Olret nodded grimly. “The Maker first struck sparks from his forge two years since. At first we hoped the Mother’s judgement had finally come upon Ilkehan but every isle was shaken or riven. Fish floated dead from the depths of the seas. Goats choked with the ash or died later, poisoned by their fodder. Whole families smothered as they slept when foul air filled the lowest lying hollows.”

“Then we appreciate your generosity all the more,” Shiv said seriously.

I took another piece of the smoked meat and a sliver of flat bread and avoided Shiv’s eye. It was Planir, Kalion and a couple of other mages who’d set the mountains erupting hereabouts, to give Ilkehan something to think about besides chasing us as we fled his clutches. It looked as if the Archmage had started something reaching a good deal further than he’d intended.

Olret managed a wry smile. “We searched out what favour the Mother showed us. There were turnips cooked in the very earth for the hungry. With so many beasts dead, we had fodder to spare for strewing on the hot ash.” He saw we were all looking puzzled at that and hastened to explain. “It prompts new growth, that we may recover the land as fast as possible.” His face turned sombre again. “But many have died for lack of food these two years past and Ilkehan preys on the weaker isles like a raven following a famished herd. He piles trouble upon trouble on them before claiming the land by force of arms and saying the people will it thus. Then he grants the starving food to keep them alive enough to work but too hungry to spare strength to resist him.”

“Is that what happened to the westernmost isle?” I asked politely.

Ryshad saw Olret was ignoring me again and asked his own question. “Have you no overlord or any union of Ilkehan’s equals to deny such conquest?”

Olret stiffened as if he’d been insulted before forcing a smile and asking Sorgrad, “Do the Anyatimm now submit to some king?”

“Never,” Sorgrad replied forcefully, half a breath ahead of ’Gren. “Every kin manages its own affairs and answers to none but its own blood.”

“And all who share blood ties work together for the common good?” Olret smiled with satisfaction as Sorgrad and ’Gren nodded. “Thus is ever with our clans.”

Which was all very well and entirely necessary in the mountains north of Gidesta, when the nearest neighbours were ten days’ travel over hard ground in good weather and thirty in bad. Everyone pulled together through that selfsame bad weather because they risked being the straggler who died if they didn’t. I wasn’t sure how well the notion would work here with everyone cheek by jowl in these meagre islands. “How are your leaders chosen?”

Olret ignored me again. “What is Ilkehan to you?” he demanded abruptly of Sorgrad.

“An enemy,” he replied simply. “To all of us.”

’Gren spoke up unexpectedly. ”He merits death by our law and by yours too, if that’s the price for wintering over the seas.”

Olret looked at him with sharp curiosity. “How say you?”

“Eresken was Ilkehan’s son?”

’Gren answered Olret’s nod with a satisfied smile. “I got it from Eresken himself that his mother was a slave taken from the grasslands and Ilkehan got her with child overwintering there.”

Hope in Olret’s dark eyes was soon quenched. “What is one more misdeed among Ilkehan’s manifest crimes? Do you not think we would have stood shoulder to shoulder and marched against him if we could?”

“Why can’t you?” asked Ryshad carefully.

“He draws the true magic from every hargeard and wields it like none since the time of the wyrms. The rest of us are left without the strength to ride the oceans in safety and even should we try, Ilkehan uses his dark rites to find and sink our ships.” Bitterness choked Olret. “I do not know where he gets such lore. He kills any who see into the realm of enchantment apart from those cravens who crawl at his heels, learning his secrets until he sends them to curse his enemies to death.

“Do you not think we would have thrown him down to break on the rocks below his stronghold if we could? He is proof against any attack. We could pile up our dead to reach his very ramparts and he would still be laughing as he watched us die beneath the lash of his magic.”

“Have you considered sending a single man to kill him?” Sorgrad asked. “One might escape the notice that a host attracts.”

Olret shook his head. “Ilkehan kills any exile who reaches his territories, lest they be some spy. As if I would let any man risk the Mother’s curse by making such a profane claim just to enter Ilkehan’s domains.”

“What’s a hargeard?” ’Gren demanded, picking berry seeds out of his teeth.

“You do not know?” Olret looked both wary and confused.

“We do not know the term,” said Sorgrad smoothly. “It will doubtless be called something else in our tongue.”

“The hargeard is sacred to the Mother and the Maker both,” Olret said guardedly. “Where we lay our ancestors to rest that the true lore may bind our past to our future.”

Sorgrad nodded reassuringly. “For us, such rites are centred in the tyakar caves.”

That meant nothing to me but visibly mollified Olret. “We use the Maker’s stones.”

Because anyone laying a body to rest in one of these curse-stoked mountains would probably come back the next day to find their revered forefather nicely cooked for carving. I decided that was better left unsaid and tried one of the berries before ’Gren took a quite unfair share.

“We have hopes of making Ilkehan pay for his crimes.” Sorgrad had decided we’d spent enough time with shuffling positions and measuring up the other players. It was time to cast the runes and see who came up a winner. He looked Olret straight in the eye. “We have come to kill him.”

That spark of hope flared again in Olret’s eyes and this time it burned brighter. “By your faith in the Mother?”

“By the bones of my soke.” Sorgrad was in deadly earnest.

Olret drew back a little. “But he has powers none can withstand.” That really galled him.

“I killed Eresken,” ’Gren piped up.

“We have the lore of the Forest Folk to protect us,” added Sorgrad with a nod in my direction.

Olret barely spared me a glance, all his attention on Sorgrad. If we’d had him at a gaming table, he wouldn’t have walked away with breeches or boots, his emotions showed so plainly on his face. He desperately wanted to accept we could rid him of his hated foe but every pennyweight of sense tipped his scales to disbelief.

“We have come to risk ourselves, not to bring danger to the innocent.” Ryshad spoke with his usual measured courtesy. He’d judged Olret aright, I noted, as the Elietimm betrayed relief at that. “But if Ilkehan were to be distracted, if some feint held his attention as we crossed into his lands, then our chances of success would be greatly increased.”

“Is there not some insult, some predation of Ilkehan’s that you plan on avenging?” Sorgrad asked casually. “We need not know where or how but if we knew when you intended to act, we could make our crossing while Ilkehan was looking in another direction.”

Olret was looking tempted but shook his head abruptly. “Were you captured crossing from my territory to his, Ilkehan would have his excuse to bring death to us all.”

“So we make a dogleg and cross from someone else’s lands.” ’Gren patently didn’t see a difficulty.

“Perhaps.” Olret’s eyes narrowed to give him a rather shifty expression. I guessed there was someone he wouldn’t be sorry to drop into Ilkehan’s line of sight. “Let me think on this. In the meantime, I welcome you as my guests, though I’m afraid we’re too busy to give you much entertainment. The Mother sends her bounties at this season and bids us gather all we can to see us through the grey days of winter. So, ease your travel weariness with a bath and then we shall offer what we can by way of feasting and music. Maedror!”