'Never mind their problems,' snapped Karnak. 'Could you locate a demon conjurer for me?'

Now it was Dardalion who laughed. 'You are a wonder, my lord. And I shall do you the kindness of treating that request as a jest.'

'Which of course it wasn't,' said Karnak. 'Still, you've made your point. Now, what of the Gothir?'

'They have reached agreement with the Sathuli tribes, who will allow an invading force to pass unopposed to occupy the Sentran Plain once the Ventrians have landed. Around ten thousand men.'

'I knew it!' snapped Karnak, his irritation growing. 'Which legions?'

'The First, Second and Fifth. Plus two mercenary legions made up of Vagrian refugees.'

'Wonderful. The Second and the Fifth are not a worry to me – our spies say they are mostly raw recruits with little discipline. But the First are the Emperor's finest, and the Vagrians fight like pain-maddened tigers. Still, I have a week, you say. Much can happen in that time. We'll see. Tell me of the Sathuli leader.'

For more than an hour Karnak questioned Dardalion until, satisfied at last, he rose to leave. Dardalion raised his hand. 'There is another matter to be discussed, my lord.'

'There is?'

'Yes. Waylander.'

Karnak's face darkened. 'That is none of your affair, priest. I don't want you spying on me.'

'He is my friend, Karnak. And you have ordered his killing.'

'These are affairs of state, Dardalion. Damn it all, man, he killed the King. There has been a price on his head for years.'

'But that is not why you hired the Guild, my lord. I know the reason, and it is folly. Worse folly than you know.'

'Is that so? Explain it to me.'

'Two years ago, with the army treasury empty, and a rebellion on your hands, you received a donation from a merchant in Mashrapur, a man named Gamalian. One hundred thousand in gold. It saved you. Correct?'

'What of it?'

'The money came from Waylander. Just as this year's donation of eighty thousand Raq from the merchant, Perlisis, came from Waylander. He has been supporting you for years. Without him you would have been finished.'

Karnak swore and slumped back into his seat, rubbing a massive hand across his face. 'I have no choice, Dardalion. Can you not see that? You think I want to see the man killed? You think there is any satisfaction in it for me?'

'I am sure there is not. But in having him hunted you have unleashed a terrible force. He was living quietly in the mountains, mourning his wife. He was no longer Way­lander the Slayer, no longer the man to be feared, but day by day he is becoming Waylander again. And soon he will consider hunting down the man who set the price.'

'I'd sooner he tried that, than the other alternative,' said Karnak, wearily. 'But I hear what you say, priest, and I will think on it.'

'Call them off, Karnak,' pleaded Dardalion. 'Waylander is a force like no other, almost elemental, like a storm. He may be only one man, but he will not be stopped.'

'Death can stop any man,' argued Karnak.

'Remember that, my lord,' advised Dardalion.

It was the dog that found the remains of the old tinker. Waylander had been moving warily through the forest when the hound's head had lifted, its great black nostrils quivering. Then it had loped off to the left. Waylander followed and found the animal tearing rotting meat from the old man's leg.

The dog was not the first to find the body and the corpse was badly mauled.

Waylander made no attempt to call the dog away. There was a time when such a scene would have revolted him, but he had seen too much death since then: his memories were littered with corpses. He recalled his father walking him through the woods near their home in the valley, and they had come across a dead hawk. The child he had been was saddened by the sight. 'That is not the bird,' said his father. 'That is merely the cloak he wore.' The man pointed up to the sky. 'That is where the hawk is, Dakeyras. Flying towards the sun.'

Old Ralis had gone. What was left was merely food for scavengers, but cold anger flared in Waylander neverthe­less. The tinker had been harmless, and always travelled unarmed. There was no need for such senseless torture. But that was Morak's way. The man loved to inflict pain.

The tracks were easy to read and Waylander left the dog to feed and set off in pursuit of the killers. As he walked he studied the spoor. There were eleven men in the group, but they had soon split up. He knelt and examined the trail. There had been a meeting. One man – Morak? – had addressed the group, and they had paired and moved off. A single set of prints headed east, perhaps towards Kasyra. The others moved in different directions. They were quartering the forest, and that meant they did not know of the cabin. The old man had told them nothing.

Identifying the track of Morak, narrow-toed boots with deep heels, he decided to follow the Ventrian. Morak would not be wandering the forest in the search. He would find a place to wait. Waylander set off once more, moving with care, stopping often to scan the trees and the lines of the hills, keeping always to cover.

Towards dusk he halted and loaded his crossbow. Ahead of him was a narrow path, wending up a gentle rise. The wind had changed and he smelt woodsmoke coming from the south-west. Squatting by a huge, gnarled oak he waited for the sun to go down, his thoughts sombre. These men had come into the forest to kill him. That he understood; this was their chosen occupation. But the torture and murder of the old man had lit a cold fire in Waylander's heart.

They would pay for that deed.

And they would pay in kind.

A barn owl soared into the night seeking rodent prey and a grey fox padded across the path directly in front of the waiting man. But Waylander did not move, and the fox ignored him. Slowly the sun set, and night changed the personality of the forest. The whispering wind became the sibilant, ghostly hiss of a serpent's breath, the gentle trees stood stark and forbidding, and the moon rose, quarter full and curved like a Sathuii tulwar. A killer's moon.

Waylander eased himself to his feet and removed his cloak, folding it and laying it over a boulder. Then he moved silently up the slope, crossbow in hand. There was a sentry sitting beneath a tall pine. As a safeguard against being surprised he had scattered dry twigs in a wide circle around the base of the tree, and was now sitting on a fallen log, sword in hand. His hair was pale, almost silver in the moonlight.

Waylander laid his crossbow on the ground and moved out behind the seated man, his moccasined feet gently brushing aside the twigs. His left hand seized the man's hair, dragging back his head, his right swept out and across, the black blade slicing jugular and vocal chords. The sentry's feet thrashed out, but blood was gouting from his throat and within seconds all movement had ceased. Waylander eased the body to the ground and walked back to where his crossbow lay. The campfire was some thirty paces to the north and he could see a group of men sitting around it. Moving closer he counted them. Seven. Three were unaccounted for. Silently he circled the camp, finding two more of the assassins standing guard. Both died before they were even aware of danger.

Closer to the fire now Waylander puzzled over the missing man. Was it the one sent towards Kasyra? Or was there a sentry he had not located? He scanned the group by the fire. There was Morak, sitting on the far side, wrapped in a green cloak. But who was missing? Belash! The Nadir knife-fighter.

Keeping low to the ground Waylander moved into the deeper shadows of the forest, stopping only once to smear his face with mud. His clothes were black, and he merged into the darkness. Where in Hell's name was the Nadir? He closed his eyes, letting the soft sounds of the forest sweep over him. Nothing.