“Well and good, then.” Ghent clapped his hands together. “Feel free to make yourselves at home. I’ll go see about that horse of yours. Then we can dine and talk further. There’s much and more I still want to hear.” He drank down his cup, plonked it on the table, gave them a parting nod, and stamped off toward the door.

Gerrin watched him go. He had a gulp of wine and then set down his cup as well. “I’m going to go out and speak to the smallfolk,” he said. “See if anyone knows anything that can help us.”

Jonik nodded. Information about his grandfather’s whereabouts had been in short order so far, though most of the whispers and rumours agreed that he’d turned dragonslayer, and had made for the south. There were parts of Tukor where he’d taken on some sort of mythical status. The king who gave up his crown to walk the warrior’s way. Jonik had to hold his tongue whenever he heard men speak like that. If only they knew the truth…

“I’ll be back later,” Gerrin said. “You two just sit tight.” He left the hall. Harden picked up his flagon of wine and ambled over to a seat beside the hearth. He had a happy smile on his grizzled old face. Well, contented. Harden never looked happy.

“You gonna join me, lad?” he called over to Jonik as he took his seat. “Come on, you deserve a break. Let’s enjoy a few cups of wine.”

“I’m not certain Commander Ghent will appreciate that. His stocks will be running low.”

“Aye, and he’s only got himself to blame, the way he drinks. You see him just now? Taking a sip between every sentence. And I’m guessing Borrus and the Blackshaws would have depleted his reserves further when they were here. Well, they don’t call him the Barrel Knight for nothing.”

Jonik smiled. He could imagine them all in here, in this very hall, feasting and drinking and arguing at one another. Borrus and Mooton and Torvyn and their men, Emeric, Jack, Turner and Brown Mouth, Soft Sid and Grim Pete, the Silent Suncoat and Sansullio and his Sunshine Swords as well. “They call him other things now, Harden. The Lord of the Riverlands and the Warden of the East.”

“Aye…and the gods bloody help us.” Harden gave a laugh and drank more wine. “Come lad, sit with me. No one likes to drink alone.”

Jonik hesitated. He’d never been much of a drinker. “I shouldn’t. Gerrin’s out there, working. I ought to go and join him.”

Harden didn’t heed him. “You work enough. Have a cup of wine and relax.”

Relax? What was that word? Jonik had never been taught how to relax. He felt restless, an urgency in him to keep on moving. If I stop I’ll never want to start again. There remained so much to do. “I should go outside,” he said again, looking at the door. “Help Gerrin…”

“Gerrin doesn’t need you. He’s better with the smallfolk than you are. Let him do his thing.”

“I have to do something.” Jonik started for the door.

Harden stood, stepping over to cut him off. “You’ve made me do this.” He took him by the wrist and drew him over to the hearthside. “Now sit, damn you. And drink.” He poured a cup, thrust it into Jonik’s hand, glared at him with that haggard old face until he relented. “Good. Now how do you feel?”

“The same.”

“Then drink more.”

Jonik drank more. The wine reached down into his chest, spreading. It had a spicy bite to it, which he wasn’t sure about, though after the first few gulps he started to enjoy the sensation. Wine had never been a part of Jonik’s life in the way it was for other men. His tolerance was poor. Another thing Jack used to tease me over, he reflected.

“You’re worried about them,” Harden said, searching his eyes. “A part of you wants to find them.”

Jonik said nothing.

“Silence is as good as words, you know. And you’ve got no face for lying, Jonik. Maybe that’s why you were such a poor Shadowknight.” He smiled. “You’re too soft.”

It was not an accusation he’d heard often. “They taught us not to feel. But with me…”

“You had Gerrin.”

Jonik nodded. “I am how I am because of him. I had to be this way. That was fate.”

“Fate.” Harden made the word a curse. “That’s all done. Aye, not denying what we’ve seen, and been through. You had to be this way. Had to have some feeling in you. If not, you wouldn’t have saved everyone from Palek’s pits. You wouldn’t have gathered us all to go north, and save the boys.” His eyes dipped beneath a frown. “The boys,” he repeated, and Jonik knew just who he meant. “Even that…I understand that too. The choice you made. It had to happen, for Ilith to rise, to give us a chance. I know that now. But from here…no. Bugger fate, Jonik. You make your own fate now.”

Jonik mused on that. “You’re saying…you think I should just abandon my oath to him? To Ilith. Go and find the others instead?”

“No. You’re thinking that.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. A part of you.”

Of course a part of me is, Jonik wanted to say. They were his friends, the only true friends he’d ever had, men he’d sailed with, fought with, men he’d saved and been saved by. If he had a choice, he would mount his steed right now and ride out to find them. He’d stand side by side with them in battle, and die with them, die for them if he had to. He needed to tell them what had happened to Devin, so they could sit and talk of him, drink to him, say the rites and remember him. Devin had been with Gill Turner for years, ever since he was a boy. He was almost a son to him, Jonik thought. Turner was his sire and Braxton his grumpy uncle and Jack his older brother. They deserve to know, all of them. They deserve to know and they deserve to be safe.

I don’t want them to fight in any battle…

The thought terrified him. Even more so that he couldn’t be there too. But there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing. I have no choice. I’ve never really had a choice.

“Ilith entrusted me to track down the blades,” he said, finally. “So that’s what I’m going to do.”

Harden gave a deep sigh. “I know. I just want…something more for you. You’ve served all your life. And you’re serving still…”

“So are you.”

“I’ve lived. I’m an old man. I’ve had four wives and fathered kids. Aye, haven’t told you that yet. Three of them. Two by my first, another by my third. All dead. Just don’t ask me how, I don’t want to go there tonight.” Pain rippled across his face, the agony of memory, gone in an instant. Buried, but always there, just beneath that hard grim surface. He gulped his wine. “Point is you haven’t lived. You’re too young for all this. Damnit, you’re too young.”

“I’m old enough,” Jonik said, quietly. “I’ll have my time after, Harden. Once it’s over. I’ll live then.”

“And if you don’t get that chance? If you die before all this is done.”

“Then I’ll be dead,” Jonik grunted, not liking this conversation. “And I won’t much care, will I?”

He turned to look into the fire, watching the flames lick and flicker at the walls. The stone was black with soot where the smoke rose up toward the chimney shaft. Black like the fields they’d passed, and the burned farms and huts and little villages they’d seen. Black like death. Black like the Dread.

I have a chance to help, he thought. And this old man wants me to give it all up.

It annoyed him. He knew Harden meant well. But it annoyed him.

He stood. “I’m going outside.” And don’t I feel nice and relaxed, he thought.

Harden let him go, descending into a dark place of his own. Jonik heard him drink his cup dry, heard him refill it, and drink again, before he reached the door. The dog followed him. “No, stay here.” He pulled the door open, stepped out, but the big mastiff loped past before he could pull the door back shut. He sighed. “You’re staying here when we go. Lord Ghent is going to look after you.”

He missed Shade, he realised all of a sudden. He missed his faithful steed, who was so much more than a horse to him. A friend. My first friend. Was he being taken to battle as well? Was one of the men going to armour him up in barding and ride him into the teeth of the enemy lines? It hurt him to think like that. Shade was not meant to be here. He was a horse of the Highplains, made to run free, not a warhorse. I should have let him go when I had the chance. Now he’s going to die like all the rest of them…

He found a guard at the entrance to the keep, leaning on his spear at the top of the steps. Down in the yard, the stableboys were tending to the horses, the palfrey and the stallion and the others from the inn as well. They were being fed and watered, their coats given a brush, their hooves re-shod. Beyond, through the portcullis, the rain was coming down, but in the yard it was dry.

“Coat protects us,” the guard said. He looked up. “Never rains in here.”

Overhead, the enormous stone cloak of Vandar swept down from his mighty back, forming a roof high above them. Rainwater gathered and washed down its surface, cascading in waterfalls where the cloak ended. “I saw scorch marks on his shoulder,” Jonik said. “And Tukor’s fingers were chipped. When did that happen?”

“While back. Haven’t seen many dragons here of late.”

“Aren’t you worried they’ll come with all these people passing through?”