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deep, ugly scars on his neck. There were dozens of them, making a ring clear around it, like a necklace. It looked as if he had been stabbed repeatedly with a dozen small daggers.
    Arren rubbed the scars without thinking, and sighed. He hadn’t seen another human in a very long time; neither of them dared go too close to inhabited areas. The trouble was that he was too recognisable, even on his own. Northerners were fairly common in Cymria, but not Northerners like him. No-one would look twice at a Northerner under normal circumstances; after all, slaves were hardly worth looking at. But a free Northerner—one without a collar or a brand—would attract attention straight away. Even if he managed to go on his way without being harassed, people would remember him. And then they would tell other people, and sooner or later a griffiner would hear about the wild-looking Northerner with the scar on his face.
    By now they all must know that he was a wanted man. The different griffiner-owned city states were not unified by a single ruler, but they were allies. Capturing and handing over a fugitive would be an excellent way to foster good relations with a neighbour, and no Master or Mistress of an Eyrie anywhere in the country would want to be discovered harbouring someone who had committed his crimes. Stealing a griffin chick was enough to warrant an immediate death sentence, but murdering a griffiner was a hundred times worse.
    Arren knew perfectly well that if he was ever caught he would be hideously punished, most likely tortured to death. Unspeakable things had happened to the few people found guilty of killing a griffiner. They had been burned at the stake, buried alive, starved to death, cut up and fed a piece at a time to vengeful griffins—punishments that would never be meted out to any criminal but the very worst and most hated of all.
    Why am I afraid? he thought, and not for the first time. Why should any of that scare me? I’m already dead .
    But he knew why. He could still be hurt. He could still feel pain. And if those things happened to him …
    Arren shuddered and held on to Skandar to reassure himself. The black griffin wouldn’t let anything happen to him, not while he could still fight. He had already saved Arren’s life several times. Whatever his faults were as a travelling companion, he would always protect his human partner.
    The only problem, Arren knew, was that they had nowhere to go. They were trying to reach Norton—a town that was part of Eagleholm’s territory—but Arren didn’t have a map or much idea of how to navigate. He knew it was north of Eagleholm, and indeed they had been heading north, or at least roughly north, but Arren had an unpleasant feeling that they were too far west. At this rate they would reach the Northgate Mountains before they got anywhere near Norton, and the idea of turning back from there wasn’t at all attractive. Skandar wasn’t much help, either; until their flight from Eagleholm he’d never flown anywhere outside of the Coppertop Mountains, where he was born, and he had no knowledge or experience of long-distance travel. He seemed content to fly wherever Arren suggested, apparently believing that his partner knew things and had skills he lacked.
    Arren could understand why; to Skandar, all humans had mysterious powers. And he, Arren, had had the power to capture him and put him in a cage and then take him to Eagleholm, where he had sold him to the Arena. In Skandar’s mind, Arren had the power to make cages, and therefore the power to unmake them. And he was the only human at Eagleholm the griffin had known back in his old home. Therefore, the black griffin had decided that Arren was the key to escaping and going home. He must have formulated a plan of some kind, though when and how Arren didn’t know.
    The punishment for stealing a griffin chick was death. But while waiting for his sentence to be carried out, Arren had been offered an alternative: volunteer