Deadhouse Gates

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ages unveiled the Holy Desert.

Raraku was once an ochre sea.

She stood in the wind

on the pride of a spire

and saw ancient fleets —

ships of bone, sails of bleached

hair, charging the crest

to where the waters slipped

beneath the sands

of the desert to come.

The Holy Desert

Anonymous

Aline of feral white goats stood on the crest of the tel known as Samon, silhouetted against a startlingly blue sky. Like bestial gods carved from marble, they watched as the vast train wound through the valley swathed in a massive cloud of dust. That they numbered seven was an omen not lost on Duiker as he rode with the south flanking patrol of Foolish Dog Wickans.

Nine hundred paces behind the historian marched five companies of the Seventh, slightly under a thousand soldiers, while the same distance behind them rode another patrol of two hundred and fifty Wickans. The three units comprised the south-facing guard for the now close to fifty thousand refugees, as well as livestock, that made up the main column, and were mirrored with similar forces on the north side. An inner ring of loyal Hissari Infantry and Marines were spread out along the column's edges — walking alongside the hapless civilians.

A rearguard of a thousand Wickans from each of the clans rode in the train's dust over two-thirds of a league east of Duiker's position. Though split and riding in troops of a dozen or less, their task was impossible. Tithansi raiders nipped at the battered tail of the refugee column, snaring the Wickans in an eternal running skirmish. The back end of Coltaine's train was a bleeding wound never allowed to heal.

The vanguard to the refugees consisted of the surviving elements of the Seventh's attachment of medium-equipped cavalry — slightly more than two hundred riders in all. Before them rode the Malazan nobles in their carriages and wagons, flanked on either side by ten companies of the 7th Infantry. Close to a thousand additional soldiers of the Seventh — the walking wounded — provided the nobles with their own vanguard, while ahead of them rolled the wagons bearing the cutters and their more seriously injured charges. Coltaine and a thousand riders of his Crow Clan spearheaded the entire column.

But there were too many refugees and too few able combatants, and for all the Malazan efforts, Kamist Reloe's raiding parties struck like vipers in brilliantly co-ordinated mayhem. A new commander had come to Reloe's army of the Apocalypse, a nameless Tithansi warleader charged with harrying the train day and night as it crawled painfully westward — a bloodied and battered serpent that refused to die — and this warrior now posed the most serious threat to Coltaine.

A slow, calculated slaughter. We're being toyed with. The endless dust had scratched the historian's throat raw, making every swallow agony. They were running perilously low on water, the memories of Sekala River now a parched yearning. The nightly slaughter of cattle, sheep, pigs and goats had intensified, as animals were released from suffering, then butchered to flavour the vast cauldrons of blood-stew, marrow and oats that had become everyone's main sustenance. Each night the encampment became an abattoir of screaming beasts, the air alive with rhizan and capemoths drawn to the killing stations. The cacophonous uproar and chaos each dusk had scraped Duiker's nerves raw — and he was not alone in that. Madness haunted their days, stalking them as relentlessly as Kamist Reloe and his vast army.

Corporal List rode alongside the historian in numbed silence, his head dropped low on his chest, his shoulders slumped. He seemed to be ageing before Duiker's eyes.

Their world had dwindled. We totter on edges seen and unseen. We are reduced, yet defiant. We've lost the meaning of time. Endless motion broken only by its dulled absence — the shock of rest, of those horns sounding an end to the day's plodding. For that moment, as the dust swirls on, no-one moves. Standing in disbelief that another day has passed, and yet still we live.

He'd walked the refugee camp at night, wandering between the ragged rows of tents, lean-tos and canopied wagons, his eyes taking in all that he saw with perverse detachment. The historian, now witness, stumbling in the illusion that he will survive. Long enough to set the details down on parchment in the frail belief that truth is a worthwhile cause. That the tale will become a lesson heeded. Frail belief? Outright lie, a delusion of the worst sort. The lesson of history is that no-one learns.

Children were dying. He'd crouched, one hand on a mother's shoulder, and watched with her as life ebbed from the baby in her arms. Like the light of an oil lamp, dimming, dimming, winking out. The moment when the struggle's already lost, surrendered, and the tiny heart slows in its own realization, then stops in mute wonder. And never stirs again. It was then that pain filled the vast caverns within the living, destroying all it touched with its rage at inequity.

No match for the mother's tears, he'd moved on. Wandering, smeared in dirt, sweat and blood, he was becoming a spectral presence, a self-proclaimed pariah. He'd stopped attending Coltaine's nightly sessions, despite direct orders to the contrary. Accompanied only by List, he rode with the Wickans, to the flanks and to the rear, he marched with the Seventh, with the Hissari Loyals, the Marines, the sappers, the nobles and the mud-bloods — as the lowborn refugees had taken to calling themselves.

Through it all he said little, his presence becoming commonplace enough to permit a relaxation among the people around him. No matter what the depredations, there always seemed energy enough to expend in opinions.

Coltaine's a demon in truth, Laseen's dark joke on us all. He's in league with Kamist Reloe and Sha'ik — this uprising is naught but an elaborate charade since Hood's come to embrace the realm of humans. We've bowed to our skull-faced patron, and in return for all this spilled blood Coltaine, Sha'ik and Laseen will all ascend to stand alongside the Shrouded One.

Hood reveals himself in the flight of these capemoths — he shows his face again and again, greeting each dusk with a hungry grin in the dimming sky.

The Wickans have made a pact with the earth spirits. We're here to make fertile soil-

You've taken the wrong path with that, friend. We're sport for the Whirlwind goddess, nothing more. We are a lesson drawn long in the telling.

The Council of Nobles are eating children.

Where did you hear that?

Someone stumbled onto a grisly feast last night. The Council's petitioned dark Elder gods in order to stay fat-

To what?

Fat, I said. Truth. And now bestial spirits wander the camp at night, collecting children dead or near enough to dead to make no difference, except those ones are juicier.

You've gone mad-

He may have something there, friend! I myself saw picked and gnawed bones this morning, all in a heap — no skulls but the bones looked human enough, only very small. Wouldn't you do for a roasted baby right now, eh? Instead of the half-cup of brown sludge we're getting these days?

I heard Aren's army is only days away, led by Pormqual himself. He's got a legion of demons with him, too-

Sha'ik's dead — you heard the Semk wailing into the night, didn't you? And now they wear greased ash like a second skin. Someone in the Seventh told me he came face to face with one at last night's ambush — the scrap at the dried-up waterhole. Said the Semk's eyes were black pits, dull as dusty stones, they were. Even when the soldier spitted the bastard on his sword, nothing showed in those eyes. I tell you, Sha'ik's dead.

Ubaryd's been liberated. We're going to swing south any day now — you'll see — it's the only thing that makes sense. There's nothing west of here. Nothing at all-

Nothing at all. .

'Historian!'

That harsh Falari-accented shout came from the dust-covered rider angling his mount alongside Duiker. Captain Lull, Cartheron Wing, his long, red hair hanging in greasy strands from under his helmet. The historian blinked at him.

The grizzled soldier grinned. 'Word is, you've lost your way, old man.'

Duiker shook his head. 'I follow the train,' he said woodenly, wiping at the grit that stung his eyes.

'We've got a Tithansi warleader out there needs to be found, hunted down,' Lull said, eyes narrow on the historian. 'Sormo and Bult have volunteered some names for the task.'

'I shall dutifully record them in my List of the Fallen.'

The breath hissed between the captain's teeth. 'Abyss Below, old man, they ain't dead yet — we ain't dead yet, dammit! Anyway, I'm here to inform you that you've volunteered. We head out tonight, tenth bell. Gathering at Nil's hearth by the ninth.'

'I decline the offer,' Duiker said.

Lull's grin returned. 'Request denied, and I'm to stay at your side so you don't slip away as you're wont to do.'

'Hood take you, bastard!'

'Aye, soon enough.'

Nine days to the River P'atha. We stretch to meet each minor goal, there's a genius in this. Coltaine offers the marginally possible to fool us into achieving the impossible. All the way to Aren. But for all his ambition, we shall fail. Fail in the flesh and the bone. 'We kill the warleader, another will step into his place,' Duiker said after a time.

'Probably not as talented nor as brave as the task demands. A part of him will know: if his efforts are mediocre, we're likely to let him live. If he shows us brilliance, we'll kill him.'

Ah, that rings of Coltaine. His well-aimed arrows of fear and uncertainty. He's yet to miss the mark. So long as he does not fail, he cannot fail. The day he slips up, shows imperfection, is the day our heads will roll. Nine days to fresh water. Kill the Tithansi warleader and we'll get there. Make them reel with every victory, let them draw breath with every loss — Coltaine trains them as he would beasts, and they don't even realize it.

Captain Lull leaned over the saddlehorn. 'Corporal List, you awake?'

The young man's head swung up and turned from side to side.

'Damn you, Historian,' Lull growled. 'The lad's fevered from lack of water.'

Looking at the corporal, Duiker saw the high colour beneath the dust streaks on List's drawn cheeks, his all too bright eyes. 'He wasn't like that this morning-'

'Eleven hours ago!'

Eleven?

The captain twisted his horse away, his shouts for a healer breaking through the incessant rumble of hooves, wagon wheels and countless footfalls which made up the train's unceasing roar.

Eleven?

Animals shifted position in the clouds of dust. Lull returned, alongside him Nether, the girl looking tiny atop the huge, muscular roan she rode. The captain collected the reins of List's horse and passed them over to Nether. Duiker watched the Wickan child lead the corporal away.

'I'm tempted to have her attend to you afterward,' Lull said. 'Hood's breath, man — when did you last take a sip of water?'

'What water?'

'We've casks left for the soldiers. You take a skin every morning, Historian, up where the wagons carrying the wounded are positioned. Each dusk you bring the skin back.'

'There's water in the stew, isn't there?'

'Milk and blood.'

'If there are casks left for the soldiers, what of everyone else?'

'Whatever they managed to carry with them from the Sekala River,' Lull said. 'We'll protect them, aye, but we'll not mother them. Water's become the currency, I hear, and the trading's fierce.'

'Children are dying.'

Lull nodded. 'That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words. Quote me, Duiker, and your work's done.'

The bastard's right. Economics, ethics, the games of the gods — all within that single, tragic statement. I'll quote you, soldier. Be assured of that. An old sword, pitted and blunt and nicked, that cuts clean to the heart. 'You humble me, Captain.'

Lull grunted, passing over a waterskin. 'A couple of mouthfuls. Don't push it or you'll choke.'

Duiker's smile was wry.

'I trust,' the captain continued, 'you've kept up on that List of the Fallen you mentioned.'

'No, I've … stumbled of late, I'm afraid.'

Lull jerked a tight nod.

'How do we fare, Captain?'

'We're getting mauled. Badly. Close to twenty killed a day, twice that wounded. Vipers in the dust — they suddenly appear, arrows fly, a soldier dies. We send out a troop of Wickans in pursuit, they ride into an ambush. We send out another, we got a major tangle on our hands, leaving flanks open to either side. Refugees get cut down, drovers get skewered and we lose a few more animals — unless those Wickan dogs are around, that is, those are nasty beasts. Mind you, their numbers are dropping as well.'

'In other words, this can't go on much longer.'

Lull bared his teeth, a white gleam amidst his grey-shot red beard. 'That's why we're going for the warleader's head. When we reach the River P'atha, there'll be another full-scale battle. He ain't invited.'

'Another disputed crossing?'

'No, the river's ankle-deep and getting shallower as the season drags on. More likely on the other side — the trail winds through some rough country — we'll find trouble there. In any case, we either carve ourselves some breathing space then, or we're purple meat under the sun and it don't matter.'

The Wickan horns sounded.

'Ah,' Lull said, 'we're done. Get some rest, old man — we'll find us a spot in the Foolish Dog camp. I'll wake you with a meal in a few hours.'

'Lead on, Captain.'

Scrapping over something unrecognizable in the tall grasses, the pack of Wickan cattle-dogs paused to watch Duiker and Lull stride past at a distance of twenty or so paces. The historian frowned at the wiry, mottled beasts.

'Best not look them in the eye,' Lull said. 'You ain't Wickan and they know it.'

'I was just wondering what they're eating.'

'Not something you want to find out.'

'There's been a rumour about dug-up child graves …'

'Like I said, you don't want to know, Historian.'

'Well, some of the tougher mud-bloods have been hiring themselves out to stand guard over those graves-'

'If they ain't got Wickan blood in that mud they'll regret it.'

The dogs resumed their snapping and bickering once the two men had moved past.

Hearthfires flickered in the camp ahead. A last line of defenders patrolled the perimeter of the round hide tents, old folk and youths, who revealed a silent, vaguely ominous watchfulness that matched that of the cattle-dogs as the two men strode into the Wickan enclave.

'I get a sense,' Duiker muttered, 'that the cause of protecting the refugees is cooling among these people …'

The captain grimaced but said nothing.

They continued on, winding between the tent rows. Smoke hung heavy in the air, as did the smell of horse urine and boiled bones, the latter acrid yet strangely sweet. Duiker paused as they passed close to an old woman tending one such iron pot of bones. Whatever boiled in the pot wasn't entirely water. The woman was using a flat blade of wood to collect the thick bone fat and marrow that congealed on the surface, scraping it into an intestine to be later twisted and tied off into sausages.

The old woman noticed the historian and held up the wooden blade — as she would if offering it to a toddler to lick clean. Flecks of sage were visible in the fat — a herb Duiker had once loved but had come to despise, since it was one of the few native to the Odhan. He smiled and shook his head.

As he caught up with Lull, the captain said, 'You're known, old man. They say you walk in the spirit world. That old horsewife wouldn't offer food to just anybody — not me, that's for certain.'

The spirit world. Yes, I walked there. Once. Never again. 'See an old man in crusty rags…'

'And he's gods-touched, aye. Don't mock out loud — it might save your skin one day.'

Nil's hearth was unique among the others in sight in that it held no cooking pot, nor was it framed in drying racks bedecked with curing strips of meat. The burning dung within the small ring of stones was almost smokeless, revealing a naked, blue-tinged flame. The young warlock sat to one side of the hearth, his hands deftly pleating strips of leather into something like a whip.

Four of Lull's marines squatted nearby, each running through a last check of their weapons and armour. Their assault crossbows had been freshly blackened, then smeared in greasy dust to remove the gleam.

One glance told Duiker that these were hard soldiers, veterans, their movements economical, their preparations professional. Neither the man nor the three women were under thirty, and none spoke or looked up as their captain joined them.

Nil nodded to Duiker as the historian crouched down opposite him. 'It promises to be a cold night,' the boy said.

'Have you found the location of this warleader?'

'Not precisely. A general area. He may possess some minor wards against detection — once we get closer they will not avail him.'

'How do you hunt down someone distinguished only by his or her competence, Nil?'

The young warlock shrugged. 'He's left… other signs. We shall find him, that is certain. And then it is up to them-' He jerked his head towards the marines. 'I have come to a realization, Historian, over these past months on this plain.'

'And that is?'

'The Malazan professional soldier is the deadliest weapon I know. Had Coltaine three armies instead of only three-fifths of one, he would end this rebellion before year's end. And with such finality that Seven Cities would never rise again. We could shatter Kamist Reloe now — if not for the refugees whom we are sworn to protect.'

Duiker nodded. There was truth enough in that.

The sounds of the camp were a muffled illusion of normality, an embrace from all sides that the historian found unsettling. He was losing the ability to relax, he bleakly realized. He picked up a small twig and tossed it towards the fire.

Nil's hand snapped it out of the air. 'Not this one,' he said.

Another young warlock arrived, his thin, bony arms ridged in hatch-marked scars from wrist to shoulder. He squatted down beside Nil and spat once into the fire.

There was no answering sizzle.

Nil straightened, tossing aside the cord of leather, and glanced over at Lull and his soldiers. They stood ready.

'Time?' Duiker asked.

'Yes.'

Nil and his fellow warlock led the group through the camp. Few of their clan kin looked their way, and it was a few minutes before Duiker realized that their seemingly casual indifference was deliberate, possibly some kind of culturally prescribed display of respect. Or something else entirely. To look is to ghost-touch, after all.

They reached the encampment's north edge. Fog wafted on the plain beyond the wicker barriers. Duiker frowned. 'They'll know it isn't natural,' he muttered.

Lull grunted. 'We've a diversion planned, of course. Three squads of sappers are out there right now with sacks full of fun-'

He was interrupted by a detonation off to the northeast, followed by a pause in which faint screams wailed in the shrouded darkness. Then a rapid succession of explosions shattered the night air.

The fog swallowed the flashes, but Duiker recognized the distinctive crack of sharpers and thumping whoosh of flamers. More screams, then the swift thudding of horse hooves converging to the northeast.

'Now we let things settle,' Lull said.

Minutes passed, the distant screams fading. 'Has Bult finally managed to track down that captain of the sappers?' the historian eventually asked.

'Ain't seen his face at any of the jaw sessions, if that's what you mean. But he's around. Somewhere. Coltaine's finally accepted that the man's shy.'

'Shy?'

Lull shrugged. 'A joke, Historian. Remember those?'

Nil finally turned to face them.

'That's it,' the captain said. 'No more talking.'

Half a dozen Wickan guards pulled up the spikes anchoring one of the wicker barriers, then quietly lowered it flat. A thick hide was unrolled over it to mask the inevitable creaking of the party's passage.

The mist beyond was dissipating into patches. One such cloud drifted over, then settled around the group, keeping pace as they struck out onto the plain.

Duiker wished he'd asked more questions earlier. How far to the enemy camp's pickets? What was the plan for getting through them undiscovered? What was the fallback should things go awry? He laid a hand on the grip of the short sword at his hip, and was alarmed at how strange it felt — it had been a long time since he'd last used a weapon. Being pulled from the front lines had been the Emperor's reward all those years ago. That and the various alchemies that keep me tottering on well past my prime. Gods, even the scars from that last horror have faded away! 'No-one who's grown up amidst scrolls and books can write of the world,' Kellanved had told him once, 'which is why I'm appointing you Imperial Historian, soldier.'

'Emperor, I cannot read or write.'

'An unsullied mind. Good. Toc the Elder will be teaching you over the next six months — he's another soldier with a brain. Six months, mind. No more than that.'

'Emperor, it seems to me that he would be better suited than I-'

'I've something else in store for him. Do as I say or I'll have you spiked on the city wall.'

Kellanved's sense of humour had been strange even at the best of times. Duiker recalled those learning sessions: he a soldier of thirty-odd years who'd been campaigning for over half that, seated alongside Toe's own son, a runt of a boy who always seemed to be suffering from a cold — the sleeves of his shirt were crusty with dried snot. It had taken longer than six months, but by then it was Toe the Younger doing the teaching.

The Emperor loved lessons in humility. So long as it was never thrown back at him. What happened to Toe the Elder, I wonder? Vanishing after the assassinations — I'd always imagined it as Laseen's doing. . and Toe the Younger — he'd rejected a life amidst scrolls and books. . now lost in the Genabackan campaign-

A gauntleted hand gripped the historian's shoulder and squeezed hard. Duiker focused on Lull's battered face, nodded. Sorry. Mind wandering still, it seems.

They had stopped. Ahead, vague through the mists, rose a spike-bristling ridge of packed earth. The glow of fires painted the fog orange beyond the earthwork perimeter.

Now what?

The two warlocks knelt in the grass five paces in front. Both had gone perfectly still.

They waited. Duiker heard muffled voices from the other side of the ridge, slowly passing from left to right, then fading as the Tithansi patrol continued on. Nil twisted around and gestured.

Crossbows cocked, the marines slipped forward. After a moment the historian followed.

A tunnel mouth had opened in the earth before the two warlocks. The soil steamed, the rocks and gravel popping with heat. It looked to have been clawed open by huge taloned hands — from below.

Duiker scowled. He hated tunnels. No, they terrified him. There was nothing rational in it — wrong again. Tunnels collapse. People get buried alive. All perfectly reasonable, possible, probable, inevitable.

Nil led the way, slithering down and out of sight. The other warlock quickly followed. Lull turned to the historian and gestured him forward.

Duiker shook his head.

The captain pointed at him, then pointed to the hole and mouthed Now.

Hissing a curse, the historian edged forward. As soon as he was within reach Lull's hand snapped out, gathering a handful of dusty telaba, and dragged Duiker to the tunnel mouth.

It took all his will not to shriek as the captain unceremoniously stuffed him down into the tunnel. He scrambled, clawed wildly. He felt his kicking heel connect with something in the air behind him. Lull's jaw, I bet. Serves you right, bastard! The rush of satisfaction helped. He scrabbled past the old flood silts and found himself cocooned in warm bedrock. Collapse was unlikely, he told himself, the thought almost a gibber. The tunnel continued to angle downward, the warm rock turning slippery, then wet. Nightmare visions of drowning replaced collapsing.

He hesitated until a sword point was pressed against the worn sole of his moccasin, then punched through to jab his flesh. Whimpering, Duiker pulled himself foward.

The tunnel levelled out. It was filling with water, the rock bleeding from fissures on all sides. The historian sloshed through a cool stream as he slithered along. He paused, took a tentative sip, tasted iron and grit. But drinkable.

The level stretch went on and on. The stream deepened with alarming swiftness. Soaked and increasingly weighed down by his clothing, Duiker struggled on, exhausted, his muscles failing him. The sound of coughing and spitting behind him was all that kept him moving. They're drowning back there, and I'm next!

He reached the upward slope, clawed his way along through mud and sifting earth. A rough sphere of grey fog appeared ahead — he'd reached the mouth.

Hands gripped him and pulled him clear, rolling him to one side until he came to rest in a bed of sharp-bladed grasses. He lay quietly gasping, staring up at the mist's low ceiling above him. He was vaguely aware of the marines clambering out of the tunnel and forming a defensive cordon, breaths hissing, their weapons dripping muddy water. Those crossbow cords will stretch, unless they've been soaked in oil and waxed. Of course they have — those soldiers aren't idiots. Plan for any eventuality, even swimming beneath a dusty plain. I once saw a fellow soldier find use for a fishing kit in a desert. What makes a Malazan soldier so dangerous? They're allowed to think.

Duiker sat up.

Lull was communicating with his marines with elaborate hand gestures. They responded in kind, then edged out into the mists. Nil and the other warlock began snaking forward through the grass, towards the glow of a hearthfire that showed dull red through the fog.

Voices surrounded them, the harsh Tithan tongue spoken in low murmurs that cavorted alarmingly until Duiker was certain a squad stood but a pace behind him, calmly discussing where in his back to drive their spears. Whatever games the fog played with sound, the historian suspected that Nil and his comrade had magically amplified the effect and they would soon be gambling their lives on that aural confusion.

Lull tapped Duiker's shoulder, waved him forward to where the warlocks had vanished. The fog pocket was impenetrable — he could see no farther than the stretch of an arm. Scowling, the historian dropped to his belly, sliding his sword scabbard around to the back of his hip and then began to worm his way forward to where Nil waited.

The hearthfire was big, the flames lurid through the veil of mist. Six Tithansi warriors stood or sat within sight, all seemingly bundled in furs. Their breaths plumed.

Peering at the scene beside Nil, Duiker could now see a thin patina of frost covering the ground. Chill air wafted over them with a wayward turn of the faint night wind.

The historian nudged the warlock, nodded at the frost and raised his brows questioningly.

Nil's response was the faintest of shrugs.

The warriors were waiting, red-painted hands stretched out towards the flames in an effort to stay warm. The scene was unchanged for another twenty breaths, then those seated or squatting all rose and with the others faced in one direction — to Duiker's left.

Two figures emerged into the firelight. The man in the lead was built like a bear, the comparison strengthened by the fur of that animal riding his broad shoulders. A single-bladed throwing axe jutted from each hip. His leather shirt was unlaced from the breastbone up, revealing solid muscles and thick, matted hair. The crimson slashes of paint on his cheeks announced him as a warleader, each slash denoting a recent victory. The multitude of freshly painted bands made plain the Malazans' ill fortune at his hands.

Behind this formidable creature was a Semk.

That's one assumption obliterated. Evidently the Semk tribe's avowed hatred of all who were not Semk had been set aside in obeisance to the Whirlwind goddess. Or, more accurately, to the destruction of Coltaine.

The Semk was a squatter, more pugnacious-looking version of the Tithan warleader, hairy enough to dispense with the need for a bear fur. His only clothing was a hide loincloth and a brace of belts cinched tight over his stomach. The man was covered in greasy ash, his shaggy black hair hanging in thick threads, his beard knotted with finger-bone fetishes. The contemptuous sneer twisting his face had a permanence about it.

The last detail that revealed itself as the Semk stepped closer to the fire was the gut-stitching closing his mouth. Hood's breath, the Semk take their vows of silence seriously!

The air grew icy. Faint alarm whispered at the back of Duiker's mind and he reached out to nudge Nil yet again.

Before he could make contact with the warlock, crossbows snapped. Two quarrels jutted from the Tithan warleader's chest, while two other Tithan warriors grunted before pitching to the ground. A fifth quarrel sank deep in the Semk's shoulder.

The earth beneath the hearth erupted, flinging coals and burning wood skyward. A multilimbed, tar-skinned beast clambered free, loosing a bone-shivering scream. It plunged in among the remaining Tithansi, claws ripping through armour and flesh.

The warleader fell to his knees, staring dumbly down at the leather-finned quarrels buried in his chest. Blood sprayed as he coughed, convulsed, then toppled face down on the dusty ground.

A mistake — the wrong-

The Semk had torn the quarrel from his shoulder as if it was a carpenter's nail. The air around him swirled white. Dark eyes fixing on the earth spirit, he leapt to meet it.

Nil was motionless at the historian's side. Duiker twisted to shake him, and found the young warlock unconscious.

The other Wickan youth was on his feet, reeling back under an invisible sorcerous onslaught. Strips of flesh and blood flew from the warlock — in moments there was only bone and cartilage where his face had been. The sight of the boy's eyes bursting had Duiker spinning away.

Tithansi were converging from all sides. As he dragged Nil back, the historian saw Lull and one of his marines releasing quarrels at almost point-blank range into the Semk's back. A lance flew out of the darkness and skidded from the marine's chain-armoured back. Both soldiers wheeled, flinging away their crossbows and unsheathing long-knives to meet the first warriors to arrive.

The earth spirit was shrieking now, three of its limbs torn off its body and lying twitching on the ground. The Semk was silent mayhem, ignoring the quarrels in his back, closing again and again to batter the earth spirit. Cold poured in waves from the Semk — a cold Duiker recognized: The Semk god — a piece of him survived, a piece of him commands one of his chosen warriors-

Detonations erupted to the south. Sharpers. Screams filled the night. Malazan sappers were blasting a hole through the Tithansi lines. And here I'd concluded this was a suicide mission.

Duiker continued dragging Nil southward, towards the explosions, praying that the sappers wouldn't mistake him for an enemy.

Horses thundered nearby. Iron rang.

One of the marines was suddenly at his side. Blood sheathed one side of her face, but she flung away her sword and pulled the warlock from the historian's hands, hoisting the lad effortlessly over one shoulder. 'Pull out that damned sword and cover me!' she snarled, bolting forward.

Without a shield? Hood take us, you can't use a short sword without a shield! But the weapon was in his hand as if it had leapt free of its scabbard and into his palm of its own will. The tin-pitted iron blade looked pitifully short as he backed away in the marine's wake, the weapon held out before him.

His heels struck something soft and with a curse he stumbled and fell.

The marine glanced back. 'On your feet, dammit! Someone's after us!'

Duiker had tripped over a body, a Tithansi lancer who'd been dragged by his horse before the mangled mess of his left hand finally released the reins. A throwing star was buried deep in his neck. The historian blinked at that — a Claw's weapon, that star — as he scrambled to his feet. More unseen back-up? Sounds of battle echoed through the mists, as if a full-scale engagement was underway.

Duiker resumed covering the marine as she continued on, Nil's limp body hanging like a sack of turnips over one shoulder.

A moment later three Tithansi warriors plunged out of the fog, tulwars swinging.

Decades-old training saved the historian from their initial onslaught. He ducked low and closed with the warrior on his right, grunting as the man's leather-wrapped forearm cracked down on his left shoulder, then gasping as the tulwar it held whipped down — the Tithansi bending his wrist — and chopped deep into Duiker's left buttock. Even as the pain jolted through him, he'd driven his short sword up and under the warrior's ribcage, piercing his heart.

Tearing the blade free, the historian jumped right. There was a falling body between him and the two remaining warriors, both of whom had the added disadvantage of being right-handed. The slashing tulwars missed Duiker by an arm's length.

The nearest weapon had been swung with enough force to drive it into the ground. The historian stamped a boot down hard on the flat of the blade, springing the tulwar from the Tithan's hand. Duiker followed up with a savage chop between the man's shoulder and neck, snapping through the collarbone.

He launched himself behind the reeling warrior's back to challenge the third Tithan, only to see the man face down on the ground, a silver-pommelled throwing knife jutting from between his shoulder blades. A Chw's sticker — I'd recognize it anywhere!

The historian paused, glared around, but could see no-one. The mists swirled thick, smelling of ash. A hiss from the marine brought him around. She crouched at the inside edge of the picket trench, gesturing him forward.

Suddenly soaked with sweat and shivering, Duiker quickly joined her.

The woman grinned. 'That was damned impressive sword-play, old man, though I couldn't make out how you done the last one.'

'You saw no-one else?'

'Huh?'

Struggling to draw breath, Duiker only shook his head. He glanced down to where Nil lay motionless on the earthen bank. 'What's wrong with him?'

The marine shrugged. Her pale-blue eyes were still appraising the historian. 'We could use you in the ranks,' she said.

'What I've lost in speed I've made up in experience, and experience tells me not to get into messes like this one. Not an old man's game, soldier.'

She grimaced, but with good humour, 'Nor an old woman's. Come on, the scrap's swung east — we shouldn't have any trouble crossing the trench.' She lifted Nil back onto her shoulder with ease.

'You nailed the wrong man, you know …'

'Aye, we'd guessed as much. That Semk was possessed, wasn't he?'

They reached the slope and picked their way carefully through the spikes studding the earth. Tents were burning in the Tithansi camp, adding smoke to the fog. Screams and the clash of weapons still echoed in the distance.

Duiker asked, 'Did you see anyone else get out?'

She shook her head.

They came upon a score of bodies, a Tithansi patrol who'd been hit with a sharper. The grenado's slivers of iron had ripped through them with horrific efficiency. Blood trails indicated the recent departure of survivors.

The fog quickly thinned as they approached the Wickan lines. A troop of Foolish Dog lancers who had been patrolling the wicker barriers spotted them and rode up.

Their eyes fixed on Nil.

The marine said, 'He lives, but you'd better find Sormo.'

Two riders peeled off, cantered back to the camp.

'Any news of the other marines?' Duiker asked the nearest horsewarrior.

The Wickan nodded. 'The captain and one other made it.'

A squad of sappers emerged from the mists in a desultory dog-trot that slowed to a walk as soon as they saw the group. 'Two sharpers,' one was saying, disbelief souring his voice, 'and the bastard just got back up.'

Duiker stepped forward. 'Who, soldier?'

'That hairy Semk-'

'Ain't hairy no more,' another sapper threw in.

'We were the mop-up mission,' the first man said, showing a red-stained grin. 'Coltaine's axe — you were the edge, we were the wedge. We hammered that ogre but it done no good-'

'Sarge took an arrow,' said the other sapper. 'His lung's bleeding-'

'Just one of them and it's a pinprick,' the sergeant corrected, pausing to spit. 'The other one's fine.'

'Can't breathe blood, Sarge-'

'I shared a tent with you, lad — I've breathed worse.'

The squad continued on, arguing over whether or not the sergeant should go find a healer. The marine stared after them, shaking her head. Then she turned to the historian. 'I'll leave you to talk with Sormo, sir, if that's all right.'

Duiker nodded. 'Two of your friends didn't make it back-'

'But one did. Next time for sword practice, I'll come looking for you, sir.'

'My joints are already seizing, soldier. You'll have to prop me up.'

She gently lowered Nil to the grass, then moved off.

Ten years younger, I'd have the nerve to ask her. . well, never mind. Imagine the arguments at the cooking fire. .

The two Wickan riders returned, flanking a travois harnessed to a brutal-looking cattle-dog. A hoof had connected with its head some time in its past, and the bones had healed lopsided, giving the animal a manic half-snarl that seemed well suited to the vicious gleam in its eyes.

The riders dismounted and carefully laid Nil on the travois. Disdaining its escort, the dog moved off, back towards the Wickan encampment.

'That was one ugly beast,' Captain Lull said behind the historian.

Duiker grunted. 'Proof that their skulls are all bone and no brain.'

'Still lost, old man?'

The historian scowled. 'Why didn't you tell me we had hidden help, Captain? Who were they, Pormqual's?'

'What in Hood's name are you talking about?'

He turned. 'The Claw. Someone was covering our retreat. Using stars and stickers and moving unseen like a Hood-damned breath on my back!'

Lull's eyes widened.

'How many more details is Coltaine keeping to himself?'

'There's no way Coltaine knows anything about this, Duiker,' Lull said, shaking his head. 'If you're certain of what you saw — and I believe you — then the Fist will want to know. Now.'

For the first time that Duiker could recall, Coltaine looked rattled. He stood perfectly still, as if suddenly unsure that no-one hovered behind him, invisible blades but moments from their killing thrust.

Bult growled low in his throat. 'The heat's got you addled, Historian.'

'I know what I saw, Uncle. More, I know what I felt.'

There was a long silence, the air in the tent stifling and still.

Sormo entered, stopping just inside the entrance as Coltaine pinned him with a glare. The warlock's shoulders were slumped, as if no longer able to bear the weight they had carried all these months. Shadows pouched his eyes with fatigue.

'Coltaine has some questions for you,' Bult said to him. 'Later.'

The young man shrugged. 'Nil has awakened. I have answers.'

'Different questions,' the scarred veteran said with a dark, humourless grin.

Coltaine spoke. 'Explain what happened, Warlock.'

'The Semk god isn't dead,' Duiker said.

'I'd second that opinion,' Lull muttered from where he sat on a camp saddle-chair, his unbuckled vambraces in his lap, his legs stretched out. He met the historian's eyes and winked.

'Not precisely,' Sormo corrected. He hesitated, drew a deep breath, then continued. 'The Semk god was indeed destroyed. Torn to pieces and devoured. Sometimes, a piece of flesh can contain such malevolence that it corrupts the devourer-'

Duiker sat forward, wincing at the pain from the force-healed wound in his backside. 'An earth spirit-'

'A spirit of the land, aye. Hidden ambition and sudden power. The other spirits… suspected naught.'

Bult's face twisted in disgust. 'We lost seventeen soldiers tonight just to kill a handful of Tithan warchiefs and unmask a rogue spirit?'

The historian flinched. It was the first time he'd heard the full count of losses. Coltaine's first failure. If Oponn smiles on us, the enemy won't realize it.

'With such knowledge,' Sormo explained quietly, 'future lives will be saved. The spirits are greatly distressed — they were perplexed at being unable to detect the raids and ambushes, and now they know why. They did not think to look among their own kin. Now they will deliver their own justice, in their own time-'

'Meaning the raids continue?' The veteran looked ready to spit. 'Will your spirit allies be able to warn us now — as they once did so effectively?'

'The rogue's efforts will be blunted.'

'Sormo,' Duiker said, 'why was the Semk's mouth sewn shut?'

The warlock half smiled. 'That creature is sewn shut everywhere, Historian. Lest that which was devoured escapes.'

Duiker shook his head. 'Strange magic, this.'

Sormo nodded. 'Ancient,' he said. 'Sorcery of guts and bone. We struggle with knowledge we once possessed instinctively.' He sighed. 'From a time before warrens, when magic was found within.'

A year ago Duiker would have been galvanized with curiosity and excitement at such comments, and would have relentlessly interrogated the warlock without surcease. Now, Sormo's words were a dull echo lost in the vast cavern of the historian's exhaustion. He wanted nothing but sleep, and knew it would be denied him for another twelve hours — the camp outside was already stirring, even though another hour of darkness remained.

'If that's the case,' Lull drawled, 'why didn't that Semk burst apart like a bloated bladder when we pricked him?'

'What was devoured hides deep. Tell me, was this possessed Semk's stomach shielded?'

Duiker grunted. 'Belts, thick leather.'

'Just so.'

'What happened to Nil?'

'Caught unawares, he made use of that very knowledge we struggle to recall. As the sorcerous attack came, he retreated within himself. The attack pursued but he remained elusive, until the malevolent power spent itself. We learn.'

Into Duiker's mind arose the image of the other warlock's horrific death. 'At a cost.'

Sormo said nothing, but pain revealed itself for a moment in his eyes.

'We increase our pace,' Coltaine announced. 'One less mouthful of water for each soldier each day-'

Duiker straightened. 'But we have water.'

All eyes turned to him. The historian smiled wryly at Sormo. 'I understand Nil's report was rather … dry. The spirits made for us a tunnel through the bedrock. As the Captain can confirm, the rock weeps.'

Lull grinned. 'Hood's breath, the old man's right!'

Sormo was staring at the historian with wide eyes. 'For lack of asking the right questions, we have suffered long — and needlessly.'

A new energy infused Coltaine, culminating in a taut baring of his teeth. 'You have one hour,' the Fist told the warlock, 'to ease a hundred thousand throats.'

From bedrock that split the prairie soil in weathered outcroppings, sweet tears seeped forth. Vast pits had been excavated. The air was alive with joyous songs and the blessed silence of beasts no longer crying their distress. And beneath it all was a warm, startling undercurrent. For once, the spirits of the land were delivering a gift untouched by death. Their pleasure was palpable to Duiker's senses as he stood close to the north edge of the encampment, watching, listening.

Corporal List was at his side, his fever abated. 'The seepage is deliberately slow but not slow enough — stomachs will rebel — the reckless ones could end up killing themselves…'

'Aye. A few might.'

Duiker raised his head, scanning the valley's north ridge. A row of Tithansi horsewarriors lined its length, watching in what the historian imagined was fearful wonder. He had no doubt that Kamist Reloe's army was suffering, even though they had the advantage of seizing and holding every known waterhole on the Odhan.

As he studied them, his eyes caught a flash of white that flowed down the valleyside, then vanished beyond Duiker's line of sight. He grunted.

'Did you see something, sir?'

'Just some wild goats,' the historian said. 'Switching sides…'

The blowing sand had bored holes into the mesa's sides, an onslaught that began by sculpting hollows, then caves, then tunnels, finally passages that might well exit out of the other side. Like voracious worms ravaging old wood, the wind devoured the cliff face, hole after hole appearing, the walls between them thinning, some collapsing, the tunnels widening. The mantle of the plateau remained, however, a vast cap of stone perched on ever-dwindling foundations.

Kulp had never seen anything like it. As if the Whirlwind's deliberately attacked it. Why lay siege to a rock?

The tunnels shrieked with the wind, each one with its own febrile pitch, creating a fierce chorus. The sand was fine as dust where it spun and swirled on updraughts at the base of the cliff. Kulp glanced back to where Heboric and Felisin waited — two vague shapes huddled against the ceaseless fury of the storm.

The Whirlwind had denied them all shelter for three days now, ever since it had first descended upon them. The wind assailed them from every direction — as if the mad goddess has singled us out. The possibility was not as unlikely as it first seemed. The malevolent will was palpable. We're intruders, after all. The Whirlwind's focus of hate has always been on those who do not belong. Poor Malazan Empire, to have stepped into such a ready-made mythos of rebellion …

The mage scrambled back to the others. He had to lean close to be heard above the endless roar. 'There's caves! Only the wind's plunging down their throats — I suspect it's cut right through the hill!'

Heboric was shivering, beset since morning by a fever born of exhaustion. He was weakening fast. We all are. It was almost dusk — the unrelieved ochre dimming over their heads — and the mage estimated they had travelled little more than a league in the past twelve hours.

They had no water, no food. Hood stalked their heels.

Felisin clutched Kulp's tattered cloak, pulling him closer. Her lips were split, sand gumming the corners of her mouth. 'We try anyway!' she said.

'I don't know. That whole hill could come down-'

'The caves! We go into the caves!'

Die out here, or die in there. At least the caves offer us a tomb for our corpses. He gave a sharp nod.

They half dragged Heboric between them. The cliff offered them a score of options with its ragged, honeycombed visage. They made no effort to select one, simply plunging into the first cave mouth they came to, a wide, strangely flattened tunnel that seemed to run level — at least for the first few paces.

The wind was a hand at their backs, dismissive of hesitation in its unceasing pressure. Darkness swept around them as they staggered on, within a cauldron of screams.

The floor had been sculpted into ridges, making walking difficult. Fifteen paces on, they stumbled into an outcropping of quartzite or some other crystalline mineral that resisted the erosive wind. They worked their way around it and found in its lee the first surcease from the Whirlwind's battering force in over seventy hours.

Heboric sagged in their arms. They set him down in the ankle-deep dust at the base of the outcropping. 'I'd like to scout ahead,' Kulp told Felisin, yelling to be heard.

She nodded, lowering herself to her knees.

Another thirty paces took the mage to a larger cavern. More quartzite filled the space, reflecting a faint luminescence from what appeared to be a ceiling of crushed glass fifteen feet above him. The quartzite rose in vertical veins, the gleaming pillars creating a gallery effect of startling beauty, despite the racing wind's dust-filled stream. Kulp strode forward. The piercing shriek dimmed, losing itself in the vastness of the cavern.

Closer to the centre of the cavern rose a heap of tumbled stones, their shapes too regular to be natural. The glittering substance of the ceiling covered them in places — a single side of their vaguely rectangular forms, the mage realized after a moment's examination. Crouching, he ran a hand along one such side, then bent still lower. Hood's breath, it's glass in truth! Multicoloured, crushed and compacted …

He looked up. A large hole gaped in the ceiling, its edges glowing with that odd, cool light. Kulp hesitated, then opened his warren. He grunted. Nothing. Queen's blessing, no sorcery — it's mundane.

Hunching low against the wind, the mage made his way back to the others. He found them both asleep or unconscious. Kulp studied them, feeling a chill at the composed finality he saw in their dehydrated features.

Might be more merciful not to awaken them.

As if sensing his presence, Felisin opened her eyes. They filled with instant awareness. 'You'll never have it that easy,' she said.

'This hill's a buried city, and we're under what's buried.'

'So?'

'The wind's got into one chamber at least, emptied it of sand.'

'Our tomb.'

'Maybe.'

'All right, let's go.'

'One problem,' Kulp said, not moving. 'The way in is about fifteen feet over our heads. There's a pillar of quartzite, but it wouldn't be an easy climb, especially not in our condition.'

'Do your warren trick.'

'What?'

'Open a gate.'

He stared at her. 'It's not that simple.'

'Dying's simple.'

He blinked. 'Let's get the old man on his feet, then.'

Heboric's eyes were blistered shut, weeping grit-filled tears. Slow to awaken, he clearly had no idea where he was. His wide mouth split into a ghastly smile. 'They tried it here, didn't they?' he asked, tilting his head as they helped him forward. 'Tried it and paid for it, oh, the memories of water, all those wasted lives …'

They arrived at the place of the breached ceiling. Felisin laid a hand on the quartzite column nearest the hole. 'I'd have to climb this like a Dosii does a coconut palm.'

'And how's that done?' Kulp asked.

'Reluctantly,' Heboric muttered, cocking his head as if hearing voices.

Felisin glanced at the mage. 'I'll need those straps from your belt.'

With a grunt, Kulp began removing the leather band at his waist. 'Damned strange time to be wanting to see me without my breeches, lass.'

'We can all do with the laugh,' she replied.

He handed her the belt, and watched as she affixed the binding strips at each end to her ankles. He winced at how savagely she tightened the knots.

'Now, what's left of your raincloak, please.'

'What's wrong with your tunic?'

'No-one gets to ogle my breasts — not for free, anyway. Besides, that cloak's a tougher weave.'

'There was retribution,' Heboric said. 'A methodical, dispassionate cleaning-up of the mess.'

As he pulled off his sand-scoured cloak, Kulp scowled down at the ex-priest. 'What are you going on about, Heboric?'

'First Empire, the city above. They came and put things aright. Immortal custodians. Such a debacle! Even with my eyes closed I can see my hands — they're groping blind, so blind now. So empty.' He sank down, suddenly racked with shuddering grief.

'Never mind him,' Felisin said, stepping up as if to embrace the jagged pillar. 'The old toad's lost his god and it's broken his mind.'

Kulp said nothing.

Felisin reached around the column and linked her hands on the other side by gripping two ends of the cloak and twisting them taut. The belt between her feet hugged this side of the pillar.

'Ah,' Kulp said. 'I see. Clever Dosii.'

She hitched the cloak as high as she could on the opposite side, then leaned back and, in a jerking motion, jumped a short distance upward — knees drawn up, the belt snapping against the pillar. He saw the pain rip through her as the bindings dug into her ankles.

'I'm surprised the Dosii have feet,' Kulp said.

Gasping, she said, 'Guess I got some minor detail wrong.'

In all truth, the mage did not think she would make it. Before she had gone two arm-spans — a full body's length from the ceiling — her ankles streamed blood. She trembled all over, using unimagined but quickly waning reserves of energy. Yet she did not stop. This is a hard, hard creature. She surpasses us all, again and again. The thought led him to Baudin — banished, likely to be somewhere out there, suffering the storm. Another hard one, stubborn and stolid. How fare you, Talon?

Felisin finally came to within reach of the hole's ragged edge. And there she hesitated.

Aye, now what?

'Kulp!' Her voice bounced in an eerie echo that was quickly swept away by the wind.

'Yes?'

'How close are my feet to you?'

'Maybe three arm-spans. Why?'

'Prop Heboric beside the pillar. Climb onto his shoulders-'

'In Hood's name what for?'

'You've got to reach my ankles, then climb over me — I can't let go — nothing left!'

Gods, I'm not as hard as you, lass. 'I think-'

'Do it! We have no choice, damn you!'

Hissing, Kulp swung to Heboric. 'Old man, can you understand me? Heboric!'

The ex-priest straightened, grinned. 'Remember the hand of stone? The finger? The past is an alien world. Powers unimagined. To touch is to recall someone else's memories, someone so unlike you in thought and senses that they beckon you into madness.'

Hand of stone? The bastard's raving. 'I need to climb onto your shoulders, Heboric. You need to stand firm — once we get up we'll rig a harness to pull you up, OK?'

'On my shoulders. A mountain of stone, each one carved and shaped by a life long since lost to Hood. How many yearnings, desires, secrets? Where does it all go? The unseen energy of life's thoughts is food for the gods, did you know that? This is why they must — they must — be fickle!'

'Mage!' Felisin wailed. 'Now!'

Kulp stepped behind the ex-priest and set his hands on Heboric's shoulders. 'Stand steady now-'

Instead, the old man turned to face him. He brought both wrists together, leaving a space between them where hands should be. 'Step. I'll launch you straight to her.'

'Heboric — you've no hands to hold my foot-'

The man's grin broadened. 'Humour me.'

Something pushed Kulp beyond wonder as his moccasined foot settled into the firm stirrup of interlaced fingers he could not see. He placed his hands on the ex-priest's shoulders once again.

'Straight up you'll go,' Heboric said. 'I'm blind. Position me, Mage.'

'Back a step, a little more. There.'

'Ready?'

'Aye.'

But he wasn't prepared for the immense surge of strength that lifted him, flung him effortlessly straight up. Kulp made an instinctive grab for Felisin, missed — luckily, as he was then past her, through the ceiling's hole. He almost fell straight back down. A panicked twisting of his upper body, however, landed him painfully on an edge. It groaned, sagged.

His fingers clawing unseen flagstones, the mage clambered onto the floor.

Felisin's voice keened from below. 'Mage! Where are you?' Feeling a slightly hysterical grin frozen on his face, Kulp said, 'Up here. I'll have you in a moment, lass.'

Heboric used his invisible hands to swiftly climb the makeshift rope of leather and cloth that Kulp sent snaking down ten minutes later. Seated nearby in the small, gloomy chamber, Felisin silently watched with fear racing unchecked within her.

Her body tortured her with pain, the feeling returning to her feet with silent outrage. Fine white dust coated the blood on her ankles and where the pillar's crystalline edges had scored her wrists. She shook uncontrollably. That old man looked dead on his feet. Dead. He was burning up, yet his ravings were not just empty words. There was knowing in them, impossible knowing. And now his ghost-hands have become real.

She glanced over at Kulp. The mage was frowning at the torn shambles of the raincloak in his hands. Then he sighed and swung his gaze to a silent study of Heboric, who seemed to be sinking back into his fevered stupor.

Kulp had conjured a faint glow to the chamber, revealing bare stone walls. Saddled steps rose along one wall to a solid-looking door. At the base of the wall opposite, round indentations ran in a row on the floor, each of a size to fit a cask or keg. Rust-pitted hooks depended on chains from the ceiling at the room's far end. Everything seemed blunted to Felisin's eyes; either it was strangely worn down or the effect was a product of the mage's sorcerous light.

She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself to fight the trembling.

'That was some climb you managed, lass,' Kulp said.

She grunted. 'And pointless, as it turns out.' And now it's likely to kill me. There was more to making that climb than just muscle and bone. I feel. . emptied, with nothing left in me to rebuild. She laughed.

'What?'

'We've found a cellar for a tomb.'

'I ain't ready to die yet.'

'Lucky you.'

She watched him totter to his feet. He looked around. 'This room was flooded once. With water that flowed.'

'From where to where?'

He shrugged and approached the stairs in a slow, laboured shuffle.

He looks a century old. As old as I feel. Together, we can't make up even one Heboric. I'm learning to appreciate irony, at least.

After some minutes Kulp finally reached the door. He laid a hand against it. 'Bronze sheeting — I can feel the hammer strokes that flattened it.' He rapped a knuckle on the dark metal. The sound that came was a rustling, sifting whisper. 'Wood's rotted behind it.'

The latch broke in his hand. The mage muttered a curse, then set his weight against the door and pushed.

The bronze cracked, crumpled inward. A moment later the door fell back, taking Kulp with it in a cloud of dust.

'Barriers are never as solid as one thinks,' Heboric said as the echoes of that crash faded. He stood holding his stubbed arms out before him. 'I understand this now. To a blind man his entire body is a ghost. Felt but not seen. Thus, I raise invisible arms, move invisible legs, my invisible chest rising and falling to unseen air. So now I stretch fingers, then make fists. I am everywhere solid — and always have been — if not for the deceit perpetrated by my own eyes.'

Felisin looked away from the ex-priest. 'Maybe if I go deaf you'll disappear.'

Heboric laughed.

At the landing, Kulp was making moaning sounds, his breath oddly harsh and laboured. She pushed herself upright, stumbling as pain closed iron bands around her ankles. Gritting her teeth, she hobbled to the stairs.

The eleven steps left her reeling with exhaustion. She fell to her knees beside the mage and waited a long minute before her breathing steadied. 'You all right?'

Kulp lifted his head. 'Broke my damned nose, I think.'

'From that new accent I'd say you were right. I take it you'll live, then.'

'Loudly.' He rose to his hands and knees, thick blood hang' ing in dusty threads from his face. 'See what's ahead? Ain't had a chance to look, yet.'

'It's dark. The air smells.'

'Like what?'

She shrugged. 'Not sure. Lime? As in limestone, that is.'

'Not bitter fruit? I'm surprised.'

Shuffling steps on the stairs indicated Heboric's approach.

A glow rose ahead, raising vague highlights that slowly etched a scene. Felisin stared.

'Your breath's quickened, lass,' Kulp said, still unwilling or unable to lift his head. 'Tell me what you're seeing.'

Heboric's voice echoed from halfway up the stairs: 'Remnants of a ritual gone awry is what she's seeing. Frozen memories of ancient pathos.'

'Sculptures,' Felisin said. 'Sprawled all over the floor — it's a big room. Very big — the light doesn't reach the far end-'

'Wait, you said sculptures? What kind?'

'People. Carved as if lying around — at first I thought they were real-'

'And why don't you think that any more?'

'Well…' Felisin crawled forward. The nearest one was a dozen paces away, a nude woman of advanced years, lying on her side as if dead or sleeping. The stone she had been fashioned from was dull white, limned and mottled with mould. Every wrinkle of her withered body had been artfully rendered, no detail left out. She looked down on the peaceful, aged face. Lady Gaesen — this woman could be her sister. She reached out.

'Don't touch anything, mind,' Kulp said. 'I'm still seeing stars, but I've got raised hackles that says there's sorcery in that chamber.'

Felisin withdrew her hand, sat back. 'They're just statues-'

'On pedestals?'

'Well, no, just on the floor.'

The light suddenly brightened, filling the chamber. Felisin looked back to see Kulp on his feet, leaning against the crumbled door frame. The mage was blinking myopically as he took in the scene. 'Sculptures, lass?' he growled. 'Not a chance. A warren's ripped through here.'

'Some gates should never be opened,' Heboric said, blithely stepping past the mage. He walked unerringly to Felisin's side, where he stopped, cocking his head and smiling. 'Her daughter chose the Path of the Soletaken, a fraught journey, that. She was hardly unique, the twisted route was a popular alternative to Ascension. More … earthly, they claimed. And older, and that which was old was in high favour in the last days of the First Empire.' The ex-priest paused, sudden sorrow crumpling his features. 'It was understandable that Elders of the day sought to ease their children's chosen path. Sought to create a new version of the old, risk-laden one — for that had crumbled, weakened, was cancerous. Too many of the Empire's young were being lost — and never mind the wars to the west-'

Kulp had laid a hand on Heboric's shoulder. It was as if the touch closed a valve. The ex-priest raised a ghost-hand to his face, then sighed. 'Too easy to become lost…'

'We need water,' the mage said. 'Does her memory hold such knowledge?'

'This was a city of springs, fountains, baths and canals.'

'Probably filled with sand one and all,' Felisin said.

'Maybe not,' Kulp said, glancing around with bloodshot eyes. The break in his nose was a bad one, the swelling cracking the too dry skin on either side. 'This one's been emptied out recently — feel how the air still stirs.'

Felisin eyed the woman at her feet. 'She was once real, then. Flesh.'

'Aye, they all were.'

'Alchemies that slowed ageing,' Heboric said. 'Six, seven centuries for each citizen. The ritual killed them, yet the alchemies remained potent-'

'Then water deluged the city,' Kulp said. 'Mineral-rich.'

'Turning not just bone to stone, but flesh as well.' Heboric shrugged. 'The flood was born of distant events — the immortal custodians had already come and gone.'

'What immortal custodians, old man?'

'There may yet be a spring,' the ex-priest said. 'Not far.'

'Lead on, blind man,' Felisin said.

'I've got more questions,' Kulp said.

Heboric smiled. 'Later. Our immediate journey shall explain much.'

The chamber's mineralized occupants were all elderly, and numbered in the hundreds. Their deaths appeared to be, one and all, peaceful ones, which had a vaguely disquieting effect on Felisin. Not all ends are tortured. Hood's indifferent to the means. So the priests claim, anyway. Yet his greatest harvests come from war, disease and famine. Those countless ages of deliverance must surely have marked the High King of Death. Disorder crowds his Gates and there's a flavour to that. Quiet genocide must ring very different bells.

She felt Hood was with her now, in these hours and those since their return to this world. She found herself musing on him as if he was her lover, driven deep inside her with a claim that felt permanent and oddly reassuring.

And now, I fear only Heboric and Kulp. It's said gods fear mortals more than they do each other. Is that the source of my terror? Have I captured an echo of Hood within me? The god of death must surely dream rivers of blood. Perhaps I have been his all this time.

Thus I am blessed.

Heboric turned suddenly, seeming to regard her with his sunburned, swollen-shut eyes.

Can you now read my mind, old man?

Heboric's broad mouth twisted wryly. After a moment he swung back, continued on.

The chamber ended in a portalway that funnelled their path into a low-ceilinged tunnel. Past torrents of water had smoothed and polished the heavy stones on every side. Kulp maintained the diffuse, sourceless light as they stumbled onward.

We shamble like animated corpses, cursed in a journey without end. Felisin smiled. Hood's own.

They came to what had once been a street, narrow and crooked, its cobbles heaved and buckled. Low residential buildings crowded the sides beneath a roof of crusted, compacted glass. Along all the walls in sight ran narrow bands of similar substance, as if marking water levels or layers in the sand that had once filled every space.

In the street lay more bodies, but there was no peace to be found in their twisted, malformed shapes. Heboric paused, cocking his head. 'Ah, now we come upon altogether different memories.'

Kulp crouched down beside a figure. 'Soletaken, caught in the act of veering. Into something … reptilian.'

'Soletaken and D'ivers,' the ex-priest said. 'The ritual unleashed powers that ran wild. Like a plague, shapeshifting claimed thousands, unwelcomed, no initiation — many went mad. Death filled the city, every street, every house. Families were torn apart by their own.' He shook himself. 'All within but a handful of hours,' he whispered.

Kulp's eyes fixed on another figure, almost lost in the midst of a pile of mineralized corpses. 'Not just Soletaken and D'ivers…'

Heboric sighed. 'No.'

Felisin approached the subject of the mage's rapt attention. She saw thick, nut-brown limbs — an arm and a leg, still attached to an otherwise dismembered torso. Withered skin wrapped the thick bones. I've seen this before. On the Silanda. T'lan Imass.

'Your immortal custodians,' Kulp said.

'Aye.'

'They took losses here.'

'Oh, that they did,' Heboric said. 'Appalling losses. There is a bond between the T'lan Imass and Soletaken and D'ivers, a mysterious kinship that was unsuspected by the dwellers of this city — though they claimed for themselves the proud title of First Empire. That would have irritated the T'lan Imass — assuming such creatures can feel irritation — to have so boldly assumed a title that rightly belonged to them. Yet what drew them here was the ritual, and the need to set things right.'

Kulp was frowning behind the battered mask of his features. 'Our brushes with Soletaken … and the Imass. What's beginning again, Heboric?'

'I don't know, Mage. A return to that ancient gate? Another unleashing?'

'That Soletaken dragon we followed … it was undead.'

'It was T'lan Imass,' the ex-priest elaborated. 'A Bonecaster. Perhaps it is the old gate's custodian, drawn once again in answer to an impending calamity. Shall we move on? I can smell water — the spring we seek lives yet.'

The pool lay in the centre of a garden. Pale undergrowth carpeted the cracked flagstones on the footpath, white and pink leaves like shreds of flesh, colourless globes of some kind of fruit depending from vines wrapping stone columns and fossilized tree trunks. A garden thriving in darkness.

Eyeless white fish darted in the pool, seeking shadows as the sorcerous light pulsed bright.

Felisin fell to her knees, reached trembling hands down, slipped them into the cool water. The sensation rushed through her with ecstasy.

'Residue of alchemies,' Heboric said behind her.

She glanced back. 'What do you mean?'

'There will be.. benefits … in drinking this nectar.'

'Is this fruit edible?' Kulp asked, hefting one of the pale globes.

'It was when it was bright red, nine thousand years ago.'

The thick ash hung motionless in their wake for as far as Kalam could see, though distance in the Imperial Warren was not a thing easily gauged. Their trail had the appearance of being as straight as a spear shaft. His frown deepened.

'We are lost,' Minala said, leaning back in her saddle.

'Better than dead,' Keneb muttered, offering the assassin at least that much sympathy.

Kalam felt Minala's hard grey eyes on him. 'Get us out of this Hood-cursed warren, Corporal! We're hungry, we're thirsty, we don't know where we are. Get us out!'

I've visualized Aren, I've picked the place — an unobtrusive niche at the end of the final twist of No Help Alley. . in the heart of Dregs, that Malazan expatriate hovel close to the riverfront. Right down to the cobbles underfoot. So why can't we get there? What's blocking us? 'Not yet,' Kalam said. 'Even by warren, Aren is a long journey.' That makes sense, doesn't it? So why all this unease?

'Something's wrong,' Minala persisted. 'I can see it in your face. We should have arrived by now.'

The taste of ash, its smell, its feel, had become a part of him, and he knew it was the same for the others. The lifeless grit seemed to stain his very thoughts. Kalam had suspicions of what that ash had once been — the heap of bones they had stumbled onto when arriving had not proved unique — yet he found himself instinctively shying from acknowledging those suspicions. The possibility was too ghastly, too overwhelming, to contemplate.

Keneb grunted, then sighed. 'Well, Corporal, shall we continue on?'

Kalam glanced at the captain. The fever from his head wound was gone, though a barely perceptible slowness to his movements and expressions betrayed a healing yet incomplete. The assassin knew he could not count on the man in a fight. And with the apparent loss of Apt, he felt his back exposed. Minala's inability to trust him diminished the reliance he placed in her: she would do what was necessary to protect her sister and the children — that and nothing more.

Better were I alone. He nudged the stallion forward. After a moment the others followed.

The Imperial Warren was a realm with neither day nor night, just a perpetual dusk, its faint light sourceless — a place without shadows. They measured the passage of time by the cyclical demands imposed by their bodies. The need to eat and drink, the need to sleep. Yet, when gnawing hunger and thirst grew constant and unappeased, when exhaustion pulled at every step, the notion of time sank into meaninglessness; indeed, it revealed itself as something born of faith, not fact.

'Time makes of us believers. Timelessness makes of us unbelievers.' Another Saying of the Fool, another sly quote voiced by the sages of my homeland. Used most often when dismissing precedent, a derisive scoff at the lessons of history. The central assertion of sages was to believe nothing. More, that assertion was a central tenet of those who would become assassins.

'Assassination proves the lie of constancy. Even as the upraised dagger is itself a constant, your freedom to choose who, to choose when, is the constant's darker lie. An assassin is chaos unleashed, students. But remember, the upraised dagger can quench firestorms as easily as light them. .'

And there, plainly carved in his thoughts as if with a dagger-point, stretched the thin, straight track that would lead him to Laseen. Every justification he needed rode unerring within that fissure. Yet, while the track cuts through Aren, it seems all unknowing something's nudged me from it, left me wandering this plain of ash.

'I see clouds ahead,' Minala said, now riding beside him.

Ridges of low-hanging dust crisscrossed the area before them. Kalam's eyes narrowed. 'As good as footprints in mud,' he muttered.

'What?'

'Look behind us — we leave the selfsame trail. We've company in the Imperial Warren.'

'And any company's unwelcome,' she said.

'Aye.'

Arriving at the first of the ragged ruts only deepened Kalam's unease. More than one. Bestial. No servants sworn to the Empress left these …

'Look,' Minala said, pointing.

Thirty paces ahead was what appeared to be a sinkhole or dark stain on the ground. Suspended ash rimmed the pit in a motionless, semi-translucent curtain.

'Is it just me,' Keneb growled behind them, 'or is there a new smell to this Hood-rotted air?'

'Like wood spice,' Minala agreed.

Hackles rising, Kalam freed his crossbow from its binding on the saddle, cranked the claw back until it locked, then slid a quarrel into the slot. He felt Minala's eyes on him throughout and was not surprised when she spoke.

'That particular smell's one you're familiar with, isn't it? And not from rifling some merchant's bolt-chest, either. What should we be on the lookout for, Corporal?'

'Anything,' he said, kicking his horse into a walk.

The pit was at least a hundred paces across, the edges heaped in places with excavated fill. Burned bone jutted from those mounds.

Kalam's stallion stopped a few yards from the edge. Still gripping the crossbow, the assassin lifted one leg over the saddlehorn, then slipped down, landing in a puff of grey cloud. 'Best stay here,' he told the others. 'No telling how firm the sides are.'

'Then why approach at all?' Minala demanded.

Not answering, Kalam edged forward. He came to within two paces of the rim, close enough to see what lay at the bottom of the pit, although at first it was the far side that held his attention. Now I know what we're walking on and refusing to think on it didn't help at all. Hood's breath! The ash formed compacted layers, revealing past variations in the temperature and ferocity of the fires that had incinerated this land — and everything on it. The layers varied in thickness as well. One of the thickest was an arm's length in depth and looked solid with compacted, shattered bone. Immediately below it was a thinner, reddish layer of what looked like brick dust. Other layers revealed only charred bones, mottled with black patches rimmed in white. Those few that he could identify looked human in size — perhaps slightly longer of limb. The banded wall opposite him was at least six arm-spans deep. We stride ancient death, the remains of. . millions.

His gaze slowly descended to the pit's floor. It was crowded with rusted, corroded mechanisms, all alike though strewn about. Each was the size of a trader's wagon, and indeed huge spoked iron wheels were visible.

Kalam studied them a long time, then he swung about and returned to the others, uncocking the crossbow as he did so.

'Well?'

The assassin shrugged, pulling himself back into the saddle. 'Old ruins at the bottom. Odd ones — the only time I've seen anything like them was in Darujhistan, within the temple that housed Icarium's Circle of Seasons, which was said to measure the passage of time.'

Keneb grunted.

Kalam glanced at the man. 'Something, Captain?'

'A rumour, nothing more. Months old.'

'What rumour?'

'Oh, that Icarium was seen.' The man suddenly frowned. 'What do you know of the Deck of Dragons, Corporal?'

'Enough to stay away from it.'

Keneb nodded. 'We had a Seer pass through around that time — some of my squads chipped in for a reading, ended up getting their money back since the Seer couldn't take the field past the first card — the Seer wasn't surprised, I recall. Said that'd been the case for weeks, and not just for him, but for every other reader as well.'

Alas, that wasn't my luck the last time I saw a Deck. 'Which card?'

'One of the Unaligned I think it was. Which are those?'

'Orb, Throne, Sceptre, Obelisk-'

'Obelisk! That's the one. The Seer claimed it was Icarium's doing, that he'd been seen with his Trell companion in Pan'potsun.'

'Does any of this matter?' Minala demanded.

Obelisk. . past, present, future. Time, and time has no allies … 'Probably not,' the assassin replied.

They rode on, skirting the pit at a safe distance. More dust trails crossed their route, with only a few suggesting the passage of a human. Athough it was hard to be certain, they seemed to be heading in the opposite direction to the one Kalam had chosen. If indeed we're travelling south, then the Soletaken and D'ivers are all travelling north. That might be reassuring, except that if there're more shapeshifters on the way, we'll run right into them.

A thousand paces later, they came to a sunken road. Like the mechanisms in the pit, it was six arm-spans down. While dust filled the air above the cobbles, making them blurry, the steeply banked sides had not slumped. Kalam dismounted, tied a long, thin rope to his stallion's saddlehorn, then, gripping the rope's other end, began making his way down. To his surprise he did not sink into the bank. His boots crunched. The slope had been solidified somehow. Nor was it too steep for the horses.

The assassin glanced up at the others. 'This can lead us in the direction we've been travelling along, more or less. I suggest we take it — we'll make much better time.'

'Going nowhere faster,' Minala said.

Kalam grinned.

When everyone had led their mounts down, the captain spoke. 'Why not camp here for a while? We're not visible and the air's a bit cleaner.'

'And cooler,' Selv added, her arms around her all too quiet children.

'All right,' the assassin agreed.

The bladders of water for the horses were getting ominously light — the animals could last a few days on feed alone, Kalam knew, though they would suffer terribly. We're running out of time. As he unsaddled, fed and watered the horses, Minala and Keneb laid out the bedrolls, then assembled the meagre supplies that would make up their own meal. The preparations were conducted in silence.

'Can't say I'm encouraged by this place,' Keneb said as they ate.

Kalam grunted, appreciating the gradual emergence of the captain's sense of humour. 'Could do with a good sweeping,' he agreed.

'Aye. Mind you, I've seen bonfires get out of control before …'

Minala took a last sip of water, set the bladder down. 'I'm done,' she announced, rising. 'You two can discuss the weather in peace.'

They watched her. stride to her bedroll. Selv repacked the remaining food, then led her children away as well.

'It's my watch,' Kalam reminded the captain.

'I'm not tired-'

The assassin barked a laugh.

'All right, I'm tired. We all are. Thing is, this dust has us all snoring so loud we'd drown out stags in heat. I end up just lying there, staring up at what should be sky but looks more like a shroud. Throat on fire, lungs aching like they were full of sludge, eyes drier than a forgotten luckstone. We won't get any decent sleep until we've cleared this place out of our bodies-'

'We have to get out of here first.'

Keneb nodded. He glanced over to where the snores had already begun and lowered his voice. 'Any predictions on when that will be, Corporal?'

'No.'

The captain was silent a long time, then he sighed. 'You've somehow crossed blades with Minala. That's an unwelcome tension to our little family, wouldn't you say?'

Kalam said nothing.

After a moment, Keneb continued. 'Colonel Tras wanted a quiet, obedient wife, a wife to perch on his arm and make pretty sounds-'

'Not very observant, was he?'

'More like stubborn. Any horse can be broken, was his philosophy. And that's what he set about doing.'

'Was the colonel a subtle man?'

'Not even a clever one.'

'Yet Minala is both — what in Hood's name was she thinking?'

Keneb's eyes narrowed on the assassin's, as if he'd suddenly grasped something. Then he shrugged. 'She loves her sister.'

Kalam looked away with a humourless grin. 'Isn't the officer corps a wonderful life.'

Tras wasn't long for that backwater garrison post. He used his messengers to weave a broad net. He was maybe a week away from catching a new commission right at the heart of things.'

'Aren.'

'Aye.'

'You'd get the garrison command, then.'

'And ten more Imperials a month. Enough to hire good tutors for Kesen and Vaneb, instead of that wine-addled old toad with the fiddling hands attached to the garrison staff.'

'Minala doesn't look broken,' Kalam said.

'Oh, she's broken all right. Forced healing was the colonel's mainstay. It's one thing to beat a person senseless, then have to wait a month or more for her to mend before you can do it again. With a squad healer with gambling debts at your side, you can break bones before breakfast and have her ready for more come the next sunrise.'

'With you smartly saluting through it all-'

Keneb winced, glanced away. 'Can't object to what you don't know, Corporal. If I'd had as much as a suspicion …' He shook his head. 'Closed doors. It was Selv who found out, through a launderer we shared with the colonel's household. Blood on the sheets and all that. When she told me I went to call him out to the compound.' He grimaced. 'The rebellion interrupted me — I walked into an ambush well under way, and then my only concern was in keeping us all alive.'

'How did the good colonel die?'

'You've just come to a closed door, Corporal.'

Kalam smiled. 'That's all right. Times like these I can see through them well enough.'

'Then I needn't say any more.'

'Looking at Minala, none of this makes sense,' the assassin said.

'There's different kinds of strength, I guess. And defences. She used to be close with Selv, with the children. Now she wraps herself around them like armour, just as cold and just as hard. What she's having trouble with is you, Kalam. You've wrapped yourself in the same way but around her — and the rest of us.'

And she's feeling redundant? Maybe that's how it would look to Keneb. 'Her trouble with me is that she doesn't trust me, Captain.'

'Why in Hood's name not?'

Because I'm holding daggers unseen. And she knows it. Kalam shrugged. 'From what you've told me, I'd expect trust to be something she wouldn't easily grant to anyone, Captain.'

Keneb mused on this, then he sighed and rose. 'Well, enough of that. I've a shroud to stare up at and snores to count.'

Kalam watched the captain move away and settle down beside Selv. The assassin drew a deep, slow breath. I expect your death was a quick one, Colonel Tras. Be fickle, dear Hood, and spit the bastard back out. I'll kill him again, and Queen turn away, I'll not be quick.

On his belly, Fiddler wormed his way down the rock-tumbled slope, heedlessly scraping his knuckles as he held out his cocked crossbow before him. That bastard Servant's dissolving in a dozen stomachs by now. Either that or his head's riding a pike minus the ears now dangling from someone's hip.

All of Icarium's and Mappo's skills had been stretched to the limit with the simple effort of keeping everyone alive. The Whirlwind, for all its violence, was no longer an empty storm scouring a dead land. Servant's trail had led the group into a more focused mayhem.

Another lance flew out from the swirling ochre curtain to his left and landed with a clatter ten paces from where the sapper lay. Your goddess's wrath leaves you as blind as us, fool!

They were in hills crawling with Sha'ik's desert warriors. There was both coincidence and something else in this fell convergence. Convergence indeed. The followers seek the woman they're sworn to follow. Too bad that the other path happens to be here as well.

Distant screams rose above the wind's more guttural howl. ho, the hills are alive with beasts. Foul-tempered ones at that. Three times in the past hour Icarium had led them around a Soletaken or a D'ivers. There was some kind of mutually agreed avoidance going on — the shapeshifters wanted nothing to do with the Jhag. But Sha'ik's fanatics. . ah, now they're fair game. Lucky for us.

Still, the likelihood that Servant still lived seemed, to Fiddler's mind, very small indeed. He worried for Apsalar as well, and found himself-ironically — praying that a god's skills would prove equal to the task.

Two desert warriors wearing leather armour appeared ahead and below, scampering with panicked haste down towards the base of the gorge.

Fiddler hissed a curse. He was the group's flank on this side — if they got past him …

The sapper raised his crossbow.

Black cloaks swept over the two figures. They shrieked. The cloaks swarmed, crawled. Spiders, big enough to make out each one even at this distance. Fiddler's skin prickled. You should have brought brooms, friends.

He pushed himself up from the crevasse he had wedged himself into, angled right as he scrambled along the slope. And if I don't get back into Icarium's influence soon, I'll be wishing I had as well.

The screams of the desert warriors ceased, either with the distance the sapper put between him and them, or blissful release — he hoped the latter. Directly ahead rose the side of the ridge that had — thus far — marked Apsalar and her father's trail.

The wind tugged at him as he clambered his way to the top. Almost immediately he stumbled onto the spine and caught sight of the others, no more than ten paces ahead. The three were crouched over a motionless figure.

Fiddler went cold. Oh, Hood, make it a stranger...

It was. A young man, naked, his skin too pale to make him one of Sha'ik's desert tribesmen. His throat had been cut, the wound gaping down to the vertebra's flattened inner side. There was no blood.

As Fiddler slowly crouched down, Mappo looked over at the sapper. 'A Soletaken, we think,' he said.

'That's Apsalar's work,' Fiddler said. 'See how the head was pushed forward and down, chin tucked to anchor the blade — I've seen it before …'

'Then she's alive,' Crokus said.

'As I said,' Icarium rumbled. 'As is her father.'

So far so good. Fiddler straightened. 'There's no blood,' he said. 'Any idea how long ago he was killed?'

'No more than an hour,' Mappo said. 'As for the lack of blood …' He shrugged. 'The Whirlwind is a thirsty goddess.'

The sapper nodded. 'I think I'll stick closer from now on, if you don't mind — I don't think we'll have any more trouble from Sha'ik's warriors — call it a gut feeling.'

Mappo nodded. 'For the moment, we ourselves walk the Path of Hands.'

And why is that, I wonder?

They resumed their journey. Fiddler mused on the half-dozen times he'd seen desert warriors in the past twelve hours. Desperate men and women in truth. Raraku was the centre of the Apocalypse, yet the rebellion was headless and had been for some time. What was going on beyond the Holy Desert's ring of crags?

Anarchy, I'd wager. Slaughter and frenzy. Hearts of ice and the mercy of cold steel. Even if the illusion of Sha'ik is being maintained — her ranking followers now issuing commands — she's not led her army out to make it the rebellion's lodestone. Doesn't sit well proclaiming an uprising, then not showing up to lead it…

Apsalar would have her hands full, should she accept the role. An assassin's skills might keep her alive, but they offered nothing of the intangible magnetism necessary to lead armies. Commanding armies was easy enough — the traditional structures ensured that, as the barely competent Fists of the Malazan Empire clearly showed — but leading was another thing entirely.

Fiddler could think of only a handful of people possessing that magnetic quality. Dassem Ultor, Prince K'azz D'Avore of the Crimson Guard, Caladan Brood and Dujek Onearm. Tattersail if she'd had the ambition. Likely Sha'ik herself. And Whiskeyjack.

As alluring as Apsalar was, the sapper had seen nothing of such force of personality. Competence, without a doubt. Quiet confidence as well. But she clearly preferred observing over participating — at least until the time came to draw the sticker. Assassins don't bother honing their powers to persuade — why bother? She'll need the right people around her. .

Fiddler scowled to himself. He'd already taken it as given that the lass would assume the guise, twined to the central thread of this goddess-woven tapestry. And here we are, racing through the Whirlwind. . to arrive in time to witness the prophetic rebirth.

Eyes narrowed against the blowing grit, the sapper glanced at Crokus. The lad strode half a dozen paces ahead, a step behind Icarium. Even leaning as he did into the biting wind, he betrayed something fraught and fragile in his posture. She'd said nothing to him before leaving — she'd dismissed him and his concerns as easily as she did the rest of us. Pust offered her father to seal the pact. But sent him out here first. That suggested the old man was a willing player in the scheme, a co'conspirator. If I was that lass, I'd have some hard questions for ol' Dadda...

On all sides, the Whirlwind seemed to howl with laughter.

The bruise was vaguely door-shaped and twice a man's height. Pearl paced before it, muttering to himself, while Lostara Yil watched in weary patience.

Finally he turned, as if suddenly recalling her presence. 'Complications, my dear. I am … torn.'

The Red Blade eyed the portal. 'Has the assassin left the warren, then? This does not look the same as the other one …'

The Claw wiped ash from his brow, leaving a dusky streak. 'Ah, no. This represents a … a detour. I'm the last surviving operative, after all. The Empress so despises idle hands …' He gave her a wry smile, then shrugged. 'This is not my only concern, alas. We are being tracked.'

She felt a chill at those words. 'We should double back, then. Prepare an ambush-'

Pearl grinned, waved an arm. 'Choose us a likely place, then. Please.'

She glanced around. Flat horizons in all directions. 'What of those raised humps we passed a while back?'

'Never mind those,' the Claw said. 'Safe distance the first time and no closer now.'

'Then that pit…'

'Mechanisms to measure futility. I think not, my dear. For the moment, I fear, we must ignore that which stalks us-'

'What if it's Kalam?'

'It isn't. Thanks to you, we're keeping our eyes on him. Our assassin's mind wanders, and so therefore does his path. An embarrassing lack of discipline for one so weighty. I admit I am disappointed in the man.' He swung to face the portal. 'In any case, we have digressed a rather vast distance here. A small measure of assistance is required — not lengthy, I assure you. The Empress agrees that Kalam's journey suggests … personal risks to her person, and so must take ultimate precedence. Nonetheless…'

The Claw removed his half-cloak, carefully folding it before setting it down. Across his chest was a belt containing throwing stars. A brace of knives jutted pommel-forward under his left arm. Pearl went through a ritual of checking every weapon.

'Do I wait here?'

'As you like. While I cannot guarantee your safety if you accompany me, I am for a skirmish.'

'The enemy?'

'Followers of the Whirlwind.'

Lostara Yil unsheathed her tulwar.

Pearl grinned, as if well aware of the effect his words would have. 'When we appear, it shall be night. Thick mists, as well. Our foes are Semk and Tithansi, and our allies-'

'Allies? This is a skirmish already underway?'

'Oh, indeed. Wickans and marines of the Seventh.'

Lostara bared her teeth. 'Coltaine.'

His grin broadening, Pearl drew on a pair of thin leather gloves. 'Ideally,' he continued, 'we should remain unseen.'

'Why?'

'If help appears once, the expectation is it will appear again. The risk is dulling Coltaine's edge, and by the Hidden Ones, the Wickan will need that edge in the weeks to come.'

'I am ready.'

'One thing,' the Claw drawled. 'There's a Semk demon. Stay away from it, for while we know virtually nothing of its powers, what we do know suggests an appalling … temper.'

'I shall be right behind you,' Lostara said.

'Hmm, in that case, once we're through, pull left. I'll go right. Not an auspicious entry my getting trampled, after all.'

The portal flared. In a blur Pearl slid forward and vanished. Lostara jabbed her heels into her mount's flanks. The horse bolted through the portal-

— her hooves thumping hard soil. Fog twisted wildly around her, through a darkness that was alive with screams and detonations. She'd already lost Pearl, but that concern was quickly flung aside as four Tithansi warriors on foot stumbled into view.

A sharper had chewed them up, and none was prepared as Lostara charged them, her tulwar flashing. They scattered, but their wounds made them fatally slow. Two fell to her blade with the first pass. She spun her horse to ready a return charge.

The other two warriors were nowhere to be seen, the mists closing in like slowly tumbling blankets. A flurry of sound to her left brought her wheeling her horse around, in time to see Pearl sprint into view. He spun in midstride and sent a star flashing behind him.

The huge, bestial man that lumbered into sight had his head rocked back as the iron star embedded itself in his forehead. It barely slowed him.

Lostara snarled, quickly dropping the tulwar to swing wildly from the loop around her wrist as she brought her crossbow around.

Her shot went low, the quarrel sinking in just below the Semk's sternum and above the odd thick leather belts protecting his midriff. It proved far more efficacious than Pearl's star. As the man grunted and buckled, she saw with shock that his mouth and nostrils had been sewn shut. He draws no breath! Here's our demon!

The Semk straightened, flinging his arms forward. The power that erupted from them was unseen, but both Pearl and Lostara were thrown, tumbling through the air. The horse screamed in mortal agony amidst a rapid crunching and cracking of bones.

The Red Blade landed on her right hip, feeling the bone resound within her like a fractured bell. Then waves of pain closed taloned hands around her leg. Her bladder went, flooding her underclothes in a hot bloom.

Moccasined feet landed beside her. A knife grip was thrust into her hand. 'Take yourself once I'm done! Here it comes!'

Teeth clenched, Lostara Yil twisted around.

The Semk demon was ten paces away, huge and unstoppable. Pearl crouched between them, holding knives that dripped red fire. Lostara knew he considered himself already dead.

The thing that suddenly closed from the demon's left was a nightmare. Black, three-limbed, a jutting shoulder blade like a cowl behind a long-necked head, a grinning jaw crowded with fangs, and a single, flat black eye that glistened wetly.

Even more terrifying was the humanoid figure that sat behind that shoulder blade, its face a mocking mimicry of the beast it rode, the lips peeled back to reveal daggerlike fangs as long as a toddler's fingers, its lone eye flashing.

The apparition struck the Semk demon like a runaway armoured wagon. The single forelimb snapped forward to plunge deep into the demon's belly, then pulled back in an explosion of spurting fluids. Clenched in that forelimb's grip was something that radiated fury in palpable waves. The air went icy.

Pearl backed away until his heels struck Lostara, then he reached down one hand, eyes still on the scene, and gripped her weapon harness.

The Semk's body seemed to fold in on itself as it staggered back. The apparition reared, still clutching the fleshy, dripping object.

Its rider made a grab for it, but the creature hissed, twisting to keep it out of his reach. Instead it flung the object away into the mists.

The Semk stumbled after it.

The apparition's long head swung to face Lostara and Pearl with that ghastly grin.

'Thank you,' Pearl whispered.

A portal blossomed around them.

Lostara blinked up at a dull, ash-laden sky. There was no sound but their breathing. Safe. A moment later unconsciousness slipped over her like a shroud.