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loose that wight. Olaf was one of my people, a kid. He should not have died like that.”
    There was silence for a moment then Brandon added, “I grew up around here and I’ve heard all the stories. Do wights really eat the soul of their victims?”
    It was obviously something that was preying on his mind. Kormak considered his answer carefully. “They devour whatever is in us that gives us life. Some would call that our soul.”
    Brandon let out a long sigh. “Always so precise with words, aren’t you?” It was clearly not what he wanted to say. Suddenly he cursed and said. “Bastard! It makes me so angry when I think of that kid and that barrow and some bloody madman letting those things free.”
    “He might not be a madman,” Kormak said. “He might be doing it for a reason.”
    “That’s even scarier,” said Brandon. He glanced sidelong at Kormak. His eyes narrowed. A sour grin twisted his face. “But you’re not scared, are you?”
    “Not yet. There will be time enough for that later.”
    “Gena calls you the fearless Kormak, you know. I don’t think she means it entirely as a compliment.”
    “You mean she thinks I am too stupid to be scared,” Kormak said, making a joke of it. “She would not be the first.” He wondered if the fact that his wife thought Kormak fearless and Brandon not, was one of the reasons the knight was here.
    Kormak glanced north. Mist or low-lying cloud obscured the Barrow Hills. The land was bleak, mostly rock and heather and gorse. Here and there were ruined cottages. They were not in the distinctive Sunlander style but lower and squatter. They were overgrown with wet moss and looked as if they had been here for a very long time. They added to the sense of abandonment about this place. The cold wind chilled Kormak but it was not the only thing that did so. He felt as if there was something in those hills watching him and waiting. It was something old and malevolent and it did not like men at all although it was prepared to use them.
    “This rain is good,” said Brandon. “It’s turning the land off the road to mud. We will be able to track the ones we are looking for if they leave it.”
    “Not too many places they can go,” said Kormak. “They can just keep going into the hills along the Great Northern Way.”
    “I always used to laugh when my father called it that. It’s a track. It goes nowhere except the mines at Elderdale. It’s not gone anywhere else for a very long time.”
    “It once led all the way to the Defiler’s Tomb Palace at Forghast,” said Kormak. “The Solari road joined the trail the Kharonians built.”
    “No sane man has gone there since the Great Curse blighted the land. There’s no one goes north of Elderdale now except tomb robbers and dark magicians. Most of those don’t come back. The ones that do get put to death if we catch them.”
    “There’s always those that slip through,” said Kormak.
    “You know some?”
    “There’s always those who dabble in the forbidden. You can’t catch them all, or if you do, it’s years or decades later when they have worked some evil.”
    “You know more about such things than I.” Brandon paused for a moment and then turned to look at Kormak. Most of his face was hidden by the cowl of his cloak but Kormak could see he was chewing his moustaches. It was not something he had done back amid his people but it was a nervous tic Kormak remembered from their youth. “What would anyone be looking for up in those hills if it’s not tomb dust?”
    “The Death Lords were terrible magicians, sworn to the Shadow. They knew a great deal of dark lore. They made many powerful charms and artefacts. I’ve seen some for sale in Norbury and other places.”
    “You shop in some interesting places.”
    “I was not shopping.” The grin disappeared from the big man’s face as he worked out what Kormak had most likely been doing. “Sometimes scraps of Shadow and scraps of power cling to such things.