Though he was still a young man, time and experience had left the first faint imprints of maturity on Klane's face. He was no longer the callow youth who had fled from the ruins of Kalonia vowing vengeance on its destroyers. For two years he had lived as the consort of the princess Lucalle whom he had rescued from a monstrous alien abductor which had been keeping her prisoner in a crater on the moors of Ulumol. Now he was a minor prince amongst the Riders, honoured and respected with the story of the slaying of the creature and the freeing of its prisoners already spreading his fame. Yet though he had fine clothes, a comfortable home and a beautiful lover, he was not happy. Ever restless and impatient with the formal duties of his new role, he looked always outwards and his wanderlust was not sated. He still nurtured the craving for justice against his enemies which had made him change his name and promise to track them down to the ends of the Earth and he felt that whilst he dallied this goal receded from him. Perhaps if there had been children he would have let himself forget in time? Perhaps. But there were none. And seeing his unhappiness one windy day, Lucalle suddenly understood that they must part, for a little while at least and mayhap forever, before this sorrow turned to something worse and there was only bitterness and regret between them. So it was that Klane now found himself making for the site of the Great Burning across the bleak stony highlands of a strange land. The place to which he travelled was called Ironhope, a small town on the shores of a small lake. These were the last days of Ironhope. The law of the Vow of Earth had come down from the Enclaves. It would be the task of the assembled Rider tribes to raze Ironhope to the ground.