‘That’s how I knew the woman was trouble.’ It was a beat before Hirad realised that The Unknown wasn’t talking to either of them. ‘Damn.’

‘What are you talking about, Unknown?’ asked Hirad.

‘I recognised that tattoo, didn’t I? If I’d acted sooner, I could have saved Sirendor. Maybe. The trouble was, for a moment when I knew she was after Denser, I had no desire to stop her. I couldn’t have cared less if he lived or died, and in some ways I still can’t.’

‘Until Dawnthief came along,’ remarked Ilkar.

‘If you believe that,’ said The Unknown.

‘Still sceptical, are you, Unknown?’

‘Still an elf, are you, Ilkar?’

The buildings of the Korina Trade Alliance retained the grandiose air of centuries gone by.

The halls, offices, kitchens and rooms of the once proud organisation were set in gardens still tended beautifully by the City’s gardeners thanks to a legacy gifted by the third Earl Arlen in recognition of the KTA’s sacrifices in the first Wesmen wars three hundred years before. How the Arlen family’s fortunes had changed since then, swallowed up by the rising power of Baron Blackthorne on the back of the new rich trade in minerals.

The KTA put on a brave face for the public. A sweeping drive through ornate iron gates led to a pillared frontage whose double doors of ebony sat within a marble frame. The main building rose three storeys and was formed from quarried white stone brought from the Denebre Crags some seventy miles north and east.

It was inside that the cracks showed. The entrance hall was lined with standing armour, all dull and dusty. There was no money to employ the polisher any more. Paintwork peeled, damp and mould inhabited the corners of walls, and the air was musty in the nostrils.

The banqueting table was chipped, scarred and rutted, its chair fabrics torn, stuffing oozing from rents in the faded material. As for the rooms, no Lord or Baron would take one without a trusted bodyguard in attendance.

The whole atmosphere depressed Baron Gresse. His initial optimism that the meeting had been called at all disintegrated as the usual internecine bickering grew among the dozen delegates who could be bothered to attend.

Lord Denebre, who had called the meeting following losses he had suffered in a Wesmen raid on one of his convoys inside Understone Pass itself, was the nominal Chairman of the KTA, and popular belief held that he would be the last. He had contested that Tessaya, the tribal leader holding the Understone Pass treaties, had broken the safe passage agreements and that military action was necessary to keep the trade route open.

But around the table, the dozen Barons and Lords, ranging from the white-haired, craggily old but still powerfully built Lord Rache, and the black-bearded, bloated obscenity that was Lord Eimot, to the young, hawk-featured and very tall Pontois, wore their cynicism like armour.

For three hours, futile arguments, speeches and discussions drove the delegates into two factions. Gresse, Denebre and the elder son of Lord Jaden, whose lands lay to the north of the College Cities, found themselves in an increasingly beleaguered position. Orchestrated by Pontois, Rache and Havern, resolution after resolution led to the systematic dismissal of Denebre’s claims, accusations that he had triggered the skirmish, and calls for his words to be struck from the record. The culmination was a one-sided debate on how the KTA might best profit from any potential tribal unity, while the three excluded delegates sat in bewildered but furious silence.

Gresse, who had said little throughout, spoke only in response to a direct question from Pontois.

‘Strangely silent, Gresse. Still wondering how to pay for the damage to your castle wall, or just keeping your thoughts to yourself? ’

‘My dear Pontois,’ replied Gresse, ‘I am rather of the opinion that you lost the little tiff that you began and that your wounds require significantly more licking than my own. Meanwhile, I am afraid that my thoughts do not tally with the decisions you are about to make. Particularly your move to begin again the selling of arms to the Wesmen.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Pontois. ‘You are presumably in possession of harder facts than my Lords Rache and Havern?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Gresse, and the respect in which he was held sobered the audience at least temporarily. ‘The Wesmen, as Denebre has been trying to intimate, could invade Balaia at any time, given the numbers I believe are massed in the Heartlands even now. They are organised, strong and united, and I will be marching to the aid of Blackthorne at first light tomorrow.’

‘Really?’ Pontois held his smile. ‘A costly venture.’

‘Money is nothing,’ said Gresse. ‘Survival is everything.’ There was a ripple of laughter around the table.

‘Your fears are out of all proportion to the facts,’ said Lord Rache. ‘Perhaps your age is addling your mind.’

‘For generations now, we - and I include my family in this - have lived off the ample fat of Balaia, its people and its rich resources. We have drunk in its beauty and basked in its security. Our disagreements blow away like chaff in the wind when set against the warfare that has so often torn the west apart. But no longer. There is unification and it is us to whom their attention is turned. We stand on the brink of a fight for our lives, all of our lives, and the enemy is stronger, fitter, more numerous and better trained than we are,’ said Gresse. ‘Don’t you see it? Don’t you hear what Denebre is telling you?’ He turned to Pontois. ‘I would weep tears of joy on my ramparts at the sight of your men trying to take Taranspike Castle again, I really would. But unless we deal with the threat that affects us right now, Taranspike Castle will be flying a Wesmen standard.’

‘I would prefer to wait for these Wesmen while drinking wine from your cellars,’ said Pontois. ‘Balaia has such changeable weather this time of year.’ His words found favour with others around the table. A chuckle echoed off the walls.

‘Laugh now,’ said Gresse, ‘while you can. I pity you for your blindness, and I pity Balaia too. I love this country. I love being able to look out from my castle and see the distant Blackthorne Mountains shimmering in the morning sun, the dew lifting from the pasturelands below me, and smell the freshness of the air.’

‘And I will be happy to reserve a place for your rocking chair on my ramparts,’ replied Pontois.

‘I sincerely hope you are dead long before I need my rocking chair,’ spat Gresse. ‘And I will curse every day the fact that I am protecting your sorry hide while I and those truly loyal to this country strive to save it.’ He spun about and strode to the door, a tittering laugh in his ear. He paused, fingers on the handle. ‘Think about the real reasons Blackthorne isn’t here. Think about why the four Colleges are meeting at Triverne Lake right now. And think about why The Raven are working for Xetesk, something they swore never to do.

‘They all want to save our country from the Wesmen and our women from mothering their bastard sons. And any of you who refuse to ride to Blackthorne, Understone or the Colleges to lay your lives before the Gods for Balaia will be cast down when the reckoning comes. And come it will.’

The banqueting hall was silent as Gresse departed the KTA for the last time.

As the day waned towards dusk, Denser took the party from the main path into an area of thick woodland. He stopped when they were well hidden from anyone riding on the trail. Once all had dismounted, Richmond set about a small fire.

Denser wandered over to his horse, put his mouth close to its ear and pointed deeper into the woods. The brown mare ambled away in the direction Denser’s finger indicated, followed by all the others.