Meical nodded, avoiding Corban's gaze.

'You just said you would deceive me no longer,' Corban snapped, 'or was that another lie?'

Meical flinched as if from a blow. 'You remember Coralen's straw men in Narvon? The distraction that allowed us to sink the fleet and steal the ships?'

'Aye.'

'This is the same.'

'How so? In what way? You are still speaking in riddles.'

'I cannot tell you any more. I have sworn to my kin.'

Corban turned away, took a dozen paces, wanting nothing more than to get away, to find somewhere alone where he could curl up and hold his head and wish it all away. He stopped, spun on his heel and strode to Meical.

'I am not the Bright Star?'

'There is no Bright Star. No Black Sun,' Meical whispered. 'Apart from the ones of our own making.'

'That is why you did not want me to accept Jael's challenge and fight the duel.' Corban shook his head, the myriad implications and consequences staggering him. 'What of truth and courage?' he hissed.

'I never said that to you,' Meical said, looking away. 'I could not say it to you. But in a way you are the Bright Star, as much as any man is anything. As real as any king. Because people have chosen to believe it.'

'That does not make it so,' Corban snarled.

You think not?' Meical asked pleadingly. 'We are what we choose to be. What makes a king a king? Is there something different about him? Does special, sacred blood run in his veins? No. He is chosen; he believes it, and the people believe. He rises to the task, or he fails it.' He shrugged. 'It is no different with you. And you have risen to the task, of that there is no doubt, surpa.s.sed it in every way. You are a testament to the power of belief. To what can be achieved through combining belief with will.' He smiled, a faint, rueful thing. 'What you have done is truly staggering.'

Corban was shaking with fury. 'I have been lied to. Deceived. Danced to the tune of a prophecy that does not exist.' He felt his hand reaching for his sword hilt, a rage such as he had never known filling him, fuelled by a bottomless despair. 'And worse, you have made a liar out of me. I have lied to these people, fed them a deception hatched by power-mad immortal bairns.' He yelled those last words, spittle flying, Storm rising to her feet with a growl, her hackles bristling. His fist closed around his sword hilt as Meical stood and looked down upon him, a world of sorrow scribed across his face, leaking from his eyes.

'I am sorry,' Meical whispered.

'Sorry? We have armies coming to slaughter us. The only hope we had was based on a lie. My people will die and you're sorry?'

Corban released his sword hilt as if it had bitten him.

'I cannot stand to look at you,' he said and strode away, heading for the nearest exit, which happened to be the small door in the tunnel. He walked through it into the flickering torchlight and dampness of the underground pa.s.sage and marched furiously on, Storm padding behind him. He glanced back before he rounded a bend and saw Meical's blurred silhouette standing in the doorway. He turned his face from the Ben-Elim and, crying angry tears, he carried on into the darkness.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE.

RAFE.

Rafe was exhausted. He had run, walked, staggered, crawled his way through the marshlands for over a ten-night. At one point he had collapsed, thought he was just going to lie there until he died, but Scratcher and Sniffer had licked, pawed, nibbled and dragged him back to consciousness. If spring had not arrived and brought with it milder weather he would have died. But instead he lived, and walked.

He was a good huntsman, and even in the horizon-spanning marshes he was able to find his way back, eventually one cool morning finding the river that flowed past Morcant's Tower, as he had come to think of it.

A pale mist lay over the land, rising up from the marshes to creep a little way up the hill that the tower was built upon. The sun was already burning it away, though.

The dogs ran ahead of him, seemingly as pleased as him to be out of the marshes, and they must have been sighted from the tower, for horns rang out, announcing his arrival.

Figures came out of the gates as he walked up the hill; all he could think about a warm meal and a soft bed. Then the dogs came running back to him, both of them with their ears flat and tails tucked.

He paused and looked at the figures coming out of the gate.

Something was very wrong there one towered above the other, so either one was a dwarf and the other normal sized, or one was a giant . . .

Elyon's stones, it's Rhin. Not the person I most wanted to see. And she's got a giant with her!

Queen Rhin stood before him, a giant with grey hair and a spear the size of an oar stood beside her.

'I take it it's not good news,' Rhin said.

'News?' Rafe said.

'You're the only one back,' Rhin said impatiently, then looked at him quizzically. 'Has the marsh stolen your wits?'

'Hungry, thirsty,' Rafe mumbled.

'Yes, of course.' She clicked her fingers. 'Feed him, give him something to drink not alcohol, he'll most likely sleep for a week then bring him to me.'

Rafe was escorted to a huge tent on the meadow beside the tower and enclosure. Tents were everywhere, hundreds of them, warriors in Rhin's black and gold. Rafe also saw giants, at least a score of them together.

Strange days, strange days.

Scratcher and Sniffer walked with him, but they wouldn't enter Rhin's tent, just bounded off together as he walked in. That might have been because of the giant outside the tent entrance not the one he'd seen earlier, but one that looked even more fierce if possible, a huge axe slung over his shoulder and a moustache that Rafe could have swung from.

It was cool inside the tent, not dark, but dim. Rhin sat at a table, behind her the grey-haired giant that had accompanied her earlier.

'Feel better?' Rhin asked him.

'Aye. Thank you,' he said, remembering his manners a little late. 'My Queen,' he added.

Rhin laughed and gestured for him to sit. He did, a cup of water already poured for him. He drank, savouring it. Most of the marsh water had been stagnant and rank, even the fresh water was questionable, and usually with something slimy in it. He looked up over the rim of his cup, realizing Rhin and the giant were both staring at him.

'So,' Rhin said. 'Where is Evnis?'

It was not the question he had expected, certainly not the first one, at least. He'd been expecting something more along the lines of What happened?

'I don't know,' he said.

Rhin sighed. 'Please, it is very important. Think. Hard.'

She looked scary sometimes, and Rafe suddenly remembered sitting with her in a dark room, watching a fire reveal pictures of Halion and Conall in a dungeon far below them. He shivered.

'He was in his boat, we were on the lake, all rowing at Dun Crin, chasing Edana-'

'Edana. Dun Crin. Chasing. Good,' Rhin murmured.

'Then there was fire they set traps, started setting the boats on fire.'

'In a lake!' Rhin said, not sounding pleased again.

Rafe explained in more detail the battle of Dun Crin, the tactics used against them. He told her how his boat had capsized and how he had swum to the sh.o.r.e.

That wasn't exactly what happened. I don't like fire much. I paddled my arms off and got to the lake sh.o.r.e without even getting my feet wet. But then I tried paddling up a stream and men started throwing spears and pots of oil at me. I got wet then, capsized, swam a hundred paces underwater, scrambled out onto the opposite bank and ran like h.e.l.l.

He told how the battle was lost by then, and he had escaped into the marshes.

'Hmm,' Rhin said when he finished, steepling her fingers. 'That's not very helpful.'

Rafe shrugged. 'Sorry.'

'Not very helpful at all,' the giant rumbled, which made him jump a little.

'I'm sorry. I was in front I led the warband to Dun Crin and Evnis was right behind me. But then it all went to h.e.l.l excuse me fire and water and blood, and I didn't see any more of Evnis.'

'You were the master huntsman?' Rhin said.

'Aye.'

'What of Braith?'

'Braith's dead.'

Rhin sat back in her chair at that, looked genuinely dismayed, even as if she might shed a tear.

'By whose hand?' she asked, voice like sharp flint.

'Camlin. He was Braith's captain from the Darkwood. Gut-shot him, from as far apart as we are.'

'I've heard his name,' Rhin said with a hiss, 'and I won't forget it. And you escaped?'

'Aye.'

'You seem to be very good at that,' Rhin observed.

Can't blame a man for staying alive, he thought. Can blame him for running, though, I suppose.

He didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything, just looked at the cup in his hands.

'I will want a detailed account of this place, the lake, Dun Crin, a map of the waterways in and out. Everything you remember. And numbers people. Edana of course. Who else?'

'Roisin and Lorcan. They were in the boat with Edana.'

Rhin pulled a face at that.

'Halion.'

'He made it here, then.'

'Aye. Vonn.'

'Who's he?'

'Evnis' son.'

Rhin and the giant exchanged a glance. 'Go on,' Rhin said.

'Pendathran. Camlin, I guess, though I don't recall seeing him at the battle. But he's a sneaky b.a.s.t.a.r.d, probably hiding somewhere and shooting his arrows.'

Just then the sounds of a commotion drifted in through the tent entrance. It was pulled back, warriors entering, standing either side and another figure came in, another warrior, but this one battered and b.l.o.o.d.y, iron helm dented, a bloodstained bandage around one of his arms.

Morcant.

He saw Rhin and almost ran to her, dropped to one knee before her and kissed her hand. She seemed to like it, by the look on her face.

Should I have done that?

'My Queen,' Morcant breathed, 'I am overjoyed to see you.'

'Well, I'm quite pleased to see you,' Rhin said, the smile still flickering upon her lips. She wrinkled her nose. 'Though you could smell better.'

'The marsh,' he said, gesturing, looking offended.

'Of course. Your smell I can cope with, for the moment. We were just talking to the first survivor of this disaster to return to us.' Rhin waved at Rafe. 'You can go now, by the way,' she said to him. 'I would talk with Morcant a while. She stroked Morcant's cheek, running a finger along one of the scars he'd earned in the court of swords.

Rafe was more than happy to leave. He stood up and bowed clumsily, then left the tent.

He collected a skin of watered wine from the kitchens, a shoulder of cold lamb, and walked away from the crowds. Scratcher and Sniffer soon found him and he wandered, somewhat aimlessly, thinking back on Rhin's questioning and the battle. He reached the river where all of the boats had been moored, where they had set off nearly a moon ago, full of confidence, maybe arrogance. He walked on, following the riverbank, knew where he was going now.

He turned away from the riverbank and walked a way into the marshes, stopping eventually at the husk of a dead tree. He walked round behind it to where its roots had cracked the ground, got down on his hands and knees and reached into a dark hole beneath a root. His hand scrambled around and then he felt it, pulled out his kit bag.

He sat with his back to the dead tree, drank some of his wine, ate some of the cold lamb, threw strips of fat to the two hounds and just enjoyed the feeling of being relatively safe, for a few moments.

What now, I wonder? Probably back into the marshes with this new warband, have another crack at Edana, but maybe with giants on our side this time.