"Aumaz!" he cried. He caught my arm and tried to whirl me round at the same time as pushing me behind him. Naturally I stumbled and almost fell.
"What business has the Lord of Ill-Times with us?" cried Tomas, pushing me back towards the cover of the tree.
"My, my, Tomas Holyhands," said the voice of the Raven in the darkness, admiringly. "You are knowledgeable."
"What's going on?" I cried. "He wasn't hurting me, Tomas. I'm sorry about my brother, Ren Symon."
"Don't speak to him, Dion," said Tomas. "The living should not speak to those defiled by blood."
"It's too late for either of you," said the man. "Those people you spoke to at the border crossroads were not ordinary Wanderers, but a group of the Dead. And Enna Dion is most certainly defiled. She has killed two men."
By the Seven! He knew about Norval who I had obliterated in a moment of angry fire. And about that assassin. But how?
"How do you know that?" I cried.
He tossed back his cloak again. It flapped like the wings of a great black bird.
"I am the Raven," he said simply. "I know many things. Among them, I know that it is cold and I have travelled far and you have fire and food over there and yet you have not invited me to share it."
I could feel Tomas' tension beside me. He looked nervously around at the darkness.
"What are you doing here?" he said. I could not get over how unfriendly he was being.
"Just passing," said the Wanderer. "Calling upon Enna Dion who is an acquaintance. Don't be afraid, Tomas. If I wished to call down my hoards upon you, don't you think you would be already dead?" He turned and smiled at me and his eyes glittered in the moonlight. "I could not hope to take Enna Dion except by surprise."
And then he was moving past us and towards the fire.
Tomas looked anxiously back into the darkness and hurried after him pulling me behind him.
In the firelight I saw that, amazing as it seemed, it was indeed the same man who had spoken to me outside my hut. The same ancient boy's face. It was not that he was young. The skin stretched over his cheekbones was soft with age not youth and there were wrinkles around his eyes. He simply had a guileless quality about him like a boy does, except that his guilelessness seemed at the same time to speak of great cunning.
Hamel was already sitting up not showing any surprise at the sudden appearance of this strange Wanderer. He just watched. I suspected he was armed beneath the blanket round his waist, for I noticed that the sheath of his sword was empty. Parrus too was tensely awake.
I opened one of the packs.
"I remember you liked cheese."
"I dote upon it Enna Dion" said Symon. And I will have a little bread this time, if you have any."
He tore the pieces of bread and cheese off with long white fingers that reminded me of claws. He was a tall thin man, but he sat hunched in a way that disguised his size. His stance reminded me of a raven. Was he some kind of shape shifter? But I felt no frisson of magic in his presence.
"Who's he?" hissed Parrus in my ear as I sat down.
"I am the Wanderer Raven," said Symon.
"What...?"
"The Raven is the Wanderer war leader. A defiled bird of ill omen and destruction," said Symon calmly.
Parrus blinked.
"Surely the Wanderers don't ... They are a peaceful people. Everyone knows that."
"And that is what they would have you think. But since your people came to the peninsula, War bands have always existed among the Wanderers. They live separately from the families, so that they might not pollute them with their knowledge of violence. They are called the Dead, because only the dead should live among death."
"But a Raven is only ever elected to the Council of Six when the Wanderers are at war," said Tomas. He offered the Wanderer a cup of ale. "Are the Wanderers at war?"
"The Wanderers are moving to return to our homeland. We will fight anyone who dares to try and stop them."
"Surely you can rely on the Duke of Gallia to fight the way back into Moria?"
"No, Tomas Holyhands, you do not understand. We are going back to Ernundra, our true homeland in the place you call the Plain of Despair. We have been Wanderers long enough. Only the homeland can cleanse the sickness in our spirits and make us back into the Klementari."
"But isn't that place a wasteland?" I said, too fascinated to be formal with this obviously important person. "It's barren. Nothing lives there."
"Oh, things can be made to live there with enough work and power. That is not the point. It is our homeland. We should never have abandoned it. All this ... wandering, living like fairground fortune tellers, the exile, even from Moria, it is punishment for our wrongdoing. To be blessed again we must cease to be disloyal to our country. We must return to it."
It was difficult to know what to say to this.
"So what are you doing here?" asked Parrus. He too was fascinated, too fascinated to be his usual sarcastic self. "Won't they burn you for a witch?"
"If they can catch me. If they can spare the time from Duke Leon Saar. He will be across the border in a few days time. And they won't catch me before he comes. The Wanderers were once a great people, Parrus Lavella, though I know your kind doubt it. We still have the seeds of greatness in us. Once, the New people married us, became our allies and relied on our power. That time is coming again."
He stood and his shadow fell darkly over us.
"I thank you for your hospitality Enna Dion and look to the day when I shall be able to repay you."
He shrugged his great black cloak over himself and turned to Tomas who had risen with him.
"You are worried for your sister, Tasha. But you shall not have to worry much longer."
He stepped away from the fire, out through the branches and was gone.
"Raven," cried Tomas pushing out after him. "Tell me! Wait!"
But there was nobody out beyond the branches.
Tomas was searching around the tree. I stood looking out over the empty field still white with moon-light. A dark bird was flying low across the trees. Was that ... No. This was Moria under the Witch Hunters. Nobody could cast that kind of magic here.
"Impressive exit," said Parrus at my elbow. "Fellow should have been an actor. That was really peculiar. Where did he come from? And what did he come for?"
"He said he was passing by," I told him.
Just dropped in for a chat, did he? said Parrus wryly.
"It was as if he came to tell us those things," said Hamel. "He left when he finished."
"Do you think he meant it as a foretelling? What he said about not needing to worry about Tasha much longer?" said Tomas.
I caught Parrus grinning at Tomas's remark and scowled at him. He dropped his eyes discreetly, but I could tell the whole incident amused him. Typical superstitious Morians was what he'd be thinking now. I couldn't say I blamed him. I had heard of the Klementari and their powers as a child, but my foster father, even though he had been a Morian, had told me they were the stuff of legend, not something educated people believed in.
Yet when I lay down by the fire again, I could not sleep. I was conscious of a certain exhilaration. It wasn't just the way he had talked of returning to their homeland, of fighting anyone who attempted to stop them, though there was a sense of heroism in his words that caught my imagination. I felt as if I had seen something strange, as if I had been touched by the weirdness that is a proper part of magic but too often dispelled by the