If the crowd thought the Jugom Ark bright before, it was nothing to the way in which it erupted into flame at these words. With a roar the fire billowed outwards and upwards, and the representatives of the City fell over each other to get off the stage. Leith rose to his feet: fire was in his hand, and all behind him was shadow. He strode forward as though stamping Faltha's enemies under his feet, seemingly unaware he was mantled in flame.

'I will lead you,' he said, each word a flame that roared and shook the hall, so that dust and small fragments of plaster fell from the ceiling.

'And now I place the Mantle on your shoulders,' said the Arkhos of Plonya bravely. 'Er - ah . . .' He stepped forward, the blood-red garment under his arm, but could obviously get no closer than three paces without being consumed.

'Put it down,' Leith said, and somewhere at the back of the hall a suit of armour collapsed in a crash of dust and rusted metal.

'But I have to - but the ceremony demands. . . yes, lord,' said the Arkhos, placing the Mantle on the wooden floor and stepping hurriedly back to the extreme edge of the platform.

Leith stood erect, and somehow - no one could say how, whether because of some enchantment or because the Arrow in his hand was simply too bright for mortal eye to penetrate - the Mantle lay draped across his shoulders.

'I will lead you,' he repeated, and a chair fell from the dais with a clatter. A few people, their nerves stretched beyond endurance, ran from the hall.

'1 will lead you,' he said for a third time. 'Not because I want to, but because I must. I have no choice in the matter! Our task may be hopeless, and many of you here today will die before it is over. I expect to die. One of my best friends is already dead! Dead!' The hall shook again, and a large chunk of plaster crashed down from above, narrowly missing a section of the crowd.

Visibly taking hold of himself, the fire-cloaked Arrow-bearer continued. 'Like me, in these terrible days to come you will not be able to do what you want. I will take your sons and your daughters from you and feed them to the cruel god of war. 1 will increase your taxes to pay for our defences. 1 will try to be fair, I will favour no one, and my own family will be at the forefront of the battle. But I will have little patience with those who oppose me. Disagree with me if you must. Tell me to my face that you don't approve of what I am doing. But don't work against me, I beg of you. My task is to save you, not to destroy you. I do not want to be a destroyer.'

Leith stepped back from the front of the stage, and as he did so the Arrow in his hand dimmed, the flame drawing back until it did little more than flicker in his hand. The next part of the ceremony, as it had been explained to him at least, was for the rest of the Company to come forward and receive the keys of office, confirming them as the interim Council until such time as a proper Council could be chosen. But no one moved. A thousand people sat motionless, stunned into silence by the raw power of command in the voice they had just heard.

Finally an old man in the front row of seats rose to his feet, bowed in the direction of the platform - he's bowing to me, Leith realised with a shock - then turned and made his way down the aisle and out of the hall. Another followed suit, then a woman stood and curtsied to him. Within a few moments the whole hall rose to its feet and did obeisance to him, then filed out quietly, without any of the usual chatter.

When the Outer Chamber finally emptied of all save the Company and their servants, the Haufuth climbed on to the dais and strode over to Leith.

'What on earth was that all about, son? That certainly wasn't what we agreed upon. All that threatening talk! We want to encourage them to follow us, not frighten them into it! How was your performance different to that of Deorc's? And we were not confirmed as a Council. We'll have to arrange another ceremony!'

By this time Kurr stood beside the village headman. 'I hardly think that matters, old friend. Do you really think, after what they've just seen, that anyone will take any notice at all of the Council? By the Fire, boy, the Most High Himself could hardly have been more impressive. I would have done anything you commanded me in that moment.'

'That - that wasn't me. That wasn't me!' Leith said awkwardly, not looking his companions in the eye. 'I know that wasn't what I was supposed to say. I don't know what happened!'

'Don't give us any nonsense about the Arrow taking over your mind,' the Haufuth growled.

'It's an arrow that keeps burning, nothing more.' But he looked askance at Leith's right hand as he said it, then glanced at his own, undoing the intent of his words.

'Whoever it was, whatever happened, I don't think any harm was done.' Phemanderac smiled down at him. 'No one should expect you to be able to control it. It took years of training for the First Men to learn how to control the Fire of Life set within them, and this is the same, it seems to me. But you do need to learn about the Fire, Leith. You need to learn about the Fuirfad, the Way of Fire. I can teach you. It's why I'm here, I'm sure of it.'

'No harm done? No harm?' Mahnum looked angry. 'How much harder is it going to be to get cooperation from the people of Instruere now we've threatened them with the Arrow?'

'Easier, I would have thought,' Kurr shot back. 'Anyway, I'm not sure Leith threatened anyone.

All I recall him saying was that we all have to make sacrifices in the days to come. Is there anyone here who does not agree with that? No, I didn't think so. It's just that he said it very forcefully.' The old farmer glanced down at Leith's right hand. Leith held up the Arrow in response to the old man's unspoken request.

'What kind of weapon is that thing?' he wondered aloud. 'What can it do? What about it do we not yet know?1 He looked Leith in the eye. 'The most important thing you can do in the next few weeks, boy, is to sit and listen to Phemanderac here. You might just have the weapon to save Faltha right there in your hands.'

The Company walked through the Corridor of Appellants as a group. Kurr pushed open the tall wooden door and they emerged into the sunlight - to an enormous cheer beginning at the front of the vast crowd, then swelling even further as people some distance back realised the new Council of Faltha had arrived. Phemanderac waved cheerily, occasioning a renewed roar, and the other members of the Company - the Council, they reminded themselves -followed suit. The crowd made way for them as they walked slowly across the churned-up lawn, quieting down only when they stopped for a moment by an impromptu monument to those who had fallen in the battles of the last three weeks. Looking behind him as they renewed their slow march back to their lodgings, Leith saw the people closing up behind them, eager to get a glimpse, a touch, a word. The whole thing is crazy, he thought. A month ago none of them would have given us a second glance.

Day after day of weariness had stretched Leith far beyond anything he had known before.

Even the days in the Vale of Neume, the struggles in the Joram Basin when the Sentinels came to life, had not been like this. There he had needed to deal with only one thing at a time, and in most cases his path had been clear. Here there were so many people to see, advisers to listen to and things to read, with a multitude of choices to be made for each. But finally the bulk of their quest was over; they had turned the focus of Instruere, and much of Faltha, towards the Bhrudwan threat. Leith longed for an afternoon's rest, and decided that one last afternoon at their lodgings, where he could spend some time thinking - sleeping, more likely - was something he desperately needed. .

At that moment a guardsman burst through the crowd and threw himself down at their feet, gasping for air as though he'd just run to save his life.

'There's an - an army, a great army outside the gates -coming across Longbridge! Strange men from far away, horses and terrible beasts! We must summon the guards!' The man knelt on the grass, trying to recover.

'Ring the alarm!' cried the Captain of the Guard. Instantly two men sprang forward, and set off at a dead run towards The Pinion, a few hundred yards away. The crowd scattered, but not quickly enough to prevent one or two being knocked off their feet.

An army outside the gate. The thought seemed to hover somewhere outside Leith's mind, as though unable to find a way in. The only thought that went through his head was: after all this, we are too late.

The captain dispatched a company of guardsmen to check the Struere Gate, and they ran off down the Vitulian Way, knowing they might discover their own deaths there. Others were sent to prepare horses, though it may already be too late to organise a sortie or to cast down Longbridge. Nevertheless, the captain set as many plans running as he could think of. With a frown he glanced across at The Pinion: the alarm ought to have been sounded by now.

The journey east from Instruere, the journey south to Kantara. Leith recounted the deaths in his mind: Wira, Parlevaag, Illyon, Stella. All to no purpose. There's an army outside the gate, and we're trapped here.

Now the crowd, alerted that something was wrong, scattered in every direction. Leith had no idea what they knew, and spared no thought for their fate, so paralysed had he become by the news. Someone - Phemanderac - grabbed his arm and pulled him along the street to the north, towards the Inna Gate. He couldn't hear what the tall philosopher said to him: everyone was shouting, and there was a roaring in his ears. He had enough strength left to curse the voice that had led them to this place, then sat on the cobbled street and rested his weary head in his hands.

'Leith!' It was his mother's voice, but it was muffled, as though she was wrapped in blankets.

'It's all right. Everything's all right!'

His eyes snapped open. Immediately to his right stood the Inna Gate, firmly closed and bolted. The members of the Company were ranged around him, some of them with concerned looks on their faces.

Embarrassed, he sat up. 'What happened?'

'Come with me, Leith,' said Phemanderac in a tender voice. 'There's something you should see.'

The youth struggled to his feet, trying to make his rubbery legs work, and followed his tall friend with difficulty as he strode to the nearest stair and climbed to the top of the wall. Leith shook his head to clear the fuzziness, and looked out over the Great River Aleinus to the plains of Deuverre.

There, indeed, spread out on the far side of the river, stood a large army. But what attracted his attention lay directly below him: four small figures, jumping up and down and calling his name, two of them with their arms around the shoulders of a seemingly drunk Farr Storrsen. Beside Leith, Phemanderac laughed out loud in sheer delight, pointing out the young man's shocked face to the others of the Company now joining them on the wall.

'Wha - what?' Leith got out.

'The losian Army of the North!' announced the Dhaurian Philosopher in ringing tones. Leith looked more closely, and saw the aurochs, the furs, the multitude of colours that spoke of Fodhram, Fenni and Widuz, and knew he beheld a miracle. Phemanderac drew close, and said in a much quieter aside: 'Though that's not what they call themselves. Arrived just in time to join our march eastwards. And what's most magical of all, they were led here by our losian-hater!' He laughed again, a carefree sound.

And as the Company rushed through the reluctantly-opened gate and embraced their old friends from the Woods of Withwestwa, then joined with them in dancing and singing - to the surprise and bemusement of the Instruians who watched from the walls - it seemed as though the tide had indeed turned in their favour, and the defeat of the Destroyer would be only a matter of time.

The celebrations had barely begun when a worried Captain of the Guard called Leith over to him. 'I don't wish to alarm the others,' he said quietly, 'but perhaps you would come with me.

Something unpleasant has happened in The Pinion.'

After some thought, Leith gathered Kurr and the Haufuth (the latter reluctant, having spied a haunch of roast beef being passed around) and followed his captain back into the City. It was a brisk half-hour walk to The Pinion, but a horse was found for Leith as he still felt somewhat weak.

As they approached the low, long building, Leith saw groups of guardsmen standing silently, nervously eyeing him and his Arrow, as though waiting to find out how their new rulers would react to what they would see.

'It appears someone has taken advantage of your investiture ceremony to attack The Pinion,'

said the Captain of the Guard. 'See here how the sewer has been diverted. Whoever did this got the drain to flow into The Pinion - see here -and down into the dungeon below.' He paused beside the trapdoor. 'You might want to put these on,' he said, indicating a guard standing nearby who held a number of rags. The captain took one and wound it around his mouth and nose; the three northerners copied him and, when they were ready, the guard opened the trapdoor.

The stench was beyond belief. A dreadful cloud of ammonia rose out of the pit, burning Leith in the back of the throat and bringing tears to his eyes. A glance down into the awful depths revealed where the sewer water had ended up, and Leith clamped his eyes closed so he didn't have to see what was down there.

'I recall we imprisoned the traitorous Arkhoi in the dungeons,' drawled the Arkhos of Plonya, coming into the room. 'I imagine their last few moments were extremely unpleasant.' The Plonyan seemed to be trying not to smile.

'How many prisoners were in The Pinion?' Leith asked, appalled.

'We're not sure,' came the captain's reply. 'I did ask, and sent someone off to the Hall of Meeting to check the records. The cells can hold up to two hundred people, it is said.'

'Murder,' Leith breathed. 'Cruel murder! As much as the three Arkhoi might have deserved death, many others down there did not.' Pointedly, he turned to the Arkhos of Plonya, who traded stares with him.

'My lord, this act has the finger of Nemohaim all over it,' the Captain of the Guard said in his ear. 'He will want revenge on the Arkhoi who were content to see him driven from Instruere.

All of them,' he emphasised, turning to look at the Plonyan, who now wore a worried look on his face. 'He'll have some sort of plan,' the captain continued, speaking with deliberation. 'But before he enacts it, he will want to take care of all the perceived insults and injuries he has received. I would not sleep very well if I was on the Council of Faltha when Deorc supplanted him.'

'I want the Arkhos of Nemohaim found,' said Leith, a deep and grinding anger working away inside him. 'I want him found before we depart for the Gap. I don't want to leave any enemies in the City when we leave. I want him found before anyone else dies. By the fire I hold in my hand, I want him found!'

'Yes, my lord,' the captain said.

'But before I do anything, there is someone I need to talk to. I've put this off for far too long.'

Kurr and the Haufuth looked at each other with puzzled expressions on their faces, but they could do little else than follow their young leader as he set out once more for the Inna Gate.

At least Stella wasn't down there, Leith told himself as he strode northwards along the Vitulian Way, completely ignoring the horse offered to him. At least I had the good sense to check on The Pinion last week. Wherever she is, whatever happened to her, she didn't die in that dreadful dungeon.

Stella blinked and looked around her. She had just emerged from the mouth of a deep, stone-lined cavern out into watery sunshine. Perhaps there would be something lying around that might help her, someone nearby she might be able to call on ... but she could see nothing of use. In front of her stretched a wide, snow-streaked plain, devoid of grass or other vegetation, a dark smudge in the centre. In the distance low hills bulwarked the steel-grey sky. Behind her, prodding her forward, came the searing presence of the Undying Man. He's bringing me up here to make my death more painful, she thought. Death in the dark I was prepared for, but not out here in the light!

She was pushed forward by nothing but his irresistible will, still blinking against the harshness of the sun. Something was different about the light. It hurt her head. Was there a problem with her head, she wondered. With the rough treatment she'd received, this seemed likely.

Slowly the dark smudge on the plain came into focus, and her heart sank. An army. She knew what it was for and where it was headed.

The Destroyer led her to a rocky platform, from where he could look down on his army and their last, their very last drill before they marched forth. There were many thousands assembled on the plain before them, before just the two of them, so it seemed.

'Raise my arm,' he commanded her, and she obeyed without thinking, shuddering at the touch.

As his arm was raised his army gave a great shout, then began to manoeuvre. Left and right they marched, splitting apart and re-forming with a frightening precision, their war cries echoing across the plain.

All that day the army paraded for their master. Stella held up the arm of the black-robed man until she could bear it no longer, and slumped to the cold stone, hands on her aching head. Yet she was not allowed to rest. His power compelled her to her feet, and she did not have the strength to resist as he forced her to raise his arm again. In an agony of exhaustion, she found strength to do his bidding. She dared not think where it came from, what it was doing to her. Deorc had told her in detail how the Destroyer gained the strength to do his magic.

As the sun set and the deep cold of this far northern clime began to bite, the Destroyer finally allowed her to lower his hand. He laughed at her extremity as she grovelled on the ground, then yanked her to her feet with his one hand. 'Behold my handmaiden!' he cried, and Stella felt the gaze of the great Army of Bhrudwo turn to her. 'Behold my future bride!'

Fifty thousand throats cried 'Hail!' and the woman from Loulea swooned into unconsciousness.

Farr was indeed drunk, the first time in his life, so he claimed. A fortnight of celebration with the Fodhram had been enough to overcome his reserve, and now he was sharing the forest-dwellers' deep mugs of ale. Gaily he greeted his friends from the Company, a broad smile never far from his face, all anger seemingly forgotten.

Time and again he told the Company how he found the losian army on the road north of Deuverre, his tongue tripping over lyrical descriptions of the singing and the moonlight on the open fields of the Borderlands. He talked of his friends the Fodhram, and of new friends he had found among the Fenni and the Widuz. He made his own part in their arrival sound comical, as though they had rescued him from being lost, and the four Fodhram laughed with him every time he told it.

'I have a few questions for you,' Perdu began, but Farr wasn't listening. 'How is it that enemies match together as friends?' Perdu persisted, to no effect. 'How can Widuz and Fodhram sleep back to back?' His cousin just laughed at him and offered him his mug. 'Aaah!'

Perdu exclaimed after a few minutes of this. 'I need to speak to my clan chief. Is he here?'

'He is beyond the river with the other leaders, waiting for an invitation into the city,' said a woman's voice from just behind him, the sweet voice speaking a language he had not heard for months. 'Will you speak to me instead?'

'Haldemar!' the adopted Fenni cried, spinning around to catch his wife in an embrace. 'You're here! And the boys . . .'

'Safe at home on the vidda, where they should be. Where you should be. Come and speak with me, my husband, and tell me why you should not be beaten for staying away from me.' Her words were sharp, but there was a playfulness about them. Then she could speak no longer, as Perdu pulled her face down on to his breast.

Leith brushed past Perdu and Haldemar, his mind on one person only. He strode up to his crippled brother, who was talking quietly with his parents and with Achtal the Bhrudwan, and grabbed him by the shoulder. As Hal spun awkwardly around, a stray thought flashed through Leith's mind: how long since 1 last touched him?

'Leith! We were just talkinga"'

'That's all you ever do!' Leith snapped, pulling Hal aside, away from his shocked parents.

Achtal watched them walk away, a frown on his face, then turned and muttered something to Mahnum. The Trader nodded agreement, and went looking for Kurr and the Haufuth.

'Leith, what's the mattera"' Hal began, but again his younger brother didn't let him speak, pulling him down to sit on an upturned barrel close to the shore of the River.

'What's the matter?' he threw back at his brother. 'Perhaps two hundred people dead, killed in the foulest possible way by the Arkhos of Nemohaim, that's what's the matter!' Don't look at his face, don't get pulled into his arguments. 'This is the man you made a bargain with, Hal. You knew he was a traitor, a killer, and that he would betray us too as soon as he could. Why didn't you put him to death in the desert when he was in your power, like he deserved?'

'Leith, it doesn't matter what he did, he deserveda"'

'And don't use words like honour or forgiveness or sacrifice!' Leith growled. 'Always you have a justification for your noble acts. Two hundred people, Hal!'

A troubled look creased the cripple's face, as though reflecting unfamiliar doubts. Leith drank it in like the elixir of life.

'I - I did not think he would do such a thing. But even so, it was right to give him the chance.'

Despite his words Hal looked uncertain, Leith was sure of it.

'It was not right. He deserved no chances. It could never be right to give him the chance to murder more innocent people. You haven't even asked me how the people died. Don't you care?'

'I thought you were talking about the Battle of the Four Halls,' his brother replied. 'Is there - was there another time?'

'Just now,' said Leith wearily. 'Somehow he flooded The Pinion and finished off his former fellow traitors, and no one knows how many others as well. Hal, they died choking on the city's excrement. They died horribly because you provided the Arkhos of Nemohaim a way to return to Instruere. Because you wanted to prove to everyone just how holy you are, how full of goodness, how pure and untainted by evil' The words flew like fiery darts across the pace or so between them, and as they were spoken everything else around them faded away, such was their vehemence. 'Your hands are tainted. You might as well have drowned them yourself. Two hundred people paid the price for your pride.'

Leith could not believe his eyes. Silent tears began to run slowly down Hal's face. A small place deep within him exulted at the sight.

A voice intruded upon their private world of pain. 'Leith! Leith! What are you doing?' His mother's voice.

'Make it short, boy,' came another voice, a voice that had once intimidated him but now had no power over him. 'You have leaders to meet, an army to inspect. You don't have time for this.'

Without turning his head, Leith waved his right hand behind him in the direction of the voices, signalling for them to stay out of it, and did not see the blue-tinged flame surge from the Arrow, driving his parents and fellow villagers back.

'Don't do this, Leith,' his father's voice warned him.

'If you wish to remain, then do so,' Leith said. 'What I have to say should be said in front of witnesses.' He turned towards them, and only then noticed the Haufuth patting down scorch marks on his robe.

'I accuse Hal of siding with the Destroyer,' said Leith deliberately, and again the words took on a life of their own, cocooning them from the real world, enclosing them in a weaving of words. 'Not only did he make an alliance with the Arkhos of Nemohaim, he counselled friendship with the traitorous King of Straux. And he made a pawn out of Achtal, the Bhrudwan warrior. To what purpose, Hal? To what purpose?'

'Leith!' his father cried angrily. 'What are you saying?'

'Whatever it is, it needs to be said,' the old farmer growled, surprising the others. '1 want to hear the answer to his question. I have often wondered about Hal Mahnumsen on this journey.'

'He's just a boy!' Indrett exclaimed. 'He wouldn't hurt anyone!'