Ulath leaned back in his chair. ‘Cyrgon disrupted Trollish behavior rather profoundly when he went to Thalesia and posed as Ghworg,’ he explained somberly. ‘Zalasta told him about the Trolls, but Cyrgon’s been a little out of touch, so he mistook the Trolls for the Dawn-Men. The Dawn-Men were herd-animals, but the Trolls run in packs. Herd-animals will accept any member of their species, but pack-animals are a little more selective. It’s to our advantage right now to have the Trolls behave like a herd. At least we can keep them all going in the same direction, but some problems are starting to crop up. The packs are beginning to separate, and there’s a great deal of snapping and snarling going on.’

Tynian glanced at Queen Betuana, who, gowned all in black, was sitting somewhat apart from them. He motioned Engessa slightly to one side. ‘Is she all right?’ he asked very quietly.

‘Betuana-Queen is in ritual mourning,’ Engessa replied, also in half-whisper. ‘The loss of her husband has touched her very deeply.’

‘Were they really that close?’

‘It did not seem so,’ Engessa admitted. His eyes were troubled as he looked at his melancholy Queen. ‘The mourning-ritual is seldom observed now. I am keeping careful watch over her. She must not be allowed to do herself injury.’ Engessa’s shoulder-muscles bunched.

Tynian was startled. ‘Is there any real danger of that?’

‘It was not uncommon a few centuries ago,’ Engessa replied.

‘We’d been expecting you earlier,’ Itagne was saying to Ulath. ‘As I understand it, “No-Time” means that the Trolls can go from one place to another almost instantaneously.’

‘Not quite instantaneously, Itagne. We’ve been a week or so getting here from the Tamul Mountains. We have to stop and go back into real time every so often so that they can hunt. Hungry Trolls aren’t the best of travelling companions. What’s been happening? We can’t make contact with Aphrael when we’re in No-Time.’

‘Sparhawk’s found some clues about the location of Cyrga,’ Itagne replied. They aren’t too precise, but he’s going to take a chance and try to follow them.’

‘How’s Patriarch Bergsten coming?’

‘He’s captured Cynestra – had it handed to him on a plate, actually.’

‘Oh?’

‘Do you remember Atana Maris?’

‘The pretty girl who commanded the garrison in Cynestra? The one who was so fond of you?’

Itagne smiled. ‘That’s the one. She’s an abrupt sort of girl, and I’m quite fond of her, and when she saw Bergsten and the Church Knights approaching, she decided to present him with the city. She swept the streets clean of Cynesgan troops and opened the gates for Bergsten. She was going to give him King Jaluah’s head as well, but he persuaded her not to.’

‘Pity,’ Ulath murmured, ‘but that’s the sort of thing you have to expect when a good man gets religion.’

‘Vanion’s in place,’ Itagne continued, ‘and he and Kring are establishing strongholds about a day’s ride out into Cynesga. We’re going to do the same here, but we thought we’d wait until you arrived first.’

‘Is anybody encountering any significant opposition?’ Tynian asked.

‘It’s hard to say exactly,’ Itagne mused. ‘We’re moving on central Cynesga, but Klæl’s soldiers pop out of every crack between two rocks. The further back we push them, the tighter they’ll be concentrated. If we don’t come up with a way to neutralize them, we’ll have to carve our way through them, and from what Vanion tells me they don’t carve very well. Kring’s tactics are working well enough now, but when we get closer to Cyrga –’ He spread his hands helplessly.

‘We’ll work something out,’ Ulath said. ‘Anything else?’

‘It’s still sort of up in the air, Sir Ulath,’ Itagne replied. ‘The fairy-stories Stragen and Caalador are hatching in Beresa are diverting most of the Cynesgan cavalry away from the eastern border. Half of them are running south toward the coast around Kaftal, and the other half are running north toward a little village called Zhubay. Caalador added an imaginary massing of the Atans up there to Stragen’s illusory fleet off the southern coast. Between them, they’ve split the entire Cynesgan army in two and sent them off to chase moonbeams.’

‘You say that half of them are going north?’ Tynian asked innocently.

‘Toward Zhubay, yes. They seem to think the Atans are massing there for some reason.’

‘What an amazing thing,’ Ulath said with a straight face. ‘It just so happens that Tynian and I have been sort of drifting in that general direction anyway. Do you think the Cynesgans would be too disappointed if they came up against Trolls instead of Atans?’

‘You could go up there and ask them, I suppose,’ Itagne replied, also with no hint of a smile. They all knew what was going to happen at Zhubay.

‘Convey our apologies to them, Ulath-Knight,’ Betuana said with a sad little smile.

‘Oh, we will, your Majesty,’ Ulath assured her. ‘If we can find any of them still in one piece after they’ve frolicked around with the Trolls for a couple of hours.’

‘Get out of there!’ Kalten shouted, galloping his horse toward the dog-like creatures clustered around something lying on the gravel floor of the desert. The beasts scampered away, hooting with soulless laughter.

‘Are they dogs?’ Talen asked in a sick voice.

‘No,’ Mirtai replied shortly. ‘Hyenas.’

Kalten rode back. ‘It’s a man,’ he reported bleakly, ‘or what’s left of one.’

‘We must bury him,’ Bevier said.

‘They’d only dig him up again,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘if you start trying to bury them all, we’ll be here for several lifetimes.’ He gestured at the bone-littered plain stretching off to the low range of black mountains lying to the west. He looked at Xanetia. ‘It was a mistake to bring you along, Anarae,’ he apologized. ‘This is going to get worse before it gets any better.’

‘It was not unexpected, Anakha,’ she replied.

Kalten looked up at the flock of vultures circling overhead. ‘Filthy brutes,’ he muttered.

Sparhawk raised up in his stirrups to peer on ahead. ‘We’ve got a couple more hours until the sun goes down, but maybe we’d better pull back a mile or two and set up camp a little early. We’ll have to spend one night out there. Let’s not spend two.’