She was wearing a black leather tunic, laced at the front with slender thongs. Slowly he moved his right hand to her breast, his fingers hooking to the first knot.

'No,' she said, moving back from him. Swallowing his disappointment he took a deep breath. She smiled. 'I'll do it.' Unfastening the knife-belt at her waist she lifted the tunic over her head, and stood before him naked. His eyes drank her in, the long sun-bronzed legs, the flat belly, the high, full breasts.

'You're a vision, beauty. No question of it.'

He stepped towards her, but she stopped him. 'What about you?' she asked. 'Do I not get a chance to admire?'

'Every chance,' he told her, pulling free his shirt and unhooking his belt. He almost stumbled as he struggled to remove his leggings, and her laughter was infectious.

'You'd think you'd never removed leggings before,' she said.

Reaching out he took her arm and gently pulled her to the bed. A cloud of dust rose as they fell upon it, causing him to cough. 'Such romance,' she giggled. He joined in her laughter and they lay quietly together for a few moments, staring into each other's eyes. His right hand stroked the skin of her shoulder and arm, moving down until his forearm brushed across her nipple. She closed her eyes and slid in towards him. The hand moved on, over the flat belly and on to the thigh. Her legs were closed, but now she parted them. He kissed her again. Her arm hooked around his neck, pulling him into a fierce embrace.

'Gently, beauty,' he whispered. 'There is no need for haste. Nothing beautiful is ever crafted at speed. And I want this first time to be special.'

She moaned as his palm pressed gently against her pubic mound, and for some time he slowly caressed her. Her breathing quickened, her body moving into spasm. She cried out, again and again. Finally he rose above her, lifting her long legs over his hips and guiding himself into her. He kissed her again, then drove into her, releasing the self-imposed chains of his own passion.

He tried to keep his movements slow, but his needs were greater than his wish to make the moment last, and when Miriel cried out again, in a series of rhythmic, almost primal groans, he succumbed at last. His body spasmed, his arms pulling her into a tight embrace. Then he moaned and lay still. He sighed and his body relaxed as he lay upon her, feeling his own heartbeat and hers together, pounding against the warm skin of his chest.

'Oh,' she whispered. 'Was that love?'

'By all the gods I hope so, beauty,' he answered her, rolling to his back. 'For nothing else in my life has given me so much pleasure.'

Raising herself on her elbow she gazed down at his face. 'It was . . . wonderful. Let's do it again!'

'In a while, Miriel,' he answered.

'How long?'

He chuckled and drew her into his embrace. 'Not long. I promise you!'

17

Dardalion opened his eyes, his spirit returning to the flesh, feeling the weight of his body and the silver armour upon it. It was cold in the room, despite the log fire burning in the hearth.

'They will not attack today – and perhaps not tomorrow,' he told Kesa Khan. 'Their General Gannis is a careful man. He has sent work parties to the woods to cut trees and make scaling ladders. He intends one great attack which will swamp us.'

The little Nadir shaman nodded. 'We will hold them for one, maybe two assaults. After that . . .' He spread his hands.

Dardalion rose from the gold lacquered chair and moved to the fire, extending his hands to the flames, enjoying the sudden warmth. 'What I do not understand – and neither does the Gothir General – is why the Emperor has chosen this course. The coming Uniter will not be stopped. It is written that the Nadir will rise. There is nothing he can do to change the future. Nothing.'

'It is not the Emperor, but Zhu Chao who seeks our destruction,' said Kesa Khan, with a dry laugh. 'Twin needs spur him on: his hatred for the Wolves, and his desire for absolute power.'

'Why does he hate you so?'

Kesa Khan's eyes glittered and his smile was cruel. 'Many years ago he came to me, seeking to understand the nature of magic. He is a Chiatze, and he was studying the Dark Arts and the origins of the Knights of Blood. I turned him away. He had the wit, but not the courage.'

'And for this he hates you?'

'No, not just for this. He crept back to my cave, and I caught him trying to steal . . .' the shaman's eyes were hooded now '. . . objects of value. My guards took him. They wanted to kill him, but I decided to be merciful. I merely cut something from him, gave him a wound to remember me by. He still had his life, but he would never sire life. You understand?'

'Only too well,' answered Dardalion coldly.

'Do not judge me, priest,' snapped Kesa Khan.

'It is not for me to judge. You planted the seed of his hatred, and now you are gathering the harvest.'

'Pah, it is not that simple,' said the shaman. 'He was always a creature of evil. I should have killed him. But his hatred I can bear. This fortress, and what it contains, is the second of his desires. There is more powerful sorcery here than has been seen in the world for ten millennia. Zhu Chao wants it… needs it. Once upon a distant time the Elders here performed miracles. They learned how to merge flesh. A man who had lost a leg could grow a new one. Organs riddled with cancer could be replaced, without use of a knife. Bodies could be regenerated, rejuvenated. Here was the secret of immortality. The force was con­tained within a giant crystal, encased in a covering of pure gold. It radiated power, and only gold and to a lesser extent lead, could imprison it. You saw the valley?'

'Yes,' said Dardalion. 'Nature perverted.'

'Fifty years ago, a group of robbers came to this place. They found the Crystal Chamber and stripped the gold from its walls, removing the covering from the crystal itself.' He laughed. 'It was not a wise action.'

'What happened to them? Why did they not steal the crystal?'

'The power they unleashed killed them. The Elders knew how to control it, to focus the forces. Without their skill it has become merely a corrupting, violent, haphazard sorcery.'

'I sense no power emanating from here,' said Dardalion.

'No. Zhu Chao sent men here. They removed the crystal from its setting. It sits now upon a golden floor some two hundred feet below us.'

'Did these men also die?'

'I think you could call it a kind of death.'

Dardalion felt cold as he looked into the shaman's malevolent eyes. 'What is it that you are not telling me, Kesa Khan? What secret strategies have yet to be unveiled?'

'Do not be impatient, priest. All will be revealed. Everything is in a delicate state of balance. We cannot win here by might or guile – we must rely on the intangibles. Your friend Waylander, for example. He now hunts Zhu Chao, but can he enter his palace, fight his way through a hundred guards and overcome the sorcery at Zhu Chao's command? Who knows? Can we hold here? And if not, can we find a way to escape? Or should we use the power of the crystal?'

'You know the answer to the last question, shaman – no. Else you would have come here years ago. No one knows what destroyed the Elders, save that there are areas of great desolation where once were mighty cities. Everything we know of them speaks of corruption and greed, enormous evils and terrible weapons. Even the wickedness within you recoils at their misdeeds. Is it not so?'

Kesa Khan nodded. 'I have walked the paths of time, priest. I know what destroyed them. And yes, I wish to see no return to their foul ways. They raped the land and lived like kings while fouling the rivers and lakes, the forests –aye, even the air they breathed. They knew everything and understood nothing. And they were destroyed for it.'