'You can't see it,' retorted Kurr. 'You're too close to him, too familiar with him. But I see it.

He knows too much to be just a boy.' There was an ache in his voice like old pain.

'What do you. mean?'

Leith took up the thread. 'Tell them about your enhancing, Hal. Tell them about how you influenced us at Kantara, pulling our strings like the puppet show at the Vapnatak fair. You can do magic, Hal. It was you who overpowered Maendraga and Belladonna, the guardians of the Arrow. Do you deny it?'

Indrett let out a derisive snort at her son's words, but Mahnum put a hand on her arm.

'No. No, I don't deny it. I know how to use the Way of Fire to change the way things happen.'

Hal's voice was quiet, strained, bereft of its usual knowing timbre. Behind him, his mother gasped. Kurr grunted agreement.

'It's true,' the old farmer said. 'I thought you were just fey, a kind of throwback to the days when the First Men were closer to the land, closer to the old gods. But you can actually do magic. Where did you learn to do it?'

Hal swallowed before he replied, and as he spoke he had a hunted look in his eyes. 'I spent a lot of time by myself, owing to - well, I observed what happens in the forest and the field, and somehow found I could bend - enhance -speed up many things that happen. Leith, I hear the voice of the Most High. You want me to say that I do not. How can I make what is into what is not7. Why does it matter so much?'

'Because we want to find out what you are,' said Phemanderac, dread in his voice at what he was hearing. 'Because you might be an agent of Bhrudwo without knowing it. Hal, you were found as an infant. No one ever claimed you. In every village there are children born out of wedlock, and some girls feel so ashamed they abandon their babies. Perhaps that's where you came from. But what if there is a more sinister explanation?'

During the philosopher's speech Kurr had been trying to interrupt, and finally he burst through. 'No! You've gone far enough! You don't have a right to know the private stories of people who had to make terrible decisions because men like you told them what they'd done was wrong! Leave this alone, I'm warning you - or you might find out something you might regret knowing!'

Indrett stared at the old farmer, her face suddenly white.

Unsure of what Kurr meant and confused at this change of heart, Leith was reluctant to lose the thread of his argument, so pressed on, filling the rapidly darkening silence with his questions. 'There were other times when Hal could have intervened to help people, but didn't.

Isn't that right, brother? You left the Haufuth's hand to heal itself. You could have enhanced the healing process, but you didn't. What sort of lesson did you hope he'd learn?'

'Sometimes pain cana"'

'I don't want to hear it!' Leith shot back. 'A homily on the benefits of pain? What gives you the right?'

Behind Leith the Haufuth took half a step forward, visibly rubbing his hand.

Leith took a deep breath. 'Tell them what happened at the Hermit's cave, Hal. Tell them now.'

His voice was flat, hard, irresistible.

'Leith, please don't get me to talk about that. It will do so much harm.'

'And you are the judge of what will do harm?' Leith yelled. 'You, who have done so much harm? Speak, or you will be cast out of the City!'

The others listened, appalled, as Hal told them of that night. He told them how he crept into the Hermit's room late in the evening, how he recognised the effects of black fly poisoning in their host and enhanced the venom for a swift effect. Leith interjected with a lurid description of Hal changing shape, taking on the form of the fly, hovering over the helpless Hermit with huge black wings. In the background Indrett sobbed, but Leith ignored her.

'You told me you wanted to give the Haufuth a purpose, and so persuaded him to stay behind to nurse the Hermit back to health. But what gives you the right to injure one man to help another?'

'Leith,' came the reply, and to the younger brother's ears the voice sounded broken, defeated.

'Leith, I can't explain how I knew what to do. I hear the words of the Most High, and act on them. It seemed right to me that the Hermit should be given time to reflect on his misuse of the gifts given him, and the chance to help the Haufuth regain his confidence was very important. Are you saying I did wrong?'

'Yes! Yes, I am saying that! Your voice is so right that it is wrong!' Leith was beside himself, and didn't stop to consider what he was saying. It was too late, anyway: the dam had burst, and all that was in him came pouring out. 'The Hermit came to Instruere and led thousands of people astray with his cursed Ecclesia. Who knows what he would have been like had you not interfered with him? Perhaps he would not have been so holy, so fanatical, so much like you.

Perhaps he might never have come south at all if you'd left him alone. Perhaps the children I saw die outside the Hall of Lore might never have died. Perhaps Stella might never have met Tanghin! Perhaps she might still be with us now if it wasn't for your evil goodness!'

'No, Leith, listen to mea"'

lNo, I won't listen!' Leith howled. 'I'm tired of listening to you. I've had a life of listening to you! You've always acted as though you're better than me.. But you're not!'

'Leitha"'

'Be quiet! I'm sick of hearing your voice. I hear it all the time. For a while I thought it was the Arrow itself talking to me, but now I realise that whenever I think of doing something for myself, whenever I go to make any sort of decision, I hear your voice in my head. No more! I will not listen to you any longer! I will not be your negative, your shadow, a useless echo of my older brother. I want to be more than the weakness that sets your strength into sharp relief!

I want to be myself!'

Slowly Leith became aware of the silence around him. Dimly, as though in the far distance, he could hear the noise of the losian army as they prepared for a night outside the walls, but the silence smothered everything close by as effectively as a blanket of snow. No one dared trespass on the words just spoken. Hal said nothing to defend himself, and just looked at Leith with eyes filled with hurt.

'Hal, you are the reason we are in this state,' Leith said quietly. 'I don't want to hear you telling us you thought you were doing the right thing. I don't want you to tell us about the voice of the Most High, or whatever it is you imagine you hear. I just want to hear you say you were wrong. Just tell me, tell me to my face that you're not perfect. Please.'

Hal remained silent, his face like stone, and Leith walked away, leaving his parents and his friends to make sense of what had been said. As he left his brother sitting there on an upturned barrel, his heart burned with shame and guilt at what he'd said, and it was all he could do not to turn back and beg his brother's forgiveness.

That evening the leaders of the losian army came across Longbridge and were taken to the Hall of Lore, where they were formally welcomed into Instruere in the name of the Jugom Ark. Leith took little notice of the formalities. His mind was full of his conversation with Hal, and the old farmer's words - which he had ignored at the time - raised questions for which he could not find answers. He had succeeded in humbling his proud, self-righteous brother, which should have made him happy, but he felt dreadful, as though he'd put an injured lamb out of its misery.

The Fodhram leader, who formally named himself Axehaft of Fernthicket, introduced the Company to the losian leaders. Leith hardly spared a glance for the clan chief of the Fenni - not the man whom they had met on their journey across the vidda, but the chief of all the clans - and his High Priest. He did allow his gaze to rest, for a moment, on the leaders of the Widuz, but their faces were not those he remembered mocking Parlevaag's death and their names meant nothing to him, less than nothing. All he could concentrate on was how he had pushed his brother into a deep hole of suspicion and mistrust. The leaders discussed the circuitous nature of the politics involved in the formation of the losian army with the Company, but he followed little of it. Kurr and the Haufuth asked many questions, and Leith sat there with Hal's face in the forefront of his mind, obscuring his vision; his broken voice blotting out all other sound. Then, finally, an old man came forward from the shadows and spoke, and his voice sounded like that of the Most High himself. Leith came to himself long enough to recognise Jethart of Inch Chanter, the man everyone hailed as responsible for welding the losian army together. The man turned his face towards Leith, and there was something in his gaze that the new Lord of Instruere could not look upon. He stood, excused himself, and left the Hall of Lore at a run, fleeing from the eyes that held a question in them he could not face.

CHAPTER 9.

THE FALTHAN ARMY.

PHEMANDERAC FOUND LEITH THE next morning, sitting alone on a low stone bench, shivering in the early winter chill, watching the river roll past. Raindrops from a large oak tree dripped down the back of his neck, seemingly unnoticed. He grunted when the philosopher called to him, and had to rub some feeling back into his cold, stiff legs before he could stand to greet his friend.

'Leith, it is time I spoke to you of the Fuirfad,' Phemanderac said tenderly. 'You must learn about the Way of Fire.'

'I'm not interested in anything to do with fire,' came the truculent reply. Beside him the Jugom Ark guttered on the stone bench.

'You must listen to me, Leith. Soon we leave this place to do battle with the Destroyer himself. It will be too late to wish you'd learned everything you could about the power in your hand when you're running from him, trying to avoid the crushing power of his might and his magic. Will your stubbornness be of any use when he reaches out to take the Jugom Ark from your dying fingers?'

The melodramatic words earned him a harsh laugh. 'Why don't you use the Wordweave on me while you're at it?' Leith said stonily. 'Or was that all from Hal, and none from you?'

'I did talk to your brother,' Phemanderac replied, and the stress he laid on the last word could not be missed. 'Like the rest of the Company I was surprised by your revelations last evening.

Hal admitted he added some of his power to my own when we confronted the guardians, but my knowledge of the Fuirfad was still instrumental in countering the wiles of Maendraga and his daughter. The rest of the Arkhimm contributed to our success at Kantara. Hal is a wild magician, nothing more. Leith, not everything that happens, whether good or bad, happens because of your brother.'

Leith snorted. 'It feels like it, Phemanderac. Do you know the Arrow speaks to me in my brother's voice?'

'I heard you say that last night, and wondered at your words. Leith, have you considered you might think you hear Hal's voice because you associate him with wisdom and good sense? I'm sure it's not really Hal's voice you hear, otherwise why did the Most High take us through peril and loss to fetch the Arrow from Kantara? We might all have done just as well to listen to Hal, and with a lot less bother.'

Leith sat silently on the bench. Phemanderac could see him digesting this.

'Phemanderac,' he said, after some time, and the philosopher's heart melted at the anguish in the boy's voice. 'It comes down to this. I feel like I'm losing control. All my friends are doing what they want, but there are dozens of people I have to ask before I can do anything. If I give in to the Arrow things will only get worse. I'm afraid I'll lose myself, be swallowed up. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to be controlled like a puppet.' The Jugom Ark flickered uneasily, as though trying not to draw attention to itself.

'Then you will have to learn how to control it!' said Phemanderac triumphantly.

'I don't want any of this.'

'Then lay it aside,' the philosopher said. 'But you won't do that, I know you won't. Leith, we're trying to be patient with you, but every hour spent here in Instruere is an hour's less time we have to bring our army successfully to the Gap. Please, Leith, you don't have to feel like saving Faltha. Just go through the motions for a while. Your feelings will catch up eventually.'

Leith grunted a non-committal reply, then stood, stretched and began to walk towards the Inna Gate.

Worried, Phemanderac tried to engage the sullen youth in further conversation as they made their walkthrough the City, but could get no response. Just like Maufus, he thought to himself, remembering his carefree childhood friend and the change that elevation to the Dhaurian Congress had wrought in him. Too young for it, they asked too much of him.

As the Hall of Meeting drew closer, Leith found himself surrounded by well-wishers, all oblivious of his moody silence. A great deal of activity focused around the building: tents had sprung up overnight on the lawn, and people burdened with baskets and barrows wove their way between them, pouring into the square from other parts of the City, and moving in and out of the hall.

'What's going on?'

'Supplies,' Phemanderac answered shortly. 'The army will need food and supplies. They will be ferried up the river to a place far inland where the Aleinus is no longer navigable.'

'Who decided this?'

'You did. At least, your officials did, in consultation with the Company. You would have been asked, but no one could find you.'

'I thought I was the head of the Council!'

'You can't have it both ways,' the philosopher said, and laughed to take the edge off his remarks. 'If you don't want the responsibility, just lay the Arrow aside, and we'll see if there's someone else who can pick it up. Otherwise . ..'

Leith was saved from having to reply by the appearance of Kurr and the Haufuth, followed by Perdu and a glum-looking Farr. The village headman and the old farmer greeted Leith as though nothing was out of the ordinary, but each took an arm and led him, gently but firmly, towards a tent with a large yellow orange flag flapping in the morning's land breeze.

'What is that?' Leith asked, pointing at the device, which looked like , ..

'A fiery arrow,' Kurr said. 'Or as near as the City's best seamstresses could come to. It's to be our device, the symbol of a reunited Faltha.'

'Another decision I took?' Leith said, arching an eyebrow in Phemanderac's direction. The tall man shrugged his shoulders in an exaggerated show of ignorance, and Leith struggled to suppress a smile.

'The people of Instruere are on a war footing,' said the Haufuth as he drew aside the tent flap for Leith to enter. Inside were a number of low tables, each laden with maps, charts and sheaves of paper, and people - some of whom he recognised, and others he did not - bent over them, discussing and arguing various matters. As he entered the tent his father waved to him.

His mother looked up, her face turned to his with recognition in her eyes and something else, then she turned away and continued a conversation with someone he'd never seen before.

The Haufuth continued talking, leaving Leith no opportunity to find out why his mother had behaved so strangely. 'We have a great deal to decide before we can leave Instruere on the long march east,' he said, thrusting a roughly sketched map into Leith's left hand. 'Look at this. Instruere is here, by the sea, near enough. This line is the Aleinus River. Over here' - he pointed to the rightmost edge of the parchment - 'is the Gap. See how the Aleinus River issues from it? We can follow the river all the way to Bhrudwo.'

'How long will it take us?'

'No one is really sure,' said the Captain of the Guard from over Leith's left shoulder. 'Our best guess is a hundred days, but so much depends on the weather. A northern winter . . . well, you would know about that better than I.'

Mahnum leaned towards them. 'The ground frozen so hard it drives the ice up into hillocks and makes paving patterns out of the plains. A wind from the east that drains your strength, no matter how well you protect yourself. Ice falling from the skies like shards of broken glass. A pitiless place, the Nagorj.'

'Nagorj?' Leith repeated, though as he, spoke he saw the word on his map.

'The Sna Vazthan name for the Gap. The land immediately to the west of the Gap is not really part of any Falthan kingdom, so harsh is the climate, and no one lives there. But nearest is Sna Vaztha, to the north, and Piskasia, to the south-east.'

'Sounds like the vidda to the north of Breidhan Moor,' said Perdu uneasily. 'And we plan to take an army there in winter?'

'It is worse than the vidda, and we go there because we must,' said Mahnum resolutely. 'The Destroyer showed me his plans, remember, and they depend on a winter invasion. He has trained his army to travel in winter, and they will have the advantage over us.'

'So why do we not wait until they come down the river closer to Instruere?' Leith asked. 'It will be spring by then, we can fight on our own ground, and we won't have to march as far.'

'Because of what will happen to the farms and villages, the towns and the cities between here and there, if we do nothing,' replied his father, with old pain rimming his voice. 'The Bhrudwan army will tear any Falthan opposition apart on their way to Instruere. Look at the map! Piskasia, Redana'a, Favony, Straux; all will fall. And even if we were victorious, the Bhrudwans would be impossible to root out from Faltha's heart. We cannot allow a single Bhrudwan on this side of the Gap.'

'It's a risk we are taking, a grave risk,' said Jethart of Inch Chanter, his voice carrying across the tent from where he sat. 'The essence of successful warfare is to choose the ground that best suits your forces, and most disadvantages your enemy. We don't yet know the numbers or experience of our own army, let alone that of our foe. One blizzard could wipe out the lot of us.' He sighed. 'Perhaps no ground will suit us, perhaps no ground will disadvantage the Bhrudwans. Nevertheless. . . nevertheless, we must fight.'

'Yes, Jethart, we must,' Mahnum said, and something passed between Leith's father and the old man. I remember hearing them talk about this old fellow, last night in the Hall of Lore.

They said Jethart travelled into Widuz and persuaded the warriors of Adunlok to join the losian army. My father carries his sword, taken as payment for saving captives of the Widuz originally of Inch Chanter. There was talk about how he was the greatest swordsman in the west, in his day. That day was clearly long past.

The insistent murmuring all about him drew Leith away from his thoughts, and in a few moments he became immersed in the planning around him. At one table people debated the best way to get supplies for the army up through Vulture's Craw, the notorious gorge where the Aleinus became non-navigable. At the next table, hunched over the best map of the Nagorj that could be found, a group of older men listened as one of their number held forth about tactics. Leith listened for a while, but could understand very little of what was being said.

Nearby another knot of officials sat opposite some obviously senior members of the losian army, and from what Leith could make out, the discussion centred on the chain of command.

At every table Leith was politely acknowledged, and asked to contribute his opinion, although he couldn't help but notice their furtive glances at the Arrow burning in his right hand, and the uneasy, even fearful glances he attracted.

Leith gleaned a great deal of information during the morning he spent in the tent. Spies had been sent out at dawn to scout the possible routes the army might take, to determine possible obstacles, food sources and level of support. Other riders on fast horses were already heading east towards the Gap, with instructions to find the Bhrudwan army and report on its strength.

'Knowledge, my lord, knowledge is everything,' people kept saying to him.

Emissaries had been sent, men whose job was perhaps equally risky, to make contact with the rulers of each Falthan kingdom. In some cases the message to be delivered was blunt: their treachery was known, and would be forgiven only if the king put his entire army at the new Council's disposal.

In other cases the appeal was friendlier, if no less urgent, informing the king of happenings in Instruere and beyond, explaining the threat to the east and witnessing to the return of the Jugom Ark. These ambassadors of the Arrow were to beg the kings' help, and would accept armsmen, supplies or gold. Much was hoped for from these emissaries, but little could be counted on. As yet.

City officials purchased food, weapons and medical supplies from all over Instruere.

According to the clerks, the City's coffers were being emptied at an alarming rate, though apparently a great deal of gold had been recovered from the private rooms of certain of the former Councillors of Faltha - some of the coin of obvious Bhrudwan origin - and was already proving very useful. Hal was out in the City, so Leith was told, organising the collection of supplies: a difficult job, apparently, with the firing of the Granaries only a fortnight earlier having depleted food stocks in Instruere. Traders scoured the countryside, buying up supplies from nearby towns and cities as well as directly from farmers.

The mighty Falthan army would march within three days, Leith was informed. This was the target he himself had apparently set for the citizens of Instruere, one which was repeated to him enthusiastically by those hard at work on his behalf, and the source of which he never tracked down. An army from Deuverre would join them on the plains north of Instruere, as would their king. They would then be ferried across the Aleinus to Sivithar, avoiding the vast swamplands of the Maremma, from where they would march across Westrau, the western province of Straux, until they reached Vindicare. There they would take ship on the Aleinus, sailing upriver directly towards the Aleinus Gates and Vulture's Craw. To keep to schedule they must arrive at the Aleinus Gates within fifty days of leaving Instruere. Shipbuilders were already making the large rafts which would take them upriver from Vindicare to the Aleinus Gates.

'What about Straux?' Leith asked, interrupting a senior official as he explained this to him and other members of the Company.

'Pardon, my lord?'

'What happens when the army has left Instruere behind? Won't the King of Straux take Instruere for himself? I hear he has long desired it, believing it a natural part of his kingdom.'

'My lord, he met with you only a few days ago, and agreeda"'

'He was named a traitor to Faltha, and I do not trust him,' Leith snapped. He looked at the map on the table, and slammed a finger down on it. 'We will leave from the southern gate, cross Southbridge and march to Mercium. We will demand a proof of his loyalty. He will supply us with his best soldiers, and he will accompany us eastwards on our journey, or he will be put to death as a traitor.'