Dust of Dreams

Chapter Twenty-Four

Nom Kala stood with the others, a silent mass of warriors who had forgotten what it was to live, as the wind pulled at rotted furs, strips of hide and dry tangles of hair. Dull, pitted weapons hung like afterthoughts from twisted hands. Air pitched into the bowls of eye sockets and moaned back out. They could be statues, gnawed by age, withering where they stood facing the endless winds, the senseless rains, the pointless waves of heat and cold.

There was nothing useful in this, and she knew she was not alone in her disquiet. Onos T’oolan, the First Sword, crouched down on one knee ten paces ahead of them, hands wrapped round the grip of his flint sword, the weapon’s point buried in the stony ground. His head was lowered, as if he made obeisance before a master, but this master was invisible, little more than a smear of obligations swept aside, but the stain of what had been held him in place-a stain only Onos T’oolan could see. He had not moved in some time.

Patience was no trial, but she could sense the chaos in her kin, the pitch and cant of terrible desires, the rocking rebuffs of vengeance waiting. It was only a matter of time before the first of them broke away, defying this servitude, this claim of righteous command. He would not reach for them. He had yet to do so, why imagine he would change-

The First Sword rose, faced them. ‘I am Onos T’oolan. I am the First Sword of Tellann. I reject your need.’

The wind moaned on, like the flow of sorrow.

‘You shall, however, bow to mine.’

She felt buffeted by those words. This is what it means, then, to yield before a First Sword. We cannot deny him, cannot defy him. She could feel his will, closing like a fist about her. We had our chance-before this. We could have drifted away. He gave us that. But not one T’lan Imass had done any such thing. Instead, we fell inside ourselves, ever deeper, that endless eating and spitting out and eating all we spat out-this is the seductive sustenance of hatred and spite, of rage and vengeance.

He could have led us off a cliff and we would not have noticed.

The three Orshayn bonecasters stepped forward. Ulag Togtil spoke. ‘First Sword, we await your command.’

Onos T’oolan slowly faced south, where the sky above the horizon seemed to boil like pitch. And then he swung north, where a distant cloud caught the sun’s dying light. ‘We go no farther,’ the First Sword said. ‘We shall be dust.’

And what of our dark dreams, First Sword?

Such was his power that he heard her thought and so turned to her. ‘Nom Kala, hold fast to your dreams. There will be an answer. T’lan Imass, we are upon a time of killing.’

The statues shifted. Some straightened. Some hunched down as if beneath terrible burdens. The statues-my kin. My sisters, my brothers. There are none to look upon us now, none to see us, none to wonder at who we once were, at who shaped us with such… loving hands. As she watched, they began, one by one, falling into dust.

None to witness. Dust of dreams, dust of all that we never achieved. Dust of what we might have been and what we cannot help but be.

Statues are never mute. Their silence is a roar of words. Will you hear? Will you listen?

She was the last, alone with Onos T’oolan himself.

‘You possess no rage, Nom Kala.’

‘No, First Sword, I do not.’

‘What might you find to serve in its place?’

‘I do not know. The humans defeated us. They were better than we were, it is as simple as that. I feel only grief, First Sword.’

‘And is there no anger in grief, Nom Kala?’

Yes. It may be that there is. But if I must search for it-

‘There is time,’ said Onos T’oolan.

She bowed to him, and released herself.

Onos T’oolan watched as Nom Kala fell in a gusting cloud. In his mind a figure was approaching, hands held out as if beseeching. He knew that harrowed face, that lone glittering eye. What could he say to this stranger he had once known? He too was a stranger, after all. Yes, they had once known each other. But now look at us, both so intimate with dust.

Nom Kala’s anguish returned to him. Her thoughts had bled with dread power-she was young. She was, he realized, what the Imass might have become, had the Ritual not taken them, had it not stolen their future. A future of pathos. Sordid surrender. The loss of dignity, a slow, slow death.

No, Toc the Younger. I give you nothing but silence. And its torrid roar.

Will you hear? Will you listen?

Any of you?

She had dwelt like a parasite deep in its entrails. She had seen, all around her, the broken remnants of some long abandoned promise, the broken clutter, the spilled fluids. But there had been heat, and a pulsing presence as if the very stone was alive-she should have understood the significance of such things, but her mind had been wallowing in its own darkness, a lifeless place of pointless regrets.

Standing not six paces from the two gold-skinned foreigners, she had turned and, like them, looked with wonder, disbelieving.

Ampelas Rooted.

Ampelas Uprooted. The entire city, its massive, mountainous bulk, filled the northern sky. Its underside was a forest of twisted metal roots, from which drained rainbow rain as if even in pain it could bleed nothing but gifts. Yet, Kalyth could see its agony. It was canted to one side. It was surrounded by smoke and dust. Fissures rose from its base, like the broken knuckles of a god only moments from once again hammering the earth.

She could feel… something, a bristling core of will knotted in breathless pain. The Matron’s? Could it be anyone else? Her blood flowed through the rock. Her lungs howled, winds shrieking between caverns. Her sweat glistened and ran like tears. She bled in a thousand places, bones splintering to vast, ever growing pressures.

The Matron, yes, but… there was no mind left inside that nightmare of oozing flesh.

Uprooted, this long-dead thing. Uprooted, a thousand upon a thousand generations of belief, faith, the solid iron of once immutable laws.

She defies every truth. She wills life into a corpse, and now it staggers across the sky.

‘A sky keep,’ said the one named Gesler. ‘Moon’s Spawn-’

‘But this one is bigger,’ said Stormy, clawing at his beard. ‘If Tayschrenn could see this-’

‘If Rake had been commanding one of these-’

Stormy grunted. ‘Aye. He’d have flattened the High Mage like a cockroach under a thumb. And then he’d have done the same to the whole Hood-damned Malazan Empire.’

‘But look,’ said Gesler. ‘It’s in rough shape-not as ugly as Rake’s rock, but it looks like it could come down at any time.’

Kalyth could now see the Furies marching beneath the Dragon Tower-the sky keep, yes, that is well named. Ve’Gath Soldiers in their thousands. K’ell Hunters well in advance of the legions and ranging out to the sides in looser formations. Behind the ranks of the Furies, drones struggled to pull enormous wagons groaning beneath towering loads.

‘Look at the big ones,’ Gesler said. ‘The heavies-gods below, one of those could rip a Kenyll’rah demon in half.’

Kalyth spoke. ‘Mortal Sword, they are Ve’Gath, the soldiers of the K’Chain Che’Malle. No Matron has ever birthed so many. A hundred was deemed sufficient. Gunth’an Acyl has birthed more than fifteen thousand.’

The man’s amber eyes fixed on her. ‘If Matrons could do that, why didn’t they? They could be ruling this world right now.’

‘There was terrible… pain.’ She hesitated, and then said. ‘Sanity was lost.’

‘Soldiers like those,’ Stormy muttered, ‘what ruler needs to be sane?’

Kalyth grimaced. These two men were irreverent. They seemed to be fearless. They are the ones. But nothing insisted I must like them, or even understand them. No, they frighten me as much as the K’Chain Che’Malle do. ‘She is dying.’

Gesler rubbed at his face. ‘No heir?’

‘Yes. One waits.’ She pointed. ‘There, the two now drawing close. Gunth Mach, the One Daughter. Sag’Churok, her K’ell guardian.’ Then her breath caught as she saw the one trailing them, its motions smooth as oil. ‘The one beyond, that is Bre’nigan, the Matron’s own J’an Sentinel-something is wrong-he should not be here, he should be at her side.’

‘What about those Assassins?’ Stormy asked, squinting skyward. ‘Why ain’t they showed-the one that snatched us-’

‘I do not know, Shield Anvil.’ Something is wrong.

The two foreigners-they called themselves Malazans-backed away as Gunth Mach and Sag’Churok drew closer. ‘Ges, what if they don’t like the look of us?’

‘What do you think?’ Gesler snapped. ‘We’re dead, that’s what.’

‘There is no danger,’ Kalyth assured them. Of course, I am sure Redmask believed the same.

Sag’Churok spoke in her mind. ‘Destriant. The Matron is chained.’

What?

‘The two Shi’gal who remained in the Nest forged an alliance. They have eaten her forebrain and now command what remains of her. Through her body, they have uprooted Ampelas. But her flesh weakens-soon Ampelas will fail. We must find the enemy. We must find our war.’

Kalyth looked to Gunth Mach. ‘Is she safe?’

‘She is.’

‘But… why?’

‘The Shi’gal see no future. The battle is the end. No future. The One Daughter is irrelevant.’

‘And Gu’Rull?’

‘Outlawed. Missing. Possibly dead-he sought to return, sought to defy, but was driven away. Bearing wounds.’

Gesler cut in: ‘You’re speaking with this thing, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. I am sorry. There are powers awake in me… flavours. The One Daughter… it is a gift.’

Stormy said, ‘If we’re to lead this army of elephant-rapers-’

‘Stormy-hold on!’ Gesler advanced on his companion, falling into their foreign language as he continued with a barrage of protestations.

Kalyth did not need to understand the words, as Stormy visibly set his heels, face flushing as if in deadly warning. This was a stubborn man, she could see, far more so than the Mortal Sword. Gesler railed at his friend, but nothing he said altered Stormy’s stance. He said he had dreams. He has accepted this. ‘She will share the flavours,’ Kalyth said to them. ‘It is necessary-’

Stormy faced her. ‘Those Ve’Gath, how fast are they? How smart? Can they answer to commands? Discipline? What sort of signalling do they heed? And who in Hood’s name is the enemy?’

To these questions, Kalyth shook her head. ‘I have no answers. No knowledge. I can say nothing.’

‘Who can?’

‘Damn you, Stormy!’

The big red-bearded man wheeled on his companion. ‘Aye! You’re the Mortal Sword-these are the questions you need to be asking, not me! Who’s going to command here? You are, you stupid lump of dhenrabi shit! So stop lapdogging me and get on with it!’

Gesler’s hands closed into fists and he took a half-step closer to Stormy. ‘That’s it,’ he growled. ‘I’m going to crush your fat head, Stormy, and then I’m going to walk away-’

Stormy bared his teeth, squaring himself to await Gesler’s charge.

Sag’Churok thumped between the two men, sword blades straightening out to the sides, the motion forcing the men apart, lest those notched edges find them. Snarling, Gesler spun round and marched off a dozen or so paces.

Grinning, Stormy straightened. ‘Give me those flavours, lizard. We got to talk.’

‘Not that one,’ Kalyth said. ‘Gunth Mach is the one without swords. There-not the J’an, this one. Go to her.’

‘Fine, and then what?’

‘Then… nothing. You will see.’

He walked up to stand directly in front of Gunth Mach. Brave or stupid-I think I know which way Gesler would say. But she saw that Gesler, arms crossed, had turned to watch.

‘Well? Gods, she stinks-’ He suddenly recoiled. ‘Sorry, lizard,’ he mumbled, ‘I didn’t mean it.’ He wiped at his face, then held out his hand, scowling. ‘I’m covered in something.’

‘Flavour,’ Kalyth said.

Gesler snorted. ‘The lizard in your head now, Stormy? I don’t believe it-if she’d done that she’d be running for the nearest cliff.’

‘I ain’t the one staying deliberately stupid, Ges.’

Gesler glared over at the approaching legions. ‘Fine, tell me what they can do.’

‘No. Find out for yourself.’

‘I ain’t being nobody’s Mortal Sword.’

‘Whatever. You just going to stand there, Ges?’

Swearing something under his breath, the soldier walked over to Gunth Mach. ‘Fine, do your sweat thing, it’s not like I just had a swim or nothing-’ As soon as he drew close he snapped his head back, and then rubbed at his eyes. ‘Ow.’

Kalyth sensed a presence at her side.

Bre’nigan. The J’an Sentinel’s milky eyes caught the deepening blue of the day’s end. ‘Against two Shi’gal, I could do nothing.’

The voice in her head shocked her. This ancient Che’Malle had seemed beyond any acknowledgement of her whatsoever. The voice trembled.

‘I have failed.’

As you said, you could do nothing against two Shi’gal, Bre’nigan.

‘The Matron is no more.’

That has been true for some time.

‘Destriant, the wisdom in your words is bitter, but I cannot deny what you say. Tell me, these two humans-they seem… wayward. But then, I know little of your kind.’

‘Wayward? Yes. I know nothing of these Malazans-I have never heard of any tribe by that name. They are… reckless.’

‘It does not matter. The battle shall be final.’

‘Then you think we are lost, too. If that is so, why fight at all?’ Why force me and these two men to our deaths. Let us go!

‘We cannot. You, Destriant, and the Mortal Sword and the Shield Anvil, you are what remains of Gunth’an Acyl’s will. You are the legacy of her mind. Even now, how can we say she was wrong?’

‘You put too much upon us.’

‘Yes.’

She heard Gesler and Stormy arguing again, in their foreign tongue. The Furies were drawing closer, and now two Ve’Gath loped out ahead of the others. Their backs were strangely shaped. ‘There,’ said Kalyth, drawing the attention of the two Malazans. ‘Your mounts.’

‘We’re going to ride those?’

‘Yes, Mortal Sword. They were bred for you and for the Shield Anvil.’

‘The one for Stormy’s got the saddle around the wrong way. How’s he going to stick his head up the Ve’Gath’s ass, where he’ll feel at home?’

Kalyth’s eyes widened.

Stormy laughed. ‘With you in charge, Ges, I’ll hide anywhere. You barely managed a measly squad. Now you got thirty thousand lizards expectin’ you to take charge.’

Gesler looked sick. ‘Got any spare room up that butt hole, Stormy?’

‘I’ll let you know, but just so you’re clear on this, when I shut the door it stays shut.’

‘You always were a selfish bastard. Can’t figure why we ever ended up friends.’

The Ve’Gath lumbered up to them.

Gesler glanced at Stormy and spoke in Falari. ‘All right, I guess this is it.’

‘I can taste their thoughts-all of them,’ said Stormy. ‘Even these two.’

‘Aye.’

‘Gesler, these Ve’Gath-they ain’t nasty-looking horses-they’re smart. We’re the beasts of burden here.’

‘And we’re supposed to be commanding them. The Matron got it all wrong, didn’t she.’

Stormy shook his head. ‘No point in arguing, though. The One Daughter told me-’

‘Aye, me too. A bloody coup. I imagine those Assassins figured out-and rightly so-just how redundant we are. Kalyth too. Stormy, I can reach out to them all. I can see through the eyes of any one of them. Except Gunth Mach.’

‘Aye, she’s built thick walls. I wonder why. Listen, Ges, I really have no idea what it is a Shield Anvil’s supposed to do.’

‘You’re a giant pit everybody bleeds into, Stormy. Funny your dreams didn’t mention that bit. But for this battle, I need you to command the Ve’Gath directly-’

‘Me? What about you?’

‘The K’ell Hunters. They’re fast, they can get in and out and with their speed they will be the deadliest force on the field.’

‘Ges, this is a stupid war, you know. The world’s not big enough for Long-Tails and Short-Tails both? Stupid. There’s barely any left as it is. Like the last two scorpions busy killing each other, when the desert covers a whole damned continent.’

‘The slaves are loose,’ Gesler replied. ‘With a few hundred generations of repressed hate to feed off. They won’t be satisfied until the last Che’Malle is a chopped-up carcass.’

‘And then?’

Gesler met the man’s eyes. ‘That’s what scares me.’

‘We’re next, you mean.’

‘Why not? What’s to stop them? They fucking breed like ants. They’re laying waste to warrens. Gods below, they’re hunting down and killing dragons. Listen, Stormy, this is our chance. We’ve got to stop the Nah’ruk. Not for the Che’Malle-I don’t care a whit for the Che’Malle-but for everyone else.’

Stormy glanced over at the Che’Malle. ‘They don’t expect to survive this battle.’

‘Aye, bad attitude.’

‘So fix it.’

Gesler glared, and then looked away.

The two Ve’Gath waited. Their backs were malformed, the bones twisted and lifted taut beneath the hide to form high saddles. Something like elongated fingers-or the stretched wings of a bat-slung down the beast’s flanks, the finger-ends and talons curling to form stirrups. Plates of armour ridged the shoulders. Lobster-tail scales encased the forward-thrusting necks. Their helms wrapped about the flattened skulls, leaving only the snouts free. They could look down upon a Toblakai. The damned things were grinning at their riders.

Gesler faced Gunth Mach. ‘One Daughter. The last Assassin-the one that escaped-I need him.’

Kalyth said, ‘We do not know if Gu’Rull even lives-’

Gesler’s eyes remained on Gunth Mach. ‘She knows. One Daughter, I ain’t going to fight a battle I can’t win. If you want us leading you, well, one thing us humans don’t understand, and that’s giving up. We fight when the fight’s been thumped out of us. We rebel when all we got left that’s not in chains is inside our skulls. We defy when the only defiance we got left is up and dying. Aye, I seen people bow their heads, waiting for the axe. I seen people standing in a row in front of fifty crossbows, and doing nothing. But they’ve all made dying their weapon, the last one left, and they are nightmare’s soldiers for ever afterwards. Is this getting through to you? I’m not one for inspiring crap. I need that Assassin, Gunth Mach, because I need his eyes. Up there, high overhead. With those eyes, I can win this battle.

‘You say Matrons never produce more than a hundred Ve’Gath. But your mother made fifteen thousand. Do you really think the Nah’ruk have any idea of what they’re getting into? You’ve filled my head with scenes of past battles-all your pathetic losses-and it’s no wonder you’re all ready to give up. But you’re wrong. The Matron-was she insane? Maybe. Aye. Insane enough to think she could win. And to plan for it. Mad? Mad genius, I’d say. Gunth Mach, One Daughter, summon your Shi’gal-he is yours now, isn’t he? Not ready to give up, not ready to surrender to the fatalism of his brothers. Summon him.’

Silence.

Gesler stared up into the Che’Malle’s eyes. Like staring into a crocodile’s. It’s the game of seeing all but reacting to nothing. Until necessity forces the issue. It’s the game of cold thoughts, if thoughts there are. It’s what makes a man’s balls crawl up looking for somewhere to hide.

She spoke in his mind. ‘Mortal Sword. Your words have been heard. By all. We shall obey.’

‘Gods below,’ Stormy muttered.

Kalyth stepped close to Gesler. Her eyes were wide. ‘A darkness lifts from the K’Chain Che’Malle.’ But in those eyes, beyond the wonder, he saw a flittering fear. She sees me sowing false hope. Gods, woman, what do you think a commander does? He walked up to one of the Ve’Gath, gripped what passed for a saddle horn, set one boot into a stirrup that suddenly clasped tight round his foot, and then swung himself astride the enormous beast.

‘Get ready to march,’ he said, knowing his words were heard by all. ‘We’re not waiting for the Nah’ruk to come to us. We’re heading straight for them, and straight down their damned throats. Kalyth! Does anyone know-will that sky keep follow? Will they fight?’

‘We don’t know, Mortal Sword. We think so. What else is left?’

Stormy was struggling to climb on to his beast. ‘Trying to crush my damned foot!’

‘Relax into it,’ Gesler advised.

The One Daughter spoke in his mind. ‘The Shi’gal comes.’

‘Good. Let’s get this mess started.’

Gu’Rull tilted his wings, swept close round the towering cliff-face of Ampelas Uprooted. There was but one Shi’gal left inside-he’d managed to deliver fatal wounds to the other before he’d been driven from the Nest, and then the city. Deep slashes wept thick blood down his chest, but none of these threatened his life. Already he had begun to heal.

Before him on the plain the massed Furies had resumed their ground-eating march. Thousands of K’ell Hunters spread out to form a vast screen in a crescent as they struck southward, where dark clouds boiled on the horizon, slowly disappearing as the sun finally sank beneath the western hills. The Nah’ruk had fed this day, but the quarry had proved deadlier than they could have anticipated.

This Mortal Sword and his words impressed Gu’Rull, in so far as these soft humans could do so; but then, neither the one named Gesler nor the one named Stormy were truly human. Not any more. The aura of their presence was almost blinding to the Shi’gal’s eyes. Ancient fires had forged them. Thyrllan, Tellann, perhaps even the breath and blood of the Eleint.

The K’Chain Che’Malle did not bow in worship, but when it came to the Eleint, this abhorrence weakened. Children of the Eleint. But we are nothing of the sort. We simply claim the honour. But then, is this not what all mortals do? In grasping their gods, in carving the vicious rules of worship and obedience? Children of the Eleint. We name our cities for the First Born Dragons, those who once sailed the skies of this world.

As if they cared.

As if they even noticed.

This Mortal Sword spoke of a refusal, a defiance of the fate awaiting them. He possessed courage, and stubborn will. Laudable conceits. I answer his summons. I give him my eyes, for as long as I remain in the skies. I do not warn him that such time shall not long survive the commencement of battle. The Nah’ruk will see to that.

Even so. In Gunth’an Acyl’s memory, I shall abide.

Doubts swirled round the red-bearded one, the Shield Anvil. His heart was vast, it was true. He was a thing of sentimentality and compassion, so contrary to his bestial appearance, his simian fire. But such creatures were vulnerable. Their hearts bled too freely, and the scars never knitted true. It was madness to embrace the pain and suffering of the K’Chain Che’Malle-not even a Matron would yield to such a thing. The mind would howl. The mind would die.

No matter, he was but one mortal, a human at that. He would take what he could, and then fail. Falchions would descend, an instant of purest mercy-

‘Enough of that-and I don’t give a flying fuck for all your miserable thoughts. Assassin, I am Gesler. Your Mortal Sword. On the morning to come, on the dawn of battle, you will be my eyes. You will not flee. I don’t care how nasty it gets up there. If you ain’t looking like a pigeon that’s gone through a windmill by the time we’re all done, you’ll have failed me-and your kin, too. So don’t even think-’

I hear your words, Mortal Sword. You shall have my eyes, more’s the pity.

‘So long as we’re understood. Now, what should I be expecting when we sight the Nah’ruk?’

And so Gu’Rull told him. The human interrupted again and again with sharp, percipient questions. And, as the shock of his power-which had so easily torn through his defences to plunder Gu’Rull’s mind-slowly faded to a welt of indignation, the Shi’gal’s esteem for the Mortal Sword grew, grudgingly, half in disbelief, half in resentment. The Assassin would not permit himself the delusion of hope. But, this man was a warrior in the truest sense.

And what is that true sense? Why, it is the insanity of belief. And now you make us believe. With you. In you. And in your madness, which you so insist upon sharing.

You taste bitter, human. You taste of your world.

Cursing, Stormy forced his mount up alongside Gesler. ‘I’m picking up a stink of something. It’s hiding in back thoughts, at the bottom of deep pools-’

‘What in Hood’s name are you talking about?’ Gesler demanded. ‘And be quick, that Assassin’s even now winging towards the enemy-they’re camped, I can see them-there are fires and one big one-lots of smoke. Gods, my head’s ready to explode-’

‘You ain’t listening,’ Stormy said. ‘That stink-they know something. Gunth Mach-she knows something and she’s hiding it from us. I got this-’

Gesler snapped out a hand, and Stormy could see a distant look in his friend’s battered face, and as he watched, he saw horror filling the man’s eyes. ‘Beru fend… Stormy. I’m seeing wreckage-heaps of armour and weapons. Stormy-’

‘Those Nah’ruk-they-’

‘The Bonehunters-they found ’em, they… gods, there’s piles of bones! They fucking ate them!’ As Gesler reeled Stormy reached out to steady him.

‘Ges! Just tell me what you’re seeing!’

‘What do you think I’m doing! Gods below!’

But all at once words dried up, and Gesler could only stare downward as the Assassin wheeled over the battlefield, the massive encampment, a crater that could swallow a palace, and the vast stain of what looked like coals amidst flame-licked tree-stumps-no, not stumps. Limbs. Scorched Nah’ruk, still burning. Was it magic that hit them? Gesler could not believe that. A single release of a warren, torching thousands? And that crater-a hundred cussers maybe… but we didn’t have a hundred cussers.

He could hear Stormy shouting at him, but the voice seemed impossibly distant, too far away to be of any concern. Trenches ribboned a ridge, some of them filled with shattered armour and weapons. Lesser craters pocked the summit, crowded with bones. Off to one side, hundreds of Nah’ruk were moving through the carcasses of horses and blackened bodies. Heavy wagons trailed them, slabs of meat heaped on their beds. Dozens of Nah’ruk were harnessed to them, straining in their yokes.

That was a Khundryl charge. Wiped out. At least some of the allies arrived in time-in time for what? Dying. Gods, this was the Lord’s cruellest push. They weren’t looking for a fight-not with damned lizards, anyway. Not here in the useless Wastelands.

The Shi’gal Assassin’s voice intruded. ‘Your kin have damaged the Nah’ruk. This harvest was paid for, Mortal Sword. At least three Furies have been destroyed.’

Those were my friends. This wasn’t their fight.

‘They were brave. They did not surrender.’

Gesler frowned. Was surrender possible?

‘I do not know. I doubt it. The matter is irrelevant. Against us, tomorrow, there will be no quarter.’

‘You got that right,’ Gesler said in a growl.

‘Gesler!’

Blinking, the scene spinning away from his mind, he turned to Stormy. Wiping his eyes, he said, ‘It’s bad. Bad as it can get. The Nah’ruk were marching to meet these K’Chain Che’Malle. They slammed like a fist right into the Bonehunters. Stormy, there was slaughter, but only one army remains-’

Gu’Rull spoke once again in his mind. ‘I have found a trail, Mortal Sword. Signs of retreat. Shall we pursue it? The Nah’ruk can feel our approach-our Ve’Gath are as thunder in the earth. They prepare to march to meet us-the sky is a place of no light, there are alien winds-I cannot-’

Lightning flashed to the south, cracking through the night. Gesler grunted as the concussion reverberated through his skull. Assassin? Where are you? Answer me-what’s happened?

But he could not reach out to the winged lizard; he could not find Gu’Rull anywhere. Shit.

‘Is that a damned storm cloud up ahead, Gesler? Is that blood on your face? Tell me what the Hood’s going on!’

‘You really that curious?’ Gesler said, baring his teeth. He then spat. ‘The Nah’ruk have dropped everything. They’re coming for us. We’re on our own.’

‘And the Bonehunters?’

‘We’re on our own.’

The scouts emerged from the unforgiving darkness. On this night the Slashes had vanished, taking the stars and the jade glow with them. Even the swollen haze that was the moon did not dare the sky. Shivering in the sudden chill, Warleader Strahl waited for the scouts to reach him.

The two Senan warriors were hunched over, as if fearful, or perhaps wounded. When they halted before him, both knelt. They were exhausted, he saw, their chests heaving.

Look at them. Look at this darkness. Has the world ended this night?

He would not rush them, demanding words they would struggle to feed. The dread was thick enough in their harsh breaths.

Behind the Warleader the Senan Barghast waited. Some slept, but for most sleep would not come. Hunger. Thirst. The famine of loss, a song of soft weeping. He could feel scores of eyes fixed upon him, seeing, he knew, little more than a vague, smudged silhouette. Seeing the truth of him, and before them he had nowhere to hide.

One of the scouts had recovered his wind. ‘Warleader. Two armies on the plain.’

‘The Malazans-’

‘No, Warleader-these are demons-’

The other hissed, ‘There are thousands!’

‘Two armies, you said.’

‘They march towards each other-through the night-we are almost between them! Warleader, we must retreat-we must flee from here!’

‘Go into the camp, both of you. Rest. Leave me. Say nothing.’

Once they’d staggered off, he drew his furs closer about his shoulders. This dusk, they’d sighted a Moon’s Spawn, but one of hard angles and planes-his sharper-eyed warriors claimed it was carved in the shape of a dragon. Two demon armies-what better place to clash than on the Wastelands? Kill each other. Yours is not our war. We mean to find the Malazans… do we not? Our old enemy, a worthy one.

Did they not betray the alliance at Coral? Did they not try to cheat Caladan Brood and steal that city in the name of the cursed Empress? If not for Anomander Rake, they would have succeeded. These Bonehunters claim to be renegades, but then, did not Dujek Onearm say the same? No, this is the usual nest of lies. Whatever they seek, whatever they conquer, they will claim for the Empress.

Onos Toolan, what other enemy existed? Who else could you hope to find? Who else as worthy as the Malazans, conquerors, devourers of history? You said you once served them. But you left them. You came to lead the White Faces. You knew this enemy-you told us so much that we now need-we were fools, that we did not see.

But now I do.

The demons were welcome to their battle.

Yes, they would retreat from this. He swung round.

Dust spun in the Senan camp, silver as moonlight, in spirals rising on all sides. Someone shrieked.

Ghostly warriors-the gleam of bone, rippling blades of chert and flint-

Strahl stared, struggling to comprehend. Screams erupted-the terrible weapons lashed out, tore through mortal flesh and bone. Barghast war-cries sounded, iron rang against stone. Rotted faces, black-pitted eyes.

A hulking figure appeared directly in front of Strahl. The Warleader’s eyes widened-as in the firelight he saw the sword gripped in the creature’s bony hands. No. No! ‘We avenged you! Onos Toolan, we avenged them all! Do not-you cannot-’

The sword hissed a diagonal slash that cut through both of Strahl’s legs, from his right hip to below his left knee. He slid down with that blade, found himself lying on the ground. Above him, only darkness. Sickly cold rushed through him. We did all we could. Our shame. Our guilt. Warleader, please. There are children, there are innocents-

The downward chop shattered his skull.

The Senan died. The White Face Barghast died. Nom Kala stood apart from the slaughter. The T’lan Imass were relentless, and had she a heart, it would have recoiled before this remorseless horror.

The slayers of his wife, his children, were paid in kind. Cut down with implacable efficiency. She heard mothers plead for the lives of their children. She heard their death-cries. She heard tiny wailing voices fall suddenly silent.

This was a crime that would poison every soul. She could almost feel the earth crack and bleed beneath them, as if spirits writhed, as if gods stumbled. The rage emanating from Onos T’oolan was darker than the sky, thicker than any cloud. It gusted outward in waves of his own horrified recognition-he knew, he could see himself, as if torn loose and flung outside his own body-he saw, and the very sight of what he was doing was driving him mad.

And us all. Oh, give me dust. Give me a morning born in oblivion, born in eternal, blessed oblivion.

There were thousands, and scores were fleeing into the night, but so many were already dead. This is what was, once. Terrible armies of T’lan Imass. We hunted down the Jaghut. We gave them what I see here. By all the spirits, is this our only voice? A terrible moaning was rising in the foul wake of the last few death-blows, a moaning that seemed to spin and swirl, coming from the T’lan Imass, from each warrior splashed in gore, dripping weapons in their hands. It was a sound that cut through Nom Kala. She staggered before it in retreat, as if begging the darkness to swallow her whole.

Onos T’oolan. Your vengeance-you delivered it… upon us, upon your pathetic followers. We followed your lead. We did as you did. We broke our own chains. We unleashed ourselves-how many millennia of this anger within us? Lashed loose, lashed into life.

Now, we are become slayers of children. We have stepped into the world, again, after all this time spent so… so free from its crimes. Onos T’oolan, do you see? Do you understand?

Now, once more, we are born into history.

If this is what a Shield Anvil feels, then I don’t want it. Do you hear me? I don’t want it! He knew Gesler, knew what the man’s refusal meant. Through that damned rhizan’s eyes he’d seen the corpses. The slaughtered remains of the Bonehunters and the Letherii. Only two days ago they’d been marching with them-all those faces he knew, all those soldiers he liked to swear at-now gone. Dead.

This was all wrong. He and Ges should have died with them, died fighting at their sides. Brotherhood and sisterhood only found true meaning in the wash of death, in the falling one after another, the darkness and then the shuddering awake before Hood’s Gate. Aye, we’re family when fighting to the last, but the real family is among the fallen. Why else do we stagger half-blind after every battle? Why else do we look upon dead kin and feel so abandoned? They left without us, that’s why.

A soldier knows this. A soldier saying different is a Hood-damned liar.

Dawn was not far off. The last day was close. But this ain’t the family I knew. It ain’t the one I wanted. All I got is Gesler. We been through it all, true, so at least we can die together. At least that makes sense. Been through it all. Falar-gods we were young! Damned fools, aye. Running off, swearing ourselves into the Fener cult-it was the rumours of the orgies that did us in. What rutting lad wouldn’t jump at the thought?

Damned orgies, oh yes. But we should’ve worked it out for ourselves. S’damned god of war, right? Orgies, oh indeed, orgies of slaughter, not sex. Thinking with the wrong brains, is what we did. But, at that age, isn’t it how it’s supposed to be?

Only we never got out, never got wise, did we? We found ourselves in a cesspool and then spent the next twenty years telling each other the smell ain’t so bad. Sweet as rain, in fact.

The K’Chain Che’Malle were going to die. They were going to pour their blood into him, souls crowding for his embrace, whatever that meant. The Matron who wanted all this was dead, but then… ain’t dying the first and most obvious path into ascendancy, into godhood?

Though eating the front of her skull, that’s just sick. She’ll make ’em pay for that, now that she’s a goddess or whatever.

Well, he’d keep the door barred until the last moment-he had an army to order around, after all. A mob of heavies who’d wheel on a horse-hair with an instant’s thought. Imagine what Coltaine could’ve done with these legions. If he’d had ’em, Korbolo Dom wouldn’t be wiggling his finger up Laseen’s backside right now. In fact-

‘Hood’s breath, Stormy, you’re leaking the sickest things.’

‘So get outa my head!’

‘I said “leaking,” you oaf. I ain’t in your head. Listen, stop thinking we’re all vulture shit, all right? I don’t know if these things got anything like morale, but if they do you’ve just beaten it into a pulpy mess.’

‘Those were my thoughts!’

‘So figure out a way of keeping them inside. Just picture your thick skull-it’s got holes, right. Out the eyes, the nose, whatever. So, picture blocking ’em all up. Now you’re safe. Now you can think all the stupid things you like to think about.’

‘Is that why I ain’t getting anything from you?’

‘No. Right now, I’m too witless to think. Sky’s lightening-look at that cloud to the south. It’s not a cloud. It’s a hole in the sky. It’s a warren ripped wide open. Just looking at it makes my skin crawl like a leech under a rock.’

‘Ges, these legions-’

‘Furies.’

‘They ain’t presented for battle, unless you plan on us just marching right up to ’em. Like the Quon used to do.’

‘You’re right. The Quon had badly trained troops, but they had a lot of them. Who needs tactics?’

‘We do.’

‘Right. So, see if we can get ’em sawtooth-’ He stopped suddenly.

In the same instant something rushed through Stormy and he grunted, twisting round.

The massive baggage train had halted. Drones-smaller creatures, not much taller than a human-swarmed the beds, unshipping rectangular slabs of iron. ‘Gesler-are those shields?’

Gesler had halted and wheeled his mount. ‘Aye, I think so. I was wondering at those hand-and-a-half axes the Ve’Gath carried. So, these really are heavies-’

‘I couldn’t pick up one of those shields, let alone hang it from one arm. The Nah’ruk got missile weapons?’

‘Unplug your skull,’ said Gesler, ‘and you’ll get your answer. Another innovation from the Matron. She must have been something, I think.’

‘She was a big fat lizard.’

‘She also broke ten thousand years of changing nothing-and the Che’Malle claim they never had a religion.’

Grunting-and not quite understanding what Gesler had meant-Stormy cast about to find the Destriant.

Twenty paces to the west, Kalyth was astride the back of Sag’Churok, but she was not watching the smooth distribution of the huge shields through the Ve’Gath ranks. Instead, she was squinting south. Stormy followed her gaze.

‘Ges, I see ’em. A line of legions-’

‘Furies,’ said Gesler.

‘Five across making the facing. And what, three deep? Hood’s breath, they look to outnumber us badly. I’m thinking three teeth each legion, ranks no more than thirty deep. We can reach that high ground just ahead, shield-lock there.’

‘You’ll screen my K’ell, then, Stormy. Show your teeth and let the Nah’ruk close jaws on ’em. How long you think you can hold that ridge?’

‘How long do you need?’

‘I want most of the enemy Furies committed to pushing you off that ridge. I want you to savage them, enough to get them ducking their heads and thinking about nothing but the next step forward. I don’t want ’em looking right or left.’

‘What’s Ampelas Uprooted going to be doing during all this?’ Stormy demanded.

‘Unplug your skull.’

‘No, this is better.’

Kalyth had ridden closer. ‘There is sorcery-defences, weapons.’

Stormy wasn’t understanding something. He knew he would if he knocked down the walls he’d raised around his thoughts, but he didn’t want to do that. Ampelas Uprooted-Gesler wasn’t factoring it into his tactics at all. Why not? No matter. ‘Ges, when holding isn’t what we need to do any more, what do you want from us?’

‘Single wedge, advance at the walk. Cut the bastards in half, Stormy. One wing will be healthier than the other. That one needs blocking-we annihilate the weaker wing. Then we can wheel and take down the other half.’

‘Ges, these Ve’Gath never fought this way before. The K’Chain Che’Malle had no tactics at all, from what I can see in my head.’

‘That’s why they need us humans,’ Kalyth said. ‘She understood. You two-’ she shook her head. ‘The Che’Malle-they drink down your confidence. They are sated. They hear you, discussing the battle to come, and they are awestruck with wonder. And… faith.’

Stormy scowled. Woman, if you could read me right now, you’d run screaming. Of course we say we’re doing this and then that and then this other thing and it’s all so perfect and so logical. We know it’s all a joke. We know that once the battle is engaged, it all turns into Hood’s hoary picnic basket.

Me and Ges, we’re just amateurs. Dujek was damned good at this, but Dassem Ultor, ah, he was the best of them all. He could stand there in front of ten thousand soldiers, and he’d take ’em all through every sword-stroke in the battle to come. By the end of all that wheeling here, driving there, breaking through there, we’d all be nodding half bored and ready to get on with it. It was a done deal to us, and the First Sword, why, he’d just take us all in with his eyes and give back one single nod.

Then the day went out and mayhem was a field of flowers and by dusk the enemy was dead or on the run.

Aye, Gesler, I hear you echoing him. I see you taking on his matter-of-fact tone and that face of sun-warmed iron that we all knew would turn to ice when the time came. I’ll give you this, friend, you’re stealing from the best of ’em all, and doing good.

He clawed through his beard. ‘Anyone got a cask of ale? I can’t remember the last time I went into a battle not belching sour brew.’ He studied Kalyth for a moment, and then sighed. ‘Never mind. Go on, Ges, go hide your K’ell, I got it here.’

‘See you when it’s done, Shield Anvil.’

‘Aye, Mortal Sword.’

Heat was building beneath Kalyth. Sag’Churok was flooded with flavours of violence. But she sat hunched, chilled, her very bones feeling like sticks trapped in lakeshore ice. These two soldiers appalled her. Their confidence was insane. The ease with which they took command-and the mockery with which they exchanged their titles moments before separating-left her reeling.

Her people had met with traders from Kolanse. She had seen armoured caravan guards, looking bored as the merchants haggled with the Elan elders. Children had drawn close to them, eyes shining, but none drew close enough to touch, as much as they might have wanted to. Killers were lodestones. Their silence and their flat eyes fed something in the young boys and girls, and Kalyth could see their childlike longing, the whispering romance of the horizons these warriors had seen. Such scenes had frightened her, and she had prayed to the spirits for the strangers to leave, to take their dangerous temptations with them.

Looking into Gesler’s eyes moments ago, she had seen the same terrible promise. The world was ever too small for him. The horizon chained him and that chain’s pull was relentless. He didn’t care what he left in his wake. His kind never did.

Yet I knew. Gu’Rull saw true. These were the ones I was seeking. These two men are the answer to Gunth’an Acyl’s vision. A future alive with hope.

But they don’t care. They will lead us in this battle, and if we all die they will either flee at the last moment, or they will fall-it’s no matter to them. They are no different from Redmask.

Those caravan guards still squatting in her memory, they were dead and they knew it. This knowledge was the one lover every warrior and every soldier shared, a whore of monstrous proportions. Paid in blood, pimped by kings and generals and fanatic prophets. And it’s all twisted round. It’s the whore who does the raping.

You couldn’t catch her in a thousand years.

One time, two young braves had vanished after a caravan’s departure. The elders and parents met to discuss whether or not to set out after them, to drag them back to the village. In the end, the elders wandered off, and the mothers wept softly with their husbands looking on.

They put chains on and called it freedom. The whore stole them.

She wanted Gesler and Stormy to die. She wanted it with all her heart. There was no reason for it. They’d done nothing wrong. In fact, they were about to do precisely what they were meant to do. And they would not shrink from their destiny. They are not to blame for my hate and my fear.

But I want a world without soldiers. I want to see them all kill each other. I want to see kings and generals standing alone-not a single soul within reach of their grasping claws. No weapon to back their will, no blade to sing their threats. I want to see them revealed for the weak, miserable creatures they truly are.

What can bring this about? How do I make such a world?

Spirits bless my ancestors, I wish I knew.

She’d lost her Mahybe, her clay vessel awaiting her soul. For her, death was a nightmare she knew was coming. She had no reason to dream of any future. In this, was she not like those caravan guards? Was she not the same as Gesler and Stormy? What did they see in her eyes?

I am Destriant. And yet I dream of betrayal. When she looked upon the Ve’Gath, the echoes of their agony of birth returned to her, the terrors of the Womb. They did not deserve what was coming, and yet they longed for it. Could she steal them away from this day of dying, she would. She’d lead them, instead, against her own kind. A holy war against the soldiers of the world and their masters.

Leaving only herders and farmers and fisherfolk. Artists and tanners and potters. Story-tellers and poets and musicians. A world for them and them alone. A world of peace.

The Nah’ruk Furies seemed to devour the broken plain as they advanced. The east was bright with the sun’s birth, but the sky above the enemy legions was a vast stain, a bruise, a maw from which wind howled.

Stormy drew his sword. He could see the front ranks of the foe preparing clubs-weapons of sorcery: the visions or stolen memories flashed scenes of devastating magic through his mind. Ready your shields, and pray the iron holds.

He glared over a shoulder to Ampelas Uprooted. A veil of white smoke enwreathed the sky keep. Clouds? Scowling, Stormy turned his attention to his Ve’Gath. They were arrayed upon the ridge as if painted from his own mind-they knew his thoughts now that he’d knocked down his mental walls. They knew what he wanted, what he needed. And they will never break. Never flee-unless panic takes me, and Hood knows, for all the shit I been through, it ain’t happened yet. And it won’t today neither.

‘So, we stand, lizards. We stand.’

A sudden rustling through the ranks as heads lifted.

Stormy swung round.

From the gaping hole in the morning sky shapes were emerging. Towering, black, pushing out from the maelstrom foaming out from the warren.

Sky keeps. None as huge as the one behind him, massing perhaps two-thirds, and none were carved beyond angled plains of black stone. And yet…

Three… five… eight-

‘Beru fend!’

Ampelas Uprooted ignited like a star behind him.

The deafening, blinding salvo of sorcery ripped across the sky. Enormous chunks of gouged, burning stone erupted from the nearest three Nah’ruk sky keeps. Streaming churning smoke and rubble, shattered fragments the size of tenement blocks plunged earthward, slamming into the ground in the midst of the rearmost ranks of the Nah’ruk.

Ears numbed by the concussion, Gesler rose high on his stirrups-Ampelas Uprooted had drawn closer, looming almost directly overhead. ‘Hood’s breath! Ke’ll Hunters-flee the shadow! Get out from under it! East and west-run!’

He charged forward on his Ve’Gath. Stormy! Fuck the stand-charge ’em! You hear? Charge and close!

He’d heard the stories of the Siege of Pale. Moon’s Spawn’s rain of wreckage into the city had broken the backs of the defenders. This deadly rain of rubble could shatter his entire army.

More Nah’ruk sky keeps emerged from the wound.

Lightning crackled, arced savagely out from a half-dozen sky keeps, converging on Ampelas Uprooted.

The detonations thundered. And the rain of slaughter began.

The huge wagons and their scrambling drones vanished beneath an avalanche that lifted nearby K’ell Hunters into the air, tails lashing for balance as they flailed about. Dust rolled out thick as a tidal wave to swallow the spreading horror as massive chunks of stone descended from the battered Uprooted.

Through the torrential, billowing smoke and rubble, Ampelas lashed back.

The saw-tooth line of Ve’Gath lifted as if heaved forward by the ridge itself, and all at once the huge warriors were pouring down the slope, straight for the lines of Nah’ruk.

Sorcery arced out from the wired clubs, crashed into a shield-locked wall of iron. The Ve’Gath staggered, but not one fell.

There was no time for a second salvo.

The Ve’Gath toothed line hammered into the Nah’ruk. The impact of the charge flattened two, then three ranks of the Short-Tails. Weapons lashed down as the Ve’Gath trampled the fallen enemy, closing with the deeper lines still reeling from the impact.

Stormy was at the very heart of the attack. He’d swung his sword twice, and both times his blade had bitten deep into armour-but his targets were in the act of dying anyway, for they had come within reach of his mount. He couldn’t close with anything worth hacking apart. He roared in frustration.

The Nah’ruk warriors were outmatched. They bore no shields. The Ve’Gath simply chewed through them.

Lightning ripped down from the sky, ploughed a bloody, burning swath through the rearmost Ve’Gath ranks, slaying hundreds in an instant.

Stormy snarled, battered by those sudden, terrible deaths. Break formation! Close with the enemy!

Another lash of sorcery scythed down hundreds more.

Close!

Ampelas Rooted burned from a dozen gaping fissures. Massive pieces had shorn clear, revealing exposed innards from which poured black smoke. The sky keep shuddered as attack after attack pounded into it. The edifice’s forward progress had halted, and now it was being buffeted backward. Still it spat its own fury, and Gesler could see one of the Nah’ruk keeps leaning far to one side, billowing flames and smoke, and from this one no lightning winged out.

But there were too many of the damned things. Three had drifted out to the east, and were now angling to draw up behind Ampelas Rooted-where the thick iron plates armouring that side of its flank had been removed to fashion shields for the Ve’Gath. In moments, they would strike a soft target.

And that’ll kill her. Like a knife to the back.

When she’s finished, those keeps will turn on us here below. If they can.

But I won’t let them.

‘K’ell Hunters! Flanking charge from both sides. Cut in behind the contact-hollow out those engaged legions! Don’t piss around, damn you all! Charge!’

The three Nah’ruk sky keeps loosed raging arcs of lightning. Kalyth stared in horror as the lower half of Ampelas Rooted seemed to bulge, limed in red glow. The concussion of the detonation threw Sag’Churok and Gunth Mach down. Kalyth tumbled clear of the thrashing beasts, rocks lacerating her shoulder and face. She rolled on to her back. The sky was burning, and flaming stones rained down.

She cried out, covering her eyes.

At the rush of hot wind, Stormy twisted round. The lower third of Ampelas Rooted was simply gone, and what remained was spilling its guts, everything burning as the wreckage plunged earthward. The impact was driving the keep on to its side-or back-exposing the destroyed maw of its base.

He swore as Ampelas Rooted somehow managed to return fire, two serpents of lightning writhing out behind it.

They must have struck, though he could not see past the Che’Malle keep, but the thunder of impacts trembled the earth-and then he saw one of the Nah’ruk keeps rising behind Ampelas Rooted, climbing on streamers of smoke.

His eyes widened to see the huge thing gaining speed as it shot still higher. With smoke swarming down its flanks, damaged beyond hope of control, the keep seemed to lunge as it shot into the sky-and kept going.

The remaining two ignited in another sorcerous strike.

Light engulfed Ampelas Uprooted-

The K’ell Hunters plunged into the buckling flanks of the Nah’ruk Furies that were locked jaw to jaw with the Ve’Gath. Their massive blades hacked bloody paths into the press. The Nah’ruk could not match their speed, their reach, and they seemed to melt before the attack.

In his mind, Gesler was shouting the same words over and over, a mantra of desperation. Close close close in-close-they won’t fire if-

Two sky keeps, hovering directly above the battle, sent down writhing spears. Nah’ruk, Ve’Gath and K’ell bodies lifted into the air, blackened, iron shattering.

You pieces of shit!

It was lost. All of it. He realized that in this instant.

The keeps would sterilize the plain below them, if that was what it took-

Off to the west, two more sky keeps were swinging round to approach the battle.

Gesler glared at them.

And then both exploded.

My flesh is stone. My blood rages hot as molten iron. I have a thousand eyes. A thousand swords. And one mind.

I have heard the death-cry. Was she kin? She said as much, when first she touched me. We were upon the ground. Far from each other, and yet of a kind.

I heard her die.

And so I came to mourn her, I came to find her body, her silent tomb.

But she dies still. I do not understand. She dies still-and there are strangers. Cruel strangers. I knew them once. I know them now. I know, too, that they will not yield.

Who am I?

What am I?

But I know the answers to these questions. I believe, at last, that I do.

Strangers, you bring pain. You bring suffering. You bring to so many dreams the dust of death.

But, strangers, I am Icarium.

And I bring far worse.

Kalyth’s eyes flickered open, on a scene jostled and chaotic with smoke. She was in Gunth Mach’s clutches, gripped as would be a child. The One Daughter was flanked on the right by Sag’Churok and by Bre’nigan on the left, the three of them running at a steady trot across the valley floor.

The battle raged just beyond the J’an Sentinel. The K’ell Hunters had cut through to the foremost ranks of the Ve’Gath, but now the enemy had begun an encirclement.

Lightning lashed down from the keeps directly above the field, tearing ragged paths of destruction through the press.

Huge drums were pounding the air to her right and she twisted round to look in that direction. Two Nah’ruk keeps were breaking apart, the fires in their cores burning so hot she saw stone melting like wax, falling away from iron bones. The one to the north was descending earthward as if sinking through water. Multiple explosions racked them both.

Rising from behind them, shouldering through thick pillars of black smoke, another Uprooted.

What? Who? Sag’Churok-

‘Kalse Uprooted, Destriant. But there is no Matron within it. The one who commands… it has been a long time since he last walked among the K’Chain Che’Malle and Nah’ruk.’

Sorcery swarmed round Kalse, green, blue and white-a kind she had never before seen-and then suddenly pulsed out in a seething wave. The magic cut through the two dying keeps and Kalyth gasped to see ice explode out from fissures in the ravaged black stone. As the wave burst through the struck keeps, the one to the south simply split in half, the lower section dropping like a mountain, the upper end lifting and spinning inside swirling streams of smoke, rubble and shards of ice. The other one’s upper third disintegrated in a white cloud moments before it struck the ground.

The concussions of the two impacts shook the earth. The hills to the west were crushed flat. The remnants of the keeps blew apart in vast clouds of dust and rock.

At this same moment the wave passed directly over Kalyth and the three K’Chain Che’Malle, carrying with it air so cold it stunned her lungs. Gasping, agony convulsing her chest, she did not see the wave strike the three sky keeps above the battlefield. The explosions deafened her-darkness rushed in, even as Gunth Mach staggered.

The arrival of a second Che’Malle keep filled the sky with a storm of violence. Above them, Gesler could see nothing but churning clouds and deathly flashes-even the bulks of the keeps had vanished. It seemed as if the sky itself burned, raining white-hot stones that snapped as they shot down through bitterly cold air. Impossibly, snow swirled down amidst ashes and rubble.

Nah’ruk keeps crowded the warren’s gate, as if seeking to break through to bring succour to those dying before the stranger’s onslaught, but wave after wave slammed into them, and the unknown Uprooted was bulling ever closer, as if to drive down the very throat of the warren. Lightning lashed into it, tore huge gashes in its flanks. Death poured down from the sky.

Gesler’s mount towered amidst the K’ell Hunters crowded in on all sides-he knew the K’ell were providing a cordon around them-though nothing could defend any of them against the deadly deluge from above. He could see the rear Nah’ruk Furies committing to the battle-they had been and were still being decimated by falling wreckage. Even so, sheer numbers alone were beginning to tell. Stormy’s Ve’Gath had ceased their advance, but Gesler could see his friend, the battle lust upon him, his face red as his hair, his eyes blazing with madness.

‘Stormy! Stormy! Androjan Redarr, you brainless bastard!’

The head swung round. The man smiled.

Gods below, Stormy. ‘We’re encircled!’

‘And we’re cutting ’em to pieces!’

‘We need to break out-the sky’s killing us!’

‘Withdraw your K’ell! Regroup and set up a charge!’

‘Which side?’

‘Whatever’s behind Kalse!’

Kalse. I ain’t been paying attention. ‘And you?’

‘Back-to-back wedges-we’re driving out to the fucking sides! You watch ’em pour into the gap and then you charge ’em! We about face and close the vice!’

Stormy, you Hood-damned genius. ‘Agreed!’

The pain was overwhelming. He bled from wounds sheathing his body. Blow after blow hammered into him. Blind, deafened, he struck back, not even knowing if his sorcery found the enemy. He felt himself tearing loose, moments from being ripped from his flesh of cracked stone, his bones of tortured iron.

I shall become a ghost again. Lost. Where are my children? You have abandoned me-there are too many of them, they close like wolves-my children-help me-

‘You must close the gate.’

Breath?

‘Yes. Feather Witch. The Errant drowned me. I took his eye, he took my life. Never bargain with gods. His eye-I give it to you, Lifestealer. The gate-do you see it? You are drawing nearer-Lifestealer, do not stop-’

Another voice spoke. ‘They killed a dragon for this power, Icarium.’

Taxilian?

‘Its blood burned this hole-if you fail, the sky shall fill with the enemy machines-and the Nah’ruk will triumph this day. See the K’Chain Che’Malle, Icarium? They can win this-if you stop the Gath’ran Citadels, if you stop them from entering this realm. Seal the gate!’

He could see it now. He held in his hand the eye of an Elder God. Slick, soft, smeared with blood.

The wound between the realms was vast-even Kalse Uprooted could not-

‘You must build a wall-’

‘A prison!’

Feather Witch hissed, ‘Root and Blueiron, Lifestealer! Ice Haunt is not enough! You must awaken the warrens within you! Root to the rock and earth. Blueiron to hold life in your machines. Command the breach!’

‘I cannot hold. I am dying.’

‘There are children in the world, Icarium.’

‘Asane? You do not understand. You are not enough-’

‘There are children in the world. The warrens you have made from your own blood-’

Feather Witch snarled. ‘Our blood!’

‘And ours, yes. The warrens, Icarium-did you imagine they belonged to you and none other? It is too late for that. This day is the day of fire, Icarium. The children wait. The children hear.’

In his mind, even as it crumbled on all sides, he could hear a new voice, a sweet voice, one he had never heard before.

‘I dream we are three

Rutt who is not Rutt and Held

Who cannot be held-

The girl knows silence

Is a game

The boy knows the kiss

Of the Eres’al

The mother of wheeling stars

Who seeds all time

Through me they hear your need

I am the voice of the unborn

In crystal I see fire and I see smoke

I see lizards and Fathers

In crystal I see the boy and the girl.

Heal the wound, God,

Your children are close-’

Rautos whispered-the last words Icarium would remember. ‘Icarium, in the name of a blessed wife… have faith.’

Faith. He took hold of that word.

His hand closed about the eye and he heard the shriek of an Elder God, as he transformed the eye into what he needed. For Root.

A seed.

A Finnest.

Kalyth saw Kalse Uprooted plunge into the maw, and then halt as a storm of lightning tore into it. The very sky seemed to tremble, and then the ground began to shake, and as she stared, she saw stone burst upward from the plain, directly beneath Kalse. The bedrock lifted like gnarled arms, as if an enormous upended tree was flinging roots into the air.

Those roots rose yet higher, touched the base of Kalse Uprooted, and then spread in a frenzy outward. Branches of rock twisted, crowded against the edges of the gate, where fires flared only to vanish. The Wastelands seemed to grow ashen on all sides, as if the very last drops of its lifeblood were being drawn into this savage growth.

The four surviving Nah’ruk sky keeps on this side of the portal unleashed a frenzied assault upon Kalse. Stone exploded. Massive fissures ripped through, spewing molten rock-the entire city was moments from bursting apart.

The stranger fails-but, such glory! To see this! To witness such courage!

The stone tree-if that was what it was-did not cease its mad growth, and she saw roots curl into the wounds in the city’s flanks. Where the lightning struck the writhing stone, the sound of the impacts boomed deeper than any thunder, but everywhere that wounds broke open stone swarmed in to heal the damage.

All at once the attacks ceased. Sudden heat washed down upon Kalyth and she cried out in pain.

The four Nah’ruk sky keeps were engulfed in flames, reeling away from the gate. The fires brightened, and then, in a flash, burst incandescent white at their cores. As she watched, in horror, in wonder, the keeps seemed to be vaporizing before her eyes. Churning, the towering pillars of fire pitched eastward, beneath them the ground blackening with scorching heat.

Gunth Mach spoke in her mind. ‘Destriant. See through my eyes. Do you see?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Two figures stood upon a torn, ruined ridge to the northwest. Sorcery poured from them in terrible waves.

A boy.

A girl.

He didn’t care. The world could be moments from being swallowed by the Abyss itself, Stormy was finally in the midst of war’s sharpest truths and nothing else-nothing-mattered. Laughing, he slashed and hacked at the Nah’ruk as they pressed in, as the dead-eyed lizards sought to clamber over the Ve’Gath, sought by numbers alone to overwhelm this savage wall of denial.

Gesler’s charge down the pocket had pierced the bastards like a boar-sticker, forcing them into the narrow spaces between the frenzied K’ell and the shield-locked Ve’Gath. They fought with appalling ferocity, and died in chilling silence.

His mount was wounded. His mount was probably dying-who could tell? All these lizards fought until their last breath. But its defences had slowed, weakened. There was blood everywhere and he could feel its chest heaving with shuddering cadence.

A short-snouted maw lunged at his face.

Cursing, he pitched back to avoid the snapping dagger teeth, struggled to draw close his short-handled axe-but the damned Nah’ruk surged still closer, clawing its way up the Ve’Gath’s shoulder. His mount staggered-

He chopped with his axe, but the range was too tight, and though the edge bit into the side of the lizard’s head the wound it delivered was not enough to sway the creature. The jaws opened wide. The head snapped forward-

Something snarling struck the Nah’ruk, a knotted mass of mottled, scar-seamed hide and muscle, savage canines sinking deep into the lizard’s neck.

Disbelieving, Stormy kicked his boots free of the stirrups to roll further back-

A fucking dog?

Bent?

That you?

Oh, but it surely was.

Greenish blood spilled from the Nah’ruk’s mouth. The eyes dulled, and a heartbeat later dog and lizard pitched down from the Ve’Gath.

At that moment, Stormy saw the burning sky keeps.

And the storm was gone, the thunder vanished, the world filling with sounds of iron, flesh and bone. The song of ten thousand battles, made eerily surreal by there being not a single scream, not a single cry of agony or shriek begging mercy.

The Nah’ruk were falling.

Battle halted. Slaughter commenced.

No song lives upon a single note.

But to a soldier, who had faced death for an eternity since the dawn, this grisly music was the sweetest music of all.

Slaughter! For my brave Ve’Gath! Slaughter! For Gesler and his K’ell! Slaughter, for the Bonehunters-my friends-SLAUGHTER!

As if some fulcrum had been irrevocably destroyed, Ampelas Uprooted slowly rolled upside down. The entire edifice was burning now, spilling sheets of flaming oil that splashed bright upon rubble, corpses and wounded drones directly below.

Gesler knew it was now dead, a lifeless hulk slowly tumbling in the sky.

Two sky keeps still raged in death-throes behind it, leaning like drunks, moments from colliding with one another. The smoke column from a third was shredding apart to high winds, but of the keep itself there was no sign. The rest were but ashes on the black wind.

Before them rose a mountain of gnarled rock, enclosing the wreckage that had once been Kalse Uprooted, holding it up as if it was a gem, or a giant shattered eye. Something about the stone was familiar, but for the moment, he could not place it. The manifestation reached stunningly high, piercing through the dust and smoke.

Stormy’s hunt for the last fleeing Nah’ruk had taken him and a thousand or so Ve’Gath beyond the hills to the southeast.

Exhausted, numbed beyond all reason, Gesler leaned back in the strange saddle. Some damned dog was yapping at his mount’s ankles.

He saw Kalyth, Sag’Churok, Gunth Mach and the J’an Sentinel, and beyond them, approaching at a careless walk, two children.

Grub. Sinn.

Gesler leaned forward and glared down at the yapping dog. ‘Gods below, Roach,’ he said in a hoarse voice, ‘you returning the favour?’ He drew a shuddering breath. ‘Listen, rat, cos I’m only going to say this once-I guarantee it. But right now, your voice is the prettiest sound I’ve ever heard.’

The miserable thing snarled up at him.

It had never learned how to smile.

Slipping down from the Ve’Gath, Gesler sagged on aching legs. Kalyth was kneeling, facing the direction from which Sinn and Grub were approaching. ‘Get up, Destriant,’ he said, finding himself leaning against the Ve’Gath’s hip. ‘Those two got heads so swelled it’s a wonder a mortal woman pushed ’em out.’

She looked over and he saw the muddy streaks of tears on her cheeks. ‘She had… faith. In us humans.’ The woman shook her head. ‘I did not.’

The two children walked up.

Gesler scowled. ‘Stop looking so smug, Sinn. You two are in a lot of trouble.’

‘Bent and Roach found us,’ said Grub, scratching in the wild thatch of hair on his head. It looked as though neither of them had bathed in months. ‘We were safe, Sergeant Gesler.’

‘Happy for you,’ he said in a growl. ‘But they needed you-both of you. The Bonehunters were in the Nah’ruk’s path-what do you think happened to them?’

Grub’s eyes widened.

Sinn walked up to the Ve’Gath and set a hand on its flank. ‘I want one for myself,’ she said.

‘Didn’t you hear me, Sinn? Your brother-’

‘Is probably dead. We were in the warrens-the new warrens. We were on the path, we could taste the blood-so fresh, so strong.’ She looked up at Gesler with bleak eyes. ‘The Azath has sealed the wound.’

‘The Azath?’

She shrugged, facing the tree of rock, its lone knot gripping Kalse Uprooted. She bared her teeth in something that might have been a smile.

‘Who is in there, Sinn?’

‘He’s gone.’

‘Dead stone can’t seal a gate-not for long-even an Azath needs a life force, a living soul-’

She shot him a quick look. ‘That’s true.’

‘So what seals it-if he’s gone-’

‘An eye.’

‘A what?’

Kalyth spoke in the trader tongue. ‘Mortal Sword, the One Daughter is now the Matron of Mach Nest. Bre’nigan stands as her J’an Sentinel. Sag’Churok is the bearer of the seed. She will speak to you now.’

He turned to face the K’Chain Che’Malle.

‘Mortal Sword. The Shield Anvil returns. Shall we await him?’

Don’t bother, Matron, it’s not like he’s smart or anything.

‘I can, even from this distance, breach the defences he has raised.’

Do that. He deserves the headache.

‘Mortal Sword. Shield Anvil. Destriant. You three stand, you three are the mortal truths of my mother’s faith. New beliefs are born. What is an eternity spent in sleep? What is this morning of our first awakening? We honour the blood of our kin spilled this day. We honour too the fallen Nah’ruk and pray that one day they will know the gift of forgiveness.’

You must have seen it for yourself, Matron, Gesler said, that those Nah’ruk are bred down, past any hope of independent thought. Those sky keeps were old. They can repair, but they cannot make anything new. They are the walking dead, Matron. You can see it in their eyes.

Kalyth said, ‘I believed I saw the same in your eyes, Mortal Sword.’

He grunted and then sighed. Too tired for this. I have grieving to do. ‘You might have been right, Destriant. But we shed things like that like snake skin. You wear what you need to get through, that’s all.’

‘Then perhaps we can hope for the Nah’ruk.’

‘Hope all you like. Sinn-can they burn another gate through?’

‘Not for a long time,’ she replied, reaching down to collect up Roach. She cradled the foul thing in her arms, scratching it behind the ears.

The ugly rat’s pink tongue slid in and out as it panted. Its eyes were demonic with witless malice.

Gesler shivered.

The Matron spoke: ‘We are without a Nest. But the need must wait. Wounds must heal, flesh must be harvested. Mortal Sword, we now pledge ourselves to you. We now serve. Among your friends, there will be survivors. We shall find them.’

Gesler shook his head. ‘We led your army, Matron. We had our battle, but it’s over now. You don’t owe us anything. And whatever your mother believed, she never asked us, did she? Me and Stormy, we’re not priests. We’re soldiers and nothing more. Those titles you gave us-well, we’re shedding that skin too.’

Stormy’s voice rumbled through his mind, ‘Same for me, Matron. We can find our friends on our own-you need a city to build, or maybe some other Rooted you can find. Besides, we got Grub and Sinn, and Bent here-gods, he’s almost wagging that stub of a tail and I ain’t never seen that before. Must be all the gore on his face.’

Kalyth laughed, even as tears streamed down her lined cheeks. ‘You two-you cannot shed your titles. They are branded upon your souls-will you just leave me here?’

‘You’re welcome to come with us,’ said Gesler.

‘Where?’

‘East, I think.’

The woman flinched.

‘You’re from there, aren’t you? Kalyth?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Elan. But the Elan are no more. I am the last. Mortal Sword, you must not choose that direction. You will die-all of you.’ She pointed at Grub and Sinn. ‘Even them.’

The Matron said, ‘Then we see the path before us. We shall guard you all. Ve’Gath. K’ell. J’an. Gu’Rull who still lives, still serves. We shall be your guardians. It is the new way our mother foresaw. The path of our rebirth.

‘Humans, welcome us. The K’Chain Che’Malle have returned to the world.’

Sulkit heard her words and something stirred within her. She had been a J’an Sentinel in the time of her master’s need, but her master was gone, and now she was a Matron in her own right.

The time had not yet come when she would make herself known. Old seeds grew within her: the first born would be weak, but that could not be helped. In time, vigour would return.

Her master was gone. The throne was empty, barring a lone eye, embedded in the headrest. She was alone within Kalse.

Life was bleeding into the Rooted’s stone. Strange, alien life. Its flesh and bone was rock. Its mind and soul was the singular imposition of belief. But then, what else are any of us? She would think on this matter.

He was gone. She was alone. But all was well.

‘I have lost him. Again. We were so close, but now… gone.’

With these words the trek staggered to a halt, as if in Mappo’s private loss all other desires had withered, blown away.

The twins had closed on the undead wolf. Faint had a fear that death had somehow addicted them to its hoary promise. They spoke of Toc. They closed small fingers tight in the ratty fur of Baaljagg. The boy slept in Gruntle’s arms-now who could have predicted that bond? No matter, there was something in that huge man that made her think he should have been a father a hundred times by now-to the world’s regret, since he was not anything of the sort.

No, Gruntle had broken loves behind him. Hardly unique, of course, but in that man the loss belonged to everyone.

Ah, I think I just yearn for his shadow. Me and half the lasses here. Oh well. Silly Faint.

Setoc, who had been conversing with Cartographer, now walked over.

‘The storm to the south’s not getting any closer-we have that, at least.’

Faint rubbed the back of her neck and winced at the pressure. ‘Could have done with the rain.’

‘If there was rain.’

She glanced at the girl. ‘Saw you meet Gruntle’s eyes a while back. A look passed between you when we were talking about that storm. So, out with it.’

‘It was a battle, not a storm. Sorcery, and worse. But now it’s over.’

‘Who was fighting, Setoc?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s far away. We don’t have to go there.’

‘Seems like we’re not going anywhere right now.’

‘We will. For now, let’s leave him be,’ she said, eyes on Mappo, who stood a short distance away, motionless as a statue-as he had been for some time.

Amby had been walking alongside the horse-drawn travois carrying his brother-Jula was still close to death. Precious Thimble’s healing was a paltry thing. The Wastelands could not feed her magic, she said. There was still the chance that Jula would die. Amby knelt, shading his brother’s face with one hand. He suddenly looked very young.

Setoc walked back to the horse.

Sighing, Faint looked around.

And saw a rider approaching. ‘Company,’ she said, loud enough to catch everyone’s attention. All but Mappo reacted, turning or rising and following her gaze.

From Setoc: ‘I know him! That’s Torrent!’

More lost souls to this pathetic party. Welcome.

A single flickering fire marked the camp, and occasionally a figure passed in front of it. The wind carried no sound from those gathered there. Among the travellers, sorrow and joy, grief and the soft warmth of newborn love. So few mortals, and yet all of life was there, ringing the fire.

Faint jade light limned the broken ground, as if darkness itself could be painted into a mockery of life. The rider who sat upon a motionless, unbreathing horse, was silent, feeling like a creature too vast to approach any shore-he could look on with one dead eye or the other dead eye. He could remember what it was like to be a living thing among other living things.

The heat, the promise, the uncertainties and all the hopes to sweeten the bitterest seas.

But that shore was for ever beyond him now.

They could feel the warmth of that fire. He could not. And never again.

The figure that rose from the dust beside him said nothing for a time, and when she spoke it was in the spirit language-her voice beyond the ears of the living. ‘We all do as we must, Herald.’

‘What you have done, Olar Ethil…’

‘It is too easy to forget.’

‘Forget what?’

‘The truth of the T’lan Imass. Did you know, a fool once wept for them?’

‘I was there. I saw the man’s barrow-the gifts…’

‘The most horrid of creatures-human and otherwise-are so easily, so carelessly recast. Mad murderers become heroes. The insane wear the crown of geniuses. Fools flower in endless fields, Herald, where history once walked.’

‘What is your point, bonecaster?’

‘The T’lan Imass. Slayers of Children from the very beginning. Too easy to forget. Even the Imass themselves, the First Sword himself, needed reminding. You all needed reminding.’

‘To what end?’

‘Why do you not go to them, Toc the Younger?’

‘I cannot.’

‘No,’ she nodded, ‘you cannot. The pain is too great. The loss you feel.’

‘Yes,’ he whispered.

‘Nor should they yield love to you, should they? Any of them. The children…’

‘They should not, no.’

‘Because, Toc the Younger, you are the brother of Onos T’oolan. His true brother now. And for all the mercy that once dwelt in your mortal heart, only ghosts remain. They must not love you. They must not believe in you. For you are not the man you once were.’

‘Did you think I needed reminding, too, Olar Ethil?’

‘I think… yes.’

She was right. He felt inside for the pain he’d thought-he’d believed-he had lived with for so long. As if lived was even the right word. When he found it, he saw at last its terrible truth. A ghost. A memory. I but wore its guise.

The dead have found me.

I have found the dead.

And we are the same.

‘Where will you go now, Toc the Younger?’

He gathered the reins of his horse and looked back at the distant fire. It was a spark. It would not last the night. ‘Away.’

Snow drifted down, the sky was at peace.

The figure on the throne had been frozen, lifeless, for a long, long time.

A fine shedding of dust from the corpse marked that something had changed. Ice then crackled. Steam rose from flesh slowly thickening with life. The hands, gripping the arms of the throne, suddenly twitched, fingers uncurling.

Light flickered in its pitted eyes.

And, looking out from mortal flesh once more, Hood, who had once been the Lord of Death, found arrayed before him fourteen Jaghut warriors. They stood in the midst of frozen corpses, weapons out but lowered or resting across shoulders.

One spoke. ‘What was that war again?’

The others laughed.

The first one continued, ‘Who was that enemy?’

The laughter this time was louder, longer.

‘Who was our commander?’

Heads rocked back and the thirteen roared with mirth.

The first speaker shouted, ‘Does he live? Do we?’

Hood slowly rose from the throne, melted ice streaming down his blackened hide. He stood, and eventually the laughter fell away. He took one step forward, and then another.

The fourteen warriors did not move.

Hood lowered to one knee, head bowing. ‘I seek… penance.’

A warrior far to the right said, ‘Gathras, he seeks penance. Do you hear that?’

The first speaker replied. ‘I do, Sanad.’

‘Shall we give it, Gathras?’ another asked.

‘Varandas, I believe we shall.’

‘Gathras.’

‘Yes, Haut?’

‘What was that war again?’

The Jaghut howled.

The Errant was lying on wet stone, on his back, unconscious, the socket of one eye a pool of blood.

Kilmandaros, breathing hard, stepped close to look down upon him. ‘Will he live?’

Sechul Lath was silent for a moment, and then he sighed. ‘Live is such a strange word. We know nothing else, after all. Not truly. Not… intimately.’

‘But will he?’

Sechul turned away. ‘I suppose so.’ He halted suddenly, cocked his head and then snorted. ‘Just what he always wanted.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s got an eye on a Gate.’

Her laughter rumbled in the cavern, and when it faded she turned to Sechul and said, ‘I am ready to free the bitch. Beloved son, is it time to end the world?’

Face hidden from her view, Sechul Lath closed his eyes. Then said, ‘Why not?’