But there were too many hostile eyes in the watching crowd that had encircled him. Too many hands waiting for the opportunity to launch spear or arrow at him and clear their own way, or the way of their kin, to the leadership of the tribe. And those that were his friends were too stunned and uncertain; rendered impotent by the sudden slaying of his older brother, albeit apparently in self-defence.

'You are banished from the tribe. From dawn tomorrow your life is forfeit.'

Ivaroth hunched his shoulders against the wind as he recalled the words. Anger welled up inside him again, black and overwhelming. He would return. He would punish those who had brought this upon him as surely as he had always destroyed those who stood in his way. And he would rule as none had ruled before. He would be the greatest chieftain the tribe had ever known. It was his destiny. And he would lead not only his own tribe, but all the others. United into a great army they would set aside their own petty feuds and follow him down through the mountains to the rich fertile land to the south, razing its vaunted cities and putting its hated peoples to the sword.

It was the song that had filled his every waking dream for as long as he could recall and the long-rehearsed vision possessed him and carried him for a moment beyond the grim and perilous reality of his present position.

His destiny would not be gainsaid.

Banished without food and weapons, had it not, after all, been this destiny that had brought young Ketsath his way; returning triumphant from his lone ordeal of manhood in the wilderness in anticipation of being greeted a warrior and fit to join the society of men? Returning, well clad, mounted, and armed, and with food and water at his saddle. Returning to an early death at the hands of Ivaroth Ungwyl, like a god-sent sacrifice to serve a greater need.

Ivaroth smiled at the memory. He could have hidden the boy's body but he had left it for the carrion. Let the tribe know that while he was beyond their reach, they were not beyond his. Let their hunters watch for the spear and the arrow from the shadows, until he would emerge once more to claim his true inheritance.