‘And that is exactly why I am so concerned.’

Styliann chuckled. ‘I am glad to see your mind still turns. Nonetheless, my offer is everything that you want and nothing you don’t.’

‘Why?’ Dystran leaned forward. ‘I cannot fathom why you would give up so tamely all for which you have lived.’

‘No, I don’t suppose you can,’ said Styliann. He pitied Dystran’s lack of true vision. Pitied it but welcomed it. ‘But there are some paths opened to us from which we dare not turn.’

‘And the noon shade is one of those things?’

Styliann inclined his head. ‘In a sense, yes.’

Dystran looked away into the fire but Styliann could see his eyes flicking as the thoughts tumbled through his head. Indeed, he was probably in a close Communion with his aides, who had wisely elected to remain anonymous to Styliann. Dystran’s silence was brief.

‘The papers will be drawn up. You will sign them and leave the city immediately, returning only with my permission and carrying Septern’s pages which are loaned to you for the purpose of saving Balaia. Is that acceptable?’

‘Yes, my Lord,’ said Styliann, rising. ‘And now I will leave you to your work. The Lord of the Mount enjoys little respite. I shall await the papers in the Grand Dining Room.’

‘Food will be brought.’

‘Thank you.’ Styliann proffered a hand which Dystran took a little reluctantly. ‘Until we meet again.’ Clutching Septern’s writings, Styliann left the Tower.

Later, walking back towards the waiting Protectors, Cil trailing him leading a line of six laden pack-horses, Styliann gazed down at the papers and parchments in his hands and wondered at the stupidity of the new Lord of the Mount. He hadn’t questioned any of the papers Styliann had selected, indeed hadn’t even glanced over them. Yet they were the keys to power and influence that made Dystran an insignificant pawn.

One day, he would realise that. It was a day Styliann relished.

It was hardly night at all, not in the way Hirad understood it. He stood in the lee of the north wall, a line of six saddled, bagged and magically-calmed horses tethered nearby while the latest assault on the College raged outside. The afterglow of spells flared visibly in the pre-dawn dark, flooding the sky where the fires from a hundred burning buildings in Julatsa already carved their signatures.

Flames and hail lashed the approaching Wesmen whose screams mixed with the orders of the lead mages who directed the fire and ice. The thrum of bowstrings punctuated the voices but the rasp of swords was missing. No Wesmen had yet scaled the walls but they were getting closer and closer.

Hirad was content to stand in the shadows and listen. There was nothing he could do and he had to prepare himself, as did all The Raven. The morning and the Dordovan attack, when it came in, would be difficult. Risky. And The Raven weren’t given to taking chances.

As he leant against the wall, hand absently rubbing his horse’s shoulder, the door to the Tower opened and a huge figure stooped through it followed by one much slighter. The Unknown and Ilkar. He smiled as they ambled towards him, for all the world two friends merely out for a stroll, chatting as they walked. But Hirad could guess their words, and remarks about the warmth of the morning would not be among them.

Shortly afterwards, lamp light spilled into the courtyard from the infirmary and three silhouettes emerged. In the centre the tall man walked hunched and bowed, his companions always half a step ahead. Theirs was a silent march.

‘Been here long?’ asked Ilkar as he approached.

‘Long enough to hear the strains in the defence,’ replied Hirad. ‘Feeling good?’

‘As you ever can at this ungodly hour.’

‘Any word from the Dordovans?’ asked Hirad.

‘ “Be ready,” ’ replied Ilkar.

‘That it?’

‘Well they didn’t give a tactical battle plan involving points of insertion, pressure magic and flank defence, if that’s what you’re asking.’ Ilkar’s ears pricked. ‘This was a brief Communion, not a round-table discussion.’

‘Call yourselves mages, I don’t know . . .’ Hirad’s humour at Ilkar’s irritation faded as Thraun loomed into view.

Someone else had brushed his hair into a ponytail; its untidiness told Hirad that. It was swept back from red-rimmed eyes which gazed blankly from a drawn and terribly tired face that betrayed every tear he had shed and all that were still to come. Hirad’s heart lurched as he remembered all too clearly the aftermath of Sirendor’s murder. There was nothing to be said but silence was not an option.

‘The pain will ease,’ he said. Thraun looked at him squarely before shaking his head and dropping his gaze to the ground once more.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I let him die.’

‘You know that’s not true,’ said The Unknown.

‘As a man, I could have stopped them but as a wolf I could only really understand my own fear. I let him die.’

Hirad opened and closed his mouth, discarding his reply for something more practical. ‘Can you ride?’

Thraun nodded, very briefly.

‘Good. We need you, Thraun. We need your strength. You are Raven and we will always stand by you.’

Another nod but his shoulders had begun to shake. ‘Like I stood beside Will and let him die?’ he managed though his throat was clogged.

‘Sometimes even our best is not enough,’ said Hirad.

‘But I didn’t give him that. I was lost and because of that Will is dead.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Erienne.

Thraun favoured her with a bleak stare. ‘Yes I do,’ he said, repeating in a whisper, ‘Yes I do.’

Throughout a tense morning, the Wesmen mounted surge after surge as if sensing a change in the atmosphere in the College. They flung themselves at the walls with increasing fury and ferocity,.

Thousands were committed, their ladders and towers bumping against Julatsan stone to be destroyed by fire, their men by wind and hail. But still they came and, as the mages tired, the threat of hand-to-hand fighting on the ramparts came ever closer.

During a temporary lull with the Wesmen regrouping out of spell range once more, The Raven moved up to the North Gate battlements to assess the state of the day. Julatsa was being systematically destroyed, her useful materials pressed into new service, and anything else broken or burned. Fires flickered everywhere and the flattened killing-zone was widening by the hour.

Hirad turned to The Unknown as catapult rounds whistled overhead to smash into buildings and the deserted courtyard, warranting hardly a backward glance. The big warrior was staring impassively out over the sea of Wesmen, calculating their likely chances of escape while assessing the hit-and-run tactics that so drained the Julatsan mage defence.

‘Thoughts, Unknown?’

‘We’re relying too heavily on the Dordovans causing a wide disruption,’ he said. ‘If we don’t strike from this side too, we won’t break the line.’

‘Positive, aren’t you?’

The Unknown looked at him. ‘Realistic.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘Well, let’s assume the Dordovans strike on a front from that red bear standard across to the bull head one there.’ He indicated two of the flapping Wesmen muster flags set about seventy yards apart. ‘We can reckon on there being an instant disruption of the line to either side of up to about twenty or thirty feet as men leave the front to fight behind them. If we can reinforce that break with an attack from here, even just a quick hit, we’ll much improve our chances. Simple, really.’

Hirad chuckled. ‘We’ve done this before,’ he said, his smile broadening at The Unknown’s quizzical frown. ‘Although you weren’t with us at the time. Trust me.’

The Unknown nodded and turned back to the Wesmen.

The attack came without warning, just as the sun passed its zenith. The Julatsan mages were bracing for another Wesmen surge when, on the northern periphery of the city, fire bloomed and the sound of falling masonry rumbled across the sky. Flash after flash threw shadow and blinding light across Julatsa, filling the day with vivid reds, oranges and blues.