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Besh-Darok with such haste?”
    “Lord Regent Yasgur, my men and I have for the last four days been harrying the brigands responsible for the many raids on either side of the Girdle Hills. Yesterday, we came face to face with their leader.” Yarram gazed levelly at Yasgur. “Milord, I am not a man given to flights of fanciful rumination, so please accept that there is no embroidering in what I am about to relate.”
    “Your honesty is known to us, Lord Commander. Continue.”
    “We followed the brigands into the Girdle Hills southwest of Besh-Darok. Our pursuit brought us to the ford of a river swollen by the snow and rain, but we arrived to find that the brigands had wrecked the bridge and were waiting to defy us. As we approached, their leader emerged on horseback - from where we were I could see that it was a woman, garbed in a winding gown as pale and hueless as her face and hair. She rode slowly out onto a flat boulder and said ‘Who commands?’.”
    “I said nothing but urged my mount forward to the grassy bank of the spated river. Only when I halted by the river’s edge was I able to discern the woman’s features.” Yarram paused. “I am certain that you never met Suviel Hantika, the lady mage who was my Lord Mazaret’s beloved. I, on the other hand, saw her on many occasions - ”
    “The woman is dead,” Yasgur said bluntly. “Or so that turncoat sorceress Nerek insisted. But you saw her alive and leading our enemies, is that what you’re saying?”
    Yarram nodded. “She looked more wraith than living flesh, but it was her face that I saw and her voice that I heard speak, I am certain.”
    Yasgur inhaled deeply, thinking -
Atroc, you should be here to advise me
…
    “What else did she say?”
    “She said - ‘Tell your masters that Death has many doors and they cannot lock them all. And tell Ikarno that I shall await him at Blue axe Ridge’. Then she and her followers turned and rode off.”
    Yasgur felt the hairs on his neck stir, and a chill go through him. In the Mogaun sagas there were many tales of the power of the words of the dead.
The Shadowkings are close to us, stretching out their hands, sending forth their creatures to taunt us. And those words were meant for Mazaret - what will he do when he hears them
?
    He clenched his fists, burning with the need to act. “There is little sense in waiting here,” he said. “Let us return to the palace with all speed, and I shall call the High Conclave to meet - ”
    “An excellent idea, my lord,” came a voice at his back. “I have already sent several people ahead to prepare for just such a gathering.”
    It was Bardow, his eyes bright with purpose, his mouth curved in a small, hard smile.
    “Greetings, my Lord Regent, Lord Commander, and my apologies for intruding, but I bring word of unsettling developments within the city itself.”
    “A timely interruption, ser Archmage, as I have just received a disturbing report from the Lord Commander here. I suggest that we hasten to the palace and share around each others' dread news as we travel.”
    “Mayhap one will cancel out the other, my lord,” said Ghazrek, grinning darkly as he went to open the door.
    Bardow uttered a dry laugh. “An unlikely event, captain.”

Chapter Four
    The roots of meaning and memory,
Are a deep, dark tangle,
Which holds love and hate,
In eternal, unbreakable bonds.
    —Avalti,
Augronac’s Lament
    In the sharp, grey cold of dawn, Ikarno Mazaret sat on a wide rock on a snowy hillside overlooking the former Duchy of Patrein, thinking of the two occasions on which he had slain the Warlord Azurech.
    Or at least of the blows he had struck the man, blows that would have killed any
ordinary
warrior. The first time had been in the burnt-out ruins of Tobrosa during a rainstorm, hunting Azurech and his guards through black, wet streets. Catching him unawares and alone, Mazaret had beat aside his sword and dealt him a thrust of such fury and might that his blade had