I PROLOGUE

      The Northlands, 1116

       ALBUS

      The opposite of Rubeus in all things, thus generally an omen for good. Yet when it falls into the House of Lead, pertaining to matters of war, it does signify days of air and darkness, and an evil upon the land.

       The Omenbook of Gwarn, Loremaster

      Under a starry night two men and a dragon camped by a river. Though the wind blew warm, the men had built a fire for light, and the great wyrm lay her head as close to it as she dared. The rest of her glittering body and folded wings stretched away into shadow. Well over twenty feet long, not counting the tail curled round her haunches, the greeny-black dragon kept raising her head to look about her and sniff the summer wind. On the opposite side of the fire sat a young man of the Mountain People, though he was tall for one of them at five and a half feet. He had high dwarven cheekbones and a flat nose, narrow eyes, shadowed under heavy dwarven brows, and his hair was a brown close to black, as was his close-cropped beard. Every time the dragon went on guard he would start up, then mutter a curse under his breath and sit again.

      ‘Rori?’ he said finally. ‘What be troubling the beast?’

      Rhodry Maelwaedd stopped his restless pacing and walked back into the pool of firelight. He was well over six feet tall but built straight from shoulder to hip, and his raven-dark hair and cornflower blue eyes marked him for an Eldidd man, even though that province lay hundreds of miles to the south, all the way across the far-flung kingdom of Deverry. Weather-beaten, grizzled, Rhodry was still a handsome man, and he looked human enough – at first glance, anyway.

      ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity you never learned the Elvish tongue, Enj. It’s the only thing she speaks.’

      ‘And where would I have come across elves, all the way up here? Well, before I met you, anyway.’

      ‘True spoken.’ Rhodry turned to the dragon and began speaking in the language of his father’s people. ‘What’s wrong? Do you smell trouble on the wind?’

      ‘What? No, not yet, anyway.’ The dragon’s voice rumbled and growled like a turning millstone. ‘But I like to keep a bit of a guard.’

      ‘Sensible enough, and my thanks.’

      She rippled her long wings, then rested her head on her coppery-green paws, though she kept an eye open to watch him. On the third finger of his right hand Rhodry wore a silver ring, a flat band inscribed on the outside with a design of roses and on the inside, with her true name.

      ‘Naught’s wrong.’ Rhodry sat down on the ground a few feet from Enj and spoke in the rough patois of Deverrian and the mountain tongue that they both could understand. ‘She’s just troubled, like we are.’

      ‘It’s been a miserable bad day, truly.’

      Rhodry laughed, a high mad chortle of a berserker’s howl that made Enj wince and the dragon raise her head to hiss like a thousand cats.

      ‘You must admit, Enj old lad, that you’ve a fine gift for understatement. You’ve lost home and kin both, and I’ve lost a woman I loved with all my heart and soul, and what do you call it? A miserable bad day. Well, truly, it was that, I suppose.’

      ‘My apologies, then!’ Enj snarled like the dragon. ‘But ye gods, what do you expect me to do? Orate like one of your wretched bards?’

      Rhodry wiped his grin away.

      ‘I’m sorry. Forgive me.’

      The two men stared at each other for a long moment; then Enj held out his hand. Rhodry shook it. His mouth set hard against mourning, Enj returned to watching flames dance along logs.

      Rhodry’s heavy sword belt lay beside him on the ground. He pulled a dagger free of its sheath and began fiddling with it, polishing the narrow blade on his sleeve holding it up to catch the light. When he flicked it with a thumbnail, the blade rang like silver, though it was as hard as steel. The dragon’s coppery eye followed every glint.

      Their camp lay in a broad valley where a river flowed through scattered pines and high grass. All round rose the mountains of the Roof of the World, in those days untrod and unsettled by either dwarf or man. Framing the valley, hills climbed, dark with trees, while beyond them rose the high peaks, their perpetual snow gleaming a faint silver in the light from the overarching stars. Down from the foothills the night wind brought them the sound of wolves howling on the hunt. Arzosah raised her massive head to listen.

      ‘They’re moving away from us,’ she remarked. ‘I do wish you’d sheathe that knife, Rori. It’s driving me daft, watching you play with it.’

      He smiled and closed one broad hand around its hilt.

      ‘You know,’ she went on, ‘if you need someone to hate, you could blame Evandar. I do.’

      ‘For what? The vanishing of Haen Marn?’

      ‘Nah nah nah. What do I care about your stupid island? It wasn’t my home. I blame him for the troubling of me.’

      ‘I should have known.’ Rhodry translated this exchange for the puzzled Enj, then turned back to her. ‘Well, if he hadn’t given me this little ring, you’d be all nice and snug, sure enough, lolling round in your fire mountain and chewing on a cow bone or two.’

      ‘Don’t mock! It’s bad enough you’ve enslaved me. Don’t mock me, too.’

      ‘Watch your courtesies when you speak to me.’

      She whined, rolling an enormous copper eye to the stars. He held up his hand to catch the firelight on the ring.

      ‘My apologies,’ she said. ‘You’re a harsh man, Rhodry Dragonmaster.’

      ‘I intend to stay that way and stay alive.’

      She whined again, flopping her head onto her paws. He glanced at Enj to find him utterly expressionless.

      ‘We should turn in,’ Rhodry said. Think you can sleep?’

      ‘Not without dreaming. Let’s let the fire burn a while.’

      ‘Very well.’ He looked at the dragon, who was quietly snarling to herself. ‘Still thinking of Evandar?’

      ‘Yes. If ever I find him again, I’m going to eat him. Munch crunch gobble gone.’

      ‘A fine sentiment, but I’m afraid you can’t really eat him. He doesn’t have a real body, not one made out of meat, I mean, like you and me.’

      ‘Just like him! The final cheat of all!’

      ‘A spiteful beast, isn’t she?’

      The voice came out of the dark beyond the fire. His dagger in hand, Rhodry scrambled to his