'You enjoyed it, though, didn't you?' accused Banouin. 'As you cut his throat you felt a surge of exultation.'

'Aye, I did!' snapped Bane. 'And what of it? He was my enemy and I vanquished him. That is what true men do. We fight and we know pride – and we leave the women to sit in the corners and wail over the dead.'

'True men?' said Banouin slowly. 'Of course. True men do not wish to live quiet lives, in harmony with their neighbours. They don't waste time poring over useless scrolls and trying to assimilate the wisdom of the ancients. They don't long for a world without wars and bloodshed and death. No. True men joy in the slitting of throats in the dark.'

Bane shook his head. 'I won't argue with you, Banouin. If words were arrows you'd be the deadliest man alive. But this is not a debate. They came to kill us. One of them died for it. And no, it doesn't touch me. Any more than it did when I aimed that blow at Forvar's neck.'

All colour drained from Banouin's face. 'You mean you meant to kill him?'

'Aye, I meant to kill him. And I have not suffered a moment of regret since.'

'That is where you and I are different,' said Banouin sadly. 'I have not known a day when I have not thought of it with regret.'

'This is a pointless conversation,' said Bane. 'And you have made me forget my dream.'

On the fifth day they entered the lands of the Southern Rigante, a wide, rolling plain that seemed to stretch before them into eternity. Looking back Banouin could see no sign of Caer Druagh. The mountains of his home were more than two hundred miles distant now. For the next ten days he and Bane rode ever south, spending their nights in villages and settlements. They were always made welcome, for all the tribespeople were anxious for news of Connavar, the Demon King. Did he have plans to ride south and smash the armies of Stone and the treacherous Cenii? Was he wed, and did he have an heir? Banouin had little to tell them, but Bane was a great storyteller and a fine singer, and he would sit with the tribesmen in the evenings, drinking ale and swapping tall stories, and finally leading them in a series of rousing songs. Not once did he mention that he was Connavar's son, nor did he speak disrespectfully of the king while with strangers. This surprised Banouin, and he asked his companion about it one morning as they rode away from a settlement.

'I have reason to hate him,' said Bane, his expression unusually serious. 'But he did save these people when Valanus led the Panthers north. It was Connavar and the Iron Wolves who crushed the advance, and drove the enemy back into the lands of the Cenii. I cannot take that away from him. My hatred is mine alone.'

On the eighteenth day they reached the River Wir, and journeyed by flat-bottomed boat for two hundred miles. The days were pleasant on the water, watching the countryside glide by. At the start Banouin was nervous of the four-man crew, who seemed to him to be cut-throats. Bane laughed his fears away. He and the crew got on famously. Each night they would moor the craft near settlements, allowing the two companions to lead their mounts ashore to feed.

One evening, the day they crossed the border into Norvii lands, Bane got into an argument with a huge tribesman and they moved outside to settle it with fists. The fight was fast, furious and ugly, but at the close, with both men bloodied and bruised, Bane suddenly began to laugh.

'What is so funny?' asked his opponent.

'Well,' said Bane, 'you are the ugliest whoreson I've ever seen. But the more I beat upon your face the better-looking it gets.'

The men crowding around burst into laughter. At last even the fighter grinned. 'You're a cocky little game-bird,' he said.

'I am indeed. Can I buy you a drink?'

'Why not?' replied the man.

Banouin could not duplicate Bane's easy familiarity with the people they met, and would often find himself sitting alone in a corner, observing. He envied, with just a touch of bitterness, Bane's ability to make friends. Banouin thought about the river crew. Hard men who would think nothing of killing a passenger and heaving his body over the side had warmed to Bane as if he were a blood relative. It was mystifying. Yet Bane was not always full of camaraderie. Often he would fall silent for long periods, his expression dark and brooding. Sometimes, when in such a mood, he would avoid settlements and the two travellers would go ashore and camp out in woods or hollows. He would talk then of his sadness for the life his mother had led, and how she had been shunned by the folk of Three Streams.

'Not all of them,' Banouin pointed out, as they sat in the moonlight beside a small fire. 'She used to visit my mother. And the Big Man was good to you both.'

'I don't remember him,' said Bane. 'I was too young when he died. But my mother spoke of him often. She said she was sitting, cradling me, in grandfather's forge three nights after her husband cast her out. Ruathain came to her there. He asked her if her husband had given me a soul-name. She said that he had not. The Big Man told her that he had been out walking on the night of my birth, and he had seen a falcon flying through the night sky. This was a rare thing, he said, and he felt that it was an omen. Whenever she told me this story my mother's eyes would fill with tears. She said he put his arm round her and asked if she would accept Midnight Falcon as my soul-name.' Bane sighed. 'It was the first act of tenderness she had experienced following my birth. It was said that Ruathain's wife was furious with him, and demanded he see no more of my mother. He refused, and often visited her, to see how we were faring. I wish I could remember him. He was a great man, by all accounts.'

'Aye, he was,' said Banouin. 'My mother warned him not to go to that last battle. Told him he would die if he did. But he went anyway, to protect Connavar. Mother knew he would. Said it broke her heart.'

'She was in love with him?'

'I never asked her. Maybe she was. It's not something you think about with old people, is it?'

Bane had laughed then, his good humour restored. 'My grandparents used to make their bed creak most nights.'

'Oh, that's disgusting,' said Banouin. 'Thank you for putting that image in my mind before I sleep.'

On the day they left the boat to continue their journey overland Banouin had seen genuine regret in the eyes of the crew. They wished Bane good luck on his travels, and made him promise to seek them out when he returned, so they could hear of his adventures. Not one of them bade farewell to Banouin.

The journey south was slower now, as they entered the great Forest of Filair. Settlements were further apart, and the riders had to veer many miles east or west in order to purchase supplies and food. At each stop they enquired as to the location of the next village before moving on. Banouin purchased a pack pony in order to carry more supplies, and Bane traded in his old bronze sword to acquire a leaf-shaped iron blade and a short hunting bow with a quiver of twenty arrows.

It was pouring with rain when the riders reached the forest's end. The plain of Cogden stretched out before them, flat and empty save for the four huge mounds erected above those fallen in the battle. Banouin shivered when he saw the Barrows. Twenty-eight thousand had died here on that terrible day. He had hoped to arrive at the battlefield much earlier in the day, so that they might ride through it in daylight. But Bane's horse had thrown a shoe, and they had been forced to detour to a settlement where a blacksmith forged and fitted a new one.

Now, with dusk fast approaching, they would have to camp in this desolate place. It did not seem to worry Bane. As night fell the rain eased away. Somehow Bane managed to light a fire, which hissed and spluttered against the damp wood. Spreading his cloak on the wet ground Bane was soon asleep. Banouin sat alone, feeding branches to the flames.