Frantically the valleys and peaks sped by. Gone now was even a vestige of pretence at silence and stealth as the brown bird, its ghastly yellow eyes glittering, hurtled over the mountains from Riddin to Orthlund.

Contained within was the news of Hawklan’s escape from the trap at the Gretmearc. Within was the news of the destruction of that trap by a strange old man. Within rang the terrible noise of the battle that was even now being fought with that same man for control of the birds’ will.

The bird faltered. The battle or the message? All effort to the message, and it would be bound utterly. All effort to the battle, and the message might still be lost.

Then its master’s will reached out and touched it. The message must be delivered at whatever cost.

Unsteadily, the bird flew on, its wings a numbing vibration, until suddenly he was there. Tall and lank. Alien in the Orthlund sunshine. His eyes, red beacons from another age.

The bird dropped out of the sky towards him…

Jaldaric started suddenly out of his sun-hazed drowsi-ness. ‘What was that?’ he said, sitting up and looking round at his friends.

In the distance, one of the horses whinnied uneasily.

There were six Fyordyn High Guard lounging away their off-duty hours in the small glade that they had chosen as a camp site when the Lord Dan-Tor had called an abrupt halt to their journeying through Orthlund.

For a moment Jaldaric thought that a muscular spasm had jerked him back from the twilight fringes of sleep as his body relaxed into the soft turf but he noticed now that all his men were looking round uncertainly, and an unfamiliar silence filled the clearing. Even the birds were silent.