Ruben-rammen, their stocky Favonian guide, stared up at them from under bushy black eyebrows. 'So I come to your land, outdoorsman, and tell you how to live on it? You would sit at my feet and ask me when to plant and when to harvest? Not all the world is like your home!

Allow someone who lives here to share his wisdom!'

Kurr hissed on an indrawn breath but held his tongue, looking to Leith. Farr, however, had no such self-restraint. 'Snow smells like snow anywhere in the world.' The Vinkullen man gestured around him, to the wide greensward, the narrow bridge across the swirling, deep-channelled Aleinus, and the towering hills on both sides. 'It's calm down here in the valley, but look up on the shoulders of the mountains to the north. See the faint white smear in the sky? That's windblown snow picked up from the upper slopes and tossed out into this gorge. Unless snow here behaves in a completely different fashion to the snow of Firanes, there is a gale blowing above us. Who can tell what the wind will bring?'

'Very clever, mountain boy. Always it is windy there, up on the Wodranian heights.

Sometimes from the north, mostly from the south, until the tail of winter. Anyone who lives in the lee of the mountains knows this! I say the wind will turn to the south before the day is over, and your army will have a safe passage to the east. One week from now you will be feasting in Kaskyne, remembering to toast Ruben-rammen of Favony.'

'Aren't you coming with us?' Kurr asked, surprised.

'My king requires me at Sturrenkol,' came the short reply. 'I cannot disobey.'

Leith stepped forward. 'We are grateful to your king, and to you, Ruben-rammen. Take these coins as extra payment for advice well given, in the face of adversity.' Here Leith cast a baleful glance at his friends.

'That is undeserved, boy,' muttered Kurr. Beside him, Fan-growled his agreement.

'So was the criticism,' replied Leith, angered by the old man's intransigence. 'Why must we always think we know best? Every chance we get, we First Men try to enforce our desires on others. This time we are going to listen to the advice we are given.' In the back of his mind he could hear a dockworker yelling abuse at the Pei-ran navigator on the morning he arrived at Instruere, and remembered the shame he had felt.

'We will take the south road, as Ruben-rammen suggested. The king was kind enough to help us: how would ignoring his advice advance the cause of unity in Faltha? We will use all help offered. Now, please kindly go and tell my captains to prepare their charges. We leave as soon as we are ready.'

Though he hated the stares and mutterings the decision drew, Leith felt strangely satisfied with his choice - as if a decision based on information supplied by people outside the Company redressed some celestial balance in which the First Men were always the beneficiaries. It didn't matter that Favonians were First Men themselves. It was good, Leith judged, that the Company didn't appear to always get their way.

At first the weather stayed clear but cold, as it had done since they marched through the Aleinus Gates, a huge and impressive basalt cliff sundered by the roaring waters of the Aleinus a few hours' journey east of the town. Above this point the great river was not navigable, falling over two thousand feet in the hundred leagues between the Gates and Kaskyne, the chief city of Redana'a. The army woke every morning to a heavy frost, which in many shaded parts of Vulture's Craw did not melt before the early afternoon sun left the valley. Leith stopped to inspect the wooden bridge that led to the northern path, and noted the wooden slats had already become slippery with frost. His army would have experienced some difficulty crossing it, and again he congratulated himself on his decision.

The snow began on the fourth day east of Aleinus Gates, the forty-seventh of their march to the Gap. Light at first, it sifted down in patches from a mostly clear sky, garnishing the hard road with a treacherous granular surface. The air became bitterly cold. 'Issue cloaks to anyone without them,' Sjenda barked, her breath frosting in the frigid morning, her words sending people scurrying for the wagons. 'Prepare extra rations,' she ordered the cooks.

'Include a nip of brandy.' A few of the cooks smiled inwardly. The dragon had a heart after all.

By afternoon snow covered the rutted road. Tramped flat by thousands of feet, it froze into a glass-like icy surface almost impossible to stay upright on. Leith's mighty Falthan army suffered a spate of bruised hands and knees, with a few broken bones. As light faded from the southern hills, Leith looked wistfully across the wide southern banks to where the river cut into the base of the northern slopes. Just discernible on the sun-lit slope was the thin line that marked the north bank path. Leith fancied he could even see a few people travelling on the road - or were they watching the Falthan army picking their way east on the southern path?

The King of Favony called a halt. High above the Aleinus River, he and his most trusted advisers observed the long, snake-like procession make its way haltingly up the valley. 'You have done well,' he said to the stocky man at his side. 'Fools beyond belief, entrusting the leadership of such an army to a child.'

'Yes, my lord,' Ruben-rammen replied. 'He actually rejected the advice of his wildscrafty outdoorsmen.'

'How many do you think they'll lose?' the king asked his liegeman and fellow traitor.

'My lord, the question, really, is how many of them will return?'

The curly-haired monarch laughed. 'Set the fire, Ruben-rammen. Let us see whether this magic works. Our master will be very pleased with our work.'

'Yes, your majesty. So pleased, perhaps, that he will agree to the rest of your plan?'

'The rest of my plan? What do you know, my old friend?'

'Know, my king? Just that if I were you I would be planning a western excursion with the ten thousand soldiers you kept in reserve. I can think of an undefended city that might be a gift well received by our new Friend.'

The king laughed again, loud and long. 'Oh, Ruben, I forget just how clever you are. Would that you were of royal blood: you are worthier by far than the talentless clods that squander the king's purse.'

Ruben-rammen smiled at the delight of his king, pleased he had guessed correctly. Inwardly, however, he tasted anger, and as he unstoppered the small vial of potion he had been given at the dark castle in Bhrudwo, in preparation for the blue fire, he reminded himself of the coup d'etat conducted by Cuantha's grandfather. Royal blood indeed! The old man had been half Wodrani!

Stella's first night in the northern snows was agony, and she doubted she would survive a second. Her dash for freedom was instinctive, an unthinking flight from despair. Her first thought was to make for the village the Bhrudwans had sacked days before, hoping to find food and shelter among the houses left standing. She had a vague thought of doing something for any survivors: there had to be some, surely? Someone she could help, something to do to assuage the guilt that racked her every time the sickening images flashed through her head.

For the first few hours she expected discovery at any moment. When the minutes stretched into hours, and the day came to an end, she began to hope - and to worry. Her cloak was flimsy, barely covering a ridiculous lace nightgown, and a light snow had begun to fall. She was not yet hungry, and there were plenty of streams from which to drink, but where would she find shelter?

At the base of a pine tree, it turned out. With night all but fallen she climbed down into a narrow valley sheltering a woody copse. Shivering uncontrollably, she dug into the soft soil between the roots of a tall tree and pulled a thick layer of needles over herself. The ground was cold, but by huddling into a ball Stella preserved a little of her warmth beneath her blanket of needles.

Throughout the long night she lay there, contemplating her freedom. She had exchanged perfume for pine sap, silk for needles, food for hunger. But for the first time since the night she had so foolishly abandoned the Company in favour of Tanghin, she allowed the faint stirrings of hope to steal around her heart.

By the middle of the following day Leith knew they were in trouble. The snow had slowed overnight, but the temperature fell markedly just before sunrise, bringing more snow; and for the first time the wind began to blow, throwing icy pellets into the faces of the soldiers.

Progress slowed to a stumbling walk for the footsoldiers, and by noon - at least, by the time Leith estimated it was noon - they had travelled no more than a league from the place they spent the previous night. The wind howled, spitting snow at them like a million darts, closing down their world to sixty thousand small white circles, at the centre of each a soldier under siege. Heads down, hunched under their cloaks, eyes fixed on the road in front of them, the army moved doggedly forward - but cold, so cold. Captains began to lose contact with their troops. Wagons became mired in the snow. Horses lost their footing, and soldiers cursed their luck in the way soldiers do. The better-equipped losian army, more familiar with these conditions, nevertheless called a halt for their midday meal and did not set out again. While the great shaggy aurochs, in particular, appeared to be in their element, unaffected by mere drifts of cold white powder, their captains knew what conditions like these could do to man and beast alike. There was little cheer and much grumbling, even amongst the merry Fodhram. And still the snow kept driving in.

'It's only autumn!' Leith shouted, shrugging his shoulders in exasperation. 'How long can this last?'

Kurr shook his head in reply. Nothing was to be gained by pointing out Leith had chosen to ignore his advice. Farr did not hold back: 'We don't know the answer! We don't live here, remember?'

On and on the blizzard raged. Finally this arrow is of some practical use, Leith reflected as he rode on through the snow. He wouldn't freeze to death, he could use it to see a little further than others, he could light fires, and on a couple of occasions used it to melt away snowdrifts that blocked their path. But he couldn't be in every place, and the snow depth could now be measured in feet.

Suddenly the wind died, then burst forth with even greater power; and the snowfall tripled in intensity, hammering at them as though the white world was collapsing inwards. What had been annoying quickly became serious, even fatal. Within minutes the army was in total chaos. While some had the good sense to stay put, huddling together with anyone^ they found, others struck out along the road - or where they imagined the road to be. Men cried out their confusion, their anger, their fear . . . and eventually their despair, in increasingly weak voices.

As night fell in Vulture's Craw, so did silence.

On her second day of freedom Stella risked venturing on to the road, driven there by hunger.

The Bhrudwan army had churned up the surface, but in the bootmarks and beside the cold fire-places she found frozen scraps of food. Carrot greens, bread crusts, chewed jerky ends.

An hour of scrabbling and the Falthan girl gathered enough to beat back her hunger. She ate on her feet, pressing on down the never-ending slope, following the broken ground back into the heart of Bhrudwo.

In the middle of the afternoon a cold rain began to fall, gradually turning to sleet, soaking the miserable girl to the skin. She could feel her raw limbs begin to cool, her muscles stiffen, in spite of the effort she exerted just to climb the road. She knew she should be afraid. Unless she turned and ran back to the Destroyer she would die, but she also knew beyond any shadow of doubt she would rather die out here, alone in the snows of a strange land, than ever see that hated litter again. Her death would be clean, a result of her own choice, given at the hands of a nature more merciful in its indifference than the cruel hands of evil men. Were she to return to the Bhrudwans her death would be inevitable, and could come in one of a number of awful ways, like the burning Duke of Roudhos, or the arrow-feathered men of the nameless village, or their handless children. She would walk on until she fell.

Shaking with the cold, she trudged over the shoulder of yet another ridge; and there, lying discarded in the middle of the road, was a soldier's pack, just like those the Bhrudwan soldiers carried. She scuttled towards it like a frantic spider, trying to get her knees to bend. It is real, it is real, she told herself, her mind as sluggish as her body as she forced her blue fingers to work at the buckles. Inside, filling most of the pack, she found a great black cloak with a red bib, fringed in red. An officer's cloak. Only officers' cloaks had the red fringe as well as the red bib. One of Roudhos's men, then. Perhaps he'd protested the treatment meted out to his lord. Happy with her reasoning, Stella shook the cloak out, then wrapped herself in its fur-lined length. What else? Stout boots. Too big, but they could be packed with fur from the cloak. Some food, and a flask of some foul-smelling liquor she tipped out on the spot.

Wira. Her brother. Both taken by the drink. She would not drink it, no matter how much it might warm her.

Slowly her mind focused. Now she had hope! Already she felt warmer. With the cloak, the boots and the food in this pack, surely she could make it back to the village. Then, some time in the future, spring perhaps, she could try the long paths back to Faltha and the people she loved.

Buoyed by these thoughts, Stella picked up the pack and eased it on to her shoulders, adjusting the straps with warming fingers. She did not for a moment wonder why, when all around was frozen and snow-shrouded, the pack was dry and uncovered.

Leith blundered on and on, unsure of his direction, completely alone in the heart of the blizzard. Sixty thousand soldiers lost, he kept saying to himself. Sixty thousand lost. He had been transported to some other valley where he was the only one alive, he and his feebly burning arrow. He was unhorsed and without hope, wandering the valley of the damned, reaping the reward for his wilful decision that had cost so many lives, and would cost so many more.

Occasionally he would stumble over a solid lump, each time to discover the body of a warrior, frozen to death. The first time he tried to thaw the man out with his arrow, but merely made a steaming, sodden mess which caused him to retch until he threw up. Most High! Most High!

Where are you! How could you let this happen?

At one point the darkness lifted, signifying morning, Leith supposed, though he could barely raise any interest in the fact he had walked all night. A little while later he nearly fell into the Aleinus River, a smoking sliver of grey foam racing past him from right to left - east to west, he remembered, visualising the map - like a runnel of molten metal in a giant's forge. East to west. He had been walking downriver. Was that the right way? Had his army continued upriver to their soft white graves?

Later in the morning, after burning his way through a snowdrift, he met his first living man.

He was a soldier of Instruere, blue with cold, and he had his arm under the shoulder of a dead man, trying to drag him along the road to safety. Leith tried to persuade him to put the body down, but he would not: eventually, after an hour of arguing, Leith took the corpse's other arm and together the three of them made their way westwards.

Around a bluff they struggled; and, as though they had crossed an invisible boundary drawn by some cruel weather god, the snow stopped. Ahead of them lay a wide grey smudge on the snowy river flat. As they drew closer, Leith could see movement along the length of the smudge, which eventually resolved itself into a huge gathering of people. His army. Or the remnant, at least.

As heads looked up, and the cry went out at the sight of his Arrow, Leith collapsed to the ground in tears. Strong hands took hold of him, bearing him aloft like some kind of trophy, carrying him gently to the tents and the fires, but Leith was barely aware of them. He scarcely saw the kindly but worried faces bend over his prone form; his mother and father, his villager friends, others of his Company, and his brother.

The Arrow-bearer was safe, it was announced, and the remnants of the mighty Army of Faltha rejoiced. If a few fools cursed his name privately, none said a word against him in public; for who among them, however blessed with supernatural power, could fight against the heart of a storm such as that? The fact he survived, some argued, was proof enough he remained the Most High's anointed Right Hand. Many soldiers talked about how they had seen the light of the Arrow in the midst of the blizzard, shining like a beacon, directing them westwards out of the storm's grim jaws. No, he was their saviour; he had led them to safety.

As Leith lay in a swoon, the Company listened stolidly to the recitation of their losses.

Perhaps ten thousand men unaccounted for - ten thousand! Some of these men would surely have survived, in the opinion of experienced campaigners. March in the winter, they said, and this was the inevitable result. Perhaps, the optimistic among them said, a number had made it through to the far side of the storm and would continue to Kaskyne or some other place of safety, but the members of the Company had all seen enough dead bodies on their struggle through the blizzard to doubt that argument. Then there had been the disaster of the avalanche: just before the last bluff, only yards from safety, a wall of snow had come roaring down the mountain, obliterating many of the wagons and taking hundreds of people to their deaths. Sjenda had been lost, as had many of the men from Deruys who tended the wagons, swept right across the valley and into the river.

Worse, in the opinion of the strategists, the army would lose a week, maybe more. It would clearly take time for the army to recover, they advised the Company. To press on now would risk further deaths from exhaustion. Some of the soldiers would disguise the degree of their hurt, or simply would not realise how badly they were affected until exposed once again to the rigours of the path. Then there was their morale to think about. Perhaps it would be best to take a few days to recover, some said, but the strategists were divided on this.

'Get them back on the road as soon as possible,' said Jethart of Inch Chanter. 'Don't give them time to think about their hurts, or you'll not be able to contain the numbers who want to desert.'

Some of the younger generals accused the old man of having no compassion, but others read him better, realising he wanted the maximum number of soldiers to survive in good enough condition to fight. He argued for his position in a firm voice, and gradually his logic won the day.

Leith awoke to muttering. A voice droned on in the distance, but around him a few voices discussed their situation.

'Any campaign such as this is bound to suffer losses.'

Losses?

'The Sna Vazthan army lost more than ten thousand men on the march home from reducing Haurn.'

Ten thousand men!

At least the losian army survived relatively unscathed. They had those big cow-thingsa"'

Aurochs!

'a"to protect them from the worst of the snow. Anyway, they hail from parts like this; used to it, no doubt.'

What have I done?

'We still have the Arrow-bearer. He'll protect us. Did you hear about the prophecy carved on the ceiling of Fealty Castle? We just have to keep him alive - oh, he's awake! Everyone, the Arrow-bearer is awake!'

At the end of a terrible week, Stella finally came to the outskirts of the village she sought. She had been in no danger of losing her way, as the Bhrudwan army had left a trail wide enough for a child to follow, and they had been careless enough to discard many treasures in their haste westwards. She had not wanted for food, and her fur greatcloak kept her warm.

Yesterday she found a flint, and spent an enjoyable night by the fire: if it were not for the unfamiliar night-sounds around her little camp, and a dreadful feeling of loneliness, she could almost have convinced herself she was back on the Westway with her friends.

The boards were still there, upon which the men of the village had been nailed, but their dreadful human adornments had been removed, by wild animals, no doubt. A few half-eaten carcasses lay in the snow, some smaller than others, and Stella chose not to examine them too closely. She would have to be careful. If bears or wolves regarded this area as an easy source of food, she might be in danger.

Down a gentle slope she went, eyes wide open, looking for any sign of life. She glanced to her right, where the trees hid what had become of the women . . . she would not go there, even if someone was still alive. Past the first ragged hut, little more than a charred ruin, door swinging slowly in the breeze. The sudden barking of dogs rent the air. Stella started, shrinking into the shadows of the hut, as three thin curs bounded past, the first with something in its jaws, the other two dogs chasing it as though in pursuit of treasure. Their snapping and snarling continued for some time. She waited until they had gone, then continued her progress through the village.

There! Off to the left! A hut that was more or less whole, with smoke issuing from the chimney. Oh, Most High, someone was alive! Breaking into a run, Stella made for the hut. As she reached out for the door latch, it occurred to her she had not been careful enough, she had not thought things through, the people inside the hut might not be pleased to see her.

But she couldn't stop herself; the need for human contact, to sustain her hope, was too great.

She grasped the handle, threw open the door, stepped into the hut, saw the blue fire set in the grate . . . saw the four white-robed eunuchs. . . saw the Man in the grey robe stand and turn to her . . . heard his words of welcome, and was engulfed in his wild laughter ...

She stuffed her fist into her mouth but screamed nonetheless, horror beyond horror, as the Destroyer took her by the arm and led her to a chair by the fire.

'Did you think you had escaped us, pretty one?' he asked her, leaning over her like a vulture, his grip painful on her arm. 'That all you needed to do was run and you would be free?'

Her chest was a fire of pain, despair a flame that threatened to consume her. Surely her heart no longer beat within her chest. She wanted to howl and howl.

'Who watched over you every night to ensure you survived? Who left the pack in your path so that you could make it this far? Who waited patiently in this hut, longing to see the look on your face when you realised what has happened to you?'

Stella could do nothing but moan. His harsh, angular face hovered over hers, blurred by her tears.

'You are mine, now and forever. I declare it, and thus it is so. You are marked, having been drawn through the blue fire. I can track you wherever you go. I know you, Stella. I know your fears, I put them there. We will be married, you and I, a symbol of a world united under my hand. You will rule over Faltha, I prophesy it, so know it for truth. You will be the Falthan queen, dark and terrible, and will reign over a thousand years of torment!'

His words echoed in her head, sealing themselves to her as though a second skin, and she shuddered at their touch.

The Destroyer turned his raging eyes away from her, and she collapsed as though boneless.

Dimly she heard the black-robed fiend issue orders to his eunuchs; faintly she felt their loathsome touch as they lifted her up, took her outside and bound her behind the saddle of a horse.

The last thing she heard before she passed out was the Destroyer. 'Hurry, now. My pleasure has cost my army a week's marching. A small price, and one we can easily afford, but we cannot allow the Falthans any real hope.'

'This is a day of mourning, Leith. The soldiers hold memorials for their dead comrades even as we speak. We can't send them back into the snow to dig out dead bodies. We don't have the time.'

'But - shouldn't we bury our dead?'

'We are taking a day to remember them, my friend,' Axehaft said softly. 'If we take the time to bury them, we may end up paying for the time taken by burying many more. All the generals are agreed. One day to mourn, then back on the road. Whichever road we choose.' He glanced around the pavilion, acknowledging the nods of agreement.

'And what road will we take? The north road, the south road, or the road back west?' The King of Straux, clearly unhappy at the deaths of many of his soldiers, placed a small but unmissable emphasis on the latter option.

'We've sent scouts along both western paths, with instructions to go as far as they can without endangering their own lives,' the Chief Clerk of Instruere informed them. 'They should return some time today.' His matter-of-fact voice seemed to render unreal the disaster that had befallen them.

'With their information we can choose which path to take,' Kurr said, masking his shock at what happened in Vulture's Craw, knowing they all had to keep their private misgivings about Leith's leadership to themselves, otherwise the boy would be stripped of what confidence remained.

'We cannot return along the southern road,' said Leith fiercely. 'We cannot! Can you imagine what it would be like? Soldiers stumbling over the bodies of their friends? We must take the northern road, or return to Instruere to await the wrath of Bhrudwo.'

'But Leith, the scouts have been senta"' A wave of the Arrow silenced the Haufuth. Would they gainsay him on every point?

'I will accept no other course! Call the scouts back! We must take the north road! I will be cursed before I ever take that hellish southern road again!' And, having vented his anger, he stormed out of the tent and into the cold but clear air of eastern Favony, leaving behind him a collection of sorrowful faces and worried minds.

The recovering army was spread out across the valley immediately east of the last bridge, the ill-favoured bridge Ruben-rammen had advised them against crossing only four days ago. If Leith ever found that man, he would arrange for him the most painful death imaginable.

Surely such a blunder in reading the weather could not have been accidental! The sorrowful sights all around him tempered his rage. In groups large and small his army stood, in prayer, in quiet conversation or in contemplative silence; whatever their race considered would best honour their newly-dead companions. For a brief moment he considered joining a ceremony, but thought better of it, reasoning that the appearance of his Arrow would draw attention away from the names and faces being remembered. Carefully he masked the Arrow's bright glow while he threaded his way across the valley, avoiding the many congregations gathered there. Finally Leith found himself at the lip of a small dell, sloping down to a lone tree: the army avoided this spot as though a prohibition rested upon it. A thin mist rested in the basin - probably the reason why no one gathered here, Leith realised, as the cold air drained down to this low spot.

There was a solitary figure in the dell, close to the trunk of the bare-branched tree, not part of any congregation. Leith walked a few paces down into the basin before he realised who it was, then stopped himself going any further.

The figure was his brother Hal. So he had survived the southern road. Leith's anger flared again. What of your magic now, brother? What of your voice? Did you know about the calamity that hung over our heads, Hal, or did it take you by surprise? 1 trusted the King of Favony and his expert guide, just like you would have done, and look what happened. Ten thousand! I killed ten thousand men! He forced his jaws shut so as to stifle the scream that threatened to rip out his throat.

What was his brother doing? Reluctantly he drew a little closer. The cripple had a branch in his left hand, swishing it backwards and forwards as though it was a sword. He seemed to know what he was doing. Undoubtedly Achtal had been training him, but to what end?