*Warden constitution,' she muttered. Did she wish he was dead? It would have made things easier. Now she had decisions to make.

Jandryn raised his sword while sending her a questioning look.

*No,' she said.

*It would be unwise to leave such a dangerous foe alive.'

Over the incline she could see the top of the distant Spire at the far end of the Dale. If she could just get Mergan there, perhaps when the Spell reclaimed his threads it would suck the poison out of him. At the very least, he would cease to be so dangerous.

*Have him bound,' she said. *His fingers tied, especially * tightly, you hear me? Blindfolded too, gagged, and placed under guard by threaders.'

Jandryn looked uncertain, but her tone did not leave much room for argument.

*As you say, my lady.'

Rostigan made his way up the incline. Larger pieces of mountain lay about, but nothing impassable. Forger accompanied him, blasting away anything in their path, while soldiers followed closely behind, wary of the shrapnel. Slowly and surely, the army was channelling through what had once been the Pass. Rostigan hoped the price had been worth it. The momentary disappearance of the sun had made him extremely uneasy. It always had, but being responsible for it was something else entirely. He felt certain now that it was linked to Stealer's power, and fervently hoped he would never have need to use it again.

*This is quite a day,' said Forger, happily shattering a boulder. *Quite a day!'

They reached the apex of the incline, to look into the Dale beyond. On either side the slopes had been shorn of their uppermost layers, leaving behind smooth runs of earth and freshly exposed rock. Across the valley floor lay a thick carpet of rubble, which had raised ground level by several paces. Of the city running through the valley centre, many buildings had toppled, and of those still standing, only the upper levels now jutted from the ground. Ahead was a wide area of relatively flat debris, where bruised Unwoven dug about trying to unearth their fellows. It seemed there had been a great many of them collected here, probably waiting in case anyone managed to fight their way through the Pass.

Perfect.

*Don't let them regroup!' Rostigan ordered the soldiers fanning out around him.

The Unwoven heard him, and those who were able to charged up the slope, some of them stooping to pick up rocks on the way. Rostigan ducked as one spun overhead, heard a grunt as it smashed into some unfortunate behind. He came face-to-face with a male who had an ugly scar jagging across his brow, but before he could swing, Althalans closed in from either side. The Unwoven twisted about, unable to defend himself against so many, and Rostigan did not have opportunity to land a blow himself. Soldiers surged around him, waves of them emerging from the Pass to pour into the Dale, swallowing up scattered pockets of Unwoven as they went. He slowed to a stop to watch the scene unfold.

*Well,' said Forger, by his side. *I think we succeeded.'

It was true * the fight was all but won. Those Unwoven who remained above the ground were no match for the overwhelming numbers they faced.

*Clear them out!' Rostigan bellowed. *Work through the entire Dale and leave no stone unturned.'

*Will there be any sport left for us, I wonder?' said Forger.

*Could be. I want every last one of them dead. Maybe destroying them will balance out the stealing I had to do to gain us entry.'

*I wouldn't feel assured about that.'

Rostigan followed Forger's gaze up to the Wound. It seemed to be growing larger, the edges throbbing, red tendrils whipping and waving, with great dark cracks spreading in all directions across the sky.

*It is not the Unwoven to blame,' said Forger. *You know that, don't you? It's good that we finish them, don't mistake me * but they are defined by what was taken from them. Not like us, defined by what we never should have had. It is us to blame.'

Rostigan raised his eyebrows, surprised by Forger's matter-of-fact tone and clarity. Forger dispersed the impression quickly with a mad grin.

*Do you still think we can heal it, brother?'

Rostigan nodded. *But first, let us make sure the Unwoven truly are gone from Aorn. Perhaps the Wound is not of their making, but I still don't want to have to do this again in another three hundred years.'

Forger chuckled.

They made their way into the Dale. As the sun climbed higher the army spread out in a line across the valley, picking their way through rubble, poking swords into any who tried to rise from it. They were effective enough that Rostigan and Forger saw little action. They wandered through the buried city and, after a while, paused by what had been a second-storey balcony. From beneath their feet came a scratching sound.

*Too deep to dig its way out,' said Forger.

*A shame they feel nothing,' said Rostigan.

Forger nodded vaguely, looking at his hands.

*What is it?' said Rostigan, though he suspected he knew.

Forger did not answer, but turned to consider the Spire. *When do we go up there?' he said.

Rostigan rubbed his jaw. As soon as possible, was the answer, but he did not want to seem overeager.

*Evening is not far away,' he said. *Let the army scour through the night until any Unwoven able to unbury them-selves have been dispatched. Then, tomorrow morning, we will go.'

*Very well. In the meantime, I see no reason to burn my power without reward of pain. I'm heading back.'

Inside the Pass it looked as if a camp of sorts was going up * or at least, a base of operations.

*Do you wish to come?'

*I'll follow shortly,' said Rostigan.

Forger shrugged and headed off.

As Forger made his way back towards camp, he saw various patrols moving around. The army was well organised, officers making sure ground was covered methodically. It was all very gratifying. One less super-strong preternatural army between him and ruling the world could hardly be a bad thing. The one annoyance was that there weren't more wounded Althalans about whose pain he could exacerbate. He was hungry, itchy * all this fighting without the usual accompanying warmth to fill him up and keep him strong. Luckily, he soon found what he sought.

Inside a circle of rooftops, three soldiers stood talking. Suddenly an Unwoven erupted in their midst, showering grit, knocking the woman over and stabbing one of the men with a dull iron knife. The fellow fell onto his back clutching the hilt, the blade punched through his leather into a reddening stomach. The Unwoven snarled as it spun to face the remaining man, who cringed pathetically. Forger strode towards them, raising his hands. A rock shot off the ground to smash the Unwoven in the jaw. More followed, darting in and out until they cracked and were replaced. Quickly and brutally, the Unwoven's hard bones were pummelled to a brittle soup inside a puffy sack of sagging, white-speckled skin.

Smiling, Forger offered a hand to the fallen woman.

*Thank you,' she said, with some trepidation, as he helped her to her feet.

*Now,' he said, with an air of great concern as he considered the wounded soldier, *what are we going to do about our friend here?'

*Can you help him?' said the other man.

*Not I, but I can take him with me back to camp. There will be healers there, no doubt, much better at their art than I.'

He made a show of carefully weaving his fingers, and the wounded solider rose gently from the earth with a whimper.

*Do not fear,' said Forger kindly, *you are in good hands. As for you two,' he addressed the others, *I suggest you join one of the larger patrols. Don't get complacent * there are still powerful monsters lurking about us!'

They needed no further convincing * nodding earnestly, they set off for the nearest group.

*Come along then,' said Forger, levitating the wounded soldier out before himself.

*Th a thank you,' the fellow managed.

*My pleasure!'

Forger trickled influence into the man, first using it to firmly close his jaw. His eyes widened in alarm as Forger moved on into his wound. Carefully, Forger tore at it internally, creating a series of pathways that ran around major organs, like worms curling around apples. The man tried to thrash, but Forger held his extremities in place, so it looked as if he lay still.

Forger gave a satisfied sigh. Maybe the agony emanating from a single soldier wouldn't grow him back to full size, but it certainly took the edge off his craving. As he strolled along absorbing as much as he could, he fell to thinking.

Ah, Karrak * I do hope you're telling the truth about it all.

In reality, much as it saddened him to admit, he still could not trust Karrak completely. Oh, it had suited his purposes to pretend that he did * he did actually believe the Unwoven needed wiping out, and Mergan too, tasks more easily accomplished with allies * but when it came to the bigger picture a when it came to the Spire a As he approached the Pass he saw tents had gone up, and there were blankets laid out where wounded were being brought to healers. Soldiers trickled down the slope carrying bundles of torches * it seemed they were to work through the night, as Karrak had predicted. Yalenna was there and, when she spotted him, he waved cheerfully while simultaneously eking a few last morsels from his quivering bundle. Then he sealed the soldier's throat and a few moments later the man was dead.

Yalenna came towards him with a healer on her heels. *Who have you got there?'

Forger let his shoulders sag. *Ah, alas! I fear I am too late.' He laid the man at the healer's feet. *Do what you can, good healer, but I fear I did not bring him to you in time. He took a terrible blow from an Unwoven, poor fellow.'

Yalenna stared hard at him, and he raised his eyebrows innocently.

What do your suspicions matter, dear Yalenna? You have to go along with it, don't you? You need me, for whatever reason, and one death does not change that.

As the healer took away the corpse, Forger looked about in appreciation. *My, aren't we a bunch of busy bees!'

Yalenna nodded. *We will coordinate from here until we're certain they're all dead. We do not want to vacate the Dale overnight, only to return and find it guarded once more.'

*No need to explain yourself to me, I'm sure,' said Forger. Then he spotted something in the healer's area that made his eyes narrow. *Or is there?'

He stalked towards Mergan who was propped up against a rock, unconscious, bound tightly, with a bloodied bandage on his brow. A bloody bandage which told Forger he had been given care.

*Hanry a' said Yalenna warningly, stepping between him and Mergan.

*What is the meaning of this?' asked Forger in a low, dangerous voice.

There was no reason, as far as he knew, to keep Mergan alive. Killing him had, in fact, been part of Karrak's justification for why they'd had to deal with the Unwoven before visiting the Spire * free the world of his corruption, he had said, and it may be easier to heal the Wound.

*He might be able to help us,' said Yalenna.

'What?

*I know it is unlikely, but maybe I can talk him around.'

*Are you as mad as he? He thinks he is the Lord Regret! He threw an army of Unwoven against us. We must kill him immediately!'

Their voices were attracting stares. Yalenna gestured for him to follow her away a little from the camp. He did so, curious as to how she planned to sell this.

*Listen,' she said, *we may need all the help we can get in closing the Wound.'

Forger shook his head. *What we propose to attempt is already risky enough. Do you think I would trust him while we stand so vulnerable? Even if you claim to have talked him around, I would not accompany him to the Spire. You will have convinced one volatile ally and lost another. Gained nothing.'

It was a good argument, and he was proud to have come up with it.

Yalenna sighed. *Mergan is my friend. Was my friend, anyway.'

So was I, he thought. Yet something tells me you would not argue to save my skin if it was me lying there, tied up and helpless.

*But you are right,' she continued. *We should not take him to the Spire. I was foolish to suggest it. However, if we succeed in healing the Wound, who knows what the effect may be on him? If he awakes in a better world, free of corruption, perhaps he will be well again?'

In which case, thought Forger, he will remain my enemy.

Despite everything in him screaming to finish Mergan off, his way forward was confusing. He was not at his strongest, nor among friends, were he to be unveiled. It all came down, really, to whether he believed Karrak or not.

*Is there anything to eat around here?' he muttered.

Yalenna looked somewhat relieved * perhaps she thought the change of subject meant he had accepted her words.

*I'm sure we can find something,' she said.

She went off looking * the Priestess of Storms, bent on her mundane task because she somehow believed that food would take his mind off his own unravelling future.

It would have been amusing, were he not so angry.

A NIGHT IN THE DALE.

Salarkis stared across the Dale while his stomach grumbled. Mergan had not sent food in days, and the Unwoven who patrolled the Spire below no longer responded to his cries * did not even show themselves at the bottom of the steps. Could he leave now, if he could get past them? He was unsure.

From his high vantage, he'd had a spectacular view of the Dale collapsing in on itself. He still could not believe the great sheets of rock he'd seen rumbling from the hillsides to cover the city and, more importantly, the large gathering of Unwoven inside the Pass. The Spire had tremored mightily, making him worry it would fall. The valley floor has risen to the level of its entrance without blocking it, the hill it had stood on buried beneath. At the Pass, human soldiers had appeared, storming the Dale to kill its remaining denizens.

Had he dreamed it, he wondered? Did his deprivation cause him to hallucinate, to imagine an answer to his predicament? He looked again and it seemed real.

He suspected there were Wardens present, for what other possible explanation was there? Perhaps he could blame the failing Spell, but typically its degradation was random, while the avalanche seemed to be aimed squarely at the Unwoven. He thought the tiny specks moving about the Dale looked like Althalans, and could only hope that Yalenna or Braston was with them. Perhaps he could fashion another message, though his mind reeled at the thought of such heavy labour, and he had no way to tell who he would really be sending it out to.

Would anyone come for him? The sun was blurring messily into the horizon, and the thought of staying here alone held more terror than any previous night. Above him, the Wound rippled angrily, the cracks that grew slowly outwards from it so full of menace that he wondered how he would ever find sleep beneath them. He sat down at the top of the stairs, trying to ignore his thirst and think.

A commotion broke out in the room below. Swords clashed, followed by a heavy thump.

*Who's that?' called Salarkis. *Who's there?'

He thought someone stood just inside the door, out of view.

*Sneaking inside of doorways?' he said. *Breathing louder than a gust through dry leaves?'

*I am not sneaking,' issued up a familiar voice.