The stormcaller

'A few hours will not make much difference, I think. Fetch your

pack.'

Tiniq suppressed a sigh and reached under the bench to pull out a shapeless canvas pack and an oilskin weapons-pouch, then followed

Bahl outside.

He kept his eyes low until Bahl stopped unexpectedly and spoke again. 'There are tales of the Saljin Man in the deep forest. Have you

seen it?'

The ranger frowned. 'Just peasants being foolish. We've got enough in our forests without borrowing the curses of other tribes.'

'I wonder. It's a strange thing to invent when we all know the Vukotic are as rooted to their lands as to their curses. I've heard this before, when a vampire was in the city almost a century back. Now we suspect another is here, do we call that coincidence?'

The ranger looked startled at the prospect, attempting to cover his discomfort by adjusting the baldric on his shoulder. 'I understand. I'll

pay attention.'

'Good. Now we should leave. You must have run with your brother, I expect you to keep up.' Without waiting for a reply, Bahl strode off through the moonlight to the stone fist of the barbican. The bridge was usually kept raised in times of war, but the guards had seen him standing outside the Great Hall and it was down by the time Bahl passed through the tunnel.

The wide main streets and narrow alleys of the city were almost

empty. Away to the left, Bahl could hear the stamp of hobnailed boots – Ghosts on patrol. Even the gutter runners would be holed up somewhere warm; the sparkle of frost on the gargoyles and overhangs showed how dangerous the roofs were this time of year. Despite that, the ancient city of covered streets, archways and statues was at its most entrancing when glittering in the moonlight.

Bahl walked easily down these cobbled roads. The many towers and complex architecture made Tirah a remarkable city to behold. In the moonlight, even the most fanciful stories set here became believable. Black shadows lurked in the covered streets, under arches and around the lights of taverns. Bahl knew that not all of the eyes above were empty stone, but there was a natural order and the predators that hunted the streets at night were wary of him. They would watch him for as long as they could, like deer following a wolf pack to avoid the chance of ambush.

Up above the city, the two greater moons emerged fully from behind feathered clouds. Kasi – the lesser of the two, the hunter's moon – was halfway to the horizon. At this time of year, that meant there was less than an hour left until midnight. Off to the south, Alterr overshadowed Kasi's red tint with her own yellow eye. As followers of Nartis, both men saluted the lesser moon, kissing the backs of their bow fingers and touching them to their foreheads in a gesture whose meaning was lost, as so much else, in the mists of time.

'Strange to think that there was a time when the Land could see such great events – stranger even that we might soon return to such a time.'

Tiniq looked puzzled at Bahl's announcement, following his gaze up to Kasi. The lesser moon, which appeared in the years before the Great War, was named for that most devoted of mortals, Kasi Farlan. Legend had it that Larat, the God of Magic and Manipulation, had seduced Alterr, the Moon Goddess, and persuaded her to hide her light from the sky as a party of Parian hunters returned home. While the others found their way back, Kasi Farlan was lost in the deep forest, blinded by the darkness and hunted by Larat's assassins. When the hunters returned without her husband, the Princess of the Farlan begged the Queen of the Gods for aid. When Alterr refused to show her light again, the queen took the diamond necklace from her own neck and rolled it around the princess's ruby ring, making a single stone which she threw high into the sky to light Kasi's way home and

save him from attack.

The ruby at the moon's heart was bound to Alterr's own life's blood. She was ordered to throw the gem up every night as penance, and if she failed to catch it, the stone would break on the ground, and so too would her own blood run out to the earth. To prevent that from happening, Larat took the stone from Alterr's hands the next night and threw it so hard he sent it orbiting the Land, fulfilling the bond set by the Queen of the Gods.

Now his lover need only to watch its path, and wonder whether it would ever fall.

'Would that be something to look forward to?' The ranger sounded nervous rather than enthusiastic. 'The Great War poisoned the Land with its magic. If life is less dramatic, is that so bad?'

'Not at all, but it was the energies spent in anger that caused the waste to be poisoned, rather than the Ages before the Great War. That much destruction must be avoided at all costs, but sometimes I think grand deeds like the hunter's moon might again have a place in life.' He changed the subject. 'You prefer to walk to Siul? It's a long way. Even for a white-eye, it would be far.'

Tiniq cleared his throat noisily. 'I dislike riding, and horses themselves, for that matter. It's a dislike they share, it seems – I was thrown twice as a boy in the training paddock and I've never trusted them since. I know you're wondering about my birth; that's why you wanted me to accompany you, isn't it?'

Bahl inclined his head. The two men were walking down the centre of a wide avenue through the temple district.

'Well, I'm not my brother; that's for certain, but we have some things in common. It might take me longer to get to Lomin, but the path is more direct on foot and I can outrun any normal.'

'You don't consider yourself a normal?'

'Would you?'

Bahl considered that. Tiniq might look like an ordinary man, but it was unlikely he could hide his differences for long. 'Perhaps not, but it would be a nice choice to have. How about children?'

'Have I any? No. I've had my share of women though, so that might be one more thing in common with your kind.'

'Magic?'

'I…' Now discomfort was evident in Tiniq's voice. Bahl kept silent and let the man take his time. There was nowhere to run from

the question. 'I have some sensitivity; that is the only way I can explain it. Although my brother's magic is weak, he can perform spells. In me it's different: I can hunt and fight better than I should; my awareness is heightened, my eyes are stronger than normal men's.'

'And what is the price?'

'My Lord?' Bahl couldn't tell whether that was genuine or not.

'The price, Tiniq, of these gifts. Nothing is for free. The scales must always be balanced.'

'I don't know.' The sentence was almost a whisper. 'I think I have yet to pay it. I'll have fifty summers in the new year and I don't look older than thirty – and I'm getting stronger.'

'Stronger?'

'My brother has noticed it too. When I saw him a few days ago, it was for the first time in two years. As I embraced him, he felt the difference.'

'Curious.' They reached the Wood Gate that led east out of the city. The frost in the air had suspended the gentle sway of the leaves; everything was still and silent. Bahl turned to the smaller man. 'We'll run until the hunter's moon goes down. I expect you to keep up.' Without waiting for a reply he broke into a jog, slowly building the pace to keep the ranger pushing himself to catch up. The darkness of night closed around them with a soft sigh. Under the cover of reaching branches they ran with hardly a sound, the moonlit mountains flashing in and out of sight between the trees.

After he parted company with Tiniq, Bahl met no one as he took forgotten paths through the high ground. The foothills of the mountains were the preserve of herdsmen and rangers; superstition and a lack of arable ground kept the rest away. The early winter had already sapped all the strength from the trees, leaving tired, heavy branches hanging low on the ground. Withered leaves crackled underfoot. Crabbed oaks jostled in the breeze with alders and skeletal silver birch, all hunkered down under the determined beat of rain and light snow. It wouldn't be long until the winter storms that would suspend normal life for a time.