‘Sparhawk and I don’t keep secrets from each other, Talen.’

‘I’m not talking about secrets, your Majesty,’ the boy replied innocently. ‘I’m just talking about boring unimportant little things you shouldn’t really waste your time on.’ He made it sound very plausible, but Ehlana looked more than a little suspicious.

‘Don’t embarrass me, Sparhawk,’ she warned.

‘Of course not,’ he replied blandly.

The campaign was brief. Since Pelk knew the precise location of the camp of the dissidents, and Platime’s men knew all the other hiding places in the surrounding mountains, there was no real place for the bandits to run, and they were certainly no match for the thirty black-armoured Pandions Sparhawk, Kalten and Ulath led against them. The surviving nobles were held for the queen’s justice and the rest of the outlaws were turned over to the local sheriff for disposition.

‘Well, my Lord of Belton,’ Sparhawk said to an earl crouched before him on a log, with a blood-stained bandage around his head and his hands bound behind him. ‘Things didn’t turn out so well, did they?’

‘Curse you, Sparhawk.’ Belton spat, squinting up against the afternoon’s brightness. ‘How did you find out where we were?’

‘My dear Belton,’ Sparhawk laughed, ‘you didn’t really think you could hide from my wife, did you? She takes a very personal interest in her kingdom. She knows every tree, every town and village and all of the peasants. It’s even rumoured that she knows most of the deer by their first names.’

‘Why didn’t you come after us earlier then?’ Belton sneered.

‘The queen was busy. She finally found the time to make some decisions about you and your friends. I don’t imagine you’ll care much for these decisions, old boy. What I’m really interested in is any information you might have about Krager. He and I haven’t seen each other for quite some time, and I find myself yearning for his company again.’

Belton’s eyes grew frightened. ‘You won’t get anything from me, Sparhawk,’ he blustered.

‘How much would you care to wager on that?’ Kalten asked him. ‘You’d save yourself a great deal of unpleasantness if you told Sparhawk what he wants to know, and Krager’s not so loveable that you’d really want to go through that in order to protect him.’

‘Just talk, Belton,’ Sparhawk insisted implacably.

‘I – I can’t!’ Belton’s sneering bravado crumbled. His face turned deathly pale, and he began to tremble violently. ‘Sparhawk, I beg of you. It means my life if I say anything.’

‘Your life isn’t worth very much right now anyway,’ Ulath told him bluntly. ‘One way or another, you are going to talk.’

‘For God’s sake, Sparhawk! You don’t know what you’re asking!’

‘I’m not asking, Belton.’ Sparhawk’s face was bleak.

Then, without any warning or reason, a deathly chill suddenly enveloped the woods, and the mid-afternoon sun darkened. Sparhawk glanced upward. The sky was very blue, but the sun appeared wan and sickly.

Belton screamed.

An inky cloud seemed to spring from the surrounding trees, coalescing around the shrieking prisoner. Sparhawk jumped back with a startled oath, his hand going to his sword-hilt.

Belton’s voice had risen to a screech, and there were horrible sounds coming from the impenetrable darkness surrounding him – sounds of breaking bones and tearing flesh. The shrieking broke off quite suddenly, but the sounds continued for several eternal-seeming minutes. Then, as quickly as it had come, the cloud vanished.

Sparhawk recoiled in revulsion. His prisoner had been torn to pieces.

‘Good God!’ Kalten gasped. ‘What happened?’

‘We both know, Kalten,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘We’ve seen it before. Don’t try to question any of the other prisoners. I’m almost positive they won’t be allowed to answer.’

There were five of them, Sparhawk, Ehlana, Kalten, Ulath and Stragen. They had gathered in the royal apartments, and their mood was bleak.

‘Was it the same cloud?’ Stragen asked intently.

‘There were some differences,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘It was more in the way it felt rather than anything I could really pin down.’

‘Why would the Troll-Gods be so interested in protecting Krager?’ Ehlana asked, her face puzzled.

‘I don’t think it’s Krager they’re protecting,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘I think it has something to do with what’s going on in Lamorkand.’ He slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair. ‘I wish Sephrenia were here!’ he burst out with a sudden oath. ‘All we’re doing is groping in the dark.’

‘Would you be opposed to logic at this point?’ Stragen asked him.

‘I wouldn’t even be opposed to astrology just now,’ Sparhawk replied sourly.

‘All right.’ The blond Thalesian thief rose to his feet and began to pace up and down, his eyes thoughtful. ‘First of all, we know that somehow the Troll-Gods have got out of that box.’

‘Actually, you haven’t really proved that, Stragen,’ Ulath disagreed. ‘Not logically, anyway.’

Stragen stopped pacing. ‘He’s right, you know,’ he admitted. ‘We’ve been basing that conclusion on a guess. All we can say with any logical certainty is that we’ve encountered something that looks and feels like a manifestation of the Troll-Gods. Would you accept that, Sir Ulath?’

‘I suppose I could go that far, Milord Stragen.’

‘I’m so happy. Do we know of anything else that does the same sort of things?’

‘No,’ Ulath replied, ‘but that’s not really relevant. We don’t know about everything. There could be dozens of things we don’t know about that take the form of shadows or clouds, tear people all to pieces and give humans a chilly feeling when they’re around.’

‘I’m not sure that logic is really getting us anywhere,’ Stragen conceded.

‘There’s nothing wrong with your logic, Stragen,’ Ehlana told him. ‘Your major premise is faulty, that’s all.’

‘You too, your Majesty?’ Kalten groaned. ‘I thought there was at least one other person in the room who relied on common sense rather than all this tedious logic.’

‘All right then, Sir Kalten,’ she said tartly, ‘what does your common sense tell you?’