An almost physical memory returned to Rudy in a rush - the sweetness of the opalescent mist of the river valleys below Karst, and the sour tang of nausea in his throat. The drift of smoke in the foggy air, the bloody ruin of what had been a human being, the raucous laughter of the carrion crows, and Ingold, like a grey ghost in the pewter light, his robe beaded with dew and a tag of bloody leather in his hands, saying to Janus, 'This is the work of the White Raiders...'

Rudy shivered. 'Who are the White Raiders? he asked.

The old man shrugged. 'What can I tell you of them?' he replied. They are the People of the Plains, the kings of the wind. They say that once upon a time their home was only in the far north, in the high meadows along the rim of the ice. But they haunt all the northern plains now and, as we have seen, have begun to invade the river valleys at the heart of the Realm.'

On the edge of the narrow circle of the firelight, the donkey Rudy had named Che Guevara snorted and stamped at some sound in the distant night, his long ears laid back along his head. Distantly, Rudy caught the howling of prairie wolves. 'You know,' he said with forced casualness, 'I don't think the whole time we were on the road down from Karst I ever actually saw a White Raider.

I knew they were following the train, but I never saw one.'

'Well, they're most dangerous when you don't see them.' Ingold smiled. 'And you're wrong, in any case. You did see one. The Icefalcon is a White Raider.'

Of course, Rudy thought, more surprised by the fact that the Raiders didn't resemble the Huns or the Sioux than he was to learn that the Icefalcon was a foreigner among the dark-haired, blue-eyed people of the Wath. And now that he came to think of it, the Icefalcon wasn't of Bishop Govannin's Faith; at least he'd only sniffed in disdain at Gil's question on the subject. Rudy remembered the farmhouse in the mists again and shuddered.