The Jhag Odhan. He knew, suddenly, that this land would capture his heart with its primal siren call. Its scale… matched his own, in ways he could not define. Thelomen Toblakai have known this place, have walked it before me. A truth, though he was unable to explain how he knew it to be so.

He lifted his sword. ‘Bairoth Delum-so I name you. Witness. The Jhag Odhan. So unlike our mountain fastnesses. To this wind I give your name-see how it races out to brush the grasses, to roll against the hill and through the trees. I give this land your name, Bairoth Delum.’

That warm wind sang against the sword’s rippled blade with moaning cadence.

A flash of movement in the grasses, a thousand paces distant. Wolves, fur the colour of honey, long-limbed, taller than any he had ever before seen. Karsa smiled.

He set forth.

The grasses reached to just beneath his chest, the ground underfoot hardpacked between the knotted roots. Small creatures rustled continually from his path, and he startled the occasional deer-a small breed, reaching no higher than his knees, that hissed like an arrow between the stalks as it fled.

One proved not quite fast enough to avoid his scything blade, and Karsa would eat well this night. Thus, his sword’s virgin thirst was born of necessity, not the rage of battle. He wondered if the ghosts had known displeasure at such an ignoble beginning. They had surrendered their ability to communicate with him upon entering the stone, though Karsa’s imagination had no difficulty in finding Bairoth’s sarcastic commentary, should he seek it. Delum’s measured wisdom was more difficult, yet valued all the more for that.

The sun swept its even arc across the cloudless sky as he marched on. Towards dusk he saw bhederin herds to the west, and, two thousand paces ahead, a herd of striped antelope crested a hilltop to watch him for a time, before wheeling as one and vanishing from sight.

The western horizon was a fiery conflagration when he reached the place where they had stood.

Where a figure awaited him.

The grasses had been flattened in a modest circle. A three-legged brazier squatted in its centre, filled with orange-glowing pieces of bhederin dung that cast forth no smoke. Seated behind it was a Jaghut. Bent and gaunt to the point of emaciation, wearing ragged skins and hides, long grey hair hanging in strands over a blotched, wrinkled brow, eyes the colour of the surrounding grass.

The Jaghut glanced up as Karsa approached, offering the Teblor something between a grimace and a smile, his yellowed tusks gleaming. ‘You have made a mess of that deer skin, Toblakai. I will take it none the less, in exchange for this cookfire.’

‘Agreed,’ Karsa replied, dropping the carcass beside the brazier.

‘Aramala contacted me, and so I have come to meet you. You have done her a noble service, Toblakai.’

Karsa set down his pack and squatted before the brazier. ‘I hold no loyalty to the T’lan Imass.’

The Jaghut reached across and collected the deer. A small knife flashed in his hand and he began cutting just above the animal’s small hoofs. ‘An expression of their gratitude, after she fought alongside them against the Tyrants. As did I, although I was fortunate enough to escape with little more than a broken spine. Tomorrow, I will lead you to one far less fortunate than either Aramala or myself.’

Karsa grunted. ‘I seek a Jhag horse, not an introduction to your friends.’

The ancient Jaghut cackled. ‘Blunt words. Thelomen Toblakai indeed. I had forgotten, and so lost my appreciation. The one I will take you to shall call out to the wild horses-and they will come.’

‘A singular skill.’

‘Aye, and hers alone, for it was, by and large, by her hand and her will that the horses came into being.’

‘A breeder, then.’

‘Of sorts,’ the Jaghut nodded amicably. He began peeling the hide from the deer. ‘The few of my fallen kin still alive will greatly appreciate this skin, despite the damage wrought by your ghastly stone sword. The aras deer are fleet, and clever. They never use the same trail-ha, they do not even make trails! And so one cannot lie in wait. Nor are snares of any use. And when pursued, where do they go? Why, into the bhederin herds, under the very beasts themselves. Clever, I said. Very clever.’

‘I am Karsa Orlong, of the Uryd-’

‘Yes, yes, I know. From distant Genabackis. Little different from my fallen kin, the Jhag. Ignorant of your great and noble history-’

‘Less ignorant than I once was.’

‘Good. I am named Cynnigig, and now you are even less ignorant.’

Karsa shrugged. ‘The name means nothing to me.’

‘Of course not, it’s mine. Was I infamous? No, though once I aspired to be. Well, for a moment or two. But then I changed my mind. You, Karsa Orlong, you are destined for infamy. Perhaps indeed you have already achieved it, back in your homeland.’

‘I think not. No doubt I am believed dead, and nothing of what I did is known to my family or my tribe.’

Cynnigig cut off a haunch and threw it on the flames. A cloud of smoke rose from the hissing, spitting fire. ‘So you might think, but I would hazard otherwise. Word travels, no matter what the barriers. The day you return, you will see.’

‘I care not for fame,’ Karsa said. ‘I did once…’

‘And then?’

‘I changed my mind.’

Cynnigig laughed once again, louder this time. ‘I have brought wine, my young friend. In yonder chest, yes, there.’

Karsa straightened and walked over. The chest was massive, iron-bounded and thick-planked, robust enough to challenge even Karsa, should he choose to lift it. ‘This should have wheels and a train of oxen,’ the Teblor muttered as he crouched before it. ‘How did you bring it with you?’

‘I didn’t. It brought me.’

Games with words. Scowling, Karsa lifted the lid.

A single carafe of crystal stood in its centre, flanked by a pair of chipped clay beakers. The wine’s deep red colour gleamed through the transparent crystal, bathing the otherwise empty interior of the chest with a warm, sunset hue. Karsa stared down into it for a moment, then grunted. ‘Aye, I can see that it would fit you, provided you curled up. You and the wine and the brazier-’

‘The brazier! That would be a hot journey!’

The Teblor’s scowl deepened. ‘Unlit, of course.’

‘Ah, yes, of course. Cease your gawking, then, and pour us some wine. I’m about to turn the meat here.’

Karsa reached down, then snatched his hand back. ‘It’s cold in there!’

‘I prefer my wine chilled, even the red. I prefer everything chilled, in fact.’

Grimacing, the Teblor picked up the carafe and the two beakers. ‘Then someone must have carried you here.’

‘Only if you believe all that I tell you. And all that you see, Karsa Orlong. A T’lan Imass army marched by here, not so long ago. Did they find me? No. Why? I was hidden in my chest, of course. Did they find the chest? No, because it was a rock. Did they note the rock? Perhaps. But then, it was only a rock. Now, I know what you’re thinking, and you would be precisely correct. The sorcery I speak of is not Omtose Phellack. But why would I seek to employ Omtose Phellack, when that is the very scent the T’lan Imass hunted? Oh no. Is there some cosmic law that Jaghut can only use Omtose Phellack? I’ve read a hundred thousand night skies and have yet to see it written there-oh, plenty of other laws, but nothing approaching that one, neither in detail nor intent. Thus saving us the bloody recourse of finding a Forkrul Assail to adjudicate, and believe me, such adjudication is invariably bloody. Rarely indeed is anyone satisfied. Rarer still that anyone is left alive. Is there justice in such a thing, I ask you? Oh yes, perhaps the purest justice of all. On any given day, the aggrieved and the aggriever could stand in each other’s clothes. Never a question of right and wrong, in truth, simply one of deciding who is least wrong. Do you grasp-’