The Army of Amrath filed out of Malth Tyrenae. Rank upon rank of bronze helmets, red plumes nodding, a sea of bronze and red. It was raining heavily; the rain ran down their armour, looked like the metal was weeping. The sarriss they carried were tall as tree trunks. A sea. A flood. A forest. Not men. Landra watched them from the shelter of an alleyway and thought: these soldiers are no longer men.

Marith rode at the very head of the first column. White fire flashing on his sword. Landra saw him a moment, so clearly she could have reached out and touched him. He was wearing a new cloak in deep twilight blue. Supposedly the colour of the Godkings. Then he was gone past into the city and the rain hid him.

Tobias cursed and cursed and cursed.

“What do we do?” said Landra. Her mind felt numb. Everything numb. The impossibility of it all made her laugh and weep.

Vengeance! she thought. I should have stayed with Ru learning to weave stinking gold cloth.

“We can still catch him,” said Tobias. His body slumped. Spittle round his lips. “We can catch him in the street, run up to him, stab him. This is chaos. This isn’t an army marching, it’s a bloody stampede. We can do it. Come on. Come on!”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Raeta. “We’re too late.”

“We can’t be too late!” Tobias screamed.

They went back to the inn. Nothing else they could do. What else could they do? In the common room the woman Tobias had befriended stood with a pack at her feet. She was blinking, still half-asleep, smelled of drink and dirt and sweat. She was crying.

“What’s wrong?” Landra asked her.

“Nothing. I’m scared,” Sweet Face said, “for the soldiers. Now it comes to it.” She ran her hands over her amber necklace. “He was a nice man,” she said. “Acol. I liked him.” She said, “We got woken up so sudden, he ran off and didn’t even say goodbye.”

Up in their room Raeta started to pack up her things. Landra looked pitifully at her already packed bundle and thought: fool. Gods, I was a fool.

“We go with them,” said Raeta. “Out in the forest, up in the mountains … the Empty Peaks, the Wastes …” She looked a little brighter, she had taken off her helmet and her body looked less tense. “Out in the mountains,” she said, “he will be vulnerable.”

“He’ll be surrounded by a fucking army,” Tobias shouted. “We won’t be able to get near him. He’ll fight a fucking war, and maybe he’ll die in battle, even, but I won’t have killed him. We go now, we catch him in the street, stab him. Now.”

Trumpets. Horses. Tramp of feet. The army pouring out of the city. It was like a storm.

Tobias sagged against the wall. “I dragged him out of the way of a fucking dragon once.”

Raeta put her hands on his shoulders. Landra thought of a mother comforting a child.

“I was ready to die today,” said Tobias.

“I know,” said Raeta. “So was I.”

The two of them got Tobias’s things in a bundle, while he stared out of the window at the tides of men, cursing.

The innkeep gave them all a cup of beer. “Victory to the king!” he shouted. “Joy to the king! Conqueror Illyr for me!” They all drank. Landra thought Tobias was going to be sick when he drank. The streets were thick with people, utter chaos, children wailing, women cursing, people running back and forth. The rain seemed to be washing them all out of the city. Landra thought: just follow and follow him. I’ve followed him from Sorlost to the White Isles to Ith, I can follow him onwards now to Illyr. Through the west gates, past the fields and gardens around Tyrenae, marching into the vast forests of Ith. Three people in a mass of travellers, swept up in the hunger for gold and blood. The Army of Amrath, sarriss points raised to the sky, red banner fluttering in the wind.

Tobias muttered, “Days and days left to live.”

“King Marith!” the soldiers shouted. “King of the White Isles and Ith and Illyr!”

“Death!” the soldiers shouted. “Amrath and the Altrersyr! Death!”

Silver trumpets rang joyously. Drums pounded like heartbeats.

Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, soldiers, servants, camp followers, baggage wagons, horses, spread out in confusion over the fields and forests, the army still wrestling itself into any kind of order after the sudden command to march. They lost any trace of Sweet Face. Perhaps, Landra thought, the woman might find her man Acol, be able to share his tent at night.

A great cloud of crows and gulls flew above them. The crows and the gulls knew what following an army meant.

Before them, rising jagged, the high mountains. The Emnelenethkyr. The Empty Peaks. The border of the world of men. Beyond them, the Wastes. The dead place. No man had ever lived there, not since the raising of the world. A place indeed where men should not go. The highest of the mountains were capped with snow, even in full spring. Yet the forest was full of life, Landra saw as they marched. Pale pink windstars bloomed beneath the trees, catkins danced on the branches. Oak and ash put out golden green leaves. Even the dark pines looked young. The kind of place, Landra though painfully, where one should feel filled with hope and happiness. The earth smelled very strongly of growing: rich heavy soil, rotten wood. Bees humming drowsily. The first butterflies. Big black beetles with red flashes to their wings. If she turned her face away from the mountains, she saw sweet running water, flowers, green leaves.

They marched until nightfall, stopped and made camp by the side of a stream. Soldiers and camp followers all mixed up together. Fires lit, food prepared, chatter, laughter; again Landra hoped that Sweet Face had found her friend. Marith’s camp was off somewhere ahead of them, only a few miles, someone whispered in an awed voice. Absurd that it was the same day as the morning they had tried to kill him.

Landra’s body ached. Her mind ached. The shock slowly wearing off, perhaps. Replaced with guilt and pain. She was so tired but she could not sleep. Everything going round and round in her head. Everything changed yet again.

She stared up into the night sky. The flow of the stream made a clear bright sound. A murmur of noise from the next fire, someone still awake. The jangle of metal, the distant sounds of horses, an owl hooted, all the strange human sounds of the night.

She had known him since they were children. Absurd beyond absurd, thinking that he might have been dead, and that she would have killed him.

I hate him, she thought. Yes. But impossible to think of these things.

She tried to think of Ru. Of Ben and Hana and Saem.

Of less shameful things.

There was a splash from the water. Landra sat up.

The night was very dark and very still; the stream was a movement like a shadow, almost visible. She thought: do I see it, or do I only imagine I see it, because I know it is there? Far off in the north she thought that she could see lights moving, in the high mountains on the horizon. Or were they stars moving in the sky?

Tobias was sleeping.

Raeta was gone.

“Tobias.” She shook him. “Tobias. Where’s Raeta?”

“What? Having a piss, I expect. Bugger off. I’m sleeping.”

“Her cloak’s gone.”

“Having a piss. Go to sleep.”

He got up stiffly. Landra heard his knees creak. Scratched himself. “Damn it, Lan, now I need a piss.”

An owl hooted. In the trees ahead, something white moved.

A white shadow. White light.

A sound. An animal smell. Sweet.

There is some kindness in the world. There is. The world is a good place.

Landra stepped forward.

The creature moved towards them.

A deer. White in the light of the stars. Vast antlers reached up into the sky. Vast as trees. Spread and splayed and twisted, a forest of bone branches in which a bird sat and a squirrel ran. Eyes seemed to gaze from the patterns. The deer’s own eyes were human eyes. Its face a human face. Neither male nor female. Not a child’s face, nor an adult’s, nor the face of someone old. But a human face.

It came towards them. Almost looked at them. Its nostrils flared, sniffing. For one moment there was the terrible possibility it might speak. The stars blazed above it. The bird in its antlers fluttered its wings. The deer’s hooves pawed the ground. The human face looked at Landra. Landra almost knew its face. Almost spoke to it. Almost called it by its name. Then it lowered its head, snorted a deer’s snort from its red human mouth, moved away off into the forest.

Gone. Silence. The stars. The stillness of the air.

A gestmet. A god.

Sat beside the stream for the rest of the night, watching the stars, two dark shapes against the illusionary movement of the water. Landra thought of Ru, sitting by her fire, spinning wool, weaving golden cloth. Swimming in the sea as a seal. Free. Uncaring. Alone. Mindless.

“A god,” she whispered. “A god.” Wood god. Wood demon. Wild, life power.

“It wasn’t a god,” said Tobias. “It was a … a freak thing. A monster. I’ve seen dragons,” said Tobias. “A dead whale. Lost cities in the forests of Neir. Cetalasophrase blossom luminous under the moon. I once saw a woman spurt beer from her nipples. I once saw Thalia smile at me. I did not just see a god.”

“It was a gestmet. You saw it. You know.” Its image shaped in gold on old shields; wooden carvings painted in bright colours now chipped and faded, displayed sometimes by the harvest fields; dolls of plaited straw that were burned at Sun’s Height. The old unhuman powers of the land, the forests, the wild creatures who lived and died there. Not things to be worshipped. Things to be feared and venerated and left undisturbed, like the wild places and the wild beasts. Unhuman things.

“What did it mean, do you think?”

Tobias was silent for a long time. “A life god. A life power. What the bloody hell do you think it meant, Landra?”

There, again, far off in the mountains, a tiny flicker of light.

Suddenly Raeta was shaking her awake. “He’s gone,” Raeta hissed in her ear.

I … I was sleeping, Landra thought. Dreamed it. I didn’t think I could fall asleep, after seeing it. Her body felt grubby and damp. I didn’t dream it, she thought. The stream rang very clear and loud, swollen with rain. Mist was rising from it. The sky was pale with dawn light.

“He’s gone,” said Raeta.

“Who’s gone?” asked Tobias. He got up slowly, stiffly, from where he was lying huddled beside her. Landra could see and feel every part of him hurting. “Where in all hells have you been?” he asked Raeta.

“The king,” said Raeta. “He’s not with the army any more. He left in the night. I’ve just come from his camp. The place is an anthill, soldiers massing for something, arming. But Marith has gone.”

“He’s left the army?”

Raeta rolled her eyes at Landra. “That’s what I just said, Tobias.”

Tobias looked around as though Marith might appear behind him, sword drawn. “Where is he then?”

“Marith, Thalia—they’ve both left,” said Raeta. “Rumours a small group of horsemen slipped off in the night.”

“Gone back to Tyrenae?”

“I …” Raeta looked up at the mountains before them. Their peaks lost in grey rain clouds. “The horsemen went north,” Raeta said. “They could be doubling back, I suppose …”

Lights in the mountains. Lights in the wild dark night. Gods walking near to the world of men.

“But I think not,” said Raeta. There was fear in her voice.

“One day and we’ve lost the target? That’s a record even for the Free Company at our height.”

“The army’s still here,” said Landra. “It’s just Marith who has left.”

“The army’s not really the bloody concern, is it?”

“No, Tobias.” Gods, the man really was being hopeless. “The army,” said Landra, “the army is not a concern. Not if he’s not with them.”

Long pause.

“Yeah,” said Tobias. Half asleep and confused. Who can keep track of what’s going on? “I see what you mean.”

“So we—”

Broke off. A sound coming towards them. Horses’ hooves.

Loud as heartbeats. Drumming drumming on the earth. Filled Landra’s head. Filled her vision.

Marith, she thought. Marith. Coming to kill me. I saw a god last night, it looked at me, I would have spoken to it. Now Marith is coming to kill me.

Raeta reached over. Took her hand. Squeezed it tight.

Horses’ hooves, thundering towards her. A mass of horsemen came past them, armed and in full armour, the horses armoured and masked. Osen Fiolt was at their head. They rode past like a river flooding. So many of them. And then infantry, marching fast behind. Their faces were hard and set. Eager. Hungry.

A very long time it took, for the columns of the Army of Amrath to march back past. They were going back towards Tyrenae at double speed. The camp followers milled around, wondering, some beginning themselves the march back.

“He’s going back?”

“He’s retreating?”

“He’s giving up?”

“There must be some plan …”

“The White Isles are under attack?”

“Ith has been invaded?”

“Lord Fiolt has betrayed him?”

“What does it mean?”

“What does it mean?”

The baggage, all the food stores, the army servants, were reported to have been left where they were camped, with guards around. A woman who had spent the night with one of the officers swore the order to march had been given by the king himself.

“Should we follow them?” Landra asked. Such a terrible fear in her, that Raeta would say yes.

“We’re looking for Marith,” said Raeta. She looked suddenly very tired. “Not … whatever this is.”

I know what this is, Landra thought then. I know what they’re going to do. Oh gods.

Raeta looked strained, sick. Raeta knew, also. Her face was grey, her body bent and hunched with pain. She looked like a tree battered down in storm. Looking at her, Landra heard the creak of breaking wood. The sound of stones shattering against the earth.

“We must go on,” said Raeta. “Into the mountains. Find him. Kill him. There is nothing we can do here.” Her face was like an animal’s face, wounded, suffering. Her mouth moved awkwardly. “I said that he would be vulnerable in the mountains.”

Destroy him like a rabid dog.

Landra nodded.

Tobias sighed. Spat in the dust. “I can’t let you go to Ith, boy,” he said quietly, half to himself. “You know that. Can’t let you have power and command. I know what you are. What you’d do.” He pulled his pack onto his shoulders. “Gods. How much more guilt can any one man bear? If we’d done as you wanted, Landra. Paid the weaponsmith more.”

They went on along the road through the forest. Slowly, as though bowed down by a great weight. The forest was green and rich with life. I saw a god, thought Landra. A god of life.

The next morning, great palls of black smoke could be seen on the horizon, coming from the direction of Tyrenae.