Lord arrived at the Castle Keep a little before dawn, and nobody on the Keep ever knew he had been there.
Northern had seen to that. He had walked out through the western postern in the dark with a lantern and a lie about checking the sentries, and three miles beyond the wall, in a hollow between two ridges where the pines grew too thick for anyone on the ramparts to see through, he had put out the lantern and opened the Soul Forge.
Lord stepped out of it the way a man steps through a door.
He was as tall as ever, and as silent, turned toward Northern with that very slight tilt it always had, as though the face behind it were listening to something just under the floor. He looked around the hollow once, at the frost furring the pine needles and the grey light gathering above the ridges, and then back at his master.
"You called, Master."
"I'm bored."
Lord said nothing to that. The mask tilted a fraction further.
Northern sighed and rolled his shoulders.
