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strangely glorious, even in defeat. Despite all she had seen and done – and though it felt terrible to say so now – she had loved it. Magister-General Robler and his army had destroyed Rondelmar’s far larger armies in a series of remarkable victories that were now held up as textbook examples of warfare. Gyle’s Grey Foxes were heroes, kept hidden and fed by the villagers, and for a while victory had seemed possible, despite the odds. But promised aid from neighbouring kingdoms never came, the mysterious magi who had promised victory vanished, and the Noros legions were gradually isolated and surrounded. Vult’s army surrendered at Lukhazan, leaving Robler’s forces trapped in the high valleys as winter set in, where they perished in swathes until Robler surrendered.
    For Elena the post-Revolt period was traumatic. Normalcy was impossible after two years of danger so she had joined Gyle’s new company of mage-spies. Officially they provided protection services to the wealthy, but secretly their work was much dirtier: espionage and assassination. The Rondians wanted to root out the dissidents who had threatened to join the Noros Revolt, and suddenly she found herself on the other side, hunting for the enemies of the empire. For a while it bothered her, but she learned not to care. She went where Gurvon told her, killed the targets he gave her. Her conscience died and her heart became a lump of rock as she slit the throats of good men and murdered innocents who had been unfortunate enough to witness something dangerous. She became a constantly shifting set of lies and illusions; nothing mattered but the gold. Eventually everything led her here to the most lucrative job yet: to protect the Javon king and his family throughout the Crusade. It was just a protection role, and she could even use her own name, for the first time in years.
    It had taken time to remember that she was more than a weapon, but the children had broken her down, with their instinctive willingness to trust her, the genuine smiles they shared, the silly games that had reminded her how to laugh. Four years in which to feelalive once more, to realise that life was not just a marking of time. And now this …
    Wear your gems
…
    Damn! I
belong
here, Gurvon
…
    She sent the redwing on its way, putting its poisonous little message from her mind. She began to limber up for her morning work-out, her movements kicking up motes of dust that glinted in the streaks of light that cut through the otherwise shadowy chamber. The distant call of the Godsingers and the cawing of the crows faded as her concentration deepened. She stretched, spun, kicked and punched the air, working up a sweat as she twirled about the mechanism in the centre of the chamber. Finally she stopped, picked up a wooden sword that leant against the wall and turned to face the machine.
    ‘
Bastido, uno
,’ she said both aloud and with the gnosis, and the device came alive. Pale amber light sparked from beneath the helm, its four legs unfolded like a spider’s and the gnosis-powered mechanism crept forward with sinister grace. In each of its four ‘arms’ was a blunted weapon: a sword, a chain flail, a metal-studded mace and a spear-shaft. A small buckler hung beneath a helm that swivelled eerily to face her as she circled. Suddenly sword and spear lunged at once; she parried the blade with gnosis-shielding and the spear with her sword and the bout was on. For forty seconds she darted and lunged, parried and circled until she scored a hit on the helm and the machine lapsed into sullen stillness, though the visor still followed her, glowering like a smacked child.
    ‘Got you, Bastido,’ she panted. Most mage-born girls refused to take swordplay, and those who did were usually too delicate and flighty to last through the rigours of the training. But Elena had always been a tomcat, brought up in the country where she’d run wild. She had taken the cuffs and blows as she followed the