'You lied me into ignorance, Captainbeast! You knew of her ties with the Thanehand and kept it a secret.'

'No, Master! I knew nothing of the love between them. I

had captured her as a delicacy for your table.'

'The truth!' Krulshards roared, casting back the malice to expose the raw sinews and rotten flesh of his shadowy body.

'Only the truth.'

'Master, it was when you sent us after the messenger who rode towards the Granite City. We had chased him far across Elundium and almost overtaken him on the edge of the Black Forest but he escaped the circle of Nightbeasts we set against him and sought refuge in the Wayhouse at Woodsedge.

Under cover of darkness, in the eye of a blizzard, we attacked and sacked the Wayhouse, but the messenger had gone, his tracks hidden beneath the snow. We killed all the Marchers we could find and stole Elionbel, Master. I was afraid to return empty-handed. I was going to bring her to you for torture, but the foul Gallopersp.a.w.n, Thanehand, and Elionbel's father, Tombel, overran us as the sun was rising and took her back. Great Master, I know nothing more.'

'You dared to keep this a secret and lie to me about the messenger's death?' Krulshards screamed, tearing his fingernails in deep plough lines across Kerzolde's face. 'In better times I would have stripped back your armour and thrown your skinless body on to the high plateau, to die when the sun rose. But I have some need of you now.'

'Master,' Kerzolde cried, crawling forward, 'fear of your rage made me lie to you. The Gallopersp.a.w.n has plagued me, Lord. I could not kill him. He is a true nightmare that follows me everywhere.'

Krulshards turned towards the entrance, licking at his dagger blade, curling his tongue around it as he looked out

across the battle-strewn plateau. 'You say every warrior in Elundium was gathered here?' he asked. 'Even Tombel, the Marcher?'

'Yes, Master,' Kerzolde cried, rising to his knees. 'Perhaps the messenger died in the snow and never reached the Granite City.'

Krulshards turned harshly on his Captainbeast where he knelt, huddled against the tunnel wall, and pressed the dagger blade into the coa.r.s.e hairy skin below his jaw.

'You fool,' he hissed. 'The messenger escaped. I know it now, and he warned the Granite King that my Nightbeasts were once more loose in Elundium. Why else would the King have gathered the Marchers, Gallopers and Archers into a great army. He was weak, terrified of the dark, and strangled by indecision; but the messenger must have given him strength and purpose, and the time to march against me.

Unless . . .'

Krulshards hesitated, curling his lips back across his ragged teeth, 'Unless Nevian, the Master of Magic, warned him.'

'But he did not march, great Lord,' Kerzolde whispered.

'He is siege-locked in the Granite City, and nowhere to be seen on this battlefield.'

Krulshards shrank back into his malice, wrapping himself in dark thoughts.

-'There is a new power in Elundium,' he whispered, turning his hooded eyes towards the gates. 'It is more powerful than the Granite King's. And this power does not fear the dark.'

'Thanehand, the Gallopersp.a.w.n!' cried Kerzolde. 'He

brought the warriors to our doors, following the bright banner of the sun that he carries.'

Krulshards laughed, drawing Kerzolde so close to him that their foul breaths mixed, filling the tunnel with yellow sulphurous fumes.

'Captainbeast,, he whispered, 'you have stumbled on the truth, blindly. He is the one I must destroy, and you have

brought me his weakness. This foul finger-bowl will be his undoing, and in time will lure him alone, into the darkness.'

'How, Master?' Kerzolde asked in a nervous voice.

'How?' laughed the Master of Nightbeasts. 'NVhy, you shall lead me to the Wayhouse on the edge of Maritern~s Forest, and there I will steal the fair Elionbel, and bairn her back [ the City of Night. She will be my lure. But first we will spoil Thanehand's victory. Come quickly, follow me into the high chambers where I hung that ancient Galloper, for he is another weakness in Thanehand, and I think the most trivial reason for the great army ma.s.sing at our gates. Magicians arid messengers had nothing to do with this battle.'

Krulshards spat at the ground and laughed. 'Victory will pe a skinless corpse to carry home. Thanehand, and ruin arid disaster will meet your every footstep. For I shall go before you, burning and destroying all you hold deal.,

Breathlessly Krulshards ran along the darkened narrow roads that led into the domed chamber where Thoronhand hung, suspended by two iron chains from a giant stake driven into the rough chamber roof.

'Thoronhand!' he hissed, prodding at the ancient warriors dangling feet, cutting easily into the ruined leather of his riding boots with a spear blade he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from one of the Nightshards, and sending him spinning giddily in the darkness.

'I bring you news, Thoron,' he mocked, landing up the silver finger bowl above his head.

'Battle's end has now come and I have a hard won trophy to show you, cut from your dead grandson's hand. Look! Look,

foul Galloper, for all is lost in the battle before my gates, and all those who gathered to take you back into the light have perished. The sun is setting over the ruin, Thoron, casting long shadows from where they lie, piled high ire carrion heaps for an age of Nightbeasts' feasts.'

Krulshards laughed cruelly, shaking the dead locks of twisted hair he had plaited across the top of his head.

12.

1.

A.;.

'Listen, Warrior,' he whispered. 'Listen to the silence of your defeat. Listen to the darkness, Thoronhand. You are the last warrior in all Elundium, and the sun will never rise for you again.'

Krulshards unsheathed his skinning hook, wetting the blade with his tongue.

'What say you now, Warrior?' he hissed, drawing the Nightshards into a circle around the dangling prisoner.

Thoron lifted his ancient head and stared down at the Master of Nightbeasts, catching a glimmer of the faint rays of sunlight that shone out beneath the malice. Throwing his head back he let a shout of laughter fall from his cracked and dirty lips. 'Rumour is a poor truth, Nightmare. Look to your cloak, for that tells of real day's end. What is it you hide beneath that foul black rag? Is it arrow-lights from Clatterford, or ruin before the Gates of Night?'

'Truth! This is the truth!' screamed Krulshards, wrapping the weakening sunlight within the folds of the malice and thrusting the finger bowl up into Thoron's face, catching the fine silver chain in the straggly ends of the old man's beard.

'There are few in all Elur~dium who could remember the Crystal Maker of Clatterford and his foul gla.s.s arrow-heads,'

hissed the Nightbeast, 'but one lucky strike does not win a battle or speak of victory. Read the names upon the bowl, Thoronhand, and then see who speaks the truth of battle's end!'

Thoron narrowed his eyes and traced each letter, spelling out the words written on the bowl. 'Thane!' he whispered, remembering the young lad, imagining him clearly in the darkness sitting astride the great Warhorse, Amarch, with Battle Owls perching on his shoulders. Thoron let his head fall forward.

'Thane!' he whispered again, only this time fiercely, squeezing back the tears, gathering his failing courage.

Proudly he lifted his head and stared into Krulshards' hooded eyes.

13.

'Nightmare!' he whispered. 'One look from you, the Master of Nightmares, is rumoured to kill a man, and one shout to turn him deaf, but I do not fear you, not even now, at the end.

You are nothing but a stench that spoils the air. A creeping darkness that hides from the light.'