Dust of Dreams

Chapter Ten

It was the task of a pregnant woman’s sister or, if there were none, the nearest woman by blood, to fashion from clay a small figurine, its form a composite of spheres, and to hold it in waiting for the child’s birth. Bathed in the blood and fluids of the issue, the human-shaped vessel was then ritually bound to the newborn, and that binding would remain until death.

Fire was the Brother and Husband Life-Giver of the Elan, the spirit-god with its precious gifts of light, warmth and protection. Upon dying, the Elan’s figurine-now the sole haven of his or her soul-was carried to the flames of the family hearth. The vessel, in its making, had been left faceless, because fire greeted every soul in the same manner; when choosing, it favoured not by blunt features-which were ever a mask to truth-but upon the weighing of a life’s deeds. When the clay figurine-born of Water, Sister and Wife Life-Giver-finally shattered in the heat, thus conjoining the spirit-gods, the soul was embraced by the Life-Giver, now the Life-Taker. If the figurine did not break, then the soul had been rejected, and no one would ever again touch that scorched vessel. Mourning would cease. All memory of the fallen would be expunged.

Kalyth had lost her figurine-a crime so vast that she should have died of shame long ago. It was lying somewhere, half-buried in grasses, perhaps, or swallowed up beneath drifts of dust or ashes. It was probably broken, the binding snapped-and so her soul would find no haven when she died. Malign spirits would close in on her and devour her piece by piece. There would be no refuge. No judgement by the Life-Giver.

Her people, she had since realized, had possessed grand notions of their own importance. But then, she was sure it was the same for every people, every tribe, every nation. An elevation of self, blistering in its conceit. Believers in their own immortality, their own eternal abiding, until came the moment of sudden, crushing revelation. Seeing the end of one’s own people. Identity crumbling, language and belief and comfort withering away. Mortality arriving like a knife to the heart. A moment of humbling, the anguish of humility, all the truths once thought unassailable now proved to be fragile delusions.

Kneeling in the dust. Sinking still lower. Lying prostrate in that dust, pallid taste on the tongue, a smell of desiccated decay stinging the nostrils. Was it any wonder that all manner of beasts enacted the mission of surrender by lying prone on the ground, in a posture of vulnerability, beseeching mercy from a merciless nature: the throat-bared submission to knives and fangs dancing with the sun’s light? Playing out the act of the victim-she recalled once seeing a bull bhederin, javelin-pierced half a dozen times, the shafts clattering and trailing, the enormous creature fighting to remain standing. As if to stand was all that mattered, all that defined it as being still alive, as being worthy of life, and in its red-rimmed eyes such stubborn defiance. It knew that as soon as it fell, its life was over.

And so it stood, weeping blood, on a crest of land, encircled by hunters who understood enough to keep their distance, to simply wait, but it refused them, refused the inevitable, for an extraordinary length of time-the hunters would tell this tale often round the flickering flames, they would leap upright to mimic its wounded defiance, wide of stance, shoulders hunched, eyes glaring.

Half a day, and then the evening, and come the next dawn and there the beast remained, upright but finally, at last, lifeless.

There was triumph in that beast’s struggle, something that made its death almost irrelevant, a desultory, diminished arrival-no capering glee this time.

She thought she might weep now, for that bhederin, for the power of its soul so cruelly drained from its proud flesh. Even the hunters had been silent, crowding close in the chill dawn light to reach out and touch that matted hide; and the gaggle of children who waited to help with the butchering, why, like Kalyth herself, they sat round-eyed, strangely frightened, maybe a little stained with guilt, too, come to that. Or, more likely, Kalyth was alone in feeling that sentiment-or had she felt it at all? Was it not more probable that this guilt, this shame, belonged to her now-decades and decades later? And, in fact, that the beast had come to symbolize something else, something new and exclusively her own?

The death of a people.

And still she stood.

Still she stood.

Yet at this moment they were all sunk down into the grasses, up against boulders, and her face was pressed to the ground, smelling dust and her own sweat. The K’Chain Che’Malle seemed to have virtually vanished. Motionless, reminding her of coiled serpents or lizards basking on flat rocks, their hides growing mottled to mimic their immediate surroundings.

They were all hiding.

From what? What on this useless, lifeless ruin of a landscape could drive them to such caution?

Nothing. Nothing on the land at all. No… we are hiding from clouds.

Clouds, a dozen thunderheads arrayed in a row on the horizon to the southwest, five or more leagues distant.

Kalyth did not understand. So vast was her incomprehension that she could not even conjure any questions for her companions, nothing to send skirling up from her pit of fears and anxieties. What she could see of those distant storms told her of lightning, hail and walls of impenetrable dust-but the front edged no closer, not in all this time of waiting, of hiding. She felt broken by her own ignorance.

Clouds.

She wondered if the winged Assassin drifted somewhere high overhead. Exposed, vulnerable to rushing winds-but down here, the calm was uncanny. The very air seemed to be cowering, breath held, and even the insects had taken to the ground.

The earth trembled beneath her, a sudden barrage rolling in waves. She could not be certain if she was hearing that thunder, or simply feeling it. The shock set her heart hammering-she had never before heard such unceasing violence. Prairie storms were swift runners, knots of rage racing across the landscape, flattening grasses and hide tents, whipping flaring embers into the air, buffeting the humped walls of yurts. The howl rose to a shriek, and then died as quickly as it had come, and outside the lumps of hail glistened grey in the strange light as they melted. The storms of her memory were nothing like this, and the metallic taste of fear bit down on her tongue.

The K’Chain Che’Malle, her terrifying guardians, clung to the ground like rush-beaten curs.

And the thunder shook the earth again and again. Teeth clenched, Kalyth forced herself to tilt up her head. Dust had lifted like mists over the land. Through the brown veil she could make out incessant argent flashes beneath the bruised storm front, but the clouds themselves remained dark, like blind motes staining her eyes. Where were the spikes of lightning? Every blossom seemed to erupt from the ground, and now she could see the sickly glow of fires-the blasted plain was alight.

Gasping, Kalyth buried her head in her arms. A part of her sank back, like a bemused, faintly disgusted witness, as the rest of her trembled in terror-were these feelings her own? Or waves emanating from the K’Chain Che’Malle, from Gunth Mach and Sag’Churok and the others? But no, it was more likely that she was but witness to simple caution, bizarre, yes, and extreme-but they did not shiver or claw at the ground, did they? They were so still they might have been dead. As perfect in their repose as she-

Taloned hands snatched her up. She shrieked-the K’Chain Che’Malle were suddenly running, low, faster than she had thought possible-and she hung in the grip of Gunth Mach like a bhederin flank torn from a kill.

They fled the storm. North and east. For Kalyth, a blurred passage, nightmarish in her helplessness. Tufts of yellow grass spun past like tumbled balls of dull fire. Sweeps of bedded cobbles, sinkholes of water-worn gravel, and then low, flattened hills of layered slate. Stunted, leafless trees, a scattered knee-high forest, dead and every branch and twig spun with spider’s webs. And then through, on to a pan of parched clay crusted with ridged knuckles of salt. The heavy thump of three-toed reptilian feet, the heave and drumming creak of breaths drawn and then hissed loose in whistling gusts.

A sudden skidding halt-K’ell Hunters weaving outward, pace falling off-they had ascended a hill, and had come face to face with the Shi’gal Assassin. Towering, wings folded like spiked, barbed shoulders framing the wide-snouted head-the glisten of eyes above and below that needle-fanged mouth.

Kalyth’s breath caught-she could feel its rage, its contempt.

Gunth Mach’s arms sagged down, and the Destriant twisted to find purchase with her feet.

Kor Thuran and Rythok stood to either side, ten or more paces distant, heads lowered and chests heaving, swords dug point-first into the hard stony earth. Positioned directly before Gu’Rull was Sag’Churok, standing motionless, almost defiant. Unashamed, hide gleaming with exuded oils.

The bitter reek of violence swirled in the air.

Gu’Rull tilted his head, as if amused by Sag’Churok, but his four eyes held unwavering on the huge K’ell Hunter, as if not too proud to admit to a measure of respect. This was, to Kalyth, a startling concession. The Shi’gal Assassin was almost twice Sag’Churok’s height, and even without swords in his hands his reach matched that of the K’ell Hunter’s weapon-extended arms.

This thing was bred to kill, born to an intensity of intention that beggared the K’ell Hunters’, that would make the Ve’Gath Soldiers appear clumsy and thick.

She knew he could kill them all, here, now, with barely a lone drip of oil to mar his sleek, glistening hide. She knew it in her soul.

Gunth Mach released Kalyth, and she stumbled, needing both hands before she managed to regain her feet. ‘Listen,’ she said, surprised to find that her own voice was steady, if a little raw, ‘I knew a camp dog, once. Could face down an okral. But at the first rise of wind, or the mutter of thunder, it was transformed into a quivering wreck.’ She paused, and then said, ‘Assassin. They took me away from that storm, at my command.’ She forced herself closer, and coming up alongside Sag’Churok she reached out and set a hand against the Hunter’s flank.

Sag’Churok need not have moved to the shove she gave him-she did not possess the strength for that-but he stepped aside none the less, so that she now stood directly in front of Gu’Rull. ‘Be the okral, then.’

The head tilted further as the Assassin regarded her.

She flinched when his huge wings snapped open, and staggered back a step as they swept down to buffet the air-a minor thunder as if mocking what lay far behind them now-before he launched himself skyward, tail snaking in his wake.

Swearing under her breath, Kalyth turned to Gunth Mach. ‘It’s almost dusk. Let us camp here-every one of my bones feels rattled loose and my head aches.’ And that was not true fear, was it? Not blind terror. So I tell myself, words that give comfort.

And we know how useful those ones are.

Zaravow of the Snakehunter, a minor sub-clan of the Gadra, was a huge man, a warrior of twenty-four years, and for all his bulk he was known to be quick, lithe in battle. The Snakehunter had once been among the most powerful political forces, not just among the Gadra, but throughout all the White Face Clans, until the war with the Malazans. Zaravow’s own mother had died to a Bridgeburner’s quarrel in the One Eye Cat Mountains, in the chaos of a turned ambush. The death had broken his father, dragged him down to a trader town where he wallowed for six months, drinking himself into a state of such bedraggled pathos that Zaravow had with his own hands suffocated the wretch.

The Malazans had assailed the Snakehunter, until, its power among the Barghast shattered, its encampment was forced to fend on its own, leagues from Stolmen’s own. Snakehunter warriors lost mates to other clans, an incessant bleeding away that nothing could stem. Even Zaravow, who had once claimed three wives from rivals he’d slain, was now down to one, and she had proved barren and spent all her time with widows complaining about Zaravow and every other warrior who had failed the Snakehunter.

Rubbish littered the paths between rows of tents. The herds were scrawny and ill-kempt. Bitterness and misery were a plague. Young warriors were getting drunk every night on D’ras beer, and in the mornings they huddled round smouldering hearths, shivering in the aftermath of the yellow bitterroot they’d become addicted to. Even now, when the word had gone out that the Gadra would soon unleash war upon the liars and cheaters of this land, the mood remained sour and sickly.

This great journey across the ocean, through foul warrens with all those lost years heaving up one upon another, had been a mistake. A terrible, grievous mistake.

Zaravow knew that Warleader Tool had once been an ally of the Malazans, and if he had possessed greater influence in the council, he would have insisted that Tool be rejected-and more, flayed alive. His beget throat-slit. His wife raped and the toes clipped from her feet, so making her a Hobbler, lower than a camp cur, forced to lift her backside to any man at any time and in any place. And all of that, well, even then it would not be enough.

He had been forced to apply his own deathmask this day-his damned wife was nowhere to be found among the five hundred yurts in the Snakehunter camp-and he was crouched in front of the cookfire, face thrust to the rising heat to hasten the hardening of the paint, when he saw her appear up on the goat trail of the hill to the north, walking loosely-maybe she was drunk, but no, that gait recalled to him something else-in the mornings long ago now, after a night of sex-as if in spreading her legs she untied all the knots inside her.

And a moment later he saw, farther up the trail, Benden Ledag, that scrawny young warrior with the quick smile that always made Zaravow want to smash his even white teeth into bloody stumps. Tall, thin, awkward, with hands big as the wooden paddles used to pattern grain pots.

And, in a flash, Zaravow knew what those hands had been doing a short time earlier. And he knew, as well, the mocking secret behind the smile he offered Zaravow every time their paths crossed.

Not widows after all, for his wife. She’d moved past complaining about her husband. She’d decided to shame him.

He would make the shame hers.

This day, then, he would challenge Benden. He would cut the bastard to pieces, with his wife right there in the crowd, a witness, and she would know-everyone would know-that her punishment would follow. He’d take the front half of her feet, a single merciful chop of his cutlass, once, twice. And then he’d rape her. And then he’d throw her out and all his friends would take their turn. They’d fill her. Her mouth, the places between her thighs and cheeks. Three could take her all at once-

Breath hissed from his nostrils. He was growing hard.

No, there would be time for that later. Zaravow unsheathed his cutlass and worked a thumb crossways, back and forth down the cutting edge. The iron lived for the blood it would soon drink. He’d never liked Benden anyway.

He rose, adjusting his patchy bhederin half-cloak with a rippling shrug of his broad shoulders, and leaned the cutlass against the side of his right leg as he worked the chain gauntlets on to his hands.

His wife, he saw from the corner of his eye, had seen him, had halted at the last low ridge girdling the hill, and was watching. With sudden, icy comprehension. Hearing her shout back up the hill, he collected his cutlass and, mind blackening with rage, wheeled round-no, that rutting shit wasn’t going to get away-

But her screams were not being flung back at Benden. And she was still facing the camp, and even at this distance Zaravow could see her terror.

Behind him, other voices rose in scattered alarm.

Zaravow spun.

The bank of storm clouds filled half the sky-he had not even seen their approach-why, he could have sworn-

Dust descended like the boles of enormous columns beneath each of at least a dozen distinct thunderheads, and those grey, impenetrable pillars formed a cordon that was marching straight for the camp.

Zaravow stared, mouth suddenly dry.

As the base of those pillars began to dissolve, revealing-

Some titles were worthy of pride, and Sekara, wife to Warchief Stolmen and known to all as Sekara the Vile, was proud of hers. She would burn to the touch and everyone knew it, knew the acid of her sweat, the vitriol of her breath. Wherever she walked, the path was clear, and when the sun’s light cut upon her, someone would always move to stand so that blessed shade settled over her. The tough gristle that would make her gums bleed was chewed first by someone else. The paint she used to awaken her husband’s Face of Slaying was ground from the finest pigments-by someone else’s hand-and all of this was what her vileness had won her.

Sekara’s mother had taught her daughter well. The most rewarding ways of living-rewarding in the sense of personal gain, which was all that truly counted-demanded a ruthlessness in the manipulation of others. All that was needed was a honed intelligence and an eye that saw clearly every weakness, every possible advantage to exploit. And a hand that did not hesitate, ever, to deliver pain, to render punishment for offences real or fabricated.

By how she was seen, by all that she had made of herself, she was a presence that could now slink into the heads of every Gadran, vicious as a wardog patrolling the perimeter of the camp, cruel as an adder in the bedding. And this was power.

Her husband’s power was less subtle, and because it was less subtle, it was not nearly as efficient as her own. It could not work the language of silent threat and deadly promise. Besides, he was as a child in her hands; he had always been, from the very first, and that would never change.

She was regal in her attire, bedecked in gifts from the most talented among the tribe’s weavers, spinners, seamstresses, bone and antler carvers, jewel-smiths and tanners-gifts that were given to win favour, or deflect Sekara’s envy. When one had power, after all, envy ceased to be a flaw of character; instead, it became a weapon, a threat; and Sekara worked it well, so that now she was counted among the wealthiest of all the White Face Barghast.

She walked, back straight, head held high, reminding all who saw her that the role of Barghast Queen belonged to her, though that bitch Hetan might hold to that title-one that she refused, stupid woman. No, Sekara was known to all as its rightful bearer. By virtue of breeding, and by the brilliance of her cruelty. And were her husband not a pathetic oaf, why, they would have long since wrested control away from that bestial Tool and his insatiable slut of a wife.

The cape of sewn hides she wore trailed in the dust behind her as she traversed the stony path, slipping in and out of the shadows cast by the X-shaped crucifixes lining the ridge. It would not do to glance up at the skinless lumps hanging from the crosses-the now lifeless Akrynnai, D’ras and Saphii traders, the merchants and horsemongers, their stupid, useless guards, their fat mates and dough-fleshed children. In this stately promenade, Sekara was simply laying claim to the expression of her power. To walk this path, eyes fixed straight ahead, was enough proof of possession. Yes, she owned the tortured deaths of these foreigners.

She was Sekara the Vile.

Soon, she would see the same done to Tool, Hetan and their spoiled runts. So much had already been achieved, her allies in place and waiting for her command.

She thought back to her husband, and the soft ache between her legs throbbed with the memory of his mouth, his tongue, that made obvious his abject servility. Yes, she made him work, scabbing his knees, and gave him nothing in return. The insides of her thighs were caked in white paint, and she had slyly revealed that detail to her handmaidens when they dressed her-and now word would be out once again among all the women. Chatter and giggles, snorts of contempt. She’d left her husband hastily reapplying the paint on his face.

She noted the storm clouds to the west, but they were too distant to be of any concern, once she had determined that they were not drawing any closer. And through the thick soles of her beaded bhederin moccasins, she felt nothing of the thunder. And when a pack of camp dogs cut across just ahead, she saw in their cowering gaits nothing more than their natural fear of her, and was content.

Hetan lounged in the yurt, watching her fat imp of a son scrabbling about on the huge wardog lying on the cheap Akryn rug they had traded for when it finally became obvious that child and dog had adopted each other. She was ever amazed at the dog’s forbearance beneath the siege of grubby, tugging, poking and yanking hands-the beast was big even by Barghast standards, eight or nine years old and scarred with the vicious scraps for dominance among the pack-no other dog risked its ire these days. Even so, permitting the rank creature into the confines of the yurt was virtually unheard of-another one of her husband’s strange indulgences. Well, it could foul up that ugly foreign rug, and it seemed it knew the range of this unnatural gift and would push things no further.

‘Yes,’ she muttered to it, and saw how its ears tilted in her direction, ‘a fist to your damned head if you try for any real bedding.’ Of course, if she raised a hand to the dog, her son would be the one doing all the howling.

Hetan glanced over as the hide flap was tugged aside and Tool, ducking to clear the entrance, entered the yurt. ‘Look at your son,’ she accused. ‘He’s going to poke out the damn thing’s eyes. And get a hand bitten off, or worse.’

Her husband squinted down at the squirming toddler, but it was clear he was too distracted to offer anything in the way of comment. Instead, he crossed the chamber and collected up his fur-bound flint sword.

Hetan sat straighter. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I am not sure,’ he replied. ‘On this day, Barghast blood has been spilled.’

She was on her feet-noting that the hound lifted its head at the sudden tension-and, taking her scabbarded cutlasses, she followed Tool outside.

She saw nothing awry, barring the growing attention her husband garnered as he set out purposefully up the main avenue that bisected the encampment, heading westward. He still possessed some of the sensitivities of the T’lan Imass he had once been-Hetan did not doubt his assertion. Moving up alongside him, acutely aware of other warriors falling into their wake, she shot him a searching look, saw his sorrow stung afresh, his weariness furrowing deep lines on his brow and face.

‘One of the outlying clans?’

He grimaced. ‘There is no place on this earth, Hetan, where the Imass have not walked. That presence greets my eyes thick as fog, a reminder of ancient things, no matter where I look.’

‘Does it blind you?’

‘It is my belief,’ he replied, ‘that it blinds all of us.’

She frowned, unsure of his meaning. ‘To what?’

‘That we were not the first to do so.’

His response chilled her down in her bones. ‘Tool, have we found our enemy?’

The question seemed to startle him. ‘Perhaps. But…’

‘What?’

‘I hope not.’

By the time they reached the encampment’s western edge, at least three hundred warriors were following them, silent and expectant, perhaps even eager although they could know nothing of their Warleader’s intent. The sword in Tool’s hands had been transformed into a standard, a brandished sigil held so loosely, in a manner suggesting careless indifference, that it acquired the gravity of an icon-Onos Toolan’s deadly slayer, drawn forth with such reluctance-the promise of blood and war.

The far horizon was a black band soon to swallow the sun.

Tool stood staring at it.

Behind them the crowd waited amidst the rustle of weapons, but no one spoke a word.

‘That storm,’ she asked him quietly, ‘is it sorcery, husband?’

He was long in replying. ‘No, Hetan.’

‘And yet…’

‘Yes. And yet.’

‘Will you tell me nothing?’

He glanced at her and she was shocked at his ravaged expression. ‘What shall I say?’ he demanded in sudden anger. ‘Half a thousand Barghast are dead. Killed in twenty heartbeats. What do you want me to say to you?’

She almost recoiled at his tone. Trembling, she broke contact with his hard glare. ‘You have seen this before, haven’t you? Onos Toolan-say it plain!’

‘I will not.’

So many bonds forged between them, years of passion and the deepest of loves, all snapped with his denial. She reeled inside, felt tears spring to her eyes. ‘All that we have-you and me-all of it, does it mean nothing, then?’

‘It means everything. And so if I must, I will cut my tongue from my mouth, rather than reveal to you what I now know.’

‘We have our war, then.’

‘Beloved.’ His voice cracked on the word and he shook his head. ‘Dearest wife, forge of my heart, I want to run. With you, with our children. Run, do you hear me? An end to this rule-I do not want to be the one to lead the Barghast into this-do you understand?’ The sword fell at his feet and a shocked groan erupted from the mob behind them.

She so wanted to take him into her arms. To protect him, from all this, from the knowledge devouring him from the inside out. But he gave her no opening, no pathway back to him. ‘I will stand with you,’ she said, as the tears spilled loose and tracked down her cheeks. ‘I will always do so, husband, but you have taken away all my strength. Give me something, please, anything. Anything.’

He reached up to his own face and seemed moments from clawing deep gouges down its length. ‘If-if I am to refuse them. Your people, Hetan. If I am to lead them away from here, from this prophesied fate you are all so desperate to embrace, do you truly believe they will follow me?’

No. They will kill you. And our children. And for me, something far worse. In a low whisper she then asked, ‘Shall we flee, then? In the night, unseen by anyone?’

He lowered his hands and, eyes on the storm, offered up a bleak smile that lanced her heart. ‘I am to be the coward I so want to be? And I do, beloved, I so want to be a coward. For you, for our children. Gods below, for myself.’

How many admissions could so crush a man like this? It seemed that in these past few moments she had seen them all.

‘What will you do?’ she asked, for it seemed that her role in all of this had vanished.

‘Select for me a hundred warriors, Hetan. My worst critics, my fiercest rivals.’

‘If you will lead a war-party, why just a hundred? Why so few?’

‘We will not find the enemy, only what they have left behind.’

‘You will set fire to their rage. And so bind them to you.’

He flinched. ‘Ah, beloved, you misunderstand. I mean to set fire not to rage, but fear.’

‘Am I permitted to accompany you, husband?’

‘And leave the children? No. Also, Cafal will return soon, with Talamandas. You must keep them here, to await our return.’

Without another word, she turned about and walked down to the throng. Rivals and critics, yes, there were plenty of those. She would have no difficulty in choosing a hundred. Or, indeed, a thousand.

With the smoke of cookfires spreading like grey shrouds through the dusk, Onos Toolan led a hundred warriors of the White Face Barghast out from the camp, the head of the column quickly disappearing in the darkness beyond.

Hetan had chosen a raised ridge to watch them leave. Off to her right a massive herd of bhederin milled, crowded together as was their habit when night descended. She could feel the heat from their bodies, saw the plume of their breaths drifting in streams. The herds had lost their caution with an ease that left Hetan faintly surprised. Perhaps some ancient memory had been stirred to life, the muddled comprehension that such proximity to the two-legged creatures kept away wolves and other predators. The Barghast knew to exercise tact in culling the herd, quietly separating the beasts they would slay from all the others.

So too, she realized, were the Barghast scattered, pulled apart, but not by the malevolent intent of some outside force. No, they had done this to themselves. Peace delivered a most virulent poison to those trained as warriors. Some fell into indolence; others found enemies closer to hand. ‘Warrior, fix your gaze outward.’ An ancient saying among the Barghast. An admonition born of bitter experience, no doubt. Reminding her that little had changed among her people.

She looked away from the bhederin-but the column was well and truly gone, swallowed by the night. Tool had not waited long to set the league-devouring pace that made Barghast war-parties so dangerous to complacent enemies. Even in that, she knew her husband could run those warriors into the ground. Now that would humble those rivals.

Her thoughts about her own people, as the two thousand or so bhederin stood massed and motionless a stone’s throw away, had left her depressed, and the squabbling of the twins in the yurt only awaited her return before commencing once again, since the girls adored an audience. She was not quite ready for them. Too fragile with the battering she had received.

She missed the company of her brother with an intensity that ached in her chest.

The faintly lurid glow of the Jade Slashes drew her eyes to the south horizon. Lifting skyward to claw furrows across the breadth of the night-too easy to find omens beneath such heavenly violence; the elders had been bleating warnings for months now-and she suddenly wondered, with a faint catch of breath, if it had been too convenient to dismiss their dire mutterings as the usual disgruntled rubbish voiced by aching old men the world over. Change as the harbinger of disaster was an attitude destined to live for ever, feeding off the inevitable as it did and woefully blind to its own irony.

But some omens were just that. True omens. And some changes proved to be genuine disasters, and to stir sands already settled yielded shallow satisfaction.

When ruin is coming, we choose not to see it. We shift our focus, blurring the facts, the evidence before us. And we ready our masks of surprise, along with those of suffering and self-pity, and keep our fingers nimble for that oh-so-predictable cascade of innocence, that victim’s charade.

Before reaching for the sword. Because someone’s to blame. Someone is always to blame.

She spat into the gloom. She wanted to lie with a man this night. It almost did not matter who that man might be. She wanted her own method of escaping grim realities.

One thing she would never play, however, was that game of masks. No, she would meet the future with a knowing look in her eye, unapologetic, yet defying the prospect of her own innocence. No, be as guilty as everyone else, but announce the admission with bold courage. She would point no fingers. She would not reach for her weapons blazing with the lie of retribution.

Hetan found she was glaring at those celestial tears in the sky.

Her husband wanted to be a coward. So weakened by his love for her, for the children they shared, he would break himself to save them. He had, she realized, virtually begged her for permission to do just that. She had not been ready for him. She had failed in understanding what he sought from her.

Instead, I just kept asking stupid questions. Not understanding how each one tore out the ground beneath him. How he stumbled, how he fell again and again. My idiotic questions, my own selfish need to find something solid under my own feet-before deciding, before making bold judgement.

She had unknowingly cornered him. Refused his cowardice. She had, in fact, forced him out into that darkness, into leading his warriors to a place of truths-where he would seek to frighten them but already knowing-as she did-that he would fail.

And so we have our wish. We go to war.

And our Warleader stands alone in the knowledge that we will lose. That victory is impossible. Will he command with any less vigour? Will he slow the sword in his hands, knowing all that he knows?

Hetan bared her teeth with fierce, savage pride, and spoke to the jade talons in the sky. ‘He will not.’

They emerged in darkness, and a moment later relief flooded through Setoc. The blurred, swollen moon, the faint green taint limning the features of Torrent and Cafal, casting that now familiar sickly sheen on the metal fittings of the horse’s bit and saddle. Yet the skirl of stars overhead seemed twisted, subtly pushed-and it was a few heartbeats before she recognized constellations.

‘We are far to the north and east,’ said Cafal. ‘But not insurmountably so.’

The ghosts from the other realm had flooded the plain, flowing outward and growing ever more ephemeral, finally vanishing entirely from her senses. She felt that absence with a deepening anguish, a sense of loss warring with pleasure at their salvation. Living kin awaited many of them, but not, she was certain, all. There had been creatures in that other world’s past unlike anything she had seen or even heard of-limited as her experience was, to be sure-and they would find themselves as lost in this world as in the one they had fled.

A vast empty plain surrounded them, flat as an ancient seabed.

Torrent swung himself back into the saddle. She heard him sigh. ‘Tell me, Cafal, what do you see?’

‘It’s night-I can’t see much. We are on the northern edge of the Wastelands, I think. And so, around us, there is nothing.’

Torrent grunted, clearly amused by something in the Barghast’s reply.

Cafal nosed the bait. ‘What makes you laugh? What do you see, Torrent?’

‘At the risk of melodrama,’ he said, ‘I see the landscape of my soul.’

‘It is an ancient one,’ Setoc mused, ‘which makes you old inside, Torrent.’

‘The Awl dwelt here hundreds of generations ago. My ancestors looked out upon this very plain, beneath these same stars.’

‘I am sure they did,’ acknowledged Cafal. ‘As did mine.’

‘We have no memory of you Barghast, but no matter, I will not gainsay your claims.’ He paused for a time, and then spoke again, ‘it would not have been so empty back then, I imagine. More animals, wandering about. Great beasts that trembled the ground.’ He laughed again, but this time it was bitter. ‘We emptied it and called that success. Fucking unbelievable.’

With that he reached down to Setoc.

She hesitated. ‘Torrent, where will you ride from here?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It didn’t before. But I believe it does now.’

‘Why?’

She shook her head. ‘Not for you-I see nothing of the path awaiting you. No. For me. For the ghosts I have brought to this world. I am not yet quit of them. Their journey remains incomplete.’

He lowered his hand and studied her in the gloom. ‘You hold yourself responsible for their fate.’

She nodded.

‘I will miss you, I think.’

‘Hold a moment,’ said Cafal, ‘both of you. Setoc, you cannot wander off all alone-’

‘Have no fear,’ she cut in, ‘for I will accompany you.’

‘But I must return to my people.’

‘Yes.’ But she would say no more. She was home to a thousand hearts, and that blood still ran sizzling like acid in her soul.

‘I shall run at a pace you cannot hope to match-’

Setoc laughed. ‘Let us play this game, Cafal. When you catch up to me, we shall rest.’ She turned to Torrent. ‘I shall miss you as well, warrior, last of the Awl. Tell me, of all the women who hunted you, was there one you would have let snare Torrent of the Awl?’

‘None other than you, Setoc… in about five years from now.’

Flashing a bright smile at Cafal, she set off, fleet as a hare.

The Barghast grunted. ‘She cannot maintain such a pace for long.’

Torrent gathered his reins. ‘The wolves howl for her, Warlock. Chase her down, if you can.’

Cafal eyed the warrior. ‘Your last words to her,’ he said in a low voice, and then shook his head. ‘No matter, I should not have asked.’

‘But you didn’t,’ Torrent replied.

He watched Cafal find his loping jog, long legs taking him swiftly into Setoc’s wake.

The city seethed. Unseen armies struggled against the ravages of decay, gathered in unimaginable numbers to wage pitched battles with neglect. Leaderless and desperate, legions massing barely a mote of dust sent out scouts ranging far from the well-travelled tracks, into the narrowest of capillaries threading senseless stone. One such scout found a Sleeper, curled and motionless-almost lifeless-in a long abandoned rest chamber in the beneath-the-floor level of Feed. A drone, forgotten, mind so somnolent that the Shi’gal Assassin that had last stalked Kalse Rooted had not sensed its presence, thus sparing it from the slaughter that had drenched so many other levels.

The scout summoned kin and in a short time a hundred thousand soldiers swarmed the drone, forming sheets of glistening oil upon its scaled hide, seeping potent nectars into the creature’s body.

A drone was a paltry construct, difficult to work with, an appalling challenge to physically transform, to awaken with the necessary intelligence required to take command. A hundred thousand quickly became a million, and then a hundred million, soldiers dying once used up, hastily devoured by kin that then birthed anew, in new shapes with altered functions.

The drone’s original purpose had been as an excretor, producing an array of flavours to feed newborn Ve’Gath to increase muscle mass and bone density. It was fed in turn by armies serving the Matron as they delivered her commands-but this Matron had been late in the breeding of Ve’Gath. She had produced fewer than three hundred before the enemy manifested and battle was joined. The drone, therefore, was far from exhausted. This potential alone gave purpose to the efforts of the unseen armies, but the desperation belonged to another cause-exotic flavours now marred Kalse Rooted. Strangers had invaded and had thus far proved insensible to all efforts at conjoining.

At long last the drone stirred. Two newborn eyes opened, seven distinct lids peeling back in each one, and a mind that had known only darkness-for excretors had no need for sight-suddenly looked upon a realm both familiar and unknown. Old senses merged with the new ones, quickly reconfiguring the world. Lids flickered up and down, constructing an ever more complete comprehension-heat, current, charge, composition-and many more, few of which the ghost understood beyond vague, almost formless notions.

The ghost, who did not even know his own name, had been drawn away from his mortal companions, swept along on currents that none of them could sense-currents that defied his own efforts at description. In helpless frustration, he settled upon the familiar concepts of armies, legions, scouts, battles and war, though he knew that none of these was correct. Even to attribute life to such minuscule entities was quite probably wrong; and yet they conveyed meaning to him, or perhaps he was simply capable of stealing knowledge from the clamouring host of instructions that raced through all of Kalse Rooted in a humming buzz too faint for mortal ears.

And now he found himself looking down upon a drone, a K’Chain Che’Malle unlike any he had ever seen before. No taller than a grown male human, thin-limbed, with a mass of tentacles instead of fingers at the ends of those arms. The broad head bulged behind the eyes, and at the base of the skull. The slash of a mouth was that of a lizard, lined with multiple rows of fine, sharp fangs. The colour of the two large, oversized eyes was a soft brown.

He watched it twitch for a time, knowing the creature was simply exploring the extent of its transformation, unfurling its ungainly limbs, turning its head from side to side in rapid flickers as it caught new and strange flavours. He saw then its growing agitation, its fear.

The smell of unknown invaders. The drone was able to gather, enclose and then discard the information that belonged to feral orthen and grishol; and this permitted it to isolate the location of the invaders. Alive, yes. Distant, discordant sounds, multiple breaths, soft feet on the floor, fingers brushing mechanisms.

The flavours the drone had once fed to Ve’Gath were now turned upon itself. In time, it would increase in size and strength. If the strangers had not departed by then, the drone would have to kill them.

The ghost struggled against panic. He could not warn them. This creature, so flush now with necessities and enormous tasks-the great war against the deterioration of Kalse Rooted, the ghost assumed-could not but see the clumsy explorations of Taxilian, Rautos and the others as a threat. To be eradicated.

The drone, named Sulkit-this being a name derived from birth-month and status, indeed a name once shared by two hundred identical drones-now rose on its hind limbs, thin, prehensile tail slithering across the floor. Oils dripped from its slate-grey hide, pooled and then quickly vanished as the unseen army, emboldened, purified and enlivened by the commander it had itself created, dispersed to renew its war.

And the ghost withdrew, raced back to his companions.

‘If this was a mind,’ said Taxilian, ‘it has died.’ He ran his hand along the sleek carapace, frowning at the ribbons of flexible, clear glass rippling out from the iron dome. Was something flowing through that glass? He could not be certain.

Rautos rubbed his chin. ‘Truly, I do not see how you can tell,’ he said.

‘There should be heat, vibration. Something.’

‘Why?’

Taxilian scowled. ‘Because that would tell us it’s working.’

Breath barked a laugh behind them. ‘Does a knife talk? Does a shield drum? You’ve lost your mind, Taxilian. A city only lives when people are in it, and even then it’s the people doing the living, not the city.’

In the chamber they had just left, Sheb and Nappet bickered as they cleared rubbish from the floor, making room for everyone to sleep. They had climbed level after level and, even now, still more waited above them. But everyone was exhausted. A dozen levels below, Last had managed to kill a nest of orthen, which he had skinned and gutted, and he was now arranging the six scrawny carcasses on skewers, while off to one side bhederin dung burned in a stone quern, the fire’s heat slowly driving back the chilly, lifeless air. Asane was preparing herbs to feed into a tin pot filled with fresh water.

Bewildered, the ghost drifted among them.

Breath strode back into the chamber, eyes scanning the floor. ‘Time,’ she said, ‘for a casting of the Tiles.’

Anticipation fluttered through the ghost, or perhaps it was terror. He felt himself drawn closer, staring avidly as she drew out her collection of Tiles. Polished bone? Ivory? Glazed clay? All kinds, he realized, shifting before his eyes.

Breath whispered, ‘See? Still young. So much, so much to decide.’ She licked her lips, her hands twitching.

The others drew closer, barring Taxilian who had remained in the other room.

‘I don’t recognize none of them,’ said Sheb.

‘Because they’re new,’ snapped Breath. ‘The old ones are dead. Useless. These’-she gestured-‘they belong to us, just us. For now. And the time has come to give them their names.’ She raked them together in a clatter, scooped them up and held the Tiles in the enclosed bowl of her hands.

The ghost could see her flushed face, the sudden colour making her skin almost translucent, so that he could discern the faint cage of bones beneath. He saw her pulse through the finest vessels in her flesh, the rush and swish of blood in their eager circuit. He saw the sweat beading on her high brow, and the creatures swimming within it.

‘First,’ she said, ‘I need to remake some old ones. Give them new faces. The names may sound like ones you’ve heard before, but these are new anyway.’

‘How?’ demanded Sheb, still scowling. ‘How are they new?’

‘They just are.’ She sent the Tiles on to the floor. ‘No Holds, you see? Each one is unaligned, all of them are unaligned. That’s the first difference.’ She pointed. ‘Chance-Knuckles-but see how it’s at war with itself? That’s the truth of Chance right there. Fortune and Misfortune are mortal enemies. And that one: Rule-no throne, thrones are too obvious.’ She flipped that Tile. ‘And Ambition on the other side-they kill each other, you see?’ She began flipping more Tiles. ‘Life and Death, Light and Dark, Fire and Water, Air and Stone. Those are the old ones, remade.’ She swept those aside, leaving three remaining Tiles. ‘These are the most potent. Fury, and on its opposite side, Starwheel. Fury is just what it says. Blind, a destroyer of everything. Starwheel, that’s Time, but unravelled-’

‘Meaning what?’ Rautos asked, his voice strangely tight, his face pale.

Breath shrugged. ‘Before and after are meaningless. Ahead and behind, then and soon, none of them mean anything. All those words that try to force order and, uh, sequence.’ She shrugged again. ‘You won’t see Starwheel in the castings. You’ll just see Fury.’

‘How do you know?’

Her smile was chilling. ‘I just do.’ She pointed at the second to last Tile. ‘Root, and on the other side, Ice Haunt-they both seek the same thing. You get one or the other, never both. This last one, Blueiron there, that’s the sorcery that gives life to machines-it’s still strong in this place, I can feel it.’ She turned the Tile on to its other side. ‘Oblivion. Ware this one, it’s a curse. A demon. It eats you from the inside out. Your memories, your self.’ She licked her lips once more, this time nervously. ‘It’s very strong right now. And getting stronger… someone’s coming, someone’s coming to find us.’ She hissed suddenly and swept up the last Tiles. ‘We need-we need to feed Blueiron. Feed it!’

Taxilian spoke from the doorway. ‘I know, Breath. It is what I am trying to do.’

She faced him, teeth bared. ‘Can you taste this place?’

‘I can.’

From one side Asane whimpered, and then flinched as Nappet lashed out a foot to kick her. He would have done more but Last interposed himself between the two, arms crossed, eyes flat. Nappet sneered and turned away.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Rautos. ‘I taste nothing-nothing but dust.’

‘It wants our help,’ Taxilian announced.

Breath nodded.

‘Only I don’t know how.’

Breath held up a knife. ‘Open your flesh. Let the taste inside, Taxilian. Let it inside.’

Was this madness, or the only path to salvation? The ghost did not know. But he sensed a new flavour in the air. Excitement? Hunger? He could not be certain.

But Sulkit was on its way. Still gaunt, still weak. On its way, then, not to deliver slaughter.

The flavour, the ghost realized, was hope.

Some roads, once set out upon, reveal no possible path but forward. Every other track is blocked by snarls of thorns, steaming fissures or rearing walls of stone. What waits at the far end of the forward path is unknown, and since knowledge itself may prove a curse, the best course is simply to place one foot in front of the other, and think not at all of fate or the cruel currents of destiny.

The seven or eight thousand refugees trudging in Twilight’s wake were content with ignorance, even as darkness closed in as inexorable as a tide, even as the world to either side of the Road of Gallan seemed to lose all substance, fragments drifting away like discarded memories. Linked one to another by ropes, strands of netting, torn strips of cloth and hide-exhausted but still alive, far from terrible flames and coils of smoke-they need only follow their Queen.

Most faith was born of desperation, Yan Tovis understood that much. Let them see her bold, sure strides on this stony road. Let them believe she had walked this path before, or that by virtue of noble birth and title, she was cloaked with warm, comforting knowledge of the journey they had all begun, this flowing river of blood. My blood.

She would give them that comfort. And hold tight to the truth that was her growing terror, her surges of panic that left her undergarments soaked with chill sweat, her heart pounding like the hoofs of a fleeing horse-no, they would see none of that. Nothing to drive stark fear into them, lest in blind horror the human river spill out, pushed off the road, and in screams of agony find itself shredded apart by the cold claws of oblivion.

No, best they know nothing.

She was lost. The notion of finding a way off this road, of returning to their own world, now struck her as pathetically naive. Her blood had created a gate, and now its power was thinning; with each step she grew weaker, mind wandering as if stained with fever, and even the babble of Pully and Skwish behind her was drifting away-their wonder, their pleasure at the gifts of Twilight’s blood had grown too bitter to bear.

Old hags no longer. Youth snatched back, the sloughing away of wrinkles, dread aches, frail bones-the last two witches of the Shake danced and sung as if snake-bitten, too filled with life to even take note of the dissolution closing in on all sides, nor their Queen’s slowing pace, her drunken weaving on the road. They were too busy drinking her sweet blood.

Forward. Just walk. Yedan warned you, but you were too proud to listen. You thought only of your shame. Your brother, Witchslayer. And, do not forget, your guilt. At the brutal reprieve he gave you. His perfect, logical solution to all of your problems.

The Watch is as he must be. Yet see how you hated his strength-but it was nothing more than hating your own weakness. Nothing more than that.

Walk, Yan Tovis. It’s all you need do-

With the sound of a sundered sail, the world tore itself wide open. The road dropped from beneath the two witches, then thundered and cracked like a massive spine as it slammed down atop rolling hills. Dust shot skyward, and sudden sunlight blazed down with blinding fire.

Pully staggered to where Twilight had collapsed, seeing the spatters of blood brown and dull on the road’s cracked, broken surface. ‘Skwish, y’damned fool! We was drunk! Drunk on ’er an now ye look!’

Skwish dragged herself loose from the half-dozen Shake who had tumbled into her. ‘Oh’s we in turble now-this anna Gallan! It’s the unnerside a Gallan! The unnerside! Iz she yor an dead, Pully? Iz she?’

‘Nearby, Skwish, nearby-she went on too long-we shoulda paid attention. Kept an eye on ’er.’

‘Get ’er back, Pully! We can’t be ’ere. We can’t!’

As the two now young women knelt by Yan Tovis, the mass of refugees was embroiled in its own chaotic recovery. Broken limbs, scattered bundles of possessions, panicked beasts. The hills flanking the road were denuded, studded with sharp outcrops. Not a tree in sight. Through the haze of dust, now drifting on the wind, the sky was cloudless-and there were three suns.

Yedan Derryg scanned his troop of soldiers, was satisfied that none had suffered more than bruises and scrapes. ‘Sergeant, attend to the wounded-and stay on the road-no one is to leave it.’

‘Sir.’

He then set out, picking his way round huddled refugees-wide-eyed islanders silent with fear, heads lifting and turning to track his passage. Yedan found the two captains, Pithy and Brevity, directing one of their makeshift squads in the righting of a toppled cart.

‘Captains, pass on the command for everyone to stay on the road-not a single step off it, understood?’

The two women exchanged glances, and then Pithy shrugged. ‘We can do that. What’s happened?’

‘It was already looking bad,’ Brevity said, ‘wasn’t it?’

‘And now,’ added Pithy, ‘it’s even worse. Three suns, for Errant’s sake!’

Yedan grimaced. ‘I must make my way to the front of the column. I must speak with my sister. I will know more when I return.’

He continued on.

The journey was cruel, as the Watch could not help but observe the wretched state of the refugees, islanders and Shake alike. He well comprehended the necessity of leaving the shore, and the islands. The sea respected them no longer, not the land, not the people clinging to it. His sister had no choice but to take them away. But she was also leading them. Ancient prophecies haunted her, demanding dread sacrifices-but her Shake were poor creatures for the most part. They did not belong in legends, in tales of hard courage and resolute defiance-he’d seen as much in the faces of the witches and warlocks he’d cut down. And he saw the same here, as he threaded through the crowds. The Shake were a diminished people, in numbers, in spirit. Generation upon generation, they had made themselves small, as if meekness was the only survival strategy they understood.

Yedan Derryg did not know if they were capable of rising again.

The islanders, he mused, might well prove more competent than the Shake, if Pithy and Brevity were any measure. He could use them. Letherii understood the value of adaptability, after all. And since these were the ones who had chosen Yan Tovis as their Queen, he could exploit that loyalty.

They needed an army. The two captains were right. And they were looking to him to lead it. That seemed plain enough. His task now was to convince his sister.

Of course, their paramount need at the moment was to leave this place. Before its residents found them.

Pushing clear of the last huddle of refugees he saw that a perimeter of sorts had been established by-he noted with a frown-two young women and a half-dozen Shake youths armed with fishing spears. The women were busy scratching furrows in the road with antler picks, spirals and wavy circles-fashioning wards, Yedan realized with a start-in the gap between the guards and a small tent surrounded by a rough palisade of carved poles.

Witching poles. Yedan Derryg walked up to the guards, who parted to let him pass-saving him the effort of beating the fools senseless-and halted before the women. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ he demanded. ‘Such rituals belong to Elder Witches, not their apprentices-where is my sister? In the tent? Why?’

The woman closest to him, curvaceous beneath her rags, her black hair glistening in the sunlight, placed two fingers beneath her large, dark eyes, and then smiled. ‘The Watch sees but remains blind, an yer blind an blind.’ Then she laughed.

Yedan narrowed his gaze, and then shot the other woman a second look.

This one straightened from etching the road. She lifted her arms as if to display herself-the tears and holes in her shirt revealing smooth flesh, the round fullness of her breasts. ‘Hungry, Witchslayer?’ She ran a hand through her auburn hair and then smiled invitingly.

‘See what her blood done t’us?’ the first one exclaimed. ‘Ya didn’t nearby kill us. Leff the two a us, an that made us rich wi’ ’er power, and see what it done?’

Yedan Derryg slowly scowled. ‘Pully. Skwish.’

Both women pranced the opening steps to the Shake Maiden Dance.

Growling under his breath, he walked between them, taking care not to scrape the patterns cut into the packed earth of the road.

The one he took to be Pully hurried up to his side. ‘Careful, ya fat walrus, these are highest-’

‘Wards. Yes. You’ve surrounded my sister with them. Why?’

‘She’s sleepin-don’t asturb ’er.’

‘I am the Watch. We need to speak.’

‘Sleeps!’

He halted, stared at the witch. ‘Do you know where we are?’

‘Do you?’

Yedan stared at her. Saw the tremor behind her eyes. ‘If not,’ he said, ‘the hold of the Liosan, then a neighbouring realm within their demesne.’

Pully flinched. ‘The Watch sees and is not blind,’ she whispered.

As he moved to continue to the tent the witch snapped out a hand to stay him. ‘Lissen. Not sleep. Nearby a coma-she didn’t know to slow ’er own blood, just let it pour out-nearby killt ’er.’

He ground his teeth, chewed silently for a moment, and then asked, ‘You bound her wounds?’

‘We did,’ answered Skwish behind them. ‘But mebbe we was too late-’

‘Too busy dancing.’

Neither woman replied.

‘I will look upon my sister.’

‘An then stay close,’ said Pully, ‘an bring up your soljers.’

Yedan pointed to one of the Shake guards. ‘Send that one back to Captains Pithy and Brevity. They are to take command of the rearguard with their company. Then have your lad lead my troop back here.’

Skwish turned away to comply with his commands.

They were flush, yes, these two witches. And frightened. Two forces he could use to ensure their cooperation. That and the guilt they must now be feeling, having drunk deep when-if not for Yedan’s slaying of the others-they would have but managed a sip with the rest shared out among scores of parched rivals. He would keep them down from now on, he vowed. Serving the Royal Family. ‘Pully,’ he now said. ‘If I discover you ever again withholding information from me-or my sister-I will see you burned alive. Am I understood?’

She paled and almost stepped back.

He stepped closer, permitting her no retreat. ‘I am the Watch.’

‘Aye. You are the Watch.’

‘And until the Queen recovers, I command this column-including you and Skwish.’

She nodded.

‘Make certain your sister witch understands.’

‘I will.’

He turned and made his way to the tent. Crouched at the entrance. He hesitated, thinking, and then reached out to tug aside the hide flap-enough to give him a view inside. Hot, pungent air gusted out. She was lying like a corpse, arms at her sides, palms up. He could just make out the black-gut stitchwork seaming the knife cuts. Reaching in, he took one of her bare feet in his hand. Cold, but he could detect the faintest of pulses. He set the foot down, closed the flap, and straightened.

‘Pully.’

She was standing where he’d left her. ‘Yes.’

‘She might not recover left just as she is.’

‘Na, she might not.’

‘She needs sustenance. Wine, meat. Can you force that into her without choking her?’

Pully nodded. ‘Need us a snake tube.’

‘Find one.’

‘Skwish!’

‘I heard.’

Yedan made his way back through the wards. Four horses were tethered to his sister’s supply wagon. He selected the biggest one, a black gelding with a white blaze on its forehead. The beast was unsaddled but bridled. He drew it out from the others and then vaulted on to its back.

Pully was watching him. ‘Can’t ride through the wards!’

‘I don’t mean to,’ he replied, gathering the reins.

The witch stared, baffled. ‘Then where?’

Yedan chewed for a time, and then brought his horse round to face the nearest hills.

Pully shrieked and then leapt to block his path. ‘Not off the road, ya fool!’

‘When I return,’ he said, ‘you will have her awake.’

‘Don’t be stupid! They might not find us at all!’

He thought about dismounting, walking up and cuffing her. Instead, he simply stared down at her, and then said in a low voice, ‘Now who is being the fool, witch? I go to meet them, and if need be, I will slow them down. Long enough for you to get my sister back on her feet.’

‘And then we wait for you?’

‘No. As soon as she is able, you will leave this realm. This time,’ he added, ‘you will help her. You and Skwish.’

‘Of course! We was just careless.’

‘When my troop arrives, inform my sergeant that they are to defend the Queen. Detail them to surround the tent-do not overcrowd them with your wards, witch.’

‘Hold to yourself, Witchslayer,’ said Pully. ‘Hold tight-if your mind wanders, for e’en an instant-’

‘I know,’ Yedan replied.

She moved to one side, then stepped close and set a hand upon the gelding’s head. ‘This one should do,’ she muttered with eyes closed. ‘Wilful, fearless. Keep it collected-’

‘Of that I know far more than you, witch.’

Sighing, she edged back. ‘A commander does not leave his command. A prince does not leave his people.’

‘This one does.’

He kicked his horse into motion. Hoofs thumped on to the hard-packed ground beyond the road.

This was dependent on his sister reviving-enough to lead them away from this infernal place-a prince must choose when he is expendable. Yedan understood the risk. If she did not awaken. If she died, then well and truly his leaving had damned his people-but then, if his sister did not recover, and quickly, then the entire column was doomed anyway. Yes, he could let his own blood, and the witches could take hold of it and do what must be done-but they would also try to enslave him-they could not help it, he knew. He was a man and they were women. Such things simply were. The greater danger was that they would lose control of the power in their hands-two witches, even ancient, formidable ones, were not enough. Ten or twenty were needed in the absence of a Queen to fashion a simulacrum of the necessary focus demanded upon the Road of Gallan. No, he could not rely on Pully and Skwish.

Skwish came up alongside her sister witch. They watched Yedan Derryg riding up the slope of the first hill. ‘That’s bad, Pully. A prince does not-’

‘This one does. Listen, Skwish, we got to be careful now.’

Skwish held up the snake tube. ‘If we left her t’ jus live or die like we planned afirst-’

‘He’ll know-he will cut her open an check.’

‘He ain’t comin’ back-’

‘Then we do need ’er alive, don we? We can’t use ’im like we planned-he’s too ken-he won’t let us take ’im-I lookt up inta his eyes, him on that ’orse, Skwish. His eyes an his eyes, an so I tell ya, he’s gonna be bad turble if he comes back.’

‘He won’t. An’ we can keep ’er weak, weak enough, I mean-’

‘Too risky. She needs t’get us out. We can try something later, once we’re all safe-we can take ’em down then. The one left or e’en both. But not this time, Skwish. Now, best go an feed ’er something. Start with wine, that’ll loosen ’er throat.’

‘I know what I’m about, Pully, leave off.’

The gelding had a broad back, making for a comfortable ride. Yedan rode at a canter. Ahead, the hills thickened with scrub, and beyond was a forest of white trees, branches like twisted bones, leaves so dark as to be almost black. Just before them and running the length of the wooded fringe rose dolmens of grey granite, their edges grooved and faces pitted with cup-shaped, ground-out depressions. Each stone was massive, twice the height of a grown man, and crowding the foot of each one that he could see were skulls.

He slowed his mount, reined in a half-dozen paces from the nearest standing stone. Sat motionless, flies buzzing round the horse’s flickering ears, and studied those grisly offerings. Cold judgement was never short of pilgrims. Alas, true justice had no reason to respect secrets, as those close-fisted pilgrims had clearly discovered. A final and fatal revelation.

Minute popping sounds in the air announced the approach of dread power, as the buzzing flies ignited in mid-flight, black bodies bursting like acorns in a fire. The horse shied slightly, muscles growing taut beneath Yedan, and then snorted in sudden fear.

‘Hold,’ Yedan murmured, his voice calming the beast.

Those of the royal line among the Shake possessed ancient knowledge, memories thick as blood. Tales of ancient foes, sworn enemies of the uncertain Shore. More perhaps than most, the Shake rulers understood that a thing could be both one and the other, or indeed neither. Sides possessed undersides and even those terms were suspect. Language itself stuttered in the face of such complexities, such rampant subtleties of nature.

In this place, however, the blended flavours of compassion were anathema to the powers that ruled.

Yet the lone figure that strode out from the forest was so unexpected that Yedan Derryg grunted as if he had been punched in the chest. ‘This realm is not yours,’ he said, fighting to control his horse.

‘This land is consecrated for adjudication,’ the Forkrul Assail said. ‘I am named Repose. Give me your name, seeker, that I may know you-’

‘Before delivering judgement upon me?’

The tall, ungainly creature, naked and weaponless, cocked his head. ‘You are not alone. You and your followers have brought discord to this land. Do not delay me-you cannot evade what hides within you. I shall be your truth.’

‘I am Yedan Derryg.’

The Forkrul Assail frowned. ‘This yields me no ingress-why is that? How is it you block me, mortal?’

‘I will give you that answer,’ Yedan replied, slipping down from the horse. He drew his sword.

Repose stared at him. ‘Your defiance is useless.’

Yedan advanced on him. ‘Is it? But, how can you know for certain? My name yields you no purchase upon my soul. Why is that?’

‘Explain this, mortal.’

‘My name is meaningless. It is my title that holds my truth. My title, and my blood.’

The Forkrul Assail shifted his stance, lifting his hands. ‘One way or another, I will know you, mortal.’

‘Yes, you will.’

Repose attacked, his hands a blur. But those deadly weapons cut empty air, as Yedan was suddenly behind the Forkrul Assail, sword chopping into the back of the creature’s elongated legs, the iron edge cutting between each leg’s two hinged knees, severing the buried tendons-Repose toppled forward, arms flailing.

Yedan chopped down a second time, cutting off the Assail’s left arm. Blue, thin blood sprayed on to the ground.

‘I am Shake,’ Yedan said, raising his sword once more. ‘I am the Watch.’

The sudden hiss from Repose was shortlived, as Yedan’s sword took off the top of the Forkrul Assail’s head.

He wasted little time. He could hear the pounding of hoofs. Vaulting on to his horse’s back, he collected the reins in one hand and, still, gripping his blue-stained sword, wheeled the beast round.

Five Tiste Liosan were charging towards him, lances levelled.

Yedan Derryg drove his horse straight for them.

These were scouts, he knew. They would take him down and then send one rider back to gather a punitive army-they would then ride to the column. Where they would slaughter everyone. These were the ones he had been expecting.

The line of standing stones lay to Yedan’s left. At the last moment before the gap between him and the Tiste Liosan closed, Yedan dragged his horse in between two of the stones. He heard a lance shatter and then snarls of frustration as the troop thundered past. The gelding responded with alacrity as he guided it back through the line, wheeling to come up behind the nearest Tiste Liosan-the one who’d snapped his lance on one of the dolmens and who was now reaching for his sword even as he reined in.

Yedan’s sword caught beneath the rim of his enamelled helm, slicing clean through his neck. The decapitated head spun to one side, cracking against a dolmen.

The Watch slapped the flat of his blade on the white horse’s rump, launching it forward in a lunge, and then, driving his heels into his own horse’s flanks, he pulled into the other horse’s wake.

The remaining four Liosan had wheeled in formation, out and away from the standing stones, and were now gathering for a second charge.

Their fallen comrade’s horse galloped straight for them, forcing the riders to scatter once more.

Yedan chose the Liosan nearest the dolmens, catching the man before he could right his lance. A crossways slash severed the scout’s right arm halfway between the shoulder and elbow, the edge cutting into and snapping ribs as Yedan’s horse carried him past the shrieking warrior.

A savage yank on the reins brought him up alongside another scout. He saw the woman’s eyes as she twisted round in her saddle, heard her snarled curse, before he drove the point of his sword into the small of her back, punching between the armour’s plates along the laced seam.

His arm was twisted painfully as in her death roll she momentarily trapped his sword, but he managed to tear the weapon free.

The other two riders were shouting to each other, and one pulled hard away from the fight, setting heels to his horse. The last warrior brought his mount round and lowered his lance.

Yedan urged his gelding into a thundering charge, but at an angle away from his attacker-in the direction of the fleeing scout. An instant’s assessment told him he would not catch the man. Instead he lifted himself upward, knees anchored tight to either side of the gelding’s spine. Drew back his arm and threw his sword.

The point slammed up and under the rider’s right arm, driven a hand’s breadth between his ribs, deep enough to sink into the lung. He toppled from his horse.

The last rider arrived, coming at Yedan from an angle. Yedan twisted to hammer aside the lashing blade of the lance, feeling it cleave through his vambrace and then score deep into the bones of his wrist. Pain seared up his arm.

He dragged his horse into the rider’s wake-the Liosan was pulling up. A mistake. Yedan caught up to him and flung himself on to the man’s back, dragging him from the saddle.

There was a satisfying snap of a bone as the Watch landed atop the warrior. He brought his good hand up and round to the Liosan’s face, thumb digging into one eye socket and fingers closing like talons on the upper lip and nose. He jammed his wounded arm with its loosened vambrace into the man’s mouth, forcing open the jaws.

Hands tore at him, but feebly, as Yedan forced his thumb deeper, in as far as it could go, then angled it upwards-but he failed to reach the brain. He got on to his knees, lifting the Liosan’s head by hooking his embedded thumb under the ridge of the brow. And then he forced it round, twisting even as he pressed down with his bloodied, armoured arm jammed across the man’s mouth. Joints popped, the jaw swung loose, and then, as the Liosan’s body thrashed in a frenzy, the vertebrae parted and the warrior went limp beneath him.

Yedan struggled to his feet.

He saw the scout with the punctured lung attempting to clamber back on to his horse. Collecting a lance, Yedan strode over. He used the haft to knock the warrior away from the horse, sending the man sprawling, and then stepped up and set the point against the Liosan’s chest. Staring down into the man’s terror-filled eyes, he pushed down on the lance, using all his weight. The armour’s enamel surface crazed, and then the point punched through.

Yedan pushed harder, twisting and grinding the serrated blade into the Liosan’s chest.

Until he saw the light leave the warrior’s eyes.

After making certain the others were dead, he bound his wounded arm, retrieved his sword and then the surviving lances and long-knives from the corpses, along with the helms. Rounding up the horses and tying them to a staggered lead, he set out at a canter back the way he had come.

He was a prince of the Shake, with memories in the blood.

Yan Tovis opened her eyes. Shadowed figures slid back and forth above her and to the sides-she could make no sense of them, nor of the muted voices surrounding her-voices that seemed to come from the still air itself. She was sheathed in sweat.

Tent walls-ah, and the shadows were nothing more than silhouettes. The voices came from outside. She struggled to sit up, the wounds on her wrists stinging as the sutures stretched. She frowned down at them, trying to recall… things. Important things.

The taste of blood, stale, the smell of fever-she was weak, lightheaded, and there was… danger.

Heart thudding, she forced her way through the entrance, on her hands and knees, the world spinning round her. Bright, blinding sunlight, scorching fires in the sky-two, three, four-four suns!

‘Highness!’

She sat back on her haunches, squinted up as a figure loomed close. ‘Who?’

‘Sergeant Trope, Highness, in Yedan’s company. Please, crawl no further, the witches-there’re wards, all round, Highness. All round you. A moment, the witches are on their way.’

‘Help me up. Where’s my brother?’

‘He rode out, Highness. Some time ago. Before the fourth sun rose-and now we’re burning alive-’

She took his proffered arm and pulled herself on to her feet. ‘Not suns, Sergeant. Attacks.’

He was a scarred man, face bludgeoned by decades of hard living. ‘Highness?’

‘We are under attack-we need to leave here. We need to leave now!’

‘O Queen!’ Pully was dancing her way closer, evading the scored lines of the wards encircling the tent. ‘He’s coming back! Witchslayer! We must ready ourselves-drip drip drip some blood, Highness. We brought ya back, me an Skwish an we did. Leave off her, you oaf, let ’er stand!’

But Yan Tovis held on to the sergeant’s wrist-solid as a rooted tree, and she needed that. She glared at Pully. ‘Drank deep, I see.’

The witch flinched. ‘Careless, an us all, Queen. But see, the Watch comes-with spare horses, white horses!’

Yan Tovis said to Trope, ‘Guide me out of these wards, Sergeant.’ And get this pretty witch out of my face.

She could hear the horses drawing closer, and, from the road, the suffering of thousands of people swept over her in an inundating tide-she almost gagged beneath that deluge.

‘Clear, Highness-’

She straightened. A fifth sun was flaring to life on the horizon. The iron fastenings of Trope’s armour were searing hot and she winced at their touch, but still would not let go of his arm. She felt her skin tightening-We’re being roasted alive.

Her brother, one arm bound in blood-soaked rags, reined in at the side of the road. Yan Tovis stared at the trailing horses. Liosan horses, yes. That clutch of lances, the sheathed long-knives and cluster of helms. Liosan.

Skwish and Pully were suddenly there, on the very edge of the road. Pully cackled a laugh.

Yan Tovis studied her brother’s face. ‘How soon?’ she asked.

She watched his bearded jaw bunch as he chewed on his answer, before squinting and saying, ‘We have time, Queen.’

‘Good,’ she snapped. ‘Witches, attend to me. We begin-not in haste, but we begin.’

Two young women, scampering and bobbing their heads like the hags they once were. New ambitions, yes, but old, old fears.

Yan Tovis met Yedan’s eyes once more, and saw that he knew. And was prepared. Witchslayer, mayhap you’re not done with that, before this is all over.