And that had been all. But unspoken meanings had permeated the words, and something deep in Farnor’s unease about Rannick had resonated to them.

‘I’m tending the sheep,’ he replied to Rannick’s question.

‘Not doing such a good job, are you?’ Rannick re-torted, nudging the dead sheep with his foot and making the flies swarm upwards again. This time they did not travel far, but settled back to their noisome business almost immediately.

Farnor grimaced but said nothing. He looked at Rannick’s angular, unshaven face, his unkempt black hair and his generally soiled appearance. He was like someone that Yonas might have described as a bandit or some other kind of a villain in one of his tales.

And yet, even as he watched Rannick examining the sheep, he felt that the man was not without a quality of some kind: a strange, inner strength or purposefulness. And, too, he noted almost reluctantly, that with a little cleaning up he might even be quite handsome; that he could perhaps serve as much as a hero as a villain in such a tale.

Abruptly the flies flew up again, surrounding Ran-nick. He swore profanely and Farnor’s new vision of him disappeared. Then Rannick snapped his fingers. Or at least that was what Farnor thought he did, though the movement he made was very swift and the sound was odd… strangely loud, and yet distant. Almost as if it were in a different place.

For an instant Farnor felt disorientated: as though he had been suddenly jolted awake as sometimes happened to him when he was hovering halfway between sleep and waking. As he recovered he found Rannick gazing at him, his eyes searching him intently.

‘What’s the matter?’ Farnor heard him say.

‘Nothing,’ Farnor replied as casually as he could, waving a hand vaguely. ‘I… don’t like the flies.’

Rannick sneered dismissively and, muttering some-thing to himself, turned back to the sheep.