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made from twisted grass, scattered about the place, all of them armed with twigs. And mummified animals: bats and mice.
    Kymon giggled as he saw my frown. ‘This is the Father Calling Place,’ he said.
    ‘Is it, indeed?’
    ‘My friend carved the ship with a piece of granite. I come here to think of my father. I call him home. He must come by sea in the end.’
    ‘He’s closer than you think,’ I informed him. ‘What was your friend’s name?’
    ‘He was a ghost boy. There are lots of them in Ghostland. He talked in a strange language, but I liked him.’
    ‘Back to the land of the living,’ I informed Kymon, and led the way back to the meadow.
    Munda’s closest friend was a younger girl, with spiky copper hair and green eyes, who answered to the name Atanta. The modronae were asked if Atanta could be taken with us as well. Munda was quite desperate to have her friend with her. The Mothers left it up to me. I looked at the younger girl, who waited so earnestly for my answer, and could not fail to agree. The Mothers seemed sad, but agreed that she could go.
    There was something strange about Atanta: down each of her temples ran a line of blue spots, status tattooes that contrasted with the scatter of freckles on her impish face. This design was new to me. She was not from Urtha’s land, or the land of Urtha’s neighbours, the Coritani, whose High King was Vortingoros. I had seen such markings before, but exactly where slipped my mind for the moment. I was concerned more for Kymon and Munda for the present.
    Atanta had packed a very clever sack: she had gathered a handful of elf-shot, those small stone arrow points which the earth disgorges, and had collected a quiver of thin ash shafts to which she might fix them. She had supplied herself for the journey, and for the unknown days ahead, with admirable efficiency.
    I made Kymon and Munda attend to their own supplies with equal care, but all either of them could think to bring were apples!
    The young Mother would take us back to the Nantosuelta. She seemed very frightened and I tried to persuade her that I could easily find my own way through the forest. But perhaps she was required to be our guide in this Otherworld, and what she did she did from necessity. And of course, I had not displayed my abilities with charm and enchantment; to the young woman I was a man of limited powers.
    We had no sooner reached the stream, a spear’s throw from the hidden sanctuary, than we were forced into cover. A long line of riders thundered along the ridge above us, heads low, cloaks flowing, the grey light glancing from their shields. They were a white-faced straggle-haired band, about thirty in number. When one of the horses slipped and brought its rider down, tumbling down the slope towards us, the rest carried on as if unconcerned. The ghostly man recovered from the fall, and dragged his complaining steed by the reins back to the ridge, remounted and continued towards the river.
    It was only then that I noticed Atanta lowering one of her elf-shot throwing arrows.
    ‘I could have stung him,’ she whispered. ‘I’m good with these darts.’
    And without waiting for a comment, she suddenly flexed her arm and sent the little weapon soaring towards the bleak ridge on the hill. To my amazement it seemed to float upon the air, and struck the earth where the riders had passed, quivering and remaining proud where it stuck from the turf.
    I was glad she had reined back her enthusiasm for a kill. She might have alerted the war band to our presence, though their neglect for their fallen friend suggested a more focused pursuit.
    The spirit boat was waiting for us, hidden among rushes. The war band had passed this way, the churned earth suggested as much, but they had not noticed the craft that lay concealed at the river’s edge.
    ‘Where do they cross?’ I asked the young Mother.
    ‘At the Ford of the Miscast Spear. It would take a long time to walk there. But it seems to be their