Reaper's Gale

Chapter Nineteen

She had been no different from any other child with her childish dreams of love. Proud and tall, a hero to stride into her life, taking her in his arms and sweeping away all her fears like silts rushing down a stream to vanish in some distant ocean. The benediction of clarity and simplicity, oh my, yes, that had been a most cherished dream.

Although Seren Pedac could remember that child, could remember the twisting anguish in her stomach as she yearned for salvation, an anguish delicious in all its possible obliterations, she would not indulge in nostalgia. False visions of the world were a child’s right, not something to be resented, but neither were they worthy of any adult sense of longing.

In Hull Beddict, after all, the young Seren Pedac had believed, for a time-a long time, in fact, before her foolish dream finally withered away-that she had found her wondrous hero, her majestic conjuration whose every glance was a blessing on her heart. So she had learned how purity was poison, the purity of her faith, that is, that such heroes existed. For her. For anyone.

Hull Beddict had died in Letheras. Or, rather, his body had died there. The rest had died in her arms years before then. In a way, she had used him and perhaps not just used him, but raped him. Devouring his belief, stealing away his vision-of himself, of his place in the world, of all the meaning that he, like any other man, sought for his own life. She had found her hero and had then, in ways subtle and cruel, destroyed him under the siege of reality. Reality as she had seen it, as she still saw it. That had been the poison within her, the battle between the child’s dream and the venal cynicism that had seeped into adulthood. And Hull had been both her weapon and her victim.

She had in turn been raped. Drunk in a port city tearing itself apart as the armies of the Tiste Edur swept in amidst smoke, flames and ashes. Her flesh made weapon, her soul made victim. There could be no surprise, no blank astonishment, to answer her subsequent attempt to kill herself. Except among those who could not understand, who would never understand.

Seren killed what she loved. She had done it to Hull, and if the day ever arrived when that deadly flower opened in her heart once more, she would kill again. Fears could not be swept away. Fears returned in drowning tides, dragging her down into darkness. I am poison.

Stay away. All of you, stay away.

She sat, the shaft of the Imass spear athwart her knees, but it was the weight of the sword belted to her left hip that threatened to pull her down, as if that blade was not a hammered length of iron, but links in a chain. He meant nothing by it. You meant nothing, Trull. I know that. Besides, like Hull, you are dead. You had the mercy of not dying in my arms. Be thankful for that.

Nostalgia or no, the child still within her was creeping forward, in timid increments. It was safe, wasn’t it, safe to cup her small unscarred hands and to show, in private oh-so-secret display, that old dream shining anew. Safe, because Trull was dead. No harm, none at all.

Loose the twist deep in her stomach-no, further down. She was now, after all, a grown woman. Loose it, yes, why not? For one who is poison, there is great pleasure in anguish. In wild longing. In the meaningless explorations of delighted surrender, subjugation-well, subjugation that was in truth domination-no point in being coy here. I surrender in order to demand. Relinquish in order to rule. I invite the rape because the rapist is me and this body here is my weapon and you, my love, are my victim.

Because heroes die. As Udinaas says, it is their fate.

The voice that was Mockra, that was the Warren of the Mind, had not spoken to her since that first time, as if, somehow, nothing more needed to be said. The discipline of control was hers to achieve, the lures of domination hers to resist. And she was managing both. Just.

In this the echoes of the past served to distract her, lull her into moments of sensual longing for a man now dead, a love that could never be. In this, even the past could become a weapon, which she wielded to fend off the present and indeed the future. But there were dangers here, too. Revisiting that moment when Trull Sengar had drawn his sword, had then set it into her hands. He wished me safe. That is all. Dare I create in that something more? Even to drip honey onto desire?

Seren Pedac glanced up. The fell gathering-her companions-were neither gathered nor companionable. Udinaas was down by the stream, upending rocks in search of crayfish-anything to add variety to their meals-and the icy water had turned his hands first red, then blue, and it seemed he did not care. Kettle sat near a boulder, hunched down to fend off the bitter wind racing up the valley. She had succumbed to an uncharacteristic silence these past few days, and would not meet anyone’s eyes. Silchas Ruin stood thirty paces away, at the edge of an overhang of layered rock, and he seemed to be studying the white sky-a sky the same hue as his skin. ‘The world is his mirror,’ Udinaas had said earlier, with a hard laugh, before walking down to the stream. Clip sat on a flat rock about halfway between Silchas Ruin and everyone else. He had laid out his assortment of weapons for yet another intense examination, as if obsession was a virtue. Seren Pedac’s glance found them all in passing, before her gaze settled on Fear Sengar.

Brother of the man she loved. Ah, was that an easy thing to say? Easy, perhaps, in its falsehood. Or in its simple truth. Fear believed that Trull’s gift was more than it seemed; that even Trull hadn’t been entirely aware of his own motivations. That the sad-faced Edur warrior had found in her, in Seren Pedac, Acquitor, a Letherii, something he had not found before in anyone. Not one of the countless beautiful Tiste Edur women he must have known. Young women, their faces unlined by years of harsh weather and harsher grief. Women who were not strangers. Women with still-pure visions of love.

This realm they now found themselves in, was it truly that of Darkness? Kurald Galain? Then why was the sky white? Why could she see with almost painful clarity every detail for such distances as left her mind reeling? The Gate itself had been inky, impenetrable-she had stumbled blindly, cursing the uneven, stony ground underfoot-twenty, thirty strides, and then there had been light. A rock-strewn vista, here and there a dead tree rising crooked into the pearlescent sky.

At what passed for dusk in this place that sky assumed a strange, pink tinge, before deepening to layers of purple and blue and finally black. So thus, a normal passage of day and night. Somewhere behind this cloak of white, then, a sun.

A sun in the Realm of Dark? She did not understand.

Fear Sengar had been studying the distant figure of Silchas Ruin. Now he turned and approached the Acquitor. ‘Not long, now,’ he said.

She frowned up at him. ‘Until what?’

He shrugged, his eyes fixing on the Imass spear. ‘Trull would have appreciated that weapon, I think. More than you appreciated his sword.’

Anger flared within her. ‘He told me, Fear. He gave me his sword, not his heart.’

‘He was distracted. His mind was filled with returning to Rhulad-to what would be his final audience with his brother. He could not afford to think of… other things. Yet those other things claimed his hands and the gesture was made. In that ritual, my brother’s soul spoke.’

She looked away. ‘It no longer matters, Fear.’

‘It does to me.’ His tone was hard, bitter. ‘I do not care what you make of it, what you tell yourself now to avoid feeling anything. Once, a brother of mine demanded the woman I loved. I did not refuse him, and now she is dead. Everywhere I look, Acquitor, I see her blood, flowing down in streams. It will drown me in the end, but that is no matter. While I live, while I hold madness at bay, Seren Pedac, I will protect and defend you, for a brother of mine set his sword into your hands.’

He walked away then, and still she could not look at him. Fear Sengar, you fool. A fool, like any other man, like every other man. What is it with your gestures? Your eagerness to sacrifice? Why do you all give yourselves to us? We are not pure vessels. We are not innocent. We will not handle your soul like a precious, fragile jewel. No, you fool, we’ll abuse it as if it was our own, or, indeed, of lesser value than that-if that is possible.

The crunch of stones, and suddenly Udinaas was crouching before her. In his cupped hands, a minnow. Writhing trapped in a tiny, diminishing pool of water.

‘Plan on splitting it six ways, Udinaas?’

‘It’s not that, Acquitor. Look at it. Closely now. Do you see? It has no eyes. It is blind.’

‘And is that significant?’ But it was, she realized. She frowned up at him, saw the sharp glitter in his gaze. ‘We are not seeing what is truly here, are we?’

‘Darkness,’ he said. ‘The cave. The womb.’

‘But… how?’ She looked round. The landscape of broken rock, the pallid lichen and mosses and the very dead trees. The sky.

‘Gift, or curse,’ Udinaas said, straightening. ‘She took a husband, didn’t she?’

She watched him walking back to the stream, watched him tenderly returning the blind minnow to the rushing water. A gesture Seren would not have expected from him. She? Who took a husband?

‘Gift or curse,’ said Udinaas as he approached her once again. ‘The debate rages on.’

‘Mother Dark… and Father Light.’

He grinned his usual cold grin. At last, Seren Pedac stirs from her pit. I’ve been wondering about those three brothers.’

Three brothers?

He went on as if she knew of whom he was speaking.

‘Spawn of Mother Dark, yes, but then, there were plenty of those, weren’t there? Was there something that set those three apart? Andarist, Anomander, Silchas. What did Clip tell us? Oh, right, nothing. But we saw the tapestries, didn’t we? Andarist, like midnight itself. Anomander, with hair of blazing white. And here, Silchas, our walking bloodless abomination, whiter than any corpse but just as friendly. So what caused the great rift between sons and mother? Maybe it wasn’t her spreading her legs to Light like a stepfather none of them wanted. Maybe that’s all a lie, one of those sweetly convenient ones. Maybe, Seren Pedac, it was finding out who their father was.’

She could not help but follow his gaze to where stood Silchas Ruin. Then she snorted and turned away. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Does it matter? Not right now,’ Udinaas said. ‘But it will.’

‘Why? Every family has its secrets.’

He laughed. ‘I have my own question. If Silchas Ruin is all Light on the outside, what must he be on the inside?’

‘The world is his mirror.’

But the world we now look upon is a lie.

‘Udinaas, I thought the Tiste Edur were the children of Mother Dark and Father Light.’

‘Successive generations, probably. Not in any obvious way connected to those three brothers.’

‘Scabandari.’

‘Yes, I imagine so. Father Shadow, right? Ah, what a family that was! Let’s not forget the sisters! Menandore with her raging fire of dawn, Sheltatha Lore the loving dusk, and Sukul Ankhadu, treacherous bitch of night. Were there others? There must have been, but they’ve since fallen by the wayside. Myths-prefer manageable numbers, after all, and three always works best. Three of this, three of that.’

‘But Scabandari would be the fourth-’

Andarist is dead.’

Oh. Andarist is dead.’ And how does he know such things? Who speaks to you, Udinaas, in your nightly fevers?

She could find out, she suddenly realized. She could slide in, like a ghost. She could, with the sorcery of Mockra, steal knowledge. I could rape someone else’s mind, is what I mean. Without his ever knowing.

There was necessity, wasn’t there? Something terrible was coming. Udinaas knew what it would be. What it might be, anyway. And Fear Sengar-he had just vowed to protect her, as if he too suspected some awful confrontation was close at hand. I remain the only one to know nothing.

She could change that. She could use the power she had found within her. It was nothing more than self-protection. To remain ignorant was to justly suffer whatever fate awaited her; yes, in lacking ruthlessness she would surely deserve whatever befell her. For ignoring what Mockra offered, for ignoring this gift.

No wonder it had said nothing since that first conversation. She had been in her pit, stirring old sand to see what seeds might spring to life, but there was no light reaching that pit, and no life among the chill grains. An indulgent game and nothing more.

I have a right to protect myself. Defend myself.

Clip and Silchas Ruin were walking back. Udinaas was studying them with the avidness he had displayed when examining the blind minnow.

I will have your secrets, slave. I will have those, and perhaps much, much more.

Udinaas could not help but see Silchas Ruin differently. In a new light, ha ha. The aggrieved son. One of them, anyway. Aggrieved sons, daughters, grandchildren, their children, on and on until the race of Shadow wars against that of Darkness. All on a careless word, an insult, the wrong look a hundred thousand years ago.

But, then, where are the children of Light?

Well, a good thing, maybe, that they weren’t around.

.

Enough trouble brewing as it was, with Silchas Ruin and Clip on one side and Fear Sengar and-possibly-Scabandari on the other. But of course Fear Sengar is no Mortal Sword of Shadow. Although he probably wants to be, even believes himself to be. Oh, this will play badly indeed, won’t it?

Silent, they walked on. Across this blasted, lifeless landscape. But not quite! There are… minnows.

The quest was drawing to a close. Just as well. Nothing worse, as far as he was concerned, than those legends of old when the stalwart, noble adventurers simply went on and on, through one absurd episode after another, with each one serving some arcane function for at least one of the wide-eyed fools, as befitted the shining serrated back of morality that ran the length of the story, from head to tip of that long, sinuous tail. Legends that bite. Yes, they all do. That’s the point of them.

But not this one, not this glorious quest of ours. No thunderous message driving home like a spike of lightning between the eyes. No tumbling cascade of fraught scenes ascending like some damned stairs to the magical tower perched on the mountain’s summit, where all truths were forged into the simple contest of hero against villain.

Look at us! What heroes? We’re all villains, and that tower doesn’t even exist.

Yet.

I see blood dripping between the stones. Blood in its making. So much blood. You want that tower, Silchas Ruin? Fear Sengar? Clip? You want it that much? You will have to make it, and so you shall.

Fevers every night. Whatever sickness whispered in his veins preferred the darkness of the mind that was sleep. Revelations arrived in torn fragments, pieces hinting of some greater truth, something vast. But he did not trust any of that-those revelations, they were all lies. Someone’s lies. The Errant’s? Menandore’s? The fingers poking into his brain were legion. Too many contradictions, each vision warring with the next.

What do you all want of me?

Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to give it. He’d been a slave but he was a slave no longer.

This realm had not been lived in for a long, long time. At least nowhere in this particular region. The trees were so long dead they had turned to brittle stone, right down to the thinnest twigs with their eternally frozen buds awaiting a season of life that never came. And that sun up there, somewhere behind the white veil, well, it too was a lie. Somehow. After all, Darkness should be dark, shouldn’t it?

He thought to find ruins or something. Proof that the Tiste Andii had once thrived here, but he had not seen a single thing that had been shaped by an intelligent hand, guided by a sentient mind. No roads, no trails of any kind.

When the hidden sun began its fade of light, Clip called a halt. Since arriving in this place, he had not once drawn out the chain and its two rings, the sole blessing to mark this part of their grand journey. There was nothing to feed a fire, so the dried remnants of smoked deer meat found no succulence in a stew and lent no warmth to their desultory repast.

What passed for conversation was no better.

Seren Pedac spoke. ‘Clip, why is there light here?’

‘We walk a road,’ the young Tiste Andii replied. ‘Kurald Liosan, Father Light’s gift of long, long ago. As you can see, his proud garden didn’t last very long.’ He shrugged. ‘Silchas Ruin and myself, well, naturally we don’t need this, but leading you all by hand…’ His smile was cold.

‘Thought you were doing that anyway,’ Udinaas said. The gloom was deepening, but he found that there was little effect on his vision, a detail he kept to himself.

‘I was being kind in not stating the obvious, Letherii. Alas, you lack such tact.’

‘Tact? Fuck tact, Clip.’

The smile grew harder. ‘You are not needed, Udinaas. I trust you know that.’

A wince tightened Seren Pedac’s face. ‘There’s no point in-’

‘It’s all right, Acquitor,’ Udinaas said. ‘I was getting rather tired of the dissembling bullshit anyway. Clip, where does this road lead? When we step off it, where will we find ourselves?’

‘I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.’

‘Well, I have.’

Seren Pedac frowned across at Udinaas and asked, ‘Will you tell me, then?’

‘I can’t. It’s a secret-and yes, I know what I said about dissembling, but this way maybe you stay alive. Right now, and with what’s to come, you have a chance of walking away, when all’s said and done.’

‘Generous of you,’ she said wearily, glancing away.

‘He is a slave,’ Fear Sengar said. ‘He knows nothing, Acquitor. How could he? He mended nets. He swept damp sheaves from the floor and scattered new ones. He shelled oysters.’

And on the shore, one night,’ Udinaas said, ‘I saw a white crow.’

Sudden silence.

Finally, Silchas Ruin snorted. ‘Means nothing. Except perhaps a presentiment of my rebirth. Thus, Udinaas, it may be you are a seer of sorts… Or a liar.’

‘More likely both,’ Udinaas said. ‘Yet there was a white crow. Was it flying through darkness, or dusk? I’m not sure, but I think the distinction is, well, important. Might be worth some effort, remembering exactly, I mean. But my days of working hard at anything are done.’ He glanced over at Silchas Ruin. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

‘This is pointless,’ Clip announced, settling back until he was supine on the hard ground, hands laced behind his head, staring up at the black, blank sky.

‘So this is a road, is it?’ Udinaas asked-seemingly of no-one in particular. ‘Gift of Father Light. That’s the interesting part. So, the question I’d like to ask is this: are we travelling it alone?’

Clip sat back up.

Udinaas smiled at him. ‘Ah, you’ve sensed it, haven’t you? The downy hair on the back of your neck trying to stand on end. Sensed. Smelled. A whisper of air as from some high wind. Sending odd little chills through you. All that.’

Silchas Ruin rose, anger in his every line. ‘Menandore,’ he said.

‘I would say she has more right to this road than we do,’ Udinaas said. ‘But Clip brought us here out of the goodness of his heart. Such noble intentions.’

‘She tracks us,’ Silchas Ruin muttered, hands finding the grips of his singing swords. Then he glared skyward. ‘From the sky.’

‘For your miserable family feuds are the only things worth living for, right?’. ‘

There was alarm in Fear Sengar’s expression. ‘I do not understand. Why is Sister Dawn following us? What cares she for the soul of Scabandari?’

‘The Finnest,’ Clip said under his breath. Then, louder, ‘Bloodeye’s soul, Edur. She seeks to claim it for herself. Its power.’

Udinaas sighed. ‘So, Silchas Ruin, what terrible deed did you commit on your sun-locked sister? Or daughter, or whatever relation she is? Why is she out for your blood? Just what did you all do to each other all those millennia ago? Can’t you kiss and make up? No, I imagine not.’

‘There was no crime,’ Silchas Ruin said. ‘We are enemies in the name of ambition, even when I would not have it so. Alas, to live as long as we have, it seems there is naught else to sustain us. Naught but rage and hunger.’

‘I suggest a huge mutual suicide,’ Udinaas said. ‘You and all your wretched kin, and you, Clip, you could just jump in to appease your ego or something. Vanish from the mortal realms, all of you, and leave the rest of us alone.’

‘Udinaas,’ Clip said with amusement, ‘this is not a mortal realm.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘Not as you think of one, then. This is a place of elemental forces. Unfettered, and beneath every surface, the potential for chaos. This is a realm of the Tiste.’

Seren Pedac seemed startled. ‘Just “Tiste”? Not Andii, Edur-’

‘Acquitor,’ Silchas Ruin said, ‘the Tiste are the first children. The very first. Ours were the first cities, the first civilizations. Rising here, in realms such as this one. As Clip has said, elemental.’

‘Then what of the Elder Gods?’ Seren Pedac demanded.

Neither Clip nor Silchas Ruin replied, and the silence stretched, until Udinaas snorted a laugh. ‘Unwelcome relatives. Pushed into closets. Bar the door, ignore the knocking and let’s hope they move on. It’s ever the problem with all these creation stories. “We’re the first, isn’t it obvious? Those others? Ignore them. Imposters, interlopers, and worse! Look at us, after all! Dark, Light, and the gloom in between! Could anyone be purer, more elemental, than that?” The answer, of course, is yes. Let’s take an example, shall we?’

‘Nothing preceded Darkness,’ said Clip, irritation sharpening his pronouncement.

Udinaas shrugged. ‘That seems a reasonable enough assertion”; But then, is it? After all, Darkness is not just absence of light, is it? Can you have a negative definition like that? But maybe Clip wasn’t being nearly so offhand as he sounded just there. “Nothing preceded Darkness.” Nothing indeed. True absence, then, of anything. Even Darkness. But wait, where does chaos fit in? Was that Nothing truly empty, or was it filled with chaos? Was Darkness the imposition of order on chaos? Was it the only imposition of order on chaos? That sounds presumptuous. Would that Feather Witch was here-there’s too much of the Tiles that I’ve forgotten. All that birth of this and birth of that stuff. But chaos also produced Fire. It must have, for without Fire there is no Light. One might also say that without Light there is no Dark, and without both there is no Shadow. But Fire needs fuel to burn, so we would need matter of some kind-solids-born of Earth. And Fire needs air, and so-’

‘I am done listening to all of this nonsense,’ Silchas Ruin said.

The Tiste Andii walked off into the night, which wasn’t night at all-at least not in the eyes of Udinaas, and he found he could watch Silchas Ruin as the warrior went on for another forty or so paces, then spun round to face the camp once more. Ah, White Crow, you would listen on, I would you? Yet with none to see your face, none to challenge you directly.

My guess is, Silchas Ruin, you are as ignorant as the rest of us when it comes to the birth of all existence. That your notions are as quaint as ours, and just as pathetic, too.

Fear Sengar spoke. ‘Udinaas, the Edur women hold that the Kechra bound all that exists to time itself, thus assuring the annihilation of everything. Their great crime. Yet that death-I have thought hard on this-that death, it does not have the face of chaos. The very opposite, in fact.’

‘Chaos pursues,’ Clip muttered with none of his characteristic arrogance. ‘It is the Devourer. Mother Dark scattered its power, its armies, and it seeks ever to rejoin, to become one again, for when that happens no other power-not even Mother Dark-can defeat it.’

‘Mother Dark must have had allies,’ Udinaas said. ‘Either that, or she ambushed chaos, caught her enemy unawares. Was all existence born of betrayal, Clip? Is that the core of your belief? No wonder you are all at each other’s throats.’ Listen well, Silchas Ruin; I am closer on your trail than you ever imagined. Which, he thought then, might not be wise; might, in fact, prove fatal. ‘In any case, Mother Dark herself had to have been born of something. A conspiracy within chaos. Some unprecedented alliance where all alliances were forbidden. So, yet another betrayal.’

Fear Sengar leaned forward slightly. ‘Udinaas, how did you know we were being followed? By Menandore.’

‘Slaves need to hone their every sense, Fear Sengar. Because our masters are fickle. You might wake up one morning with a toothache, leaving you miserable and short-tempered, and in consequence an entire family of slaves might suffer devastation before the sun’s at midday. A dead husband or wife, a dead parent, or both. Beaten, maimed for life, blinded, dead-every possibility waits in our shadows.’

He did not think Fear was convinced, and, granted, the argument was thin. True, those heightened senses might be sufficient to raise the hackles, to light the instincts that something was on their trail. But that was not the same as knowing that it was Menandore. I was careless in revealing what I knew. I wanted to knock the fools off balance, but that has just made them more dangerous. Tome.

Because now they know-or will know, soon enough-that this useless slave does not walk alone.

For the moment, however, no-one was inclined to challenge him.

Drawing out bedrolls, settling in for a passage of restless sleep. Dark that was not dark. Light that was not light. Slaves who might be masters, and somewhere ahead of them all, a bruised stormcloud overhead, filled with thunder, lightning, and crimson rain.

She waited until the slave’s breathing deepened, lengthened, found the rhythm of slumber. The wars of conscience were past. Udinaas had revealed enough secret knowledge to justify this. He had never left his slavery behind, and now his Mistress was Menandore, a creature by all accounts as treacherous, vicious and cold-blooded as any other in that ancient family of what-might-be-gods.

Mockra whispered into life in her mind, as free as wandering thought, unconstrained by a shell of hard bone, by the well-worn pathways of the mind. A tendril lifting free, hovering in the air above her, she gave it the shape of a serpent, head questing, tongue flicking to find the scent of Udinaas, of the man’s very soul-there, sliding forward to close, a touch-

Hot.’

Seren Pedac felt that serpent recoil, felt the ripples sweep back into her in waves of scalding heat.

Fever dreams, the fire of Udinaas’s soul. The man stirred in his blankets.

She would need to be more subtle, would need the essence of the serpent she had chosen. Edging forward once more, finding that raging forge, then burrowing down, through hot sand, beneath it. Oh, there was pain, yes, but it was not, she now realized, some integral furnace of his soul. It was the realm his dream had taken him into, a realm of blistering light-

Her eyes opened onto a torn landscape. Boulders baked red and brittle. Thick, turgid air, the breath of a potter’s kiln. Blasted white sky overhead.

Udinaas wandered, staggering, ten paces away.

She sent her serpent slithering after him.

An enormous shadow slid over them-Udinaas spun and twisted to glare upward as that shadow flowed past, then on, and the silver and gold scaled dragon, gliding on stretched wings, flew over the ridge directly ahead, then, a moment later, vanished from sight.

Seren saw Udinaas waiting for it to reappear. And then he saw it again, now tiny as a speck, a glittering mote in the sky, fast dwindling. The Letherii slave cried out, but Seren could not tell if the sound had been one of rage or abandonment.

No-one likes being ignored.

Stones skittered near the serpent and in sudden terror she turned its gaze, head lifting, to see a woman. Not Menandore. No, a Letherii. Small, lithe, hair so blonde as to be almost white. Approaching Udinaas, tremulous, every motion revealing taut, frayed nerves.

Another intruder.

Udinaas had yet to turn from that distant sky, and Seren watched as the Letherii woman drew still closer. Then, five paces away, she straightened, ran her hands through her wild, burnished hair. In a sultry voice, the strange woman spoke. ‘I have been looking for you, my love.’

He did not whirl round. He did not even move, but Seren saw something new in the lines of his back and shoulders, the way he now held his head. In his voice, when he replied, there was amusement. ‘“My love”?’ And then he faced her, with ravaged eyes, a bleakness like defiant ice in this world of fire. ‘No longer the startled hare, Feather Witch-yes, I see the provocative way you now look at me, the brazen confidence, the invitation. And in all that, the truth that is your contempt still burns through. Besides,’ he added, ‘I heard you scrabbling closer, could smell, even, your fear. What do you want, Feather Witch?’

‘I am not frightened, Udinaas,’ the woman replied.

That name, yes. Feather Witch. The fellow slave, the Caster of the Tiles. Oh, there is history between them beyond what any of us might have imagined.

‘But you are,’ Udinaas insisted. ‘Because you expected to find me alone.’

She stiffened, then attempted a shrug. ‘Menandore feels nothing for you, my love. You must realize that. You are naught but a weapon in her hands.’

‘Hardly. Too blunted, too pitted, too fragile by far.’

Feather Witch’s laugh was high and sharp. ‘Fragile? Errant take me, Udinaas, you have never been that.’

Seren Pedac certainly agreed with her assessment. What reason this false modesty?

‘I asked what you wanted. Why are you here?’

‘I have changed since you last saw me,’ Feather Witch replied. ‘I am now Destra Irant to the Errant, to the last Elder God of the Letherii. Who stands behind the Empty Throne-’

‘It’s not empty.’

‘It will be.’

‘Now there’s your new-found faith getting in the way again. All that hopeful insistence that you are once more at the centre of things. Where is your flesh hiding right now, Feather Witch? In Letheras, no doubt. Some airless, stinking hovel that you have proclaimed a temple-yes, that stings you, telling me I am not in error. About you. Changed, Feather Witch? Well, fool yourself if you like. But don’t think I’m deceived. Don’t think I will now fall into your arms gasping with lust and devotion.’

‘You once loved me.’

‘I once pressed red-hot coins into Rhulad’s dead eyes, too. But they weren’t dead, alas. The past is a sea of regrets, but I have crawled a way up the shore now, Feather Witch. Quite a way, in fact.’

‘We belong together, Udinaas. Destra Irant and T’orrud Segul, and we will have, at our disposal, a Mortal Sword. Letherii, all of us. As it should be, and through us the Errant rises once more. Into power, into domination-it is what our people need, what we have needed for a long time.’

‘The Tiste Edur-’

‘Are on their way out. Rhulad’s Grey Empire-it was doomed from the start. Even you saw that. It’s tottering, crumbling, falling to pieces. But we Letherii will survive. We always do, and now, with the rebirth of the faith in the Errant, our empire will make the world tremble. Destra Irant, T’orrud Segul and Mortal Sword, we shall be the three behind the Empty Throne. Rich, free to do as we please. We shall have Edur for slaves. Broken, pathetic Edur. Chained, beaten, we shall use them up, as they once did to us. Love me or not, Udinaas. Taste my kiss or turn away, it does not matter. You are T’orrud Segul. The Errant has chosen you-’

‘He tried, you mean. I sent the fool away.’

She was clearly stunned into silence.

Udinaas half turned with a dismissive wave of one hand. ‘I sent Menandore away, too. They tried using me like a coin, something to be passed back and forth. But I know all about coins. I’ve smelled the burning stench of their touch.’ He glanced back at her again. ‘And if I am a coin, then I belong to no-one. Borrowed, occasionally. Wagered, often. Possessed? Never for long.’

‘T’orrud Segul-’

‘Find someone else.’

‘You have been chosen, you damned fool!’ She started forward suddenly, tearing at her own threadbare slave’s tunic. Cloth ripped, fluttered on the hot wind like the tattered fragments of some imperial flag. She was naked, reaching out to drag Udinaas round, arms encircling his neck-

His push sent her sprawling onto the hard, stony ground. ‘I’m done with rapes,’ he said in a low, grating voice. ‘Besides, I told you we have company. You clearly didn’t completely understand me-’ And he walked past her, walked straight towards the serpent that was Seren Pedac.

She woke with a calloused hand closed about her throat. Stared up into glittering eyes in the gloom.

She could feel him trembling above her, his weight pinning her down, and he lowered his face to hers, then, wiry beard bristling along her cheek, brought his mouth to her right ear, and began whispering.

‘I have been expecting something like that, Seren Pedac, lor some time. Thus, you had my admiration… of your restraint. Too bad, then, it didn’t last.’

She was having trouble breathing; the hand wrapping her throat was an iron band.

‘I meant what I said about rapes, Acquitor. If you ever do that again, I will kill you. Do you understand me?’

She managed a nod, and she could see now, in his face, the full measure of the betrayal he was feeling, the appalling hurt. That she would so abuse him.

‘Think nothing of me,’ Udinaas continued, ‘if that suits the miserable little hole you live in, Seren Pedac. It’s what wiped away your restraint in the first place, after all. But I have had goddesses use me. And gods try to. And now a scrawny witch I once lusted after, who dreams her version of tyranny is preferable to everyone else’s. I was a slave-I am used to being used, remember? But-and listen carefully, woman-1 am a slave no longer-’

Fear Sengar’s voice came down from above them. ‘Release her throat, Udinaas. That which you feel at the back of your own neck is the tip of my sword-and yes, that trickle of blood belongs to you. The Acquitor is Betrothed to Trull Sengar. She is under my protection. Release her now, or die.’

The hand gripping her throat loosened, lifted clear-

And Fear Sengar had one hand in the slave’s hair, was tearing him back, flinging him onto the ground, the sword hissing in a lurid blur-

‘NO!’ Seren Pedac shrieked, clawing across to throw herself down onto Udinaas. ‘No, Fear! Do not touch him!’

‘Acquitor-’

Others awake now, rising on all sides-

‘Do not hurt him!’ I have done enough of that this night, ‘Fear Sengar-Udinaas, he had that right-‘Oh, Errant save me-‘He had that right,’ she repeated, her throat feeling torn on the inside from that first shriek. ‘I-listen, don’t, Fear, you don’t understand. I… I did something. Something terrible. Please…’ she was sitting up now, speaking to everyone, ‘please, this is my fault.’

Udinaas pushed her weight to one side, and she scraped an elbow raw as he clambered free. ‘Make it day again, Silchas Ruin,’ he said.

‘The night-’

‘Make it day again, damn you! Enough sleep-let’s move on. Now!’

To Seren Pedac’s astonishment, the sky began to lighten once more. What? How?

Udinaas was at his bedroll, fighting to draw it together, stuff it into his pack. She saw tears glittering on his weathered cheeks.

Oh, what have 1 done. Udinaas-

‘You understand too much,’ Clip said in that lilting, offhand tone of his. ‘Did you hear me, Udinaas?’

‘Go fuck yourself,’ the slave muttered.

Silchas Ruin said, ‘Leave him, Clip. He is but a child among us. And he will play his childish games.’

Ashes drifting down to bury her soul, Seren Pedac turned away from all of them. No, the child is me. Still. Always.

Udinaas…

Twelve paces away, Kettle sat, legs drawn under her, and held hands with Wither, ghost of an Andii, and there was neither warmth nor chill in that grip. She stared at the others as the light slowly burgeoned to begin a new day.

‘What they do to each other,’ she whispered.

Wither’s hand tightened around hers. ‘It is what it is to live, child.’

She thought about that, then. The ghost’s words, the weariness in the tone, and, after a long time, she finally nodded.

Yes, this is what it is to live.

It made all that she knew was coming a little easier to bear.

In the litter-scattered streets of Drene, the smell of old smoke was bitter in the air. Black smears adorned building walls. Crockery, smashing down from toppled carts, had flung pieces everywhere, as if the sky the night before had rained glazed sherds. Bloodstained cloth, shredded and torn remnants of tunics and shirts, were blackening under the hot sun. Just beyond the lone table where sat Venitt Sathad, the chaos of the riot that had ignited the previous day’s dusk was visible on all sides.

The proprietor of the kiosk bar limped back out from the shadowed alcove that served as kitchen and storehouse, bearing a splintered tray with another dusty bottle of Bluerose wine. The stunned look in the old man’s eyes had yet to retreat, giving his motions an oddly disarticulated look as he set the bottle down on Venitt Sathad’s table, bowed, then backed away.

The few figures that had passed by on the concourse this morning had each paused in their furtive passage to stare at Venitt-not because, he knew, he was in any way memorable or imposing, but because in sitting here, eating a light breakfast and now drinking expensive wine, the servant of Rautos Hivanar presented a scene of civil repose. Such a scene now jarred, now struck those who had weathered the chaos of the night before, as if lit with its very own madness.

A hundred versions clouded the riot’s beginning. A money-lender’s arrest. A meal overcharged and an argument that got out of hand. A sudden shortage of this or that. Two Patriotist spies beating someone, and then being set upon by twenty bystanders. Perhaps none of these things had occurred; perhaps they all had.

The riot had destroyed half the market on this side of the city. It had then spilled into the slums northwest of the docks, where, judging from the smoke, it raged on unchecked.

The garrison had set out into the streets to conduct a brutal campaign of pacification that was indiscriminate at first, but eventually found focus in a savage assault on the poorest people of Drene. At times in the past, the poor-being true victims-had been easily cowed by a few dozen cracked skulls. But not this time. They had had enough, and they had fought back.

In this morning’s air, Venitt Sathad could still smell the shock-sharper by far than the smoke, colder than any bundle of bloody cloth that might still contain pieces of human meat-the shock of guards screaming with fatal wounds, of armoured bullies being cornered then torn apart by frenzied mobs. The shock, finally, of the city garrison’s ignoble retreat to the barracks.

They had been under strength, of course. Too many out with Bivatt in the campaign against the Awl. And they had been arrogant, emboldened by centuries of precedent. And that arrogance had blinded them to what had been happening out there, to what was about to happen.

The one detail that remained with Venitt Sathad, lodged like a sliver of wood in infected flesh that no amount of wine could wash away, was what had happened to the resident Tiste Edur.

Nothing.

The mobs had left them alone. Extraordinary, inexplicable. Frightening.

No, instead, half a thousand shrieking citizens had stormed Letur Anict’s estate. Of course, the Factor’s personal guards were, one and all, elite troops-recruited from every Letherii company that had ever been stationed in Drene-and the mob had been repulsed. It was said that corpses lay in heaps outside the estate’s walls.

Letur Anict had returned to Drene two days before, and Venitt Sathad suspected that the Factor had been as unprepared for the sudden maelstrom as had the garrison. In Overseer Brohl Handar’s absence, Letur governed the city and its outlying region. Whatever reports his agents might have delivered upon his return would have been rife with fears but scant on specifics-the kind of information that Letur Anict despised and would summarily dismiss. Besides, the Patriotists were supposed to take care of such things in their perpetual campaign of terror. A few more arrests, some notable disappearances, the confiscation of properties.

Of course, Rautos Hivanar, his master, had noted the telltale signs of impending chaos. Tyrannical control was dependent on a multitude of often disparate forces, running the gamut from perception to overt viciousness. The sense of power needed to be pervasive in order to create and maintain the illusion of omniscience. Invigilator Karos Invictad understood that much, at least, but where the thug in red silks failed was in understanding that thresholds existed, and to cross them-with ever greater acts of brutality, with paranoia and fear an ever-rising fever-was to see the illusion shattered.

At some point, no matter how repressive the regime, the citizenry will come to comprehend the vast power in their hands. The destitute, the Indebted, the beleaguered middle classes; in short, the myriad victims. Control was sleight of hand trickery, and against a hundred thousand defiant citizens, it stood no real chance. All at once, the game was up.

The threshold, this time, was precisely as Rautos Hivanar had feared. The pressure of a crumbling, overburdened economy. Shortage of coin, the crushing weight of huge and ever-growing debts, the sudden inability to pay for anything. The Patriotists could draw knives, swords, could wield their knotted clubs, but against desperate hunger and a sense of impending calamity, they might as well have been swinging reeds at the wind.

In the face of all this, the Tiste Edur were helpless. Bemused, uncomprehending, and wholly unprepared. Unless, that is, their answer will be to begin killing. Everyone.

Another of Karos Invictad’s blind spots. The Invigilator’s contempt for the Tiste Edur could well prove suicidal. Their Emperor could not be killed. Their K’risnan could unleash sorcery that could devour every Letherii in the empire. And the fool thought to target them in a campaign of arrests?

No, the Patriotists had been useful; indeed, for a time, quite necessary. But-

‘Venitt Sathad, welcome to Drene.’

Without looking up, Venitt gestured with one hand as he reached for the wine bottle. ‘Find yourself a chair, Orbyn Truthfinder.’ A glance upward. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

The huge, odious man smiled. ‘I am honoured. If, that is, your thoughts were of me specifically. If,, however, they were of the Patriotists, well, I suspect that “honour” would be the wrong word indeed.’

The proprietor was struggling to drag another chair out to the table, but it was clear that whatever had caused the limp was proving most painful. Venitt Sathad set the bottle back down, rose, and walked over to help him.

‘Humble apologies, kind sir,’ the old man gasped, his face white and beads of sweat spotting his upper lip. ‘Had a fall yestereve, sir-’

‘Must have been a bad one. Here, leave the chair to me, and find us another unbroken bottle of wine-if you can.’

‘Most obliged, sir…’

Wondering where the old man had found this solid oak dining chair-one large enough to take Orbyn’s mass-Venitt Sathad pulled it across the cobbles and positioned it opposite his own chair with the table in between, then he sat down once more.

‘If not honour,’ he said, retrieving the bottle again and refilling the lone clay cup, ‘then what word comes to mind, Orbyn?’

Truthfinder eased down into the chair, gusting out a loud, wheezing sigh. ‘We can return to that anon. I have been expecting your arrival for some time now.’

‘Yet I found neither you nor the Factor in the city, Orbyn, upon my much-anticipated arrival.’

A dismissive gesture, as the proprietor limped up with a cup and a second bottle of Bluerose wine, then retreated with head bowed. ‘The Factor insisted I escort him on a venture across the sea. He has been wont to waste my time of late. I assure you, Venitt, that such luxuries are now part of the past. For Letur Anict.’

‘I imagine he is in a most discomfited state at the moment.’

‘Rattled.’

‘He lacks confidence that he can restore order?’

‘Lack of confidence has never been Letur Anict’s weakness. Reconciling it with reality is, alas.’

‘It is unfortunate that the Overseer elected to accompany Atri-Preda Bivatt’s campaign to the east.’

‘Possibly fatally so, yes.’

Venitt Sathad’s brows lifted. ‘Have some wine, Orbyn. And please elaborate on that comment.’

‘There are assassins in that company,’ Truthfinder replied, frowning to indicate his distaste. ‘Not mine, I assure you. Letur plays his own game with the Overseer. Political. In truth, I do not expect Brohl Handar to return to Drene, except perhaps as a wrapped, salted corpse.’

‘I see. Of course, this sparring of his has now put him at a great disadvantage.’

Orbyn nodded as he poured his cup full. ‘Yes, with Brohl nowhere in sight, the blame for last night’s riot rests exclusively with the Factor. There will be repercussions, no doubt?’

‘Truthfinder, that riot is not yet over. It will continue into this night, where it will boil out from the slums with still greater force and ferocity. There will be more assaults on Letur’s estate, and before long on all of his properties and holdings throughout Drene, and those he will not be able to protect. The barracks will be under siege. There will be looting. There will be slaughter.’

Orbyn was leaning forward, rubbing at his oily brow. ‘So it is true, then. Financial collapse.’

‘The empire reels. The Liberty Consign is mortally wounded. When the people learn that there have been other riots, in city after city-’

‘The Tiste Edur will be stirred awake.’

‘Yes.’

Orbyn’s eyes fixed on Venitt Sathad’s. ‘There are rumours of war in the west.’

‘West? What do you mean?’

An invasion from the sea, that seems to be focused on the Tiste Edur themselves. Punitive, in the wake of the fleets. A distant empire that did not take kindly to the murder of its citizens. And now, reports of the Bolkando and their allies, massing along the border.’

A tight smile from Venitt Sathad. ‘The alliance we forged.’

‘Indeed. Another of Letur Anict’s brilliant schemes gone awry.’

‘Hardly his exclusively, Orbyn. Your Patriotists were essential participants in that propaganda.’

‘I wish I could deny that. And so we come to that single word, the one that filled my mind in the place of “honour”. I find you here, in Drene. Venitt Sathad, understand me. I know what you do for your master, and I know just how well you do it. I know what even Karos Invictad does not-nor have I any interest in enlightening him. Regarding you, sir.’

‘You wish to speak for yourself, now? Rather than the Patriotists?’

‘To stay alive, yes.’

‘Then the word is indeed not honour.’

Orbyn Truthfinder, the most feared man in Drene, drained his cup of wine. He leaned back. ‘You sit here, amidst carnage. People hurry past and they see you, and though you are, in features and in stature, barely worth noting, notice you they do. And a chill grips their hearts, and they do not know why. But I do.’

You comprehend, then, that I must pay Letur Anict a visit.’

Yes, and I wish you well in that.’

‘Unfortunately, Orbyn, we find ourselves in a moment of crisis. In the absence of Overseer Brohl Handar, it falls to Letur Anict to restore order. Yes, he may well fail, but he must be given the opportunity to succeed. For the sake of the empire, Orbyn, I expect you and your agents to assist the Factor in every way possible.’

‘Of course. But I have lost thirty-one agents since yesterday. And those among them who had families… well, no-one was spared retribution.’

‘It is a sad truth, Orbyn, that all who have been rewarded by tyranny must eventually share an identical fate.’

‘You sound almost satisfied, Venitt.’

The Indebted servant of Rautos Hivanar permitted a faint smile to reach his lips as he reached for his cup of wine.

Orbyn’s expression flattened. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘you do not believe a mob is capable of justice?’

‘They have been rather restrained, thus far.’

‘You cannot be serious.’

‘Orbyn, not one Tiste Edur has been touched.’

‘Because the rioters are not fools. Who dares face Edur sorcery? It was the very inactivity of the local Edur that incited the mobs to ever more vicious extremes-and I assure you, Letur Anict is well aware of that fact.’

‘Ah, so he would blame the Tiste Edur for this mess. How convenient.’

‘I am not here to defend the Factor, Venitt Sathad.’

‘No, you are here to bargain for your life.’

‘I will of course assist Letur Anict in restoring order. But I am not confident that he will succeed, and I will not throw away my people.’

‘Actually, you will do just that.’

Orbyn’s eyes widened. Sweat was now trickling down his face. His clothes were sticking patchily to the folds of fat beneath.

‘Truthfinder,’ Venitt Sathad continued, ‘the Patriotists have outlived their usefulness, barring one last, most noble sacrifice. As the focus of the people’s rage. I understand there is a Drene custom, something to do with the season of storms, and the making of seaweed fisher folk-life-sized dolls with shells for eyes, dressed in old clothes and the like. Sent out to mark the season’s birth, I believe, in small boats. An offering to the sealords of old-for the storms to drown. Quaint and unsurprisingly bloodthirsty, as most old customs are. The Patriotists, Orbyn, must become Drene’s seaweed fisher folk. We are in a season of storms, and sacrifices are necessary.’

Truthfinder licked his lips. ‘And what of me?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘Ah, that particular session of bargaining is not yet complete.’

‘I see.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Venitt Sathad, my agents-there are wives, husbands, children-’

‘Yes, I am sure there are. Just as there were wives, husbands and children of all those you happily arrested, tortured and murdered all in the name of personal financial gain. The people, Orbyn, do understand redressing an imbalance.’

‘This is as Rautos Hivanar demands-’

‘My master leaves the specifics to me. He respects my record of… efficiency. While the authority he represents no doubt bolsters compliance, 1 rarely make overt use of it. By that I mean I rarely find the need. You said you know me, Truthfinder, did you not?’

‘I know you, Venitt Sathad, for the man who found Gerun Eberict’s murderer and sent that half-blood away with a chest full of coins. 1 know you for the killer of a hundred men and women at virtually every level of society, and, no matter how well protected, they die, and you emerge unscathed, your identity unknown-’

‘Except, it seems, to you.’

‘I stumbled onto your secret life, Venitt Sathad, many years ago. And I have followed your career, not just within the empire, but in the many consulates and embassies where your… skills… were needed. To advance Letherii interests. I am a great admirer, Venitt Sathad.’

Yet now you seek to cast in the coin of your knowledge in order to purchase your life. Do you not comprehend the risk?’

‘What choice do 1 have? By telling you all I know, I am also telling you I have no illusions-I know why you are here, and what you need to do; indeed, my only surprise is that it has taken Rautos Hivanar so long to finally send you. In fact, it might be you have arrived too late, Venitt Sathad.’

To that, Venitt slowly nodded. Orbyn Truthfinder was a dangerous man. Yet, for the moment, still useful. As, alas, was Letur Anict. But such things were measured day by day, at times moment by moment. Too late. You fool, Orbyn, even you have no real idea just how true that statement is-too late.

Tehol Beddict played a small game, once, to see how it would work out. But this time-with that damned manservant of his-he has played a game on a scale almost beyond comprehension.

And I am Venitt Sathad. Indebted, born of Indebted, most skilled slave and assassin of Rautos Hivanar, and you, Tehol Beddict-and you, Bugg-need never fear me.

Take the bastards down. Every damned one of them. Take them all down.

It seemed Orbyn Truthfinder saw something in his expression then that drained all colour from the man’s round, sweat-streamed face.

Venitt Sathad was amused. Orbyn, have you found a truth?

Scattered to either side of the dark storm front, grey clouds skidded across the sky, dragging slanting sheets of rain. The plains were greening along hillsides and in the troughs of valleys, a mottled patchwork of lichen, mosses and matted grasses. On the summit of a nearby hill was the carcass of a wild bhederin, hastily butchered after dying to a lightning strike. The beast’s legs were sticking up into the air and on one hoof was perched a storm-bedraggled crow. Eviscerated entrails stretched out and down the slope facing Brohl Handar and his troop as they rode past.

The Awl were on the run. Warriors who had died of their wounds were left under heaps of stones, and they were as road-markers for the fleeing tribe, although in truth unnecessary since with the rains the trail was a broad swath of churned ground. In many ways, this uncharacteristic carelessness worried the Overseer, but perhaps it was as Bivatt had said: the unseasonal bank of storms that had rolled across the plains in the past three days had caught Redmask unprepared-there could be no hiding the passage of thousands of warriors, their families, and the herds that moved with them. That, and the bloody, disastrous battle at Praedegar had shown Redmask to be fallible; indeed, it was quite possible that the masked war leader was now struggling with incipient mutiny among his people.

They needed an end to this, and soon. The supply train out of Drene had been disrupted, the cause unknown. Bivatt had this day despatched a hundred Bluerose lancers onto their back-trail, seeking out those burdened wagons and their escort. Food shortage was imminent and no army, no matter how loyal and well trained, would fight on an empty stomach. Of course, bounteous feasts were just ahead-the herds of rodara and myrid. Battle needed to be joined. Redmask and his Awl needed to be destroyed.

A cloud scudded into their path with sleeting rain. Surprisingly cold for this late in the season. Brohl Handar and his Tiste Edur rode on, silent-this was not the rain of their homeland, nothing soft, gentle with mists. Here, the water lanced down, hard, and left one drenched in a score of heartbeats. We are truly strangers here.

But in that we are not alone.

They were finding odd cairns, bearing ghastly faces painted in white, and in the cracks and fissures of those tumuli there were peculiar offerings-tufts of wolf fur, teeth, the tusks from some unknown beast and antlers bearing rows of pecules and grooves. None of this was Awl-even the Awl scouts among Bivatt’s army had never before seen the like.

Some wandering people from the eastern wastelands, perhaps, yet when Brohl had suggested that, the Atri-Preda had simply shaken her head. She knows something. Another damned secret.

…

They rode out of the rain, into steaming hot sunlight, the rich smell of soaked lichen and moss.

The broad swath of churned ground was on their right. To draw any closer was to catch the stench of manure and human faeces, a smell he had come to associate with desperation. We fight our wars and leave in our wake the redolent reek of suffering and misery. These plains are vast, are they not? What terrible cost would we face if we just left each other alone? An end to this squabble over land-Father Shadow knows, no-one realty owns it. The game of possession belongs to us, not to the rocks and earth, the grasses and the creatures walking the surface in their fraught struggle to survive.

A bolt of lightning descends. A wild bhederin is struck and nearly explodes, as if life itself is too much to bear.

The world is harsh enough. It does not need our deliberate cruelties. Our celebration of viciousness.

His scout was returning at the gallop. Brohl Handar raised a hand to halt his troop.

The young warrior reined in with impressive grace. ‘Overseer, they are on Q’uson Tapi. They did not go round it, sir-we have them!’

Q’uson Tapi, a name that was found only on the oldest Letherii maps; the words themselves were so archaic that even their meaning was unknown. The bed of a dead inland sea or vast salt lake. Flat, not a single rise or feature spanning leagues-or so the maps indicated. ‘How far ahead is this Q’uson Tapi?’

The scout studied the sky, eyes narrowing on the sun to the west. ‘We can reach it before dusk,’ he said.

‘And the Awl?’

‘They were less than a league out from the old shoreline, Overseer. Where they go, there is no forage-the herds are doomed, as are the Awl themselves.’

‘Has the rain reached Q’uson Tapi?’

‘Not yet, but it will, and those clays will turn into slime-the great wagons will be useless against us.’

As will cavalry on both sides, I would wager.

‘Ride back to the column,’ Brohl Handar told the scout, ‘and report to the Atri-Preda. We will await her at the old shoreline.’

A Letherii salute-yes, the younger Edur had taken quickly to such things-and the scout nudged his horse into motion.

Redmask, what have you done now?

Atri-Preda Bivatt had tried, for most of the day, to convince herself that what she had seen had been conjured from an exhausted, overwrought mind, the proclivity of the eye to find shapes in nothing, all in gleeful service to a trembling imagination. With dawn’s light barely a hint in the air she had walked out, alone, to stand before a cairn-these strange constructions they now came across as they pushed ever further east. Demonic faces in white on the flatter sides of the huge boulders. Votive offerings on niches and between the roughly stacked stones.

They had pried apart one such cairn two days earlier, finding at its core… very little. A single flat stone on which rested a splintered fragment of weathered wood-seemingly accidental, but Bivatt knew differently. She could recall, long ago on the north shores, on a day of fierce seas crashing that coast, a row of war canoes, their prows dismantled-and the wood, the wood was as this, here in the centre of a cairn on the Awl’dan.

Standing before this new cairn, with dawn attempting to crawl skyward as grey sheets of rain hammered down, she had happened to glance up. And saw-a darker grey, man-shaped yet huge, twenty, thirty paces away. Solitary, motionless, watching her. The blood in her veins lost all heat and all at once the rain was as cold as those thrashing seas on the north coast years past.

A gust of wind, momentarily making the wall of water opaque, and when it had passed, the figure was gone.

Alas, the chill would not leave her, the sense of gauging, almost unhuman regard.

A ghost. A shape cast by her mind, a trick of the rain and wind and dawn’s uncertain birth. But no, he was there. Watching. The maker of the cairns.

Redmask. Myself. The Awl and the Letherii and Tiste Edur, here we duel on this plain. Assuming we are alone in this deadly game. Witnessed by naught but carrion birds, coyotes and the antelope gracing on the valley /loors that watch its pass by day after day.

But we are not alone.

The thought frightened her, in a deep, childlike way-the fear born in a mind too young to cast anything away, be it dreams, nightmares, terrors or dread of all that was for ever unknowable. She felt no different now.

There were thousands. There must have been. How, then, could they hide? How could they have hidden for so long, all this time, invisible to us, invisible to the Awl?

Unless Redmask knows. And now, working in league with the strangers from the sea, they prepare an ambush. Our annihilation.

She was right to be frightened.

There would be one more battle. Neither side had anything left for more than that. And, barring more appalling displays of murderous skill from the mage-killer, Letherii sorcery would achieve victory. Brohl Handar’s scout had returned with the stunning news that Redmask had led his people out onto Q’uson Tapi, and there would be no negation of magic on the flat floor of a dead sea. Redmask forces the issue. Once we clash on Q’uson Tapi, our fates will be decided. No more fleeing, no more ambushes-even those Kechra will have nowhere to hide.

Errant, heed me please. If you are indeed the god of the Letherii, deliver no surprises on that day. Please. Give us victory.

The column marched on, towards the ancient shore of a dead sea. Clouds were gathering on the horizon ahead. Rain was thrashing down on that salt-crusted bed of clay and silt. They would fight in a quagmire, where cavalry was useless, where no horse would be quick enough to outrun a wave of deadly magic. Where warriors and soldiers would lock weapons and die where they stood, until one side stood alone, triumphant.

Soon now, they would have done with it. Done with it all.

Since noon Redmask had driven his people hard, out onto the seabed, racing ahead of the rain-clouds. A league, then two, beneath searing sun and air growing febrile with the coming storm. He had then called a halt, but the activity did not cease, and Toc Anaster had watched, bemused at first and then in growing wonder and, finally, admiration, as the Awl warriors set down weapons, divested themselves of their armour, and joined with the elders and every other non-combatant in pulling free from the wagons the tents and every stretch of hide they could find.

And the wagons themselves were taken apart, broken down until virtually nothing remained but the huge wheels and theit axles, which were then used to transport the planks of wood. Hide and canvas were stretched out, pegged down, the stakes driven flush with the ground itself. Wooden walkways were constructed, each leading back to a single, centrally positioned wagon-bed that had been left intact and raised on legs of bundled spear-shafts to create a platform.

The canvas and hides stretched in rows, with squares behind each row, linked by flattened wicker walls that had been used for hut-frames. But no-one would sleep under cover this night. No, all that took shape here served but one purpose-the coming battle. The final battle.

Redmask intended a defence. He invited Bivatt and her army to close with him, and to do so the Letherii and the Piste Edur would need to march across open ground-Toc sat astride his horse, watching the frenzied preparations and occasionally glancing northwestward, to those closing stormclouds-open ground, then, that would be a sea of mud.

She might decide to wait. I would, if I were her. Wait until the rains had passed, until the ground hardened once again. But Toe suspected that she would not exercise such restraint. Redmask was trapped, true, but the Awl had their herds-thousands of beasts most of whom were now being slaughtered-so, Redmask could wait, his warriors well fed, whilst Bivatt and her army faced the threat of real starvation. She would need all that butchered meat, but to get to it she had to go through the Awl; she had to destroy her hated enemy.

Besides, she might be less dismayed than Redmask would think, come the day of battle. She has her mages, after all. Not as many as before, true, but still posing a significant threat-sufficient to win the day, in fact.

Redmask would have his warriors standing on those islands of dry ground. But such positions-with reserves on the squares behind them-offered no avenue of retreat. A final battle, then, the fates decided one way or the other, Was this what Redmask had planned? Hardly. Praedegar was a disaster.

Torrent rode up. No mask of paint again, a swath of red hives spanning his forehead. ‘The sea will live once more,’ he said.

‘Hardly,’ Toc replied.

‘The Letherii will drown nonetheless.’

‘Those tarps, Torrent, will not stay dry for long. And then there are the mages.’

‘Redmask has his Guardians for those cowards.’

‘Cowards?’ Toc asked, amused. ‘Because they wield sorcery instead of swords?’

‘And hide behind rows of soldiers, yes. They care nothing for glory. For honour.’

‘True: the only thing they care about is winning. Leaving them free to talk about honour and glory afterwards. The chief spoil of the victors, that privilege.’

‘You speak like one of them, Mezla. That is why I do not, trust you, and so I will remain at your side during the battle.’

‘My heart goes out to you-I am tasked with guarding the children, after all. We’ll be nowhere close to the fighting.’ Until the fighting comes to us, which it will.

‘I shall find my glory in slitting your miserable throat, Mezla, the moment you turn to run. 1 see the weakness in your soul; I have seen it all along. You are broken. You should have died with your soldiers.’

‘Probably. At least then I’d be spared the judgements of someone with barely a whisker on his spotty chin. Have you even lain with a woman yet, Torrent?’

The young warrior glowered for a moment, then slowly nodded. ‘It is said you are quick with your barbed arrows, Mezla.’

‘A metaphor, Torrent? I’m surprised at this turn to the poetic’

‘You have not listened to our songs, have you? You have made yourself deaf to the beauty of the Awl, and in your deafness you have blinded that last eye left to you. We are an ancient people, Mezla.’

‘Deaf, blind, too bad I’m not yet mute.’

‘You will be when I slit your throat.’

Well, Toc conceded, he had a point there.

Redmask had waited for this a long time. And no old man of the Renfayar with his damned secrets would stand poised to shatter everything. No, with his own hands Redmask had taken care of that, and he could still see in his mind that elder’s face, the bulging eyes, vessels bursting, the jutting tongue as the lined face turned blue, then a deathly shade of grey above his squeezing hands. That throat had been as nothing, thin as a reed, the cartilage crumpling like a papyrus scroll in his grip. And he had found himself unable to let go, long after the fool was dead.

Too many memories of his childhood had slithered into his hands, transforming his fingers into coiling serpents that seemed not satisfied with lifeless flesh in their grip, but sought that touch of cold that came long after the soul’s flight. Of course, there had been more to it than that. The elder had imagined himself Redmask’s master, his overseer to use the Letherii word, standing at the war leader’s shoulder, ever ready to draw breath and loose words that held terrible truths, truths that would destroy Redmask, would destroy any chance he had of leading the Awl to victory.

Yet now the time drew near. He would see Bivatt’s head on a spear. He would see mud and Letherii and Tiste Edur corpses in their thousands. Crows wheeling overhead, voicing delighted cries. And he would stand on the wooden platform, witness to it all. To his scaled Guardians, who had found him, had chosen him, rending mages limb from limb, scything through enemy lines-

And the face of the elder rose once more in his mind. He had revelled in that vision, at first, but now it had begun to haunt him. A face to greet his dreams; a face hinted at in every smear of stormcloud, the bruised grey and blue hues cold as iron filling the sky. He had thought himself rid of that fool and his cruel secrets, in that weighing look-like a father’s regard on a wayward son, as if nothing the child did could be good enough, could be Awl in the ways of the people as they had been and would always be.

As the work continued on all sides, Redmask mounted the platform. Cadaran whip at his belt. Rygtha axe slung from its leather straps. The weapons we were once born to, long ago. Is that not Awl enough? Am I not more Awl than any other among the Renfayar? Among the warriors gathered here? Do not look so at me, old man. You have not the right. You were never the man I have become-look at my Guardians!

Shall I tell you the tale, Father?

But no. You are dead. And I feel still your feeble neck in my hands-ah, an error. That detail belongs to the old man. Who died mysteriously in his tent. Last of the Renfayar elders, who knew, yes, knew well my father and all his kin, and the children they called their own.

Fool, why did you not let the years blur your memories? Why did you not become like any other doddering, hopeless ancient? What kept your eyes honed so sharp? But no longer, yes. Now you stare at stone and darkness. Now that sharp mind rots in its skull, and that is that.

Leave me be.

The first spatters of rain struck him and he looked up at the sky. Hard drops, bursting against his mask, this scaled armour hiding dread truth. I am immune. I cannot be touched. Tomorrow, we shall destroy the enemy.

The Guardians will see to that. They chose me, did they not? Theirs is the gift of glory, and none but me has earned such a thing.

By the lizard eyes of the K’Chain Che’Malle, I will have my victory.

The deaf drummer began his arrhythmic thunder deep within the stormclouds, and the spirits of the Awl, glaring downward to the earth, began drawing their jagged swords.

Chapter Twenty

Towers and bridges, skeletally thin and nowhere the sign of guiding hands, of intelligence or focused will. These constructs, reaching high towards the so-faint bloom of light, were entirely natural, rough of line and raw in their bony elegance. To wander their spindly feet was to overwhelm every sense of proportion, of the ways the world was supposed to look. There was no air, only water. No light, only the glow of some unnatural gift of spiritual vision. Revealing these towers and arching bridges, so tall, so thin, that they seemed but moments from toppling into the fierce, swirling currents.

Bruthen Trana, tugged loose from the flesh and bone that had been home to his entire existence, now wandered lost at the bottom of an ocean. He had not expected this. Visions and prophecies had failed them; failed Hannan Mosag especially. Bruthen had suspected that his journey would find him in a strange, unanticipated place, a realm, perhaps, of myth. A realm peopled by gods and demons, by sentinels defending long-dead demesnes with immortal stolidity.

‘Where the sun’s light will not reach.’ Perhaps his memory was not perfect, but that had been the gist of that fell prophecy. And he was but a warrior of the Tiste Edur-now a warrior bereft of flesh beyond what his spirit insisted out of some wilful stubbornness, as obstinate in its conceits as any sentinel.

And so now he walked, and he could look down upon his limbs, his body; he could reach up and touch his face, feel his hair-now unbound-sweeping out on the current like strands of seaweed. He could feel the cold of the water, could feel even the immense pressure besieging him in this dark world. But there were no paths, no road, no obvious trail wending around these stone edifices.

The rotted wood of ship timbers burst into clouds beneath his feet. Clotted rivets turned underfoot. Fragments that might be bone skittered and danced along the muddy bottom, carried every which way by the currents. Dissolution seemed to be the curse of the world, of all the worlds. All that broke, all that failed, wandered down to some final resting place, lost to darkness, and this went beyond ships on the sea and the lives on those ships. Whales, dhenrabi, the tiniest crustacean. Plans, schemes and grandiose visions. Love, faith and honour. Ambition, lust and malice. He could reach down and scoop it all into his hands, watching the water tug it away, fling it out into a swirling, momentary path of glittering glory, then gone once more.

Perhaps this was the truth he had been meant to see, assuming the presumption of his worthiness, of course-which was proving a struggle to maintain indeed. Instead, waves of despair swept over him, swept through him, spun wild out of his own soul.

He was lost.

What am I looking for? Who am 1 looking for? I have forgotten. Is this a curse? Am I dead and now wandering doomed? Will these towers topple and crush me, leave me yet one more broken, mangled thing in the muck and silt?

I am Tiste Edur. This much I know. My true body is gone, perhaps for ever.

And something, some force of instinct, was driving him on, step by step. There was a goal, a thing to be achieved. He would find it. He had to find it. It had to do with Hannan Mosag, who had sent him here-he did recall that, along with the faint echoes of prophecy.

Yet he felt like a child, trapped in a dream that was an endless search for a familiar face, for his mother, who was out there, unmindful of his plight, and indifferent to it had she known-for that was the heart of such fearful dreams-a heart where love is revealed to be necrotic, a lie, the deepest betrayal possible. Bruthen Trana understood these fears for what they were, for the weakness they revealed, even as he felt helpless against them.

Wandering onward, leaving, at last, those dread monuments in his wake. He might have wept for a time, although of course he could not feel his own tears-they were one with the sea around him-but he voiced muted cries, enough to make his throat raw. And at times he staggered, fell, hands plunging deep into the muck, and struggled to regain his feet, buffeted by the currents.

All of this seemed to go on for a long time.

Until something loomed out of the darkness ahead. Blockish, heaped on one side with what seemed to be detritus-drifts of wreckage, tree branches and the like. Bruthen Trana stumbled closer, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

A house. Enclosed by a low wall of the same black stone. Dead trees in the yard, their trunks thick, stubby, each rising from a root-heaved mound. A snaking path leading to three sagging, saddled steps and a recessed, narrow door. To either side of this entrance there were square windows, shuttered in strips of slate. To the right, forming a rounded corner, rose a squat, flat-topped tower. A small corniced window at the upper level was lit from within with a dull yellow glow, fitful, wavering.

A house. On the floor of the ocean.

And someone is home.

Bruthen Trana found himself standing before the gate, his eyes on the snaking path of pavestones leading to the steps. He could see blooms of silts rising from the mounds to either side, as if the mud was seething with worms. Closer now to the house, he noted the thick green slime bearding the walls, and the prevailing current-which had heaped up rubbish against one side-had done its work on the ground there as well, uprooting one of the dead trees and sculpting out the mound until it was no more than a scatter of barnacled boulders. The tree leaned against the house with unyielding branches from which algae streamed and swirled against the backwash of the current.

This is not what I seek. He knew that with sudden certainty. And yet… he glanced up once more at the tower, in time to see the light dim, as if withdrawing, then vanish.

Bruthen Trana walked onto the path.

The current seemed fiercer here, as if eager to push him off the trail, and some instinct told the Tiste Edur that losing his footing in this yard would be a bad thing. Hunching down, he pushed on.

Upon reaching the steps, Bruthen Trana was buffeted by a sudden roil of the current and he looked up to see that the door had opened. And in the threshold stood a most extraordinary figure. As tall as the Tiste Edur, yet so thin as to seem emaciated. Bone-white flesh, thin and loose, a long, narrow face, seamed with a mass of wrinkles. The eyes were pale grey, surrounding vertical pupils.

The man wore rotted, colourless silks that hid little, including the extra joints on his arms and legs, and what seemed to be a sternum horizontally hinged in the middle. The ripple of too many ribs, a set of lesser collarbones beneath the others. His hair-little more than wisps on a mottled pate-stirred like cobwebs. In one lifted hand the man held a lantern in which sat a stone that burned with golden fire.

The voice that spoke in Bruthen Trana’s mind was strangely childlike. ‘Is this the night for spirits?’

‘Is it night then?’ Bruthen Trana asked.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well,’ the figure replied with a smile, ‘neither do I. Will you join us? The house has not had a guest for a long time.’

‘I am not for this place,’ Bruthen Trana said, uncertain. ‘I think…’

‘You are correct, but the repast is timely. Besides, some current must have brought you here. It is not as if just any old spirit can find the house. You have been led here, friend.’.

‘Why? By whom?’

‘The house, of course. As to why,’ the man shrugged, then stepped back and gestured. ‘Join us, please. There is wine, suitably… dry.’

Bruthen Trana ascended the steps, and crossed the threshold.

The door closed of its own accord behind him. They were in a narrow hallway, directly ahead a T-intersection.

‘I am Bruthen Trana, a Tiste Edur of-’

‘Yes, yes, indeed. The Empire of the Crippled God. Well, one of them, anyway. An Emperor in chains, a people in thrall’-a quick glance over the shoulder as the man led him into the corridor to the right-‘that would be you, Edur, not the Letherii, who are in thrall to a far crueller master.’

‘Coin.’

‘Well done. Yes.’

They halted before a door set in a curved wall.

‘This leads to the tower,’ Bruthen Trana said. ‘Where I first saw your light.’

‘Indeed. It is, alas, the only room large enough to accommodate my guest. Oh,’ he stepped closer, ‘before we go in, I must warn you of some things. My guest possesses a weakness-but then, don’t we all? In any case, it has fallen to me to, uh, celebrate that weakness-now, yes, soon it will end, as all things do-but not quite yet. Thus, you must not distract my dear guest from the distraction I already provide. Do you understand me?’

‘Perhaps I should not enter at all, then.’

‘Nonsense. It is this, Bruthen Trana. You must not speak of dragons. No dragons, do you understand?’

The Tiste Edur shrugged. ‘That topic had not even occurred to me-’

‘Oh, but in a way it has, and continues to do so. The spirit of Emurlahnis. Scabandari. Father Shadow. This haunts you, as it does all the Tiste Edur. The matter is delicate, you see. Very delicate, for both you and my guest. I must needs rely upon your restraint, or there will be trouble. Calamity, in fact.’

‘I shall do my best, sir. A moment-what is your name?’

The man reached for the latch. ‘My name is for no-one, Bruthen Trana. Best know me by one of my many titles. The Letherii one will do. You may call me Knuckles.’

He lifted the latch and pushed open the door.

Within was a vast circular chamber-far too large for the modest tower’s wall that Bruthen Trana had seen from outside. Whatever ceiling existed was lost in the gloom. The stone-tiled floor was fifty or more paces across. As Knuckles stepped inside, the glow from his lantern burgeoned, driving back the shadows. Opposite them, abutting the curved wall, was a raised dais on which heaps of silks, pillows and furs were scattered; and seated at the edge of that dais, leaning forward with forearms resting on thighs, was a giant. An ogre or some such demon, bearing the same hue of skin as Knuckles yet stretched over huge muscles and a robust frame of squat bones. The hands dangling down over the knees were disproportionately oversized even for that enormous body. Long, unkempt hair hung down to frame a heavy-featured face with deep-set eyes-so deep that even the lantern’s light could spark but a glimmer in those ridge-shelved pits.

‘My guest,’ Knuckles murmured. ‘Kilmandaros. Most gentle, I assure you, Bruthen Trana. When… distracted. Come, she is eager to meet you.’

They approached, footfalls echoing in this waterless chamber. Knuckles shifted his route slightly towards a low marble table on which sat a dusty bottle of wine. ‘Beloved,’ he called to Kilmandaros, ‘see who the house has brought to us!’

‘Stuff it with food and drink and send it on its way,’ the huge woman said in a growl. ‘I am on the trail of a solution, scrawny whelp of mine.’

Bruthen Trana could now see, scattered on the tiles before Kilmandaros, a profusion of small bones, each incised in patterns on every available surface. They seemed arrayed without order, nothing more than rubbish spilled out from some bag, yet Kilmandaros was frowning down at them with savage concentration.

‘The solution,’ she repeated.

‘How exciting,’ Knuckles said, procuring from somewhere a third goblet into which he poured amber wine. ‘Double or nothing, then?’

‘Oh yes, why not? But you owe me the treasuries of a hundred thousand empires already, dear Setch-’

‘Knuckles, my love.’

‘Dear Knuckles.’

‘I am certain it is you who owes me, Mother.’

‘For but a moment longer,’ she replied, now rubbing those huge hands together. ‘I am so close. You were a fool to offer double or nothing.’

‘Ah, my weakness,’ Knuckles sighed as he walked over to Bruthen Trana with the goblet. Meeting the Tiste Edur’s eyes, Knuckles winked. ‘The grains run the river, Mother,’ he said. ‘Best hurry with your solution.’

A fist thundered on the dais. ‘Do not make me nervous!’

The echoes of that impact were long in fading.

Kilmandaros leaned still further, glowering down at the array of bones. ‘The pattern,’ she whispered, ‘yes, almost there. Almost…’

‘1 feel magnanimous,’ Knuckles said, ‘and offer to still those grains… for a time. So that we may be true hosts to our new guest.’

The giant woman looked up, a sudden cunning in her expression. ‘Excellent idea, Knuckles. Make it so!’

A gesture, and the wavering light of the lantern ceased Its waver. All was still in a way Bruthen Trana could not define-after all, nothing had changed. And yet his soul knew, somehow, that the grains Knuckles had spoken of were time, its passage, its unending journey. He had just, with a single gesture of one hand, stopped time.

At least in this chamber. Surely not everywhere else. And yet…

Kilmandaros leaned back with a satisfied smirk and fixed her small eyes on Bruthen Trana. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘The house anticipates.’

‘We are as flitting dreams to the Azath,’ Knuckles said. ‘Yet, even though we are but momentary conceits, as our sorry existence might well be defined, we have our uses.’

‘Some of us,’ Kilmandaros said, suddenly dismissive, ‘prove more useful than others. This Tiste Edur’-a wave of one huge, scarred hand-‘is of modest value by any measure.’

‘The Azath see what we do not, in each of us. Perhaps, Mother, in all of us.’

A sour grunt. ‘You think this house let me go of its own will-proof of your gullibility, Knuckles. Not even the Azath could hold me for ever.’

‘Extraordinary,’ Knuckles said, ‘that it held you at all.’

This exchange, Bruthen Trana realized, was an old one, following well-worn ruts between the two.

‘Would never have happened,’ Kilmandaros said under her breath, ‘if he’d not betrayed me-’

‘Ah, Mother. I have no particular love for Anomander Purake, but let us be fair here. He did not betray you. In fact, it was you who jumped him from behind-’

Anticipating his betrayal!’

‘Anomander does not break his word, Mother. Never has, never will.’

‘Tell that to Osserc-’

‘Also in the habit of “anticipating” Anomander’s imminent betrayal.’

‘What of Draconus?’

‘What of him, Mother?’

Kilmandaros rumbled something then, too low for Bruthen Trana to catch.

Knuckles said, ‘Our Tiste Edur guest seeks the place of Names.’

Bruthen Trana started. Yes! It was true-a truth he had not even known before just this moment, before Knuckle’s quiet words. The place of Names. The Names of the Gods.

‘There will be trouble, then,’ Kilmandaros said, shifting in agitation, her gaze drawn again and again to the scatter of bones. ‘He must remember this house, then. The path-every step-he must remember, or he will wander lost for all time. And with him, just as lost as they have ever been, the names of every forgotten god.’

‘His spirit is strong,’ Knuckles said, then faced Bruthen Trana and smiled. ‘Your spirit is strong. Forgive me-we often forget entirely the outside world, even when, on rare occasions such as this one, that world intrudes.’

The Tiste Edur shrugged. His head was spinning. The place of Names. ‘What will I find there?’ he asked.

‘He forgets already,’ Kilmandaros muttered.

‘The path,’ Knuckles answered. ‘More than that, actually. But when all is done-for you, in that place-you must recall the path, Bruthen Trana, and you must walk it without a sliver of doubt.’

‘But, Knuckles, all my life, I have walked no path without a sliver of doubt-more than a sliver, in fact-’

‘Surprising,’ Kilmandaros cut in, ‘for a child of Scabandari-’

‘I must begin the grains again,’ Knuckles suddenly announced. ‘Into the river-the pattern, Mother, it calls to you once more.’

She swore in some unknown language, bent to scowl down at the bones. ‘I was there,’ she muttered. ‘Almost (here-so close, so-’

A faint chime echoed in the chamber.

Her fist thundered again on the dais, and this time the echoes seemed unending.

At a modest signal from Knuckles, Bruthen Trana drained the fine wine and set the goblet down on the marble tabletop.

It was time to leave.

Knuckles led Bruthen Trana back into the corridor. A final glance back into that airy chamber and the Tiste Edur saw Kilmandaros, hands on knees, staring directly at him with those faintly glittering eyes, like two lone, dying stars in the firmament. Chilled to the depths of his heart, Bruthen Trana pulled his gaze away and followed the son of Kilmandaros back to the front door.

At the threshold, he paused for a moment to search Knuckles’s face. ‘The game you play with her-tell me, does such a pattern exist?’

Brows arched. ‘In the casting of bones? Damned if I know.’ A sudden smile, then. ‘Our kind, ah, but we love patterns.’

‘Even if they don’t exist?’

‘Don’t they?’ The smile grew mischievous. ‘Go, Bruthen Trana, and mind the path. Always mind the path.’

The Tiste Edur walked down onto the pavestones. ‘I would,’ he muttered, ‘could I find it.’

Forty paces from the house, he turned to look upon it, and saw nothing but swirling currents, spinning silts in funnels.

Gone. As if I had imagined the entire thing.

But I was warned, wasn’t I? Something about a path.

‘Remember…’

Lost. Again. Memories tugged free, snatched away by the ferocious winds of water.

He swung round again and set off, staggering, step by step, towards something he could not dredge up from his mind, could not even imagine. Was this where life ended? In some hopeless quest, some eternal search for a lost dream?

Remember the path. Oh, Father Shadow, remember… something. Anything.

Where the huge chunks of ice had been, there were now stands of young trees. Alder, aspen, dogwood, forming a tangled fringe surrounding the dead Meckros City. Beyond the trees were the grasses of the plains, among them deep-rooted bluestems and red-lipped poppies that cloaked the burial mounds where resided the bones of thousands of people.

The wreckage of buildings still stood here and there on their massive pylons of wood, while others had tilted, then toppled, spilling out their contents onto canted streets. Weeds and shrubs now grew everywhere, dotting the enormous, sprawling ruin, and among the broken bones of buildings lay a scatter of flowers, a profusion of colours on all sides.

He stood, balanced on a fallen pillar of dusty marble allowing him a view of the vista, the city stretching to his left, the ragged edge and green-leafed trees with the mounds beyond on his right. His eyes, a fiery amber, were fixed on something on the far horizon directly ahead. His broad mouth held its habitual downturn at the corners, an expression that seemed ever at war with the blazing joy within his eyes. His mother’s eyes, it was said. But somehow less fierce and this, perhaps, was born of his father’s uneasy gift-a mouth that did not expect to smile, ever.

His second father, his true father. The thread of blood. The one who had visited in his seventh week of life. Yes, while it had been a man named Araq Elalle who had raised him, whilst he lived in the Meckros City, it had been the other-the stranger in the company of a yellow-haired bonecaster-who had given his seed to Menandore, Rud Halle’s mother. His Imass minders had not been blind to such truths, and oh how Menandore had railed at them afterwards.

I took all that I needed from Udinaas! And left him a husk and nothing more. He can never sire another child-a husk! A useless mortal-forget him, my son. He is nothing.’ And from the terrible demand in her blazing eyes, her son had recoiled.

Rud Elalle was tall now, half a hand taller than even his mother. His hair, long and wild in the fashion of the Bentract Imass warriors, was a sun-bleached brown. He wore a cloak of ranag hide, deep brown and amber-tipped the fur. Beneath that was a supple leather shirt of deerskin. His leggings were of thicker, tougher allish hide. On his feet were ranag leather moccasins that reached to just below his knees.

A scar ran down the right side of his neck, gift of a boar’s dying lunge. The bones of his left wrist had been broken and were now misaligned, the places of the breaks knotted protrusions bound in thick sinews, but the arm had not been weakened by this; indeed, it was now stronger than its opposite. Menandore’s gift, that strange response to; any injury, as if his body sought to armour itself against any chance of the same injury’s recurring. There had been other breaks, other wounds-life among the Imass was hard, and though they would have protected him from its rigour, he would not permit that. He was among the Bentract, he was of the Bentract. Here, with these wondrous people, he had found love and fellowship. He would live as they lived, for as long as he could.

Yet, alas, he felt now… that time was coming to an end. His eyes remained fixed on that distant horizon, even as he sensed her arrival, now at his side. ‘Mother,’ he said.

‘Imass,’ she said. ‘Speak our own language, my son. Speak the language of dragons.’

Faint distaste soured Rud Elalle. ‘We are not Eleint, Mother. That blood is stolen. Impure-’

‘We are no less children of Starvald Demelain. I do not know who has filled your mind with these doubts. But they are weaknesses, and now is not the time.’

‘Now is not the time,’ he repeated.

She snorted. ‘My sisters.’

‘Yes.’

‘They want me. They want him. Yet, in both schemes, they have not counted you a threat, my son. Oh, they know you are grown now. They know the power within you. But they know nothing of your will.’

‘Nor, Mother, do you.’

He heard her catch her breath, was inwardly amused at the suddenly crowded silence that followed.

He nodded to the far horizon. ‘Do you see them, Mother?’

‘Unimportant. Mayhap they will survive, but I would not wager upon it. Understand me, Rud, with what is to come, not one of us is safe. Not one. You, me, your precious Bentract-’

He turned at that, and his eyes were all at once a mirror of his mother’s-bright with rage and menace.

She very nearly flinched, and he saw that and was pleased. ‘1 will permit no harm to come to them, Mother. You wish to understand my will. Now you do.’

‘Foolish. No, insanity. They are not even alive-’

‘In their minds, they are. In my mind, Mother, they are.’

She sneered. ‘Do the new ones now among the Bentract hold to such noble faith, Rud? Have you not seen their disdain? Their contempt for their own deluded kin? It is only a matter of time before one of them speaks true-shattering the illusion for all time-’

‘They will not,’ Rud said, once more eyeing the distant party of wanderers who were now, without question, approaching the ruined city. ‘You do not visit often enough,’ he said. ‘Disdain and contempt, yes, but now, too, you will see fear.’

‘Of you? Oh, my son, you fool! And do your adopted kin know to guard your back against them? Of course not, for that would reveal too much, would invite awkward questions-and the Imass are not ones to be easily turned away when seeking truth.’

‘My back will be guarded,’ Rud said.

‘By whom?’

‘Not you, Mother?’

She hissed in a most reptilian manner. ‘When? While my sisters are busy trying to kill me? When he has the Finnest in his hand and casts eyes upon all of us?’

‘If not you,’ he said easily, ‘then someone else.’

‘Wiser to kill the newcomers now, Rud.’

‘And my kin would have no questions then?’

‘None but you alive to answer, and you of course may tell them anything you care to. Kill those new Imass, those strangers with their sly regard, and be quick about it.’

‘I think not.’

‘Kill them, or I will.’

‘No, Mother. The Imass are mine. Shed blood among my people-any of them-and you will stand alone the day Sukul and Sheltatha arrive, the day of Silchas Ruin who comes to claim the Finnest.’ He glanced across at her. Could white skin grow still paler? ‘Yes, all in a single day. I have been to the Twelve Gates-maintaining my vigil as you have asked.’

‘And?’ The query was almost breathless.

‘Kurald Galain is most perturbed.’

‘They draw close?’

‘You know that as well as I do-my father is with them, is he not? You steal his eyes when it suits you-’

‘Not as easy as you think.’ Her tone was genuine in its bitterness. ‘He… baffles me.’

Frightens you, you mean. ‘Silchas Ruin will demand the Finnest.’-

‘Yes, he will! And we both know what he will do with it-and that must not be permitted!’

Are you sure of that, Mother? Because, you see, I am not. Not any more. ‘Silchas Ruin may well demand. He may well make dire threats, Mother. You have said so often enough.’

‘And if we stand side by side, my son, he cannot hope to get past us.’

‘Yes.’

‘But who will be guarding your back?’

‘Enough, Mother. I warned them to silence and I do not think they will attempt anything. Call it faith-not in the measure of their fear. Instead, my faith rests in the measure of… wonder.’

She stared at him, clearly confused.

He felt no inclination to elaborate. She would see, in time. ‘I would go to welcome these new ones,’ he said, eyes returning to the approaching strangers. ‘Will you join me, Menandore?’

‘You must be mad.’ Words filled with affection-yes, she could never rail at him for very long. Something of his father’s ethereal ease, perhaps-an ease even Rud himself could remember from that single, short visit. An ease that would slip over the Letherii’s regular, unimpressive features, whenever the wave of pain, dismay-or indeed any harsh emotion-was past and gone, leaving not a ripple in its wake.

That ease, Rud now understood, was the true face of Udinaas. The face of his soul.

Father, I do so look forward to seeing you again.

His mother was gone-at least from his side. At a sudden gust of wind Rud Elalle glanced up and saw the white and gold mass of her dragon form, lurching skyward with every heave of the huge wings.

The strangers had all halted, still three hundred paces away, and were staring up, now, as Menandore lunged yet higher, slid across currents of air for a moment, until she faced them, and then swept down, straight for the small party. Oh, how she loved to intimidate lesser beings.

What happened then without doubt surprised Menandore more than even Rud-who gave an involuntary shout of surprise as two feline shapes launched into the air from the midst of the party. Dog-sized, forelegs lashing upward as Rud’s mother sailed overhead-and she snapped her hind legs up tight against her belly in instinctive alarm, even as a thundering beat of her wings lifted her out of harm’s way. At sight of her neck twisting round, eyes flashing in an outraged glare-indignant indeed-Rud Elalle laughed, and was satisfied to see that the sound reached his mother, enough to draw her glare and hold it, until the dragon’s momentum carried her well past the strangers and their defiant pets, out of the moment when she might have banked hard, jaws hingeing open to unleash deadly magic down on the obstreperous emlava and their masters.

The threat’s balance tilted away-as Rud had sought with that barking laugh-and on she flew, dismissing all in her wake, including her son.

And, were it in his nature, he would then have smiled. For he knew his mother was smiling, now. Delighted to have so amused her only son, her child who, like any Imass, saved his laughter for the wounds his body received in the ferocious games of living. And even her doubts, etched in by this conversation just past, would smooth themselves over for a time.

A little time. When they returned, Rud also knew, they would sting like fire. But by then, it would be too late. More or less.

He climbed down from the toppled column. It was time to meet the strangers.

‘That,’ Hedge announced, ‘is no Imass. Unless they breed ‘em big round here.’

‘Not kin,’ Onrack observed with narrowed eyes.

Hedge’s ghostly heart was still pounding hard in his ghostly chest in the wake of that damned dragon. If it hadn’t been for the emlava cubs and their brainless lack of fear, things might well have got messy. A cusser in Hedge’s left hand. Quick Ben with a dozen snarly warrens he might well have let loose all at once. Trull Sengar and his damned spears-aye, dragon steaks raining down from the sky.

Unless she got us first.

No matter, the moment had passed, and he was thankful for that. ‘Maybe he’s no kin, Onrack, but he dresses like an Imass, and those are stone chips at the business end of that bone club he’s carrying.’ Hedge glanced across at Quick Ben-feeling once again the surge of delight upon seeing a familiar face, the face of a friend-and said, ‘I wish Fid was here, because just looking at that man has the hairs standing on the back of my neck.’

‘If you’ve already got a bad feeling about this,’ the wizard replied, ‘why do you need Fid?’

‘Confirmation, is why. The bastard was talking to a woman, who then veered into a dragon and thought to give us a scare. Anybody keeping scaly company makes me nervous.’

‘Onrack,’ said Trull Sengar as the man drew closer, walking with a casual, almost loose stride, ‘I think we approach the place where Cotillion wanted us to be.’

At that, Hedge scowled. ‘Speaking of scaly-dealing with Shadowthr one’s lackey makes all this stink even worse-’

‘Leaving once more unspoken the explanation for what you’re doing here, Hedge,’ the Tiste Edur replied with a faint smile at the sapper-that damned smile, so bloody disarming that Hedge almost spilled out every secret in his head, just to see that smile grow into something more welcoming. Trull Sengar was like that, inviting friendship and camaraderie like the sweet scent of a flower-probably a poisonous one-but that might be just me. My usual paranoia. Well earned, mind. Still, there doesn’t seem to be anything poisonous about Trull Sengar.

It’s just that 1 don’t trust nice people. There, it’s said-.at least here in my head. And no, 1 don’t need any Hood-kissed reason either. He stepped too close to one of the emlava cubs and had to dance away to avoid lashing talons. He glared at the hissing creature. ‘Your hide’s mine, you know that? Mine, kitty. Take good care of it in the meantime.’

The eyes burned up at him, and the emlava cub opened wide its jaws to loose yet another whispering hiss.

Damn, those fangs are getting long.

Onrack had moved out ahead, and now the Imass stopped. Moments later they had all drawn up to stand a few paces behind him.

The tall, wild-haired warrior walked closer. Five paces from Onrack he halted, smiled and said something in some guttural language.

Onrack cocked his head. ‘He speaks Imass.’

‘Not Malazan?’ Hedge asked with mock incredulity. ‘What’s wrong with the damned fool?’

The man’s-smile broadened, those amber nugget eyes fixing on Hedge, and in Malazan he said, ‘All the children of the Imass tongue are as poetry to this damned fool. As are the languages of the Tiste,’ he added, gaze shifting to Trull Sengar. Then he spread his hands out to the sides, palms exposed. ‘I am Rud Elalle, raised among the Bentract Imass as a child of their own.’

Onrack said, ‘They have yet to show themselves, Rud Elalle. This is not the welcome I expected from kin.’

‘You have been watched, yes, for some time. Many clans. Ulshun Pral sent out word that none were to block your path.’ Rud Elalle looked down at the tethered cubs to either side of Trull Sengar. ‘The ay flee your scent, and now 1 see why.’ He then lowered his hands and stepped back. ‘I have given you my name.’

‘I am Onrack, of Logros T’lan Imass. The one who restrains the emlava is Trull Sengar, Tiste Edur of the Hiroth tribe. The dark-skinned man is Ben Adaephon Delat, born in a land called Seven Cities; and his companion is Hedge, once a soldier of the Malazan Empire.’

Rud’s eyes found Hedge again. ‘Tell me, soldier, do you bleed?’

‘What?’

‘You were dead, yes? A spirit willing itself the body it once possessed. But now you are here. Do you bleed?’

Bemused, Hedge looked to Quick Ben. ‘What’s he mean? Like a woman bleeds? I’m too ugly to be a woman, Quick.’

‘Forgive me,’ Rud Elalle said. ‘Onrack proclaims himself a T’lan Imass-yet here he stands, clothed in flesh and bearing the scars of your journey in this realm. And there have been other such guests. T’lan Imass-lone wanderers who have found this place-and they too are clothed in flesh.’

‘Other guests?’ Hedge asked. ‘You almost had one more of those, and she would have been a viper in your midst, Rud Elalle. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be trusting those other T’lan Imass, were I you.’

‘Ulshun Pral is a wise leader,’ Rud answered with another smile.

‘I’m still a ghost,’ Hedge said.

‘Are you?’

The sapper frowned. ‘Well, I ain’t gonna cut myself to find out one way or the other.’

‘Because you intend to leave this place, eventually. Of course, I understand.’

‘Sounds like you do at that,’ Hedge snapped. ‘So, maybe you live with these Bentract Imass, Rud Elalle, but that’s about as far as this kinship thing goes. So, who are you?’

‘A friend,’ the man replied with yet another smile.

Aye, and if you knew how 1 felt about friendly people.

‘You have given me your names, and so now I welcome you among the Bentract Imass. Come, Ulshun Pral is eager to meet you.’

He set off.

They followed. With hand signals, Hedge drew Quick Ben closer to his side and they dropped back a bit from the others. The sapper spoke in very low tones. ‘That furry tree’s standing on the ruins of a dead city, Quick, like he was its Hood-damned prince.’

A Meckros City,’ the wizard murmured.

Aye, I guessed as much. So where’s the ocean? Glad I never saw the wave that carried it here.’

Quick Ben snorted. ‘Gods and Elder Gods, Hedge. Been here kicking pieces around, I’d wager. And, just maybe, a Jaghut or two. There’s a real mess of residual magic in this place-not just Imass. More Jaghut than Imass, in fact. And… other stuff.’

‘Quick Ben Delat, lucid as a piss-hole.’

‘You really want to know why Cotillion sent us here?’

‘No. Just knowing snares me in his web and I ain’t gonna dance for any god.’

‘And I do, Hedge?’

The sapper grinned. ‘Aye, but you dance, and then you dance.’

‘Rud has a point, by the way.’

‘No, he has a club.’

‘About you bleeding.’

‘Hood above, Quick-’

‘Oh, now that’s a giveaway, Hedge. What’s Hood doing “above”? Just how deep was that hole you crawled out of? And more important, why?’

‘My company soured already? I liked you least, you know. Even Trotts-’

‘Now who’s dancing?’

‘Better we know nothing about why we’re here, is what I’m trying to say.’

‘Relax. I have already figured you out, Hedge, and here’s something that might surprise you. Not only do I have no problem with you being here-neither does Cotillion.’

‘Bastard! What-you and Cotillion sending pigeons back and forth on all this?’

‘I’m not saying Cotillion knows anything about you, Hedge. I’m just saying that if he did, he’d be fine. So would Shadowthrone-’

‘Gods below!’

‘Calm down!’

‘Around you, Quick, that’s impossible. Always was, always will be! Hood, I’m a ghost and I’m still nervous!’

‘You never were good at being calm, were you? One would think dying might have changed you, some, but I guess not.’

‘Funny. Ha ha.’

They were now skirting the ruined city, and came within sight of the burial mounds. Quick Ben grunted. ‘Looks like the Meckros didn’t survive the kick.’

‘Dead or no,’ Hedge said, ‘you’d be nervous too if you was carrying a sack of cussers on your back.’

‘Damn you, Hedge-that was a cusser in your hand back there! When the dragon-’

‘Aye, Quick, so you just keep them kitties away from me, lest I jump back and turn an ankle or something. And stop talking about Shadowthrone and Cotillion, too.’

‘A sack full of cussers. Now I am nervous-you may be dead, but I’m not!’

‘Just so.’

‘I wish Fid was here, too. Instead of you.’

‘That’s not a very nice thing to say! You’re hurting my feelings. Anyway. What I was wanting to tell you was about that T’lan Imass I was travelling with, for a time.’

‘What happened to it? Let me guess, you tossed it a cusser.’

‘Damned right I did, Quick. She was trailing chains, big ones.’

‘Crippled God?’

‘Aye. Everyone wants in on this game here.’

‘That’d be a mistake,’ the wizard asserted as they walked towards a series of rock outcroppings behind which rose thin tendrils of hearth smoke. ‘The Crippled God would find himself seriously outclassed.’

‘Think highly of yourself, don’t you? Some things never change.’

‘Not me, idiot. I meant the dragon. Menandore. Rud Halle’s mother.’

Hedge dragged the leather cap from his head and pulled at what was left of his hair. ‘This is what drives me mad! You! Things like that, just dropped out like a big stinking lump of-ow!’ He let go of his hair. ‘Hey, that actually hurt!’

‘Tug hard enough to bleed, Hedge?’

Hedge glared across at the wizard, who was now smirking. ‘Look, Quick, this would all be fine if I was planning on building a homestead here, planting a few tubers and raising emlava for their cuddly fur or something. But damn it, I’m just passing through, right? And when I come out the other side, well, I’m back being a ghost, and that’s something I need to get used to, and stay used to.’

Quick Ben shrugged. ‘Just stop pulling your hair and you’ll be fine, then.’

The emlava cubs had grown and were now strong enough to pull Trull Sengar off balance as they strained on their leather leashes, their attention fixed yet again on the Malazan soldier named Hedge, for whom they had acquired a mindless hate. Trull leaned forward to drag the beasts along-it always worked better when the sapper walked ahead, rather than lagging back as he was doing now.

Onrack, noting his struggles, turned and quickly clouted both cubs on their flat foreheads. Suitably cowed, the two emlava ceased their efforts and padded along, heads lowered.

‘Their mother would do the same,’ Onrack said.

‘The paw of discipline,’ Trull said, smiling. ‘I wonder if we might believe the same for our guide here.’

Rud Elalle was ten paces ahead of them-perhaps he could hear, perhaps not.

‘Yes, they share blood,’ Onrack said, nodding. ‘That much was clear when they were standing side by side. And if there is Eleint blood in the mother, then so too in the son.’

‘Soletaken?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder if he anticipated this complication?’ Trull meant Cotillion when saying he.

‘Unknown,’ Onrack replied, understanding well enough. ‘The task awaiting us grows ever less certain.

Friend Trull, I fear for these Imass. For this entire realm.’

‘Leave the wizard and his sapper to address our benefactor’s needs, then, and we will concern ourselves with protecting this place, and your kin who call it home.’

The Imass glanced across with narrowed eyes. ‘You say this, with such ease?’

‘The wizard, Onrack, is the one who needs to be here. His power-he will be our benefactor’s hand in what is to come. You and me, we were but his escort, his bodyguards, if you will.’

‘You misunderstand me, Trull Sengar. My wonder is in your willingness to risk your life, again. This time for a people who are nothing to you. For a realm not your own.’

‘They are your kin, Onrack.’

‘Distant. Bentract.’

‘If it had been, say, the Den-Ratha tribe of the Edur to gain supremacy among our tribes, Onrack, instead of my own Hiroth, would I not give my life to defend them? They are still my people. For you it is the same, yes? Logros, Bentract-just tribes-but the same people.’

‘There is too much within you, Trull Sengar. You humble me.’

‘Perhaps there lies your own misunderstanding, friend. Perhaps all you see here is my search for a cause, for something to fight for, to die for.’

‘You will not die here.’

‘Oh, Onrack-’

‘I may well fight to protect the Bentract and this realm, hut they are not why I am here. You are.’

Trull could not meet his friend’s eyes, and in his heart there was pain. Deep, old, awakened.

The son,’ Onrack said after a moment, ‘seems… very young.’

‘Well, so am I.’

‘Not when I look into your eyes. It is not the same with this Soletaken,’ he continued, seemingly unmindful of the wound he had just delivered. ‘No, those yellow eyes are young.’

‘Innocent?’

A nod. ‘Trusting, as a child is trusting.’

‘A gentle mother, then.’

‘She did not raise him,’ Onrack said.

Ah, the Imass, then. And now I begin to see, to understand. ‘We will be vigilant, Onrack.’

‘Yes.’

Rud Elalle led them into a split between two upthrust knobs of layered rock, a trail that then wound between huge boulders before opening out into the Imass village.

Rock shelters along a cliff. Tusk-framed huts, the spindly frames of drying racks on which were stretched hides. Children running like squat imps in the midst of a gathering of perhaps thirty Imass. Men, women, elders. One warrior stood before all the others, while off to one side stood three more Imass, their garb rotted and subtly different in cut and style from that of the Bentract-the strangers, Trull realized-guests yet remaining apart.

Upon seeing them, Onrack’s benign expression hardened. ‘Friend,’ he murmured to Trull, “ware those three.’

‘I decided the same myself,’ Trull replied under his breath.

Rud Elalle moved to stand at the Bentract leader’s side. ‘This is Ulshun Pral,’ he said, setting a hand on the man’s thick shoulder-a gesture of open affection that seemed blissfully unmindful of the growing tension at the edge of this village.

Onrack moved forward. ‘I am Onrack the Broken, once of the Logros T’lan Imass, child of the Ritual. I ask that we be made guests among your tribe, Ulshun Pral.’

The honey-skinned warrior frowned over at Rud Elalle, then said something in his own language.

Rud nodded and faced Onrack. ‘Ulshun Pral asks that you speak in the First Language.’

‘He asked,’ Onrack said, ‘why 1 chose not to.’

‘Yes.’

‘My friends do not share the knowing of that language. I cannot ask for guesting on their behalf without their understanding, for to be guest is to be bound to the rules of the tribe, and this they must know, before I would venture a promise of peace on their behalf

‘Can you not simply translate?’ Rud Elalle asked.

‘Of course, yet I choose to leave that to you, Rud Elalle, for Ulshun Pral knows and trusts you, while he does not know me.’

‘Very well, I shall do so.’

‘Enough with all this,’ Hedge called out, gingerly setting down his pack. ‘We’ll all be good boys, so long as no-one tries to kill us or worse, like making us eat some horrible vegetable rightly extinct on every other realm in the universe.’

Rud Elalle was displaying impressive skill and translating Hedge’s words almost as fast as the sapper spoke them.

Ulshun Pral’s brows lifted in seeming astonishment, then he turned and with a savage gesture yelled at a small crowd of elderly women at one side of the crowd.

Hedge scowled at Onrack, ‘Now what did I say?’ he demanded.

But Trull saw his friend smiling. Ulshun Pral has just directed the cooks to fish the baektar from the stew they have prepared for us.’

‘The baek-what?’

‘A vegetable, Hedge, that will be found nowhere but here.’

All at once the tension was gone. There were smiles, shouts of apparent welcome from other Imass, and many came forward to close, first on Onrack, and then-with expressions of delight and wonder, on Trull Sengar-no, he realized, not on him-on the emlava cubs. Who began purring deep in their throats, as thick, short-fingered hands reached out to stroke fur and scratch behind the small, tufted ears.

‘Look at that, Quick!’ Hedge was staring in disbelief. ‘Now is that fair?’

The wizard slapped the sapper on the back. ‘It’s true, Hedge, the dead stink.’

‘You’re hurting my feelings again!’

Sighing, Trull released the leather leashes and stepped back. He smiled across at Hedge. ‘I smell nothing un-toward,’ he said.

But the soldier’s scowl only deepened. ‘Maybe I like you now, Trull Sengar, but you keep being nice and that’ll change, I swear it.’

‘Have I offended you-’

‘Ignore Hedge,’ Quick Ben cut in, ‘at least when he’s talking. Trust me, it was the only way the rest of us in the squad stayed sane. Ignore him… until he reaches into that damned sack of his.’

‘And then?’ Trull asked in complete bewilderment.

‘Then run like Hood himself was on your heels.’

Onrack had separated himself from his welcomers and was now walking towards the strangers.

‘Yes,’ Quick Ben said in a low voice. ‘They’re trouble indeed.’

‘Because they were like Onrack? T’lan Imass?’

‘Of the Ritual, aye. The question is, why are they here?’

‘I would imagine that whatever mission brought them to this place, Quick Ben, the transformation they experienced has shaken them-perhaps, as with Onrack, their spirits have reawakened.’

‘Well, they look unbalanced enough.’

Their conversation with Onrack was short, and Trull watched as his old friend approached.

‘Well?’ the wizard demanded.

Onrack was frowning. ‘They are Bentract, after all. But from those who joined the Ritual. Ulshun Pral’s clan were among the very few who did not, who were swayed by the arguments set forth by Kilava Onass-this is why,’ Onrack added, ‘they greet the emlava as if they were Kilava’s very own children. Thus, there are ancient wounds between the two groups. Ulshun Pral was not a clan chief back then-indeed, the T’lan Bentract do not even know him.’

‘And that is a problem?’

‘It is, because one of the strangers is a chosen chief-chosen by Bentract himself. Hostille Rator.’

‘And the other two?’ Quick Ben asked.

‘Yes, even more difficult. Ulshun Pral’s Bonecaster is gone. Til’aras Benok and Gr’istanas Ish’ilm, who stand to either side of Hostille Rator, are Bonecasters.’

Trull Sengar drew a deep breath. ‘They contemplate usurpation, then.’

Onrack the Broken nodded.

‘Then what had stopped them?’ Quick Ben asked.

‘Rud Elalle, wizard. The son of Menandore terrifies them.’

The rain thundered down, every moment another hundred thousand iron-tipped lances crashing down out of the dark onto slate rooftops, exploding on the cobbled streets where streams now rushed down, racing for the harbour.

The ice north of the island had not died quietly. Sundered by the magic of a wilful child, the white and blue mountains had lifted skyward in pillars of steam that roiled into massive stormclouds, which had then marched south freed from the strictures of refusal, and those clouds now erupted over the beleaguered city with rage and vengeance. Late afternoon had become midnight and now, as the half-drowned chimes of midnight’s bells sounded, it seemed as if this night would never end.

On the morrow-if it ever came-the Adjunct would set sail with her motley fleet. Thrones of War, a score of well-armed fast escorts, the last of the-transports holding the rest of the Fourteenth Army, and one sleek black dromon propelled by the tireless oars manned by headless Tiste Andii. Oh, and of course, in the lead would be a local pirate’s ship, captained by a dead woman-but never mind her. Return, yes, to that black-hulled nightmare.

Their hosts had worked hard to keep the dread truth of that Quon dromon from Nimander Golit and his kin. The severed heads on the deck, mounded around the mainmast, well, they had kept them covered. No point in encouraging hysteria, should their living Tiste Andii guests see the faces of their kin, their true kin, for were they not of Drift Avalii? Oh yes, they were indeed. Uncles, fathers, mothers, oh, a play on words now would well serve the notion-they were, yes, heads of families, cut away before their time, before their children had grown old enough, wise enough, hard enough to survive in this world. Cut away, ha ha. Now, death would have been one thing. Dying was one thing. Just one and there were other things, always, and you didn’t need any special wisdom to know that. But those heads had not died, not stiffened then softened with rot. The faces had not fallen away to leave just bone, just the recognition that came with a sharing of what-is, what-was and what’ would-be. No, the eyes stared on, the eyes blinked because some memory told them that blinking was necessary. The mouths moved, resuming interrupted conversations, the sharing of jests, the gossip of parents, yet not a single word could claw free.

But hysteria was a complicated place in which a young mind might find itself. It could be deafening with screams, shrieks, the endless bursts of horror again and again and again-a tide surging without end. Or it could be quiet-silent in that awful way of some silences-like that of gaping mouths, desperate but unable to draw breath, the eyes above bulging, the veins standing prominent in their need, but no breath would come, nothing to slide life into the lungs. This was the hysteria of drowning. Drowning inside oneself, inside horror. The hysteria of a child, blank-eyed, drool smearing the chin.

Some secrets were impossible to keep. The truth of that ship, for one. The Silanda’s lines were known, were profoundly familiar. The ship that had taken their parents o-

a pathetic journey in search of the one whom every Tiste Andii of Drift Avalii called Father. Anomander Rake. Anomander of the silver hair, the dragon’s eyes. Didn’t find him, alas. Never the chance to plead for help, to ask all the questions that needed asking, to stab fingers in accusation, condemnation, damnation. All that, yes yes.

Take to your oars, brave parents, there is more sea to cross. Can you see the shore? Of course not. You see the sunlight when there is sunlight through canvas weave, and in your heads you feel the ache of your bodies, the strain in your shoulders, the bunch and loose, bunch and loose of every draw on the sweeps. You feel the blood welling up to pool in the neck as if it was a gilded cup, only to sink back down again. Row, damn you! Row for the shore!

Aye, the shore. Other side of this ocean, and this ocean, dear parents, is endless.

So row! Row!

He might have giggled, but that would be a dangerous thing, to break the silence of his hysteria, which he had held on to for so long now it had become warm as a mother’s embrace.

Best to carry on, working to push away, shut away, all thought of the Silanda. Easier on land, in this inn, in this room.

But, on the morrow, they would sail. Again. Onto the ships, oh the spray and wind enlivens so!

And this was why, on this horrid night of vengeful rain, Nimander was awake. For he knew Phaed. He knew Phaed’s own stain of hysteria, and what it might lead her to do. Tonight, in the sodden ashes of midnight’s bell.

She could make her footfalls very quiet, as she crept out of her bed and padded barefoot to the door. Blessed sister blessed daughter blessed mother blessed aunt, niece, grandmother-blessed kin, blood of my blood, spit of my spit, gall of my gall. 1 hear you.

For I know your mind, Phaed. The ever-surging bursts in your soul-yes, 1 see your bared teeth, the smear of intent. You imagine yourself unseen, yes, unwitnessed, and so you reveal your raw self. There in that blessed slash of grey-white, so poetically echoed by the gleam of the knife in your hand.

To the door, darling Phaed. Lift the latch, and out you go, to slide down the corridor all slithering limbs as the rain lashes the roof above and water trickles down the walls in dirty tears. Cold enough to see your breath, Phaed, remind-ing you not just that you are alive, but that you are sexually awakened; that this journey is the sweetest indulgence of under’the-cover secrets, fingers ever playful on the knife, and on the rocking ship in the harbour eyes stare at blackness beneath drenched canvas, water trickling down…

She worries, yes, about Withal. Who might awaken. Before or after. Who might smell the blood, the iron stench, the death riding out on Sandalath Drukorlat’s last breath. Who might witness when all that Phaed was, truly was, could never be witnessed-because such things were not allowed, never allowed, and so she might have to kill him, too.

Vipers strike more than once.

Now at the door, the last barrier-row you fools-the shore lies just beyond!-and of course there is no lock binding the latch. No reason for it. Save one murderous child whose mother’s head stares at canvas on a pitching deck. The one child who went to see that for herself. And we are drawn to pilgrimage. Because to live is to hunt for echoes. Echoes of what? No-one knows. But the pilgrimage is taken, yes, ever taken, and every now and then those echoes are caught-just a whisper-creaking oars, the slap and chop of waves like fists against the hull, clamouring to get in, and the burbling blood, the spitting suck as it sinks back down. And we hear, in those echoes, some master’s voice: Row! Row for the shore! Row for your lives!

He remembered a story, the story he always remembered, would ever remember. An old man alone in a small fisher boat. Rowing into the face of a mountain of ice. Oh, he did love that story. The pointless glory of it, the mindless magic-he would grow chilled at the thought, at the vision he conjured of that wondrous, profound and profoundly useless scene. Old man, what do you think you are doing? Old man-the ice!

Inside, a shadow among shadows, gloom in the gloom, teeth hidden now, but the knife is a lurid gleam, catching reflections of rain from the window’s pitted rainbow glass. And a shudder takes her then, pulling her down into a crouch as sensations flood up through her belly, lancing upward into her brain and her breath catches-oh, Phaed, don’t scream now. Don’t even moan.

They have drawn their cots together-on this night, then, the man and the bitch have shared the spit of their loins, isn’t that sweet. She edges closer, eyes searching. Finding Sandalath’s form on the left, closest to her. Convenient.

Phaed raises the knife.

In her mind, flashes, scene after scene, the sordid list of this old woman’s constant slights, each one belittling Phaed, each one revealing to all nearby too many of Phaed’s secret terrors-no-one has the right to do that, no-one has the right to then laugh-laugh in the eyes if not out loud. All those insults, well, the time has come to pay them back. Here, with one hard thrust of the knife.

She lifts the knife still higher, draws in her breath and holds it.

And stabs down.

Nimander’s hand snaps out, catches her wrist, hard, tightening as she twists round, lips peeled back, eyes blazing with rage and fear. Her wrist is a tiny thing, like a bony snake, caught, frenzied, seeking to turn the knife, to set the edge against Nimander’s hand. He twists again and bones break, an awful crunching, grinding sound.

The knife clunks on the wooden floor.

Nimander bears down on her, using his weight to crumple Phaed onto the floor beside the bed. She tries to scratch at his eyes and he releases the broken limb to grasp the other one. He breaks that one too.

She has not screamed. Amazing, that. Not a sound but her panting breath.

Nimander pins her down and takes her neck in his hands. He begins to squeeze.

No more, Phaed. I now do as would Anomander Rake. As would Silchas Ruin. As would Sandalath herself were she awake. I do this, because I know you-yes, even now, there, in your bulging eyes where all your awareness now gathers in a flood, I can see the truth of you.

The emptiness inside.

Your mother stares in horror. At what she has spawned. She stares, disbelieving, clinging desperately to the possibility that she has got it wrong, that we all have, that you are not as you are. But that is no help. Not to her. Not to you.

Yes, stare up into my eyes, Phaed, and know that I see you.

I see you-

He was being dragged away. Off Phaed. His hands were being pried loose, twisted painfully to break his grip-and he falls back, muscled arms wrapped about him now, and is dragged from Phaed, from her bloated face and the dreadful gasping-poor Phaed’s throat hurts, maybe is torn, even. To breathe is to know agony.

But she lives. He has lost his chance, and now they will kill him.

Sandalath screams at him-she has been screaming at him for some time, he realizes. She first screamed when he broke Phaed’s second wrist-awakened by Phaed’s own screams-oh, of course she had not stayed quiet. Snapping bones would never permit that, not even from a soulless creature as was Phaed. She had screamed, and he’d heard nothing, not even echoes-hands on the oar and squeeze!

Now what would happen? Now what would they do?

‘Nimander!’

He started, stared across at Sandalath, studied her face as if it were a stranger’s.

Withal held him, arms trapped against his sides, but Nimander was not interested in struggling. It was too late for that.

Phaed had thrown up and the stink of her vomit was thick in the air.

Someone was pounding on the door-which in his wisdom Nimander had locked behind him after following Phaed into the room.

Sandalath yelled that it was all right, everything was fine-an accident, but everything is fine now.

But poor Phaed’s wrists are broken. That will need seeing to.

Not now, Withal.

He stands limp in my arms, wife. Can I release him now?

Yes, but be wary-

I shall, no doubt of that.

And now Sandalath, positioned between Nimander and the still-coughing, gagging Phaed, took Nimander’s face in her hands and leaned closer to study his eyes.

What do you see, Sandalath Drukorlat? Gems bright with truths and wonders? Pits whispering at you that no bottom will ever be found, that the plunge into a soul never ends? Row, you fools! We’re sinking! Oh, don’t giggle, Nimander, don’t do that. Remain as you are, outwardly numb. Blank. What do you see? Why, nothing, of course.

‘Nimander.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You can kill me now.’

A strange look on her face. Something like horror. ‘Nimander, no. Listen to me. I need to know. What has happened here? Why were you in our room?’

‘Phaed.’

‘Why were you both in our room, Nimander?’

Why, I followed her. I stayed awake-I’ve been doing that a lot. I’ve been watching her for days and days, nights and nights. Watching her sleep, waiting for her to wake up, to take out her knife and smile a greeting to the dark. The dark that is our heritage, the dark of betrayal.

I don’t remember when last I slept, Sandalath Drukorlat.

I needed to stay awake, always awake. Because of Phaed.

Did he answer her then? Out loud, all those tumbling statements, those reasonable explanations. He wasn’t sure. ‘Kill me now, so I can sleep, I so want to sleep.’

‘No’One is going to kill you,’ Sandalath said. Her hands, pressed to the sides of his face, were slick with sweat. Or rain, perhaps. Not tears-leave that to the sky, to the night.

‘I am sorry,’ Nimander said.

‘I think that apology should be saved for Phaed, don’t you?’

‘I am sorry,’ he repeated to her, then added, ‘that she’s not dead.’

Her hands pulled away, leaving his cheeks suddenly cold.

‘Hold a moment,’ Withal said, stepping to the foot of the bed and bending down to pick up something. Gleaming, edged. Her knife. ‘Now,’ he said in a murmur, ‘which one does this toy belong to, I wonder?’

‘Nimander’s still wearing his,’ Sandalath said, and then she turned to stare down at Phaed.

A moment later, Withal grunted. ‘She’s been a hateful little snake around you, Sand. But this?’ He faced Nimander. ‘You just saved my wife’s life? I think you did.’ And then he moved closer, but there was nothing of the horror of Sandalath’s face in his own. No, this was a hard expression, that slowly softened. ‘Gods below, Nimander, you knew this was coming, didn’t you? How long? When did you last sleep?’ He stared a moment longer, then spun. ‘Move aside, Sand, I think I need to finish what Nimander started-’

‘No!’ his wife snapped.

‘She’ll try again.’

‘I understand that, you stupid oaf! Do you think I’ve not seen into that fanged maw that is Phaed’s soul? Listen, there is a solution-’

‘Aye, wringing her scrawny neck-’

‘We leave them here. On the island-we sail tomorrow without them. Withal-husband-’

‘And when she recovers-creatures like this one always do-she’ll take this damned knife and do to Nimander what she’s tried to do to you. He saved your life, and I will not abandon him-’

‘She won’t kill him,’ Sandalath said. ‘You don’t understand. She cannot-without him, she would be truly alone, and that she cannot abide-it would drive her mad-’

‘Mad, aye, mad enough to take a knife to Nimander, the one who betrayed her!’

‘No.’

‘Wife, are you so certain? Is your faith in understanding the mind of a sociopath so strong? That you would leave Nimander with her?’

‘Husband, her arms are broken.’

‘And broken bones can be healed. A knife in the eye cannot.’

‘She will not touch him.’

‘Sand-’

Nimander spoke. ‘She will not touch me.’

Withal’s eyes searched his. ‘You as well?’

You must leave us here,’ Nimander said, then winced at the sound of his own voice. So weak, so useless. He was no Anomander Rake. No Silchas Ruin. Andarist’s faith in choosing him to lead the others had been a mistake. ‘We cannot go with you. With Silanda. We cannot bear to see that ship any longer. Take it away, please, take them away!’

Oh, too many screams this night, in this room. More demands from outside, in growing alarm.

Sandalath turned and, drawing a robe about her-she had been, Nimander suddenly realized, naked-a woman of matronly gifts, the body of a woman who had birthed children, a body such as young men dream of. And might there be wives who might be mothers who might be lovers’…for one such as me? Stop, she is’dead-robe drawn, Sandalath walked to the door, quickly unlocked it and slipped outside, closing the door behind her. More voices in the corridor.

Withal was staring down at Phaed, who had ceased her coughing, her whimpers of pain, her fitful weeping. ‘This is not your crime, Nimander.’

What?

Withal reached down and grabbed Phaed by her upper arms. She shrieked.

‘Don’t,’ Nimander said.

‘Not your crime.’

‘She will leave you, Withal. If you do that. She will leave you.’

He stared across at Nimander, then pushed Phaed back down onto the floor. ‘You don’t know me, Nimander. Maybe she doesn’t, either-not when it comes to what I will do for her sake-and, I suppose,’ he added with a snarl, ‘for yours.’

Nimander had thought his words had drawn Withal back, had kept him from doing what he had intended to do, and so he was unprepared, and so he stood, watching, as Withal snatched Phaed up, surged across the room-carrying her as if she was no more than a sack of tubers-and threw her through the window.

A punching shatter of the thick, bubbled glass, and body, flopping arms and bared lower limbs-with dainty feet at the end-were gone, out into the night that howled, spraying the room with icy rain.

Withal stumbled back in the face of that wind, then he spun to face Nimander. ‘I am going to lie,’ he said in 9 growl. ‘The mad creature ran, flung herself through-do you hear me?’

The door opened and Sandalath charged into the room, behind her the Adjunct’s aide, Lostara Yil, and the priest, Banaschar-and, pushing close behind them, the other Tiste Andii-eyes wide with fear, confusion-and Nimander lurched towards them, one step, then another-

And was pulled round to face Sandalath.

Withal was speaking. A voice filled with disbelief. Expostulations.

But she was staring into his eyes. ‘Did she? Nimander! Did she?’

Did she what! Oh, yes, go through the window.

Shouts from the street below, muted by the wailing winds and lashing rain. Lostara Yil moved to stand at the sill, leaned out. A moment later she stepped back and turned, her expression grave. ‘Broken neck. I’m sorry, Sandalath. But I have questions…’

Mother, wife, Withal’s lover, was still staring into Nimander’s eyes-a look that said loss was rearing from the dark, frightened places in her mind, rearing, yes, to devour the love she held for her husband-for the man with the innocent face; that told him, with the answer he might give to her question, two more lives might be destroyed. Did she? Through the window? Did she… die?

Nimander nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Another dead woman screamed in his skull and he almost reeled. Dead eyes, devouring all love. ‘You have lied, Nimander!’

Yes. To save Withal. To save Sandalath Drukorlat-

‘To save yourself!’

Yes.

‘My love, what has happened to you?’

I heard a spinning sound. A whispering promise-we must stay here, you see. We must. Andarist chose me. He knew he was going to die. He knew that there would be no Anomander Rake, no Silchas Ruin, no great kin of our age of glory-no-one to come to save us, take care of us. There was only me.

My love, to lead is to carry burdens. As did the heroes of old, with clear eyes.

So look at my eyes, my love. See my burden? Just like a hero of old-

Sandalath reached up again, those two long-fingered hands. Not to take his face, but to wipe away the rain streaming down his cheeks.

My clear eyes.

We will stay here, on this island-we will look to the Shake, and see in them the faint threads of Tiste Andii blood, and we will turn them away from the barbarity that has taken them and so twisted their memories.

We will show them the shore. The true shore.

Burdens, my love. This is what it is to live, while your loved ones die.

Sandalath, still ignoring Lostara Yil’s questioning, now stepped back and turned to settle into her husband’s arms.

And Withal looked across at Nimander.

Outside, the wind screamed.

Yes, my love, see it in his-eyes. Look what I have done to Withal. All because I failed.

Last night’s storm had washed the town clean, giving it a scoured appearance that made it very nearly palatable. Yan Tovis, Twilight, stood on the pier watching the foreign ships pull out of the harbour. At her side was her half-brother, Yedan Derryg, the Watch.

‘Glad to see them go,’ he said.

‘You are not alone in that,’ she replied.

‘Brullyg’s still dead to the world-but was that celebration or self-pity?’

Yan Tovis shrugged.

‘At dawn,’ Yedan Derryg said after a long moment of silence between them, ‘our black-skinned cousins set out to build the tomb.’ His bearded jaw bunched, molars grinding, then he said, ‘Only met the girl once. Sour-faced, shy eyes.’

‘Those broken arms did not come from the fall,’ Yan Tovis said. ‘Too bruised-the tracks of fingers. Besides, she landed on her head, bit through her tongue clean as a knife cut.’

‘Something happened in that room. Something sordid.’

‘I am pleased we did not inherit such traits.’

He grunted, said nothing.

Yan Tovis sighed. ‘Pully and Skwish seem to have decided their sole purpose in living these days is to harry me at every turn.’

‘The rest of the witches have elected them as their representatives. You begin your rule as Queen in a storm of ill-feeling.’

‘It’s worse than that,’ she said. ‘This town is crowded with ex-prisoners. Debt-runners and murderers. Brullyg managed to control them because he could back his claim to being the nastiest adder in the pit. They look at me and see an Atri-Preda of the Imperial Army-just another warden-and you, Derryg, well, you’re my strong-arm Finadd. They don’t care a whit about the Shake and their damned queen.’

‘Which is precisely why you need the witches, Twilight.’

‘I know. And if that’s not misery enough, they know it, too.’

‘You need clout,’ he said.

‘Clever man.’

‘Even as a child, you were prone to sarcasm.’

‘Sorry.’

‘The answer, I think, will be found with these Tiste Andii.’

She looked across at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Who knows more of our past than even the witches? Who knows it as a clean thing? A thing not all twisted by generations of corruption, of half-remembrances and convenient lies?’

‘Your tongue runs away with you, Yedan.’

‘More sarcasm.’

‘No, I find myself somewhat impressed.’

The jaw bunched as he studied her.

She laughed. Could not help it. ‘Oh, brother, come-the foreigners are gone and probably won’t be back-ever.’

‘They sail to their annihilation?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I’m not sure, Twilight. That child mage, Sinn…’

‘You may be right. News of her imminent departure had Pully and Skwish dancing.’

‘She destroyed a solid wall of ice half as long as Fent Reach. I would not discount these Malazans.’

‘The Adjunct did not impress me,’ Yan Tovis said.

‘Maybe because she didn’t need to.’

Twilight thought about that, then thought about it some more.

Neither spoke as they turned away from the glittering bay and the now-distant foreign ships.

The morning sun was actually beginning to feel warm-the final, most poignant proof that the ice was dead, the threat past. The Isle would live on.

On the street ahead the first bucket of night-soil slopped down onto the clean cobbles from a second-storey window, forcing passers-by to dance aside.

‘The people greet you, Queen.’

‘Oh, be quiet, Yedan.’

Captain Kindly stood by the port rail, staring across the choppy waves to the Silanda. Soldiers from both of the squads on that haunted ship were visible on the deck, a handful gathered about a game of bones or some such nefarious activity, whilst the sweeps churned the water in steady rhythm. Masan Gilani was up near the steering oar, keeping Sergeant Cord company.

Lucky bastard, that Cord. Lieutenant Pores, positioned on Kindly’s right, leaned his forearms on the rail, eyes fixed on Masan Gilani-as were, in all likelihood, the eyes of most of the sailors on this escort, those not busy readying the sails at any rate.

‘Lieutenant.’

‘Sir?’

‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘Uh, nothing, sir.’

‘You’re leaning on the gunnel. At ease. Did I at any time say “at ease”, Lieutenant?’

Pores straightened. ‘Sorry, sir.’

‘That woman should be put up on report.’

Aye, she’s not wearing much, is she?’

‘Out of uniform.’

‘Damned distracting, isn’t it, sir?’

‘Disappointing, you mean, surely, Lieutenant.’

‘Ah, that’s the word I was looking for, all right. Thank you, sir.’

‘The Shake make the most extraordinary combs,’ Kindly said. ‘Turtleshell.’

‘Impressive, sir.’

‘Expensive purchases, but well worth it, I should judge.’

‘Yes sir. Tried them yet?’

‘Lieutenant, do you imagine that to be amusing?’

‘Sir? No, of course not!’

‘Because, as is readily apparent, Lieutenant, your commanding officer has very little hair.’

‘If by that you mean on your head, then yes sir, that is, uh, apparent indeed.’

‘Am I infested with lice, then, that I might need to use a comb elsewhere on my body, Lieutenant?’

‘I wouldn’t know, sir. I mean, of course not.’

‘Lieutenant, I want you to go to my cabin and prepare the disciplinary report on that soldier over there.’

‘But sir, she’s a marine.’

‘Said report to be forwarded to Fist Keneb when such communication is practicable. Well, why are you still standing here? Get out of my sight, and no limping!’

‘Limp’s long gone, sir!’

Pores saluted then hurried away, trying not to limp. The problem was, it had become something of a habit when he was around Captain Kindly. Granted, a most pathetic attempt at eliciting some sympathy. Kindly had no sympathy. He had no friends, either. Except for his combs. And they’re all teeth and no bite,’ he murmured as he descended to Kindly’s cabin. ‘Turtleshell, ooh!’

Behind him, Kindly spoke, ‘I have decided to accompany you, Lieutenant. To oversee your penmanship.’

Pores cringed, hitched a sudden limp then rubbed at his hip before opening the cabin hatch. ‘Yes sir,’ he said weakly.

And when you are done, Lieutenant, my new turtleshell combs will need a thorough cleansing. Shake are not the most fastidious of peoples.’

‘Nor are turtles.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I will be most diligent, sir.’

‘And careful.’

‘Absolutely, sir.’

‘In fact, I think I had better oversee that activity as well.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘That wasn’t a limp I saw, was it?’

‘No sir, I’m much better now.’

‘Otherwise we would have to find a good reason for your limping, Lieutenant. For example, my finding a billy club and shattering your legs into pieces. Would that do, do you think? No need to answer, I see. Now, best find the ink box, yes?’

‘I’m telling you, Masan, that was Kindly himself over there. Drooling over you.’

‘You damned fool,’ she said, then added, ‘Sergeant.’

Cord just grinned. ‘Even at that distance, your charms are, uh, unmistakable.’

‘Sergeant, Kindly has probably not lain with a woman since the night of his coming of age, and that time was probably with a whore his father or uncle bought for the occasion. Women can tell these things. The man’s repressed, in all the worst ways.’

‘Oh, and what are the good ways of being repressed?’

‘For a man? Well, decorum for one, as in not taking advantage of your rank. Listen closely now, if you dare. All real acts of chivalry are forms of repressed behaviour.’

‘Where in Hood’s name did you get that? Hardly back on the savannas of Dal Hon!’

‘You’d be surprised what the women in the huts talk about, Sergeant.’

‘Well, soldier, I happen to be steering this damned ship, so it was you who walked up here to stand with me, not the other way round!’

¦

‘I was just getting away from Balm’s squad-not to mention that sapper of yours, Crump, who’s decided I’m worthy of worship. Says I’ve got the tail of some salamander god.’

‘You’ve what?’

‘Aye. And if he grabs it it’s liable to come off. I think he means he thinks I’m too perfect for the likes of him. Which is something of a relief. Doesn’t stop him ogling me, though.’

‘You get the ogles because you want the ogles, Masan Gilani. Keep your armour on and we’ll all forget about you quick enough.’

‘Armour on a ship? No thanks. That’s a guarantee of a fast plunge to the mucky bottom, Sergeant.’

‘We won’t be seeing any battle on the waves,’ Cord pronounced.

‘Why not? The Letherii got a fleet or three, don’t they?’

‘Mostly chewed up by years at sea, Masan Gilani. Besides, they’re not very good at the ship-to-ship kind of fighting-without their magic, that is.’

‘Well, without our marines, neither are we.’

‘They don’t know that, do they?’

‘We haven’t got Quick Ben any more either.’

Cord leaned on the steering oar and looked across at her. You spent most of your time in the town, didn’t you? Just a few trips back and forth to us up the north side of the island. Masan Gilani, Quick Ben had all the moves, aye, and even the look of an Imperial High Mage. Shifty, mysterious and scary as Hood’s arse-crack. But I’ll tell you this-Sinn, well, she’s the real thing.’

‘If you say so.’ All Masan Gilani could think of, when it came to Sinn, was the little mute child curling up in the arms of every woman in sight, suckling on tits like a newborn. Of course, that was outside Y’Ghatan. Long ago, now.

‘I do say so,’ Cord insisted. ‘Now, if you ain’t interested in getting unofficial with this sergeant here, best take your swaying hips elsewhere,’

‘You men really are all the same.’

‘And so are you women. Might interest you,’ he added as she turned to leave, ‘Crump’s no whiskered shrew under those breeches.’

‘That’s disgusting.’ But she paused at the steps leading down to the main deck and glanced back at the sergeant. ‘Really?’

‘Think I’d lie about something like that?’

He watched Masan Gilani sashay her way up the main deck to where Balm and the rest were gambling, Crump with all the winnings, thus far. They’d reel him in later, of course. Although idiots had a way of being damnably lucky.

In any case, the thought of Masan Gilani ending up with Crump, of all people, was simply too hilarious to let pass. If she wasn’t interested in decent men like Sergeant Cord, well, she could have the sapper and so deserve everything that came with him. Aye, he’ll worship you all right. Even what you cough up every morning and that sweet way you clear your nose before going into battle. Oh, wait till I tell Shard about this. And Ebron. And Limp. We’ll set up a book, aye. How long before she runs screaming. With Crump loping desperate after her, knees at his ears.

Ebron climbed onto the aft deck. ‘What’s got you looking so cheerful, Sergeant?’

‘I’ll tell you later. Dropped out of the game?’

‘Crump’s still winning.’

‘Ain’t turned it yet?’

‘We tried, half a bell ago, Sergeant. But the damned fool’s luck’s gone all uncanny.’

‘Really? He’s not a mage or something, is he?’

‘Gods no, the very opposite. All my magics go awry-the ones I tried on him and on the bones and skull. Those Mott Irregulars, they were mage-hunters, you know. High Marshal this and High Marshal that-if Crump really is a Bole, one of the brothers, well, they were legendary.’

‘You saying we’re underestimating the bastard, Ebron?’

The squad mage looked morose. ‘By about three hundred imperial jakatas and counting, Sergeant.’

Hood’s balls, maybe Masan Gilani will like being Queen of the Universe.

‘What was that you were going to tell me about, Sergeant?’

‘Never mind.’

Shurq Elalle stood on the foredeck of the Froth Wolf and held a steady, gauging eye on the Undying Gratitude five reaches ahead. All sails out, riding high. Skorgen Kaban was captaining her ship and would continue to do so until they reached the mouth of the Lether River. Thus far, he’d not embarrassed himself-or, more important, her.

She wasn’t very happy about all of this, but these Malazans were paying her well indeed. Good-quality gold, and a chestful of that would come in handy in the days, months and probably years to come.

Yet another invasion of the Letherii Empire, and in its own way possibly just as nasty as the last one. Were these omens, then, signalling the decline of a once great civilization? Conquered by barbaric Tiste Edur, and now in the midst of a protracted war that might well bleed them out, right down to a lifeless corpse.

Unless, of course, those hapless abandoned marines-whatever ‘marines’ were; soldiers, anyway-were already jellied and dissolving into the humus. A very real possi-bility, and Shurq was not privy to any details of the campaign so she had no way of knowing either way.

So, here she was, returning at last to Letheras… maybe just in time to witness its conquest. Witness-now really, darling Shurq, you’ve a bigger role than that. Like leading ihe damned enemy right up to the docks’. And how famous will that make you then? How many more curses on your name?

There is a ritual,’ said a voice behind her.

She turned. That odd man, the one in the ratty robes, whose face was so easily forgotten. The priest. ‘Banaschar, is it?’

He nodded. ‘May I join you, Captain?’

‘As you please, but at the moment I am not a captain. I’m a passenger, a guest.’

‘As am I,’ he replied. ‘As I mentioned a moment ago, there is a ritual.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘To find and bind your soul to your body once more-to remove your curse and make you alive again.’

‘A little late for that, even if I desired such a thing, Banaschar.’

His brows rose. ‘You do not dream of living again?’

‘Should I?’

‘I am probably the last living High Priest of D’rek, the Worm of Autumn. The face of the aged, the dying and the diseased. And of the all-devouring earth that takes flesh and bone, and the fires that transform into ashes-’

‘Yes, fine, I grasp the allusions.’

‘I, more perhaps than most, do understand the tension between the living and the dead, the bitterness of the season that finds each and every one of us-’

‘Do you always go on like this?’

He looked away. ‘No. I am trying to resurrect my faith-’

‘By the Tiles, Banaschar, don’t make me laugh. Please.’

‘Laugh? Ah, yes, the play on words. Accidental-’

‘Rubbish.’

That elicited a mocking smile-which was better than the grave misery that had been there a moment earlier. ‘Very well, Shurq Elalle, why do you not wish to live once again?’

‘I don’t get old, do I? I stay as I am, suitably attractive-’

‘Outwardly, yes.’

‘And have you taken the time to look inward, Banaschar?’

‘I would not do such a thing without your permission.’

‘I give it. Delve deep, High Priest.’

His gaze fixed on her, but slowly surrendered its focus. A moment passed, then he paled, blinked and stepped back. ‘Gods below, what is that V

‘I don’t know what you mean, good sir.’

‘There are… roots… filling your entire being. Every vein and artery, the thinnest capillaries… alive…’

‘My ootooloo-they said it would take over, eventually. Its appetites are’-she smiled-‘boundless. But I have learned to control them, more or less. It possesses its own rigour, yes?’

‘You are dead and yet not dead, not any more-but what lives within you, what has claimed your entire body, Shurq Elalle, it is alien. A parasite!’

‘Beats fleas.’

He gaped.

She grew impatient with his burgeoning alarm. ‘Errant take your rituals. I am content enough as I am, or will be once I get scoured out and some new spices stuffed-’

‘Stop, please.’

‘As you like. Is there something else you wanted to discuss? Truth is, I have little time for high priests. As if piety comes from gaudy robes and self-righteous arrogance. Show me a priest who knows how to dance and I might bask in his measure, for a time. Otherwise…’

He bowed. ‘Forgive me, then.’

‘Forget trying to resurrect your faith, Banaschar, and try finding for yourself a more worthy ritual of living.’

He backed away, and very nearly collided with the Adjunct and Tavore’s ever-present bodyguard, Lostara Yil. Another hasty bow, then flight down the steps.

The Adjunct frowned at Shurq Elalle. ‘It seems you are upsetting my other passengers, Captain.’

‘Not my concern, Adjunct. I would be of better service if I was on my own ship.’

‘You lack confidence in your first mate?’

‘My incomplete specimen of a human? Why would you imagine that?’

Lostara Yil snorted, then pointedly ignored the Adjunct’s quick warning glance.

‘I will have many questions to ask you, Captain,’ Tavore said. ‘Especially the closer we get to Letheras. And I will of course value your answers.’

‘You are being too bold,’ Shurq Elalle said, ‘heading straight for the capital.’

‘Answers, not advice.’

Shurq Elalle shrugged. ‘I had an uncle who chose to leave Letheras and live with the Meckros. He wasn’t much for listening to advice either. So off he went, and then, not so long ago, there was a ship, a Meckros ship from one of their floating cities south of Pilott-and they told tales of a sister city being destroyed by ice, then vanishing-almost no wreckage left behind at all-and no survivors. Probably straight down to the deep. That hapless city was the one my uncle lived on.’

‘Then you should have learned a most wise lesson,’ Lostara Yil said in a rather dry tone that hinted of self-mockery.

‘CM*

‘Yes. People who make up their minds about something never listen to advice-especially when it’s to the contrary.’

‘Well said.’ Shurq Elalle smiled at the tattooed woman. ‘Frustrating, isn’t it?’

‘If you two are done with your not very subtle complaints,’ the Adjunct said, ‘I wish to ask the captain here about the Letherii secret police, the Patriotists.’

‘Ah well,’ Shurq Elalle said, ‘that is not a fun subject. Not fun at all.’

‘I am not interested in fun,’ Tavore said.

And one look at her, Shurq Elalle reflected, was proof enough of that.

With twelve of his most loyal guards from the Eternal Domicile, Sirryn marched up Kravos Hill, the west wall of Letheras two thousand paces behind him. The tents of the

¦

Imperial Brigade dominated in the midst of ancillary companies and lesser brigades, although the Tiste Edur encampment, situated slightly apart from the rest, to the north, looked substantial-at least two or three thousand of the damned savages, Sirryn judged.

Atop Kravos Hill stood half a dozen Letherii officers and a contingent of Tiste Edur, among them Hanradi Khalag. Sirryn withdrew a scroll and said to the once-king, ‘I am here to deliver the Chancellor’s orders.’

Expressionless, Hanradi reached out for the scroll, then passed it on to one of his aides without looking at it.

Sirryn scowled. ‘Such orders-’

‘I do not read Letherii,’ Hanradi said.

‘If you’d like, I can translate-’

‘I have my own people for that, Finadd.’ Hanradi Khalag looked across at the officers of the Imperial Brigade. ‘In the future,’ he said, ‘we Edur will patrol the boundaries of our own camp. The parade of Letherii whores is now at an end, so your pimp soldiers will have to make their extra coin elsewhere.’

The Edur commander led his troop away, down off the summit of the hill. Sirryn stared after them for a moment, until he was certain they would not return. He then withdrew a second scroll and approached the Preda of the Imperial Brigade. ‘These, too,’ he said, ‘are the Chancellor’s orders.’

The Preda was a veteran, not just of battle, but of the ways of the palace. He simply nodded as he accepted the scroll. ‘Finadd,’ he asked, ‘will the Chancellor be commanding us in person when the time comes?’

‘I imagine not, sir.’

That could make things awkward.’

‘In some matters, I will speak for him, sir. As for the rest, you will find, once you have examined that scroll, that you are given considerable freedom for the battle itself.’

And if I find myself at odds with Hanradi?’

‘I doubt that will be a problem,’ Sirryn said.

He watched the Preda mull that over, and thought he saw a slight widening of the man’s eyes.

‘Finadd,’ the Preda said.

‘Sir?’

‘How fares the Chancellor, at the moment?’

‘Well indeed, sir.’

‘And… in the future?’

‘He is most optimistic, sir.’

‘Very good. Thank you, Finadd.’

Sirryn saluted. ‘Begging your leave, sir, I wish to oversee the establishment of my camp.’

‘Make it close to this hill, Finadd-this is where we will command the battle-and I will want you close.’

‘Sir, there is scant room left-’

‘You have my leave to move people out at your discretion, Finadd.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Oh, he would enjoy that. Grubby soldiers with dust on their boots-they always imagined themselves superior to their counterparts in the palace. Well, a few cracked skulls would change that quick enough. By leave of their very own Preda. He saluted again and led his troops back down the hill.

The man looked familiar. Had he been a student of hers? Son of a neighbour, son of another scholar? These were the questions in Janath’s mind as the troop dragged them from Tehol’s home. Of the journey to the compound of the Patriotists, she now recalled very little. But that man, with the familiar face-a face that stirred oddly intimate feelings within her-would not leave her.

Chained in her cell, chained in the darkness that crawled with vermin, she had been left alone for some time now. Days, perhaps even a week. A single plate of watery stew slid through the trap at the foot of the door at what seemed irregular intervals-it would not be pushed into her cell if she did not leave the empty plate from the last meal within easy reach of the guard. The ritual had not been explained to her, but she had come to admire its precision, its eloquence. Disobedience meant hunger; or, rather, starvation-hunger was always there, something that she had not experienced in the household of Bugg and Tehol. There had been a time, back then, when she had come to loathe the taste of chicken. Now she dreamed of those damned hens.

The man, Tanal Yathvanar, had visited but once, apparently to gloat. She’d no idea she had been wanted for sedition, although in truth that did not surprise her much. When thugs were in power, educated people were the first to feel their fists. It was so pathetic, really, how so much violence came from someone feeling small. Small of mind, and it did not matter how big the sword in hand, that essential smallness remained, gnawing with very sharp teeth.

Both Bugg and Tehol had hinted, occasionally, that things would not go well if the Patriotists found her. Well, them, as it turned out. Tehol Beddict, her most frustrating student, who had only attended her lectures out of adolescent lust, now revealed as the empire’s greatest traitor-so Tanal Yathvanar had said to her, the glee in his voice matched by the lurid reflections in his eyes as he stood with his lantern in one hand and the other touching his private parts whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. She had been sitting with her back to the stone wall, head tilted down chin to chest, with her filthy hair hanging ragged over her face.

Tehol Beddict, masterminding the empire’s economic ruin-well, that was still a little hard to believe. Oh, he had the talent, yes. And maybe even the inclination. But for such universal collapse as was now occurring, there was a legion of co-conspirators. Unwitting for the most part, of course, barring that niggling in their guts that what they were doing was, ultimately, destructive beyond measure. But greed won out, as it always did. So, Tehol Beddict had paved the road, but hundreds-thousands?-had freely chosen to walk it. And now they cried out, indignant and appalled, even as they scurried for cover lest blame spread its crimson pool.

As things stood at the moment, the entire crime now rested at Tehol’s feet-and Bugg’s, the still elusive manservant.

‘But we will find him, janath,’ Tanal Yathvanar had said. ‘We find everyone, eventually.’

Everyone but yourselves, she had thought to reply, for that search leads you onto a far too frightening path. Instead, she had said nothing, given him nothing at all. And watched as the sword got ever smaller in his hand-yes, that sword, too.

‘Just as we found you. Just as I found you. Oh, it’s well known now. I was the one to arrest Tehol Beddict and Scholar Janath. Me. Not Karos Invictad, who sits day and night drooling over his box and that blessed two-headed insect. It has driven him mad, you know. He does nothing else.’ He then laughed. ‘Did you know he is now the richest man in the empire? At least, he thinks he is. But I did the work for him. I made the transactions. I have copies of everything. But the real glory is this-1 am his beneficiary, and he doesn’t even know it!’

Yes, the two-headed insect. One drooling, the other nattering.

Tanal Yathvanar. She knew him-that was now a certainty. She knew him, because he had done all this to her before. There had been no dissembling when he had talked about that-it was the source for his gloating over her, after all, so it could not be a lie.

And now her memories-of the time between the end of the semester at the academy, and her awakening in the care of Tehol and Bugg-memories that had been so fragmented, images blurred beyond all understanding, began to coalesce, began to draw into focus.

She was wanted, because she had escaped. Which meant that she had been arrested-her first arrest-and her tormentor had been none other than Tanal Yathvanar.

Logical. Reasonable intuitions from the available facts and her list of observations. Cogent argument and standing before her-some time ago now-the one man who offered the most poignant proof as he babbled on, driven by her lack of reaction. ‘Dear]anath, we must resume where we left off. 1 don’t know how you got away. 1 don’t even know how you ended up with Tehol Beddict. But once more you are mine, to do with as I please. And what I will do with you will not, alas, please you, but your pleasure is not what interests me. This time, you will beg me, you will promise anything, you will come to worship me. And that is what I will leave you with, today. To give you things to think about, until my return.’

Her silence, it had turned out, had been a weak defence.

She was beginning to remember-past those ordered details arranged with clinical detachment-and with those memories there was… pain.

Pain beyond comprehension.

I was driven mad. That is why I could not remember anything. Entirely mad-I don’t know how Bugg and Tehol healed me, but they must have. And Tehol’s consideration, his very uncharacteristic gentleness with me-not once did he seek to take advantage of me, although he must have known that he could have, that I would have welcomed it. That should have awakened suspicion in me, it should have, but I was too happy, too strangely content, even as 1 waited and waited for Tehol to find himself in my arms.

Ah, now isn’t that an odd way of putting it?

She wondered where he was. In another cell? There were plenty of moaners and criers for neighbours, most beyond all hope of communication. Was one of them Tehol Beddict? Broken into a bleeding, gibbering thing?

She did not believe it. Would not. No, for the Great Traitor of the Empire, there would have to be spectacle. A Drowning of such extravagance as to burn like a brand into the collective memory of the Letherii people. He would need to be broken publicly. Made the singular focus for this overwhelming tide of rage and fear. Karos Invictad’s crucial act to regain control, to quell the anarchy, the panic, to restore order.

What irony, that even as Emperor Rhulad prepared to slaughter champions-among them some reputed to be the most dangerous Rhulad would ever face-Karos Invictad could so easily usurp the attention of everyone-well, among the Letherii, that is-with this one arrest, this one trial, this one act of bloodletting.

Doesn’t he realize? That to kill Tehol Beddict this way will be to make of him a martyr? One such as has never been seen before? Tehol Beddict sought to destroy the Letherii system of Indebtedness. Sought to destroy the unholy union of coin and power. He will be the new Errant, but a new kind of Errant. One bound to justice, to freedom, to the commonality of humans. Regardless of whether he was right, regardless even if these were his aims-none of that will matter. He will be written of, a thousand accounts, and in time but a handful will survive, drawn together to forge the heart of a new cult.

And you, Karos Invictad, oh, how your name will ride the breath of curses, for ever more.

Make someone a martyr and surrender all control, of what that someone was in life, of what that someone becomes in death. Do this, Karos Invictad, and you will have lost, even as you lick the man’s blood from your hands.

Yet, perhaps the Invigilator understood all of that. Enough to have already murdered Tehol Beddict, murdered him and dumped the body into the river, weighted down with stones. Unannounced, all in the darkness of night.

But no-the people wanted, needed, demanded that public, ritualized execution of Tehol Beddict.

And so she went round and round, in the swirling drain of her mind, the bottomless well that was her spirit’s defensive collapse sucking her down, ever down.

Away from the memories.

From Tanal Yathvanar.

And what he had done to her before.

And what he would do to her now.

The proud, boisterous warrior who had been Gadalanak returned to the compound barely recognizable as human. The kind of failure, Samar Dev was led to understand, that infuriated this terrible, terrifying Emperor. Accordingly, Gadalanak had been cut to pieces. Long after he was dead, Rhulad’s dread sword had swung down, chopping, slashing, stabbing and twisting. Most of the man’s blood had probably drained into the sand of the arena floor, since the corpse carried by the burial retinue of Indebted did not even drip.

Puddy and other warriors, still waiting their turn-the masked woman included-stood nearby, watching the bearers and their reed stretcher with its grisly heap of raw meat and jutting bone cross the compound on their way to what was known as the Urn Room, where Gadalanak’s remains would be interred. Another Indebted trailed the bearers, carrying the warrior’s weapon and shield, virtually clean of any blood, spattered or otherwise. Word had already come of the contest’s details. The Emperor had cut off Gadalanak’s weapon-arm with the first blow, midway between hand and elbow, sending the weapon flying off to one side. Shield-arm followed, severed at the shoulder. It was said the attending Tiste Edur-and the few Letherii dignitaries whose bloodlust overwhelmed panic at sudden financial straits-had then voiced an ecstatic roar, as if answering Gadalanak’s own screams.

Silent, sober of expression and pale as bleached sand, Puddy and the others watched this grim train, as did Samar 1)ev herself. Then she turned away. Into the side corridor, down its dusty, gloomy length.

Karsa Orlong was lying on the oversized cot that had been built for some previous champion-a full-blood Tarthenal, although still not as tall as the Teblor now sprawled down its length, bared feet jutting over the end with the toes pressed against the wall-a wall stamped with the grime of those toes and feet, since Karsa Orlong had taken to doing very little, ever since the announcement of the contests.

‘He’s dead,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘Gadalanak. Within two or three heartbeats-I think it was a mistake, all of you deciding not to attend-you need to see the one you will fight. You need to know his style. There might be weaknesses-’

Karsa snorted. ‘Revealed in two heartbeats?’

‘The others, I suspect, will now change their minds. They will go, see for themselves-’

‘Fools.’

‘Because they won’t follow your lead in this?’

‘I wasn’t even aware they had, witch. What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?’

She stepped into the room. ‘Doing what?’

‘You are dragging your ghosts with you.’

‘More like they’re clinging to my heels, gibbering-something is building within you, Karsa Orlong-’

‘Climb onto me and we can relieve that, Samar Dev.’

‘Amazing,’ she breathed.

‘Yes.’

‘No, you idiot. I was just commenting on how you can still manage to shock me on occasion.’

‘You only pretend to innocence, woman. Take your clothes off.’

‘If I did, it would only be because you have worn me down. But I won’t, because I am tougher than you think. One look at the odious stains your feet have left on that wall is enough to quench any ardour I might-in sudden madness-experience.’

‘I did not ask you to make love to my feet.’

‘Shouldn’t you be exercising-no, not that kind. I mean, staying limber, stretching and the like.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Reassurance, I think.’

He turned to look at her, then slowly sat up, the cot groaning beneath him. ‘Samar Dev, what is it you fear the most?’

‘Well, you dying, I think. Infuriating as you are, you are a friend. To me, at least. That, and the fact that, uh, after you, they will call upon Icarium. As you can see, the two fears are closely bound together.’

‘Is this what the spirits crowding you fear as well?’

‘An interesting question. I’m not sure, Karsa.’ And, a moment later, she added, ‘Yes, I see now how that might be important-worth knowing, I mean.’

‘I have my own ghosts,’ he said.

‘I know. And what are they feeling? Can you tell?’

‘Eager.’

She frowned. ‘Truly, Karsa Orlong? Truly?’

He laughed. ‘Not for what you think. No, they delight in the end that is coming to them, to the sacrifice they will make.’

‘What kind of sacrifice?’

‘When the time comes, witch, you must draw your iron knife. Give it your blood. Free the spirits you have bound.’

‘What time, damn you?’

‘You will know. Now, take off your clothes. I will see you naked.’

‘No. Gadalanak is dead. Never again will we hear his laughter-’

‘Yes, so it is for us to laugh, now, Samar Dev. We must remind ourselves what it is to live. For him. For Gadalanak.’

She stared at him, then hissed in anger. ‘You almost had me, Karsa Orlong. It’s when you get too convincing, you know, that you become the most dangerous.’

‘Perhaps you’d rather I just took you, then. Tore your clothes away with my own hands. Flung you down on the bed.’

‘I’m leaving now.’

Taralack Veed had once dreamt of the time now imminent, when Icarium Lifestealer would step onto the sand of the arena, amidst the eager roar of unwitting onlookers-and those derisive cries would change very quickly, oh yes, to ones of astonishment, then terror. As the rage was awakened, unleashed.

As the world began its gory end. An emperor, a palace, a city, the heart of an empire.

But this Rhulad would not die. Not with finality. No, each time he would rise again, and two forces would lock together in battle that might never end. Unless… could Icarium be killed? Could he die? He was not immortal, after all-although it could be argued that his rage was, the rage of the victim, generation after generation, a rage against injustice and inequity, and such a thing was without end.

No, if Taralack Veed pushed his thoughts far enough, he ever came to the same place. Rhulad would kill Icarium. A hundred clashes, a thousand-at some point, on a continent of ashes, the burgeoning chaos would strike through, into the heart of Icarium’s rage. And Lifestealer would fall.

There was logic to this. The victim might awaken to fury, but the victim was doomed to be just that: a victim. This was the true cycle, the one to which every culture, every civilization, was witness, century upon century. A natural force, the core of the struggle to exist is the desire to not just survive, but thrive. And to thrive is to feed on victims, ever more victims.

‘It is the language itself,’ Senior Assessor said, kneeling over a basin of still water to study his reflection as he applied gaudy paint. ‘Life pushes forward, when it succeeds. Life halts or falls to the wayside, when it fails. Progression, Taralack Veed, implies a journey, but not necessarily one through a fixed interval of time. That is, the growth and ageing of an individual person, although that too is quickly sewn into the cloth. No, the true journey is one of procreation, one’s seed moving from host to host in a succession of generations, each of which must be successful to some degree, lest the seed… halt, fall to the wayside. Of course, it is not in a single man’s mind to think in terms of generation upon generation, although the need to sow his seed is ever paramount. Other concerns, all of which support that which is paramount, generally occupy the mind on a moment to moment basis. The acquisition of food, the security of one’s shelter, the support of one’s family, relatives and allies, the striving to fashion a predictable world, peopled with predictable people-the quest, if you will, for comfort.’

Taralack Veed looked away, back to the window, where stood Finadd Varat Taun, watching something in the compound below. ‘Monk,’ Taralack said in a growl, ‘among my tribe, each of the things you describe was but part of a war, 11 feud that could never end. Each was desperate and vicious. No love, no loyalty could be wholly trusted, because the ground churned beneath our feet. Nothing is certain. Nothing.’

‘One thing is,’ Varat Taun said, facing them. ‘The warrior named Gadalanak is dead. And now so too is the one named Puddy, the quick one who loved to boast.’

Taralack Veed nodded. ‘You come to believe as I now do, Finadd. Yes, you and I, we have seen Icarium in his anger. But this Emperor, this Rhulad…’

The monk made a strange grunting noise, then pivoted on the stool-away from them both-and hugged himself.

Varat Taun frowned and took a step forward. ‘Senior Assessor? Priest? Is something wrong?’

A vigorous shake of the head, then: ‘No, please. Let us change the subject. Blessed God, I almost failed-the mirth, you see, it very nearly burst from me. Ah, it is all I cun do to restrain myself.’

Your faith in your god is unshaken.’

Yes, Taralack Veed. Oh yes. Is it not said Rhulad is mad? Driven insane by countless deaths and rebirths? Well, my friends, I tell you, Lifestealer, my most beloved god-the one god-well, he too is mad. And remember this, please, it is Icarium who has come here. Not Rhulad-my god has made this journey. To delight in his own madness.’

‘Rhulad is-’

‘No, Varat Taun, Rhulad is not. A god. The god. He is a cursed creature, as mortal as you or me. The power lies in the sword he wields. The distinction, my friends, is essential. Now, enough, lest my vow is sundered. You are both too grave, too poisoned by fear and dread. My heart is near to bursting.’

Taralack Veed stared at the monk’s back, saw the trembling that would not still. No, Senior Assessor, it is you who is mad. To worship Icarium? Does a Gral worship the viper? The scorpion?

Spirits of the rock and sand, I cannot wait much longer. Let us be done with this.

‘The end,’ Senior Assessor said, ‘is never what you imagine. Be comforted by that, my friends.’

Varat Taun asked the monk, ‘When do you intend to witness your first contest?’

‘If any-and I am not yet decided-if any, then the Toblakai, of course,’ Senior Assessor murmured, finally in control of his amusement-so much so that he twisted round to look up at the Finadd with calm, knowing eyes. ‘The Toblakai.’

Rhulad Sengar, Emperor of a Thousand Deaths, stood above the corpse of his third victim. Splashed in blood not his own, sword trembling in his hand, he stared down at the still face with its lifeless eyes as the crowd dutifully roared its pleasure, gave voice to his bitter triumph.

That onrushing wall of noise parted around him, left him untouched. It was, he well knew, a lie. Everything was a lie. The challenge, which had proved anything but. The triumph, which was in truth a failure. The words uttered by his Chancellor, by his bent and twisted Ceda-and every face turned his way was as this one below. A mask, a thing of death, an expression of hidden laughter, hidden mockery. For if it was not death that mocked him, then what?

When last did he see something genuine in a subject’s face? When you did not think of them as subjects. When they were not. When they were friends, brothers, fathers and mothers. I have my throne, 1 have my sword, I have an empire. But I have… no’one.

He so wanted to die. A true death. To fall and not find his spirit flesh cast up on the strand of that dread god’s island.

But it will be different this time. I can feel it. Something… will be different.

Ignoring the crowd and its roar now creeping towards hysteria, Rhulad walked from the arena, through the shimmering ripples rising from the sun-baked sand. His own sweat had thinned the blood splashed upon him, sweat seeping out from between tarnished coins, glistening from the ringed ridges of pocked scars. Sweat and blood merged into these streams of sour victory that could but temporarily stain the surfaces of the coins.

Chancellor Triban Gnol could not understand that, Rhulad knew. How gold and silver outlived the conceits of mortal lives. Nor could Invigilator Karos Invictad.

In many ways Rhulad found himself admiring this Great Traitor, Tehol Beddict. Beddict, yes, the brother of the one honourable Letherii warrior 1 was privileged to meet. One, only one. Brys Beddict, who defeated me truly-and in that too he was like no other. Karos Invictad had wanted to drag Tehol Beddict out here into the arena, to stand before the Emperor, to be shamed and made to hear the frenzied hunger of the crowd. Karos Invictad had thought that such a thing would humiliate Tehol Beddict. But if Tehol is like Brys, he would but stand, he’would but smile, and that smile would be his challenge. To me. His invitation to execute him, cut him down as I never did to Brys. And yes, I would see that knowing, there in his eyes. Rhulad had forbidden that. Leave Tehol to the Drownings. To that circus of savagery transformed into a game of wagers.

In the meantime, the empire’s foundations wobbled, spat dust in grinding protest; the once-firm cornerstones shook as if revealed to be nothing more than clay, still wet from the river. Men who had been wealthy had taken their own lives. Warehouses had been besieged by an ever-growing mob-this thousand-headed beast of need rising in every city and town of the empire. Blood had spilled over a handful of docks, a crust of stale bread, and in the poorest slums mothers smothered their babies rather than see them bloat then wither with starvation.

Rhulad left the harsh sunlight and stood in the tunnel entrance, swallowed by shadows.

My grand empire.

The Chancellor stood before him each day, and lied. All was well, all would be well with the execution of Tehol Beddict. The mines were working overtime, forging more currency, but this needed careful control, because Karos Invictad believed that all that Tehol had stolen would be retrieved. Even so, better a period of inflation than the chaos now plaguing Lether.

But Hannan Mosag told him otherwise, had indeed fashioned rituals permitting Rhulad to see for himself-the riots, the madness, scenes blurred, at times maddeningly faded, yet still they stank of the truth. Where the Ceda lied was in what he would not reveal.

‘What of the invasion, Ceda? Show me these Malazans.’

‘I cannot, alas, Emperor. They protect themselves with strange magics. See, the water in the bowl grows cloudy when I quest their way. As if they could cast in handfuls of flour. Blinding all the water might reveal.’

Lies. Triban Gnol had been more blunt in his assessment-a directness that unveiled the Chancellor’s growing concern, perhaps even his fear. The Malazans who had landed on the west coast, who had begun their march inland-towards Letheras itself-were proving themselves both cunning and deadly. To clash with them was to reel back bloodied and battered, a retreat strewn with dead soldiers and dead Tiste Edur. Yes, they were coming for Rhulad. Could the Chancellor stop them?

‘Yes, Emperor. We can. We shall. Hanradi has divided his Edur forces. One waits with our main army just west of the city. The other has travelled fast and light northward and is even now swinging westward, like a sweeping arm, to appear behind these Malazans-but not as has been attempted before. No, your Edur do not ride in column, do not travel the roads now. They fight as they once did, during the unification wars. War’parties, moving silent in the shadows, matching the Malazans and perhaps going one better in their stealth-’

Yes.’ We adapt, not into something new, but into something old-the very heart of our prowess. Whose idea was this? Tell me!’

A bow from Triban Gnol. ‘Sire, did you not place me in charge of this defence?’

‘Then, you.’

Another bow. ‘As I said, Emperor, the guiding hand was yours.’

To be so unctuous was to reveal contempt. Rhulad understood that much. The Ceda lacked such civilized nuances in his reply: ‘The idea was mine and Hanradi’s, Emperor. After all, I was the Warlock King and he was my deadliest rival. This can be remade into a war we Edur under’ stand and know well. It is clear enough that attempting to fight these Malazans in the manner of the Letherii has failed-’

‘But there will be a clash, a great battle.’

‘It seems so.’

‘Good.’

‘Perhaps not. Hanradi believes…’

And there the dissembling had begun, the half-truths, the poorly veiled attacks upon the Chancellor and his new role as military commander.

To fashion knowledge to match the reality was difficult, to sift through the lies, to shake free the truths-Rhulad was exhausted by it, yet what else could he do? He was learning, damn them all. He was learning.

‘Tell me, Ceda, of the Bolkando invasion.’

‘Our border forts have been overrun. There have been two battles and in both the Letherii divisions were forced to withdraw, badly wounded. That alliance among the eastern kingdoms is now real, and it appears that they have hired mercenary armies…’

The Bolkando Conspiracy… now real. Meaning it had begun as a lie. He recalled Triban Gnol’s shocked expression when Rhulad had repeated Hannan Mosag’s words-as if they were his own. ‘That alliance among the eastern kingdoms is now real, Chancellor…’.

Triban Gnol’s mask had cracked then-no illusion there, no game brought to a yet deeper level. The man had looked… guilty.

We must win these wars. To the west and to the east. We must, as well, refashion this empire. The days of the Indebted will be gone. The days of the coins ruling this body are oyer. 1, Rhulad, Emperor, shall set my hands upon this clay, and make of it something new.

So, let the plague of suicides among the once-rich continue. Let the great merchant houses crash down into ruin. Let the poor rend the nobles limb from limb. Let estates bum. When the ashes have settled, have cooled, then shall Rhulad find fertile ground for his new empire.

Yes, that is what is different, this time. 1 sense a rebirth. Close. Imminent. I sense it, and maybe it will be enough, maybe it will give me reason again to cherish this life. My life.

Oh, Father Shadow, guide me now.

Mael had been careless. It had been that carelessness that the Errant had relied upon. The Elder God so fixed on saving his foolish mortal companion, blundering forward into such a simple trap. A relief to have the meddling bastard out of the way, serving as a kind of counter-balance to the lurid acquisitiveness of Feather Witch, whose disgusting company the Errant had just left.

And now he stood in the dark corridor. Alone.

‘We will have our Mortal Sword,’ she had announced from her perch on the altar that squatted like an island amidst black floodwater. ‘The idiot remains blind and stupid.’

Which idiot would that be, Feather Witch? Our imminent Mortal Sword?

‘I do not understand your sarcasm, Errant. Nothing has gone astray. Our cult grows day by day, among the Letherii slaves, and now the Indebted-’

The disaffected, you mean. And what is it you are promising them, Feather Witch? In my name?

‘The golden age of the past. When you stood ascendant among all other gods. When yours was the worship of all the Letherii. Our glory was long ago, and to that we must return.’

There was never a golden age. Worship of me to the exclusion of all other gods has never existed among the Letherii. The time you speak of was an age of plurality, of tolerance, a culture flowering-

‘Never mind the truth. The past is what I say it is. That is the freedom of teaching the ignorant.’

He had laughed then. The High Priestess stumbles upon a vast wisdom. Yes, gather your disaffected, ignorant fools, then. Fill their heads with the noble glory of a non-existent past, then send them out with their eyes blazing in stupid-but comforting-fervour. And this will begin our new golden age, an exultation in the pleasures of repression and tyrannical control over the lives of everyone. Hail the mighty Errant, the god who brooks no dissent.

‘What you do with your power is up to you. I know what I plan to do with mine.’

Udinaas has rejected you, Feather Witch. You have lost the one you wanted the most.

She had smiled. ‘He will change his mind. You will see. Together, we shall forge a dynasty. He was an Indebted. I need only awaken the greed within him.’

Feather Witch, listen well to your god. To this modest sliver of wisdom. The lives of others are not yours to use. Offer them bliss, yes, but do not be disappointed when they choose misery-

because the misery is theirs, and in deciding to choose someone else’s path or their own, they will choose their own. The Shake have a saying: ‘Open to mem your hand to the shore, watch them walk into the sea.’

‘No wonder they were wiped out.’

Feather Witch-

‘Listen to my wisdom now, Errant. Wisdom the Shake should have heeded. When it comes to using the lives of others, the first thing to take from them is the privilege of choice. Once you have done that, the rest is easy.’

He had found his High Priestess. Indeed. Bless us all.

Chapter Twenty-One

Another Hood-damned village, worse than mushrooms after a rain. Proof, if they’d needed it-and they didn’t-that they were drawing ever closer to the capital. Hamlets, villages, towns, traffic on the roads and cart trails, the thundering passage of horses, horns sounding in the distance like the howl of wolves closing in for the kill.

‘Best life there is,’ Fiddler muttered.

‘Sergeant?’

He rolled onto his back and studied his exhausted, cut-up, blood-stained, wild-eyed excuses for soldiers. What were they now? And what, as they stared back at him, were they seeing? Their last hope, and if that isn’t bad news…

He wondered if Gesler and his squad were still alive. They’d been neatly divided the night before by a clever thrust in strength of Edur, bristling with weapons and sniffing the air like the hounds they had become. Edur on their trail, delivering constant pressure, pushing them ever forward, into what Fiddler damn well knew was a wall of soldiers somewhere ahead-no slipping past when that time came. No squeezing north or south either-the Edur bands filled the north a dozen to a copse and not too far away on the south was the wide Lether River grinning like the sun’s own smile. Finally, aye, someone on the other side had got clever, had made the necessary adjustments, had turned this entire invasion into a vast funnel about to drive the Malazans into a meat-grinder.

Well, no fun lasts for ever. After Gesler and his Fifth had been pushed away, there had been sounds of fighting somewhere in that direction. And Fiddler had faced the hard choice between leading his handful of soldiers into a flanking charge to break through and relieve the poor bastards, or staying quiet and hurrying on, east on a southerly tack, right into that waiting maw.

The splitting cracks of sharpers had decided him-suicide running into that, since those sharpers tended to fly every which way, and they meant that Gesler and his squad were running, carving a path through the enemy, and Fiddler and his squad might simply end up stumbling into their wake, in the sudden midst of scores of enraged Edur.

So I left ‘em to it. And the detonations died away, but the screams continued, Hood take me.

Sprawled in the high grasses at the edge of the treeline, his squad. They stank. The glory of the Bonehunters, this taking to the grisliest meaning of that name. Koryk’s curse, aye. Who else? Severed fingers, ears, pierced through and dangling from belts, harness clasps, rawhide ties. His soldiers: one and all degraded into some ghastly blood-licking barely human savages. No real surprise there. It was one thing to go covert-as marines this was, after all, precisely what they had been trained to do. But it had gone on too long, without relief, with the only end in sight nothing other than Hood’s own gate. Fingers and ears, except for Smiles, who’d added to the mix with that which only males could provide. ‘M31 blecker worms,’ she’d said, referring to some offshore mud-dwelling worm native to the Kanese coast. ‘And just like the worms, they start out purple and blue and then after a day or two in the sun they turn grey. Bleckers, Sergeant.’

Didn’t need to lose the path to lose theif minds, that much was obvious. Gods below, look at these fools-how in Hood’s name have we lasted this long?

They’d not seen the captain and her runt of a mage in some time, which didn’t bode well. Still, threads of brown telltale smoke drifting around here and there in the mornings, and the faint sounds of munitions at night. So, at least some of them were still alive. But even those signs were growing scarce, when they should have been, if anything, increasing as things got nastier.

We’ve run out. We’re used up. Bah, listen to me! Starting to sound like Cuttle there. ‘I’m ready to die now, Fid. Happy to, aye. Now that I seen-’

‘Enough of that,’ he snapped.

‘Sergeant?’

‘Stop asking me anything, Bottle. And stop looking at me like I’ve gone mad or something.’

‘You’d better not, Sergeant. Go mad, that is. You’re the only sane one left.’

‘Does that assessment include you?’

Bottle grimaced, then spat out another wad of the grass he’d taken to chewing. Reached for a fresh handful.

Aye, answer enough.

‘Almost dark,’ Fiddler said, eyeing once more the quaint village ahead. Crossroads, tavern and stable, a smithy down the main street, in front of a huge pile of tailings, and what seemed too many residences, rows of narrow-laned mews, each abode looking barely enough for a small family. Could be there was some other industry, a quarry or potter’s manufactory, somewhere on the other side of the village-he thought he could see a gravel road wending up a hill past the eastern edge.

Strangely quiet for dusk. Workers still chained to their workbenches? Maybe. But still, not even a damned dog in that street. ‘I don’t like the looks of this,’ he said. ‘You sure you smell nothing awry, Bottle?’

‘Nothing magical. Doesn’t mean there isn’t a hundred Edur crouched inside those houses, just waiting for us.’

‘So send in a squirrel or something, damn you.’

‘I’m looking, Sergeant, but if you keep interrupting me…’

‘Lord Hood, please sew up the mouths of mages, I implore you.’

‘Sergeant, I’m begging you. We’ve got six squads of Edur less than a league behind us, and I’m damned tired of dodging javelins. Let me concentrate.’

Aye, concentrate on this fist down your throat, y’damned rat’kisser. Oh, I’m way too tired, way too old. Maybe, if we get through this-hah!-I’ll just creep away, vanish into the streets of this Letheras. Retire. Take up fishing. Or maybe knitting. Funeral shawls. Bound to be a thriving enterprise for a while, I’d wager. Once the Adjunct arrives with the rest of us snarly losers and exacts a pleasant revenge for all us dead marines. No, stop thinking that way. We’re still alive.

‘Found a cat, Sergeant. Sleeping in the kitchen of that tavern. It’s having bad dreams.’

‘So become its worse nightmare, Bottle, and quick.’

Birds chirping in the trees behind them. Insects busy living and dying in the grasses around them. The extent of his world now, a tiresome travail punctuated by moments of profound terror. He itched with filth and could smell the stale stench of old fear, like redolent stains in the skin.

Who in Hood’s name are these damned Letherii anyway? So this damned empire with its Edur overlords scrapped with the Malazan Empire. Laseen’s problem, not ours. Damn you, Tavore, we get to this point and vengeance ain’t enough-

‘Got her,’ Bottle said. ‘Awake… stretching-yes, got to stretch, Sergeant, don’t ask me why. All right, three people in the kitchen, all sweating, all rolling their eyes-they look terrified, huddling that way. I hear sounds in the tavern. Someone’s singing…’

Fiddler waited for more.

And waited.

‘Bottle-’

‘Slipping into the tavern-ooh, a cockroach! Wait, no, stop playing with it-just eat the damned thing!’

‘Keep your voice down, Bottle!’

‘Done. Woah, crowded in here. That song… up onto the rail, and there-’ Bottle halted abruptly, then, swearing under his breath, he rose. Stood for a moment, then snorted and said, ‘Come on, Sergeant. We can just walk right on in.’

‘Marines holding the village? Spit Hood on a stake, yes!’

The others heard that and as one they were on their feet, crowding round in relief.

Fiddler stared at all the stupid grins and was suddenly sober again. ‘Look at you! A damned embarrassment!’

‘Sergeant.’ Bottle plucked at his arm. ‘Fid, trust me, no worries on that front.’

Hellian had forgotten which song she was singing. Whatever it was, it wasn’t what everyone else was singing, not that they were still singing, much. Though her corporal was somehow managing a double warble, stretching out some bizarre word in Old Cawn-foreigners shouldn’t sing, since how could people understand them so it could be a mean song, a nasty, insulting song about sergeants, all of which meant her corporal earned that punch in the head and at least the warbling half stopped.

A moment later she realized that the other half had died away, too. And that she herself was the only one still singing, although even to her it sounded like some foreign language was blubbering from her numbed lips-something about sergeants, maybe-well, she could just take out this knife and-

More soldiers suddenly, the tavern even more crowded. Unfamiliar faces that looked familiar and how could that be well it was it just was, so there. Damn, another sergeant-how many sergeants did she have to deal with here in this tavern? First there was Urb, who seemed to have been following her around for weeks now, and then Gesler, staggering in at noon with more wounded than walking. And now here was another one, with the reddish beard and that battered fiddle on his back and there he was, laughing and hugging Gesler like they was long lost brothers or lovers or something-everyone was too damned happy as far as she was concerned. Happier than her, which was of course the same thing.

Things had been better in the morning. Was it this day? Yesterday? No matter. They’d been magicked hard to find-was that Balgrid’s doing? Tavos Pond’s? And so the three squads of Edur had pretty much walked right on top of them. Which made the killing easier. That wonderful sound of crossbows letting loose. Thwok! Thwok! Thwokthwokthwok! And then the swordwork, the in-close stabbing and chopping and slashing then poking and prodding but nope ain’t nobody moving any more and that’s a relief and being relieved was the happiest feeling.

Until it made you depressed. Standing around surrounded by dead people did that on occasion. The blood on the sword in your hand. The grunt twist and pull of removing quarrels from stubborn muscle, bone and organs. All the flies showing up like they was gathered on a nearby branch just waiting. And the stink of all that stuff poured out of bodies.

Stinking almost as bad as what was on all these marines. Who’d started all that? The fingers and cocks and ears and stuff?

A sudden flood of guilt in Hellian. It was me! She stood, reeled, then looked over at the long table that served large parties of travellers, the table that went along the side wall opposite the bar. Edur heads were piled high on it, amidst plenty of buzzing, crawling flies and maggots. Too heavy on the belt-pulled Maybe’s breeches down, hah! No wait, I’m supposed to be feeling bad. There’s going to be trouble, because that’s what comes when you get nasty with the corpses of your enemies. It just… what’s the word? ‘Escalates!’

Faces turned, soldiers stared. Fiddler and Gesler who had been slapping each other on the back pulled apart and then walked over.

‘Hood’s pecker, Hellian,’ Fiddler said under his breath, ‘what happened to all the townfolk? As if I can’t guess,’ he added, glancing over at the heaped heads. ‘They’ve all run away.’

Urb had joined them and he said, ‘They were all those Indebted we heard about. Fifth, sixth generations. Working on blanks.’

‘Blanks?’ Gesler asked.

‘For weapons,’ Fiddler explained. ‘So, they were slaves, Urb?’

‘In everything but name,’ the big man replied, scratching at his beard from which dangled one severed finger, grey and black. ‘Under all those Edur heads is the local Factor’s head, some rich bastard in silks. We killed him in front of the Indebted and listened to them cheer. And then they cut off the poor fool’s head as a gift, since we come in with all these Edur ones. And then they looted what they could and headed out.’

Gesler’s brows had risen at all that. ‘So you’ve managed what the rest of us haven’t-arriving as damned liberators in this town.’

Hellian snorted. ‘We worked that out weeks back. Never mind the Lurrii soljers, since they’re all perfessionals and so’s they like things jus’ fine so’s they’s the one y’gotta kill no diff ‘rent from the Edur. No, y’go into the hamlets and villages and kill all the ‘ficials-’

‘The what?’ Gesler asked.

Urb said, ‘Officials. We kill the officials, Gesler. And anybody with money, and the advocates, too.’

‘The what?’

‘Legal types. Oh, and the money-lenders and debt-holders, and the record-keepers and toll-counters. We kill them all-’

‘Along with the soljers,’ Hellian added, nodding-and nodding, for some reason finding herself unable to stop. She kept nodding as she said, ‘An’ what happens then is simple. Looting, lotsa sex, then everybody skittles out, and we sleep in soft beds and drink an’ eat in the tavern an’ if the keepers hang round we pays for it all nice an’ honest-’

‘Keepers like the ones hiding in the kitchen?’

Hellian blinked. ‘Hiding? Oh, maybe we’ve gotten a little wild-

‘It’s the heads,’ Urb said, then he shrugged sheepishly. ‘We’re getting outa hand, Gesler, I think. Living like animals in the woods and the like-’

‘Like animals,’ Hellian agreed, still nodding. ‘In soft beds and lotsa food and drink an’ it’s not like we carry them heads on our belts or anything. We just leave ‘em in the taverns. Every village, right? Jus’ to let ‘em know we been through.’ Unaccountably dizzy, Hellian sat back down, then reached for the flagon of ale on the table-needing to twist Balgrid’s fingers from the handle and him fighting as if it was his flagon or something, the idiot. She swallowed a mouthful and leaned back-only it was a stool she was sitting on so there was no back to it, and now she was staring up at the ceiling and puddled whatever was soaking through her ragged shirt all along her back and faces were peering down at her. She glowered at the flagon still in her hand. ‘Did I spill? Did I? Did I spill, dammit?’

‘Not a drop,’ Fiddler said, shaking his head in wonder. This damned Sergeant Hellian, who by Urb’s account had crossed all the way from the coast in an inebriated haze-this soft-featured woman, soft just on the edge of dissolute, with the bright always wet lips-this Hellian had managed to succeed where every other squad-as far as Fiddler knew-had failed miserably. And since Urb was adamant on who was leading whom, it really had been her. This drunken, ferocious marine.

Leaving severed heads in every tavern, for Hood’s sake!

But she had cut loose the common people, all these serfs and slaves and Indebted, and had watched them dance off in joy and freedom. Our drunk liberator, our bloodthirsty goddess-what in Hood’s name do all those people think when they first see her? Endless rumours of a terrible invading army. Soldiers and Edur dying in ambushes, chaos on the roads and trails. Then she shows up, dragging heads in sacks, and her marines break down every door in town and drag out all the ones nobody else has any reason to like. And then? Why, the not-so-subtle cutting away of all burdens for all these poor folk. ‘Give us the bar for a couple nights and then we’ll just be on our way.

‘Oh, and if you run into any Edur in the woods, send somebody back to warn us, right?’

Was it any wonder that Hellian and Urb and their squads had marched so far ahead of the others-or so Captain Sort had complained-with hardly any losses among her marines? The drunk, bright-eyed woman with all the rounded excesses of a well-fed, never sober but still young harlot had somehow managed to co-opt all the local help they’d needed to stay alive.

In a strange kind of floating wonder, the near-euphoria of relief, exhaustion and plenty of admiration that certainly wasn’t innocent of sudden sexual desire-for a damned drunk-Fiddler found a table and moments later was joined by Gesler and Stormy, the latter arriving with a loaf of rye bread, a broached cask of ale and three dented pewter flagons with inscriptions on them.

‘Can almost read this,’ he said, squinting at the side of his cup. ‘Like old Ehrlii.’

‘Maker’s stamp?’ Gesler asked as he tore off a hunk of bread.

‘No. Maybe something like “Advocate of the Year”. Then a name. Could be Rizzin Purble. Or Wurble. Or Fizzin.’

‘Could be that’s the name of this village,’ Gesler suggested. ‘Fizzin Wurble.’

Stormy grunted, then nudged Fiddler. ‘Stop dreaming of her, Fid. She’s trouble and a lost cause too. Besides, it’s Urb who’s all dreamy ‘bout her and he looks too dangerous to mess with.’

Fiddler sighed. ‘Aye to all of that. It’s just been a long time, that’s all.’

‘We’ll get our rewards soon enough.’

He eyed Stormy for a moment, then glanced over to Gesler.

Who was scowling at his corporal. ‘You lost your mind, Stormy? The only rewards we’re going to reap are the crow feathers Hood hands out as we march through his gate. Sure, we’re drawing up here, gaining in strength as we do it, but those Edur on our trail will be doing the same, outnumbering us five, ten to one by the time we run out of open ground.’

Stormy waved a dismissive hand. ‘You do a count, Gesler? Look at Urb’s squad. At Hellian’s. Look at Fid’s and ours. We’re all damned near unscathed, given what we’ve been through. More living than dead in every squad here. So who’s to say the other squads aren’t in the same shape? We’re damn near at strength, and you couldn’t say that about the Letherii and the Edur, could you?’

‘There’s a whole lot more of them than us,’ Gesler pointed out as he collected the cask and began pouring the ale into the flagons.

‘Ain’t made that much difference, though. We bulled through that last ambush-’

‘And left the scene so cut up and bleeding a vole could’ve tracked us-’

‘Sharper scatter, is all-’

‘Mayfly’s back was a shredded mess-’

‘Armour took most of it-’

‘Armour she doesn’t have any more-’

‘You two are worse than married,’ Fiddler said, reaching for his ale.

‘All right,’ Koryk pronounced, ‘there’s no disagreement possible. Those bieckers of yours, Smiles, reek the worst of all. Worse than fingers, worse than ears, worse even than tongues. We’ve all voted. All us in the squad, and you’ve got to get rid of them.’

Smiles sneered. ‘You think I don’t know why you want me to toss ‘em, Koryk? It’s not the smell, oh no. It’s the sight of them, and the way that makes you squirm inside, makes your balls pull up and hide. That’s what this is all about. Pretty soon, none of us will be smelling much at all-everything’s drying out, wrinkling up-’

‘Enough,’ groaned Tarr.

Koryk glanced across at Bottle. The fool looked to be asleep, his face hanging slack. Well, fair enough. Without Bottle they’d never have come this far. Virtually unscathed at that. He tapped the finger bone strung round his neck-the bone from the pit outside what was left of Y’Ghatan. Always worth a touch or two with thoughts like those.

And he knew they were headed for trouble. They all knew, which was why they’d talk about anything else but that huge grisly beast crouched right there in the forefront of their thoughts. The one with dripping fangs and jagged talons and that smeared grin of knowing. Aye. He touched the bone again.

‘Come through not bad,’ Cuttle said, eyeing the other marines in the crowded main room. ‘Anybody here been thinking about how we’re going to besiege a city the size of Unta? We’re pretty much out of munitions-Fid’s got a cusser left and maybe I do, too, but that’s it. We can hardly try anything covert, since they know we’re coming-’

‘Magic, of course,’ Smiles said. ‘We’ll just walk right in.’

Koryk winced at this turn in the conversation. Besieging Letheras? And nobody standing ranks-deep in their way? Not likely. Besides, the Edur were pushing them right along, and where the marines ended up was not going to be a pleasure palace, now was it? Had Cuttle lost his mind? Or was this just his way of dealing with the death looming in all their minds?

Probably. The sapper had little or no imagination, and he was making his biggest leap possible all the way to a siege that was never going to happen and wouldn’t work anyway if it did, which it wouldn’t. But it gave Cuttle something to think about.

‘The sergeant will figure something out,’ Cuttle concluded suddenly, with a loud sigh, as he settled back in his chair.

Hah, yes, Fiddler, Lord of the Sappers. Hie and fall on your knees!

Bottle sat looking through the ever-sharp eyes of a cat. Perched on the ridge of the tavern roof, gaze fixing and tracking on birds whenever the mage’s concentration slipped-which was getting too often, but exhaustion did that, didn’t it?

But now, there was movement there, along the edge of the forest there-where the squad had been hiding not so long ago. And more, to the north of that. And there, an Edur scout, edging out from the south end, other side of the road. Sniffing the air as was their wont-no surprise, the Malazans carried a carrion reek with them everywhere they went these days.

Oh, they were cautious, weren’t they? They don’t want a real engagement. They just want us to bolt. Again. Once their strength’s up, they’ll show themselves more openly. Show their numbers, lances at the ready.

A little time yet, then. For the other marines to relax. But not too much, lest they all got so drunk they couldn’t stand, much less fight. Although, come to think on it, that Hellian seemed capable of fighting no matter how sodden she got-one of her corporals had talked about how she sobered up and turned into ice whenever the fighting started. Whenever orders needed delivering. That was a singular talent indeed. Her soldiers worshipped her. As did Urb and his squad. Worship all bound up with terror and probably more than a little lust, so a mixed-up kind of worship, which probably made it thick as armour and that was why so many were still alive.

Hellian, like a more modest version of, say, Coltaine. Or even Dujek during the Genabackan campaigns. Greymane in Korel. Prince K’azzfor the Crimson Guard-from what I’ve heard.

But not, alas, the Adjunct. And that’s too bad. That’s worse than too bad-

Twenty Tiste Edur visible now, all eyeing the village-ooh, look at that bird! No, that wasn’t them. That was the damned cat. He needed to focus.

More of the barbaric warriors appearing. Another twenty. And there, another group as big as the first two combined.

A third one, coming down from due north and maybe even a little easterly-

Bottle shook himself, sat up, blinked across at his fellow marines. ‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘We got to run.’

‘How many?’ Koryk demanded.

Three hundred and climbing. ‘Too many-’

‘Bottle!’

‘Hundreds, damn you!’

He glared around the room, in the sudden silence following his scream. Well now, that sobered ‘em up.

Beak’s eyes felt full of sand. His tongue was thick in his mouth and he felt slightly nauseous. He wasn’t used to keeping a candle lit for so long, but there had been little choice. The Tiste Edur were everywhere now. He had been muffling the sounds of horse hoofs from their mounts, he had been blurring their passage to make them little more than deeper shadows amidst the dappled cascade beneath branches. And he had been reaching out, his every sense awakened to almost painful precision, to find these stealthy hunters as they closed in on their trail. On everyone’s trail. And to make matters worse, they were fighting in the same way as the Malazans-fast, vicious clashes, not even worrying about actually killing because wounding was better. Wounding slowed the marines down. Left blood trails. They cut then withdrew. Then did it all over again, later. Nights and into the days now, so there was no time to rest. Time only to… run.

And now he and the captain were riding in daylight, trying to find a way back to Fist Keneb and all the squads that had linked up with his company. Four hundred marines as of two days ago. Beak and the captain had pushed east in an effort to contact those squads that had moved faster and farther than all the others, but they had been driven back-too many Tiste Edur bands in between. He now knew that Faradan Sort feared those squads lost, if not dead already then as good as.

He was also pretty sure that this invasion was not quite going as planned. Something in the look in the captain’s dark eyes told him that it wasn’t just the two of them who kept stumbling into trouble. They’d found three squads, after all, that had been butchered-oh, they’d charged a high toll for the privilege, as Faradan Sort had said after wandering the glade with its heaps of corpses and studying the blood trails leading off into the woods. Beak could tell just by the silent howl of death roiling in the air, that cold fire that was the breath of every field of battle. A howl frozen like shock into the trees, the trunks, the branches and the leaves. And in the ground underfoot, oozing like sap, and Lily, his sweet bay, didn’t want to take a single step into that clearing and Beak knew why.

A high toll, yes, just like she’d said, although of course no real coins were paid. Just lives.

They worked their weary mounts up an embankment all overgrown with bushes, and Beak was forced to concentrate even harder to mute the sounds of scrabbling hoofs and snapping brush, and the candle in his head flared suddenly and he very nearly reeled from his saddle.

The captain’s hand reached across and steadied him. ‘Beak?’

‘It’s hot,’ he muttered. And now, all at once, he could suddenly see where all this was going, and what he would need to do.

The horses broke the contact between them as they struggled up the last of the ridge.

‘Hold,’ Faradan Sort murmured.

Yes. Beak sighed. ‘Just ahead, Captain. We found them.’

A score of trees had been felled and left to rot directly ahead, and on this side of that barrier was a scum-laden pool on which danced glittering insects. Two marines smeared in mud rose from the near side of the bank, crossbows at the ready.

The captain raised her right hand and made a sequence of gestures, and the crossbows swung away and they were waved forward.

There was a mage crouched in a hollow beneath one of the felled trees, and she gave Beak a nod that seemed a little nervous. He waved back as they reined in ten paces from the pool.

The mage called out from her cover: ‘Been expecting you two. Beak, you got a glow so bright it’s damned near blinding.’ Then she laughed. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not the kind the Edur can see, not even their warlocks. But I’d dampen it down some, Beak, lest you burn right up.’

The captain turned to him and nodded. ‘Rest now, Beak.’

Rest? No, there could be no rest. Not ever again. ‘Sir, there are hundreds of Edur coming. From the northwest-’

‘We know,’ the other mage said, clambering out like a toad at dusk. ‘We was just getting ready to pack our travelling trunks and the uniforms are pressed and the standards restitched in gold.’

‘Really?’

She sobered and there was a sudden soft look in her eyes, reminding Beak of that one nurse his mother had hired, the one who was then raped by his father and had to go away. ‘No, Beak, just havin’ fun.’

Too bad, he considered. He would like to have seen that gold thread.

They dismounted and walked their horses round one end of the felled trees, and there, before them, was the Fist’s encampment. ‘Hood’s mercy,’ Faradan Sort said, ‘there’s more.’

‘Six hundred and seventy-one, sir,’ Beak said. And like the mage had said, there were getting ready to leave, swarming like ants on a kicked mound. There had been wounded-lots of them-but the healers had done their work and all the blood smelled old and the smell of death stayed where it belonged, close to the dozen graves on the far side of the clearing.

‘Come along,’ said the captain as two soldiers arrived to take charge of the horses, and Beak followed her as she made her way to where stood Fist Keneb and Sergeant Thorn Tissy.

It felt strange to be walking after so long seated in those strange Letherii saddles, as if the ground was crumbling underfoot, and everything looked oddly fragile. Yes. My friends. All of them.

‘How bad?’ Keneb asked Faradan Sort.

‘We couldn’t reach them,’ she replied, ‘but there is still hope. Fist, Beak says we have to hurry.’

The Fist glanced at Beak and the young mage nearly wilted. Attention from important people always did that to him.

Keneb nodded, then sighed. ‘I want to keep waiting, in case…’ He shook his head. ‘Fair enough. It’s time to change tactics.’

‘Yes sir,’ said the captain.

‘We push hard. For the capital, and if we run into anything we can’t handle… we handle it.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Captain, gather ten squads with full complement of heavies. Take command of our rearguard.’

‘Yes sir.’ She turned and took Beak by the arm. ‘I want you on a stretcher, Beak,’ she said as she led him along. ‘Sleeping.’

‘I can’t, sir-’

‘You will.’

‘No, I really can’t. The candles, they won’t go out. Not any more. They won’t go out.’ Not ever, Captain, and it isn’t that I don’t love you because I do and I’d do anything you asked. But I just can’t and I can’t even explain. Only, it’s too late.

He wasn’t sure what she saw in his eyes, wasn’t sure how much of all that he didn’t say got heard anyway, but the grip of her hand on his arm loosened, became almost a caress, and she nodded and turned her head away. ‘All right, Beak. Help us guard Keneb’s back, then.’

‘Yes sir, I will. You just watch me, I will.’ He waited a moment, as they walked side by side through the camp, and then asked, ‘Sir, if there’s something we can’t handle how do we handle it anyway?’

She either grunted or laughed from the same place that grunts came from. ‘Sawtooth wedges and keep going, Beak. Throw back whatever is thrown at us. Keep going, until…’

‘Until what?’

‘It’s all right, Beak, to die alongside your comrades. It’s all right. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes sir, I do. It is all right, because they’re my friends.’

‘That’s right, Beak.’

And that’s why no-one needs to worry, Captain.

Keneb watched as his marines fell into formation. Fast march, now, as if these poor souls weren’t beat enough. But they couldn’t dart and hide any more. The enemy had turned the game round and they had the advantage in numbers and maybe, finally, they were also a match for the ferocity of his Malazans.,

It had been inevitable. No empire just rolls over, legs splaying. After enough pokes and jabs, it turns and snarls and then the fangs sink deep. And now it was his marines who were doing the bleeding. But not nearly as bad as I’d feared. Look at them, Keneb. Looking meaner than ever.

‘Fist,’ Thorn Tissy said beside him, ‘they’re ready for you.’

‘I see that, Sergeant.’

‘No sir. I meant, they’re ready.’

Keneb met the squat man’s dark, beady eyes, and wasn’t sure what he saw in them. Whatever it was, it burned bright.

‘Sir,’ Thorn Tissy said, ‘it’s what we’re meant for. All’-he waved one grimy hand-‘this. Trained to play more than one game, right? We stuck ‘em enough to get ‘em riled up and so here they are, all those damned Edur drawn right to us like we was a lodestone. Now we’re about to knock ‘em off balance all over again, and Hood take me, it’s got my blood up! Same for us all! So, please, sir, sound us the order to march.’

Keneb stared at the man a moment longer, then he nodded.

To the sound of laughter, Koryk barrelled into the three Edur warriors, his heavy longsword hammering aside two of the out-thrust spears jabbing for his midsection. With his left hand he caught the shaft of the third one and used it to pull himself forward. Edge of his blade into the face of the warrior on his right-not deep enough to cause serious damage, but enough to spray blinding blood. Against the one in the middle, Koryk dropped one shoulder and hit him hard in the centre of his chest-hard enough to lift the Edur from his feet and send him sprawling back. Still gripping the third spear, Koryk twisted the warrior round and drove the point of his sword into the Edur’s throat.

Koryk spun to slash at the first warrior, only to see her tumble back with a throwing knife skewering one eye socket. So he lunged after the middle Edur, sword chopping down in a frenzy until the Edur’s smashed-up arms-raised to fend off the attack-fell away, freeing the half-blood Seti to deliver a skull-crushing blow.

Then he whirled. ‘Will you in Hood’s name stop that laughing!’

But Smiles was on one knee, convulsing with hilarity even as she pulled out her throwing knife. ‘Gods! I can’t breathe! Wait-just wait-’

Snarling, Koryk turned to face the cloister again-these narrow-laned mews created perfect cul-de-sacs-lead them in at a run, flank out then turn and cut the bastards down. Even so, nobody had planned on making this ugly village the site of their last stand. Except maybe the Edur, who now entirely surrounded it and were working their way in, house by house, lane by lane.

Felt good kicking back, though, whenever they got too spread out in their eagerness to spill Malazan blood.

‘They stink at fighting in groups,’ Smiles said, coming up alongside him. She glanced up into his face and then burst out laughing again.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘You! Them! The look in their eyes-the surprise, I mean, oh, gods of the deep! I can’t stop!’

‘You’d better,’ Koryk warned, shaking the blood from his sword. ‘I’m hearing movement-that lane mouth there-

come on.’

Three quarrels flitted out, two of them taking down onrushing Edur. Two lances arced in retaliation, both darting straight for Fiddler. And then Tarr’s huge shield shifted into their path, and the sergeant was pushed hard to one side-grunts from the corporal as both lances slammed solidly against the bronze-scaled face, one of them punching through a finger’s length to pierce Tarr’s upper arm. The corporal swore.

Fiddler ducked down behind the smithy’s quenching barrel as a third lance cracked into it. Water gushed out onto the ground.

The crossfire ambush then caught the half-dozen charging Edur unawares-quarrels sleeting out from the narrow alley mouths on both sides. Moments later all were down, dead or dying.

‘Pull back!’ Fiddler shouted, turning to exchange his unloaded crossbow for the loaded one Bottle now set into his hands.

Tarr covering the three of them, they retreated back through the smithy, across the dusty compound with its piled tailings and slag, through the kicked-down fence, and back towards the tavern.

Where, from the sounds, Stormy and his heavies were in a fight.

Motion on their flanks-the rest of the ambush converging. Cuttle, Corabb, Maybe, Gesler, Balgrid and Brethless. Reloading on the run.

‘Gesler! Stormy’s-’

‘I can hear it, Fid! Corabb-hand that damned crossbow over to Brethless-you’re useless with it. Join up with Tarr there and you two in first!’

‘I got my target!’ Corabb protested even as he gave one of Hellian’s corporals the heavy weapon.

‘By bouncing your quarrel off the cobbles and don’t tell me that was a planned shot!’

Corabb was already readying the Edur spear he had picked up.

Fiddler waved Tarr forward as soon as Corabb arrived. ‘Go, you two! Fast in and hard!’

Only by leaving his feet and throwing his entire weight on the shaft was the Edur able to drive the spear entirely through Stormy’s left shoulder. An act of extraordinary courage that was rewarded with a thumb in his left eye-that dug yet deeper, then deeper still. Shrieking, the warrior tried to jerk his head away, but the huge red-bearded corporal now clutched a handful of hair and was holding him tight.

With a still louder shriek and even greater courage, the Edur tore his head back, leaving Stormy with a handful of scalp and a thumb smeared in gel and blood.

‘Not so fast,’ the corporal said in a strangely matter-of-fact tone, as he lunged forward to grapple the Edur. Both went down onto the smeared floorboards of the tavern-and the impact pushed the spear in Stormy’s shoulder almost entirely through. Drawing his gutting knife, Stormy drove the blade into the warrior’s side, just beneath the ribcage, under the heart, then cut outward.

Blood gushed in a flood.

Staggering, slipping, Stormy managed to regain his feet-the spear falling from his back-and tottered until he came up against the table with its pile of severed Edur heads. He reached for one and threw it across the room, into the crowd of Edur pushing in through the doorway where Flashwit and Bowl had been holding position until a spear skewered Bowl through the man’s neck and someone knocked off Flashwit’s helm and laid open her head. She was lying on her back, not moving as the moccasin-clad feet of the Edur stamped all over her in the inward rush.

The head struck the lead warrior in the face, and he howled in shock and pain, reeling to one side.

Mayfly stumbled up to take position beside Stormy. Stabbed four times already, it was a wonder the heavy was still standing.

‘Don’t you die, woman,’ Stormy rumbled.

She set his sword into his hands. ‘Found this, Sergeant, and thought you might want it.’

There was no time to answer as the first three Edur reached them.

Emerging from the kitchen entrance-a kitchen now emptied of serving staff-Corabb saw that charge, and he leapt forward to take it from the flank.

And tripped headlong qver the body of the Edur that Stormy had just stabbed. His hands went forward, still holding the spear. The point drove through the right thigh of the nearest warrior, missing the bone, and plunged out the other side to stab into the next Edur’s left knee, the triangular head sliding under the patella and neatly separating the joint on its way through. Angling downward, the point sticking fast between two floorboards, until the far one sprang loose, in time to foul the steps of the third Edur, and that warrior seemed to simply throw himself onto Stormy’s out-thrust sword.

As Corabb landed amidst falling enemy, Tarr arrived, his shortsword hacking down here and there as he worked forward to plant himself in the path of the rest of the Edur.

Flashwit then stood up in their midst and she had a kethra knife in each hand.

Fiddler led the charge through the kitchen doorway, crossbow ready, to find Tarr cutting down the last standing Edur. The room was piled with bodies, only a few still moving, and crawling out from beneath two Edur corpses was Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas, coughing in all the blood that had spilled over him.

Brethless moved past to the window. ‘Sergeant! Another mob of’em!’

‘Crossbows up front!’ Fiddler snapped.

Hellian squinted across the street at the fancy house. The Factor’s house, she recalled. Had that look. Expensive, tasteless. She pointed with a dripping sword. ‘Over in there, that’s where we’ll make our stand.’

Urb grunted, then spat out a red stream-taken to chewing betel nut, maybe. The things some people would do to their bodies beggared belief. She drank down another mouthful of the local whatever that tasted like bamboo shoots some dog had pissed on, but what a kick. Then waved him forward.

And then the others, except for Lutes and Tavos Pond who’d both been cut to pieces trying to hold a flank at that alley mouth back there. ‘I’ll take up rearguard,’ she said by way of explanation as the six remaining marines staggered past. ‘In a smart line, now!’

Another mouthful. Just got worse, this stuff. Who would come up with a drink like that?

She set out. Was halfway there or maybe just halfway along when a hundred or so Tiste Edur appeared thirty or so paces down the main street. So she threw the clay bottle away and planted her feet to meet the charge. Was what rearguard did, right? Hold ‘em back.

The first row, about ten of them, halted and raised their lances.

‘Not fair!’ Hellian shouted, pulling her shield up and getting ready to duck behind it-oh, this wasn’t a shield at all. It was the lid of an ale cask, the kind with a handle. She stared at it. ‘Hey, I wasn’t issued this.’

Three straight days and nights on the run from the river bank and now the sounds of fighting somewhere ahead. Since he’d lost his corporal two nights past-the fool fell down an abandoned well, one moment there at his side, the next gone. Went through a net of roots at least most of the way, until he jammed his head and pop went the neck and wasn’t it funny how Hood never forgot since it’d been join the marines or dance the gibbet for the corporal and now the fool had done both. Since Badan Gruk lost his corporal, then, he now dragged Ruffle with him-not quite a promotion, Ruffle was not the promoting type, but she kept a cool eye when she wasn’t busy eating everything in sight.

And now it was with a wheeze that Ruffle settled down beside Badan Gruk, 5th Squad sergeant, 3rd Company, 8th Legion, and lifted her pale rounded face up to his with that cold grey regard. ‘We’re kind of tired, Sergeant.’

Badan Gruk was Dal Honese, but not from the north savanna tribes. He had been born in the south jungle, half a day from the coast. His skin was as black as a Tiste Andii’s, and the epicanthic folds of his eyes were so pronounced that little more than slits of white were visible: and he was not a man to smile much. He felt most comfortable on moonless nights, although Skim always complained about how their sergeant just damn disappeared, usually when he was needed the most.

But now here they were, in bright daylight, and oh how Badan Gruk wished for the gloom of the tropical rainforest of his homeland. ‘Stay here, Ruffle,’ he now said, then turned and scrabbled back to where Sergeant Primly crouched with the rest of the marines. Primly’s squad, the 10th, was also but one short, while the 4th was down two, including Sergeant Sinter and that sent yet another pang through Badan Gruk. She’d been from his own tribe, after all. Damn, she’d been the reason he’d joined up in the first place. Following Sinter had always been way too easy.

Drawing close, Badan Gruk waved Primly over and the Quon noble’s corporal, Hunt, tagged along. The three settled a short distance from the others. ‘So,’ Badan breathed, ‘do we go round this?’

Primly’s long ascetic face soured, which is what it always did whenever anyone spoke to him. Badan wasn’t too sure of the man’s history, beyond the obvious, which was that Primly had done something bad, once-bad enough to get him disowned and maybe even on the run. At least he’d left the highborn airs behind. To Badan’s whispered question, Corporal Hunt snorted, then looked away.

‘You’re here,’ Badan said to the Kartoolii, ‘so talk.’

Hunt shrugged. ‘We been running since the river, Sergeant. Ducking and dodging till all three of our mages are used up and worse than walking dead.’ He nodded northwards. ‘Those are marines up there, and they’re in a fight. We’re only down one heavy and one sapper-’

‘And a sergeant and a corporal,’ Badan added.

‘Seventeen of us, Sergeant. Now, I seen what your heavies can do, and both me and Sergeant Primly can tell you that Lookback, Drawfirst and Shoaly are easy matches to Reliko and Vastly Blank. And Honey’s still got three cussers and half again all the sharpers since Kisswhere left ‘em behind when she and Sinter went and-’

‘All right,’ Badan cut in, not wanting to hear again what had happened to Sinter and Kisswhere, since it had been Kisswhere who had been the reason for Sinter’s joining. Nothing good following a woman who was following another woman with worship in her eyes-even a sister-but that had been that and they were both gone now, weren’t they? ‘Primly?’

The Quon rubbed at what passed for a beard on his face-gods, showed just how young the poor bastard was-and cast a searching gaze back on the waiting soldiers. Then he smiled suddenly. ‘Look at Skulldeath, Badan. Here we got a soldier that Toothy himself named first day on Malaz Island, and I still don’t know-was it a joke? Skulldeath’s yet to draw a drop of blood, barring mosquitoes and that blood was his own. Besides, Badan Gruk, you’ve got what looks like some kind of Dal Honese grand council here and you moonless nightshades seem to put holy terror in the Edur, like you were ghosts or something and sometimes I start wondering myself, the way you all manage to vanish in the dark. In any case, there’s you, Nep Furrow, Reliko and Neller and Strap Mull and Mulvan Dreader’s halfway there besides, and, well, we’ve come to fight, haven’t we? So let’s fight.’

Maybe you came to fight, Primly. I’m just trying to stay alive. Badan Gruk studied the two men beside him for a moment longer, then he rose to his full height, coming to very nearly Primly’s shoulder, and drew out the two-handed sickle sword from its deer-hide harness on his broad back. Adjusting his grip on the ivory handle, he eyed the two thin otataral blades inset on both sides of the curved and carved tusk. Vethbela, the weapon was called in his own language, Bonekisser, the blades not deep enough to do more than touch the long bones of a normal warrior’s legs, since those femurs were prized trophies, to be polished and carved with scenes of the owner’s glorious death-and any warrior seeking the heart of a woman needed to place more than a few at the threshold of her family’s hut, as proof of his prowess and courage.

Never did manage to use this thing properly, did I? Not a single thigh bone to show Sinter. He nodded. ‘Time to collect some trophies, then.’

Fifteen paces away, Honey nudged Skim. ‘Hey, beloved, looks like we get to toss sharpers today.’

‘Stop calling me that,’ the other sapper replied in a bored tone, but she watched as Badan Gruk headed back up to where Ruffle hid, and she watched as Corporal Hunt went back down-trail to collect the 4th Squad’s corporal, Pravalak Rim, who had been guarding their butts with Shoaly and Drawfirst. And pretty soon something less than whispered was dancing through every soldier and she saw weapons being drawn, armour straps tightened, helms adjusted, and finally she grunted. ‘All right, Honey-Hood take me, how I hate saying that-looks like you’ve sniffed it just right-’

‘Just let me prove it-’

‘You’re never prying my legs apart, Honey. Why don’t you get that?’

‘What a miserable attitude,’ the lOth’s sapper complained as he loaded his crossbow. ‘Now Kisswhere, she was-’

‘So tired of your advances, Honey, that she went and blew herself up-and took her sister with her, too. And now here I am wishing I’d been with them in that scull.’ With that she rose and scrabbled over to Nep Furrow.

The old Dal Honese mage lifted one yellowy eye to squint at her, then both eyes opened wide when he saw the sharper she held in each hand. ‘Eggit’way fra meen, tit-woman!’

‘Relax,’ she said, ‘we’re heading into a fight. You got anything left in that bent reed of yours?’

‘Wha’?’

‘Magicks, Nep, magicks-comes from the bleckers in men. Every woman knows that,’ and she winked.

‘You teasin’ tit-woman you! Eggit’way fra meen!’

‘I’m not eggitin’ away from you, Nep, until you bless these two sharpers here.’

‘Bliss ‘em clay balls? Ya mad, tit-woman? Less time I done lhat-’

‘They blew up, aye. Sinter and Kisswhere. Into pieces but nice and quick, right? Listen, it’s my only way to escape Honey’s advances. No, seriously, I want one of your blissin’ curses or cursed blissin’s. Please, Nep-’

‘Eggit’way fra meen!’

Reliko, who was half a hand shorter even than his sergeant;ind therefore, by Toothy’s own assertion, the smallest heavy infantry soldier in the history of the Malazan Empire, grunted upright and drew out his shortsword as he swung his shield into position. He glanced over at Vastly Blank. ‘Time again.’

The oversized Seti warrior, still sitting on the bed of wet moss, looked up. ‘Huh?’

‘Fighting again.’

‘Where?’

‘Us, Vastly. Remember Y’Ghatan?’

‘No.’

‘Well, won’t be like Y’Ghatan. More like yesterday only harder. Remember yesterday?’

Vastly Blank stared a moment longer, then he laughed his slow ha ha ha laugh and said, ‘Yesterday! I remember yesterday!’

‘Then pick up your sword and wipe the mud off it, Vastly. And take your shield-no, not mine, yours, the one on your back. Yes, bring it round. That’s it-no, sword in the other hand. There, perfect. You ready?’

‘Who do I kill?’

‘I’ll show you soon enough.’

‘Good.’

‘Seti should never breed with bhederin, I think.’

‘What?’

‘A joke, Vastly.’

‘Oh. Ha ha ha! Ha.’

‘Let’s go join up with Lookback-we’ll be on point.’

‘Lookback’s on point?’

‘He’s always on point for this kind of thing, Vastly.’

‘Oh. Good.’

‘Drawfirst and Shoaly at our backs, right? Like yesterday.’

‘Right. Reliko, what happened yesterday?’

Strap Mull stepped close to Neiler and they both eyed their corporal, Pravalak Rim, who was just sending Drawfirst and Shoaly up to the other heavies.

The two soldiers spoke in their native Dal Honese. ‘Broke-hearted,’ Strap said.

‘Broker than broke,’ Neiler agreed.

‘Kisswhere, she was lovely’

‘Lovelier than lovely’

‘Like Badan says, though.’

‘Like he says, yes.’

‘And that’s that, is what he says.’

‘I know that, Strap, you don’t need to tell me anything. You think Letheras will be like Y’Ghatan? We didn’t do nothing in Y’Ghatan. And,’ Neiler suddenly added, as if struck by something, ‘we haven’t done nothing here either, have we? Nothing not yet, anyway. If it’s going to be like Y’Ghatan, though-’

‘We’re not even there yet,’ Strap Mull said. ‘Which sword you going to use?’

‘This one.’

‘The one with the broken handle?’

Neller looked down, frowned, then threw the weapon into the bushes and drew out another one. ‘This one. It’s Letherii, was on the cabin wall-’

‘I know. I gave it to you.’

‘You gave it to me because it howls like a wild woman every time I hit something with it.’

‘That’s right, Neller, and that’s why I asked what sword you were going to use.’

‘Now you know.’

‘Now I know so I’m stuffing my ears with moss.’

‘Thought they already were.’

‘I’m adding more. See?’

Corporal Pravalak Rim was a haunted man. Born in a northern province of Gris to poor farmers, he had seen nothing of the world for most of his life, until the day a marine recruiter had come through the nearby village on the very day Pravalak was there with his older brothers, all of whom sneered at the marine on their way to the tavern. But Pravalak himself, well, he had stared in disbelief. His first sight of someone from Dal Hon. She had been big and round and though she was decades older than him and her hair had gone grey he could see how she had been beautiful and indeed, to his eyes, she still was.

Such dark skin. Such dark eyes, and oh, she spied him out and gave him that gleaming smile, before leading him by the hand into a back room of the local gaol and delivering her recruiting pitch sitting on him and rocking with exalted glee until he exploded right into the Mala2an military.

His brothers had expressed their disbelief and were in a panic about how to explain to their ma and da how their youngest son had gone and got himself signed up and lost his virginity to a fifty-year-old demoness in the process-and was, in fact, not coming home at all. But that was their problem, and Pravalak had trundled off in the recruiter’s wagon, one hand firmly snuggled between her ample legs, without a backward look.

That first great love affair had lasted the distance to the next town, where he’d found himself transferred onto a train of about fifty other Grisian farm boys and girls and marching an imperial road down to Unta, and from there out to Malaz Island for training as a marine. But he had not been as heartbroken as he would have thought, for the Malazan forces were crowded for a time with Dal Honese recruits-some mysterious population explosion or political upheaval had triggered an exodus from the savanna and jungles of Dal Hon. And he had soon realized that his worship of midnight skin and midnight eyes did not doom him to abject longing and eternal solitude.

Until he first met Kisswhere, who had but laughed at his attempts, as smooth and honed as they had become by then. And it was this rejection that stole his heart for all time.

Yet what haunted him now was, perhaps surprisingly, not all of that unrequited adoration. It was what he had seen, or maybe but imagined, in that dark night on the river, after the blinding flash of the munitions and the roar that shook the water, that one black-skinned hand, reaching up out of the choppy waves, the spinning swirl of the current awakening once more in the wake of the tumult, parting round the elegant wrist-and then that hand slipped away, or was simply lost to his straining sight, his desperate, anguished search in the grainy darkness-the hand, the skin, the dark, dark skin that so defeated him that night…

Oh, he wanted to die, now. To end his misery. She was gone. Her sister was gone, too-a sister who had drawn him to one side just two nights earlier and had whispered in his ear, ‘Don’t give up on her, Prav. I know my sister, you see, and there’s a look growing in her eyes when she glances your way… so, don’t give up…’

Both gone, and that, as Badan repeated again and again when he thought no-one else was close enough to hear him, is that. And that is that.

Sergeant Primly came up then and slapped Pravalak on one shoulder. ‘Ready, Corporal? Good. Lead your squad, just like Sinter would’ve done. Lead ‘em, Prav, and let’s go gut some Edur.’

Skulldeath, whose name had once been Tribole Futan, last surviving male of the Futani royal line of the Gilani tribe of southeast Seven Cities, slowly straightened as he watched the heavies work their way up the slope towards the sounds of fighting.

He readied his two Gilani tulwars, which had once belonged to a Falah’dan champion-his great-uncle-who had fallen to an assassin’s poison three years before the Malazan invasion, when Tribole had been a child not yet cast out onto the mortal sands. Weapons he had inherited as last of the line in a family shattered by a feud, such as were common throughout all of Seven Cities before the conquest. The tulwars seemed large in his hands, almost oversized for his wrists-but he was Gilani and his tribe were a people characterized by bodies virtually devoid of fat. Muscles like ropes, long, gracile and far stronger than they appeared.

The softness of his feminine eyes did not change as he studied the tulwars, remembering when he had been a very young child and these weapons, if balanced on their curved tips, could be made to stand if he set the silver pommels into his armpits, and, gripping the handles just above the hilts, he would pitch himself round the camp like an imp with but one leg. Not long after that, he was using weighted sticks carved to match these tulwars of his great-uncle’s. Working the patterns in the Gilani style, both afoot and atop a desert horse where he learned to perch ori the balls of his feet and practise the lishgar efhanah, the leaping attack, the Edged Net. Many a night with bruised shoulders, then, until he learned how to roll clean after the mid-air attack was done, the three stuffed-grass dummies each sliced into pieces, the wind plucking at those golden grasses as they drifted in the dusty air. And he, rolling, upright once more, weapons at the ready.

He was not tall. He was not outspoken and his smile-rare as it was-was as shy as a young maiden’s. Men wanted him in their beds. So did women. But he was of the royal line, and his seed was the last seed, and one day he would give it to a queen, perhaps even an empress, as befitted his true station. In the meantime, he would let men use him as they would, and even find pleasure in that, harmless as it was. But he refused’ to spill his seed.

He stood now, and when the signal was given, he moved forward, light on his feet.

Skulldeath was twenty-three years old. Such was his discipline that he had not spilled seed once, not even in his sleep.

As the squad mage Mulvan Dreader would say later, Skulldeath was truly a man about to explode.

And a certain Master Sergeant on Malaz Island had got it right. Again.

Urb ran back from the Factor’s house as fast as he could, angling his shield to cover his right shoulder. The damned woman! Standing there with a damned cask lid with a flight of lances about to wing her way. Oh, her soldiers worshipped her all right, and so blind was that worship that not one of them could see all that Urb did just to keep the fool woman alive. He was exhausted and a nervous wreck besides and now-this time-it looked as if he would be too late.

Five paces from Hellian and out went a half-dozen lances, two winging to intercept Urb. Skidding as he pivoted round behind his shield, he lost sight of her.

One lance darted past a hand’s width from his face. The other struck true against the shield, the iron head punching through to impale his upper arm, pinning it to his side. The impact spun Urb round and he staggered as the lance pulled at him, and, grunting, he slid down on his knees, the hard cobbles driving shocks up his legs. He slammed his sword-hand down-still clutching the weapon-to keep from pitching forward, and heard a knuckle crack.

At that instant, the world exploded white.

Four lances speeding Hellian’s way came close to sobering her up. Crouching, she lifted her flimsy, undersized shield, only to have it hammered from her hand in a splintering concussion that sent it spinning, the snapped foreshafts of two lances buried deep in the soaked, heavy, wonderful-smelling wood. Then her helm was torn from her head with a deafening clang, even as she was struck a glancing blow on her right shoulder that ripped away the leather shingles of her armour. That impact turned her right round so that she faced up the street, and, upon seeing the clay bottle she had thrown away moments earlier, she dived towards it.

Better to die with one last mouthful-

The air above her whistled as she sailed through the air and she saw maybe a dozen lances flit overhead.

She slammed chest-first on the dusty cobbles, all breath punched from her lungs and stared, bug-eyed, as the bottle leapt of its own accord into the air. Then she was lifted by her feet and flipped straight over to thump hard on her back, and above her the blue sky was suddenly grey with dust and gravel, stone chips, red bits, all raining down.

She could not hear a thing, and that first desperate breath was so thick with dust that she convulsed in a fit of coughing. Twisting onto her side, she saw Urb maybe six paces away. The idiot had got himself skewered and looked even more stunned than usual. His face was white with dust except the blood on his lips from a tooth gash, and he was staring dumbly down the street to where all the Edur were-might be they were charging them now so she’d better find her sword-

She’d just sat up when a hand slapped her shoulder and she glared up at an unfamiliar face-a Kanese woman frowning intently at her. With a voice that seemed far away she said, ‘Still with us, Sergeant? You shouldn’t ever be that close to a cusser, you know.’

And then she was gone.

Hellian blinked. She squinted down the street and saw an enormous crater where the Edur had been. And body parts, and drifting dust and smoke.

And four more marines, two of them Dal Honese, loosing quarrels into a side street then scattering as one of them threw a sharper in the same direction.

Hellian crawled over to Urb.

He’d managed to pull the lance Out of his arm which had probably hurt, and there was plenty of blood now, pooling beneath him. His eyes had the look of a butchered cow though maybe not as dead as that but getting there.

Another marine arrived, another stranger. Black-haired, pale skin. He knelt down beside Urb.

‘You,’ Hellian said.

The man glanced over. ‘None of your wounds look to kill you, Sergeant. But your friend here is going fast, so let me do my work.’

‘What squad, damn you?’

‘Tenth. Third Company.’

A healer. Well, good. Fix Urb right up so she could kill him. ‘You’re Nathii, aren’t you?’

‘Sharp woman,’ he muttered as he began weaving magic over the huge torn hole in Urb’s upper arm. ‘Probably even sharper when you’re sober.’

‘Never count on that, Cutter.’

‘I’m not really a cutter, Sergeant. I’m a combat mage, but we can’t really be picky about those things any more, can we? I’m Mulvan Dreader.’

‘Hellian. Eighth Squad, the Fourth.’

He shot her a sudden look. ‘Really. You one of the ones crawled out under Y’Ghatan?’

‘Yeah. Urb’s gonna live?’

The Nathii nodded. ‘Be on a stretcher for a while, though. All the lost blood.’ He straightened and looked round. ‘Where are the rest of your soldiers?’

Hellian looked over at the Factor’s house. The cusser explosion seemed to have knocked it flat. She grunted. ‘Damned if I know, Mulvan. You don’t happen to have a flask of something on you, do you?’

But the mage was frowning at the wreckage of the collapsed house. ‘I hear calls for help,’ he said.

Hellian sighed. ‘Guess you found ‘em after all, Mulvan Dreader. Meaning we’re gonna have to dig ‘em out.’ Then she brightened. ‘But that’ll work us up a thirst now, won’t it?’

The multiple crack of sharpers outside the tavern and the biting snap of shrapnel striking the building’s front sent the Malazans inside flinching back. Screams erupted outside, wailing up into the street’s dust-filled air. Fiddler watched Gesler grab Stormy to keep him from charging out there-the huge Falari was reeling on his feet-then he turned to Mayfly, Corabb and Tarr. ‘Let’s meet our allies, then, but stay sharp. Rest of you, stay here, bind wounds-Bottle, where’s Koryk and Smiles?’

But the mage shook his head. ‘They went east side of the village, Sergeant.’

‘All right, you three with me, then. Bottle-can you do something for Stormy?’

Aye.’

Fiddler readied his crossbow, then led the way to the tavern entrance. At the threshold he crouched down, peering through the dust.

Allies all right. Blessed marines, a half-dozen, walking through the sprawled Edur bodies and silencing the screamers with quick thrusts of their swords. Fiddler saw a sergeant, South Dal Honese, short and wide and black as onyx. The woman at his side was half a head taller, pale-skinned and grey-eyed, and nearly round but in a way that had yet to sag. Behind these two stood another Dal Honese, this one wrinkled with pierced everything-ears, nose, wattle, cheeks-the gold ornaments a startling contrast to his dark scowling face. A damned shaman.

Fiddler approached, his eyes on the sergeant. There was fighting still going on, but nowhere close. ‘How many of you?’

‘Seventeen to start,’ the man replied. He paused to look down at the barbaric tusk-sword in his hands. ‘Just took off an Edur’s head with this,’ he said, then looked up. ‘My first kill-Fiddler gaped. ‘How in Hood’s name did you get this far from the damned coast, then? What are you all, Soletaken bats?’

The Dal Honese grimaced. ‘We stole a fisher boat and sailed up.’

The woman at his side spoke. ‘We were the southmost squads, moving east till we hit the river, then it was either wading waist-deep in swamp muck or taking to the water. Worked fine until a few nights ago, when we ran straight into a Letherii galley. We lost a few that night,’ she added.

Fiddler stared at her a moment longer. All round and soft-looking, except for those eyes. Hood take me, this one could pluck the skin off a man one tiny strip at a time with one hand while doing herself with the other. He looked away, back to the sergeant. ‘What company?’

‘Third. I’m Badan Gruk, and you’re Fiddler, aren’t you?’

‘Yeggetan,’ muttered the shaman with a warding gesture.

Badan Gruk turned to the pale woman. ‘Ruffle, take Vastly and Reliko and work west until you meet up with Primly. Then back here.’ He faced Fiddler again. ‘We caught ‘em good, I think.’

‘Thought I heard a cusser a while back.’

A nod. ‘Primly had the sappers. Anyway, the Edur pulled back, so I suppose we scared ‘em.’

‘Moranth munitions will do that.’

Badan Gruk glanced away again. He seemed strangely skittish. ‘We never expected to run into any squads this far east,’ he said. ‘Not unless they took to the water like we did.’ He met Fiddler’s eyes. ‘You’re barely a day from Letheras, you know.’

Seven Edur had turned the game on Koryk and Smiles, pushing them into a less than promising lane between decrepit, leaning tenements, that then led to a most quaint killing ground blocked by stacks of timber on all sides but the one with the alley mouth.,

Pushing Smiles behind him as he backed away from the Edur-who crowded the alley, slowly edging forward-Koryk readied his sword. Hand-and-a-half fighting now that he’d lost his shield. If the bastards threw lances, he’d be in trouble.

The thought made him snort. Him against seven Tiste Edur and all he had behind him was a young woman who’d used up all her throwing knives and was left with a top-heavy gutter that belonged in the hands of a butcher. Trouble? Only if they threw lances.

But these Edur weren’t interested in skewering them from a distance. They wanted to close, and Koryk was not surprised by that. Like Seti, these grey gaunts. Face to face, aye. That is where true glory is found. As they reached the mouth of the alley, Koryk lifted the tip of his sword and waved them forward.

‘Stay right back,’ he said to Smiles who crouched behind him. ‘Give me plenty of room-’

‘To do what, you oaf? Die in style? Just cut a few and I’ll slide in low and finish ‘em.’

‘And get a pommel through the top of your head? No, stay back.’

‘I ain’t staying back t’get raped by all the ones you were too incompetent to kill before dying yourself, Koryk.’

‘Fine! I’ll punch my pommel through your thick skull, then!’

‘Only time you’re ever gettin’ inside of me, so go ahead and enjoy it.’

‘Oh, believe me, I will-’

They might have gone on, and on, but the Edur had fanned out, four in front and three behind, and now they rushed forward.

Koryk and Smiles argued often, later, about whether their saviour descended on wings or just had a talent for leaping extraordinary distances, for he arrived in a blur, sailing right across the path of the first four Tiste Edur, and in that silent flight he seemed to writhe, amidst flashing heavy iron blades. A flurry of odd snicking sounds and then the man was past-and should have collided badly with a stack of rough-barked wood. Instead, one of those tulwars touched down tip first on a log, and pivoting on that single point of contact the man twisted round to land in a cat-like crouch against the slope of timbers-at an impossible to maintain angle, but that didn’t matter since he was already springing back the way he had come, this time sailing over the collapsing, blood-drenched forms of four Tiste Edur. Snick snick snicksnick-and the back three Edur toppled.

He landed again, just short of the opposite timber wall this time, head ducking and shoulder seeming to barely brush the ground before he tumbled right over, touched one foot on a horizontal log and used it to twist round before landing balanced on the other foot now drawn tight beneath him. Facing the seven corpses he had just felled.

And facing two Malazan marines who, for once and just this once, had precisely nothing to say.

The marines of the 3rd and 4th Companies gathered in front of the tavern, stood or sat on the bloodstained cobbles of the main street. Wounds were tended to here and there, while others repaired armour or filed the nicks from sword edges.

Fiddler sat on the edge of a water trough near the hitching post to one side of the tavern entrance, taking stock. Since the coast, the three other squads of 4th Company had taken losses. Gone from Gesler’s squad were Sands and Uru Hela. From Hellian’s, Lutes and Tavos Pond, both of whom had died in this cursed village, while from Urb’s both Hanno and now Bowl were dead, and Saltlick had lost his left hand. Fiddler’s own squad had, thus far, come through unscathed, and that made him feel guilty. Like one of Hood’s minions, one in the row just the other side of the gate. Crow feathers in hand, or wilted roses, or sweetcakes, or any of the countless other gifts the dead were eager to hand their newly arrived kin-gods below, Smiles is turning me into another Kanese with all these absurd beliefs. Ain’t nobody waiting other side of Hood’s Gate, unless it’s to jeer.

The two sergeants from the 3rd came over. Badan Gruk, whom Fiddler had met earlier, and the Quon, Primly. They made an odd pair, but that was always the way, wasn’t it?

Primly gave Fiddler a strangely deferential nod. ‘We’re fine with this,’ he said.

‘With what?’

‘Your seniority, Fiddler. So, what do we do now?’

Grimacing, Fiddler looked away. ‘Any losses?’

‘From this scrap? No. Those Edur pulled out fast as hares in a kennel. A lot shakier than we’d expected.’

‘They don’t like the shield to shield fighting,’ Fiddler said, scratching at his filthy beard. ‘They’ll do it, aye, especially when they’ve got Letherii troops with them. But of late they dropped that tactic, since with our munitions we made it a costly one. No, they’ve been hunting us, ambushing us, driving us hard. Their traditional way of fighting, I’d guess.’

Primly grunted. ‘Driving you, you said. So, likely there’s a damned army waiting for us this side of Letheras. The anvil.’

‘Aye, which is why I think we should wait here a bit. It’s risky, I know, since the Edur might return and next time there might be a thousand of them.’

Badan Gruk’s thinned eyes grew yet thinner. ‘Hoping your Fist is going to catch up with a lot more marines.’

‘Your Fist now, too, Badan Gruk.’

A sharp nod, then a scowl. ‘We only got thrown into the mix because of the 4th’s losses at Y’Ghatan.’

‘The Adjunct keeps making changes,’ Primly said. ‘We don’t have Fists in charge of nothing but marines-not since Crust’s day-’

‘Well, we do now. We’re not in the Malazan Army any more, Primly.’

‘Yes, Fiddler, I’m aware of that.’

‘That’s my suggestion,’ Fiddler repeated. ‘Wait here for a while. Let our mages get some rest. And hope Keneb shows and hope he’s got more than a few dozen marines with him. Now, I’m not much for this seniority thing. I’d rather we sergeants just agreed on matters, so I’m not holding you to anything.’

‘Gesler agrees with you, Fiddler?’

Aye.’

‘What of Hellian and Urb?’

Fiddler laughed. ‘Tavern’s still wet, Primly.’

The sun had gone down, but no-one seemed eager to go anywhere. Traffic in and out of the tavern occurred whenever another cask needed bringing out. The tavern’s main room was a slaughterhouse no-one was inclined to stay in for very long.

Smiles walked over to where Koryk sat. ‘His name’s Skulldeath, if you can believe that.’

‘Who?’

‘Nice try. You know who. The one who could kill you with his big toe.’

‘Been thinking about that attack,’ Koryk said. ‘Only works if they’re not expecting it.’

Smiles snorted.

‘No, really. I see someone flying at me I cut him in half. It’s not like he can retreat or change his mind, is it?’

‘You’re an idiot,’ she said, then nudged him. ‘Hey, met your twin brother, too. His name is Vastly Blank and between you two I’d say he got all the brains.’

Koryk glowered at her. ‘What is it you want with me, Smiles?’

She shrugged. ‘Skulldeath. I’m going to make him mine.’

‘Yours?’

‘Yes. Did you know he’s saving himself for a woman of royal blood?’

‘That’s not what the men inclined that way are saying.’

‘Where’d you hear that?’

‘Besides, you’re hardly royal blood, Smiles. Queen of shell-shuckers won’t cut it.’

‘That’s why I need you to lie for me. I was a Kanese princess-sent into the Malazan Army to keep the Claw from finding me-’

‘Oh, for Hood’s sake!’

‘Shh! Listen, the rest in the squad said they’d be happy to lie for me. What’s wrong with you?’

‘Happy… ha, that’s good. Very good.’ He then turned to study her. ‘You’re eager for Skulldeath to take one of those flying leaps straight between your legs? You want to get pregnant with some prince from some Seven Cities flying squirrel tribe?’

‘Pregnant? Aye, when dolphins walk and fish nest in trees. I won’t get pregnant,’ she pronounced. ‘Bottle’s giving me some herbs to take care of that. My beloved Skulldeath can empty gallons of his seed into me for Hood-damned ever and there won’t be any little jackrabbits jumping round.’;

‘He’s got the face of a girl,’ Koryk said. ‘And the men say he kisses like one, too.’

‘Who’s telling you all this?’

‘Saving his seed, that’s a laugh.’

‘Listen, those men, they don’t mean nothing. Now, am I a Kanese princess or not?’

‘Oh, aye. Rival to the empire’s throne, in fact. Be the fly-ing fish to the flying squirrel and make your nest in some tree, Smiles. When all’s done what’s needed doing.’

She surprised him with a bright smile. ‘Thanks, Koryk. You’re a true friend.’

He stared after her as she hurried off. Poor lass. The squirrel’s saving his seed because he doesn’t know what to do with it, is my guess.

A figure walked past in the gloom and Koryk squinted until he recognized the man’s gait. ‘Hey, Bottle.’

The young mage halted, looked over, then, feet dragging, approached.

Koryk said, ‘You’re supposed to be asleep.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So you’re giving Smiles special herbs, are you. Why do you-’

‘I’m what?’

‘Herbs. So she won’t get pregnant.’

‘Look, if she doesn’t want to get pregnant, she should just stop straddling every-’

‘Hold on, Bottle! Wait. I thought she’d talked to you. About herbs which you promised to give her-’

‘Oh, those herbs. No, you got it all wrong, Koryk. Those aren’t to keep her from getting pregnant. In fact, it’s some concoction of my grandmother’s and I’ve no idea if it even works, but anyway, it’s got nothing to do with not getting pregnant. Why, if she’d asked me about that kind of stuff, sure, there’s some very reliable-’

‘Stop! What-what does this concoction you’re giving her do to her, then?’

‘She’d better not be taking it! It’s for a man-’

‘For Skulldeath?’

‘Skulldeath? What…’ Bottle stared down for a long moment. ‘Do you know what skulldeath is, Koryk? It’s a plant that grows on Malaz Island and maybe Geni, too. You see, normally there’s male plants and there’s female plants and that’s how you get fruit and the like, right? Anyway, not so with the sweet little skulldeath. There’s only males-no females at all. Skulldeaths loose their-well, they spill it all out into the air, and it ends up somehow getting into the seeds of other plants and just riding along, hiding, until that seed sprouts, then it takes over and suddenly, another nice skulldeath with that grey flower that’s not really a flower at all, just a thin sack filled with-’

‘So, that concoction Smiles asked for-what does it do?’

‘Supposed to change a man who prefers other men into one who prefers women. Does it work? I have no idea.’

‘Skulldeath may be a plant,’ Koryk said, ‘but it’s also the name for a soldier in Primly’s squad. A pretty one.’

‘Oh, and that name…’

‘Is obviously very appropriate, Bottle.’

‘Oh. Poor Smiles.’

The Factor’s house might have looked nice, but it might as well have been made of straw, the way it fell down. Astonishing that no-one had died beneath all that wreckage. Urb at the least was certainly relieved by that, though his mood wilted somewhat after Hellian was through yelling at him.

In any case, thereafter satisfied and pleasantly feeling… pleasant, Hellian was anything but pleased when Balgrid’s appallingly unattractive face loomed into view directly in front of her. She blinked at him. ‘You’re shorter than I’d thought.’

‘Sergeant, I’m kneeling. What are you doing under the bar?’

‘I’m not the one who keeps movin’ it, Baldy.’

‘The other sergeants have agreed that we’re staying here for a while. You with them on that, Sergeant?’

‘Why not?’

‘Good. Oh, did you know, in the new squads, there’s another Kartoolii.’

‘Probbly a spy-they’re still after me, y’know.’

‘Why would they be after you?’

‘Cause I did something, that’s why. Can’t ‘member ‘xactly what, but it was bad ‘nough to get me sent here, wasn’t it? A damned spy!’

‘I doubt he’s anything-’

‘Yeah? Fine, make him come ‘ere and kiss my feet, then! Tell ‘im I’m the Queen of Kartool! An’ I want my kissed feet! My feeted kiss, I mean. Go on, damn you!’

Less than six paces away, tucked beneath the bar at the other end, sat Skulldeath; Hiding from that pretty but way too lustful woman in Fiddler’s squad. And at Hellian’s words his head snapped round and his dark, almond-shaped eyes, which had already broken so many hearts, slowly widened on the dishevelled sergeant crouched in a pool of spilled wine.

Queen of Kartool.

On such modest things, worlds changed.

The women were singing an ancient song in a language that was anything but Imass. Filled with strange clicks and phlegmatic stops, along with rhythmic gestures of the hands, and the extraordinary twin voices emerging from each throat, the song made the hair on the back of Hedge’s neck stand on end. ‘Eres’al,’ Quick Ben had whispered, looking a little ashen himself. ‘The First Language.’

No wonder it made the skin crawl, awakening faint echoes in the back of his skull-as if stirring to life the soft murmurings of his mother a handful of days after he’d been born, even as he clung by the mouth to her tit and stared stupidly up at the blur of her face. A song to make a grown man feel horribly vulnerable, weak in the limbs and desperate for comfort.

Muttering under his breath, Hedge plucked at Quick Ben’s sleeve.

The wizard understood well enough and they both rose, then backed away from the hearth and all the gathered Imass. Out into the darkness beneath a spray of glittering stars, up into the sprawl of tumbled boulders away from the rock shelters of the cliff face.

Hedge found a flat stone the size of a skiff, lying at the base of a scree. He sat down on it. Quick Ben stood nearby, bending down to collect a handful of gravel, then pacing as he began examining his collection-more by feel than sight-flinging rejections off into the gloom to bounce and skitter. ‘So, Hedge.’

‘What?’

‘How’s Fiddler these days?’

‘It’s not like I’m squatting on his shoulder or anything.’

‘Hedge.’

‘All right, I catch things occasionally. Whiffs. Echoes. He’s still alive, I can say that much.’

Quick Ben paused. ‘Any idea what the Adjunct’s up to?’

‘Who? No, why should I-never met her. You’re the one should be doing the guessing, wizard. She shackled you into being her High Mage, after all. Me, I’ve been wandering for what seems for ever, in nothing but the ashes of the dead. At least until we found this place, and it ain’t nearly as far away from the underworld as you might think.’

‘Don’t tell me what I think, sapper. I already know what I think and it’s not what you think.’

‘Well now, you’re sounding all nervous again, Quick. Little heart going pitterpat?’

‘She was taking them to Lether-to the Tiste Edur empire-once she managed to extricate them from Malaz harbour. Now, Cotillion says she managed that, despite my disappearing at the worst possible moment. True, some nasty losses. Like Kalam. And T’amber. Me. So, Lether. Pitching her measly army against an empire spanning half a continent or damn near, and why? Well, maybe to deliver some vengeance on behalf of the Malazan Empire and every other kingdom or people who got cut up by those roving fleets. But maybe that’s not it at all, because, let’s face it, as a motive it sounds, well, insane. And I don’t think the Adjunct is insane. So, what’s left?’

‘Sorry, was that actually a question? For me?’

‘Of course not, Hedge. It was rhetorical.’

‘That’s a relief. Go on, then.’

‘Seems more likely she’s set herself against the Crippled God.’

‘Oh yeah? What’s this Lether Empire got to do with the Crippled God?’

‘A whole lot, that’s what.’

‘Meaning me and Fiddler are back fighting the same damned war.’

‘As if you didn’t already know that, Hedge-and no, wipe that innocent look off your face. It’s not dark enough and you know that so that look is for me and it’s a damned lie so get rid of it.’

‘Ouch, the wizard’s nerves are singing!’

‘This is why I liked you least of all, Hedge.’

‘I remember once you being scared witless of a recruit named Sorry, because she was possessed by a god. And now here you are, working for that god. Amazing, how things can turn right round in ways you’d never expect nor even predict.’

The wizard stared long and hard at the sapper. Then he said, ‘Now hold on, Hedge.’

‘You really think Sorry was there to get at the Empress, Quick? Some sordid plan for vengeance against Laseen? Why, that would be… insane.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘Just wondering if you should be as sure of the ones you’re working for as you think you are. Because, and it only seems this way to me, all this confusion you’re feeling about the Adjunct might just be coming from some wrong-footed, uh, misapprehensions about the two gods crouching in your shadow.’

‘Is all this just another one of your feelings?’

‘I ain’t Fiddler.’

‘No, but you’ve been so close to him-in his damned shadow-you’re picking up all his uncanny, whispered suspicions, and don’t even try to deny it, Hedge. So now I better hear it straight from you. You and me, are we fighting on the same side, or not?’

Hedge grinned up at him. ‘Maybe not. But, just maybe, more than you know, wizard.’

Quick Ben had selected out a half-dozen water-worn pebbles. Now he flung the rest away. ‘That answer was supposed to make me feel better?’

‘How do you think I feel?’ Hedge demanded. ‘Been at your damned side, Quick, since Raraku! And I still don’t know who or even what you are!’

‘What’s your point?’

‘It’s this. I’m beginning to suspect that even Cotillion-and Shadowthrone-don’t know you half as well as they might think. Which is why they’re now keeping you close. And which is why, too, they maybe made sure you ended up without Kalam right there guarding your back.’

‘If you’re right-about Kalam-there’s going to be trouble.’

Hedge shrugged. ‘All I’m saying is, maybe the plan was for Sorry to be right there, right now, beside Fiddler.’

‘The Adjunct didn’t even have an army then, Hedge. What you’re suggesting is impossible.’

‘Depends on how much Kellanved and Dancer saw-and came to understand-when they left their empire and went in search of ascendancy.’ The sapper paused, then said, ‘They walked the paths of the Azath, didn’t they?’

‘Almost no-one knows that, Hedge. You sure didn’t… before you died. Which brings us back to the path you ended up walking, after you’d gone and blown yourself up in Black Coral.’

‘You mean, after I did my own ascending?’

‘Yes.’

‘I already told you most of it. The Bridgeburners ascended. Blame some Spiritwalker.’

‘And now there’s more of you damned fools wandering around. Hood take you all, Hedge, there were some real nasty people in the Bridgebumers. Brutal and vicious and outright evil-’

‘Rubbish. And I’ll tell you a secret and maybe one day it’ll do you good, too. Dying humbles ya.’

‘I don’t need any humbling, Hedge, which is fine since I don’t plan on dying any time soon.’

‘Best stay light on your toes, then.’

‘You guarding my back, Hedge?’

‘I ain’t no Kalam, but aye, I am.’

‘For now.’

‘For now.’

‘That will have to do, I suppose-’

‘Mind you, only if you’re guarding mine, Quick.’

‘Of course. Loyalty to the old squad and all that.’

‘So what are damned pebbles for? As if I couldn’t guess.’

‘We’re heading into an ugly scrap, Hedge.’ He rounded on the sapper. ‘And listen, about those damned cussers-if you blow me into tiny pieces I will come back for you, Hedge. That’s a vow, sworn by every damned soul in me.’

‘Now that raises a question, don’t it? Just how long do all of those souls plan on hiding in there, Ben Adaephon Delat?’

The wizard eyed him, and, predictably, said nothing.

Trull Sengar stood at the very edge of the fire’s light, beyond the gathered Imass. The women’s song had sunk into a series of sounds that a mother might make to her babe, soft sounds of comfort, and Onrack had explained how this Eres’al song was in fact a kind of traverse, back into the roots of language, beginning with the bizarre yet clearly complex adult Eres language with its odd clicks and stops and all the gestures that provided punctuation, then working backward and growing ever more simplified even as it became more musical. The effect was eerie and strangely disturbing to the Tiste Edur.

Music and song among his people was a static thing, fixated within ritual. If the ancient tales were true, there had once been a plethora of instruments in use among the Tiste Edur, but most of diese were now unknown, beyond the names given them. Voice now stood in their stead and Trull began to sense that, perhaps, something had been lost.

The gestures among the women had transformed into dance, sinuous and swaying and now, suddenly, sexual.

A low voice beside him said, ‘Before the child, there is passion.’

Trull glanced over and was surprised to see one of the T’lan, the clan chief, Hostille Rator.

An array of calcified bones were knotted in the filthy long hair dangling from the warrior’s mottled, scarred pate. His brow ridge dominated the entire face, burying the eyes in darkness. Even clothed in the flesh of life, Hostille Rator seemed deathly.

‘Passion begets the child, Tiste Edur. Do you see?’

Trull nodded. ‘Yes. I think so.’

‘So it was, long ago, at the Ritual.’

Ah.

‘The child, alas,’ the clan chief continued, ‘grows up. And what was once passion is now…’

Nothing.

Hostille Rator resumed. ‘There was a Bonecaster here, among these clans. She saw, clearly, the illusion of this realm. And saw, too, that it was dying. She sought to halt the bleeding away, by sacrificing herself. But she is failing-her spirit and her will, they are failing.’

Trull frowned at Hostille Rator. ‘How did you come to know of this place?’

‘She gave voice to her pain, her anguish.’ The T’lan was silent a moment, then he added, ‘It was our intention to answer the call of the Gathering-but the need in her voice was undeniable. We could not turn aside, even when what we surrendered was-possibly-our final rest.’

‘So now you are here, Hostille Rator. Onrack believes you would usurp Ulshun Pral, but for Rud Elalle’s presence-the threat he poses you.’

A glitter from the darkness beneath those brow ridges. ‘You do not even whisper these things, Edur. Would you see weapons drawn this night, even after the gift of the First Song?’

‘No. Yet, perhaps, better now than later.’

Trull now saw that the two T’lan Bonecasters had moved up behind Hostille Rator. The singing from the women had ceased-had it been an abrupt end? Trull could not recall. In any case, it was clear that all those present were now listening to this conversation. He saw Onrack emerge from the crowd, saw his friend’s stone sword gripped in both hands.

Trull addressed Hostille Rator once more, his tone even and calm. ‘You three have stood witness to all that you once were-’

‘It will not survive,’ the clan chief cut in. ‘How can we embrace this illusion when, upon its fading, we must return to what we truly are?’

From the crowd Rud Elalle spoke, ‘No harm shall befall my people-not by your hand, Hostille Rator, nor that of your Bonecasters. Nor,’ he added, ‘that of those who are coming here. I intend to lead the clans away-to safety.’

‘There is no safety,’ Hostille Rator said. ‘This realm dies, and so too will all that is within it. And there can be no escape. Rud Elalle, without this realm, your clans do not even exist.’

Onrack said, ‘I am T’lan, like you. Feel the flesh that now clothes you. The muscle, the heat of blood. Feel the breath in your lungs, Hostille Rator. I have looked into your eyes-each of you three-and I see what no doubt resides in mine. The wonder. The remembering.’

‘We cannot permit it,’ said the Bonecaster named Til’aras Benok. ‘For when we leave this place, Onrack…’

Yes,’ Trull’s friend whispered. ‘It will be… too much. To bear.’

‘There was passion once,’ Hostille Rator said. ‘For us. It can never return. We are children no longer.’

‘None of you understand!’

Rud Elalle’s sudden shriek startled everyone, and Trull saw Ulshun Pral-on his face an expression of distress-reach out a hand to his adopted son, who angrily brushed it away as he stepped forward, the fire in his eyes as fierce as that in the hearth beyond. ‘Stone, earth, trees and grasses. Beasts. The sky and the stars! None of this is an illusion!’

‘A trapped memory-’

‘No, Bonecaster, you are wrong.’ He struggled to hold back his anger, and spun to face Onrack. ‘I see your heart, Onrack the Broken. I know, you will stand with me-in the time that comes. You will!’

‘Yes, Rud Elalle.’

‘Then you believe!’

Onrack was silent.

Hostille Rator’s laugh was a soft, bitter rasp. ‘It is this, Rud Elalle. Onrack of the Logros T’lan Imass chooses to fight at your side, chooses to fight for these Bentract, because he cannot abide the thought of returning to what he once was, and so he would rather die here. And death is what Onrack the Broken anticipates-indeed, what he now yearns for.’

Trull studied his friend, and saw on Onrack’s firelit face the veracity of Hostille Rator’s words.

The Tiste Edur did not hesitate. ‘Onrack will not stand alone,’ he said.

Til’aras Benok faced Trull. ‘You surrender your life, Edur, to defend an illusion?’

‘That, Bonecaster, is what we mortals delight in doing. You bind yourself to a clan, to a tribe, to a nation or an empire, but to give force to the illusion of a common bond, you must feed its opposite-that all those not of your clan, or tribe, or empire, do not share that bond. I have seen Onrack the Broken, a T’lan Imass. And now I have seen him, mortal once again. To the joy and the life in the eyes of my friend, I will fight all those who deem him their enemy. For the bond between us is one of friendship, and that, Ti’laras Benok, is not an illusion.’

Hostille Rator asked Onrack, ‘In your mercy, as you have now found it alive once more in your soul, will you now reject Trull Sengar of the Tiste Edur?’

And the warrior bowed his head and said, ‘I cannot.’

‘Then, Onrack the Broken, your soul shall never find peace.’

‘I know.’

Trull felt as if he had been punched in the chest. It was all very well to make his bold claims, in ferocious sincerity that could only come of true friendship. It was yet another thing to discover the price it demanded in the soul of the one he called friend. ‘Onrack,’ he whispered in sudden anguish.

But this moment would not await all that might have been said, all that needed to be said, for Hostille Rator had turned to face his Bonecasters, and whatever silent communication passed among these three was quick, decisive, for the clan chief swung round and walked towards Ulshun Pral. Whereupon he fell to one knee and bowed his head. ‘We are humbled, Ulshun Pral. We are shamed by these two strangers. You are the Bentract. As were we, once, long ago. We now choose to remember. We now choose to fight in your name. In our deaths there will be naught but honour, this we vow.’ He then rose and faced Rud Elalle. ‘Soletaken, will you accept us as your soldiers?’

As soldiers? No. As friends, as Bentract, yes.’

The three T’lan bowed to him.

All of this passed in a blur before Trull Sengar’s eyes. Since Onrack the Broken’s admission, it seemed as if Trull’s entire world had, with grinding, stone-crushing irresistibility, turned on some vast, unimagined axis-yet he was drawn round again by a hand on his shoulder, and Onrack, now standing before him.

‘There is no need,’ the Imass warrior said. ‘I know something even Rud Elalle does not, and I tell you this, Trull Sengar, there is no need. Not for grief. Nor regret. My friend, listen to me. This world will not die.’

And Trull found no will within him to challenge that assertion, to drive doubt into his friend’s earnest gaze. After a moment, then, he simply sighed and nodded. ‘So be it, Onrack.’

‘And, if we are careful,’ Onrack continued, ‘neither shall we.’

‘As you say, friend.’

Thirty paces away in the darkness, Hedge turned to Quick Ben and hissed, ‘What do you make of all that, wizard?’

Quick Ben shrugged. ‘Seems the confrontation has been averted, if Hostille Rator’s kneeling before Ulshun Pral didn’t involve picking up a dropped fang or something.’

‘A dropped-what?’

‘Never mind. That’s not the point at all, anyway. But I now know I am right in one thing and don’t ask me how I know. I just do. Suspicion into certainty.’

‘Well, go on, damn you.’

‘Just this, Hedge. The Finnest. Of Scabandari Bloodeye. It’s here.’

‘Here? What do you mean, here?’

‘Here, sapper. Right here.’

The gate was a shattered mess on one side. The huge cyclopean stones that had once formed an enormous arch easily five storeys high had the appearance of having been blasted apart by multiple impacts, flinging some of the shaped blocks a hundred paces or more from the entrance-way. The platform the arch had once spanned was heaved and buckled as if some earthquake had rippled through the solid bedrock beneath the pavestones. “The other side was dominated by a tower of still standing blocks, corkscrew-twisted and seemingly precariously balanced.

The illusion of bright daylight had held during this last part of the journey, as much by the belligerent insistence of Udinaas as by the amused indulgence of Clip. Or, perhaps, Silchas Ruin’s impatience. The foremost consequence of this was that Seren Pedac was exhausted-and Udinaas looked no better. Like the two Tiste Andii, however, Kettle seemed impervious-with all the boundless energy of a child, Seren supposed, raising the possibility that at some moment not too far off she would simply collapse.

Seren could see that Fear Sengar was weary as well, but probably that had more to do with the unpleasant burden settling ever more heavily upon his shoulders. She had been harsh and unforgiving of herself in relating to the Tiste Edur the terrible crime she had committed upon Udinaas, and she had done so in the hope that Fear Sengar would-with a look of unfeigned and most deserving disgust in his eyes-choose to reject her, and his own vow to guard her life.

But the fool had instead held to that vow, although she could see the brutal awakening of regret. He would not-could not-break his word.

It was getting easier to disdain these bold gestures, the severity so readily embraced by males of any species. Some primitive holdover, she reasoned, of the time when possessing a woman meant survival, not of anything so prosaic as one’s own bloodline, but possession in the manner of ownership, and survival in the sense of power. There had been backward tribes all along the fringe territories of the Letherii kingdom where such archaic notions were practised, and not always situations where men were the owners and wielders of power-for sometimes it was the women. In either case, history had shown that such systems could only survive in isolation, and only among peoples for whom magic had stagnated into a chaotic web of proscriptions, taboos and the artifice of nonsensical rules-where the power offered by sorcery had been usurped by profane ambitions and the imperatives of social control.

Contrary to Hull Beddict’s romantic notions of such peo-

pie, Seren Pedac had come to feel little remorse when she thought about their inevitable and often bloody extinction. Control was ever an illusion, and its maintenance could only persist when in isolation. Not to say, of course, that the Letherii system was one of unfettered freedom and the liberty of individual will. Hardly. One imposition had been replaced by another. But at the very least it’s not one divided by gender.

The Tiste Edur were different. Their notions… primitive. Offer a sword, bury it at the threshold of one’s home, the symbolic exchange of vows so archaic no words were even necessary. In such a ritual, no negotiation was possible, and if marriage did not involve negotiation then it was not marriage. No, just mutual ownership. Or not-so-mutual ownership. Such a thing deserved little respect.

And now, here, it was not even a prospective husband laying claim to her life, but that prospective husband’s damned brother. And, to make the entire situation yet more absurd, the prospective husband was dead. Fear will defend to the death my right to marry a corpse. Or, rather, the corpse’s right to claim me. Well, that is madness and I will not-1 do not-accept it. Not for a moment.

Yes, I have moved past self-pity. Now I’m just angry.

Because he refused to let his disgust dissuade him.

For all her notions of defiance, that last thought stung her.

Udinaas had moved past her to study the ruined gate, and now he turned to Clip. ‘Well, does it yet live?’

The Tiste Andii’s chain and rings were spinning from one finger again, and he offered the Letherii slave a cool smile. ‘The last road to walk,’ he said, ‘lies on the other side of the gate.’

‘So who got mad and kicked it to pieces, Clip?’

‘Of no consequence any more,’ Clip replied, his smile broadening.

‘You have no idea, in other words,’ Udinaas said. ‘Well, if we’re to go through it, let’s stop wasting time. I’ve almost given up hoping that you’ll end up garrotting yourself with that chain. Almost.’

His last comment seemed to startle Clip for some reason.

And all at once Seren Pedac saw that chain with its rings differently, By the Errant! Why did I not see it before? It is a garrotte. Clip is a damned assassin! She snorted. ‘And you claim to be a Mortal Sword! You’re nothing but a murderer, Clip. Yes, Udinaas saw that long ago-which is why you hate him so. He was never fooled by all those weapons you carry. And now, neither am I.’

‘We’re wasting time indeed,’ Clip said, once more seemingly unperturbed, and he turned and approached the huge gate. Silchas Ruin set out after him, and Seren saw that the White Crow had his hands on the grips of his swords.

‘Danger ahead,’ Fear Sengar announced and yes, damn him, he then moved from his position just behind Seren’s right shoulder to directly in front of her. And drew his sword.

Udinaas witnessed all this and grunted dismissively, then half turned and said, ‘Silchas Ruin’s earned his paranoia, Fear. But even that doesn’t mean we’re about to jump into a pit of dragons.’ He then smiled without any humour. ‘Not that dragons live in pits.’

When he walked after the two Tiste Andii, Kettle ran up to take his hand. At first Udinaas reacted as if her touch had burned him, but then his resistance vanished.

Clip reached the threshold, stepped forward and disappeared. A moment later Silchas Ruin did the same.

Neither Udinaas nor Kettle hesitated.

Reaching the same point, Fear Sengar paused and eyed her. ‘What is in your mind, Acquitor?’ he asked.

‘Do you think I might abandon you all, Fear? Watch you step through and, assuming you can’t get back, I just turn round and walk this pointless road-one I probably would never leave? Is that choice left to me?’

‘All choices are left to you, Acquitor.’

‘You too, I would say. Except, of course, for the ones you willingly surrendered.’

‘Yes.’

‘You admit that so easily.’

‘Perhaps it seems that way.’

‘Fear, if anyone should turn round right now, it is you.’

‘We are close, Acquitor. We are perhaps a few strides from Scabandari’s Finnest. How can you imagine I would even consider such a thing?’

‘Some stubborn thread of self-preservation, perhaps. Some last surviving faith of mine that you actually possess a brain, one that can reason, that is. Fear Sengar, you will probably die. If you pass through this gate.’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I shall, if only to confound Udinaas’s expectations.’

‘Udinaas?’

A faint smile. ‘The hero fails the quest.’

‘Ah. And that would prove satisfying enough?’

‘Remains to be seen, I suppose. Now, you will follow?’

‘Of course.’

‘You then willingly surrender this choice?’

In answer she set a hand against his chest and pushed him, step by step, into the gate. All pressure vanished when he went through, and Seren stumbled forward, only to collide with the Tiste Edur’s broad, muscled chest.

He righted her before she could fall.

And she saw, before them all, a most unexpected vista. Black volcanic ash, beneath a vast sky nearly as black, despite at least three suns blazing in the sky overhead. And, on this rough plain, stretching on all sides in horrific proliferation, there were dragons.

Humped, motionless. Scores-hundreds.

She heard Kettle’s anguished whisper. ‘Udinaas! They’re all dead!’

Clip, standing twenty paces ahead, was now facing them. The chain spun tight, and then he bowed. ‘Welcome, my dear companions, to Starvald Demelain.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

Gaskaral Traum was the first soldier in Atri-Preda Bivatt’s army to take a life that morning. A large man with faint threads of Tarthenal blood in his veins, he had pitched his tent the night before forty paces from the Tiste Edur encampment. Within it he had lit a small oil lamp and arranged his bedroll over bundles of clothing, spare boots and spare helm. Then he had lain down beside it, on the side nearest the Edur tents, and let the lamp devour the last slick of oil until the darkness within the tent matched that of outside.

With dawn’s false glow ebbing, Gaskaral Traum drew a knife and slit the side of the tent beside him, then silently edged out into the wet grasses, where he laid motionless for a time.

Then, seeing at last what he had been waiting for, he rose and, staying low, made his way across the sodden ground. The rain was still thrumming down on the old seabed of Q’uson Tapi-where waited the hated Awl-and the air smelled of sour mud. Although a large man, Gaskaral could move like a ghost. He reached the first row of Edur tents, paused with held breath for a moment, then edged into the camp.

The tent of Overseer Brohl Handar was centrally positioned, but otherwise unguarded. As Gaskaral came closer, he saw that the flap was untied, hanging loose. Water from the rain just past streamed down the oiled canvas like tears, pooling round the front pole and in the deep footprints crowding the entrance.

Gaskaral slipped his knife beneath his outer shirt and used the grimy undergarment to dry the handle and his left hand-palm and fingers-before withdrawing the weapon once more. Then he crept for that slitted opening.

Within was grainy darkness. The sound of breathing. And there, at the far end, the Overseer’s cot. Brohl Handar was sleeping on his back. The furs covering him had slipped down to the floor. Of his face and chest, Gaskaral could see naught but heavy shadow.

Blackened iron gleamed, betrayed by the honed edge.

Gaskaral Traum took one more step, then he surged forward in a blur.

The figure standing directly over Brohl Handar spun, but not in time, as Gaskaral’s knife sank deep, sliding between ribs, piercing the assassin’s heart.

The black dagger fell and stuck point-first into the floor, and Gaskaral took the body’s weight as, with a faint sigh, the killer slumped.

Atri-Preda Bivatt’s favoured bodyguard-chosen by her outside Drene to safeguard the Overseer against just this eventuality-froze for a moment, eyes fixed On Brohl Handat’s face, on the Edur’s breathing. No stirring awake. And that was good. Very good.

Angling beneath the dead assassin’s weight, Gaskaral slowly sheathed his knife, then reached down and retrieved the black dagger. This was. the last of the bastards, he was sure. Seven in all, although only two before this one had got close enough to attempt Brohl’s murder-and both of those had been in the midst of battle. Letur Anict was ever a thorough man, one prone to redundancy in assuring that his desires were satisfied. Alas, not this time.

Gaskaral lowered himself yet further until he could fold the body over one shoulder, then, rising into a bent-knee stance, he padded silently back to the tent-flap. Stepping to avoid the puddle and the upright pole, he carefully angled his burden through the opening.

Beneath overcast clouds with yet another fall of rain beginning, Gaskaral Traum quickly made his way back to the Letherii side of the camp. The body could remain in his tent-the day now approaching was going to be a day of battle, which meant plenty of chaos, plenty of opportunities to dispose of the corpse.

He was somewhat concerned, however. It was never a good thing to not sleep the night before a battle. But he was ever sensitive to his instincts, as if he could smell the approach of an assassin, as if he could slip into their minds. Certainly his uncanny timing proved the talent-another handful of heartbeats back there and he would have been too late-

Occasionally, of course, instincts failed.

The two figures that suddenly rushed him from the darkness caught Gaskaral Traum entirely by surprise. A shock blessedly short-lived, as it turned out. Gaskaral threw the body he had been carrying at the assassin on his right. With no time to draw out his knife, he simply charged to meet the other killer. Knocked aside the dagger stabbing for his throat, took the man’s head in both hands and twisted hard.

Hard enough to spin the assassin’s feet out from under him as the neck snapped.

The other killer had been thrown down by the corpse and was just rolling back into a crouch when, upon looking up, he met Gaskaral’s boot-under his chin. The impact lifted the man into the air, arms flung out to the sides, his head separated from his spine, and dead before he thumped back onto the ground.

Gaskaral Traum looked round, saw no more coming, then permitted himself a moment of self-directed anger. Of course they would have realized that someone was intercepting them. So in went one while the other two remained back to see who their unknown hunter was, and then they would deal with that hunter in the usual way.

‘Yeah? Like fuck they did.’

He studied the three bodies for a moment longer. Damn, it was going to be a crowded tent.

The sun would brook no obstacle in its singular observation of the Battle of Q’uson Tapi, and as it rose it burned away the clouds and drove spears of heat into the ground until the air steamed. Brohl Handar, awakening surprisingly refreshed, stood outside his tent and watched as his Arapay Tiste Edur readied their armour and weapons. The sudden, unrelieved humidity made iron slick and the shafts of spears oily, and already the ground underfoot was treacherous-the seabed would be a nightmare, he feared. In the evening before, he and his troop had watched the Awl preparations, and Brohl Handar well understood the advantages Redmask was seeking in secure footing, but the Overseer suspected that such efforts would fail in the end. Canvas and hide tarps would before long grow as muddy and slippery as the ground beyond. At the initial shock of contact, however, there would likely be a telling difference… but not enough.

I hope.

A Letherii soldier approached-an oversized man he’d seen before-with a pleasant smile on his innocuous, oddly gentle face. ‘The sun is most welcome, Overseer, is it not? I convey the Atri-Preda’s invitation to join her-be assured that you will have time to return to your warriors and lead them into battle.’

‘Very well. Proceed, then.’

The various companies were moving into positions all along the edge of the seabed opposite the Awl. Brohl saw that the Bluerose lancers were now dismounted, looking a little lost with their newly issued shields and spears. There were less than a thousand left and the Overseer saw that they had been placed as auxiliaries and would only be thrown into battle if things were going poorly. ‘Now there’s a miserable bunch,’ he said to his escort, nodding towards the Bluerose Battalion.

‘So they are, Overseer. Yet see how their horses are saddled and not too far away. This is because our scouts cannot see the Kechra in the Awl camp. The Atri-Preda expects another flanking attack from those two creatures, and this time she will see it met with mounted lancers. Who will then pursue.’

‘I wish them well-those Kechra ever remain the gravest threat and the sooner they are dead the better.’

Atri-Preda Bivatt stood in a position at the edge of the old shoreline that permitted her a view of what would be the field of battle. As was her habit, she had sent away all her messengers and aides-they hovered watchfully forty paces back-and was now alone with her thoughts, her observations, and would remain so-barring Brohl’s visit-until just before the engagement commenced.

His escort halted a short distance away from the Atri-Preda and waved Brohl Handar forward with an easy smile.

How can he be so calm? Unless he’s one of those who will be standing guarding horses. Big as he is, he hasn’t the look of a soldier-well, even horse-handlers are needed, after all.

‘Overseer, you look… well rested.’

‘I appear to be just that, Atri-Preda. As if the spirits of my ancestors held close vigil on me last night.’

‘Indeed. Are your Arapay ready?’

‘They are. Will you begin this battle with your mages?’

‘I must be honest in this matter. I cannot rely upon their staying alive throughout the engagement. Accordingly, yes, I will use them immediately. And if they are still with me later, then all the better.’

‘No sign of the Kechra, then.’

‘No. Observe, the enemy arrays itself.’

‘On dry purchase-’

‘To begin, yes, but we will win that purchase, Overseer. And that is the flaw in Redmask’s tactic. We will strike hard enough to knock them back, and then it will be the Awl who find themselves mired in the mud.’

Brohl Handar turned to study the Letherii forces. The various brigades, companies and battalion elements had been merged on the basis of function. On the front facing the Awl, three wedges of heavy infantry. Flanks of skirmishers mixed with medium infantry and archers. Blocks of archers between the wedges, who if they moved down onto the seabed would not go very far. Their flights of arrows would be intended to perforate the Awl line so that when the heavies struck they would drive back the enemy, one step, two, five, ten and into the mud.

‘I do not understand this Redmask,’ Brohl said, frowning back at the Awl lines.

‘He had no choice,’ Bivatt replied. ‘Not after Praedegar. And that was, for him, a failure of patience. Perhaps this is, as well, but as I said: no choice left. We have him, Overseer. Yet he will make this victory a painful one, given the chance.’

‘Your mages may well end it before it’s begun, Atri-Preda.’

‘We will see,’

Overhead, the sun continued its inexorable climb, heating the day with baleful intent. On the seabed lighter patches had begun appearing as the topmost surface dried. But immediately beneath, of course, the mud would remain soft and deep enough to cause trouble.

Bivatt had two mages left-the third had died two days past, fatally weakened by the disaster at Praedegar-one lone mounted archer had succeeded in killing three mages with one damned arrow. Brohl Handar now saw those two figures hobbling like ancients out to the old shoreline’s edge. One at each end of the outermost heavy infantry wedge. They would launch their terrible wave of magic at angles intended to converge a dozen or so ranks deep in the centre formation of Awl, so as to maximize the path of destruction.

The Atri-Preda evidently made some gesture that Brohl did not see, for all at once her messengers had arrived. She turned to him. ‘It is time. Best return to your warriors, Overseer.’

Brohl Handar grimaced. ‘Rearguard again.’

‘You will see a fight this day, Overseer. I am sure of that.’

He was not convinced, but he turned away then. Two strides along and he paused and said, ‘May this day announce the end of this war.’

The Atri-Preda did not reply. It was not even certain she had heard him, as she was speaking quietly to the soldier who had been his escort. He saw surprise flit across her features beneath the helm, then she nodded.

Brohl Handar glared up at the sun, and longed for the shadowed forests of home. Then he set out for his Arapay.

Sitting on a boulder, Toc Anaster watched the children play for a moment longer, then he rolled the thinned flat of hide into a scroll and slipped it into his satchel, and added the brush of softened wood and the now-resealed bowl of charcoal, marrow and gaenth-berry ink. He rose, squinted skyward for a moment, then walked over to his horse. Seven paces, and by the time he arrived his moccasins were oversized clumps of mud. He tied the satchel to the saddle, drew a knife and bent down to scrape away as much of the mud as he could.

The Awl were gathered in their ranks off to his left, standing, waiting as the Letherii forces five hundred paces away jostled into the formations they would seek to main-lain in the advance. Redmask’s warriors seemed strangely silent-of course, this was not their kind of battle. ‘No,’ Toc muttered. ‘This is the Letherii kind.’ He looked across at the enemy.

Classic wedges in sawtooth, Toc observed. Three arrow

heads of heavy infantry. Those formations would be rather messy by the time they reached the Awl. Moving slow, with soldiers falling, stumbling and slipping with every stride they attempted. All to the good. There would be no heaving push at the moment of contact, not without entire front ranks of heavily armoured soldiers falling flat on their

faces.

‘You will ride away,’ Torrent said behind him. ‘Or so you think. But I will be watching you, Mezla-’

‘Oh, put it to rest,’ Toe said. ‘It’s hardly my fault Redmask doesn’t think you’re worth much, Torrent. Besides,’ he added, ‘it’s not as if a horse could do much more than walk in this. And finally, Redmask has said he might want me close to hand-with my arrows-in case the K’Chain Che’Malle fail.’

‘They will not fail.’

‘Oh, and what do you know of K’Chain Che’Malle, Torrent?’

‘I know what Redmask tells us.’

‘And what does he know? More to the point, how does he know? Have you not wondered that? Not even once? The K’Chain Che’Malle are this world’s demons. Creatures of the far past. Virtually everywhere else they are extinct. So what in Hood’s name are they doing here? And why are they at Redmask’s side, seemingly eager to do as he bids?’

‘Because he is Redmask, Mezla. He is not as we are and yes, I see how the envy burns in your eye. You will ever despise those who are better than you.’

Toc leaned his forearms across the back of his horse. ‘Come closer, Torrent. Look into the eyes of this mare here. Tell me, do you see envy?’

‘A mindless beast.’

‘That will probably die today.’

‘I do not understand you, Mezla.’

‘I know. Anyway, I see that same look in your eyes, Torrent. That same blind willingness. To believe everything you need to believe. Redmask is to you as I am to this poor horse.’

‘I will listen to you no longer.’

The young warrior headed off, the stiffness of his strides soon deteriorating in the conglomeration of mud on his feet.

Nearby the children were flinging clumps of the stuff at each other and laughing. The younger ones, that is. Those carrying a few more years were silent, staring over at the enemy forces, where horns had begun sounding, and now, two well-guarded groups edging out to the very edge of the ancient shore. The mages.

We begin, then.

Far to the west the sun had yet to rise. In a nondescript village a day’s fast march from Letheras, where too many had died in the past two days, three Falari heavy infantry from 3rd Company sat on one edge of a horse trough out’ side the only tavern. Lookback, Drawfirst and Shoaly were cousins, or so the others thought of them, given their shared Falar traits of fiery red hair and blue eyes, and the olive-hued skin of the main island’s indigenous people, who called themselves the Walk. The idea seemed convenient enough, although none had known the others before enlisting in the Malazan Army.

The Walk civilization had thrived long ago, before the coming of iron, in fact, and as miners of tin, copper and lead it had once dominated all the isles of the archipelago in the trade of bronze weapons and ornamentation. Had they been of pure Walk blood, the soldiers would have been squatter, black-haired and reputedly laconic to the point of somnolent; as it was, they all possessed the harder, fiercer blood of the Falari invaders who had conquered most of the islands generations past. The combination, oddly enough, made for superb marines.

At the moment, amidst darkness and a pleasantly cool breeze coming in from the river to the south, the three were having a conversation, the subjects of which were Sergeant Gesler and Corporal Stormy. Those two names-if not their pathetic ranks-were well known to all natives of Falar.

‘But they’ve changed,’ Lookback said. ‘That gold skin, it’s not natural at all. I think we should kill them.’

Drawfirst, who possessed the unfortunate combination of large breasts and a tendency to perspire profusely, had taken advantage of the darkness to divest herself of her upper armour and was now mopping beneath her breasts with a cloth. Now she said, ‘But what’s the point of that, Look? The cult is dead. It’s been dead for years.’

‘Ain’t dead for us, though, is it?’

‘Mostly,’ answered Shoaly.

‘That’s you all right, Shoaly,’ Lookback said. Always seeing the dying and dead side of things.’

‘So go ask ‘em, Look. And they’ll tell you the same. Fener cult’s finished.’

‘That’s why I think we should kill them. For betraying the cult. For betraying us. And what’s with that gold skin anyway? It’s creepy.’

‘Listen,’ Shoaly said, ‘we just partnered with these squads. In case you forgot, Lookback, this is the company that crawled out from under Y’Ghatan. And then there’s Fiddler. A Hood-damned Bridgeburner and maybe the only one left. Gesler was once high-ranked and so was Stormy, but just like Whiskeyjack they got busted down and down, and down, and now here you are wanting to stick ‘em. The cult got outlawed and now Fener ain’t nowhere a god’s supposed to be but that ain’t Gesler’s fault. Not Stormy’s neither.’

‘So what are you saying?’ Lookback retorted. ‘We should just leave ‘em and that’s that?’

‘Leave ‘em? Drawfirst, explain it to this fool.’

She had pushed her breasts back into their harness and was making some final adjustments. ‘It’s simple, Look. Not only are we stuck here, with Fid and the rest. We’re all gonna die with ‘em, too. Now, as for me-and probably Shoaly here-we’re gonna stand and fight, right at their sides. Gesler, Stormy, those cute heavies they got. And when we finally fall, nobody’s gonna be able to say we wasn’t worth that standing there beside ‘em. Now, maybe it’s because you’re the last heavy in Primly’s squad. Maybe if Masker was still with you, you’d not be talking the way you’re talking. So now you gotta choose, Lookback. Fight with us, fight with Reliko and Vastly Blank in Badan Gruk’s squad, or fight on your own as the sole fist in Primly’s. But every one of those choices is still fighting. Creep up behind Ges or Stormy and I’ll lop your head off myself.’

‘All right all right, I was just making conversation-’

Sounds from their left drew the heavies upright, reaching for weapons. Three figures padding down the main street towards them. Strap Mull, Skim and Neller.

Skim called out in a low voice, ‘Soldiers on the way. Look sharp.’

‘Letherii?’ Shoaly asked.

‘No,’ she replied, halting opposite them while the other two marines continued on into the tavern. ‘Picture in your heads the ugliest faces you ever seen, and you then kissin’ them big and wet.’

‘Finally,’ Drawfirst sighed, ‘some good news for a change.’

Beak and the captain made their way back to where Fist Keneb waited at the head of the column. There had been Tiste Edur ahead of them for some time, unwilling to engage, but now they were gone, at least between here and yon village.

The captain drew close to the Fist. ‘Beak says they’re marines, Fist. Seems we found some of them.’

‘All of them,’ Beak said. ‘The ones who got far ahead of the rest. They’re in the village and they’ve been killing Tiste Edur. Lots of Tiste Edur.’

‘The munitions we heard yesterday.’

‘Just so, Fist,’ Beak said, nodding.

‘All right, finally some good news. How many?’

‘Seven, eight squads,’ Beak replied. He delighted in being able to talk, in person, with a real Fist. Oh, he’d imagined scenes like this, of course, with Beak there providing all kinds of information to make the Fist do all the heroic things that needed doing, and then at last Beak himself being the biggest hero of all. He was sure everyone had dreams like that, the sudden revealing of some hidden, shy side that no-one else knew anything about and couldn’t ever have guessed was even there. Shy, until it was needed, and then out it came, amazing everyone!

‘Beak?’

‘Fist?’

‘I was asking, do they know we’re here?’

‘Yes sir, I think so. They’ve got some interesting mages, including an old style warlock from the Jakata people who were the first people on Malaz Island after the Stormriders retreated. He can see through the eyes of all sorts of creatures and that must have been helpful since the coast. There’s also a Dal Honese bush shamari and a Dal Honese Grass Dancer. And a Nathii swamp necromancer.’

‘Beak,’ said Keneb, ‘do these squads include Fiddler? Gesler and Stormy?’

‘Fiddler’s the one with the fiddle who played so sadly in Malaz City? The one with the Deck games in his head? Yes sir, he’s there. Gesler and Stormy, they’re the Falari ones, but with skins of gold and muscles and all that, the ones who were reforged in the fires of Tellann. Telas, Kurald Liosan, the fires, the ones dragons fly through to gain immunities and other proofs against magic and worse. Yes, they’re there, too.’

See how they stared at him in wonder! Oh, just like the dream!

And he knew, all too well, how all this was going to turn out and even that couldn’t make him anything but proud. He squinted up at the darkness overhead. ‘It’ll be dawn in a bell or so.’

Keneb turned to Faradan Sort. ‘Captain, take Beak with you and head into the village. I’d like to see these squads presented-barring whatever pickets they’ve set out.’

‘Yes, Fist. Plan on dressing ‘em down, sir?’

Keneb’s brows lifted. ‘Not at all, Faradan. No. I might end up kissing every damned one of them, though.’

So once more Beak walked alongside Captain Faradan Sort, and that felt good and proper now, as if he’d always belonged with her, always being useful when that was what she needed. False dawn was just beginning and the air smelled wonderfully fresh-at least until they came to the pits where the Edur bodies had been dumped. That didn’t smell good at all.

‘Gods below,’ the captain muttered as they skirted one of the shallow pits.

Beak nodded. ‘Moranth munitions do that. Just… parts of people, and everything chewed up.’

‘Not in this pit,’ she said, pointing as they passed another mass grave. ‘These ones were cut down. Swords, quarrels…’

‘Aye, Captain, we’re good at that, too, aren’t we? But that’s not why the Edur left-there was almost a thousand of them gathered here, planning on one more push. But then orders came to withdraw and so they did. They’re now a league behind us, joining up with still more Edur.’

‘The hammer,’ Faradan Sort said, ‘and somewhere ahead, the anvil’

He nodded again.

She paused to search his face in the gloom. ‘And the Adjunct and the fleet? Beak?’

‘Don’t know, sir. If you’re wondering if they’ll get to us in time to relieve us, then no. Not a chance. We’re going to have to hold out, Captain, for so long it’s impossible.’

She scowled at that. ‘And if we just squat here? Right in this village?’

‘They’ll start pushing. There’ll be four or five thousand Edur by then. That many can push us, sir, whether we want them to or not. Besides, didn’t the Fist say he wanted to engage and hold down as many of the enemy as possible? To keep them from going anywhere else, like back behind the city walls which would mean the Adjunct’s got to deal with another siege and nobody wants that.’

She glared at him for a moment longer, then set out again. Beak fell in step behind her.

From just behind a black heap of tailings at the edge of the village a voice called out, ‘Nice seeing you again, Captain.’

Faradan Sort went on.

Beak saw Corporal Tarr rise from behind the tailings, slinging his crossbow back over a shoulder then dusting himself off before approaching on an intercept course.

‘Fist wants to knock before coming in, does he?’

The captain halted in front of the stolid corporal. ‘We’ve been fast-marching for a while now,’ she said. ‘We’re damned tired, but if we’re going to march into this village, we’re not going to drag our boots. So the Fist called a short halt. That’s all.’

Tarr scratched at his beard, making the various depending bones and such rustle and click. ‘Fair enough,’ he said.

‘I am so relieved that you approve, Corporal. Now, the Fist wants the squads here all out in the main street.’

‘We can do that,’ Tarr replied, grinning. ‘Been fighting for a while now and we’re damned tired, Captain. So the sergeants got most of us resting up in the, uh, the tavern. But when the Fist sees us, well, we’ll be looking smart as can be, I’m sure.’

‘Get your arse into that tavern, Corporal, and wake the bastards up. We’ll wait right here-but not for long, understood?’

A quick, unobtrusive salute and Tarr headed off.

‘See what happens when an officer’s not around enough? They get damned full of themselves, that’s what happens, Beak.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Well, when they hear all the bad news they won’t be anywhere near as arrogant.’

‘Oh, they know, sir. Better than we do.’ But that’s not com.’ pletely true. They don’t know what I know, and neither, Captain my love, do you.

They both turned at the sound of the column, coming up fast. Faster than it should be, in fact.

The captain’s comment was succinct. ‘Shit.’ Then she added, ‘Go on ahead, Beak-get ‘em ready to move!’

‘Yes sir!’

The problem with owls was that, even as far as birds went, they were profoundly stupid. Getting them to even so much as turn their damned heads was a struggle, no matter how tightly Bottle gripped their tiny squirming souls.

He was locked in such a battle at the moment, so far past the notion of sleep that it seemed it belonged exclusively to other people and would for ever remain beyond his reach.

But all at once it did not matter where the owl was looking, nor even where it wanted to look. Because there were figures moving across the land, through the copses, the tilled grounds, swarming the slopes of the old quarry pits and on the road and all its converging tracks. Hundreds, thousands. Moving quiet, weapons readied. And less than half a league behind Keneb’s column.

Bottle shook himself, eyes blinking rapidly as he refocused-the pitted wall of the tavern, plaster chipped where daggers had been thrown against it, the yellow runnels of leakage from the thatched roof above the common room. Around him, marines pulling on their gear. Someone, probably Hellian, spitting and gagging somewhere behind the bar.

One of the newly arrived marines appeared in front of him, pulling up a chair and sitting down. The Dal Honese mage, the one with the jungle still in his eyes.

‘Nep Furrow,’ he now growled. ‘Mimber me?’

‘Mimber what?’

‘Me!’

‘Yes. Nep Furrow. Like you just said. Listen, I’ve got no time to talk-’

A fluttering wave of one gnarled hand. ‘We’en know! Bit the Edur! We’en know all’at.’ A bent finger stabbed at Bottle. ‘Issn this. You. Used dup! An’thas be-ad! Be-ad! We all die! Cuzzin you!’

‘Oh, thanks for that, you chewed-up root! We weren’t taking the scenic leg like you bastards, you know. In fact, we only got this far because of me!’

‘Vlah! Iss th’feedle! The feedle orn your sergeant! Issn the song, yeseen-it ain’t done-done yeet. Ain’t yeet done-done! Hah!’

Bottle stared at the mage. ‘So this is what happens when you pick your nose but never put anything back, right?’

‘Pick’n back! Hee hee! Een so, Bauble, yeen the cause alia us dyin, s’long as yeen know.’

And what about the unfinished song?’

An elaborate shrug. ‘Oonoes when, eh? Oonoes?’

Then Fiddler was at the table. ‘Bottle, now’s not the time for a Hood-damned conversation. Out into the street and look awake, damn you-we’re all about to charge out of this village like a herd of bhederin.’

Yeah, and right over a cliff we go. ‘Wasn’t me started this ‘ conversation, Sergeant-’

‘Grab your gear, soldier.’

Koryk stood with the others of the squad, barring Bottle who clearly thought he was unique or something, and watched as the leading elements of the column appeared at I the end of the main street, a darker mass amidst night’s last, stubborn grip. No-one on horses, he saw, which wasn’t too surprising. Food for Keneb and his tail-end company must have been hard to find, so horses went into the stew-there, a few left, but loaded down with gear. Soon there’d j be stringy, lean meat to add flavour to the local grain that tasted the way goat shit smelled.

He could feel his heart thumping strong in his chest. Oh, there would be fighting today. The Edur to the west were rolling them up all right. And ahead, on this side of the great capital city, there’d be an army or two. Waiting just for us and isn’t that nice of ‘em.

Fiddler loomed directly in front of Koryk and slapped the half-blood on the side of his helm. ‘Wake up, damn you!’

‘I was awake, Sergeant!’

But that was all right. Understandable, even, as Fiddler went down the line snapping at everyone. Aye, there’d been way too much drinking in this village and wits were anything but sharp. Of course, Koryk felt fine enough. He’d mostly slept when the others were draining the last casks of ale. Slept, aye, knowing what was coming.

The new marines from 3rd Company had provided some novelty but not for long. They’d taken the easy route and they knew it and now so did everyone else, and it gave them all a look in the eyes, one that said they still had something to prove and this little help-out here in this village hadn’t been nearly enough. Gonna have to dive across a few hundred more Edur, sweetie, before any of us but Smiles gives you a nod or two.

At the head of the column, which had now arrived, there was Fist Keneb and the sergeant, Thorn Tissy, along with Captain Sort and her brainless mage, Beak.

Keneb eyed the squads then said, ‘Sergeants, to me, please.’

Koryk watched Fiddler, Hellian, Gesler, Badan Gruk and Primly all head over to gather in a half-circle in front of the Fist.

‘Typical,’ muttered Smiles beside him. ‘Now we all go up on report. Especially you, Koryk. You don’t think anybody’s forgotten you murdering that official in Malaz City-so they know you’re the one to watch for.’

‘Oh, be quiet,’ Koryk muttered. ‘They’re just deciding now which squad dies first.’

That shut her up quick enough.

‘You’ve all done damned well,’ Keneb said in a low voice, ‘but now the serious work begins.’ Gesler snorted. ‘Think we didn’t know that, Fist?’

‘Still in the habit of irritating your superiors, I see.’ Gesler flashed his typical grin. ‘How many you bring with you, sir, if I might ask? Because, you see, I’m starting to smell something and it’s a bad smell. We can handle two to one odds. Three to one, even. But I’ve got a feeling we’re about to find. ourselves outnumbered what, ten to one? Twenty? Now, maybe you’ve brought us some more munitions, but unless you’ve got four or five wagons full hidden back of the column, it won’t be enough-’

‘That’s not our problem,’ Fiddler said, pulling a nit from his beard and cracking it between his teeth. ‘There’ll be mages and I know for a fact, Fist, that ours are used up. Even Bottle, and that’s saying a lot.’ Fiddler then scowled at Beak. ‘What in Hood’s name are you smiling about?’ Beak wilted, moved to hide behind Fafadan Sort. The captain seemed to bridle. ‘Listen, Fiddler, maybe you know nothing about this mage here, but I assure you he has combat magicks. Beak, can you hold your own in what’s to come?’

A low murmuring reply: ‘Yes sir. You’ll see. Everyone will because you’re all my friends and friends are important. The most important thing in the world. And I’ll show you.’

Fiddler winced and looked away, then squinted. ‘Shit, we’re losing the night.’

‘Form up for the march,’ Keneb ordered and damn, Fiddler observed, the Fist was looking old right now. ‘We’ll alternate to double-time every hundred paces-from what I understand, we don’t have very far to go.’

‘Until the way ahead is full of enemy,’ Gesler said. ‘Hope at least it’s within sight of Letheras. I’d like to see the damned walls before I feed the weeds.’

‘Enough of that, Sergeant. Dismissed.’

Fiddler didn’t respond to Gesler’s grin when they headed back to their squads.

‘Come on, Fid, all those talents of yours got to be all screaming the same thing right now, aren’t they?’

‘Aye, they’re all screaming at you to shut your damned mouth, Ges.’

Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas had collected almost more weapons than he could carry. Four of the better spears, two javelins. A single-edged sword something like a scimitar; a nice long, straight Letherii longsword with a sharply tapered point, filed down from what had been a blunted end; two sticker knives and a brace of gutters as well. Strapped to his back was a Letherii shield, wood, leather and bronze. He also carried a crossbow and twenty-seven quarrels. And one sharper.

They were headed, he well knew, to their last stand, and it would be heroic. Glorious. It would be as it should have been with Leoman of the Flails. They would stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, until not one was left alive. And years from now, songs would be sung of this dawning day. And there would be, among the details, a tale of one soldier, wielding spears and javelins and swords and knives and heaps of bodies at his feet. A warrior who had come from Seven Cities, yes, from thousands of leagues away, to finally give the proper ending to the Great Uprising of his homeland. A rebel once more, in the outlawed, homeless Fourteenth Army who were now called the Bonehunters, and whose own bones would be hunted, yes, for their magical properties, and sold for stacks of gold in markets. Especially Corabb’s own skull, larger than all the others, once home to a vast brain filled with genius and other brilliant thoughts. A skull not even a king could afford, yes, especially with the sword blade or spear clove right through it as lasting memento to Corabb’s spectacular death, the last marine standing-

‘For Hood’s sake, Corabb,’ snapped Cuttle behind him, ‘I’m dodging more spear butts now than I will in a bell’s time! Get rid of some of them, will you?’

‘I cannot,’ Corabb replied. ‘I shall need them all.’

‘Now that doesn’t surprise me, the way you treat your weapons.’

‘There will be many enemy that need killing, yes.’

‘That Letherii shield is next to useless,’ Cuttle said. ‘You should know that by now, Corabb.’

‘When it breaks I shall find another.’

He so looked forward to the imminent battle. The screams, the shrieks of the dying, the shock of the enemy as it reeled back, repulsed again and again. The marines had earned it, oh yes. The fight they had all been waiting for, outside the very walls of Letheras-and the citizens would line them to watch, with wonder, with astonishment, with awe, as Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas unleashed such ferocity as to sear the souls of every witness…

Hellian was never drinking that stuff again. Imagine, sick, still drunk, thirsty and hallucinating all at once. Almost as bad as that night of the Paralt Festival in Kartool, with all those people wearing giant spider costumes and Hellian, in a screaming frenzy, trying to stamp on all of them.

Now, she was trudging at the head of her paltry squad in the grainy half-light of dawn, and from the snatches of conversation that penetrated her present state of disrepair she gathered that the Edur were right behind them, like ten thousand giant spiders with fangs that could shoot out and skewer innocent seagulls and terrified women. And even worse, this damned column was marching straight for a giant web eager to ensnare them all.

Meanwhile, there were the hallucinations. Her corporal splitting in two, for example. One here, one there, both talking at once but not the same thing and not even in the same voice. And what about that doe-eyed fool with the stupid name who was now always hovering close? Scab Breath? Skulldent? Whatever, she had ten years on him easy, maybe more, or that’s how it seemed since he had that smooth baby-skin-Babyskin?-face that made him look, gods, fourteen or so. All breathless with some bizarre story about being a prince and the last of a royal line and saving seeds to plant in perfect soil where cacti don’t grow and now he wanted… wanted what? She couldn’t be sure, but he was triggering all sorts of nasty thoughts in her head, above all an overwhelming desire to corrupt the boy so bad he’d never see straight ever again, just to prove that she wasn’t someone anybody messed with without getting all messed up themselves. So maybe it all came down to power. The power to crush innocence and that was something even a terrified woman could do, couldn’t she?

Passing through another village and oh, this wasn’t a good sign. It’d been systematically flattened. Every building nothing but rubble. Armies did things like that to remove cover, to eliminate the chance of establishing redoubts and all that sort of thing. No trees beyond, either, just a level stretch of ploughed fields with the hedgerows cut down to stumps and the crops all burnt to blackened stubble an already the morning sun was lancing deadly darts into he skull, forcing her to down a few mouthfuls of her dwindlin supply of Falari rum from the transports.

Steadying her some, thank Hood.

Her corporal merged back into one, which was a good sign, and he was pointing ahead and talking about something-

‘What? Wait, Touchy Breath, wha’s that you’re saying?’

‘The rise opposite, Sergeant! See the army waiting for us? See it? Gods above, we’re finished! Thousands! No, worse than thousands-’

‘Be quiet! I can see ‘em well enough-’

‘But you’re looking the wrong way!’

That’s no matter either way, Corporal. I still see ‘em, don’t I? Now stop crowding me and go find Urb-got to keep ‘im close to keep ‘im alive, the clumsy fool.’

‘He won’t come, Sergeant.’

‘Wha’ you talkin’

‘bout?’

‘It’s Skulldeath, you see. He’s announced that he’s given his heart to you-’

‘His what? Listen, you go an’ tell Hearty Death that he can have his skull back cause I don’t wannit, but I’ll take his cock once we’re done killing all these bassards or maybe even before then if there’s a chance, but in the meantime, drag Urb here because I’m ‘sponsible for ‘im, you see, for letting’

‘im kick in that temple door.’

‘Sergeant, he won’t-’

‘How come your voice keeps changin’?’

‘So,’ said the commander of the Letherii forces arrayed along the ridge, ‘there they are. What do you judge, Sirryn Kanar? Under a thousand? I would believe so. All the way from the coast. Extraordinary.’

‘They have survived thus far,’ Sirryn said, scowling, ‘because they are unwilling to stand and fight.’

‘Rubbish,’ the veteran officer replied. ‘They fought the way they needed to, and they did it exceptionally well, as Hanradi and his Edur would attest. Under a thousand, by the Errant. What I could do with ten thousand such soldiers, Finadd. Pilott, Korshenn, Descent, T’roos, Isthmus

– we could conquer them all. Two campaign seasons, no more than that.’

‘Be that as it may,’ Sirryn said, ‘we’re about to kill them all, sir.’

‘Yes, Finadd,’ the commander sighed. ‘So we are.’ He hesitated, then cast Sirryn an oddly sly glance. ‘I doubt there will be much opportunity to excessively bleed the Tiste Edur, Finadd. They have done their task, after all, and now need only dig in behind these Malazans-and when the poor fools break, as they will, they will be routing right into Hanradi’s Edur spears, and that will be the end of that.’

Sirryn Kanar shrugged. ‘I still do not understand how these Malazans could have believed a thousand of their soldiers would be enough to conquer our empire. Even with their explosives and such.’

‘You forget their formidable sorcery, Finadd.’

‘Formidable at stealth, at hiding them from our forces. Naught else. And now, such talents have no use at all. We see our enemy, sir, and they are exposed, and so they will die.’

‘Best we get on with it, then,’ the commander said, somewhat shortly, as he turned to gesture his mages forward.

Below, on the vast plain that would be the killing field for this invading army-if it could even be called that-the Malazan column began, with alacrity, reforming into a defensive circle. The commander grunted. ‘They hold to no illusions, Finadd, do they? They are finished and they know it. And so, there will be no rout, no retreat of any sort. Look at them! There they will stand, until none stand.’

Gathered now into their defensive circle, in very nearly the centre of the killing field, the force suddenly seemed pathetically small. The commander glanced at his seven mages, now arrayed at the very crest of the ridge and beginning the end of their ritual-which had been a week in the making. Then back to the distant huddle of Malazans. ‘Errant bless peace upon their souls,’ he whispered.

It was clear that Atri-Preda Bivatt, impatient as she no doubt was, had at the last moment decided to draw out the beginning of battle, to let the sun continue its assault on the mud of the seabed. Alas, such delay was not in Redmask’s interest, and so he acted first.

The Letherii mages each stood within a protective ring of soldiers carrying oversized shields. They were positioned beyond arrow range, but Bivatt well knew their vulnerability nonetheless, particularly once they began their ritual summoning of power.

Toc Anaster, seated on his horse to permit him a clearer view, felt the scarring of his missing eye blaze into savage itching, and he could feel how the air grew charged, febrile, as the two mages bound their wills together. They could not, he suspected, maintain control for very long. The sorcery would need to erupt, would need to be released. To roll in foaming waves down into the seabed, blistering their way across the ground to crash into the Awl lines. Where warriors would die by the hundreds, perhaps by the thousands.

Against such a thing, Redmask’s few shamans could do nothing. All that had once given power to the plains tribe was torn, very nearly shredded by displacement, by the desecration of holy grounds, by the deaths of countless warriors and elders and children. The Awl culture, Toe now understood, was crumbling, and to save it, to resurrect his people, Redmask needed victory this day, and he would do anything to achieve it.

Including, if need be, the sacrifice of his K’Chain Che’Malle.

Beneath their strange armour, beneath the fused swords at the end of the K’ell Hunter’s arms, beneath their silent language and inexplicable alliance with Redmask of the Awl, the K’Chain Che’Malle were reptiles, and their blood was cold, and deep in their brains, perhaps, could be found ancient memories, recollections of a pre-civilized existence, a wildness bound in the skein of instincts. And so the patience of a supreme predator coursed in that chill blood.

Reptiles. Damned lizards.

Thirty or so paces from where stood the mages and their guardian soldiers, the slope reached down to the edge of the ancient sea, where the mud stretched out amidst tufts of smeared, flattened grasses, and where run-off had pooled before slowly ebbing away into the silts beneath.

The K’Chain Che’Malle had wallowed down into that mud, quite possibly even as the rains continued to thrash down in darkness. Huge as they were, they had proved skilled at burying themselves so that no sign was visible of their presence-no sign at least to a casual viewer. And after all, who could have imagined such enormous beasts were capable of simply disappearing from sight?

And Redmask had guessed more or less correctly where the mages would position themselves; indeed, he had invited such placements, where waves of magic would converge to maximum effect against his waiting warriors. Neither Sag’Churok nor Gunth Mach rose to find themselves too far away for that sudden, devastating rush upslope.

Screams of terror as the flat clay seemed to erupt at the old shoreline, and then, mud cascading from their backs, the demonic creatures were racing upslope, each closing in on one of the mages.

Panicked retreat-flight from the guards, flinging shields and swords away-exposing the hapless mages, both of whom sought to unleash their sorcery-

– no time, as Sag’Churok’s twin blades slashed out and the first mage seemed to vanish in a bloom of blood and meat-

– no time, as Gunth Mach leapt high in the air then landed with splayed talons directly atop the second, cowering mage, crushing him in a snap of bones-

And then the beasts wheeled, racing back in zigzag patterns as flights of arrows descended. Those that struck bounced or, rarely, penetrated the thick scaled hide enough to hold fixed in place, until the creature’s motion worked them loose.

In the wake of this sudden honor, the Letherii horns sounded like cries of rage, and all at once the wedges were moving down the slope, and some battle song lifted skyward to set cadence-but it was a shrill sound, erupting from the throats of shaken soldiers-

As easily as that, Toc Anaster reflected, this battle begins.

Behind him, Torrent was dancing in gleeful frenzy.

Shouting: ‘Redmask! Redmask! Redmask!’

The wedges edged out onto the seabed and visibly sagged as momentum slowed. Between them milled the archers, skirmishers and some medium infantry, and Toc saw soldiers slipping, falling, boots skidding out as they sought purchase to draw bowstrings-chaos. The heavy infantry in front were now sinking to their knees, while those at the back stumbled into those before them, as the rhythm broke, then utterly collapsed.

A second set of horns sounded as soon as each entire wedge was on the flat, and all forward motion ceased. A moment of relative silence as the wedges reformed, then a new song emerged from the soldiers, this one deeper, more assured, and carrying a slower cadence, a drawn-out beat that proved the perfect match to an advance of one step at a time, with a settling pause between it and the next.

Toc grunted in admiration. That was impressive control indeed, and it looked to be working.

They will reach the Awl lines intact. Still, no solid footing to fix shields or swing weapons with strength. Gods, this is going to be bloody.

For all of Redmask’s creativity, he was not, in Toe’s judgement, a tactical genius. Here, he had done all he could to gain advantage, displaying due competence. Without the K’Chain Che’Malle, this battle might already be over. In any case, Redmask’s second surprise could not-for anyone-have been much of a surprise at all.

Natarkas, face slick with sweat behind his red mask, eased his horse into a canter. Surrounding him was the sound of thunder. Two thousand chosen warriors rode with him across the plain. As the canter was loosed into a gallop, lances were set, shields settled to cover groin, hip and chest.

Natarkas had led his cavalry through the night’s rain, east of the seabed, then north and finally, as false dawn licked the darkness, westward.

At dawn, they were positioned a third of a league behind the Letherii forces. Arrayed into a wedge with Natarkas himself positioned in the centre of the sixth row. Awaiting the first sounds of battle.

Redmask had been adamant with his instructions. If enemy scouts found them, they were to wait, and wait yet longer, listening to the sounds of battle for at least two turns of the wheel. If they believed themselves un-discovered-if the opportunity for surprise remained-when the sounds of fighting commenced, Natarkas was to immediately lead his cavalry into an attack on the rear formations of the enemy forces-on, no doubt, the Tiste Edur. There was to be no deviation from these instructions.

At dawn, his own scouts had ridden to Natarkas to announce that a mounted troop of Edur had discovered them. And he thought back to Redmask the night before. ‘Natarkas, do you understand why, if you are seen, I want you to hold? To not immediately charge? No? Then I will explain. If you are seen, 1 must be able to exploit that in the battle on the seabed. At least two wheels you must wait, doing nothing. This will lock the Tiste Edur in place. It may even draw out the Bluerose cavalry-and should they approach you, invite them to the chase ~ lead them away, yes, and keep leading them away. Do not engage them, Natarkas! You will be savaged! Run their horses into the dust-you see, they will cease to matter by then, and Bivatt will not have them at her disposal. This is important! Do you understand my commands?’

Yes, he did understand them. If surprise was lost, he was to lead his Awl… away. Like cowards. But they had played the cowards before, and that was a truth that burned in his heart. Flaring into agony whenever he saw the Mezla, Toe Anaster, yes, the one-eyed foreigner who stood as living proof to a time of such darkness among the Awl that Natarkas could barely breathe whenever he thought about it.

And he knew his fellow warriors felt the same. The hol-lowness inside, the terrible need to give answer, to reject the past in the only way now left to them.

They had been seen, yes.

But they would not run. Nor would they wait. They would ride to the sounds of battle. They would sight the hated enemy, and they would charge.

Redemption. Do you understand that word, Redmask? No? Then, we shall show you its meaning.

‘Sister Shadow, they’re coming.’ Brohl Handar tightened the strap of his helm. ‘Ready your spears!’ he bellowed to his warriors, and along the entire front line, two ranks deep, the iron points of the spears flashed downward. The foremost rank knelt, angling their points to the chest height of the approaching horses, while the row behind them remained standing, ready to thrust. ‘Shields to guard!’ The third rank edged forward half a step to bring their shields into a guard position beneath the weapon arms of the warriors in the second row.

Brohl turned to one of his runners. ‘Inform the Atri-Preda that we face a cavalry charge, and I strongly advise she order the Bluerose to mount up for a flank attack-the sooner we are done with this the sooner we can join the fight on the seabed.’

He watched as the youth rushed off.

The wedges were on the flat now, he understood, employing the step and settle advance Bivatt had devised in order to adjust to the mud. They were probably nearing the Awl lines, although yet to clash. The Atri-Preda had another tactic for that moment, and Brohl Handar wished her well.

The slaying of the mages had been a grim opening to this day’s battle, but the Overseer’s confidence had, if anything, begun to grow.

These fools charge us! They charge a forest of spears! It is suU tide!

Finally, he realized, they could end this. Finally, this absurd war could end. By day’s close, not a single Awl would remain alive. Not one.

The thunder of hoofs. Lances lowered, the horses with necks stretched-out, the warriors hunching down-closer, closer, then, all at once, chaos.

No horse could be made to run into a wall of bristling spears. In the midst of the Awl lancers were mounted archers, and as the mass of riders drew to within a hundred paces of Edur, these archers rose on their stirrups and released a swarm of arrows.

The first row of Edur, kneeling with spears planted, had leaned their rectangular Letherii shields against their shoulders-the best they could manage with both hands on the spear shaft. Those immediately behind them were better protected, but the spear-hedge, as the Letherii called it, was vulnerable.

Warriors screamed, spun round by the impact of arrows. The row rippled, wavered, was suddenly ragged.

Horses could not be made to run into a wall of bristling spears. But, if sufficiently trained, they could be made to hammer into a mass of human flesh. And, among those still facing spears positioned at chest height, they could jump.

A second flight of arrows slanted out at forty or so paces. Then a third at ten paces.

The facing side of the Edur square was a ragged mess by the time the charge struck home. Beasts launched themselves into the air, straining to clear the first spears, only to intercept other iron-headed points-but none of these were butted into the ground, and while serrated edges slashed through leather plates and the flesh beneath, many were driven aside or punched back. In the gaps in the front line, the horses plunged into the ranks of Edur, flinging warriors away, trampling others. Lances thudded into reeling bodies, skidded from desperate shield blocks, kissed faces and throats in a welter of blood.

Brohl Handar, positioned behind his Edur square, stared in horror as the entire block of Arapay warriors seemed to recoil, flinch back, then inexorably fold inward from the facing side.

The Awl wedge had driven deep and was now exploding from within the disordered square. The impact had driven warriors back, fouling those behind them, in a rippling effect that spread through the entire formation.

Among the Awl, in the midst of jostling, stumbling Edur, heavy cutting swords appeared as lances were shattered, splintered or left in bodies. In screaming frenzy, the savages were hacking down on all sides.

Horses went down, kicking, lashing out in their death-throes. Spears stabbed upwards to lift Awl warriors from their saddles.

The square was seething madness.

And horses continued to go down, whilst others backed, despite the shrieking commands of their riders. More spears raked riders from their saddles, crowds closing about individuals.

All at once, the Awl were seeking to withdraw, and the Edur warriors began pushing, the square’s flanks advancing in an effort to enclose the attackers.

Someone was screaming at Brohl Handar. Someone at his side, and he turned to see one of his runners.

Who was pointing westward with frantic gestures.

Bluerose cavalry, forming up.

Brohl Handar stared at the distant ranks, the sun-lashed lance-heads held high, the horses’ heads lifting and tossing, then he shook himself. ‘Sound close ranks! The square does not pursue! Close ranks and let the enemy withdraw!’

Moments later, horns blared.

The Awl did not understand. Panic was already among them, and the sudden recoiling of those now advancing Edur struck them as an opportunity. Eager to disengage, the horse-warriors sprang away from all contact-twenty paces-archers twisting in their saddles to loose arrows-forty, fifty paces, and a copper-faced officer among them yelling at his troops to draw up, to reform for another charge-and there was thunder in the west, and that warrior turned in his saddle, and saw, descending upon his milling ranks, his own death.

His death, and that of his warriors.

Brohl Handar watched as the commander frantically tried to wheel his troops, to set them, to push the weary, bloodied beasts and their equally weary riders into a j meeting charge-but it was too late. Voices cried out in fear as warriors saw what was descending upon them. The confusion redoubled, and then riders were breaking, fleeing-

All at once, the Bluerose lancers swept into them.

Brohl Handar looked down upon his Arapay-Sister Shadow, but we have been wounded. ‘Sound the slow advance!’ he commanded, stepping forward and drawing his sword. ‘We will finish what the Bluerose have begun.’ I want those bastards. Every damned one of them. Screaming in pain, dying by our blades!

Something dark and savage swirled awake within him. Oh, there would be pleasure in killing. Here. Now. Such pleasure.

As the Bluerose charge rolled through the Awl cavalry, a broad-bladed lance caught Natarkas-still shrieking his commands to wheel-in the side of the head. The point punched through low on his left temple, beneath the rim of the bronze-banded helm. It shattered that plate of the skull, along with his cheekbone and the orbit of the eye. Then drove still deeper, through brain and nasal cavity.

Blackness bloomed in his mind.

Beneath him-as he toppled, twisted round when the lance dragged free-his horse staggered before the impact of the attacker’s own mount; then, as the weight of Natarkas’s body rolled away, the beast bolted, seeking a place away from this carnage, this terror.

All at once, open plain ahead and two other riderless horses racing away, heads high in sudden freedom.

Natarkas’s horse set off after them.

The chaos in its heart dwindled, faded, fluttered away with every exultant breath the beast drew into its aching lungs.

Free!

Never! Free!

Never again!

On the seabed, the heavy infantry wedges advanced beneath the now constant hail of descending arrows. Skittering on raised shields, glancing from visored helms, stabbing down through gaps in armour and chance ricochets. Soldiers cried out, stumbled, recovered or sought to fall-but these latter were suddenly grasped by hands on either side and bodies closed in, keeping them upright, feet now dragging as life poured its crimson gift to the churned mud below. Those hands then began pushing the dead and the dying forward, through the ranks. Hands reaching back, grasping, tugging and pulling, then pushing into yet more waiting hands.

Through all of this, the chant continued, the wait beat marked each settling step.

Twelve paces from the Awl on their islands of dry, able now to see into faces, to see the blazing eyes filled with fear or rage.

This slow advance could not but unnerve the waiting Awl. Human spear-heads, edging ever closer. Massive iron fangs, inexorably looming, step, wait, step, wait, step.

And now, eight paces away, arrow-riddled corpses were being flung forward from the front ranks, the bodies sprawling into the mud. Shields followed here and there. Boots settled atop these things, pushing them into the mud.

Bodies and shields, appearing in a seemingly unending stream.

Building, there in the last six strides, a floor of flesh, leather, wood and armour.

Javelins sleeted into those wedges, driving soldiers back and down, only to have their bodies thrust forward with chilling disregard. The wounded bled out. The wounded drowned screaming in the mud. And each wedge seemed to lift itself up and out of the mud, although the cadence did not change.

Four steps. Three.

And, at a bellowing shout, the points of those enormous wedges suddenly drove forward.

Into human flesh, into set shields, spears. Into the Awl.

Each and every mind dreamed of victory. Of immortality. And, among them all, not one would yield.

The sun stared down, blazing with eager heat, on Q’uson Tapi, where two civilizations locked throat to throat.

One last time.

A fateful decision, maybe, but he’d made it now. Dragging with him all the squads that had been in the village, Fiddler took over from some of Keneb’s more beat-up units the west-facing side of their turtleback defence. No longer standing eye to eye with that huge Letherii army and its Hood-cursed sorcerers. No, here they waited, and opposite them, drawing up in thick ranks, the Tiste Edur.

Was it cowardice? He wasn’t sure, and from the looks he caught in the eyes of his fellow sergeants-barring Hellian who’d made a temporarily unsuccessful grab at Skulldeath, or more precisely at his crotch, before Primly intervened-they weren’t sure, either.

Fine, then, I just don’t want to see my death come rolling down on me. Is that cowardly? Aye, by all counts it couldn’t be anything but. Still, there’s this. I don’t feel frightened.

No, all he wanted right now, beyond what Hellian so obviously wanted, of course, all he wanted, then, was to die fighting. To see the face of the bastard who killed him, to pass on, in that final meeting of eyes, all that dying meant, must have meant and would always mean… whatever that was, and let’s hope I do a better job of letting my killer know whatever it is-better, that is, than all those whose eyes I’ve looked into as they died at my hand. Aye, seems a worthy enough prayer.

But I ain’t praying to you, Hood.

In fact, damned if I know who I’m praying to, but even that doesn’t seem to matter.

His soldiers were digging holes but not saying much. They’d received a satchelful of munitions, including two more cussers, and while that wasn’t nearly enough it made it advisable to dig the holes where they could crouch for cover when those sharpers, cussers and all the rest started going off.

All of this, dammit, assumed there would be fighting.

Far more likely, magic would sweep over the Malazans, one and all, grabbing at their throats even as it burned away skin, muscle and organs, burned away even their last desperate, furious screams.

Fiddler vowed to make his last scream a curse. A good one, too.

He stared across at the rows of Tiste Edur.

Beside him, Cuttle said, ‘They don’t like it neither, you know.’

Fiddler replied with a wordless grunt.

‘That’s their leader, that old one with the hunched shoulders. Too many paying him too much attention. I plan to take him out, Fid-with a cusser. Listen-are you listening? As soon as that wave of magic starts its roll, we should damn well up and charge these bastards.’

Not a bad idea, actually. Blinking, Fiddler faced the sapper, and then nodded. ‘Pass the word, then.’

At that moment one of Thorn Tissy’s soldiers jogged into their midst. ‘Fist’s orders,’ he said, looking round. ‘Where’s your captain?’

‘Holding Beak’s hand, somewhere else,’ Fiddler replied. ‘You can give those orders to me, soldier.’

‘All right. Maintain the turtleback-do not advance on the enemy-’

‘That’s fucking-’

‘Enough, Cuttle!’ Fiddler snapped. To the runner he nodded and said, ‘How long?’

A blank expression answered that question.

Fiddler waved the idiot on, then turned once more to stare across at the Tiste Edur.

‘Damn him, Fid!’

‘Relax, Cuttle. We’ll set out when we have to, all right?’

‘Sergeant?’ Bottle was suddenly crawling out of the hole he’d dug, and there was a strained look on his face. ‘Something… something’s happening-’

At that moment, from the ridge to the east, a blood-chilling sound-like ten thousand anchor chains ripping up from the ground, and there rose a virulent wall of swirling magic. Dark purple and shot through with crimson veins, black etchings like lightning darting along the crest as it rose, higher, yet higher-

‘Hood’s balls!’ Cuttle breathed, eyes wide.

Fiddler simply stared. This was the sorcery they’d seen off the north coast of Seven Cities. Only, then they’d had Quick Ben with them. And Bottle had his-he reached out and pulled Bottle close. ‘Listen! Is she-’

‘No, Fid! Nowhere! She’s not been with me since we landed. I’m sorry-’

Fiddler flung the man back down.

The wall heaved itself still higher.

The Tiste Edur along the western edge of the killing field were suddenly pulling back.

Cuttle yelled, ‘We need to go now! Fiddler! Now!’

Yet he could not move. Could not answer, no matter how the sapper railed at him. Could only stare, craning, ever upward. Too much magic. ‘Gods above,’ he muttered, ‘talk about overkill,’

Run away from this? Not a chance.

Cuttle dragged him round.

Fiddler scowled and pushed the man back, hard enough to make the sapper stumble. ‘Fuck running, Cuttle! You think we can out-run that1’

‘But the Edur-’

‘It’s going to take them too-can’t you see that?’ It has to-no-one can control it once it’s released-no-one. ‘Those Hood-damned Edur have been set up, Cuttle!’ Oh yes, the Letherii wanted to get rid of their masters-they just didn’t want to do it with us as allies. No, they’ll do it their way and take out both enemies at the same damned time…

Three hundred paces to the west, Hanradi stared up at that Letherii magic. And understood, all at once. He understood.

‘We have been betrayed,’ he said, as much to himself as to the warriors standing close by. ‘That ritual-it has been days in the making. Maybe weeks. Once unleashed…’ the devastation will stretch for leagues westward.

What to do?

Father Shadow, what to do? ‘Where are my K’risnan?’ he suddenly demanded, turning to his aides.

Two Edur hobbled forward, their faces ashen.

‘Can you protect us?’

Neither replied, and neither would meet Hanradi’s eyes.

‘Can you not call upon Hannan Mosag? Reach through to the Ceda, damn you!’

‘You do not understand!’ one of the once-young K’risnan shouted. ‘We are-all-we are all abandoned!’

‘But Kurald Emurlahn-’

‘Yes! Awake once more! But we cannot reach it! Nor can the Ceda!’

‘And what of that other power? The chaos?’

‘Gone! Fled!’

Hanradi stared at the two warlocks. He drew his sword and lashed the blade across the nearest one’s face, the edge biting through bridge of nose and splitting both eyeballs. Shrieking, the figure reeled back, hands at his face. Hanradi stepped forward and drove his sword into the creature’s twisted chest, and the blood that gushed forth was almost black.

Tugging the weapon free, Hanradi turned to the other one, who cowered back. ‘You warlocks,’ the once-king said in a grating voice, ‘are the cause of this. All of this.’ He took another step closer. ‘Would that you were Hannan Mosag crouched before me now-’

‘Wait!’ the K’risnan shrieked, suddenly pointing eastward. ‘Wait! One gives answer! One gives answer!’

Hanradi turned, eyes focusing with some difficulty on the Malazans-so overwhelming was the wave of Letherii magic that a shadow had descended upon the entire killing field.

Rising from that huddled mass of soldiers, a faint, luminous glow. Silver, vaguely pulsing.

Hanradi’s laugh was harsh. ‘That pathetic thing is an answer?’ He half raised his sword.

‘No!’ the K’risnan cried. ‘Wait! Look, you stupid fool! Look!’

And so he did, once again.

And saw that dome of silver light burgeoning, spreading out to engulf the entire force-and it thickened, became opaque-

The last K’risnan clutched at Hanradi’s arm. ‘Listen to me! Its power-Father Shadow! Its power!’

‘Can it hold?’ Hanradi demanded. ‘Can it hold against the Letherii?’

He saw no answer in the K’risnan’s red-rimmed eyes.

It cannot-look, still, it is tiny-against that evergrowing wave-

But… it need be no larger than that, need it? It engulfs them all.

‘Sound the advance!’ he shouted. ‘At the double!’

Wide eyes fixed on Hanradi, who pointed at that scintillating dome of ethereal power. ‘At the very least we can crouch in its shadow! Now, move forward! Everyone!’

Beak, who had once possessed another name, a more boring name, had been playing in the dirt that afternoon, on the floor of the old barn where no-one went any more and that was far away from the rest of the buildings of the estate, far enough away to enable him to imagine he was alone in an abandoned world. A world without trouble.

He was playing with the discarded lumps of wax he collected from the trash heap below the back wall of the main house. The heat of his hands could change their shape, like magic. He could mould faces from the pieces and build entire families like those families down in the village, where boys and girls his age worked alongside their parents and when not working played in the woods and were always laughing.

This was where his brother found him. His brother with the sad face so unlike the wax ones he liked to make. He arrived carrying a coil of rope, and stood just inside the gaping entrance with its jammed-wide doors all overgrown.

Beak, who had a more boring name back then, saw in his brother’s face a sudden distress, which then drained away and a faint smile took its place which was a relief since Beak always hated it when his brother went off somewhere to cry. Older brothers should never do that and if he was older, why, he’d never do that.

His brother then walked towards him, and still half smiling he said, ‘I need you to leave, little one. Take your toys and leave here.’

Beak stared with wide eyes. His brother never asked such things of him. His brother had always shared this barn. ‘Don’t you want to play with me?’

‘Not now,’ his brother replied, and Beak saw that his hands were trembling which meant there’d been trouble back at the estate. Trouble with Mother.

‘Playing will make you feel better,’ Beak said.

‘I know. But not now.’

‘Later?’ Beak began collecting his wax villagers.

‘We’ll see.’

There were decisions that did not seem like decisions. And choices could just fall into place when nobody was really looking and that was how things were in childhood just as they were for adults. Wax villagers cradled in his arms, Beak set off, out the front and into the sunlight. Summer days were always wonderful-the sun was hot enough to make the villagers weep with joy, once he lined them up on the old border stone that meant nothing any more.

The stone was about eighteen of Beak’s small paces away, toppled down at one corner of the track before it turned and sank down towards the bridge and the stream where minnows lived until it dried up and then they died because minnows could only breathe in water. He had just set his toys down in a row when he decided he needed to ask his brother something.

Decisions and choices, falling.

What was it he had wanted to ask? There was no memory of that. The memory of that was gone, melted down into nothing. It had been a very hot day.

Reaching the entrance he saw his brother-who had been sitting with legs dangling from the loft’s edge-slide over to drop down onto the floor. But he didn’t drop all the way. The rope round his neck caught him instead.

And then, his face turning dark as his eyes bulged and his tongue pushed out, his brother danced in the air, kicking through the shafts of dusty sunlight.

Beak ran up to him-the game his brother had been playing with the rope had gone all wrong, and now his brother was choking. He threw his arms about his brother’s kicking legs and tried with all his might to hold him up.

And there he stood, and perhaps he was screaming, but perhaps he wasn’t, because this was an abandoned place, too far away from anyone who might help.

His brother tried to kick him away. His brother’s fists punched down on the top of Beak’s head, hard enough to hurt but not so much since those hands couldn’t but barely reach him, short as he was being still younger than his brother. So he just held on.

Fire awoke in the muscles of his arms. In his shoulders. His neck. His legs shook beneath him, because he needed to stand on his toes-if he tried to move his arms further down to well below his brother’s knees, then his brother simply bent those knees and started choking again.

Fire everywhere, fire right through Beak’s body.

His legs were failing. His arms were failing. And as they failed his brother choked. Pee ran down to burn against Beak’s wrists and his face. The air was suddenly thick with worse smells and his brother never did things like this-all this mess, the terrible mistake with the rope.

Beak could not hold on, and this was the problem with being a younger brother, with being as he was. And the kicking finally stilled, the muscles of his brother’s legs becoming soft, loose. Two fingertips from one of his brother’s hands lightly brushed Beak’s hair, but they only moved when Beak himself moved, so those fingers were as still as the legs.

It was good that his brother wasn’t fighting any more. He must have loosened the rope from round his neck and was now just resting. And that was good because Beak was now on his knees, arms wrapped tight about his brother’s feet.

And there he stayed.

Until, three bells after dusk, one of the stable hands from the search party came into the barn with a lantern.

By then, the sun’s heat earlier that afternoon had ruined all his villagers, had drawn down their faces into expressions of grief, and Beak did not come back to collect them up, did not reshape them into nicer faces. Those lumps remained on the border stone that meant nothing any more, sinking down in the day after day sun.

After that last day with his brother, there was trouble aplenty in the household. But it did not last long, not long at all.

He did not know why he was thinking about his brother now, as he set ablaze every candle within him to make the world bright and to save all his friends. And before long he no longer sensed anyone else, barring the faint smudges they had become. The captain, the Fist, all the soldiers who were his friends, he let his light unfold to embrace them all, to keep them safe from that frightening, dark magic so eager to rush down upon them.

It had grown too powerful for those seven mages to contain. They had created something that would now destroy them, but Beak would not let it hurt his friends. And so he made his light burn yet brighter. He made of it a solid thing. Would it be enough? He did not know, but it had to be, for without friends there was nothing, no-one.

Brighter, hotter, so hot the wax of the candles burst into clouds of droplets, flaring bright as the sun, one after another. And, when every coloured candle was lit, why, there was white.

And yet more, for as each joined the torrent emanating from him, he felt in himself a cleansing, a scouring away, what priests called purification only they really knew nothing about purification because it had nothing to do with offerings of blood or coin and nothing to do with starving yourself and whipping your own back or endlessly chanting until the brain goes numb. Nothing like any of that. Purification, Beak now understood, was final.

Everything glowed, as if lit from fires within. The once-black stubble of crops blazed back into fierce life. Stones shone like precious gems. Incandescence raged on all sides. Fiddler saw his soldiers and he could see through, in pulsing flashes, to their very bones, the organs huddled within their cages. He saw, along one entire side of Koryk, old fractures on the ribs, the left arm, the shoulder blade, the hip. He saw three knuckle-sized dents on Cuttle’s skull beneath the now translucent helm-a rap he had taken when still a babe, soft-boned and vulnerable. He saw the damage between Smiles’s legs from all the times she savaged herself. He saw in Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas the coursing blood that held in it the power to destroy every cancer that struck him, and he was a man under siege from that disease, but it would never kill. Would not even sicken him.

He saw in Bottle coruscating waves of raw power, a refulgence devoid of all control-but that would come. It will come.

Corporal Tarr crouched down in the hole he’d dug, and the light emanating from him looked solid as iron.

Among the others he saw more than any mortal would want to see, yet he could hot close his eyes, could not look away.

Gesler and Stormy were lit in gold fire. Even Stormy’s beard and hair-all spun gold now-a brutal beauty cascading round his face, and the damned fool was laughing.

The world beyond had vanished behind an opaque, curved wall of silver fire. Vague shapes on the other side-yes, he’d seen the Tiste Edur approaching, seeking some kind of shelter.

Fiddler found he was standing, facing that wall, and now he was walking forward. Because some things matter more than others. Stepping into that silver fire, feeling it lance through his entire body, neither hot nor cold, neither pain nor joy.

He staggered suddenly, blinking, and not fifteen paces from him crouched hundreds of Tiste Edur. Waiting to die. * * *

Hanradi knelt with his gaze fixed on the sky, half of which had vanished behind a blackened wall of writhing madness. The crest had begun its toppling advance.

Sudden motion drew his eyes down.

To see a Malazan-now transformed into an apparition of white-beard, hair-the dangling finger bones were now polished, luminous, as was his armour, his weapons. Scoured, polished, even the leather of his harness looked new, supple.

The Malazan met his gaze with silver eyes, then he lifted one perfect hand, and waved them all forward.

Hanradi rose, flinging his sword aside.

His warriors saw. His warriors did the same, and as they all moved forward, the dome of silver fire all at once rushed towards them.

A piercing shriek and Hanradi turned to see his last K’risnan burst into flames-a single blinding instant, then the hapless warlock was simply ash, settling onto the ground-

Beak was happy to save them. He had understood that old sergeant. The twisted mage, alas, could not embrace such purification. Too much of his soul had been surrendered. The others-oh, they were wounded, filled with bitterness that he needed to sweep away, and so he did. Nothing was difficult any more. Nothing-At that moment, the wave of Letherii magic descended.

The Letherii commander could not see the killing field, could indeed see nothing but that swirling, burgeoning wall of eager sorcery. Its cruel hunger poured down in hissing clouds.

When it heaved forward, all illusion of control vanished.

The commander, with Sirryn Kanar cowering beside him, saw all seven of his mages plucked from the ground, dragged up into the air, into the wake of that charging wall. Screaming, flailing, then streaks of whipping blood as they were torn apart moments before vanishing into the dark storm.

The sorcery lurched, then plunged down upon the killing field.

Detonation.

Soldiers were thrown from their feet. Horses were flung onto their sides, riders tumbling or pinned as the terrified beasts rolled onto their backs. The entire ridge seemed to ripple, then buckle, and sudden slumping pulled soldiers from the edge, burying them in slides racing for the field below. Mouths were open, screams unleashed in seeming silence, the horror in so many eyes-

The collapsing wave blew apart-

Beak was driven down by the immense weight, the horrible hunger. Yet he would not retreat. Instead, he let the fire within him lash out, devouring every candle, igniting everything.

His friends, yes, the only ones he had ever known.

Survival, he realized, could only be found through purity. Of his love for them all-how so many of them had smiled at him, laughed with him. How hands clapped him on the shoulder and even, now and then, tousled his hair.

He would have liked to see the captain one last time, and maybe even kiss her. On the cheek, although of course he would have liked something far more… brave. But he was Beak, after all, and he could hold on to but one thing at a time.

Arms wrapped tight, even as the fire began to burn the muscles of his arms. His shoulders and neck. His legs.

He could hold on, now, until they found him.’

Those fires were so hot, now, burning-but there was no pain. Pain had been scoured away, cleansed away. Oh, the weight was vast, getting heavier still, but he would not let go. Not of his brothers and his sisters, the ones he so loved.

My friends.

The Letherii sorcery broke, bursting into clouds of white fire that corkscrewed skyward before vanishing. Fragments crashed down to either side of the incandescent dome, ripped deep into the earth in black spewing clouds. And, everywhere, it died.

The commander struggled back onto his feet, stared uncomprehending at the scene on the killing field.

To either side his soldiers were stumbling upright once again. Runners appeared, one nearly colliding with him as he careened off a still-kneeling Sirryn Kanar, the woman trying to tell him something. Pointing southward.

‘-landing! Another Malazan army, sir! Thousands more! From the river!’

The veteran commander frowned at the woman, whose face was smeared with dirt and whose eyes were brittle with panic.

He looked back down at the killing field. The dome was flickering, dying. But it had held. Long enough, it had held. ‘Inform my officers,’ he said to the runner. ‘Prepare to wheel and fast march to the river-how far? Have they managed a beach-head?’

‘If we march straight to the river, sir, we will meet them. And yes, as I was saying, they have landed. There are great warships in the river-scores of them! And-^’

‘Go, damn you! To my officers!’

Sirryn was now on his feet. He rounded on the commander. ‘But sir-these ones below!’

‘Leave them to the damned Edur, Sirryn! You wanted them mauled, then you shall have your wish! We must meet the larger force, and we must do so immediately!’

Sword and shield, at last, a battle in which a soldier could die with honour.

Captain Faradan Sort had, like so many other soldiers relatively close to where Beak had sat, been driven to the ground by the ferocity of his magic. She was slow to recover, and even as the silver glow pulsed in fitful death, she saw… white.

Gleaming armour and weapons. Hair white as snow, faces devoid of all scars. Figures, picking themselves up in a half-daze, rising like perfect conjurations from the brilliant green shoots of some kind of grass that now snarled everything and seemed to be growing before her eyes.

And, turning, she looked upon Beak.

To burn, fire needed fuel.

To save them all, Beak had used all the fuel within him.

In horror, Faradan Sort found herself staring at a collapsed jumble of ashes and scorched bone. But no, there was pattern within that, a configuration, if she could but focus through her tears. Oh. The bones of the arms seemed to be hugging the knees, the crumpled skull settled on them.

Like a child hiding in a closet, a child seeking to make himself small, so small…

Beak. Gods below… Beak.

‘Plan on returning to your weapons?’ Fiddler asked the Edur war leader. ‘If you’re wanting to start again, that is, we’re willing.’

But the elderly warrior shook his head. ‘We are done with empire.’ Then he added, ‘If you would permit us to leave.’

‘I can think of quite a few of us who’d be more inclined to kill you all, right now.’

A nod.

‘But,’ Fiddler then said, as his soldiers gathered behind him, all staring at the Tiste Edur-who were staring back-‘we’re not here to conduct genocide. You would leave your Emperor defenceless?’

The war leader pointed northward. ‘Our villages lie far away. Few remain there, and they suffer for our absence. I would lead my warriors home, Malazan. To rebuild. To await the return of our families.’

‘Go on, then.’

The Tiste Edur elder bowed. Then said, ‘Would that we could… take back… all that we have done.’

‘Tell me this. Your Emperor-can he be killed?’

‘No.’

Nothing more was said. Fiddler watched as the Edur set off.

Behind him a grunt from Koryk, who then said, ‘I was damned sure we’d get a fight today.’

‘Fiddler. The Letherii army’s marched off,’ Gesler said.

‘The Adjunct,’ Fiddler said, nodding. ‘She’ll hammer them into the ground.’

‘My point is,’ Gesler continued, ‘our way to Letheras… it’s an open road. Are we going to let the Adjunct and all those salty soldiers of hers beat us there?’

‘Good question,’ Fiddler said, turning at last. ‘Let’s go ask the Fist, shall we?’

‘Aye, and maybe we can find out why we’re all still alive, too.’

‘Aye, and white, too.’

Gesler tugged off his helm and grinned at Fiddler. ‘Speak for yourself, Fid.’

Hair of spun gold. ‘Hood take me,’ Fiddler muttered, ‘that’s about as obnoxious a thing as I’ve ever seen.’

Another helping hand, lifting Beak to his feet. He looked round. Nothing much to see. White sand, a gate of white marble ahead, within which swirled silver light.

The hand gripping his arm was skeletal, the skin a strange hue of green. The figure, very tall, was hooded and wearing black rags. It seemed to be studying the gate.

‘Is that where I’m supposed to go, now?’ Beak asked.

‘Yes.’

‘All right. Are you coming with me?’

‘No.’

‘All right. Well, will you let go of my arm, then?’

The hand fell away. ‘It is not common,’ the figure then said.

‘What?’

‘That I attend to… arrivals. In person.’

‘My name is Beak.’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s through there?’

‘Your brother waits for you, Beak. He has been waiting a long time.’

Beak smiled and stepped forward, all at once in a great hurry-the silver light within that gate was beautiful, reminding him of something.

The stranger’s voice brought him round: ‘Beak.’

‘Yes?’

‘Your brother. He will not know you. Yet. Do you understand?’

Beak nodded. ‘Why aren’t you coming with me?’

‘I choose to wait… for another.’

‘My brother,’ Beak said, his smile broadening. ‘I’m taller now. Stronger. I can save him, can’t I?’

A long pause, and then the figure said, ‘Yes, Beak, you can save him.’

Yes, that made sense. He set out again. With sure strides. To the gate, into that silver glow, to emerge on the other side in a glade beside a trickling stream. And kneeling near the bank, his brother. The same as he remembered. On the ground on all sides there were hundreds of small wax figures. Smiling faces, an entire village, maybe even a whole town.

Beak walked up to his brother.

Who said, too shy to look up, ‘I made all of these, for him.’

‘They’re beautiful,’ Beak said, and he found tears running down his face, which embarrassed him so he wiped them away. Then asked, ‘Can I play with you?’

His brother hesitated, scanning all the figures, then he nodded. ‘All right.’

And so Beak knelt down beside his brother.

While, upon the other side of the gate, the god Hood stood, motionless. Waiting.

A third army rose from the seabed to conquer the others. An army of mud, against whom no shield could defend, through whom no sword could cut to the quick. The precious islands of canvas were how twisted jumbles, fouling the foot, wrapping tight about legs, or pushed down entirely beneath thick silts. Grey-smeared soldier struggled against grey-smeared warrior, locked together in desperation, rage and terror.

The seething mass had become an entity, a chaotic beast writhing and foundering in the mud, and from it rose the deafening clangour of clashing metal and voices erupting in pain and dying.

Soldiers and warriors fell, were then pushed down amidst grey and red, where they soon merged with the ground. Shield walls could not hold, advances were devoured; the battle had become that of individuals sunk to their knees, thrashing in the press.

The beast heaved back and forth, consuming itself in its madness, and upon either side those who commanded sent yet more into the maelstrom.

The wedge of Letherii heavy infantry should have swept the Awl aside, but the weight of their armour became a curse-the soldiers could not move fast enough to exploit breaches, were sluggish in shoring up their own. Fighters became mired, finding themselves suddenly separated from their comrades, and the Awl would then close in, surrounding the soldier, cutting and stabbing until the Letherii went down. Wherever the Letherii could concentrate in greater numbers-from three to thirty-they delivered mayhem, killing scores of their less disciplined enemy. But always, before long, the mud reached up, pulled the units apart.

Along the western edge, for a time, the K’Chain Che’Malle appeared, racing along the flank, unleashing dreadful slaughter.

Bivatt sent archers and spear-wielding skirmishers and, with heavy losses, they drove the two demons away-studded with arrows, the female limping from a deeply driven spear in her left thigh. The Atri-Preda would have then despatched her Bluerose cavalry to pursue the creatures, but she had lost them somewhere to the northeast-where they still pursued the few surviving Awl cavalry-and in any case, the Kechra remained on the seabed, spraying mud with every elongated stride, circling round towards the eastern side of the locked armies.

And, should they attack there, the Atri-Preda had few soldiers left to give answer: only two hundred skirmishers who, without the protection of archers, could do little more than provide a modest wall of spears guarding barely a quarter of the Letherii flank.

Seated atop her restless horse on the rise of the old shoreline, Bivatt cursed in the name of every god she could think of-those damned Kechra! Were they truly unkill-able? No, see the wounded one! Heavy spears can hurt them-Errant take me, do I have a choice?

She beckoned to one of her few remaining runners. ‘Finadd Treval is to lead his skirmishers down to the east flank,’ she said. ‘Defensive line in case the demons return.’

The messenger raced off.

Bivatt settled her gaze once more upon the battle before her. At least there’s no dust to obscure things. And the evidence was plain to see. The Letherii were driving the Awl back, slowly advancing wings, at last, to form encircling horns. The fighting had lost none of its ferocity-indeed, the Awl on the outside edges seemed to be redoubling their desperate efforts, recognizing what was happening. Recognizing… the beginning of the end.

She could not see Redmask. He and his bodyguards had left the central platform half a bell past, rushing into the battle to fill a breach.

The fool had surrendered his overview of the battle, had surrendered his command. His aides carried no standard upon which his warriors could rally. If Redmask was not already dead, he would be covered in mud like all the rest, unrecognizable, useless.

She wanted so to feel exultant, triumphant. But she could see that she’d lost a third-perhaps more-of her entire army.

Because the Awl would not accept the truth. Of course, there could be no surrender-this day was for annihilation-but the fools would not even flee, when clearly they could, remaining on the seabed to prevent any pursuit from cavalry and easily outdistancing their heavier foes on foot. They could flee, damn them, in the hopes to fight another day.

Instead, the bastards stood, fought, killed and then died.

Even the women and elders had joined, adding their torn flesh and spilled blood to the churned morass.

Gods how she hated them!

Brohl Handar, Overseer of the Drene province, tasted the woman’s blood in his mouth and, in a rush of pleasure, he swallowed it down. She had poured herself onto him as he’d leaned forward to drive his sword right through her midsection. Into his face, a hot, thick torrent. Tugging his weapon free as she fell back onto the ground, he spun, seeking yet another victim.

His warriors stood on all sides, few moving now beyond struggling to regain their breaths. The slaughtering of the unhorsed and the wounded had seemed fevered, as if every Arapay Tiste Edur had charged into the same nightmare, and yet there had been such glee in this slaying of Awl that its sudden absence filled the air with heavy, turgid shock.

This, Brohl Handar realized, was nothing like killing seals on the shores of his homeland. Necessity yielded a multitude of flavours, some bitter, others excruciatingly sweet. He could still taste that woman’s blood, like honey coating his throat.

Father Shadow, have I gone mad?

He stared about. Dead Awl, dead horses. Edur warriors with weapons slick and dripping. And already crows were descending to feed.

Are you injured, Overseer?’

Brohl wiped blood from his face and shook his head. ‘Form ranks. We now march to the battle, to kill some more. To kill them all.’

‘Yes sir!’

Masarch stumbled his way clear, half blinded by the mud. Where was Redmask? Had he fallen? There was no way to tell. Clutching his side, where a sword-point had punched through the leather armour, and hot blood squeezed between his fingers, the young Renfayar warrior fought through the mud towards the platform-but the enemy were nearly upon it on the east flank, and atop that platform no-one remained.

No matter.

All he desired, at this moment, was to pull away from this mud, to clamber onto those wooden boards. Too many of his comrades had vanished into the cloying sodden silts, raising in his mind horrifying memories of being buried alive-his death night-when madness reached into his brain. No, he would not fall, would not sink down, would not drown with blackness filling his eyes and mouth.

Disbelief raged through him. Redmask, their great leader, who had returned, who had promised them triumph-the end of the Letherii invaders-he had failed the Awl. And now, we die. Our people. These plains, this land, will surrender even the echoes of our lives. Gone, for ever more.

He could not accept that.

Yet it is the truth.

Redmask, you have slain us.

He reached the edge of the platform, stretched out his free hand-the one that should have held a weapon-where had it gone?

A bestial scream behind him and Masarch half turned, in time to see the twisted, grey, cracked face beneath the helm, the white of eyes staring out from thick scales of mud.

Fire burst in Masarch’s chest and he felt himself lifted up, balanced on a sword’s hilt and its sliding stream of molten iron, thrown onto his back-onto the boards of the platform-and the Letherii was pulling himself up after him, kicking mud from his boots, still pushing with his shortsword-although it could go no further, no deeper, and the weapon was now jammed, having thrust through Masarch’s back and gouging deep into the wood. On his knees straddling the Renfayar, the Letherii, smeared teeth bared, stared down into Masarch’s eyes, and began tugging at his sword.

He was speaking, the Awl realized, words repeated over and over again in that foul Letherii tongue. Masarch frowned-he needed to understand what the man was saying as the man killed him.

But the world was fading, too fast-

No, 1 hear you, soldier, yes. I hear, and yes, I know-

The Letherii watched the life leave the Awl bastard’s young eyes. And though the Letherii’s teeth were bared as if in a smile, though his eyes were wide and bright, the words coming from him repeated their litany: ‘Keep me alive, please, keep me alive, please, keep me alive…’

Seventy paces away, Redmask pulled himself onto the back of his horse-one of the few left-and sawed at the reins to swing the beast round. He’d lost his whip, but the crescent axe remained in his hands, gore-spattered, the edges notched.

Gods, he had killed so many, so many, and there were more to come. He knew it, felt it, hungered for it. Heels pounded into the horse’s flanks and it surged forward, hoofs kicking up mud. Madness to ride on this, but there was no choice, none at all.

Thousands of Letherii slain, more yet to butcher. Bivatt herself, yes-he rode towards the eastern side of the seething mass, well outside the encircling horn-oh, that would not last, his warriors would break through. Shattering the bastards and their flimsy lines.

Redmask would-once he was done with Bivatt-return to that slaughter-and yes, here were his K’Chain Che’Malle, thundering to join him. The three of them, together, thrusting like an enormous sword into the Letherii ranks. Again and again, killing all within reach.

Sag’Churok closing in from his right-see those huge arm-swords lift, readying themselves. And Gunth Mach, swinging round to his inside flank, placing herself between Redmask and the jostling line of skirmishers with their pathetic spears-Gunth Mach was limping, but the spear had worked itself loose-or she had dragged it free. These beasts felt no pain.

And they were almost with him, here, yet again, for they had chosen him.

Victory this day! Victory!

Sag’Churok drew yet closer, matching the pace of Redmask’s horse, and he saw it swing its head to regard him. Those eyes, so cold, so appallingly empty-

The sword lashed out in a blur, taking the horse from the front, at the neck, just above its collarbones. A blow of such savagery and strength that it tore entirely through, cracking hard against the wooden rim of the high saddle. Knocking Redmask back, over the beast’s rump, even as the headless horse ran on another half-dozen strides before wavering to one side then collapsing.

He struck the muddy ground on one shoulder, skidded, then rolled to a halt-and onto his feet, straightening, even as Sag’Churok slashed its second blade, taking him above the knees. Blood fountained as he toppled onto his back, and found himself staring at his severed legs, still standing upright in the mud.

Gunth Mach loomed over him, the talons of a hind foot plunging down to close round his chest. The talons punched deep, ribs crushing in that embrace, and Redmask was lifted then thrown through the air-where he intersected the path of one of Sag’Churok’s swords. It chopped through his right shoulder, sending the arm spinning away-still gripping the crescent axe.

Redmask thumped onfo the ground once more, already dead.

Three hundred paces to the east, Toc Anaster rose on his stirrups, ignoring Torrent’s shrieks of horror, and watched as the two K’Chain Che’Malle padded once more towards what was left of Redmask. The female one kicked at the body, lightly nudging it, then stepped back.

A moment later and the two creatures were thumping away, northeast, heads stretched out, tails horizontal and stiff as spears behind them.

‘He failed them,’ Toe whispered. What other reason could there be for such a thing? Perhaps, many reasons. Only Redmask could have answered all the mysteries surrounding the K’Chain Che’Malle. Their presence here, their alliance-an alliance now at an end. Because he failed.

The suddenness of the execution remained within him, reverberating, a shock.

Beyond, the last of the Awl-no more than a few hun-dred now-were surrounded, and were dying in their cemetery of mud.

A score of skirmishers had moved out and were drawing nearer-they had seen this last remnant. Toe Anaster on his horse. Torrent. Twenty-odd children deemed too young to die with a weapon in hand-so now they would die anyway.

Still ignoring Torrent’s screams of anguish, Toc turned in his saddle, in his mind the thought of killing these children with his own hands-quick thrusts, with his hand over the eyes-and instead he saw, to the southeast, an odd, seething line-bhederin?

No. That is an army.

Lone eye squinting, he watched that line drawing closer-yes, they were coming here. Not Letherii-1 see no standards, nothing at all. No, not Letherii.

Toc glanced back at the skirmishers now jogging towards them. Still a hundred paces away.

One final look, down at the huddled, crying or mute children, and then he untied from his saddle the leather satchel containing his poems. ‘Torrent!’ he snapped, flinging the bag to the warrior-who caught it, his rash-mottled face streaked with mud and tears, his eyes wide and uncomprehending.

Toc pointed to the distant line. ‘See? An army-not Letherii. Was there not word of the Bolkando and allies? Torrent, listen to me, damn you! You’re the last-you and these children. Take them, Torrent-take them and if there’s a single guardian spirit left to your people, then this need not be the last day of the Awl. Do you understand?’

‘But-’

‘Torrent-just go, damn you!’ Toe Anaster, last of the Grey Swords of Elingarth, a Mezla, drew out his bow and nocked the first stone-tipped arrow on the gut string. ‘I can buy you some time-but you have to go now!’

And he looped the reins round the saddle horn, delivering pressure with his knees as he leaned forward, and he rode-for the Letherii skirmishers.

Mud flew out as the horse stretched out into a gallop. Hood’s breath, this won’t be easy.

Fifty paces away from the foot soldiers, he rose on his stirrups, and began loosing arrows.

The seabed that Torrent guided the children along was a nentle, drawn-out slope, rising to where that army was, the mass of dark figures edging ever closer. No standards, nothing to reveal who they were, but he saw that they did not march in ordered ranks. Simply a mass, as the Awl might march, or the Ak’ryn or D’rhasilhani plains tribes of the south.

If this army belonged to either of those two rival tribes, then Torrent was probably leading these children to their deaths. So be it, we are dead anyway.

Another ten slogging paces, then he slowed, the children drawing in round him. One hand settling on the head of one child, Torrent halted, and turned about.

Toc Anaster deserved that much. A witness. Torrent had not believed there was courage left in the strange man. He had been wrong.

The horse was unhappy. Toe was unhappy. He had been a soldier, once, but he was no longer. He had been young-had felt young-and that had fed the fires of his soul. Even a shard of burning stone stealing his handsome face, not to mention an eye, had not proved enough to tear away his sense of invulnerability.

Prisoner to the Domin had changed all of that. The repeated destruction delivered upon his bones and flesh, the twisted healing that followed each time, the caging of his soul until even his own screams sounded like music-this had taken his youthful beliefs, taken them so far away that even nostalgia triggered remembrances of nothing but agony.

Arising in the body of another man should have given him all that a new life promised. But inside, he had remained Toe the Younger. Who had once been a soldier, but was one no longer.

Life with the Grey Swords had not altered that. They had travelled to this land, drawn by the Wolves with gifts of faint visions, murky prophecies born in confused dreams: some vast conflagration awaited them-a battle where they would be needed, desperately needed.

Not, it had turned out, alongside the Awl.

A most fatal error in judgement. The wrong allies. The wrong war.

Toc had never trusted the gods anyway. Any god. In truth, his list of those whom he did trust was, after all he had been through, pathetically short.

Tatter sail. Ganoes Paran. Gruntle.

Tool.

A sorceress, a mediocre captain, a caravan guard and a damned T’lan Imass.

Would that they were with him now, riding at his side.

His horse’s charge was slow, turgid, slewing. Perched over the press of his knees against the beast’s shoulders, Toc sent arrow after arrow towards the skirmishers-though he knew it was hopeless. He could barely see, so jostled was he atop the saddle, with mud flying up on all sides as the horse careered in a wild struggle to stay upright.

As he drew closer, he heard screams. With but two arrows left, he rose higher still on his stirrups, drawing on his bowstring-

His arrows, he saw with astonishment, had not missed. Not one. Eight skirmishers were down.

He sent another hissing outward, saw it take a man in the forehead, the stone point punching through bronze and then bone.

Last arrow.

Gods-

He was suddenly among the Letherii. Driving his last arrow at near point-blank range into a woman’s chest.

A spear tore into his left leg, cut through and then gouged along his horse’s flank. The beast screamed, launched itself forward-

Tossing the bow away, Toc unsheathed his scimitar-damn, should’ve brought a shield-and hacked from side to side, beating away the thrusting spears.-

His horse pulled through into the clear. And would have rushed on, straight into the Letherii ranks two hundred paces ahead, but Toc grasped the reins and swerved the animal round.

Only to find a dozen or so skirmishers right behind him-pursuing on foot.

Two spears drove into his mount, one skidding off a shoulder blade, the other stabbing deep into the animal’s belly.

Squealing piteously, the horse foundered, then fell onto its side, hind legs already fouled with spilled out intestines, each frantic kick tearing more loose from the body cavity. Toc, with legs still drawn high, was able to throw himself from the beast, landing clear.

Skidding in the mud, struggling to regain his feet.

A spear drove into his right hip, lifting him from the muck before throwing him onto his back.

He hacked at the shaft. It splintered and the pressure pinning him down vanished.

Slashing blindly, Toc fought his way back onto his feet. There was blood pouring down both legs.

Another lunging attack. He parried the spear thrust, lurched close and chopped his scimitar into the side of the soldier’s neck.

A point slammed into his back, punched him forward.

And onto a shortsword that slid up under his ribs, cutting his heart in half.

Toe Anaster sank down onto his knees, and, releasing his last breath, would have fallen forward into the mud, but for a hand grasping him, yanking him back. The flash of a knife before his lone eye. Sudden heat along the line of his jaw-

Torrent watched as the Letherii skirmisher cut away Toc Anaster’s face. One more trophy. The task was quick, well-practised, and then the soldier pushed his victim away, and the red wound that had once been Toe’s face plunged down into the mud.

The children were crying, and yes, he realized-in watching, in waiting, he had perhaps condemned them all to the Letherii knives. Still, they could-

Torrent turned round-

And found strangers before him.

Not Ak’rynnai.

Not D’rhasilhanii.

No, he had never before seen such people.

The clans of the White Face Barghast approached the scene of the battle-a battle nearing its grisly end. Who won, who lost, was without meaning to them. They intended to kill everyone.

Two hundred paces ahead of the ragged lines was their vanguard, walking within a stream of the Tellann Warren, which was strong in this place, where beneath the silts of the ancient shoreline could be found stone tools, harpoons made of antler, bone and ivory, and the hulks of dugout canoes. And out here, on the old seabed, there were offerings buried deep now in the silts. Polished stones, pairs of antlers locked together, animal skulls daubed in red ochre

– countless gifts to a dwindling sea.

There were other reasons for such a powerful emanation of Tellann, but these were known to but one of the three in the vanguard, and she had ever been close with her secrets.

Emerging from the warren, the three had stood not far from the Awl warrior and the Awl children. They had watched, in silence, the extraordinary bravery of that lone warrior and his horse. To charge more than a score of skirmishers-the horse’s skill at staying upright had been exceptional. The warrior’s ability to guide the beast with but his legs, whilst loosing arrow after arrow-none of which did not find a target-was simply breathtaking.

That warrior-and his horse-had given their lives to save these last Awl, and it was that fact alone which stayed

– for the moment-the hand of Tool, chosen now among all the White Face Barghast-with Humbrall Taur’s tragic death at the landing-as war leader, even though he was not Barghast at all. But Imass. That he had taken as his mate Taur’s daughter, Hetan, had without doubt eased the ascension to rule; but more than that, it had been owing to Tool himself.

His wisdom. His will.

The joy of life that could burn in his eyes. The fire of vengeance that could blaze in its stead-that blazed even now-when at last he had judged the time aright, the time to answer for all that had been done.

To the Grey Swords.

An answer delivered unto the betrayers.

An answer delivered unto the slayers.

If not for that brave warrior and his brave horse, then Tool would have killed these Awl immediately. The youth with the mottled face. The muddy children huddled around him. He probably still planned to.

Hetan knew all of this, in her heart; she knew her husband. And, had he drawn his flint sword, she would not have tried to stop him.

The White Faces had been hiding for too long. Their scouting expeditions to the east had long since told them all they needed to know, of the path that awaited them, the journey they must soon undertake. It had been vengeance keeping them in place. That, and the vast, uncanny patience of Tool.

Within the Tellann Warrens, the Barghast had watched this latest war, the protracted engagement that had begun with the massing of the two armies far to the west.

They had not come in time to save the Grey Swords, but Hetan well recalled her and her husband coming upon the killing ground where the company had fallen. Indeed, they had witnessed the plains wolves engaged in their ghastly excision of human hearts-an act of honour? There was no way of knowing-each animal had fled with its prize as soon as it was able. The slaughter of those betrayed soldiers had been particularly brutal-faces had been cut away. It had been impossible to identify anyone among the fallen-and this had delivered upon Tool the deepest wound of all. He had lost a friend there.

The betrayal.

The slaying.

There would be, in Tool, no room for mercy. Not for the Awl. Not for the Letherii army so far from home.

And now they stood, well able to see the last of the Awl warriors fall, to see their wardogs dying in the mud, to hear the triumphant roars of the Letherii, even as the nearby skirmishers, having seen the Barghast forces, were hastily retreating back to their lines.

Hetan studied that vast, churned killing field, and said, ‘I cannot tell them apart.’

Torrent stared, not knowing what to think. Both women, flanking the lone man, were to his eyes terrifying. The one who had just spoken-in some infernal foreign tongue-was like an apparition from an adolescent boy’s nightmare. Danger and sensuality, a bloodthirstiness that simply took Torrent’s breath away-and with the loss of that breath, so too the loss of courage. Of manhood itself.

The other woman, dark, short yet lithe, wrapped in the furs of a panther. And the blue-black glint of that beast’s skin seemed to be reflected in the heart of her eyes beneath that robust brow. A shaman, a witch, oh yes. A most dreadful witch.

The man was her kin-the resemblances were unmistakable in their features, as well as their modest heights and the bowing of their legs. And for all that the women terrified Torrent, the stolidity of the warrior’s expression chilled the Awl’s soul.

The taller woman, with her face streaked in white paint, now settled her gaze upon Torrent and said, in halting trader’s tongue, ‘You still live. Because of the horse warrior’s sacrifice. But,’ she nodded towards the savage with the flint sword, ‘he remains undecided. Do you understand?’

Torrent nodded.

The man then said something, and the white-faced woman glanced away, eyes thinning. Then her gaze settled on the satchel Torrent still held, dangling from a strap, in his left hand. She pointed down at it. ‘What do you carry?’

The Awl blinked, then looked down at the leather bag. Shrugging, he tossed it aside. ‘Scribblings,’ he said. ‘He painted many words, like a woman. But he was not the coward I thought. He was not.’

‘Scribblings?’

Torrent found that there were tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away. ‘The horse-warrior,’ he said. ‘The Mezla.’

Hetan saw her husband’s head slowly turn at that word, saw his eyes fix on the Awl warrior, then watched as a cascade of realizations took hold of Tool’s expression, ending with a terrible scream as he brought his hands to his face, then fell to his knees.

And she was suddenly at his side, cradling his head against her belly as he loosed another piercing cry, clawing at his own face.

The Awl stared as if in shock.

Barghast warriors were rushing out from the line behind them, the young ones with their ancient single-edged hook-swords drawn, Tool’s most beloved whom he saw as his own children. Faces filled with consternation, with fear, they converged towards Tool.

Hetan held out a hand, halted them all in their tracks.

Beside the two of them now, drawing her panther skin about her shoulders, Kilava Onass. Her husband’s sister, whose heart held more sorrow and loss than Hetan could comprehend, who would weep every night as if it was ritually demanded of her with the sun’s setting. Who would walk out beyond the camp and sing wordless songs to the night sky-songs that would send the ay howling with voices of mourning and grief.

She stood, now, on her brother’s right. But did not reach down a hand, did not even cast upon Tool a glance of sympathy. Instead, her dark eyes were scanning the Letherii army. ‘They prepare for us,’ she said. ‘The Tiste Edur join the ranks. The cavalry wait along the old shoreline. Onos Toolan, we are wasting time. You know I must leave soon. Very soon.’

Tool drew himself from Hetan’s embrace. Saying nothing, he straightened, then began walking.

To where his friend had fallen.

The Awl warrior took a half-step towards him. ‘No!’ he shouted, turning pleading eyes upon Hetan. ‘He must not! The Mezla-he was a friend, yes? Please, he must not!’

Tool walked on.

‘Please! They cut off his face!’

Hetan flinched. ‘He knows,’ she said.

And then Tool did halt, looking back, meeting Hetan’s eyes. ‘My love,’ he said in a ragged voice. ‘I do not understand.’

She could but shake her head.

‘They betrayed him,’ Tool continued. ‘Yet, see. This day. He rode to the enemy.’

‘To save the lives of these children,’ Hetan said. ‘Yes.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘You have told me many tales, husband, of your friend. Of Toe the Younger. Of the honour within him. I ask you this: how could he not?’

Her heart came near to bursting as she gazed upon her beloved. These Imass-they were unable to hide anything they felt. They possessed none of the masks, the disguises, that were the bitter gifts of others, including her own Barghast. And they were without control, without mastery, which left grieving to wound the soul deeper than anything Hetan could imagine. As with grieving, so too love. So too friendship. So too, alas, loyalty.

‘They live,’ Tool then said.

She nodded.

Her husband turned and resumed his dreadful journey.

A snort of impatience from Kilava.

Hetan walked over to the leather satchel the Awl warrior had discarded. She picked it up, slung it over one shoulder.

‘Kilava,’ she said. ‘Bonecaster. Lead our Barghast into this battle. I go down to my husband.’

‘They will not-’

‘Don’t be absurd. Terror alone will ensure their obedience. Besides, the sooner they are done slaughtering, the sooner you will part our company.’

Her sudden smile revealed a panther’s canines.

Sending a chill through Hetan. Thank the spirits you smile so rarely, Kilava.

Atri-Preda Bivatt had commanded her forces to withdraw from the seabed. Back onto more solid ground. Their triumph this day had grown sour with the taste of fear. Another damned army, and it was clear that they intended to do battle against her exhausted, bruised and battered forces. She had allowed herself but a few moments’ silent raging at the injustice, before forcing upon herself the responsibilities of her command.

They would fight with courage and honour, although as the barbaric enemy continued massing she could see that it would be hopeless. Seventy thousand, perhaps more. The ones who landed on the north coast, but also, perhaps, the rumoured allies of the Bolkando. Returned here to the north-but why? To join with the Awl? But for that, their main army had come too late. Bivatt had done what she had set out to do; had done what had been commanded of her. She had exterminated the Awl.

Seventy thousand or two hundred thousand. The destruction of Bivatt and her army. Neither mattered in the greater scheme of things. The Letherii Empire would throw back these new invaders. Failing that, they would bribe them away from the Bolkando; indeed, turn them round to fashion an alliance that would sweep into the border kingdoms in waves of brutal slaughter.

Perhaps, she suddenly realized, there was a way through this… She glanced about until she saw one, of her Finadds. Walked over. ‘Prepare a delegation, Finadd. We will seek parley with this new enemy.’

‘Yes sir.’ The man rushed off.

‘Atri-Preda!’

Bivatt turned to see Brohl Handar approach. The Overseer did not, at this moment, look like an imperial governor. He was covered in gore, gripping his sword in one hand thick with dried blood.

‘It seems we are not too late after all,’ he said.

‘These are not Awl, Overseer.’

‘I see that clearly enough. I see also, Atri-Preda, that you and I will die here today.’ He paused, then grunted a laugh. ‘Do you recall, Bivatt, warning me that Letur Anict sought to kill me? Yet here I have marched with you and your army, all this way-’

‘Overseer,’ she cut in. ‘The Factor infiltrated my forces with ten assassins. All of whom are dead.’

His eyes slowly widened.

Bivatt continued, ‘Have you seen the tall soldier often at your side? I set him the task of keeping you alive, and he has done all that I commanded. Unfortunately, Overseer, I believe that he shall soon fail at it.’ Unless I can negotiate our way out of this.

She faced the advancing enemy once more. They were now raising standards. Only a few, and identical to each other. Bivatt squinted in the afternoon light.

And recognized those standards.

She went cold inside. ‘Too bad,’ she said.

Atri-Preda?’

‘I recognize those standards, Overseer. There will be no parley. Nor any chance of surrender.’

‘Those warriors,’ Brohl Handar said after a moment, ‘are the ones who have been raising the cairns.’

‘Yes.’

‘They have been with us, then, for some time.’

‘Their scouts at the least, Overseer. Longer than you think.’

Atri-Preda.’

She faced him, studied his grave expression. ‘Overseer?’

‘Die well, Bivatt.’

‘I intend to. And you. Die well, Brohl Handar.’

Brohl walked away from her then, threading through a line of soldiers, his eyes fixed on one in particular. Tall, with a gentle face streaked now in mud.

The Tiste Edur caught the man’s gaze, and answered the easy smile with one of his own.

‘Overseer, I see you have had an exciting day.’

‘I see the same on you,’ Brohl replied, ‘and it seems there is more to come.’

‘Yes, but I tell you this, I am pleased enough. For once, there is solid ground beneath me.’

The Overseer thought to simply thank the soldier, for keeping him alive this long. Instead, he said nothing for a long moment.

The soldier rubbed at his face, then said, ‘Sir, your Arapay await you, no doubt. See, the enemy readies itself.’

And yes, this is what Brohl Handar wanted. ‘My Arapay will fight well enough without me, Letherii. I would ask one final boon of you.’

‘Then ask, sir.’

‘I would ask for the privilege of fighting at your side. Until we fall.’

The man’s soft eyes widened slightly, then all at once the smile returned. ‘Choose, then, Overseer. Upon my right or upon my left.’

Brohl Handar chose the man’s left. As for guarding his own unprotected flank, he was indifferent.

Somehow, the truth of that pleased him.

In the city of Drene at this time, riots raged over the entire north half of the city, and with the coming night the mayhem would spread into the more opulent south districts.

Venitt Sathad, granted immediate audience with Factor Letur Anict-who awaited him standing before his desk, his round, pale face glistening with sweat, and in whose eyes the steward saw, as he walked towards the man, a kind of bemusement at war with deeper stresses-walked forward, in neither haste nor swagger. Rather, a walk of singular purpose.

He saw Letur Anict blink suddenly, a rapid reassessment, even as he continued right up to the man.

And drove a knife into the Factor’s left eye, deep into the brain.

The weight of Letur Anict, as he collapsed, pulled the weapon free.

Venitt Sathad bent to clean the blade off on the Factor’s silk robe; then he straightened, turned for the door, and departed.

Letur Anict had a wife. He had children. He’d had guards, but Orbyn Truthfinder had taken care of them.

Venitt Sathad set out to eliminate all heirs.

He no longer acted as an agent of the Liberty Consign. Now, at this moment, he was an Indebted.

Who had had enough.

Hetan left her husband kneeling beside the body of Toc the Younger. She could do no more for him, and this was not a failing on her part. The raw grief of an Imass was like a bottomless well, one that could snatch the unsuspecting and send them plummeting down into unending darkness.

Once, long ago now, Tool had stood before his friend, and his friend had not known him, and for the Imass-mortal once more, after thousands upon thousands of years-this had been the source of wry amusement, in the inanner of a trickster’s game where the final pleasure but awaited revelation of the truth.

Tool, in his unhuman patience, had waited a long time to unveil that revelation. Too long, now. His friend had died, unknowing. The trickster’s game had delivered a wound from which, she suspected, her husband might never recover.

And so, she now knew in her heart, there might be other losses on this tragic day. A wife losing her husband. Two daughters losing their adopted father, and one son his true father.

She walked to where Kilava Onass had stationed herself to watch the battle, and it was no small mercy that she had elected not to veer into her Soletaken form, that, indeed, she had left the clans of the White Face Barghast the freedom to do what they did best: kill in a frenzy of explosive savagery.

Hetan saw that Kilava stood near where a lone rider had fallen-killed by the weapons of the K’Chain Che’Malle, she noted. A typically vicious slaying, stirring in her memories of the time when she herself had stood before such terrible creatures, a memory punctuated with the sharp pang of grief for a brother who had fallen that day.

Kilava was ignoring the legless, one-armed body lying ten paces to her left. Hetan’s gaze settled upon it in sudden curiosity.

‘Sister,’ she said to Kilava-deliberate in her usage of the one title that Kilava most disliked-‘see how this one wears a mask. Was not the war leader of the Awl so masked?’

‘I imagine so,’ Kilava said, ‘since he was named Redmask.’

‘Well,’ Hetan said, walking to the corpse, ‘this one is wearing the garb of an Awl.’

‘But he was slain by the K’Chain Che’Malle.’

‘Yes, I see that. Even so…’ She crouched down, studied that peculiar mask, the strange, minute scales beneath the spatters of mud. ‘This mask, Kilava, it is the hide of a K’Chain, I would swear it, although the scales are rather tiny-’

‘Matron’s throat,’ Kilava replied.

Hetan glanced over. ‘Truly?’ Then she reached down and tugged the mask away from the man’s face. A long look down into those pale features.

Hetan rose, tossing the mask to one side. ‘You were right, it’s not Redmask.’

Kilava asked, ‘How do you know that?’

‘Well, Awl garb or not, this man was Letherii.’

Hood, High King of Death, Collector of the Fallen, the undemanding master of more souls than he could count-even had he been so inclined, which he was not-stood over the body, waiting.

Such particular attention was, thankfully, a rare occurrence. But some deaths arrived, every now and then, bearing certain… eccentricities. And the one lying below was one such arrival.

Not least because the Wolves wanted his soul, yet would not get it, but also because this mortal had evaded Hood’s grasp again and again, even though any would see and understand well the sweet gift the Lord of Death had been offering.

Singular lives, yes, could be most… singular.

Witness that of the one who had arrived a short time earlier. There were no gifts in possessing a simple mind. There was no haze of calming incomprehension to salve the terrible wounds of a life that had been ordained to remain, until the very end, profoundly innocent.

Hood had not begrudged the blood on Beak’s hands. He had, however, most succinctly begrudged the heartless actions of Beak’s mother and father.

Few mortal priests understood the necessity for redress, although they often spouted the notion in their sermons of guilt, with their implicit extortions that did little more than swell the temple coffers.

Redress, then, was a demand that even a god could not deny. And so it had been with the one named Beak.

And so it was, now, with the one named Toc the Younger.

‘Awaken,’ Hood said. ‘Arise.’

And Toc the Younger, with a long sigh, did as Hood commanded.

Standing, tottering, squinting now at the gate awaiting them both. ‘Damn,’ Toc muttered, ‘but that’s a poor excuse for a gate.’

‘The dead see as they see, Toc the Younger. Not long ago, it shone white with purity.’

‘My heart goes out to that poor, misguided soul.’

‘Of course it does. Come. Walk with me.’

They set out towards that gate.

‘You do this for every soul?’

‘I do not.’

‘Oh.’ And then Toe halted-or tried to, but his feet dragged onward-‘Hold on, my soul was sworn to the Wolves-’

‘Too late. Your soul, Toe the Younger, was sworn to me. Long ago.’

‘Really? Who was the fool who did that?’

‘Your father,’ Hood replied. ‘Who, unlike Dassem Ultor, remained loyal.’

‘Which you rewarded by killing him? You bastard piece of pigsh-’

‘You will await him, Toe the Younger.’

‘He lives still?’

‘Death never lies.’

Toe the Younger tried to halt again. ‘Hood, a question-please.’

The god stopped, looked down at the mortal.

‘Hood, why do I still have only one eye?’

The God of Death, Reaper of Souls, made no reply. He had been wondering that himself.

Damned wolves.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Once, long ago, Onrack the broken committed a crime. He had professed his love for a woman in fashioning her likeness on the wall of a cave. There had been such talent in his hands, in his eyes, he had bound two souls into that stone. His own… that was his right, his choice. But the other soul, oh, the selfishness of that act, the cruelty of that theft…

He stood, now, before another wall of stone, within another cave, looking upon the array of paintings, the beasts with every line of muscle, every hint of motion, celebrating their veracity, the accuracy of genius. And in the midst of these great creatures of the world beyond, awkward stick figures, representing the Imass, cavorted in a poor mime of dance. Lifeless as the law demanded. He stood, then, still Broken, still the stealer of a woman’s life.

In the darkness of his captivity, long ago, someone had come to him, with gentle hands and yielding flesh. He so wanted to believe that it had been she, the one whose soul he had stolen. But such knowledge was now lost to him; so confused had the memory become, so infused with all that his heart wished to believe.

And, even if it had indeed been she, well, perhaps she had no choice. Imprisoned by his crime, helpless to defy his desire. In his own breaking, he had destroyed her as well.

He reached out, settled fingertips lightly upon one of the images. Ranag, pursued by an ay. In the torch’s wavering light both beasts seemed in motion, muscles rippling. In celebrating the world, which held no regrets, the Imass would gather shoulder to shoulder in this cavern, and with their voices they would beat out the rhythm of breaths, the huffing of the beasts; while others, positioned in selected concavities, pounded their hands on drums of hollowed-out wood and skin, until the echoes of hoofbeats thundered from all sides.

We are the witnesses. We are the eyes trapped for ever on the outside. We have been severed from the world. And this is at the heart of the law, the prohibition. We create ourselves as lifeless, awkward, apart. Once, we were as the beasts, and there was no inside, no outside. There was only the one, the one world, of which we were its flesh, its bone, flesh little different from grasses, lichens and trees. Bones little different from wood and stone. We were its blood, in which coursed rivers down to the lakes and seas.

We give voice to our sorrow, to our loss.

In discovering what it is to die, we have been cast out from the world.

In discovering beauty, we were made ugly.

We do not suffer in the manner that beasts suffer-for they surely do. We suffer with the memory of how it was before suffering came, and this deepens the wound, this tears open the pain. There is no beast that can match our anguish.

So sing, brothers. Sing, sisters. And in the torch’s light, float’ ing free from the walls of our minds-of the caves within us-see all the faces of sorrow. See those who have died and left us. And sing your grief until the very beasts flee.

Onrack the Broken felt the tears on his cheeks, and cursed himself for a sentimental fool.

Behind him, Trull Sengar stood in silence. In humouring a foolish Imass, he was without impatience. Onrack knew he would simply wait, and wait. Until such time as Onrack might stir from his grim memories, recalling once more the gifts of the present. He would-

‘There was great skill in the painting of these beasts.’

The Imass, still facing die stone wall, still with his back to the Tiste Edur, found himself smiling. So, even here and now, I indulge silly fantasies that are, even if comforting, without much meaning. ‘Yes, Trull Sengar. True talent. Such skill is passed down in the blood, and with each generation there is the potential for… burgeoning. Into such as we see here.’

‘Is the artist among the clans here? Of were these painted long ago, by someone else?’

‘The artist,’ Onrack said, ‘is Ulshun Pral.’

‘And is it this talent that has earned him the right to rule?’

No. Never that. ‘This talent,’ the Imass replied, ‘is his weakness.’

‘Better than you, Onrack?’

He turned about, his smile now wry. ‘I see some flaws. I see hints of impatience. Of emotion free and savage as the beasts he paints. I see also, perhaps, signs of a talent he had lost and has not yet rediscovered.’

‘How does one lose talent like that?’

‘By dying, only to return.’

‘Onrack,’ and there was a new tone to Trull’s voice, a 1 gravity that unnerved Onrack, ‘I have spoken with these Imass here. Many of them. With Ulshun himself. And I do not think they ever died. I do not think they were once T’lan, only to have forgotten in the countless generations of existence here.’

‘Yes, they say they are among those who did not join the Ritual. But this cannot be true, Trull Sengar. They must be ghosts, willed into flesh, held here by the timelessness of the Gate at the end of this cave. My friend, they do not know themselves.’ And then he paused. Can this be true?

‘Ulshun Pral says he remembers his mother. He says she is still alive. Although not here right now.’

‘Ulshun Pral is a hundred thousand years old, Trull Sengar. Or more. What he remembers is false, a delusion.’

‘I do not believe that, not any more. I think the mystery here is deeper than any of us realize.’

‘Let us go on,’ Onrack said. ‘I would see this Gate.’

They left the chamber of the beasts.

Trull was filled with unease. Something had been awakened in his friend-by the paintings-and its taste was bitter. He had seen, in the lines of Onrack’s back, his shoulders, a kind of slow collapse. The return of some ancient burden. And, seeing this, Trull had forced himself to speak, to break the silence before Onrack could destroy himself.

Yes. The paintings. The crime. Will you not smile again, Onrack? Not the smile you gave me when you turned to face me just now-too broken, too filled with sorrow-but the smile I have grown to treasure since coming to this realm.

‘Onrack.’

‘Yes?’

‘Do we still know what we are waiting for? Yes, threats approach. Will they come through the Gate? Or from across the hills beyond the camp? Do we know in truth if these Imass are indeed threatened?’

‘Prepare yourself, Trull Sengar. Danger draws close… on all sides.’

‘Perhaps then we should return to Ulshun Pral.’

‘Rud Elalle is with them. There is time yet… to see this Gate.’

Moments later, they came to the edge of the vast, seemingly limitless cavern, and both halted.

Not one Gate. Many gates.

And all were seething with silent, wild fire.

‘Onrack,’ Trull said, unslinging his spear. ‘Best return to Rud Elalle and let him know-this is not what he described.’

Onrack pointed towards a central heap of stones. ‘She has failed. This realm, Trull Sengar, is dying. And when it dies…’

Neither spoke for a moment.

Then Onrack said, ‘I will return quickly, my friend, so that you do not stand alone-against what may come through.’

‘I look forward to your company,’ Trull replied. ‘So… hurry.’

Forty-odd paces beyond the camp rose a modest hill, stretched out as if it had once been an-atoll, assuming the plains had once been under water and that, Hedge told himself as he kicked his way through a ribbon of sand studded with broken shells, was a fair assumption. Reaching the elongated summit, he set down his oversized crossbow near an outcrop of sun-bleached limestone, then walked over to where Quick Ben sat cross-legged, facing the hills two thousand paces to the south.

‘You’re not meditating or something, are you?’

‘If I had been,’ the wizard snapped, ‘you’d have just ruined it and possibly killed us all.’

‘It’s all the posturing, Quick,’ Hedge said, flopping down onto the gravel beside him. ‘You turn picking your nose into a Hood-damned ritual, so it gets I just give up on knowing when to talk to you or not.’

‘If that’s the case, then don’t ever talk to me and we’ll both be happy.’

‘Miserable snake.’

‘Hairless rodent.’

The two sat in companionable silence for a time, then Hedge reached out and picked up a shard of dark brown flint. He peered at one serrated edge.

‘What are you doing?’ Quick Ben demanded.

‘Contemplating.’

‘Contemplating,’ Quick Ben mimed, head wagging from side to side in time with each syllable.

‘I could cut your throat with this. One swipe.’

‘We never did get along, did we? Gods, I can’t believe how we hugged and slapped each other on the back, down at that river-’

‘Stream.’

‘Watering hole.’

‘Spring.’

‘Will you please cut my throat now, Hedge?’

The sapper tossed the flint away and dusted his hands with brisk slaps. ‘What makes you so sure the baddies are coming up from the south?’

‘Who says I’m sure of anything?’

‘So we could be sitting in the wrong place. Facing the wrong direction. Maybe everybody’s getting butchered right now even as I speak.’

‘Well, Hedge, if you hadn’t of interrupted my meditating, maybe I’d have figured out where we should be right now!’

‘Oh, nice one, wizard.’

‘They’re coming from the south because it’s the best approach.’

‘As what, rabbits?’

‘No, as dragons, Hedge.’

The sapper squinted at the wizard. ‘There always was a smell of Soletaken about you, Quick. We finally gonna see what scrawny beastie you got hiding in there?’

‘That’s a rather appalling way of putting it, Hedge. And the answer is: no.’

‘You still feeling shaky?’

The wizard glanced over, his eyes bright and half mad-his normal look, in other words. ‘No. In fact, the very opposite.’

‘How so?’

‘I stretched myself, way more than I’d ever done before. It’s made me… nastier.’

‘Really.’

‘Don’t sound so impressed, Hedge.’

‘All I know is,’ the sapper said, grunting to his feet, ‘when they roll over you, there’s just me and an endless supply of cussers. And that suits me just fine.’

‘Don’t blast my body to pieces, Hedge.’

‘Even if you’re already dead?’

‘Especially then, because I won’t be, will I? You’ll just think it, because thinking it is convenient, because then you can go wild with your damned cussers until you’re standing in a Hood-damned crater a Hood-damned league acrossl’

This last bit had been more or less a shriek.

Hedge continued his squinting. ‘No reason to get all testy,’ he said in a hurt tone, then turned and walked back to his crossbow, his beloved lobber. And said under his breath, ‘Oh, this is going to be so much fun, I can’t wait!’

‘Hedge!’

‘What?’

‘Someone’s coming.’

‘From where?’ the sapper demanded, readying a cusser in the cradle of the crossbow.

‘Ha ha. From the south, you bloated bladder of piss.’

‘I knew it,’ Hedge said, coming to the wizard’s side.

She had chosen to remain as she was, rather than veer into her Soletaken form. That would come later. And so she walked across the plain, through the high grasses of the basin. On a ridge directlyahead stood two figures. One was a ghost, but maybe something more than just a ghost. The other was a mage, and without question more than just a mage.

A sliver of disquiet stirred Menandore’s thoughts. Quickly swept away. If Rud Elalle had selected these two as allies, then she would accept that. Just as he had recruited the Tiste Edur and the one known as Onrack the Broken. All… complications, but she would not be alone in dealing with them, would she?

The two men watched as she ascended the gentle slope. One was cradling a bizarre crossbow of some kind. The other was playing with a handful of small polished stones, as if trying to choose one as his favourite.

They’re fools. Idiots.

And soon, they will both be dust.

She fixed on them her hardest glare as she drew up to the edge of the crest. ‘You two are pathetic. Why stand here-do you know who approaches? Do you know they will come from the south? Meaning that you two will be the first they see. And so, the first they kill.’

The taller, darker-skinned one turned slightly, then said, ‘Here comes your son, Menandore. With Ulshun Pral.’ He then frowned. ‘That’s a familiar walk… Wonder why I never noticed that before.’

Walk? Familiar walk? He is truly mad.

‘I have summoned them,’ she said, crossing her arms. ‘We must prepare for the battle.’

The shorter one grunted, then said, ‘We don’t want any company. So pick somewhere else to do your fighting.’

‘I am tempted to crush your skull between my hands,’ Menandore said.

‘Doesn’t work,’ the wizard muttered. ‘Everything just pops back out.’

The one with the crossbow gave her a wide smile.

Menandore said, ‘I assure you, I have no intention of being anywhere near you, although it is my hope I will be within range to see your grisly deaths.’

‘What makes you so sure they’ll be grisly?’ the wizard asked, now studying one pebble in particular, holding it up to the light as if it was a gem of some sort, but Menandore could see that it was not a gem. Simply a stone, and an opaque one at that.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.

He glanced across at her, then closed his hand round the stone and brought it down behind his back. ‘Nothing. Why? Anyway, I asked you a question.’

‘And I am obliged to answer it?’ She snorted.

Rud Elalle and Ulshun Pral arrived, halting a few paces behind the wizard and his companion.

Menandore saw the hard expression in her son’s face. Could I have seen anything else? No. Not for this. ‘Beloved son-’

‘I care nothing for the Finnest,’ Rud Elalle said. ‘I will not join you in your fight, Mother.’

She stared, eyes widening even as they filled with burning rage. ‘You must! I cannot face them both!’

‘You have new allies,’ Rud Elalle said. ‘These two, who even now guard the approach-’

‘These brainless dolts? My son, you send me to my death!’

Rud Elalle straightened. ‘I am taking my Imass away from here, Mother. They are all that matters to me-’

‘More than the life of your mother?’

‘More than the fight she chooses for herself!’ he snapped.

‘This clash-this feud-it is not mine. It is yours. It was ever yours! I want nothing to do with it!’

Menandore flinched back at her son’s fury. Sought to hold his eyes, then failed and looked away. ‘So be it,’ she whispered. ‘Go then, my son, and take your chosen kin. Go!’

As Rud Elalle nodded and turned away, however, she spoke again, in a tone harder than anything that had come before. ‘But not him.’

Her son swung round, saw his mother pointing towards the Imass at his side.

Ulshun Pral.

Rud Elalle frowned. ‘What? I do not-’

‘No, my son, you do not. Ulshun Pral must remain. Here.’

‘I will not permit-’

And then the Bentract leader reached out a hand to stay Rud Elalle-who was moments from veering into his dragon form, to lock in battle with his own mother.

Menandore waited, outwardly calm, reposed, even as her heart thudded fierce in her chest.

‘She speaks true,’ Ulshun Pral said. ‘I must stay.’

‘But why?’

‘For the secret I possess, Rud Elalle. The secret they all seek. If I go with you, all will pursue. Do you understand? Now, I beg you, lead my people away from here, to a safe place. Lead them away, Rud Elalle, and quickly!’

‘Will you now fight at my side, my son?’ Menandore demanded. ‘To ensure the life of Ulshun Pral?’

But Ulshun Pral was already pushing Rud Elalle away. ‘Do as I ask,’ he said to Menandore’s son. ‘I cannot die fearing for my people-please, lead them away.’

The wizard then spoke up, ‘We’ll do our best to safeguard him, Rud Elalle.’

Menandore snorted her contempt. ‘You risk such a thing?’ she demanded of her son.

Rud Elalle stared across at the wizard, then at the smiling one with the crossbow, and she saw a strange calm slip over her son’s expression-and that sliver of disquiet returned to her, stinging.

‘I shall,’ Rud Elalle then said, and he reached out to Ulshun Pral. A gentle gesture, a hand resting lightly against one side of the Imass’s face. Rud Elalle then stepped back, swung round, and set off back for the camp.

Menandore spun on the two remaining men. ‘You damned fools!’

‘Just for that,’ the wizard said, ‘I’m not giving you my favourite stone.’

Hedge and Quick Ben watched her march back down the slope.

‘That was odd,’ the sapper muttered.

‘Wasn’t it.’

They were silent for another hundred heartbeats, then Hedge turned to Quick Ben. ‘So what do you think?’

‘You know exactly what I’m thinking, Hedge.’

‘Same as me, then.’

‘The same.’

‘Tell me something, Quick.’

‘What?’

‘Was that really your favourite stone?’

‘Do you mean the one I had in my hand? Or the one I slipped into her fancy white cloak?’

With skin wrinkled and stained by millennia buried in peat, Sheltatha Lore did indeed present an iconic figure of dusk. In keeping now with her reddish hair and the murky hue of her eyes, she wore a cloak of deep burgundy, black leather leggings and boots. Bronze-studded vest drawn tight across her chest.

At her side-like Sheltatha facing the hills-stood Sukul Ankhadu, Dapple, the mottling of her skin visible on her bared hands and forearms. On her slim shoulders a Letherii night-cloak, as was worn now by the noble born and the women of the Tiste Edur in the empire, although this one was somewhat worse for wear.

‘Soon,’ said Sheltatha Lore, ‘this realm shall be dust.’

‘This pleases you, sister?’

‘Perhaps not as much as it pleases you, Sukul. Why is this place an abomination in your eyes?’

‘I have no love for Imass. Imagine, a people grubbing in the dirt of caves for hundreds of thousands of years. Building nothing. All history trapped as memory, twisted as tales sung in rhyme every night. They are flawed. In their souls, there must be a flaw, a failing. And these ones here, they have deluded themselves into believing that they actually exist.’

‘Not all of them, Sukul.’

Dapple waved dismissively. ‘The greatest failing here, Sheltatha, lies with the Lord of Death. If not for Hood’s indifference, this realm could never have lasted as long as it has. It irritates me, such carelessness.’

‘So,’ Sheltatha Lore said with a smile, ‘you will hasten the demise of these Imass, even though, with the realm dying anyway, they are already doomed.’

‘You do not understand. The situation has… changed.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Their conceit,’ said Sukul, ‘has made them real. Mortal, now. Blood, flesh and bone. Capable of bleeding, of dying. Yet they remain ignorant of their world’s imminent extinction. My slaughtering them, sister, will be an act of mercy.’

Sheltatha Lore grunted. ‘I cannot wait to hear them thank you.’

At that moment a gold and white dragon rose into view before them, sailing low over the crests of the hills.

Sukul Ankhadu sighed. ‘It begins.’

The Soletaken glided down the slope directly towards them. Looming huge, yet still fifty paces away, the dragon tilted its wings back, crooked them as its hind limbs reached downwards, then settled onto the ground.

A blurring swirl enveloped the beast, and a moment later Menandore walked out from that spice-laden disturbance.

Sheltatha Lore and Sukul Ankhadu waited, saying nothing, their faces expressionless, while Menandore approached, finally halting five paces from them, her blazing eyes moving from one sister to the other, then back again. She said, ‘Are we still agreed, then?’

‘Such glorious precedent, this moment,’ Sheltatha Lore observed.

Menandore frowned. ‘Necessity. At least we should be understood on that matter. I cannot stand alone, cannot guard the soul of Scabandari. The Finnest must not fall in his hands.’

A slight catch of breath from Sukul. ‘Is he near, then?’

‘Oh yes. I have stolen the eyes of one travelling with him. Again and again. They even now draw to the last gate, and look upon its wound, and stand before the torn corpse of that foolish Imass Bonecaster who thought she could seal it with her own soul.’ Menandore sneered. ‘Imagine such effrontery. Starvald Demelain! The very chambers of K’rul’s heart! Did she not know how that weakened him? Weakened everything7.’

‘So we three kill Silchas Ruin,’ Sheltatha Lore said. ‘And then the Imass.’

‘My son chooses to oppose us in that last detail,’ Menandore said. ‘But the Imass have outlived their usefulness. We shall wound Rud if we must, but we do not kill him. Understood? I will have your word on this. Again. Here and now, sisters.’

Agreed,’ Sheltatha Lore said.

‘Yes,’ said Sukul Ankhadu, ‘although it will make matters more difficult.’

‘We must live with that,’ Menandore said, and then turned. ‘It is time.’

Already?’

A few pathetic mortals seek to stand in our way-we must crush them first. And Silchas Ruin has allies. Our day’s work begins now, sisters.’

With that she walked towards the hills, and began veering into her dragon form.

Behind her, Sheltatha Lore and Sukul Ankhadu exchanged a look, and then they moved apart, giving themselves the room they needed.

Veering into dragons.

Dawn, Dusk and the one known as Dapple. A dragon of gold and white. One stained brown and looking half-rotted. The last mottled, neither light nor dark, but the uneasy interplay between the two. Soletaken with the blood of Tiam, the Mother. Sail-winged and serpent-necked, taloned and scaled, the blood of Eleint.

Lifting into the air on gusts of raw sorcery. Menandore leading the wedge formation. Sheltatha Lore on her left. Sukul Ankhadu on her right.

The hills before them, now dropping away as they heaved their massive bulks yet higher.

Clearing the crests, the ancient ridge of an ancient shore, and the sun caught gleaming scales, bloomed through the membranes of wings, while beneath three shadows raced over grass and rock, shadows that sent small mammals scurrying for cover, that launched birds into screeching flight, that made hares freeze in their tracks.

Beasts in the sky were hunting, and nothing on the ground was safe.

A flat landscape studded with humped mounds-dead dragons, ghastly as broken barrows, from which bones jutted, webbed by desiccated skin and sinew. Wings snapped like the wreckage of foundered ships. Necks twisted on the ground, heads from which the skin had contracted, pulled back to reveal gaunt hollows in the eye sockets and beneath the cheekbones. Fangs coated in grey dust were bared as if in eternal defiance.

Seren Pedac had not believed there had once been so many dragons. Had not, in truth, believed that the creatures even existed, barring those who could create such a form from their own bodies, like Silchas Ruin. Were these, she had first wondered, all Soletaken? For some reason, she knew the answer to be no.

True dragons, of which Silchas Ruin, in his dread winged shape, was but a mockery. Devoid of majesty, of purity.

The shattering of bones and wings had come from age, not violence. None of these beasts were sprawled out in death. None revealed gaping wounds. They had each settled into their final postures.

‘Like blue flies on the sill of a window,’ Udinaas had said. ‘Wrongside, trying to get out. But the window stayed closed. To them, maybe to everyone, every thing. Or… maybe not every thing.’ And then he had smiled, as if the thought had amused him.

They had seen the gate that was clearly their destination from a great distance away, and indeed it seemed the dragon mounds were more numerous the closer they came, crowding in on all sides. The flanks of that arch were high as towers, thin to the point of skeletal, while the arch itself seemed twisted, like a vast cobweb wrapped around a dead branch. Enclosed by this structure was a wall smooth and grey, yet vaguely swirling widdershins-the way through, to another world. Where, it was now understood by all, would be found the remnant soul of Scabandari, Father Shadow, the Betrayer. Bloodeye.

The lifeless air tasted foul to Seren Pedac, as if immeasurable grief tainted every breath drawn in this realm, a bleak redolence that would not fade even after countless millennia. It sickened her, sapped the strength from her limbs, from her very spirit. Daunting as that portal was, she longed to claw through the grey, formless barrier. Longed for an end to this. All of it.

There was a way, she was convinced-there had to be a way-of negotiating through the confrontation fast approaching. Was this not her sole talent, the singular skill she would permit herself to acknowledge?

Three strides ahead of her, Udinaas and Kettle walked, her tiny hand nestled in his much larger, much more battered one. The sight-which had preceded her virtually since their arrival in this grim place-was yet another source of anguish and unease. Was he alone capable of setting aside all his nightmares, to comfort this lone, lost child?

Long ago, at the very beginning of this journey, Kettle had held herself close to Silchas Ruin. For he had been the one who had spoken to her through the dying Azath. And he had made vows to protect her and the burgeoning life • that had come to her. And so she had looked upon her benefactor with all the adoration one might expect of a foundling in such a circumstance.

This was no longer true. Oh, Seren Pedac saw enough small gestures to underscore that old allegiance, the threads linking these two so-different beings-their shared place of birth, the precious mutual recognition that was solitude, estrangement from all others. But Silchas Ruin had… revealed more of himself. Had revealed, in his cold disregard, a brutality that could take one’s breath away. Oh, and how different is that from Kettle’s tales of murdering people in Letheras? Of draining their blood, feeding their corpses into the hungry, needy grounds of the Azath?

Still, Kettle expressed none of those desires any more. In returning to life, she had abandoned her old ways, had become, with each passing day, more and more simply a young girl. An orphan.

Witness, again and again, to her adopted family’s endless quarrelling and bickering. To the undeniable threats, the promises of murder. Yes, this is what we have offered her.

And Silchas Ruin is hardly above all of that, is he?

But what of Udinaas? Revealing no great talent, no terrible power. Revealing, in truth, naught but a profound vulnerability.

Ah, and this is what draws her to him. What he gifts back to her in that clasping of hands, the soft smile that reaches even his sad eyes.

Udinaas, Seren Pedac realized with a shock, was the only truly likeable member of their party.

She could in no way include herself as one with even the potential for genuine feelings of warmth from any of the others, not since her rape of Udinaas’s mind. But even before then, she had revealed her paucity of skills in the area of camaraderie. Ever brooding, prone to despondency-these were the legacies of all she had done-and not done-in her life.

Kicking through dust, with Clip and Silchas Ruin well ahead of the others, with the massive humps of dead dragons on all sides, they drew yet closer-to that towering gate. Fear Sengar, who had been walking two strides behind her on her left, now came alongside. His hand was on the grip of his sword.

‘Do not be a fool,’ she hissed at him.

His face was set in stern lines, lips tight.

Ahead, Clip and Silchas reached the gate and there they halted. Both seemed to be looking down at a vague, smallish form on the ground.

Udinaas slowed as the child whose hand he was holding began pulling back. Seren Pedac saw him look down and say something in a very low tone.

If Kettle replied it was in a whisper.

The ex-slave nodded then, and a moment later they carried on, Kettle keeping pace without any seeming reluctance.

What had made her shrink away?

What had he said to so easily draw her onward once more?

They came closer, and Seren Pedac heard a low sigh from Fear Sengar. ‘They look upon a body,’ he said.

Oh, Errant protect us.

‘Acquitor,’ continued the Tiste Edur, so low that only she could hear.

‘Yes?’

‘I must know… how you will choose.’

‘I don’t intend to,’ she snapped in sudden irritation. ‘Do we come all this way together only to kill each other now?’

He grunted in wry amusement. ‘Are we that evenly matched?’

‘Then, if it is truly hopeless, why attempt anything at all?’

‘Have I come this far only to step away, then? Acquitor, I must do what I must. Will you stand with me?’

They had halted, well back from the others, all of whom were now gathered around that corpse. Seren Pedac unstrapped her helm and pulled it off, then clawed at her greasy hair.

‘Acquitor,’ Fear persisted, ‘you have shown power-you are no longer the weakest among us. What you choose may prove the difference between our living and dying.’

‘Fear, what is it you seek with the soul of Scabandari?’

‘Redemption,’ he answered immediately. ‘For the Tiste Edur.’

‘And how do you imagine Scabandari’s broken, tattered soul will grant you such redemption?’

‘I will awaken it, Acquitor-and together we will purge Kurald Emurlahn. We will drive out the poison that afflicts us. And we will, perhaps, shatter my brother’s cursed sword.’

Too vague, you damned fool. Even if you awaken Scabandari, might he not in turn be enslaved by that poison, and its promise of power? And what of his own desires, hungers-what of the vengeance he himself will seek? ‘Fear,’ she said in sudden, near-crippling weariness, ‘your dream is hopeless.’

And saw him flinch back, saw the terrible retreat in his eyes.

She offered him a faint smile. ‘Yes, let this break your vow, Fear Sengar. I am not worth protecting, especially in the name of a dead brother. I trust you see that now.’

‘Yes,’ he whispered.

And in that word was such anguish that Seren Pedac almost cried out. Then railed at herself. It is what I

wanted! Damn it! What I wanted. Needed. It is what must be!

Oh, blessed Errant, how you have hurt him, Seren Pedac. Even this one. No different from all the others.

And she knew, then, that there would be no negotiation. No way through what was to come.

So be it. Do not count on me, Fear Sengar. 1 do not even know my power, nor my control of it. So, do not count on me.

But 1 shall do, for you, what I can.

A promise, yet one she would not voice out loud, for it was too late for that. She could see as much in his now cold eyes, his now hardened face.

Better that he expect nothing, yes. So that, should 1 fail… But she could not finish that thought, not with every word to follow so brightly painted in her mind-with cowardice.

Fear Sengar set out, leaving her behind. She saw, as she followed, that he no longer held on to his sword. Indeed, he suddenly seemed looser, more relaxed, than she had ever seen him before.

She did not, at that moment, understand the significance of such a transformation. In a warrior. In a warrior who knew how to kill.

Perhaps he had always known where this journey would end. Perhaps that seemingly accidental visit the first time had been anything but, and Udinaas had been shown where his every decision in the interval would take him, as inevitable as the tide. And now, at last, here he had washed up, detritus in the silt-laden water.

Will I soon be dining on ranag calf? 1 think not.

The body of the female Imass was a piteous thing. Desiccated, limbs drawn up as tendons contracted. The wild masses of her hair had grown like roots from a dead tree, the nails of her stubby fingers like flattened talons the hue of tortoiseshell. The smudged garnets that were her eyes had sunk deep within their sockets, yet still seemed to stare balefully at the sky.

Yes, the Bonecaster. The witch who gave her soul to staunch the wound. So noble, this failed, useless sacrifice. No, woman, for you 1 will not weep. You should have found another way. You should have stayed alive, among your tribe, guiding them out from their dark cave of blissful ignorance.

‘The world beyond dies,’ said Clip, sounding very nearly pleased by the prospect. Rings sang out on the ends of the chain. One silver, one gold, spinning in blurs.

Silchas Ruin eyed his fellow Tiste Andii. ‘Clip, you remain blind to… necessity.’

A faint, derisive smile. ‘Hardly, O White Crow. Hardly.’

The albino warrior then turned to fix his uncanny red-rimmed eyes upon Udinaas. ‘Is she still with us?’

Kettle’s hand, tightened in the ex-slave’s, and it was all he could do to squeeze back in reassurance. ‘She gauged our location moments ago,’ Udinaas replied, earning a hiss from Clip. ‘But now, no.’

Silchas Ruin faced the gate. ‘She prepares for us, then. On the other side.’

Udinaas shrugged. ‘I imagine so.’

Seren Pedac stirred and asked, ‘Does that mean she holds the Finnest? Silchas? Udinaas?’

But Silchas Ruin shook his head. ‘No. That would not have been tolerated. Not by her sisters. Not by the powerful ascendants who saw it fashioned in the first place-’

‘Then why aren’t they here?’ Seren demanded. ‘What makes you think they’ll accept your possessing it, Silchas Ruin, when they will not stand for Menandore’s owning it-we are speaking of Menandore, aren’t we?’

Udinaas snorted. ‘Left no stone unturned in my brain, did you, Acquitor?’

Silchas did not reply to her questions.

The ex-slave glanced over at Fear Sengar, and saw a warrior about to go into battle. Yes, we are that close, aren’t we? Oh, Fear Sengar, I do not hate you. In fact, I probably even like you. 1 may mock the honour you possess. I may scorn this path you’ve chosen.

As I scorned this Bonecaster’s, and yes, Edur, for entirely the same reasons.

Because 1 cannot follow.

Udinaas gently disengaged his hand from Kettle’s, then lifted free the Imass spear strapped to his back. He walked over to Seren Pedac. Set the weapon into her hands, ignoring her raised brows, the confusion sliding into her gaze.

Yes, Acquitor, if you will seek to aid Fear Sengar-and 1 believe you will-then your need is greater than mine.

After all, 1 intend to run.

Silchas Ruin drew his two swords, thrust them both point-first into the ground. And then began tightening the various buckles and straps on his armour.

Yes, no point in rushing in unprepared, is there? You will need to move quickly, Silchas Ruin, won’t you? Very quickly indeed.

He found his mouth was dry.

Dry as this pathetic corpse at his feet.

Seren Pedac gripped his arm. ‘Udinaas,’ she whispered.

He shook his arm free. ‘Do what you must, Acquitor.’ Our great quest, our years of one foot in front of the other, it all draws now to a close.

So hail the blood. Salute the inevitability.

And who, when all is done, will wade out of this crimson tide?

Rud Elalle, my son, how 1 fear for you.

Three specks in the sky above the hills to the south. The one named Hedge now half turned and squinted at Ulshun Pral, then said, ‘Best withdraw to the cave. Stay close to Onrack the Broken. And Trull Sengar.’

Ulshun Pral smiled.

The man scowled. ‘Quick, this oaf doesn’t understand Malazan.’ He then pointed back towards the rocks. ‘Go there! Onrack and Trull. Go!’

The taller man snorted. ‘Enough, Hedge. That oaf understands you just fine.’

‘Oh, so why ain’t he listening to me?’

‘How should I know?’

Ulshun waited a moment longer, fixing into his memory the faces of these two men, so that death would not take all of them. He hoped they were doing the same with him, although of course they might well not understand the gift, nor even that they had given it.

Imass knew many truths that were lost to those who were, in every sense, their children. This, alas, did not make Imass superior, for most of those truths were unpleasant ones, and these children could not defend themselves against them, and so would be fatally weakened by their recognition.

For example, Ulshun Pral reminded himself, he had been waiting for this time, understanding all that was coming to this moment, all the truths bound within what would happen. Unlike his people, he had not been a ghost memory. He had not lived countless millennia in a haze of self-delusion. Oh, his life had spanned that time, but it had been just that: a life. Drawn out to near immortality, not through any soul-destroying ritual, but because of this realm. This deathless realm.

That was deathless no longer.

He set out, then, leaving these two brave children, and made his way towards the cave.

It might begin here, beneath this empty sky. But it would end, Ulshun Pral knew, before the Gates of Starvald Demelain.

Where a Bentract Bonecaster had failed. Not because the wound proved too virulent, or too vast. But because the Bonecaster had been nothing more than a ghost to begin with. A faded, pallid soul, a thing with barely enough power to hold on to itself.

Ulshun Pral was twenty paces from the entrance to the cave when Onrack the Broken emerged, and in Ulshun’s heart there burgeoned such a welling of pride that tears filled his eyes.

‘So I take it,’ Hedge said, locking the foot of his crossbow, ‘that what we were both thinking means neither of us is much surprised.’

‘She gave in too easily.’

Hedge nodded. ‘That she did. But I’m still wondering, Quick, why didn’t she grab that damned Finnest a long time ago? Squirrel it away some place where Silchas Ruin would never find it? Answer me that!’

The wizard grunted as he moved out to the crest of the slope. ‘She probably thought she’d done just as you said, Hedge.’

Hedge blinked, then frowned. ‘Huh. Hadn’t thought of that.’

‘That’s because you’re thick, sapper. Now, if this goes the way I want it to, you won’t be needed at all. Keep that in mind, Hedge. I’m begging you.’

‘Oh, just get on with it.’

‘Fine then. I will.’

And Ben Adaephon Delat straightened, then slowly raised his arms.

His scrawny arms. Hedge laughed.

The wizard glared back at him over a shoulder. ‘Will you stop that?’

‘Sorry! Had no idea you were so touchy.’

Quick Ben cursed, then turned and walked back to Hedge.

And punched him in the nose.

Stunned, eyes filling with tears, the sapper staggered back. Brought a hand to his face to stem the sudden gushing of blood. ‘You broke my damned nose!’

‘So I did,’ the wizard answered, shaking one hand. And look, Hedge, you’re bleeding.’

‘Is it any surprise? Ow-’

‘Hedge. You are bleeding.’

I’m-oh, gods.

‘Get it now?’

And Quick turned and walked back, resumed his stance at the crest.

Hedge stared down at his bloody hand. ‘Shit!’

Their conversation stopped then.

Since the three dragons were now no longer tiny specks.

Menandore’s hatred of her sisters in no way diminished her respect for their power, and against Silchas Ruin that power would be needed. She knew that the three of them, together, could destroy that bastard. Utterly. True, one or two of them might fall. But not Menandore. She had plans to ensure that she would survive.

Before her now, minuscule on the edge of that rise, a lone mortal-the other one was crouching as if in terror, well behind his braver but equally stupid companion-a lone mortal, raising his hands.

Oh, mage, to think that will be enough.

Against us!

Power burgeoned within her and to either side she felt the same-sudden pressure, sudden promise.

Angling downward now, three man-heights from the basin’s tawny grasses, huge shadows drawing closer, yet closer. Sleeting towards that slope.

She unhinged her jaws.

Hedge wiped blood from his face, blinked to clear his vision as he swore at his own throbbing head, and then lifted the crossbow. Just in case. Sweet candy for the middle one, aye.

The trio of dragons, wings wide, glided low above the ground, at a height that would bring them more or less level with the crest of this ancient atoll. They were, Hedge realized, awfully big.

In perfect unison, all three dragons opened their mouths.

And Quick Ben, standing there like a frail willow before a tsunami, unleashed his magic.

The very earth of the slope lifted up, heaved up to hammer the dragons like enormous fists into their chests.

Necks whipped. Heads snapped back. Sorcery exploded from those jaws, waves lashing skyward-flung uselessly into the air, where the three sorceries clashed, writhing in a frenzy of mutual destruction.

Where the slope had been there were now clouds of dark, dusty earth, pieces of sod still spinning upward, long roots trailing like hair, and the hill lurched as the three dragons, engulfed by tons of earth, crashed into the ground forty paces from where stood Quick Ben.

And down, into that chaotic storm of soil and dragon, the wizard marched.

Waves erupted from him, rolling amidst the crackle of lightning, sweeping down in charging crests. Striking the floundering beasts with a succession of impacts that shook the entire hill. Black fire gouted, rocks sizzled as they were launched into the air, where they simply shattered into dust.

Wave after wave unleashed from the wizard’s hands.

Hedge, staggering drunkenly to the edge, saw a dragon, hammered full on, flung onto its back, then pushed, skidding, kicking, like a flesh and blood avalanche, down onto the basin, gouging deep grooves across the flat as it was driven back, and back.

Another, with skin seeming afire, sought to lift itself into the air.

Another wave rose above it, slapped the beast back down with a bone-snapping crunch.

The third creature, half buried beneath steaming soil, suddenly turned then and launched itself straight for the dragon beside it. Jaws opening, magic ripping forth to lance into the side of its once-ally. Flesh exploded, blood spraying in a black cloud.

An ear-piercing shriek, the struck one’s head whipping-even as enormous jaws closed on its throat.

Hedge saw that neck collapse in a welter of blood.

More blood poured from the stricken dragon’s gaping mouth, a damned fountain of the stuff-

Quick Ben was walking back up the slope, seemingly indifferent to the carnage behind him.

The third dragon, the one driven far out on the basin, at the end of a torn-up track that stretched across the grass like a wound, now lifted itself into the air, streaming blood, and, climbing still higher, banked south and then eastward.

The warring dragons at the base of the slope slashed and tore at each other, yet the attacker would not release its death-grip on the other’s neck, and those huge fangs were sawing right through. Then the spine crunched, snapped, and suddenly the severed head and its arm-length’s worth of throat fell to the churned ground with a heavy thud. The body kicked, gouging into its slayer’s underbelly for a moment longer, then sagged down as a spraying exhalation burst from the severed neck.

Quick Ben staggered onto the summit.

Hedge dragged his eyes from the scene below and stared at the wizard. ‘You look like Hood’s own arse-wipe, Quick.’

‘Feel like it too, Hedge.’ He pivoted round, the motion like an old man’s. ‘Sheltatha-what a nasty creature-turned on Menandore just like that!’

‘When she realized they weren’t getting past you, aye,’ Hedge said. ‘The other one’s going for the Imass, I’d wager.’

‘Won’t get past Rud Ellalle.’

‘No surprise, since you turned her into one giant bruise.’

Below, Sheltatha Lore, her belly ripped open, was dragging herself away.

Hedge eyed the treacherous beast.

‘Aye, sapper,’ Quick Ben said in a hollow voice. ‘Now you get to play.’

Hedge grunted. ‘Damn short playtime, Quick.’

‘And then you nap.’

‘Funny.’

Hedge raised the crossbow, paused to gauge the angle. Then he settled his right index finger against the release. And grinned. ‘Here, suck on this, you fat winged cow.’

A solid thunk as the cusser shot out, then down.

Landing within the gaping cavity of Sheltatha Lore’s belly.

The explosion sent chunks of dragon flesh in all directions. The thick, red, foul rain showered down on Hedge and Quick Ben. And what might have been a vertebra hammered Hedge right between the eyes, knocking him out cold.

Flung onto his hands and knees by the concussion, Quick Ben stared across at his unconscious friend, then began laughing. Higher-pitched than usual.

As they strode into the cave of paintings, Onrack reached out a hand to stay Ulshun Pral. ‘Remain here,’ he said.

‘That is never easy,’ Ulshun Pral replied, yet he halted nonetheless.

Nodding, Onrack looked at the images on the walls. ‘You see again and again the flaws.’

‘The failing of my hand, yes. The language of the eyes is ever perfect. Rendering it upon stone is where weakness is found.’

‘These, Ulshun Pral, show few weaknesses.’

‘Even so…’

‘Remain, please,’ Onrack said, slowly drawing his sword. ‘The Gate… there will be intruders.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it you they seek?’

Yes, Onrack the Broken. It is me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because a Jaghut gave me something, once, long ago.’

‘A Jaghut?’

Ulshun Pral smiled at the astonishment on Onrack’s face. ‘Here, in this world,’ he said, ‘we long ago ended our war. Here, we chose peace.’

‘Yet that which the Jaghut gave you now endangers you, Ulshun Pral. And your clans.’

Deep thundering concussions suddenly shook the walls around them.

Onrack bared his teeth. ‘1 must go.’

A moment later Ulshun Pral was alone, in the cave with all the paintings he had fashioned, and there was no light now that Onrack and the torch he had been carrying were gone. As the drums of grim magic reverberated through the rock surrounding him, he remained where he was, motionless, for a dozen heartbeats. Then he set out, after Onrack. On the path to the Gate.

There was, in truth, no choice.

Rud Elalle had led the Imass deeper into the rugged hills, then down the length of a narrow, crooked defile where some past earthquake had broken in half an entire mass of limestone, forming high, angled walls flanking a crack through its heart. At the mouth of this channel, as Rud Elalle urged the last few Imass into the narrow passage, Hostille Rator, Til’aras Benok and Gr’istanas Ish’ilm halted.

‘Quickly!’ cried Rud Elalle.

But the clan chief was drawing out his cutlass-length obsidian sword with his right hand and a bone-hafted, groundstone maul with his left. ‘An enemy approaches,’ Hostille Rator said. ‘Go on, Rud Elalle. We three will guard the mouth of this passage.’

They could hear terrible thunder from just south of the old camp.

Rud Elalle seemed at a loss.

Hostille Rator said, ‘We did not come to this realm… expecting what we have found. We are now flesh, and so too are those Imass you call your own. Death, Rud Elalle, has arrived.’ He pointed southward with his sword. ‘A lone dragon has escaped the High Mage. To hunt down you and the Bentract. Rud Elalle, even as a dragon, she must land here. She must then semble into her other form. So that she can walk this passageway. We will meet her here, the three of us… strangers.’

‘I can-’

‘No, Rud Elalle. This dragon may not prove the only danger to you and the clans. You must go, you must prepare to stand as their final protector.’

‘Why-why do you do this?’

‘Because it pleases us.’ Because you please us, Rud Elalle. So too Ulshun Pral. And the lmass…

And we came here with chaos in our hearts.

‘Go, Rud Elalle.’

Sukul Ankhadu knew her sisters were dead, and for all the shock this realization engendered-the shattering of their plan to destroy Silchas Ruin, to enslave the Finnest of Scabandari and subject that torn, vulnerable soul to endless cruelty-a part of her was filled with glee. Menandore-whom she and Sheltatha Lore had intended to betray in any case-would never again befoul Sukul’s desires and ambitions. Sheltatha-well, she had done what was needed, turning upon Menandore at the moment of her greatest weakness. And had she survived that, Sukul would have had to kill the bitch herself.

Extraordinary, that a lone mortal human could unleash such venomous power. No, not a mere mortal human. There were other things hiding inside that scrawny body, she was certain of that. If she never encountered him again, she would know a life of peace, a life without fear.

Her wounds were, all things considered, relatively minor. One wing was shattered, forcing her to rely almost entirely on sorcery to keep her in the air. An assortment of scrapes and gouges, but already the bleeding had ebbed, the wounds were closing.

She could smell the stench of the lmass, could follow their trail with ease as it wound through the broken hills below.

Rud Elalle was a true child of Menandore. A Soletaken. But so very young, so very naive. If brute force could not defeat him, then treachery would. Her final act of vengeance-and betrayal-against Menandore.

The trail led into a high-walled, narrow channel, one that seemed to lead downward, perhaps to caves. Before its mouth was a small, level clearing, bounded on both sides by boulders.

She dropped down, slowed her flight.

And saw, standing before the defile’s entrance, an Imass warrior.

Good. I can kill. 1 can feed.

Settling down into the clearing-a tight fit, her one working wing needing tp draw in close-and then sembling, drawing her power inward. Until she stood, not twenty paces from the Imass.

Mortal. Nothing more than what he appeared.

Sukul Ankhadu laughed. She would walk up to him, wrest his stone weapons away, then sink her teeth into his throat.

Still laughing, she approached.

He readied himself, dropping into a crouch.

At ten paces, he surprised her. The maul, swung in a loop underhand, shot out from his extended arm.

Sukul threw herself to one side-had that weapon struck, it would have shattered her skull-then, as the Imass leapt forward with his sword, she reached out and caught his wrist. Twisted, snapping the bones. With her other hand she grasped his throat and lifted him from his feet.

And saw, in his face, a smile-even as she crushed that throat.

Behind her, two Bonecasters, veered into identical beasts-long-legged bears with vestigial tails, covered in thick brown and black hair, with flattened snouts, at their shoulders the height of a Tiste-emerged from the cover of the boulders and, as Hostille Rator died, the Soletaken arrived at a full charge.

Slamming into Sukul Ankhadu, one on her left, the other on her right. Huge talons slashing, massive forelimbs closing about her as jaws, opened wide, tore into her.

Lower canines sank under her left jawline, the upper canines punching down through flesh and bone, and as the beast whipped its head to one side, Sukul’s lower jaw, left cheekbones and temporal plate all went with it.

The second beast bit through her right upper arm as it closed its jaws about her ribcage, clamping round a mouthful of crushed ribs and pulped lung.

As the terrible pain and pressure suddenly ripped away from her head, Sukul twisted round. Her left arm-the only one still attached to her-had been holding up the warrior, and now, releasing the dying Imass, she swung that arm backhand, striking the side of the giant bear’s head. And with that impact, she released a surge of power.

The beast’s head exploded in a mass of bone shards, brains and teeth.

As it fell away, Sukul Ankhadu tried twisting further, to reach across for the second beast’s snout.

It lurched back, tearing away ribs and lung.

She spun, driving her hand between the creature’s clavicles. Through thick hide, into a welter of spurting blood and soft meat, fingers closing on the ridged windpipe-

A taloned paw struck the side of her head-the same side as had been mauled by the first beast-and where the temporal plate had been, cerebral matter now sprayed out with the impact. The claws caught more bone and hard cartilage, raked through forebrain on its way back out.

The upper front of Sukul’s head and the rest of her face was ripped away, spilling brains out from the gaping space.

At that moment, the other paw hammered what remained from the other side. When it had completed its passage, all that was left was a section of occipital plate attached to a flopping patch of scalp, dangling from the back of the neck.

Sukul Ankhadu’s knees buckled. Her left hand exited the wound in the second beast’s throat with a sobbing sound.

She might have remained on her knees, balanced by the sudden absence of any weight above her shoulders, but then the creature that had finally killed her lurched forward, its enormous weight crushing her down as the Soletaken, who had once been Til’aras Benok, collapsed, slowly suffocating from a crushed windpipe.

Moments later, the only sound from this modest clearing was the dripping of blood.

Trull Sengar could hear the faint echoes of sorcery and he feared for his friends. Something was seeking to reach this place, and if it-or they-got past Hedge and Quick Ben, then once more Trull would find himself standing before unlikely odds. Even with Onrack at his side…

Yet he held his gaze on the gates. The silent flames rose and ebbed within the portals, each to its own rhythm, each tinted in a different hue. The air felt charged. Static sparks crackled in the dust that had begun swirling up from the stone floor.

He heard a sound behind him and turned. Relief flooded through him. ‘Onrack-’

‘They seek Ulshun Pral,’ his friend replied, emerging from the tunnel mouth, two paces, three, then he halted. ‘You are too close to those gates, my friend. Come-’

He got no further.

The fires within one of the gates winked out, and from within the suddenly dark portal figures emerged.

Two strides behind Silchas Ruin, Seren Pedac was the next in their group to cross the threshold. She did not know what prompted her to push past Fear Sengar-and attributed no special significance to Clip’s hanging back. A strange tug took hold of her soul, a sudden, excruciating yearning that overwhelmed her growing dread. All at once, the stone spear she held in her hands felt light as a reed.

Darkness, a momentary flicker, as of distant light, then she was stepping onto gritty stone.

A cavern. To either side, the raging maws of more gates, flooding all with light.

Before her, Silchas Ruin halted and his swords hissed from their scabbards. Someone was standing before him, but in that moment Seren Pedac’s view was blocked by the White Crow.

She saw a barbaric warrior standing further back, and behind him, a lone silhouette standing in the mouth of a tunnel.

To her left Fear Sengar appeared.

She took another step, to bring her round Silchas Ruin, to see the one who had made the albino Tiste Andii pause.

And all at once, the terror began.

On Fear Sengar’s face, an expression of profound horror-even as he surged past Seren Pedac. A knife in his raised hand. The blade flashing down towards Silchas Ruin’s back.

Then all of Fear’s forward motion ceased. The out-thrust arm with its knife flailed, slashed the air even as Silchas Ruin-as if entirely unaware of the attack-took a single step forward.

A terrible gurgling sound from Fear Sengar.

Spinning round, Seren Pedac saw Clip standing immediately behind Fear. Saw the chain between Clip’s hands slide almost effortlessly through Fear Sengar’s throat. Blood lashed out.

Beyond Clip, Udinaas, with Kettle now held tight in his arms, sought to lunge away, even as a shadow erupted beneath him, writhed about his lower limbs, and dragged the Letherii down to the stone floor, where Wither then swarmed over Udinaas. ‘

Clip released one end of his chain and whipped the length free of Fear Sengar’s throat. Eyes staring, the expression of fierce intent fixed upon his face, the Tiste Edur’s head sagged back, revealing a slash reaching all the way back to his spine. As Fear Sengar fell, Clip slid in a deadly blur towards Udinaas.

Frozen in shock, Seren Pedac stood rooted. Disbelieving, as a scream of raw denial tore from her throat.

Silchas Ruin’s swords were singing as he closed in deadly battle with whomever stood before him. Staccato impacts as those blades were parried with impossible speed.

Wither had wrapped shadow hands around Udinaas’s neck. Was choking the life from the ex-slave.

Kettle pulled herself free, then twisted round to pound tiny hands against the wraith.

All at once, a ferocious will burgeoned within Seren Pedac. The will to kill. Launched like a javelin towards Wither.

The wraith exploded in shreds-

– as Clip arrived, standing over Udinaas and reaching down one hand to grasp Kettle’s tunic between the girl’s shoulder blades.

Clip threw the child across the floor. She struck, skidded then rolled like a bundle of rags.

With focused punches of Mockra, Seren Pedac hammered at Clip, sending him staggering. Blood sprayed from his nose, mouth and ears. Then he whipped round, a hand lashing out.

Something pounded Seren Pedac high on her left shoulder. Sudden agony radiated out from the point of impact and all her concentration vanished beneath those overwhelming waves. She looked down and saw a dagger buried to the hilt-stared down at it in disbelief.

There had been no time to think. Trull Sengar was left with naught but recognition. One, then another, arriving in shocks that left him stunned.

From the gate emerged an apparition-and Trull Sengar had stood before this one before, long ago, during a night’s vigil over fallen kin. Ghost of darkness. The Betrayer. No longer weaponless, as he had been the first time. No longer half rotted, yet the coals of those terrifying eyes remained, fixed now upon him in bright familiarity.

And, in a low voice, almost a whisper, the Betrayer said, ‘Of course it is you. But this battle, it is not-’

At that moment, Trull Sengar saw his brother. Fear, the god of his childhood, the stranger of his last days among the Tiste Edur. Fear, meeting Trull’s wide eyes. Seeing the battle about to begin. Comprehending-and then there was a knife in his hand, and, as he surged forward to stab the Betrayer in the back, Trull saw in his brother’s face-in an instant-the full measure of Fear’s sudden self-awareness, the bitter irony, the truth of generations past returned once more, one last time. Silchas Ruin, an Edur knife seeking his back.

When Fear was tugged backward, when his throat opened wide, Trull Sengar felt his mind, his soul, obliterated, inundated by incandescent fury, and he was moving forward, the tip of his spear seeking the slayer of his brother-

And the Betrayer was in his way.

A slash opened up the Betrayer’s skin at the base of his throat, the tip skittering away across one clavicle; then a thrust, punching into the apparition’s left shoulder muscle.

And all at once the Betrayer’s swords wove a skein of singing iron, parrying the spear’s every lightning thrust and sweep. And suddenly Trull Sengar’s advance stalled, and then he was being driven back, as those swords, hammering the shaft of his spear, tore away bronze sheathing, began splintering the wood.

And Trull Sengar recognized, before him, his own death.

Onrack the Broken saw his friend’s attack fail, saw the fight turn, and saw that Trull Sengar was doomed to fall.

Yet he did not move. Could not.

He felt his own heart tearing itself to pieces, for the man behind him-the Imass, Ulshun Pral-was, Onrack knew at once, of his own blood. A revelation, the summation of a thousand mysterious sensations, instincts, the echoing of gestures-Ulshun Pral’s very stance, his manner of walking, and the talent of eyes and hand-he was, oh he was…

Trull Sengar’s spear exploded in the warrior’s hands. A sword lashed out-

The blow to her shoulder had driven Seren Pedac down to her knees, then pitched her sideways-and she saw, there before Silchas Ruin, Trull Sengar.

Clip, blood streaming down his face, had turned back to pursue Udinaas, who was, crawling, scrabbling towards Kettle.

And before her rose a choice.

Trull

Or Udinaas.

But, alas, Seren Pedac was never good with choices.

With her hands she sent the stone spear skittering towards Trull Sengar-even as his own weapon shattered into pieces. And, tearing the dagger from her shoulder, she renewed her Mockra assault on Clip-staggering the bastard once more.

As the sword swung to take Trull in the side of his head, he dropped down, then rolled to evade the second weapon that chopped down. He wasn’t fast enough. The edge slammed deep into his right hip, stuck fast in solid bone.

Trull took hold of the Betrayer’s forearm and pulled as he twisted-the pain as he sought to trap that embedded sword momentarily blinded him, filling his skull with white fire-and against the other sword he could do nothing-

But the Betrayer, pulled slightly off balance, took a step to the side to right himself-onto the shaft of the stone spear which promptly rolled beneath his weight.

And down he went.

Trull saw the spear, reached for it. Closed both hands about the shaft, then, still lying on his side, one of the singing swords pinned beneath him-the Betrayer’s arm stretched out as he sought to maintain his grip-Trull drove the butt end of the spear into his opponent’s midsection.

Punching all the air from his lungs.

He plunged backward, rolled, and the sword under Trull slapped down as the Betrayer’s hand involuntarily released it. And Trull pounded a hand down on the weapon, dislodging it from the bone of his hip. The white fire remained in his mind, even as he forced himself onto his knees, then upward. The leg beneath the wound refused to obey him and he snarled in sudden rage, willing himself into a standing position-then, leg dragging, he closed in on the Betrayer-

Seren Pedac-all her efforts at incinerating Clip’s brain failing-shrank back as the now grinning Tiste Andii, abandoning his hunt for Udinaas, turned about and advanced on her, drawing out knife and rapier. Crimson teeth, crimson streaks from his eyes like tears-

At that moment, impossibly, Trull Sengar hurt Silchas Ruin-drove the White Crow onto his back where his head snapped back to crunch against the floor, stunning him.

And Clip turned, saw, and raced in a low blur towards Trull.

Meeting a spear that lashed out. Clip parried it at the last moment, surprise on his features, and he skidded to a halt, and was suddenly fighting for his life.

Against a crippled Tiste Edur.

Who drove him back a step.

Then another.

Wounds blossomed on Clip. Left arm. Across the ribs on the right side. Laying open his right cheek.

In a sudden, appallingly fast-shifting attack, Trull Sengar reversed the spear and the stone shaft cracked hard into Clip’s right forearm, breaking it. Another crack, dislocating the right shoulder-and the knife spun away. Third time, this one on the upper left thigh, hard enough to splinter the femur. A final one, against Clip’s left temple-a spray of blood, the head rocking to one side, the body collapsing utterly beneath it. Rapier clunking from a senseless hand. And Trull then whirled back to Silchas Ruin-But his wounded leg failed him and he fell-Seren heard his curse like a sharp retort-

The white-skinned Tiste Andii advanced to where Onrack stood. The lone sword in his right hand howled as he readied it.

‘Step aside, Imass,’ he said. ‘The one behind you is mine.’

Onrack shook his head. He is mine. Mine!

It was clear that the Tiste Andii saw Onrack’s refusal in the face of the Imass warrior, for he suddenly snarled-a sound of raw impatience-and lashed out with his left hand.

Sorcery hammered-into Onrack. Lifting him from his feet, high into the air, then slamming him into a wall of stone.

As he dropped down hard onto the floor, a single thought drifted through his mind before unconsciousness took him: Not again.

Trull Sengar, lying helpless on the floor, cried out upon seeing Onrack engulfed in magic and then flung away. He struggled to regain his feet, but the leg was a dead weight now, and he was leaving a thick trail of blood as he dragged himself closer to Silchas Ruin.

Then someone was kneeling at his side. Hands soft on one shoulder-

‘Stop,’ a woman’s voice murmured. ‘Stop, Trull Sengar. It is too late.’

Udinaas struggled to breathe. Wither’s shadowy hands had crushed something in his throat. He felt himself weakening, darkness closing in on all sides.

He had failed.

Even knowing, he had failed.

This is the truth of ex-slaves, because even that word is a lie.

Slavery settles into the soul. My master now is naught but failure itself.

Forcing himself to remain conscious, he lifted his head. Drag the breath in, dammit. Lift the head-fail if need be, but do not die. Not yet. Lift the head!

And watch.

Silchas Ruin sheathed his remaining sword, walked up to Ulshun Pral.

And took him by the throat.

A low woman’s voice spoke from his left. ‘Harm my son, Tiste Andii, and you will not leave here.’

He turned to see a woman, an Imass, clothed in the skin of a panther. She was standing over the prone form of the warrior he had just flung aside.

‘That this one lives,’ she said, with a gesture down to the Imass at her bared feet, ‘is the only reason I have not already torn you to pieces.’

A Bonecaster, and the look in her feline eyes was a dark promise.

Silchas Ruin loosened his hold on the Imass before him, then reached down and deftly plucked free a flint dagger. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is all I need.’ And as soon as he held the primitive weapon in his hand, he knew the truth of his claim.

Stepping away, eyes holding the woman’s.

She made no move.

Satisfied, Silchas Ruin turned about.

Seren, kneeling beside Trull Sengar, watched the White Crow walk over to where Kettle sat on the stone floor. With his free hand he reached down to her.

A fistful of tunic, a sudden lift, pulling the child into the air, then back down, hard, onto the flat of her back, her head cracking hard on the stone, even as he drove the flint knife into the centre of her chest.

Her small legs kicked, then went still.

Silchas Ruin slowly straightened. Stepped back.

Udinaas turned his head away, his vision filling with tears. Of course, the child had known, just as he had known. Kettle was, after all, the last desperate creation of an Azath.

And here, in this brutal place, she had been joined to a Finnest.

He heard Seren Pedac cry out. Looked once more, blinking to clear his eyes.

Silchas Ruin had backed away, towards one of the gates.

Where Kettle lay, the leather-wrapped handle of the flint knife jutting up from her chest, the air had begun to swirl, darkness condensing. And the small body was moving in fitful jerks, then a slow writhing of limbs as roots snaked out, sank tendrils into the very stone. Rock hissed, steamed.

Silchas Ruin looked on for a moment longer, then he swung about, collected his second sword, sheathed it, and walked into a gate, vanishing from sight.

His breathing less ragged, Udinaas twisted round, looked for Clip’s body-but the bastard was gone. A blood trail leading to one of the gates. It figures. But oh, I saw Trull Sengar ~ 1 saw him take you on, Clip. You, sneering at that paltry weapon, the lowly spear. 1 saw, Clip.

The dark cloud surrounding Kettle’s body had burgeoned, grown. Stone foundations, black roots, the trickle of water spreading in a stain.

An Azath, to hold for ever the soul of Scabandari. Silchas Ruin, you have your vengeance. Your perfect exchange.

And, because he could not help himself, Udinaas lowered his head and began to weep.

Somehow, Trull Sengar forced himself back onto his feet. Although without Seren Pedac at his side, taking much of his weight-and without the spear on which he leaned ~ she knew that that would have been impossible.

‘Please,’ he said to her, ‘my brother.’

She nodded, wincing as the wound in her shoulder pulsed fresh blood, and began helping him hobble across to where Fear Sengar’s body was sprawled, almost at the foot of the now darkened gate.

‘What am I to do?’ Trull asked, suddenly hesitating and looking to where stood the squat woman wearing the skin of a panther. She and the Imass who had carried the Finnest were both now crouched at the form of a third Imass, a warrior. The woman was cradling the dead or unconscious warrior’s head. ‘Onrack… my friend…’

‘Kin first,’ Seren Pedac said. Then she raised her voice and called out to the Imass. ‘Does the fallen one live?’

‘Yes,’ the warrior replied. ‘My father lives.’

A sob broke from Trull Sengar and he sagged against her. Seren staggered beneath his weight for a moment, then straightened. ‘Come, my love.’

This caught Trull’s attention as, perhaps, nothing else would. He searched her face, her eyes.

‘We must return to my house,’ she said, even as dread clawed at her heart-another, after all 1 have done to those who came before him. Errant forgive me. Another. ‘I carry a sword,’ she added. ‘And would bury it before the threshold.’ And shall 1 then kneel there, dirt on my hands, and cover my eyes? Shall I cry out in grief for what is to come? For all that I will bring to you, Trull Sengar? My burdens-

‘I have dreamed you would say that, Seren Pedac’

She closed her eyes for a long moment, and then nodded.

They resumed their journey, and when they reached Fear Sengar, she let Trull settle down onto the ground, and he set the spear down, then reached out to touch his brother’s ashen, lifeless face.

From nearby, Udinaas-his face streaked in tears-spoke in a harsh, grating voice. ‘I greet you, Trull Sengar. And I must tell you… your brother, Fear… he died as a hero would.’

Trull lifted his head, stared across at the Letherii. ‘Udinaas. You are wrong. My brother sought… betrayal.’

‘No. He saw you, Trull, and he knew the mind of Silchas Ruin. Knew you could never stand against the White Crow. Do you understand me? He saw you.’

‘Is that helpful?’ Seren Pedac snapped.

Udinaas bared bloodstained teeth. ‘With the only alternative betrayal, Acquitor, then yes. Trull, I am… sorry. And yet… Fear-1 am proud of him. Proud to have known him.’

And she saw her beloved nod, then manage a sorrow-filled smile at the ex-slave. ‘Thank you, Udinaas. Your journey-all of you-your journey, it must have been long. Difficult.’ He glanced to her, then back to Udinaas. ‘For remaining at my brother’s side, I thank you both.’, Oh, Trull, may you never know the truth.

Onrack the Broken opened his eyes to an ancient dream, and its conjuration twisted like a knife in his soul. Not oblivion, then. Such peace is denied me. Instead, my crimes return. To haunt.

And yet… Ulshun Pral-

An ancient dream, yes, and hovering just beyond, a far younger dream-one he had not even known to exist. The Ritual of Tellann had stolen from so many men of the Imass this reaching into the future, this creation of sons, daughters, this rooting of life into the soil that lived on.

Yes, that had indeed been a dream-

Kilava Onass suddenly frowned. ‘You stare, Onrack, with all the intelligence of a bhederin. Have you lost your wits?’

Dreams did not berate, did they?

‘Ah,’ she then said, nodding, ‘now I see you of old-1 see the panic that ever fills a man’s eyes, when all he longed for is suddenly within reach. But know this, I too have longed, and I too now feel… panic. To love in absence is to float on ever still waters. No sudden currents. No treacherous tides. No possibility of drowning. You and I, Onrack, have floated so for a very long time.’

He stared up at her-yes, he was lying on hard stone. In the cavern of the gates.

Then Kilava smiled, revealing those deadly canines. ‘But I fared better, I think. For you gave me a gift, from that one night. You gave me Ulshun Pral. And when I found this… this illusion, I found for our son a home, a haven.’

‘This realm… dies,’ Onrack said. ‘Are we all illusions now?’

Kilava shook her head, the luxuriant black hair shimmering. ‘Gothos gave to our son the Finnest. As for the rest, well, your son has explained it to me. The white-skinned Tiste Andii, Silchas Ruin, delivered the seed of an Azath, a seed in the guise of a child. To accept the Finnest, to use its power to grow. Onrack, soon these gates will be sealed, each and all drawn into the House, into a squat, clumsy tower. And this realm-with an Azath House here, this realm no longer wanders, no longer fades. It is rooted, and so it will remain.’

Behind her, Ulshun Pral said, ‘Gothos said Silchas Ruin would one day come for the Finnest. Gothos thought that was… funny. Jaghut,’ he then said, ‘are strange.’

Kilava Onass added, ‘To win his freedom, Silchas Ruin bargained with an Azath, an Azath that was dying. And now he has done what was asked of him. And the Azath is reborn.’

‘Then… we need not have fought.’

Kilava scowled. ‘Never trust a Tiste Andii.’ Her luminous eyes flickered away briefly. ‘It seems there were other… issues.’

But Onrack was not ready to think of those. He continued staring up at Kilava Onass. ‘You, then, that night in darkness.’

Her scowl deepened. ‘Were you always this thick? I cannot remember-by the spirits, my panic worsens. Of course it was me. You bound me to stone, with your eyes and hand. With, Onrack, your love. Yours was a forbidden desire and it wounded so many. But not me. I knew only that I must give answer. I must let my heart speak.’ She laid a hand on his chest. ‘As yours now does. You are flesh and blood, Onrack. The Ritual has relinquished your soul. Tell me, what do you seek?’

He held his eyes on hers. ‘I have found it,’ he said.

Every bone in his body ached as he forced himself to his feet. At once his gaze was drawn to where he had last seen Trull Sengar; and a growing dread was swept from his mind upon seeing his friend.

Trull Sengar, you are as hard to kill as I am.

A moment later, he saw the tears on his friend’s face, and’ it seemed there would be, grief this day, after all.

At the mouth of a fissure not far away, in a small clearing, Rud Elalle stood in the midst of carnage. Where one of his mother’s sisters had died. Where three Imass had died.

And somewhere beyond, he knew in his heart, he would find the body of his mother.

He stood on blood-soaked ground, and wondered what it was that had just died within his own soul.

Some time later, much later, he would find the word to describe it.

Innocence.

Quick Ben still hobbled like an old man, amusing Hedge no end. ‘There you are,’ he said as they made their way towards the cave and its tunnel leading to the Gates of Starvald Demelain, ‘exactly how you’ll look twenty years from now. Creepy and gamey. Pushing wobbly teeth with a purple tongue and muttering rhymes under your breath-

‘Keep talking, sapper, and you’ll know all about loose teeth. In fact, I’m surprised a few weren’t knocked right out when that bone hit you. Gods below, that is probably the funniest thing I have ever seen.’

Hedge reached and gingerly touched the huge lump on his forehead. ‘So, we did our task today. How do you think the others fared?’

‘We’ll soon find out,’ the wizard replied. ‘One thing, though.’

‘What?’

‘There is now an Azath House growing in this damned realm.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Oh, lots of things. First, this place is now real. And it will live on. These Imass will live on.’

Hedge grunted. ‘Rud Elalle will be pleased. Onrack, too, I imagine.’

‘Aye. And here’s another thing, only I don’t think it’ll please anyone. In that Azath House there will be a tower, and in that tower, all the gates.’

‘So?’

Quick Ben sighed. ‘You damned idiot. The Gates of Starvald Demelain.’

‘And?*

‘Just this. Shadowthrone, and Cotillion. Who like using the Azath whenever it suits them. Now they’ve got a way in. Not just to this realm, either.’

‘Into Starvald Demelain? Gods below, Quick! Is that why we just did all that? Is that what brought you here?’

‘No need to scream, sapper. When it came to planting that House, we weren’t even witnesses. Were we? But you know, it’s what those two sneaky bastards know, or seem to know, that really worries me. See my point?’

‘Oh, Hood piss in your boots, Ben Adaephon Delat.’

‘Got all your gear there, Hedge? Good. Because once we get to the Gates, we’re going through one of them.’

‘We are?’

‘We are.’ And the wizard grinned across at the sapper. ‘Fid’s never been the same without you.’

Silchas Ruin stood among ancient foundations-some Forkrul Assail remnant slumping its slow way down the mountainside-and lifted his face to the blue sky beyond the towering trees.

He had fulfilled his vow to the Azath.

And delivered unto the soul of Scabandari a reprieve Bloodeye did not deserve.

Vengeance, he well knew, was a poisoned triumph.

One task remained. A minor one, intended to serve little more than his own sense of redressing an egregious imbalance. He knew little of this Crippled God. But what little he knew, Silchas Ruin did not like.

Accordingly, he now spread his arms. And veered into his dragon form.

Surged skyward, branches torn away from the trees he shouldered aside. Into the crisp mountain air-far to the west, a pair of condors banked away in sudden terror. But the direction Silchas Ruin chose was not to the west.

South.

To a city called Letheras.

And this time, in truth, there was blood on his mind.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Beak’s barrow began with a few bones tossed into the ash and charred, splintered skeleton that was all that remained of the young mage. Before long, other objects joined the heap. Buckles, clasps, fetishes, coins, broken weapons. By the time Fist Keneb was ready to give the command to march, the mound was nearly the height of a man. When Captain Faradan Sort asked Bottle for a blessing, the squad mage had shaken his head, explaining that the entire killing field that had been enclosed by Bottle’s sorcery was now magically dead. Probably permanently. At this news the captain had turned away, although Keneb thought he heard her say: ‘Not a candle left to light, then.’

As the marines set out for the city of Letheras, they could hear the rumble of detonations from the south, where the Adjunct had landed with the rest of the Bonehunters and was now engaging the Letherii armies. That thunder, Keneb knew, did not belong to sorcery.

He should be leading his troops to that battle, to hammer the Letherii rearguard, and then link up with Tavore and the main force. But Keneb agreed with the captain and with Fiddler and Gesler. He and his damned marines had earned this, had earned the right to be the first to assail this empire’s capital city.

‘Might be another army waiting on the walls,’ Sergeant Thorn Tissy had said, making his face twist in his singular expression of disapproval, like a man who’d just swallowed a nacht turd.

‘It’s possible there is,’ the Fist had conceded. And that particular conversation went no further.

Up onto the imperial road with its well-set cobbles and breadth sufficient to accommodate a column ten soldiers wide. Marching amidst discarded accoutrements and the rubbish left by the Letherii legions as the day drew to a close and the shadows lengthened.

Dusk was not far off and the last sleep had been some time past, yet his soldiers, Keneb saw, carried themselves-and their gear-as if fresh from a week’s rest.

A few hundred paces along, the column ran into the first refugees.

Smudged, frightened faces. Sacks and baskets of meagre provisions, wide-eyed babies peering from bundles. Burdened mules and two-wheeled carts creaking and groaning beneath possessions. No command was given, yet the Letherii shuffled to the roadsides, pulling whatever gear they had with them, as the column continued on. Eyes downcast, children held tight. Saying nothing at all.

Faradan Sort moved alongside Keneb. ‘This is odd,’ she said.

The Fist nodded. ‘They have the look of people fleeing something that’s already happened. Find one, Captain, and get some answers.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Studying the refugees he passed, Keneb wondered what was behind the glances a few of them furtively cast on these marching soldiers, these white-haired foreigners in their gleaming armour. Do they see saviours? Not a chance. Yet, where is the hostility? They are more frightened of what they’ve just left behind in Letheras than they are of us. What in Hood’s name is happening there?

And where are the Tiste Edur?

The crowds got thicker, more reluctant to move aside. Fiddler adjusted the pack on his shoulder and settled a hand on the grip of his shortsword. The column’s pace had slowed, and the sergeant could feel the growing impatience among his troops.

They could see the end-Hood’s breath-it was behind that white wall to the northeast, now a league or less distant. The imperial road stretching down towards them from a main gate was, in the red glare of sunset, a seething serpent. Pouring out by the thousands.

And why?

Riots, apparently. An economy in ruins, people facing starvation.

‘Never knew we could cause such trouble, eh Fid?’

‘Can’t be us, Cuttle. Not just us, I mean. Haven’t you noticed? There are no Tiste Edur in this crowd. Now, either they’ve retreated behind their estate walls, or to the palace keep or whatever it is where the Emperor lives, or they were the first to run.’

‘Like those behind us, then. Heading back to their homelands in the north.’

‘Maybe.’

‘So, if this damned empire is already finished, why are we bothering with the capital?’

Fiddler shrugged. ‘Bottle might have hidden one of his rats in the Adjunct’s hair-why not ask him?’

‘Adjunct ain’t got enough hair for that,’ Cuttle muttered, though he did glance back at the squad mage. Bottle did not deign to reply. ‘See anybody on those walls, Fid? My eyes are bad in bad light.’

‘If there are, they’re not holding torches,’ Fiddler replied.

There had been so little time to think. About anything, beyond just staying alive. Ever since the damned coast. But now, as he walked on this road, Fiddler found his thoughts wandering dusty paths. They had set out on this invasion in the name of vengeance. And, maybe, to eradicate a tyrannical Emperor who viewed anyone not his subject as meat for the butcher’s cleaver. All very well, as far as it goes. Besides, that hardly makes this Emperor unique.

So why is this our battle? And where in Hood’s name do we go from here? He so wanted to believe the Adjunct knew what she was doing. And that, whatever came and however it ended, there would be some meaning to what they did.

‘We must be our own witness.’ To what, dammit?

‘Soldiers on the wall,’ Koryk called out. ‘Not many, but they see us clear enough.’

Fiddler sighed. First to arrive, and maybe that’s as far as we’ll get. An army of eight hundred camped outside one gate. They must be pissing in their boots. He drew another deep breath, then shook himself. ‘Fair enough. We finally got an appreciative audience.’

Smiles didn’t much like the look of these refugees. The pathetic faces, the shuffling gaits, they reminded her too much of… home. Oh, there’d been nothing in the way of hopeless flight back then, so it wasn’t that, exactly. Just the dumb animal look in these eyes. The uncomprehending children dragged along by one hand, or clinging to mother’s ratty tunic.

The Bonehunters marched to Letheras-why weren’t these fools screaming and wailing in terror? They’re like slaves, pushed into freedom like sheep into the wilds, and all they expect ahead is more slavery. That, or dying in the tangles of empty forests. They’ve been beaten down. All their lives.

That’s what’s so familiar. Isn’t it?

She turned her head and spat onto the road. Hood take all empires. Hood take all the prod and pull. I/I get to you, dear Emperor of Lether-if 1 get to you first, I’m going to slice you into slivers. Slow, with lots of pain. For every one of these wretched citizens on this stinking road.

Now, the sooner all these fools get out of our way, the sooner I can torture their Emperor.

‘We head for the palace,’ Koryk said to Tarr. ‘And let nothing get in our way.’

‘You’re smoke-dreaming, Koryk,’ the corporal replied. ‘We’d have to cut through a few thousand stubborn Letherii to do that. And maybe even more Edur. And if that’s not enough, what about that wall there? Plan on jumping it? We haven’t got enough munitions to-’

‘Rubbish-’

‘I mean, there’s no way Keneb’s going to allow the sappers to use up all their stuff, not when all we have to do is wait for the Adjunct, then do a siege all proper.’

Koryk snorted. ‘Proper like Y’Ghatan? Oh, I can’t wait.’

There’s no Leoman of the Flails in Letheras,’ Tarr said, tugging at his chin strap. ‘Just some Edur on the throne. Probably drunk. Insane. Drooling and singing lullabies. So, why bother with the palace? Won’t be anything of interest there. I say we loot some estates, Koryk.’

‘Malazan soldiers don’t loot.’

‘But we’re not any more, are we? I mean, soldiers of the Malazan Empire.’

Koryk sneered at his corporal. ‘So that means you just sink back down to some frothing barbarian, Tarr? Why am I not surprised? I never believed all those civilized airs you’re always putting on.’

‘

‘What airs?’

‘Well, all right, maybe it’s just how everybody sees you. But now I’m seeing you different. A damned thug, Tarr, just waiting to get nasty on us.’

‘I was just thinking out loud,’ Tarr said. ‘It’s not like Fid’s gonna let us do whatever we want, is it?’

‘I’m not gonna let you do whatever you want, Tarr.’

‘Just making conversation, Koryk. That’s all it was.’

Koryk grunted.

‘You being insolent with your corporal, Koryk?’

‘I’m thinking of pushing all your armour-and your shield-right up your bung hole, Corporal. Is that insolent?’

‘Once I’m used to telling the difference, I’ll let you know.’

‘Listen, Corabb,’ Bottle said, ‘you can stop looking out for me now, all right?’

The round-shouldered warrior at his side shook his head. ‘Sergeant Fiddler says-’

‘Never mind that. We’re in column. Hundreds of marines on all sides, right? And I’m almost rested up, ready to make trouble in case we get ambushed or whatever. I’m safe here, Corabb. Besides, you keep hitting me with that scabbard-my leg’s all bruised.’

‘Better a bruise than a chopped-off head,’ Corabb said.

‘Well, that’s a fact.’

Corabb nodded, as if the issue was now closed.

Bottle rubbed at his face. The memory of Beak’s sacrifice haunted him. He’d not known the mage very well. Just a face with a gawking expression or a wide smile, a pleasant enough man not much older than Bottle himself. For some-for the rarest few-the paths to power were smooth, uncluttered, and yet the danger was always there. Too easy to draw too much, to let it just pour through you.

Until you’re nothing but ashes.

Yet Beak had won their lives. The problem was, Bottle wondered if it had been worth it. That maybe the lives of eight hundred marines weren’t worth the life of a natural High Mage. Whatever was coming, at the very end of this journey, was going to be trouble. The Adjunct had Sinn and that was it. Another natural talent-but I think she’s mad.

Adjunct, your High Mage is insane. Will that be a problem?

He snorted.

Corabb took that sound as an invitation to talk. ‘See the fear in these people, Bottle? The Bonehunters turn their hearts to ice. When we reach the gate, it will swing wide open for us. The Letherii soldiers will throw down their arms. The people shall deliver to us the Emperor’s head on a copper plate, and roses will be flung into our path-’

‘For Hood’s sake, Corabb, enough. You keep looking for glory in war. But there is no glory. And heroes, like Beak back there, they end up dead. Earning what? A barrow of rubbish, that’s what.’

But Corabb was shaking his head. ‘When I die-’

‘It won’t be in battle,’ Bottle finished.

‘You wound me with your words.’

‘You’ve got the Lady in your shadow, Corabb. You’ll keep scraping through. You’ll break weapons or they’ll fly from your hand. Your horse will flip end over end and land right side up, with you still in the saddle. In fact, I’d wager all my back pay that you’ll be the last one of us standing at the very end.’

‘You believe there will be a fight in this city?’

‘Of course there will, you idiot. In fact, I’d be surprised if we even get inside the walls, until the Adjunct arrives. But then, aye, we’re in for a messy street-by-street battle, and the only thing certain about that is a lot of us are going to get killed.’

Corabb spat on his hands, rubbed them together.

Bottle stared. The fool was actually smiling.

‘You need fear nothing,’ Corabb assured him, ‘for I will guard you.’

‘Wonderful.’

Hellian scowled. Damned crowded road, was it always like this? Must be a busy city, and everybody going on about things like there wasn’t a column of foreign invaders pushing through them. She was still feeling the heat of shame-she’d fallen asleep back on that killing field. Supposed to be ready to fight and if not fight, then die horribly in a conflagration of piss-reeking magic, and what does she do?

Fall asleep. And dream of white light, and fires that don’t burn, and because everybody had known she was dreaming they’d all decided to pull out their hidden supplies of aeb root paste and bleach their hair, and then polish all their gear. Well. Ha ha. Damned near the most elaborate joke ever pulled on her. But she wasn’t going to let on about any of it. Pretend, aye, that nothing looked any different, and when her soldiers went over to where that one marine had died-the only casualty in the entire battle and there must have been some kind of battle since the evil Letherii army had run away-well, she’d done the same. Left on the mound an empty flask and if that wasn’t honouring the idiot then what was?

But it was getting dark, and all these moon faces peering at them from the roadsides was getting eerie. She’d seen one baby, in an old woman’s scrawny arms, stick out its tongue at her, and it had taken all her self-control to keep from pulling her sword and lopping off the tyke’s little round head or maybe just twisting its ears or even tickling it to death, and so it was a good thing that nobody else could listen in on her thoughts because then they’d know she’d been rattled bad by that joke and her falling asleep when she should have been sergeant.

My polished sword at that. Which I can use to cut off all my white hair if 1 want to. Oh yes, they did it all to me and mine, too.

Someone stumbled on the back of her heel and she half turned. ‘Get back, Corpor-’ But it wasn’t Touchbreath. It was that sultry dark-eyed lad, the one she’d already had fantasies about and maybe they weren’t fantasies at all, the way he licked his lips when their eyes met. Scupperskull. No, Skulldeath. ‘You in my squad now?’ she asked.

A broad delicious smile answered her.

‘The fool’s besotted,’ her corporal said from behind Skulldeath. ‘Might as well adopt him, Sergeant,’ he added in a different voice. ‘Or marry him. Or both.’

‘You ain’t gonna confuse me, Corporal, talking back and forth like that. Just so you know.’

All at once the crowds thinned on the road, and there, directly ahead, the road was clear, rising to the huge double gates of the city. The gates were barred. ‘Oh,’ Hellian said, ‘that’s just terrific. We gotta pay a toll now.’

The commander of the Letherii forces died with a quarrel in his heart, one of the last to fall at the final rally point four hundred paces in from the river. Shattered, the remaining soldiers flung away their weapons and fled the battle. The enemy had few mounted troops, so the pursuit was a dragged-out affair, chaotic and mad as the day’s light ebbed, and the slaughter pulled foreign soldiers well inland as they hunted down their exhausted, panic-stricken foes.

Twice, Sirryn Kanar had barely eluded the ruthless squads of the enemy, and when he heard the unfamiliar horns moan through the dusk, he knew the recall had been sounded. Stumbling, all his armour discarded, he scrabbled through brush and found himself among the levelled ruins of one of the shanty-towns outside the city wall. All these preparations for a siege, and now it was coming. He needed to get back inside, he needed to get to the palace.

Disbelief and shock raced on the currents of his pounding heart. He was smeared in sweat and the blood of fallen comrades, and uncontrollable shivers rattled through him as if he was plagued with a fever. He had never before felt such terror. The thought of his life ending, of some cowardly bastard driving a blade into his precious body. The thought of all his dreams and ambitions gushing away in a red torrent to soak the ground. These had pushed him from the front lines, had sent him running as fast as his legs could carry him. There was no honour in dying alongside one’s comrades-he’d not known any of them anyway. Strangers, and strangers could die in droves for all he cared. No, only one life mattered: his own.

And, Errant be praised, Sirryn had lived. Escaping that dark slaughter.

The Chancellor would have an answer to all of this. The Emperor-his Tiste Edur-Hannan Mosag-they would all give answer to these foreign curs. And in a year, maybe less, the world would be right once more, Sirryn ranking high in the Chancellor’s staff, and higher still in the Patriotists. Richer than he’d ever been before. A score of soft-eyed whores within his reach. He could grow fat if he liked.

Reaching the wall, he made his way along its length. There were sunken posterns, tunnels that invited breaching yet were designed to flood with the pull of a single lever. He knew the thick wooden doors would be manned on the inside. Working his way along the foot of the massive wall, Sirryn continued his search.

He finally found one, the recessed door angled like a coal trap, thick grasses snarled on all sides. Muttering his thanks to the Errant, Sirryn slipped down into the depression, and leaned against the wood for a long moment, his eyes shut, his breathing slowing.

Then he drew out his one remaining weapon, a dagger, and began tapping the pommel against the wood.

And thought he heard a sound on the other side.

Sirryn pressed his cheek against the door. ‘Tap if you can hear me!’ His own rasp sounded frighteningly loud in his ears.

After a half-dozen heartbeats, he heard a faint tap.

‘I’m Finadd Sirryn Kanar, an agent of the Chancellor’s. There’s no-one else about. Let me through in the name of the Empire!’

Again, another long wait. Then he heard the sound of the bar scraping clear, and then a weight pushed against him and he scrabbled back to let the door open.

The young face of a soldier peered up at him. ‘Finadd?’

Very young. Sirryn edged down into the entranceway, forcing the soldier back. So young I could kiss him, take him right here, by the Errant! ‘Close this door, quickly!’

‘What has happened?’ the soldier asked, hastening to shut the portal, then, in the sudden darkness, struggling with the heavy bar. ‘Where is the army, sir?’

As the bar clunked back in place, Sirryn allowed himself, at last, to feel safe. Back to his old form. He reached out, grasped a fistful of tunic, and dragged the soldier close. ‘You damned fool! Anybody calling himself a Finadd and you open the damned door? I should have you flailed alive, soldier! In fact, I think I will!’

‘P-please, sir, I just-’

‘Be quiet! You’re going to need to convince me another way, I think.’

‘Sir?’

There was still time. That foreign army was a day away, maybe more. And he was feeling so very alive at this moment. He reached up and stroked the lad’s cheek. And heard a sudden intake of breath. Ah, a quick-witted lad, then. It would be easy to-

A knife-tip pricked just under his right eye, and all at once the soldier’s young voice hardened. ‘Finadd, you want to live to climb out the other end of this tunnel, then you’ll leave off right here. Sir.’

‘I’ll have your name-’

‘You’re welcome to it, Finadd, and may the Errant bless your eternal search-because I wasn’t behind this door as a guard, sir. I was readying to make my escape.’

‘Your what?’

‘The mob rules the streets, Finadd. All we hold right now are the walls and gate houses. Oh, and the Eternal Domicile, where our insane Emperor keeps killing champions like it was a civic holiday. Nobody’s much inter-ested in besieging that place. Besides, the Edur left yesterday. All of them. Gone. So, Finadd, you want to get to your lover Chancellor, well, you’re welcome to try.’

The knife pressed down, punctured skin and drew out a tear of blood. ‘Now, sir. You can make for the dagger at your belt, and die. Or you can let go of my shirt.’

Insolence and cowardice were hardly attractive qualities., ‘Happy to oblige, soldier,’ Sirryn said, releasing his hold on the man. ‘Now, if you’re going out, then I had better remain here and lock the door behind you, yes?’

‘Finadd, you can do whatever you please once I’m gone. So back away, sir. No, farther. That’s good.’

Sirryn waited for the soldier to escape. He could still feel that knife-tip and the wound stung as sweat seeped into it. It was not cowardice, he told himself, that had forced him back, away from this hot-headed bastard busy disgracing his uniform. Simple expedience. He needed to get to the Chancellor, didn’t he? That was paramount.

And now, absurdly, he would have to face making his way, unescorted, through the very city where he had been born, in fear for his life. The world had turned on its end. I could just wait here, yes, in this tunnel, in the dark-no, the foreigners are coming. The Eternal Domicile-where, if surrender is demanded, Triban Gnol can do the negotiating, can oversee the handing over of the Emperor. And the Chancellor will want his loyal guards at his side. He’ll want Finadd Sirryn Kanar, the last survivor of the battle at the river-Sirryn Kanar, who broke through the enemy lines to rush back to his Chancellor, bearer, yes, of grim news. Yet he won through, did he not?

The soldier lowered the door back down from the other side. Sirryn moved up to it, found the bar and lifted it into place. He could reach the Eternal Domicile, even if it meant swimming the damned canals.

I still live. I can win through all of this.

There’s not enough of these foreigners to rule the empire.

They’ll need help, yes.

He set out along the tunnel.

The young soldier was twenty paces from the hidden door when dark figures rose on all sides and he saw those terrifying crossbows aimed at him. He froze, slowly raised his hands.

One figure spoke, then, in a language the soldier did not understand, and he flinched as someone stepped round him from behind-a woman, grinning, daggers in her gloved hands. She met his eyes and winked, then mimed a kiss.

‘We not yet decide let you live,’ the first one then said in rough Letherii. ‘You spy?’

‘No,’ the soldier replied. ‘Deserter.’

‘Honest man, good. You answer all our questions? These doors, tunnels, why do sappers’ work for us? Explain.’

‘Yes, I will explain everything. I don’t want to die.’

Corporal Tarr sighed, then turned from the prisoner to face Koryk. ‘Better get Fid and the captain, Koryk. Looks like maybe we won’t have to knock down any walls after all’

Smiles snorted, sheathing her knives. ‘No elegant back stab. And no torture. This isn’t any fun at all.’ She paused, then added, ‘Good thing we didn’t take down the first one, though, isn’t it? Led us right to this.’

Their horses had not been exercised nearly enough, and were now huffing, heads lifting and falling as Sergeant Balm led his small troop inland. Too dark now to hunt Letherii and besides, the fun had grown sour awfully fast. Sure, slaughter made sense when on the enemy’s own soil, since every soldier who got away was likely to fight again, and so they’d chased down the miserable wretches. But it was tiring work.

When magic wasn’t around in a battle, Moranth munitions took its place, and the fit was very nice indeed. As far as we’re concerned, anyway. Gods, just seeing those bodies-and pieces of bodies-flying up into the air-and 1 was getting all confused, at the beginning there. Bits of Letherii everywhere and all that ringing in my ears.

He’d come around sharp enough when he saw Cord’s idiot sapper, Crump, running up the slope straight at the enemy line, with a Hood-damned cusser in each hand. If it hadn’t been for all those blown-up Letherii absorbing so much of the twin blasts then Crump would still be standing there. His feet, anyway. The rest of him would be red haze drifting into the sunset. As it was, Crump was flattened beneath an avalanche of body parts, eventually clambering free like one of Hood’s own revenants. Although Balm was pretty sure revenants didn’t smile.

Not witless smiles, anyway.

Where the cussers had not obliterated entire companies of the enemy, the main attack-wedges of advancing heavies and medium infantry with a thin scattering of skirmishers and sappers out front-had closed with a hail of sharpers, virtually disintegrating the Letherii front ranks. And then it was just the killing thrust with those human wedges, ripping apart the enemy’s formations, driving the Letherii soldiers back until they were packed tight and unable to do anything but die.

The Adjunct’s Fourteenth Army, the Bonehunters, had shown, at long last, that they knew how to fight. She’d gotten her straight-in shield to shield dragged-out battle, and hadn’t it been just grand?

Riding ahead as point was Masan Gilani. Made sense, using her. First off, she was the best rider by far, and secondly, there wasn’t a soldier, man or woman, who could drag their eyes off her delicious round behind in that saddle, which made following her easy. Even in the gathering dark, aye. Not that it actually glows. I don’t think. But… amazing how we can all see it just fine. Why, could be a night without any other moon and no stars and nothing but the Abyss on all sides, and we’d follow that glorious, jiggling-

Balm sawed his reins, pulling off to one side, just missing Masan Gilani’s horse-which was standing still, and Masan suddenly nowhere in sight.

Cursing, he dragged his weary horse to a halt, raising a hand to command those behind him to draw up.

‘Masan?’

‘Over here,’ came the luscious, heavenly voice, and a moment later she emerged out of the gloom ahead. ‘We’re on the killing field.’

‘Not a chance,’ Throatslitter said from behind Balm. ‘No bodies, Masan, no nothing.’

Deadsmell rode a few paces ahead, then stopped and dismounted. He looked round in the gloom. ‘No, she’s right,’ he said. ‘This was where Keneb’s marines closed ranks.’

They’d all seen the strange glow to the north-seen it from the ships, in fact, when the transports did their neat turn and surged for the shoreline. And before that, well, they’d seen the Letherii sorcery, that terrifying wave climbing into the sky and it was then that everyone knew the marines were finished. No Quick Ben to beat it all back, even if he could have, and Balm agreed with most everyone else that, good as he was, he wasn’t that good. No Quick Ben, and no Sinn-aye, there she was, perched on the bow of the Froth Wolf with Grub at her side, staring at that dreadful conjuration.

When the thing rolled forward and then crashed down, well, curses rang in the air, curses or prayers and sometimes both, and this, soldiers said, was worse even than Y’Ghatan, and those poor damned marines, always getting their teeth kicked in, only this time nobody was coming out. The only thing that’d be pushing up from the ground in a few days’ time would be slivers of burnt bone.

So the Bonehunters on the transports had been a mean-spirited bunch by the time they emptied the water out of their boots and picked up their weapons. Mean, aye, as that Letherii army could attest to, oh yes.

After the Letherii magic had faded, crashed away as if to nothing in the distance, there had been a cry from Sinn, and Balm had seen with his own eyes Grub dancing about on the foredeck. And then everyone else had seen that blue-white dome of swirling light, rising up from where the Letherii magic had come down.

What did it mean?

Cord and Shard had gone up to Sinn, but she wasn’t talking which was a shock to them all. And all Grub said was something that nobody afterwards could even agree on, and since Balm hadn’t heard it himself he concluded that Grub probably hadn’t said anything at all, except maybe ‘I got to pee’ which explained all that dancing.

‘Could it be that Letherii magic turned them all into dust?’ Throatslitter wondered now as he walked on the dew-laden field.

‘And left the grasses growing wild?’ Masan Gilani countered.

‘Something over here,’ Deadsmell said from ten or so paces on.

Balm and Throatslitter dismounted and joined Masan Gilani-slightly behind her to either side. And the three of them set off after Deadsmell, who was now fast disappearing in the gloom.

‘Slow up there, Corporal!’ It’s not like the Universal Lodestone is bouncing up there with you, is it?

They saw that Deadsmell had finally halted, standing before a grey heap of something.

‘What did you find?’ Balm asked.

‘Looks like a shell midden,’ Throatslitter muttered.

‘Hah, always figured you for a fisher’s spawn.’

‘Spawn, ha ha, that’s so funny, Sergeant.’

‘Yeah? Then why ain’t you laughing? On second thought, don’t-they’ll hear it in the city and get scared. Well, scareder than they already are.’

They joined Deadsmell.

‘It’s a damned barrow,’ said Throatslitter. ‘And look, all kinds of Malazan stuff on it. Gods, Sergeant, you don’t think all that’s left of all those marines is under this mound?’

Balm shrugged. ‘We don’t even know how many made it this far. Could be six of ‘em. In fact, it’s a damned miracle any of ‘em did in the first place.’

‘No no,’ Deadsmell said. ‘There’s only one in there, but that’s about all I can say, Sergeant. There’s not a whisper of magic left here and probably never will be. It’s all been sucked dry.’

‘By the Letherii?’

The corporal shrugged. ‘Could be. That ritual was a bristling pig of a spell. Old magic, rougher than what comes from warrens.’

Masan Gilani crouched down and touched a badly notched Malazan shortsword. ‘Looks like someone did a lot of hacking with this thing, and if they made it this far doing just that, well, beat-up or not, a soldier doesn’t just toss it away like this.’

‘Unless the dead one inside earned the honour,’ Deadsmell said, nodding.

‘So,’ Masan concluded, ‘a Malazan. But just one.’

‘Aye, just the one.’

She straightened. ‘So where are the rest of them?’

‘Start looking for a trail or something,’ Balm said to Masan Gilani.

They all watched her head off into the gloom.

Then smiled at each other.

Lostara Yil walked up to where stood the Adjunct. ‘Most of the squads are back,’ she reported. ‘Pickets are being set now.’

‘Has Sergeant Balm returned?’

‘Not yet, Adjunct.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Fist Keneb would have sent a runner.’

Tavore turned slightly to regard her. ‘Would he?’

Lostara Yil blinked. ‘Of course. Even at full strength-which we know would be impossible-he doesn’t have the soldiers to take Letheras. Adjunct, having heard nothing, we have to anticipate the worst.’

During the battle, Lostara Yil had remained close to her commander, although at no point was the Adjunct in any danger from the Letherii. The landing had been quick, professional. As for the battle, classic Malazan, even without the usual contingent of marines to augment the advance from the shoreline. Perfect, and brutal.

The Letherii were already in poor shape, she saw. Not from any fight, but from a fast march from well inland-probably where the wave of sorcery had erupted. Disordered in their exhaustion, and in some other, unaccountable way, profoundly rattled.

Or so had been the Adjunct’s assessment, after watching the enemy troops form ranks.

And she had been proved right. The Letherii had shattered like thin ice on a puddle. And what had happened to their mages? Nowhere in sight, leading Lostara to believe that those mages had used themselves up with that terrible conflagration they’d unleashed earlier.

Moranth munitions broke the Letherii apart-the Letherii commander had sent archers down the slope and the Bonehunters had had to wither a hail of sleeting arrows on their advance. There had been three hundred or so killed or wounded but there should have been more. Malazan armour, it turned out, was superior to the local armour; and once the skirmishers drew within range of their crossbows and sharpers, the enemy archers took heavy losses before fleeing back up the slope.

The Malazans simply followed them.

Sharpers, a few cussers sailing over the heads of the front Letherii ranks. Burners along the slope of the far left flank to ward off a modest cavalry charge. Smokers into the press to sow confusion. And then the wedges struck home.

Even then, had the Letherii stiffened their defence along the ridge, they could have bloodied the Malazans. Instead, they melted back, the lines collapsing, writhing like a wounded snake, and all at once the rout began. And with it, unmitigated slaughter.

The Adjunct had let her soldiers go, and Lostara Yil understood that decision. So much held down, for so long-and the growing belief that Fist Keneb and all his marines were dead. Murdered by sorcery. Such things can only be answered one sword-swing at a time, until the arm grows leaden, until the breaths are gulped down ragged and desperate.

And now, into the camp, the last of the soldiers were returning from their slaughter of Letherii. Faces,drawn, expressions numbed-as if each soldier had but just awakened from a nightmare, one in which he or she-surprise-was the monster.

She hardens them, for that is what she needs.

The Adjunct spoke, ‘Grub does not behave like a child who has lost his father.’

Lostara Yil snorted. ‘The lad is addled, Adjunct. You saw him dance. You heard him singing about candles.’

‘Addled. Yes, perhaps.’

‘In any case,’ Lostara persisted, ‘unlike Sinn, Grub has no talents, no way of knowing the fate of Fist Keneb. As for Sinn, well, as you know, I have little faith in her. Not because I believe her without power. She has that, Dryjhna knows.’ Then she shrugged. ‘Adjunct, they were on their own-entirely on their own-for so long. Under strength to conduct a full-scale invasion.’ She stopped then, realizing how critical all of this sounded. And isn’t it just that? A

criticism of this, and of you, Adjunct. Didn’t we abandon them?

‘I am aware of the views among the soldiers,’ Tavore said, inflectionless.

‘Adjunct,’ Lostara said, ‘we cannot conduct much of a siege, unless we use what sappers we have and most of our heavier munitions-I sense you’re in something of a hurry and have no interest in settling in. When will the rest of the Perish and the Khundryl be joining us?’

‘They shall not be joining us,’ Tavore replied. ‘We shall be joining them. To the east.’

The other half of this campaign. Another invasion, then. Damn you, Adjunct, 1 wish you shared your strategies. With me. Hood, with anyone! ‘I have wondered,’ she said, ‘at the disordered response from the Tiste Edur and the Letherii.’

The Adjunct sighed, so low, so drawn out that Lostara Yil barely caught it. Then Tavore said, ‘This empire is unwell. Our original assessment that the Tiste Edur were unpopular overseers was accurate. Where we erred, with respect to Fist Keneb’s landing, was in not sufficiently comprehending the complexities of that relationship. The split has occurred, Captain. It just took longer.’

At the expense of over a thousand marines.

‘Fist Keneb would not send a runner,’ Tavore said. ‘He would, in fact, lead his marines straight for Letheras. “First in, last out,” as Sergeant Fiddler might say.’

‘Last in, looking around,’ Lostara said without thinking, then winced. ‘Sorry, Adjunct-’

‘The Bonehunters’ motto, Captain?’

She would not meet her commander’s eyes. ‘Not a serious one, Adjunct. Coined by some heavy infantry soldier, I am told-’

‘Who?’

She thought desperately. ‘Nefarrias Bredd, I think.’

And caught, from the corner of her eye, a faint smile twitch Tavore’s thin lips. Then it was gone and, in truth, might never have been.

‘It may prove,’ the Adjunct said, ‘that Fist Keneb will earn us that ironic motto-those of us here, that is, in this camp.’

A handful of marines to conquer an imperial capital? ‘Adjunct-’

‘Enough. You will command for this night, Captain, as my representative. We march at dawn.’ She turned. ‘I must return to the Froth Wolf.’

‘Adjunct?’

Tavore grimaced. ‘Another argument with a certain weaponsmith and his belligerent wife.’ Then she paused, ‘Oh, when or if Sergeant Balm returns, I would hear his report.’

‘Of course,’ Lostara Yil replied. If?

She watched the Adjunct walk away, down towards the shore.

Aboard the Froth Wolf, Shurq Elalle leaned against the mainmast, her arms crossed, watching the three black, hairless, winged ape-like demons fighting over a shortsword. The scrap, a tumbling flurry of biting, scratching and countless inadvertent cuts and slices from the weapon itself, had migrated from the stern end of the mid-deck and was now climbing up onto the foredeck.

Sailors stood here and there, keeping well clear, and trading wagers on which demon would win out-an issue of some dispute since it was hard to tell the three beasts apart.

‘-with the cut across the nose-wait, Mael’s salty slick! Now another one’s got the same cut! Okay, the one without-’

‘-which one just lost that ear? Cut nose and missing ear, then!’

Close beside Shurq Elalle, a voice said*, ‘None of it’s real, you know.’

She turned. ‘Thought she had you chained below.’

‘Who, the Adjunct? Why-’

‘No. Your wife, Withal.’

The man frowned. ‘That’s how it looks, is it?’

‘Only of late,’ Shurq replied. ‘She’s frightened for you, I think.’

To that he made no response.

‘A launch is returning,’ Shurq observed, then straightened. ‘I hope it’s the Adjunct-I’m ready to leave your blessed company. No offence, Withal, but I’m nervous about my first mate and what he might be doing with the Undying Gratitude.’

The Meckros weaponsmith turned to squint out into the darkness of the main channel. ‘Last I saw, he’d yet to drop anchor and was just sailing back and forth.’

‘Yes,’ Shurq said. ‘Sane people pace in their cabin. Skorgen paces with the whole damned ship.’

‘Why so impatient?’

‘I expect he wants to tie up in Letheras well before this army arrives. And take on panicky nobles with all their worldly goods. Then we head back out before the Malazan storm, dump the nobles over the side and share out the spoils.’

‘As any proper pirate would do.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Do you enjoy your profession, Captain? Does it not get stale after a time?’

‘No, that’s me who gets stale after a time. As for the profession, why yes, I do enjoy it, Withal.’

‘Even throwing nobles overboard?’

‘With all that money they should have paid for swimming lessons.’

‘Belated financial advice.’

‘Don’t make me laugh.’

A sudden outcry from the sailors. On the foredeck, the demons had somehow managed to skewer themselves on the sword. The weapon pinned all three of them to the deck. The creatures writhed. Blood poured from their mouths, even as the bottom-most one began strangling from behind the one in the middle, who followed suit with the one on top. The demon in the middle began cracking the back of its head into the bottom demon’s face, smashing its already cut nose.

Shurq Elalle turned away. ‘Errant take me,’ she muttered. ‘I nearly lost it there.’

‘Lost what?’

‘You do not want to know.’

The launch arrived, thumping up against the hull, and moments later the Adjunct climbed into view. She cast a single glance over at the pinned demons, then nodded greeting to Shurq Elalle as she walked up to Withal.

‘Is it time?’ he asked.

‘Almost,’ she replied. ‘Come with me.’

Shurq watched the two head below.

Withal, you poor man. Now I’m frightened for you as well.

Damn, forgot to ask permission to leave. She thought to follow them, then decided not to. Sorry, Skorgen, but don’t worry. We can always outsail a marching army. Those nobles aren’t going anywhere, after all, are they?

A short time later, while the sailors argued over who’d won what, the three nachts-who had been lying motionless as if dead-stirred and deftly extricated themselves from the shortsword. One of them kicked the weapon into the river, held its hands over its ears at the soft splash.

The three then exchanged hugs and caresses.

Amused and curious from where he sat with his back to a rail on the foredeck, Banaschar, the last Demidrek of the Worm of Autumn, continued watching. And was nevertheless caught entirely by surprise when the nachts swarmed over the side and a moment later there followed three distinct splashes.

He rose and went to the rail, looking down. Three vague heads bobbed on their way to the shore.

‘Almost time,’ he whispered.

Rautos Hivanar stared down at the crowded array of objects on the tabletop, trying once more to make sense of them.

He had rearranged them dozens of times, sensing that there was indeed a pattern, somewhere, and could he but place the objects in their proper position, he would finally understand.

The artifacts had been cleaned, the bronze polished and gleaming. He had assembled lists of characteristics, seeking a typology, groupings based on certain details-angles of curvature, weight, proximity of where they had been found, even the various depths at which they had been buried.

For they had indeed been buried. Not tossed away, not thrown into a pit. No, each one had been set down in a hole sculpted into the clays-he had managed to create moulds of those depressions, which had helped him establish each object’s cant and orientation.

The array before him now was positioned on the basis of spatial location, each set precisely in proper relation to the others-at least he believed so, based on his map. The only exception was with the second and third artifacts. The dig at that time-when the first three had been recovered-had not been methodical, and so the removal of the objects had destroyed any chance of precisely specifying their placement. And so it was two of these three that he now moved, again and again. Regarding the third one-the very first object found-he well knew where it belonged.

Meanwhile, outside the estate’s high, well-guarded walls, the city of Letheras descended into anarchy.

Muttering under his breath, Rautos Hivanar picked up that first artifact. Studied its now familiar right angle bend, feeling its sure weight in his hands, and wondering anew at the warmth of the metal. Had it grown hotter in the last few days? He wasn’t sure and had no real way of measuring such a thing.

Faint on the air in the room was the smell of smoke. Not woodsmoke, as might come from a hundred thousand cook-fires, but the more acrid reek of burnt cloth and varnished furniture, along with-so very subtle-the sweet tang of scorched human flesh.

He had sent his servants to their beds, irritated with their endless reports, the fear in their meek eyes. Was neither hungry nor thirsty, and it seemed a new clarity was taking hold of his vision, his mind. The most intriguing detail of all was that he had now found twelve full-scale counterparts throughout the city; and each of these corresponded perfectly with the layout before him-excepting the two, of course. So, what he had on this table was a miniature map, and this, he knew, was important.

Perhaps the most important detail of all.

If he only knew why.

Yes, the object was growing warmer. Was it the same with its much larger companion, there in the back yard of his new inn?

He rose. No matter how late it was, he needed to find out. Carefully replacing the artifact onto the tabletop map, matching the position of the inn, he then made his way to his wardrobe.

The sounds of rioting in the city beyond had moved away, back into the poorer districts to the north. Donning a heavy cloak and collecting his walking stick-one that saw little use under normal circumstances, but there was now the possible need for self-protection-Rautos Hivanar left the room. Made his way through the silent house. Then outside, turning left, to the outer wall.

The guards standing at the side postern gate saluted.

‘Any nearby trouble?’ Rautos asked.

‘Not of late, sir.’

‘I wish to go out.’

The guard hesitated, then said, ‘I will assemble an escort-’

‘No no. I intend to be circumspect.’

‘Sir-’

‘Open the door.’

The guard complied.

Passing through, he paused in the narrow avenue, listening to the guard lock the door behind him. The smell of smoke was stronger here, a haze forming haloes round those few lamps still lit atop their iron poles. Rubbish lined the gutters, a most unpleasant detail evincing just how far all order and civil conduct had descended. Failure to keep the streets clean was symbolic of a moribund culture, a culture that had, despite loud and public exhortations to the contrary, lost its sense of pride, and its belief in itself.

When had this happene,d? The Tiste Edur conquest? No, that defeat had been but a symptom. The promise of anarchy, of collapse, had been whispered long before then. But so soft was that whisper that none heard it. Ah, that is a lie. We were just unwilling to listen.

He continued looking round, feeling a heavy lassitude settle on his shoulders.

As with Letheras, so with empire.

Rautos Hivanar set out, to walk a dying city.

Five men meaning no good were camped out in the old Tarthenal cemetery. Frowning, Ublala Pung strode out of the darkness and into their midst. His fists flew. A few moments later he was standing amidst five motionless bodies. He picked up the first one and carried it to the pit left behind by a huge fallen tree, threw it in the sodden hole. Then went back for the others.

A short time later he stamped out the small fire and began clearing a space, pulling grass, tossing stones. He went down on his knees to tug loose the smaller weeds, and slowly crawled in an expanding spiral.

Overhead, the hazy moon was still on the rise, and somewhere to the north buildings burned. He needed to be done by dawn. The ground cleared, a wide, circular space of nothing but bared earth. It could be lumpy. That was all right, and it was good that it was all right since cemeteries were lumpy places.

Hearing a moan from the hole where the tree had been, Ublala rose, brushed the dirt from his knees and then his hands, and walked over. Edging down into the pit, he stared at the grey forms until he figured out which one was coming round. Then he crouched and punched the man in the head a few more times, until the moaning stopped. Satisfied, he returned to his clearing.

By dawn, yes.

Because at dawn, Ublala Pung knew, the Emperor would lift his cursed sword, and standing across from him, on that arena floor, would be Karsa Orlong.

In a secret chamber-what had once been a tomb of some kind-Ormly, the Champion Rat Catcher, sat down opposite an enormously fat woman. He scowled. ‘You don’t need that down here, Rucket.’

‘True,’ she replied, ‘but I’ve grown used to it. You would not believe the power being huge engenders. The intimidation. You know, when things finally get better and there’s plenty of food to be had again, I’m thinking of doing this for real.’

‘But that’s just my point,’ Ormly replied, leaning forward. ‘It’s all padding and padding don’t weigh anything like the real thing. You’ll get tired walking across a room. Your knees will hurt. Your breaths will get shorter because the lungs can’t expand enough. You’ll get stretch marks even though you’ve never had a baby-’

‘So if I get pregnant too then it’ll be all right?’

‘Except for all that other stuff, why yes, I suppose it would. Not that anybody could tell.’

‘Ormly, you are a complete idiot.’

‘But good at my job.’

To that, Rucket nodded. ‘And so? How did it go?’

Ormly squinted across at her, then scratched his stubbly jaw. ‘It’s a problem.’

‘Serious?’

‘Serious.’

‘How serious?’

‘About as serious as it can get.’

‘Hmmm. No word from Selush?’

‘Not yet. And you’re right, we’ll have to wait for that.’

‘But our people are in the right place, yes? No trouble with all the riots and such?’

‘We’re good on that count, Rucket. Hardly popular sites, are they?’

‘So has there been any change in the time of execution?’

Ormly shrugged. ‘We’ll see come dawn, assuming any criers are still working. I sure hope not, Rucket. Even as it is, we may fail. You do know that, don’t you?’

She sighed. ‘That would be tragic. No, heartbreaking.’

‘You actually love him?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Hard not to, really. I’d have competition, though.’

‘That scholar? Well, unless they’re in the same cell, I don’t think you need worry.’

‘Like I said, you’re an idiot. Of course I’m worrying, but not about competition. I’m worried for him. I’m worried for her. I’m worried that all this will go wrong and Karos Invictad will have his triumph. We’re running out of time.’

Ormly nodded.

‘So, do you have any good news?’ she asked.

‘Not sure if it’s good but it’s interesting.’

‘What?’

‘Ublala Pung’s gone insane.’

Rucket shook her head. ‘Not possible. He hasn’t enough brains to go insane.’

‘Well, he beat up five scribers hiding out from the riots in the Tarthenal cemetery, and now he’s crawling around on his hands and knees and pinching weeds.’

‘So what’s all that about?’

‘No idea, Rucket.’

‘He’s gone insane.’

‘Impossible.’

‘I know,’ she replied.

They sat in silence for a time, then Rucket said, ‘Maybe I’ll just keep the padding. That way I can have it without all the costs.’

‘Is it real padding?’

‘Illusions and some real stuff, kind of a patchwork thing.’

‘And you think he’ll fall in love with you looking like that? I mean, compared to Janath who’s probably getting skinnier by the moment which, as you know, some men like since it makes their women look like children or some other ghastly secret truth nobody ever admits out loud-’

‘He’s not one of those.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I am.’

‘Well, I suppose you would know.’

‘I would,’ she replied. ‘Anyway, what you’re talking about is making me feel kind of ill.’

‘Manly truths will do that,’ Ormly said.

They sat. They waited.

Ursto Hoobutt and his wife and sometime lover Pinosel clambered onto the muddy bank. In Ursto’s gnarled hands was a huge clay jug. They paused to study the frozen pond that had once been Settle Lake, the ice gleaming in the diffuse moonlight.

‘It’s melting, Cherrytart,’ he said.

‘Well you’re just getting smarter day by day, dearie. We knowed it was melting. We knowed that a long time coming. We knowed it sober and we knowed it drunk.’ She lifted her hamper. ‘Now, we looking at a late supper or are we looking at an early breakfast?’

‘Let’s stretch it out and make it both.’

‘Can’t make it both. One or the other and if we stretch it out it’ll be neither so make up your mind.’

‘What’s got you so touchy, love?’

‘It’s melting, dammit, and that means ants at the picnic’

‘We knew it was coming-’

‘So what? Ants is ants.’

They settled down onto the bank, waving at mosquitoes.

Ursto unstoppered the jug as Pinosel unwrapped the hamper. He reached for a tidbit and she slapped his hand away. He offered her the jug and she scowled, then accepted it. With her hands full, he snatched the tidbit then leaned back, content as he popped the morsel into his mouth.

Then gagged. ‘Errant’s ear, what is this?’

‘That was a clay ball, love. For the scribing. And now, we’re going to have to dig us up some more. Or, you are, since it was you who ate the one we had.’

‘Well, it wasn’t all bad, really. Here, give me that jug so’s I can wash it down.’

A pleasant evening, Ursto reflected somewhat blearily, to just sit and watch a pond melt.

At least until the giant demon trapped in the ice broke loose. At that disquieting thought, he shot his wife and sometime lover a glance, remembering the day long ago when they’d been sitting here, all peaceful and the like, and she’d been on at him to get married and he’d said-oh well, he’d said it and now here they were and that might’ve been the Errant’s nudge but he didn’t think so.

No matter what the Errant thought.

‘I seen that nostalgic look in your eyes, hubby-bubby. What say we have a baby?’

Ursto choked a second time, but on nothing so prosaic as a ball of clay.

The central compound of the Patriotists, the Lether Empire’s knotted core of fear and intimidation, was under siege. Periodically, mobs heaved against the walls, rocks and jugs of oil with burning rag wicks sailing over to crash down in the compound. Flames had taken the stables and four other outbuildings three nights past, and the terrible sound of screaming horses had filled the smoky air. It had been all the trapped Patriotists could do to keep the main block from catching fire.

Twice the main gate had been breached, and a dozen agents had died pushing the frenzied citizens back. Now an enormous barricade of rubble, charred beams and furniture blocked the passage. Through the stench and sooty puddles of the compound, figures walked, armoured as soldiers might be and awkward in the heavy gear. Few spoke, few met the eyes of others, in dread of seeing revealed the haunted, stunned disbelief that resided in their own souls.

The world did not work like this. The people could always be cowed, the ringleaders isolated and betrayed with a purse of coin or, failing that, quietly removed. But the agents could not set out into the streets to twist the dark deals. There were watchers, and gangs of thugs nearby who delighted in beating hapless agents to death, then flinging their heads back over the wall. And whatever operatives remained at large in the city had ceased all efforts at communicating-either had gone into hiding or were dead.

The vast network had been torn apart.

If it had been simple, Tanal Yathvanar knew, if it had been as easy as negotiating the release of prisoners according to the demands of the mob, then order could be restored. But those people beyond the compound wall were not friends and relatives of the scores of scholars, intellectuals and artists still locked up in the cells below. They didn’t care a whit about the prisoners and would be just as happy to see them all burn along with the main block. So there was no noble cause to all of this. It was, he now understood, nothing but bloodlust.

Is it any wonder we were needed? To control them. To control their baser instincts. Now look what has happened.

He stood near the front door, watching the pike-wielding agents patrolling the filthy compound. A number of times, in fact, they’d heard shouted demands for Tehol Beddict. The mob wanted him for themselves. They wanted to tear him to pieces. The Grand Drowning at dusk on the morrow was not enough to appease their savage need.

But there would be no releasing Tehol Beddict. Not as long as Karos Invictad remained in charge.

Yet, if we gave him up, they might all calm down and go away. And we could begin again. Yes. Were I in charge, they could have Tehol Beddict, with my blessing.

But not]anath. Oh no, she is mine. For ever now. He had been shocked to discover that she had few memories of her previous incarceration, but he had taken great pleasure in re-educating her. Ha, re-educating the teacher. I like that one. At least Karos Invictad had been generous there, giving her to him. And now she resided in a private cell, chained to a bed, and he made use of her day and night. Even when the crowds raged against the walls and agents were dying keeping them out, he would lie atop her and have his way. And she’d fast learned to say all the right things, how to beg for more, whispering her undying desire (no, he would not force her to speak of love, because that word was dead now between them. For ever dead) until those words of desire became real for her.

The attention. The end to loneliness. She had even cried out the last time, cried out his name as her back arched and her limbs thrashed against the manacles.

Cried out for him: Tanal Yathvanar, who even as a child had known he was destined for greatness-for was that not what they all told him, over and over again? Yes, he had found his perfect world, at last. And what had happened? The whole damned city had collapsed, threatening all he now possessed.

All because of Karos Invictad. Because he refused to hand over Tehol Beddict and spent all his waking time staring into a small wooden box at a two-headed insect that had-hah-outwitted him in its dim, obstinate stupidity. There is a truth hidden in that, isn’t there! I’m certain of it. Karos and his two-headed insect, going round and round and round and so it will go until it dies. And when it does, the great Invigilator will go mad.

But he now suspected he would not be able to wait for that. The mob was too hungry.

Beyond the walls there was quiet, for the moment, but something vast and thousand-headed was seething on the other side of Creeper Canal, and would soon cross over from Far Reaches and make its way down to North Tiers. He could hear its heavy susurration, a tide in the darkness pouring down streets, gushing into and out of alleys, spreading bloody and black into avenues and lanes. He could smell its hunger in the bitter smoke.

And it comes for us, and it will not wait. Not even for Karos Invictad, the Invigilator of the Patriotists, the wealthiest man in all the empire.

He allowed himself a soft laugh, then he turned about and entered the main block. Down the dusty corridor, walking unmindful over crusted streaks left behind when the wounded and dying had been dragged inside. The smell of stale sweat, spilled urine and faeces-as bad as the cells below-and yes, are we not prisoners now, too? With bare scraps for food and well water fouled with ashes and blood. Trapped here with a death sentence hanging round our necks with the weight of ten thousand docks, and nothing but deep water on all sides.

Another thought to amuse him; another thought to record in his private books.

Up the stairs now, his boots echoing on the cut limestone, and into the corridor leading to the Invigilator’s office, Karos Invictad’s sanctum. His own private cell. No guards in the passage-Karos no longer trusted them. In fact, he no longer trusted anyone. Except me. And that will prove his greatest error.

Reaching the door he pushed it open without knocking and stepped inside, then halted.

The room stank, and its source was sprawled in the chair opposite the Invigilator and his desk.

Tehol Beddict. Smeared in filth, cut and scabbed and bruised-Karos Invictad’s prohibition against such treatment was over, it seemed.

‘I have a guest,’ the Invigilator snapped. ‘You were not invited, Tanal Yathvanar. Furthermore, I did not hear you knock, yet another sign of your growing insolence.’

‘The mob will attack again,’ Tanal said, eyes flicking to Tehol. ‘Before dawn. I thought it best to inform you of our weakened defences. We have but fourteen agents remaining still able to defend us. This time, I fear, they will break through.’

‘Fame is murderous,’ Tehol Beddict said through split lips. ‘I hesitate in recommending it.’

Karos Invictad continued glaring at Tanal for a moment longer, then he said, ‘In the hidden room-yes, you know of it, I’m aware, so I need not provide any more details-in the hidden room, then, Tanal, you will find a large chest filled with coins. Stacked beside it are a few hundred small cloth bags. Gather the wounded and have them fill sacks with coins. Then deliver them to the agents at the walls. They will be their weapons tonight.’

‘That could turn on you,’ Tehol observed, beating Tanal Yathvanar to the thought, ‘if they conclude there’s more still inside.’

‘They’ll be too busy fighting each other to conclude anything,’ Karos said dismissively. ‘Now, Tanal, if there is nothing else, go back to your sweet victim, who will no doubt plead desperately for your sordid attention.’

Tanal licked his lips. Was it time? Was he ready?

And then he saw, in the Invigilator’s eyes, an absolute awareness, chilling Tanal’s bones. He read my mind. He knows my thoughts.

Tanal quickly saluted, then hurried from the room. How can 1 defeat such a man? He is ever ten steps ahead of me. Perhaps 1 should wait, until the troubles have passed, then make my move when he relaxes, when he feels most secure.

He had gone to Invictad’s office to confirm that the man remained alone with his puzzle. Whereupon he had planned to head down to the cells and collect Tehol Beddict. Bound, gagged and hooded, up and out into the compound. To appease the mob, to see them away and so save his own life. Instead, the Invigilator had Tehol in his very office.

For what? A conversation? An extended gloat? Oh, each time 1 think I know that man…

He found an agent and quickly conveyed Invictad’s instruction, as well as directions to the once-hidden room. Then he continued on, only faintly aware of the irony in following the Invigilator’s orders to the letter.

Onto a lower level, down another corridor, this one thicker with dust than most of the others, barring where his own boots had scraped an eager path. To the door, where he drew a key and unlocked the latch. Stepping inside.

‘I knew you’d be lonely,’ he said.

The lantern’s wick had almost burned down and he went over to the table where it sat. ‘Thirsty? I’m sure you are.’ He glanced over his shoulder and saw her watching him, saw the desire in her eyes. ‘There’s more trouble in the city, Janath. But I will protect you. I will always protect you. You are safe. You do understand that, yes? For ever safe.’

She nodded, and he saw her spread her legs wider on the bed, then invite him with a thrust of her pelvis.

And Tanal Yathvanar smiled. He had his perfect woman.

Karos Invictad regarded Tehol Beddict from above steepled fingers. ‘Very close,’ he said after a time.

Tehol, who had been staring dazedly at the puzzle box on the desk, stirred slightly then looked up with his mismatched eyes.

‘Very close,’ Karos repeated. ‘The measure of your intelligence, compared with mine. You are, I believe, the closest to my equal of any man I have met.’

‘Really? Thank you.’

‘I normally do not express my admiration for intelligence in others. Primarily because I am surrounded by idiots and fools-’

‘Even idiots and fools need supreme leaders,’ Tehol cut in, then smiled, then winced as cuts opened on his lips, then smiled more broadly than before.

‘Attempts at humour, alas,’ Karos said with a sigh, ‘poorly disguise the deficiencies of one’s intelligence. Perhaps that alone is what distinguishes the two of us.’

Tehol’s smile faded and suddenly he looked dismayed. ‘You never attempt humour, Invigilator?’

‘The mind is capable of playing countless games, Tehol Beddict. Some are useful. Others are worthless, a waste of time. Humour is a prime example of the latter.’

‘Funny.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Oh, sorry, I was just thinking. Funny.’

‘What is?’

‘You wouldn’t get it, alas.’

‘You actually imagine yourself brighter than me?’

‘I have no idea regarding that. But, since you abjure all aspects of humour, anything I might consider and then observe with the word “funny” is obviously something you would not understand.’ Tehol then leaned slightly forward. ‘But wait, that’s just it!’

‘What nonsense are you-’

‘It’s why I am, after all, much smarter than you.’

Karos Invictad smiled. ‘Indeed. Please, do explain yourself.’

‘Why, without a sense of humour, you are blind to so much in this world. To human nature. To the absurdity of so much that we say and do. Consider this, a most poignant example: a mob approaches, seeking my head because I stole all their money, and what do you do to appease them? Why, throw them all the money you’ve stolen from them! And yet, it’s clear that you were completely unaware of just how hilarious that really is-you made your decision unmindful of what, eighty per cent of its delicious nuances. Ninety per cent! Ninety-three per cent! And a half or just shy of a half, but more than a third but less than… oh, somewhere close to a half, then.’

Karos Invictad waggled a finger. ‘Incorrect, I’m afraid. It is not that I was unmindful. It is that I was indifferent to such nuances, as you call them. They are, in fact, entirely meaningless.’

‘Well, you may have a point there, since you seem capable of being appreciative of your own brilliance despite your ignorance. But let’s see, perhaps I can come up with another example.’

‘You are wasting your time, Tehol Beddict. And mine.’

‘I am? It didn’t seem you were very busy. What is so occupying you, Invigilator? Apart from anarchy in the streets, economic collapse, invading armies, dead agents and burning horses, 1 mean.’

The answer was involuntary, as Karos Invictad’s eyes flicked down to the puzzle box. He corrected himself-but too late, for he saw a dawning realization in Tehol’s bruised face, and the man leaned yet farther forward in his chair.

‘What’s this, then? Some magic receptacle? In which will be found all the solutions to this troubled world? Must be, to so demand all of your formidable genius. Wait, is something moving in there?’

‘The puzzle is nothing,’ Karos Invictad said, waving one bejewelled hand. ‘We were speaking of your failings.’

Tehol Beddict leaned back, grimacing. ‘Oh, my failings. Was that the topic of this sizzling discourse? I’m afraid I got confused.’

‘Some puzzles have no solution,’ Karos said, and he could hear how his own voice had grown higher-pitched. He forced himself to draw a deep breath, then said in a lower tone, ‘Someone sought to confound me. Suggesting that a solution was possible. But I see now that no solution was ever possible. The fool did not play fair, and I so dislike such creatures and could I find him or her I would make an immediate arrest, and this entire building would echo with the fool’s screams and shrieks.’

Karos paused when he saw Tehol frowning at him. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. Funny, though.’

The Invigilator reached for his sceptre and lifted it from the desktop, pleased as ever with the solid weight of the symbol, how it felt in his hand.

‘Okay, not funny. Sorry I said anything. Don’t hit me with that thing again. Please. Although,’ Tehol added, ‘considering it’s the symbol of your office, hitting me with it, while somewhat heavy-handed, is nevertheless somewhat… funny.’

‘I am thinking of giving you over to the citizens of Letheras,’ Karos said, glancing up to gauge how the man would react to that statement. And was surprised to see the fool smiling again. ‘You think I jest?’

‘Never. Obviously.’

‘Then you would enjoy being torn apart by the mob?’

‘I doubt it. But then, I wouldn’t be, would I? Torn apart, I mean.’

‘Oh, and why not?’

‘Because, not only do I have more money than you, Invigilator, I am-unlike you-entirely indifferent regarding who ends up owning it. Hand me over, by all means, sir. And watch me buy my life.’

Karos Invictad stared at the man.

Tehol wagged a broken finger. ‘People with no sense or appreciation of humour, Invigilator, always take money too seriously. Its possession, anyway. Which is why they spend all their time stacking coins, counting this and that, gazing lovingly over their hoards and so on. They’re compensating for the abject penury everywhere else in their lives. Nice rings, by the way.’

Karos forced himself to remain calm in the face of such overt insults. ‘I said I was thinking of handing you over. Alas, you have just given me reason not to. So, you assure your own Drowning come the morrow. Satisfied?’

‘Well, if my satisfaction is essential, then might I suggest-’

‘Enough, Tehol Beddict. You no longer interest me.’

‘Good, can I go now?’

‘Yes.’ Karos rose, tapping the sceptre onto one shoulder. ‘And I, alas, must needs escort you.’

‘Good help is hard to keep alive these days.’

‘Stand up, Tehol Beddict.’

The man had some difficulty following that instruction, but the Invigilator waited, having learned to be patient with such things.

As soon as Tehol fully straightened, however, a look of astonishment lit his features. ‘Why, it’s a two-headed insect! Going round and round!’

‘To the door now,’ Karos said.

‘What’s the challenge?’

‘It is pointless-’

‘Oh now, really, Invigilator. You claim to be smarter than me, and I’m about to die-1 like puzzles. I design them, in fact. Very difficult puzzles.’

‘You are lying. I know all the designers and you do not number among them.’

‘Well, all right. I designed just one.’

‘Too bad, then, you will be unable to offer it to me, for my momentary pleasure, since you are now returning to your cell.’

‘That’s all right,’ Tehol replied. ‘It was more of a joke than a puzzle, anyway.’

Karos Invictad grimaced, then waved Tehol towards the door with the sceptre.

As he slowly shuffled over, Tehol said, ‘I figured out the challenge, anyway. It’s to make the bug stop going round and round.’

The Invigilator blocked him with the sceptre. ‘I told you, there is no solution.’

‘I think there is. I think I know it, in fact. Tell you what, sir. I solve that puzzle there on your desk and you postpone my Drowning. Say, by forty years or so.’

‘Agreed. Because you cannot.’ He watched Tehol Beddict walk like an old man over to the desk. Then lean over. ‘You cannot touch the insect!’

‘Of course,’ Tehol replied. And leaned yet farther over, lowering his face towards the box.

Karos Invictad hurried forward to stand beside him. ‘Do not touch!’

‘I won’t.’

‘The tiles can be rearranged, but I assure you-’

‘No need to rearrange the tiles.’

Karos Invictad found his heart pounding hard in his chest. ‘You are wasting more of my time.’

‘No, I’m putting an end to your wasting your time, sir.’ He paused, cocked his head. ‘Probably a mistake. Oh well.’

And lowered his face down directly over the box, then gusted a sharp breath against one of the tiles. Momentarily clouding it. And the insect, with one of its heads facing that suddenly opaque, suddenly non-reflective surface, simply stopped. Reached up a leg and scratched its abdomen. As the mist cleared on the tile, it scratched once more, then resumed its circling.

Tehol straightened. ‘I’m free! Free!’

Karos Invictad could not speak for ten, fifteen heartbeats. His chest was suddenly tight, sweat beading on his skin, then he said in a rasp, ‘Don’t be a fool.’

‘You lied? Oh, I can’t believe how you lied to me! Well then, piss on you and your pissy stupid puzzle, too!’

The Invigilator’s sceptre swept in an arc, intersecting with that box on the desk, shattering it, sending its wreckage flying across the room. The insect struck a wall and stayed there, then it began climbing towards the ceiling.

‘Run!’ whispered Tehol Beddict. ‘Run!’

The sceptre swung next into Tehol’s chest, snapping ribs.

‘Pull the chain tighter on my ankles,’ Janath said. ‘Force my legs wider.’

‘You enjoy being helpless, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes!’

Smiling, Tanal Yathvanar knelt at the side of the bed.

The chain beneath ran through holes in the bed frame at each corner. Pins held the lengths in place. To tighten the ones snaring her ankles all he needed to do was pull a pin on each side at the foot of the bed, drawing the chain down as far as he could, and, as he listened to her moans, replace the pins.

Then he rose and sat down on the edge of the bed. Stared down at her. Naked, most of the bruises fading since he no longer liked hurting her. A beautiful body indeed, getting thinner which he preferred in his women. He reached out, then drew his hand away again. He didn’t like any touching until he was ready. She moaned a second time, arching her back.

Tanal Yathvanar undressed. Then he crawled up onto the bed, loomed over her with his knees between her legs, his hands pressing down on the mattress to either side of her chest.

He saw how the manacles had torn at her wrists. He would need to treat that-those wounds were looking much worse.

Slowly, Tanal settled onto her body, felt her shiver beneath him as he slid smoothly inside. So easy, so welcoming. She groaned, and, studying her face, he said, ‘Do you want me to kiss you now?’

‘Yes!’

And he brought his head down as he made his first deep thrust.

Janath, once eminent scholar, had found in herself a beast, prodded awake as if from a slumber of centuries, perhaps millennia. A beast that understood captivity, that understood that, sometimes, what needed doing entailed excruciating pain.

Beneath the manacles on her wrists, mostly hidden by scabs, blood and torn shreds of skin, the very bones had been worn down, chipped, cracked. By constant, savage tugging. Animal rhythm, blind to all else, deaf to every scream of her nerves. Tugging, and tugging.

Until the pins beneath the frame began to bend. Ever so slowly, bending, the wood holes chewed into, the pins bending, gouging through the holes.

And now, with the extra length of chain that came when Tanal Yathvanar had reset the pins at the foot of the bed frame, she had enough slack.

To reach with her left hand and grasp a clutch of his hair. To push his head to the right, where she had, in a clattering blur, brought most of the length of the chain through the hole, enough to wrap round his neck and then twist her hand down under and then over; and in sudden, excruciating determination, she pulled her left arm up, higher and higher with that arm-the manacle and her right wrist pinned to the frame, tugged down as far as it could go.

He thrashed, sought to dig his fingers under the chain, and she reached ever harder, her face brushing his own, her eyes seeing the sudden blue hue of his skin, his bulging eyes and jutting tongue.

He could have beaten against her. He could have driven his thumbs into her eyes. He could probably have killed her in time to survive all of this. But she had waited for his breath to release, which ever came at the moment he pushed in his first thrust. That breath, that she had heard a hundred times now, close to her ear, as he made use of her body, that breath is what killed him.

He needed air. He had none. Nothing else mattered. He tore at his own throat to get his fingers under the chain. She pushed her left arm straight, elbow locking, and loosed her own scream as the manacle round her right wrist shifted as a bolt slipped down into the hole.

That blue, bulging face, that flooding burst from his penis, followed by the hot gush of urine.

Staring eyes, veins blossoming red, then purple until the whites were completely filled.

She looked right into them. Looked into, seeking his soul, seeking to lock her gaze with that pathetic, vile, dying soul.

I kill you. I kill you. 1 kill you! The beast’s silent words.

The beast’s gleeful, savage assertion. Her eyes shouted it at him, shouted it into his soul. Tonal Yathvanar. 1 kill you!

Taralack Veed spat into his hands, rubbed them together to spread out the phlegm, then raised them and swept his hair back. ‘I smell more smoke,’ he said.

Senior Assessor, who sat opposite him at the small table, raised his thin brows. ‘It surprises me that you can smell anything, Taralack Veed.’

‘I have lived in the wild, Cabalhii. I can follow an antelope’s spore that’s a day old. This city is crumbling. The Tiste Edur have left. And suddenly the Emperor changes his mind and slaughters all the challengers until but two remain. And does anyone even care?’ He rose suddenly and walked to the bed, on which he had laid out his weapons. He unsheathed his scimitar and peered down at the edge once again.

‘You could trim your eyelashes with that sword by now.’

‘Why would I do that?’ Taralack asked distractedly.

‘Just a suggestion, Gral.’

‘I was a servant of the Nameless Ones.’

‘I know,’ Senior Assessor replied.

Taralack turned, studied with narrowed eyes the soft little man with his painted face. ‘You do?’

‘The Nameless Ones are known in my homeland. Do you know why they are called that? I will tell you as I see that you do not. The Initiated must surrender their names, in the belief that to know oneself by one’s own name is to give it too much power. The name becomes the identity, becomes the face, becomes the self. Remove the name and power returns.’

‘They made no such demands of me.’

‘Because you are little more than a tool, no different from that sword in your hands. Needless to say, the Nameless Ones do not give names to their tools. And in a very short time you will have outlived your usefulness-’

‘And I will be free once more. To return home.’

‘Home,’ mused Senior Assessor. ‘Your tribe, there to right all your wrongs, to mend all the wounds you delivered in your zealous youth. You will come to them with wizened eyes, with slowed heart and a gentling hand. And one night, as you lie sleeping in your furs in the hut where you were born, someone will slip in and slide a blade across your throat. Because the world within your mind is not the world beyond. You are named Taralack Veed and they have taken of its power. From the name, the face. From the name, the self, and with it all the history, and so by your own power-so freely given away long, long ago-you are slain.’

Taralack Veed stared, the scimitar trembling in his hands. ‘And this, then, is why you are known only as Senior Assessor.’

The Cabalhii shrugged. ‘The Nameless Ones are fools for the most part. Said proof to be found in your presence here, with your Jhag companion. Even so, we share certain understandings, which is not too surprising, since we both came from the same civilization. From the First Empire of Dessimbelackis.’

‘It was a common joke in Seven Cities,’ the Gral said, sneering. ‘One day the sun will die and one day there will be no civil war in the Cabal Isles.’

‘Peace has at long last been won,’ Senior Assessor replied, folding his hands together on his lap.

‘Then why does every conversation I have with you of late make me want to throttle you?’

The Cabalhii sighed. ‘Perhaps I have been away from home too long.’

Grimacing, Taralack Veed slammed the scimitar back in its scabbard.

From the corridor beyond a door thumped open and the two men in the room stiffened, their gazes meeting.

Soft footsteps, passing the door.

With a curse Taralack began strapping on his weapons. Senior Assessor rose, adjusting his robe before heading to the door and opening it just enough to peer outside. Then he ducked back in. ‘He is on his way,’ he said in a whisper.

Nodding, Taralack joined the monk who opened the door a second time. They went out into the corridor, even as they heard the sound of a momentary scuffle, then a grunt, after which something crunched on the stone floor.

Taralack Veed in the lead, they padded quickly down the corridor.

At the threshold of the practice yard’s door was a crumpled heap-the guard. From the compound beyond there was a startled shout, a scuffle, then the sound of the outer gate opening.

Taralack Veed hurried out into the darkness. His mouth was dry. His heart pounded heavy in his chest. Senior Assessor had said that Icarium would not wait. That Icarium was a god and no-one could hold back a god, when it had set out to do what it would do. They will find him gone. Will they search the city? No, they do not even dare unbar the palace gate.

Icarium? Lifestealer, what do you seek?

Will you return to stand before the Emperor and his cursed sword?

The monk had told Taralack to be ready, to not sleep this night. And this is why.

They reached the gate, stepped over the bodies of two guards, then edged outside.

And saw him, standing motionless forty paces down the street, in its very centre. A group of four figures, wielding clubs, were converging on him. At ten paces away they halted, then began backing away. Then they whirled about and ran, one of the clubs clattering on the cobbles.

Icarium stared up at the night sky.

Somewhere to the north, three buildings were burning, reflecting lurid crimson on the bellies of the clouds of smoke seething overhead. Distant screams lifted into the air. Taralack Veed, his breath coming in gasps, drew out his sword. Thugs and murderers might run from Icarium, but that was no assurance that they would do the same for himself and the monk.

Icarium lowered his gaze, then looked about, as if only now discovering where he was. Another moment’s pause, then he set out.

Silent, the Gral and the Cabalhii followed.

Samar Dev licked dry lips. He was lying on his bed, apparently asleep. And come the dawn, he would take his flint sword, strap on his armour, and walk in the midst of Letherii soldiers to the Imperial Arena. And he would walk, alone, out onto the sand, the few hundred onlookers on the marble benches raising desultory hooting and catcalls. There would be no bet-takers, no frenzied shouting of odds. Because this game always ended the same. And now, did anyone even care?

In her mind she watched him stride to the centre of the arena. Would he be looking at the Emperor? Studying Rhulad Sengar as he emerged from the far gate? The lightness of his step, the unconscious patterns the sword made at the end of his hands, patterns that whispered of all that muscles and bones had learned and were wont to do?

No, he will be as he always is. He will be Karsa Orlong. He’ll not even look at the Emperor, until Rhulad draws closer, until the two of them begin.

Not overconfident. Not indifferent. Not even contemptuous. No easy explanations for this Toblakai warrior. He would be within himself, entirely within himself, until it was time… to witness.

But nothing would turn out right, Samar Dev knew. Not all of Karsa Orlong’s prowess, nor that ever-flooding, ever-cascading torrent that was the Toblakai’s will; nor even this host of spirits trapped in the knife she now held, and those others who trailed the Toblakai’s shadow-souls of the slain, desert godlings and ancient demons of the sands and rock-spirits that might well burst forth, enwreathing their champion god (and was he truly that? A god? She did not know) with all their power. No, none of it would matter in the end.

Kill Rhulad Sengar. Kill him thrice. Kill him a dozen times. In the end he will stand, sword bloodied, and then will come lcarium, the very last.

To begin it all again.

Karsa Orlong, reduced to a mere name among the list of the slain. Nothing more than that. For this extraordinary warrior. And this is what you whisper, Fallen One, as your holy credo. Grandness and potential and promise, they all break in the end.

Even your great champion, this terrible, tortured Tiste Edur-you see him broken again and again. You fling him back each time less than what he was, yet with ever more power in his hands. He is there, yes, for us all. The power and its broken wielder broken by his power.

Karsa Orlong sat up. ‘Someone has left,’ he said.

Samar Dev blinked. ‘What?’

He bared his teeth. ‘lcarium. He is gone.’

‘What do you mean, gone? He’s left? To go where?’

‘It does not matter,’ the Toblakai replied, swinging round to settle his feet on the floor. He stared across at her. ‘He knows.’

‘Knows what, Karsa Orlong?’

The warrior stood, his smile broadening, twisting the crazed tattoos on his face. ‘That he will not be needed.’

‘Karsa-’

‘You will know when, woman. You will know.’

Know what, damn you? ‘They wouldn’t have just let him go,’ she said. ‘So he must have taken down all the guards. Karsa, this is our last chance. To head out into the city. Leave all this-’

‘You do not understand. The Emperor is nothing. The Emperor, Samar Dev, is not the one he wants.’

Who? Icarium? No-‘Karsa Orlong, what secret do you hold? What do you know about the Crippled God?’

The Toblakai rose. ‘It is nearly dawn,’ he said. ‘Nearly time.’

‘Karsa, please-’

‘Will you witness?’

‘Do I have to?’

He studied her for a moment, and then his next words shocked her to the core of her soul: ‘I need you, woman.’

Why?’ she demanded, suddenly close to tears.

‘To witness. To do what needs doing when the time comes.’ He drew a deep, satisfied breath, looking away, his chest swelling until she thought his ribs would creak. ‘I live for days like these,’ he said.

And now she did weep.

Grandness, promise, potential. Fallen One, must you so share out your pain?

‘Women always get weak once a month, don’t they?’

‘Go to Hood, bastard.’

‘And quick to anger, too.’

She was on her feet. Pounding a fist into his solid chest.

Five times, six-he caught her wrist, not hard enough to hurt, but stopping those swings as if a manacle had snapped tight.

She glared up at him.

And he was, for his sake, not smiling.

Her fist opened and she found herself almost physically pulled up and into his eyes-seeing them, it seemed, for the first time. Their immeasurable depth, their bright ferocity and joy.

Karsa Orlong nodded. ‘Better, Samar Dev.’

‘You patronizing shit.’

He released her arm. ‘I learn more each day about women. Because of you.’

‘You still have a lot to learn, Karsa Orlong,’ she said, turning away and wiping at her cheeks.

‘Yes, and that is a journey I will enjoy.’

‘I really should hate you,’ she said. ‘I’m sure most people who meet you hate you, eventually.’

The Toblakai snorted. ‘The Emperor will.’

‘So now I must walk with you. Now I must watch you die.’

From outside there came shouts.

‘They have discovered the escape,’ Karsa Orlong said, collecting his sword. ‘Soon they will come for us. Are you ready, Samar Dev?’

‘No.’

The water had rotted her feet, he saw. White as the skin of a corpse, shreds hanging loose to reveal gaping red wounds, and as she drew them onto the altar top and tucked them under her, the Errant suddenly understood something. About humanity, about the seething horde in its cruel avalanche through history.

The taste of ashes filling his mouth, he looked away, studied the runnels of water streaming down the stone walls of the chamber. ‘It rises,’ he said, looking back at her.

‘He was never as lost as he thought he was,’ Feather Witch said, reaching up distractedly to twirl the filthy strands of her once-golden hair. ‘Are you not eager, dear god of mine? This empire is about to kneel at your feet. And,’ she suddenly smiled, revealing brown teeth, ‘at mine.’

Yes, at yours, Feather Witch. Those rotting, half-dead appendages that you could have used to run. Long ago. The empire kneels, and lips quiver forth. A blossom kiss. So cold, so like paste, and the smell, oh, the smell…

‘Is it not time?’ she asked, with an oddly coy glance.

‘For what?’

‘You were a consort. You know the ways of love. Teach me now.’

‘Teach you?’

‘I am unbroken. I have never lain with man or woman.’

‘A lie,’ the Errant replied. ‘Gribna, the lame slave in the Hiroth village. You were very young. He used you. Often and badly. It is what has made you what you now are, Feather Witch.’

And he saw her eyes shy away, saw the frown upon her brow, and realized the awful truth that she had not remembered. Too young, too wide-eyed. And then, every moment buried in a deep hole at the pit of her soul. She, by the Abyss, did not remember. ‘Feather Witch-’

.’Go away,’ she said. ‘I don’t need anything from you right now. I have Udinaas.’

‘You have lost Udinaas. You never had him. Listen, please-’

‘He’s alive! Yes he is! And all the ones who wanted him are dead-the sisters, all dead! Could you have imagined that?’

‘You fool. Silchas Ruin is coming here. To lay this city to waste. To destroy it utterly-’

‘He cannot defeat Rhulad Sengar,’ she retorted. ‘Not even Silchas Ruin can do that!’

The Errant said nothing to that bold claim. Then he turned away. ‘I saw gangrene at your feet, Feather Witch. My temple, as you like to call it, reeks of rotting flesh.’

‘Then heal me.’

‘The water rises,’ he said, and this time the statement seemed to burgeon within him, filling his entire being. The water rises. Why? ‘Hannan Mosag seeks the demon god, the one trapped in the ice. That ice, Feather Witch, is melting. Water… everywhere. Water…’

By the Holds, was it possible? Even this? But no, I trapped the bastard. I trapped him!

‘He took the finger,’ Feather Witch said behind him. ‘He took it and thought that was enough, to just take it. But how could I go where he has gone? I couldn’t. So I needed him, yes. I needed him, and he was never as lost as he thought he was.’

And what of the other one?’ the Errant asked, still with his back to her.

‘Never found-’

The Elder God whirled round. ‘Where is the other finger?’

He saw her eyes widen.

Is it possible? Is it-

He found himself in the corridor, the water at his hips, though he passed through it effortlessly. We have come to the moment-Icarium walks ~ where? A foreign army and a horrifying mage approaches. Silchas Ruin wings down from the north with eyes of fire. Hannan Mosag ~ the fool-crawls his way to Settle Lake even as the demon god stirs-and she says he was never as lost as he thought he was.

Almost dawn, somewhere beyond these sagging, weeping walls.

An empire on its knees.

The blossom kiss, but moments away.

The word came to Varat Taun, newly appointed Finadd in the Palace Guard, that Icarium, along with Taralack Veed and Senior Assessor, had escaped. At that statement his knees had weakened, a flood rushing through him, but it was a murky, confused flood. Relief, yes, at what had been averted-at least for the moment, for might Icarium not return?-relief that was quickly engulfed by his growing dread for this invading army encamped barely two leagues away.

There would be a siege, and with virtually no-one left to hold the walls it would be a short one. And then the Eternal Domicile itself would be assailed, and by the time all was done, Emperor Rhulad Sengar would likely be standing alone, surrounded by the enemy.

An Emperor without an empire.

Five Letherii armies on the Bolkando borderlands far to the east had seemingly vanished. Not a word from a single mage among those forces. They had set out, under a competent if not brilliant commander, to crush the Bolkando and their allies. That should have been well within the woman’s capabilities. The last report had come half a day before the armies clashed.

What else could anyone conclude? Those five armies were shattered. The enemy marches on, into the empire’s very heart. And what has happened east of Drene? More silence, and Atri-Preda Bivatt was considered by most as the next Freda of the Imperial Armies.

Rebellion in Bluerose, riots in every city. Wholesale desertion of entire units and garrisons. The Tiste Edur vanishing like ghosts, fleeing back to their homeland, no doubt. By the Errant, why did I not ride with Yan Tovis? Return to my wife-I am a fool, who will die here, in this damned palace. Die for nothing.

He stood, positioned beside the throne room’s entrance-way, and watched from under the rim of his helm the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths pace in front of the throne. Filthy with blood and spilled fluids from a dozen dead challengers, a dozen cut through in a whirlwind frenzy, Rhulad shrieking as his sword whirled and chopped and severed and seemed to drink in the pain and blood of its victims.

And now, dawn was beginning on this day, and the sleepless Emperor paced. Blackened coins shifting on his ravaged face as emotions worked his features in endless cycles of disbelief, distress and fear.

Before Rhulad Sengar, standing motionless, was the Chancellor.

Thrice, the Emperor paused to glare at Triban Gnol. Thrice he made as if to speak, only to resume his pacing, the sword-tip dragging across the tiles.

His own people had abandoned him. He had inadvertently drowned his own mother and father. Killed all of his brothers. Driven the wife he had stolen to suicide. Been betrayed by the First and only Concubine he had possessed, Nisall.

An economy in ruins, all order crumbling, and armies invading.

And his only answer was to force hapless foreigners onto the sands of the arena and butcher them.

Pathos or grand comedy?

It will not do, Emperor. All that blood and guts covering you will not do. When you are but the hands holding the sword, the sword rules, and the sword knows nothing but what it was made for. It can achieve no resolutions, can manage no subtle diplomacy, can solve none of the problems afflicting people in their tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.

Leave a sword to rule an empire and the empire falls. Amidst war, amidst anarchy, amidst a torrent of blood and a sea of misery.

Coin-clad, the wielder of the sword paced out the true extent of his domain, here in this throne room.

Halting, facing the Chancellor once more. ‘What has happened?’

A child’s question. A child’s voice. Varat Taun felt his heart give slightly, felt its hardness suddenly soften. A child.

The Chancellor’s reply was measured, so reassuring that Varat Taun very nearly laughed at the absurdity of that tone. ‘We are never truly conquered, Emperor. You will stand, because none can remove you. The invaders will see that, understand that. They will have done with their retribution. Will they occupy? Unknown. If not them, then the coalition coming from the eastern kingdoms will-and such coalitions inevitably break apart, devour themselves. They too will be able to do nothing to you, Emperor.’

Rhulad Sengar stared at Triban Gnol, his mouth working but no sounds coming forth.

‘I have begun,’ the Chancellor resumed, ‘preparing our conditional surrender. To the Malazans. At the very least, they will enforce peace in the city, an end to the riots. Likely working in consort with the Patriotists. Once order is restored, we can begin the task of resurrecting the economy, minting-’

‘Where are my people?’ Rhulad Sengar asked.

‘They will return, Emperor. I am sure of it.’

Rhulad turned to face the throne. And suddenly went perfectly still. ‘It is empty,’ he whispered. ‘Look!’ He spun round, pointing his sword back at the throne. ‘Do you see? It is empty!’

‘Sire-’

‘Like my father’s chair in our house! Our house in the village! Empty!’

‘The village is no longer there, Emperor-’

‘But the chair remains! I see it! With my own eyes-my father’s chair! The paint fades in the sun. The wood joins split in the rain. Crows perch on the weathered arms! I see it!’

The shout echoed in silence then. Not a guard stirring. The Chancellor with bowed head, and who knew what thoughts flickered behind the serpent’s eyes?

Surrender. Conditional. Rhulad Sengar remains. Rhulad Sengar and, oh yes, Chancellor Triban Gnol. And the Patriotists. ‘We cannot be conquered. We are for ever. Step into our world and it devours you.’

Rhulad’s broad shoulders slowly sagged. Then he walked up to the throne, turned about and sat down. Looked out with bleak eyes. In a croaking voice he asked, ‘Who remains?’

The Chancellor bowed. ‘But one, Emperor.’

‘One? There should be two.’

‘The challenger known as Icarium has fled, Emperor. Into the city. We are hunting him down.’

Liar.

But Rhulad Sengar seemed indifferent, his head turning to one side, eyes lowering until they fixed on the gore-spattered sword. ‘The Toblakai.’

‘Yes, Emperor.’

‘Who murdered Binadas. My brother.’

‘Indeed, sire.’

The head slowly lifted. ‘Is it dawn?’

‘It is.’

Rhulad’s command was soft as a breath. ‘Bring him.’

They let the poor fool go once he had shown them the recessed door leading under the city wall. It was, of course, locked, and while the rest of the squads waited in the slowly fading darkness-seeking whatever cover they could find and it wasn’t much-Fiddler and Cuttle went down into the depression to examine the door.

‘Made to be broken down,’ Cuttle muttered, ‘so it’s like the lad said-we go in and then the floodgates open and we drown. Fid, I don’t see a way to do this, not quietly enough-so as no-one hears and figures out we’ve taken the trap.’

Fiddler scratched at his white beard. ‘Maybe we could dismantle the entire door, frame and all.’

‘We ain’t got the time.’

‘No. We pull back and hide out for the day, then do it tomorrow night.’

‘The Adjunct should be showing up by then. Keneb wants us first in and he’s right, we’ve earned it.’

At that moment they heard a thump from behind the door, then the low scrape of the bar being lifted.

The two Malazans moved to either side, quickly cocking their crossbows.

A grinding sound, then the door was pushed open.

The figure that climbed into view was no Letherii soldier. It was wearing plain leather armour that revealed, without question, that it was a woman, and on her face an enamel mask with a modest array of painted sigils. Two swords strapped across her back. One stride, then two. A glance to Fiddler on her right, then to Cuttle on her left. Pausing, brushing dirt from her armour, then setting out. Onto the killing field, and away.

Bathed in sweat, Fiddler settled back into a sitting position, the crossbow trembling in his hands.

Cuttle made a warding gesture, then sat down as well. ‘Hood’s breath was on my neck, Fid. Right there, right then. I know, she didn’t even reach for those weapons, didn’t even twitch…’

‘Aye,’ Fid answered, the word whispered like a blessing. A Hood-damned Seguleh. High ranked, too. We’d never have got our shots off-no way. Our heads would have rolled like a pair of oversized snowballs.

‘I looked away, Fid. I looked right down at the ground when she turned my way.’

‘Me too.’

‘And that’s why we’re still alive.’

‘Aye.’

Cuttle turned and peered down into the dark tunnel. ‘We don’t have to wait till tomorrow night after all.’

‘Go back to the others, Cuttle. Get Keneb to draw ‘em up. I’m heading in to check the other end. If it’s unguarded and quiet, well and good, If not…’

‘Aye, Fid.’

The sergeant dropped down into the tunnel.

He moved through the dark as fast as he could without making too much noise. The wall overhead was damned thick and he’d gone thirty paces before he saw the grey blur of the exit at the end of a sharp slope. Crossbow in hands, Fiddler edged forward.

He need not have worried.

The tunnel opened into a cramped blockhouse with no ceiling. One bench lined the wall to his right. Three bodies were sprawled on the dusty stone floor, bleeding out from vicious wounds. Should’ve averted your eyes, soldiers. Assuming she even gave them the time to decide either way-she’d wanted out, after all.

The door opposite him was ajar and Fiddler crept to it, looked out through the crack. A wide street, littered with rubbish.

They’d been listening to the riots half the night, and it was clear that mobs had swept through here, if not this night then other nights. The garrison blocks opposite were gutted, the windows soot-stained. Better and better.

He turned round and hastened back down the tunnel.

At the other end he found Cuttle, Faradan Sort and Fist Keneb, all standing a few paces in from the door.

Fiddler explained to them what he had found. Then said, ‘We got to go through right away, I think. Eight hundred marines to come through and that’ll take a while.’

Keneb nodded. ‘Captain Faradan Sort.’

‘Sir.’

‘Take four squads through and establish flanking positions. Send one squad straight across to the nearest barracks to see if they are indeed abandoned. If so, that will be our staging area. From there, I will lead the main body to the gate, seize and secure it. Captain, you and four squads will strike into the city, as far as you can go, causing trouble all the way-take extra munitions for that.’

‘Our destination?’

‘The palace.’

‘Aye, sir. Fiddler, collect Gesler and Hellian and Urb-you’re the first four-and take your squads through. At a damned run if you please.’

In the grey light of early dawn, four figures emerged from a smear of blurred light twenty paces from the dead Azath Tower behind the Old Palace. As the portal swirled shut behind them, they stood, looking round.

Hedge gave Quick Ben a light push to one side, somewhere between comradely affection and irritation. ‘Told you, it’s reunion time, wizard.’

‘Where in Hood’s name are we?’ Quick Ben demanded.

‘We’re in Letheras,’ Seren Pedac said. ‘Behind the Old Palace-but something’s wrong.’

Trull Sengar wrapped his arms about himself, his face drawn with the pain of freshly healed wounds, his eyes filled with a deeper distress.

Hedge felt some of his anticipation dim like a dying oil lamp as he studied the Tiste Edur. The poor bastard. A brother murdered in front of his eyes. Then, the awkward goodbye with Onrack-joy and sadness there in plenty, seeing his old friend and the woman at his side-a woman Onrack had loved for so long. So long? Damned near incomprehensible, that’s how long.

But now-Trull Sengar.’

The Tiste Edur slowly looked over.

Hedge shot Quick Ben a glance, then he said, ‘We’ve a mind to escort you and Seren. To her house.’

‘This city is assailed,’ Trull Sengar said. ‘My youngest brother-the Emperor-’

‘That can all wait,’ Hedge cut in. He paused, trying to figure out how to say what he meant, then said, ‘Your friend Onrack stole a woman’s heart, and it was all there.

In her eyes, I mean. The answer, that is. And if you’d look, just look, Trull Sengar, into the eyes of Seren Pedac, well-’

‘For Hood’s sake,’ Quick Ben sighed. ‘He means you and Seren need to get alone before anything else, and we’re going to make sure that happens. All right?’

The surprise on Seren Pedac’s face was almost comical.

But Trull Sengar then nodded.

Hedge regarded Quick Ben once again. ‘You recovered enough in case we walk into trouble?’

‘Something your sharpers can’t handle? Yes, probably. Maybe. Get a sharper in each hand, Hedge.’

‘Good enough… since you’re a damned idiot,’ Hedge replied. ‘Seren Pedac-you should know, I’m well envious of this Tiste Edur here, but anyway. Is your house far?’

‘No, it is not, Hedge of the Bridgeburners.’

‘Then let’s get out of this spooky place.’

Silts swirled up round his feet, spun higher, engulfing his shins, then whirled away like smoke on the current. Strange pockets of luminosity drifted past, morphing as if subjected to unseen pressures in this dark, unforgiving world.

Bruthen Trana, who had been sent to find a saviour, walked an endless plain, the silts thick and gritty. He stumbled against buried detritus, tripped on submerged roots. He crossed current-swept rises of hardened clay from which jutted polished bones of long-dead leviathans. He skirted the wreckage of sunken ships, the ribs of the hulls splayed out and cargo scattered about. And as he walked, he thought about his life and the vast array of choices he had made, others he had refused to make.

No wife, no single face to lift into his mind’s eye. He had been a warrior for what seemed all his life. Fighting alongside blood kin and comrades closer than any blood kin. He had seen them die or drift away. He had, he realized now, watched his entire people pulled apart. With the conquest, with the cold-blooded, anonymous nightmare that was Lether. As for the Letherii themselves, no, he did not hate them. More like pity and yes, compassion, for they were as trapped in the nightmare as anyone else. The rapacious desperation, the gnawing threat of falling, of drowning beneath the ever-rising, ever-onrushing torrent that was a culture that could never look back, could not even slow its headlong plunge into some gleaming future that-if it came at all-would ever only exist for but a privileged few.

This eternal seabed offered its own commentary, and it was one that threatened to drag him down into the silts, enervated beyond all hope of continuing, of even moving. Cold, crushing, this place was like history’s own weight-history not of a people or a civilization, but of the entire world.

Why was he still walking? What saviour could liberate him from all of this? He should have remained in Letheras. Free to launch an assault on Karos Invictad and his Patriotists, free to annihilate the man and his thugs. And then he could have turned to the Chancellor. Imagining his hands on Triban Gnol’s throat was most satisfying-for as long as the image lasted, which was never long enough. A bloom of silts up into his eyes, another hidden object snagging his foot.

And here, now, looming before him, pillars of stone. The surfaces, he saw, cavorted with carvings, unrecognizable sigils so intricate they spun and shifted before his eyes.

As he drew closer, silts gusted ahead, and Bruthen Trana saw a figure climbing into view. Armour green with verdigris and furred with slime. A closed helm covering its face. In one gauntleted hand was a Letherii sword.

And a voice spoke in the Tiste Edur’s head: ‘You have walked enough, Ghost.’

Bruthen Trana halted. ‘I am not a ghost in truth-’

‘You are, stranger. Your soul has been severed from now cold, now rotting flesh. You are no more than what stands here, before me. A ghost.’

Somehow, the realization did not surprise him. Hannan Mosag’s legacy of treachery made all alliances suspect. And he had, he realized, felt… severed. For a long time, yes. The Warlock King likely did not waste any time in cutting the throat of Bruthen Trana’s helpless body.

‘Then,’ he said, ‘what is left for me?’

‘One thing, Ghost. You are here to summon him. To send him back.’

‘But was not his soul severed as well?’

‘His flesh and bones are here, Ghost. And in this place, there is power. For here you will find the forgotten gods, the last hold’ ing of their names. Know this, Ghost, were we to seek to defy you, to refuse your summoning, we could. Even with what you carry.’

‘Will you then refuse me?’ Bruthen Trana asked, and if the answer was yes, then he would laugh. To have come all this way. To have sacrificed his life…

‘No. We understand the need. Better, perhaps, than you.’

The armoured warrior lifted his free hand. All but the fore

most of the metal-clad fingers folded. ‘Go there,’ it said, pointing towards a pillar. ‘The side with but one name. Draw forth that which you possess of his flesh and bone. Speak the name so written on the stone.’

Bruthen Trana walked slowly to the standing stone, went round to the side with the lone carving. And read thereon the name inscribed: ‘ “Brys Beddict, Saviour of the Empty Hold.” I summon you.’

The face of the stone, cleaned here, seeming almost fresh, all at once began to ripple, then bulge in places, the random shapes and movement coalescing to create a humanoid shape, pushing out from the stone. An arm came free, then shoulder, then head, face-eyes closed, features twisted as if in pain-upper torso. A leg. The second arm-Bruthen saw that two fingers were missing on that hand.

He frowned. Two?

As the currents streamed, Brys Beddict was driven out from the pillar. He fell forward onto his hands and knees, was almost swallowed in billowing silts.

The armoured warrior arrived, carrying a scabbarded sword, which he pushed point-first into the seabed beside the Letherii.

‘Take it, Saviour. Feel the currents-they are eager. Go, you have little time.’

Still on his hands and knees, head hanging, Brys Beddict reached out for the weapon. As soon as his hand closed about the scabbard a sudden rush of the current lifted the man from the seabed. He spun in a flurry of silts and then was gone.

Bruthen Trana stood, motionless. That current had rushed right through him, unimpeded. As it would through a ghost.

All at once he felt bereft. He’d not had a chance to say a word to Brys Beddict, to tell him what needed to be done. An Emperor, to cut down once more. An empire, to resurrect.

‘You are done here, Ghost.’

Bruthen Trana nodded.

‘Where will you go?’

‘There is a house. I lost it. I would find it again.’

‘Then you shall.’

‘Oh, Padderunt, look! It’s twitching!’

The old man squinted over at Selush through a fog of smoke. She was doing that a lot of late. Bushels of rustleaf ever since Tehol Beddict’s arrest. ‘You’ve dressed enough dead to know what the lungs of people who do too much of that look like, Mistress.’

‘Yes. No different from anyone else’s.’

‘Unless they got the rot, the cancer.’

‘Lungs with the rot all look the same and that is most certainly true. Now, did you hear what I said?’

‘It twitched,’ Padderunt replied, twisting in his chair to peer up at the bubbly glass jar on the shelf that contained a stubby little severed finger suspended in pink goo.

‘It’s about time, too. Go,to Rucket,’ Selush said between ferocious pulls on the mouthpiece, her substantial chest swelling as if it was about to burst. ‘And tell her.’

‘That it twitched.’

‘Yes!’

‘All right.’ He set down his cup. ‘Rustleaf tea, Mistress.’

‘I’d drown.’

‘Not inhaled. Drunk, in civil fashion.’

‘You’re still here, dear servant, and I don’t like that at all.’

He rose. ‘On my way, O enwreathed one.’

She had managed to push the corpse of Tanal Yathvanar to one side, and it now lay beside her as if cuddled in sleep, the bloated, blotched face next to her own.

There would be no-one coming for her. This room was forbidden to all but Tanal Yathvanar, and unless some disaster struck this compound in the next day or two, leading Karos Invictad to demand Tanal’s presence and so seek him out, Janath knew it would be too late for her.

Chained to the bed, legs spread wide, fluids leaking from her. She stared up at the ceiling, strangely comforted by the body lying at her side. Its stillness, the coolness of the skin, the flaccid lack of resistance from the flesh. She could feel the shrivelled thing that was his penis pressing against her right thigh. And the beast within her was pleased.

She needed water. She needed that above all else. A mouthful would be enough, would give her the strength to once again begin tugging at the chains, dragging the links against the wood, dreaming of the entire frame splintering beneath her-but it would take a strong man to do that, she knew, strong and healthy. Her dream was nothing more than that, but she held on to it as her sole amusement that would, she hoped, follow her into death. Yes, right up until the last moment.

It would be enough.

Tanal Yathvanar, her tormentor, was dead. But that would be no escape from her. She meant to resume her pursuit, her soul-sprung free of this flesh-demonic in its hunger, in the cruelty it wanted to inflict on whatever whimpering, cowering thing was left of Tanal Yathvanar.

A mouthful of water. That would be so sweet.

She could spit it into the staring face beside her.

Coins to the belligerent multitude brought a larger, more belligerent multitude. And, at last, trepidation awoke in Karos Invictad, the Invigilator of the Patriotists. He sent servants down into the hiddenmost crypts below, to drag up chest after chest. In the compound his agents were exhausted, now simply flinging handfuls of coins over the walls since the small sacks were long gone. And a pressure was building against those walls that, it now seemed, no amount of silver and gold could relieve.

He sat in his office, trying to comprehend that glaring truth. Of course, he told himself, there were simply too many in the mob. Not enough coins was the problem. They’d fought like jackals over the sacks, had they not?

He had done and was doing what the Emperor should have done. Emptied the treasury and buried the people in riches. That would have purchased peace, yes. An end to the riots. Everyone returning to their homes, businesses opening once more, food on the stalls and whores beckoning from windows and plenty of ale and wine to flow down throats-all the pleasures that purchased apathy and obedience. Yes, festivals and games and Drownings and that would have solved all of this. Along with a few quiet arrests and assassinations.

But he was running out of money. His money. Hard-won, a hoard amassed solely by his own genius. And they were taking it all.

Well, he would start all over again. Stealing it back from the pathetic bastards. Easy enough for one such as Karos Invictad.

Tanal Yathvanar had disappeared, likely hiding with his prisoner, and he could rot in her arms for all that the Invigilator cared. Oh, the man schemed to overthrow him, Karos knew. Pathetic, simplistic schemes. But they would come to naught, because the next time Karos saw the man, he would kill him. A knife through the eye. Quick, precise, most satisfying.

He could hear the shouts for Tehol Beddict, somewhat less fierce now-and that was, oddly enough, vaguely disturbing. Did they no longer want to tear him to pieces? Was he indeed hearing cries for the man’s release?

Desperate knocking on his office door.

‘Enter.’

An agent appeared, his face white. ‘Sir, the main block-’

‘Are we breached?’

‘No-’

‘Then go away-wait, check on Tehol Beddict. Make sure he’s regained consciousness. I want him able to walk when we march to the Drownings.’

The man stared at him for a long moment, then he said, ‘Yes sir.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No, the main block-’ He gestured out into the corridor.

‘What is it, you damned fool?’

‘It’s filling with rats, sir!’

Rats?

‘They’re coming from over the walls-we throw coins and rats come back. Thousands!’

‘That guild no longer exists!’

The shriek echoed like a woman’s scream.

The agent blinked, and all at once his tone changed, steadied. ‘The mob, sir, they’re calling for Tehol Beddict’s release-can you not hear it? They’re calling him a hero, a revolutionary-’

Karos Invictad slammed his sceptre down on his desk and rose. ‘Is this what my gold paid for?’

Feather Witch sensed the rebirth of Brys Beddict. She stopped plucking at the strips of skin hanging from her toes, drawing a deep breath as she felt him rushing closer, ever closer. So fast!

Crooning under her breath, she closed her eyes and conjured in her mind that severed finger. That fool the Errant had a lot to learn, still. About his formidable High Priestess. The finger still belonged to her, still held drops of her blood from when she had pushed it up inside her. Month after month, like a waterlogged stick in a stream, soaking her up.

Brys Beddict belonged to her, and she would use him well.

The death that was a non-death, for Rhulad Sengar, the insane Emperor. The murder of Hannan Mosag. And the Chancellor. And everyone else she didn’t like.

And then… the handsome young man kneeling before her as she sat on her raised temple throne-in the new temple that would be built, sanctified to the Errant-kneeling, yes, while she spread her legs and invited him in. To kiss the place where his finger had been. To drive his tongue deep.

The future was so very bright, so very-

Feather Witch’s eyes snapped open. Disbelieving.

As she felt Brys Beddict being pulled away, pulled out of her grasp. By some other force.

Pulled away!

She screamed, lurching forward on the dais, hands plunging into the floodwater-as if to reach down into the current and grasp hold of him once, more-but it was deeper than she’d remembered. Unbalanced, she plunged face-first into the water. Involuntarily drew in a lungful of the cold, biting fluid.

Eyes staring into the darkness, as she thrashed about, her lungs contracting again and again, new lungfuls of water, one after another.

Deep-where was up?

A knee scraped the stone floor and she sought to bring her legs under her, but they were numb, heavy as logs-they would not work. One hand then, onto the floor, pushing upward-but not high enough to break the surface. The other hand, then, trying to guide her knees together-but one would drift out as soon as she left it seeking the other.

The darkness outside her eyes flooded in. Into her mind.

And, with blessed relief, she ceased struggling.

She would dream now. She could feel the sweet lure of that dream-almost within reach-and all the pain in her chest was gone-she could breathe this, she could. In and out, in and out, and then she no longer had to do even that. She could grow still, sinking down onto the slimy floor.

Darkness in and out, the dream drifting closer, almost within reach.

Almost…

The Errant stood in the waist-deep water, his hand on her back. He waited, even though her struggles had ceased. Sometimes, it was true, a nudge was not enough.

The malformed, twisted thing that was Hannan Mosag crawled up the last street before the narrow, crooked alley that led to Settle Lake. Roving bands had come upon the wretched Tiste Edur in the darkness before dawn and had given him wide berth, chased away by his laughter.

Soon, everything would return to him. All of his power, purest Kurald Emurlahn, and he would heal this mangled body, heal the scars of his mind. With the demon-god freed of the ice and bound to his will once more, who could challenge him?

Rhulad Sengar could remain Emperor-that hardly mattered, did it? The Warlock King would not be frightened of him, not any more. And, to crush him yet further, he possessed a certain note, a confession-oh, the madness unleashed then!

Then, these damned invaders-well, they were about to find themselves without a fleet.

And the river shall rise, flooding, a torrent to cleanse this accursed city. Of foreigners. Of the Letherii themselves. 1 will see them all drowned.

Reaching the mouth of the alley, he dragged himself into its gloom, pleased to be out of the dawn’s grey light, and the stench of the pond wafted down to him. Rot, dissolution, the dying of the ice. At long last, all his ambitions were about to come true.

Crawling over the slick, mould-slimed cobblestones. He could hear thousands.in the streets, somewhere near. Some name being cried out like a chant. Disgust filled Hannan Mosag. He never wanted anything to do with these Letherii. No, he would have raised an impenetrable wall between them and his people. He would have ruled over the tribes, remaining in the north, where the rain fell like mist and the forests of sacred trees embraced every village.

There would have been peace, for all the Tiste Edur.

Well, he had sent them all back north, had he not? He had begun his preparations. And soon he would join them, as Warlock King. And he would make his dream a reality.

And Rhulad Sengar? Well, 1 leave him a drowned empire, a wasteland of mud and dead trees and rotting corpses. Rule well, Emperor.

He found himself scrabbling against a growing stream of icy water that was working its way down the alley, the touch numbing his hands, knees and feet. He began slipping. Cursing under his breath, Hannan Mosag paused, staring down at the water flowing round him.

From up ahead there came a loud crack! and the Warlock King smiled. My child stirs.

Drawing upon the power of the shadows in this alley, he resumed his journey.

‘Ah, the fell guardians,’ Ormly said as he strode to the muddy bank of Settle Lake. The Champion Rat Catcher had come in from the north side, where he’d been busy in Creeper District, hiring random folk to cry out the name of the empire’s great revolutionary, the hero of heroes, the this and that and all the rest. Tehol Beddict! He’s taken all the money back-from all the rich slobs in their estates! He’s going to give it all to every one of you-he’s going to clear all your debts! And are you listening? I’ve more rubbish to feed you-wait, come back! True, he’d just added on that last bit.

What a busy night! And then a runner from Selush had brought him the damned sausage that a man had once used to pick his nose or something.

All right, there was some disrespect in that and it wasn’t worthy, not of Brys Beddict-the Hero’s very own brother!-nor of himself, Ormly of the Rats. So, enough of that, then.

‘Oh, look, sweetcakes, it’s him.’

‘Who, dove-cookie?’

‘Why, I forget his name. Tha’s who.’

Ormly scowled at the pair lolling on the bank like a couple of gaping fish. ‘I called you guardians? You’re both drunk!’

‘You’d be too,’ Ursto Hoobutt said, ‘if ‘n you had to listen to this simperin’ witch ‘ere.’ He wagged his head to mime his wife as he said: ‘Ooh, I wanna baby! A big baby, with only one upper lip but a bottom one too to clamp onto you know where an’ get even bigger! Ooh, syrup-smoochies, oh, please? Can I? Can I? Can I!’

‘You poor man,’ Ormly commiserated, walking up to them. He paused upon seeing the heaved and cracked slabs of ice crowding the centre of the lake. ‘It’s pushing, is it?’

‘Took your time, too,’ Pinosel muttered, casting her husband her third glowering look since Ormly had arrived. She swished whatever was in the jug in her left hand, then tilted it back to drink deep. Then wiped at her mouth, leaned forward and glared up at Ormly from lowered brows. ‘Ain’t gonna have no jus’ one upper lip, neither. Gonna be healthy-’

‘Really, Pinosel,’ Ormly said, ‘the likelihood of that-’

‘You don’t know nothing!’

‘All right, maybe I don’t. Not about the likes of you two, anyway. But here’s what I do know. In the Old Palace there’s a panel in the baths that was painted about six hundred years ago. Of Settle Lake or something a lot like it, with buildings in the background. And who’s sitting there in the grasses on the bank, sharing a jug? Why, an ugly woman and an even uglier man-both looking a lot like you two!’

‘Watchoo yer callin’ ugly,’ Pinosel said, lifting her head with an effort, taking a deep breath to compose her features, then patting at her crow’s nest hair. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘I’ve had better days.’

‘Ain’t that the truth,’ mumbled Ursto.

‘An’ I ‘eard that! An’ oose fault is that, porker-nose?’

‘Only the people that ain’t no more ‘ere t’worship us an’ all that.’

“Zactly!’

Ormly frowned at the pond and its ice. At that moment a huge slab buckled with a loud crack! And he found himself involuntarily stepping back, one step, two. ‘Is it coming up?’ he demanded.

‘No,’ Ursto said, squinting one-eyed at the groaning heap of ice. ‘That’d be the one needing his finger back.’

The meltwater fringing the lake was bubbling and swirling now, bringing up clouds of silt as some current swept round the solid mass in the middle. Round and round, like a whirlpool only in reverse.

And all at once there was a thrashing, a spray of water, and a figure in its midst-struggling onto the bank, coughing, streaming muddy water, and holding in one incomplete hand a scabbarded sword.

Pinosel, her eyes bright as diamonds, lifted the jug in a wavering toast. ‘Hail the Saviour! Hail the half-drowned dog spitting mud!’ And then she crowed, the cry shifting into a cackle, before drinking deep once more.

Ormly plucked the severed finger from his purse and walked down to where knelt Brys Beddict. ‘Looking for this?’ he asked.

There had been a time of sleep, and then a time of pain. Neither had seemed to last very long, and now Brys Beddict, who had died of poison in the throne room of the Eternal Domicile, was on his hands and knees beside a lake of icy water. Racked with shivers, still coughing out water and slime.

And some man was crouched beside him, trying to give him a severed finger swollen and dyed pink.

He felt his left hand gripping a scabbard, and knew it for his own. Blinking to clear his eyes, he flitted a glance to confirm that the sword still resided within it. It did. Then, pushing the man’s gift away, he slowly settled onto his haunches, and looked round.

Familiar, yes.

The man beside him now laid a warm hand on his shoulder, as if to still his shivering. ‘Brys Beddict,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Tehol is about to die. Brys, your brother needs you now.’

And, as Brys let the man help him to his feet, he drew out his sword, half expecting to see it rusted, useless-but no, the weapon gleamed with fresh oil.

‘Hold on!’ shouted another voice.

The man steadying Brys turned slightly. ‘What is it, Ursto?’

‘The demon god’s about to get free! Ask ‘im!’

‘Ask him what?’

‘The name! Ask ‘im what’s its name, damn you! We can’t send it away without its name!’

Brys spat grit from his mouth. Tried to think. The demon god in the ice, the ice that was failing. Moments from release, moments from… ‘Ay’edenan of the Spring,’ he said. ‘Ay’edenan tek’ velut!enan.’

The man beside him snorted. ‘Try saying that five times fast! Errant, try saying it once!’

But someone was cackling.

‘Brys-’

He nodded. Yes. Tehol. My brother-‘Take me,’ he said. ‘Take me to him.’

‘I will,’ the man promised. ‘And on the way, I’ll do some explaining. All right?’

Brys Beddict, Saviour of the Empty Throne, nodded.

‘Imagine,’ Pinosel said with a gusty sigh, ‘a name in the old tongue. Oh now, ain’t this one come a long way!’

‘You stopped being drunk now, munch-sweets?’ She stirred, clambered onto her feet, then reached down and tugged at her husband. ‘Come on.’

‘But we got to wait-to use the name and send it away!’

‘We got time. Let’s perch ourselves down top of Wormface Alley, have another jug, an’ we can watch the Edur crawl up t’us like the Turtle of the Abyss.’ Ursto snorted. ‘Funny how that myth didn’t last.’

A deeper, colder shadow slid over Hannan Mosag and he halted his efforts. Almost there, yes-where the alley opened out, he saw two figures seated in careless sprawls and leaning against one another. Passing a jug between them.

Squalid drunks, but perhaps most appropriate as witnesses-to the death of this gross empire. The first to die, too. Also fitting enough.

He made to heave himself closer, but a large hand closed about his cloak, just below his collar, and he was lifted from the ground.

Hissing, seeking his power-

Hannan Mosag was slowly turned about, and he found himself staring into an unhuman face. Grey-green skin like leather. Polished tusks jutting from the corners of the mouth. Eyes with vertical pupils, regarding him now without expression.

Behind him the two drunks were laughing.

The Warlock King, dangling in the air before this giant demoness, reached for the sorcery of Kurald Emurlahn to blast this creature into oblivion. And he felt it surge within him-

But now her other hand took him by the throat.

And squeezed.

Cartilage crumpled like eggshells. Vertebrae crunched, buckled, broke against each other. Pain exploded upward, filling Hannan Mosag’s skull with white fire.

As the sun’s bright, unforgiving light suddenly bathed his face.

Sister Dawn-you greet me-

But he stared into the eyes of the demoness, and saw still nothing. A lizard’s eyes, a snake’s eyes.

Would she give him nothing at all?

The fire in his skull flared outward, blinding him, then, with a soft, fading roar, it contracted once more, darkness rushing into its wake.

But Hannan Mosag’s eyes saw none of this.

The sun shone full on his dead face, highlighting every twist, every marred flare of bone, and the unseeing eyes that stared out into that light were empty.

As empty as the Jaghut’s own.

Ursto and Pinosel watched the Jaghut fling the pathetic, mangled body away.

Then she faced them. ‘My ritual is sundered.’

Pinosel laughed through her nose, which proved a messy outburst the cleaning of which occupied her for the next few moments.

Ursto cast her a disgusted glance, then nodded to the Jaghut sorceress. ‘Oh, they all worked at doing that. Mosag, Menandore, Sukul Ankhadu, blah blah.’ He waved one hand. ‘But we’re here, sweetness. We got its name, y’see.’

The Jaghut cocked her head. ‘Then, I am not needed.’

‘Well, that’s true enough. Unless you care for a drink?’ He tugged the jug free of Pinosel’s grip, raised it.

The Jaghut stared a moment longer, then she said, ‘A pleasing offer, thank you.’

The damned sun was up, but on this side the city’s wall was all shadow. Except, Sergeant Balm saw, for the wide open gate.

Ahead, Masan Gilani did that unthinkable thing again and rose in her stirrups, leaning forward as she urged her horse into a gallop.

From just behind Balm, Throatslitter moaned like a puppy under a brick. Balm shook his head. Another sick thought just popping into his head like a squeezed tick. Where was he getting them from anyway? And why was that gate open and why were they all riding hard straight for it?

And was that corpses he saw just inside? Figures moving about amidst smoke? Weapons?

What was that sound from the other side of that gate?

‘Sharpers!’ Deadsmell called out behind him. ‘Keneb’s in! He’s holding the gate!’

Keneb? Who in Hood’s name was Keneb?

‘Ride!’ Balm shouted. ‘They’re after us! Ride for Aren!’

Masan Gilani’s rising and lowering butt swept into the shadow of the gate.

Throatslitter cried out and that was the sound all right, when the cat dives under the cartwheel and things go squirt and it wasn’t his fault he’d hardly kicked at all. ‘It dived out there, Ma! Oh, I hate cities! Let’s go home-ride! Through that hole! What’s it called? The big false-arched canti-levered hole!’

Plunging into gloom, horse hoofs suddenly skidding, the entire beast slewing round beneath him. Impact. Hip to rump, and Balm was thrown, arms reaching out, wrapping tight round a soft yielding assembly of perfected flesh-and she yelped, pulled with him as he plunged past dragging Masan Gilani from her saddle.

Hard onto cobbles, Balm’s head slamming down, denting and dislodging his helm. Her weight deliciously flattening him for a single exquisite moment before she rolled off.

Horses stumbling, hoofs cracking down way too close. Soldiers rushing in, pulling them clear.

Balm stared up into a familiar face. ‘Thorn Tissy, you ain’t dead?’

The ugly face spread into a toad’s grin-toad under a brick oh they smile wide then don’t they-and then a calloused hand slapped him hard. ‘You with us, Balm? Glad you arrived-we’re getting pressed here-seems the whole damned city garrison is here, tryin’ to retake the gate.’

‘Garrison? What’s Blistig thinking? We’re on his side! Show me the famous dancing girls of Aren, Tissy, that’s what I’m here to see and maybe more than see, hey?’

Thorn Tissy dragged Balm onto his feet, set the dented helm back onto Balm’s head, then he took him by the shoulders and turned him round.

And there was Keneb, and there, just beyond, barricades of wreckage and soldiers crouching down reloading crossbows while others hacked at Letherii soldiers trying to force a breach. Somewhere to the right a sharper detonated in an alley mouth where the enemy had been gathering for another rush. People screamed.

Fist Keneb stepped up to Balm. ‘Where are the rest, Sergeant?’

‘Sir?’

‘The Adjunct and the army!’

‘In the transports, sir, where else? Worst storm I’ve ever seen and now all the ships are upside down-’

Behind Balm Deadsmell said, ‘Fist, they should be on the march.’

‘Get Masan Gilani back on her horse,’ Keneb said and Balm wanted to kiss the man, ‘and I don’t care if she kills the beast but I want her to reach the Adjunct-they need to step it up. Send their cavalry ahead riding hard.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘We’re running low on munitions and quarrels and there’s more of the Letherii gathering with every damned breath and if they find a decent commander we won’t be able to hold.’

Was the Fist talking to Balm? He wasn’t sure, but he wanted to turn round to watch Masan Gilani jump with her legs spread onto that horse’s back, oh yes he did, but these hands on his shoulders wouldn’t let him and someone was whimpering in his ear-

‘Stop making that sound, Sergeant,’ Keneb said.

Someone rode back out through the gate and where did they think they were going? There was a fight here! ‘Boyfriends of the dancing girls,’ he whispered, reaching for his sword.

‘Corporal,’ Keneb said. ‘Guide your sergeant here to the barricade to the left. You too, Throatslitter.’

Deadsmell said, ‘He’ll be fine in a moment, sir-’

‘Yes, just go.’

‘Aye, Fist.’

Boyfriends. Balm wanted to kill every one of them.

‘This city looks like a hurricane went through it,’ Cuttle said in a low mutter.

He had that right. The looting and all the rest was days old, however, and now it seemed that word of the Malazan breach was sweeping through in yet another storm-this one met with exhaustion-as the squad crouched in shadows near one end of an alley, watching the occasional furtive figure rush across the street.

They’d ambushed one unit forming up to march for the western gate. Quarrels and sharpers and a burner under the weapons wagon-still burning back there by the column of black smoke lifting into the ever-brightening sky. Took them all out, twenty-five dead or wounded, and before he and Gesler had pulled away locals were scurrying out to loot the bodies.

The captain had commandeered Urb and his squad off to find Hellian and her soldiers-the damned drunk had taken a wrong turn somewhere-which left Fiddler arid Gesler to keep pushing for the palace.

Forty paces down the street to their right was a high wall with a fortified postern. City Garrison block and compound, and now that gate had opened and troops were filing out to form up ranks in the street.

‘That’s where we find the commander,’ Cuttle said. ‘The one organizing the whole thing.’

Fiddler looked directly across from where he and his marines were hiding and saw Gesler and his soldiers in a matching position in another alley mouth. It’d be nice if we were on the roofs. But no-one was keen to break into these official-looking buildings and maybe end up fighting frenzied clerks and night watch guards. Noise like that and there’d be real troops pushing in from behind them.

Maybe closer to the palace-tenement blocks there, “and crowded together. It’d save us a lot of this ducking and crawling crap.

And what could be messy ambushes.

‘Hood’s breath, Fid, there’s a hundred out there and still more coming.’ Cuttle pointed. ‘There, that’s the man in charge.’

‘Who’s our best shot with the crossbow?’ Fiddler asked.

‘You.’

Shit.

‘But Koryk’s all right. Though, if I’d pick anyone, it’d be Corabb.’

Fiddler slowly smiled. ‘Cuttle, sometimes you’re a genius.

Not that it’ll ever earn you rank of corporal or anything like that.’

‘I’ll sleep easy tonight, then.’ Cuttle paused, then mused, ‘Forty paces and a clear shot, but we’d blow any chance of ambush.’

Fiddler shook his head. ‘No, this is even better. He looses his quarrel, the man goes down. We rush out, throw five or six sharpers, then wheel and back into the alley-away as fast as we can. The survivors rush up, crowd the alley mouth, and Gesler hits ‘em from behind with another five or six sharpers.’

‘Beautiful, Fid. But how’s Gesler gonna know-’

‘He’ll work it out.’ Fiddler turned and gestured Corabb forward.

A freshly appointed Finadd of the Main Garrison, standing five paces from Atri-Preda Beshur, turned from reviewing his squads to see an aide’s head twitch, sparks flying from his helm, and then Finadd Gart, who was beside the Atri-Preda, shrieked. He was holding up one hand, seemingly right in Beshur’s face, and there was a quarrel stub jutting from that hand, and blood was gushing down Beshur’s face-as the Atri-Preda staggered back, the motion pulling Gart’s hand with him. For the quarrel was buried in Beshur’s forehead.

The new Finadd, nineteen years of age and now the ranking officer of this full-strength unit, stared in disbelief.

Shouts, and he saw figures appearing at the mouth of an alley a ways down the street. Five, six in all, rushing forward with rocks in their hands-

Pointing, the Finadd screamed the order to countercharge, and then he was running at the very head of. his soldiers, waving his sword in the air.

Thirty paces.

Twenty.

The rocks flew out, arced towards them. He ducked one that sailed close past his right shoulder and then, suddenly deaf, eyes filled with grit, he was lying on the cobbles and there was blood everywhere. Someone stumbled into his line of sight, one of his soldiers. The woman’s right arm dangled from a single thin strip of meat, and the appendage swung wildly about as the woman did a strange pirouette before promptly sitting down.

She looked across at him, and screamed.

The Finadd sought to climb to his feet, but something was wrong. His limbs weren’t working, and now there was a fire in his back-someone had lit a damned fire there-. why would they do that? Searing heat reaching down, through a strange numbness, and the back of his head was wet.

Struggling with all his will, he brought one hand up behind, to settle the palm on the back of his head.

And found his skull entirely gone.

Probing, trembling fingers pushed into some kind of pulped matter and all at once the burning pain in his back vanished.

He could make things work again, he realized, and pushed some more, deeper.

Whatever he then touched killed him.

As Fiddler led his squad into a seeming rout, with fifty or sixty Letherii soldiers charging after them, Gesler raised his hand, which held a burner. Aye, messy, but there were a lot of them, weren’t there?

Fiddler and his marines made it into the alley, tore off down it.

A crowd of Letherii reached the mouth, others pushing up behind them.

And munitions flew, and suddenly the street was a conflagration.

Without waiting, and as a gust of fierce heat swept over them, Gesler turned and pushed Stormy to lead the retreat.

Running, running hard.

They’d find the next street and swing right, come up round the other side of the walled compound. Expecting to see Fiddler and his own soldiers waiting opposite them again. More alley mouths, and just that much closer to the palace.

‘We got gold, damn you!’

‘Everybody’s got that,’ replied the barkeep, laconic as ever.

Hellian glared at him. ‘What kinda accent is that?’

‘The proper kind for the trader’s tongue, which makes one of us sound educated and I suppose that’s something.’

‘Oh, I’ll show you something!’ She drew out her corporal’s sword, giving him a hard push on the chest to clear the weapon, then hammered the pommel down on the bartop. The weapon bounced up from her hand, the edge scoring deep across Hellian’s right ear. She swore, reached up and saw her hand come away red with blood. ‘Now look what you made me do!’

‘And I suppose I also made you invade our empire, and this city, and-’

‘Don’t be an idiot, you ain’t that important. It was the winged monkeys did that.’

The barkeep’s thin, overlong face twisted slightly as he arched a single brow.

Hellian turned to her corporal. ‘What kinda sword you using, fool? One that don’t work right, that’s what kind, I’d say.’

‘Aye, Sergeant.

‘Sorry, Sergeant.’

‘Aye and sorry don’t cut it with me, Corporal. Now get that sword outa my sight.’

‘Did you hear it coming?’ another one of her soldiers asked.

‘What? What’s that supposed to mean, Boatsnort?’

‘Uh, my name’s-’

‘I just told you your name!’

‘Nothing, Sergeant. I didn’t mean nothing.’

The barkeep cleared his throat. ‘Now, if you are done with jabbering amongst yourselves, you can kindly leave. As I said before, this tavern is dry-’,

‘They don’t make taverns dry,’ Hellian said.

‘I’m sure you didn’t say that quite right-’

‘Corporal, you hearing all this?’

‘Yes.

‘Aye.’

‘Good. String this fool up. By his nostrils. From that beam right there.’

‘By his nostrils, Sergeant?’

‘That you again, Snortface?’

Hellian smiled as the corporal used four arms to grab the barkeep and drag him across the counter. The man was suddenly nowhere near as laconic as he was a moment ago. Sputtering, clawing at the hands gripping him, he shouted, ‘Wait! Wait!’

Everyone halted.

‘In the cellar,’ the man gasped.

‘Give my corporal directions and proper ones,’ Hellian said, so very satisfied now, except for her dribbling ear, but oh, if any of her soldiers got out of line she could pick the scab and bleed all over them and wouldn’t they feel just awful about it and then do exactly what she wanted them to do, ‘which is guard the door.’

‘Sergeant?’

‘You heard me, guard the door, so we’re not disturbed.’

‘Who are we on the lookout for?’ Snivelnose asked. Ain’t nobody-’

‘The captain, who else? She’s probably still after us, damn her.’

Memories, Icarium now understood, were not isolated things. They did not exist within high-walled compartments in a mind. Instead, they were like the branches of a tree, or perhaps a continuous mosaic on a floor that one could play light over, illuminating patches here and there.

Yet, and he knew this as well, for others that patch of light was vast and bright, encompassing most of a life, and although details might be blurred, scenes made hazy and uncertain with time, it was, nevertheless, a virtual entirety. And from this was born a sense of a self.

Which he did not possess and perhaps had never possessed. And in the grip of such ignorance, he was as malleable as a child. To be used; to be, indeed, abused. And many had done so, for there was power in Icarium, far too much power.

Such exploitation was now at an end. All of Taralack Veed’s exhortations were as wind in the distance, and he was not swayed. The Gral would be Icarium’s last companion.

He stood in the street, all of his senses awakened to the realization that he knew this place, this modest patch of the mosaic grey with promise. And true illumination was finally at hand. The measuring of time, from this moment and for ever onward. A life begun again, with no risk of losing his sense of self.

My hands have worked here. In this city, beneath this city.

And now awaits me, to be awakened.

And when I have done that, I will begin anew. A life, a host of tesserae to lay down one by one.

He set out, then, for the door.

The door into his machine.

He walked, unmindful of those scurrying in his wake, of the figures and soldiers moving out of his path. He heard but held no curiosity for the sounds of fighting, the violence erupting in the streets to either side, the detonations as of lightning although this dawn was breaking clear and still. He passed beneath diffused shadows cast down by billowing smoke from burning buildings, wagons and barricades. He heard screams and shouts but did not seek out where they came from, even to lend succour as he would normally have done. He stepped over bodies in the street.

He walked alongside an ash-laden greasy canal for a time, then reached a bridge and crossed over into what was clearly an older part of the city. Down another street to an intersection, whereupon he swung left and continued on.

There were more people here in this quarter-with the day growing bolder and all sounds of fighting a distant roar to the west-yet even here the people seemed dazed. None of the usual conversations, the hawkers crying their wares, beasts pulling loaded carts. The drifting smoke wafted down like an omen, and the citizens wandered through it as if lost.

He drew nearer the door. Of course, it was nothing like a door in truth. More like a wound, a breach. He could feel its power stir to life, for as he sensed it so too did it sense him.

Icarium then slowed. A wound, yes. His machine was wounded. Its pieces had been twisted, shifted out of position. Ages had passed since he had built it, so he should not be surprised. Would it still work? He was no longer so sure.

This is mine. I must make it right, no matter the cost.

1 will have this gift. 1 will have it.

He started forward once more.

The house that had once disguised this nexus of the machine had collapsed into ruin and no efforts had been made to clear the wreckage. There was a man standing before it.

After a long moment, Icarium realized that he recognized this man. He had been aboard the ships, and the name by which he had been known was Taxilian.

As Icarium walked up to him, Taxilian, his eyes strangely bright, bowed and stepped back. ‘This, Icarium,’ he said, ‘is your day.’

My day? Yes, my first day.

Lifestealer faced the ruin.

A glow was now rising from somewhere inside, shafts slanting up between snapped timbers and beams, lancing out in spears from beneath stone and brick. The glow burgeoned, and the world beneath him seemed to tremble. But no, that was no illusion-buildings groaned, shuddered. Splintering sounds, shutters rattling as from a gust of wind.

Icarium drew a step closer, drawing a dagger.

Thunder sounded beneath him, making the cobbles bounce in puffs of dust. Somewhere, in the city, structures began to break apart, as sections and components within them stirred into life, into inexorable motion. Seeking to return to a most ancient pattern.

More thunder, as buildings burst apart.

Columns of dust corkscrewed skyward.

And still the white glow lifted, spread out in a fashion somewhere between liquid and fire, pouring, leaping, the shafts and spears twisting in the air. Engulfing the ruin, spilling out onto the street, lapping around Icarium, who drew the sharp-edged blade diagonally, deep, up one forearm; then did the same with the other-holding the weapon tight in a blood-soaked hand.

Who then raised his hands.

To measure time, one must begin. To grow futureward, one must root. Deep into the ground with blood.

I built this machine. This place that will forge my beginning. No longer outside the world. No longer outside time itself. Give me this, wounded or not, give me this. If K’rul can, why not me?

All that poured from his wrists flared incandescent. And Icarium walked into the white.

Taxilian was thrown back as the liquid fire exploded outward. A moment of surprise, before he was incinerated. The eruption tore into the neighbouring buildings, obliterating them. The street in front of what had once been Scale House became a maelstrom of shattered cobbles, the shards of stone racing outward to stipple walls and punch through shutters. The building opposite tilted back, every brace snapping, then collapsed inward.

Fleeing the sudden storm, Taralack Veed and Senior Assessor ran-a half-dozen strides before both were thrown from their feet.

The Cabalhii monk, lying on his back, had a momentary vision of a mass of masonry rushing down, and in that moment he burst out laughing-a sound cut short as the tons of rubble crushed him.

Taralack Veed had rolled with his tumble, narrowly avoiding that descending wall. Deafened, half blind, he used his hands to drag himself onward, tearing his nails away and lacerating his palms and fingers on the broken cobbles.

And there, through the dust, the billowing white fire, he saw his village, the huts, the horses in their roped kraal, and there, on the hill beyond, the goats huddled beneath the tree, sheltering from the terrible sun. Dogs lying in the shade, children on their knees playing with the tiny clay figurines that some travelling Malazan scholar had thought to be of great and sacred significance, but were in truth no more than toys, for all children loved toys.

Why, he had had his very own collection and this was long before he killed his woman and her lover, before killing the man’s brother who had proclaimed the feud and had drawn the knife.

But now, all at once, the goats were crying out, crying out in dread pain and terror-dying! The huge tree in flames, branches crashing down.

The huts were burning and bodies sprawled in the dust with faces red with ruin. And this was death, then, death in the breaking of what had always been, solid and predictable, pure and reliable. The breaking-devastation, to take it all away.

Taralack Veed screamed, bloodied hands reaching for those toys-those beautiful, so very sacred toys-

The enormous chunk of stone that slanted down took the top of Taralack Veed’s head at an angle, crushing bone and brain, and, as it skidded away, it left a greasy smear of red-and grey-streaked hair.

Throughout the city, buildings erupted into clouds of dust. Stone, tile, bricks and wood sailed outward, and white fire poured forth, shafts of argent light arcing out through walls, as if nothing could exist that could impede them. A shimmering, crazed web of light, linking each piece of the machine. And the power flowed, racing in blinding pulses, and they all drew inward, to one place, to one heart.

Icarium.

The north and west outer walls detonated as sections of their foundations shifted, moved four, five paces, twisting as if vast pieces of a giant puzzle were being moved into place. Rent, sundered, parts of those walls toppled and the sound of that impact rumbled beneath every street.

In the courtyard of an inn that had, through nefarious schemes, become the property of Rautos Hivanar, a huge piece of metal, bent at right angles, now lifted straight upward to twice the height of the man standing before it. Revealing, at its base, a hinge of white fire.

And the structure then tilted, dropped forward like a smith’s hammer.

Rautos Hivanar dived to escape, but not quickly enough, as the massive object slammed down onto the backs of his legs.

Pinned, as white fire licked out towards him, Rautos could feel his blood draining down from his crushed legs, turning the compound’s dust into mud.

Yes, he thought, as it began with mud, so it now ends-

The white fire enveloped him.

And sucked out from his mind every memory he possessed.

The thing that died there a short time later was not Rautos Hivanar.

The vast web’s pulsing lasted but a half-dozen heartbeats. The shifting of the pieces of the machine, with all the destruction that entailed, was even more short-lived. Yet, in that time, all who were devoured by the white fire emptied their lives into it. Every memory, from the pain of birth to the last moment of death.

The machine, alas, was indeed broken.

As the echoes of groaning stone and metal slowly faded, the web flickered, then vanished. And now, dust warred with the smoke in the air above Letheras.

A few remaining sections of stone and brick toppled, but these were but modest adjustments in the aftermath of what had gone before.

And in this time of settling, the first voices of pain, the first cries for help, lifted weakly from heaps of rubble.

The ruins of Scale House were naught but white dust, and from it nothing stirred.

The bed of a canal had cracked during the earthquake, opening a wide fissure into which water plunged, racing down veins between compacted bricks and fill. And in the shaking repercussions of falling structures, buried foundations shifted, cracked, slumped.

Barely noticed amidst all the others, then, the explosion that tore up through that canal in a spray of sludge and water was relatively minor, yet it proved singular in one detail, for as the muddy rain of the canal’s water sluiced down onto the still-buckling streets, a figure clawed up from the canal, hands reaching for mooring rungs, pulling itself from the churning foam.

An old man.

Who stood, ragged tunic streaming brown water, and did not move while chaos and spears of blinding light tore through Letheras. Who remained motionless, indeed, after those terrifying events vanished and faded.

An old man.

Torn between incandescent rage and dreadful fear.

Because of who he was, the fear won out. Not for himself, of course, but for a mortal man who was, the old man knew, about to die.

And he would not reach him in time.

Well, so it would be rage after all. Vengeance against the Errant would have to wait its turn. First, vengeance against a man named Karos Invictad.

Mael, Elder God of the Seas, had work to do.

Lostara Yil and the Adjunct rode side by side at the head of the column of cavalry. Directly ahead they could see the west wall of the city. Enormous cracks were visible through the dust, and the gate before them remained open.

The horses were winded, their breaths gusting from foam-flecked nostrils.

Almost there.

‘Adjunct, was that munitions?’

Tavore glanced across, then shook her head.

‘Not a chance,’ Masan Gilani said behind them. ‘Only a handful of crackers in the whole lot. Something else did all that.’

Lostara twisted in her saddle.

Riding beside Masan Gilani was Sinn. Not riding well, either. Gilani was staying close, ready to reach out a steadying hand. The child seemed dazed, almost drunk. Lostara swung back. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ she asked the Adjunct.

‘I don’t know.’

As the road’s slope climbed towards the gate, they could see the river on their left. Thick with sails. The Malazan fleet and the two Thrones of War had arrived. The main army was only two or three bells behind the Adjunct’s column, and Fist Blistig was pushing them hard.

They drew closer.

‘That gate’s not going to close ever again,’ Lostara observed. ‘In fact, I’m amazed it’s still up.’ Various carved blocks in the arch had slipped down, jamming atop the massive wooden doors, which served to bind them in place.

As they rode up, two marines emerged from the shadows. Had the look of heavies, and both were wounded. The Dal Honese one waved.

Reining in before them, the Adjunct was first to dismount, one gloved hand reaching for her sword as she approached.

‘We’re holding still,’ the Dal Honese marine said. Then he raised a bloodied arm. ‘Bastard cut my tendon-it’s all rolled up under the skin-see? Hurts worse than a burr in the arse… sir.’

The Adjunct walked past both marines, into the shadow of the gate. Lostara gestured for the column to dismount, then set out after Tavore. As she came opposite the marines, she asked, ‘What company are you?’

‘Third, Captain. Fifth Squad. Sergeant Badan Gruk’s squad. I’m Reliko and this oaf is Vastly Blank. We had us a fight.’

Onward, through the dusty gloom, then out into dusty, smoke-filled sunlight. Where she halted, seeing all the bodies, all the blood.

The Adjunct stood ten paces in, and Keneb was limping towards her and on his face was desperate relief.

Aye, they had them a fight all right.

Old Hunch Arbat walked into the cleared space and halted beside the slumbering figure in its centre. He kicked.

A faint groan.

He kicked again.

Ublala Pung’s eyes flickered open, stared up uncompre-hendingly for a long moment, then the Tarthenal sat up. ‘Is it time?’

‘Half the damned city’s fallen down which is worse than Old Hunch predicted, isn’t it? Oh yes it is, worse and more than worse. Damned gods. But that’s no mind to us, Old Hunch says.’ He cast a critical eye on the lad’s efforts, then grudgingly nodded. ‘It’ll have to do. Just my luck, the last Tarthenal left in Letheras and he’s carrying a sack of sunbaked hens.’

Frowning, Ublala stretched a foot over and nudged the sack. There was an answering cluck and he smiled. ‘They helped me clean,’ he said.

Old Hunch Arbat stared for a moment, then he lifted his gaze and studied the burial grounds. ‘Smell them? Old Hunch does. Get out of this circle, Ublala Pung, unless you want to join in.’

Ublala scratched his jaw. ‘I was told not to join in on things I know nothing about.’

‘Oh? And who told you that?’

A fat woman named Rucket, when she got me to swear fealty to the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’

‘The Rat Catchers’ Guild?’

Ublala Pung shrugged. ‘I guess they catch rats, but I’m not sure really.’

‘Out of the circle, lad.’

Three strides by the challenger onto the sands of the arena and the earthquake had struck. Marble benches cracked, people cried out, many falling, tumbling, and the sand itself shimmered then seemed to transform, as conglomerated, gritty lumps of dried blood rose into view like garnets in a prospector’s tin pan.

Samar Dev, shivering despite the sun’s slanting light, held tight to one edge of a bouncing bench, eyes fixed on Karsa Orlong who stood, legs wide to keep his balance but otherwise looking unperturbed-and there, at the other end of the arena, a swaying, hulking figure emerged from a tunnel mouth. Sword sweeping a furrow in the sand.

White fire suddenly illuminated the sky, arcing-across the blue-grey sky of sunrise. Flashing, pulsing, then vanishing, as trembles rippled in from the city, then faded away. Plumes of dust spiralled skyward from close by-in the direction of the Old Palace.

On the imperial stand the Chancellor-his face pale and eyes wide with alarm-was sending runners scurrying.

Samar Dev saw Finadd Varat Taun standing near Triban Gnol. Their gazes locked-and she understood. Icarium.

Oh, Taxilian, did you guess aright? Did you see what you longed to see? ‘What is happening?’

The roar brought her round, to where stood the Emperor. Rhulad Sengar was staring up at the Chancellor. ‘Tell me! What has happened?’

Triban Gnol shook his head, then raised his hands. ‘An earthquake, Emperor. Pray to the Errant that it has passed.’

‘Have we driven the invaders from our streets?’

‘We do so even now,’ the Chancellor replied.

‘I will kill their commander. With my own hands I will kill their commander.’..

Karsa Orlong drew his flint sword.

The act captured the Emperor’s attention, and Samar Dev saw Rhulad Sengar bare his teeth in an ugly smile. ‘Another giant,’ he said. ‘How many times shall you kill me? You, with the blood of my kin already on your hands. Twice? Three times? It will not matter. It will not matter!’

Karsa Orlong, bold with his claims, brazen in his arrogance, uttered but five words in reply: ‘I will kill you… once.’ And then he turned to look at Samar Dev-a moment’s glance, and it was all that Rhulad Sengar gave him.

With a shriek, the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths rushed forward, his sword a whirling blur over his head.

Ten strides between them.

Five.

Three.

The gleaming arc of that cursed weapon slashed out, a decapitating swing-that rang deafeningly from Karsa’s stone sword. Sprang back, chopped down, was blocked yet again.

Rhulad Sengar staggered back, still smiling his terrible smile. ‘Kill me, then,’ he said in a ragged rasp.

Karsa Orlong made no move.

With a scream the Emperor attacked again, seeking to drive the Toblakai back.

The ringing concussions seemed to leap from those weapons, as each savage attack was blocked, shunted aside. Rhulad pivoted, angled to one side, slashed down at Karsa’s right thigh. Parried. A back-bladed swing up towards the Toblakai’s shoulder. Batted away. Stumbling off balance from that block, the Emperor was suddenly vulnerable. A hack downward would take him, a thrust would pierce him-a damned fool could have cut Rhulad down at that moment.

Yet Karsa did nothing. Nor had he moved, beyond turning in place to keep the Emperor in front of him.

Rhulad stumbled clear, then spun round, righting his sword. Chest heaving beneath the patchwork of embedded coins, eyes wild as a boar’s. ‘Kill me then!’

Karsa remained where he was. Not taunting, not even smiling.

Samar Dev stared down on the scene, transfixed. I do not know him. I have never known him.

Gods, we should have had sex-then I’d know!

Another whirling attack, again the shrieking reverberation of iron and flint, a flurry of sparks cascading down. And Rhulad staggered back once more.

The Emperor was now streaming with sweat.

Karsa Orlong did not even seem out of breath.

Inviting a fatal response, Rhulad Sengar dropped down onto one knee to regain his wind.

Invitation not accepted.

After a time, in which the score or fewer onlookers stared on, silent and confused; in which Chancellor Triban Gnol stood, hands clasped, like a crow nailed to a branch; the Emperor straightened, lifted his sword once more, and resumed his fruitless flailing-oh, there was skill, yes, extraordinary skill, yet Karsa Orlong stood his ground, and not once did that blade touch him.

Overhead, the sun climbed higher.

Karos Invictad, his shimmering red silks stained and smudged with grit and dust, dragged Tehol Beddict’s body across the threshold. Back into his office. From down the corridor, someone was screaming about an army in the city, ships crowding the harbour, but none of that mattered now.

Nothing mattered but this unconscious man at his feet. Beaten until he barely clung to life. By the Invigilator’s sceptre, his symbol of power, and was that not right? Oh, but it was.

Was the mob still there? Were they coming in now? An entire wall of the compound had collapsed, after all, nothing and no-one left to stop them. Motion caught his eye and his head snapped round-just another rat in the corridor, slithering past. The Guild. What kind of game were those fools playing? He’d killed dozens of the damned things, so easily crushed under heel or with a savage downward swing of his sceptre.

Rats. They were nothing. No different from the mob outside, all those precious citizens who understood nothing about anything, who needed leaders like Karos Invictad to guide them through the world. He adjusted his grip on the sceptre, flakes of blood falling away, his palm seemingly glued to the ornate shaft, but that glue had not set and wouldn’t for a while, would it? Not until he was truly done.

Where was that damned mob? He wanted them to see-this final skull-shattering blow-their great hero, their revolutionary.

Martyrs could be dealt with. A campaign of misinformation, rumours of vulgarity, corruption, oh, all that was simple enough.

I stood alone, yes, did I not? Against the madness of this day. They will remember that. More than anything else. They will remember that, and everything else I choose to give them.

Slaying the Empire’s greatest traitor-with my own hand, yes.

He stared down at Tehol Beddict. The battered, split-open face, the shallow breaths that trembled from beneath snapped ribs. He could put a foot down on the man’s chest, settle some weight, until those broken ribs punctured the lungs, left them lacerated, and the red foam would spill out from Tehol’s mashed nose, his torn lips. And, surprise. He would drown after all.

Another rat in the corridor? He turned.

The sword-point slashed across his stomach. Fluids gushed, organs following. Squealing, Karos Invictad fell to his knees, stared up at the man standing before him, stared up at the crimson-bladed sword in the man’s hand.

‘No,’ he said in a mumble, ‘but you are dead.’

Brys Beddict’s calm brown eyes shifted from the Invigilator’s face, noted the sceptre still held in Karos’s right hand. His sword seemed to writhe.

Burning pain in the Invigilator’s wrist and he looked down. Sceptre was gone. Hand was gone. Blood streamed from the stump.

A kick to the chest sent Karos Invictad toppling, trailing entrails that flopped down like an obscene, malformed penis between his legs.

He reached down with his one hand to pull it all back in, but there was no strength left.

Did I kill Tehol? Yes, I must have. The Invigilator is a true servant of the empire, and always will be, and there will be statues in courtyards and city squares. Karos Invictad, the hero who destroyed the rebellion.

Karos Invictad died then, with a smile on his face.

Brys Beddict sheathed his sword, knelt beside his brother, lifted his head into his lap.

Behind him, Ormly said, ‘A healer’s on the way.’

‘No need,’ Brys said. And looked up. ‘An Elder God comes.’

Ormly licked his lips. ‘Saviour-’

A cough from Tehol.

Brys looked down to see his brother’s eyes flick open. One brown, one blue. Those odd eyes stared up at him for a long moment, then Tehol whispered something.

Brys bent lower. ‘What?’

‘I said, does this mean I’m dead?’

‘No, Tehol. Nor am I, not any longer, it seems.’

‘Ah. Then…’

‘Then what?’

‘Death-what’s it like, Brys?’

And Brys Beddict smiled. ‘Wet.’

‘I always said cities were dangerous places,’ Quick Ben said, brushing plaster dust from his clothes. The collapsing building had nearly flattened them both, and the wizard was still trembling-not from the close call, but from the horrendous sorcery that had lit the morning sky-a devour-ing, profoundly hungry sorcery. Had that energy reached for him, he was not sure he could have withstood it.

‘What in Hood’s name was that?’ Hedge demanded.

All I know, it was old. And vicious.’

‘We gonna get any more, you think?’

Quick Ben shrugged, ‘I hope not.’

They went on, through streets filled with rubble, and on all sides the cries of the wounded, figures staggering in shock, dust and smoke lifting into the sunlight.

Then Hedge held up a hand. ‘Listen.’

Quick Ben did as he was bid.

And, from somewhere ahead-closer to the Eternal Domicile-the echo of ‘Sharpers!’

Aye, Quick, aye. Come on, let’s go find ‘em!’

‘Wait-hold it, sapper-what are-’

‘It’s the Fourteenth, you thick-skulled halfwit!’

They began hurrying.

‘Next time I see Cotillion,’ Quick Ben hissed, ‘I’m going to strangle him with his own rope.’

Six leagues to the north, a bone-white dragon with eyes of lurid red sailed through the morning sky. Wings creaking, muscles bunching, the wind hissing against scales and along bared fangs that were the length of shorts words.

Returning, after all this time, to the city of Letheras.

Hannan Mosag had been warned. The Crippled God had been warned. And yet neither had heeded Silchas Ruin. No, instead, they had conspired with Sukul Ankhadu and Sheltatha Lore, and possibly with Menandore herself. To get in his way, to oppose him and what he had needed to do.

More than this, the Letherii Empire had been hunting them for an inordinate amount of time, and out of forbearance Silchas Ruin had ignored the affront. For the sake of the Acquitor and the others.

Now, he was no longer ignoring anything.

An empire, a city, a people, a Tiste Edur Ceda and a mad Emperor.

The brother of Anomander and Andarist, for ever deemed the coldest of the three, the cruellest, Silchas Ruin flew, a white leviathan with murder in its heart.

White as bone, with eyes red as death.

Rhulad Sengar stumbled away, dragging his sword. Sweat streamed from him, his hair hanging ragged and dripping. He had struck again and again, not once piercing the defensive net of his challenger’s stone sword. Six paces between them now, chewed-up sand soaked and clumped with nothing but spatters from the glistening oil that made the coins gleam.

Silent as all the other witnesses, Samar Dev watched on, wondering how all this would end, wondering how it could end. As long as Karsa refused to counter-attack…

And then the Toblakai raised his sword and walked forward.

Straight for the Emperor.

As easy as that, then.

Who rose with a sudden smile and lifted his weapon into a guard position.

The flint sword lashed out, an awkward cut, yet swung with such strength that Rhulad’s block with his own weapon knocked one of his hands loose from the grip, and the iron blade nailed outward, and then, all at once, that cursed sword seemed to acquire a will of its own, the point thrusting into a lunge that dragged the Emperor forward with a scream.

And the blade sank into Karsa’s left thigh, through skin, muscle, narrowly missing the bone, then punching out the back side. The Toblakai pivoted round, even as with appalling fluidity he brought his sword in a downward cut that sliced entirely through Rhulad’s shoulder above the sword-arm.

As the arm, its hand still gripping the weapon now bound-trapped in Karsa’s leg-parted from Rhulad’s body, the Toblakai back-swung the flat of his blade into Rhulad’s face, sending him sprawling onto the sand.

And Samar Dev found that she held the knife, the blade bared, and as Karsa turned to face her, she was already slicing deep across her palm, hissing the ancient words of release-letting loose the imprisoned spirits, the desert godlings and all those who were bound to the old knife-

Spirits and ghosts of the slain poured forth, freed by the power in her blood, streaming down over the rows of benches, down onto the floor of the arena.

To the terrible sounds of Rhulad Sengar’s shrieking, those spirits rushed straight for Karsa, swept round, engulfed him-swirling chaos-a blinding moment as of fires unleashed-

– and Karsa Orlong, the Emperor’s sword and the arm still holding it, vanished.

Lying alone on the sands of the arena, Rhulad Sengar spilled crimson from the stump of his shoulder.

And no-one moved.

To dwell within an iron blade had proved, for the ghost of Ceda Kuru Qan, a most interesting experience. After an immeasurable time of exploration, sensing all the other entities trapped within, he had worked out a means of escaping whenever he wished. But curiosity had held him, a growing suspicion that all dwelt in this dark place for some hidden purpose. And they were waiting.

Anticipation, even eagerness. And, indeed, far more bloodlust than Kuru Qan could abide.

He had considered a campaign of domination, of defeating all the other spirits, and binding them to his will. But a leader, he well understood, could not be ignorant, and to compel the revelation of the secret was ever a chancy proposition.

Instead, he had waited, patient as was his nature whether living or dead.

Sudden shock, then, upon the gushing taste of blood in his mouth, and the frenzied ecstasy that taste unleashed within him. Sour recognition-most humbling-in discovering such bestial weakness within him-and when the summoning arrived in the language of the First Empire, Kuru Qan found himself rising like a demon to roar his domination over all others, then lunging forth from the iron blade, into the world once again, leading a dread host-

To the one standing. Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai.

And the sword impaling his leg.

Kuru Qan understood, then, what needed to be done. Understood the path that must be forged, and understood, alas, the sacrifice that must be made.

They closed round the Toblakai warrior. They reached for that cursed sword and grasped hold of its blade. They drew with ferocious necessity on the blood streaming down the Toblakai’s leg, causing him to stagger, and, with Kuru Qan in the forefront, the spirits tore open a gate.

A portal.

Chaos roared in on all sides, seeking to annihilate them, and the spirits began surrendering their ghostly lives, sacrificing themselves to the rapacious hunger assailing them. Yet, even as they did so, they pushed the Toblakai forward, forging the path, demanding the journey.

Other spirits awakened, from all around the warrior-the Toblakai’s own slain, and they were legion.

Death roared. The pressure of the chaos stabbed, ripped spirits to pieces-even with all their numbers, the power of their will, they were slowing, they could not get through-Kuru Qan screamed-to draw more of the Toblakai’s power would kill him. They had failed.

Failed-

In a cleared circle in an old Tarthenal burial ground, a decrepit shaman seated cross-legged in its centre stirred awake, eyes blinking open. He glanced up to see Ublala Pung standing just beyond the edge.

‘Now, lad,’ he said.

Weeping, the young Tarthenal rushed forward, a knife in his hands-one of Arbat’s own, the iron black with age, the glyphs on the blade so worn down as to be almost invisible.

Arbat nodded as Ublala Pung reached him and drove the weapon deep into the shaman’s chest. Not on the heart side-Old Hunch needed to take a while to die, to bleed out his power, to feed the multitude of ghosts now rising from the burial grounds.

‘Get away from here!’ Arbat shouted, even as he fell onto his side, blood frothing at his mouth. ‘Get out!’

Loosing a childlike bawl, Ublala Pung ran.

The ghosts gathered, pure-blooded and mixed-bloods, spanning centuries upon centuries and awake after so long.

And Old Hunch Arbat showed them their new god. And then showed them, with the power of his blood, the way through.

Kuru Qan felt himself lifted on a tide, shoved forward as if by an enormous wave, and all at once there were spirits, an army of them.

Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai.

Tarthenal-

Surging forward, the chaos thrust back, recoiling, then attacking once more.

Hundreds vanishing.

Thousands voicing wailing cries of agony.

Kuru Qan found himself close to the Toblakai warrior, directly in front of the flailing figure, and he reached back, as if to grab the Toblakai’s throat. Closed his hand, and pulled.

Water, a crashing surf, coral sand shifting wild underfoot. Blinding heat from a raging sun.

Staggering, onto the shore-and yes, this was as far as Kuru Qan could go.

Upon the shore.

He released the warrior, saw him stumble onto the island’s beach, dragging that sword-impaled leg-

Behind the old Ceda, the sea reached out, snatched Kuru Qan back with a rolling, tumbling inhalation.

Water everywhere, swirling, pulling him ever deeper, ever darker.

They were done.

We are done.

And the sea, my friends, does not dream of you.

On the arena floor, Emperor Rhulad Sengar lay dead. Bled out, his flesh where visible pale as river clay, and as cold. Sand dusted the sweaty coins and all the blood that had poured from him was turning black.

And the onlookers waited.

For the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths to rise again.

The sun rose higher, the sounds of fighting in the city drew closer.

And, had anyone been looking, they would have seen a speck above the horizon to the north. Growing ever larger.

One street away from the Eternal Domicile, Fiddler led his squad onto the rooftop of some gutted public building. Flecks of ash swirled in the hot morning air and all the city that they could see was veiled behind dust and smoke.

They’d lost Gesler and his squad, ever since the garrison ambush, but Fiddler was not overly concerned. All opposition was a shambles. He ran in a crouch to the edge facing the Eternal Domicile, looked across, and then down to the street below.

There was a gate, closed, but no guards in sight. Damned strange. Where is everyone?

He returned to where his soldiers waited, catching their breaths in the centre of the flat rooftop. ‘All right,’ he said, setting down his crossbow and opening his satchel, ‘there’s a gate that I can take out with a cusser from here. Then down we go and straight across and straight in, fast and mean. Kill everyone in sight, understood?’ He drew out his cusser quarrel and carefully loaded the crossbow. Then resumed his instructions. ‘Tarr takes up the rear crossing the street. Bottle, keep everything you got right at hand-’

‘Sergeant-’

‘Not now, Corabb. Listen! We’re heading for the throne room. I want Cuttle out front-’

‘Sergeant-’

‘-with sharpers in hand. Koryk, you’re next-’

‘Sergeant-’

‘What in Hood’s name is it, Corabb?’

The man was pointing. Northward.

Fiddler and the others all turned.

To see an enormous white dragon bearing down on them.

An infrequent scattering of cut-down Letherii soldiers and small fires left behind by munitions had provided enough of a trail for Quick Ben and Hedge, and they were now crouched at the foot of a door to a burnt-out building.

‘Listen,’ Hedge was insisting, ‘the roof here’s right opposite the gate. I know Fid and I’m telling you, he’s on that Hood-damned roof!’

‘Fine, fine, lead on, sapper.’ Quick Ben shook his head. Something… I don’t know…

They plunged inside. The stench of smoke was acrid, biting. Charred wreckage lay all about, the detritus of a ruined empire.

‘There,’ Hedge said, then headed on into a corridor, down to a set of stairs leading upward.

Something…oh, gods!

‘Move it!’ Quick Ben snarled, shoving the sapper forward.

‘What-’

‘Hurry!’

The huge dragon angled down, straight for them.

Fiddler stared for a moment longer, seeing the beast opening its mouth, knowing what was coming, then he raised his crossbow and fired.

The bolt shot upward.

A hind limb of the dragon snapped out to bat the quarrel aside.

And the cusser detonated.

The explosion flattened the marines on the rooftop, sent Fiddler tumbling backward.

The roof itself sagged beneath them with grinding, crunching sounds.

Fiddler caught a glimpse of the dragon, streaming blood, its chest torn open, sliding off to one side, heading towards the street below, shredded wings flailing like sails in a storm.

A second bolt flew out to intercept it.

Another explosion, sending the dragon lurching back, down, into a building, which suddenly folded inward on that side, then collapsed with a deafening roar.

Fiddler twisted round-

– and saw Hedge.

– and Quick Ben, who was running towards the roof’s edge, his hands raised and sorcery building round him as if he was the prow of a ship cutting through water.

Fiddler leapt to his feet and followed the wizard.

From the wreckage of the building beside the Eternal Domicile, the dragon was pulling itself free. Lacerated, bones jutting and blood leaking from terrible wounds. And then, impossibly, it rose skyward once more, rent wings flapping-but Fiddler knew that it was sorcery that was lifting the creature back into the air.

As it cleared the collapsed building, Quick Ben unleashed his magic. A wave of crackling fire crashed into the dragon, sent it reeling back.

Another.

And then another-the dragon was now two streets away, writhing under the burgeoning assault.

Then, with a piercing cry, it wheeled, climbed higher, and flew away, in full retreat.

Quick Ben lowered his arms, then fell to his knees.

Staring after the fast-diminishing dragon, Fiddler leaned his crossbow onto his shoulder.

‘This ain’t your fight,’ he said to the distant creature. ‘Fucking dragon.’

Then he turned and stared at Hedge.

Who, grinning, stared back.

‘No ghost?’

‘No ghost. Aye, Fid, I’m back.’

Fiddler scowled, then shook his head. ‘Hood help us all.’ Then he turned to Quick Ben. ‘And where in the Abyss have you been?’

Picking himself up from the buckled rooftop, Bottle stared across at those three soldiers. Didn’t know one of them except that he was a sapper. And a damned Bridgeburner.

Beside him, Koryk groaned, then spat. ‘Look at ‘em,’ he said.

Bottle nodded.

And, oddly enough, for all the soldiers in the squad, nothing more about it needed saying.

Bottle squinted at the fast-dwindling dragon. Allow us to introduce ourselves…

Trull Sengar gently lifted Seren’s arms and stepped back from her embrace. She almost sagged forward, not wanting the moment to end, and something cold formed a fist in her stomach. Wincing, she turned away.

‘Seren-’

She waved a hand, then met his eyes once more.

‘My brother. My parents.’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I cannot pretend that they are not there. That they mean nothing to me.’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

He crossed the dusty room, kicking through rubbish-the place had been stripped of virtually everything, no matter how worthless. They had lain together on their cloaks, watched by spiders in the corners near the ceiling and bats slung in a row beneath a window sill. He picked up the Imass spear from where it leaned against a wall and faced her, offering a faint smile. ‘I can protect myself. And alone, I can move quickly-’

‘Go, then,’ she said, and felt anguish at the sudden hardness in her voice.

His half-smile held a moment longer, then he nodded and walked into the corridor that led to the front door.

After a moment Seren Pedac followed. ‘Trull-’

He paused at the doorway. ‘I understand, Seren. It’s all right.’

No it’s not all right! ‘Please,’ she said, ‘come back.’

‘I will. I can do nothing else. You have all there is of me, all that’s left.’

‘Then I have all I need,’ she replied.

He reached out, one hand brushing her cheek.

And then was gone.

Emerging from the pathway crossing the yard, Trull Sengar, the butt of the spear ringing like the heel of a staff on the cobbles, walked out into the street.

And set off in the direction of the Eternal Domicile.

From the shadows of an alley opposite, the Errant watched him.

‘I feel much better.’

Brys Beddict smiled across at his brother. ‘You look it. So, Tehol, your manservant is an Elder God.’

‘I’ll take anybody I can find.’

‘Why are your eyes two different colours now?’

‘I’m not sure, but I think Bugg may be colour blind. Blue and green, green and blue, and as for brown, forget it.’

Said manservant who happened to be an Elder God walked into the room. ‘I found her.’

Tehol was on his feet. ‘Where? Is she alive?’

‘Yes, but we’ve work to do… again.’

‘We need to find that man, that Tanal-’

‘No need for that,’ Bugg replied, eyes settling on the corpse of Karos Invictad.

Brys did the same. A two-headed insect was slowly making its way towards the spilled entrails. ‘What in the Errant’s name is that?’

And Bugg hissed through his teeth. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he’s next.’

Outside, in the compound, in the street beyond, a mass of citizens were gathering. Their sound was like an advancing tide. There had been some thunderous explosions, and the unmistakable roar of sorcery, from the direction of the Eternal Domicile, but that had all been short-lived.

Tehol faced Bugg, ‘Listen to that mob. We going to be able to leave here alive? I’m really not in the mood for a Drowning. Especially my own.’

Brys grunted. ‘You’ve not been paying attention, brother. You’re a hero. They want to see you.’

‘I am? Why, I never imagined that they had it in them.’

‘They didn’t,’ Bugg replied, with a sour expression. ‘Ormly and Rucket have spent a fortune on criers.’ Brys smiled. ‘Humbled, Tehol?’

‘Never. Bugg, take me to Janath. Please.’ At that, Brys Beddict’s brows rose. Ah, it is that way, then. Well. Good.

A surviving officer of the city garrison formally surrendered to the Adjunct just inside the west gate, and now Tavore led her occupying army into Letheras.

Leaving Fist Blistig in charge of the main force, she assembled the five hundred or so surviving marines, along with Fist Keneb, and her own troop of mounted cavalry, and set out for the imperial palace. This ill-named ‘Eternal Domicile’.

Sinn, riding behind Lostara Yil, had cried out when the dragon had appeared over the city; then had laughed and clapped her hands when at least two cussers and then wave after wave of ferocious sorcery routed the creature.

Captain Faradan Sort’s advance squads were still active-that much had been made abundantly clear. And they were at the palace, or at least very close. And they were in a mood.

Most commanders would have raged at this-uncontrolled soldiers raising mayhem somewhere ahead, a handful of grubby marines who’d lived in the wilds for too long now battering at the palace door, frenzied with blood-lust and eager to deliver vengeance. Was this how she wanted to announce her conquest? Would the damned fools leave anything still breathing in that palace?

And what of this un-killable Emperor? Lostara Yil did not believe such a thing was even possible. A cusser in the bastard’s crotch there on that throne and he’ll be giving to the people for days and days. She wouldn’t put it past Fiddler, either. One step into the throne room, the thwock of that oversized crossbow, and then the sergeant diving back, trying to get clear as the entire room erupted. He’d probably happily kill himself for that pleasure.

Yet, while without doubt the Adjunct shared such visions, Tavore said nothing. Nor did she urge her troops to any haste-not that any of them were in shape for that, especially the marines. Instead, they advanced at a measured pace, and citizens began appearing from the side lanes, alleys and avenues, to watch them march past. Some even cried out a welcome, with voices breaking with relief.

The city was a mess. Riots and earthquakes and Moranth munitions. Lostara Yil began to realize that, if the arrival of the Bonehunters signified anything, it was the promise of a return to order, a new settling of civilization, of laws and, ironically, of peace.

But Adjunct, if we tarry here too long, that will turn. It always does. Nobody likes being under an occupier’s heel. Simple human nature, to take one’s own despair and give it a foreigner’s face, then let loose the hounds of blood.

See these citizens? These bright, gladdened faces? Any one of them, before long, could turn. The reapers of violence can hide behind the calmest eyes, the gentlest of smiles. ‘

The column’s pace was slowing, with ever more crowds before them. Chants were rising and falling here and there. Letherii words, the tone somewhere between hope and insistence.

‘Adjunct, what is it they’re all saying?’

A name,’ she replied. ‘Well, two names, I think. One they call the Saviour. The other…’

‘The other… what, sir?’

She cast Lostara a quick glance, then her mouth set, before she said, ‘Emperor.’

Emperor? ‘But I thought-’

A new Emperor, Captain. By proclamation, it would seem.’

Oh, and have we nothing to say on this?

Directly ahead was a wall of citizens, blocking all hopes ‘ of passage, through which a small group was moving, pushing its way to the forefront.

The Adjunct raised a gloved hand to signal a halt.

. ‘ ¦ ¦

The group emerged, an enormously fat woman in the lead, followed by a gnarled little man who seemed to be carrying rats in the pockets of his cloak, and then two men who looked like brothers. Both lean, one in the uniform of an officer, the other wearing a tattered, blood-stained blanket.

Tavore dismounted, gesturing for Lostara to do the same.

The two women approached the group. As they drew closer, the fat woman stepped to one side and with a surprisingly elegant wave of one plump hand she said, ‘Commander, I present to you Brys Beddict, once Champion to King Ezgara Diskanar-before the Edur conquest-now proclaimed the Saviour. And his brother, Tehol Beddict, financial genius, liberator of the oppressed and not half bad in bed, even now being proclaimed the new Emperor of Lether by his loving subjects.’

The Adjunct seemed at a loss for a reply.

Lostara stared at this Tehol Beddict-although, truth be told, she’d rather let her eyes linger on Brys-and frowned at the disgusting blanket wrapped about him. Financial genius?

Brys Beddict now stepped forward and, as had the huge woman, spoke in the trader’s tongue. ‘We would escort you to the Eternal Domicile, Commander, where we will, I believe, find an emperor without an empire, who will need to be ousted.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘I assume you come as liberators, Commander. And, accordingly, have no wish to overstay your welcome.’

‘By that,’ the Adjunct said, ‘you mean to imply that I have insufficient forces to impose a viable occupation. Were you aware, Brys Beddict, that your eastern borderlands have been overrun? And that an army of allies now marches into your empire?’

‘Do you come as conquerors, then?’ Brys Beddict asked.

The Adjunct sighed, then unstrapped and pulled off her helm. She drew her hand from its glove and ran it through her short, sweat-damp hair. ‘Hood forbid,’ she muttered.

‘Find us a way through these people, then, Brys Beddict.’ She paused, cast her gaze to Tehol Beddict, and slowly frowned. ‘You are rather shy for an emperor,’ she observed.

Tehol refuted that with the brightest smile, and it transformed him, and suddenly Lostara forgot all about the man’s martial-looking brother.

Spirits of the sand, those eyes…

‘I do apologize, Commander. I admit I have been somewhat taken aback.’

The Adjunct slowly nodded. ‘By this popular acclaim, yes, I imagine-’

‘No, not that. She said I was not half bad in bed. I am crushed by the other half, the “half good” bit-’

‘Oh, Tehol,’ the fat woman said, ‘I was being modest for your sake.’

‘Modesty from you, Rucket? You don’t know the meaning of the word! I mean, I just look at you and it’s hard not to, if you know what I mean.’

‘No.’

‘Anyway!’ Tehol clapped his hands together. ‘We’ve had the fireworks, now let’s get this parade started!’

Sirryn Kanar ran down the corridor, away from the fighting. The damned foreigners were in the Eternal Domicile, delivering slaughter-no calls for surrender, no demands to throw down weapons. Just those deadly quarrels, those chopping shortswords and those devastating grenados. His fellow guards were dying by the score, their blood splashing the once pristine walls.

And Sirryn vowed he was not going to suffer the same fate.

They wouldn’t kill the Chancellor. They needed him, and besides, he was an old man. Obviously unarmed, a peaceful man. Civilized. And the guard they’d find standing at his side, well, even he carried naught but a knife at his belt. No sword, no shield, no helm or even armour.

I can stay alive there, right at the Chancellor’s side.

But where is he?

The throne room had been empty.

The Emperor is in the arena. The mad fool is still fighting his pointless, pathetic fights. And the Chancellor would be there, attending, ironic witness to the last Tiste Edur’s drooling stupidity. The last Tiste Edur in the city. Yes.

He hurried on, leaving the sounds of fighting well behind him.

A day of madness-would it never end?

Chancellor Triban Gnol stepped back. The realization had come suddenly to him, with the force of a hammer blow. Rhulad Sengar will not return. The Emperor of a Thousand Deaths… has died his last death.

Toblakai. Karsa Orhng, I do not know what you have done, I do not know how-but you have cleared the path.

You have cleared it and for that I bless you.

He looked about, and saw that the meagre audience had fled-yes, the Eternal Domicile was breached, the enemy was within. He turned to the Finadd standing nearby. ‘Varat Taun.’

‘Sir?’

‘We are done here. Gather your soldiers and escort me to the throne room, where we will await the conquerors.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And we bring that witch with us-I would know what has happened here. I would know why she laid open her hand with that knife. I would know everything.’

‘Yes, Chancellor.’

The captain was surprisingly gentle taking the pale woman into his custody, and indeed, he seemed to whisper something to her that elicited a weary nod. Triban Gnol’s eyes narrowed. No, he did not trust this new Finadd. Would that he had Sirryn with him.

As they made their way from the arena, the Chancellor paused for one look back, one last look at the pathetic figure lying on the bloody sand. Dead. He is truly dead.

I believe I always knew Karsa Orhng would be the one. Yes, I believe I did.

He was almost tempted to head back, down onto the arena floor, to walk across the pitch and stand over the body of Rhulad Sengar. And spit into the Emperor’s face.

No time. Such pleasure will have to wait.

But I vow I will do it yet.

Cuttle waved them to the intersection. Fiddler led the rest of his squad to join the sapper.

‘This is the main approach,’ Cuttle said. ‘It’s got to be.’

Fiddler nodded. The corridor was ornately decorated, impressively wide, with an arched ceiling gleaming with gold leaf. There was no-one about. ‘So where are the guards, and in which direction is the throne room?’

‘No idea,’ Cuttle replied. ‘But I’d guess we go left.’

‘Why?’

‘No reason, except everyone who tried to get away from us was more or less heading that way.’

‘Good point, unless they were all headed out the back door.’ Fiddler wiped sweat from his eyes. Oh, this had been a nasty bloodletting, but he’d let his soldiers go, despite the disapproving looks from Quick Ben. Damned High Mage and his nose in the air-and where in Hood’s name did all that magic come from? Quick had never showed anything like that before. Not even close.

He looked across at Hedge.

Same old Hedge. No older than the last time Fiddler had seen him. Gods, it doesn’t feel real. He’s back. Living, breathing, farting… He reached out and cuffed the man in the side of the head.

‘Hey, what’s that for?’

‘No reason, but I’m sure I was owed doing that at least once.’

‘Who saved your skin in the desert? And under the city?’

‘Some ghost up to no good,’ Fiddler replied.

‘Hood, that white beard makes you look ancient, Fid, you know that?’

Oh, be quiet.

‘Crossbows loaded, everyone? Good. Lead on, Cuttle, but slow and careful, right?’

They were five paces into the corridor when a side entrance ahead and to their right was suddenly filled with figures. And mayhem was let loose once more.

Tarr saw the old man first, the one in the lead, or even if he didn’t see him first, he got off his shot before anyone else. And the quarrel sank into the side of the man’s head, dead in the centre of his left temple. And everything sprayed out the other side.

Other quarrels caught him, at least two, spinning his scrawny but nice-robed body round before it toppled.

A handful of guards who had been accompanying the old man reeled back, at least two stuck good, and Tarr was already rushing forward, drawing his shortsword and bringing his shield round. He bumped hard against Corabb who was doing the same and swore as the man got in front of him.

Tarr raised his sword, a sudden, overwhelming urge to hammer the blade down on the bastard’s head-but no, save that for the enemy-

Who were throwing down their weapons as they backed down the corridor.

‘For Hood’s sake!’ Quick Ben shouted, dragging at Tarr to get past, then shoving Corabb to one side. ‘They’re surrendering, damn you! Stop slaughtering everyone!’

And from the Letherii group, a woman’s voice called out in Malazan, ‘We surrender! Don’t kill us!’

That voice was enough to draw everyone up.

Tarr swung round, as did the others, to look at Fiddler.

After a moment, the sergeant nodded. ‘Take ‘em prisoner, then. They can lead us to the damned throne room.’

Smiles ran up to the body of the old man and started pulling at all his gaudy rings.

A Letherii officer stepped forward, hands raised. ‘There’s no-one in the throne room,’ he said. ‘The Emperor is dead-his body’s in the arena-’

‘Take us there, then,’ Quick Ben demanded, with a glare at Fiddler. ‘I want to see for myself.’

The officer nodded. ‘We just came from there, but very well’

Fiddler waved his squad forward, then scowled over at Smiles. ‘Do that later, soldier-’

She bared her teeth like a dog over a kill, then drew out a large knife and, with two savage chops, took the old man’s pretty hands.

Trull Sengar stepped out onto the sand of the arena, eyes fixed on the body lying near the far end. The gleam of coins, the head tilted back. He slowly walked forward.

There was chaos in the corridors and chambers of the Eternal Palace. He could search for his parents later, but he suspected he would not find them. They had gone with the rest of the Tiste Edur. Back north. Back to their homeland. And so, in the end, they too had abandoned Rhulad, their youngest son.

Why does he lie unmoving? Why has he not returned?

He came to Rhulad’s side and fell to his knees. Set down his spear. A missing arm, a missing sword.

He reached out and lifted his brother’s head. Heavy, the face so scarred, so twisted with pain that it was hardly recognizable. He settled it into his lap.

Twice now, 1 am made to do this. With a brother whose face, there below me, rests too still. Too emptied of life. They look so… wrong.

He would have tried, one last time, a final offering of reason to his young brother, an appeal to all that he had once been. Before all this. Before, in foolish but understandable zeal, he had grasped hold of a sword on a field of ice.

Rhulad would then, in another moment of weakness, pronounce Trull Shorn. Dead in the eyes of all Tiste Edur. And chain him to stone to await a slow, wasting death. Or the rise of water.

Trull had come, yes, to forgive him. It was the cry in his heart, a cry he had lived with for what seemed for ever. You were wounded, brother. So wounded. He had cut you down, laid you low but not dead. He had done what he needed to do, to end your nightmare. But you did not see it that way. You could not.

Instead, you saw your brothers abandon you.

So now, my brother, as I forgive you, will you now forgive me?

Of course, there would be no answer. Not from that ever still, ever empty face. Trull was too late. Too late to forgive and too late to be forgiven.

He wondered if Seren had known, had perhaps guessed what he would find here.

The thought of her made his breath catch in his throat. Oh, he had not known such love could exist. And now, even in the ashes surrounding him here, the future was unfolding like a flower, its scent sweet beyond belief.

This is what love means. 1 finally see-

The knife thrust went in under his left shoulder blade, tore through into his heart.

Eyes wide in sudden pain, sudden astonishment, Trull felt Rhulad’s head tilt to one side on his lap, then slide down from hands that had lost all strength.

Oh, Seren, my love.

Oh, forgive me.

Teeth bared, Sirryn Kanar stepped back, tugging his weapon free. One last Tiste Edur. Now dead, by his own hand. Pure justice still existed in this world. He had cleansed the Lether Empire with this knife, and look, see the thick blood dripping down, welling round the hilt.

A thrust to the heart, the conclusion of his silent stalk across the sands, his breath held overlong for the. last three steps. And his blessed shadow, directly beneath his feet-no risk of its advancing ahead to warn the bastard. There was that one moment when a shadow had flitted across the sand-a damned owl, of all things-but the fool had not noticed.

No indeed: the sun stood at its highest point.

And every shadow huddled, trembling beneath that fierce ruler in the sky.

He could taste iron in his mouth, a gift so bitter he exulted in its cold bite. Stepping back, as the body fell to one side, fell right over that pathetic savage’s spear.

The barbarian dies. As he must, for mine is the hand of civilization.

He heard a commotion at the far end and spun round.

The quarrel pounded into his left shoulder, flung him back, where he tripped over the two corpses then twisted in his fall, landing on his wounded side.

Pain flared, stunning him.

‘No,’ Hedge moaned, pushing past Koryk who turned with a chagrined expression on his face.

‘Damn you, Koryk,’ Fiddler started.

‘No,’ said Quick Ben, ‘You don’t understand, Fid.’

Koryk shrugged. ‘Sorry, Sergeant. Habit.’

Fiddler watched the wizard follow Hedge over to where the three bodies were lying on the sand. But the sapper was paying no attention to the skewered Letherii, instead landing hard on his knees beside one of the Tiste Edur.

‘See the coins on that one?’ Cuttle asked. ‘Burned right in-’

‘That was the Emperor,’ said the captain who had brought them here. ‘Rhulad Sengar. The other Edur… I don’t know. But,’ he then added, ‘your friends do.’

Yes, Fiddler could see that, and it seemed all at once that there was nothing but pain in this place. Trapped in the last breaths, given voice by Hedge’s alarmingly uncharacteristic, almost animal cries of grief. Shaken, Fiddler turned to his soldiers. ‘Take defensive positions, all of you. Captain, you and the other prisoners over there, by that wall, and don’t move if you want to stay alive. Koryk, rest easy with that damned crossbow, all right?’

Fiddler then headed over to his friends.

And almost retreated again when he saw Hedge’s face, so raw with anguish, so… exposed.

Quick Ben turned and glanced back at Fiddler, a warning of some sort, and then the wizard walked over to the fallen Letherii.

Trembling, confused, Fiddler followed Quick Ben. Stood beside him, looking down at the man.

‘He’ll live,’ he said.

Behind them, Hedge rasped, ‘No he won’t.’

That voice did not even sound human. Fiddler turned in alarm, and saw Hedge staring up at Quick Ben, as if silent communication was passing between the two men.

Then Hedge asked, ‘Can you do it, Quick? Some place with… with eternal torment. Can you do that, wizard? I asked if you can do that!’

Quick Ben faced Fiddler, a question in his eyes.

Oh no, Quick, this one isn’t for me to say-

‘Fiddler, help me decide. Please.’

Gods, even Quick Ben’s grieving. Who was this warrior? ‘You’re High Mage, Quick Ben. Do what needs doing.’

The wizard turned back to Hedge. ‘Hood owes me, Hedge.’

‘What kind of answer is that?’

But Quick Ben turned, gestured, and a dark blur rose round the Letherii, closed entirely about the man’s body, then shrank, as if down into the sand, until nothing remained. There was a faint scream as whatever awaited the Letherii had reached out to take hold of him.

Then the wizard snapped out a hand and pulled Fiddler close, and his face was pale with rage. ‘Don’t you pity him, Fid. You understand me? Don’t you pity him!’

Fiddler shook his head. ‘I-I won’t, Quick. Not for a moment. Let him scream, for all eternity. Let him scream.’ A grim nod, then Quick Ben pushed him back. Hedge wept over the Tiste Edur, wept like a man for whom all light in the world has been lost, and would never return.

And Fiddler did not know what to do.

Watching from an unseen place, the Errant stepped back, pulled away as if he would hurl himself from a cliff.

He was what he was.

A tipper of balances.

And now, this day-may the Abyss devour him whole-a maker of widows.

Ascending the beach’s gentle slope, Karsa Orlong halted. He reached down to the sword impaling his leg, and closed a hand about the blade itself, just above the hilt. Unmindful of how the notched edges sliced into his flesh, he dragged the weapon free.

Blood bloomed from the puncture wounds, but only for a moment. The leg was growing numb, but he would have use of it for a while yet.

Still holding the cursed sword by its blade, he pushed himself forward, limped onto the sward. And saw, a short distance to his right, a small hut from which smoke gusted out.

The Toblakai warrior headed over.

Coming opposite it, he dropped the iron sword, took another step closer, bent down and pushed one hand under the edge of the hut. With an upward heave, he lifted the entire structure clear, sent it toppling onto its back like an upended turtle.

Smoke billowed, caught the breeze, and was swept away.

Before him, seated cross-legged, was an ancient, bent and broken creature.

A man. A god.

Who looked up with narrowed eyes filled with pain.

Then those eyes shifted, to behind Karsa, and the warrior turned.

The spirit of the Emperor had arrived, he saw. Young-younger than Karsa had imagined Rhulad Sengar to be-and, with his clear, unmarred flesh, a man not unhandsome. Lying on the ground as if in gentle sleep.

Then his eyes snapped open and he shrieked.

A short-lived try.

Rhulad pushed himself onto his side, up onto his hands and knees-and saw, lying close by, his sword.

‘Take it!’ the Crippled God cried. ‘My dear young champion, Rhulad Sengar of the Tiste Edur. Take up your sword!’

‘Do not,’ Karsa said. ‘Your spirit is here-it is all you have, all you are. When I kill it, oblivion will take you.’

‘Look at his leg! He is almost as crippled as I am! Take the sword, Rhulad, and cut him down!’

But Rhulad still hesitated, there on his hands and knees, his breaths coming in rapid gasps.

The Crippled God wheezed, coughed, then said in a low, crooning voice, ‘You can return, Rhulad. To your world. You can make it right. This time, you can make everything right. Listen to me, Rhulad. Trull is alive! Your brother, he is alive, and he walks to the Eternal Domicile! He walks to find you! Kill this Toblakai and you can return to him, you can say all that needs to be said!

‘Rhulad Sengar, you can ask his forgiveness.’

At that the Tiste Edur’s head lifted. Eyes suddenly alight, making him look… so young.

And Karsa Orlong felt, in his heart, a moment of regret.

Rhulad Sengar reached for the sword.

And the flint sword swung down, decapitating him.

The head rolled, settled atop the sword. The body pitched sideways, legs kicking spasmodically, then growing still as blood poured from the open neck. In a moment, that blood slowed.

Behind Karsa, the Crippled God hacked laughter, then said, ‘I have waited a long time for you, Karsa Orlong. I have worked so hard… to bring you to this sword. For it is yours, Toblakai. No other can wield it as you can. No other can withstand its curse, can remain sane, can remain its master. This weapon, my Chosen One, is for you.’

Karsa Orlong faced the Crippled God. ‘No-one chooses me. I do not give anyone that right. I am Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. All choices belong to me.’

‘Then choose, my friend. Fling away that pathetic thing of stone you carry. Choose the weapon made for you above all others.’

Karsa bared his teeth.

The Crippled God’s eyes widened briefly, then he leaned forward, over his brazier of smouldering coals. ‘With the sword, Karsa Orlong, you will be immortal.’ He waved a gnarled hand and a gate blistered open a few paces away. ‘There. Go back to your homeland, Karsa. Proclaim your-self Emperor of the Teblor. Guide your people for ever more. Oh, they are sorely beset. Only you can save them, Karsa Orlong. And with the sword, none can stand before you. You will save them, you will lead them to domination-a campaign of slaughtered “children” such as the world has never seen before. Give answer, Toblakai! Give answer to all the wrongs you and your people have suffered! Let the children witness!’

Karsa Orlong stared down at the Crippled God.

And his sneer broadened, a moment, before he turned away.

‘Do not leave it here! It is for you! Karsa Orlong, it is for you!’

Someone was coming up from the sand. A wide, heavily muscled man, and three black-skinned bhokorala.

Karsa limped to meet them.

Withal felt his heart pounding in his chest. He’d not expected… well, he’d not known what to expect, only what was expected of him.

‘You are not welcome,’ said the giant with the tattooed face and the wounded leg.

‘I’m not surprised. But here I am anyway.’ Withal’s eyes flicked to the sword lying in the grass. The Tiste Edur’s head was resting on it like a gift. The weaponsmith frowned. ‘Poor lad, he never understood-’

‘I do,’ growled the giant.

Withal looked up at the warrior. Then over to where crouched the Crippled God, before returning once more to his regard of the giant. ‘You said no?’

‘As much.’

‘Good.’

‘Will you take it now?’

‘I will-to break it on the forge where it was made.’ And he pointed to the ramshackle smithy in the distance.

The Crippled God hissed, ‘You said it could never be broken, Withal!’

The weaponsmith shrugged. ‘We’re always saying things like that. Pays the bills.’

A horrid cry was loosed from the Crippled God, ending in strangled hacking coughs.

The giant was studying Withal in return, and he now asked, ‘You made this cursed weapon?’

‘I did.’

The back-handed slap caught Withal by surprise, sent him flying backward. Thumping hard onto his back, staring up at the spinning blue sky-that suddenly filled with the warrior, looking down.

‘Don’t do it again.’

And after saying that, the giant moved off.

Blinking in the white sunlight, Withal managed to turn onto his side, and saw the giant walk into a portal of fire, then vanish as the Crippled God screamed again. The portal suddenly disappeared with a snarl.

One of the nachts brought its horrid little face close over Withal, like a cat about to steal his breath. It cooed.

‘Yes, yes,’ Withal said, pushing it away, ‘get the sword. Yes. Break the damned thing.’

The world spun round him and he thought he would be sick. ‘Sandalath, love, did you empty the bucket? Sure it was piss but it smelled mostly of beer, didn’t it? I coulda drunk it all over again, you see.’

He clambered upward, swayed back and forth briefly, then reached down and, after a few tries, collected the sword.

Off to the smithy. Not many ways of breaking a cursed sword. A weapon even nastier would do it, but in this case there wasn’t one. So, back to the old smith’s secret. To break an aspected weapon, bring it home, to the forge where it was born.

Well, he would do just that, and do it now.

Seeing the three nachts peering up at him, he scowled. ‘Go bail out the damned boat-I’m not in the mood to drown fifty sweeps from shore.’

The creatures tumbled over each in their haste to rush back to the beach.

Withal walked to the old smithy, to do what needed doing.

Behind him, the Crippled God bawled to the sky.

A terrible, terrible sound, a god’s cry. One he never wanted to hear ever again.

At the forge, Withal found an old hammer, and prepared to undo all that he had done. Although, he realized as he set the sword down on the rust-skinned anvil and studied the blood-splashed blade, that was, in all truth, impossible.

After a moment, the weaponsmith raised the hammer.

Then brought it down.