He turned to the young Loulea peasant boy, the Bearer of the Arrow, with puzzlement on his face. 'Tell me, Leith: I've never understood how you knew you would not be harmed by the Jugom Ark. Whatever possessed you to reach out and pick it up, especially after seeing your Haufuth burn his hand?'

'Wait a moment,' said Leith sharply. 'Those words of the Most High. I've heard them before. Kurr recited to us from them, I think. Doesn't it say there will come a time when the Fire will again be given to the First Men?'

'Most theologians believe that the Most High referred to the afterlife, where those who have remained faithful go to be with Him. Are you suggesting - do you think that the words might be taken literally?'

'Would the Gift of Fire somehow . .. speak to a person? In their thoughts, perhaps?' The question was asked with an undisguised intensity, drawing the tall man's attention.

'How do you mean?'

'For example, telling them that the Jugom Ark was hidden in a cave in an island in a lake?

Telling them that it was safe to pick up the Arrow, as long as it was held tightly? Is that the sort of thing the Fire might say, or could it be the invention of- of a mind taken with madness?' The boy raised his face to meet his, his features filled with an uneasy mixture of hope and fear.

And with these words it became clear to Phemanderac, scholar of Dona Mihst, that the Gift of Fire had indeed fallen again. He had been there to witness it, but had thought it a dream.

Obviously at least one of the people in the basement had opened himself enough to receive the Gift, and it had been speaking to him ever since. So. The Jugom Ark had attuned itself to the Fire within Leith. Others of the Company may also have received the Fire. Had he, Phemanderac of Dhauria? Could he reach out and take the Jugom Ark in his own hand?

'Phemanderac? Phemanderac!' The youth tugged at the sleeve of his coat. 'What is happening out there? Look!'

The tall scholar looked out from the rock, far too late, to see two columns of Bhrudwan wizard-warriors, one column to the left, the other to the right, both aimed at the rock on which he stood.

For the first time Phemanderac came face to face with the bane of Dhauria, the massed Maghdi Dasht, the Lords of Fear. And as he realised what was about to happen, terror turned his spine to ice.

The horns were heard everywhere across the field, announcing the arrival of that which Jethart feared. The Bhrudwans are doing something, he thought; and, abandoning his chart, he ran from the tent and called for his mount. I do not remember my legs aching like this! His aides struggled to keep up with him as he galloped towards the lines of battle.

Mahnum heard the horns, and at the same time felt something akin to a thickening of the air.

At first he thought it might be the weather - a snowstorm, perhaps; it was certainly cold enough - but poking his head out of the tent revealed a high overcast sky, definitely lighter than earlier in the day. Yet the air continued to thicken, making it harder to move, harder to think. And with the thickening came a dread, unspecified but powerful and growing.

Maendraga and his daughter Belladonna laboured at the southern end of the front lines, alternating between the First Men of Deruys - who had taken a fearful battering, for all their undoubted skill and courage - and the losian Army of the North, who had done somewhat better. At the sound of the horn the magician jerked his head up, as though he smelled something in the air; a moment later, his daughter sensed it also. They abandoned their magics, and a whole troop of illusory soldiers disappeared, leaving a number of bemused Bhrudwan warriors searching for their enemies. The two former Guardians of the Arrow glanced at each other, then ran for their horses. And as they ran, the horns continued to sound.

Te Tuahangata of the Mist gave the horns no thought, so completely had the lust of battle taken him. Together with Wiusago of Deruys and Perdu of the Fenni he rushed to wherever the Falthan lines were thinnest, and many warriors followed them. He had slain dozens of the enemy through sheer speed and recklessness, allied with his skill with the warclub, and was pleased to observe that the enemy soldiers ran from him; though he was unaware that his blood-covered face under a shock of black hair made him look like nothing other than an avenging angel. Most of the blood was his own, flowing from a shallow wound on his left temple. He was also completely unaware that he laughed as he slew, a mirthless laugh filled with portents that drained courage from his adversaries. Even Wiusago and Perdu, professional soldiers who killed out of necessity, looked at him askance.

They heard the horns, they felt the air thicken, and their hearts seemed to grow smaller in their chests, troubled by doubts. But Te Tuahangata seemed untouchable as he laid about himself with a vicious extravagance, and those around him recovered some of their courage. Yet soon all heads turned towards the centre of the battlefield, drawn by some sense, as they realised something dreadful was happening.

Hal exchanged a quick glance with Achtal. There was no need for words. They had been expecting something like this, and had waited patiently, hidden in a rockfield some distance from the front line. No one would have understood this reluctance to fight, especially since Achtal would have been so valuable with his sword in hand; moreover Hal had been viewed with a strong degree of suspicion since the night Leith accused him of complicity with the Bhrudwan cause.

They bounded out from behind the rocks, Hal strangely lithe for one so crippled, and ran towards the place where the magic was being raised.

They were halfway there when the horns blew a second time.

Stella ground her teeth together in frustration as the twin Bhrudwan columns met on the far side of the rock upon which Leith was clearly trapped. Now the grey-cloaked men spread to the left and to the right, making space for more fighters to move forward. Perhaps five hundred Falthan soldiers were trapped within the narrowing inner circle: for a moment Stella held hopes they might resist, but they seemed to have been frozen into immobility, and were cruelly cut down. She wept where she stood, shaking with impotence as if she, too, were frozen, awaiting the fall of the axe. Beside her the awful figure breathed deeply, eating and drinking in the scene below them. She longed to hurt him somehow, as she had hurt Deorc, even if it cost her an eternity of pain.

Phemanderac finished his counting: thirteen thirteens. He knew what that meant, he could have given them a name even if their magic was not clearly evident. These were the Maghdi Dasht, the order that had invaded Dhauria a thousand years ago, laying siege to Dona Mihst, retreating only when word came to them of their master's defeat in Instruere at the hands of Conal Greatheart. Phemanderac had been instructed in their ways, as were all Dhaurian scholars, and knew what they were capable of.

What was I thinking, spending a comfortable session with the Arrow-bearer here on this rock in full view of the enemy? Why did I not sense the danger as it drew near?

He knew the answer, but he didn't want to examine it.

A second trumpet blast came from the top of the slope, instantly answered by action from the encircling Bhrudwans. The Maghdi Dasht stepped back, allowing sword-wielding soldiers to drive into the Falthans they had pinned down. So tightly had the binding magic pinned them that all the hundreds of Falthans could do was to stand in abject terror and await the blades that chopped and hacked their way towards them.

On the rock Leith roared with frustration. So his Arrow was not a weapon? It flamed high into the air, a light so strong it flickered along the base of the clouds above, a fire so fierce that Phemanderac cried out in pain as the hair on his face and forearms was singed. 'Leith!' he cried, sucking in a blast of hot air as he did so. 'Stop! You will slay me!'

The chanting continued, an abrasive sound that seemed to bore into the minds of all Falthans who heard it. Leith could still move: maybe the Jugom Ark provided a measure of protection against Bhrudwan magic, or - as was more likely - the Lords of Fear had yet to reveal their full strength. Slowly he stumbled from one end of the rock to the other, and all around him the same scene met his gaze. His soldiers stood like statues until they were felled with a series of pitiless blows, a field of precious grain harvested by a callous farmer. One by one they died.

One by one. The numbers kept ticking over in his head; and the weight on his shoulders grew heavier and heavier. One by one. The slashing of swords, the droning of one hundred and sixty-nine throats, a dirge to accompany their deaths, numbers, numbers, numbers.

Leith thought he would go mad.

'Make a space!' Hal cried. 'Whatever you have to do, clear a space!' Taken aback, burdened with unnatural fear, the nearby Falthan soldiers found something of courage in the words. For a moment they could move freely, and set about driving the Bhrudwans back. Within a few moments Hal and Achtal stood in the centre of an open space twenty paces wide. In answer to Achtal's quizzical look, Hal smiled tightly. 'They'll come.'

Within moments a horse burst Into the clearing. 'The Destroyer isn't interested in defeating us!' cried the rider, who leaped from his mount like a young man. 'He's just holding us here untila"'

'Until he can capture the Jugom Ark,' Hal finished.

'Who are you?' Jethart asked him. 'I'm sorry, but I do not have time for niceties.'

'Hal Mahnumsen, son of Mahnum and brother of the Arrow-bearer, who is in trouble. The Destroyer has sent the Maghdi Dasht after him.'

The old man nodded curtly. 'I'm sorry, I didn't recognise you. The help of any scion of Mahnum will be welcome. Tell me, how do you know of the Maghdi Dasht?'

'My knowledge of their existence matters less than my knowledge of what they are doing,' Hal replied curtly. 'They are imprisoning him with words of binding. If you are herea"'

Maendraga and Belladonna appeared in the clearing as if by magic, followed by Modahl and a tall woman he had never seen before. A few moments later Mahnum stumbled his way in, clearly out of breath and bleeding from a gash to his arm: he glanced around the clearing, smiled at his son but took a pace backwards when he saw his father. Indrett followed him, a dazed look on her face. Soon a dozen or more people milled about in the clearing, protected from the Bhrudwan soldiers by the increasingly sluggish efforts of Falthan fighters.

'You are all here because something called you,' Hal told them, an urgency in his voice Indrett had never heard from him before. 'For a hundred days we have all been anticipating a physical battle, but that was never the real battle to be fought here. You feel the power being exerted by the servants of the Destroyer, but unlike those around you, you have been able to resist. You are the real warriors here today.' The Hal she had always known, the calm, serene child, had been broken by the accusations from his brother. What remained seemed more vulnerable, more human, but still had steel. 'There is something inside you that responds to the call, something that fights the magic of the Maghdi Dasht.' She shook her head, rubbing her temples, trying to clear the thickness that settled on her like the snow at Vulture's Craw.

'What is happening?' Modahl asked, his voice troubled.

'Leith and the Jugom Ark are surrounded by the Lords of Fear,' Jethart replied, pointing to the north where the sound of chanting continued to abrade across the battlefield. Hal nodded to him, then added: 'Phemanderac of Dona Mihst is trapped there with him. It is his call you feel.'

'Enough of the discussion,' Indrett cried. 'What are we to do?'

The Destroyer spun to his left, facing the girl he believed totally under his control. 'What are you doing?' he screamed at her. 'I can feel the power within you!'

Stella smiled through gritted teeth. She could not wipe the sweat from her face, could not control the way her body shook, but she could turn her head enough to see the face of her enemy.

'I'm fighting you, fool,' she whispered between clenched teeth.

A third trumpet volley rang out, heralding a change in the incantation that seemed to be winding cords of steel around Leith and Phemanderac. The philosopher had been driven to his knees, his voice little more than a whisper. 'Can't. .. breathe ...'

Leith knelt beside him, taking his face in his hands. 'Phemanderac! If the Bhrudwans are of Water, how can they hurt us with their magic spells? They can't, can they?'

'It's an illusion,' Hal told them, 'though a very powerful one.'

'So it can be defeated,' Belladonna said confidently. 'Though it does not feel like any illusion I've ever encountered.'

'The horns were the key,' her father said. 'They convinced us something real was about to happen. We participated willingly in their illusion.'

'It can be defeated,' the cripple confirmed. 'Powerful resistance has already been raised against the Lords of Fear. Somewhere out on the field a great wizard opposes the Destroyer's plan.'

'Reject the binding, not those doing the binding,' Achtal said, and adopted a look of intense concentration. 'Pick on their weak place - right there.' He flung a muscled forearm towards a section of the Bhrudwan encirclement. 'We break it there.'

'We break it now,' said a figure that had just joined them. Casting aside her cloak, the Ice Queen of the Sna Vazthans added her will to that of the group. 'I have resisted his plans for years.'

'Come closer,' Hal called to them. 'Let me show you how.'

'Curse you!' the Destroyer shrieked at Stella. 'What have you done? From where do you get the strength?'

Her mouth was dry with the effort she had expended. Somehow she'd known to focus on just a few of the robed figures. Or, more accurately, on what they were doing, a binding akin to what the Destroyer had been doing to her since he had captured her. Stubbornness! Resist the binding! Months of pent-up fury, terror and frustration combined to give her a power she never knew she had. It felt as though a great flame surged up from deep within her. And down on the plain, just to the south of the rock, something happened in response to her efforts.

Others - she could not see who - began to pour their resistance at the same figures she had chosen.

Her mouth was dry, but she still had saliva enough to spit in the Undying Man's face.

With a roar as deep as caverns the Destroyer struck out at her, his fist exploding on the back of her head, knocking her forward so that she pitched a few feet down the rocky slope. He cried something after her, but she did not hear it.

He's not breathing! Not breathing! Leith shook the blue-lipped form lying prone on the rock before him. Breathe!

'Use the Arrow. '

Sobbing with relief at the sound of the voice, Leith laid the Jugom Ark on Phemanderac's breast, then poured all his soul into the fire within. Breathe!

He was so filled with joy when the philosopher drew a ragged breath, he didn't notice the pressure around him decrease.

'Forward! Now!' Hal set off crabwise towards a narrow gap in the Bhrudwan ranks. At his side strode Achtal, who drew his sword and cleared a path for them. The others followed behind, not knowing where they were going, trusting in a cripple publicly spurned by the Bearer of the Jugom Ark. It seemed the height of foolishness, but they felt the call and knew they had no choice.

They came to the lines of Maghdi Dasht. Now Achtal smiled, and two of the figures turned to confront him, scarred faces confident despite losing command of their binding spell. Their confidence fell somewhat wheri they saw whom they were matched against; nevertheless, they drew their swords and stood shoulder to shoulder.

All around them the pressure in the air lessened noticeably.

I've seen this! Leith realised belatedly. On the ceiling of the Hall of Conal Greatheart, as part of the prophecy of Sir Amasian. Beside him Phemanderac grovelled on his hands and knees, coughing and trying to suck in enough air to take a breath, but for the moment Leith was transfixed. To the right and to the left a double circle of black-robed Lords of Fear wove a net over all those within their compass. In the image on the ceiling the net had been visible as strands of darkness. He remembered it clearly, one of twelve images in one of the twelve paths on the ceiling, all leading to the central image of Amasian's vision, Leith's victory over the Destroyer. All twelve paths were engraved on the roof of his mind, so long had he stared at them all, trying to glean knowledge from them of what was to come, of what he should do.

What could he remember of the image? Think! Two figures standing on a rock shaped like a human skull, one holding up a burning arrow, surrounded by Maghdi Dasht. Behind them, at the top of the slope, stands the Destroyer, his fist raised in seeming triumph: Leith scanned the horizon and thought he could make out a figure on the rocky crest, but could not be sure. And in the foreground of the picture, opposite the slope leading to the Gap, had been a group of Falthan adepts breaking through the Bhrudwan lines, coming to save the Arrow. Leith spun on his heels.

The Destroyer screamed his anger to the skies. How could I be baulked by such as her, even for a moment? He looked down at her unmoving figure. What are you? How can you have so much power and yet be unaware of it? 1 will tear you open, shred you, slice you into pieces, make you howl until I find out!

He could sense the small knot of Falthan magicians, could weigh their strength, could estimate their chance of success. Small enough, but I will not risk humiliation. It had been only a momentary loss of concentration, but the northern girl had broken the binding spell and spoiled his triumph for the moment. Delayed, but not denied, he told himself. Slashing his arm in front of his chest, he motioned his trumpeters to give the signal.

The Falthan magicians fought valiantly against their opponents but, for all their efforts, they were about to be overwhelmed. More and more Bhrudwan soldiers poured from between the two lines of Maghdi Dasht, and Achtal held his own against his two opponents only by the most extreme effort. He is an acolyte, after all, Mahnum told himself as the renegade Bhrudwan barely avoided another lethal swipe, flowing between the two men as though he danced with them both. The sight of their arrogant, power-limned faces brought back chilling memories of months of riding to escape, and further months of captivity at their hands. If 1 could just slay even one of them, perhaps I might lay my nightmares to rest. The trumpets rang out again, splitting the sky with their cry. What new magic are they calling down on us?

Mahnum wondered, but to his amazement the Lords of Fear turned and marched from the field, back towards the rocky slope. The thickness in the air vanished a moment later.

We've beaten them! the Trader crowed. I don't know how we've done it, but we've defeated them! His spirit surged within him, and he joined the others in forcing their way through the few remaining Bhrudwan warriors and towards the skull-shaped rock where his son waited for them.

The rage of the Destroyer could not be measured or contained. His aides sheltered behind the nearest cover as their master strode back and forth along the crest of the slope. Already he had struck down two of their number as well as the girl, sending one of them falling into the blue fire, which roared as it accepted the sacrifice.

Finally he came to a halt, and turned his face to the battle below. 'I will not allow them time to celebrate their supposed victory,' they heard him say. 'I will crush their army! I will walk to Instruere over a carpet of their slain! No one will remain alive who has opposed me! NO ONE!'.

He signalled again. This time the trumpets let out a prolonged blast, calling forth the hidden reserves of elite warriors from their places at either end of the Gap. The sun sent a single gleam down through the low clouds, picking out for a brief moment the paralysed heart of the Falthan army, and the Bhrudwans set their sights on the place the beam had illuminated.

They saw the Lord of Bhrudwo cast a glance down the slope at the broken remains of the Falthan girl, his plaything. 'No one,' a few of them heard him whisper.

CHAPTER 14.

IN SEARCH OF A VISION.

ANOTHER COLD, GREY DAWN, another bowl of stew to look forward to, as if that would do more than stave off for an hour or so the hunger hollowing out his insides. Another meeting in the striped tent, another calm recitation from his clerk of the previous day's losses.

Another grave to visit, to pay respects to yet another hero whose fall could not be borne.

Another in the month of days that had passed since the Destroyer sprung his trap. Except that today the grave they would visit was that of Jethart, the leader of the Falthan armies.

The hero from Inch Chanter had been caught in a small ambush just off the Sna Vazthan road as he went about his daily inspection. His route was changed every day to avoid such an ambush, so he had either been extremely unlucky or he had been betrayed. They killed his escort outright, then tortured the old man in sight of the Falthan army, finally casting his desecrated remains at them with contempt, along with his sword, broken at blade and hilt.

Mahnum reacted with an extravagant fury, and would have rushed out to confront the entire Bhrudwan force if not immediately restrained. For the rest of the day he insisted on fighting in the front line, and none of the enemy had been able to withstand his white-hot wrath: already the whispers throughout the camp were being converted into song.

Leith sighed, rubbed his aching back and picked up the Jugom Ark. It seemed like the main benefit the Arrow conferred was keeping his sleeping tent warm while everyone else suffered from the cold. He pulled back the tent flap and stepped out on to the snow-covered ground.

A month of horror, a month of futility. On that first afternoon, when he and Phemanderac were so dramatically rescued from the clutches of the Lords of Fear, the whole war might have ended. The Destroyer had loosed his shock troops on them, fierce, savage men who had cut down thousands of Falthans on that terrible afternoon, and for a time all seemed lost. Only the coming of darkness had saved them that day.

Yet the Falthans demonstrated a courage far beyond that which Leith could possibly have guessed. Perhaps they knew the only way down from this accursed plateau was through the Bhrudwan army, or perhaps the image of what would happen to the towns and villages of Faltha was fixed in their minds. Whatever the reason, they fought with a stubborn determination, holding off even the most skilled of the Destroyer's fighting men, though with terrible losses. All the first week they were driven slowly backwards across the grey stone of the Nagorj, giving ground only with the greatest reluctance, retreating only when the sternest of orders from their commanders made it plain they had no option.

By the end of that week the Falthan army had lost three leagues, and were fighting along a greatly extended front in a much wider part of the plateau. They had lost seventeen thousand men, a figure so dreadful that when it was pointed out to Leith that this figure included the wounded as well as the dead, he hardly heard the good news. The Bhrudwans had lost perhaps a third of that number, no doubt their weakest and least competent fighters.

Then the snows came, and for two weeks there was little or no conflict as both armies settled down to the business of survival. Dry snow, hissing down day after day, piling up in drifts, engulfing tents and making life miserable - and in some cases impossible - for the horses and other beasts accompanying the Falthan army. Only the aurochs, which the Fenni clan chief had so far kept in reserve, seemed to thrive in the cold weather.

Leith spent the two weeks close to the apothecaries' tents, employing his Arrow to warm the cold and heal the wounded. The Jugom Ark neither harmed nor healed the losian: the only help he could offer his allies was to lift their morale. He tried to inure himself to the awful sights inside the tents of healing, but could not ignore the hundreds of men and boys, and a few women, who had sustained terrible wounds in his name. He wanted to beg their forgiveness, to seek their absolution. Agonisingly, all but the most sorely wounded tried to wish him well, expending freely of the energy they had left to reaffirm their support, their belief in him, their next-to-worship of the Jugom Ark. He would have been less troubled had they reviled him.

In all that time Leith did not see his brother. He had assumed that Hal would be working in the tents with his parents, but his family was somewhere else in the vast spread of the Falthan encampment. He missed them terribly, but never had a moment to seek them out: there was always someone else to heal, always another meeting to attend.

He remembered the moment on that first day when the Lords of Fear left the battlefield, and the little group of Falthan magicians had come to his rescue. So much that was surprising!

Apparently his mother, his father and his grandfather possessed some ability in that area, just as did his brother. There were others, too, to whom he owed his life: even Phemanderac had helped dampen the attack of the Maghdi Dasht, though the lean philosopher denied it.

Certainly some mighty magician exerted a great power on his behalf well before the group joined together to rescue him, though no one was sure who it had been. Leith and Phemanderac had embraced each of their rescuers in turn, thanking them, profusely, and there had been an awkward moment with Hal.

'Hal led us,' his mother said, voice hard, searching, demanding. 'He drew us together and showed us how to combat the magic of the Lords of Fear. Without him you would be dead by now.'