The hallucinatory visions of the dead sea continued for another three days, getting progressively weaker as they left it behind. By the evening of the third day, all that remained was the dappled effect of sunlight passing through illusory waves and the smell of salt, and during the fourth day since leaving the hills even these faded away and disappeared. Thomas tried to mark the point at which the last vestige of the Ghost Ocean left, staring at the waving grass for a glimpse of weed or the faintest image of a shell and sniffing for a trace of the scent of salt, but in the end he wasn't aware that they had finally left its area of influence until they were several miles outside it and he realised he'd been fooling himself with his vivid imagination. He turned to look back the way they'd come. I'll be back one day, he promised himself. One day, I'll come back and have a proper look at this place, perhaps try to go all the way to the centre to see what's there. One day.

     "We made it!" said Shaun thankfully. "Another few days and we'll be in Kenestra, back in civilization for a while."

     "Yes!" said Lirenna, her eyes gleaming. "And there's a nice hot bath just waiting for me. I can't wait to get out of these mucky clothes."

     "You can get out of them right now if you want to," said Jerry with a leer. Lirenna thumped him, knocking him, laughing, out of the saddle and into the long soft grass.

     "This is where we can make some time up on the enemy," said Petronax, ignoring the horseplay. "They won't dare go through Kenestra, they'll have to go around it, probably to the east, whereas we can go straight through. If they were delayed by the Ghost Ocean, as we were, we might even overtake them."

     "I wouldn't get too optimistic of that if I were you," warned Drake. "It is dangerous to underestimate the enemy. We must plan on the enemy getting to the lost city before us. What did you say it was called?"

     "Connistantol," said Petronax. "Yes, you're right, we must be realistic. That way, if we're wrong we'll be pleasantly surprised."

     They removed their rings of courage from their horses' manes and put them back on their fingers, and immediately the horses became jittery and frightened, stamping their feet nervously and rolling their eyes in all directions. Evidently, they weren't quite outside the Ghost Ocean's influence after all, but now that they were on its far side, it didn't matter. The horses wanted to go the same way they did, and so they let them run and they galloped gratefully south at top speed, intent on putting as much distance between themselves and the haunted land as possible. By the end of the day, the last trace of fear had left the horses, but they galloped on anyway, glad for the chance of a bit of exercise after nearly four weeks of slow, nervous trotting, only stopping in exhaustion as night fell and the yellow sun slipped below the horizon.

     As they made camp for the night, Thomas glanced apprehensively at the western horizon where the red sun, that had set a few minutes before, was still casting its blood red glow on the undersides of the wispy clouds that hung there. The solar conjunction, the time of year when the two suns were closest together in the sky, less than their own diameter apart, was now less than a month away, and a few days after that would be the first day of spring, the time when the Shadowhosts were thought most likely to launch their invasion. If the eight of them turned around and headed back towards Ilandia at top speed, they might just barely get there before the enemy, and yet their mission had only just begun. Would they find the Orb and get it back to Fort Battleaxe only to find it a pile of smouldering ruins?

     He knew Petronax was thinking the same thing, which was why he was constantly urging them on to greater speed. The young wizard had frequently seen him glancing up at the red sun and scowling as he saw how much closer it was to its much brighter twin. It would be a lot worse, he knew, after the conjunction, when he would watch the two suns grow further apart with mounting worry and anxiety, wondering whether the war had started and how his comrades were faring. Thomas sympathised with him, thinking of his parents, now in Tatria if Diana was to be believed, but not even the great fortress capital city would be safe if Fort Battleaxe fell.

     He thought of Shaun, Matthew and Diana who, he knew, were thinking of their family in the Overgreen Forest. Their parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts and, in particular, their little sister Katherine, only nine years old. How lucky I am to have my family in Tatria, he thought. What will their family do when the war starts? The same as they did the last time, he supposed. Retreat into the mountains, where half of them would die of exposure, malnutrition and attacks from mountain beasts before the war was over.

     He was interrupted from his gloomy thoughts by the shouts of the others, calling him over for something to eat. We mustn't fail, he thought as he went over to join them. We mustn't.

☆☆☆

     The next day, they began to see wild animals again. The sight of a wild rabbit, dodging out of their path as they galloped past and diving for cover, cheered them immensely, telling them that they were well and truly back in the land of the living, and soon they were surrounded by the full variety of wildlife. They saw flocks of birds crossing the sky and long necked goats using their long, prehensile tongues to carefully pull leaves from wickedly prickly thorn trees into their mouths. Long maned lions paced alongside herds of nervously prancing antelopes, and flocks of carrion birds picked the remaining scraps of flesh from the huge skeleton of a savannah hydra, its seven long necks still arched back across its body where they'd been pulled by the last stages of rigor mortis.

     The most awe inspiring thing they saw, though, was the great cloud of dust thrown up by a huge herd of bison in the distance. The whole horizon was darkened by it, like a thunderstorm about to blow in, and the ground rumbled from the pounding of thousands upon thousands of heavy hooves. They never came close enough to see the bison themselves, for which they were thankful, all of them knowing just how much chance they'd have had if they’d stampeded in their direction. Not all the spells of the wizards would save them, nor all the prayers of the clerics, and even urging their horses to their fastest gallop would have been futile because the bison of the Great Flat in full panic could outrun a horse easily.

     Feeling the ground rumbling under his feet as they stopped and dismounted for a moment to admire the spectacle, and seeing the dust rising with majestic slowness into the huge empty sky, Thomas felt himself shivering with a primal fear, the same fear that the first ancestor of man must have felt as he huddled in his cave during a crashing thunderstorm. He reflected that a herd of bison was similar to a thunderstorm in many respects. They were both forces of nature, and equally destructive and unavoidable if they came in their direction. If people were asked to list the most dangerous animals in the world, the wizard mused, they'd probably have named lions and tigers, dragons and basilisks, hydrae and crocodiles, but a herd of wild bison could trample even the largest land wyrm if it failed to get out of its path.

     They took a wide detour around the herd, just to be on the safe side, not even Petronax complaining about the delay. The worst danger they had to face wasn't animals or monsters, though, but people, and they were forcibly reminded of this two days later when they saw a column of about twenty horsemen riding across their path from east to west. They were obviously soldiers, because the two suns were gleaming on their helms and shields of real steel, but at first they thought they were part of the Royal Kenestran army and stopped to let them pass. When the soldiers saw them, however, they gave a shout and all but four of them turned towards them, spurring their horses into a gallop and drawing their weapons. "They're attacking!" cried Shaun, drawing his sword. "What do we do, stand and fight or run?"

     "Take the women to safety!" shouted Drake to Jerry and Thomas, dismounting and unslinging his great broadsword. "We'll hold them here!"

     "No way!" cried Lirenna indignantly. "We stick together, no matter what. You'll need a bit of magic to help even the odds."

     "Women have no place in battle," insisted Drake. "Fighting is men's work."

     "Too late now!" shouted Petronax. "Here they are!"

     They all dismounted and stood ready to meet their attackers. They would be at a disadvantage against mounted opponents, but none of them were good enough at fighting on horseback to want to risk doing so. On the ground they felt firm and secure, and self confidence was all important in battle.

     As the horsemen came into range, Jerry and Lirenna both cast sleep spells, bringing down half a dozen of them, and a pair of Thomas’s firebolts hit a seventh, killing him instantly. The three wizards then threw themselves to the ground as the others galloped past, swinging their weapons. Thomas didn't move quite fast enough, though, and there was a spray of blood as a mace caught him a glancing blow on the head. Lirenna screamed and Diana ran over to him, dodging another soldier who tried to catch her in a net.

     Drake killed a soldier with a single swing of his sword, the mighty blade slicing through both horse and rider like a butcher's cleaver. The other three fighters, though, could only jump aside as the riders charged past, their swords and maces hissing inches from their heads. The riders wheeled their horses around and came back for another pass and Drake got another one, but Matthew suffered a blow to his shoulder from a great iron warhammer, smashing his collarbone and sending him spinning to the ground in agony.

     Lirenna and Jerry cast another salvo of sleep spells, sending another five enemy soldiers into spell induced slumber, but then a rider she had missed threw a net over the demi shae and within seconds she was helplessly entangled in it. The rider swept her off her feet and pulled her up over his saddle, where he threw coils of rope around her arms and legs, jerking it tight and knotting it before throwing her back to the ground where she landed heavily, struggling to free herself.

     Drake could see they were losing, and would continue to do so as long as the enemy had the advantage of being on horseback. Got to get them down on their feet, he thought. He disemboweled the nearest horse, killed its rider as he fell with a single chop that almost cut him in two, and looked around to see if there were any more enemies threatening him at that moment. There weren't, he had a few seconds of free time before he was attacked again, so he reached into a pocket for his holy relics, finding a lock of hair taken from the body of a priest who'd died in battle some years before. He clutched it tightly in his hand as he bowed his head in prayer, and a moment later a surge of holy power from the God of War swept through him. The power manifested as a blinding flash of light and a deafening clap of thunder that panicked the horses, making them rear up and spill their riders before stampeding away.

     The enemy soldiers got back to their feet with impressive speed, but not before Shaun had run one of them through and Petronax had killed another. They were just beginning to think that things were turning in their favour, however, when some of the soldiers put to sleep by Jerry and Lirenna began to wake up, shaking their heads groggily and reaching for their weapons. One of the sleep spells must have been only partially effective and was wearing off prematurely. Damnation! thought Jerry in near panic. We've only got enough magic for two spells a day each, and one of them's a dud! He tried to reach Lirenna to free her, but was stopped by another enemy soldier and forced to defend himself. Lirenna, meanwhile, had managed to get her knife in her hand but, with her arms pinned to her sides, wasn't able to do much with it.