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every scrap of strength. He came to the temple daily for a time. Suddenly a very pious man when it looked like he might never again lift a sword. Sometimes I wonder how loud he screamed
when you crippled him for a second time. Medrin Sixfingers. Perhaps his punishment is finished now. But you? I never told them your name, just as I never told them his. The Eyes of Time searched
for you and found nothing. And when neither of you found the courage to step forward, the punishment fell on me alone. I was made as you see me because I wouldn’t betray your names. And
because of what we’d done.’
    ‘We did
nothing
!’
    ‘But we had intent. We should not have been where they found us.’
    Gallow looked away. ‘I shouldn’t have let you face them alone.’
    Beyard rattled and shook with grinding laughter. ‘Then we would
both
be men of iron. What difference would it have made? Besides, fate has its ways. Fate found Medrin without my
help. The Crimson Shield was at the bottom of the sea with the Moontongue by then and its other thieves long forgotten. What did fate find for you, Gallow the smith’s son?’
    ‘I crossed the sea,’ said Gallow. ‘I fought with the Screambreaker and after a time he named me Truesword. When it was done and Yurlak looked as though he was going to die and
Medrin would take his crown, I stayed behind. I meant to cross the mountains into Aulia to be as far away as I could be but I never even reached Varyxhun. Before I knew what had happened, another
eight years passed and I was a husband with a Marroc wife and a father with two sons and a daughter.’
    ‘Truesword. I heard that name but you’re Foxbeard now. I know about the Vathen and how you fought them and how you found the Screambreaker half dead and carried him back to Andhun,
how you sailed with Medrin to reclaim the Crimson Shield and how you and the Screambreaker stood side by side in his last battle against the Vathen. They say you killed him there and took Solace,
the red sword of the Vathen, from his hand as he fell.’
    ‘I took his sword when he fell but I didn’t kill him.’
    ‘No.’ A baleful look settled on Beyard’s face. ‘You turned on your own kind and cut off Medrin’s hand as the Vathen swept through Andhun. I know you threw yourself
into the sea and I know it was the Screambreaker himself who hauled you out of it, so I know you didn’t kill him and I know the the Vathen didn’t either.’ Another wet hack of a
laugh and Beyard cocked his head. ‘You were meant to come to us, Gallow. You were owed to us, you and Medrin both. Fate granted the Screambreaker a year and a day beyond what should have been
his death to bring you back to us. He’d earned it. He dragged you from the sea when you should have drowned and told you your fate, yet you refused it.’
    Gallow shook his head. ‘I remember his words, old friend: “It’s the nature of men like us to fight our fates.”’
    A coldness filled Beyard’s eyes. ‘I’m not your friend, Gallow. Not any more and not for many years. And you are Lhosir. You should know better than to turn against your
fate.’
    ‘I wanted to go home, Beyard.’ Gallow’s shoulders sagged. ‘To see my sons. To be with my wife. To make more. To work the fields and the forge. Simple honest things,
building a home. That’s all.’
    ‘But it was not your fate, Gallow.’
    ‘No.’ This time Gallow spat out a bitter laugh. ‘The Marroc fled Andhun in a hundred ships. It was a calm day, clear, a balmy sea. And then in the night a storm came and
scattered us and when the sun rose we were alone and lost, and ever since, with every step I’ve taken towards my home, fate has carried me ten away. Three years, Beyard. Three years and
I’ve crossed half the world.’ He looked around the cell, overwhelmed by despair. ‘And here I am. Three years. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. Or my children,
and if they are then they must certainly think I’m dead. She