“I asked about tattoos and dragons. I heard some interesting stories.”

“Tell me one.”

“A merchant from Saladar told me about an order of knights, sworn to oppose the Shadow, who bore such tattoos. He told me the order had fallen into darkness and become a cult of paid assassins.”

“You believe him?”

“Another man, a soldier . . . like yourself maybe . . . told me of a society sworn to fight the Old Ones. Their badge was a dwarf-forged blade. They grew rich and fat and extorted money even from the Kings of Men and eventually the kings turned against them and banished them. He said they still fight the Old Ones for money. And sometimes they even fight for the Old Ones when paid.”

Kormak wondered at the way stories mutated as they travelled. He supposed it was inevitable the way merchants gossiped and bards exaggerated.

“A wizard told me that the dragon was the sign of the Order of the Dawn, an organisation feared by all his kind. That they were implacable enemies of magic, hated mages like cats hate rats.”

“You think I am one of these men, these wizard haters?”

“You carry a very old sword. You have as many amulets as a wandering holy man. You look to be in your forties and you move like a man of twenty. And you have a lot of strange scars. What am I supposed to think?”

He looked at her steadily. Anger twisted her face. “Are you going to deny any of this?”

“Would it help if I did?”

“I don’t know. I do know this though . . . five years ago terrible things were happening here and when you went they stopped as if somebody had pulled a lever. And now, today, the city is going to hell in a hand-basket and suddenly you are here again, out of nowhere, in my bed.”

He put his arms around her. She seemed to want to say something more. “And?” he said as gently as he could.

“And I am afraid . . .” She reached out and pulled him hungrily to her before he could say anything more.

Chapter Three

IN THE MORNING, they went down to the kitchen.