Time would undoubtedly tell. But on the trip to Balaia they'd have to get themselves back into fighting form. The Raven had survived for so many years because of their trust and unshakeable discipline as much as their skill. Hirad reminded himself to talk to The Unknown about it. He wasn't sure how much fighting the big man anticipated back on Balaia but one thing was certain. Right now, they didn't have their edge. They'd be fighting from memory, with two people who had only fought with them once, one who hadn't hefted a sword in The Raven ever and one complete enigma.

Hirad drained his tea and stood up from the table in the inn where they'd gathered for breakfast. All that was for later.

'Come on then, Raven. Let's get moving before the sun clears this mist.'

There was a concerted move stalled only by Thraun, who was determined to finish every last crumb of bread.

'What's he planning to do, hibernate?' said Ilkar. 'Don't bring too much. We're in one boat. It's got oars, a sail and forward decking for stowing gear. I'll introduce you to the guide when we're on our way. Until then, keep quiet. He's already nervous about taking strangers upriver.'

'Strangers?'

'Yes, Hirad. If you're not elven on Calaius, you're a stranger. Remember that. Especially inland.'

They walked down to the river jetties in almost total silence, the thick mist giving the streets an eerie feel. Ysundeneth was very quiet. It shouldn't have been, not even this early, but word of the illness would have spread fast and people weren't anxious to open their doors and face the uncertainty of the day ahead.

The sun was barely beginning to penetrate the chill of the mist. Hirad shivered, wishing for his heavy leather or furs, but on Ilkar's advice he, like all of them, had bought new clothes in the markets yesterday. Light leather armour and boots, lightweight cloaks and shirts. Everything dark brown, black or green, the colours of the forest.

'It must be a drab place,' Hirad had said.

Ilkar had laughed. 'You have never seen anything like it.'

Hirad determined to remember that. He'd better be impressed.

Ilkar took them through twisting paved streets with houses and buildings close in on either side. Above the mist, seabirds called and answered. The jetties were a couple of miles inland from the docks and above the estuary. They were built for shallow-draught river-boats, and as they approached Hirad could see dozens of the boats tied up or hauled onto the muddy shore of the River Ix, which was named after the elven God of mana, or so Ilkar said.

He could smell the water. It was not altogether unpleasant, and although brown and its flow soporific in its sluggishness, it had none of the fetid stagnancy he associated with city rivers back on Balaia. The elves, it seemed, didn't use theirs as dumps or sewers.

The wooden jetty echoed under the tramp of their feet, the odd timber creaking as they passed, water lapping against the piles driven into the river bed. Ilkar strode confidently over the damp and slippery surface, stopping in front of a quartet of identical craft each some thirty feet long with a single mast in the middle, sail furled horizontally against it. An elf was stretched out across a seat at the stern of one of the vessels, smoke curling from a pipe in his mouth. It reminded Hirad that he hadn't seen Denser smoking his pipe in ages. Perhaps Erienne had cured him of the habit.

Ilkar hailed the elf and he sat up and waved them all on board, keeping his eyes down, not wishing contact with the Balaians invading his boat. He was old for an elf, his hair long and greying, his face full of sharp lines and heavy wrinkles. He had huge hands and powerful shoulders and possessed little of the natural grace of so many of his kind. He and Ilkar held a brief conversation in a dialect Hirad couldn't understand before he untied the stern rope and pushed them into the flow with an oar, where there was a breeze getting up, clearing the mist.

'Get the sail up, would you someone?' asked Ilkar, taking up station at the tiller with their guide, Ren, close to him. 'Kayloor thinks there'll be enough wind to take us up against the current but if we could have oars ready, it might help if things get slack.'

'No problem,' said The Unknown, bending down and untying the oar beneath the bulwark. 'You relax.'

'Someone's got to relay what he's saying,' said Ilkar, a smile on his face.

'Right.' The Unknown sat down, Aeb taking up the position beside him. Thraun looked on in some confusion but The Unknown just waved him to a seat and he seemed to understand. Denser and Erienne sat in the prow looking out, still saying nothing. It left Hirad and Darrick to raise the sail, which filled enough to push them gently out into the current.

'Now it starts,' said Ilkar. 'Keep your eyes on the banks and don't trail your hands in the water.'

'Fish got sharp teeth, have they?' said Hirad.

'Oh it's not the fish that should be worrying you, Hirad. There's far worse than mere fish in here,' said Ilkar.

'You're so reassuring.'

'Just realistic,' said Ilkar. 'This isn't like anything any of you have ever experienced. Don't treat it like Balaia or even Herendeneth or you'll come unstuck.'

' "Coming unstuck" meaning?'

'Dead, usually,' said Ren.

'Great place,' said Hirad. 'How surprising you left.'

'But it is great, Hirad,' said Ilkar. 'Just dangerous for strangers.'

Hirad shared a glance with Darrick, who raised his eyebrows.

'All right, General?' asked the barbarian.

'Never better,' replied Darrick.

A booming bellow echoed across the river from the opposite bank. Through the clearing mist, a flock of birds scattered into the sky, their calls piercing and shrill. Hirad jumped. The boat rocked. In the stern Ren and Ilkar were laughing.

'Gods, but I'm going to enjoy this,' said the mage.

The sail snapped and filled as the breeze stiffened in the centre of the channel. Choosing to keep his thoughts to himself, Hirad looked away into the depths of the rainforest.

Selik, forty Black Wings and their mage prisoner galloped into Understone after a hard three-day ride through yet more devastated countryside, abandoned farms and desolate villages. Their horses were exhausted, riders saddle-sore and Selik himself was experiencing severe pain in his face and across the dead parts of his chest. It was something he'd never understood. The nerves had been frozen by the bitch's spell so why could it hurt so much? Phantom pain, he'd been told. He preferred to believe it signalled some regeneration of his damaged body but in six years his condition hadn't improved.

Understone had never recovered from its central role in the last Wesmen wars. A small garrison town, it had been run-down when the war began and the battles it saw had left it burned and battered. It was now barely a shell. And to think what it had been when first built: the great defence against Wesmen invasion through Understone Pass.

The Black Wings rode down its rebuilt but again abandoned main street, past boarded-up houses down to the small stockaded garrison itself, reining in by the open front gates. Less than four hundred yards away, the black mouth that was the pass yawned large. Under the control of the Wesmen once again, the pass was the only passable land route east to west across the Blackthorne Mountains.

Selik turned his attention to the guard who hurried out to meet them. He was a raw recruit wearing old shabby leather and chain armour and carrying a rusting pike. His helmet wobbled on his head and his white, pinched and hungry face held frightened eyes.

'State your business,' he said, his voice wavering.

Selik dismounted and walked over to the guard, his arms spread to indicate peaceful intent.