubs. Some, like the mushrooms, had humanoid features – tiny, wide-eyed faces that stared out of their ridged flesh. Almost as strange as the creatures, were the colours. The trees were leafless but dressed in a revoltingly gaudy blossom of fungal blooms – quivering, petal-like brackets of fungus and clouds of mustard-yellow spores.

The spirit child shook its head and drifted higher. As it saw the surrounding hills, it looked even more troubled.

Clara looked in the same direction and saw the same thing she had seen whenever she regained her senses – the trees were either twisted into colourful, nightmarish shapes, or absent altogether, replaced by a stew of yellow liquid and quivering, goitre-like fungus. She guessed from the spirit’s expression that even the Everwood was not usually this strange. An idea occurred to her. She had let the forest and its pernicious little agent take charge for too long. If she were to stand any chance of escape, she needed to show some initiative.

‘It’s worse in the south of the forest,’ she said quietly.

‘What is?’ snapped the spirit, appearing next to her in a flurry of leaves.

The spirit was trying to adopt a haughty, nonchalant expression, but it was too infantile to play such games and Clara felt a rush of excitement as she realised how naive her companion was.

‘The forest is being overrun by…’ she hesitated, struggling to think of a suitable name. Her gaze skipped over a knotted root and she said. ‘It is being killed off by Yellow Root.’

The child spirit stared at her from its spiral of leaves. Then it sneered disdainfully and whirled away from her, vanishing into the shadows.

Clara’s heart raced, but she held her tongue. She was starting to understand the spirit’s erratic, fidgeting behaviour.

After a few minutes, as she expected, the column of leaves rustled back into view, picked out again by the shaft of light. The childish face looked suspiciously at her.

‘I know all about Yellow Root,’ it snapped. Then it narrowed its eyes. ‘What do you know of Yellow Root?’

Clara tried to keep her voice as deadpan as possible. ‘I come from a place that is regularly plagued by it. It was one of my jobs to remove the infestations.’

The spirit looked anxiously at the twelve faces looking up at them. Then it licked its gilded lips and drifted closer. ‘How?’

‘My memory is so confused,’ she answered. ‘Strangely enough, changing from a hawk, to a newt, to a trout has left me unable to think straight.’ She ran her fingers gently over the open wound on the side of her head. Since her run-in with the peasants, it had got progressively worse. She could feel a whole patch of exposed skull beneath her bloody, matted hair. More worryingly, the bone seemed to be changing shape – forming itself into a raised lump. She had been trying not to think about it too much, but it felt almost like a little tusk. Her thoughts leapt to the one-eyed, pot-bellied monsters she had seen all over the forest. Each of them had a single horn rising from their heads.

She quashed her fears and focussed on the spirit. ‘If I could just be healed,’ she said, speaking slowly, ‘perhaps I could remember the trick to removing this blight. I’m sure it was something quite simple.’

The spirit narrowed its eyes, then adopted a sullen, sulky pout. ‘I already told you I could help. I can show you a way to be human again.’

Clara gave what she hoped was a disarming smile. ‘Then perhaps we could help each other. Where do we need to go?’

The spirit sneered at her. ‘The Darna-Càoch, of course. The Blind Pool. The Forgotten Lake. The Endless Dream. Call it whatever you like. The puddle. It doesn’t matter. Only the Council of Beasts can help you. Sativus can undo any…’ The spirit’s words trailed off and it looked troubled again. ‘But Sativus is no more.’

The spirit fell silent and Clara wondered if it was about to leave her again. She looked down and saw that her mind had not been playing tricks on her. The mushrooms were growing larger, and taller. Their broad, smiling faces were definitely closer. Her pulse raced as she realised they had risen halfway up the tree trunk in just the last few minutes.

‘Sativus is gone, but the rest of us remain,’ continued the spirit, not looking entirely convinced by its own words. ‘And besides, the Darna-Càoch sees only the immutable truth of things. The water is too old to be confused by confusion. It would see you for what you are. Or what you think you are. Or what you need to be.’

The spirit began to talk in irritating riddles and Clara lost the thread of its conversation. A creaking sound: the mushrooms had risen even higher. They were now just a few feet away and she could see the rows of needle teeth with horrible clarity. Their grinning mouths were lined with them.

‘You will need to take me there quickly,’ she said, interrupting the spirit’s confused ramblings. ‘We don’t have much time.’

Zephyr looked furious at being interrupted. Then it noticed that the fungal growths had almost reached them.

‘I know that,’ it replied, petulantly, enveloping Clara in a funnel of whirling leaves.

Clara yelped as she felt her body being lifted and hurled through the air.

CHAPTER FIVE

Finavar staggered to a halt in the darkness, unsure which direction to take. After a while he sensed movement ahead and followed it, recognising the scratching, scampering sounds of Mormo and Mauro. The absence of light was complete, but he trusted his guides. After a while he realised that they were leading him towards a noise. At first it was a distant rushing sound, like wind moving through leaves, but it tripled in volume with every step he took until it became a deafening roar. It sounded as though a mountain were crashing down around him. Other noises followed: battle cries and the clattering of weapons, but they were all dwarfed by this thunderous din.

Finavar emerged into moonlight and his breath caught in his throat. He was standing at the entrance to a deep, broad valley and towering overhead was an incredible sight – a vast, three-limbed waterfall, tumbling around two colossal towers. The falls must have been miles tall and Finavar knew immediately what he was looking at. He had never glimpsed it before, but he knew that he was witnessing one of the forest’s most guarded treasures. The waterfall was called the Limneonas and it featured in countless asrai tales and histories. The two pillars that divided the water into three were actually ash trees, naked and skeletal, but so tall that they seemed to support the very heavens, their crowns lost in a haze of clouds and spray.

Finavar was cowed by the magnificence of the sight. The Limneonas blazed in the moonlight – three blinding columns of silver, crashing down into an oval lake. He was so shocked that it took him a few seconds to notice that he was not alone. There was an army gathered at the foot of the falls and, as the light flashed brighter, it gave Finavar a vivid, frozen, snapshot of grim-faced warriors. His pulse raced as he saw that the forces mustered below the waterfall were even greater than those that fought at the Battle of Drúne Fell.

Every realm of the forest must have volunteered its children to create such a proud gesture of defiance. Finavar saw pennants from every realm he could name and dozens more he could not. Riders were thundering by in their hundreds, spears aloft and horns trilling, led by nobles in flamboyant robes.

Moving down the south bank of the river was a host of glaive-wielding foot soldiers. They were clad in thick, leather armour and Finavar recognised the sword of Wydrioth on their banners. ‘Lord Findol,’ he muttered in surprise. The Findol Host was famed for its brutality and heroism, but Finavar had never heard of them travelling so far west. They rarely left their briar-rock fortress in the heart of the Pine Crags. He wondered who, or what could have dragged them so far from their haven.

Fast-limbed, semi-clad figures were slipping past them and Finavar grinned, recognising his brothers in mirth: the wardancers of Loec. Where Findol’s host marched, the wardancers seemed to glide, hurling themselves through the air, cartwheeling through the spray and twirling their leaf-shaped blades.

The light grew even brighter and Finavar looked for its source. It was emanating from another asrai kindred – a group of spellweavers that were drifting in the air, way above his head. They were hanging before the waterfall like a chain of water sprites with their robes spiralling in the foam and their staffs wrenching lightning from the spume. The light blazed in their flesh as they created spheres of root and magic and hurled them through the air.

Finavar watched, hypnotised, as the glittering spheres tumbled into the distance. As they went, they illuminated the whole length of the valley and revealed a sight that shocked him even more than the waterfall. As the mage-fire lit up the far end of the river Finavar glimpsed a terrifying vision – a flood of hunched figures; thousands of half-seen, malformed horrors, lurching and slithering towards the waterfall from the surrounding hills. Before the lights failed, they washed up against a vast outcrop of land, blocking the river at the far end of the valley.

A cloud of arrows poured from the slopes on either side of the waterfall. They fell in their tens of hundreds on the approaching monsters, but Finavar saw that the daemons were not the only threat.

The water was rising fast. Blocked by the distant outcrop, it had burst from the banks of the river and was lapping quickly up the slopes of the valley. As the asrai advanced they were forced to wade, knee deep through eddying torrents of water.

Then the sorcerous light failed, leaving Finavar with nothing but the dreadful din of the falls and a toiling mass of shadows.

He looked back the way he had come, but saw only a mossy, jagged valley wall. There was no sign of the portal he arrived through, but he was not particularly surprised. Many of the forest’s shadow paths only ran in one direction. He grimaced and stepped further from the shadows.

His arrival was met by a series of guttural cries and Finavar whirled around to see that the slopes above him were alive with the enemy. One-eyed mutants, clutching rusted, broken blades were scrambling through the shrubs and thicket and several of them had already singled him out with their swords.

Finavar bounded down the slope, making for the valley floor and the army at the foot of the falls.

The roar of the water was bewildering – a low, grinding, drum roll that reverberated through the valley and caused Finavar’s legs to tremble as he fled.

Arrows whistled through the air, missing Finavar’s face by inches and felling some of the daemons.

He dropped into a crouch. ‘Some guides,’ he muttered, seeing the polecats looking up at him from lower down the slope. ‘Is this your idea of a rescue?’

The daemons behind him lurched back to their feet and summoned more of their kind from the shadowy slopes.

Finavar skipped and rolled lightly down the valley wall and quickly left the daemons behind.

After a few moments he splashed into the river and began wading through it towards the asrai lines.

There was another dazzling flare from the spellweavers hanging over the waterfall. Finavar was too far away to see their faces but he could see the tendrils of light lashing from their fingers. He counted at least a dozen and shook his head in wonder. He had never witnessed such a gathering of mages. They were summoning cages of root and water from the falls and then hurling them at the daemons.

The light lasted a little longer this time and Finavar saw one of his kinsmen a few feet away. He saw by the markings on his leather armour that it was one of Findol’s guardsmen. He was hunched, ashen faced, over a body that was drifting in the water.

Finavar dashed towards the warrior, calling out a ‘Hello’.

The warrior flinched at the sight of Finavar, his eyes straining with fear and disgust. ‘Get back!’ he cried, rising from the water with a glaive in his hands. He looked around for support, as though he had been attacked, but everyone was busy rushing to join the attack.

Finavar stumbled to a halt and shook his head. Before the light dimmed, he looked down at his body and realised what the warrior was so afraid of. The tree spirits’ medicine had transformed him. They had replaced his missing patches of skin, but not with new flesh. They had repaired his body with brittle plates of bark-like shell. To the warrior, he must look as grotesque and strange as the monsters that surrounded the valley.

The light flashed even brighter, blinding him.

The last thing Finavar saw was the desperate face of the asrai warrior as he charged towards him, glaive raised.

Finavar thanked Loec for letting him regain his old agility. Even half-blinded, he had enough balance to flip away from his attacker.

His agility did not enable him to see behind him, however, and he slammed into a tree trunk.

He fell and stifled a yell as sharp pain exploded in one of his hands.

Still half blind, he felt, rather than saw, the asrai warrior, rush towards him.

Then there was a moist tearing sound as the daemons lurched past him and hacked the warrior to the ground, pulling him limb-from-limb in a matter of seconds.

Finavar prepared to defend himself but the daemons rushed on, making for the crush of bodies near the lake.

I could be killed by either side, he realised. People will think the daemons have corrupted me. He felt a rush of panic as he thought that he may never be able to approach his own kind again. Then he remembered that the scales of bark only covered his torso and upper arms. The spirits had mended the wounds he gained being torn from the white boundary stone. All he needed to do was dress himself in something more than his loincloth and he would be able to pass as normal.

He remembered that his attacker had been examining a body in the water and waded towards it.

There were now warriors rushing all around him. He could hear hooves and feet pounding past but he fixed his attention on the shape ahead. As he had guessed, it was the body of a fallen asrai warrior and he knew he only had seconds to reach it before someone else noticed his deformed flesh.

His hand brushed against the still-warm body of the fallen asrai and he began to quickly remove its clothes. He hesitated. What if the corpse was infected with the plague?

Then he remembered that the warrior had been hunched over the body, muttering some kind of prayer. He would not have dared get so close to mutation or disease.

Finavar wrestled with the body, struggling to undress it with one hand.

The mage-fire flashed again, just as Finavar finished dressing himself.

A line of horse riders was charging past him to join the army, adding to the general din and filling the air with spray. They were returning from the front lines and making for the foot of the waterfall. Finavar saw from their trailing banners that this was another kindred who were far from their halls. They were the horse-masters of Cavaroc, a realm of sunsplashed meadows in the southernmost reaches of the forest. They wore their hair tied back in long ponytails, plaited with intricate designs woven from pieces of straw and horsehair. Their proud faces were bronzed from a life spent in the plains. Like everyone else in the valley, their features were drawn and lined with exhaustion, but their chins were raised defiantly and they had their eyes locked on their destination.

Finavar slumped against the tree and watched them approach.

As they thundered by, they hurled javelins into the crowds of daemons, dropping several of them to the ground.

The javelins thudded into necks and backs and, before the monsters could rise again, the riders of Cavaroc circled back, drew swords and hacked off their heads.

As they sliced and lunged, one of the riders spotted Finavar leaning against the tree and steered her horse through the spray towards him.

There was a look of pity in her eyes as she took in Finavar’s bloody, emaciated body, but there was no sign of the fear he had induced in the other warrior. She slowed her mount and stared at him.

‘This is not the time to ponder your next rhyme, poet,’ she said. Her steed was hopping from hoof to hoof, clearly eager to be away and Finavar sensed the rider was of a similar mindset.

‘I need your help,’ he said quickly, striding through the water towards her and pulling his stolen robes tighter.

She laughed. It was a bitter sound. ‘It seems that everyone needs our aid today.’

Finavar sensed anger and possibly despair hidden beneath her strident tone, but he did not have time to ask the cause. ‘I need to reach whoever is leading this army,’ he said. ‘I have news that could change their plans. News of a traitor.’

‘Plans?’ She rocked back in her saddle with laughter and was unable to speak for a moment. ‘Look around you, songsmith, do you see any sign of plans?’

Finavar studied the crowds battling through the valley. The asrai armies were fanned out around the foot of the waterfall, massed on either bank of the river and trying to push back the seething hosts that were shambling towards them out of the darkness. Their ranks were disintegrating though, and it was not because of the daemons.

‘The water’s rising,’ he muttered.

The rider’s laughter settled into a pained grin. ‘They have us cornered like rats, stranger. They have drawn us in and then dammed the valley. We’re both dammed and damned.’ She laughed bitterly, twisting the horse’s mane between her fingers and staring at the steep slopes that surrounded them.

Finavar shook his head. ‘Then whoever leads you should call a retreat. You can’t just stay here and drown.’

‘Retreat where?’ She glared at him.

Finavar looked up the slopes on either side of the valley. Daemonic shapes were tumbling towards them in every direction, and they were moving in shocking numbers. Any attempt to climb out of the valley would be hopeless.

‘Who leads this army?’ he asked again.

‘Prince Haldus.’ Her voice was full of scorn. ‘At least, he is the one who summoned us into the trap, claiming to speak with the authority of the Mage Queen. Who leads us now, I’d struggle to say. Haldus made his escape just before it was too late, claiming he would return with help. It seems he had no stomach for the fight.’

Finavar recalled the hawk rider and his heart sank as he recalled the last time Prince Haldus had led them to war. Then he shook his head. ‘Whatever else he might be, Prince Haldus is no coward.’

‘Well, he must be showing his bravery elsewhere then.’ The rider seemed to regret her words as soon as she spoke them, but did not take them back.

Finavar looked at the largest concentration of asrai soldiers – the armoured ranks of footsoldiers from the east. ‘And what of Lord Findol? Is he leading the army?’

The rider took a deep breath that seemed to calm her. Then she nodded and held out a hand to Finavar. ‘My name is Calepine,’ she said with a pained smile. ‘If you had met me before today, my manners would not have been so rough and I would not have spoken so poorly of our kin.’

Finavar gave her a cautious nod and climbed up beside her on the horse’s back.

She pointed her javelin towards the point where the fighting was most fierce, right in the centre of the valley.

‘Yes. If anyone is leading us all to our deaths, it is Lord Findol. I think that, if he weren’t about to drown, he might have even delayed our defeat. He’s almost as shocking as the daemons.’ She peered into the gloom with a bemused expression on her face. ‘He and the other nobles have sworn an oath to Prince Haldus that they will defend the Crowfoot Falls.’

She turned her horse around and sent it racing after the others who were already vanishing into the shifting dark. She waved at the noble who was leading the riders. He was clad in the same pale colours as the others, but he wore a tall leather helmet, topped with a plume of white horsehair. ‘Even my own liege, Lord Edrael, swore that he would wait for Prince Haldus to return. Despite everything we have been through. Haldus said that the falls guard a treasure too important to be lost, but what difference does it make if the whole forest is lost? It is all meaningless now.’ She glanced at the countless shapes gathering on the slopes above them. ‘We could not leave now if we wished to.’

She glanced back at Finavar and spoke in a softer voice. ‘What news did you have for Haldus?’

Finavar shook his head. ‘It can wait.’

A couple of the other riders looked suspiciously at Finavar as Calepine rejoined them, but as they continued on their way, they quickly returned their gaze to the toiling mass ahead of them. Finavar guessed that they had bigger concerns than a starving bard wearing clothes that were too big for him.

He was about to ask another question when the spellweavers’ magic flashed again.

He cursed and shielded his eyes, but his rescuer was undaunted – driving her horse on through the river as though nothing had happened.

‘What is your name, son of Loec?’ she called, struggling to be heard over the noise of the waterfall. ‘Who are your kin? Could I take you to them?’

‘I’m Finavar of Locrimere,’ he called back, but as the words left his lips they felt like a lie. His home was long gone and his memories of the place felt like they belonged to someone else.

‘Ha,’ she replied, with a gruff laugh. ‘That makes sense. One of Lord Beldeas’s refugees.’ The disdain in her voice was clear, but she quickly suppressed it and regained her softer tones. ‘Whatever happens today, I can still behave with a little good grace. Let me deliver you to your kin, stranger, if that’s what you desire.’

Finavar hesitated. What would his kinfolk have heard? Would they know of his supposed betrayal? Surely they would. Banishment to the Wildwood was a rare punishment. For a moment he thought of saying no and making his way alone, but then a spark of mischief flickered in his soul. He pictured himself side-by-side with Caorann and the others, dancing and joking as they did in their youth. He recalled the guile, grace and wit they had shown back then. He smiled, forming the unshakable belief that there was nothing he could not do, or overcome, with his friends by his side.

‘Yes,’ he replied, still smiling. ‘Yes, that is what I wish.’

Calepine looked confused by his smile, but nodded all the same. She made a clicking sound with her tongue and her horse bolted away from the other riders, pounding through the quickly rising river and filling the air with spray. She made for the largest gathering of soldiers – the ones who were rushing up the valley towards the oncoming host of daemons.

Finavar was no rider and, though he did not want to appear a fool, he was forced to clutch tightly onto her back as she lowered her head and drove the horse into a gallop.

They sped through the ranks of soldiers and Finavar had to cry out to be heard. ‘What has become of the forest?’ He recalled the grotesque sights he had seen on the other side of the dark paths.

‘The great realms are dying,’ she replied, speaking in hollow, flat tones. ‘The lords of the inner realms have failed us all and Prince Haldus has called on those who remain for aid. We all thought him our last hope, but this valley of death looks set to be his epitaph. And ours.’

She nodded to the line of riders they had left behind. ‘My Lord Edrael has spared what strength he has, though the gods know how pressed our own defences are. The south of the forest is more corrupted than the rest. And we have the whole winter ahead of us. I do not even know what this treasure is that we’re guarding.’

She turned her gaze back to the ranks of armoured footsoldiers up ahead of them. ‘Lord Findol also answered the call, dragging his men away from the safety of their briar-rock halls at the request of Prince Haldus.’ She waved her javelin at other standards jutting from the crowds of soldiers, naming dozens of great lords and ladies of the forest who had abandoned the defences of their own realms to join Prince Haldus. It was a roll-call of heroes from every realm of the forest, but one of the names in particular leapt out at Finavar. ‘Mälloch the Elder is with the other wood-seers,’ said the rider, looking up at the luminous spellweavers. They were still drifting, jewel-like in front of the falls and Finavar thought he could just make out the Lord of the Fiùrann in his long, bearskin robes.

Despite the mayhem that surrounded him, Finavar felt another rush of excitement. He was sure that Mälloch knew he was no villain. The ancient noble had even attempted to defy the wrath of the Enchanter, Prince Elatior. He had to be forced to take him to the Wildwood.

Finavar could feel his old playful nature blossoming in him, like vigour, returning finally to the limbs of a recovering patient. He would prove Mälloch right. Even if just one of his old kinsmen survived he would find a way to turn this battle around.

‘Lord Beldeas,’ said Calepine, after a few minutes, pointing her javelin at a small hill, surrounded by bodies and water and topped by a group of pitiful-looking warriors, huddled beneath the tattered banner of Locrimere.

Finavar glimpsed his former lord, cowering at the top of the hill, his pale, skeletal face contorted by fear as he ordered his guards to stay close. The guards were archers and spearmen and Finavar realised that there were none of his own kind there. He scoured the shadows but could find no sign of wardancers.

Calepine saw his expression and laughed. ‘Your songsmith brothers have clearly found more heroic places to die.’

Finavar nodded. He would not have expected them to cower with Beldeas, but he doubted they intended to die. He was about to ask if Calepine would allow him to join her and the other riders when a familiar face caught his eye.

‘Thank you,’ he said, taking Calepine’s hand, ‘and good luck. This is as good a place as any for me to begin.’

Calepine seemed momentarily lost for words and Finavar realised that the hope burning inside him must be visible in his eyes.

She frowned, clearly confused. ‘I believe the gods do have something else in store for you.’ She hesitated, reluctant to leave, then she shook her head and laughed. ‘The trickster god is in you. You almost had me fooled into thinking we–’

Her words were cut short as the asrai lines buckled under a fresh wave of daemons.

Spears and swords clattered as Lord Beldeas’s guards tried to hold their ground, but the monsters that waded into view drew screams and curses from them.

Finavar jumped lightly from the horse’s back and dashed through the crush of bodies, waving to Calepine as he went.

She lashed out with her spear, skewering a one-eyed hulk that rose up from the throng. Its body was crusted with armour-like plates of bone and its head was topped by a long, crooked horn.

Calepine fought briefly, then turned and rode away, keen to make her final stand with her lord. As she left, Finavar noticed that she had a faint smile on her lips and some of the weariness had left her face.

He sprinted on through the battle. As he ran, he lifted a pair of blades from the corpse of a wardancer and began juggling them from hand to hand.

Just as Calepine left, a new phalanx of armoured warriors rushed to halt the daemons’ progress. Even here, forty feet from the riverbank, the water was knee-high and, as the asrai plunged their glaives into the daemons, there was an explosion of spray.

Finavar lashed out as he ran, severing limbs and slicing faces, but he did not pause. There was a group of figures huddled on another small knoll up ahead, cowering together as water and daemons pressed in on them.

Finavar gave a final bound, over the heads of two struggling figures, and left the water to clamber up the slope.

Hands reached out to help him, but his momentum was enough to reach the summit of the little hill alone.

The hill was surrounded by fallen daemons and, leading the slaughter was a slender figure with a shaven scalp and two ceaselessly whirling blades. Finavar paused to watch her for a moment, smiling to himself.

The wardancer was too lost in her rage to notice him, but the other asrai on the knoll stared at Finavar in shock. The carnage was horrific, but Finavar continued grinning.

Most of the asrai on the hill were too weak or wounded to fight, but a couple of them were attempting to protect the back of the wardancer who was defending them.

Finavar winked at them as he jogged to her side and joined her bloody dance.

The asrai on the hill watched in stunned silence as the two wardancers whirled back and forth, lashing out at the daemons and looping gracefully over the battle. Their movements became faster and more furious, but no less elegant and, after a while, they began to drive the monsters back into the water, shedding limbs and chunks of weaponry as they went.

Finally, the daemons broke ranks and scattered, lurching off in several directions and eliciting a weak cheer from the asrai on the hill.

The female wardancer reeled back and forth for a moment, hacking and stabbing at the struggling shapes that lay all around her. She moved in manic, twitching spasms, as though her body were being jolted around by a powerful storm. Once she had dismembered every pustulant body part she could reach, she whirled around to face Finavar, wearing a wild, rigid stare.

‘I knew you would return,’ she stated flatly, as if they had only been parted for a day. Her words were simple but her head flicked to one side a couple of times as she spoke, jolted by a violent nervous tic.

Finavar winced inwardly as he saw how her edginess had possessed her. He tucked his blades into his belt and threw his arms around her. She continued trembling and fidgeting, but did not push him away, and for a few moments they held each other in silence, deaf to the battle raging around them.

‘I thought perhaps you would have mellowed since I last saw you,’ said Finavar, still grinning. Then he shook his head and laughed. ‘What am I saying? No I didn’t.’

‘I thought perhaps you would have eaten a meal.’ She stared at Finavar’s gaunt features. ‘You look awful.’

He shrugged. ‘My strength has been returned to me, but I don’t think I’ll ever be handsome again.’

Despite her frenetic, nervous movements, Alhena’s reply was deadpan. ‘You were never handsome.’

Finavar frowned, then laughed, overcome by the simple balm of friendship.

Alhena frowned. ‘Your strength was “returned” to you?’

Finavar was about to reply when someone called out his name from the foot of the hill.

The warriors parted to reveal an awestruck youth. Another wardancer and another face from Finavar’s past.

‘Sibaris,’ said Finavar, giving Alhena a surprised, sideways glance.

‘Someone had to look after him,’ she said with a shrug.

Finavar noticed that she was blushing and her tics had become even more pronounced, so he held back the joke that had sprung into his thoughts.

There was a crash and clatter as more daemons tumbled towards the knoll. Sibaris bounded up the slope like an excited pet and joined Finavar and Alhena as they began another brutal display of acrobatics.

Finavar abandoned himself to the glory of the dance in a way that he had never thought possible. A sense of weightlessness overtook him and, as he weaved in and out of the other two dancers his soul flew free of his body, becoming one with the flashing light of his swords. The three of them lifted their voices in unison as they fought, singing a hymn to the glorious cruelty of their lord, the trickster god, Loec.

The dance seemed to take minutes at most, but when it was done, and the daemons had been scattered for a second time, Finavar saw that several hours must have passed. Dawn was looming on the horizon, as though unsure whether to throw light on such a brutal scene.

The three dancers fell, exhausted, to their knees, their muscles aching and their throats raw from singing.

Finavar looked around and saw that, as they had fought, the battle had moved on.

Lord Findol and the other nobles had been driven back by the enemy, and had formed a single, final barrier of spears and glaives, right at the foot of the falls. The flood had risen even higher and in many places the asrai warriors were waist deep in filthy, red water, strewn with the corpses of their kin, daemons and horses.

Finavar’s smile finally fell from his face. The situation was dire. By the time the sun rose they would be drowning; drowning in their thousands.

The other asrai had fled from the hill, leaving just the three wardancers. He looked from Alhena’s taut, bloodstained glare to Sibaris’s childish grin. Even now, with a massacre looming, he could not shake the sense that their moment had come.

He jogged to the top of the hill and saw that they were utterly surrounded. The fierceness of their dance had not driven back the enemy, as he first thought, it had simply bored them. The daemons were now bypassing the hill on their way to the waterfall. The wardancers were on a tiny island of space, surrounded by an ocean of plague-riddled horrors.

As the other two stepped to his side they looked expectantly at him.

Finavar was unaware of them as he stared into the distance. The growing light had revealed a new horror.

‘What in the name of the gods is that?’ he asked, grimacing.

A few miles east of them at the far end of the valley was the blockage that was causing the valley to flood. As weak, grey light washed over the unnaturally gaudy landscape, it revealed that, rather than an outcrop of land, the shape was a vast, spineless mollusc. Its pallid, puckered flesh glistened in the growing light and its face turned to reveal a nest of tentacles that undulated, drifting like grass caught in the breeze. It was the scale of the thing that shocked Finavar most. The monster had blocked the whole width of the valley with its bulk.

‘That is what the nobles were trying to reach,’ said Alhena. She waved one of her swords at the crowds of daemons that now flanked both sides of the broad river. ‘Only there is no way to fight through.’

She looked intently at Finavar. It was clear by her expression that she was elated by his return. She expected him to have an answer and, rather than daunting him, the thought thrilled him.

‘There is no way out of this valley but through that beast,’ said Sibaris.

Finavar nodded and was about to ask another question when more daemons headed in their direction. Their single, pus-yellow eyes lit up at the sight of three stranded figures and, as they neared the hill, Finavar noticed that one of them was carrying a fly-shrouded ledger of some kind, tracing a pockmarked finger over its rows of glyphs.

‘Caorann?’ he asked, glancing at the bodies that were floating all around them. ‘Thuralin?’

Alhena twitched, coughed, spat and then smiled. ‘Let us rejoin our kin,’ she said, jerking her head towards the crowds gathered below the waterfall.

Sibaris looked like he might burst with pride as he raced after Finavar and Alhena, back towards the asrai lines.

CHAPTER SIX

They fought as they ran, wading easily through the water and vaulting over the enemy – pausing every few yards to rescue asrai warriors when they could. Finavar barely registered the kills. All he could think of was Alhena’s brittle smile when he had asked her about Caorann. His oldest friend. Still alive. The soul who knew him better than anyone else was going to fight and sing with him once more.

Alhena led them towards the thundering columns of water and, as they approached the falls, they were forced to slow down. The asrai wounded had fallen back to this spot and there were hundreds of them, staggering through the water towards a cave mouth on the south side of the falls.

The wardancers made their way through the crowds and clambered up onto a rocky outcrop behind the waterfall. They entered a cave large enough to hold several stands of trees and clamped their hands over their ears. They were directly behind the falls and the noise was deafening. The sound of the water crashing into the lake reverberated from the stone walls and the morning light was refracted by the curtain of water, throwing dazzling, rippling pictures across the ground.

Nobles and mages were dashing back and forth, healing some and hectoring others, but Alhena rushed on towards the back of the huge cave.

Finavar saw Caorann’s thick mass of blue hair from several yards away and cried out in delight. The tall, powerfully built wardancer looked up in surprise, then shook his head in disbelief as Finavar approached.

As Finavar rushed to embrace him, Caorann held him at arm’s length and scowled. ‘Fin, you wretched malingerer. Look at you. What hole have you been hiding in while we kept the forest alive?’

Finavar’s words faltered as he saw the anger in his old friend’s eyes. Then he relaxed as Caorann grinned and enveloped him in a fierce bear hug.

‘They said you were dead.’ He clapped Finavar on the back and winked at Alhena. ‘But some of us never believed it. You’re far too much of a chancer to get yourself killed.’

They looked at each other in silence for a moment and Finavar saw the sadness behind Caorann’s smile. He did not mention the death of Jokleel but there was no need. They were both painfully conscious of his absence.

Sounds of battle dragged them from their reverie but, as he stepped back, Finavar felt a rush of relief. When last he had seen his friends, at the foot of the Chains of Vaul, there had been a barrier between them. His bitterness over the death of his brother had made them seem strange and distant. But now, as he looked at their smiling faces, he realised that the seasons had turned full cycle. They were one, again, as they had always been. They were his kin.

The excitement of seeing his friends was so great that a song sprang, unbidden to Finavar’s lips. Without thinking about what he was doing, he held out his arms, threw back his head and sang a song from his childhood – a tale of Loec, the Lord of the Shadowdance.

The other three wardancers laughed in surprise and then joined their voices to his, waving their swords in a convoluted series of loops and arabesques.

Wounded or exhausted warriors lay all around them in the cave and, as the wardancers’ song grew more wild, some of them sat up to watch, confused. The end of the world was bearing down on them, but the wardancers’ song was as wild and joyful as if they were all attending the rites of spring, with wine in their veins and the sun on their necks. Archers and spearmen paused on their way back to the battle to watch the display with bewildered smiles on their faces. The music dragged them from their current agonies for a moment, reminding them of why they fought.

After a few more verses, Finavar staggered to a halt and turned to face Alhena.

‘And your father?’ he said, grabbing her shoulder. ‘Did you say he was here too?’

She was rocked by another series of twitches, but tried to disguise them as a deliberate gesture, spinning around and pointing to a frail, hooded figure, slumped against the cave wall.

Finavar felt a mixture of delight and sadness at the sight of Thuralin. The hunched old warrior was as determinedly miserable-looking as ever, but the life had clearly gone out of him. His body had been half-ruined by fire, long before Finavar knew him, but now a more determined enemy had finished the job. The side of his face that was not hidden behind his wooden mask was more sunken and grey than ever before and his single eye was so bloodshot it looked like a blood blister. He looked too weak to stand, but as Finavar approached him, he climbed to his feet with a hoarse, wheezing cough.

They stood looking at each other for a moment and a little of Finavar’s good humour faded as he recalled their last conversation. He had told Thuralin everything – how he despised their king and wished to overthrow the rule of the Mage Queen. His words now seemed the ravings of a fool. However cruel the Wild Hunt might be, it was part of them – part of their forest, in a way that Ordaana’s hateful philosophy was not. Her plotting and lies stemmed from another time, another world even. An echo of their ancestors’ deluded pride.

He said none of this to Thuralin but, as the old warrior stared into his eyes, Finavar thought that maybe he understood.

Thuralin gripped his shoulder with surprising strength and glanced at Alhena.

Finavar understood the silent request. When last they spoke, Thuralin had revealed his terrible secret – that Alhena was the product of his forbidden union with Ordaana.

Finavar nodded, reassuring Thuralin that he would not betray his secret, but his stomach twisted at the thought. Ordaana had been driven to cruelty and madness by the belief that she had killed Alhena. Could he really be party to such a lie?

Thuralin was chewing furiously and Finavar caught the pungent aroma of the fern seed that was both keeping him alive and killing him.

‘She has found a companion,’ whispered Finavar, smiling as he grasped Thuralin’s withered arm.

Thuralin nodded and replied with gentler tones than Finavar had ever heard him use before. ‘And you have found something too.’ There was wonder in his eye. ‘You have changed again, for a third time.’ He coughed hard and slumped against Finavar.

Alhena rushed forwards to help, her eyes full of concern.

Thuralin brushed her off and tried to straighten his back. Then he stared closely at Finavar. ‘You are no longer the heroic fool I met all those years ago, but neither are you doom-laden hunter I met at the Chains of Vaul. You’re something else.’ He narrowed his eye and looked at Finavar’s robes, noting how badly they fitted him. ‘How did you escape? You were banished to the Wildwood, Finavar. That’s a death sentence. Even for someone with your luck.’

Finavar looked around anxiously to see if any passers-by might have heard Thuralin’s croaked words.

There were plenty of warriors and nobles rushing through the cave, but only Sibaris, Alhena and Caorann were listening to the exchange, watching Finavar with the same wonder in their eyes.

Caorann let out one of his booming laughs as he saw Finavar’s concern. ‘Nobody has time to worry about your crimes, Fin.’ He nodded at the blurred shapes beyond the waterfall. ‘The forest has been transformed. Everyone is too busy trying to survive to care about you. The council of the great realms has been broken apart. Besides,’ he lowered his voice, ‘your accuser died under something of a cloud. Prince Elatior’s defence of the Silvam Dale was unorthodox, to say the least. Even if things were as they were, there are few who would uphold Elatior’s judgements now – not after what he did to the Wilding Tree. When,’ he laughed, ‘if spring ever returns, the forest spirits will have a lot to say about how the Enchanter tormented that poor soul. Especially as it was all for nothing.’

‘Then the Silvam Dale has fallen?’ asked Finavar, picturing the vast halls of Prince Elatior and Lady Asphalia.

Caorann laughed again and clapped a hand on Finavar’s shoulder. Caorann was a giant by the standards of the asrai, at least a foot taller than most of his kind and unusually broad. As he shook Finavar, he made him feel like a foolish child.

‘The forest is falling, Fin. Haven’t you heard?’

Finavar saw that, despite his devil-may-care smile, Caorann was as afraid as all the others.

‘Then we have work to do,’ he replied, looking around the faces of his companions. The playful tone vanished from his voice, replaced by a fierce determination. ‘By Loec, I will promise you this: the last twist in this saga will be ours. It will not come from some pox-ridden lump.’ He flexed his fingers, as though imagining them crushing the life from an enemy. ‘The final joke will be in Loec’s name.’

Caorann stared at Finavar in shock. Then a broad grin spread across his face. It was an honest, relieved smile, with no trace of doubt. ‘By the gods, Fin. You have changed.’

Alhena clutched the hilts of her swords and her body became so whiplash taut that she managed, briefly, to be still.

Sibaris, meanwhile looked at Finavar with as much awe as if he were in the presence of Loec Himself.

Only Thuralin seemed unsurprised. He turned away and rummaged in a tasselled, leather sack that was slumped against the wall. He lifted something out and, as the other three stepped respectfully back, he handed it to Finavar.

The years spiralled around Finavar as he saw what the old warrior held in his trembling, palsied hands. It was his cloak. It had been carefully repaired in several places and fresh burrs and thorns had been woven into the black cloth.

‘We knew you would return to us, Darkling Prince,’ said Thuralin.

Finavar took the rolled-up bundle, handling it carefully so as not to cut his hands on the spikes. After all that he had been through, the cloak seemed like what it was – the ridiculous affectation of an arrogant child, but the thought that they had kept it safe for him, through all their trials and adventures, imbued it with a new potency. He was touched and honoured, but most of all, he was determined. He could not let them down. He would find a way to save them, and their home. He would become what they thought he was.

Finavar took the black cloak and fastened it around his shoulders. Then he looked around, realising that something was still missing.

Thuralin had already turned back to the sack and a solemn hush fell over the group as he drew out two ornate, leaf-shaped blades and held them out to Finavar.

‘We kept your possessions safe after the Battle of Drúne Fell,’ he said. He looked at the ground, seeming a little bashful. ‘I meant to return them to you when Mälloch the Elder brought you to me at the Chains of Vaul,’ he shrugged, ‘but I did not believe you were ready for them.’

Finavar took the blades reverently, as though enacting a ritual. Then he tested them – slicing them through the air and smiling as he saw that they were true.

The wardancers fell silent and looked at him expectantly.

He grinned and spoke in a bold matter-of-fact way. ‘I know who is leading the enemy against us and I know how to stop her. But first we should put an end to this little skirmish.’ He looked at the pitiful warriors who were still staggering out of the cave to defend the falls. ‘Somebody will be drowned at this rate.’ He tucked his blades into his belt and looked around at the shimmering walls. ‘Prince Haldus is no fool. Why has he gathered all our finest nobles here?’

Caorann nodded to a mound of enormous, convoluted shapes, half-hidden in the shadows at the back of the cave. In the darkness, they looked to Finavar like the coiled tentacles of a leviathan.

‘Do you see those arches?’ asked Caorann. ‘They are the entrance to tunnels, formed by the roots of Hallil and Hallos. The archways on this side of the cave lead into Hallos, the southernmost tree. It is those passages that Haldus has sworn us to defend, until he returns.’

Finavar peered into the gloom, recalling the colossal trees he had glimpsed outside – the two vast columns of bark that divided the falls into its distinctive claw shape. It made sense that such monstrous trees would have an anchor to match their towering limbs above ground, but he was still shocked by the scale of the roots.

‘Hallil and Hallos,’ he shivered. The names were familiar from countless gruesome tales. ‘The Pillars of the Falls.’ He strode across the cave in the direction of the enormous arches of root, amazed to have reached such a legendary site. The tales regarding Hallil and Hallos were bloody and dark, but all agreed that Kurnous Himself had hammered the dread trees into the forest floor, wielding them like spears and placing them as warning; forbidden markers between this world and others. ‘But why fight for this particular shrine? Of all the halls and glades we could be defending, what is so precious about these two trees?’

Thuralin limped after him, shrugging off any offers of help. ‘The caverns within the trees are forbidden, of course, but you must have heard the legends – they are home to various treasures, Finavar, not just nightmares. Our forefathers stowed many of their secrets in those old boughs.’

‘So Haldus wanted us to save a few trinkets that came from across the sea?’ Finavar looked confused. ‘Surely he should have mustered our forces at the Oak of Ages, to safeguard the return of Orion?’ Finavar could not think of the Consort-King without anger, but he knew that most of his kin still considered the Wild Hunt their most powerful weapon.

Thuralin shook his head but seemed at a loss for words.

Caorann stepped closer. ‘Did you not see the forest, Fin? The seasons have been overturned…’

Finavar shook his head, either unable or unwilling to understand.

Sibaris spoke up, his voice hesitant. ‘Without seasons, there will be no spring. And without spring…’ He let the implication hang in the air.

No Orion, thought Finavar. And no Mage Queen. For a moment, the scale of the disruption shook his confidence. Even a tiny imbalance could harm the forest. How would they recover from something this catastrophic? He wiped the thought from his mind and focussed on their current dilemma. When he spoke, he kept his voice level and clear. ‘I still do not see why he would choose this spot. It was clearly ripe for a trap. We are forbidden to enter those trees. There is no escape.’

Thuralin nodded. ‘I spoke with Laelia before they left.’

‘Laelia?’ Finavar recalled the Mage Queen’s handmaiden with a mixture of affection and fear.

‘Yes. Since the Mage Queen left the mortal realm, Laelia has shadowed Prince Haldus’s every step. She won’t leave his side, but while the prince discussed tactics with the other lords, I snatched a few hours of conversation with her.’

‘And she explained Haldus’s reasoning?’

‘Not exactly. Wood-seers are not ones for explaining, as I’m sure you remember.’ He laughed briefly and coughed at length, then continued. ‘I heard enough to understand Haldus’s plans a little better though.’ He glanced at the deafening columns of water that separated them from the battle outside the cave. ‘There are countless legends concerning the Crowfoot Falls, as you well know, but Laelia made a point of discussing all of them but one. She discussed every treasure that has ever been ascribed to this place – so keen was she to avoid telling me the real reason we are here. She was not to know of my past.’ He kept his gaze fixed away from his Alhena, ignoring the surprise in her face. ‘Laelia does not know I once had halls of my own and that I have studied the old songs as well as she has. She did not guess I would notice the glaring omission in her explanation.’

Finavar and the others frowned at him, confused.

‘The gods forbade entry to those trees for a reason. Somewhere behind these falls there is a stitch in the Great Weave. Laelia made no mention of it, even though it is one of the most important legends attributed to this site. She did not want me to know Haldus’s real plan for guarding this place so she tried to dazzle me with tales of its other treasures.’

Alhena was clearly shocked by her father’s revelations of halls and learning but, before she could ask any questions, Finavar spoke up.

‘So what was the legend she avoided mentioning?’

Thuralin’s scarred face suddenly crumpled in pain and he paused to take some seeds from a pouch at his belt. He crunched them furiously for a few seconds and then seemed to relax. ‘A legend older than Ariel’s reign itself,’ he continued. ‘The legend of the ancient portal, placed here when our forebears first stepped beneath these boughs. A spirit path that leads back to the home of our ancestors.’ He looked at the shadows beneath the enormous roots. ‘From what I can gather, that is what Haldus seeks to preserve. He meant for us to hold off the daemons so that he could protect an escape route. An escape route large enough that hundreds of our kin might pass through it.’

‘An escape route?’ Finavar was appalled. ‘A way to flee?’

Thuralin shook his head. ‘Do not be fooled, Finavar. Prince Haldus is a brave warrior. He is just unsure of the future. Like all of us. I have thought long over the things Laelia did not say. I believe Haldus is trying to keep us a last chance to flee, if all else fails.’

Finavar clenched his jaw. ‘There will be no flight. Nobody would dare enter those trees. And even if they would, there will be no need for retreat.’ The more dire the situation sounded, the more sure he was of his purpose. ‘I will make sure of that.’

Alhena grimaced. ‘Haldus could never have anticipated what has befallen us since he left. When he flew off with his hawks, there was no sign that the daemons could ever reach the falls. Lord Findol and the others were an immovable barrier.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Who could have imagined that something would dam the whole valley? Who would have thought that a single creature could drag itself from the hills and–’

Screams broke out from behind them.

They whirled around and saw that dozens more warriors were tumbling into the cave, half-drowned and covered in blood.

‘The water is rising!’ cried several voices.

Panic spread across the cave and several of the warriors bolted past the wardancers, making for the arches of root.

‘They will soon be on us,’ whispered Sibaris. He looked at Finavar with a desperate plea in his eyes. ‘What shall we–?’

Finavar held up a hand to silence the youth. He looked at Alhena. ‘You say that things were going our way until the river was dammed?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘So if we could remove the obstacle that is flooding the valley, we might stand a chance again?’

Caorann looked intrigued. ‘We would stand a good chance. Before we were penned in, warriors from several more realms answered the prince’s call. As well as the Findol Host on the riverbank and the spellweavers guarding the waterfall, there are now armies from several corners of the forest. I saw riders from the Skymark Plains and even archers from the Night Glens – the Wraiths of Modryn, they call themselves. They certainly looked more than half-spirit to me. We have a greater army now than Haldus could have imagined. Even some of Orion’s pyre wardens are out there. If we weren’t all about to drown I would think the gods were on our side.’

Finavar stepped aside as a group of ashen-faced refugees staggered past them, looking for a place to lie. ‘Then we just need to remove the blockage at the far end of the valley.’

Caorann raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, just that. We just need to fight our way down three miles of riverbank, crowded with one-eyed daemons and quickly disappearing beneath floodwater. Then, once we arrive at our destination, we’ll just have the simple task of removing a monster the size of a mountain.’

Finavar nodded eagerly and looked back at the tree roots behind them, ignoring the sarcasm in his friend’s voice ‘Thuralin, did you say the passages in Hallos go up as well as down?’

‘They go in every direction you could imagine, and several that you would not wish to imagine.’

Finavar scratched thoughtfully at his scalp, looking back at the waterfall. ‘Then perhaps the riverbank is not our only option.’ He turned to Thuralin. ‘You said Laelia mentioned many of the treasures that are buried inside Hallos.’

Thuralin nodded. ‘She did.’

Finavar fell silent again. Then, after a few moments of thought, a faint smile played across his lips. He nodded and looked around at the frantic crowds. He frowned, unable to see what he sought. He raised his fingers to his mouth but, before he had chance to whistle, a pair of small dark shapes snaked across the cavern floor towards him.

Caorann laughed in disbelief as he saw the two polecats.

‘They cannot be the same poor beasts!’

Finavar smirked ruefully as he scooped the animals up and secreted them in his black cloak ‘I’m not sure they really are.’ He patted them gently beneath the cloth. ‘They are as much the same as I am though. And they have a nose for treasure.’

He sat down and patted the ground beside him. ‘Thuralin, tell me about your conversation with Laelia.’

Thuralin’s habitual frown grew even deeper, but he sat next to Finavar and the two wardancers spoke urgently and quietly while the others stood guard, watching the scene in the cave with growing concern.

As Thuralin talked, Mauro and Mormo climbed from Finavar’s cloak of thorns and up onto his shoulders, seeming to listen to Thuralin’s words as attentively as Finavar, keeping their coal-black eyes fixed on the old warrior.

After nearly an hour had passed, Finavar laughed and grabbed Thuralin’s arm. ‘That’s it!’

Thuralin shook his head, confused, as the others crowded round. ‘What do you mean? That’s what?’

‘This stone… what did you call it?’

‘It’s called the Cythral Star. Or at least that’s the name Laelia gave it – but I have no idea if it actually exists and, even if it does, I don’t see what use it would be to–’

‘It’s just the thing!’ Finavar’s eyes were gleaming. ‘Trust me!’ He clasped his head in his hands, seeming almost as manic as Alhena. ‘And Laelia doesn’t have a dishonest bone in her body. She might have sought to distract you with these tales, but she wouldn’t have lied to you.’ He lifted the two polecats from his shoulders and placed them on a patch of ground that was still above water. ‘You heard the description. Can you find this thing?’

They looked back at Finavar with unnatural intelligence and, as they turned and snaked off through the water, the wardancers noticed a faint, emerald sheen that rippled across their fur.

Finavar leapt to his feet and watched them go with an incredulous grin. ‘We can win this battle,’ he said. ‘And then I can stop this war. Trust me.’

Then he turned on his heel and dashed after the polecats, making for the arches of root at the back of the cave.

The others look at each other in shock and confusion, unsure what to do. Then Caorann laughed. ‘He hasn’t changed as much as he thinks.’

Sibaris looked confused, but Alhena nodded and hurried after Finavar. ‘Good.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

There was light inside the tree. It pulsed like water through the bark, lighting up the faces of the wardancers as they climbed. The first passageway was a wide, straight ascent that Thuralin referred to as the Torpen Stair. He seemed to know lots about it – recounting grim poems and legends of those who had died attempting to climb them. But they survived the ascent unhindered and after a while, they left the broad, slumping steps behind and entered a labyrinth of narrow, uneven tunnels whose names were unknown even to Thuralin. They were gloomy, wooden arteries that wended through the roots of the tree, a bewildering jumble of lefts and rights. There was no hope of navigation. All they could do was follow Finavar and his guides.

At first they encountered some of their kinsmen. Terrified wretches cowering in corners and slumped across the ground – wounded warriors whose fear was so great it had driven them into the forbidden darkness. They looked up warily at Finavar’s approach, then scampered away into the shadows, muttering apologies and prayers. There was a strange, oppressive atmosphere in the tree that seemed to stifle their words. After a while they saw no more refugees. Despite all the horror of the battle, no one else was willing to go this far into Hallos’s mysterious depths.

At one point they reached an opening in the tree trunk, looking down across the valley, a natural window in the wall of the tree. They stopped for a while to stare at the grim scene below. The asrai, led by Lord Findol, had gathered at the foot of the falls, surrounded by rising waters and mounting numbers of foes. His soldiers had been forced into tightly packed ranks, with no room to move – a most un-asrai way to fight, but the riders from the south of the forest were still managing to harry the enemy’s flanks – thundering through the water with their javelins levelled and skewering as many daemons as they could.

Screams and war cries sliced through the din of the water crashing into the lake. Finavar grimaced at the scene but he also saw that, in the space of half an hour, they had already climbed high above the battle. The air was hazed with spray, but Finavar could see the grotesque shape of his target in the distance – the vast, slug-like lump of the daemon that had dammed the river. He could just about make out the thing’s enormous maw, spewing, chewing and drooling as it devoured its own troops. Finavar’s mind balked at the thought of facing it, but he kept his expression neutral and his voice level as he said: ‘Higher. We must climb higher.’

The living tunnels led them away from the opening, deep into the heart of the great tree. The air grew warm, earthy and heady and Finavar realised that the low rushing sound he could hear was not the falls, but the timeless pulse of Hallos’s sap, flowing all around them through the glittering tunnel walls.

As they climbed, Finavar listened with half an ear as Thuralin spoke of the other treasures Laelia had mentioned. The old warrior told him of charmed blades, spectral harps and arrowheads dipped in the blood of gods, but Finavar shook his head at each one, sure that his original choice was right. ‘It has to be the stone,’ he kept muttering to himself as they climbed. ‘It has to be.’

The air grew thicker and warmer as they neared the core of the tree and they found themselves crawling through a passageway no wider than their shoulders. The walls of the tunnel were tacky with sap but the light grew brighter as they went, until it felt as though they were being birthed into a dazzling, emerald dawn.

Finavar was the first to emerge from the tunnel and found he was on a slender walkway, miles-long and overhanging a bottomless abyss. He staggered to a halt, thrown for a moment by the precariousness of his position. He felt like he was crossing a great void, suspended on a thread of gossamer. He quickly recovered his composure and crouched to examine the narrow bridge. It was made of pale, living wood that had been carved to resemble interlinked arms, draped in jewels and diaphanous robes, gripping each other tightly with bejewelled fingers. The limbs were so lifelike that Finavar could almost imagine they were real. He noticed that the designs on the robes and jewels were foreign in style. All the motifs were based on proud eagles and celestial bodies, quite unlike the leaves and coiled branches employed in asrai designs.

He looked back to check that the others had followed him.

‘It must be the work of our ancestors,’ whispered Sibaris, clearly awed.

Finavar shrugged. There was a casual arrogance to the carvings that annoyed him. He sensed that the bridge’s architects gave little thought to the pain their tools had caused the tree. He also doubted they would have approved of the bedraggled, semi-clad bards who were treading across their delicate handiwork.

He strode on down the bridge. It soared high above the darkness and, as he climbed, Finavar noticed hundreds more narrow paths spread out beneath him, stretching web-like across the shadows. It was a vast network of walkways, each leading to a different region of the tree.

‘They must have dwelled here for an age,’ he muttered.

They followed the walkways for what seemed like days, becoming hopelessly lost amongst the delicate, sculpted arches and loops. As they walked, Thuralin continued to list the various artefacts mentioned by Laelia, pointing out the vaulted halls of bark that might have contained them, but Finavar shook his head and hurried after his guides.

After crawling down a narrow passageway, Mormo and Mauro led Finavar out of an oval doorway so that he was looking down through the ceiling of a circular chamber, hundreds of feet in diameter and surrounding a tall, slender sapling, six or seven feet tall. The light glittered across the little tree and Finavar saw it was made entirely of silver.

Finavar faltered, amazed by the beauty of the tree. Then he remembered the urgency of their situation and began climbing down the wall. The light was brightest at the centre of the chamber and he had to shield his eyes as he went. The climb was easier than he at first expected, though, due to the raised, intricate carvings that decorated the wall. There were thousands of them, evenly spaced a few feet from each other, across the whole dome, and they made perfect foot and hand holds. It was only as he reached the bottom of the wall that Finavar realised what the shapes were. They were part of a vast frieze, illustrating the journeys of their forefathers. He saw scenes of the ocean, bearing tall, swan-prowed ships and battlefields crowded with vast hosts of strangely clad warriors unlike any Finavar had seen before. Some carried great banners and pennants and others were riding chariots, led by proud-faced lions.

He frowned and stepped closer to one of the figures to examine it. The carving was clearly intended to resemble an elven warrior, but this was no asrai. Its limbs were long and elegant and its almond-shaped eyes were similar to Finavar’s but there was something alien and magisterial about the face that unnerved him.

Finavar turned away to look at the rest of the chamber. Its floor consisted of more slender branches, each stretching out over another abyss. The branches were less than a foot wide and the gaps between them were easily large enough to fall through, so Finavar stepped with caution as he left the wall and made for the centre of the chamber.

The others climbed down the sculpted walls at a slower pace, making sure not to leave Thuralin behind, but after half an hour or so, they were all stood on the cage-like floor of the chamber, looking up in awe at the vast work of art that surrounded them. Sage-green light washed over the carvings, creating an effect that was both bewildering and threatening.

Finavar turned to Thuralin and spoke in hushed tones. ‘Did Laelia describe this place?’

The old warrior shrugged. ‘I barely listened to her tales of treasure.’ He glanced at the centre of the chamber and scowled. ‘I knew that such trinkets and baubles were not the real reason Haldus set watch over this site. And I wonder that you have dragged us here now, while so many are drowning beneath the waters of the Limneonas.’ He glanced at Finavar. ‘What do you hope to achieve?’

The others had been stepping carefully around the chamber, examining the carvings, but at the sound of Thuralin’s raised voice they approached.

‘Do you trust me?’ asked Finavar, looking suddenly serious.

They all nodded apart from Thuralin, who hesitated. After a few seconds he nodded too, but he looked past Finavar as he did so, staring at the sapling at the centre of the chamber. It was an odd sight – a tree within a tree, surrounded by ancient, sightless faces. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking, Finavar.’

‘I will, soon,’ replied Finavar and strode down a branch towards the little tree.

The others followed and as they moved away from the walls, the carved frieze vanished into the shadows and they began to relax a little.

As they approached the tree, they saw a flash of light in its branches. It was an emerald as large as a fist. It was swaying slightly in its perch and as it moved, they saw green light flickering in its faceted depths.

Finavar stepped closer and reached out to take it.

‘Finavar!’ Alhena looked warily at the surrounding shadows. ‘Treasures are rarely left unguarded.’

Finavar hesitated, his hand hovering just above the stone. Then he shrugged and grabbed it, plucking it from the metal branches like a fruit.

They all froze, waiting to hear a clarion call or to see the branches fall from beneath their feet.

Nothing happened.

After a few seconds had passed, the wardancers huddled closer to peer at the emerald. It was clearly no natural stone. Something was moving in its depths – something coiled and serpentine that rolled like smoke.

‘What is it, father?’ asked Alhena, turning to Thuralin. She was so entranced by the thing that some of the hardness dropped from her face, replaced by a child-like awe that reminded Finavar of how young she was. She was no older than Sibaris, though there seemed to be an age of experience between them.

Thuralin leant over the gem and his twisted face looked all the more sinister in the green light. ‘Laelia called it the Cythral Star.’ Even he seemed a little dazzled by the stone. His single eye widened as he studied the shapes moving at its heart. ‘She said it was a seed from the first ages of the world. She said that, if it were touched by sunlight, it would burst into life – sprouting a whole new swathe of forest. She claimed that these seeds were sown by Asuryan at the dawn of the world and that the forest was born from many such stones.’

He moved back from the gem and regained his usual gruff tones. ‘I’ve heard countless other tales describing the birth of the forest though – all of them different.’ He stared at Finavar. ‘And, even if this thing could sprout a whole new stretch of forest, I fail to see how that would help us.’

‘What is your plan, Fin?’ asked Caorann, with the green light flashing in his eyes.

Finavar smiled. ‘I suppose I will have to tell you at some point if you’re going to follow me.’ He lifted the emerald higher and peered at the shapes moving through it. He was just about to continue speaking when a noise caused them all to whirl around. It was a long, grinding screech that seemed to crawl up Finavar’s spine. It was followed by several other, similar sounds and Finavar wondered if it was an animal of some kind.

He stared into the darkness.

The slender branch paths led away from the sapling in eight directions, forming an uneven star-shape around them, and, on several of them, the shadows had started to move.

The wardancers moved as one, dropping into a crouch and drawing their swords.

They were silent and motionless, apart from Sibaris, who shifted his weight from foot to foot and whispered, ‘What is that?’

No one replied, but he did not have to wait long for his answer. The shadows rippled again, spawning slender, slow-moving figures.

Finavar muttered a curse. The figures from the frieze had sprung to life and were approaching them from several directions at once. Their carved, wooden faces were as expressionless as ever, but they had raised two-handed swords and were moving with solemn, chilling purpose. They were clad in pauldrons and hauberks constructed of oval, metal plates. Their dead, wooden eyes looked out from beneath tall helmets, designed to resemble dragons.

They made a strange sight. Some of the figures were almost fully formed, apart from a flat, featureless back or side, but others were no more than a sliver of wood, only ever designed to be seen from one angle in the original frieze. Their outlines were silhouetted against the light and they reminded Finavar of a magic lantern he had seen as a child – rows of thin, mute figures, jerking mannequin-like towards him. Finavar could already count dozens of them and he guessed that others would be waiting behind, hindered by the narrowness of the walkways.

He was about to address the wooden soldiers but, before he could attempt any kind of negotiation, Alhena cartwheeled forwards and attacked, slicing her twin blades into the first face she came to.

The blades cut easily through the wooden helmet and the figure staggered backwards, unbalanced by the ferocity of her blows.

Before her victim could right itself, Alhena planted a kick in its chest and sent it tumbling into the void.

The next wooden soldier responded with surprising speed, bringing its two-handed sword down towards her chest.

She parried the blow easily, slicing the wooden weapon in half and following up with a blinding flurry of sword strikes that turned her attacker into dust and splinters. Again, she kicked out and sent the automaton spinning from the branch.

There was a brief pause as the soldiers seemed to consider what had happened, then they ran towards the sapling from several different directions.

The wardancers rushed to engage them, each taking a different branch and assailing the wooden figures.

The figures from the frieze could not match the speed of the wardancers, but they moved with a stolid, silent determination and, for every one that fell another one stepped up to replace it, grim-faced and implacable.

After several minutes of this, the air was clouded with sawdust and splinters and the wardancers began to be surrounded. Almost all of the paths that led away from the sapling were now blocked by the wooden swordsmen and Finavar began to regret his impetuousness. Alhena and the others were fighting with all the elegance he would expect and they had already destroyed dozens of their opponents, but Finavar recalled how many figures he had seen carved into the walls of the chamber. What if they had all sprung to life? How long could the five of them hold out against an entire army?

He glanced around and saw that a few paths were still empty, but they were all leading further into the centre of the chamber – away from the walls and the doorway they had entered through. He tucked the emerald into one of the pockets that lined his cloak and cried: ‘Push them back!’ Then he leapt onto the branch that Alhena was fighting on.

He tried to work with her to drive the swordsmen back towards the wall of the cavern, but it was no use. The way was too narrow and he was more of a hindrance than a help, causing Alhena to shorten her blows and limit her acrobatics.

He staggered back to the sapling and looked at the emerald, wondering what to do. As he lifted it, he noticed that it had a magnetic effect on their attackers. The wooden swordsmen were fixated on the gem and they even swayed slightly as he moved it, as though attached by invisible strings.

An idea hovered, just out of reach, at the back of Finavar’s mind, but he could not seem to grasp it. If he hurled the emerald between the branches, its guardians would most likely leap after it, and he could escape. He shook his head, determined that he would not leave without his prize. His plan depended on leaving with the emerald.

Dozens more of the silent warriors strode from the shadows and, as the wardancers started to tire, they were being gradually forced back towards the sapling. There was something surreal about the scene – a near silent battle, with only the sound of breaking wood and enemies who showed neither fear or aggression.

The wooden warriors were sluggish compared to the lithe fury of the wardancers, but they were horribly persistent. Finavar noticed that fresh cuts had appeared on Sibaris’s limbs and he was starting to look panicked.

Caorann, meanwhile, was having just as much fun as Alhena. He had hacked two wooden arms free and now, rather than using his swords, he was simply knocking soldiers’ heads off with the splintered limbs. As he decapitated his foes and sent them tumbling from the branch, he sang a jaunty tale of apples and windfalls, but Finavar noticed that wounds were also starting to appear across his skin.

He looked back over his shoulder and saw that Thuralin had slumped against the sapling to catch his breath, trembling with exhaustion.

Finavar rolled along a branch, scattering three soldiers in one go, then leapt to his feet and brought his blades down into the face of a fourth. He had a brief moment of respite as the next wave of attackers lumbered silently towards him and he took the time to peer through the shadows, attempting to discern what lay at the end of the nearest empty branch. It looked like it might be swerving round towards the cavern wall. ‘This way!’ he cried, seeing that they could not defend the spot forever.

The others leapt nimbly from their branches and followed Finavar as he dashed into the darkness, heading away from the soldiers.

The walkway was as slender as all the others, but the wardancers ran down it as easily as if they were sprinting through a meadow. They quickly left the wooden swordsmen behind and, at first, they did indeed seem to be swerving back towards the cavern walls; after another few minutes of running though, Finavar realised, to his frustration, that they were being led back towards the centre of the chamber.

He staggered to a halt and shook his head. ‘This is no good,’ he muttered. ‘No good at all. We need to–’

Before he could finish his thought, pain exploded in his chest, the wind exploded from his lungs and he slipped from the branch.

For a second he was falling. Then the pain in his shoulder told him he had been caught.

He looked up and saw Caorann’s grinning face, just a few inches away.

Thuralin, Sibaris and Alhena had been forced into a defensive semicircle by dozens of soldiers that had swarmed from the shadows ahead of them. Finavar had led them straight into the centre of the figures who had climbed down from the frieze on the other side of the chamber. They were now even more hard-pressed to fight them off. Branches led away from them in every direction and almost all of them were crowded with blank-faced automatons. The grinding screech of their juddering limbs rang out like the call of raptors, and it felt to Finavar as though hosts of eagles were swooping through the darkness to attack them.

To his horror, his cloak of thorns tore and he dropped another few inches away from Caorann.

Caorann’s eyes widened and the smile vanished from his face.

‘Give me your hand!’ he cried, reaching out, but at that moment another wave of soldiers appeared. They were as wooden and expressionless as the others, but these warriors wore even more elaborate armour and they carried spears rather than swords. Moving as one, the first wave of them rocked back on their heels and launched their weapons.

The wardancers flipped and rolled in an attempt to dodge the volley, but they were only partly successful.

One of the spears sliced along Sibaris’s arm, causing him to cry out and stagger, almost falling from his branch. He regained his footing but lost one of his swords – horrified as it tumbled into the darkness.

Alhena also gained a fresh cut across the top of her shoulder and Thuralin was forced to stagger back the way they had come as he batted away the spears.

‘Your hand!’ cried Caorann, as Finavar’s cloak tore again, dropping him a few more inches towards death.

‘The Cythral Star,’ gasped Finavar in reply. For a horrible, brief moment he wondered if he might have been mistaken. Perhaps he wasn’t the one who would win this battle after all. If the stone fell with him, all would be lost. Rather than reach for Caorann’s outstretched hand, he reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out the emerald.

Alhena and Sibaris had charged forwards to attack the spearmen and Caorann was busy trying to save his life, so Finavar called out to Thuralin and hurled the stone towards him, still in its pouch.

Thuralin gasped in shock as the pouch flew through the air, but he caught it and continued backing away down the branch.

As Thuralin went, the wooden guardians followed – squeaking and grinding as they poured from the shadows.

‘Give me your hand or I’ll kill you myself,’ growled Caorann.

Finavar swung his arm and there was a satisfying clap as his hand locked around Caorann’s forearm.

The larger wardancer hauled the smaller one easily up beside him on the branch but, before he could make a joke, they had to fend for themselves against the tide of sword and spear tips that flew towards them.

They parried and lunged but, after a few clatters and thuds the attack ceased and they found themselves on an empty branch.

Finavar’s stomach turned as he realised what he had done. The wooden figures had gone. They were only interested in retrieving the stone and they had ploughed through the younger wardancers in an attempt to reach Thuralin.

The old warrior had been forced back along his branch until they could barely see him in the shadows. Finavar could make out enough to know that he was hopelessly surrounded. Hundreds of the wooden soldiers were rushing towards him with swords raised and spears lowered.

‘Father!’ cried Alhena and ran towards him, but it was pointless. The crush of soldiers was too great for her to get anywhere near him. They barely even registered her wild, lunging attacks. There was no way she could hack through them.

Thuralin rose up briefly from the throng, drenched in blood, but still clutching one of his swords. ‘Make for the doorway!’ he called, pointing his blade over their heads to the distant wall of the chamber.

Finavar looked back and saw that the way was clear – the stone’s guardians had all rushed towards Thuralin and were now oblivious to Finavar and the others.

‘I’ll throw the stone!’ called Thuralin, backing away from them with more speed.

Finavar realised that he was deliberately leading the soldiers away.

Caorann turned to Finavar, his eyes blazing. ‘We will not leave him.’

Finavar hesitated for the briefest of moments. The way back to the wall was clear. Thuralin’s plan would work. If they ran now the soldiers could never catch them. As long as they caught the stone, he would be able to enact his plan and win the battle. His hesitation was short-lived. Alhena had now turned to face him with the same, furious expression as Caorann.

‘My family,’ she mouthed, as though unable to speak for fear.

Finavar nodded, ashamed of his thoughts. ‘We leave here together,’ he said, ‘or not at all.’

The old warrior had now backed even further away from them, but he became visible again as he climbed up into the branches of the metal tree.

The soldiers were charging towards him in waves, leaving the rest of the chamber empty. As he reached the metal crown of the sapling, Thuralin looked across the heads of his attackers, wiped the blood from his face and singled Alhena out of the gloom.

She stared at him in horror, sensing what was about to happen.

‘Remember what I taught you!’ He dodged a spear and knocked away a sword strike but the blows were too many. One of the warriors that climbed after Thuralin plunged its sword deep into his belly. ‘And remember,’ cried Thuralin, his voice catching with pain and emotion, ‘that you were loved.’

Another sword hacked into his chest and he reeled backwards.

Alhena looked back at Finavar, her eyes full of tears, silently pleading with him to act.

It was too late. As Finavar rushed forwards, Thuralin was already being hacked apart by a rain of wooden sword strikes.

His final act was to leap from the treetop, aiming deliberately for a gap between the walkways.

Before plummeting to his death, he hurled the emerald.

Finavar was so horrified by the sight of Thuralin falling that he barely registered the pouch, hurtling through the darkness towards him. It was only the screech of wooden faces turning to face him that alerted him to the arc of the stone’s trajectory.

Thuralin’s aim had been perfect, despite his pain, but Finavar’s rush forwards to save him meant that, as he leapt to catch the stone, it sailed over his outstretched fingers.

Finavar cried out in horror and whirled around.

Caorann was a few feet further down the branch. He nodded calmly to Finavar as he showed him the pouch sitting safely in the palm of his hand. Then he tucked it into another pouch attached to his belt. For once, he did not smile.

‘Finavar!’ cried Sibaris from another walkway.

Finavar looked in the direction he was pointing and saw that Alhena had launched herself at the automatons and was slicing furiously into them. She was hacking and lunging in manic, spasmodic jerks, sobbing and howling as she sliced into her father’s killers. Even though she was facing hundreds of the strange figures, Alhena’s frenetic rage had halted them in their tracks.

Finavar knew that she had minutes, at most, before they overwhelmed her. ‘Alhena!’ he cried. ‘He’s gone!’

She gave no sign of hearing and Caorann started heading back down the walkway towards her. ‘She’ll die,’ he said, as he passed Finavar.

Finavar nodded but hesitated, wracking his brains for a way to get her attention. Thuralin had sacrificed himself so that they would have an escape route. If they all rushed back towards the silver tree, the stone’s guardians would surround them and they would all be killed. The soldiers had already turned towards Caorann, sensing that he had the stone.

An idea formed in Finavar’s mind. He suppressed it at first, horrified at the thought of betraying Thuralin’s trust.

Then he saw Sibaris, eyes wide with fear, joining Caorann as he rushed to save Alhena. If he did not act, they would all be killed.

‘Alhena!’ cried Finavar, ashamed at what he was doing. ‘I know your mother’s name!’

He saw her stagger, as though she had been struck. She glanced back at him but the soldiers pressed forwards, and she was forced to fend off their blows.

‘If we leave now,’ he cried out, ‘I will tell you everything.’

She staggered again but this time, rather than continuing her attacks, she backed away.

Caorann and Sibaris were already halfway towards her when she gave the soldiers one last torrent of sword strikes and then turned on her heel to race back towards them. Her face was wild with grief and smeared with bloody tears, but she kept her eyes locked on Finavar as she ran.

Caorann and Sibaris ran beside her, fending off the spears that flew after her.

Finavar relaxed slightly. The way back to the wall was clear and the soldiers’ wooden limbs could not compete with the wardancers’ long, easy strides.

Alhena’s face was locked in an awful grimace as she ran, but she kept pace with the others.

They reached the wall and found that the depressions left behind by the guardians meant that there were still plenty of footholds. The wooden guardians were still only halfway across the chamber when the wardancers started climbing and, as they reached the oval doorway, the soldiers had only just reached the foot of the wall.

They crawled quickly back down the narrow tunnel but heard no signs of pursuit. Mormo and Mauro were waiting patiently for them and Finavar asked to be taken back the way they had come.

CHAPTER EIGHT

They paused on the bridge of clasped hands, listening for the dreadful screeching, but heard nothing.

After a few minutes of anxious waiting, Alhena strode over to Finavar, her expression even wilder than usual. ‘Why did he have to die?’ Her voice was quiet and full of menace. ‘What could be so valuable? What could be worth his life?’

She was leaning close to Finavar as she spoke, one hand resting on a sword hilt and one gripping Finavar’s forearm. She was shaking with rage and grief. ‘He was all I had.’

Finavar shook his head. ‘Alhena, I did not mean for this to happen. Nothing is worth the life of a friend. Believe me… I would not have sacrificed your father for–’

‘What is your plan, Fin?’ interrupted Caorann, stepping forwards and towering over both of them. He placed a hand on Alhena’s shoulder. ‘We might understand better if we knew what you were thinking.’

Finavar looked from Caorann’s concerned face to Alhena’s crazed stare. He had been so buoyed by his sense of destiny that he had not paused to consider the details. Now that he was being asked to explain it, he saw how insane his plan would seem to anyone else. But Thuralin had just died, trusting that there was something worth dying for. A sinking sensation threatened to overwhelm him. Then, as he glanced at Sibaris, he saw that the youth had no doubt in his eyes. He was looking at Finavar with the same wonder he had always done. He trusted him utterly. He knew that the Darkling Prince would lead him to victory.

Finavar straightened his back and adopted a stern expression. ‘I will have to show you. It would not make sense here.’ He looked around for his guides. ‘Mormo. Mauro. We must climb.’

Sibaris’s eyes gleamed as the polecats slipped away down a path, heading for a shadowy archway.

‘My mother, Finavar.’ Alhena was still holding his arm and she would not let him move. Her voice was brittle. ‘Who was my mother?’

‘Who is your mother, Alhena,’ he replied. ‘She lives.’

Alhena was rocked by another fit of coughing and spitting.

‘Look,’ said Caorann, lowering his voice and nodding back the way they had come.

The shadows were rolling and shifting. Something was coming.

‘And there,’ hissed Sibaris, pointing in another direction.

As they watched in horror, hundreds of the wooden soldiers edged from the shadows. They were moving with far more care than before. It seemed that they had learned from their earlier failure and were determined to catch their prey this time. They made a horrible sight. They were stepping slowly and cautiously, with their intricately-carved eyes fixed on the wardancers.

‘This way!’ Finavar freed himself from Alhena’s grip and followed his guides. They were waiting on a column of roots that had formed itself into a spiral staircase. Finavar leapt up it, two steps at a time, with the others rushing after him. They ran like this for half an hour or so and the stairs grew wider as they climbed. The glow from the walls faded, replaced by a more natural light that started to leak through the cracks in the tree.

‘Take us to the spellweavers,’ gasped Finavar as he climbed. ‘Lead us out of the tree to where the mages were drifting.’

‘What is this, Fin?’ cried Caorann, sounding doubtful. He had one of his hands pressed over the pouch at his belt. ‘What is the stone for?’

‘Just make sure to keep it covered,’ he replied. ‘No sunlight must touch it.’ Then he raced on in silence, conscious of the three pairs of eyes that were fixed on his back.

The patches of light grew larger and more regular, painting the tree’s innards in cool, ivory panels. With no way to glimpse the tortured landscape outside, it was possible to imagine the world was as it should be. Finavar pictured a beautiful, glittering hoar frost scattered across the valley, cold, perfect and ready for the first snows of winter. You will see snow again, old tree, he thought. I promise you.

There was no sign of their pursuers, but the odd shriek of wooden joints left them in no doubt that they needed to keep moving.

After another hour of climbing, they began to hear the falls again and realised that the scouts were leading them back to the outside world. The air felt cooler and a fine mist started to form in the air, causing their hair to hang lank and cold across their faces.

‘Almost there,’ whispered Finavar, picking up his pace.

Finally, the spiral staircase led up to a broad, wooden door, carved from the tree trunk and framed by shards of daylight. The wardancers blinked and shielded their eyes as they forced it open and stepped out into a wall of glittering spume.

It took a few moments for them to make out their surroundings but, once they did, all four of them felt a moment’s panic and took a step backwards. They had emerged on the stump of a long-shattered branch that was as broad as a small meadow, but did not jut out more than a few feet from the tree trunk, creating a thin lip on the side of the tree. They looked out from its edge and, below them, the world fell away.

There was a sheer drop beneath the ledge, filled with the raging torrents of the Limneonas. They were flanked on either side by two great talons of the falls and the mixture of height, movement and noise was overwhelming. Water rolled and tumbled into the distance, filling the air with booming thunderheads of spray and hazing everything into a vague impression of a landscape.

Even blurred by this torrent of water, Finavar could see that they had, somehow, climbed almost to the very crown of Hallos. Whatever magic had kept the tree alive all these years had hurled the wardancers up through its whole body in a few short hours. They had climbed to the clouds. Finavar could just glimpse the river, far below, but it looked more like a stream than the vast artery he knew it to be. Doubt welled up in him again. What lunacy had possessed him?

He looked back at the others and saw that all three of them were now looking at him with something approaching awe. At first he failed to understand what they were seeing in him; then he realised that they thought he was responsible for their impossible ascent – and maybe they even attributed the incredible sight of the falls and landscape to him. Again, their belief renewed his own and he nodded back at them.

He looked around for his guides but was unable to locate them in the clouds of spray. Then he saw that, as always, they had led him where he needed to be. There were figures drifting in the wall of water to their left. It was impossible to see them clearly, but he could glimpse staffs and coils of light whipping around their slender limbs.

‘The spellweavers!’ he cried, struggling to be heard over the din. ‘We have to speak with one of them!’

The others followed his gaze and looked doubtful. The noise of the water was ear-splitting and the mages were hovering several feet away from the ledge.

‘I think they’re busy!’ cried Caorann, jabbing his sword at the shapes rippling around them. ‘They’re keeping Haldus’s army alive. What’s left of it.’

Finavar nodded, unsure what to do next.

‘What is your plan?’ yelled Alhena. Her fury had not faded with the climb and she glared at Finavar as she reached his side. She jabbed a trembling finger at the cascading falls and the clouds of water that surrounded them. ‘What are we doing here? How is this going to save anyone?’ She grabbed Finavar’s arm again, on the verge of hysteria. He knew that he had to find a way to distract her from her crushing grief – and make her feel her father’s death had some point.

‘We have to jump.’ He looked at each of them in turn and then at the miles of waterfall below them.

They stared back.

‘What?’ Caorann managed eventually.

He looked at Sibaris, expecting support, but the youth looked as shocked as Caorann. He looked away, unwilling to hold Finavar’s gaze.

Finavar felt Alhena’s grip tighten on his arm and he wondered if she was about to draw one of her swords and gut him.

‘It will work,’ he said quickly.

‘Tell me,’ said Alhena.

The fury he expected to hear was absent from her voice. There was only a desperate hope.

‘Tell us what we have to do,’ she said.

He looked at her and saw that, unlike the others, she wanted to believe. He supposed that the alternative – that her father had died on the whim of a lunatic – was more than she could bear.

Finavar nodded and summoned the other two to join them at the edge of the outcrop. ‘Do you have the Cythral Star?’ he asked, looking at Caorann.

Caorann nodded slowly, still looking stunned by what he had just heard. ‘I have placed the pouch inside another pouch. Both of them are wrapped in a piece of cloth. It is safe.’

‘Good. When we reach the monster that has dammed the valley, I mean to sow that seed in its mouth.’

Caorann shook his head slowly. ‘Are you raving? What…’ he ran out of words to describe Finavar’s madness and he looked at his other friends for explanation. ‘What is he talking about?’

Alhena nodded, her eyes wide. ‘A forest would be born in its flesh. It would be torn apart.’

Caorann’s shock grew as he realised Alhena was seriously considering Finavar’s plan. ‘By the gods! Even if that made any sense, how do you think we’d reach the monster? There’s an entire army between us and it.’

‘On land there is an army,’ replied Alhena, her gaze still locked on Finavar’s.

Finavar nodded eagerly. ‘Exactly – the river cuts straight through the army and ends at that creature that is drowning us.’ He looked at Caorann. ‘Do you see? We can sail straight past all those things and reach the horror that spawned them.’

‘Sail?’ cried Caorann. ‘What do you mean “sail”? In what?’

Finavar grinned, but before he could reply, Sibaris cried out in alarm and rushed back towards the door.

One of the wooden guardians had stepped out into the light.

Sibaris leapt into the air and brought both his blades down onto its neck. It had barely taken in its surroundings when it stumbled back out of the door with its head missing.

Sibaris slammed his shoulder against the door, closing it with a dull thud.

The others rushed to join him, throwing their weight against the wood.

Caorann looked around and dashed off into the clouds of mist, returning a few seconds later with some sturdy-looking branches in his arms. He wedged them against the door and booted them until they were jammed in place.

The others followed his lead and did the same and, as the door started to rattle and shake with blows from the other side, the four wardancers backed away.

‘Should hold for a few minutes,’ said Caorann. Then he looked at Finavar, still wearing the same look of disbelief. ‘I’m glad you’ve worked out a way for us to fly, or I’d be worried.’

Finavar pointed at the rippling silhouettes of the mages, gliding on the far side of the falls. ‘That’s our escape, Caorann. We just need to get their attention.’

‘Why in the name of Loec would they listen to us?’

‘Because some of us are well-connected,’ he smiled at Sibaris. ‘Aren’t we? One of the mages up there is Mälloch the Elder,’ he explained, ‘Lord of the Fiùrann and the great-grandfather of Sibaris here.’

The door rattled on its hinges as more weight hit it from the other side.

They looked back to see several of their props snap.

Caorann looked from the door, to Finavar, to the spellweavers. ‘I’m sure you were never this deluded.’ Then he strode across the ledge, paused briefly to pick up a stone and hurled it through the water.

The force of the waterfall sent his stone way off target, but the others quickly followed his example and began throwing rocks at the rippling shapes.

After a few attempts one of the figures finally registered their presence. It looked around and caused the other figures to do the same.

Finavar looked at Alhena and she nodded eagerly at him. ‘And then what? When we have their attention?’

The door exploded, scattering wood and hinges across the outcrop.

The wardancers whirled around, lifting their swords as a large shape hurtled towards them through the spray.

Finavar groaned as he saw the monster that had broken through the door. It was an enormous, wooden lion, flanked by dozens of the swordsmen who had killed Thuralin.

He took down several of the swordsmen with a lethal, blades-extended, pirouette and Alhena and Sibaris waltzed into the others, but the lion pounded on, smashing through the scrum of battling figures and making straight for Caorann, sensing somehow that he was the one with the stone.

Caorann leapt high as the wooden beast reached him, bringing his sword hilts down in a savage blow to the back of its head.

The pommels cracked noisily against its thick wooden neck, but the only effect of the blows was to send Caorann staggering away, clutching his arms and howling in pain.

The animal scrambled to a halt, just inches from the edge of the outcrop and then turned to race after Caorann.

Finavar tried to block its way, but the creature smashed into him like a falling tree and bowled him out of the way.

Caorann leapt up onto the door frame and, just before the animal reached him, he kicked himself clear, flipping away from harm just as the lion crashed into the doorway, knocking several of the soldiers back down the spiral stairs.

The animal whirled around and this time it padded towards Caorann with slow deliberation, swinging its head from side to side as it approached.

The wardancer backed away as far as he could, until there was nothing but air behind him.

Finavar and the others fought desperately to reach him before the lion did, but it was no use, dozens of the swordsmen had now filed out onto the ledge and they had encircled each of the wardancers so that they could not break free.

Caorann crouched low as the lion reached him but, before he could make a move, the wooden animal opened its jaws wide and let out a weird, screeching roar, like the creaking of a hundred broken doors.

The sound distracted Caorann and one of his feet slipped back over the edge of the precipice. He managed to stop himself falling, but only by lurching towards the lion.

It tore into him, sinking its incisors into his shoulder and chest and flinging him around with a ferocious shake of its head.

Caorann howled in pain and frustration and his blood sprayed through the air, turning the clouds of mist a cheerful pink.

He jammed one of his swords into the animal’s eye, then cursed as it failed to notice.

Then he jammed his other blade into its mouth and, with a pain-fuelled burst of strength, he levered its jaws open far enough to free himself.

He rolled clear in a shower of blood and splinters.

The lion rounded on him and, as it prepared to pounce again, Caorann saw he had nowhere left to turn. He crawled backwards away from the lion as fast as he could, but it was useless.

The lion reared up over him and he put his arms in front of his face, unwilling to see his own body torn apart.

An odd, grinding sound rang out, even louder than the sound of the falls.

The wardancers gasped as hundreds of tendrils burst from the tree and enveloped the lion in a thick mesh, ensnaring it like a hunter’s net. It roared again, but the more it struggled, the tighter the mesh became. The mesh contracted at an incredible speed, crushing the lion with a series of cracking, popping sounds, until the ball of roots was no bigger than an apple.

More of the swordsmen were trying to crowd onto the ledge, but tendrils suddenly erupted from the door frame, lashing themselves across the opening in a thick lattice of vines and roots. A few of the swordsmen were already halfway through and they exploded, torn apart like pieces of seasoned kindling.

In a few seconds, the doorway had vanished behind a wall of leaves, wood and moss, leaving just the few dozen swordsmen that had already made it through.

Finavar and the others flew at their attackers with renewed vigour, slicing and lunging and driving them back towards the edge of the shattered branch, where they kicked them into the falls.

After a few minutes, every wooden swordsman had been driven from the ledge and the wardancers rushed to where Caorann was sprawled in a pool of his own blood.

To their relief he managed to sit up and even grin as they approached.

‘We’ve lost enough today,’ breathed Alhena as she dropped to her knees beside him. She wore the same furious snarl she always did, but they all heard the emotion in her voice.

Finavar nodded. ‘We should bind that wound until we can find you some help.’

‘You should tell me what you’re doing here, first,’ said another voice.

Finavar turned to see a tall, hawk-nosed noble in a voluminous bearskin cloak. Mälloch’s skin glimmered as he sauntered towards them, reflecting the light of more suns than just the one hanging overhead. As when he first met him at the Feast of the Two Branches, Finavar felt humbled by such casual grandeur.

‘Great-grandfather!’ cried Sibaris, rushing towards the noble.

Mälloch held up a warning hand and kept his beguiling stare locked on Finavar. ‘How did you escape your prison?’ He kept his tone flat.

Alhena helped Caorann to his feet and both of them stepped between Finavar and Mälloch, drawing their blades as they did so.

Their unquestioning loyalty made Finavar’s pulse race.

Mälloch noticed it too. ‘You are choosing your friends more wisely these days.’ He frowned. ‘Although you seem to have lost one. Where is the doom-monger with the taste for fern seed?’

Alhena tensed, but Finavar placed a hand on her arm.

‘You sent me to my death,’ he said, ‘but luckily for me, the forest had other ideas.’ As he spoke, Finavar pulled back his cloak to reveal what the tree spirits had done to his body.

The wardancers stared in shock as they saw the gnarled, lichen-covered plates that replaced his skin.

Mälloch simply nodded. ‘And what of your mind, Finavar? Did they heal that?’

Finavar hesitated, conscious of his friends’ eyes on him. Then he nodded, looking at Caorann, Alhena and Sibaris in turn. ‘Yes,’ he answered quietly. ‘I have been a fool. I am a fool no longer.’

Caorann raised an eyebrow at this but he bit his tongue, sensing the gravity of the exchange.

Mälloch’s expression grew less severe. ‘I was wrong to take you to that waystone. Elatior was further gone than any of us realised. If I’d known how confused he was, I never would have listened to him.’ He glanced at Sibaris. ‘We should have found a way to prevent your banishment.’

Sibaris nodded in agreement but Finavar shook his head. ‘I was heading for a worse fate. You saved me, Mälloch, the second you sent me into the Wildwood.’

Mälloch frowned. ‘Why did Lady Ordaana say those things about you? I can see now that they were lies, but why? What have you done to earn her wrath? Why did she want you to die?’

Finavar was about to reply when Caorann coughed and staggered.

‘Forgive me,’ said Mälloch, stepping closer and raising his sword.

Alhena raised her own weapon but Finavar shook his head.

She lowered her blade but maintained her scowl.

Caorann’s face was drained of colour and he looked on the verge of fainting, but he looked back at Finavar suspiciously.

‘Trust him,’ said Finavar with a gentle smile.

Caorann shrugged. ‘You’ve been keeping some strange company, Fin, but I don’t suppose I have a great deal of choice.’ He held up his arms and revealed his wounds.

‘Messy, but far from fatal,’ said Mälloch as he studied the ragged tears left by the wooden lion. He placed the tip of his sword against the wound and muttered a quick charm. The clouds of mist billowed as currents of magic answered Mälloch’s call. The blade of the weapon pulsed with light and, after a few seconds, the bloodflow lessened.

‘You must bind it carefully,’ Mälloch said, reaching for the bundle of cloth at Caorann’s belt.

Caorann clapped his hand over the cloth and backed away.

Mälloch narrowed his eyes, but shrugged. ‘Any cloth will do, but you should not leave the wound exposed like that.’

Sibaris tore some of his loincloth away and rushed to hand it to Caorann.

As they wrapped the wound, they heard a low tearing sound coming from the green mesh that covered the doorway.

Mälloch looked surprised. ‘They’re determined. What have you done to annoy Hallos? It’s been many years since this tree felt the need to defend itself from asrai.’ He glared at Sibaris. ‘You’ve hardly been here five minutes and you’ve already earned its wrath.’

‘It’s for that reason that we wanted your help,’ said Finavar.

Mälloch looked at the doorway. It was straining and groaning under a great weight. ‘I can hold them off for a while, but I must return to my kin.’ A shadow passed across his face. ‘We are sorely pressed.’

‘It’s not the door that we need help with,’ said Finavar, his eyes sparkling. ‘I have a plan to end this battle.’ He glanced at Caorann and the pouch at his belt. ‘We just need to make our way downriver.’

Mälloch noticed the direction of Finavar’s gaze. ‘What have you taken from–’ he cut himself off abruptly. ‘What do you mean make your way downriver?’

Alhena strode forwards with her chin raised and a defiant look on her face. ‘We mean to jump into the falls, sail down the River Saros and destroy that monster.’

Even Mälloch could not hide his surprise. ‘Jump into the falls?’ He glanced at the torrent thundering past them. ‘Jump?’

Caorann laughed. ‘I thought you had met Fin before. He is prone to this kind of thinking.’

Mälloch ignored him and kept his gaze locked on Finavar. ‘And you think I can help?’

Finavar nodded at the other spellweavers, just visible through the falls. ‘You have been hurling things into the falls already. I saw from down in the valley. You were making cages of roots and vines.’ He stepped closer to the ancient noble. ‘You could do the same with us. You could encase us in a cage that is bound by the power of the forest. You could guard us against the fall. You could shield our bodies by–’

Mälloch held up a hand. ‘Perhaps we could.’ He frowned in disbelief. ‘Perhaps. But, even if you survived, what hope would you have against that creature? Have you seen what the Plague God has sent against us? It’s a living mountain, filled with disease and magic. It would crush you.’

Finavar pointed to the pouch at Caorann’s belt. ‘We have borrowed a gem called the Cythral Star. It is one of the seeds sown by the gods at the–’

‘I know of the Cythral Star,’ interrupted Mälloch. He looked furious again. ‘It is not a toy. And it is not something to be wasted. What use would there be in reforesting this valley when it is full of the enemy? They would simply corrupt every shoot that springs forth. We would do better to save such a treasure until we are sure of victory and then use it to recreate our home.’

‘I mean to sow it inside the beast.’ Finavar was unable to hide his excitement. ‘I mean to plant life inside the monster.’

Mälloch looked away, pondering Finavar’s words. ‘Inside the monster.’ He nodded, slowly. ‘I see. You would unleash all the force of creation. Within its flesh.’

Finavar grinned.

‘But then its power will be spent,’ continued Mälloch. ‘We will have nothing to use once this war is over.’

Finavar shook his head. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening down there? If we don’t act now, our only army will be destroyed – drowned while we stand here debating a victory that will never come.’

Mälloch studied Finavar for a moment, then nodded. ‘I knew, from the first moment I met you, that you had some great doom hanging over you. Whether it is for good or ill, I still can’t be sure.’ He stepped to the edge of the precipice and looked down through the thrashing spray. Finavar had the impression that his old eyes could see further and more clearly than his own.

‘I cannot place you, Finavar,’ continued Mälloch, ‘but I have not forgotten that you once saved my life – and that I almost cost you yours.’ He looked around at the others. ‘I cannot guarantee that you will survive.’ His gaze came to rest on Sibaris. ‘Are you all sure that you wish to join him in this lunacy?’

One by one they all said yes and Mälloch nodded, obviously unsurprised. ‘May the gods watch over you.’

CHAPTER NINE

Chants and invocations broke through the din. The roar of the falls, this close, was ear-splitting, so Finavar could only catch the odd word, but the voices of the spellweavers were power-laden and full of menace. The others wardancers were with him and Mälloch had done as he promised – binding them all into a cage-like pod of living branches and roots. Finavar could feel tendrils snaking around his limbs and fastening him to the centre of the brittle mesh. He could see nothing but light. There was sunlight reflected off the face of the falls and magic blazing from the bark that held him in place. He could feel Caorann and the others pressed against him, but he could not see their faces.

The pod shifted, jolting forwards in time to a change in the song.

Then they were gone – launched into the falls with the force of a comet.

Water crashed through the branches, pummelling Finavar and the others as they fell. His stomach lurched as they were hurled towards the valley below and he thought for a moment that he was drowning. Water filled his eyes and his mouth and he tumbled so fast that he had no sense of direction.

Mälloch has failed, he thought as the water poured into his lungs. The idea seemed abstract and remote – Finavar felt vague surprise rather than any fear. The ancient noble had always seemed so infallible.

Then his ears filled with a dry, brittle, crunching sound – like acorns crushed underfoot. He could hear nothing else for a while, but he felt the walls of the wooden cage being torn away from him. The sound became white noise and then a thin whistle, like a child’s toy.

The screeching sound knifed into his mind and the world turned dark.

Finavar’s lungs dragged him back to consciousness – filling his chest with screaming, desperate pain. He kicked his legs wildly in the darkness, fighting for life. As he moved, sensations returned to him. He felt cold, biting into his bones. Then he realised that he could feel other limbs than his own. Feet and fists were pounding against him in a desperate bid for life.

Finavar strained against his bonds, screaming silently into the black depths. It was no use. Mälloch had bound them tightly to the cage and now they were drowning in it. As he thrashed and kicked uselessly against his bonds Finavar sensed that they were sinking – dropping further towards the riverbed. His mind began to slip away, starved of oxygen. He saw shapes up ahead – weeds, he guessed, drifting across the riverbed, but as he studied them they became scenes from his youth. He saw Caorann as a child, chasing him through the forest, laughing with innocent pleasure.

The pain in Finavar’s lungs began to fade too and he realised that his death was perhaps not so awful after all. He raced after Caorann, passing through the forgotten glades of his childhood, sprinting lightly along branches and paths.

Then he saw another face – Ordaana, lying calmly and easily to Elatior’s courtiers – slandering him so that he would die in her stead. She has to be stopped, he thought. I have to stop her. Panic gripped him and he kicked his legs again. Perhaps he could break the cage on the riverbed? He pushed his legs through the wall of the cage and kicked furiously, using his final reserves of strength.

The cage reached the riverbed but, rather than smashing against it, it broke through it. Finavar realised with delight that he had been disorientated and the cage had actually been racing up, towards the surface of the water. The shapes he had mistaken for weeds were clouds, drifting across the sky. He coughed and spluttered as the cage burst from the depths in an explosion of foam.

He heard wild cries of relief from the others as the cage was caught by the current and thrown downriver. Then he was deafened by the water again. Mälloch’s cage was lifted up by the River Saros and hurled like an unwanted gift, tumbling and spinning across the surface of the water.

Finavar rolled and fell in a confused jumble of limbs, cracking his face repeatedly against the branches that held him safe. As they flew downriver he glimpsed terrible scenes on either side. They had already been washed far away from the Crowfoot Falls and deep into the heart of the daemon army. The riverbanks were teeming with flies, crows and lurching, one-eyed monsters. Finavar felt bile rise into his throat as he saw the beings that had destroyed his home. They were the same pot-bellied oafs he had seen at the Chains of Vaul, but now they were moving in their thousands. His mind reeled at the scale of the invasion and he wondered where they could have all come from. Had they sprung from the earth, like a fungus? Then he noticed that many of them still had scraps of asrai robes dangling from their atrophied limbs and he had his answer. These wretched legions were the infected, animated corpses of his own kin.

The cage rolled again and Finavar was plunged back beneath the water. When he next emerged, breaking from the surface with another choking gasp, he cursed in shock. Up ahead of him, blocking out the whole horizon, was a vast mountain of grey, puckered flesh. The cage was racing straight towards the giant daemon that was damming the valley. In a few more minutes they would smash into its rolls of blighted, discoloured flesh.

‘Kick!’ he cried, looking back into the cage.

The other three were still there, looking back at him with dazed, bloodstained faces.

‘We must reach the riverbank!’

They stared at him with incomprehension for a moment, then leapt to obey, kicking furiously through the side of the cage, driving it from the centre of the river to the calmer currents.

To Finavar’s relief, they were successful. Some subtlety of Mälloch’s art had made the pod unnaturally buoyant and, a few minutes later, it came aground on a patch of gravel, beneath an overhanging lip of turf.

As soon as the pod rolled from the water it unfurled, spewing its dazed passengers into the shallows.

They floundered for a moment, splashing, coughing and cursing. Then Caorann looked around in disbelief and began laughing.

Finavar followed his gaze to see what had amused him. He could not see up around the overhanging lip of turf, but he could see the far side of the river with horrible clarity. The army of daemons looked like another river, but one made of tusks, worm-eaten blubber and rusty iron swords.

‘How boring life was without you around, Finavar,’ Caorann said, wiping blood from his face and swaying unsteadily in the water.

‘Keep your voice down!’ hissed Alhena, nodding at the ledge of soil hanging over their heads. ‘We may not have been seen.’

Finavar saw that she could be right. The daemons wading through the flooded valley were fixated on their strange work. As they headed towards the falls, they were writing in sodden ledgers, recording the details of each diseased corpse that drifted past them or picking objects from the ground and stashing them in jars and mouldering pouches. None of them had looked in their direction or, if they had, they did not show any interest in them.

Finavar backed into the shadows beneath the ledge, climbed up onto a rock and summoned the others to his side. The outcrop extended for forty feet or so in each direction and he decided that they were hidden for the moment. He could hear daemons wading past nearby, speaking garbled gibberish and occasionally pausing to clang a broken bell.

The other three waded through the water and climbed up beside him on the rock. Caorann had stopped laughing and for a moment they were all busy examining their new set of bruises. Once they had all realised, to their amazement, that they had not broken anything, they turned expectantly to Finavar.

For a moment he was unsure why they were staring at him, then he realised that they were waiting to hear the next part of his plan. He looked out across the river, in the direction of the huge monster they had come to destroy.

This close up, it was impossible to look at the thing in its entirety. His eyes skipped over its sagging, honeycombed flesh, refusing to pause on any one detail for too long. However hard he tried, he simply could not bear to look at it, but even half-glimpsed, the size of it was terrifying. The others were still watching him, waiting for his response. What was he going to say? He had been so fixed on the idea that they could reach the daemon by sailing down the centre of the river; he had not actually considered what they would do then. He ran over the situation in his head – they had the seed of a forest and needed to implant it inside the daemon, but there was no way they could risk getting close. Of course! The answer hit him. He tried to look calm as he explained it, so that it might seem as though it had been his plan all along.

‘We need a bow and a high vantage point,’ he said, nodding at the pouch containing the Cythral Star. ‘That daemon has a mouth even bigger than Caorann’s. It will be an easy enough target. All I have to do is uncover the emerald as I shoot the arrow. By the time it hits home, it will already be reacting to the sunlight.’

Caorann nodded sagely. ‘And of course, you remembered to bring a bow.’

Finavar clenched his jaw.

Alhena shook her head impatiently. ‘What does it matter? Can we not fletch an arrow? Do we lack the skill to make a simple bow?’ She looked around at the crumbling riverbank. ‘We’ll only need one good shot.’ She was still manic with loss and desperation and, as the others looked on in surprise, she began clawing furiously at the mud.

Sibaris looked pained as he watched her, his eyes full of sympathy and love, and Finavar saw that his suspicions had been correct – they were either lovers already or they soon would be. If he could keep them both alive.

He looked at Caorann and saw that he was watching Alhena with a wary expression, as though she were demented.

Finavar found her rabid movements just as unnerving and he was about to demand she stop when she hissed with pleasure and wrenched a broken stick from the mud.

‘This will do it,’ she said, holding the stick up into the light. ‘This will do it!’

Finavar saw to his surprise that she was right. It would not make the long, recurved bow he was used to, but it was the right shape to make a small bow – like something made for a child.

‘It will,’ he replied, and she gave him a wild, trembling grin.

‘A knife,’ she muttered, reaching beneath the water to search her belt and loincloth.

‘Here,’ said Sibaris, still looking concerned for her as he handed her a short blade.

She set to work and Caorann raised his eyebrows. ‘It looks like you’ll need an arrow then.’

As Alhena worked at the bow, the others scoured the mud for more sticks, looking for anything straight enough to make an arrow. They unearthed a pitiful-looking collection, but Finavar chose the best of a bad bunch and handed three of them to Alhena.

She finished her bow with some thread from her clothes and then turned her attention to the arrows. She used some pieces of flint for the heads and finished them off by snatching some feathers from Caorann’s sodden blue locks and using them as the flights. Finally, she closed her eyes, pressed the pieces of wood to her lips and prayed to the trickster god for luck.

Then she handed them to Finavar.

The whole thing had taken a few minutes and they all looked at Alhena in shock, taken aback by her furious industriousness.

Finavar smiled at her. ‘Not all the riches of this forest can be found in silver trees.’

To his amazement, Alhena blushed. Then she regained her usual, unhinged glare and stepped closer to him. ‘When this is done, you will tell me everything you know.’

Finavar nodded, almost as scared of her as he was of the grotesque mound behind him.

‘Right,’ he said, looking up at the outcrop. ‘I will need a clear shot and a few seconds to take it.’ He turned to Caorann. ‘Hand me the pouch. Carefully.’

Caorann unclasped the pouch, tested its weight in his hand, to see if it still held the emerald, then handed it to Finavar.

Finavar carefully removed the outer layers and knotted the remaining piece of cloth to the shaft of an arrow, just below the flint. Then he asked Sibaris for his knife. ‘I’ll cut the knot as I shoot. The pouch will fall away as the arrow flies, but hopefully the stone won’t react until after it reaches its target.’

He looked up at the slope. It was about seven feet high and they would be able to climb it in a few bounds. ‘We climb up, break cover at the same moment and, as I prepare to shoot, you fend off whatever comes my way.’

‘And then?’ asked Sibaris, looking doubtful.

Finavar shrugged. ‘And then we dive into the river and swim as fast as we can.’

‘Which way?’ asked Sibaris.

Caorann laughed. ‘He doesn’t know! He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, even if this works.’ He patted Sibaris on the shoulder. ‘Just swim. And maybe pray. Don’t worry about anything else.’

Sibaris nodded, looking even more concerned than before, but Alhena rounded on him with blazing eyes and gripped his shoulders. ‘It will work. We will live. The forest will live.’

Sibaris drew back his shoulders and lifted his chin, looking more convinced. ‘The forest will live,’ he repeated.

Finavar waited until they were all looking his way again, and then said: ‘On the count of three…’

The muddy bank was slippery and uneven, but the wardancers moved with all their usual grace – bounding easily up onto the ledge. After that, everything happened very fast.

Finavar sensed a great deluge of figures rushing towards them, but he did not look at them – knowing that his only hope was in the bravery of his friends and the accuracy of Alhena’s little bow.

There was an explosion of belching cries from somewhere to his right and he heard blades cutting through flesh, but he kept his eyes locked on the mountain-sized daemon.

He nocked the arrow, whispered a prayer and stared into the monster’s mouth.

As he took in the full horror of it, his mind threatened to collapse.

He hesitated, unable to shoot.

‘Fin!’

Caorann’s voice seemed to come from a thousand miles away, but the fear in it jolted Finavar into action.

He loosed the arrow and, as he saw it fly, he let out a gasp of relief.

It was only then that he realised he had forgotten to slice open the pouch.

As the arrow arced over the river towards its target, the Cythral Star was still wrapped tightly in cloth, untouched by the sun.

For a moment, Finavar was too stunned to act.

He looked around and saw the backs of his three friends. They were fighting with astonishing speed. It was a breathtaking sight. Finavar had never seen such a beautiful, brutal display. An enormous crowd of daemons had surrounded them, but Finavar’s friends had done the impossible and bought him a moment to shoot.

I will not fail, he thought, turning back to face the daemon.

The arrow was still sailing up across the river in a high arc. It was a perfect shot, silhouetted clearly by the clouds, but with the pouch still in place it was useless.

With his friends’ cries in his ears, Finavar saw what he had to do.

He sprinted from the hilltop, and raced down the riverbank, running faster than his heart could bear.

His thighs burned and his breath died in his lungs.

Daemons barred his way, but he leapt across them like stepping stones, bounding from their heads before they had chance to touch him with their venomous blades.

With a final bound he reached the summit of a second hill, nearer to the daemon.

He dropped into a low crouch, drew a second arrow and held his breath. For a second he remained there, motionless, letting his thoughts merge with the breeze.

Then he loosed a low, fast shot.

The second arrow flew straight, undercutting the first and, as the first arrow plunged down between the monster’s sagging jaws, the second one intersected it.

Finavar imagined he saw a flash of green light, just before the arrows vanished from view, but he could not be sure.

There was a chorus of guttural cries as daemons staggered in his direction.

‘Swim!’ howled Finavar, hoping his friends were still alive to hear him.

Then he leapt from the hilltop, not even taking the time to see what lay below.

Water and silence enveloped Finavar and he swam deep with broad, powerful strokes. Fish scattered at his approach and he saw that they were as changed as everything else in the forest. A trout rippled out of the weeds and Finavar saw that its face was a sack of frogspawn-like eyes and one of its dorsal fins had curved into a crooked, barbed horn. He changed direction but kept well below the surface of the water. He could hear splashes overhead and presumed that a daemon must be diving in after him.

He made for the centre of the river and found, to his relief, that his lungs were as strong as they had ever been. The healing of the tree spirits clearly ran deeper than just his skin. He powered through the murky depths for several minutes until, finally, he was forced to kick up towards the surface.

Finavar burst from the water, prepared to fend off a flurry of blows but, to his surprise, he realised that there were no daemons in the water. The splashing sounds came from falling rocks and pebbles. They were bouncing down from the surrounding hills and at first he struggled to understand why. Then as he drifted in the current, treading water, he saw that the forest was shaking. The garish trees were lurching and shifting, as though caught in a powerful storm and the surface of the river was as choppy as a stretch of coastal water.

Finavar looked to the figures that surrounded the river and saw that they had all stopped what they were doing to look back at the entrance to the valley.

He turned to look in the same direction and let out a howl of pleasure.

Ahead of him was the quivering, white bulk of the daemon that had dammed the valley. It was mostly unchanged – it still resembled a colossal hybrid of gastropod and canine, with a forest of translucent tentacles for a face, but there was one, small difference. Finavar’s heart raced as he saw that the daemon had sprouted the spear-like tip of a single fir tree. The tree had torn through the monster’s flesh and caused a fountain of black liquid to rush from the wound. The contrast of black and white made the wound seem all the more shocking.

As Finavar watched with growing delight, another treetop sliced up from the daemon’s innards. This one was much larger and caused the monster to shiver as though touched by fire.

Within seconds, dozens more trees burst from the monster, each one larger than the last and each arrival more violent than the preceding one.

The daemon began to lurch and twist as countless, towering trees exploded from its body.

The army of smaller daemons that filled the valley began to head away from the Crowfoot Falls, rushing back towards their master with dazed expressions on their faces.

Finavar heard familiar laughter from the riverbank and turned to see Caorann scampering back and forth on a hillock, whirling around on his heel like a drunkard.

Finavar laughed with him and then cheered as he saw that the giant daemon was trying to rise and draw back from the river. It was no use. The trees were slicing up from its body like a wave of spears. As Finavar watched in delight, unable to believe his ridiculous plan had actually worked, a whole clump of trees broke through the monster’s flesh, emerging with such force that a whole section of its blubber fell away, causing it to slump and roll to one side. As it did so, a grove of thick, powerful oak trees exploded from its face, destroying the monster’s head in a cloud of black liquid and spraying chunks of gelatinous flesh.

The valley shuddered again and hundreds of the smaller daemons fell to their knees, unbalanced by the tremor. Those who were left standing began staggering back and forth, unsure which direction to head in.

There was a sound like the tearing of wet cloth as the vast monster was ripped in half by hundreds of trees that burst, simultaneously from its abdomen.

Finavar was thrown forwards as the river suddenly discovered it had room to flow. As the monster’s body disintegrated, the Saros rushed to fill the gap.

Finavar’s head was thrust beneath the water and he tumbled for a few moments, unable to right himself. Then, breaking the surface for a moment, he began swimming furiously for the riverbank.

There was another loud tearing sound as the daemon’s ridged white tail came free, unblocking another section of the river and Finavar was plunged below the surface of the water again. When he re-emerged he was dangerously close to the boiling mass of water, blubber and trees that had once been the daemon. His excitement faded as he saw that he might die as a result of his own work – torn apart by trees or poisoned by the monster’s toxic flesh.

He swam as hard as he could, trying to escape the pull of the current, but the river was now hurtling forwards to reclaim its course.

‘Fin!’

Finavar could only just hear Caorann’s voice above the noise of the water, but he snatched a look as he swam and saw that his friend was nearby and pointing to a raised area of rock. It was further downriver and even closer to the maelstrom he had created with the Cythral Star, but he realised Caorann was right – it was his only chance of halting his progress.

He kicked in the new direction and felt the weight of the current pick him up and throw him towards the rocks.

There was a flash of white foam and then an excruciating pain across his face. Then he flailed wildly for a moment, swallowing water and cursing Caorann’s stupidity.

Strong hands grabbed him by the underarms and hauled him, coughing and spluttering from the waves that were crashing against the rocks.

‘Caorann you bloody oaf,’ he gasped as he was dragged from the rocks onto a patch of muddy grass.

‘Alhena you bloody oaf,’ said Alhena, looking coolly at him as she dragged him a little further from the water. She was as bloody, drenched and bedraggled as Finavar.

He laughed and squeezed her arm gratefully.

Despite all they had just been through, she maintained her cool expression as she helped him into a sitting position.

He looked at her as he continued coughing and trying to catch his breath, feeling a bit like a disappointing catch that was about to be thrown back into the water. In all the excitement he had forgotten that they had unfinished business, and that she had just lost her father. Did he still have her trust?

He stifled his laughter and allowed her to help him to his feet.

‘I must be a bloody oaf to have thought this was a sensible plan,’ she said. Her tone was flat, but there was the tiniest hint of a smile around her eyes.

Finavar relaxed. It was a small concession, but it meant a lot. He squeezed her arm again and then staggered as another wave battered the rocks. This one came from the opposite direction, moving against the fast-flowing current.

As Alhena helped Finavar back onto the riverbank, he saw that groves of trees were still exploding from the carcass of the daemon, throwing the river back against itself and creating a dangerous torrent of whirlpools.

‘This way!’ cried a voice.

Finavar and Alhena looked around and saw Sibaris running towards them. He had a deep gash across his forehead and he looked ghostly pale, but he was grinning wildly. ‘We’ve done it!’ he cried, waving one of his blades back the way they had come. ‘The nobles are advancing!’

Finavar looked back towards the falls and saw that the youth was right. Lord Findol’s footsoldiers were rushing down the opposite riverbank, glaives lowered as they smashed into the fleeing daemons. As the waters receded and they picked up speed, their slender, tattered pennants trailing proudly behind them as they ran. Meanwhile, on the northern riverbank, where Finavar and the others stood, the riders from the south of the forest were galloping across the newly revealed mud, launching arrows and javelins as they thundered down the valley.

‘We have to leave,’ muttered Finavar.

His words were lost beneath the sounds of the water and the battle. The daemons were clanging their tuneless bells as they saw that the battle was lost and the asrai nobles were sounding their trumpets as they charged, seeing that an unexpected victory was suddenly at hand.

‘What?’ cried Alhena as Sibaris reached them, followed by a grinning, loping Caorann.

‘We cannot get caught up in their plans,’ answered Finavar, scowling at the lines of advancing asrai. ‘We have to leave now. They will want us to fight with them.’

Caorann puffed out his chest, looking pleased with himself. ‘And who can blame them?’ He clapped Sibaris on the back so hard that he staggered. ‘We’ve just saved their lives.’

Finavar shook his head. He looked up at the valley walls and saw that they were clearing fast. As their master’s hulk was being torn apart, the daemons were scrambling back the way they had come, seeing the furious host that was bearing down on them.

‘We must climb,’ said Finavar, making for the slopes above them.

‘Wait!’ cried Caorann, his grin fading, replaced by a look of disbelief. ‘Surely you don’t mean it, Fin? The battle is almost won. Thanks to us.’ He nodded at Alhena and Sibaris who were leaning against each other for support, both exhausted and sodden.

‘We’re all half-drowned,’ continued Caorann. ‘Surely we can take a moment to enjoy our victory and rest with the others?’

Finavar stopped and looked back at them. ‘Rest?’ he said, with no trace of humour. ‘Look around you. Do you think we have time for a rest?’

He turned and jogged away from them, making for the incline.

Caorann looked at the other two and shook his head.

Sibaris looked equally stunned as he turned to Alhena but she nodded, wiped the mud from her face and jogged after Finavar.

Caorann closed his eyes for a moment and continued shaking his head. Then he took a deep breath and looked wistfully at the glorious victory taking place behind them.

Sibaris gave him a sheepish look and raced after the other two.

Caorann watched him go and let out an exasperated sigh. Then he looked around, trying to spot something. After a few seconds he smiled and jogged over to the tall outcrop of rock that Finavar had landed on.

He climbed to the highest point and surveyed the incredible scene that was spread out around him. Lord Findol’s host had already crossed half the valley, hacking and butchering as they smashed into their fleeing enemy. The banners of countless other nobles were following in their wake and, racing from the hills north of the falls were the horse-lords of Cavaroc, with their tall plumed helmets and their beautiful, gleaming steeds. At the far end of the valley, Mälloch and the other spellweavers were descending from the Crowfoot Falls, shrouded in a golden haze of water and magic, like gods tumbling from the heavens. They advanced in the wake of the other asrai, wrenching weeds from the water as they came and lashing the fleeing daemons. And, just a hundred feet or so from where Caorann stood, the flesh of the vanquished monster was still exploding into new, verdant life.

Caorann stood there for a moment, taking in the whole, chaotic scene and then, even though he knew it would never be seen, he took a low bow, smiling and thanking an imaginary audience for their silent applause. Then, feeling a little better, he turned on his heel and sprinted from the valley.

CHAPTER TEN

They dropped like rain: warhawks, trailing plumes of silver mist and carrying masked, stern-faced riders. As he led them down through the clouds, Prince Haldus put a horn to his lips and played a long, single note that echoed through the ruined valley below. Where once it would have resounded across coin-bright lakes and emerald-green glades, it now struggled through a charnel pit. The carcasses of trees and beasts had coalesced, forming an enormous rotting tunnel, miles wide and drooping under the weight of its own decay: the diseased, sulphurous intestine of a leprous god. It had swallowed the entire valley and was slowly digesting it. The only life visible within it was fungal and palsied – gaudy, quivering limbs, draped across the slopes of a once-beautiful plateau, shrivelling everything they touched.

Haldus lowered the horn and glanced at it, thinking briefly of its fallen owner, Eremon, then he placed it on his back, crouched low in the feathers of his mount, and glared at the corpse of his home. His eyes were framed by deep, circular scars, but even without them his countenance would have been fierce. His brow was low and brutal. The eyes beneath it were red-rimmed with exhaustion and fury.

‘Avernus!’ he roared, looking back over his shoulder.

The rider nearest to him leaned forwards on his hawk, straining to catch his lord’s words. He wore the same trailing wooden headgear as Haldus and, like him, his bronzed limbs were circled by copper torques and coiling tattoos. He wore a flamboyant robe that Haldus would have felt ridiculous in – a gleaming white mass of swansdown that snapped and tumbled from his shoulders, giving him a far more regal air than the prince would ever assume. He was a brave, skilled warrior though, and Haldus had long ago forgiven him his vanity.

Avernus was a veteran of many battles, but the sight of the hellish tunnel had clearly unnerved him. His expression remained rigid and proud, but Haldus saw the doubt in his eyes.

‘Remember Thenot,’ Haldus cried, lifting a bundle of cords from his back.

Avernus nodded, raising a matching bundle. The cords were made of knotted vine tendril, glistening with oil.

Haldus held his gaze, eyes blazing until Avernus nodded back and adopted a more defiant expression. Then Haldus turned his face into the wind, savouring one last taste of fresh air before entering the pestilent tunnel. He closed his eyes for a moment, speaking quietly, reverently even. ‘For Thenot.’

Haldus had not intended his words to be heard, but Avernus did hear them, and mimicked the tribute with pride, lifting his voice so that the other riders could hear. Hundreds of voices picked up the call and Haldus’s heart swelled at the sound. He glanced back at the shifting banks of hawks. He had never wished to lead an army, but by the gods, what an army to lead. It was more like an elemental force – a vengeful storm of feather and steel, come to cleanse the forest of its cancer. Doubts were meaningless now. He was a feather, caught in a tempest.

He steered Nuin into the gaping, mouth-like entrance to the tunnel, disappearing into the gloom and leading the tempest to war.

Dark shapes rushed to meet him. Over the last few weeks Haldus’s mind had hardened to the grotesque absurdity of his enemy – giant, septic flies, clad in plates of rusted metal and trailing their own innards. He was too far off to make out the riders, but he could picture them in his mind – stooped, pot-bellied wretches, covered in lesions and abscesses. He shivered as he recalled their vacant, sac-like eyes. Finding a way to destroy them had been such a wonderful moment in Haldus’s life that it almost eclipsed the pain of the preceding defeats. His eyes narrowed as he plunged towards them.

He waved the bundle of vines left and right, indicating that Avernus should lead their kin west as they entered the tunnel, heading to different sides of the valley. The storm parted into two spearheads, one led by Prince Haldus, one led by Avernus.

Wind screamed through Haldus’s headgear and the feathers of his mount. Fumes filled his eyes and stalled the breath in his chest. The warhawks were diving at bewildering speed. Haldus knew that his army would be fanning out around him, preparing to engage the enemy but, as his hawk dropped faster, the peripheral world fell away, leaving the prince to stare at a single daemon-fly, rushing up to meet him.

As always, he encountered the crows first – countless numbers of them, cawing and screaming as they bounced off his chest and mask. It was as disorientating as it was meant to be, but the warhawks had grown inured to the tactic. Nuin sliced on through the whirling black clouds.

At the final moment, Haldus saw the daemon-steed in all its bloated, pox-ridden glory. Its head dangled a long, glistening proboscis and its abdomen was a colourful slop of body parts and oozing boils. The rider had its single, yellow eye locked on Haldus and pointed one of its long, crooked fingers in his direction.

Haldus smiled.

Nuin banked hard to the right.

The warhawk screamed past the fly-creature and Haldus unfurled his bundle of vine tendrils, enveloping both monster and rider in a thick mesh of green cord.

Nuin soared back up away from the ground. Haldus and Nuin moved as one. They had grown together. There was a lifetime of shared understanding between them. As the hawk swooped, Haldus’s body slumped and rolled in perfect unison. He barely had to tighten his grip on Nuin’s feathers.

The fly-monster thrashed its ragged wings uselessly in the netting and the daemon rider howled.

As Nuin rocketed away from the struggling daemons, Haldus drew a bow and arrow from his back, sparked a flint across the arrowhead and loosed a shot.

There was a glimmer of pale green light as the arrow flew.

The arrow sank into the fly-monster’s abdomen and the oil-soaked net erupted into flames.

The fly-monster and its rider became silhouettes, trapped in a ball of fire.

They lurched and struggled, but the more they moved, the more the flaming mesh tightened around them.

Haldus whispered a prayer of thanks to Laelia. Ariel’s handmaiden might be infuriating, but she knew how to weave a charm.

The thrashing ball of flame dropped back towards the valley floor.

Haldus watched it fall for a moment, patting Nuin gently on the neck as she lifted him back up away from the ground. Part of him still recoiled at the idea of introducing fire into his home. He felt like a thoughtless outsider, lighting flames beneath dry summer boughs.

Nuin took him higher and the festering valley spread out beneath him. He saw all too clearly why the old laws did not apply. Only months before, the slopes would have been clad in precious, green robes, but now there was nothing to burn. The quivering mounds of fungus had strangled the forest and replaced it with a gaudy mockery of life. Wherever Haldus led the army he had found a landscape that was painted purple, pink and yellow. The world should have been dressed in the drab colours of winter but the daemons had made it bloom – filling it with colours so bright they made Haldus’s eyes ache.

The other warhawk riders followed Haldus’s lead and, everywhere he looked, plumes of flame were dropping from the air, wrapped around struggling, sword-wielding horrors. For a second, he felt the tightness in his chest lessen. Laelia’s mage-fire would destroy the monsters. They would defeat the daemons and the sight would give him a brief respite from his rage and pain. Until the next valley.

He sighed and reached for more tendrils, preparing himself for another dive.

Nuin screamed in pain and jolted to one side.

Haldus was hurled from the hawk’s back.

His stomach lurched and his legs kicked uselessly.

As he toppled from the sky, he glimpsed Nuin overhead, fluttering her wings wildly as one of the grotesque fly-things latched onto her belly. The weight of it dragged her down and Haldus cried out, not because he was falling, but because Nuin was. He knew that even a single wound from one of the daemons could infect her with the plague.

He rolled as he fell and lost sight of Nuin. He was blinded briefly as he passed through a cloud of noisome fumes. When he emerged from the other side he was surrounded by a blur of toiling, battling shapes. Screams, flames and war cries accompanied his fall and his own cries were drowned out by the din.

Air exploded from his lungs as he collided with something.

He realised he was slumped on the suppurating, armour-clad abdomen of a daemon-fly. The monster lurched under his weight, then righted itself. The figure on its back turned to face Haldus. It was a single-eyed horror clutching a crooked, rusty sword. At the sight of Haldus its face split open in a toothless grin, revealing a black, snake-like tongue. It babbled, gibbered and lurched towards him, drawing back its sword to strike.

Haldus regained his senses fast enough to draw his own sword and the two blades clattered off each other.

Haldus saw weevils and mites crawling over the daemon’s blade. Even the smallest scratch would be enough.

The daemon prepared to strike again.

Haldus tried to lift his sword but saw to his horror that a black, scaled limb had sprouted from the plague fly and latched around his weapon. He tried to wrench it free, but the blade held fast.

The one-eyed daemon belched laughter and brought its sword down towards his face.

Haldus whispered a prayer to Kurnous, let go of his sword and jumped back into thin air.

The battle rushed by and Haldus reached out as he fell, trying to latch onto something.

The combatants rolled and weaved out of reach and he saw the foetid ground rushing to meet him.

The impact came, but rather than landing in pus and rotten flesh, Haldus thudded against something warm and feathered.

He laughed with relief as Nuin soared back up from the ground. He did not have to open his eyes to recognise his oldest friend. The hawk’s musk was the smell of home and childhood. He hugged her in silent gratitude as she carried him to safety.

The colossal hawk did not pause until they were high above the battle. Then she spread her wings and drifted slowly through the clouds of lurid yellow gas, giving Haldus time to recover.

He lay face down in her feathers, trying to steady his breathing. Then, once his pulse was calmer, he hopped up into a crouching position and looked around.

He shook his head. From this height he could see the full horror of the situation. Like the rest of the forest, the valley had been contorted by madness. Everything was gripped by unnatural maladies and creeping, purulent legions.

As he studied the putrid apocalypse below, daemons fell past him, lighting up the feverish tableau they had created. It was a nightmare sprung to life.

The prince reminded himself of the reason for this particular assault. He turned his exhausted gaze to the far end of the valley. Surrounded by the tunnel of mutilation was the last remaining citadel of this particular realm. Every other defence had been destroyed by the daemons, but a lone hill at the end of the tunnel still wore a defiant crown, visible for miles around – a lonely bastion of stone and simple, green leaves. It looked like a circle of colossal, branchless trees – seven massive columns entwined with blooms and fronds. They were not trees though. Haldus knew the truth. They were mile-high standing stones, reaching up towards the roof of the hideous tunnel and carved to resemble the lords of the gods. Beneath their evergreen mantles he could make out crumbling, noble miens, and sceptre-wielding fists. The unnatural light made the faces sinister and cruel, but Haldus knew this place of old and felt calmed by the sight, rather than unnerved.

As Nuin glided overhead, wings splayed, Haldus considered how close he had just come to death and whispered a prayer to each of the gods in turn: Asuryan, Isha, Kurnous, Hoeth, Lileath, Loec and Ladrielle.

Nuin dropped closer and Haldus saw that, at the base of the stones, the cesspool ended. The pallid, vermicular growths clawed at the threshold but could not break through. The stones endured, maintaining their dignified silence and protecting the realm within the circle. What power, thought Haldus. However hard the fingers of plague grasped at the stone circle, they could not gain an inch. For miles around, there was nothing but rot, bubbling streams of acid and shambling legions, but none of it could pass these mute, ancient sentinels.

‘The Cromlech of Cadai.’ The voice was nearby and it jolted Haldus from his thoughts. His cheeks flushed as he saw who it was.

Laelia was hovering just a few feet away, carried by her delicate, tessellated wings. Even in this baleful light she was beautiful. Like all of Ariel’s handmaidens, she looked half-spirit. Her messy, boyish crop of hair could do nothing to disguise her radiance, but it was not her appearance that made Haldus blush; it was her habitual, crooked, smile. He felt, as always, that she was laughing at him. There was no malice in her smile, but he was painfully conscious of how she must see him. The subtle complexities of the Mage Queen’s court were a mystery to him. When Laelia discussed the politics of the great realms or the mysteries of the Great Weave, his head began to pound. He was a hunter, not a courtier or a mage. He felt sure she must consider him a fool. The sooner he could return to his mountains, and his own kind, the better.

He gave her a gruff nod, refusing to meet her eye as he straightened his headgear and brushed the filth of battle from his chest.

His awkwardness only made her smile more. She looked down at the lichen-clad towers and took a deep breath.

‘Beautiful.’

Haldus nodded, noticing again how effectively the plague had been halted at the edges of the circle. ‘The forest still has power.’

She glanced at him, surprised. ‘It does have power, but that isn’t what you’re looking at.’

Haldus turned to face her, his embarrassment forgotten. ‘What do you mean?’

‘As Cyanos told you, Prince Haldus, this is the work of Lord Calaingor.’ She nodded at the mysterious area within the stone circle. It was a few miles wide but, even from the clouds, it was impossible to see what it contained. The foliage and blossom that shrouded the seven towers threw unnaturally long shadows, obscuring whatever they guarded. ‘Your friend was right to send us here. Calaingor has not been seen at court for centuries – not since I was a child – but his skill as a mage has never been forgotten. Naieth said he is one of the greatest of us. That he travelled across the sea with our forebears. It is his power you see, Prince Haldus, not the power of the forest. If you can win Calaingor over to our cause, your army will be doubled in power.’

Your army. Haldus clenched his teeth at the words. How in the name of the gods had he allowed himself to become a general? He had looked, at every turn, for someone to hand this onerous duty over to, but there was still no one he could trust. Laelia was powerful beyond his understanding, but she was right – the archers and cavalry he had left at the camp would not follow her into battle. Ariel’s winged handmaidens were as feared as they were respected. And most of the nobles in the forest were either dead, or cowering in their halls. The few he had convinced to join him were either teetering on the brink of lunacy or just looking for an opportunity to flee. Only Cyanos seemed truly willing to aid him. Haldus felt a rush of gratitude as he considered how invaluable the scholarly lord had become to him. The burden of leadership would surely have crushed him by now if not for Cyanos’s support. It was his tactical advice that had led them this far, rather than Haldus’s brutish rule. It terrified Haldus to consider how badly things would have gone if the tactical decisions had all been left to him alone.

‘So, this Lord Calaingor could lead the army, then?’ Haldus glanced warily at Laelia, expecting a joke in reply.

Her crooked smile was still there, but she nodded. ‘I imagine so – if you can drag him out from those old stones. Cyanos has a strange kind of wisdom – but it is wisdom nonetheless, I have to admit. I had not even thought of seeking Calaingor’s aid until Cyanos unearthed his name in those old texts, but, yes, I believe he could lead this army.’

Haldus looked down at the battle, trying to make out the black-armoured shape of Cyanos. There was no sign of him. Haldus imagined he would be hunched over one of his old books somewhere, plotting their next move. The thought gave him hope.

He saw Avernus, though, not far from one of the stone towers. His white cloak flashed as he balanced lightly on the back of his hawk. Despite the speed of the hawk, Avernus was firing arrow after arrow into the tumbling fireballs that surrounded him. Haldus could hear the excitement in his voice as he issued orders and he understood the delight Avernus was feeling. Watching the forest die was more than any of them could bear. Each chance to strike back was a gift from the gods.

‘Calaingor will have seen me,’ called Laelia, drifting away from Haldus, buffeted by the wind. ‘The way between those stones is usually barred, but I believe we will be safe to approach. I have reached out into the Great Weave and he will recognise my touch. He knows his own kind.’

Haldus nodded. Then he took Eremon’s horn from his back and let out another long, lowing note.

Avernus and the others turned to see him make a circular motion with his hand. Avernus nodded in understanding and formed the hawk riders into a defensive formation, leading them slowly around the circle of stones.

Haldus nodded at Laelia and allowed her to lead the way down.

The Cromlech of Cadai preserved at its heart a single, summer’s evening. As Prince Haldus leapt from Nuin’s back, he dropped into a meadow of waist-high pasture and gasped with pleasure. The grass was rippling and shimmering in the light of a sun that would never set.

Haldus closed his eyes for a moment and turned his face to the golden sky, savouring the warmth and the dizzying scent of honeysuckle. Some of the lines melted from his heavy brow. His muscles relaxed and the cuts and bruises that covered his body grew less painful, but the thing that most delighted him was the sensation of timelessness. Here was an idyll that would never end.

He heard Laelia land gently behind him and he opened his eyes to look around, remembering to adopt his usual scowl. She said nothing, so he looked back at the meadow. A path led through the grass to a living archway of apple blossom. Beyond the archway he could see, oddly vivid in the twilight, a series of interlinked wooden arbours, clad in tumbling wild flowers.

He noticed that the air was alive with movement and, as he held out a hand, butterflies settled on his skin. Their colours were dazzling and vibrant but, where the gaudiness outside had hurt his eyes, these colours only soothed him.

He gave Nuin a gentle pat on the neck, indicating that she should wait, and headed off down the track, swaying slightly as he went, drunk on the scent and sunlight. He could sense Laelia drifting a few steps behind, but did not look back, for fear that she would see how easily beguiled he was.

They stepped through the archway and into one of the delicately framed arbours. The air here was even more crowded with butterflies. Haldus smiled despite himself as they buffeted his face and settled in his hair and he heard Laelia laugh at their touch. Buddleias towered overhead, alive with movement, laden with as many butterflies as petals. Some of the insects were huge and, it took a few minutes for Haldus to realise that three of the shapes he was approaching were not butterflies, but people.

The figures bowed as Prince Haldus approached and he saw that they were asrai nobles. They were much taller than he was and clad in the most outlandish garb. Their robes were woven of the same iridescent scales that covered the butterfly wings and they were of an antiquated, ornate design. They reminded Haldus of the tales he had heard of his ancestors who dwelled across the sea. The robes were so dazzling that Haldus had to narrow his eyes as he approached. The nobles also wore the most fantastic crowns – a combination of high, swooping dragon wings and carved, wooden flowers. Even the nobles’ faces were unrecognisable – painted with inks and dyes to resemble long-forgotten gods.

As Haldus came to halt in front of these luminaries, he saw the reason for their height – they were being carried a few feet off the ground by trails of apple blossom that tumbled from their robes and cloaks. There were other figures following behind them – an entourage of guards and attendants – but they were mere shadows in comparison.

Haldus resisted the urge to kneel, reminding himself that he was a prince, and simply nodded his head.

He looked from one dazzling face to another. ‘Which of you is Lord Calaingor?’

They stared at him in silence and, for a moment, the only sound was the fluttering of insects and the tidal rush of the breeze in the meadows.

Then one of the nobles smiled. It was a strange, awkward kind of smile, as though she had not used those particular muscles for a very long time. When she spoke, Haldus had the same impression – that she was doing something that had long ago ceased to be natural for her. Her lips struggled to wrap themselves around the words, so that the vowels and consonants tumbled into one another.

‘The Warden of the Cromlech is resting.’

Haldus has not expected this. The forest was being torn open by mutation and these nobles were holding the daemons at bay. He would not have imagined their lord to be asleep. He turned to Laelia for guidance, but she simply raised an eyebrow and gave him her usual wry smile.

Haldus wracked his brains to find the correct, formal language with which to address such august people. ‘Can you wake him?’ he grunted eventually.

The nobles glanced at each other. As they moved, their robes rustled and released even more butterflies into the failing light.

They spoke no words, but Haldus could sense from their expressions that they were engaged in some kind of debate.

After a while, the noble that had spoken gave him another wooden smile and headed off down a path between the arbours. ‘My name is Lady Ailerann,’ she said as she drifted away. ‘Let me escort you to the Warden.’

The other nobles did the same and Haldus stood shaking his head in confusion until Laelia gave him a gentle shove, indicating that he should follow.

They crossed a broad, circular courtyard of sun-warmed marble and Haldus guessed that it was the centre of the whole structure. Banks of foliage towered all around and Haldus sensed that the courtyard was much larger than the area he could see, but that it had long ago vanished beneath the tide of growth. He noticed that the stone was hard to walk on and looked down, expecting to see that it was broken. Rather than cracked, the flagstones were deliberately uneven – they had been decorated with sweeping bas-relief patterns, showing vast portrayals of the gods in battle. The work was breathtaking in its beauty. For a moment, Haldus forgot everything but the art that was spread at his feet. He cleared away some leaves and gasped at an image of Kurnous leading a great hunt. He traced a finger over the god’s face, imagining he was with him in the heavens. It was something he often imagined and, as always, the idea comforted him.

‘I’m not sure they’ll remember we’re here if we don’t keep up,’ laughed Laelia, nudging him forwards again.

Haldus looked up and saw that she was right. The nobles were drifting away from them, carried along by their trains of flowers.

He grunted self-consciously and hurried after them.

They walked for an hour or so, beneath the endless, westering sun. There was something hypnotic about the way it hovered on the horizon, destined never to sink beyond it. With every minute that he walked, Haldus felt his body relax a little more. The warmth sank through his muscles and deep into his bones, until he would have liked nothing more than to lie down and abandon himself to dreams of Kurnous and endless summers. The thought of what lay beyond this perfect evening kept him moving though. He pictured his kinsmen, battling disease and disorder, as the forest died around them, and he stumbled on after the nobles.

They eventually reached a grove of tall, stately trees, surrounding a heavily carved trunk, hollow and broad enough that a dozen horses could have passed through it side-by-side. Haldus and Laelia had to fight their way through a tangle of brushwood that spread out from the base of trunk. It resembled a robed priest, keeping a watchful eye over its flock of ancient trees. When Haldus followed the nobles through the opening, he staggered in the gloom – the perfume of the flowers was so heady that he began to feel giddy. He would have fallen, if not for Laelia’s steadying hand. He nodded a grudging thanks and noticed that she was unaffected by the scent. She was looking past him, to the centre of the tree, her eyes gleaming in the eternal dusk.

Haldus took a few deep breaths to steady himself and followed the direction of her gaze.

At the centre of the hollow tree was a spiral of bleached, sculpted branches, stripped of their bark and curved into long, serpentine loops, so that they resembled a vast fire. At first Haldus thought it was nothing more than a work of art, but as he followed the nobles and their attendants he saw it more closely. The intricate designs were clearly the handiwork of the same skilled artisans who had carved the slabs in the courtyard. His gaze followed the curve of a giant eagle’s claw, which formed the arm of a great throne, carved from the heart of the tree and enveloped by hundreds of spiralling designs. There was a cadaverous hand resting on the throne, as white as the branches and connected to a pale arm, entwined in beads, jewels and vine leaves. The hand and arm were both colossal – five times that of a normal body and, as Haldus reached the foot of the throne, he saw the enormous regal head of the seated figure, nestling in the verdure like a pale bloom. The giant’s eyes were closed but the head was held erect with pride. It was wearing a wreath of black, glossy leaves but its face was ashen and lifeless.

‘Lord Calaingor?’ Haldus asked, slurring his words and reaching out to Laelia for support.

She steadied him and stepped to his side, staring in amazement at the huge, crowned figure.

The head did not move and the eyes remained closed, but, as the three nobles backed away from the throne with their heads bowed, a smaller white shape emerged from the brittle mesh.

Haldus massaged his face, trying to clear his thoughts. The scent of the flowers had become so powerful that the whole scene was swimming around him, as though it were reflected in a pool. The shadows were full of figures – both highborn and lowborn, staring intently at him. He nodded vaguely at them and stepped closer to the throne, peering at the white shape that had emerged from the branches.

‘I am thinking,’ it said in a low, croaky voice.

Haldus was looking at an ancient hare. It was sitting on an arm of the throne and its posture was just as rigid and severe as the giant beside it; two incarnations of the same mind. They both projected the same austere, ascetic air. The hare’s fur was patchy and balding, but its colour gave it beauty – it was the luminous silver of moonlight.

It studied Haldus with half-lidded eyes, as though considering something ironic.

‘You?’ asked Haldus, looking from the hare to the three nobles who had greeted him.

The nobles had backed away into the shadowy crowd and lowered their heads. They gave him no reply.

Haldus looked at Laelia.

She looked at the hare and raised an eyebrow. ‘He has larger ears than I remember.’

Haldus stared at her, too confused to register her humour. Perhaps the soul of this ancient spellweaver had grown too great to inhabit just one body? He thought of Nuin, waiting patiently at the foot of the stone towers and realised the idea was not so alien to him.

‘Are you Lord Calaingor?’ he asked, turning back to the hare.

‘You might say we are Lord Calaingor,’ it answered, glancing at the motionless giant.

Haldus looked from the hare to the giant and his heart sank. The Cromlech had resisted every assault that crashed against its perimeter. He had been sure that Lord Calaingor would be the one who could lead the asrai in his stead, but Calaingor seemed to be some kind of enormous, mortified wraith. What little of the body he could see beneath the leaves was covered in cobwebs and dust. That, or he was a decrepit, balding hare. Neither was the warlord he was seeking.

Haldus looked back at the giant.

‘Can you wake him?’

‘I am not sleeping. I am thinking.’

‘Thinking?’ Anger crept into Haldus’s voice. He felt vaguely ridiculous venting his fury on a hare, but the animal’s dismissive tone was infuriating. ‘The forest is dying. Do you understand? My kin are dying too, just half a mile from this spot. And the last few lords who are willing to fight are struggling against unbelievable odds in the Saros valley. You might have protected these stones from corruption, but for how long? Our whole realm is being destroyed.’

He looked around at the assembled crowd. He saw nobles and great warriors, but all of them had their eyes locked on the ground. Were they ashamed, he wondered, or scared?

‘You must help,’ he said, looking back at the hare. ‘Whatever power you have used here must be turned against the daemons. You must ride out with me. You must serve the Mage Queen. Time is running out!’

The hare seemed to sag under the weight of Haldus’s anger. The spark of humour faded from its eyes.

‘Time?’ It spoke softly. ‘What do you understand of time, little princeling? You measure it in deeds and bloodshed. The Cromlech of Cadai is beyond such things. Beyond time as you might understand it. It was standing on this spot long before the coming of your Mage Queen. It will be standing here when her final spring has passed.’

The scent of the flowers magnified Haldus’s anger and he found himself glaring at the hare. ‘Nothing will be standing anywhere if we do not halt this plague. You cannot shield yourself from this. Your precious Cromlech is part of the forest, as much as anything else. The seasons have been overturned. There is growth where there should be snow! Time has been displaced.’

There was a low, grinding sound and the chamber shook. Haldus staggered back a few paces and looked around in confusion for the source of the noise. When he looked back at the hare, he realised that the figure in the throne had moved.

The hare opened its eyes wider, revealing two ink-black orbs, but when it spoke, its voice was still gentle.

‘Time has no dominion over the Cromlech, Haldus. We have made sure of that.’ There was sadness in its voice. ‘Duty, Haldus. That is what matters. But such things go forgotten by most. The correct observance of rites. Respect for the gods. Patience. Things that are so easily abandoned by the warlike mind. Do you think yours is the first conflict to reach our borders? Do you think you are the first to try and distract us from our obligations? You are not, Prince Haldus.’

Haldus clutched his head in his hands, unable to believe what he was hearing. Yet again he was facing a noble with no sense of what was at stake. ‘We must join together!’ He waved at the cavernous trunk that surrounded them. ‘It is not enough to support the trees, Calaingor, we must support each other.’

The hare looked over the prince’s shoulder into a shaft of golden twilight pouring into the tree trunk. ‘I preserved what I could.’ The hare turned to its courtiers. They looked back with love and adoration. ‘There is no way back.’

Haldus shrugged off Laelia’s grip. ‘What are you talking about?’

Laelia nodded. ‘I understand. Lord Calaingor has sundered himself from the world.’ She looked around at the assembled nobles. ‘They are all preserved. Insects in amber.’

The hare lifted its chin, assuming the same proud posture they had seen when they first arrived, but said no more.

Haldus stepped closer to the throne, shaking his head. As he did so, he glimpsed a staff in the giant’s hand, as tall as a tree. The thing was decorated with intricate swirls of silver filigree that glittered in the dark. Like all of his kind, Prince Haldus could feel the eddies and currents of magic as easily as he could feel a spring breeze. The staff resonated power. The closer he looked the more sure he became – this was the source of the Cromlech’s resilience.

Without thinking, he reached out to touch it.

The noble nearest to him leapt forward and barred his way, drawing a sword as he did so.

Haldus sensed immediately that he had shocked their hosts. Several of them placed their hands on their weapons and stepped closer.

Laelia rushed forwards and held up a hand, pulling Haldus back with the other.

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘The prince was overcome for a moment, that is all. We have not come here to undo what you have created.’ She stared at Haldus. ‘Have we?’

Haldus saw that all the figures in the shadows had now moved forwards, drawing swords, spears and glaives. He shook his head and backed away, feeling foolish for acting like a common thief. He cursed himself for behaving in such an ill-mannered way.

He looked back at the throne, expecting to see wrath and outrage, but the giant noble was as immobile as ever.

The hare was staring at him, but he saw pity in its eyes, rather than rage. ‘The Stave of Calaingor would be no use to you, young prince.’ The ironic expression reappeared. ‘Even if you did have the strength to steal something five times your own height.’

The nobles pressed forwards with their weapons raised, and their painted faces were not so humorous.

Laelia raised her hand and backed out of the hollow tree, dragging Haldus with her as she went.

They emerged into the warm evening light and Haldus muttered grudging thanks, infuriated that Laelia had had to help him again.

‘Cyanos was mistaken,’ she said, as they headed back the way they came. ‘Calaingor is no use to us. He has spent all his power stepping outside of the world we are fighting to save.’ She looked pained. ‘He has both preserved, and lost, all that he loves.’ Laelia shrugged. ‘He certainly has nothing left to offer us. Perhaps your learned scholar was reading the wrong book.’

Haldus paused and looked back at the trees. Some of Calaingor’s subjects had wandered out to watch them leave. They were eying Laelia nervously, and made no move to follow, but outrage was still written across their painted faces. Haldus cursed his stupidity, but sensed that Laelia was right. The guardians of the Cromlech would never have aided him, even if he were the most silver-tongued of nobles. They had chosen their defence and, to Haldus, it looked a lot like a retreat.

He shook his head and blushed angrily, furious that he had led his warriors into that vile, diseased tunnel for nothing.

‘Cyanos showed me the prophecy,’ he muttered as they walked. ‘I couldn’t decipher the characters, of course – it was the language of humans, but it was called the oracular something and it was ancient beyond anything I’ve seen before.’ He scowled, growing angry with himself. ‘I do not understand those obscure histories and legends. Why would Calaingor bind himself away from the world like that?’ He shook his head. ‘Cyanos was sure the signs pointed to this place and this person. He assured me that this was the place to seek aid.’

Laelia’s expression changed, growing uncharacteristically serious as she considered Haldus’s words. ‘We should leave.’

Haldus looked up in shock. He had not heard her speak in such a grim tone before.

They hurried back through the arbours, trees and fields and Haldus’s shoulders dropped with relief when he saw Nuin, still waiting patiently where he had left her.

The prince leapt onto the giant hawk’s back and, without a backwards glance, he launched her into the sky.

As Nuin carried Prince Haldus back towards battle and decay, Laelia drifted up after them.

They passed unhindered through the ancient stones and approached the borders of Calaingor’s realm. Then, as they broke through clouds, Haldus groaned.

The scene below had grown much worse. When they entered the stone circle, the hawk lords had the enemy on the run. The fly-riding daemons had been falling from the sky and Haldus’s riders had been on the cusp of victory.

Now the sky was a boiling black furnace. Thousands of giant flies had filled the air, all carrying cankered, one-eyed daemons between their mucus-lined wings. It was impossible to see the distant entrance to the vast tunnel – the daylight had been completely obscured by the festering host. The only light that remained was from the nauseating yellows and purples that shone from the pestilent fumes.

Haldus saw immediately what he had done.

‘I’ve led us into a trap,’ he muttered, with the colour draining from his face. ‘There’s no way out.’

In all these months of war, he had never seen such a hopeless situation. The tunnel was filled with an appalling, apocalyptic din. The air throbbed with the sound of beating wings and clanging, tuneless bells. Of the three hundred riders he had brought from the camp, he guessed that less than two hundred remained. He shook his head in despair as his kinsmen dropped from the sky, torn apart by glinting black mandibles and fuming daemon blades.

‘Where is Cyanos?’ he growled, scouring the reeking clouds for a sign of him. There was no sign of the black-armoured noble, or any of the other hawk riders from his mountain kingdom.

Laelia glanced at him. Her wry smile was still absent. ‘Where did you find Cyanos?’

Haldus gave her no reply. His expression changed from one of despair to fury. He lifted Eremon’s horn from his back and prepared to call a retreat.

‘Haldus!’ cried Laelia as several black shapes dived out of the gloom, heading straight for them.

Laelia rolled to one side as the monstrous flies hurtled towards them, but Nuin was too slow and one of the creatures latched onto her wings, gripping tightly with dangling, segmented limbs.

The fly had three black, featureless eyes and, without thinking, Haldus jammed his horn into the largest of them.

The eye exploded with a moist pop, spraying black, tar-like liquid across Nuin’s face.

The hawk screamed and shook her head as smoke erupted from her feathers.

Haldus shivered in horror at the sound, but had no time to help his mount. The giant fly was hauling itself onto Nuin’s back and the bird was thrashing its wings wildly, trying to stay airborne.

The fly carried a mangy, withered rider and, as Haldus rose to his feet, the daemon leapt from the fly with its sword raised.

Haldus had already drawn his spear and he thrust it into the daemon’s maggot-riddled belly.

The daemon laughed merrily as its abdomen split open, spilling a torrent of lemon-yellow grubs.

Haldus recoiled. They were not grubs, but tiny replicas of the daemon – complete with gangly limbs, pot bellies, tusks and single, staring eyes.

He lashed out at them with his spear, staggering backwards towards Nuin’s tail, scattering the little shapes into the air like seeds.

The daemon laughed harder as Nuin screamed again and began to fall.

Haldus managed to keep his balance, charged forwards and slammed the blunt end of his spear into the daemon rider’s face, sending it flying from Nuin’s shoulders. He noticed with disgust that it continued laughing as it plunged towards the mounds of living offal below.

The fly-monster still had its segmented limbs latched around Nuin and the giant hawk was screaming in pain as she struggled to beat her wings.

Haldus moved to jam his spear into another one of its eyes, but he recalled the tiny shapes that were already clambering all over him and hesitated.

He was about to plant his heel in the thing’s face when it was suddenly wrenched away from Nuin and hurled through the air.

Haldus glimpsed tendrils of green fire, hanging from Laelia’s fingertips as she flew through the smoke towards him.

The crooked smile had returned to her face. ‘I’m not sure Cyanos has our best interests at heart.’

Haldus was too enraged to do anything but glare at her. He dropped back onto Nuin’s back and tried desperately to wipe the black liquid from her feathers. Freed from the weight of the daemonic fly, she had managed to right herself, but the feathers around her head were scorched and smouldering.

Laelia grimaced at the sight and reached out, soothing the bird’s pain with a balm of pale flames. ‘She will live,’ she said as the light vanished beneath Nuin’s feathers. Then she shook her head. ‘We need to leave,’ she said, glancing doubtfully at the heaving, fungal landscape.

Haldus was rigid with anger and shame. All around him, the hawk riders were being devoured by the daemon-plague.

As he cast his gaze around, it came to rest on the stone towers behind them.

He looked from the stones to Laelia and raised his eyebrows.

She laughed weakly. ‘We won’t enter so easily a second time. Not after your attempts at negotiation.’

Haldus jabbed a finger at the carnage that surrounded them and drew his breath to reply, but before he could speak, another daemon-fly whirred towards them. Emboldened by fury and desperation, Haldus leapt from Nuin’s back and kicked the daemon rider from the fly’s back.

The daemon looked back at him in stunned silence as it fell through the clouds.

The giant fly lashed out with a barbed limb, but Haldus was too fast. He dodged the blow, took the blade of his spear in both hands and jammed it into the base of one of the monster’s wings. He roared as he kicked the blade, shovel-like, deeper into the joint and then levered the wing out of the fly’s back and kicked it into the air.

The fly immediately rolled to one side, unbalanced by the missing wing, but Haldus had already leapt clear, landing safely on Nuin’s back and continuing his conversation with Laelia without pausing for breath. ‘You have the power to get us in there!’ he cried, jabbing his finger at the Cromlech as the fly dropped past them, thrashing its three remaining wings uselessly as it went.

Laelia looked wounded by his harsh tone, then shook her head with a bemused expression on her face. ‘And you say you’re not the one to lead an army.’

Haldus continued glaring at her.

She looked back at the battle and then at the stone towers.

‘The way is blocked,’ she said flatly. ‘And Lord Calaingor has power far beyond mine.’

‘There must be a way.’ Haldus stared at her as hawk riders died all around them. The combination of his scars and his low, brutal-looking brow made him seem almost like a wild animal. ‘It’s our only escape route.’

Laelia looked worried as she considered what he was asking of her. Then she let out a strange little laugh. ‘Perhaps there is a way.’ She thought for a moment longer and then nodded. ‘Lead your warriors to the towers and I’ll see what I can do.’

Haldus noticed that the doubt had not entirely left her eyes. The idea that she was scared shocked him but he knew he could not back down. There was nowhere else he could lead his kinsmen. Then another hawk screamed in pain and confirmed the fact. He placed Eremon’s horn to his lips and summoned the riders to his side, steering Nuin down towards the towers as he did so.

Less than half of the riders who entered the tunnel remained to follow Haldus into the Cromlech. The daemons raced after them on their flies but, as the hawks sliced into the invisible space between the rocks, the flies collided with a wall of air. There was a crunching and splintering as mandibles and wings were broken, sending daemon mounts spinning back through the air, shedding giggling riders and spraying fountains of black liquid, but the asrai passed safely through the stone portal. One by one, the hawk riders disappeared from view, slicing through the whirling shapes of the daemons and entering the hidden realm of Lord Calaingor.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Prince Haldus closed his eyes for a second as he felt the warm summer evening roll over his body. Then, recalling his conversation with Calaingor, he realised the place no longer felt like such a welcoming haven. He looked back and saw his blood-drenched kinsmen gliding between the towers and following him to safety. With every second that passed, dozens more of the hawk riders followed him through the towers, looking around in awe as they saw the beautiful reminder of their lost home. Haldus whispered a thank you to Laelia.

He saw to his relief that the black fluid was gone from Nuin’s feathers. Every trace of the plague had vanished as they passed through Calaingor’s invisible wards. Not even a single spore could enter the Cromlech. Haldus marvelled again at the noble’s power as he steered Nuin down towards the meadows.

As he dismounted, Haldus allowed himself a brief glance at Calaingor’s sun-warmed idyll, but the scene no longer had the power to ease his pain. Wounded, ashen-faced warriors were landing all around him and Nuin was twitching and eager beneath him. He placed a hand on her neck and whispered soothing phrases into her ear. Her breathing became more regular, but he could see cuts all over her flesh – no longer infected with the plague, but still enough to cause her pain. He placed his palm on an angry red wheal at the base of her skull and whispered a soothing charm.

‘Laelia,’ he cried, trying again to spot her in the crowds of hawks that were landing all around him.

Dozens of his fellow riders were now rushing through the long grass to his side, but there was no sign of Ariel’s handmaiden.

One of the first riders to reach him was a tall noble. Haldus was so focussed on trying to locate Laelia that for a second he did not register him. He wore a swansdown circlet in his hair and a cloak made of the same gleaming white feathers. He was bare-chested, like all the other hawk riders, but his skin was so heavily inked with feather designs, that he seemed to be half bird. His face was long, handsome and fiercely intelligent.

‘My lord,’ he said, in a rich, melodic voice. ‘Where are we?’

Haldus finally noticed him and blinked in confusion. ‘Avernus. Where are we? What do you mean?’

‘What is this place?’

Haldus looked around. The survivors of the battle were wandering through the gloaming, throwing shadows across the rippling grass. They were looking around with a mixture of delight and confusion. None of them had expected such a blissful ending to such a dreadful journey.

Haldus glared at his captain for a moment, still wondering what might have happened to Laelia. The glimpse of fear in her eyes had been most unusual. As he looked across the fields, Haldus saw the distant arbours and, as before, there was a group of crowned nobles drifting out to greet them. They were moving much faster than before, however and they were flanked by hundreds of glaive-wielding warriors.

Haldus muttered a curse.

Avernus followed his gaze and blanched. Lifted a bow from his back. ‘My lord?’ he asked glancing to the hawk riders who were still landing all around them. ‘Must we fight our own kin?’

Haldus forced himself to forget Laelia and focussed on the crowds of warriors rushing towards him. They were already crossing the paved courtyard and would be on them in minutes.

He turned to face the remnants of his attack force. ‘Draw your bows,’ he cried, ‘but keep them lowered.’

Without another word to Avernus, he raced off through the long grass towards the approaching crowd of warriors. As he neared them, he saw that they were led by the same nobles he had previously offended. Their iridescent robes and elaborate crowns were unmistakable. The vague, distant look had gone from their eyes though and, like the warriors who accompanied them, they were now holding long, elegant glaives, with blades that gleamed in the dusk.

Haldus wracked his brains as he approached them, wondering what he could say that would wipe the rage from their faces.

He was just a few feet away from them when a hunched, wizened figure rose from the grass ahead of him and held up a hand.

Haldus grimaced at the sight of the thing. It was a grey, shrivelled husk and it seemed to have dragged itself from a grave.

The nobles and their warriors looked as disturbed as Haldus and stumbled to a halt.

Haldus paused too, staring at the cadaverous shape.

Then it dropped from view and vanished.

He rushed over to the spot but found no trace of the strange figure.

The nobles approached and Haldus fingered his bow nervously as he looked up at them.

As before, they were drifting a few feet off the ground, like the mages of Ariel’s court, but they looked at him with a wariness he had not seen last time.

Haldus realised what he must do. It was his lunge at Calaingor’s staff that had created this bad blood so he must be the one to make amends. He dropped to one knee and held out one of his hands, palm up.

‘I beg that your lordships forgive my earlier outburst,’ he said. ‘The fury of the battle was still upon me. I was not thinking straight. I assure you I would never have intended to offend the Warden of the Cromlech.’ His voice was awkward and stiff, contorted by his pride. ‘I beg you not to punish my kin for their lord’s indiscretion. They’re exhausted from battle and have only come seeking sanctuary. I would ask nothing more than…’

Prince Haldus’s words trailed off as he realised that the nobles were frowning at him in confusion. He rose awkwardly to his feet.

One of the nobles drifted closer. ‘You are not here to attack us?’ she asked, speaking in the same wooden tones she had used earlier.

Haldus shook his head.

There was a rustling of feathers as Avernus came to stand next to him. ‘My lord,’ he whispered, ‘they don’t know who you are.’

Haldus saw that he was right. They did not recognise him. He wondered how they could they have forgotten the person who had only just attacked their lord.

‘Don’t you know me?’

‘No,’ said the noble. Then after staring at him for a few minutes some slight recognition dawned in her eyes. ‘Or perhaps I do,’ she said with a soft, puzzled laugh. ‘There is something vaguely familiar about your face. Did you come to the Cromlech once before?’

She massaged her temples, trying to remember more clearly. ‘Was there some kind of awkwardness?’ She shrugged and held out her own hand with a smile, mimicking his gesture of peace. ‘No matter.’

Haldus looked at Avernus with a dazed expression, but Avernus was looking at the distant, shimmering sunset, already starting to guess that there was something odd about it.

Haldus turned back to the noble and waved at the glaive-wielding soldiers. ‘I thought you were coming to punish me for my poor manners.’

The noble laughed again. The sound was odd and cumbersome in her mouth, like her speech, but it seemed genuine enough. ‘Whatever happened in the distant past is lost to me, friend, and it can remain forgotten.’

She waved a hand and the soldiers lowered their weapons. ‘We saw warriors and wanted to be sure of your intent, that was all.’

Haldus remembered something. ‘What was that figure I saw, just before we spoke – the grey thing?’

The noble grimaced. ‘We have no name for it. It arrived, unannounced, centuries ago. Such a pitiful, wretched little thing. It does no harm though, so Lord Calaingor leaves it to roam in peace.’ The noble folded her hands across her narrow chest.

Haldus sensed that something had gone unsaid, but he was relieved to find the noble so amiable and decided not to risk upsetting her by pursuing the issue. ‘Could I speak with your lord?’ he asked. ‘I have been betrayed by one of my own kind and now find myself in a trap. I wish to see if Lord Calaingor could help me escape this valley.’

‘My name is Ailerann,’ she said, still smiling. ‘Let me escort you to the Warden.’

Haldus ordered his men to wait with their mounts and rest, while he and Avernus went on alone.

Ailerann led them back to the grove of trees and the vast hollow trunk that Calaingor used as his halls. The white hare was still visible in the flame-like mesh of the throne, but it appeared to be asleep – as did the cadaverous giant. After a whispered debate with the other nobles, Ailerann told Haldus and Avernus that they would have to wait until Lord Calaingor was ready to speak.

Haldus tensed, but Avernus gave him a pleading glance and the prince limited his response to a sigh.

Ailerann led them out the other side of the grove and on through the rolling meadows, her tall, angular frame silhouetted against the sunset.

She led them to another paved square, surrounded by banks of bobbing lavender and told them to rest until she returned.

Haldus paced anxiously back and forth, but Avernus sat on the ageworn stone, stretching his tired, bruised limbs.

‘My lord,’ he said after a few minutes, ‘stay still I beg you. What can we do until she returns? We’re trapped in this valley and would have died if not for this haven.’

‘We were betrayed,’ snapped Haldus in reply.

Avernus glanced up at him.

Haldus stopped pacing and pointed back the way they had come. ‘Cyanos told me to lead you all into that wretched tunnel. He swore to me that Calaingor was the ally we needed and that we would have no trouble reaching him.’

Avernus laughed grimly. ‘I suppose that explains why he never joined us.’

Haldus crouched next to him. ‘What exactly did he say?’

Avernus clutched his head in his hands. ‘Ach. I feel like a fool, my lord. He spoke to me on the eve of the attack, with all his usual charm, and told me he had to lead his kin home to the mountains, just for a few days, so that he could retrieve some more old books. There are so few of his warriors anyway, I did not think he would be missed. He said he would join us in time for the next attack.’

Avernus looked back at the grove of yew trees. ‘Perhaps he was right though – perhaps Calaingor is the ally we need?’

Haldus shook his head. ‘Calaingor is no more of an ally than Thenot was. He will never again leave this pretty bower he has created. He has bound all his magic into this one spot.’ He clenched his fists. ‘Cyanos assured me there would only be a handful of daemons to defeat. Then, he neglected to join us and a vast host arrived, more numerous than anything I’ve seen so far. We have been betrayed, Avernus. Half of our hawk riders are dead. And there’s no way for us to leave this valley and make our way back to the main army. I’ve been a fool to ever trust him. I worry now that everything he told me has been a lie. And it was at his advice that I left Findol and the others to defend the falls.’ He shook his head. ‘Why did Orion let him live?’

‘The Consort-King made many strange decisions this year. Trusting Cyanos was probably the least of them.’

It irked Haldus to hear such disloyalty, but he could not dispute the logic. Before the king passed away into his winter-long rest, he did little to help repel the plague that had overcome his kingdom. Like every other asrai, Haldus was already praying that the spring would bring them a lord with more than a passing interest in his own realm.

Avernus’s eyes widened. ‘If the rest of the army survives, it might come looking for us. Findol and the other lords could fall into the same trap.’

Haldus removed his wooden headgear and ran a hand through his long, plaited locks. ‘Perhaps… Perhaps not. Without me to hold them together, who knows what course of action they’ll take. It seemed a precarious alliance even when I was there to yell at them.’ He shrugged. ‘Either way, we must find a way out of this false haven. We can’t stay here forever, frozen in time.’

‘They aren’t frozen in time, actually,’ answered a rasping voice, coming from somewhere in the meadow.

Haldus and Avernus leapt to their feet, drew bows and aimed arrows in the direction of the voice.

‘Who speaks?’ cried Haldus.

The grass rippled a few feet away from them and a hunched figure emerged – the same wizened crone that Haldus had glimpsed earlier. Now that he saw the thing more closely, he found it even more grotesque. It resembled a shrivelled corpse, with grey, sagging folds of skin. Her eyes were clouded over and her scalp was bald, apart from a few greasy strands.

It was only as she stepped onto the stones that Prince Haldus recognised her.

‘Laelia,’ he said.

She did an awkward little pirouette, revealing the lumped, sac-like remnants of her wings. She laughed as she danced for them and Haldus felt a wave of relief. Hideous as she was, it was a delight to see her. Her wry smile was unmistakable, even on a face that was more skull than flesh.

‘You needn’t look quite so disgusted,’ she said, patting him on the arm. ‘This was your fault.’

He looked horrified.

She shrugged. ‘I knew Calaingor would never readmit someone who had only just tried to attack him, but time is even more malleable here than the rest of the forest. I have been schooled by the Mage Queen herself, remember. The Great Weave dances to my tune.’ At the word ‘dances’ Laelia tried to do another little pirouette. The effect it had on her aged flesh caused Haldus and Avernus to grimace, but that only seemed to amuse her and she did it all the more.

‘I simply took some of their centuries into my own flesh,’ she said staggering and lurching around them, wincing and wheezing as she went. ‘So that when you landed they could barely remember your face.’ She stumbled and, despite his revulsion, Haldus reached out to grab her.

She looked at him with milky, unseeing eyes. ‘I do feel a little tired now though.’

He stared at her, shocked by what she had said. ‘You did this to yourself, because I asked you?’

She patted him playfully on the face. ‘What can I say, Prince Haldus? I’m fond of you. It must be your cheery disposition and delightful manners.’ She stepped away and sat down with an exhausted groan. Her bones clicked like kindling as she settled into a cross-legged pose. ‘And besides, you have some powerful friends watching out for your interests.’

Haldus frowned.

Laelia winced as she shifted into a different position. ‘The Mage Queen’s final words to me were that I should watch over you. She seemed to consider you worth looking after, Prince Haldus. Naieth the Prophetess agreed. She has foretold that our survival hinges on your survival.’

Haldus reeled away from her. ‘Naieth said that?’

‘Amongst other things. She sees a link between you and the future of our king.’

Haldus looked down at his leathery, copper-clad limbs, as though learning the value of them for the first time. ‘Then why did you let me lead this ridiculous attack?’ As always, when he was emotional, Haldus’s glowering features blushed a deep crimson. ‘You should have locked me away somewhere.’

‘And stop you performing the very deed that Naieth has foreseen? I’m not sure that would win me any favour at court, are you? For all I knew, this battle might have been the moment of your greatest victory.’

Haldus sat heavily on the stones, looking dazed.

Avernus stepped past him and looked down at the strange, wrinkled little figure. ‘But what now? If Haldus is to perform some great act, he won’t do it here, sniffing flowers.’

Laelia laughed. ‘No. We must get you all out of this pretty valley.’

Haldus shook his head. ‘We will be butchered. There are more daemons out there than I have seen since the plague began.’

Laelia narrowed her eyes and looked at something in the fields. ‘I’ll have to leave you for a while,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘They’re not so fond of me. I think they sense, on some level, that I have robbed them.’ She grinned at them both. ‘Laelia the time thief!’ Then she slipped away into the grass with surprising speed.

Haldus lurched to his feet, reaching out to her. ‘Wait! What will become of you?’

‘What will become of me?’ asked Lady Ailerann, drifting across the field towards them. ‘What do you mean?’

Haldus backed away and shook his head.

The noble looked confused, but said simply. ‘The Warden is ready.’

The hare watched them closely as they entered the gloomy chamber.

‘I remember you,’ it said, as Haldus kneeled before the arboreal throne.

Prince Haldus looked to see if there was anger in the animal’s eyes, but saw none.

He wracked his brain for cunning or beguiling words with which to win over Calaingor to his cause but, as ever, he could think of no clever way to adorn the basic facts.

‘I need your help,’ he said.

The hare studied him closely. ‘You have tricked your way into my palace, young prince. I’m not sure how, but I sense the hand of the Mage Queen.’

There was still no anger in the animal’s voice and Haldus decided to risk speaking plainly.

‘I came to you a long time ago, with the idea that you would fight at my side and help me–.’

‘If that is why you have come now, I fear you will be disappointed.’

‘No,’ said Haldus quickly. ‘I was lied to. I understand now that your power is of a different kind. I was tricked into coming here. All I ask is that you help me leave.’

‘You can leave the way you came.’

Haldus tried to keep his voice level, but as he sensed the assembled nobles pressing closer to listen an infuriating tremor entered his voice. ‘We cannot. The whole valley has been consumed by creatures of Chaos. The Plague Father has surrounded your realm and blocked our way home. If we leave this place we’ll be butchered before we can travel half a mile.’

The hare fell silent again. After a few seconds it closed its eyes and seemed to sleep.

More silent figures began to emerge from the shadows behind the throne, staring at Haldus and Avernus. He looked at them properly for the first time and noticed how disparate their outfits were. They must have been assembled from all the great realms of the forest.

‘You must help me,’ he said, turning to face them. ‘The wise have foretold my future.’ It made him blush furiously to make such a grandiose claim, but desperation drove him on. ‘The forest’s wellbeing is in my hands.’

The courtiers backed away, clearly surprised at being addressed directly.

Haldus was about to pursue them when he noticed that they were staring at the throne.

The giant had opened his eyes and leant forwards, snapping twigs, scattering rats and filling the air with a cloud of dust.

As the dust cleared, Haldus saw Calaingor clearly for the first time and realised his flesh had been petrified. His tall, regal body had been motionless for so long it had become a fossil, turning his elegant limbs into a collection of pale, dusty stones, like columns of veined marble.

Calaingor’s cracked, magisterial head was topped by a crown of black leaves but they were the only living thing about him, other than his pale blue eyes, which stared out from their immobile sockets with all the clarity of youth.

‘I must help you?’ Even when he spoke, Calaingor’s face did not move. His voice emerged from between dusty, unmoving lips.

The air in the chamber dropped and Haldus took a few steps back.

‘I need your help, Lord Calaingor,’ he said, but his words sounded weak and unsure.

‘And what help would you ask of me?’

‘Your aid in battle and safe passage from this valley. I have a traitor to find and a forest to protect. I…’ Haldus struggled to find words as he felt the huge blue eyes watching him. ‘I… My way is blocked, Lord Calaingor. I am trapped here by enemies I cannot defeat.’

Lord Calaingor’s body did not move any further. Twigs, insects and small animals were still tumbling into the gap he had formed by shifting into a new position. The chamber was filled with the sound of claws scrabbling on stone and the whispering of the courtiers. None of them had seen such a thing before.

There was a long silence while the giant considered Haldus’s words. Then, finally, he spoke. ‘I can give you what you need,’ he said, ‘but it will cost us both dearly.’

Haldus glanced at Avernus who gave him a warning glance.

‘There is no cost I will not pay, Lord Calaingor,’ said Haldus. ‘I cannot rest until I face the liar who sent me to this valley. My people have died in their hundreds.’ His voice cracked with pain and anger. ‘Take what you need, just get me out of here.’

The giant sighed, sending a cloud of dusty cobwebs drifting from his stone jaw. ‘Very well. Then it is done. The price will not be to your liking, but the Cromlech of Cadai must be preserved. And I cannot tend to it alone. This realm must remain unchanged, even though it is through the power of fresh souls.’

Haldus shook his head, already sensing that he had made a mistake and cursing his impetuousness.

The courtiers began stepping from the shadows with sad smiles on their faces.

‘I will free you from this valley, prince,’ said the giant. ‘It will tire me greatly but I am not without a heart. The Cromlech and I are as one. And we still have power. We can free you from this trap.’

There was sadness in the giant’s eyes but his voice was like iron. ‘But I will have my price.’ He looked towards the fields where Haldus’s army was assembled. ‘Your people will remain here with me. Forever.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ordaana. The word rattled round her head like an infuriating tune, but its meaning eluded her.

She crawled out from beneath the weight that was holding her in place and climbed to her feet. Then she drew herself up to her full height, towering over the tallymen and unfurling the oily membrane of her wings. The tallymen scattered and cringed, sensing violence, but she was too confused to do anything but stand there, beating her wings against the breeze. The fawning, drooling faces of the tallymen were familiar, but for the life of her she could not recall why.

I am a flesh fly, she thought, picturing herself crawling on a piece of decomposing meat. The thought depressed her. A simple insect. It was not the fate she had hoped for.

Ordaana. The word jarred her again and spoke of another life. A time before she crawled on carcasses, leaving maggots in her wake.

She looked down at her body and saw to her surprise that, despite the oil-black tessellations of her skin, she was more than a simple insect. She had two arms, two legs and a slender body, still clad in the remains of a once-beautiful lemon-coloured gown. There was a silver knife tucked into her belt and the sight of it brought everything back to her.

‘Lady Ordaana.’ The words emerged from her throat as a thin, rasping croak. Her vocal cords were too warped to form the words clearly, but a croak was enough. It brought her back to her senses. As she recalled everything that had led her to this point, a familiar, comforting sensation flooded her thoughts: hate.

In a second, her confusion vanished. She had been leading the tallymen into the tunnel so that she could spring her trap. Prince Haldus had come dangerously close to harming her child, the wonderful product of her union with Alkhor, but she had agreed a plan with the traitor, Cyanos, to lead Prince Haldus here; to lead him to his death.

But something had gone wrong. She frowned and looked back at where she had fallen. The dead weight she had been trapped beneath was an enormous hawk. Its steaming guts were spread across the ground, mingling with a carpet of fuchsia-coloured fungus. The rider was absent, but she could easily guess what had happened to him.

She looked at the tallymen and saw that she was right.

They were huddled round the corpse of the fallen asrai, forcing insects and spores into his wounds; pouring vile draughts down his broken neck.

After a few moments, the corpse began to judder and change.

She looked away in disgust. She may have finally given in to Alkhor’s ‘gifts’ but she did not wish to see such transformations taking place in others.

‘Have they emerged from the Cromlech, yet?’ she demanded, turning towards Ganglion.

The crimson-skinned daemon was staring, fascinated, at the corpse as it climbed to its feet, reborn as another shambling plaguebearer.

‘Ganglion,’ she snapped, grabbing the horn between the daemon’s eyes and swinging it round to face her. ‘Has Prince Haldus emerged?’

Ganglion recoiled and bowed. ‘No, proctor, he has not. It cannot take much longer though. Lord Cyanos assured us the prince would not find aid here.’

Ordaana shoved the daemon aside with a disgusted hiss and launched herself into the air.

As she flew, she saw that the fighting was all done. Haldus’s warhawk riders had been butchered. Their bodies were everywhere – either piled in mounds or responding to the obscene ministrations of the tallymen. It was the same sight she had watched countless times in the recent weeks. As the year ended, so did the reign of the Mage Queen. Ordaana’s host had fallen on each of her lords and ladies in turn – leaving their halls in ruins and transforming their armies into gibbering mobs. It was more glorious than she had ever dreamt it would be – tearing those pompous cowards from their thrones and seeing the final, wonderful moment of recognition in their eyes just before she destroyed them. The nobles who let her be driven from Ariel’s court were now begging her for mercy as she tore their halls down around their ears.

Ordaana’s fury rushed through her. And yet the final victory eluded her. Haldus was the key – Alkhor had assured her of that. There was a link between him and Orion and her final revenge could not be achieved until she took his life, but he, and over half of his riders had vanished into the Cromlech of Cadai.

‘Did you lie to me, Cyanos?’ she whispered, drooling bile and maggots. ‘I pray for your soul that you did not.’

She flew higher, scouring the vast tunnel that Alkhor had used to consume the valley. There was no sign of Haldus or that smirking strumpet Ariel had sent to watch over him. She sank her nails into her black, glinting forearm, struggling to hold back a scream as pus oozed up over her fingers. ‘You said Lord Calaingor would not help them.’ She howled: ‘You said he would not help them!’

She tried to calm herself. All was not lost. Haldus was still trapped. Since he entered the tunnel, she had filled it with thousands more of Alkhor’s offspring. There was no way out. Haldus would not cower behind some old stones while his people died. Her child would continue flooding the Saros valley. The lords and ladies gathered around the Crowfoot Falls would continue to drown. Without Haldus to lead them, they were nothing, and he knew that. They would bicker and strut even as the waters rose over their heads. Still, her anger coursed through her. Haldus had tried to destroy her child and she itched to watch him die.

She flew closer to the ancient towers, peering into the mysterious gaps between the crumbling statues. She could see nothing; nothing but the judgement in the eyes of her former gods. She flew lower and saw that, despite their numbers, Alkhor’s tallymen had still failed to cross the boundary of the ancient shrine. They were piled up in great mounds at its base, clawing at the ground with tools and claws, but failing to gain an inch.

‘You cannot escape, Haldus,’ she said, flying away from the mass of toiling bodies and back to the tunnel’s entrance. ‘You can delay me a little, but that is all. As you stall me here, my child destroys your army. I can wait. Either way the end is at hand.’ She shivered in anticipation at the thought. With the asrai defeated, Ariel would have no option but to strike out against Alkhor herself. She would come in the spring, or whatever pitiful season passed for spring, and she would bring her hunter king with her. They would throw themselves at Alkhor’s impossible creation and then… Ordaana closed her eyes and touched the silver knife at her belt. And then she would have her revenge.

She flew like that for a few moments – eyes closed and her hand on the knife, picturing her final victory, picturing the moment when she would take Ariel’s life. Then a dull clanging sound dragged her from her blissful fantasy.

She looked down and saw that the larger tallymen, the ones they used as heralds, were ringing their brass bells in warning. Dozens of them had risen up from the throng, signalling an alarm.

‘What are you doing?’ she said, looking down at them in confusion. She had never seen them do such a thing before. On the rare occasions they rang their bells, it was to celebrate the birth of a new disease or the sight of a new mutation, but never like this – with a frantic urgency that was infecting the whole army.

At first she could not see what had alarmed them so, then she noticed that they were all staring at the circle of stone towers. Some of them were even backing away. Her head reeled. The tallymen were retreating. She had never seen them behave like this.

She turned back towards the Cromlech to see what could have caused such a stir in her empty-headed servants.

What she saw was so shocking that she almost tumbled from the air.

The gods had come to deal out their judgement. The far end of the tunnel was flooded with light and, silhouetted by the glare were seven towering figures. They were each over a mile tall and, as the valley shook beneath their weight, Ordaana whispered their names in terror.

‘Isha, Asuryan, Hoeth, Lileath, Loec, Ladrielle,’ she said and then, finally, with a shuddering sob, ‘Kurnous.’

The stone effigies were marching towards her. Their eyes shone with the light of a thousand suns and their crowns were the spiralling heavens. All of them were majestic, terrible and filled with wrath, but Ordaana could not see beyond the first of them: Kurnous. The rage and power she had glimpsed when Orion led his Wild Hunt was only a tiny fraction of the animal fury that was now striding through the valley. His crumbling antlers were shrouded in thunderheads and illuminated by flickers of lightning. As his hooves pounded down into the crowds of tallymen, the ground shattered and slumped, as though in the grip of an earthquake.

For a while, Ordaana could do nothing but stare in awestruck horror, but then, as the gods pulverised her army, crossing the length of the valley in a few strides, she realised what had happened. The stones of the Cromlech had come to life. The gods had imbued their avatars with their essence and strode forth to destroy her army.

The ranks of tallymen crumbled before their wrath, either turning to flee or dying beneath feet of crumbling stone. Ordaana saw that the light behind them was not simply a glimpse of the Otherworld, it was a vast hole that the gods had torn in Alkhor’s tunnel. They were destroying his trap.

Ordaana tried to calm herself with a long, deep breath. As she flew towards the tunnel entrance she wondered if, even now, she could win the battle. After so many victories, the thought of defeat was incomprehensible. Perhaps, even against the gods she could find a way? The army of tallymen was vast beyond anything she had ever seen before. Perhaps, if she rallied them she could–

Ordaana’s thoughts were obliterated by a deafening howl.

It was so loud she felt as though claws had been jammed into her ears. As she turned, she felt blood rushing down her neck.

The noise had driven the entire army of plaguebearers into a desperate rout. Even such simple minds could recognise the sound of their doom and they clawed at each other in a desperate attempt to reach the opening at the end of the valley.

Ordaana looked briefly at the origin of the noise and then clamped her hands over her eyes, unable to bear the sight.

Kurnous had lifted a great, flame-shrouded horn to his lips and filled the world with the sound of his bloodlust. It was the incomprehensible music of the Otherworld. It was the threads of the Great Weave, twisted into sound, and Ordaana wept to hear it. She screamed, trying to drown it out as she soared from the tunnel along with hundreds of other mutant insects. As Ordaana left the valley, the tunnel collapsed behind her in a blaze of white-hot, celestial fire.

Flies poured from the valley like plumes of smoke, wheeling and banking as the tunnel caved in behind them. Ordaana looked back through tears of rage and caught a brief glimpse of the stone gods. They were pummelling her army – smashing the tallymen into pulp with weapons the size of mountains. They were shattering the ground with each blow but, to Ordaana’s relief, they did not pass beyond the mouth of the valley. As her glistening wings hurled her up through the clouds, she saw the face of Kurnous one last time. His dreadful, infernal eyes burned into her soul, filled with rage and accusation.

She groaned and turned away, fixing her gaze on the rest of the forest. It eased her suffering a little to see that it was still firmly in Alkhor’s diseased grip. Her home had become a colourful explosion of fungus and enormous, mutant insects. The few areas of woodland left were islands of sanity, surrounded by lunatic swathes of colour and steaming, yellow rivers. Ordaana relaxed a little as she flew north.

‘My child,’ she whispered, excited by the thought that she would soon see her offspring. She had left it with the bulk of Alkhor’s army, at the Crowfoot Falls. They had cornered the last of the asrai lords in the Saros Valley and she smiled as she pictured the scene that would be waiting for her. By now, they would all be either transformed into tallymen or drowned. Surely that would be enough for Alkhor? What could it matter if the wretched hawk lord lived when she had killed everyone else?

As she approached the valley, Ordaana’s view was obscured by clouds of crows, flies and other insects, all hurtling towards her. She smiled, assuming that they must have already picked the bones clean and be moving on to find the next battlefield.

It was only as she glided down between the arms of the valley that she saw what had happened. At first her mind was unable to comprehend the scene and she thought she must be lost. The valley was crowded with thousands of dark, tightly packed fir trees. The River Saros was visible only as flickering shimmers of light beneath the pines. She flew lower, peering through the clouds of flies, and saw asrai nobles, charging between the trees with their banners trailing behind them. Her once-great army of tallymen was destroyed. Most of the daemons had been butchered by the advancing asrai, but those that remained were running for the hills, abandoning weapons, jars and ledgers as javelins flew after them.

Ordaana whirled desperately back and forth above the trees, unable to understand. Then a dreadful thought gripped her. ‘My child,’ she groaned, swooping towards the eastern end of the valley.

As she flew downriver, she saw that the trees were packed even more tightly near the mouth of the valley. It was as though they had exploded from the riverbed.

Ordaana began to whine as she saw great mounds of white blubber scattered across the valley. She refused to accept the truth at first, trying to convince herself that this must be a different valley. Then she looked back to the west and saw the glittering claw-like falls.

‘Alhena,’ she groaned, looking for her child.

As she flew further she saw more hunks of white flesh and then, the final, dreadful proof: spread across the riverbank, like a stranded sea monster, was the mound of tentacles that had once been the daemon’s face.

She flew towards it, starting to sob, but before she could embrace her fallen child, arrows began whistling past her.

She tried again to dive lower, but more of the asrai archers had seen her now and hundreds of arrows began flying from the trees. Some of them sliced through her wings, turning her sobs into furious cries, and she flew south, gliding up into the clouds and leaving the carnage behind.

‘What happened?’ she screamed, singling out a tallyman who was hurrying off from the valley.

She landed on a monstrous, blue-green mushroom and glared at the daemon. ‘You had them trapped. How can you have allowed them to drive you out like this?’

The daemon was clutching a long, tail-like piece of meat that was crawling with lice and disease. It gave Ordaana a vacant, loose-lipped grin and held up its treasure.

‘Our grandfather will be so pleased with this. An entirely new strain of jelly spine. See how the bones have started to congeal and melt.’ The daemon threw the spine over its shoulder and took out a rotten, leather notebook that was dripping with pus. ‘Look at the records, proctor,’ said the daemon, tracing one of its long, crooked fingers over tiny, neatly written names. ‘There has never been such a virulent strain. This is the first time–’

Ordaana leapt from the mushroom with feline grace and attacked the daemon, grabbing its necrotic neck and slamming its head against the ground.

‘How could you lose?’ she screamed, spewing maggots into the daemon’s face. ‘I handed you a victory!’ Her voice spiralled higher. ‘How could you let my child be killed?’

The daemon’s single, yellow eye stared back as its skull collapsed.

‘What could be more of a victory?’ it said in a bloody garble, holding up the piece of meat and pointing at the white dots that were scurrying over it. ‘This disease has never been seen before. We have created new life, proctor – do you see? New life. When I bring this to our grandfather he will mingle it with all his other great works. It will feed the change he is working.’

Ordaana remained crouched on top of the daemon for a moment, then howled and reeled off through the quivering stems and the garish, bell-shaped caps. She ran for a moment, then launched herself into the air, still howling with grief and panic. She had lost her child, but also she had lost the battle. She had failed Alkhor. He would be furious. What if he denied her the revenge he had promised? Everything was slipping away from her.

She flew higher over the glades of fungus and clouds of spores and saw that it would be easy enough to find her master. The rivers of bile that networked the forest had formed the shape of a huge, eight-pointed star and, where the arms of the star joined, several miles to the south, a huge black column of flies was reaching up, tornado-like, to the clouds.

Ordaana flew with all the speed she could muster, horrified by the battles that raged below. Bands of asrai, emboldened by their victory at the falls, were pushing the daemons back, driving them south towards the column of flies. She had failed horribly. The asrai were winning.

As she travelled further south, she left the fighting behind and entered a region so confusing it seemed like the world had broken down into nothing but colour. It was as though a collection of paints had been spilled across the landscape, spiralling into a bewildering vortex of pinks, blues and yellows. The rivers of bile burned on through all of it though, seething and bubbling and growing wider as they went. Tallymen were dashing through the fungus and steam, clutching their finds: fragments of diseased flesh; twitching, mutated creatures and bell jars filled with swirling, luminous gases.

There were other shapes dashing between the legs of the plaguebearers – tiny replicas of Alkhor. Ordaana grimaced at the sight of them – bloated little balls of blubber, no bigger than a child. They had wide, grinning faces and skirts of intestines that trailed from their gaping bellies. These smaller daemons carried prizes too – gastropods with human heads and sacks filled with wriggling, glistening worms. And, slithering alongside these smaller shapes were larger creatures – oozing, ponderous molluscs with teetering spiral shells and probing, glistening antennae. There was a revolting opera of squelching slurps and moist pops as the creatures slithered towards the centre of the star. The air was heavy with a damp, saccharine stench.

Ordaana realised that, despite the spores and gases, she could see with horrible clarity, in fact, she could catch every tiny movement of the fat little daemons waddling between the legs of the tallymen. As soon as she noticed this, she was assailed by thousands of images. It was as though her vision had been shattered into a mosaic of powerful lenses. She reached up to shield her eyes but immediately withdrew her hands in shock. Her eyes had grown; and they had changed.

Ordaana quashed her panic and fixed her powerful gaze on the column of flies up ahead. Nothing mattered now, but revenge. The changes warping her flesh were irrelevant – as long as she remained whole long enough to see Ariel die. Everything was the Mage Queen’s fault. Everything. Everything. Everything.

As she neared the sky-high column of flies, the sound of it became deafening. Its coiling, roiling mass roared like the ocean, drifting back and forth, wrenching tree-sized puffballs and mushrooms from the ground and hurling them through the air.

Where the eight rivers of bile met there was a broad, dazzling lake of yellow acid, filled with spiralling, serpentine shapes and, slumped proudly at the centre of it, like a grinning mountain of grey-blue fat, was Alkhor. The sac-like daemon was enormous and terrifyingly real. The insubstantiality of its flesh had all but vanished. It was now a great, leering boulder of disease, haloed by bluebottles and robed in screaming crows.

Ordaana frowned as she approached, thinking for a moment that the daemon had been wounded. Then she saw her mistake and, despite all the nauseating things it had already endured, her stomach finally rebelled. Ordaana vomited in disgust.

Alkhor had transformed its pockmarked, spherical body into a living cabinet. It had sliced open its chest, snapped its ribcage apart like a gate and allowed its viscera to spill out into the lake. In the space left by its absent organs there were now curving shelves of bone, lined with thousands of rusty meat hooks, all of which carried a specimen of some kind. Ordaana wiped the sick from her mouth and flew closer to look, conscious as she did so that Alkhor was watching her approach with interest.

Hanging from the hooks were a perplexing collection of objects: scraps of mildewed parchment, covered in tightly packed text; wooden crates full of scuttling rodents; locks of hair writhing with maggots; scraps of skin that twitched with infection; beautiful iridescent beetles, whirring and rattling against the walls of murky glass bottles; root-trailing plants, with eyes for fruit and fingers for leaves; featherless birds with the tails of fish and, finally, most disturbing of all, asrai nobles with rotten, featureless sacs for heads, reaching out blindly for help.

This whole collection was bathed in the harsh, yellow light of the lake and it seemed to Ordaana like a great bonfire of madness and decay, with the flies as its smoke.

For a while, Ordaana could do nothing but stare at Alkhor in amazement and disgust; then, recalling her purpose, she flew across the lake, feeling its heat on her flesh like a summer’s day and landed on one of Alkhor’s vast, pitted hooves.

‘We can still win,’ she cried out, struggling to be heard over the sound of the flies. She waved at the hundreds of tallymen that were wading through the bile, clutching more objects to be hung from Alkhor’s ribs. ‘Look how many children you have now. I can lead them out against the nobles.’ She spoke fast, tripping over her words in her haste to reassure him. ‘They may have defended Crowfoot Falls, but I can still drive them out. If you just give me more warriors I will finish what I started.’ Her voice faltered as she thought of what they had done to her daemon child. ‘They must have played some trick. The forest must have helped them somehow. I do not understand. But if you just–’

Alkhor raised a webbed hand, splaying the long, black talons to signal that she should be silent.

‘My brave, beautiful Queen Ordaana,’ said the daemon. Its voice was like a thunderclap: rich and booming, but with a liquid rattle at the edge of the vowels. It was like the sound of food slops, gurgling through an enormous pipe. ‘We have won.’

Ordaana shook her head, confused. Thinking she might have misheard, she launched herself into the air and flew up towards Alkhor’s face. As she flew over the gaping cavern of the daemon’s torso, she could not help but look inside. She saw hundreds of the tiny, bloated daemons, hurrying back and forth along the bone shelves, tending and prodding the exhibits, scratching endless notes in their tiny ledgers and pinning yellowed labels on everything they passed.

She shuddered and flew on, until she was just a few feet away from Alkhor’s gaping mouth.

‘My lord?’ she asked, beating her wings against the clouds of flies.

‘You have played your part with all the grace and determination I expected, Ordaana.’

The daemon was still grinning and Ordaana thought for a moment that it was mocking her, but then it continued, explaining: ‘Crowfoot Falls meant nothing, my lover. It was just a distraction. All I needed was a little time to tend my garden. You and our brave prodigy have bought me the time I needed. Everything is now coming into bloom.’

The daemon raised its rusted, iron sword and waved it at the quagmire. The yellow pool was surrounded by slime, fungus, effluence and rotting meat, all painted in dazzling colours and shimmering with microscopic life. Everything was coated in fleas, mites, mould and bubbles of scum. Ordaana’s vision was now so fast and powerful that she could see all of it in mind-numbing detail.

The sight was too much for her. Vibrant, animated alluvium flooded her brain, drowning the remnants of her past. She saw one last, pure vision before she lost herself forever. She saw her lover, Thuralin, handsome, young and bursting with pride. It was the day she told him she was pregnant with Alhena. She recalled holding him and feeling how fast his heart was racing. She remembered the warmth of his tears on her face. Then her mind was gone – snatched away from her on a tide of animated sludge. Only one thing remained – the certainty of revenge. As she looked into the filmy void of Alkhor’s eyes, she saw her purpose reflected back: she would kill Ariel.

There would be vengeance.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Atolmis rode hard, thundering through the shadows, his spear extended before him. When the forest began to die, Naieth had joined them, bringing dark prophecies and fresh, powerful steeds – piebald stags, with amber runes blazing between their eyes and antlers that spiralled around their proud, equine faces. The prophecies had not been much help, but the stags made Atolmis’s heart sing.

There was a dull crunch as his spear tore through the chest of a daemon. He kept riding and slammed his prey against the bole of a tree. The tree was as rotten as everything else and it collapsed, spraying splinters and maggots through the air.

The horned priest rode on with the daemon struggling on his spear. It was a grinning, humanoid creature with russet, wrinkled skin and a single, yellow tusk jutting up from its forehead.

His face remained expressionless as the thing began hauling its rotten body down the length of the spear towards him. The stag knew, without any signal from Atolmis, to break from the grove of rotten trees and make for the shoulder of a nearby hill. They reached the summit and, just as the daemon was about to grasp Atolmis’s arm, the stag came to a halt, digging its hooves into the ground and hurling the daemon from the brow of the hill.

It grinned as it fell, tumbling into a deep crevasse. After a few seconds, it clipped the edge of the gulley and its skull exploded, spraying bone and black blood. Atolmis could still see the daemon’s expression for a few more minutes as it fell into the darkness below. He noticed that, even as its body was torn apart by the rocks, it never stopped smiling.

‘Blood, bark and bone,’ he muttered, attempting to calm himself by repeating the mantra, but the smile stayed with him.

He turned the stag around and looked back down the slope. His fellow priests were finishing off the last of the daemons. The valley was almost clear and they were less than a mile from the Crowfoot Falls – their destination and the setting for all of Naieth’s recent dreams.

He looked around for the witch and felt a moment’s fear as he failed to locate her. It occurred to him that, in all the long centuries they had served Ariel and Orion, he had never really considered how much she meant to him. With no king or queen to follow, and no clear hope of seeing them again, Naieth’s obscure visions were all he had to follow. Everything he trusted had been overturned. His life was guided by ritual and rite, but his rituals were now meaningless – they were tied to Orion and the changing of the seasons. Now there was no Orion – nor any seasons. He was lost in his own forest. Naieth was all he had.

He glimpsed her copper tangle of hair through the branches and relaxed. She was moving from tree to tree, examining each rotten husk for signs of life.

Atolmis rode the stag back down the slope and dismounted, stepping back beneath the drooping boughs.

Naieth did not look up at his approach – she was clawing at a piece of bark with one of her long, coiled fingernails. The bark came free with a loud creak and revealed a wriggling shape. She nodded, seeming pleased as she lifted a grub up into the light. Then she grimaced as the thing burst between her fingers, spewing yellow spores into the air. They billowed in the murky light, settling on her face and her intricately embroidered robes and smouldering there, like embers.

The sorceress lifted her staff of knotted twigs and slammed it into the mud. The spores flashed brightly then vanished, along with the grub that had spawned them.

‘The threads are undone,’ she said, her voice low and husky. ‘Every strand.’ She sensed Atolmis, watching her from a few feet away and turned to face him.

‘You said there was still a way,’ said Atolmis, unnerved by her tone. ‘Even without Éorann-Ostallis. Even without the spring. Even without the Consort-King.’ The words felt like ash in his throat. A life without Orion. What could be more pointless? He and the other horned riders lived for one purpose only – to serve their king. They were born to tend his ashes and guard his life, but the auguries had taken all that from them. The first blow was learning that Finavar was the Chosen One. How could Finavar be the soul who must undergo the Quickening? He was dead – thrown to the Wildwood by the lunatic sorcerer, Elatior. No such prophecy could be fulfilled. The second blow was more gradual, but just as crushing. As Atolmis and the other riders searched for answers, they had seen winter fade from the boughs around them. Not through a natural thaw – it was too early for that – but through the retreat of the seasons.

The world had turned itself inside out and become a reeking, festering lie.

The death of the seasons shocked Atolmis more profoundly than if his own hands had become flippers. The winter had been replaced with a fusty, turbid warmth that had no place in the forest. It had taken his very faith from him. What could he believe in now? Without seasons, how could there be a spring? With no great conjunction in the stars, how could there be an Orion?

When Naieth found them, the riders were heading north towards the boundary stones, lost, disconsolate and confused, their horned heads hanging low between their weary shoulders. Atolmis had no idea where he would go, but he could not bear the forest any longer. It had become alien and offensive. He would rather face death in the cities of the outsiders than this mockery of his home.

Naieth had been waiting for them by the stones. Atolmis doubted anyone else could have persuaded him to stay. He had once been an asrai lord, but that was no more than a dream to him now. His duties as a pyre warden had long ago lifted him beyond the mortal confines of his flesh. Like his lord, Atolmis had half a foot in the Otherworld. No pleas of logic would have halted his flight, but the cryptic, ominous words of the prophetess gave him pause.

‘You said there was a way,’ he said, fixing his featureless black eyes on her.

She studied the specks of ash she had scattered across the mud. Then she shook her head and looked up at him. Her expression was grim.

‘The Great Weave is undone.’ She was still speaking in quiet, husky tones. ‘But there is something crawling towards us. Someone.’ She squeezed Atolmis’s arm. ‘I believe it is a god. They have not forsaken us, Atolmis. They will paint the forest in its true colours.’

The other riders emerged from the shadows and surrounded Atolmis and Naieth, watching them in silence from the backs of their stags.

‘But what do we do?’ asked Atolmis. ‘Where are you leading us?’

She frowned. ‘Without the Gyre to lead my thoughts, I am hard-pressed to see my way, but Prince Haldus’s bravery was calling me. I saw his name in the flames of your master’s funeral pyre.’

Atolmis tensed. ‘Then perhaps the auguries lied. Perhaps Prince Haldus is the Chosen One?’ His claws sank into the shaft of his spear. ‘The signs spoke of a prince.’

Naieth shook her head. ‘No. He is something else, I’m sure of it.’

Atolmis frowned at her but she shook her head. ‘No matter. We must continue on our way.’ She pointed her staff south, into the festering haze. ‘I can see one thing clear enough: Haldus has gathered the last of our lords and ladies at the foot of the Limneonas. He seeks to guard the oldest of the Dark Paths, the Aisir-Anach.’

Atolmis knew the name and understood the significance. The Aisir-Anach was a route to their ancestors – a way back across the ocean to the silver, forgotten towers of their forebears, but it was the mention of Haldus that interested him more. ‘The prince is here?’

Naieth gave him a warning glance. ‘Haldus is not the Chosen One, Atolmis.’

He looked down at her in silence, unconvinced. If she saw hope in the name of Haldus, surely it was because Orion’s blood ran in his veins. Atolmis thought of how close Prince Haldus had always been to the king. Every year they hunted together.

He shared none of this with Naieth and said simply: ‘Lead the way. Let us find what we find.’

They crossed polluted streams and tainted groves and after a few hours they heard the falls up ahead. The stags picked up their pace, sensing the urgency of their riders and soon the foetid air grew damp with spray and the noise of the falls became a booming, rolling drum.

They reached the northern lip of the valley and looked out, expecting to see a fierce battle below. To their delight, they saw a limb of pure, green forest, reaching out into the mounds of offal and fungus. The forest was fighting back – reclaiming the ground that had been lost.

Atolmis leant forwards, excited by the idea. Then he noticed that the trees had not spread far beyond the banks of the Saros.

There were pockets of fighting below, but the battle was clearly over and the asrai had won. There was a great gathering of banners and nobles near the foot of the falls and Atolmis guessed that there was a council of war taking place.

‘I don’t see his standard,’ he said, turning to Naieth. ‘There are hawk lords there, but none from the Cáder Donann.’

Naieth ignored him. She was looking away from the asrai to the opposite end of the valley, where the trees were most tightly packed. ‘I see his hand in this.’

‘Whose hand? Haldus’s?’

‘No.’ Naieth looked irritated and confused. ‘Or yes, in a sense. Their paths are joined. Haldus is here. Or he has been here. It is his council you see down there. But he did not win this battle. It was the figure I saw on the thread.’ Her eyes widened. ‘It was Kurnous.’

Atolmis clutched his spear tighter and stared at the crowds of warriors, trying to make out the prince.

Naieth saw his excitement and shook her head. ‘It’s not what you think.’ She nodded to a winding path, leading down to the river. ‘Let us see what happened here.’

Atolmis nodded and urged his stag forwards.

At that moment a wave of daemons exploded from the slopes below, pursued by a band of asrai warriors, clad in heavy leather armour and clutching long, ornate glaives.

The stags reared in alarm as the daemons rushed towards them.

Atolmis had never seen the monsters look afraid, but these creatures were clearly panicked, despite numbering in the dozens and being pursued by only six asrai. They were already on them, however and he had little time to think.

He stood up on the stag’s back, twirled his spear around and cracked the blunt end into the face of the first daemon, sending it cartwheeling back through the air.

His fellow riders edged backwards, drawing blades and readying spears as the daemons charged.

Caught between their pursuers and the riders, the daemons grew even more desperate, throwing themselves wildly at Atolmis and the others.

The riders fought with quiet brutality, lunging, hacking and slicing until there was a pile of twitching limbs scattered around them.

The armoured asrai soldiers faltered at the sight of the riders. It was clear that they were almost as afraid of the horned priests as they were of the daemons, but as Atolmis and the others began to kill their prey, they overcame their fear and crested the brow of the hill, smashing into the panicked daemons from behind.

The daemons stood little chance, but their erratic movements confused the stags and the skirmish quickly descended into a chaotic scene.

Atolmis had to stay his hand several times, for fear of injuring his own kin and some of daemons began to grow bolder, turning back on their pursuers.

Finally, with a snarl of frustration he dropped from his mount and waded into the fray.

He immediately regretted his decision. At ground level things were even more confusing. He was about to call his steed when a brittle, female scream rang out.

Atolmis felt a chill of terror as he looked around for Naieth and saw what a fool he had been.

The daemons were not the panicked prey he had thought they were. While Atolmis and the others had been busy running in circles, several larger shapes had crept quietly from the rotten trees. They were of a similar breed to the other daemons – bony limbs, rotten, diseased flesh, pot bellies and single, yellow eyes – but they were twice the size and clad in thick, armour-like hide. Rather than a single tusk, their heads were crowned with a cruel nest of jagged horns and as they began to laugh, long, segmented tongues tumbled from between their fangs.

Naieth had pinned one of them to the ground, binding it to the spot with cords of green light that were spiralling from her staff. But Atolmis growled in alarm as he saw the reason for her scream. Another of the giants had plunged its rusty, slimy sword deep into her back.

Atolmis charged through the scrum of figures, fending off blows and vaulting over a wounded asrai warrior.

When he was still a few feet away he stopped, rocked back on his heels and launched his spear at the daemon.

His aim was true and the giant stumbled backwards, clawing at the new addition to its face.

Atolmis sprang forwards again, drawing a knife as he leapt over the wounded sorceress and threw himself at the giant daemon.

He collided with it just as it managed to steady itself and raise its bloody sword.

The two blades clattered off each other and Atolmis tumbled to the ground.

He leapt to his feet to see the grinning daemon rearing up over him, drawing back its sword to take his head.

There was a series of thuds as more spears slammed into the giant daemon.

It was jolted forwards by the impact of several blows, staggering past Atolmis and dropping its sword.

He looked back at the fight and saw that every one of his fellow riders had seen his fall and hurled their spears. Each of them spared him a few more seconds of their attention then, as the giant toppled to the ground, looking dazed, they drew blades and turned back to the battle.

Atolmis clambered to his feet and ran over to the fallen daemon.

It attempted to rise but there were seven spears lodged in its torso and, as it thrashed and lurched across the ground, spitting bile, Atolmis wrenched one of the spears free and jammed it into the daemon’s giant eye with such force that the tip broke through the back of its skull and pinned it to the ground.

Even blinded and skewered with spears, the daemon continued thrashing around on the floor, like an overturned beetle trying to right itself.

Atolmis grabbed a sword from the ground and brought it down through the daemon’s neck, finally wiping the disgusting leer from its face and causing it to grow still.

He heard Naieth cry out again and whirled around to see that she was fending off another attack. She had crushed the life from one giant daemon, but her robes were drenched in blood and she was staggering weakly away from a row of the smaller daemons who were all hacking at her with crude, broken swords.

Atolmis called for help and raced towards her.

Again, the other riders responded – rushing to his aid and crashing into the daemons with fists and swords. As Naieth toppled, white-faced to the ground, their attack became even more ferocious and, in a few minutes, the daemons had been torn apart or driven from the precipice.

The armoured soldiers backed away, watching from a few feet away as the blood-splattered riders hurried to Naieth’s side.

She stared at Atolmis as he lifted her head from the ground, seeming not to recognise him, then she stiffened in pain and passed out, collapsing in his arms like a bundle of rags.

He clenched his fists beneath her back and shook his head. ‘Blood, bark and bone,’ he whispered, crushing her to his chest and burying his face in her neck. ‘You will not leave us.’

The other riders looked shocked and seemed at a loss to know what to do, while the asrai warriors simply looked on with panicked expressions, guessing that a great noble had been killed.

As Atolmis nestled his face in Naieth’s neck he felt her pulse, throbbing weakly.

‘She lives,’ he gasped, looking at the others.

One of the armoured warriors dared to speak up. ‘There are mages here,’ he called out, pointing his glaive at the valley. ‘Powerful mages. Mälloch the Elder is amongst them.’

Atolmis nodded and lifted Naieth from the ground.

‘Lead the way,’ he growled.

The nobles had gathered on a hilltop, a few hundred feet from the falls. They were sitting cross-legged in a circle, regal and proud, despite their tattered robes. Several of them had standards planted in the ground behind them, but the flags were slashed and filthy and some of the nobles carried grave-looking wounds, hastily dressed. Their soldiers and subjects were gathered around the hill in their thousands. It was a huge gathering of kindreds. People from all corners of the great realms were hurrying back and forth carrying water and herbs to the injured, cleaning weapons, fletching arrows or just resting on the churned, muddy grass. As Atolmis rode through the shallows of the river towards them, carrying Naieth’s lifeless body in his arms, he saw spellweavers moving amongst them, healing some and ending the suffering of others. It was a grim scene, but he did not pause, riding straight for the nobles on the hill.

Cries rang out as people spotted the horned riders and their antlered steeds. Some backed away in fear, making the sign of Kurnous across their chests and muttering prayers; others rushed forwards begging for news of the Consort-King. Atolmis paid them no heed as he dismounted and strode up the hillside towards the nobles who had now risen to their feet and were walking towards him. Some were draped in exotic furs, some wore tall, plumed helmets and some were wrapped in flamboyant, shimmering robes, but all of them were clearly great guardians of the forest, with proud, terrible faces, crowds of attendants and guards scurrying around them.

Most of the nobles had seen Atolmis before, at rites and ceremonies and, despite their stature, they nodded their heads respectfully as Orion’s honour guard reached the top of the hill.

The first to approach Atolmis was a heavily armoured lord. What little of his face was visible revealed cruel, angular features and he carried a long spear of living maplewood that rippled with slender, spiralling tendrils, as though it were constantly engulfed in green flames.

‘Pyre warden.’ His voice was clear and confident. ‘Your timing is good. Victory is finally within our grasp.’ He waved his rippling spear at the surrounding valley. Asrai warriors were everywhere, rushing through the new trees, dismembering the few daemons that had not already fled. ‘And with your help…’ His words trailed off as he saw the prone figure in Atolmis’s arms. ‘Is that the prophetess?’

Atolmis nodded. ‘Where are the spellweavers, Lord Findol?’ he demanded.

The noble paled as he saw Naieth’s terrible wound.

‘Mälloch!’ cried Lord Findol, whirling around and looking into the crowds of injured warriors at the foot of the hill. ‘Join us!’

Several faces turned to look back towards the riverbank where a tall noble was tending to the wounded. He was dressed in a huge bearskin and his flesh shimmered with an odd, otherworldly light. He looked up at Lord Findol’s voice and Atolmis recognised his long, aquiline face and a hooked nose. He barged through the crowds towards him, conscious of the blood that was still flowing from his charge.

Mälloch moved quickly to meet him. The noble was so tall he almost matched Atolmis’s height and he showed none of the wariness the asrai displayed at the sight of him. When he saw the state of Naieth, however, he grimaced and shook his head.

‘Quickly,’ he said, ‘place her on the ground.’

Atolmis did as he was asked and watched anxiously as Mälloch crouched beside Naieth and examined her wounds.

‘By the gods,’ muttered the noble as his fingers traced over her bloody robes. ‘We are living in strange times.’ He looked up at Atolmis. ‘She’s half way to the Otherworld.’ The words were awkward in his mouth. ‘We may lose her.’

‘No we may not.’ Atolmis gave Mälloch a dangerous look.

Mälloch nodded. ‘Be quick then. Find me some…’ He rose to his feet and looked over the heads of the amazed onlookers. ‘There,’ he said, pointing to the foot of the falls, and the cave-like openings in the trunk of Hallos. ‘There might be some Lus-Cora leaves. That would be a start.’ He placed his hand on Naieth’s pale forehead. ‘She hasn’t given up the fight yet, but she’s wandering in some strange, distant groves.’

Atolmis nodded to the other riders and they ran from the hillside, leapt back onto their stags and raced towards the waterfall.

Atolmis watched them for a moment, then looked back at Mälloch. The spellweaver had now placed both his hands underneath Naieth’s head, tilting it back slightly. Lord Findol and the other asrai nobles had come to stand beside Atolmis: together they watched as tiny tendrils of light coiled around Mälloch’s fingers, forming a shimmering mesh around Naieth’s head, rippling like liquid metal beneath the copper curls of her hair.

Naieth’s body began jolting and twitching. Her eyes opened, but only the whites were visible and a crimson froth had formed at her lips. She made a low, whining noise and Mälloch looked even more troubled. He looked around anxiously, but there was no sign of the riders, so he drew his sword and ran one of his fingers along the edge of its blade. A vivid red trickle ran down the palm of his hand and he cradled it in his fist, muttering a charm. Then he held his fist over Naieth’s mouth, squeezing a few drops of his blood between her lips. This only made her spasms more violent. Mälloch cursed and shook his head.

Naieth started choking and Atolmis felt a growing sense of panic. He looked up and saw that one of his fellow priests, Olachas, was running back up the slope towards him, clutching a handful of leaves.

Atolmis lunged forwards, snatched them from his hand and thrust them at Mälloch.

Mälloch crushed the leaves in his bloody hands, grinding them between his palms until a gooey pulp started to bubble up between his fingers. Then he rose to his feet, held his hands over his head and shouted a single word: ‘Bethsobhal!’

There was loud crack and the entire hill juddered, as though stirring in its sleep. Several of the nobles stumbled and Mälloch reeled away from Naieth, still holding his bloody hands over his head. Then, recovering his balance, he rushed forwards, dropped to his knees and jammed both his fists into Naieth’s back, pushing through the gaping spear wound and gripping her spine.

She opened her eyes and screamed.

Emerald flames enveloped them both.

Naieth lurched to her feet and hurled Mälloch away from her. Then, with green flames still dripping from her fingers, she pointed at Atolmis and began to laugh.

‘Let the hunt begin!’ she cried.

Naieth’s lips moved as she spoke, but the sound came from the earth. It groaned and rumbled through Atolmis’s feet and filled him with fear and hope. There was fury and determination in the command. They were the words of someone who still had faith.

‘The hunt?’ He looked at Olachas, to see if he understood, but the other rider looked just as confused.

‘We have no king,’ said Atolmis, stepping towards the blazing sorceress. ‘Who would lead the hunt?’

‘My vision is finally clear, Atolmis,’ she said, rushing towards him and grabbing his shoulders. ‘I was almost lost.’ She looked up at the clouds. ‘The gods are but a breath away.’ She glanced suspiciously at Mälloch who was still lying on the grass a few feet down the slope. Then she laughed incredulously. ‘I almost glimpsed their plan, Atolmis. Think of that – the dreams of gods.’

Atolmis shook his head in confusion.

‘Orion lives!’ cried Naieth, squeezing Atolmis’s arms. ‘He lives, Atolmis. You must plant the eternal seed in his chest and begin the rites. We must dress him for spring.’

Atolmis still looked dazed.

‘Orion was here,’ she continued, trembling with emotion. ‘He was the one who brought victory to this valley. He was here less than a day ago.’ She laughed. ‘He is Finavar,’ she whispered, shaking Atolmis like a child. ‘He did not die. The Chosen of Kurnous is out there, waiting for you to anoint him.’

Atolmis grinned back, revealing his long, yellow incisors.

‘Finavar?’ asked Mälloch, climbing to his feet, still drenched in Naieth’s blood.

Naieth seemed to notice the crowds for the first time and grimaced as she saw how many people had heard her words.

‘I know where he was heading,’ continued Mälloch, lowering his voice as he approached. ‘One of my own kin is travelling with him, as well as some of the shadow-dancers who escaped the fall of Locrimere.’ He pointed to a narrow pass at the far end of the valley. ‘He took the north route out of the valley. They can’t be far from here.’

Atolmis howled and jabbed his spear at the sky. The nobles standing closest to him backed away, unnerved by the unearthly sound of his voice, but Olachas mirrored the gesture, raising his own spear and letting out an equally fierce roar. The other riders did the same and the valley was filled with the sound of their strange cries.

Atolmis closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to sprout from his flesh, spreading out through the soil and reaching out towards the far end of the valley. Until this moment, he had stifled his senses, afraid to taste the forest’s corruption, but now he braved the cloying, creeping grasp of the plague and allowed the forest back into his soul. He staggered under the weight of its pain and fury, but sensed that Naieth was right. Kurnous was out there. The forest god was amongst them.

Without sparing another glance for Naieth or the nobles, he ran back towards his steed. The stag was waiting for him and bolted as soon as he was on its back. Olachas and the others followed close behind, galloping through the forest on a wave of renewed hope.

Naieth watched them go, her eyes blazing. Then a cloud passed across her face and she shook her head.

‘There is something you did not tell them,’ said Mälloch, climbing to his feet, blood dripping from his hands. ‘What else did you see?’

Naieth glanced at him. ‘I saw more than I would have liked.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘My earliest memory,’ laughed Alhena, ‘is of a nightmare. I suppose that says a lot.’

Her eyes were dry but she was rigid with grief. The other wardancers were sitting around her, high in the boughs of a stately old poplar, their heads bowed. The tree stood alone, several miles north of the Crowfoot Falls, at the centre of a wide, grassy plateau that had so far resisted the plague. Night had fallen, edging the landscape with silver, but it could not hide the brutality of the scene. The horizon was contorted and ugly, swollen by humps of fungus and the hunched backs of monsters. Even the sounds of the forest had been replaced with something more sinister. The night rattled with the sound of creeping, whirring death.

Finavar, Sibaris and Caorann watched as Alhena dredged up her painful past.

‘I remember shifting lights. At first I thought it was one of my mother’s games. She used to entertain me with magic lanterns that she’d conjured from the air. She’d paint the most beautiful scenes with no more than her fingertips. But my mother never came. Pain came instead – an awful heat that spread over my skin. It sent me scrambling to the corners of my bedchamber. I remember screams and running feet, but I was sure my mother would come if I waited long enough. She had told me, for as long as I could remember, that we were destined for greatness – that the forest’s future lay in our hands. She told me I would be a powerful ruler one day. I knew that my fate was not to burn in some pathetic accident. I knew she would come for me.

‘I reached out to save my playthings but smoke poured from their eyes and that terrified me more than anything. They had become monsters. It was like they were the ones trying to hurt me.

‘The smoke spread and I began to choke, but I still thought my mother would come. Even when the walls of my bedchamber cracked, spitting flames and twisting my playthings into horrible shapes. I tried to calm myself with a lullaby. It was the one my mother used to sing to me when I was afraid of the dark. The one about sleeping in new green leaves.’

Alhena paused, staring through her friends, looking deep into her pain. The memory of the lullaby seemed on the verge of overwhelming her. When she continued, her voice was unsteady and Finavar noticed that she was flicking imaginary objects from her skin, as though even now she could feel embers settling on her arms and face.

‘The lullaby did not help. And, as my robes started to shrivel and smoke, I realised the truth. My mother had forgotten me. In fact, it was worse than that: she had abandoned me.’

Alhena’s face was like stone. Her limbs were still for a change, but pain was written so clearly across her features that Finavar found it hard to look at her. Since Thuralin first brought her to him, on the borders of Locrimere, she had always seemed taut to the point of breaking but now, with her father’s death still in her eyes, Finavar wondered if she might finally snap.

‘I started to scream.’ Her voice was so soft that the others had to lean closer to hear. ‘It wasn’t the pain, it was the betrayal.’ He eyes widened. ‘How could she have left me? My own mother?’

‘But you escaped,’ said Sibaris, leaning towards her, his features knotted with concern.

Alhena’s gaze remained fixed in the middle distance, but she nodded. ‘I thought at first that one of my playthings had decided to finally kill me. I thought one of my dolls had grown and become a huge daemon. Then I realised that the door to my chamber had been smashed and the daemon had come in from the outside. It was covered in fire. Its clothes were made of fire. And it was making such a terrible sound – choking and roaring. I thought it had come to finish the job the fire had started, so I tried to run. The daemon threw something over me – a piece of material, heavy with water. Then it picked me up and ran from the chamber.

‘As we ran, I looked at the daemon through the weave of the cloth. It was terrifying. It was melting and screaming and making such a dreadful noise. I felt as though I would give anything to just not hear that sound anymore.’

Alhena focussed back on the present, looking at the faces of her friends. ‘It was my father, of course. It was Thuralin. He destroyed his body so that mine could survive.’

‘And then what?’ asked Sibaris, placing his hand on her forearm.

Alhena flinched at his touch, but did not remove his hand. ‘And then he trained me to kill.’ A cold smile spread across her face. ‘He taught me that I could rely on nobody, not even him. He taught me that nature is cruel and the forest is crueller. He taught me that I must be brutal. More than brutal.’ She clutched the handle of one of her swords. ‘He taught me how to survive.’

Alhena turned to face Finavar. ‘And now he is dead.’

Finavar felt the weight of her stare but he did not look away. ‘He died as he lived – a devoted guardian of the forest.’

Alhena continued staring at him.

Finavar met her gaze with equal passion. ‘If we had not braved Hallos we would all be dead. The entire army would have been drowned.’ He stood up, flexing his fingers, suddenly eager to leave. ‘Your father knew that, Alhena. He knew we had to do something. Whatever he may have thought of me, he knew that my foolishness was the only hope.’

He stepped closer to Alhena and the moonlight turned his eyes into silver discs. ‘And it worked. The army has survived. Now we must stop the traitor who led us to this point, so that Prince Haldus can lead our kindreds to victory.’ He glanced around and saw two pairs of eyes watching them from the branches overhead. ‘My guides know the traitor well. They will find a way. They will lead us to her and I will reveal her treachery to everyone.’

‘How?’ Sibaris’s voice was hesitant. ‘How will you convince people that she is the traitor? What proof do you have?’

Finavar had not considered this, but as soon as Sibaris asked him an image flashed into his mind – three small circles; dark and menacing on smooth white skin. ‘She has been transformed,’ he said, with no trace of doubt. ‘The mark of the Dark Gods is on her flesh. I will simply demand that she uncover her shoulder and, if she refuses, her guilt will be obvious.’

‘Who is she?’ Caorann had a look of wonder on his face. ‘And how do you know all this?’

Finavar avoided Alhena’s gaze as he answered. ‘Our own Lady Ordaana is the traitor. She told me so herself after the Battle of Drúne Fell, as I was grieving the loss of my brother. Later, when I had my chance to speak against her, in the halls of Prince Elatior, I…’ he hesitated, shaking his head. ‘I was too confused by grief to see clearly. I was not myself. And Ordaana had confused me even more with her lies. I failed to speak against her when I could have and then, to ensure I could never accuse her, she poisoned Elatior against me, convincing him that I was the traitor.’

Caorann and Sibaris both looked amazed, but Alhena flinched as though she had been slapped.

‘I knew you were not a traitor,’ said Sibaris, flushing with shame and anger. ‘And so did Mälloch. But there was nothing we could do.’

Finavar shook his head. ‘It was fate that took me into the Wildwood, Sibaris, not you. I can see that now and I bear you no ill will. If I had not travelled those dark ways, I would never have been healed.’ He placed a hand against his ridged flesh and realised he had come to cherish its strangeness. ‘I would not have become what I am.’

Caorann looked from Sibaris to Alhena then back at Finavar. ‘From the moment I jumped into those falls, protected by your bony elbow and a bit of leaf, I gave up doubting you, Fin. If you say that Lady Ordaana is the root of all this, I believe you. It explains a lot of her actions. Gods alone know how we will get near her if she sees you coming, but we’ve faced bigger challenges this past year.’ He looked at the other two, waiting to hear their response.

Sibaris nodded eagerly in agreement, but Alhena was still looking dazed.

‘I believe in you, Finavar,’ she said, sounding awkward, ‘because I know my father did. He was no fool and, whatever he may have said in the past, he knew that you weren’t either. He would not have braved Hallos without knowing the risks. I can see that now.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But there is something else you need to say.’ She gave Finavar an odd look. ‘You promised me the truth about my past. Who is my mother, Finavar?’

Finavar hesitated and a tense silence fell over the group. He knew that everything hinged on her response.

‘Your mother is our prey, Alhena. Ordaana is your mother.’

He tensed, ready for outrage, or disbelief, but to his amazement she simply nodded. Then she closed her eyes, still nodding.

A single tear ran down her tattooed cheek.

‘I’ve waited my whole life,’ she said, with her eyes still closed, ‘hoping that I was wrong and knowing I was not.’

‘You knew?’

She opened her eyes and wiped away the tear. ‘Of course.’ Her voice was flat. ‘My father never had an untroubled night in his life. Sometimes he cursed her in his sleep, sometimes he prayed for her, but he always spoke of her. I guessed the truth when I was still a child. He kept me from the heart of Locrimere, afraid that Lady Ordaana would recognise me. Afraid that she would realise I was still alive. And I played along. It would have terrified him to think that I knew the truth.’ She glanced at Sibaris, looking oddly guilty. ‘But I could not be sure. I always hoped I was wrong.’

‘She is the traitor,’ said Finavar, conscious that Alhena was still clutching the hilts of her swords. ‘We must stop her.’

Alhena gave him a rigid, awful smile. ‘Good. She left me to die, Finavar. I never dreamt she was behind…’ she looked at the contorted shapes that surrounded the moonlit glade. ‘I never dreamt she was responsible for this, but she has long been my enemy. Our paths are aligned, Finavar. You will only kill her if I fail to kill her first.’

Dawn crept into view, peering at the world through a smudge of yellow and brown. When Finavar awoke, he felt as though he were hanging in a blanket of fumes and mist. His skin was clammy. His cloak was damp. The forest smelled of rotting meat. He smelled of rotting meat. He grimaced, wiped his face and looked around the treetop. The other three were still asleep, so he left them for a while and climbed down alone into the little meadow. The plateau was still mostly untainted, but as Finavar walked away from the tree he noticed that the soil was rippling and pregnant with life, giving it an odd, liquid quality. He drew one of his swords and scratched the tip across the ground. An arc of yellow liquid sprayed up at him and he had to jump back to avoid it covering his legs.

He saw hundreds of tiny shapes in the pus – miniature versions of the one-eyed monsters that had been marching across the forest.

He stamped the soil back into place and hurried on. As he reached the edge of the plateau his heart sank. The morning light was murky and unwholesome, but it was enough to reveal that there were only a few patches of green left on the horizon. The plateau was surrounded by an ocean of yellow fog and clouds of flies. He felt like the survivor of a shipwreck, drifting in a nauseating, mustard-coloured sea.

He shook his head and turned back to the tree. They needed to find Ordaana as quickly as possible. Whatever daemonic power was behind the plague owed its success to her.

Before Finavar had taken a few steps something made him halt. Besides the ever-present humming of flies, there was another sound echoing through the fumes. He frowned, wondering why it sounded so familiar. He listened harder. It was a low, mournful cry, coming from the south, but the fumes made everything so ghostly and indistinct, he could not place it. Was it some kind of animal?

He turned and walked back to the edge of the plateau. The sound rang out again, still muffled by the thick yellow clouds. Then he heard another identical call, coming from the east. Then another from the north. More rang out and Finavar realised they were coming from every direction at once.

‘The hunt,’ muttered Finavar. It was hard to be sure, but the sounds were suspiciously like hunting horns – the horns of the Wild Hunt. He felt an odd mixture of emotions. As much as he despised the riders that took Jokleel’s life, it comforted him to know the priests of Kurnous still survived. Then another thought hit him. Had the highborn learned of his escape from the Wildwood? Perhaps the riders had been sent to dispatch judgement?

Finavar’s dread grew. That must be it, he thought, edging back towards the poplar tree. How could he have expected to escape his sentence so easily? How could he have expected to simply leave his Wildwood prison and re-enter the forest? They were coming for him. Orion’s priests had tracked him down.

The horns rang out again and he realised that the fumes had deceived him. The sounds were much closer than he had originally thought.

He pulled his black cloak tighter, feeling suddenly cold. ‘Wake up, he said, but his voice was no more than a hoarse croak. ‘Wake up!’ he repeated, raising his voice to a yell as he reached the foot of the tree.

Caorann and the others looked sleepily at him from the branches and the two polecats emerged to stare at him.

‘The riders’ he said, staring up at his friends.

They looked blankly at him, uncomprehending, then the horns rang out again and their eyes widened in shock.

‘The highborn have sent their huntsmen. They’ve come to track me down!’

The other wardancers dropped from the branches, drawing their weapons.

‘We need to leave,’ gasped Finavar.

He looked at the two polecats, still watching from the branches overhead. ‘Quickly.’

They stared back at him for a moment, unmoving, then they slipped down the tree trunk and raced away through the grass.

‘No time to waste!’ cried Finavar running after the polecats and waving for the others to follow.

‘But Fin,’ cried Caorann, ‘how can you know?’ He peered into the yellow haze, trying to make out a sign of the riders. ‘They might be here to help us. They may have no idea of what happened to you.’

Finavar only vaguely recognised Caorann’s words. He was sure that the riders had come to kill him. As he ran down the far side of the hill, he glanced from left to right, staring into the murk; sure that danger was only moments away.

The others shrugged and jogged after him, fastening belts and cloaks as they went.

Mormo and Mauro led them beneath the arch of a stooped, broken oak tree and back into the forest. They found a looping, muddy path that seemed to avoid the worst of the infestations but, as soon as they passed beneath the rotten boughs, Finavar gagged on the vile stench that hung in the air. Beneath the canopy the smell was unbearable. It was more than the stink of decay – it was the smell of eager, unnatural life.

Finavar pulled up his hood and clenched it in front of his face, trying to block out the smell.

He heard the others groaning and cursing as they followed him, but all his attention was locked on the polecats darting ahead of him. Why had he agreed to sleep? There was so little time. Now he was in danger of being executed or returned to the Wildwood before he could reach Ordaana. At the thought of the Wildwood a gruesome memory filled his thoughts: bodies, dangling from the branches, all of them screaming in pain.

He shook his head and ran faster.

A horn rang out from the trees up ahead and Finavar cried out in alarm, staggering to a halt.

The other wardancers caught up with him and looked around.

‘Where are your guides?’ gasped Sibaris.

‘There!’ cried Alhena, pointing south through the trees.

Finavar saw the two little shapes vanishing into the shadows down another, narrower path. He nodded and started after them; then stumbled to a halt as a shape emerged from the trees, blocking his way.

It was a broad, powerful stag, with wide, gleaming antlers and a hide that shimmered as though lit from within. Sitting on its back was a powerful, towering figure – a warrior wearing a cloak of metal leaves and a helmet that almost covered his face. Vines and shoots spiralled up from beneath his skin, merging with his hair and entwining his wide horns. There were two points of green light flickering inside the helmet where his eyes should have been.

As the stag trotted closer, Finavar froze, overwhelmed for a moment. Knowing that a Rider of Kurnous was approaching was not the same as actually seeing one. He backed away, holding one of his swords out in a silent warning.

He had only taken a few steps when he bumped into his friends. He turned to see that they had their weapons raised too, looking warily at a second rider, coming slowly down the path in the other direction.

Finavar saw the fear in his friends’ eyes and, somehow, it steadied his nerves.

‘There’s no option,’ he said calmly. ‘One of us has to reach Ordaana.’

The others looked back at him with confused expressions as the two riders continued steering the stags towards them.

As the riders came nearer, roots and branches rippled away to let them pass, moving like curtains opened by the breeze.

‘And your plan is what, exactly?’ asked Caorann.

Finavar grinned. ‘We scatter. They can’t catch all of us, and I think it’s only me they’re after.’

‘But, your scouts.’ Sibaris was staring at the riders in horror. ‘How will we find Ordaana without them?’

Finavar hesitated, and before he could think what to say, the riders charged.

The wardancers flipped and cartwheeled from the path, vanishing into the trees, seconds before the riders reached them. They did as Finavar advised, racing in different directions, but the riders only had one target in mind – they rode after Finavar, lowering their spears and driving their stags through the mud.

As Finavar sprinted through the gloom, the forest tried to block his way – branches lashed out at his legs, attempting to trip him as he ran and leaves flew up to greet him, plastering themselves across his face. Finavar felt a growing sense of fury as he sliced and hacked his way through the trees.

‘You will not have me,’ he growled under his breath, bounding up into the branches of an alder tree. It was rotten with plague and collapsed beneath his weight, but Finavar vaulted free of its diseased embrace and landed in a more secure perch. Without waiting to see how close his pursuers were, he leapt on, crossing dozens of treetops in seconds and climbing higher with each jump.

The sound of approaching hooves told him he was far from safe, but with every jump, Finavar felt more certain that he was not destined to die; not yet. Rather than growing weary, his muscles became more energised as he ran. There was an invigorating heat spreading from his chest, pulsing out through his limbs.

He started to laugh. Despite their magic, the riders were falling behind.

Finavar slipped easily through the forest, as though gravity had relinquished its hold on him and, as he ran, he realised that the wonderful heat he could feel was pulsing from the bark-like plates across his torso. The energy of the Wildwood spirits was growing, filling his body with power. The murmurs he had heard in the Wildwood began rolling around his head again. The language was still meaningless but the sound filled him with righteous rage.

Finavar felt so alive that his laughter became a delirious howl. Everything combined in one dizzying rush – the thrill of his new-found strength, the ease of his escape and the voices in his head. He was so elated that when a third rider charged into view up ahead of him, he decided that flight was no longer enough.

‘Do you want me?’ he howled, diving through the branches at the rider and drawing back his swords to strike.

The rider faltered, reining in his stag in surprise. It was clear that he had not been expecting to become prey.

Finavar’s swords flashed as he crashed into the rider and bowled him from the back of stag.

The pair of them tumbled and rolled through the mud, ending up sprawled across the blubbery roots of a diseased tree.

Despite the unexpected nature of Finavar’s attack, the rider had managed to block his sword strikes with his spear. The weapon had been sliced in half as a result though and, as the horned rider clambered to his feet, he drew a long, wooden knife.

Finavar was faster. Still grinning, he vaulted the rotten pulp and smashed the hilts of his swords into the rider’s helmeted face.

The horned rider was huge – at least two feet taller than Finavar – but the ferocity of Finavar’s attack sent him reeling backwards through the fumes and spores.

The stag lowered its antlers and charged, but Finavar was already gone.

He had sprinted down another path, following the route of a yellow, fungus-crowded river.

His rage at the riders was growing all the time, but he had glimpsed something that reminded him of his true purpose – Mormo and Mauro. His rodent scouts were still with him, leading the way along the riverbank, so he hurried after them before the other riders could delay him any further.

Finavar heard stag hooves behind him, but he paid them no heed, sprinting in the direction of the polecats. The river gurgled and spat as he ran alongside it and he glimpsed huge, segmented serpents, rolling beneath its surface.

The polecats scampered up an incline, slipping easily through the strangled mess of dead roots and dazzling fungus.

Finavar leapt across the bubbling river and ran after them.

Then he was lying on his back in the mud, staring at the branches overhead.

For a moment, Finavar was unable to understand what had happened. He looked, uncomprehending, at the mesh of branches, then he noticed that the forest had turned red: his eyes were full of blood.

He tried to stand but could only manage to sit up. The world swam around him in sickening waves and pain exploded across his face.

He reached up to touch his jaw and felt a ragged mess of warm, torn flesh.

Then he saw a rider, watching him in silence from a few feet away. He was masked, like the others, but there was something infuriatingly arrogant about the way he casually rode closer, wiping Finavar’s blood from the shaft of his spear.

‘Do not be afraid,’ said the rider. His voice was coarse and bestial, but strangely deferential and, as he removed his helmet, Finavar saw that the light had vanished from the rider’s eyes, leaving two sombre black orbs.

Finavar could still feel a furious sentience, rushing through his head and, without a thought, he hurled one of his swords at the rider.

The movement was so fast that the rider had no chance to dodge the blade.

The sword sliced through the side of his throat, throwing him from his mount and sending him rolling back down the slope.

Finavar wiped the blood from his face and climbed to his feet, using his remaining sword as a crutch. ‘I wasn’t afraid.’

The sound of snapping branches alerted him to the arrival of other riders. They had dismounted and, as they approached from several directions, clutching their spears, Finavar saw that there were now six of them.

He looked back at the one he had wounded and saw that he was standing again, clutching his neck, but looking at him in the same oddly respectful way.

‘My leaf-liege,’ said the rider, his voice a low growl. ‘You do not remember me. I am Atolmis the Hunter. My blood is your sap. My bones are your roots.’

The words hit Finavar with more force than any blow the rider could have laid on him. Leaf-liege. He understood immediately. Everything slipped into focus. It was as though this moment had been in his thoughts his whole life. The riders had not come to punish him; they had come to anoint him.

Finavar was stunned. Could it be? Could he really be the very thing he despised? Despite his disgust, it made horrible sense. The feelings of power and destiny that had driven him to this point. The sense that he–

Finavar’s thoughts were interrupted by arms, grabbing him roughly from behind. He struggled, but it was no use. The riders had already bound him. They dragged him through the mud and lashed him to a tree and, as the other riders approached, Finavar wondered if he had been right the first time. As the priests of Kurnous crowded round him, he saw that they were all clutching wooden staves.

‘You can’t do this,’ he gasped, his mouth full of blood.

Atolmis’s jaw opened to reveal long, yellow teeth.

‘Orion,’ he growled, drawing back his wooden stake to plunge it into Finavar’s chest. ‘I have come to make you immortal.’

The voices in Finavar’s head reached a crescendo and combined with the heat blazing in his chest. He wrenched his hand free in an explosion of vines and snatched the stake from Atolmis’s grip.

The priest’s face filled with horror and he tried to grab the weapon back, but Finavar wrenched his other hand free and latched it around Atolmis’s throat.

The huge priest attempted to free himself, then froze as he saw something even more shocking. The ridged bark encasing Finavar’s chest had sprouted a forest of flame-like tendrils. Finavar and the riders watched in amazement as the tendrils lashed themselves around Atolmis’s wrists and began to cut, razor-like into his flesh.

Atolmis grunted in surprise and struggled to free himself. He looked at the other riders in confusion, but they simply shook their heads and backed away. None of them had ever seen anything like this before.

The heat in Finavar’s chest blossomed up into his mind, filling his thoughts with a final, incredible truth. He saw countless lifetimes spreading out behind him and before him. It was true: he was Orion. His horror faded, replaced by an overwhelming sense of destiny.

He looked at Atolmis again and recognised the face of his oldest friend. He hauled the shocked priest back towards him.

Atolmis was too stunned to react as Orion reached into his cloak and drew out the treasure he knew would be waiting there – an oak apple.

His actions were no longer his own but the actions of a god. He used the stave to tear open his own chest with a brittle crack. Then he jammed the oak apple deep between his ribs and let Kurnous consume him.

Power and history flooded his mind. He savoured it, revelling in the act of becoming himself. Then he waved for the priests to approach. His mouth was full of hot blood but his meaning was clear: Begin.

They looked back at him in amazement and seemed unable to move. This was not how the rite was meant to proceed.

Then Atolmis gave a hesitant nod and they hurried forward.

As they began to carve their new king, Orion kept his eyes locked on Atolmis. The priest was still clutching his neck but he managed to nod his head in a bow. When Atolmis looked up again, the being that was Finavar was no more.

As the bond between them grew, Orion saw his servant was afraid. He gripped Atolmis’s shoulder tighter, sensing without the need for speech, what troubled him. Atolmis thought the battle for their home was already lost.

‘Not while there is a single green leaf,’ he said quietly.

Atolmis closed his eyes for a moment; when he opened them again, the fear was gone.

The rituals were abandoned. In the span of one missing season, the old rites had become meaningless. In every previous year, the priests had carried the Chosen of Kurnous on a litter, dressed for spring in a mantle of blood and magic. This year, he strode proudly ahead of them through the trees, trailing skin and muscle like a regal gown. The branches formed a ceremonial arch, forcing back disease and mutation to grant him passage back towards the heart of the forest.

Atolmis and the other riders stared in wonder. None of them could recall such a wrathful, defiant offering. He had already grown in stature, without the blessing of the equinox. It was as though Kurnous was impatient to begin. Vines and shoots were already winding, snake-like under the skin of the nascent Orion.

They reached their destination quicker than they expected – a perfect circle of water, hidden deep in a grove of linden trees. It should have been a beautiful scene but the linden trees were dead – collapsed under the weight of blight, leaving a mound of corpse-like heaps. The rotten bark was buzzing with flies and crawling with grubs. The pond itself was brackish and unwelcoming and choked with weeds, but the Consort-King strode towards it with no sign of doubt.

Atolmis called out a warning, unnerved by the unwholesome appearance of the pool, but his lord paid him no heed, wading powerfully through the water and plunging into its murky depths.

Orion sank through the blood-warm darkness. He kicked his legs, diving deeper and, as he swam, the murmuring in his head grew louder. The weight of the water pressed against his skull and his lungs began to burn, but his thoughts were only for the voices. With every stroke, they became louder and more determined. The language was becoming clearer. It was a deep, rolling poetry, burning with outrage. Orion sensed that a powerful sentience was speaking, not just to him, but through him. He was the conduit for incredible wrath. Every trial he had endured had tempered him into the perfect weapon – the loss of his home, the death of Jokleel, even his months of starvation and the shredding of his flesh – everything had prepared him for his fate.

Outrage burst from Orion’s lungs in a single, ragged howl as he broke from the surface of the pool.

For a moment he remained in the mud with his eyes closed, roaring, his head thrown back. Then he climbed to the shallows and strode towards the water’s edge.

The sound of hooves and wings alerted him to the fact that he was not alone and he opened his eyes.

There was a blur of grey as something flew towards him.

Orion just had time to raise his arms before a snarling, thrashing shape slammed into him.

He toppled back into the water, teeth slicing through his forearms. He felt a brief flash of fear but it was quickly washed away by the furious voices in his head. He leapt to his feet and looked around.

He was back in the clearing, but it had changed. The linden trees were alive. Their grey-brown bark was free of disease and their branches were laden with small, lime-green leaves. His heart swelled at the sight of an untainted forest, but he had little time to admire the view. Shapes were hurtling towards him from every direction – bestial shadows, glimmering and shifting as they moved. Their diaphanous flesh did not make them any less fearsome. Orion glimpsed talons as long as his arm and vast, leathery wings. It was a brutal carnival of claws and teeth.

Orion cursed as another one crashed into his stomach, doubling him over in pain. He backed away and, for a moment, he saw his attacker clearly. It was a wolf, almost as tall as he was, its pure, white fur bristling with hate and its muzzle crimson with blood. Orion stepped back into the water, attempting to buy himself a few seconds to get his bearings. He had only taken a few steps when the other creatures tore into him.

Orion fell back under a torrent of grasping claws and pounding wings.

For a second his head was forced beneath the water. The voices in his head swelled to such a pitch that they drowned out the snorts and growls of his attackers. Along with the voices, Orion felt another flash of heat in his chest.

He exploded from the pool, shrugging off the animal spirits as easily as the water and landing punches on those that were nearest.

The wolf was thrashing in the water a few feet away and Orion grabbed it by the throat.

It howled as he lifted it, then vanished, leaving him to stagger, unbalanced, through the shallows.

Shapes were whirling around him, screeching and roaring, but Orion ignored them and charged up onto the grass beneath the circle of linden trees.

The spirits backed away, still snarling, preparing for another attack and Orion peered into the shifting gloom, trying to see them more clearly. Anger gave him focus as he glared at each of them in turn. They were familiar, animal shapes, but they were large – far larger than natural beasts and they shone with an inner fire. Orion’s head was a spiral of newly acquired memories and, though he had never seen these beings before, he knew they had been with him since the dawn of the forest.

‘I am your king,’ he roared, shedding the last vestiges of his doubt. The voices in his head spilled out through his mouth. ‘You may not taste my blood.’ The heat in his chest grew. ‘I am here to save your home.’

The creatures flickered, ghost-like in the shadows, but he saw enough to know that he had shocked them. They had not expected such defiance.

The wolf howled and threw itself at him again. Its lips curled back from long, gleaming incisors as it flashed across the clearing.

Orion’s flesh was faster than thought. He batted the animal away before he had even registered the attack.

The wolf skulked away, growling and limping as the other spirits backed away into the shadows, gathering beneath a wide, circular embankment.

‘How dare you speak of our home,’ hissed a sibilant voice.

Orion saw a hooded, stooped figure, hiding in the darkness at the foot of the embankment. He felt a wave of revulsion as he recognised the warden of the forest’s darkest paths.

‘I speak of whatever I choose to, Wrach,’ he said, keeping his tone low and controlled.

The hooded figure edged forwards and replied in a furious whisper. ‘No doubt you do, murderer.’

The wolf limped back into view, glaring at Orion and repeated the accusation in a cold, regal voice. ‘Murderer.’

Orion shook his head. He was about to demand an explanation when he realised who was missing from the gathering. There should have been a proud white stag waiting to greet him: Sativus, the Spirit King of the beasts. He felt a rush of shame as he sensed that Sativus’s absence might be his fault. He peered back through the endless reflections of his past and saw that, in a previous guise, he had battled with the ancient spirit. His memories were vague and fluid. He could not remember any details – only that he had fought and the struggle had ended with Sativus dead. He sensed another powerful being was involved but then one of the beasts snorted and Finavar’s memories slipped away from him.

‘He had already fallen.’ Orion frowned, still shaking his head, scouring his memory. ‘It was the plague. Before I found him, the plague had already ruined his mind.’

The raised area behind the animals suddenly moved and Orion saw his mistake. What he had taken for an embankment was actually a vast serpent. It uncoiled its huge, scaled mass and slid across the ground towards him, raising its low, diamond-shaped head as it approached. The serpent’s skull was crowned by a pair of bleached, spiralling ram’s horns and its eyes were two empty sockets.

‘And who unleashed the plague on us, Orion?’ asked the snake, lifting its head way above the treetops as it looked down at him. Its voice sounded like rainwater, drumming across a forest canopy, but the words were sharp with rage.

Orion felt a brief moment of doubt. What had he done? What shame had attached itself to him as he swam through the pool? Then he remembered the voices in his head. The words were bewildering, but there was defiance in their tone. He knew he could not be to blame for all that had befallen the forest.

He glared at the serpent. ‘The name of our betrayer is Ordaana. I will hunt her to the end of the world if I have to, but she will pay for what she has done. And when she is dead, I will banish whatever forsaken worm she has smuggled into my forest.’

The snake hesitated, surprised by Orion’s defiant tone.

The other beasts edged out from the shadows, eyeing him closely. Orion saw that behind their snarling, ferocious expressions, there was a deeper emotion. They were afraid.

A bristling, slavering boar thudded across the grass. ‘Your hunting days are over,’ it said. It did not move its lips but spoke directly into Orion’s mind, mingling its voice with all the others that were bouncing around his skull.

Orion was so buoyed by the voices in his mind that he felt as though he could have flown across the clearing and torn the boar’s head from its body, but he managed to keep his voice low as he replied. ‘I will hunt and you will hunt with me. All of you will. When spring comes and the Wild Hunt–’

‘There will be no spring, Orion,’ hissed the Wrach from the shadows. The spirit’s voice was a poisonous mixture of spite and panic. ‘Don’t you understand?’

For the first time since the Wildwood, the voices in his head fell silent. He would not be deterred though and jabbed a finger at the hooded spirit. ‘You will all hunt with me. It can be in the snow for all I care, but we will ride together and we will make the forest whole.’

The white wolf padded back into view, looking at him with a puzzled expression. ‘You think you are already King, but you have not been through the rites. We have not approved your birth. And, even if we did, how can you become king if there is no Even-night? The stars are your wet nurse, Orion, and they have been scattered.’

‘You will hunt with me,’ howled Orion but as he stepped towards the wolf, he noticed that the huge serpent was no longer hovering overhead. It had vanished. As he looked around the clearing for it, he noticed that the other spirits were vanishing too, shaking their heads, their hatred now softened by looks of pity.

‘We would not follow you when you had a chance of success,’ said the wolf. ‘Why would we follow you now that you do not?’

‘Try it,’ hissed the Wrach, pointing his staff at the pool. ‘See if you can be born. You think you already have been, so why not return and rule?’

Orion saw the spirit’s pale, worm-like fingers, spiralling and coiling around its staff.

‘See what you are without seasons.’

Orion noticed that the voices in his head remained mute, but his thoughts still rang with the echoes of their determined song. ‘I am the king,’ he said simply and strode back towards the pool. ‘I do not need your approval. I will be born.’ He glanced back at the wolf. ‘And then I will come for you.’

He saw a flash of emotion in the wolf’s eyes, then it was gone and Orion saw that he was alone with only the linden trees to watch him re-enter the water.

This side of reality the water was cool and clear and, as he looked into its depths, he saw Atolmis and the other riders waiting anxiously for his return, surrounded by the fumes and spores of the plague. They looked so close he felt as though he could reach into the water and touch them.

He paused for a moment, waiting to see if the voices would return. There was nothing, so he dived back in.

At first he powered easily through the water and it seemed as though he would be back with his servants in a few minutes. Then the water became clouded with silt and weeds and his way was less clear. His lungs ached with the same pain as before, but the harder he kicked, the further away the Wild Riders were. The silt swirled around him and formed into bestial shapes: the Council of Beasts, watching him with a strange mixture of pity and desperation. Even when painted in clouds of dust their hatred was clear, but they were also willing him on. Orion realised that they wanted him to prove them wrong. They wanted him to be born.

He swam through them, infuriated by the implication that he might fail. As he powered through the banks of drifting silt, he saw that Atolmis and the others had vanished. There was nothing ahead of him but a cold, featureless void.

His lungs throbbed, his pulse hammered in his ears and, finally, the voices returned. They now sang a different song. As his consciousness slipped away, the host of Orions trapped in his mind began to howl.

Before the darkness took him, Orion saw his body start to dissipate. He was becoming as vague and insubstantial as the spirits that were trailing in his wake.

The voices roared in outrage and he saw that the beasts had been right. There would be no rebirth.

He was the last of his line.

The rites had failed.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Finally, Prince Haldus’s blood started to cool. With only Nuin to keep him company, he skimmed across the rolling clouds, calmed by the song of the wind, howling through the spines of his helmet. The warhawk beneath him was his ideal companion: faithful, brave and most of all, silent. Nuin would never have convinced him to play at being a king. Such a noble, wise creature would never indulge in facile politicking, any more than she would have advised him to lead the asrai to war. And, despite the bond they shared, Nuin would never judge him for being such a damned fool.

He gripped Nuin’s feathers tighter. How could he have promised Lord Calaingor anything? How could he have left his people in that hellish paradise? He played the final moments over in his mind as Nuin flew back towards their mountain home. As soon as Haldus made his promise, the giant’s courtiers had flooded in from the fields. They had arrived in incredible numbers, surrounding Haldus’s kin with a wall of spears and glaives. Then their giant lord rose from his throne and grasped Haldus in a cold, crumbling fist.

Haldus had struggled to free himself, then abandoned the attempt, overwhelmed by the sight of Calaingor dragging magic from the fields, engulfing the stone circle in verdant fire, imbuing the enormous figures with life. The sight had been so shocking that Haldus’s strength had failed, leaving him slumped and dumbfounded in the giant’s hand as the world erupted around him. The animated statues towered over even Calaingor and, as they lurched into life, the whole valley had shook to the rhythm of crashing, stone feet.

The veil between the Cromlech and reality had evaporated as the stone gods marched to war. Haldus recalled his horror as the diseased host rushed towards him, more numerous than ever. But, before the battle was joined, Calaingor did as he promised and set Haldus free. Before destroying the daemon army he plucked Nuin from the fields, placed Haldus on the hawk’s back and, with a whispered charm, launched them both into the sky.

Haldus had tried to order his mount back to the golden fields where his kinsmen were trapped, horrified by their pleas for help; but Nuin was deaf to everything – possessed by Calaingor’s magic.

Nine days had passed since then. As they headed east across the forest, Haldus had regained control, but he had made no attempt to send her back. They were already halfway home and Haldus had settled on a more appealing plan. He would hunt down that treacherous dog, Cyanos, and force him to share all that he knew about Lord Calaingor and the Cromlech of Cadai. Then, once Haldus had learned enough to free his kin, he would put an end to Cyanos’s lies forever.

His pulse raced as he saw the Pine Crags up ahead, slicing, claw-like through the clouds. He knew that he should head back west, rejoin the army he had abandoned at Crowfoot Falls but, try as he might, he could think of nothing but Cyanos. Fury smouldered in his guts. He knew it was his own lack of guile – his poor judgement – that had killed half of the hawk lords and robbed the others of their freedom, but the true guilt lay with Cyanos. He had to die.

Haldus peered east into the rising sun. This high it was possible to imagine a forest free of corruption. All he could see from Nuin’s back was the dazzling red-gold palette of the dawn, blazing across clouds and mountain alike. Turas-Alva was directly ahead of him. He could see it clearly: a cruel, beautiful talon of granite, silhouetted by the cold, winter sun, and he knew that Cyanos would be there, but he steered Nuin south, away from his goal, towards an even higher peak. After months of war, he was finally heading home. The asrai who dwelled in the Pine Crags were mostly scattered across the forest, battling the plague daemons, but Prince Haldus doubted that Cyanos would be alone. The false king would still be guarded by his strange, bird-masked, honour guard and Haldus knew that he could not face him alone.

As Nuin swooped down through the clouds, Haldus locked his gaze on the unforgiving shard of rock he called home: the Cáder Donann.

Up in the mountains, the seasons still held sway. Winter had descended and the slopes wore a dismal crown of mist and sleet. But as Haldus dropped from Nuin’s back he ignored the cold and took a grateful breath, savouring the smell of his own lands. Even here, miles above the rolling foothills, the forest had made its presence known. Brutal, towering pines, with bark like blackened steel, jutted from every crevasse. They stood proud and straight, defying the howling wind, glowering majestically at the surrounding slopes and filling the air with the scent that had caused Haldus to smile. He closed his eyes and let his head rock back, taking another draught. It was a pure, clean smell, and, for a moment, it washed away all the filth and madness of the plague.

Nuin dragged one of her massive claws across the rock, alerting Haldus to the fact that they were no longer alone. Vague, ill-defined figures were approaching through the icy mist, silhouetted by the dawn.

It was a while since Haldus had returned home and much had changed during the interim. He unslung his bow from his back and nocked an arrow. The figures were slender and moved with a graceful economy, clearly asrai, but Haldus kept his bow ready. Who knew how far Cyanos’s treachery had taken him? Who knew who ruled these slopes? When he flew to war, Haldus had robbed the Donann of its most skilled defenders and left it in the hands of children. Was it still his to call home?

‘Who are you stranger?’ demanded a stern voice. ‘And who gave you permission to land on the Córran Edge?’

Haldus lowered his bow, smiling as the figures emerged from the mist and surrounded him. There were a dozen or so of them – slender, fresh-faced youths, masquerading as veteran warriors. Haldus felt a rush of pride as he saw their proud, determined faces.

‘Am I so quickly forgotten?’ he replied.

‘Father!’ cried one of them, lowering her bow and dashing towards him.

‘Clorana.’ Haldus tried to maintain his usual scowl, but his daughter gripped him in such a fierce hug that he could not help laughing.

After a few seconds, he pushed her back and held her at arm’s length, studying her face. He realised she had changed more than he thought. He had left behind a child and returned to find a warrior. Her beautiful, russet locks no longer flowed down over robes of emerald silk – they were knotted tightly back and tucked into a battered, leather jerkin. Her face was gaunt and stern and where her freckled cheeks had once been smooth, they now bore deep, circular scars, identical to his own. They spiralled around her eyes, giving her a harsh, warlike demeanour.

Haldus felt a mixture of sadness and pride at the sight of the scars. His daughter was a child no longer. She wore the marks of a killer.

‘What happened?’ he asked, speaking in soft, respectful tones.

She blushed and lowered her head for a moment. Then she lifted her chin and looked him proudly in the eye. ‘War happened, father. It has reached us even here. And we have been hard-pressed.’ She looked around at the other youths. They all wore the same, ritual scars and most carried other wounds – ones that were too ragged to be self-inflicted. ‘But we kept your halls free of the Chaos taint.’ Her voice trembled. ‘We knew you would return.’

Haldus was unable to speak for a moment, for fear that his voice would betray his emotions. These children had clearly been through terrible ordeals, but there was no doubt in their eyes. They looked at him with fierce determination. Somehow, the sight of these slender young warriors, buffeted by wind and sleet, brought home to Haldus all the horror of what was happening in the trees below. If they knew all that he had seen – if they knew what had become of the forest – they would drop to the ground and scream. Their confidence came from ignorance and he found that heartbreaking.

Clorana grew pale as she saw her father’s expression.

‘What is your news?’ she asked, her eyes bright with fear.

Haldus took a deep breath and shook his head. Then he nodded at a gulley to their left. ‘Show me a little mercy, child. I’ve been on the wing for days. At least let me find a place to drop before you ply me with questions.’ The wind and sleet were still lashing against them. ‘Córran Edge is no more welcoming than I remember.’

Clorana laughed, but it was a half-hearted sound and the fear remained in her eyes.

‘Take me home, Clorana,’ he said. ‘You know who it is I wish to see.’

The Cáder Donann was topped by a bizarre vision – an ink-black pine, named Clar-Cáragh. It reached up into the clouds, as tall and menacing as all the other trees that littered the mountain and it was huge – nearly fifty feet in diameter – but that was not what made it strange. This particular tree had a peculiar history. Long before the arrival of the asrai its trunk had been transformed – torn apart by the sorcery of a forgotten race. As Haldus allowed his subjects to lead him home, he glanced up at its strange, hovering clusters of towers, no less awed than the first time he had laid eyes on them. The prehistoric race – Haldus knew them only as the Old Ones – had captured an explosion in the heart of the mountainous tree. A white-hot flame was forever preserved at its core, captured in a frozen instant. A single detonation of magic power was tearing the tree apart, but, rather than taking seconds, the incident was playing itself out at a glacial pace. Over thousands of years, the vast shards of wood were gradually drifting free, moving no more than a fraction of an inch each year. The resultant sight was bewildering and wonderful – countless, huge fragments of wood, hanging around a blazing core. The huge pieces of wood moved so slowly that Haldus’s ancestors had built homes on the drifting shards – a whole civilisation, crawling through a moment of endless destruction.

They reached the roots of the tree – a sprawling nest of knotted limbs that poured like waterfalls over the rocks – and began to climb the thick vines that dangled from the branches. As he climbed higher, Haldus saw how deserted Clar-Cáragh was. War had robbed the tree of its guardians. The creaking, groaning walkways, once crowded with his subjects, were now silent and gloomy. Half an hour passed without them seeing another soul, but when he looked down at his daughter with a questioning glance, she nodded for him to continue.

‘Has she changed?’ he asked as they climbed.

Clorana laughed and this time her mirth was more genuine. ‘She does not change.’

Finally, Clorana waved Prince Haldus onto a wide, flat branch, drifting just a few feet away from the trunk. Haldus leapt gracefully from the vine and saw that there was a dwelling place at the far end of the platform – a tangle of branches woven into a dome-shaped bower. He nodded, recognising the home of his old friend, and strode along the branch towards it.

‘Damára?’ he said, squinting into the gloom as he entered the chamber. ‘Is that you?’

The chamber’s mesh-like walls threw confusing lights across the furs on the floor. For a moment, Haldus was unable to see anything but diagonal splashes of light and the snarling faces of fallen beasts. After a moment he noticed that not all of the snarls were lifeless. Dozens of wildcats were circling in the shadows, padding in and out of view and following his movements with their glinting, yellow-green eyes. Then a robed figure shuffled from the back of the chamber and the cats scattered, hissing at her in annoyance. It was a spellweaver – her tall, wiry frame enveloped by furs and robes. She looked vaguely in Haldus’s direction and sniffed suspiciously.

She came closer, feeling her way with a horned staff and as she emerged into a patch of light, it revealed that where her eyes should have been there were only two smooth, featureless hollows. She sniffed again and then relaxed. ‘So you do remember the way home,’ she said with a wry smile.

Her hair was long, white and parted around a copper leaf on her forehead, hanging from a leather cord around her head. Other than her blindness, her face was almost identical to Clorana’s.

Haldus took her head in his hands and kissed the copper leaf, but he could think of no words. Seeing the mother of his child reminded him again of the horrors overtaking them all. His journey home had shown him how close the plague was to the Pine Crags. The foothills were already crawling with foetid creatures and gaudy, creeping fungus. It would not be long before the black firs of his home began to shiver and rot.

Damára looked troubled by his silence. ‘What news do you bring of the war?’ she asked, placing her hand on one of the torcs that encircled his arms.

For a moment, Haldus was at a loss to know how to answer. ‘Daemons,’ he said finally. ‘The Chaos Gods. They’ve cast a shadow across the Great Weave. They’ve…’ His words trailed off as Clorana and the others entered the chamber. ‘The Plague Father is amongst us,’ he muttered, lowering his voice. ‘He is spreading his filth across the forest.’

Damára shrugged. ‘We have faced such things before. Spring will rid us of unwelcome guests. The ancients will rise and the king and queen will return. Orion will not permit such beings to remain amongst us for long. He will lead the Wild Hunt, as he has always done.’ As Damára spoke, her words became less sure. ‘Or, is there something more?’

Haldus sighed and dropped heavily onto the fur-strewn floor. ‘There is much more. Daemon-plague has consumed the whole forest, Damára. The noble halls of our kin have fallen one by one. I tried to lead those that remained, but…’ His face was suddenly twisted by a mixture of fury and regret. ‘I’m no king,’ he growled, glaring at the floor. ‘I’m not made to lead. They wouldn’t listen to my plans.’

Clorana looked pained and crouched next to her father, placing her hands on his shoulders. ‘I’m sure you did what you could, but it no longer matters. Winter will end soon. Orion will return to us.’

Haldus shook his head. ‘The corruption is too great, child. The Great Weave itself has been unravelled. Down in the forest, there is no winter.’ He glanced at his daughter. ‘And there will be no spring.’

She laughed in disbelief. ‘Of course there will be a spring.’

Her words were followed by a stunned silence that nobody seemed willing to break.

‘Haldus,’ said Damára, frowning. ‘Have you come here to wallow in self-pity? What use is despair? If things are as bad as you say, why have you returned home?’ She lifted her chin, showing exactly the same expression of pride her daughter had displayed when she met Haldus on the Córran Edge. ‘You may not be a king, Haldus, but you are also no coward. If the forest is in such danger, why are you slumped here in my chambers?’

Haldus flinched and rose shamefully to his feet. He was exhausted. Weeks of battle weighed heavily on his limbs and he had not slept for days. But he drew back his shoulders and gave the blind spellweaver a weary nod. ‘You’re right, Damára – cowardice is the one weakness I can rightly deny. I did not come here to rest, though my bones are screaming at me that I should, I came here to slay a traitor and free our kinsmen.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Clorana, looking shocked. ‘There are no traitors in the Cáder Donann.’

‘Not here, child. My visit is only brief. I seek weapons and warriors, nothing else. My prey is Lord Cyanos.’

‘Cyanos,’ spat Damára, leaning heavily on her staff. ‘Good. I am glad you mean to finally rid us of that devious wretch.’

Haldus was shocked by the venom in her voice. ‘What has he done to earn your hatred?’

Clorana answered before her mother could. ‘Since you left he has tried repeatedly to seize your lands, father. It is not just the daemons who have assaulted our home. We have repelled Cyanos countless times.’ She ran a finger absent-mindedly across the scars that circled her eyes. ‘It is his hawk-masked idiots that have cost us so many lives.’ She grimaced. ‘But now he hides in his mountain, filling the valleys with smoke and screams.’

Haldus clenched his fists. ‘I should have killed him when I had the chance, but when Orion saw some good in him I thought I must be mistaken. Cyanos tricked me into an unwinnable attack. It cost me half of our kinsmen. And the other half will remain trapped forever in a sorcerer’s prison, unless I can pry some truth from Cyanos’s lying lips.’

Damára shivered. ‘My dreams have been haunted by that false king. I knew he was linked to this plague.’

Haldus nodded. ‘I need weapons,’ he glanced at the youngsters watching from the doorway, ‘and warriors. Then I mean to bring his mountain down around his ears.’

Damára shook her head. ‘Turas-Alva has grown strange since you last visited. We can round up some more warriors for you, but you’d be ill-advised to openly approach Cyanos. Besides, his home has hidden itself.’ She waved at her empty sockets. ‘You’ll need my help to gain access.’

Haldus raised his eyebrows. In her youth, Damára had been a powerful weaver of spells, but of late she had only given the vaguest prophecies and predictions.

‘I’m not as dull-witted as you think,’ she continued. ‘I can still see the odd truth. I can still navigate the old paths.’ She pressed one of her fingers to the leaf on her brow. ‘There is a high pass drawn in my mind, still visible above the clouds. I could take you there without his sentries observing your approach.’ She shrugged. ‘It would at least give you a little time to learn his secrets before he knows he has guests.’

Haldus stared at her, shocked. Then took her hand and kissed it. ‘Damára, forgive me. I tried to convince myself that I only needed soldiers, but your help is worth more to me than a hundred spears.’

Damára shrugged. ‘I know.’

The wildcats yowled as the chamber grew darker. It was a low, alien sound that even Haldus found unnerving. The branches in the walls crushed closer to each other, creaking, snapping and blocking out the morning light. As Damára worked her spell, she whirled blindly around the chamber, feeling her way by tapping the horns of her staff against the ground and muttering indecipherable rhymes. With each blow, the horns dragged shapes from the wooden floor – gnarled, knotted spirits made of moonlight. They moaned and wheezed as they gathered around her, mimicking her dance and waving their branch-like limbs.

Prince Haldus was sitting at the centre of the bower, encircled by a series of runes Damára had scratched into the bark. He was also surrounded by his kinsmen. At his command, Clorana had gathered all the warriors that remained in the Cáder Donann. There were less than fifty of them, but they gripped their bows and swords proudly as they settled around him – proud for a chance to serve their prince.

As Damára’s dance grew more frenetic and her words more wild, dozens more of the spirits arrived and joined their ghostly voices to hers.

Finally, she drew a blade from her robes and lurched towards the circles.

Haldus felt a brief moment of panic as she rushed in his direction, lifting the long, curved blade over her head with a garbled scream. Then he relaxed as she hammered it down into the ridged floor, just inches from his leg.

The chamber juddered.

Light pulsed briefly from the hole Damára had made and then the spirits all hurled themselves into it, vanishing from view and plunging the chamber back into darkness.

Haldus shook his head, as confused as ever by Damára’s strange behaviour.

‘Are you sure this will work?’ he asked, peering into the darkness. ‘Damára?’

She gave no reply. Instead, she drew the knife from the wood, rose to her feet and began stabbing at the dark.

For a moment, Haldus thought she had lost her mind. Then, he noticed that for every slash of the knife, a piece of the darkness fell away. And, as Damára sliced, Haldus saw that the circle of furs was no longer on the floor of her bower. Each tear in the darkness revealed a new scene: the cold, rain-lashed outcrop of a mountain.

It only took Damára a few more minutes to cut down the remaining shadows and then, as she tumbled from view, Haldus found himself on a rocky peak, blinking in the morning light as he looked out across the fog-mantled peaks of Turas-Alva.

‘By the gods!’ laughed Haldus, looking around for Damára. She was sprawled on her back a few feet away, breathing heavily and trembling. A wildcat was sitting on her chest, licking itself with an air of cool, self-satisfaction.

His warriors were scattered around her, gripping their weapons tightly and studying the surrounding slopes for signs of attack.

‘You needn’t sound so surprised,’ muttered Damára, without looking in his direction. ‘I was once something other than the mother of your daughter.’

Haldus felt his cheeks burning and was glad Damára could not see his embarrassment. She had the measure of him. He had heard tales of her power, but during their years together he had rarely witnessed it. To send the whole group of them through the Great Weave and land them miles away, on another mountain top, was sorcery to match anything in Ariel’s court.

Clorana climbed to her feet, oblivious to her father’s discomfort and looked around. ‘See?’ she muttered, pointing her bow at the misty slopes below. ‘Cyanos is as dangerous as the plague. What’s he doing down there?’

Haldus saw that his daughter was trembling too and realised that the whole mountain was shivering and jerking. He stood and followed her gaze. The mountainside he remembered was gone, hidden behind a boiling mass of virulent green clouds and flickering, ghostly lights. It was hard to see anything clearly, but the clouds were clearly masking a disaster of some kind. As the fumes shifted, Haldus caught glimpses of movement, movement on a grand scale.

Clorana turned to face him, her eyes wide.

She looked afraid, but Haldus noticed excitement in her eyes too. He realised that a part of her was thrilled to be abroad with her father, joining him on one of his adventures.

He glared back at her. ‘I’ve seen this before. The plague has come further than I thought.’

Damára took the wildcat in her arms and climbed to her feet. ‘The plague?’ She walked towards them and one of the warriors rushed to guide her, stopping her before she reached the precipice.

‘What kind of plague causes a mountain to tremble?’ she asked.

Haldus grimaced. ‘Whatever daemon has set itself against us, is hungry for life.’ He shook his head, unsure what to do next.

‘Is Cyanos definitely down there?’ asked his daughter.

‘I can’t be sure,’ replied Haldus, ‘but I believe so.’

‘Then, plague or not, we know where our route lies.’ She pointed her bow at a narrow, high-sided pass, snaking down through the icy rocks. ‘You said we need to find Cyanos. Let’s find him.’

He softened his expression and nodded, making for the path and signalling for the others to follow.

He paused at the top of the slope and shook his head. The climb would be hard, even for such sure-footed travellers. There was a good reason this spur of the mountain was unoccupied – the path that led away from it was a sheer drop over icy, smooth slopes. The rain was still pounding down and Haldus realised that Damára would not be able to join them in the descent. There was a brief argument, but he finally managed to convince her by asking, if she plummeted to her death, who could spirit them back to the Cáder Donann?

Damára watched them as they started to climb, then headed off to find shelter from the rain, still cradling the sodden wildcat.

Haldus cursed as he climbed, frustrated by the slow progress. It was almost impossible to find sure footholds and, every time he did, the mountain would judder and almost send them all plummeting to their death. All they could do was hold tight and pray each time there was a tremor.

After several hours of this tortuous progress, they entered the clouds of green smog that they had glimpsed from the mountaintop. It was oddly warm in the fumes and they were now almost blind. Haldus wondered if Damára might not have done better than the rest of them. Each time he glimpsed his daughter’s face though, he saw the determined glint in her eyes and it drove him on. Cyanos was down there somewhere and he held the key to freeing his kinsmen and Laelia.

After another hour of climbing, the fumes stung Haldus’s eyes and burned his lungs. He heard the others above him, coughing and spluttering and knew they were feeling the same. He had noticed something equally unnerving. With every step he took the air grew warmer. By rights, at this time of year, the whole mountain should have been covered in frost, but instead the paths were slick with moss and pockets of brackish water. Haldus could feel sweat trickling down his chest. The fumes drifting over them were moist and warm, tropical almost: the sweet, rotten stink of the plague.

The mountain shivered again, shedding rocks and causing Haldus and the others to flatten themselves against the rock face. The rumbling continued for several minutes and, once it had faded, another sound emerged from the clouds – an angry, urgent buzzing. Haldus felt a mixture of anger and disgust as he recognised the familiar sound of his enemy.

‘What is that?’ asked Clorana.

Haldus looked grim. ‘We need to find a place to stand and fight.’ He carried on climbing, trying to move a little faster, but in his rush he slipped on the wet rock and felt his legs go from under him.

Clorana howled and reached out to grab him, latching on to his hand just in time.

Haldus was large and powerfully built. As he dangled in his daughter’s grip, she began to slide free of her handhold. The next climber in line managed to grab onto her shoulders, just before father and daughter fell to their deaths.

Haldus grasped the rocks again and, when she was sure he was safe, Clorana let go of him. The three of them panted heavily for a moment, conscious of how close they had come to death. The rest of the climbers looked anxiously down at them and checked their own handholds.

Haldus sighed and was about to start climbing again when he heard another loud buzzing. Clorana’s scream had alerted something to their presence.

‘There!’ he cried, nodding at a long, narrow lip of rock, just a few feet away. ‘Make for the ledge and draw your weapons.’

As the buzzing sound grew louder, Haldus made it to the ledge and grabbed his bow. The others did their best to reach him, but having just seen Haldus nearly fall, none of them were willing to rush.

An enormous, boulder-sized fly hurtled from the fumes. It was fat, glistening and its carapace was layered in plates of rusted iron. A long, shiny proboscis was dangling from its face and pus-green flesh was hanging from its intestines in a lacy mess of skin and muscle.

Haldus had no time to shoot his arrow. The fly was on him as soon as it appeared. All he could do was use the arrow like a spear, jabbing it into the monster’s face. The arrow passed through one of its three eyes and showered Haldus with bloody fluid.

He howled in disgust and pain as the liquid ate into his skin and the insect battered against the rock face, thrashing its four, ragged wings.

An arrow sliced into one of its remaining two eyes, producing another arc of yellow liquid.

Haldus saw that Clorana was now beside him on the ledge, preparing to shoot a second arrow.

The fly swung around in her direction, raising a quivering nest of mandibles and stingers.

Clorana loosed another arrow but she slipped and the shot went wide, whizzing off through the yellow fumes.

The fly brought its poisonous, armoured limbs down towards her face, but Haldus was faster. He had drawn his sword and, before the monster reached his daughter he leapt from the ledge, clutching the blade in both hands, landing on the fly’s back and hammering the sword down through its head.

The monster spasmed beneath him, thrashing its wings even more wildly, then plunged from the ledge, taking Haldus with it.

Clorana screamed as her father vanished from view, still stabbing at the creature.

Haldus and the fly plummeted through the clouds. The thing thrashed beneath him, full of dreadful life, but it could not coordinate its wings. They drummed uselessly against its bloated abdomen, without rhythm or power. All Haldus could do was hang onto a piece of rotten flesh and wait for the inevitable impact.

Briefly, the fly managed to right itself. It gave all four wings one powerful beat and swooped up out of its dive. Haldus exhaled the breath he had been holding and prepared to continue the fight.

Then, as one of its wings gave way, the fly lost control and smashed back into the mountainside, showering them both in blood and pus.

Pain flashed across Haldus’s face and neck, but he managed to reach out and grasp onto something as the fly dropped away, broken and lifeless.

Fumes swirled around him and he saw that he was hanging from a shattered branch, jutting out of the mountain like a spear in the flank of a huge beast.

He grabbed on to the slippery bark with his other hand and hauled himself up with a pained grunt.

For a few seconds he lay there, hugging the dead branch; eyes closed, heart pounding. He lifted his head to look around. It was hard to see more than a few feet through the clouds, but he made out another, easier path, just below the branch and continued his descent.

Haldus could hear the distant cries of his kinsmen. Desperate, plaintive calls rang out through the smog, but he gave no reply. Every sound would draw more of the fly creatures and he prayed that his lack of answer might silence them.

After another ten minutes of clambering, Haldus reached the bottom of the slope. The ground felt odd – tacky and giving, but he did not pause to examine it. He rushed across the floor of the crevasse, staring up at its brutal walls, trying to spot his warriors. The lurid clouds parted for a moment and he caught a glimpse of battle, way overhead. Another huge fly had appeared, wheeling and diving and lashing out with its barbed limbs. Haldus could just about discern the slender shapes of his kin, fighting for their lives as they climbed slowly down the slope. As he watched, Haldus saw one of them stumble and fall. He could not be sure who it was and, as the tiny figure bounced and rolled down the sheer rock face, he prayed that it was not Clorana.

Haldus guessed that the others were still several minutes’ climb away from him. He cursed and looked around. What to do? If he tried to reach them, he would be attacked every step of the way.

He took his bow from his back and began shooting arrows through the clouds. The first arrow bounced uselessly from the rocks but the second and third sliced into the daemon-fly. It looped around and hurtled away from the climbing figures, diving towards Haldus.

He loosed another two shots. The first went wide and the second hit home, but still the fly kept on hurtling towards him.

The thing was almost on him and, as he drew another arrow, Haldus realised that there was no cover he could take. If this last shot failed, the fly would smash into him.

He shot the arrow and it thudded into the creature’s abdomen with no discernible effect.

The fly continued hurtling towards Haldus and he held his hands in front of his face.

There was a splintering crack as the ground next to Haldus split open. He staggered to one side as a thick, green shoot flew up from the rocks and collided with the approaching daemon-fly. It pierced the creature like a spear, showering the rocks with gore and causing Haldus to reel away in shock.

He came to a halt a few feet away and looked back in amazement. The monster was suspended several feet in the air by a green column of growth. It thrashed its wings furiously, but only succeeded in tearing itself apart. Then it fell silent and slid to the ground.

Haldus shook his head in disbelief as he saw Damára walking towards him through the fumes and mist, feeling her way across the uneven ground with her horned staff.

She gave him a curt nod then looked up at the others, still climbing down the wall of the crevasse.

‘How did you get down here so fast?’ asked Haldus.

She turned in the direction of his voice. ‘There are many kinds of sight, Haldus. I’ve only lost the unimportant one.’

He was about to press her further, but Clorana and the warriors had now reached the valley floor and were rushing towards them.

‘We must be quick!’ cried Clorana. ‘The whole mountain is coming down.’

Haldus looked around and saw that his daughter was right. The landscape was juddering with violent tremors. Rocks and pebbles were bouncing down the walls of the crevasse and there was a deep, grinding sound coming from beneath their feet.

‘Help Damára,’ he said to one of his subjects and sprinted off down the narrow gulley.

As he ran, Haldus scoured his surroundings for a familiar landmark. It was hopeless. Everything was warped by the shifting miasma of smoke and spores. Haldus could not see anything that reminded him of his journeys with Orion. The walls of the chasm closed in on him as he ran, and the ground became less stable with each step. As the tremors became more violent, they began opening fissures and spewing dust into the already clouded air. Haldus sank into pools that suddenly appeared before him and stumbled across the trembling ground, but he kept focussed on something up ahead of him. After a few minutes of this running and scrambling, Prince Haldus came to a halt, just inches from a sheer drop. Ahead of him was a mile-long, natural bridge of granite. It arced over the abyss like a slender rope hurled by a god and Haldus nodded, pleased that he had finally found something he remembered. This was the place he had landed with Orion, all those months ago, in the days before the plague.

He looked back and saw that, even accompanied by Damára, the others were only a few minutes away. He looked back at the bridge and saw that, like everything else, it was quickly disintegrating. Each fresh tremor threatened to destroy it, but on the far side there was a portal – a tall cave mouth that was also familiar. He recalled that he had passed through the portal with Orion, on his first visit to the Vale of Fincara. He had little time to reminisce, though. Each fresh tremor caused the bridge to slump and crumble. Haldus stepped onto it, then paused, sensing that the whole edifice was about to collapse.

The others reached his side and looked at him expectantly.

‘This isn’t the first time you’ve been here,’ said Clorana, noticing how Haldus studied the archway.

‘I came here with the king,’ he replied, peering into the darkness.

‘Orion came here?’ asked one of the young warriors, his voice full of awe.

Haldus frowned. ‘He was troubled. He wished to pit himself against the forest spirits. I sought him out, wishing him to lead the Wild Hunt, as he has done so many times before, but he was obsessed with something I mentioned in passing. I had spoken of Cyanos’s strangeness and mentioned how he had begun worshipping a spirit by the name of Amphion.’ Haldus shook his head. ‘As soon as I mentioned the forest spirit, Orion could think of nothing but hunting it down and demanding fealty from it.’

‘Amphion,’ said Clorana, looking puzzled. ‘The eagle spirit. I thought that was just a story.’

Haldus shook his head. ‘Cyanos created a sculpture in the shape of the spirit and he meant to sacrifice his own people by burning them alive in it. Then we arrived and he discovered that the spirit was playing him for a fool. Cyanos was so tormented that he begged Orion to forgive him and let him join the hunt.’

Haldus looked pained. ‘And I was the biggest fool. I believed he was genuinely contrite.’

‘Cyanos has been a liar since he was a child,’ muttered Damára.

Haldus nodded, sounding bitter as he continued. ‘I see that now. But he has a honeyed tongue. Since Orion burned on his winter pyre, Cyanos has been my shadow. He convinced me that all his learning gave him knowledge no one else had – even Naieth. He was the one who tricked me into a battle that lost me my army. He was…’ Haldus glowered across the bridge. ‘I will make him pay.’

They crossed the bridge at a brisk jog, sensing that, at any minute it might collapse. Then, upon reaching the other side, they rushed into the cave mouth.

They were immediately enveloped by darkness and noise. The mountain’s death-throes were all the more terrifying when heard from inside. Rolling, apocalyptic explosions rocked the walls and ground. After feeling his way blindly through the chaos, Haldus felt a rush of hope as he saw stairs up ahead. He fell again, scraping the skin from his legs and arms, but the pain only focussed his thoughts. He was haunted by the haughty, refined features of Lord Cyanos, smiling serenely as he assured Haldus that he should take his hawk lords to the Cromlech of Cadai. Haldus seethed as he considered all that Cyanos had lost him. A third of his kinsmen dead, and the rest trapped forever in the Cromlech.

Haldus led the others on, up the stairs and through the clouds of dust. They climbed in silence for a while, listening for the angry whirring of the giant flies. Then, the prince’s thoughts were interrupted as he saw lights up ahead. He thought at first that it was daylight, but then he realised it was grubs, circling overhead, pulsing with a lemon-coloured glow. He stopped for a moment to watch, stunned by this latest horror. Each grub was a kind of ridged, winged sac, enveloping the severed head of a fallen asrai warrior. The light came from the acid that was slowly digesting each of the heads.

Haldus watched for a moment, horrified, then he flinched and backed away as something flew from the shadows and bounced off his chest.

As he staggered back towards the stair wall, he saw that the object was another grub, but one without light. It hurtled towards him again and he realised that, unlike the ones overhead, this grub was an empty sac with a gaping, serrated mouth. It rushed towards Haldus’s face and he lashed out wildly with his fist.

The grub swallowed his forearm and blazed with yellow light as it started to digest him. He punched it furiously with his other hand until it fell away.

‘Guard yourselves,’ he called to the others. Then he hurried on.

Finally, a more natural light appeared and Haldus emerged into another fume-filled gully. It was hard to see anything clearly, but he knew this was the approach to Cyanos’s halls.

‘Almost there,’ he called back as he jogged through the clouds with the others staggering after him.

Gloom enveloped them again as they entered Cyanos’s home but this time the darkness was punctuated by fires. Sconces lined the walls and, despite the chaos outside, several of them were still lit – guttering and spitting each time the mountain shook.

‘Let me guide you,’ said Damára, appearing at Cyanos’s side as he paused to consider his route.

He looked gratefully at her. ‘I may need your help when we find him, too.’

She smiled in the shifting light. ‘The great Prince Haldus needs my help. These are strange days indeed.’

Haldus blushed in the darkness.

Damára laughed softly and touched his face, tracing his deep scars and low, brutal brow. Then, using her staff for support, she lowered herself to the ground and touched the rock.

Clorana and the other young warriors watched with fascination as she muttered incomprehensible phrases. Light pulsed beneath her fingers and the air took on a sulphurous tang. Then she nodded and stood up again.

‘He’s close,’ she said, with distaste in her voice, ‘but he’s not alone.’

‘Lead the way,’ said Haldus and, as they trooped off down the passageway, he looked back at the others. ‘Keep your weapons ready.’

Damára’s silver hair was a beacon, leading them past the yawning, pitch-black openings that surrounded them. As they ran, the tremors grew even more violent. There was now a constant shaking that rattled stones down on their heads and shoulders and, every now and then, opened fissures at their feet.

Damára paused beside a door and turned towards Haldus with a confused expression. ‘The eagle spirit is here, still trapped in the mountain, beyond this door. Cyanos has made no attempt to free it. I can see them both clearly. One is distracted by pain, the other by madness. They do not know we are here.’

Haldus looked at the door. It was closed and locked, but the tremors had jolted it from its frame. It would be an easy enough job for a few of them to dislodge it. The mountain shook again and a series of brittle cracking sounds rang out overhead. With dust and pebbles bouncing off his helmet, Haldus stared at Damára. ‘How far away are they?’

‘They’re close,’ she replied, with a strange smile.

The ground shuddered and several of the torches went out. Haldus looked back the way they came.

‘Will you let him live?’ asked Damára.

Haldus glowered and waved some of the warriors over to the door. ‘He has to pay for what he has done.’

The door had already been dislodged and it took them minutes to lift it from its hinges. It clattered noisily to the ground, but Haldus saw no need for caution. The air was filled with creaks and groans as the mountain began to collapse.

The doorway led into a neatly hewn passageway that unnerved Haldus and the others almost as much as the madness outside. The plastered walls were lined with intricate maps and cases full of leather-bound books. Haldus grimaced as he stepped closer. These were the trappings of humanity – the strange industry of outsiders with their printing machines and their colleges. He hurried past the books and made for another doorway at the far end of the small antechamber. This opening had no door and there was a blazing light coming from beyond the threshold, along with a mixture of ominous sounds: a chorus of muttering voices and a weird, inhuman screeching noise.

Haldus glanced back at the others and signalled that they should approach with care, then he crept up to the doorway and peered around the frame.

He saw a circular chamber, lined with rows of seats, surrounding a wide platform – a stage of some kind. The light was coming from a blazing fire in the centre of the stage, in which a huge figure was struggling and thrashing.

Haldus recognised the incredible being as Amphion – the eagle spirit. It was as huge and terrifying as he remembered, but it was still pinned to the stone floor by the spear Orion had thrust through it in the spring. The walls were scorched and blackened by fire and he realised that this chamber must be all that remained of Cyanos’s ‘Great Work’ – the vast sculpture he had built to sacrifice his people in. Amphion must have remained trapped for all this time, enveloped in the flames that spilled from its own feathers as it tried to free itself. The screeching he had heard was the sound of the spirit’s pain and fury.

The voices came from several hundred asrai warriors – Cyanos’s alvaír, with their strange, avian masks. They were dressed for war, clutching bows and spears, and they were all leaning forwards, listening eagerly to the speaker striding back and forth in front of them. It was Cyanos. He was still clad in his black, iron breastplate and, despite his attempts to hide them beneath a thick, fur-lined mantle, Haldus saw that he still had two strange lumps where his wings had once been. His face shone with the same radiance and beauty, but his once vivid green eyes were now dull, and clouded by madness. There was a brazier behind him, burning with an amber glow and filling the chamber with heady fumes.

‘These are not just my ideas,’ said Cyanos with a smile. He spoke in soft, comforting tones. ‘All of this was explained to me by Lady Ordaana.’

As Haldus and the others peered into the chamber, Cyanos waved his spear towards his struggling prisoner. ‘The forest ancients were once the holders of great power, but they have had their day. Try as they might, they cannot help us in the great wars that are looming. The world is facing dangers they can scarcely dream of.’ He looked pityingly at Amphion. ‘So we must abandon the old ways. We must join our strength to the storm that approaches us from the north. My children,’ he said, lowering his voice to a whisper and leaning out from the stage, ‘the true gods have offered us a chance to join them. Ordaana thinks we are her slaves. As does that hate-warped tree spirit, Drycha. But I tell you now, we serve a power far greater than any of them.’

The masked warriors roared their approval, rattling their seats and hurling rocks at the trapped spirit.

Haldus backed away in shock. They were deranged, bestial even. He sniffed the air and sensed that the fumes coming from the brazier were charged with sorcery. This was not simply the devotion of eager subjects; Cyanos had enchanted them.

Cyanos strolled across the stage and held up a small, crumbling book. ‘Join your voices to mine as I perform the final rites. Rid the forest of this deceiver. Lend me your spears.’ A harsher edge entered his voice. ‘Bring death to Orion.’

Cyanos’s voice was still soft, but it had an incredible impact on the crowd. The warriors leapt to their feet, whooping like dogs and clattering their weapons.

Damára edged closer to Haldus and whispered in his ear. ‘I did not foresee this.’ There was panic in her voice. ‘He means to do something terrible. I don’t know what. I don’t understand…’ She shook her head. ‘It’s worse than I thought. He’s part of something bigger. The power he speaks of is the Dark Gods of Chaos. You were right. We have to kill him.’

Haldus looked back to the stage as Cyanos pointed at the flaming eagle. ‘Orion left us this gift and finally I am ready to use it.’ He tapped his book. ‘Once I have drained its power I will be unstoppable. We will be unstoppable.’ He arched his back and read out a single, grotesque syllable.

The crowd echoed his gentle utterance with a furious roar and the chamber filled with light. The flames around Amphion flared brighter and the whole mountain juddered. Rocks crashed down amongst the asrai and several new fissures opened up in the walls, but Cyanos and his subjects seemed oblivious to the danger.

Cyanos crooned a second word and, as the crowd roared their reply, there was another, even more violent blast. A huge chunk of granite fell from the shadows and smashed down into the crowds. Still, they seemed oblivious.

‘Quickly, father,’ said Clorana. ‘He is insane.’

Haldus scowled. ‘I need to question him. I need answers.’

She shook her head. ‘There is no time.’

Haldus closed his eyes, then nodded. ‘Very well. Wait one minute, then shoot once,’ he said. ‘Then flee for your lives.’

He crouched low and ran into the chamber, keeping to the back wall and circling around behind the back row of seats.

Clorana reached out after him in shock, but did not dare cry out. Then she turned to the others and nodded. They edged forwards and nocked arrows to their bows, while Damára clutched her staff and lowered her head in readiness.

Rocks were falling all around them now and the ground felt like the deck of a storm-tossed ship. As Cyanos read another word from the book, the resultant howl wrenched another great chunk of the ceiling free, adding an explosion of dust to the fumes that already filled the chamber. Amphion’s screeches grew even more terrible but, however hard the spirit twisted and writhed, it could not free itself from the spear Orion had planted in its chest.

Haldus was blinded for a moment, then, as the dust cleared, he saw that Amphion was being torn apart as a result of Cyanos’s magic. The spirit was in terrible torment.

Cyanos paused, halfway across the stage, to admire his handiwork. He looked at the struggling spirit with an expression of intense satisfaction then he looked back at the book and traced a finger over the page, preparing to read the next word.

All that emerged from his throat was a hoarse cough and he frowned in confusion. Then he reached up and touched the shaft of wood that had appeared in the centre of his neck.

His eyes widened and he looked past the stunned audience to where Haldus was standing at the back of the room, still holding his bow.

Blood rushed from Cyanos’s throat as he tried to move and he dropped to his knees.

The alvaír roared in drug-fuelled outrage and turned to face the criminal who had shot their lord, but at that moment, a wave of arrows slammed into them as Clorana and the others did their work.

Haldus dropped from view and the masked warriors charged towards the doorway, hurling spears and curses at their attackers.

With the crowd distracted, Haldus circled around the back of the room and jumped onto the stage, where Cyanos was still choking and spluttering. Haldus strode towards his betrayer with hate burning in his eyes, drawing a sword from his back as he leapt over the pieces of rubble.

‘Wait,’ said the noble, recognising Haldus’s intent. He tried to smile, despite his pain. ‘I can explain. I did not know I was sending you into such danger. If I did, I would–’

The chamber shuddered as another slab of rock crashed onto the stage, throwing Haldus from his feet and hurling him into the front row of seats.

He lost consciousness and when he came to, there was a searing pain in the back of his head. Warm blood washed over his back, but when he reached around to examine the wound he found that his helmet had saved his skull.

Haldus swayed drunkenly as he climbed to his feet. The chamber was a mess of flying rubble, dust and fumes and he struggled to get his bearings for a second.

A masked warrior barged past him and he saw that the whole chamber was about to give way. The doorway had vanished behind a wall of rubble and huge cracks had opened in the ceiling, flooding the chamber with daylight and growing wider by the second. He looked back towards the stage to find that it had been obliterated. Where Cyanos had been, there was just a swirling mass of debris and a huge, jagged boulder. He rushed towards it with a howl, and clattered his sword against it, furious at being denied his vengeance.

Haldus could bear the thought of his impending death, but not the idea that he had been cheated of his prey. He snatched a battered object from near the boulder. It was Cyanos’s book and he stared at it in outrage and disgust.

He dropped to his knees, deaf to the chaos that surrounded him and began pounding the book on the broken stage.

A shape loomed over him and he paused as heat washed over the side of his face.

As the walls came tumbling down, Haldus looked up to see a terrifying vision. The splintering ground had freed Amphion. The flaming spirit was looming over him, all four wings extended, screaming in relief and hatred. The bone-spear was still embedded in its chest, but the rock that had held it was gone.

Haldus cowered as the blazing creature attacked.

Heat and light enveloped him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was not the death Haldus had expected. Heat sank deep into his body, burning away memory and thought. Spirit flames coursed through his limbs and flooded his heart, but caused him no pain. As his body dissolved in the furnace of the eagle’s feathers, Haldus saw visions of his life with Orion. Every terrifying hunt – countless centuries of untrammelled wildness. Then, as the heat grew, he realised the memories were too strange and varied to be the record of a single, mortal life. As this idea took hold, it lifted him free of the flames and placed him at the heart of a celestial glade, surrounded by blazing boughs and immortal, impossible beings.

The gods, he thought, and I am one of them. I am a god.

Haldus’s soul swelled as he realised he was an immortal. He trod proudly beneath the dazzling branches, studying the incredible beings that surrounded him. One in particular drew his gaze – an antlered brute, the size of a mountain, seated on a towering throne of living oak. Kurnous had eyes like two enormous burning coals and the air around him shimmered with the heat of them. As Haldus approached his eternal lord, he dropped to his knees, awed and afraid.

No, he realised, I’m not a god, but the servant of a god.

In a moment, Haldus understood everything. There was a reason he felt such a bond with each incarnation of Orion. His entire purpose was to serve and watch over him. It always had been. It was the reason he had been sent to the physical realm.

‘The final test approaches,’ said the horned god, leaning forwards in his throne.

Kurnous spoke with the roar of a tempest and Haldus cowered at the sound. He heard laughter coming from some of the other beings in the trees, but dared not face them. He had recalled his true station. He might not be as humble as a mortal, but he was humble nonetheless. To converse with one god was enough.

‘Keep him safe,’ said Kurnous. It was not a request.

Haldus tried to rise, and assure his master that he would never fail him. He would die before he let Orion be harmed.

The words stalled in his mouth but the god seemed to hear them just the same. He nodded and sat back in his throne.

Haldus cowered on the ground for a while, waiting to be dismissed; then he realised that the gods had forgotten him. They had shifted their gaze west and their terrible faces looked troubled. Haldus tried to see what they saw, but his eyes were too weak. All he could make out was a faint glow on the horizon, somewhere beyond the sea. It was the flicker of a vast fire, seen from hundreds of miles away and it filled Haldus with an awful sense of dread.

The thought of fire reminded Haldus of Amphion, the eagle spirit that had consumed him. As soon as he recalled his mortal self, the impossible glade began to vanish. Flames washed over everything until all that Haldus could see was Kurnous’s feral gaze. That soon vanished too but, before it did, Haldus noticed a softening of the god’s expression. He saw gratitude, perhaps even pity, and then the eyes were gone.

Haldus roared in pain and staggered backwards, clutching at his burned flesh. He stumbled over a fallen tree and landed on his back in a pool of weed-knotted water. The air was thick with the rancid stench of plague and the sky was yellow. There was no mistaking the diseased wreckage of his home. He looked down at his body, expecting to see something equally ruined. To his surprise, he was not burned. He was bruised and scarred from countless battles, but there was not a single blister from his embrace with the eagle.

‘What is this?’ he moaned, struggling free of the pallid weeds. As he climbed to his feet he started to recall a strange dream, filled with blazing trees and terrible gods. The memory was fleeting. The more he tried to grasp it, the more the details slipped away, leaving him with a single, worrying thought. He had to protect Orion.

‘What are you?’ asked a thin, scraping voice.

Haldus looked across the little pool and flinched. On the far side of the pool was the eagle spirit. It was sitting patiently, watching him from its halo of flames, its four wings folded behind its back. He looked around. They were in a small, muddy clearing, surrounded by the pathetic stumps of diseased trees. It was early morning, not much after dawn by the looks of it, but the light coming from the spirit was enough for Haldus to see that there was no escape. Beyond the trees was a quivering, garish obscenity. Whichever direction he looked, there were mounds of pink and purple fungus. Each of the growths was surrounded by clouds of gnats and spores and leaking rivers of eye-achingly yellow pus. Haldus groaned as he saw animals lurching and limping between them. There were foxes, boars and birds, all mutated beyond recognition. They screamed and whimpered as they moved, tormented by the changes rippling through their bodies. Haldus gripped his head, as though in pain. To see his home like this was agony. How could things ever be as they were?

‘It comes this way,’ said the eagle spirit. Its voice was a little lower, softened by fear or sadness. It turned and fixed one of its large, oil-black eyes on Haldus. ‘The plague is unstoppable now. It will pass through here any minute. Your flesh will change, like everything else.’

The spirit did not sound saddened by the prospect of Haldus’s death. It clearly despised him.

‘Why did you not kill me?’ Haldus asked.

The flames around the eagle dimmed slightly as it considered this. When it replied, it sounded hesitant.

‘You are not what you appear to be. What are you?’

Haldus shook his head, confused. ‘I am the Prince of Arum Tor. My home is in the mountains. The Cáder Donann is where–’

The spirit interrupted him with a screeched laugh. ‘You don’t know. You don’t know your own nature.’

Haldus decided that the spirit must be insane. Perhaps its imprisonment at the hands of Lord Cyanos had unhinged its mind.

The spirit looked disappointed. ‘I thought perhaps you were something new – something that might save us.’ It laughed again, but this time at itself. ‘I am a fool. I may as well have killed you along with the others.’

Haldus was about to speak when the spirit thrashed its four wings and launched itself into the air. The second its huge talons left the ground, the spirit vanished, leaving Haldus with only an after-image of its flaming silhouette.

He cursed and looked around. The spirit had been right – the mutant fungus was rolling and tumbling towards the little pool he was standing in. Tentacle-like growths had lurched up from the gaudy mass of shapes and were already stretching towards him. They were moving painfully slowly, but it was only a matter of time until they reached him.

He climbed up the shattered remains of a tree and made one last attempt to save himself: he placed his fingers to his lips and let out a long, clear whistle. The sound bounced back from the miasma and Haldus had the impression that it travelled no further than the first wave of fungus. He slumped back in the fork of the tree, filled with despair. He thought of Damára and Clorana and the others he had left behind, and prayed that they were still alive.

As he sat back, something pressed into the small of his back. He reached round to move what he thought was a broken branch and his fingers brushed against the book he had taken from Cyanos’s theatre. It was a small, bulging notebook, hundreds of pages thick and crammed with small, tightly packed lines of handwritten text, written in scratchy black ink. Haldus shook his head in distaste as he studied it. Over the top of the words, Cyanos had scribbled diagrams and sketches in other colours. There were countless equations and formulas and portraits of forest spirits: a great stag; a bloated toad; a golden child caught in a tempest; a hooded mage, with flesh made of serpents; a flaming eagle, clearly Amphion; a serene-looking wolf; and, finally, separated from the others by a harsh line and rows of notes, the forest dragons.

Haldus peered at the tiny characters, forgetting for a moment about the daemon-plague rushing towards him. Some of the text was written in the crude, indecipherable alphabet of mankind but Cyanos had also used elven runes. The runes were of an archaic style, but Haldus began to piece together what they meant. Cyanos was boasting – boasting of how easily he had beguiled the forest spirits. He had divided them, deliberately, from the great drakes, by seeding lies over hundreds of years. Haldus shivered as he realised the full extent of Cyanos’s lunacy. Serving different masters at different times, he had driven the great drakes into self-imposed exile – telling them a lie of some kind, concerning Orion. Cyanos had learned that, with the Council of Beasts divided, the forest would begin to die. His original hope was that, as this catastrophe struck, the forest would drive out the asrai forever.

Haldus skipped to the final pages. The writing here was more erratic, careering across the page in a series of manic spirals. From what Haldus could glean, Cyanos had recently fallen under the sway of a new master. His final words were gibberish – describing a beautiful garden, tended by a benevolent, smiling grandfather. This was his new vision for the forest. Cyanos had written at great length about how delightful this garden was, but the accompanying illustrations showed a bloated, knotted stomach, severed from its body, floating in a pool of liquid and swarming with flies.

Haldus shuddered and threw the book from the tree. It flew across the clearing and into the approaching wave of fungus. As he watched in disbelief, a snake-like growth sprang up and swallowed the book before it could hit the ground. The tube of fungus was topped by the head of a leprous wolf and it grinned at Haldus as it gulped the pages down.

Haldus climbed higher and stared out across the forest. Wherever he looked, he saw nothing but swollen, diseased life, feeding on the forest’s corpse.

‘I have to reach Orion,’ he muttered.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Drycha tasted the blood of her enemy and smiled. The ground was sodden with it. The interlopers had fought hard to defend the Blessed Oak and they had died in their hundreds. The daemons had already moved on, as the Ancient One told her they would, but not before tearing down Ariel’s pathetic defences. As Drycha clicked and clacked through the shadows, blood oozed through her knotted feet, nourishing her hate. Behind her came the Wildwood Host: nearly two thousand of her vengeful sisters. Even the Ancient One’s visions had never predicted this. Nothing could stand against such numbers. And now, as Coeddil had promised her, the final barriers were about to come down – destroyed by the same fools who constructed them. Drycha had answered the witch’s summons because she felt the terror and desperation in her magic.

Freedom was close. She could taste it as clearly as the blood.

Drycha made no attempt to disguise herself as she approached the Oak of Ages. She did not even take her sisters with her. At a wave of her brittle-bark claws they folded into shadow, vanishing into the rotten trees like ghosts, leaving Drycha to approach the interlopers alone.

What a pitiful group. The council of the great realms had been scattered. Drycha had foreseen their demise months ago on the threads of the Great Weave, but that made it no less satisfying to see now. Less than half of the pale lords survived. A few of them were leading their people to their deaths in the south and the rest were here, huddled at the foot of the Oak, whimpering like abandoned children.

They recoiled at the sight of her, turning to the red-haired figure at their centre.

She did not tell them I was coming, thought Drycha. Laughter bubbled in her narrow chest but she suppressed it. So many crimes were about to be punished, so many debts repaid. She would not demean the lives that had been lost with laughter. Drycha heard the witch address her, but her attention had wandered to the Oak. It was dying. The bark had split in several places and blood was flowing from the wounds, raining on the criminals cowering in its roots.

‘This is what you have wrought.’ Drycha wrapped her mouth around their vile language and hurled clarion, cold words through the darkness. She kept her gaze locked on the ancient tree, horrified by the sight. ‘I have made mistakes,’ her voice was cracked and hoarse, ‘but I can atone and the forest will forgive. You are not meant to be here. And this is the result of your trespass.’

Someone began speaking and Drycha realised it was one of the false king’s priests – one of his horned riders. ‘What hope is there in this, Naieth?’ he demanded, fixing his black eyes on the witch and jabbing his spear at Drycha. ‘She despises us, more than the daemon.’

The witch shook her head and this time Drycha heard her words. They were filled with sadness. ‘It is another’s hate you see, Atolmis. She is just the vessel.’

Rage boiled through Drycha’s sap. It took all her strength not to butcher the pitiful lot of them. ‘My hate is my own.’ She flexed her claws and stepped closer. To her satisfaction, most of the nobles backed away, but Naieth and Atolmis stood firm.

Naieth rattled her long, black nails along her staff. ‘Your master has lived too long, dryad. He has nothing left but treachery and bitter remembrance. His vision is dimmed. And he has lied to you.’

A dozen furious retorts sprang to Drycha’s lips but she bit them all back. The end was almost at hand. She would not tarnish her moment of victory by squabbling with such unworthy souls. ‘Why have you summoned me?’ She felt a flush of pleasure, knowing what was about to come.

Naieth closed her eyes for a second, looking troubled. Then she looked back at the bleeding Oak, as though waiting for an answer. None came and she turned back to Drycha, mouthing words under her breath but not saying them out loud.

‘Speak up, witch,’ said Drycha, relishing Naieth’s discomfort.

Naieth straightened her back and said: ‘You know what I would ask of you, dryad. The forest is consumed. Our halls have fallen. The future of our race hangs in the balance. My visions have shown me a wound, in the south of the forest – a hole in the mortal realm. The daemon that has entered our home has created a tear in the Great Weave, allowing the winds of Chaos to leak through. If we do not heal the wound, the forest – perhaps the world – will be destroyed.’

There was sharp crack as Drycha nodded her head. ‘This I have seen, witch, long ago. You have interrupted me as I lead my sisters to war. Once I am finished here we head south, where we will remove the forest’s other unwelcome guests.’

Naieth’s eyes glittered as she stepped closer. ‘Your master has misled you. You cannot do this alone. Without Orion and the Wild Hunt, there can be no victory.’ She waved her staff at the shadows. ‘The forest must strike as one – not just you and your sisters, but Orion too.’

Drycha said nothing but her eyes burned in their narrow, splintered sockets.

‘We need your help,’ said Naieth. ‘The daemon has robbed the forest of its seasons.’ She looked at Atolmis. ‘The Chosen One has been found, but he cannot be born. With no Even-night he will remain trapped in the Otherworld, nameless and disembodied. We need a spring, Drycha, even if it is only for an hour, we need a spring.’

Drycha smiled, causing the nobles to flinch. ‘Then use your bullying magic, witch. Twist the threads as you have always done. Wring out whatever reality you desire. You have no need of me.’

Naieth clenched her jaw. ‘Savour your moment, dryad, if you must, but give me an answer. You say you have seen all this. You know our power is failing. But the host you have been granted has strength enough to do this. With so many spirits at your command you could turn the very elements to your will. You know this is within your grasp, dryad. Will you help us?’

Drycha stepped up to Naieth and traced a splintered talon across her cheek. ‘And if you’re right – if I can do this, why would I help the imposters who have destroyed my home? Why would I help the self-appointed jailers who have kept my kind locked away in the Wildwood?’

‘If you do not, the forest will die.’

‘I do not believe you.’

Naieth paled. ‘But you will help. I have seen it in my dreams.’

‘For a price.’

Naieth looked suddenly tired and lowered her head.

‘We will give you nothing!’ cried Atolmis, levelling his spear at Drycha, his face full of outrage.

She ignored him and kept her eyes locked on Naieth. ‘Your witch thinks differently.’ Still smiling, she turned and began summoning her sisters into the sacred grove.

Nuin glided low over the treetops as they neared their destination. Prince Haldus scoured the darkness as they flew, straining to recognise anything in the bubbling cesspool below. Nuin had arrived so quickly after he whistled that Haldus knew she must have foreseen his need. And she had not come alone. On either side of Haldus, half-glimpsed in the darkness, were other hawks, their feathers snapping and fluttering in the breeze. Haldus could not see their riders, but he smiled as he thought of them. Damára and Clorana flew together on one bird and the others were ridden by more of his subjects – survivors from the assault on Cyanos’s lair.

Haldus looked upwards, trying to see the stars, but it was no use. The heavens had led them this far but now, as they descended through the pestilent fumes, he had lost all sight of them. Haldus was blind in his own realm. To make matters worse, the air was filled with a haunting, sinister sound. It seemed to be a song, but it was so violent and brutal that he could hardly recognise it as music. The words were indecipherable and they were screeched rather than sung.

After nearly an hour of circling, assaulted by this horrible music, Haldus thought he might lose his mind. Then Nuin changed course, veering south down the shoulder of a steep-sided valley and gliding over a series of small, moonlit hills. Haldus crouched lower and placed his face next to hers. ‘What do you see?’

The other hawks swooped after Nuin and soon he saw what she was leading them towards: the slumped carcass of an old oak tree.

Haldus frowned, then gasped as he recognised the circular area around the broken tree. ‘By the gods,’ he breathed as he saw what had befallen the Oak of Ages.

As they descended, Haldus and his fellow hawk riders saw a strange scene in the sacred grove. From a distance, it looked as though thousands of saplings had been planted around the old Oak but, as they got closer, they saw that the saplings were actually willowy forest spirits – dryads, with brutal faces and lithe, bark-clad limbs. At the centre of the circle were two figures. A robed spellweaver and a dryad. They were clutching each other’s forearms and appeared to be performing a strange dance – swaying and jerking in time to the screamed chorus.

Haldus’s kin had supplied him with fresh weapons and he raised his spear as Nuin neared the Oak, thinking that the asrai council must be under attack.

The hawks landed at the centre of the clearing, inside the circle of dryads and not far from where the two dancers were jerking back and forth.

Haldus leapt down and raced towards the Oak, with the other hawk riders sprinting after him. As they neared the dancers, Haldus saw other asrai standing nearby. They were nobles, he saw – members of the council – but their robes were in tatters and their shoulders were slumped under the weight of failure. He recognised some of them from the army he had abandoned at Crowfoot Falls and wondered what had become of the others. He felt a rush of guilt as they recognised him, but he noticed that none of them were doing anything about the host that had surrounded the sacred oak. There was even one of Orion’s pyre wardens amongst them. The Wild Rider did not look as cowed as the other nobles, but he was making no attempt to fight.

‘What is this?’ demanded Haldus as he approached.

This close, he could see that the spellweaver was Naieth the Prophetess. Her face was locked in a grimace as the dryad wrenched her this way and that, screeching the same song as her sisters.

The Wild Rider strode towards him. Haldus was tall, but Atolmis towered over him. His eyes blazed behind his birchwood mask. ‘Do nothing!’ he cried, in a low, dangerous voice. ‘Keep your people at bay.’

Haldus shook his head, confused, but before he could demand an explanation, something happened that left his question forgotten.

The song reach a crescendo and the two dancers were picked out in a shaft of sunlight. It broke through the swirling clouds like the finger of a god. Haldus knew it was night, but this was clearly sunlight – the fresh, clear sunlight of a spring morning. Haldus reeled as he caught the scent of a real forest, freed from the cloying, diseased warmth that currently lay over the trees. It was intoxicating. For a moment, he even heard the sound of birdsong.

The two dancers stood still and looked up into the column of light, their faces blazing. For a moment, their expressions were identical in their bliss, as they recognised the taste of the banished season.

Then the light failed and the sacred grove vanished – plunged into darkness. Even the moonlight was absent and Haldus heard his daughter hiss in shock. He reached out and placed a hand on her arm.

The dryads ended their song.

Clorana stepped closer to her father and he could sense Damára and the others edging towards him.

A wild, triumphant shriek rang out, causing all of them to flinch. Then the ground began to shake. It felt as though a leviathan was tunnelling its way beneath the sacred grove. A low, groaning sound filled the air.

Then the whole clearing was bathed in lurid, red light.

Haldus saw Clorana’s face inches from his, ugly with terror and crimson as blood. Naieth and the dryad were still standing in the centre of the grove but they were now staring at the ancient oak; one with delight and one with dread.

Haldus whirled around to look at the tree and saw that it was the source of the light. A blood-red furnace had been lit at its core, sending shafts of crimson light in every direction. It looked like a shimmering, blood-drenched star.

The light burned brighter, the ground shook harder and the groaning grew louder.

Naieth staggered past Haldus without noticing him, her eyes fixed on the tree. Her expression was a mixture of hope and terror and she was mouthing spells as she walked, jabbing her staff left and right.

Dryads and asrai alike watched in amazement as the slight figure of the spellweaver reached the foot of the tree. Naieth was silhouetted by the scarlet blaze as she raised her staff and cried out a final command.

There was a deafening crack and a new hole appeared at the heart of the Oak.

The red light vanished and the ground was once more bathed in silver as moonlight returned to the clearing.

Naieth dropped to her knees, hanging weakly from her staff.

Haldus hurried towards her but before he reached the prophetess, the sound of laughter caused him to turn around.

Naieth’s fellow dancer, the dryad, was pointing at something nestling in the roots of the tree. Her laughter was brittle and mirthless but, one by one, the other dryads echoed it, until thousands of derisive shrieks rang out through the trees.

Haldus helped Naieth to her feet and they both recoiled from what lay before them.

In the knotted roots were two broken, malformed horrors. One was a grotesque hybrid of a noblewoman and a mottled, grey insect. Her twisted back sported bristling, spine-like hairs and a coat of shimmering scales. Her blunt, eyeless head was crowned by a pair of feathery antennae that twitched as she moved and her whole body was slick with blood and viscera. This pitiful wretch tried to haul herself into a sitting position, but her jumble of crooked limbs and half-formed wings collapsed under her weight, sending her crashing to the ground. Despite her blindness, she clearly sensed that others were nearby and she tried to cry out for help. Rather than words, a long, scaled proboscis rolled and thrashed in her mouth, unable to extend and causing her to choke.

‘The ritual is complete,’ said the dryad and Haldus heard the victory in her voice. ‘False rulers, born of a false spring.’ She kept her talon levelled at the two struggling shapes. ‘You have what you wanted and, I sense…’ she paused, throwing back her head and sighing with pleasure. ‘I sense that you have paid me my price.’

Naieth moaned in horror and reeled away from Haldus. ‘Deceived,’ she whispered, making for the roots of the tree.

‘They’re going,’ said Clorana, her voice full of relief.

Haldus looked back and saw that his daughter was right. The dryads’ leader was striding triumphantly back towards the trees and the host that surrounded the sacred grove was dispersing and vanishing from view.

‘I have been deceived,’ hissed Naieth as she reached the two twitching shapes. There was terror in her voice.

Haldus rushed past her to study the things she had summoned. The hideous mixture of moth and noblewoman had collapsed into a bloody heap, shedding its organs as it tried to beat its wings and gasp for breath.

The other figure was just as shocking. It was a butcher’s slab of mismatched animal parts, flickering and changing faster than the eye could take in. Haldus saw antlers, wings and claws attempt to rise from the pile of gore, but each one collapsed before it could fully take shape.

‘She tricked me,’ said Naieth, staring at the horrors dying before her.

‘Do something!’ cried Atolmis, rushing across the grove and grabbing her by the shoulders. ‘Save them! Use your magic!’

Naieth slumped in the Wild Rider’s grip. ‘It is no use.’ Her voice shook. ‘Drycha knew this would happen, but she hid the truth from me. She wore a mask. I could not see.’

Atolmis glared at her and waved at the wretched figures. They were twitching in pain and attempting to crawl back into the tree. ‘And what have you done in return for these abominations? What did you promise her?’

Naieth stood up straight and stared back at him, her eyes glazed with horror and shock. ‘I loosed the final wards. I have undone the charms that bound the waystones.’

Atolmis shook his head. ‘What do you mean?’

Naieth groaned. ‘I gave her what she asked for. I freed the last of her sisters. I’ve set the Wildwood loose.’

For a moment, Haldus thought Atolmis was about to strike her. ‘How could you do–?’

His words were interrupted by a scream.

Haldus saw that it came from Clorana. She was pointing at the two figures struggling in the roots.

One of them, the mis-born Orion, had climbed to his feet. His flesh was still mercurial and bubbling, but he managed to stand and howl. The sound was wet and gurgling, but it was full of defiance.

Haldus and the others backed away.

The half-formed figure raised a fist to the sky. It became a hoof, then a bear claw, then a fist again. The fury in the howl was not enough to maintain a fixed shape though. Organs and limbs boiled like a stew, spitting, gurgling and spraying blood across the ground.

Some of the others looked away in pity and disgust, but Haldus had noticed something and stepped closer to look at it. The centre of the thing’s body was fixed and unmoving. It looked like plates of bark, formed into an armoured breastplate and there was a rune blazing at the centre of it. As the body parts rippled and flowed, the armour of bark began moving in time to the howls that came from a dozen kinds of throat.

Finally, as the bark reached the thing’s neck, the roar became gargled, bellowed words. ‘I will!’ cried the dreadful figure. ‘I will be born!’

The asrai looked on in amazement and fear. The rune blazed brighter and the monster reached down and lifted the sack of blood, wings and antennae from the ground and held it to its chest. Then it turned and staggered back into the trunk of the tree.

Haldus and the others watched in stunned silence, waiting to see what happened next.

The crimson light flashed even brighter, knifing from the cracks in the tree, and the ground began to shudder again. Then the heavens began to rotate. Haldus looked at the others to see if he was losing his mind, but they had clearly seen the same. All of them watched, wide-eyed as the stars circled overhead, centred on the dying tree. Music filled the air and it took Haldus a few moments to realise it was coming from his throat.

The others dragged their eyes from the dancing stars, almost as surprised by the sound of Haldus’s song. The words were strange and laden with power. They seemed to be the work of a vast choir – a host of powerful voices, channelled through Haldus’s gaping mouth.

He staggered backwards under the weight of the song, and felt a growing fear. As the music grew louder and more impassioned, he felt as though his mind would split.

The stars spiralled faster, Haldus’s song grew louder and the earth shook harder. Several of the nobles backed away into the shadows beneath the trees, terrified, but Naieth rushed to support Haldus, staring at him with growing awe.

‘I knew you would save him,’ she howled, trying to be heard over the din.

The song reached a crescendo and the stars became a single, blazing vortex, centred over the tree. Haldus collapsed onto his back, despite Naieth’s attempt to hold him. As his head hit the ground he realised there were faces in the light – faces that were both terrible and familiar at the same time. The whirlpool of light poured a column of pure energy into the Oak of Ages, turning the glade into a frozen, monochrome vision.

Then the noise ceased and the light vanished.

They all looked towards the tree, filled with renewed hope, but there was nothing there. The Oak of Ages looked as broken as before and, as natural moonlight flooded back over the grove, Haldus saw nothing but terrified nobles and a few scraps of glistening flesh where their rulers had failed to be born.

Despair threatened to overwhelm him when he heard the song again, coming from somewhere to the left of the tree.

Haldus and the others whirled around and saw that the words were coming from a pair of tall thrones, constructed of pale, knotted roots.

He and the other nobles rushed across the clearing and then dropped to their knees, filled with awe.

Ariel and Orion were sitting calmly in their thrones, looking more beautiful and magnificent than Haldus could ever recall seeing them before. Ariel’s form was almost impossible to make out, hazed by a dazzling mantle of spectral wings and clouds of tiny, diaphanous spirits. Her brow shone with stars and her eyes were full of glittering tears.

Orion, meanwhile was a vision of wrath. His head was lowered, as though he were about to charge forwards and tear his subjects apart with his antlers. He wore a cloak of metal leaves, as always, but this year it was slightly different – it was black as night and bristling with razor-sharp burrs and thorns. He had a spear in his hand and at his belt there was a bow and horn of bone. His chest was broad and his whole frame was lashed with slab-like, angular muscles. Haldus noticed something else new – Orion’s torso was clad in jagged, pitted armour, made of bark and branded with a single glowing rune. The rune shimmered with green light as he leant forwards in the throne and locked his burning eyes on Haldus.

Haldus felt like fleeing or cowering, but he managed to hold his nerve and gave the royals a deep bow, prompting the other nobles to do the same.

Orion turned to Ariel with a question in his eyes. She gave him a look full of love, memory and pride, then nodded.

The Consort-King rose from the throne and addressed his subjects in a rolling baritone. ‘The ancients of this forest,’ he said, running his talons across the bark-armour that covered his chest, ‘know more truths than can be described by prophecy.’ He looked at Naieth. It was only the briefest glance, but it was enough to make her cower. ‘We belong. More than anything, we belong. The forest is our blood. We are the blood of the forest.’ He glanced at the surrounding trees and Haldus saw movement in the dark – low, canine ghosts that edged forwards towards the grove, drawn by the power of Orion’s voice. ‘Lies have been spread. Oaths have been broken. We have been divided. We have allowed an enemy into our home.’ Orion stood and lifted his spear to the sky and howled. ‘But no more!’ His voice shook the trees and caused Haldus’s heart to pound. ‘Seasons or not, I will hunt.’ He stepped away from the throne and slapped the horn at his belt, lowering his voice to a growl. ‘We will all hunt.’ He looked at the rotten, pitiful trees. ‘The threads must tighten. The guardians must unite. The forest must become one.’

Most of the nobles had averted their gaze, but Haldus dared to address Orion. ‘My king,’ he said. ‘I have learned–’

Orion turned to face Haldus and the prince faltered over his words.

‘I… I have learned of a great treachery. I… One of your subjects… A noble by the name of Cyanos has poisoned some of the forest spirits against you. I discovered a–’

Moonlight flashed in Haldus’s eyes as Ariel raised a hand to silence him. Her eyes moved in his direction, and Haldus had the unnerving sensation that they saw far more than his physical presence.

‘Most loyal of subjects, Prince Haldus,’ said the Mage Queen. ‘We have seen your trials. And we have also seen what you have learned. Naieth’s vision was clear,’ she glanced lovingly at the cowering sorceress, and Naieth rallied a little, ‘as it ever was. You have found the canker at the heart of all that we hold dear. He was in the thrall of many who would hurt us. It was the lies of Cyanos that divided and weakened the Council of Beasts. We have suffered many blows, but that was the hardest. Losing the great drakes was the beginning of their doom.’ Pain flashed in her eyes. ‘The fall of the Great Stag, Sativus, their Spirit King, stems from this sundering. And without him…’ she paused and looked at the ground. The lights that surrounded her dimmed and the tiny spirits fell back into her robes. She shook her head.

Orion placed a hand on her shoulder.

Ariel looked into his eyes for a moment and they shared a silent exchange. Then she nodded and continued. ‘You must ride with your king again, Prince Haldus. Hawks must join hounds. The Wild Hunt will be the instrument of our wrath.’

Haldus felt his heart begin to race as Orion looked towards him and bared his long teeth in a smile.

The rangy, shadowy forms began padding from the trees. The hounds of Orion were ready for war.

Before Orion could leave, however, Ariel placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘Wait,’ she said, reaching into her robes.

Naieth nodded eagerly as Ariel drew out the tip of a bleached, dusty incisor.

‘Of course,’ muttered the prophetess, her eyes flashing.

Ariel gave her a nod as she handed the tooth to Orion. ‘The Council of Beasts must become one, Orion. And then they must answer your call. Naieth believes this will be the key to your success.’

Orion looked at the tooth and frowned. ‘What is it?’

Ariel smiled. ‘Nothing happens by chance, my love. To bring the shard of a great serpent from a realm of death is a matter of significance. I found this in your funeral pyre, hidden in your ashes. It was left in your flesh by the ghost of a forest dragon. There is a prophecy here but–’ she glanced at Naieth ’–we cannot read all of the details. It is a talisman of some kind, perhaps – a charm to bring you luck. Naieth’s rites have all been unclear. Whatever the reason, we’re sure you must take it.’

Orion frowned at the memory of the dragon, but he took the tooth and hid it beneath his cloak of thorns.

He turned and held up a hand to the hounds. ‘Soon,’ he said quietly, ‘we will hunt.’

Then he thudded from the clearing, with Haldus and the other warhawk riders sprinting after him.

‘Tal Mhór!’ cried Haldus as the hawks carried them across the surface of a wide, glassy lake. They were deep in the Chasm Glades, far to the east of the Oak of Ages, and Orion was leading them towards a vast tree, nestled between the toes of the mountains. They were at the eastern-most reaches of the forest, away from the stranglehold of the plague and north of the craggy peaks Haldus called home. It was mid afternoon and the skies were clear. There was a ghost of winter on the breeze that buffeted them as they flew but, even here, the seasons were in retreat. The air was laced with an acrid smell and traces of humid, tropical warmth.

‘This is a place I have never been foolish enough to approach,’ continued Haldus as they approached their destination.

Orion’s hawk was near to Haldus’s and the prince glimpsed a flash of humour in his eyes. As always, Haldus felt as though he and Orion shared a deep bond of understanding but the king’s latest incarnation was different. There was something playful – devious even – in Orion’s eyes that Haldus had not seen before.

The Consort-King glanced at him. ‘Unlike your king.’

Haldus felt his cheeks flush red and he silently cursed his lack of deference.

Orion looked back at the tree and Haldus followed his gaze.

Tal Mhór was a cornerstone of the World Roots – one of the portals that linked the forest to the forests of the wider world. But there were few travellers, asrai or otherwise, who would brave its boughs now. The tree was a sister to the guardians that watched over the Crowfoot Falls. It was half a mile in circumference and its crown was lost from view, way above the clouds – taller even than the mountain peaks that flanked it. Centuries earlier, it had become host to some of the forest’s most dangerous predators – the great drakes. Until recently, no one had known what drew the forest dragons to that specific spot, but in Cyanos’s scribbled notes, Haldus had discovered the truth – lies had driven them to self-imposed exile. They brooded and slept, high in the boughs of Tal Mhór, seeking nothing but food and a chance to punish those stupid enough to approach. Haldus had heard tales as a child that the dragons served the forest – protecting it at times of great need – but that had not proven to be the case. As he tried, unsuccessfully to save the asrai halls from plague, he had looked to the skies in hope of their coming, and been disappointed every time.

They landed near the roots and Haldus waved for Clorana and the others to wait a few feet away as he spoke to the king.

Orion was hunched over something and, as Haldus reached him he saw that he had removed the fragment of dragontooth from his cloak and was staring at it.

‘The memories are all there,’ said Orion.

Haldus waited a few feet away not sure if he was being addressed.

‘I am Finavar,’ said the king, ‘and I am Sephian. I am Valerin, Nathair, Cirean, Nimhír and a hundred other souls.’ His eyes widened. ‘I can hear them all.’ He looked up at the tree. ‘Sephian advises we set the tree alight and drive the serpents out with flames.’ He laughed. ‘Nimhír believes we should abandon this plan and hunt Drycha down instead, before she destroys every spirit in the forest.’ He ran his calloused, taloned hands over the antlers that crowned his head. ‘But we are more than we ever were alone.’ He closed his eyes. ‘There is a wildness in this world, Haldus. There is a power greater than anything I ever imagined.’ He looked up at the bone-white vault of the sky. Wisps of cloud were scudding across the heavens. ‘Even the darkest conjuring of sorcerers is nothing to the simple power of nature. Even the gods are in thrall.’

Orion’s words were dazed and full of awe and Haldus felt as though he were intruding. He began to back away but, before he had taken a few steps, Orion looked up at him. ‘You are part of it too, Haldus. You have been with me since the beginning.’

Haldus shook his head, confused, Orion continued.

‘Do you recall the eagle spirit, Amphion?’

Haldus winced. ‘I do.’

Orion noticed his discomfort. ‘What troubles you?’

‘When I returned to Turas-Alva, Amphion was still there, held captive by Lord Cyanos. Cyanos intended to sacrifice the spirit so that he could steal its power for his own.’ He hesitated. ‘I rescued it and then, although it clearly despised me, it let me live.’

‘In gratitude?’

‘No.’ Haldus frowned. ‘It told me I did not understand my own nature. It said I was something it had not expected.’

Orion looked at Haldus in silence for a while. Then asked: ‘Do you recall how Cyanos’s spear pierced its flesh?’

‘Of course, yes. The spear was still intact when I freed Amphion.’

Orion held up the shard of tooth he was holding. ‘This comes from the same source. It was left in my corpse by the dragon, Tamarix.’

Haldus stared at it. ‘So it could pierce the hide of his kin.’

Orion nodded. ‘If all goes ill, it could buy us our escape.’

He turned and signalled for Clorana and the other warhawk riders to dismount and join them.

‘We must climb,’ he said. ‘I will lead the beasts to war. The Wild Hunt is a greater power than anything the Plague God can wield. With a dragon as my mount, the spirits will see what I signify. And if I can stir the Council of Beasts to war, the forest will unite. I’m sure of it.’

Haldus nodded, then looked anxiously up at the tree. All that he had heard of this place was that it meant death for anyone foolish enough to approach.

Orion caught his gaze and smiled. The smile was an odd mixture of ferocity and cunning. ‘Trust me.’ He tapped the ridged, mossy plates that covered his chest. ‘The forest is on our side.’

They climbed quickly. The asrai were born for this kind of work. Even Orion’s battered hooves found easy purchase in the craggy boughs. By sunset they were several miles from the foot of the tree and the branches were silvered with frost. It was not until well into the night that they caught a trace of their prey.

Damára’s blindness had been no more of a hindrance than Orion’s hooves; if anything, her nimble fingers seemed even more adept than the others’ at finding handholds and sturdy branches to climb. Starlight gleamed in her silver hair as she overtook the others, using her horned staff to lever herself over obstacles and haul herself through gaps. With dawn just a couple of hours away, she paused and sniffed the cold night air.

Orion, Haldus and the others all paused to look at her.

‘There is death here,’ she announced, pointing her staff at a wide, flat branch, swooping away to the east. ‘It happened a long time ago, but it’s too much to be the work of birds.’

Orion gripped his spear and stepped out onto the branch, peering along its length.

Haldus noticed, to his surprise, that the hunter king was hesitating.

‘My lord?’ he asked following him onto the wide branch.

‘Everything hinges on this, Haldus,’ said Orion, still keeping his gaze fixed on the other end of the branch. ‘I must convince one of them to carry me. Then the others will follow.’

‘My lord,’ said Haldus. ‘I have never seen you so powerful. The forest itself has lent you its armour. And you carry a weapon that even dragons could not–’

‘No,’ interrupted Orion. ‘This is not a question of power.’ He turned to Damára, who was standing a few feet away. ‘Can you smell them? Can you smell their anger? Their hurt?’

She nodded but gave no answer and Haldus realised she was afraid of Orion. He was about to reassure her that the King in the Woods was not to be feared, but then he recalled the deaths he had seen at Orion’s hands. He held his tongue, noticing how Damára was keeping their daughter at a safe distance. Perhaps her caution was not so ill-advised?

Orion nodded in reply. ‘They are wounded and bitter. If we fight them they will either kill us or die. I must reason with them.’ He took a few steps along the branch. ‘I can picture them as they once were – loyal servants of the forest, ready to fight when the trees called. They were as wise as Sativus and…’ His words trailed off and Haldus saw that the mention of Sativus had derailed his thoughts.

‘Then we will reason,’ said Haldus.

Orion clenched his jaw, considering something, then strode off down the branch with the others rushing to keep up.

The tree pressed closer and, even though they were miles above the ground, it felt as though they were approaching the borders of an ancient grove. There was a thick mesh of twigs up ahead and the branch led, road-like, to a tall, oval entrance.

Haldus waved to his kinsmen as they neared the doorway. They unslung their bows and nocked arrows into place as they followed Orion.

Orion paused briefly at the threshold, gripped his spear in both hands, then plunged into the gloom on the other side.

Prince Haldus rushed after him and saw that they had entered some kind of vast antechamber, hanging way above the forest. Beyond the doorway the branch widened to form a circular platform, several hundred feet in diameter and canopied by a huge, arched dome. The whole tree was leafless and stars glittered through the gaps in the dome, spilling light onto the wooden floor and proving Damára right. There were bones everywhere – femurs and skulls, heaped in mounds and covered in dust.

Orion and the others spread out to investigate and saw that some of the bones came from animals and some had belonged to asrai warriors. All of them had been torn apart and left in splintered fragments.

There was no sign of the dragons.

At the other side of the chamber there was another portal, even larger than the first and there was a pale light leaking through.

Orion strode through into the next chamber and the others rushed after him.

At first, Haldus thought they were surrounded by statues. Towering, dusty columns surrounded another circular chamber – each one the perfect likeness of an enormous, winged serpent. But then he noticed that, beneath inches of dust and cobwebs, their eyes were moving, watching Orion as he strode into the centre of the chamber.

‘Which of you is Tanos?’ demanded Orion, recalling the name he had heard at the Council of Beasts.

There was no sound but the breeze, whipping between the naked branches that made up the walls of the chamber.

Haldus and the other warhawk riders hesitated nervously in the doorway, awed by the vast monsters looming over them. Even their powerful king looked pathetic surrounded by such terrible grandeur. It looked as though the dragons had not moved for an age, but that did nothing to soften the ferocity of their appearance.

Clorana gasped and to Haldus’s shock, he saw her mother was hurrying over to Orion, stepping out into the view of the dragons.

The sound of the wind made it hard for the blind spellweaver to find Orion, so she called out to him.

Haldus winced as her voice rang out, but the dragons remained motionless.

Orion stepped over to her and nodded as she whispered something in his ear.

Haldus rushed over and dragged Damára back to the doorway, glaring at her as Clorana gripped her arm.

‘What did you tell him?’ he whispered.

Damára was pale and shaking from her exchange with Orion, but she managed a weak smile. ‘I merely reminded the king of how proud dragons are.’

Haldus was about to ask more when Orion cried out again to the immobile serpents.

‘This is just what they warned me would happen.’

He waited for a response, but none came so he continued. ‘I passed through the Darna-Càoch. The forgotten pool admitted me to the sacred grove and ordered the Council of Beasts to join me. They refused, and when I asked why, they told me a shameful truth. They said that the greatest of their number had grown afraid. They told me that they could not fight without you, and that you have long forgotten your bravery.’

Orion’s hooves rang out as he strode around the circular chamber, glaring up at the serpents’ long, imperious faces.

‘I should have listened,’ he cried, jabbing his spear at each of them in turn. ‘You are not worthy of a place in my hunt. You are not worthy of sharing in my victory!’ He began walking back towards the doorway. ‘Stay here and cower, while your betters fight to save your wretched skins.’

Orion had almost reached the doorway when a sound filled the chamber. It was a low, derisive snarl that gradually formed into ragged, growled words.

‘There are no cowards here, only betrayers and betrayed.’

As Orion whirled around, Prince Haldus saw one of the dragons climb down from the wall. It landed with a juddering crash that shook the whole chamber and caused him and the other warhawk riders to stumble back a few steps. The serpent stretched its wings and reared over Orion, like a great eagle towering over a fledgling. Dust billowed from its scales, revealing a vivid, apple green hide and eyes that were shimmering crescents of amber and red.

‘Are you Tanos?’ demanded Orion.

The dragon slowly nodded its massive head, shedding more dust and causing Haldus and the others to cough and splutter.

‘And will you fight with me, Tanos?’ demanded Orion, pointing his spear back at his companions. ‘Will you join the hunt?’

Tanos lowered its head until it was just a few feet from Orion’s face. As it exhaled, the force of its breath was enough to send him back a few steps.

‘Why would I fight for you? You have no power, Orion. Your promises have come to nothing. Under your rule, the forest has been destroyed.’ The dragon raised its voice, causing Orion to stagger back a few more steps. ‘We do not sleep, Orion. We see all. This perch is high. High enough to show us all your weakness and treachery. The asrai have failed us. You have failed us. The forest is lost. The Council of Beasts has been destroyed – but not by our absence.’ Tanos’s lips curled back from teeth as big as spears. ‘The Council was destroyed the moment you murdered Sativus!’

Haldus saw Orion wince at these words, but before the king could reply, Tanos continued, venting a long-held grudge.

‘You murdered the oldest of us, Orion. The best of us. You killed the Great Stag. Do you understand what that means? Sativus was the very soul of the forest.’

Orion shook his head. ‘You had already withdrawn from the Brúidd before the fall of Sativus.’ He strode forwards, sounding as angry as the dragon. ‘And if you truly see everything, you will know that Sativus was crazed. He attacked my queen. I only sought him out to beg forgiveness for standing against him. But he was not himself.’ The rage faded from Orion’s voice, replaced by sadness. ‘Chaos took him long before I did.’

Tanos sneered. ‘You know nothing, little elf king. And it matters not.’ The dragon’s eyes grew dark. ‘The heart of the forest is gone. Your battles are meaningless. We will wait here and defend our home. And you will reap what you have sown.’

Haldus felt Damára step forwards. He held her back but Orion saw her move and nodded.

‘Admit it, Tanos,’ he said quietly. ‘You are afraid to fight.’

Tanos’s eyes blazed white-hot and the dragon tilted its head back with a roar, spewing a poisonous-smelling spiral of fumes across the ceiling of the chamber.

Haldus gripped his bow and nodded for the others to do the same.

Orion started walking back to the doorway again.

Haldus saw, to his horror that the dragon was about to pounce.

‘Orion!’ he cried as Tanos launched itself across the chamber with a deafening howl.

Haldus and the others fired their arrows but they bounced uselessly off the dragon’s iron-hard scales.

Orion cast aside his spear, rolled to one side and, as Tanos crashed down where he had been standing, he threw all his weight into a punch, slamming his fist hard against the dragon’s jaw.

Tanos’s head jolted to one side, but it was laughing as it turned and settled on its haunches. ‘So this is how you die, little elf king,’ said the dragon, its voice low and dangerous. ‘Did you think you could make the tiniest scratch in one such as I? Do you truly understand so little about the forest? Do you know nothing of my nature?’

Haldus noticed that the other dragons were descending from the walls, shedding their robes of dust and revealing a rainbow of armoured hides.

‘I am your king, Tanos,’ said Orion. ‘Where I lead, you follow.’

The dragon sneered, but Orion continued, unperturbed. He nodded at the floor of knotted branches beneath the dragon. ‘And where I strike, you will bleed.’

Haldus saw the shock in Tanos’s eyes as it looked down and saw a dark, glinting pool forming around its claws. The dragon reached up to touch its jaw and felt a flap of loose hide, hanging from below its teeth, shedding blood down its scales.

‘You cannot–’ began Tanos, but before the dragon could finish, Orion had bounded across the chamber and planted another punch into one of its legs.

The force of the blow was great enough to topple the dragon. It slammed to the ground and howled.

As Orion backed away, Tanos looked down and saw with disbelief that Orion had torn a great gash along its leg. There was more blood pouring from the dragon and bone was clearly visible.

Tanos pounded its wings and flew across the chamber at Orion. Again, Orion ducked aside and landed a punch on the dragon’s head.

The dragon veered off to the left, still flying and smashed into the wall of branches. Bark, dust and splintered wood covered the serpent as it tried to rise. Blood was rushing from the other side of its head and, as it turned to face Orion, Haldus saw that there was fear in its eyes.

Haldus cried out a warning as the other dragons rushed forwards to attack. He loosed an arrow, knowing it would do no good, and the other warhawk riders did the same.

Orion paid no heed to the warning and charged at Tanos, raising his fist for another blow.

‘Wait!’ roared Tanos, raising one of its claws and backing away along the wall.

Orion halted but the other dragons kept hurtling towards him. He dodged the first of them and punched a hole through the second’s wings. It rolled clear with a howl and, before the next one had reached Orion, Tanos cried out.

‘Stop!’

The dragons crashed to the ground all around Orion, but did not attack.

The king reeled backwards for a moment, then came to a halt and glared at Tanos.

‘I do not need the help of a coward,’ he cried. ‘I can kill twelve dragons as easily as one.’

Tanos shook its head, spraying blood through the air.

Haldus could see the shock in its eyes.

‘What power do you have over us?’ gasped Tanos.

‘I am the King in the Forest,’ replied Orion. ‘The last dragon I vanquished was named Tamarix. I fight you now with the strength I took from his corpse.’

Tanos looked at the other dragons in amazement.

They shook their heads and began rising up over the king, readying themselves for another attack.

‘No!’ snapped Tanos. It moved closer to Orion, limping as a result of its wounds. ‘I thought… I thought you were a fool. But you are…’ The dragon’s words trailed off.

‘He is your king!’ cried Haldus, striding across the chamber to Orion’s side. The others rushed after him, surrounding Orion in a protective circle and levelling arrows at the dragons.

Tanos shook its head, bewildered.

As Haldus edged closer, he glimpsed the shard of dragontooth Orion was clutching in his fist. It was not hard to spot, but he realised that Tanos was not looking for tricks. The dragon was looking for hope.

‘He is my king,’ said Tanos in a quiet, awed voice, and the other dragons recoiled in shock.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The fly queen was tormented by glimpses of her past. As she whirred through the clouds, her mind boiled with confusing images: mounds of rotting meat and bubbling tumours merged with glimpses of a proud and noble past. She tried to stay focussed, fixing her compound eyes on the scene below. The daemon’s garden was finally completed and ready to serve its purpose. Its shape was now unmistakable. Miles-long spirals of pink fungus had come together to create a vast, luminescent stomach, fed by eight rivers of bile and covering the entire south-western corner of the forest.

As the yellow rivers fed this grotesque organ, it gurgled and grew – an endless explosion of life, enveloping and digesting, consuming the few pulpy trees that remained. The walls of the stomach were lined with a dazzling array of fungi and glistening, unnatural beings. She saw groves of arrow-headed toadstools, painted in impossibly garish shades of purple and puce, reaching high into the swirling spore clouds. There were truffles the size of boulders, crawling with lice and scurrying around on glistening, serpentine legs. Colossal puffballs erupted from every crevice, pale as bone and oozing dark trails of blood. Sunbursts of golden lichen were splashed over the rocks and crawled up the stems of black, ridged morels. Fungus covered every surface and, rushing through all these ridges and parasols were tiny, bloated daemons – horned balls of blubber, frolicking through the madness on their fat little legs.

The fly queen felt neither pride nor shame as she studied the nightmare below. She looked at the point where the eight yellow rivers met and knew that her time had almost come. There was only one part of her past still lodged in her insectoid brain – a simple desire for revenge – and that revenge was about to be granted. Seated at the conjunction of the rivers was the daemon, Alkhor, smiling proudly at the culmination of his work. He looked like he had been slapped to earth from a giant ladle: a tumbling, almost pyramidal pile of flab. His torso was gaping open like a pair of rotten doors and his innards were crammed with every mould and contagion imaginable.

As viscous liquid rushed into his body, his gruesome cabinet of curiosities shivered and hissed. With every shiver the grim trophies popped and multiplied, dividing like cells and forming new, even more grotesque forms of life that merged with Alkhor’s flesh. As these births shook his body, Alkhor grew larger and laughed harder.

The fly queen flew towards him. Her wings were nearly twelve feet in span and her body was a huge, armoured hulk of bristles, but beside Alkhor she looked no bigger than a bluebottle.

She was only thirty feet away when Alkhor noticed her.

One of the cyclopean tallymen emptied a jar of spores into the daemon’s chest cavity and triggered another violent judder. The unwitting daemon turned around and was about to head back to the forest when Alkhor enveloped it in vomit.

A column of blazing yellow liquid spewed from Alkhor’s mouth, flying with such violence that his chins trembled and clapped against each other, applauding the display.

The torrent was brief – no more than a few seconds – but powerful enough to do its job. As the fly queen whirred higher, attempting to dodge the jet of liquid, she saw it hit an invisible barrier, several feet away from Alkhor’s wobbling face. For a brief moment it splashed across the air, as though hitting a pane of glass, then it broke through, creating a tall, black gash, hanging in the air above the garden.

The fly queen circled and spiralled, unsure what to make of this new wonder. It was a hole in nothing – a tear in the sky – and, as she flew closer, she saw that there was something moving on the other side.

There was a wet popping sound as the hole grew wider and began spraying shapes into the garden.

The fly queen looped out of the way as hundreds of daemons began pouring from the hole and slapping down onto the ground – a violent hail of blubber and horns.

Alkhor laughed as he witnessed the scale of his success. The pressure of the daemons was forcing the tear in reality to widen and strain. As it did so the area of garden nearby began to undulate, like a reflection seen in rippling water.

‘My children!’ he gurgled, opening his arms as hundreds of daemons bounced off his face. Heaving his massive bulk upright, Alkhor grasped the two sides of his gaping chest and slammed them together, so that he could start dancing around with them.

‘Lead them to victory, my queen!’ he cried, looking around the garden. He caught sight of the fly queen and waved her over. ‘Our children have arrived in the nick of time. The tree fairies are coming to drive us out, Ordaana. They will not…’ his words broke down into giggles as the influx of daemons pounded against his face with even more force, filling his gaping mouth with wriggling, pallid monsters. ‘They will not expect to find so many new friends,’ he managed to say eventually. ‘You must hurry to greet them while I complete my work. He’s almost here, my queen.’ Alkhor’s eyes widened as he realised the truth of his own words. ‘I can feel Him forming in my flesh, Ordaana. Just a few more specimens and He will arrive. Now that the portal is open, He’s free to become part of this realm.’ Alkhor’s voice trembled. ‘Soon, I will become Him. Soon, I will be a god. A god that walks the earth.’

The fly queen tried to reply, but all that emerged was a lisping, incoherent hiss.

Alkhor nodded, understanding her just the same. ‘The king and queen are yours, Ordaana. None shall have the pleasure of killing them but you. That was my promise.’ Then he turned back to the wound he had made in the air and began using his huge, rusty sword as a lever, wedging it in the gap and trying to widen it. Another glut of daemons poured out as he jammed the sword deeper and the ground beneath Alkhor’s feet began to bubble and change.

The fly queen felt a rush of joy. She could no longer recall what slight had driven her to despise Ariel and Orion with such passion, but the thought of their deaths shone through all the filth and filled her with purpose. The daemon’s dreams of godhood sounded like lunacy to her, but what did it matter if she could take Ariel’s head from her lying shoulders? She let out a long, screeching cry and the daemons all flooded in her direction. A host of plague-bearing tallymen, bandy-legged and cyclopean, led the charge, waving rusted swords and blowing discordant, three-stemmed horns. Scrambling between the larger daemons’ legs came the blubbery, little replicas of Alkhor, giggling, scampering and cartwheeling with pleasure. Larger, shapeless monsters bounded dog-like through the crowd, slobbering and panting and powering towards her on muscled, tentacle-legs. Finally, entering the garden from every direction came vast squadrons of the daemon-flies, each as big as she was and carrying spear-wielding, cyclopean riders.

The army was vast, but as the fly queen led them north towards the border of the garden, it grew even larger, bolstered by the torrent of daemons spraying from the hole Alkhor had created. The numbers were beyond counting – in the thousands, certainly, but with every second that passed the hole in the sky added hundreds more.

The army waddled, giggled and slithered north with the fly queen at its head. The stomach garden was surrounded on all sides by towering, impenetrable walls of fungus, but at its northern-most point there was a blubber-lined valley – a giant oesophagus, that allowed Alkhor’s children access to his noisome playground. The blubbery passage had formed on the site of a narrow valley called Còlgarran Pass and the name swam up from the depths of the fly queen’s mind, giving her an odd chill of recognition.

The rocky walls of the valley were no longer visible, subsumed by a rippling forest of mauve, coral-like fingers, but its original shape was still recognisable – a deep cleft through the landscape, half a mile wide at its northern entrance and no more than fifty feet across as it entered the garden. Alkhor had grown a sentinel to guard its entrance: a gelatinous, indigo tower of fungus. Ordaana felt a distant sense of awe as she studied the repulsive thing: a slumped column of greasy lobes, reaching high up into the clouds, like a glistening blue stalagmite. The tower was adorned by sinister, slow-moving tentacles that drifted around it, floating like weeds in silt. The tentacles were studded with glistening white barbs and the gelatinous tower was peppered with hundreds of murder holes, each one revealing the grinning face of a tallyman, watching over the entrance to the valley.

Alkhor had summoned the watchtower from the ground weeks ago but, until now, its tentacles had stood idle, waiting for a chance to deploy their venomous embrace. As the fly queen led her daemon host north up the Còlgarran Pass, she saw that the watchtower would soon have its first taste of asrai blood. It was nearly dawn and, as the sunlight tried to break through the tropical haze, it silhouetted a line of figures emerging from the trees.

Who has reached us first? wondered the fly queen, as her thoughts filled with images of raw, bloody meat.

The sun rose higher and pierced the miasma, revealing the first glimpse of the enemy.

The fly queen laughed in disbelief as she saw how pitiful the attackers looked. It was a line of asrai spearmen, a few hundred at most, wearing suits of dark, leather armour and moving in phalanxes, their spears lowered.

The crowds of daemons below her heard her laughter and echoed it. Thousands of malformed throats howled in derision at the approaching army and many of the tiny daemons collapsed to the ground, rocked by hysterics.

The fly queen realised that this pathetic force was all that remained of the forest’s defences. She waved her armoured forelegs and the daemon army flooded out to meet them.

The daemons quickly filled the wasteland surrounding the entrance to the valley. The land sloped up towards the oncoming spearmen, but the fly queen did not see that being a problem when the numbers were so heavily weighted in her favour. Their eagerness to greet the enemy gave the daemons a burst of speed that saw the entire host spew out from the valley in less than an hour. Then they paused on the crest of the hill, glancing back at their queen.

She howled and thrashed her wings, triggering a chorus of trumpet blasts from the plague-bearing heralds below. The daemons charged.

Or, rather, they lurched, capered and gambolled. It was a wild, mind-shattering sight, but the asrai spearmen continued their implacable march, their stern, pale faces becoming visible as they advanced and their banners hanging limply in the humid air. Even the tattered shreds of the fly queen’s mind were enough to know that this was not a usual tactic for the asrai. To advance slowly, across open ground, was their least favoured form of attack. They would prefer to slip unexpected from the trees. She laughed again, considering that there were no trees. For miles around Alkhor’s garden, there was only a circle of desolation. He had channelled so much energy into filling his garden with life that it had drained the surrounding area, leaving nothing but a carpet of lime-green mushrooms.

The fly queen’s laughter faltered as she saw more figures emerging with the dawn. The spearmen were just the vanguard, she realised, as other shapes moved into view. Behind the spearmen was a larger force of footsoldiers, moving just as slowly. These soldiers also carried spears and glaives and wore plates of leather armour, but there were far more of them – nearly a thousand, she reckoned. She looked at the tide of mutation rushing toward them. There were at least ten daemons for every spearman and more would be arriving all the time as Alkhor widened the portal.

Bile dripped from her mandibles as she fixed her hungry gaze on a figure flying back and forth over the enemy lines. It was a nobleman, mounted on a great hawk and wearing an elaborate spined helmet. His brow was low and heavy and his face was a fierce spiral of ritual scars, but the fly queen was not afraid. She could already imagine the sensation of his bones dissolving in her abdomen. She gave a final hissing screech and swooped down to attack.

The noble rose up in his saddle when he saw the fly queen drop from the clouds of smog. He raised a bow and shot an arrow, howling a curse as his mount carried him up to meet her.

The fly queen and her rancid host crashed into the asrai lines.

Seconds before impact, the spearmen stopped advancing, dug their heels in and raised a thicket of spears.

There was an explosion of daemon flesh as the asrai lines held.

The fly queen smashed the nobleman from his hawk and they both slammed into the crush of bodies, tumbling back through the front lines.

The nobleman leapt to his feet and hacked down at the fly queen’s wings with a spear.

The blade bit home, cutting deep into the black carapace. As it did so, green shoots shot up from the ground and pounded into the fly queen, attempting to latch onto her wings.

The fly queen thrashed her huge bulk, sending spearmen flying in several directions as she fell on the nobleman.

Her mandibles locked around her opponent’s head and closed with a satisfying crack.

Blows rained down on the fly queen as she wrenched herself free from the tendrils and launched herself back into the air. To her rage, she saw that she had only succeeded in crushing the nobleman’s helmet. Her intended prey had rolled clear and was still alive, helped to his feet by the other asrai. The nobleman looked back at her with an infuriating, nonchalant expression. He was covered in the wounds of many battles and the golden torcs that he wore around his biceps were dented and misshapen, but he was utterly calm as his warhawk swooped down and bore him up for another attack.

As the nobleman was carried into the air, preparing to continue the duel, the fly queen screeched in rage. This scarred brute was one of the Mage Queen’s servants. She could smell Ariel’s deceit pouring from his skin. She prepared to attack, then paused, distracted by a booming sound that was so loud it rang out over the din of the battle. She thought she could hear the low rumble of thunder and flew higher to investigate.

Her rage grew as she saw that the sound came, not from the heavens, but from hundreds of horses, charging towards the rearguard of her army from the west. She had been lured into a trap. The nobleman and his footsoldiers were bait, sent to drag the daemons from the safety of the narrow valley. As the fly queen flew higher she saw hundreds of asrai riders crash into her army from behind, ploughing through them with spears lowered and arrows flying, tearing a deep gash into the daemonic horde.

The riders trailed banners from several of the forest’s realms and they were moving at such speed that the tallymen collapsed under the charge, unable to lay their diseased blades on their attackers.

Hundreds of daemons fell, torn apart by spears, swords and hooves and their attack faltered. As the daemons realised they were being attacked from two sides they floundered and lurched in different directions, crashing into each other in the confusion.

The nobleman saw his chance and waved the spearmen forwards. He was flying thirty feet or so over their heads and the whole army saw his signal. The phalanxes charged with a defiant roar, smashing deep into the daemons’ vanguard as the cavalry ploughed into their flanks.

The fly queen panicked, thinking that, yet again, her lack of skill might delay Alkhor’s victory. She screamed furiously at the daemons. Then she swooped low and wrenched one of them apart with her claws, waving its broken limbs at the others as a warning.

The sight of the enraged fly queen was so terrifying that it drove the daemons to launch a counter-attack.

As the daemons formed themselves back into ranks, the riders’ momentum slowed. The deeper they advanced into the daemon horde, the harder they found it to move. The scene descended into a chaotic rout and the fly queen saw that neither side held the advantage.

The fighting grew frantic and confusing and the fly queen was consumed by bloodlust. What had seemed to be a simple victory was already becoming a desperate, bloody scramble for survival. She plunged back down into the press of bodies, thrashing her wings, lashing about herself with barbed limbs and searching for the nobleman who had defied her.

For a while she was too busy killing to find her enemy, then something shimmered in her peripheral vision and she felt the noble’s spear plunge into her abdomen.

The fly queen rounded on her attacker, raising her barbed limbs and towering over the asrai that surrounded her.

The noble was still calm as he drew his bow and loosed several arrows at her.

The fly queen batted them aside and lunged at him, drooling blood as she prepared to feed.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Alkhor fell backwards across the ground. Daemons popped, bursting beneath his weight and spraying him with pus. ‘It tickles,’ he cried in good-humoured tones. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’ He lashed out with his quivering arms, squashing several more daemons. ‘I don’t have time for these games, my beloved children! I have to work!’

He stood up, wiped blood and bile from his gut and turned towards his creation. ‘Our grandfather is starting to arrive.’

The hole in the sky was now taller than he was. Since the departure of Ordaana, he had been hacking and stabbing at it with his sword. By leaning all his weight into each sword strike, he had made steady progress in widening the hole.

His grandfather’s garden was now clearly visible through the gap – a place of such wonderful fecundity and colour that it made Alkhor realise how much more work he had to do on his own little plot. To his delight though, some of the bizarre flora was already starting to leak through the hole, along with the crowds of daemons. It would not be long now. Soon, his grandfather would be able to take hold – spreading His garden into the heart of the forest. And then He would emerge, through Alkhor’s willing flesh and claim dominion over the world. Alkhor was about to give Him a gift that would surpass anything he had received before: a foothold in the physical realm. The two worlds would become one and the Lord of Decay would be free to roam wherever he pleased, without constraint, spreading His gifts across the entire world. Through Alkhor, Nurgle would do what none of the lesser gods had managed to achieve. He would seize this world for his own. The Pleasure God, the Blood God and the Changer of Ways would all be forced to kneel before the pestilent majesty of the Great Corrupter.

Alkhor thought he might cry. Powerful emotions rocked his mountainous frame: pride at what he had achieved, devotion to his grandfather and bottomless love for the manifold forms of life he was about to spread across the world. He paused to take in the incredible sight – the pus-drenched realm of the Plague Lord, seeping into the equally deranged mortal domain. He could hold back his emotion no longer and a tear formed beneath one of his cherry-red eyes. He thought of all that had happened to him. He pictured himself as he was before the Plague Father adopted him – a poor, misunderstood young doktor, arrested for his groundbreaking work and left to rot in a lightless dungeon. How long ago that seemed now. How long since he began his journey by striking up a conversation with the boil that appeared in his armpit. How could he have foreseen this? How could he have known that he was destined to bestow this wonderful cornucopia on the world? He thought proudly of Ordaana and shed another tear. She barely knew the glorious future he had shared with her.

The daemon shook his head and laughed at his own sentimentality. He was far too kind-hearted for his own good. He scooped up an armful of daemons and crushed them to his porridge-like chest, eliciting a mixture of screams, giggles and popping sounds.

After cradling his slimy children for a while, Alkhor remembered that he had work to do and lifted his sword for another strike. As he peered through the hole, however, something made him pause. The garden of Nurgle was swarming with life as daemons flooded towards reality: bloated, loping things with pallid, pockmarked flesh, pouring from the fungal groves. All was as he had been promised, and yet there was something he had not foreseen.

Some of the daemons were being diverted as they pranced and skipped through the garden. He could see, far in the distance, lines of daemons turning away from him and heading back to face something he could not see. He pulled the tear a little wider and jammed his head through, peering into the other realm. The daemons continued clambering into the real world, squeezing over his shoulders and round his head. Alkhor could see nothing for the mass of daemon flesh, so he sighed and heaved his entire body through the hole, widening it considerably in the process.

As soon as he entered the Realm of Chaos he felt a wave of power flood through his limbs. The very air was magic and he felt his skin rippling and tingling in response to it as he moved. He paused to savour the sensation, realising that this was a glimpse of what lay in store for him. Once the Lord of Decay had taken ownership of his flesh, he had no doubt that he would feel this powerful all the time. But for now, he knew he must not be swayed. Power in the immortal realms was a given; it was the mortal realm that mattered now.

He waded through the crowds of giggling daemons, using his bulk to barge through the parade of leering faces. He was still unable to see clearly so he scoured the landscape for a vantage point. A few hundred feet away was a vast, rotten carcass. It was large enough to be the foot of a mountain and far too decayed for Alkhor to recognise its original shape. There were holes in its lime-green hide though, that revealed a gleaming ribcage that would make a perfect stair.

‘That will do us,’ Alkhor muttered cheerfully, waddling over to the enormous corpse. As he got closer, Alkhor saw that the carcass had been hollowed out and occupied by enormous grubs. They were hundreds of feet long, with greyish, ridged flesh and flat, humanoid faces. As Alkhor dragged his sagging flesh up the ribcage, the worms pushed their faces between the gaps and laughed at him.

‘Time is running out,’ sang one of them. Its eyes were white, featureless orbs, but they followed Alkhor’s every movement. It had the piping, high-pitched voice of a child and spoke in a sing-song, nursery rhyme. ‘You tarried, dallied and shilly-shallied and now your time is up.’

Alkhor smiled at the worm as he climbed. ‘What do you mean, my musical friend?’

‘Working work and workedy work has made you dull, but your wife is shining bright. She has been seeeeeeen.’ The worms coiled and snaked around each other and began laughing. ‘Seeeen.’

‘Be quick!’ giggled the worm. ‘Quick as you can! Nooo time to play! Your wife has been talking. The others are coming!’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Alkhor, still smiling.

‘Your garden is soooo pretty,’ sang the worm. ‘Be quick, be quick, be quick, or the others will take their pick.’

‘The others? Who do you mean? Who, may I ask, has my queen been talking to?’

The worms coiled away, laughing nervously, and Alkhor continued climbing. When he reached the top of the corpse, he could not help but smile. The host rushing towards his portal was like an ocean of fantastical beings, all jeering and singing with delight as they hurried past. The whole shifting landscape was alive with movement as daemonkind saw their chance to broaden the boundaries of their realm.

Then Alkhor recalled what he had seen earlier and looked to the rear of the vast crowd. In the distance, on the horizon, there were columns of yellow smoke, reaching up across a violet sky. The magic-charged atmosphere allowed him to see miles into the distance and his panic grew. There was a triangle of crimson, slicing into the pallid, colourless ranks of his fellow daemons. He shuffled across the ridges of the spine he was standing on and stared at the red figures.

‘I see,’ he said quietly.

The crimson figures were usurpers – the bloody hounds of Khorne. They had sniffed victory on the winds of magic and come to claim it as their own.

‘Be quick, quick, you must be quick!’ trilled a worm with the face of a fat man.

‘Quick,’ muttered Alkhor. ‘Oh, yes. Speed is the key.’

He flapped his pathetic little wings and launched himself from the back of the corpse. To his delight, the air was so thick with magic that he was able to glide over the heads of the daemons, flying back towards the hole. Upon reaching it, he hacked left and right with his rusty sword and barged his way back to reality.

‘More!’ he bellowed, landing at the confluence of the rivers and wrenching open his chest. The garden shook at the sound of his booming, gravelly voice. There was no longer any trace of humour in his words. ‘Give me more!’

CHAPTER TWENTY

Darkness lingered over Còlgarran Pass. The barren plains around Alkhor’s watchtower were mired in shadows and death. The asrai cavalry had succeeded in sundering the daemon army and the foot soldiers had pushed south down the slope, killing so many of the cyclopean horrors that they were almost at the entrance to the gulley. The fly queen was still locked in a fruitless duel with her prey. Ariel’s scarred servant was still riding his warhawk over the battlefield. The pair of them swooped over the fighting, clashing and parting and then clashing again.

The nobleman was now wielding an emerald sword, dealing out vicious, graceful blows each time they engaged and the fly queen lashed out repeatedly with a grim array of barbed limbs.

Above them was the cause of the darkness – a boiling ceiling of flies, fumes and crows, hanging low over the battlefield and leaving only the unnatural glare of mage-fire to illuminate the bloodshed.

The fly queen screamed again as she launched herself at her glowering prey. Her brain was being crushed by rage. She could not seem to kill the wretch who was tormenting her and, for every second she spent in this fruitless duel, her army grew more scattered and divided. There were countless hundreds of the horned, bandy-legged oafs. More of them were pouring from Alkhor’s garden all the time, clutching their swords and ledgers and clanging their atonal bells. If she could just take a moment to lead them, the asrai would be destroyed but… Her mind was clouded by fury again as the graceful shape of the warhawk slipped past her.

The part of the fly queen’s mind that was still Ordaana could not distinguish this figure from Ariel herself and the thought that she could destroy him was intoxicating.

Finally, she realised that she would have to share the kill. Anything was better than allowing the noble to live. She screeched a command and summoned the surprise she had meant to reveal if the asrai army reached the watchtower.

The blue lobes of the tower quivered and hundreds of shapes burst from its windows. The asrai faltered as they saw what was hurtling through the air towards them – hundreds of daemon-flies with giggling, daemonic riders. The giant insects did not join the battle, but answered their queen’s call. They poured from the tower and headed straight for the warhawk.

Exhausted, the fly queen finally glided away from her opponent, leaving the way clear for her subjects to strike.

The daemon-flies hurtled over the heads of the embattled warriors and were minutes away from their prey when the fly queen saw that he was making no attempt to flee. The noble was just hovering over the battle on his hawk, still wearing that same stern scowl.

As the daemon-flies approached him, half a dozen figures drifted up from the asrai ranks. The fly queen realised with a stab of panic that they were sorcerers. They had been biding their time, waiting for this moment to reveal themselves. Even now, without a single tree to hide behind, the nobles were playing their devious games. Ordaana watched in horror as a tall, hawk-nosed noble, draped in white bearskin, lifted a curved sword and summoned shapes from the earth. The other sorcerers followed suit and the fly queen saw that the objects were writhing, magic-charged cages – spheres of knotted root that rolled and shimmered as they rose into the air.

The banks of daemon-flies reached the sorcerers at such a speed that their riders had no time to register the wall of spheres that had suddenly appeared in front of them.

The fly queen watched helplessly as the balls of root enveloped the daemon-flies and crushed them, showering the battlefield with blood and broken wings.

The fly queen’s rage finally overcame her and she fell, howling from the sky. As she crashed, painfully to the ground, her thoughts were jarred into something more coherent. As she lay there, surrounded by the scrum of panicked daemons and watching the massacre taking place overhead, she recalled, with absolute clarity, the day Ariel banished her from her court and sent her on the path to ruin. The memory was so vivid, so painful, that it seemed to have been shone into her mind.

You fool, she thought, seeing how close she had come to throwing everything away. The asrai were playing games with her. They knew they were hopelessly outnumbered so the noble on the warhawk had kept her distracted while her army floundered, leaderless.

She shook her head and laughed. The fall had saved her. She knew, now, what she must do.

The fly queen launched herself into the air and flew away from the asrai sorcerers, leaving the daemon-flies to their gruesome end. She darted in and out of the battle lines, screaming orders at the rearguard of the army, driving them forwards and steering all of them in the same direction. They responded like automatons, lurching forwards with such purpose that the ground shook a second time. Still the fly queen did not rest. She ignored her enemy and continued haranguing her own army until every one of them was marching forwards. They turned their backs on the asrai cavalry, ignored the sorcerers drifting overhead and flooded across the plain in their thousands.

It was a massacre. The fly queen wheezed with pleasure as the full weight of her army smashed home.

The lines of asrai spearmen collapsed and hundreds of them died within minutes of the fly queen’s order.

She rose to face the sorcerers, exultant, and to her delight, she saw that the warhawk was nowhere to be seen.

The spellweavers turned their magic on the daemons below, summoning tendrils and roots and hurling columns of emerald fire, but it was no use; the daemon army was unstoppable.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘Do not speak until I say,’ said the child in the autumn leaves. The spirit looked around the rotten clearing, clearly anxious. ‘They will not like it that I have brought you into our home. We have been tricked and lied to so many times.’

Clara was standing at the edge of a brackish, fly-hazed pool and, as she studied the water, her heart sank. ‘Do we really have to go in there?’

The spirit twitched and spat, suddenly furious, clapping its hands against its golden locks and spinning around in the mud. ‘Yes!’ it cried. ‘You said! You said you wanted Zephyr to make you human again. This is the way.’ It jabbed a glinting, leaf-shrouded finger at the pool. ‘The only way!’

Clara shook her head. All the disease and mutation that she had seen across the forest seemed to be concentrated in this one stagnant puddle. What good could possibly come from entering it? She patted down her filthy, mud-splattered furs and robes. For the moment, at least, she seemed to be vaguely in control of her own body. She had no doubt that her eyes were still the same freakish, bestial monstrosities she had seen on the heath, but at least she had arms and legs again. She reached up and realised to her delight that her snake-bone necklace was still hanging around her neck. ‘What do I do?’ she whispered to the bones.

As always, she felt as though the bones were guiding her. It was the bones that had set her on the path to greatness, all those years earlier in Altdorf. She had never shared her secret with the rest of the Amber Brotherhood, but it was the snake bones that had given her the animal sight that had so impressed them. Even here, in the madness of the forest, the bones gave her a sign – a sudden itch on the side of her cranium. Her other hand moved up, as though controlled by an external source, and touched the wound on the side of her head. There was no mistaking it – her skull was sprouting a horn. The message was clear.

‘I’m already half damned,’ she muttered. ‘So I have nothing to lose.’

Zephyr nodded eagerly as Clara stepped into the water and sank into its clinging, oily depths.

She closed her eyes and, when she opened them again, she was shocked to find herself not in water, but standing at the foot of a long, dark tunnel of trees. The trees were venerable, mossy giants, free of the gaudy mutations she had grown used to. They had formed an arched walkway along a narrow, gloomy path of soft, springy turf. Clara had seen so many strange things since entering the forest that, after the briefest of hesitations, she began walking down the path.

There was an archway of sunlight at the far end of the tunnel and, as Clara approached it, she saw that it was the silhouette of a magnificent stag. It was the size of a stallion and its head was held aloft with all the dignity of royalty.

Clara’s pulse raced as she recognised the beast that had originally lured her into the forest. She was sure that, if the stag had not filled her with its strange, invigorating light, she would never have undergone the bizarre changes that had been plaguing her ever since.

The stag began trotting towards her.

‘No!’ she cried. ‘Let me go!’

Clara turned and fled, hearing the stag’s hooves pounding towards her down the path.

She burst from the surface of the water and found herself back in the glade, only, it was changed.

The pool was far larger than before. It had become a huge lake. No, she realised, the lake was no larger, she had become smaller. As her reflection looked back at her, she saw that she was a tiny, lime-green frog, powering itself through the water. She laughed at this latest absurdity.

Then she noticed that there were other changes. The grove of linden trees had returned to health. The decay had vanished. The trees looked down proudly over a lawn of grass and wildflowers. It was dusk and Clara struggled to see clearly, but she sensed that there were more shadows than trees – and the shadows were oddly mobile, rushing and swooping across the grass, despite the lack of breeze.

The water next to Clara bubbled and revealed the glum, shimmering face of a trout.

‘Wait until I give the word,’ it said, and Clara recognised the voice of Zephyr.

She could do nothing but laugh, but the fish seemed satisfied with this and disappeared back beneath the water.

Again, Clara’s spells had served her well. Despite the lunacy of her situation and her fear at seeing the stag, she had managed to protect a fragment of her consciousness. She knew, despite everything that had happened, who she was and why she was there. They can save me, she thought, kicking her long, amphibian legs and heading towards the moving shadows.

As she approached the water’s edge, she saw them a little clearer. Zephyr was there, and no longer a trout, whirling back and forth in his coat of spinning leaves. As he moved the gold of his leaves flashed light on some of the other shapes, lifting them briefly from the darkness. There was a strange menagerie gathered by the pool. Clara made out the faces of wolves, bears and other wild beasts, but they did not seem to be physical beings. They shimmered and drifted, refusing to reveal themselves. As she reached the edge of the pool, she saw even stranger shapes. Some were so vast that Zephyr’s light only revealed a giant talon or a ragged claw. Her hope grew as she saw what seemed to be a human mage or priest. He was shuffling between the other shadows, dressed in a hooded robe and leaning on a staff. Perhaps he was another wanderer from the Amber Hills? He might be someone like her. She might even know him. Then Zephyr passed in front of him and Clara struggled not to scream. The priest’s face was a mass of pale serpents, twisting and looping inside his deep hood.

Zephyr was trying to get the attention of the other spirits, but they were all ignoring him.

Clara hopped onto the grass and shuffled slowly closer, remembering Zephyr’s warning that she would not be welcome.

As she approached them, Clara realised that she could understand their words. This seemed stranger, somehow, than her transformation. It was not as though she had gained the ability to speak an unknown language. It was more like they were speaking a language she had always known.

‘This is not the only forest,’ said a hulking, toad-like thing, so hidden in shadow that Clara could only see its silhouette.

‘It is the only one we understand,’ said another voice. Clara turned to see a white wolf. It was the complete opposite of Zephyr. Where the golden youth was spinning around in a manic attempt to get the others’ attention, the wolf was sitting motionless at the foot of the linden trees, serene and aloof. ‘What purpose would we have anywhere else?’

‘What purpose do we have here?’ demanded another spirit. Clara saw that it was a huge eagle, with four wings. As it spoke, flames shimmered across its feathers, revealing a white spear, buried deep in its chest.

The others seemed to find this argument convincing. Several of them lowered their heads and none seemed willing to speak for a moment.

Clara sensed that there was an air of dejection and defeat hanging over them. She wondered how willing such miserable beings would be to help her and hopped through the grass, looking for Zephyr.

The golden youth was about to speak up when the flaming eagle continued. ‘Without the stag the forest has no soul. It is just a collection of trees. Whatever happens now, we are set adrift. We are nothing. We have nothing.’

Clara cowered as the spirits all turned suddenly in her direction. Then she realised there was a splashing sound coming from the pool behind her.

She turned to look and saw something that finally tore a scream from her. It was the green-skinned, antlered giant – the same hideous brute that had almost throttled her when she arrived at the borders of the forest. She recalled how mercilessly he had butchered the peasants when she first encountered him and she grew rigid with terror.

None of the spirits seemed to notice Clara’s scream and she realised it had emerged as a quiet, rattling croak.

‘You have your king,’ said the giant as he climbed from the water, clutching a spear. His physique was as Clara recalled – humanoid, but built on a massive scale. He was eight or nine foot tall – with broad, angular muscles that seemed carved from wood. His crown of antlers made him seem even taller and his legs were those of a stag, with thick, ridged hooves. There was something she had not noticed before though – his torso was encased in an armour plating of thick, ridged oak, with a green, serpentine rune glowing at its centre.

The spirits hissed, snarled and rushed to confront the giant.

‘He has been born,’ gasped one of the spirits and Clara saw shock written across all of their faces.

‘How dare you return now,’ cried the wolf, shaking off its surprise and replacing it with outrage. ‘Whatever trickery has given you life does not give you the right to enter this grove. You have not been summoned. This is not the season of rebirth.’

‘There are no seasons, you know that as well as I do,’ replied the giant.

‘What do you want, Orion?’ asked the hooded sorcerer. His voice was a thin, hateful hiss. ‘We have already told you we will not hunt.’

Clara hopped aside as Orion strode onto the grass.

‘You will,’ he replied calmly.

The animals looked at him with a mixture of confusion and derision, then they turned and began to fade into the shadows.

Clara panicked, ‘Wait!’ she tried to scream, but she only managed the same pathetic croak.

The spirits had only gone a few steps when they paused. The pool was boiling and bubbling as something else emerged behind Orion. Something far larger.

They gasped and hissed as the colossal shape of a dragon rose from the pool, his eyes blazing as he towered over the clearing.

‘Tanos!’ cried several of the spirits, staggering back into view. Even the venom-tongued sorcerer shook his head. ‘What does this mean?’ he gasped, looking from the dragon to Orion.

As the spirits watched in amazement, Tanos climbed from the pool, lowered his head and allowed Orion to climb along his neck and take a seat between his wings. Then he reared up and let out a deafening roar.

‘What is this?’ asked the white wolf.

‘This is your purpose!’ howled Orion. ‘This is a hunt!’

The spirits reeled before the magnificent sight of Orion and his mount.

Clara saw that they were at a loss to know what to do.

Then the wolf padded up to the dragon and threw back its head, letting out a long, mournful howl.

Other cries followed, one by one, until the grove was filled with the sound of screams, howls and roars. The sound swelled to such a painful volume that Clara pounded at her head with her forelegs, trying to block it out. She buried her face in the mud, but she could not escape it.

Then, as suddenly as it started, the sound ceased.

Clara looked up and saw that the grove was empty. The spirits had vanished, along with the giant and his dragon. There was nothing but the trees and the dusk.

She hopped around, looking desperately for a sign of Zephyr, but he had vanished with the others. She was alone.

Despair overwhelmed her as she realised she must have lost the last shreds of her sanity. There were no hoof prints or tracks of any kind on the grass. She must have hallucinated the whole gathering. Perhaps even Zephyr had only been in her mind. She looked around. There was nothing but the forest… and her mutated flesh.

With growing horror at her fate, she hopped back towards the pool, sensing that there was only one way to escape what she had become. The water could help her, if only by ending her miserable existence. She realised she had misunderstood the bones. Death was her only escape.

She dived into the pool, closed her eyes and began swallowing as hard and as fast as she could.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Orion plunged through the clouds on Tanos’s back, haloed by a burning sky. Sparks flashed along his antlers and danced on the bone-white tip of his spear. He sang as his dragon mount bore him through the fumes, filling the air with majesty and leading his strange kin to war. Countless other beasts tumbled in his wake, each more incredible than the last. The sentinels of the forest lifted their voices in reply to his song and it became a deafening, magisterial round. This was the hunt to end all hunts. Sinew, spirit and bark, tempered into a single, vengeful blade. They hurtled into the valley singing of ancient bowers and lonely, sunken paths. They sang of the roots of the world, its Shadow-glades and ghostways. They roared in praise of the wild. Howled to the untrammelled. Screamed for blood.

The fly queen dragged her face from a corpse and skittered up onto a mound, batting away swords and fists. She wiped gore from her eyes and hissed, shocked by the nature of Orion’s host. It looked like sunlight slicing into a darkened room. The king was ablaze with emerald light and flanked by incredible creatures – forest dragons, briar-winged hawks and silent, ivy-clad owls. Below them, emerging from the trees in one snorting, tidal rush, came bears, followed by boars, followed by wolves, stags and noble, moon-flanked unicorns. The fly queen stared, bewildered, and the longer she stared the more her mind unravelled. The forest wore many masks, not all of them easy to comprehend, but she knew these feral lords; she knew them from her former life and she felt their pull.

The asrai raised bloody weapons, roaring tributes to their king. Pitiful few remained but at the sight of the Wild Hunt they grew in stature and wrath – hurling themselves back into the fray, joining their blades to a storm of claws.

Orion watched through a blood-red haze as Alkhor’s army collapsed before him. The dragons tore daemons from the air. Their armoured flesh was immune to plague or disease and they fed as they flew, gulping down daemon-blood like honey, slashing and clawing through their enemy.

Daemon-flies pounded against Orion, but he barely registered them. The wrath of Kurnous was pouring from him. With the dragons at his side, he was incandescent. Unstoppable. Tanos and the other dragons batted attackers aside as easily as real flies, sending them spiralling into the toiling ranks below. Then Orion raised his horn to his lips and called the forest to battle.

A spearhead of animals and spirits charged beneath him, cutting across the horseshoe plain, bolstering the ranks of asrai and rushing the watchtower. With the dragons leading their charge, they were utterly fearless. Tallymen crumpled under the momentum of the attack. They still outnumbered the king’s army but numbers were meaningless against such fervour.

As he neared the column of fungus, Orion saw tendrils lash out, burning and poisoning his army. He tried to stem his wildness and consider tactics, but it was no use. His mind was awash with bloodlust. He howled and drove the dragon on into the daemon-fly clouds, hacking and tearing as he went.

Drycha paused, wrenched her wooden claws from a twitching daemon and backed away from the fighting. Her branchwraith sisters were making painfully slow progress. Forcing their way through the daemon hordes had proved to be far more difficult than she had hoped. As the dryads fought, cankers sprang up across their bark, stiffening their joints and blunting their teeth. Each time they tore into a daemon, blight enveloped their claws, rotting their talons and withering their limbs with fungus.

Drycha’s army was so vast that it was gradually pushing across the plain from the east but, to her amazement, the tattered banners of the asrai were moving faster. As she climbed up a slope to get a better view, she saw that they were smashing through the daemons from the north and their vanguard was already within a stone’s-throw of the watchtower.

Liris climbed up beside Drycha, her eyes filled with horror. ‘The hunter king is with them.’

‘No,’ hissed Drycha. ‘He is not. He can’t be.’ But she began to shiver and rattle as she saw the truth. Orion was there. Even from half a mile away, she could see his proud, antlered form. He was fighting with all the power and ferocity of the very first Consort-King: hale, healthy and driving the asrai straight into the daemon’s realm. ‘I saw him,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I saw him spewed from the dying oak. He was useless. A puling wretch, just as the Ancient One described.’

‘Look,’ gasped Liris.

Drycha had been so shocked by the presence of Orion she had failed to notice the monsters flying with him. She clenched her talons into fists, watching dozens of lithe shapes swoop through the clouds. ‘Dragons,’ she spat. ‘Cyanos has failed us. He swore they would never return.’

Liris grimaced at the mention of the asrai noble. ‘Of course he has failed us.’

Drycha did not register her sister’s words. She was still staring at the horizon. It was not just the dragons that had joined Orion and the asrai – the other spirit beasts had followed their lead. ‘Why would they follow Orion? After all that has come of his rule?’ Pain knifed through her crooked frame. ‘Why would they side with him?’ She looked around at her toiling sisters – each one prepared to sacrifice themselves in defence of the forest, after all their centuries of silent, unwavering guardianship. ‘Why are they not here, with us?’

Orion’s horn rang out and Drycha saw his army wash up against the watchtower. The grotesque digit shivered under the weight of the attack and lashed out with barbed, snake-like limbs, killing asrai and scattering beasts. Hundreds more daemons were still pouring from Còlgarran Pass and the two armies reached a juddering, grinding impasse. The Consort-King soared through the clouds, felling more daemons, until a vast shape loomed from the shadows and hurtled towards him. It was hard to see clearly through the filthy, fly-filled haze, but Drycha thought it must be another daemon-fly, only much larger than the others and dressed in the shreds of a lemon-coloured gown.

Orion and his dragon mount joined battle with the monster and an asrai cheer rang out as he drove the monster back.

Drycha stared at Liris. ‘If he wins, the spirits will forgive him everything. They will sanction his rule. They will let him stay.’ She screamed and jabbed one of her talons at the tower, ordering her sisters forwards. ‘This victory must be ours!’

The branchwraiths pushed forwards, clawing desperately at the mass of daemons, but it was no good. The crush of mottled, necrotic flesh was impassable. It was like trying to cut through mud. For every few steps forwards, hundreds of the one-eyed monsters glooped around the dryads, miring them in sticky, gangly limbs and pinning them to the ground with their pitted, iron swords.

Drycha watched in silent fury as her army reached the same deadlock that had stalled the Wild Hunt.

Liris glanced at her and then looked at the crevasse that divided their army from Orion’s. Drycha knew what her sister was thinking and her sap boiled in response.

Drycha clawed at her own face, weeping tiny spirals of bark. ‘Never.’ Her voice was desolate.

She hurled herself from the slope and smashed through her sisters, making for the daemons, but it was impossible. The combatants were so tightly packed that she could not reach the battle lines. She could not even join the fight. She jerked and thrashed, horrified by a growing realisation. After all she had done, the Council of Beasts had sided with the false king rather than their own kind.

Through tear-filled eyes Drycha saw a vision of the bear she had been forced to kill. Then the diseased corpse was transformed into the eternal bear spirit, Bruithír. Deep down she had known the truth since the moment Bruithír spared the nascent king. Why would the forest allow Finavar to escape? Why would it free him from the Wildwood, unless it wanted him to live? Unless it wanted a king?

It took a few more minutes for Drycha to accept defeat. She remained hunched and shivering on the ground until splintering bark and brittle screams forced her to relent. She rose from the throng and lurched wearily back up the slope, knowing what she must do.

She howled the order to retreat.

Alkhor quivered as his children emptied jars into his chest. Spores, bile and twitching mutants sloshed into his gaping ribcage and with each new sample his body grew. The Plague Father was starting to form in his flesh. Alkhor could feel the dizzying sensation of impending godhood. The vast, rotten hulk of his body was surrounded by such a fierce tornado of flies that his garden was barely visible, but he knew it was there, growing along with him; preparing for the great arrival. The muddy pool beneath him was gurgling, spitting and starting to boil over.

‘My lord,’ cried a voice, straining to be heard over the roaring column of flies.

Alkhor recognised the moist lisp and laughed. ‘Almost there, Ganglion!’ he bellowed, causing several smaller daemons to tumble from his ribs and disappear into his knotted, glistening guts. ‘The Plague Father is almost with us!’ He looked around and saw the cyclopean, pot-bellied daemon, hovering a few feet from his face, sitting on the back of a giant daemon-fly. The whirling clouds of insects were buffeting the daemon-mount, forcing Ganglion to hang desperately onto one of its studded antenna.

‘Smile,’ boomed Alkhor, snorting out flies. ‘We will soon have a garden to cover the world!’

Ganglion jabbed his rusty sword at the hole in the sky. There was an unusual note of panic in his voice. ‘Look, my lord,’ he cried. ‘Others have discovered you. They have found the rift. We must stop them. They are not your friends. They will take the world for their own.’

Alkhor’s boulder-sized head split into a gaping grin. He looked back at the patch of nothingness, noting how prettily it was framed by his gaudy tumours of fungus. Ganglion was right. Something new was flooding through the gap. Even through the whirlwind of flies he could see it. Rather than shambling, rotten lines of tallymen, Alkhor saw a new army – a vivid red column of slavering beasts. The brutal, crimson-skinned head-takers of Khorne. They were bestial, howling daemons. Knots of bloody sinew, lashed together by hate, snapping and straining at an unseen leash.

They entered the world with a strict, martial discipline that turned Alkhor’s grin to laughter. Seeing such feral creatures marching in orderly lines reminded him of circus animals, strutting around in ludicrous outfits. Drums and braying horns accompanied their advance, adding to the impression of a bizarre parade. There was no mistaking their cruel intent though. Every one of the daemons clutched a huge, two-handed sword – sculpted, jagged blades, forged of unholy alloys that shimmered and flashed. White-hot sorcery, burning in a prison of tempered steel.

At the head of the daemons trundled a warped, steam-hissing chariot – a jagged, sharpened lump of brass and iron, ridden by another crimson monster. Like the others, this one was all whiplash sinew and low, backwards-swooping horns, but the daemon driving the chariot was clearly a great lord. It was larger than those that followed and the oddly precise movements of the footsoldiers corresponded to its barked commands.

Ganglion shook his head as he saw that Alkhor was laughing. ‘They will seize victory for the Blood God!’ The storm of flies forced his mount away from Alkhor, and his voice became desperate. ‘You must stop them!’

Alkhor laughed harder and slumped back, relishing the sensation of more diseased body parts being emptied into his chest. ‘Victory is mine. It always was. They are the most moronic, dribbling, dog-brained fools, Ganglion, but they are all part of the plan.’ His laughter became a smug grin. ‘I keep my wife on a tighter leash than their master imagines.’

Alkhor frowned. ‘Enough!’ He closed his chest with a slap and held up a warning hand. ‘I’m full. Sated. Replete.’ He smiled again. ‘I am done.’ He closed his eyes and settled back into the mud with a satisfied belch. The wound healed itself and Alkhor’s body began to ripple and change. As the transformation gathered pace, the storm of flies grew fiercer and the daemon vanished from view.

Ganglion steered his fly back and forth, attempting to enter the spinning cocoon, but it was no use. He fixed his single, yellow eye on the red fiends hurrying through the garden towards him.

‘Proctor,’ he whimpered and steered his mount back towards the battle.

‘We have them!’ cried Caorann, vaulting over a muddy ditch and bounding towards another huddle of plaguebearers. They lifted iron blades with their rotten, mangled fingers and lurched towards him. There was no sky. No horizon. The world was a smear of brown, yellow and pink. But Caorann laughed and sang as he approached his prey.

Before Caorann could bring his swords to bear, arrows whistled past his ear, slamming into the daemons’ faces. The one-eyed horrors stumbled and fell, blinded, as Sibaris reached the lip of the ditch, shooting arrow after arrow.

By the time Caorann reached his foes, they were all staggering like drunks, clutching at spurting irises.

‘Not fair,’ spat Caorann, removing their heads with a balletic whirl of sword strikes. ‘You’re taking all the sport out of this.’

Alhena burst from the clouds of flies, her eyes straining. Every inch of her was trembling with fury. She saw Caorann, whirling at the centre of the confused daemons and bolted to his side, bringing her own swords down in a flashing arc and taking the last few heads.

The wardancers had learned that, while the daemons seemed unwilling to die, they could at least be halted by a good beheading. Sibaris rushed to join the other two, firing more arrows at the half-glimpsed shadows that surrounded them.

Every now and then the fumes would part, revealing crowds of battling figures. It was a brutal sight. The daemons were hacking down asrai spearmen and pouring plague into their still-warm bodies, while feral beasts, more spirit than flesh, tore through the mud, snarling, clawing and devouring everything they encountered. There were no tactics, no battle plans, just slaughter. But every time the combatants faltered, wearied by the directionless death, a hunting horn rang out from the heavens and it all began again.

The three wardancers paused for a moment, leaning against each other as they caught their breath.

‘There he is,’ said Sibaris, pointing his bow at the bluebottle clouds.

Where the fumes were thinnest, the wardancers could see a vast, winged serpent, looping and diving through the sky. On its back was their king. He was close enough that they could even make out his twisted antlers and glinting spear. Orion was duelling with a bloated, six-winged daemon-fly and, as the two combatants looped in their direction, they caught a glimpse of Orion’s cloak, streaming behind him. It was black, and studded with thorns.

‘Fin,’ said Caorann. For once, there was no laughter in his voice. His eyes were full of awe. ‘Save us.’

The others followed his gaze, drinking in the glorious sight of their king and savouring it as an antidote to the desolation that surrounded them.

Orion blew his horn again. The wardancers howled in reply, holding their weapons aloft. Beasts and spirit beasts exploded from the smog, hurtling towards them from every direction. The three warriors were lifted up like flotsam and hurled across the battlefield, still howling as they rushed towards Alkhor’s garden.

Orion jammed his spear into the monster’s abdomen and wrenched the blade up towards its head, filling the air with acid-yellow gore.

At the same moment, Tanos vomited a column of green poison, enveloping the thing’s thrashing wings.

The daemon-fly screamed and Orion saw again that its face was unlike the other fly monsters. This one was a revolting combination of insect and asrai. It had two huge, segmented eyes, but the rest of its face was that of a pale-skinned noblewoman. Her features had been twisted and tormented by the horror of her transformation but she must have once been beautiful. As her black, bristling carapace shivered in pain, the asrai face screamed – spitting garbled words that Orion could almost recognise.

Something tugged at his thoughts. There was something horribly familiar about the face. With dawning horror, he mouthed the word Ordaana. All his rage and hatred for his betrayer faded when he saw what a pitiful end she had come to. Treachery had consumed her. She was a creature of Chaos. She was damned.

Before he could think any more on the subject, the other Orions howled at him to keep fighting. Their voices rebounded from the inside of his skull, filling him with a horrible sense of urgency.

End this abomination, they cried. End her suffering. No one deserves such a fate.

He wrenched the spear even higher, almost reaching the head of the daemon-fly, but at that moment she found the strength to fight back, lashing out at him with a jumble of barbed limbs. They clattered against his bark-armoured chest and sent him tumbling along the dragon’s back.

Orion would have fallen, but the huge serpent recoiled – beating its huge wings and freeing itself from the daemon’s grip.

The two winged creatures circled each other, gathering their strength and looking for an opening in the other’s defences.

Orion took the opportunity to blow the horn of Kurnous. The sound drowned out even the voices of his forebears. His heart pounded fiercely in response and, as he saw the chaotic rout below, it took all his strength not to leap from the dragon’s back and join the charge. He knew such a fall would destroy his body, but the pull was incredible.

He regained his footing and lifted his spear, bracing himself as the daemon-Ordaana prepared to launch another attack. At the last moment his opponent changed direction and veered away from him. Something had caught her attention – something down below. Her already-tortured face was wracked by even more suffering.

Orion took his chance, rocked back on his heels and hurled his spear with all his might. It whistled through the air and sliced through the daemon’s beautiful, agonised face. The blade burst from the back of her skull and what remained of Ordaana tumbled from the sky.

Tanos dived after her and gave Orion chance to retrieve his spear, before leaving her to spin and roll out of sight.

Orion steered the dragon away from the sight of Ordaana’s fall and flew higher, wondering what had distracted her. He saw that nothing had changed at the entrance to the garden. There was still a hopeless crush of figures battling at the foot of the watchtower. The fury of the Wild Hunt was incredible when seen from such a height. His subjects were crashing against the daemons in wave after bloody wave, heedless of their own safety. But the tide of daemons pouring from the gulley was never ending and the two armies were still locked in a bloody, unyielding knot.

He looked back towards the rearguard of his army. Something was pouring from the forest. Orion thought that a lake must have flooded its banks. There were shadows rushing from the fungus-bloated boughs. Then he saw that the shadows had claws, crooked backs and long, branch-like limbs.

He flew higher for a better look, amazed by the nature of his new ally.

The torrent of voices in his head coalesced into a single name and it exploded from his lips.

‘Drycha.’

She led her sisters across the plain with a howl. An unexpected joy shuddered through her slender, mossy frame. Beasts and ghosts ran with her and, as the forest united, animal, tree and dryad alike, she felt increasingly calm. Even as she began slicing through rotten daemon flesh, Drycha’s fury and shame continued to ebb, replaced with an intoxicating sense of unity. She hacked and tore and felt a truth long denied her. There was no shame in this. This was meant to be. They were one. The Ancient One was wrong. They were not divided. The faces that surrounded her belonged to a single, eternal soul. Asrai became boar, boar became stag, stag became gnarled, deadwood husk, and all of them sang with the same voice. It was the voice of defiance. The voice of the forest.

Drycha let herself be carried by the Wild Hunt. All her doubts faded as Orion’s horn drove the forest smashing through its invaders. They crossed the plain in minutes and swarmed up the walls of the watchtower. Arrows flew out to greet them, followed by thrashing, glistening tentacles, but the forest would not be stopped. The deepwood host rolled on. Tearing through the watchtower like a swarm of locusts. Devouring its walls. Hurling its guardians to their deaths.

With a slow, subterranean groan, the watchtower slumped under the weight of the assault. Daemons and dryads toppled from its walls as it listed and started to fall.

Drycha leapt free and rushed on, entering the final approach to Alkhor’s garden as the tower collapsed behind her.

The gulley was packed with warring figures. Screams and war cries echoed strangely from fungus-clad walls and the air was crowded with fat, frenzied bluebottles. But Drycha’s army was so vast that it finally broke the deadlock, slicing deep into the ranks of daemons and carving a passage into the garden beyond. The rest of the Wild Hunt followed, powering through the gap and emptying the plain. The forest’s defenders charged through the gulley, howling victoriously as they reached the heart of their enemy’s realm.

Drycha was at the head of the army and, as she entered the circular garden, she finally paused. Even after all that she had seen, this was appalling. Bright pink lobes of fungus towered over her forming a huge amphitheatre, watered by hissing torrents of acid-yellow bile. At the centre of all this madness Drycha saw a whirling tower of flies and spores – the living shroud of a vast, bloated daemon.

Drycha sensed immediately that this was her prey and let out a howl of delight. This was the monstrosity she had allowed to live. This was the being she had buried beneath the Torr-Ildána all those centuries ago. Finally, she could right her most terrible wrong. To her delight, she saw that there were only a few hundred of the plaguebearers left between her host and the daemon.

She raised her fist and was about to launch the final attack when Liris hauled her round to face the other side of the stomach garden. Beside the column of flies was a sight that caused her head to pound. It was a hole in the air. Drycha stared in shock as the Wild Hunt juddered to a halt around her. The hole was trailing a long, crimson tongue of daemon warriors. These were not the lurching oafs that had polluted the forest, but something far more deadly – precise, orderly ranks of blood-red monsters, marching to a slow, ominous drumbeat with murder in their eyes. Drycha was about to warn the others when a shadow washed over them and a hunting horn rang out.

Drycha looked up and saw a brief glimpse of Orion, then the charge began again. Driven on by their king, the guardians of the forest poured into the garden, smashing through the remaining plaguebearers and making for the architect of the horrors that surrounded them.

Drycha was knocked to the ground and felt hundreds of feet pounding over her. She could see nothing but mud until, with a groan of exertion, Liris dragged her to her feet and hauled her out of the way of the stampede.

‘Those things are killers,’ she gasped, staring at the red-skinned daemons.

Liris nodded and they both watched in horror as the daemons sliced into the flank of the forest’s defenders.

Upon reaching their enemy, the bright red daemons abandoned their orderly ranks and gave in to a frenzied orgy of slicing and stabbing, butchering whole swathes of dryads in seconds. The ecstasy of killing was written across their bestial faces and the pounding of their drums raced into one long, furious roll.

‘We must help!’ cried Liris, pointing at the crimson monsters. ‘We must stop them.’

‘No.’ Drycha pointed at the whirling column of flies. ‘That is my fault. That is the cause of all this. That is where we must strike.’

Liris’s limbs clattered in fear as she shook her head. ‘Too late.’

Drycha howled again as she saw that Liris was right. The red-skinned daemons had broken into dozens of separate columns, performing a bewildering series of manoeuvres, and they had already blocked the way across the garden. As she staggered towards them shaking her head, several more columns poured from the hole, carpeting the garden with scaled red muscle and flickering blades.

Drycha screamed the order to attack and the deepwood host spilled from the gulley.

The wardancers slowed as they neared the garden. Through the clouds of flies they saw that the dryads had finally halted.

‘Is it over?’ gasped Alhena, tilting her head back and peering through the haze.

Caorann noticed the disappointment in her voice and looked at her in disbelief. How much death would be enough to satisfy her?

She did not notice his surprise and kept staring into the distance. ‘What could have stopped such an army?’

‘We must have won,’ said Sibaris, his eyes gleaming. ‘Look around.’ He waved at the piles of dismembered daemons that lay all around them. With the forest united, the plaguebearers had not stood a chance.

‘I think not.’ Caorann shook his head and held up his hand to silence them, tilting his head to one side, indicating that they should listen. The stragglers of the Wild Hunt were still staggering past – those too exhausted or wounded to keep pace with the dryads – and for a moment, the wardancers could hear nothing but their panting and snorting.

Then, as the crowd thinned out, Alhena nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said, as the dryads rushed on and the sound of clattering weapons drifted from the garden up ahead. She smiled at Sibiris, sliced her blades through the air and raced on, clearly excited. ‘We’re not done yet.’

Orion steered Tanos lower, sensing that something was wrong. He could see his goal at the centre of the garden – the mountainous bulk of the daemon was visible, even within the tornado of flies – but his army had faltered. This was not what he expected. What could hold up against the fury of the entire forest? As the dragon dropped through the fly-clouds, he had his answer – the attack dogs of the Blood God. The voices in his head cursed and railed as they beheld the crimson horde.

The brutal killers had already surrounded the Wild Hunt with a confusing array of bristling columns. As the spirits and beasts tried to break into the garden, the red daemons slashed into their flank and steered them towards a sunken pit, just to the east of the gulley. Orion’s heart pounded as he saw the danger. The hunt was nothing without the furious momentum that had carried it across the plain. Once his kin were trapped in the pit, there would be no escape. The daemons would butcher them.

He scoured the enemy troops for sign of a leader and saw the chariot and its hulking driver. It was still leading them on with low, snarled commands. He was about to steer the dragon down to the front lines and behead the army, when they let out a deafening roar. Several of them were looking back over their shoulders as they advanced.

Orion looked back towards the rift in reality and saw a flash of red hurtling towards him through the clouds.

The attack was sickeningly fast. Orion barely managed to roll aside as a huge, two-handed axe sliced down towards him.

The blade bit deep into the dragon’s back and it roared in pain.

Orion staggered to his feet and saw the full horror of his assailant.

Hovering over him, borne on a pair of massive, leathery wings, was a daemon the size of a full-grown oak. It was a hulking, muscled brute, with red, scaled flesh and a suit of hammered, brass armour. It had the head of a vicious hound, with a long, feral snout and a greasy, shaggy mane. Two enormous ram’s horns circled its brow and its blazing red eyes were fixed furiously on Orion.

Orion raised his spear, but before he could strike, the daemon pounded its wings and backed away, wrenching its massive axe free in a shower of dragon’s blood.

Tanos slumped beneath him and Orion saw that the dragon’s body had been cleft almost in two. There was a deep gash through the centre of its back and one of its wings was hanging limply at its side.

Orion staggered as the dragon rolled in pain, snorting blood and fumes; barely alive.

The daemon flew back for another attack, bellowing and lifting its axe high above its head.

Before the second blow could land, Orion launched himself through the air, leaving Tanos to tumble, lifeless, from the sky.

The axe sliced through thin air as Orion landed on the daemon’s armoured shoulder.

This close, he could feel an unholy heat, pulsing through its scarlet hide. The air around the daemon was cracking and curling, like bark shrivelling in a fire. The world could not contain such brutality. Orion did not have long to consider the dreadful nature of his foe. As the dog-headed brute turned to face him, Orion jammed his spear up through its massive jaw, shearing the blade up and out through the top of its skull.

The daemon howled and stiffened in pain, throwing back its head. Then it rallied and slammed the haft of its axe down into Orion’s chest, sending him flying into the clouds.

Orion kicked wildly as he fell, then cried out in surprise as his fall was broken and he found himself hanging in the sky.

‘We cannot kill it,’ said a voice in his ear. The tone was cold and full of pain, but Orion recognised it immediately.

‘Ariel,’ he gasped, turning to face his queen.

She was pale with grief and worry, but she managed to give him a faint smile as she nodded in reply.

Orion looked around and saw that he was cradled in drifting, spirals of cloud, formed into the shape of branches. He looked down and saw a glittering trunk of mist, descending hundreds of feet below him to the ground.

Remnants of the mist were still trailing around Ariel’s fingers and Orion realised that, yet again, she had saved his life.

He was about to thank her, when she pounded her tawny wings and looped away from him, seconds before the daemon’s axe plummeted through the clouds.

The monster hurtled past Orion, carried by the weight of its own strike, but it quickly whirled around to face him. The spear was still jammed through its jaw but, with a brutal roar, the daemon reached into its mouth and snapped the weapon in two. The head of the spear remained in place, sticking up from its forehead like a third horn, but the daemon seemed oblivious, pounding its wings and lifting its axe in both hands, preparing to hurl another blow at Orion.

Hatred and disgust rushed through the king and he threw himself at the daemon for a second time. He was unarmed now, but he jammed his antlers into the daemon’s throat and wrenched them free, filling the air with fire, tendons and vocal cords.

The daemon arched its back in pain and Orion clambered up its serrated brass breastplate and pounded his fist into its wounded jaw.

The daemon’s head jolted back and, at that moment, Ariel flew from the clouds and lassoed its wings with a mesh of spectral vines.

The daemon roared, but the more violently it struggled, the more Ariel’s bonds tightened.

With a furious howl, the daemon fell through the flies and crows towards the battling armies below.

Ariel swooped down to rescue Orion, but the daemon lashed out with its axe and the flat of the blade smashed into her, sending her hurtling from sight.

Orion continued wrestling with the daemon as they both plummeted through the air.

The fly crawled blissfully across a plain of warm, glistening meat. There were weapons, limbs and faces scattered throughout the food, but the fly took no notice – crawling, devouring and vomiting in an endless cycle of gluttony. Her wings no longer worked. They had been broken. And there was a hole through her head that felt very strange. But the fly did not care. There was a lifetime of mindless consumption spread out before her. She dragged her abdomen on through the gore, belching and laughing as she ate.

Something jarred in her mind. Flies do not laugh. This brief moment of understanding was enough to ruin everything. It opened the door on countless other, disturbing thoughts. The fly sensed, to her dismay, that she could not indulge herself with such idle pleasures. She was heading somewhere – looking for something.

Along with memory came pain. As the fly saw glimpses of her past, she felt all the broken parts of her body, screaming out at once. The pain combined with horrible guilt as she became aware of the battle raging around her. She looked up from the corpses and saw her people dying. The deepwood host was being massacred by waves of red-skinned, brass-armoured daemons. She saw spearmen and archers, huddled against the spirits of ancient, noble trees and proud, feral beasts, and all of them were dying at the hands of the daemons. They had been forced into a sunken corner of the garden with no way to escape.

The fly’s agony grew as she watched the awful scene. She knew, without recalling all the details, that she had done this to them. She had betrayed the forest to its death.

‘Ariel,’ she spat, recalling the witch who had driven her to this wretched condition. Even through all her fidgeting lunacy, Ordaana could recall one, clear truth. Ariel had driven her to murder. And everything since then had been her fault. This bitter thought was enough to remind her of her purpose. She had to find her only ally. Alkhor had promised her revenge. Revenge. She had nothing else left.

She dragged her broken body up onto its six legs and began hauling herself over the bodies.

The column of flies was only thirty or so feet away and she realised that her lapse into forgetfulness must have been just one of many that had overtaken her as she hauled herself across the battlefield. But now she was almost there. If she could just remain conscious for a few more minutes, she would be within shouting distance of the daemon.

A shadow passed overhead and she paused to look up at it. A great, winged monster was falling through the clouds. She shivered at the sight of it. The thing had a grotesque, canine head that dredged a horrifying memory from her mind. She had seen the crimson-skinned brute before. She had seen it through a pool of blood, hacking heads from shoulders as it warned her that Alkhor would fail. The thing had claimed that it was her only hope. Could it have been telling the truth?

‘I am Ordaana,’ she moaned, as more of her dreadful history slotted into place.

‘You are my queen,’ belched a deafening voice, and Alkhor’s grey, porridge-like claw lifted her from the ground and into the storm of flies. ‘And I will not fail you.’

His face was a vast, sagging boil. A lumpen bag of pus, studded with a pair of tiny, glinting eyes. Rolls of grey flesh tumbled down over his chest in a mottled jumble of chins and thousands of tremors were moving across his skin. He looked like the surface of a stagnant pool, rippling in the breeze.

‘The time is now,’ he laughed, lifting her dangerously close to his gaping maw.

‘Now?’ Ordaana’s voice quivered. ‘I can kill Ariel now?’

‘Yes,’ smiled the daemon. ‘I am true to my word.’ He lifted his iron sword from the ground. It had grown along with him and it was now over a hundred feet long – a vast slab of pitted, rusted iron. ‘You will have to be quick though. My generosity will extend to one chance only.’ He closed his eyes and groaned as the tremors in his flesh grew more violent. ‘The Great Corrupter is almost here. This wonderful garden has drawn Him to us. The life we have fostered in this forest has done its work. He is on his way, Ordaana. He is on his way. You have only minutes left, and then He will bless all of us with unimaginable gifts. The world will be made anew.’ He opened his eyes and they were full of tears. ‘It will be made beautiful.’

Ordaana thrashed at his claw with her legs. ‘But how? What do I do?’ Panic gripped her. Revenge was the only thing that made sense of what she had done. Ariel had to die by her hand. ‘How can I kill her?’

There was a booming crash, like the sound of a landslide, as Alkhor launched himself into the air. His ragged wings lifted him with ease, flinging him across the garden with Ordaana still trapped in his claw.

‘Remember the blade, my queen,’ he grinned.

Ordaana panicked at the thought of the silver knife. She could not remember seeing it for weeks. Then, as she looked down at the black bristles of her abdomen, she saw that it was still there, strapped to her rotten hide by a shred of yellow cloth. It glinted dangerously as she grabbed it – a pure, untainted mirror, reflecting a hideous, tormented face.

‘Even an aspect of a god will fall at its touch,’ said Alkhor. ‘Trust me. Its power is more than you could ever imagine.’

Ordaana began to scream as the daemon bore her down towards the remnants of Orion’s army. She did not know if it was a scream of victory, or a scream of terror.

Orion’s breath exploded from his lungs as he and the daemon smashed into an enormous puffball. The fungus exploded, shedding clouds of spores into the air and when Orion and the daemon stood to face each other, they were both dusted white.

The daemon roared and drew back its axe to strike, and Orion stood there, unarmed and too dazed to flee.

A wall of figures crashed into the daemon, driving it back into the punctured ball of fungus and dragging it to its knees.

Orion looked on with pride and awe as the forest protected him. He saw warriors from each of the asrai realms, fighting side-by-side with dryads and tree spirits. When their weapons broke, they fought on, tearing at the daemon with splintered, wooden claws and broken fingernails. Animals followed in their wake, screeching and howling as they covered the daemon’s armour.

Within seconds the daemon had vanished beneath a host of Orion’s subjects.

‘They cannot kill it,’ said Ariel in exhausted tones, as she landed beside him.

The thing had managed to stand, despite being covered in struggling shapes and it was attempting to raise its axe. Flames leaked from its jaws and from the joints of its brass armour, dragging screams from those who were trying to subdue it.

‘No,’ said Orion, facing his queen with an uncharacteristic smile, ‘but they do not fight alone.’

Ariel frowned, then nodded as more bestial shapes rushed passed them. These were no more than shadows – half-glimpsed in the whirling clouds of flies, but Ariel gasped in recognition. ‘The Brúidd.’

The Council of Beasts joined their flesh-bound kin in silence and they moved so fast Orion could barely make out their forms. He saw the hooded figure of the Wrach, hurling serpents from its staff and the frost-coloured wolf, leaping for the daemon’s throat. Then, in a whirl of golden leaves he saw Zephyr, followed by a horned serpent that rose up and sank its long, curved incisors into the daemon’s neck.

The daemon roared, shrugged off some of its attackers and brought down its axe. The blade passed through the Wrach and thudded into the ground without even halting the spirit in its tracks.

Another spirit whirled into view, shrouded in flames. It was a vast, four-winged eagle, with a bone-spear jutting from its chest.

‘Amphion,’ grunted Orion.

The eagle spirit attacked with such fury that the daemon finally gave way, crashing on to its back, even as it batted Amphion away with a roar.

Sensing victory, Orion managed to stand and began hobbling towards the stranded daemon.

As he reached the struggling shapes, a towering spirit rose from the murk and wrenched off the daemon’s brass armour, pulling away most of its crimson chest muscles as the same time.

Orion saw that it was the spirit of an ancient tree – a venerable old thing, driven to fury by the Wild Hunt. It turned to face him and he recognised it as the spirit that hadfreed him from the Wildwood and dressed his wounds with bark. Then it vanished in the whirling crush.

Flames burst from the daemon’s shattered ribcage but, incredibly, it began to rise, reaching out for its axe.

Orion looked around for a weapon but, at that moment, Ariel flew past him, wrenched a sword from the ground and jammed it through the daemon’s arm, pinning it to the ground.

There was another explosion and Ariel was silhouetted for a moment by a wall of flames.

Orion was staggered by the blast, but sensed other figures hurtling past him.

The light failed and Orion saw three wardancers, covering the daemon in a blinding flurry of sword strikes.

The daemon batted two of them away but the third jammed both of his swords deep into its exposed heart.

The daemon roared, arched its back and fell to the ground in a cloud of spores.

A cheer resounded across the garden as the light faded from the daemon’s eyes.

The three wardancers reeled away from the daemon’s corpse and turned to face Orion.

Despite the fury racing through his head, Orion could not help smiling at the sight of Caorann, Sibaris and Alhena staggering towards him, accompanied by a pair of blood-drenched polecats.

The wardancers looked at him with the same awe as everyone else but, as Caorann wiped his blades and bowed, Orion caught a flash of humour in his old friend’s eyes.

Orion nodded in recognition, then turned to see the effect of the wardancers’ work.

The crimson, sword-wielding ranks faltered as they saw what had happened. None of them had expected such a thing. The slaughter stopped and they lowered their blades, looking around to see who would lead them. The neat, orderly ranks began to break up.

Ariel returned to Orion’s side, still clutching her borrowed sword. Her robes were scorched but her eyes were blazing with determination.

Over the next few minutes, the remnants of Orion’s army rushed to his side, waiting on his order. Naieth came staggering through the mounds of bodies accompanied by several of Ariel’s handmaidens. Mälloch the Elder was there, his white bearskin streaked with crimson and a whole cabal of furious sorcerers at his side. Caorann and the other wardancers remained close, twirling their swords and watching proudly over their king. The Council of Beasts shimmered in and out of view, slithering, fluttering and crawling past eyes that would never see them. Finally, leading the scowling, brittle ranks of her sisters, came Drycha. Her bark was stained black with blood and her face was a knot of anger, but she lowered her head to the king as she reached his side.

Orion faltered as he saw that the forest had become one soul, united in wrath, ready for his command.

Someone reached out from the crowd and handed him a spear. The warrior was so drenched in blood that it took Orion a moment to recognise him. Then he noticed the scarred, brutal-looking forehead and the intense scowl.

‘Haldus,’ he growled, taking the weapon and gripping the prince’s arm. The voices in his head were now a deafening howl, joining the cry of the hounds that had gathered around him, begging him to hunt, to kill, but he managed to hold steady for a moment and stand with the loyal prince.

‘You saved me,’ he said and the eyes of the whole army settled on the glowering prince.

Haldus looked humbled and shook his head, but Orion saw the flash of recognition in his eyes.

With his eyes still locked on Haldus, Orion lifted his horn and took a deep breath.

A deafening explosion tore through the air, shaking the ground so violently that Orion was thrown sideways. He landed with a pained grunt and his horn clattered away from his fingers.

As the echoes of the blast faded, a new din rose up in its place. Orion was blinded by dust, but he could tell by the volume of the cries that both armies were howling in shock.

As the dust cleared, Ordaana looked down from her perch in Alkhor’s fist. Two great hosts looked back at her – those who would destroy and those who would preserve. She cared for neither. All that mattered was revenge.

The impact of Alkhor’s landing had left a crater and he leant back in it with a sigh, as though bathing. His flesh was starting to split and crack and Ordaana realised her time was almost up. The Plague God was about to enter the physical realm.

The two armies recovered from their shock at the arrival of Alkhor and continued the battle, lifting swords and spears and renewing the slaughter.

The flies, spores and dust thrown up by the battle made it a bewildering scene. Ordaana began to panic as she scoured the warring figures. Then she saw her. Ariel and Orion were standing not far from the fallen daemon, surrounded by asrai nobles and a bizarre menagerie of animals and tree spirits.

‘Allow me,’ chuckled Alkhor. He was now so massive that his voice caused the ground to shake. He shuffled from the crater and waded through the battle. As he moved, his slug-like bulk crushed hundreds of warriors, filling the air with screams and howls. He seemed oblivious, humming merrily as he approached the king and queen. ‘Ooh,’ he said, smiling as his skin began to fall away, revealing something oily and green beneath.

‘No!’ cried Ordaana drawing the blade. ‘Not until I have my revenge!’ Ariel, Orion and the others were rushing towards her, raising weapons and mouthing spells.

Alkhor was moving with surprising speed and she could already see Ariel’s hateful face. Her mind whirled with sounds and visions. She saw everything she had done to reach this point. As the battle raged around her, the voices of the dying and injured rose up to haunt her. She heard names, cried out in pain and grief. They twisted her thoughts like a drug. So many names. So many memories. So many deaths. Only revenge could justify so many wrongs. Magic swirled around her like the clouds of flies and she felt her body change. As her mind slipped between present and past, her flesh did the same – alternating between a bloated fly-creature and beautiful noblewoman.

Ariel was flying now, rushing towards her.

Alkhor was laughing so hard, Ordaana struggled to keep her balance. His body was breaking apart – revealing something even larger, something coiled within him.

Ordaana took a deep breath and rose up on her six legs. Her body changed again and she was standing on two legs – her slender, asrai body intact once more, draped in the shreds of a lemon-coloured dress. She shook her head to try to clear her thoughts. It did not matter who she was, her purpose was the same.

She drew back her knife as Ariel approached.

The cries of the dying pounded against her and then, with a stomach-churning jolt, she heard the one name she did not expect.

‘Alhena!’ cried a voice from somewhere below.

‘Mother!’ screamed another voice.

Ordaana froze.

Alkhor laughed harder as his skin peeled away from his guts. The smell grew worse as something began dragging itself into the world.

Ariel frowned and hovered in the air, her spell left incomplete.

Ordaana ran along one of Alkhor’s talons and looked down into the crowds. Figures were rushing back and forth, hacking, stabbing and fleeing, but one of them was standing stock still, staring up at her. It was a young, female wardancer, surrounded by a small group of her kinsmen. She had a shaven head, blood splattered across her chest and a look of horrified shock on her face. Her features were horribly familiar. Ordaana felt as though she was looking into a mirror.

‘No,’ breathed Ordaana. ‘It cannot be. It can’t be her.’

Alkhor tried to stifle his laughter. ‘Your chance is almost up.’ He grinned as his face started to slide away. ‘In fact, I think you’re out of time, my queen.’

The clouds grew even darker and Alkhor’s voice shifted into such a low register that the ground shook in response. ‘HE IS HERE.’

Ordaana’s eyes stayed locked on Alhena’s face. ‘You are alive,’ she whispered, numb with shock. ‘I did not kill you.’

Ariel looked in confusion from Ordaana to the wardancer below, her spell still stalled on her lips.

As Alkhor’s flesh bubbled and changed, a dreadful, sulphurous stink filled the air. Ordaana looked around, as though seeing the garden for the first time. The hole in the sky was even wider now and hundreds of daemons were pouring into the world.

‘What have I done?’ she whispered. Her daughter still lived. And now, thanks to Ordaana, her world was about to be destroyed. ‘What have I done?’ she repeated, lifting the silver knife towards her own throat.

‘Alhena!’ howled voices from below.

She looked down and saw that her daughter was surrounded by daemons but unwilling to withdraw. The other wardancers were begging her to flee but she was motionless – staring up at her with such hurt in her eyes that Ordaana sobbed. Her daughter was alive. For all these years Alhena had survived without her love and now she was about to be destroyed by a daemon Ordaana had unleashed.

Something swam up from the depths of Ordaana’s memory. A glimpse of hope. She turned, scampered along Alkhor’s arm and plunged the silver knife into the daemon’s face.

Orion barged and jostled his way through the battling figures, making for the daemon. Ariel was already there, hovering near the thing’s face but, for some reason she had failed to act. Other spellweavers had joined her in the sky but she had signalled that they should not attack.

He broke into the open space near the daemon’s enormous hooves. A terrible stench hit him and he gagged, stumbling backwards.

Haldus, Mälloch and the other nobles were there to steady him and he pressed on through the stink, still clutching the spear Haldus had given him.

The mountain of blubber towered over him as he approached and, when he was still thirty feet away, it let out a shrill, panicked shriek – quite unlike the low rumbles it had previously emitted.

Orion looked up and saw that a noblewoman had somehow reached the daemon’s face. She was hacking at its flesh with a silver blade.

The huge daemon screamed again, crushing the noblewoman in its fist and hurling her to the ground.

A wardancer, standing just a few feet from Orion howled out in grief, but he had no time to wonder why. The daemon was moving, launching itself back into the air, all the while letting out a horrified, keening wail.

Ariel and the other sorcerers moved closer, but Alkhor lifted his huge iron sword and thousands of crows poured from the rusted blade, battering against the spellweavers and thrashing wildly in their faces and robes. Ariel and her handmaidens fell back, struggling against the clouds of birds.

Alkhor pounded his ragged wings and began flying back towards the centre of the garden.

Orion whirled around, looking for a way to follow.

‘My lord!’ cried Haldus, pointing up through the clouds.

Orion looked up and saw Haldus’s enormous warhawk, Nuin, swooping towards him.

Orion leapt as Nuin passed overhead and hauled himself up onto her back as she swooped away after the daemon.

Huge as Nuin was, she struggled for a moment under the weight of her new passenger. Then she managed to regain control and she hurtled across the battlefield. The two armies were milling around in confusion as Alkhor fled, still screaming.

Nuin carried Orion closer, swooping through the flies so fast that he could do little but hang on to her feathers.

They emerged from the clouds just a few feet from the daemon’s face. The combination of the daemon’s face, seen at close quarters, and the dreadful smell oozing from its guts was horrific. Orion gagged but managed to look his foe in the eye.

Alkhor looked terrified. Rather than attack Orion, he reached up to his face, gingerly touching a piece of silver, stuck in his grey skin, just below his eye. As he fingered the knife, his expression changed to one of relief.

Orion saw that the noblewoman’s blade had barely broken the daemon’s skin.

The look of terror had given Orion his cue though. Knowing how afraid the daemon was of the knife, he leapt from Nuin’s back and rammed the blade deeper into Alkhor’s cheek.

He was engulfed by an explosion of gas and flies and then, as Alkhor’s face collapsed beneath him, he fell into the daemon’s body.

Rather than innards, Orion found himself falling through a whirl of shapes and colours. His mind tried to comprehend the incredible sights washing over him, but it could not. Orion sensed that he was passing through a place of pure magic – pure Chaos. His own body began to dissolve. Countless visions swam out of the madness, dazzling him with their clarity. He saw gods and mortals locked in an endless battle. He saw oceans of fire and rivers of stone. He saw his people battling their metal-clad brethren from across the sea. Finally, he saw a dragon-helmed warrior, lunging towards him with a magic-charged sword and death in his eyes. Then the images began to fade.

And so I die, he thought. The concept seemed oddly abstract – as though he were thinking of someone else. Then another, far more worrying idea came to him. Did I save the forest?

He fell deeper into the whirl of colours with no sense of direction.

Then, as his body grew more faint, other shapes emerged from his chest.

His forebears gathered around him – the other Orions, staring at him with stern, unyielding expressions. Your work is not done, they seemed to say as they dragged him in a new direction.

There was another explosion and Orion was battered by noise, sound and smell: his ears filled with the sound of screaming crows and whirring flies, his eyes filled with the hideous colours of the garden and his nose recoiled from the revolting stink of Alkhor’s flesh.

The ghost Orions remained visible for just a few more seconds as they hurled him away from the daemon.

Orion’s breath exploded from his lungs as he slammed down into a pool of pus and pallid, grass-like toadstools.

Alkhor was directly above him. There was a wide gash running all the way from his face to his belly. Through the hole Orion could see nothing – the same mind-numbing nothing that was hanging in the sky just a few feet away.

The daemon’s scream shifted up several octaves until it passed beyond the point of being audible. His mountainous body was shaking so fast that its outline became blurred. The wound grew wider and then, with an odd tearing sound, it joined with the hole in the air.

At the moment the two holes joined, the thousands of flies that filled the garden began hurtling towards the rift, like smoke sucked up a chimney.

Soon the flies were streaming through the garden in a deafening torrent, causing the two stunned armies to falter and cower.

The flies were followed by the crows. Hundreds upon hundreds of the birds started spinning and tumbling towards the hole in the sky, however furiously they attempted to fly elsewhere.

Orion looked back at Alkhor and saw that the same invisible current was tugging at the daemon’s juddering flesh. Shreds of grey, rotten skin tore free, flying through the air like the pennants of a conquered fortress.

As the wind pulled him Alkhor slumped sideways. There was a loud crack as one of his horns snapped and hurtled from the world.

Oddly, Orion could feel nothing tugging at his own body. As he climbed from the pool, he was able to stand quite easily, despite the storm of debris that was roaring past him.

He looked back to the opening of the gulley, where his army was still waiting, and saw that they too were unaffected.

Their foes were not so lucky. Orion saw that the crimson daemons of Khorne, along with the few remaining plague daemons, were staggering and tumbling towards the hole formed by Alkhor’s collapsing body.

The roaring grew to a deafening volume and Orion clamped his hands over his ears as the daemonhost was wrenched, screaming and howling out of sight.

As the last few monstrosities flew through the air and vanished from view, Alkhor folded in on himself, like water spiralling down a hole.

Then they were gone.

SPRING

Éorann-Ostallis

Quickening

The Season of Birth

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

As always, the hunt roared on. The timeless ritual of Kurnous. Ever brutal. Ever wild. Ever pure. The beasts, nobles and spirits of the deepwood host charged through the rotten trees, clawing and screaming as they went, drawn by the howl of their feral king. Only Ariel remained, immune to her lover’s call; watching them leave. Orion and his hounds had already vanished from view, but his horn was still audible over the din, demanding that his subjects submit to the wildness in their soul. She saw familiar faces, bobbing like flotsam in the crowd. Haldus was there, sprinting after his king with pride and madness in his eyes. Even her own handmaidens had been unable to resist such animal fury. With the power of the entire forest behind him, Orion had broken the barrier between the worlds. He had become Kurnous. Dragons tumbled in his wake, roaring and looping as they revelled in the violence.

Ariel’s heart swelled at the sight and for a while she could do nothing but watch. This tribute of blood was what made them whole. This was the pulse of the forest. Then, as the noise and clamour of the hunt faded into the distance, heading for the borders of the forest, Ariel’s heart slowed. As Orion’s horn grew fainter, she felt as though she were emerging from a heady dream. She realised, to her amazement that even she had been possessed by Orion’s power. She smiled, delighted that her eternal consort had become so powerful. Then she turned around and her smile froze.

Ariel was surrounded by the wreckage of their home. As the hunt headed west, towards the wild heath, an eerie quiet descended over the remains of Alkhor’s garden. The plague daemons had vanished and, without Alkhor’s magic to sustain it, the gaudy fungus that covered the forest was shrivelling and withering, crumbling to ash in the sunlight that had been revealed by the destruction of the flies.

The Mage Queen looked up and saw that the sky was as clear and blue as it should be. There was a woodlark spiralling overhead, rising and falling as it sang. She watched it for a while, but the thought of spring gave her no pleasure. They had won the battle. The enemy was gone. The Wild Hunt had begun and the seasons would return, but as Ariel headed back towards Còlgarran Pass it was with a weary, dejected air. She picked her way through the mounds of corpses, helping those she could and realised the full horror of their loss. As the sounds of the hunt faded, its madness left her and she saw the brutal, pitiful truth: the forest was dead.

She saw a young wardancer with a shaven head, sitting in the lee of a bare, broken stump. She was cradling the corpse of a noblewoman and singing to her in cracked, husky tones. Ariel stopped to listen and realised it was a lullaby. She recognised a couple of lines and mouthed the words.

Sleep my child, in new green leaves;

Drop your worries from the eaves.

There was so much pain in the wardancer’s voice that Ariel struggled to contain her own grief. She staggered to a halt and closed her eyes. The plaintive song seemed to be an elegy for the whole forest. Ariel looked around with growing shock. Where the plague had receded it left nothing but a barren wasteland. The blight was falling from the few trees that still stood, but all that remained were broken, lifeless shells. They had lost their soul.

Ariel pounded her wings and launched herself from the battlefield, flying low through Còlgarran Pass and out into the wider forest. Wherever she looked, the story was the same. The forest was a shattered corpse. Its spirit had gone.

She made a haphazard course over a latticework of bare branches but, however far she flew, the song of the wardancer still rang in her ears, haunting her with its grief.

After hours of mindless wandering, Ariel finally landed on a muddy verge, near the banks of a fast-flowing stream.

‘What do I do?’ she said, staring at her pale reflection. Her robes were in tatters and stained with daemon-blood and she was still clutching the sword she had stolen from the corpse. She tossed the blade in the stream. The water was clear and she saw the blade settle onto the sun-dappled rocks.

No answer came and Ariel clutched her head. She was born to preserve and heal, but the forest was beyond her help. The physical damage would be nothing if its soul was still intact, but Ariel knew that it was not. This was a far more profound hurt. The plague had stolen the very essence of her home. And she herself had played her part. She and her consort had killed the Great Stag. With Sativus gone, there could be no healing. The forest spirits would scatter and fade.

There was a muffled clatter as the sword moved to one side, nudged by the current of the water. The morning light flashed along its blade and threw an odd shape over the stone. It was as though the blade were pointing to something – something downstream.

Ariel stepped into the water. The cold clamped around her naked feet, aching deep in her bones, but there was something cleansing about the sensation that calmed her. She knelt and washed away the grime of battle, dunking her head beneath the surface and gasping at the cold. Then, when she was clean, she began walking downstream.

The sensation of the current, gently hurrying her across the rocks, gave her an odd sense of purpose. Despite her despair, she gave in to the feeling, stepping quickly over the silt and stones.

The sun rolled higher as she spent the morning in this pointless pursuit. Then, as midday turned the stream into a sheet of dazzling gold, she noticed something struggling on the far bank – thrashing and rolling in the shallows. She bent down to examine it and saw that it was a tiny, lime-green frog.

Ariel held it gently in her palm, feeling the patter of its tiny heart against her skin. The creature had broken its back and was clearly in pain.

Shame washed over Ariel. How could she have forgotten herself like this? The forest may have lost its lifeblood, but she had not. The gods had given her a clear purpose. She could not save the forest, but if there was one soul that she could nurse back to health, it was her duty to do so.

As her determination returned, so did her attendants. As Ariel lifted the frog to her mouth and blew over its skin, her robes flickered into life – glittering with bestial spirits.

Her breath washed over the frog like a coat of liquid silver, shimmering and flashing, before slipping in through its mouth.

The frog shivered in Ariel’s palm and she smiled as she saw its back straighten.

Then she frowned. The creature was healed, but it continued to shiver. The silver light blazed brighter, until Ariel had to shield her eyes.

The frog continued shivering in her palm and, when she looked again, she saw that it had been transformed into a tiny fledgling.

Confused, she laid it carefully on the ground, in a bed of ashes and scarred earth.

The bird flew away from her, singing cheerfully as it soared over the dead trees.

Ariel flew after it, with a growing sense of wonder.

The bird landed near the hollow trunk of a blasted oak, then, as Ariel landed nearby, it vanished inside.

She moved to follow, then stumbled to a halt as it re-emerged, transformed for a second time. Ariel laughed, recognising an old friend. The bird had become a proud, white stag.

The animal trotted out into the light, its eyes locked on Ariel.

She noticed something rattling around its neck and reached out to touch it.

The stag did not flinch, but continued watching her calmly with its huge, black eyes.

Ariel frowned as she touched the object. It was a snake-bone necklace.

Then, as Ariel’s fingers brushed against the stag’s neck, the animal bolted, leaving her alone next to the hollow trunk.

Ariel’s eyes filled with tears and she began to smile.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darius Hinks’ first novel, Warrior Priest, won the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for best newcomer. Since then he has made his first foray into the Age of Sigmar with the novella Warqueen as well as a number of Warhammer titles, including The Orion Trilogy. He is also the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Blackstone Fortress, Mephiston: Blood of Sanguinius, Mephiston: Revenant Crusade and the Space Marine Battles novella Sanctus.

An extract from ‘Pilgrim’s Trial’ from the anthology Gods and Mortals.

‘Hold her.’

Vanik drew his Azgorh-forged broadsword, Serpent’s Fang. His chief retainer, Modred, flinched at the sight of the heavy, serrated blade.

‘I said keep her steady,’ the Black Pilgrim reiterated, baring his fangs in annoyance. Modred gripped the mare’s bridle more tightly, his face pale. The dozen Chaos knights surrounding them watched on in silence from the backs of their own great steeds, impassive in their black, spiked armour and rough pelts.

For a few seconds, Vanik looked at the bay mare being held by his retainer. He had owned many warhorses since he started on the Path to Glory. He still remembered his first, given to him during his seventeenth summer by Golgeth Eightpoint. It had been a heavy-set grey stallion, reared on the Red Steppes like the mounts of most of Lord Golgeth’s cavalry, hardy and ill-tempered. She had fallen at Herrendorf, half a dozen musket balls in her breast, her death avenged by Serpent’s Fang. Others had followed – Winteroath, the white stallion that had trampled the captain of a Freeguild company at the battle of New Marsh, and Krux, the red-eyed brute he had stolen from Lord Jarqo’s stables in the dreadhold Sunderfall.

In that regard, his latest mount, Fellwind, had a long and proud legacy. Vanik had won her off the master of his own cavalry, Lo Faug. She was a Red Steppe mare, like his first. He supposed there was a sweet symmetry in that. The true, wicked gods loved their ironies.

‘Forgive me,’ Vanik murmured to the mare. ‘You must meet your end amidst smoke and ash. My destiny lies within the Cinderwood, and your blood will guide me to it.’

Modred cast a nervous glance at the ash and smoke swirling around them. What it hid, Vanik did not know, but he doubted it would be cheerier than what he could already see – the low ridgeline they had clambered to the crest of was littered with blackened bones and charred corpses. The stench of burning and the cloying smog that shrouded them seemed perpetual, and just where it was rising from remained hidden. Vanik intended to be gone before he found out.

Aqshy was the Realm of Fire, and it rarely accepted visitors without burning them.

The Black Pilgrim followed his retainer’s glance, turning his eyes briefly to the smoke. There was something out there, he was sure of it. Something drawing closer. He could only hope it was what he had come here looking for.

Jaw set, Vanik raised Serpent’s Fang, and swung down with all his Four-blessed strength.

Fellwind screamed. Vanik grimaced and swung again, arterial blood spraying both him and Modred. Butchering a horse was never a simple matter.

His steed went down on her front legs. Vanik swung a third and final time. The sounds of the slaughter echoed back weirdly from the smoke shrouding them. He had to be fast, before the blood and shrieks drew any more unwanted attention.

Finally, Fellwind lay still. Vanik stood over her, panting, blood running thick and slow from his sword and armour. Modred crouched beside the fallen steed, looking up at his master fearfully.

‘It is done,’ Vanik said, turning to survey his retinue. The dozen knights of the Iron Brotherhood continued to look on in silence. They had followed him faithfully since he had first declared his intention to embark upon the Black Pilgrimage and seek entry into the ranks of the Varanguard. In the many quests since then, none had ever strayed from his side. Now, he would give them no choice.

‘I must go,’ he said to his retinue. ‘This quest can only be undertaken alone. Wait out the night. If I have not returned by the time this smoke lightens or lifts, depart. Find my sister, Warqueen Jevcha, with the Darkoath, and tell her of my death.’

‘May the Eightstar guide you, sire,’ Modred said, cuffing his cap from his head and using it to wipe the blood from his youthful face. He made the sign of the eight-pointed Star of Chaos, four fingers from each hand interlocked.

‘And you, boy,’ Vanik responded tersely. He clapped his heavy warpsteel shield across his back and moved off down the slope, sheathing Serpent’s Fang as he went. He didn’t bother to clean its edge of Fellwind’s blood. It would be wet again soon enough, of that he was certain.

In the decades since Vanik had first set foot upon the Path to Glory, fear had become a stranger to him. Even when he had been young, the threat of blood and battle had served only to set his spirits soaring, as it did with any lodge-son of the Splintered Coast. The shattered ice-crags and long winters of that harsh corner of Ghur bred a warrior people well suited to the service of the four True Gods. Fear was a luxury no hearthguard or dragonship oarsman could afford. Here, however, the sensation stirring in his gut felt different entirely.

To fight what was seen was simple. To do so against something that was unseen was altogether less so. It created a creeping, slithering unknown that set the nerves on edge and honed the senses to a painful edge. The uncertainty of stepping out into the choking pall of ash and smoke made Vanik grimace. Still, it was to the Cinderwood that his Black Pilgrimage had brought him, and he would not depart until this latest quest was completed. He would become a Knight of Ruin, one of Archaon’s chosen, a warrior of the Varanguard. If not, his soul was already forfeit.

He progressed over the broken and burned corpses littering the plain, his boots crunching through brittle bone and blackened flesh. The smoke around him shifted and twisted, and more than once he thought he caught shapes darting around him, or features leering from the constantly falling ash. Whether they were signs from the True Gods or something more malevolent, he could not tell, but he kept one gauntlet on the hilt of Serpent’s Fang as he walked.

‘Eightfold Path guide me,’ he murmured, forging on deeper into the malevolent smog.

It wasn’t long before he lost the outline of the ridge behind him. That in itself was no concern. He had come here to lose himself. That was the only chance he had of finding what he sought. He was in the hands of the True Gods now.

He realised there were shapes ahead, more permanent than the phantoms haunting him. For a moment, he tensed, hand tight around his sword’s hilt. A few more steps, however, revealed that the looming shades were the beginnings of a forest, swathed in the smoke that seemed to perpetually cloud this part of Aqshy. It was the Cinderwood, he realised. The thrice-cursed place he’d been searching for. He moved in among the boughs, treading carefully, his fangs bared and yellow eyes straining in the gloom.

The woodland was quite dead. An expanse of burned trunks and skeletal branches, it closed in around Vanik, a thicket of scorched and blackened timber that looked as though it had only just fallen victim to the most ferocious of forest fires. Crisped undergrowth cracked and snapped beneath his boots, and more ash rose up with every step. He continued to battle the urge to draw his sword. He was being watched, he was sure of it.

He moved a bough aside, the ancient tree groaning like a soul weary of torment. Something dark and heavy shifted in the branches above, and tumbled down towards him. Serpent’s Fang was free in an instant, a dash of silvered steel in the singed landscape.

The blade stopped inches from the thing that had almost hit him. He found himself face-to-face with a withered skull, its sockets glaring at him, leathery flesh clinging to the rictus grin of its jaw. The thing swayed as he stepped back, and he realised the corpse was hanging from a length of knotted ashvine, the blackened cords wrapped tight around its throat from the branches overhead. The body dangled like a mad child’s mannequin, head bowed, shrivelled and shrunken by the heat. For the first time, Vanik noticed more hanging from the boughs round about, unmoving in the still air, their rotted sockets staring blindly into the smoky woodland where they’d choked and burned.

Vanik thrust the hanging body aside and strode on, his anger flaring. He had not come here to skulk around a charred, corpse-draped forest. His quest would not allow him to leave until he’d found what he sought – nothing else mattered, and if anything sought to impede him, it would die, and die a second death if necessary. He kept Serpent’s Fang’s bloody blade drawn and pressed on, deeper into the Cinderwood.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Orion: Vaults of Winter first published in 2012.

Orion: Tears of Isha first published in 2013.

Orion: Council of Beasts first published in 2014.

This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Cover illustration by Tatyana Kupriyanova.

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All Rights Reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-78999-431-5

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Table of Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer

THE VAULTS OF WINTER

Principal Characters and Places

Prologue

WINTER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

SPRING

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

SUMMER

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Epilogue

TEARS OF ISHA

Principal Characters

AUTUMN

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

WINTER

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

THE COUNCIL OF BEASTS

Principal Characters

WINTER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

SPRING

Chapter Twenty-Three

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Gods and Mortals’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Table of Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer

THE VAULTS OF WINTER

Principal Characters and Places

Prologue

WINTER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

SPRING

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

SUMMER

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Epilogue

TEARS OF ISHA

Principal Characters

AUTUMN

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

WINTER

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

THE COUNCIL OF BEASTS

Principal Characters

WINTER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

SPRING

Chapter Twenty-Three

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Gods and Mortals’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Table of Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer

THE VAULTS OF WINTER

Principal Characters and Places

Prologue

WINTER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

SPRING

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

SUMMER

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Epilogue

TEARS OF ISHA

Principal Characters

AUTUMN

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

WINTER

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

THE COUNCIL OF BEASTS

Principal Characters

WINTER

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

SPRING

Chapter Twenty-Three

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Gods and Mortals’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license