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Scaren race to wipe out the Mertians, their implacable enemy. Their battles had been unending, dating back since before the Eleven Kingdoms. A Scaren sorcerer somehow called up the Revenant and set it to battle, but in a cruel twist of fate, the Mertians summoned something to stand for them also. In the destruction that followed, both races were all but annihilated, leaving only a few scattered remnants. A strange mystical sect calling themselves the Acolytes of Varuun awakened the Sixth Waste and were able to entrap the two …’ Korbinian hesitated, as if unsure what word to use, ‘things and imprison them.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Korbinian admitted.
    â€˜Where?’ Slave pressed.
    â€˜Beneath the city that is now called Vogel, on the southern edge of the Sixth Waste.’
    Slave shook his head and looked down at the hard, icy ground beneath his feet. ‘Imprisoned? Not killed?’
    â€˜No, not even the Sixth Waste could kill such things as those.’
    â€˜What can?’
    Korbinian shrugged and gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘Perhaps the Seventh Waste, but how would I know? What do I look like, a Reader?’
    Slave considered that for a moment before nodding. ‘Yes, you do.’
    â€˜In my clan, I would normally have to challenge you for such an insult, but I have seen you fight. I think I will overlook it this time.’
    â€˜And me? What is my part in all this?’
    Korbinian sighed. ‘I don’t know that, either. Only our Tahir would have known that, and he is dead now.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜A few days ago. He woke screaming that the army of the Beq would arise from the earth and wreak chaos on the world. Naturally, we started to look for the hidden meaning in his words, but he was being literal for once. A small troop of Duregs tunnelled under our camp and killed him while he slept the next night. They all bore scars like yours and either had no left eye or wore a silver eye patch.’
    Involuntarily, Slave raised his hand to the silver orb that the creature beneath Vogel had given him, along with the scars and ‘his blessing’. At least now he knew what that creature was — the Great Revenant. Not that that knowledge meant much yet.
    Korbinian watched Slave’s hand, but looked away when Slave returned the look.
    â€˜The mark of the Revenant’s Beq,’ Korbinian muttered.
    â€˜What’s a Beq?’ Slave asked.
    â€˜Scaren warleader.’
    â€˜Am I Scaren?’
    â€˜Unlikely. They were all killed in the Gurrig, the great purge that followed the entombment of the Revenant.’
    â€˜What do you know about the Eye of Varuun?’
    Korbinian stared up at the grey sky and wrapped his thin clothes tightly around him as if warding off a sudden chill beyond the already bitter cold.
    â€˜She is a pureblood Mertian. Her mind is able to survive the insidious poison of the daven and interpret the Seeing, her visions. There are fewer and fewer left in the Eleven Kingdoms, so even such poor seers as us have become sought after for our weak visions.’
    â€˜And you had a vision of me?’
    Korbinian lowered his eyes and braved Slave’s silver eye for a moment. ‘Yes, our Tahir did, just as I told you. You are the Beq who comes before, who bears the mark of the Great Revenant, but follows it not. You will raise the Revenant’s Claw,’ he gestured at the weapon tucked into Slave’s jerkin, ‘and show its army the way. You released the Revenant, but you will be surrounded by peace.’
    Â 
    Korbinian’s clan walked close together, several paces behind Slave and Korbinian, talking quietly among themselves. They stripped everything from the slavers and left the bodies — and the wounded — to the elements. The clothes were shared among the women and children, the weapons among the men and the food carried by the two horses who had survived unhurt.
    They