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to be had today.”
                  The smaller man gestured up to the hilltops at the other end of the plain.
                  “What do we do about them?”
                  The King turned, gazing up to the cheering rabble of followers that had trailed him the last weeks.
                  “Send them home, general.”
                  “Very good, sire.”
     
    ***
     
    The streets were quiet as the new King walked through his city, though his keen senses told him that he was being watched by fearful citizens that hid behind every door, every window, every backstreet alley.
                  He turned a corner, entering the Slave Market, his lip turning up into a snarl as hazy half-memories of distant, long-lost faces flickered in front of his mind’s eye. The centre stage was empty today, the bustling crowds absent, lonely silence filling the abandoned arena. He stroked his hand over the wooden post from which the auctioned slaves were tethered.
                  The Temple of the Ancestors lay just beyond the Market place, the tall, pagoda-like tower piercing the sky above the arena wall and the King strode, two-at-a-time, up the stone steps that led to the entrance.
                  The smell inside was dry, musty, the smell of stagnancy and mummification, the statues of long-dead Barbarian Kings and Warlords judging him from recessed alcoves in the walls as he strode down the echoing corridor that took him further into the building.
                  No sound could be heard in this resting place of the honoured dead, save his own heavy footsteps, but his sixth sense picked up the tell-tale emanations of spirit-craft at work from deep within the Temple and he knew he neared his quarry.
                  He reached a pair of heavy, brass doors, intricately wrought and painted with a fresco depicting a warrior-king of ancient times slaying a great serpent, his spiked armour tearing great gashes in the beast, even as it sought to entwine him in its coils.
                  He smiled to himself, before pushing the creaking door open and venturing into the chamber beyond.
                  The air was dimly lit and heavy with the scent of sweet incense.
                  This room was obviously used for worship, the central point being a raging fire with a stone altar set before it, four columns supporting the low-hanging ceiling, torches hanging in brass brackets from their outward facing sides, casting sinister flickering shadows that could have hidden any vengeful guardian, ready to strike down those who would defile this holy place.
    The Steppes-Folk venerated their ancestors, burning offerings and seeking their guidance in times of strife, but the whiff of darker sorcery told him that times had changed, that the defilement had already taken place.
    The girl was kneeling before the altar, her sleek form silhouetted in the firelight, the streaming glow rendering see-through the thin material of her airy robe. Before her, on the altar, a still-warm heart of unknown origin, sitting in a pool of its own spilled blood. Of the body, no sign.
    “I knew you’d return.” She spoke without even turning to see who it was, her voice cold.
    “And I knew that the new sorcerer would have to be you.”
    She rose, turning, the bloodied dagger from her sacrifice still clutched in her hand, and, though the years had caused her to blossom into womanhood, he could tell that it was her; the long raven hair, the soft skin, the dazzling blue eyes that glistened with an urgent need to inflict pain on the giant who stood before her.
    “Someone had to take over from my father,” Ceceline told him, her words melodious yet menacing, putting him in mind of a savage nymph from so long ago that he could barely remember where or when. “Just,” she added, with a smile, “as someone has to avenge