Wilm and Llian rode due east from the megaliths to the River Gannel, which they reached late in the afternoon. Wilm took no notice of their surroundings. He could think of nothing but Dajaes, her short life and terrible death, of throwing the dirt onto her cold body, filling the grave and riding away. Would he ever return? Would he even be able to find her grave again in this arid wilderness?

How could he have failed her so? Why hadn’t he attacked Unick with the sabre? If he had she might still be alive. It was all his fault. The thoughts went round and round; he could not escape them.

“Come on, Wilm,” said Llian, who had ridden into the sandy riverbed until the water came up to his horse’s belly.

The Gannel was low at this time of year, broad but shallow. Wilm realised that he was staring blindly at the pebbles beneath the water. The round stones were just like the ones he had scattered on Dajaes’s grave.

“We’ll ride up the river for a while,” Llian added, “to hide our tracks.”

“How do we get to Carcharon?” said Wilm.

“We can’t risk the track via Tullin…”

Llian trailed off. He had been preoccupied ever since reading those pages in Mendark’s notebook. Wilm knew the look by now; Llian was sorting through his prodigious chronicler’s memories, trying to find links between the past and the present.

“And?” Wilm prompted after another silent minute.

“There’s another way across the mountains. It’s shorter than the route through Tullin, but higher, and often closed by avalanches in winter.”

“How do you know it’ll be open now?”

“You don’t get many avalanches in autumn.”

Wilm looked ahead to an expanse of woodland that appeared to stretch all the way to the mountains. It was close to sunset.

“Shouldn’t we find a campsite?”

“Not on the plains,” said Llian. “Campfire could be seen for miles.”

They rode through the woodland for half an hour, by which time it was almost dark. The land was undulating here and, as it rose towards the foothills, the open woodland became forest. They reached a freshet chuckling over a series of rocky rills between two knobbly hills, like an old man’s knees. Llian headed upstream to a place where the trees were tall and there was plenty of cover.

“This’ll do. The only way we can be seen is if someone stumbles right on us.” He yawned. “Hardly keep my eyes open.”

Wilm gathered wood and fetched water. Llian charred chunks cut from the goat hindquarter in the fire. Wilm didn’t taste a single mouthful; he just sat there, staring at the flames and picturing Dajaes’s lovely face, her soft brown eyes. How could he have failed her so?

Llian was writing in his journal. Wilm rose abruptly, turned away so Llian would not see the tears in his eyes and practised the seven basic strokes with desperate fury. He kept it up for an hour, by which time his arm was aching all the way to the shoulder and his knees were rubbery. He stopped for a minute, panting. Llian did not look up.

Sword fighting was one of the most exhausting activities of all, and few people could keep it up for long, but Wilm continued, fighting against the pain. He had to master the seven basic strokes and both strength and endurance mattered. He had not said anything to Llian, but Wilm planned to take Unick on and kill him. He could not be allowed to do to anyone else what he had done to Dajaes.

Wilm could not hope to match Unick after a few days’ practice, for he was a cunning, experienced brawler. But he also looked like a sick man. Wilm had to stay alive long enough to wear him down, exhaust him. And then…

“I can’t think,” Llian said. “I’m too bloody tired.” He got out the brandy decanter. “Want some?”

“No,” Wilm said miserably.

“I guess it’s not the time.” Llian slipped the notebook into his pocket. “Ow, what’s that?”

The tip of his middle finger had a spot of blood on it. He felt in his pocket and brought out a little stoppered phial.

“Where did this come from, anyway?” Llian sniffed it.

A troubling memory surfaced in Wilm’s mind but sank again before he could identify it.

“There’s a label on it,” said Llian. He carried it across to the fire and studied the tiny writing. “It says, wilm. Did you drop it on the way into Pem-Y-Rum?”

“I’ve never seen it before,” said Wilm. “But Aviel uses those perfume phials. She must have made it for me.”

“Then how did it get there?”

“I don’t know.”

The phial set off a flood of memories – Dajaes and himself going every step of the way, rescuing Llian, trying to find the way back to the cellar but discovering they could no longer get to it, then deciding to head for the gates of Pem-Y-Rum. He saw the three of them walking down that fatal corridor…

Llian passed the phial to Wilm. “Unick picked up a bit of glass. He sniffed it and put it in his pocket.”

Unick’s final words exploded in Wilm’s mind and he let out a cry of anguish.

Llian must have realised what it meant at the same second, because he said the words aloud: “I’ll have her too. Why would Unick say that?”

“Aviel!” cried Wilm.

“Why would Unick care about someone he’s never heard of, a hundred miles away on the other side of the mountains? It was just a meaningless taunt, because that’s the kind of swine he is.”

“Yes,” said Wilm, so relieved that he felt dizzy and had to put his hands on the ground. “He wouldn’t have the faintest idea where she lives.”

“Is she a special friend?” said Llian.

“I remember the first time I saw her.” Wilm stared into the fire. “I was four; she must have been two. All the little kids used to play in the paddock across from the butcher’s shop, and Aviel was on the other side, trying to walk like everyone else. She was trying so hard, but her ankle was never going to go straight and the other kids made fun of her – Twist-foot, twist-foot! You know how cruel kids can be.”

“I know.”

“Mum rounded on them and asked me to take Aviel home. She was trying not to cry, and her ankle was red and swollen. I offered to carry her but she refused. She took my hand, though, and I walked with her all the way, and we talked about… stuff. We were both different. Me because I had no father, and Aviel with her terrible family. And being a twist-foot. Plus the silver hair and the seventh-sister business…”

“What about it?”

“They all mean bad luck, and Aviel has the worst luck of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Llian smiled indulgently.

“It’s true!” said Wilm. “She once tossed a coin fifty times, and forty-eight times it came up the opposite of what she called.”

“I could use a skill like that at the gaming tables,” Llian said dreamily.

“If she calls heads but secretly hopes for tails, heads nearly always comes up. She’s tried to beat her bad luck but she can’t.”

“It doesn’t explain what the phial was doing in Pem-Y-Rum.”

Wilm held it up to the firelight. There was still a trace of liquid in the bottom. He worked the stopper out and took a careful sniff.

“It smells like the herbs and flowers in her garden.”

“I wish I had a scent to remind me of home,” said Llian gloomily. “I’m going to turn in.”

He wrapped himself in his cloak and one of Snoat’s horse blankets, and was asleep within a minute. Wilm put the phial away. He was desperate for sleep but it did not feel right to put Dajaes out of his mind on the day she had died.

It seemed impossible that it could have happened this morning. It felt like a hundred years since he had been young and innocent, going on the great adventure with her through the tunnel to rescue Llian. He had to stay with her as long as he could.

He sat there for hours, grieving and remembering the good times, and only when he knew from the wheeling stars that it was past midnight and the awful day was done at last did he finally let go.

But later on he jerked awake, hearing Unick’s voice, over and over.

I’ll have her too. I’ll have her too. I’ll have her too.

Wilm felt for the phial in his bag and eased the stopper out. Pressing the broken end to his nose, he took a deep sniff, then stoppered it and put it away again. He sensed Aviel, far away in Casyme, smelling the same scent and smiling. It was all right; Unick’s words didn’t mean anything.

But then she gasped, doubled up and slapped a hand over her nose, though not before Wilm smelled it too – a disgusting reek that he would never forget if he lived a hundred lives. Unick!

I’ll have her too.

It wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t some vision of madness. Somehow Aviel’s perfume had connected her to himself, and to Unick. Wilm remembered him swinging another device back and forth. What had Llian called it? Identity! Then the two red crystals on the end had lit up, and Unick had said, “Ah!”

He was after Aviel, and he had to be stopped. Wilm kicked the sleeping pouch away, drew the black sword and ran this way and that, staring into the darkness. But there was nothing to see – Unick would be east of Chanthed by now, and Aviel was a hundred miles away in Casyme.

Though with the Identity device he could find her.

With quiet desperation Wilm began to practise the seven basic strokes, and did not stop even when bloody blisters formed on his palm and fingers, or even after the blisters burst. Every so often he paused to check his instructions by the firelight, correct his stroke and go at it again.

He was still practising three hours later when Llian woke with the dawn.

“You’re up early,” he said, smiling.

Wilm kept going mechanically for another half-dozen strokes before grinding to a stop. He turned towards Llian, bleakly, knowing he must look like a madman.

“Wilm, what is it?”

Wilm explained what had happened in the night, expecting Llian to dismiss it as a nightmare. Hoping he would.

“Why would Unick want to harm her?” said Llian.

“He’s a monster!”

“No, there’s got to be more to it. He must see some kind of a threat in her.”

“How could Aviel be a threat?”

“I don’t know. But Unick left Pem-Y-Rum the same time we did,” said Llian, walking around the fire and thinking aloud, “and he took spare horses. It’s a week’s ride from there to Casyme, via the Tullin path. Less if he rides his horses into the ground, though parts of the path are so steep that riding is no quicker than walking.”

“He could get to Casyme in another four days.”

“He might.”

“And we’re further away than he was when he left,” Wilm said dismally. “We’ll never catch him.”

“The mountains narrow rapidly as you go north,” said Llian. “It’s only a four-day crossing from here by the old path. Then we can race south to Casyme in another day.”

“That’s still a day too late.”

“If we ride a couple of hours longer each day, we might make up the difference. Come on.”

They stuffed their gear into the saddlebags, mounted and ate breakfast as they went.

“But what are we going to do if… when we get there?” said Wilm. “He’s a great brute of a man.”

“He’s also a middle-aged drunk with the trembles. You’re young and fast, and you’ve got one of Mendark’s lucky swords. At the rate you’ve been practising, you’ll be a master swordsman by then.”

Wilm laughed hollowly. “What if he goes for you?”

“I’ll talk him to death! Take heart, Wilm; we’ll beat him, I know we will.”

But Wilm knew they would not.