At the peak of a long gentle rise, Isak gave a tug on his reins to bring his charger to a halt and leaned on the pommel of his saddle, survey-ing the ground ahead. His companions joined him on the level crest and waited quietly at his side, enjoying the view. It was well into what had been an afternoon of uninterrupted sunshine and a warm breeze drifted up off the long, empty meadow, bringing the scents of dry grass and blooming wildflowers. The undulating plain, spotted by the odd copse of trees, stretched for a dozen empty miles before reaching the dark edges of a forest. In the far distance a darker patch indicated "some sort of lake.

Isak remembered the forest from when he'd travelled this way in his previous life, as an unknown and irrelevant youth on a wagon-train. his Iife' now, as the duke he had become, could not be more different. there was only one road, carpeted with pine needles, winding its way under a high canopy of massive old pines. It had felt like the last bastion of home before the Land opened up to admit everyone else, despite being well outside the Farlan border. To the right was a line of five gorse-skirted hillocks, and he remembered the sight from the otheri side. The regular humps had always looked too neat and, side-on, the line was like the back of some vast serpent sliding out of its burrow in the slope where they now stood.