This is the unedited prologue and first chapter of BattleAxe.

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The woman struggled through the knee-deep snow, the bundle of dead wood she had tied to her back almost as great a burden as the weight of the child she carried in her belly. Her breath rasped in her throat before frosting heavily in the bitterly cold southerly wind. She was short and strong, her legs and shoulders finely muscled by twenty-eight years of hard-won survival in her harsh homeland. But she had always had the help and company of her people to aid her. Now she was alone and, this her third child, she would have to bear without assistance.

This would be her last trip across the valley. The severe winter storms of the past few weeks had kept her iced into her shelter so that her supply of the precious hot-burning Timewood was almost exhausted; if she did not have enough wood and dry stores remaining for her confinement, then she would die and her child would die with her. Only in the past day had the weather broken sufficiently to allow her to struggle through the snow to reach the Timewood trees. Now the wind was growing harsher and the snow heavier and she knew she had only a short time to reach her shelter. The knowledge that once the baby was born she would not be able to travel far from her shelter drove her on.

Although her current solitude was a path she had chosen freely, worry ate at her bones.

And worry about her child also gnawed at her. Her previous two pregnancies had been uncomfortable, especially in the final weeks, but she had borne those children with little fuss. Her body had recuperated quickly and had healed cleanly each time. With this child she feared her labour more than the lonely winter ahead. It was too large, too ... angry. Sometimes at night when she was trying to sleep it twisted and beat at the sides of her womb with such frantic fists and heels that she moaned in pain, rocking herself from side to side in a futile bid to escape her child's rage.

She paused briefly, adjusting the burden of wood on her back, wishing she could ease the load of the child as easily. Last night the child had shifted down into the pit of her belly, seeking the birth canal. The birth was close. Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow. She could feel the bones of her pelvis grating apart with the pressure of the child's head each time she took a step, making it hard to walk.

She squinted through the snow to the thick line of conifers about three hundred paces ahead. She had done her best with her camp. It was sheltered well behind the tree line in the lee of a rocky hill that, jutting above the peaks of the trees, was the first in a long range of hills leading away into the distant Icescarp Alps. Well before her pregnancy had begun to show, she had slipped away from her friends and family and travelled the Avarinheim to reach this lonely spot far to the north of her usual forest home. From the first of the autumn months, DeadLeaf-month, she had occupied her days with gathering and storing as many berries, nuts and seeds as she could. As hard as she looked, however, she had found only small amounts of malfari, the sweet fibrous tubers that provided her people with most of their winter sustenance. She had been forced to go without, and fears of what malnourishment might do to her and the child kept her awake at nights. The remains of a few scrawny rabbits, dried into leathery strips, was all she had for meat. At best she would go hungry while she was tied to the shelter and her young baby. At worst ... She sighed and absently rubbed her belly, trying to ignore the fiery ache in her legs and pelvis, desperately wishing for a few chickens or a goat to supplement her winter diet. But they had been left behind with her people.

She should never have tried to carry this child to term. Had she remained with her people she would not have been allowed to. It was a Beltide child, conceived during the drunken revelry of the spring rites, a time when her people, the forest dwellers, and the people of the Icescarp Alps assembled in the groves where mountain and forest met. There they celebrated the renewal of life in the thawing land with religious rites followed, invariably, by an enthusiastic excess of whatever wine was left over from long winter nights huddled by home fires. Beltide was the one night of the year when both peoples relaxed sufficiently to carry interracial relations to extremes that neither people normally practiced throughout the rest of the year.

Every Beltide night for the past three years she had watched him, wanted him. He came down to the groves with his people, his skin as pale and as fine as the ice vaults of his home, his hair the fine summer gold of the life-giving sun that both their peoples worshipped. As the most powerful Enchanter of his kind he led the Beltide rites with the leading Banes of her own people; his power and magic awed and frightened her but she craved his skill and beauty and grace. This last Beltide night past, eight months now, she had drunk enough wine to loosen her inhibitions and buttress her courage. She was a striking woman, at the peak of her beauty and fitness, her nut-brown hair waving thick down her back. When he'd seen her striding across the clearing of the grove towards him his eyes had crinkled and then widened, and he had smiled and held his hand out to her. Eyes trapped by his, she had taken his outstretched fingers, marvelling at the feel of his silken skin against her own work-callused palm. He was kind for an Enchanter, and had murmured gentle words before leading her to a secluded spot beneath the spinning stars.

"StarDrifter," she whispered, running her tongue along the split skin of her lips.

The snow that had been drifting down for the past few hours was now falling heavily, driven by an increasing north-east wind, and she roused out of her reverie to find that she could hardly see the tree line through the driving snow. She must hurry. His child dragging her down, she stumbled a little as she tried to move faster. Then, despite the heavy load of wood shifting painfully along her spine, her thoughts drifted back to that Beltide night.

His hands had been strong and confident on her body, and she was not surprised that her womb had quickened with his child. A child of his would be so amazing, so exceptional. Yet although both peoples accepted the excesses and the drunken unions between the races on Beltide night, both also believed that any child conceived of such a union was an abomination. For most of her life she had been aware of the women who, some four to six weeks after Beltide, went out of their way along the dim forest paths to collect the herbs necessary to rid their bodies of any child conceived that night.

But somehow she was not able to force herself to swallow the steaming concoction she brewed herself time and time again. And finally she had decided, without knowing why, that she would carry the child to term. Once the child was born, once her people could see that it was a babe like any other (except more beautiful, more powerful, as any child of an Enchanter would be), they would accept it. No child of his could be an abomination.

She'd had to spend the last long months of her pregnancy alone, lest her people force the child from her body. Long lonely months, when she had endured a pregnancy that made her wonder what exactly it was she carried inside her, when she wondered if the child would be as wondrous as she had first supposed. She had been unable to keep down much food for many weeks now, and she had also bled heavily from time to time, until now she faced a birth alone and seriously weakened.

She clenched her jaws against the discomfort and forced her feet to take one step after another through the snow drifts. She would manage. She had to. She did not want to die.

A strange whisper, barely discernible in the heightening storm, ran along the edge of the wind.

She stopped, every nerve in her body afire. Was she so close to the trees that she could hear the wind rustling through the pine needles already? Her gloved hands pushed fine strands of hair from her eyes, and she concentrated hard, peering through the gloom, listening for any unusual sounds.

There. Again. A soft whisper along the wind ... a soft whisper and a hiccup. Skraelings!

"Ah," she moaned, involuntarily, terror clenching her stomach so tightly that she almost vomited the few berries she had been able to keep down that day. After a moment frozen into the wind, she fumbled with the cumbersome straps holding the bundle of wood to her back, desperate to lose the burden. Her only hope of survival lay in outrunning the Skraelings. In reaching the trees before they reached her. They did not like the trees.

But she could not lose the weight of this child within her. She could not run at this point in her pregnancy. Not with this child.

The straps finally broke free, the hard-gathered wood tumbling about her feet, and she tried to break into a stumbling run. Almost immediately she tripped and fell over, hitting the ground heavily, the impact forcing the breath from her body and sending a shaft of agony through her belly. The child kicked viciously.

The wind whispered again. Closer.

For a few moments she could do nothing but scrabble around in the snow, frantically trying to regain her breath and find some foot or handhold in the treacherous ground.

A small burble of laughter, low and barely audible above the wind, sounded a few paces to her left.

Sobbing with terror now she lurched to her feet, everything but the need to get to the safety of the trees forgotten.

Two paces later another whisper, this time directly behind her, and she would have screamed except that her child kicked so suddenly and directly into her diaphragm that she was winded almost as badly as she had been when she fell.

Then, even more terrifying, a whisper directly in front of her.

"A pretty, pretty ... a tasty, tasty." The wraith's insubstantial face appeared momentarily in the dusk light, its silver orbs glowing obscenely, its tooth-lined jaws hanging loose with desire.

Finally she found the breath to scream, the sound tearing through the dusk light, and she stumbled desperately to the right, fighting through the snow, arms flailing in a futile effort to fend the wraiths off. She knew she was almost certainly doomed. The wraiths fed off fear as much as they fed off flesh, and they were growing as her terror grew. She could feel the strength draining out of her. They would chase her, taunt her, drain her, until even fear was gone. Then they would feed off her body.

The child churned in her belly as she lurched through the snow, as if intent on escaping the prison of her poor, doomed body. It flailed with its fists and heels and elbows, and every time one of the dreadful whispers of the wraiths reached it through the amniotic fluid of its mother's womb, it twisted and struck harder.

Even though she knew she was all but doomed the primeval urge to keep making the effort to escape kept her moving through the snow, grunting with each step, jerking every time her child beat at the confines of her womb. But now the urge to escape consumed the child as much as its mother.

The five wraiths hung back a few paces in the snow, enjoying the woman's fear. The chase was going well. Then, strangely, the woman twisted and jerked mid-step and crashed to the ground, writhing and clutching at the heaving mound of her belly. The wraiths, surprised by this sudden development in the chase, had to sidestep quickly out of the way, and slowed to circle the woman at a safe distance just out of arm's reach.

She screamed. It was a sound of such terror, wrenched from the very depths of her body, that the wraiths moaned in ecstasy.

She turned to the nearest wraith, extending a hand for mercy. "Help me," she whispered. "Please, help me!"

The wraiths had never been asked for help before. They began to mill in confusion. Was she no longer afraid of them? Why was that? Wasn't every flesh and blood creature afraid of them? Their minds communed and they wondered if perhaps they should be afraid too.

The woman convulsed, and the snow stained bright red about her hips.

The smell and sight of warm blood reached the wraiths, reassuring them. This one was going to die more quickly than they had originally expected. Spontaneously. Without any help from their sharp pointed fangs. Sad, but she would still taste sweet. They drifted about in the freezing wind, watching, waiting, wanting.

After a few more minutes the woman moaned once, quietly, and then lay still, her face alabaster, her eyes opened and glazed, her hands slowly unclenching. The wraiths bobbed as the wind gusted through them and considered. The chase had started so well. She had feared well. But she had died strangely. The most courageous of the five drifted up to the woman and considered her silently for a moment longer. Finally, the coppery smell of warm blood decided it and it reached down an insubstantial claw to worry at the leather thongs of her tunic. After a moment's resistance the leather fell open-and the one adventuresome wraith was so surprised it leapt back to the safe circling distance of its comrades.

In the bloody mess that had once been the woman's belly lay a child, glaring defiantly at them, hate steeping from every one of its bloodied pores. It had eaten its way out.

"Ooooh!" the wraiths cooed in delight, and the more courageous of them drifted forward again and picked up the bloody child.

"It hates," it whispered to the others. "Feel it?"

The other wraiths bobbed closer, emotion close to affection misting their orbs.

The child turned its tusked head and glared at the wraiths. It hiccupped, and a small bubble of blood frothed at the corner of its mouth.

"Aaah!" the wraiths cooed again, and huddled over the baby. Without a word the wraiths made their momentous decision. They would take it home. They would feed it. In time they would learn to love it. And then, years into a future the wraiths could not yet discern, they would learn to worship it.

But now they were hungry and good food was cooling to one side. Appealing as it was, the baby was dumped unceremoniously in the snow, howling its rage, as the wraiths fed on its dead mother.

 

Six weeks later ...

Separated by the length of the Alps and still more by race and circumstance, another woman struggled through the snowdrifts of the lower reaches of the western Icescarp Alps.

She stumbled badly over a rock hidden by the snow and tore the last fingernail from her once soft white hands as she scrabbled for purchase. She huddled against a frozen rock and sucked her finger, moaning in frustration and almost crying through cold and sad heartedness. For a day and a night she had battled to keep alive, ever since they had dumped her here in this barren landscape. These mountains could kill even the fittest man, even with the thickest furs, yet she had only a thin shawl over her stained and tattered nightdress and was seriously weakened by the terrible birth of her son two days before. And, for all her travail and prayers and tears and curses he had died during that birth, born so still and blue that the midwives had huddled him out of the room, not letting her hold him or weep over him.

Then, as the midwives fled the birthing chamber, the two men had come in, their eyes cold and derisive, their mouths twisting with scorn. They had dragged her weeping and bleeding from the room, dragged her from her life of comfort and deference, dumped her into a splintered old cart and drove her throughout the day to this spot at the base of the Icescarp Alps. They had said not a word the entire way.

There they had tipped her unceremoniously out. No doubt they wished her dead, but even they would not dare stain their hands with her blood. Even now her name made each of them afraid to be the one to plunge the knife into her throat.

Better this way, where she could endure a slow death on the dreaded mountains, prey to the Forbidden Ones which crouched among the rocks, prey to the cold and the ice, and with time to contemplate the shame of her illegitimate child ... her dead illegitimate child.

But she was determined not to die. There was one chance and one chance only. She would have to climb high into the Alps. Barely out of girlhood and clad only in tatters, she was determined to succeed.

Her feet had gone to ice the first few hours and she now could no longer feel them. Her toes were black. Her fingernails, torn from her hands, had left gaping holes at the ends of her fingers that had iced over. Now they were turning black too. Her lips were so dry and frozen they had drawn back from her teeth and solidified into a ghastly rictus.

She huddled against the rock. Although she had started the climb in hope and determination, even she, her natural stubbornness notwithstanding, realised that she was close to death. She had stopped shivering hours ago. A bad sign. But she would climb until she died. Better she die a young woman on the slopes of these beautiful ice mountains than aged and abed in the treacherous safeness of her homeland.

 

The creature had been watching the woman curiously for some hours now. It was far up the slopes of the mountain, peering down from its heights through eyes that could see a mouse burp at five leagues. Only the fact that she seemed determined to die immediately below its favourite day roost made the creature stir, fluff out its feathers in the icy air, then spread its wings and launch itself abruptly into the swirling wind, angered by the intrusion. It would rather have spent the day preening itself in what weak sun there was. It was a vain creature.

 

She saw it circling far above her. She squinted into the sun, grey specks of exhaustion almost obscuring her sight.

"StarDrifter?" she whispered, hope strengthening her heart and her voice. Slowly, hesitatingly, she lifted a blackened hand towards the sky. "Is that you?"

 

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1.

The Tower of the Seneschal

Twenty-nine years later ...

 

The speckled blue eagle floated high in the sky above the hopes and works of mankind. Its wing-span as wide as a man was tall, it drifted lazily through the air thermals rising off the vast inland plains of the kingdom of Achar. Almost directly below lay the silver-blue expanse of Grail Lake, so large it could almost be called an inland sea except that it formed part of the great River Nordra as it coiled through Achar towards the Sea of Tyrre. The lake was rich in fish and the eagle fed well there, but more than the fish the eagle fed on the refuse of the people of the lake-side city of Carlon. Pristine as the ancient city might be with its pink and cream stone walls and gold and silver plated roofs; pretty as it might be with its tens of thousands of pennants and banners and flags fluttering in the wind, the Carlonites ate and shat like every other creature in creation, and the piles of refuse outside the city walls supported enough mice and rats to feed a thousand eagles and hawks.

The eagle had already feasted earlier that morning and it was not interested in gorging again so soon. It let itself drift further east across the Grail Lake until the white-walled seven-sided Tower of the Seneschal rose one hundred paces into the air to greet the sun. There the eagle tipped its wing and its balance, veering slowly to the north, looking for a shady afternoon roost. It was an old and wise eagle and knew that it would probably have to settle for the shady eaves of some farmer's barn in this most treeless of lands.

As it flew it pondered the minds and ways of these men who feared trees so much that they'd cut down most of the ancient forests that had once covered this land. It was the way of the Axe and of the Plough.

 

Far below the eagle, Jayme, Brother-Leader of the Religious Brotherhood of the Seneschal, most senior mediator between the one god Artor the Ploughman and the hearts and souls of the Acharites, paced across his comfortable chamber in the upper reaches of the Tower of the Seneschal.

"The news grows more disturbing," he muttered, his kindly face crinkling into deep seams of worry. For years he'd refused to accept the office his fellow Brothers had pressed on him, and now, five years after he'd finally bowed to their wishes and accepted that Artor himself must want him to hold supreme office within the Seneschal, Jayme feared that it would be he who might well have to see the Seneschal - nay, Achar itself - through its greatest crisis in a thousand years.

He sighed and turned to stare out the window. Even though it was only early DeadLeaf-month, the first week of the first month of autumn, the wind had turned icy several days ago, and the windows were tightly shut against the cold. A fire blazed in the mottled green marble fireplace behind the Brother-Leader's desk, the light of the flames picking out the inlaid gold tracery in the stone and the silver, crystal and gold on the mantle.

The younger of his two assistants stepped forward. "Do you believe the reports to be true, Brother-Leader?"

Jayme turned to reassure Gilbert, whom he thought might yet prove to have a tendency towards alarm and panic. Who knew, perhaps such tendencies would serve him well over the coming months. "My son, it has been so many generations since anyone has reliably spotted any of the Forbidden Ones that, for all we know, these reports might be occasioned only by superstitious peasants frightened by rabbits gambolling at dusk."

Gilbert rubbed his tonsured head anxiously and glanced across at Moryson, Jayme's senior assistant and first adviser, before addressing his Brother-Leader again. "But so many of these reports come from our own Brothers, Brother-Leader."

Jayme resisted the impulse to retort that most of the Brothers in the northern Retreat of Gorkentown, where many of these reports originated, were little else but superstitious peasants themselves. But Gilbert was young, and had never travelled far from the glamour and cultivation of Carlon where he had been born and raised, or the pious and intellectual atmosphere of the Tower of the Seneschal where he had been educated and admitted into holy orders to serve Artor.

But Jayme himself feared that it was more than rabbits that had frightened his Gorkentown brethren. There were reports coming out of the small village of Smyrton, far to the north-east, that had to be considered as well.

Jayme sighed again and sat down in the comfortable chair at his desk. One of the benefits of the highest religious office in the land were the physical comforts of the Brother-Leader's quarters high in the Tower. Jayme was not hypocritical enough to pretend that, at his age, his aching joints did not appreciate the well-made and cushioned furniture, pleasing both to eye and to body, that decorated his quarters. Nor did he pretend not to appreciate the fine foods and the invitations to the best houses in Carlon that came with his appointment as Brother-Leader. For those moments when he did not have to attend to the administration of the Seneschal or to the social or religious duties of his position, there for the stimulation of his mind were thousands of leather-bound books lining the shelves of his quarters, with religious icons and portraits collected over past generations decorating every other spare space of wall and bringing some measure of peace and comfort to his soul. His bright blue eyes, still sharp after so many years seeking out the sins of the Acharites, travelled indulgently over one particularly fine representation of the Divine Artor on the occasion that he had presented mankind with the gift of The Plough, a gift that had enabled mankind to rise above the limits of barbarity and cultivate both land and mind.

Brother Moryson, a tall lean man with a deeply furrowed brow, regarded his Brother-Leader with fondness and respect. They had known each other many decades, having both been appointed as the Seneschal's representatives to the royal court in their youth. Later they had moved to the royal household itself. Too many years ago, thought Moryson, looking at Jayme's hair and beard which were now completely white. His own thin brown hair, he knew, had more than a few speckles of grey.

When Jayme had finally accepted the position of Brother-Leader, a post he would hold until his death, one of his first requests had been that his old friend and companion Moryson join him as first assistant and adviser. His second request, one that upset many at court and in the royal household itself, was that his protege, Axis, be appointed BattleAxe of the Axe-Wielders, the elite military and crusading wing of the Seneschal. Fume as King Priam might, the Axe-Wielders were under the control of the Seneschal and within the Seneschal a Brother-Leader's requests were as law. Royal displeasure notwithstanding, Axis had become the youngest ever commander of the Axe-Wielders.

Moryson, who had kept out of the conversation to this point, stepped forward, knowing Jayme was waiting for his advice. "Brother-Leader," he said, bowing low from the waist with unfeigned respect and tucking his hands inside the voluminous sleeves of his habit, "perhaps it would help if we reviewed the evidence for a moment. If we consider all the reports that have come in over the past few months perhaps we might see a pattern. And if we can see a pattern then we will be able to understand what is happening."

Jayme nodded and waved both his assistants into the intricately carved chairs that sat across from his desk. Crafted generations ago from one of the ancient trees that had dominated the landscape of Achar, the well-oiled wood glowed comfortingly in the firelight. Better that wood served man in this way than free-standing on land that could be put to the Plough. Thick stands of trees were always better cut down than left standing to offer shade and shelter to the demons of the Forbidden.

"As always your logic comforts me, Brother Moryson. Gilbert, perhaps you could indulge us with a summation of events as you understand them thus far. You are the one, after all, to have read all the reports coming in from the north."

Neither Jayme nor Moryson particularly liked Gilbert, an unBrotherly sentiment, they knew, but Gilbert was a rather pretentious youth from a high-born Carlonite family whose generally abrasive personality was not helped by a sickly complexion, thin shanks and sweaty palms. Nevertheless, he had a razor-sharp mind that could absorb seemingly unrelated items of information from a thousand different sources and correlate them into patterns well before anyone else could. He was also unbelievably ambitious, and both Jayme and Moryson believed he could be better observed, and perhaps better controlled, if he were under the eye of the Brother-Leader himself.

Gilbert shuffled back into his seat until his spine was ramrod straight against the back of the chair and prepared to speak his mind. Both Moryson and Jayme repressed small smiles, but they waited attentively. Neither would ever allow their personal feelings to impair their professional judgement or threaten the security of the Seneschal.

"Brothers under Artor," Gilbert began, "since the unusually late thaw of this spring," both his listeners grimaced uncomfortably, "the Seneschal has been receiving numerous reports of ... unusual ... activities from the frontier regions of Achar. Firstly from our brethren in the religious Retreat in Gorkentown. Our Brothers have reported that the commander of Gorkenfort has lost many men on patrol during this last winter." The small municipality of Gorkentown, two hundred leagues north, huddled for protection about the military garrison of Gorkenfort. Centuries previously, the monarchy of Achar had established the fort in Gorken Pass in northern Ichtar; Gorkenfort was then and remained the most vital link in Achar's northern defences. "One shouldn't expect every one of your men to come back from patrol when you send them out to wander the northern wastes during the depths of winter," Jayme muttered testily under his breath, but Gilbert only frowned slightly at this interruption and continued on.

"An unusual number of men, Brother-Leader. The soldiers who are stationed at Gorkenfort are among the best in Achar. They come from the Duke of Ichtar's own home guard. Neither Duke Borneheld, nor Gorkenfort's commander, Lord Magariz, expect to get through the winter patrols unscathed, but neither do they expect to lose over eighty-six men. Normally it is the winter itself that has been the garrison's enemy, but now both Duke Borneheld and Lord Magariz believe that they may have another enemy out there amid the winter snows."

"Has the Duke Borneheld seen any evidence for this with his own eyes, Gilbert?" Moryson asked smoothly. "Over the past year Borneheld seems to have preferred fawning at the king's feet to inspecting his northern garrison."

Gilbert's eyes glinted briefly. These two old men might think he was a conceited fool, but he had good sources of information. "Duke Borneheld returned to Ichtar during Flower-month and Rose-month, Brother Moryson. Not only did he spend some weeks at Hsingard and Sigholt, but he also travelled to the far north to speak with Magariz and the soldiers of Gorkenfort to hear and see for himself what has been happening. Perhaps, Brother Moryson, you were too busy counting the tithes as they came in to be fully aware of events in the outside world."

"Gilbert!" The Brother-Leader's voice was rigid with rebuke, and Gilbert inclined his head in a show of apology to Moryson. Moryson caught Jayme's eye over Gilbert's bowed head and a sharp look passed between them. Gilbert would receive a far stronger censure from his Brother-Leader when Jayme had him alone.

"If I might continue, Brother-Leader," Gilbert murmured deferentially.

Jayme angrily jerked his head in assent, his age-spotted fingers almost white where they gripped the armrests of his chair.

"Lord Magariz was able to retrieve some of the bodies of those he had lost. It appears that they had been ... eaten. Chewed. Nibbled. Tasted." Gilbert's voice was dry, demonstrating an unexpected flair for the macabre. "There are no known animals in either northern Ichtar or Ravensbund that would attack, let alone eat, a grown man in armour and defended with sword and spear."

"The great icebears, perhaps?" Jayme asked, his anger fading as his perplexion grew. Occasionally stories filtered down about man-eating icebears in the extreme north of Ravensbund.

"Gorkenfort is too far inland for the icebears, Brother-Leader. They would either have to walk down the Gorken Pass for some sixty leagues or shortcut across the lesser arm of the Icescarp Alps to reach it." He paused, reflecting. "And icebears have no head for heights. No," Gilbert shook his head slowly, "I fear the icebears are not responsible."

"Then perhaps the Ravensbundmen themselves," suggested Moryson. Ravensbund was, theoretically a province of Achar and under the administration of the Duke of Ichtar on behalf of the King of Achar. But Ravensbund was such an extraordinarily wild and barren place, inhabited by uncouth tribes who spent nearly all their time hunting seals and great icebears in the extreme north, that both the King of Achar, Priam, and his loyal liege, Duke Borneheld of Ichtar, generally left the place to its own devices. Consequently, the garrison at Gorkenfort was to all intents and purposes the northenmost point of effective Acharite administration and military power in the kingdom. Although the Ravensbundmen were of little trouble, most Acharites regarded them as little more than barbaric savages who undoubtedly ate each other when they couldn't find any other meat.

"I don't think so, Brother Moryson. Apparently the Ravensbundmen have suffered as badly, if not worse, than the garrison at Gorkenfort. Indeed, many of the Ravensbund tribes are starting to move south into Ichtar. The tales they tell are truly terrible."

"And they are?" Jayme prompted, his fingers gently tapping his bearded chin as he listened.

"Of the winter gone mad, and of the wind come alive. Of ice creatures that inhabit the wind and that, all but invisible to the eye, hunger for human flesh. They say that the only warning that comes before an attack is a whisper on the wind. Yet if these creatures are invisible before attack then they are generally visible after. Once they have gorged, the creatures are slimed with the blood of their victims-and red contrasts so easily with the snow and ice. The Ravensbundmen are afraid of them-afraid enough to move out of their homelands-and the Ravensbundmen, savages as they are, have never been afraid of anything before."

"Have they tried to attack them?"

"Yes. But the creatures are somehow ... insubstantial. Steel passes through their bodies. And they do not fear. If any soldiers get close enough to attack them, then it is generally the last thing they get to do in this life. Only a few have escaped encounters with these ..."

"Forbidden Ones?" Moryson whispered, his amiable face reflecting the anxiety that such a term provoked in all of them. None of them had wanted to be the first to mention this possibility.

"Wait, Moryson," Jayme counselled, "wait until we have heard all of what Gilbert has to say." All three men had forgotten the tension and anger that Gilbert's jibe had caused moments before. Now they concentrated only on understanding the worrying jigsaw of information that had come down from the north.

"Magariz's soldiers have seen similar apparitions, although most who have been close enough to see them have died," Gilbert said slowly. "One man they found alive. Just. He died a few minutes after Magariz arrived. He said, and this report was Lord Magariz' own, that he had been attacked by creatures that had no form and that had suffered no wounds at the edge of his sword." "And how did they wound this soldier? I thought that the Gorkenfort garrison were among the best armoured soldiers in the realm."

"Brother-Leader, Magariz understood from the soldier's last words that the creatures surrounded the man-then simply oozed through the gaps in his armour until they lay between his skin and his armour. Then they began to eat."

Gilbert stopped for a moment, and all three men contemplated such a horrific death. Jayme closed his eyes briefly as he envisioned the soldier's death; may Artor hold him and keep him in His care he prayed silently.

"I wonder why they left him alive?" Moryson wondered softly.

Gilbert's voice was caustic when he replied. "They had already consumed the rest of his patrol. One assumes they were reasonably full."

Jayme abruptly pushed himself up from his chair and moved over to a wall cabinet. "I think Artor would forgive us is we imbibed a little wine this early in the afternoon, Brothers. Considering we still have the reports from Smyrton to review, I think we might need it."

He poured out three glass goblets of the deep red wine and handed them out before reseating himself behind his desk.

"Furrow wide, furrow deep," he intoned.

"Furrow wide, furrow deep," Moryson and Gilbert answered together, repeating the ritual phrases that served all Artor-fearing Acharites as blessings and greetings for most occasions in life.

Both ritual and wine comforted the men, and soon they were ready to resume their considerations.

"And what else from the north, Gilbert?" Jayme asked, holding his glass between both palms to warm the remaining wine and hoping the wine he had already consumed would beat back the chill that gnawed at his soul.

"Well, the winter was particularly severe. Even here we suffered from extreme cold during Raven-month and Hungry-month, while the thaw came in Flower-month, a month later than usual. In the north the cold was even more extreme, and I believe the winter snow and ice persisted in places above the Urqhart Hills throughout the summer." Even northern Ichtar usually thawed completely for the summer.

Jayme raised his eyebrows. Gilbert's intelligence was good indeed. Did he have sources that Jayme did not know about? No matter, what was important was that much of northern Ichtar had spent the summer encased in ice when usually the ice and snow had disappeared by Thaw-month. And what did that mean?

"If the ice persisted above the Urqhart Hills, then Gorkentown, must also have remained in conditions close to winter," Jayme pondered. "Tell me, Gilbert, did the attacks continue through the warmer months?"

Gilbert shook his head and took another sip of wine. "No. The creatures appeared only during the most severe weather in the depths of winter. Perhaps they have gone again." "And perhaps they have not. If the extreme north remained encased in ice during summer then I dread the winter ahead. And if they depend on extreme weather conditions, then does that mean they will be back?"

"We should also consider the reports of our Brothers in the Retreat at Gorkentown, Brother-Leader." The Brotherhood of the Seneschal had established a small Retreat in Gorkentown for those Brothers who preferred a more ascetic life spent in contemplation of Artor to the comfortable life of the Tower of the Seneschal.

"Yes, Gilbert. Perhaps we should."

"Our Brothers believe that the Forbidden might be behind this."

"And their reasons for thinking so, Gilbert?"

"The reports and experiences of the garrison for one, Brother-Leader. But also several of the Brothers have reported that demons inhabit their dreams on those nights when the wind is fiercest."

Jayme chuckled softly. "Not reliable. You give me bad dreams most nights, Gilbert, and I am not yet ready to class you as one of the Forbidden."

All three men smiled, Gilbert a lot more stiffly than the other two. Moryson noticed the expression on Gilbert's face and spoke gently, turning the younger Brother's mind from Jayme's heavy-handed attempt at humour. "Have they reported seeing anything, Gilbert?"

"Neither Gorkenfort nor Gorkentown have been attacked, only small patrols or individuals outside the walls. No, the Brothers have actually seen little. But they have observed the mood of the town and garrison, and they say that dark thoughts and moods lay heavily across the inhabitants. Extra prayers are offered to Artor every day, but the fear grows."

"If only there was someone alive who actually knew anything about the Forbidden!" Jayme was angry at his inability to understand the nature of the threat in northern Ichtar. He stood up from his chair again and paced restlessly across the chamber.

"Gilbert. Forget the mutterings of the Brothers in Gorkentown for the moment. What news out of Smyrton?"

"Unusual happenings there, too, but not the same as in northern Ichtar."

Smyrton was a largish village at the extreme edge of the Seagrass Plains, the main grain-producing area of Achar. It was the closest settled area to the Forbidden Valley. If the Forbidden ever came swarming over Achar again, then the valley was the obvious place they would emerge, a natural conduit out of the Shadowsward, the darkest and most evil place bordering Achar. One day, thought Jayme, we'll take the axe to the Shadowsward as well. But in the meantime there was Smyrton, the village which acted as a natural early alarm system for any excursions from the Shadowsward.

And now the alarm was sounding.

"The local Plough-Keeper, Brother Hagen, has sent several reports of strange creatures sighted near the Forbidden Valley and, more disturbing, near the village itself. There have been about five sightings over the past several months."

"Are they ...?" Moryson began, but Gilbert shook his head.

"Nothing like the strange creatures of ice and snow that the soldiers of Gorkenfort report, Brother Moryson. Yet in their own way, they are just as strange. Manlike-yet somehow alien."

"And in what way?" asked Jayme testily as Gilbert hesitated.

Gilbert had to swivel a little in his chair to follow the figure of his Brother-Leader as he paced the floor from window to fireplace and back again. "Those seen seem manlike enough. They are short and muscular, and very dark, making them extremely hard to see. They evade the villagers rather than seek them out. Each time one is spotted it has carried a child with it, and Brother Hagen reports that although no children from the village are missing, the villagers bolt their doors and windows fast at dusk. Perhaps they have stolen the children from somewhere else."

"You said, `somehow alien'." Jayme stopped before Gilbert's chair and folded his arms in frustration. "What do you mean by that?"

Gilbert shrugged. "I only relate what Brother Hagen relates, Brother-Leader. He was not specific on that point."

"And that's it?"

Gilbert looked uncomfortable and frowned for a moment. "There was one other report, Brother-Leader, and that I think Brother Hagen only sent at the last minute. One of the villagers, a simple woman, they say, was out later than usual one night. She said that she looked up towards the moon and saw strange clouds moving against the sky. But Hagen was dismissive. The woman is a little too fond of her ale for reliability. I am inclined myself to dismiss it, these peasants are always seeing threats in a cloudy sky and hearing curses in the least gust of wind. But of the reports of the strange man-like creatures, Brother-Leader, surely these must be the Forbidden moving out through the Forbidden Valley?"

Jayme sighed and patted Gilbert on the shoulder. "Yes, I fear you may be right, Gilbert. Although we have only myths and legends, describing what the Forbidden look like or how they act, I cannot but think that they are moving again."

Spoken words about the Forbidden were enough to make all three men shiver in foreboding. Every Acharite living knew that a thousand years previously during the Wars of the Axe their forebears had driven the frightful races that had once dominated Achar with their evil sorcery back across the Fortress Ranges into the Shadowsward and the Icescarp Alps. Then, with the help of the Axe-Wielders, the Acharites had cut down the massive forests that had once harboured the Forbidden races, putting the cleared land under Plough and civilisation. But it was part of Acharite legend that one day the Forbidden would seethe back across the Fortress Ranges and slither down from the Icescarp Alps to try to reclaim the land that had once been theirs. Every parent scared their children with the threat.

Jayme walked slowly over to the fire, his shoulders stooped. He raised his hands to warm near the flames until he noticed with horror that they were trembling, and quickly bunched them into fists and hid them in the folds of his gown. Though nothing as yet connected the two sets of reports from Gorkenfort and Smyrton, Jayme was scared that they were connected. The responsibility of his position weighed heavily on him.

Moryson and Gilbert watched silently, both aware of the seriousness of these reports, both glad they were not the ones who had to make the decisions.

Moryson scratched his chin reflectively. He knew dark events were upon them.

Slowly Jayme turned back to his assistants. "Tomorrow Carlon celebrates King Priam's nameday. The celebrations will end with a banquet in the royal palace to which Priam has extended me an invitation. He has also advised me that we will need to meet privately to discuss the problem at Gorkentown. Neither Priam nor the Seneschal can meet this threat alone. Achar will have to stand united as it never has before if we can hope to survive the threat of the Forbidden. Artor help us, now and forever."

"Now and forever," the other two echoed, draining the dregs of their wine.