Fall of Light

SEVENTEEN

Captain Hallyd Bahann could well recall his season of terror as a child, when a pack of wild dogs, driven out of the forest by wolves, had invaded the village. The creatures knew no fear. Three villagers, two women and an old man, had been pulled down, torn apart outside their own homes. When a dozen adults gathered weapons and set out to kill the beasts, the dogs vanished into the hills. A hunt was organized, but though the well-armed, mounted party scoured the broken crags, ravines and draws, they found few signs and spent three fruitless days of searching before returning home.

A week later, two children vanished while playing in a yard, leaving behind tatters of gory clothing and blood-splashed wooden toys.

The village was young, the homes new and the ground of the farms surrounding it only recently broken. The pocket forest skirting the shallow river that curled round the raised oxbow upon which the village had been built still held enough trees to be considered wild. Hallyd Bahann’s father had set out the morning after the children had disappeared, riding north. That night, alone with his cloying mother, who’d made fear a way of life, Hallyd had shivered with dread, unwittingly drinking in his mother’s terror. He could still remember that night, mapped like a brand on his soul.

His father returned the next day, with company. At his side trotted a fur-clad savage, pock-scarred and covered in matted hair. The stranger smelled foul. He ate raw meat and slept through the afternoon in filth of his own making, near the back door of the house. With the sun setting, he rose, and Hallyd recalled watching the man lope out into the gloom.

The stranger returned three days later, dragging a mass of boiled skulls on a rope. There had been, it turned out, twenty-six dogs in the feral pack. In payment, he was given a cask of cider, which he drank while sitting on the ground in the front yard. The liquor made him vicious, growling when anyone drew near – as word went out, and curious villagers came by to look at the skulls, and at the Jheleck who had collected them – but eventually the cask was empty, and the hunter passed out.

He was gone when Hallyd woke the next morning, though the dog skulls remained, heaped into a pyramid. Hallyd’s father cursed upon discovering that the Jheleck had stolen the empty cask.

To this day, the dogs gave shape – flitting and deadly – to Hallyd Bahann’s fears, and in his nightmares he often saw their bared fangs, and imagined in their eyes something remorseless, untamable.

The scout was huddled before him, shivering, wrapped in furs. A soldier of the Legion, reduced to this pitiful state.

‘We were on her trail. We were closing in. Then everything changed – the night came alive. Arrows, sir, they attacked us with arrows, as if we were wild beasts! Deniers. I was in a squad, me and four others. I alone escaped. There were hundreds, captain, moving in packs – those wretched, stinking forest-grubbers – and we thought we’d killed them all!’

Weary, disgusted, Hallyd waved the soldier away. Two of his guards closed in, dragged the man out of the tent. Nothing disappointed him more than seeing a soldier reduced by terror. You ran, you fool, abandoning your squad-mates. You ran, when you should have stood your ground, when you should have fought. Even so, at least now he knew what awaited them behind the treeline to the west. The hunt for Sharenas was now incidental. It seemed that they were far from done with the Deniers.

Arrows. The coward’s way. Well, that should not surprise anyone.

Wicker shields. But where will we find what we need to make them?

‘Lieutenant Esk!’

The tent flap was tugged aside and a tall, willowy woman entered, armour clanking. ‘Captain?’

‘You commanded the south flank yesterday, yes? Did you draw within sight of Manaleth?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘What flag rode the high winds?’

‘Neither the lord nor the lady was present in the keep, sir.’

‘You are certain of that?’

‘Yes sir.’

Hallyd Bahann rose, grunting at a twinge in his lower back. He’d never much liked riding. ‘It’s the worst of winter – what’s driven the highborn out from their keep, I wonder?’

Lieutenant Esk had no suggestions.

‘Assemble twenty of our best, lieutenant, for some night work. We’re taking that keep, by stealth if at all possible.’

‘Sir?’

‘We need to resupply, lieutenant. Do you imagine the castellan would be generous to the enemy?’

‘No sir.’

Seeing her hesitate, he said, ‘Go on, out with it.’

‘Thus far, sir, we have not overtly drawn noble blood-’

‘Lord Andarist would beg to differ.’

‘But no such accusation has been formally levelled, has it, sir?’

‘You have something to suggest?’

She nodded. ‘Sir, the word’s out, from the surviving scouts who reached us. The Deniers are now organized, and since that is so, then it follows that someone is doing the organizing. It would be a stretch to imagine the forest-grubbers managing that on their own. I understand the Shake monasteries have proclaimed themselves neutral, but they do share the same faith, sir.’

‘Go on. I am intrigued.’

‘Yannis and Yedan monasteries, sir. If stealth can win us entry into Manalle’s keep, then why not the monasteries? In terms of resupply, we could do no better, and besides, we would be effectively removing the Shake from the field, and thereby not have to rely on their promises of neutrality. Besides, how much faith can we place in goodwill, sir, in the midst of civil war?’

‘An attack, justified by the charge that their agents have turned their forest-dwelling followers into an army?’

‘As I said, sir, someone is organizing the forest-grubbers. Who else would have reason to do so? And more to the point, who else could claim the authority?’

‘The priestly warriors of the Shake, lieutenant, are formidable. It won’t be like facing the Wardens.’

‘Stealth, sir, as you said. A night attack, an opened gate. If we catch them unawares.’

Hallyd considered. There was merit to this. What a coup it would be! Hunn Raal would have no choice, then, but to acknowledge Hallyd Bahann as second only to Raal himself. The annihilation of the Shake was tactically sound. Esk was right – it would be foolish to trust in that official pronouncement of neutrality.

We could loot the temples, strip their stores, their weapons. We could cut out the heart of their pathetic cult. But most of all, we will be ending the old line of regal blood, thereby eliminating any complications for the future. No possible rivals to the thrones, not with Sheccanto and Skelenal dead.

‘Inform your fellow officers, Esk, we ride southeast, to Yannis.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Oh, and how many scouts made it back?’

‘Eleven thus far, sir.’

‘Execute them on charges of cowardice and abandoning their comrades. Cowardice is rot and I’ll not see it fester in my ranks.’

‘Yes sir.’

For years, Hallyd had believed that the lone Jheleck had killed with his own hands all those wild dogs, only to overhear, one day, an offhand comment from his father. The savage had simply poisoned the animals with tainted meat. The lesson shifted in Hallyd’s mind, then, from notions of appalling prowess and physical might to the elegance of cold expedience. And for that, the fool got paid in cider and a single cask. Even the cunning can be witless. In that man’s place, I would have demanded ten horses, or more.

‘How big a fool was that hunter, son?’ his father had asked when they’d discussed it. ‘Poison. I could have done the same to the cider.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘No point. Either way, it’s a fouled cask.’

Hallyd Bahann began dressing in his armour. Fouled cask. Yes. When I return, Hunn Raal, I’ll see your forced smile, feel your brittle clasp of congratulations upon my shoulder, and see you struggle to keep your footing firm.

But fear not, when all is said and done, and we’ve ridden through the gates of the Citadel, trailing our collection of skulls, you and I will share a drink. But then, I could never match you cup for cup, so I’ll take instead some mulled wine, and leave to you the cask.

We’ll toast your cunning and mine, and then take measure of the wits between them.

He paused, thinking about the drunken fool, sweaty and clumsy as he struggled to pleasure Tathe Lorat. Indeed, by the time he returned, she would have unmanned him utterly.

We’ll make of him our fool, and when he is finished, why, we’ll turn upon Urusander himself. Old man, you had your glory, but those days are long past, now. Father Light is but a title, and one that, I wager, can be worn by any of us.

Ah, my friends, the days ahead will be adventurous.

* * *

Wearing cloaks of unbleached fleece, Master-at-arms Gelas Storco and Sergeant Threadbare lay well concealed upon the ridge, amidst ash-grey ribs of snow, exposed granite and withered grass. The sergeant held a seeing tube to one eye. It was said to be Jaghut in origin, and had been in the possession of Greater House Manaleth for more than two centuries. Threadbare, leader of the company of scouts and trackers, had explained the inner workings of the brass and blackwood tube, but talk of mirrors and polished lenses made little sense to Gelas.

No matter. That it could see farther than the naked eye was all that mattered. The master-at-arms shifted slightly, as the cold of the ground seeped up through his garments. ‘Well?’

‘I wager three hundred,’ Threadbare replied, her breath a stream of white. ‘They’re definitely doubling back.’

‘So, not the forest after all, and more important, not us either.’

‘So it seems, sir. Inviting the question, where now? Have they tucked tail?’

Gelas Storco grunted. ‘Tell me again what that fool said.’

Three nights past, before the appearance of Hallyd Bahann’s company, a half-dead Legion scout had arrived at the keep gate. He had been fevered and wounded. Threadbare had found the stubs of two hunting arrows in the man’s back. Skilled at healing, she had worked on him through the night, cutting out the flint heads, but too much blood had been lost, and what remained was now poisoned by infection. The scout had died even as dawn broke the eastern horizon.

Threadbare lowered the eye-piece, rolled on to her side to face him. ‘Thousands in the forest, hunting Legion soldiers, chasing them down, shooting them with arrows.’

‘But Hunn Raal’s soldiers swept that forest, killing everyone. We saw the fires, breathed the damned smoke. Abyss below, we heard the screams.’

‘I’ve given that some thought, sir.’

He grimaced. ‘I’m sure you have. You’re always giving thought to things, Threadbare. It’s why I keep you close, so I don’t have to.’

‘Yes sir. Well, the Legion invaded the forest at the season’s turn. The Deniers have the strange habit of dividing up their activities. Women gather and harvest, staying close to the camps, keeping an eye on the children along with the elders.’

‘What do the men do, then? Sit around picking their arses?’

‘I said it was strange, sir. When they’re not picking their arses, the men go off on hunts. Off in search of the herds when the migrations are under way.’

‘What migrations? More to the point, what herds?’

‘It was a traditional thing. To my mind, sir, it’s as much an excuse to get away from domestic life as anything else.’

‘You mean, the men have fun sleeping on cold ground, cooking wretched meals all on their own, and otherwise making pigs of themselves?’

‘Well, sir, they are ignorant savages.’

‘You think the Legion missed the hunters, but now the hunters have returned, only to find their wives and children slaughtered.’

‘If so, sir, then that forest over there is a realm consumed by rage.’

‘So Bahann indeed tucked tail and is on his way back to Neret Sorr.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, sir. It’s more likely they thought that war done with, only to now realize that it’s barely begun. But who commands the forest savages?’

‘No one, that’s why they’re savages.’

‘And their faith?’

Gelas scowled. ‘Ah.’ He wagged a finger at her. ‘See, I’m cleverer than you think. Bahann’s going to attack the monasteries.’

‘I was thinking just the same, sir.’

His gaze narrowed on her. So innocent and pretty. ‘What am I good at, sergeant?’

‘Sir?’

‘Describe my talents, as you see them.’

‘Well, sir. You conduct a reign of terror over your Houseblades, but you’re fair about it, in that you don’t count favourites. So, even while we all hate you, it’s a disciplined hate, and when you issue orders, we obey. And why wouldn’t we? You’ll be at the forefront of any nasty work, because you’re nastier than all the rest of us, on account of you being angry all the time-’

‘You can shut your mouth now, Threadbare.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Since you know all that, sergeant, you needn’t bother with all that ghee you’re lathering my way. Yes, I figured it out. Good for me. But now we’re looking at a new problem, aren’t we?’

‘With our lady gone, it’s down to you, sir, to decide whether we warn the monasteries or not.’

Gelas nodded. He shifted again. ‘This snow’s not melting under me at all, dammit.’

‘That’s not snow, sir, it’s bedrock.’

‘Ah, that explains it then. Where was I? Right. Decisions.’

‘Urusander’s Legion is the enemy, sir. And Bahann’s out from under Raal’s wing, with but three hundred soldiers. If we warn Yannis and Yedan, how many warriors can they muster? Five hundred? Six? Are they good fighters?’

‘They’re utter pigs, Threadbare, and no, I’d not want to mess with them.’

‘Just so. The question then is, sir, is there any tactical value to seeing Bahann and his three hundred cut to pieces, while at the same time forcing the monasteries to relinquish their neutrality and side with us? Big losses for Raal, big gains for the highborn and Mother Dark.’

He studied her. ‘You’re saying it’s obvious, aren’t you?’

‘Sir?’

He pointed at the eye-piece in her hands. ‘Tell me again how that works.’

‘There is a mirror and three lenses perfectly fitted-’

‘Shut your mouth, Threadbare.’

‘Yes sir.’

He slithered back from the ridge, rose and brushed snow from his thighs. ‘Back to the keep. We need to send out a rider.’

‘To warn the monasteries, sir?’ She remained lying on her bed of yellow grasses, not even cold though her cheeks glowed, with clear eyes that reminded him how many decades it had been since he’d last caught the regard of anything as young and as beautiful as this woman.

‘I trust you all understand,’ he said to her, ‘that the hate is entirely mutual.’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘But having said that, I’d step into a blade’s path for every damned one of you.’

‘That too, sir, is mutual.’

He grunted. It would have to do.

* * *

After a night of freezing rain, the battlements of Vanut Keep glistened, the ice capturing the morning sunlight in sparks that flared and dripped. But already water had begun flowing down the sheathed stone flanks of the solid walls and squat towers, until it seemed as if the walls were melting.

Word had come of three riders on the road below, bound, presumably, for Kharkanas. Lady Degalla, already mounted and in position at the head of the train, alongside Lady Manalle, now beckoned closer the sergeant of the tower’s watch. ‘Do they bear a standard, Mivik?’

The young Houseblade shook his head.

Manalle said, ‘Then they’re not mine, Degalla. Besides, if Gelas had need of delivering an urgent message, he’d send one, not three, and that one would be Threadbare.’

Degalla’s husband, who along with Manalle’s spouse would be riding behind his wife, barked a laugh. ‘That is an odd name, milady.’

‘She arrived with it,’ Manalle replied. ‘A child of Wardens, I believe, but before they ever acquired that title. The first discoverers of the Vitr did not immediately formalize their obsession, Jureg. In any case, it’s Threadbare who carries the important news.’

Manalle was ever pleased to display the breadth of her learning, which was only occasionally onerous. Her other habit, alas, was to run away with her monologue, quickly leading the conversation astray. Most of the time, Degalla was content to suffer Manalle’s entirely subconscious need to be the centre of everyone’s attention – as if her looks weren’t enough for that - and she was relieved that her husband had simply smiled and nodded and bitten back his serpent’s tongue that could, if he so chose, drip with acerbic venom.

Degalla cleared her throat. Toleration of guests was deemed a virtue. ‘Now that it has been determined that the riders below are not delivering a message from Manaleth, perhaps we should determine who is upon the road below. Jureg, do accompany me. Lady Manalle, please remain in the care of my Houseblades for the moment, as the safety of my guests must ever remain uppermost in my mind.’

With that, she nudged her horse forward, Jureg falling in beside her, and they rode clear of the gate and on to the winding cobbled track leading down to the road below.

Winter traffic was rare in the best of times, and apart from an unexpected visit from Captain Sharenas over a month past, the tower watch had seen no one riding either from or to Kharkanas since the first snows. Footprints had been noted on occasion, as refugees crossed the road in the dead of night, seeking whatever sanctuary they could find in the forest to the north, but the coming and going of Deniers was of little interest to Degalla.

The three riders below had either heard or seen their approach from the keep’s steep track, and were now drawn up, awaiting them.

‘Two nights,’ Jureg said, ‘and I’m of a mind to flee to Urusander to kiss his sword.’

‘Oh, she’s not that bad,’ Degalla said. ‘The overly schooled are always at risk of becoming insufferable.’

‘Her armour of knowledge is proof against my keenest jibes,’ Jureg replied sourly.

‘Indeed, you can only crush such a creature with knowledge superior to her own. Or the sweeter cut that is common sense. However, should a theory be easily shredded by an utterance of the obvious, then you’ll have made a lifelong enemy. Be warned of that, husband.’

They had slowed their mounts, as the cobbles were slick, the slope treacherous. ‘Hedeg Lesser wears the smile of the punch-drunk,’ Jureg observed. ‘I wager she describes the origin of every carnal position, and finds heat not in the act, but in the deluge of words beneath which she drowns all spontaneity. In her husband’s eyes there is the dulled despair of the defeated: a victim of explanations.’

‘Have you only pity for Hedeg, then?’

‘He stirs to life in her absence, but it takes work. I’ve yet to decide the effort’s worth.’

‘Well, we will share their company for some days yet, in our yielding to Hish Tulla’s invitation.’

The track levelled out momentarily, and then swung round into the final descent, and at this point they found themselves close enough to discern the three riders in detail.

‘Ah,’ murmured Degalla.

Her husband said nothing.

Close to the keep’s gate, Lady Manalle and her husband, Hedeg Lesser, had edged their mounts some distance from the Vanut Houseblades, sufficient for the pair to speak without being overheard.

Below, their hosts picked their way down the slick track.

‘I swear,’ muttered Manalle, ‘if I must witness yet one more exchange of knowing looks between those two, I will weather the curse of murder, guest-named or not. Worse, I may well descend into torture, out of sheer malice.’

Her husband tugged at his close-trimmed, greying beard. ‘Careful, beloved. That’s not a curse thinned by blood or years. Would you truly consign our family to everlasting condemnation?’

‘I am tempted. It is the selfish pleasure that most easily forgets consequence.’

‘Then there is her venal brother to consider. Lord Vanut would delight in a blood feud.’

‘Wretched family,’ muttered Manalle.

Her husband nodded in commiseration, and then asked, ‘Who are those riders, do you think? Emissaries from Urusander?’

‘I doubt that. Such would bear a standard, bold and diffident as befits both their vulnerability and their arrogance.’ She glanced over and was pleased to see her husband’s appreciative smile. There had been no accident in the inversion of her last statement. Diffident arrogance and bold vulnerability – what sweeter descriptive for emissaries of the Legion, coming among the highborn with belligerent promises of peace and preening threat? ‘Perhaps,’ she ventured, ‘survivors from the Wardens.’ A moment later she shook her head. ‘I still cannot fathom Ilgast Rend’s stupidity.’

‘If word of the slaughter at Andarist’s estate had reached him, Manalle, might you not forgive him his outrage?’

‘Then let him beat fists against a tree. Not waste thousands of lives in a futile gesture. He made us all seem precipitous, enslaved by base needs. Never mind Urusander – none of this is his game – it is Hunn Raal’s, and Hunn Raal is a clever man.’

‘When sober.’

‘His every stumble invites you to underestimate him, husband.’

‘She should have included us in the ride down,’ Hedeg said. ‘It was a deliberate snub.’

Manalle shrugged. ‘We would have done the same at the gates of Manaleth.’

‘To mark our irritation, yes. But what cause has she to be irritated with us? We are ever courteous, even as Degalla mocks your superior intelligence, while Jureg clumsily gropes for secrets in his witless conversations with me.’

‘Be at ease, husband. We prove their betters with patience.’

Hedeg said nothing. They had begun their exchange voicing positions opposite its conclusion: for all his wife’s brilliance, she was ever at risk of lending fangs to her contempt. The time for feuds was not now. But as she has counselled, patience. Once these lowborn thugs are dispensed with, then, Lady Degalla, my wife will face you with drawn blade, for all the slights we list here.

‘I never much liked Hish Tulla,’ said Manalle.

Of course not. Even more beautiful than you, and better with any weapon you’d care to name. Of course you hate her, beloved. Tutors can teach nothing about envy, beyond their own, and those rivalries and petty feuds give proof of their own failure in managing it. His wife was indeed brilliant, but this did little to constrain the swirl of base emotions churning beneath that genius. Erudition offered the illusion of objectivity, as befitted learned opinion, but the venal thing beneath had the face of a spoiled child.

Ah, wife, if you but guessed at the generosity of my love for you …

Degalla raised a gauntleted hand in greeting. ‘Emissaries of the Shake,’ she said, ignoring for the moment the peculiar presence of a Warden. ‘You ride to Kharkanas? Are we to find significance in that?’

The warlock – she thought he might be named Resh, though her memory was uncertain – shrugged at her questions. ‘Lady Degalla. Jureg Thaw. I see, among the retinue at the gate, two standards. You have been hosting Lady Manalle and Hedeg Lesser. It’s curious to see the highborn out in this bleak season.’

Jureg spoke. ‘Warlock Resh, you have found yourself a survivor from the Wardens. But the Shake are hardly known for their largesse, much less sympathy. Is she a prisoner?’

The third figure was covered in a hood of black wolf fur, the skin draped over his habit, but something in his posture led Degalla to suspect who it was who had elected to remain hidden from them. She recalled hearing of an incident, outside the door to the Chamber of Night. Smiling at the hooded figure, she said, ‘I am told Lord Anomander displayed forbearance upon the threshold to Mother Dark’s holy sanctuary. But surely it is known that he no longer resides in the Citadel, leaving such matters to Silchas Ruin.’

Resh tilted his shaggy head. ‘What matters are you referring to, milady?’

‘Why, the protection of Mother Dark, of course. I would not think the approach unguarded. Nor should you.’

But her words elicited nothing from the hooded man slumped on his horse. Perhaps, she considered, she had been wrong. An instant later she amended her position. It was, she felt certain, Caplo Dreem within those shadows.

‘Shall we be sharing the road, milady?’ Resh asked.

‘For a time,’ she replied.

Her husband cleared his throat. ‘There are rumours – signs – that Deniers remain in the forest, and have grown belligerent.’

‘If so, we’ve not heard about it,’ the warlock replied. ‘In any case, what need have we to fear our followers?’

‘Your followers?’ Jureg frowned. ‘And how did you heed their pleas for help this summer past?’

‘We made what offers of refuge we could.’

‘For the children, yes, as surety to your future. But I understand that few lived long enough to ever reach your monastery gates.’

‘Are these matters of some concern among the highborn, Jureg? If so, why?’

‘Neutrality will avail you nothing,’ her husband replied. ‘You are ruled by an old woman and an even older man. Inaction and fear of change plague their every moment, and that infirmity seems to have infected the rest of you. Should Lord Urusander win this war, warlock, do you truly imagine that he will leave you alone? Or, rather, will Hunn Raal leave you alone? Will the new High Priestess of Light? Yours is a misplaced faith, by any measure.’

The Warden snorted. ‘This is pathetic. There is nothing here worth hiding. Ladies Degalla and Manalle are setting out with their husbands and a retinue of servants and guards. Presumably, one of the highborn has called for a meeting – that it’s taken this long is the only reason for being coy. I’d be just as embarrassed under the circumstances. As for us, why, Warlock Resh wishes to examine the nature of the Terondai. Sorcery now seethes through Kurald Galain – is this a consequence of Lord Draconus’s gift? Or was the Azathanai, T’riss, the source? Is it not wise to determine the source of this magic before indulging in it?’

After a long moment, Degalla shook her head. ‘And your perusal of a pattern on a floor requires the presence of an assassin? No, Warden, but I’ll grant you your innocence, and conclude that you have been deceived by your companions.’

At that, Caplo Dreem finally lifted his head, drawing back his hood. He smiled at Degalla. ‘I can hear them,’ he said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Hedeg and Manalle. They speak quietly, but are beneath the arch of the gatehouse, sending down sufficient echo. I can hear their every word.’

Degalla twisted round, stared up at her distant guests, and the steep, long climb to where they sat astride their horses. ‘Impossible,’ she said.

‘What are they saying?’ Jureg asked.

Caplo’s strange eyes remained fixed on Degalla. ‘They revel in their contempt for you, milady. More, there is a smell about Hedeg, hinting of some future violence, with you the victim. It is likened to a licking of the lips, a sudden heat of pleasure beneath the skin of the face, a darkening gleam in the pools of the eye. Indulging in anticipation is a sensual repast for those two. They have long shared a fiery bed of vindictive lust, and the coals run deep.’

Jureg shot Degalla a glance. ‘Manalle believes herself superior with the blade.’

‘Fear not,’ Caplo replied. ‘Her intelligence is a fortress no doubt can vanquish, but in the matter of crossing swords, it will prove her undoing. It is not the keenest wit that guides a weapon master’s hand, but the easy surrender to instinct, and the faith such a thing demands. Manalle cannot relinquish control, and this will one day kill her.’

‘Be silent, assassin,’ snapped Degalla, but she eyed Caplo in consternation. There was something uncanny about the man, something wild and barely constrained. ‘You presume beyond all reason.’

‘Perhaps I do,’ he said, offering her a feral smile.

Resh stirred. ‘Milady?’

‘Warlock?’

‘We have reason to believe that Lord Urusander will not wait until winter’s end. Even now, his legion prepares to march.’

It seemed that the presumption was far from done. ‘And you offer us this for what purpose?’

‘You have little time, milady. If Lord Anomander has left the Citadel, then he has abrogated his responsibility. It might be wise to elect for yourselves a new warlord.’ He paused, and then waved a hand. ‘To be honest, seen from the outside, does Anomander truly reflect your cause? I would think the man rages and may well be consumed by the need for vengeance, in his brother’s name.’

‘You are free with your advice, warlock. Whom then do you propose?’

‘Why, the one who would lose the most, milady, is surely the one who would fight the hardest.’

After a moment, Jureg spat.

Degalla stared at Resh in disbelief.

‘But then,’ Resh continued in a drawl, ‘Draconus is not well liked among the highborn, is he? Despite his fame as a commander and his prowess on the field of battle. Despite the zeal with which he would apply himself to the cause of maintaining things as they are. Despite his incorruptible nature. Alas, the poor man’s crime is being loved by your goddess-’

‘If loved then she would have married him!’

‘Oh? And that would sit well with you?’

Degalla said nothing.

His voice a rasp, Jureg said, ‘I trust you are eager to be on your way. Give our regards to the painted floor, warlock.’

Receiving the dismissal with indifference, the three set off once more, and soon vanished round a bend in the track.

‘He was baiting you-’

‘I know what he was doing!’

‘Something about the assassin …’

‘Never mind him,’ she said.

‘Wife?’

‘The woman, the Warden.’

‘What of her?’

‘Perhaps it was but a trick of the light, but for an instant there, I could swear she was wearing a circlet of gold. A crown.’

‘I saw nothing like that.’

After a long moment, Degalla shook her head. ‘Of course not. You are right.’

‘Still,’ Jureg said in a low murmur, ‘I cannot but wonder …’

‘What now, husband?’

‘If Caplo could indeed hear Manalle and Hedeg, from so far away … perhaps we must assume he has heard us just now, as well.’

She glared at him.

* * *

‘Why did you speak so of Draconus?’ Finarra Stone demanded, once they were well beyond the two highborn.

Resh shrugged. ‘They irritated me.’

‘So you sent a viper into their snug bed. Does being petty please you?’

‘Sometimes,’ he admitted.

Caplo surprised her by speaking. ‘I was once a man with few doubts, Warden. Until the day I looked into Father Skelenal’s eyes, and saw in them a truth I could not countenance. Our god has been slain, but in the time before that death – in the decade upon decade of service and worship – that old man was a monster in our midst. We knew it, and yet we did nothing. In his eyes, Warden, I saw us all reflected, and liked it not.’

‘I am not aware of anything monstrous,’ Finarra said, ‘but then, why would I be? Yours is a secretive temple.’

‘Secretive, yes. Curious, isn’t it, how that habit so quickly devours propriety, decency, integrity, and indeed love. Beware any congress, Warden, that indulges in secrecy – you can be certain that it does not have your interests in mind, nor will it accord you the proper respect as befits the innocent, or, as they might label you, the ignorant. The secretive mind starts at every shadow, for it has peopled its world with suspicion.’

‘You describe a poisonous pit, Caplo, one in which I have no desire to dwell.’

‘Such a congress assembles a world in which assassins are necessary,’ Caplo said. ‘Such a congress may speak and act in the name of justice, but in justice it does not believe. Its only faith lies in efficacy, and the illusion of control it offers.’

‘In your world, then,’ said Finarra, ‘hope is fruitless.’

‘Not at all, Warden. That fruit is well fermented, and given freely to the uninitiated, until drunks stagger down every street, sleep in every alley. Hope is the wine, forgetfulness the reward. We will pour it down your throats from the moment of your birth, until the instant of your blessed death.’

‘You propose an end to secrecy, Caplo Dreem?’

‘I have the eyes to pierce every shadow. The ears to track every footfall. I have the claws to carve out the hidden-away, huddling in their hidden places. But imagine, Warden, my bitter gift, and its grisly promise. Exposure. Revelation. The insipid laid bare, the liars dragged out into day’s light, all the venal creatures who so thrive with their secrets.’

Warlock Resh sighed, loudly. ‘He goes on like this, Finarra Stone. Promises of … something cataclysmic.’

She grunted. ‘I’ve seen the same promise countless times, warlock, in the eyes of the fort’s mouser.’

There was a pause, and then Resh laughed.

Scowling, Caplo made much of drawing his hood back up, once more hiding his face.

* * *

There had been a child filled with laughter, and though she possessed her name, Lahanis recalled little of that strange – and strangely frail – creature who had dwelt so blissfully among the Borderswords. It was a memory that dwelt in summer meadows, or racing beneath the shadows of massive trees, with insects buzzing in and out of startling sunlight, and the sound of a warm wind through leaves. Boys had chased her, but she was quicker than any of them, cleverer besides. Though young, perhaps impossibly so, she had made a game of their desires, and found it easy to mock their confusion, their troubled urges for something more. The awakening of mysteries must have haunted her as well, she suspected, but she had no recollection of that. Every scene pulled from the past found that laughing child at the centre of a web, in command of everything, but understanding nothing.

The girl, with her piping laughter, belonged in a world of delusion, not yet spun dangerous, not yet tangled and treacherous. The seasons fought wars in her memory, but each time, echoed by the shrill peal of the girl’s voice, summer emerged triumphant, filling the world left behind with scented air on soft breezes and stubborn flowers disdainful of spring’s bright but brief glory.

Laughter was lost now, and Lahanis could think of it only as a child’s toy, dropped on to the ground, forgotten amidst the tufts of yellowed grasses that rose unevenly above the snow like broken baskets. Summer too was dead, its death-cry fading on cold winds, its funeral made into its own season of leaves falling like ashes. And the child who had known both laughter and summer, who had dwelt in that lively, colour-splashed world, well, somewhere her bones hid beneath the glittering skin and lifeless muscle of ice and snow.

This new child belonged to winter, finding her voice in the rasp of knife-blades against a whetstone, drawn to the momentary heat of spilled blood and cut-open bodies, last breaths slipping out in thin white streams, and all the stains that fear and pain made in scuffed snow.

She cared little for Glyph and his reasons for this new war. She was indifferent to the bitter grief of the hunters, and their anguish at discovering that no amount of murder could fill the emptiness inside them. For Lahanis, it was enough that killing was taking place; enough that summer’s green forest was transformed into winter’s hunting ground, and she was free of the webs of the past.

For all that, and her habit of avoiding the priest with the scarred face, she had felt the man’s attention drawn to her, like threads sent out to ensnare her, and this made Lahanis uneasy. There were many kinds of hunting, she now understood, and one of them was intent, born of focus or even obsession. It bore the face of a boy grown past his confusion, with the lure of mystery beckoning, where all games vanished and suddenly everything was in earnest. Even the laughing Lahanis, in those lying summers, had known enough to be wary of such boys among the pack pursuing her.

But she did not think the priest desired her in that way. There was something broken in his study of her, something too weak to be calculating. Still, a part of him circled her in the camp, and again and again a glance would find their eyes meeting.

When he rose in the depth of night, with the air cold enough to bite the lungs, and walked out beyond the clearing, to stand beneath skeletal trees blackened with soot, Lahanis edged out from under her furs, her knives in her hands.

Priests did not belong in war. They had a way of reminding killers that their living was a crime, an abomination, that the world created by blood and fury was itself an act of madness. And though the priest might bless, though the priest might proclaim for his or her own side a certain righteousness beneath the eyes of their god, surely such claims crumbled to war’s incessant blows. Before the flickering knife, every face was the same, and every death delivered was another knot on the tally string. Knotted strings that grew into ropes and ropes into chains. Every tally a crime, every crime yet one more step away from any god.

Slipping past sleeping forms, the hunters huddled beneath furs, fast breaths riding unpleasant dreams, limbs twitching, or faces upturned in the promise of death’s simple semblance, she was silent as she crept up behind the man, drawing to within a few quick steps, her blades ready.

Then he spoke. ‘It wasn’t long ago, Lahanis, when someone cut away my mask.’ He turned slightly, only enough to make out her form on the edge of his vision. ‘He used fists to make his point. What point was he making, you wonder? I have long pondered that question. Night after night.’

She said nothing, lowering her knives to hide them as best she could.

After a moment, he resumed. ‘I was misusing a boy, because he was highborn. Mocking his innocence, in tones that promised some cruel future. Orfantal – that was the boy’s name. He deserved none of it. So, when I’d gone too far, the man entrusted with the care of the boy beat me unconscious.’

Still she made no response, wondering why he was telling her such things. The faces of those she killed were just a jumble of features meaning nothing, each one a thing of surfaces. The mask he dared speak of, and claim as his own, was the only one that mattered to her. What could he know of her mind?

Narad then continued. ‘But wouldn’t a single punch have been enough? Even a kick to my head, across that gap between us. The man was a veteran of the wars. He knew all about explosive violence, and he knew just how thin was that thread of civility holding him back, him and his kind. A few careless words from me, to a five-year-old boy, and the thread snapped.’

She could not move now, not even had she desired to finish what had been in her mind, here beneath the crooked branches and strewn stars. Narad’s words had reached through to something inside, tearing it free and shaking it so that it rattled. And before she could reconsider, she said, ‘That’s why, Yedan Narad.’

She saw him tilt his head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘A five-year-old child.’

‘What of it? I knew I was being cruel-’

‘It’s not what children are for,’ she said, a weakness coming upon her. She suddenly felt ill. ‘The boy,’ she continued, ‘was still in his summer. Not even seeing the mysteries. He was just alive, Yedan Narad, simple as a dog.’

‘I never laid a hand on the boy.’

‘Yes. And he was too young to understand your words. But that veteran wasn’t, was he?’

There was silence, until Narad sighed haltingly, and his voice was thick as he said, ‘Do such children still dwell within us, Lahanis? Do they simply wait, finally wise, finally smart enough to comprehend their old wounds? Until some witless fool jabs it all awake, and the boy inside fills the man he became, and one punch isn’t enough, isn’t even close to being enough.’

The boy inside. The girl inside, with her laughter and her summer.

Lahanis had thought the girl dead, countless versions of her huddled in all those broken baskets littering the past. The girl inside fills the woman she has become.

I saw them murder my mother, my aunts, my brothers and cousins. There, at summer’s end.

But that laughing girl, she has knives now, and tally strings, and she runs anew, through another forest, leafless and burned.

‘I doubt it gave him much comfort,’ Narad said.

You would be wrong.

He finally swung fully round to face her, and saw the knives in her hands. His brows lifted and he looked up to meet her eyes, before offering up an apologetic smile. ‘I was about to tell you something.’

‘Speak, then.’

‘The Legion will not ignore what we have done. They will come for us, and there will be a battle.’

‘Only one?’

‘If we are unlucky.’

‘And if we’re not? Not … unlucky?’

‘Well, yes, that is it, isn’t it. By fortune we would plant a single, bloodied tree, from which we would seed an entire forest.’

The image pleased her. ‘A new home for the Deniers.’

‘Indeed? Would you be pleased to live in it?’

She shrugged to hide a momentary dismay at the bleakness of the promise. ‘Enough battles to end the war. Isn’t that how it works, Yedan Narad?’

He looked away. ‘I hope to meet Orfantal again, one day, to offer him my apology.’

‘He won’t even remember the slight.’

‘No?’

‘No. If he remembers anything, Yedan Narad, it will be the veteran’s fists and boots, beating you unconscious. He’ll remember that.’

‘Ah … that is … unfortunate.’

‘The dog cowers at harsh words, but flinches at a kick. Of the two, only one of them will turn a dog bad.’

‘He struck me, not the boy,’ Narad growled, as if that made a difference.

She turned about, sheathing her weapons, and took a step before pausing to glance back over her shoulder. ‘Do not look at me any more.’

‘Lahanis?’

‘You can’t save me. There’s nothing to save. Nothing to bless.’

He said nothing as she walked away. Returning to her now chilled furs, she curled up beneath them and fought against the shivers of cold shuddering through her.

Priests still did not belong to war, but she’d begun to understand their presence in every army’s camp. It is not the day of fighting that needs blessing, but the night without peace that follows it.

Her wedding dress was rotting, but the smell of her violation was fresh, wafting over Narad as she appeared beside him. He had turned about, when he was certain that Lahanis had lost her desire to murder him, and once more he faced the forest.

She stood close, their arms almost brushing. ‘Someone wore the crown today,’ she said.

‘What crown?’

‘While another must be turned away, and so be made to fail. The royal blood must be thinned, prince.’

He shook his head. Obscure statements were irritating enough, but her insistence upon unearned and unwelcome titles was infuriating. He no longer stared out into a forest. Somewhere, in between blinks, the world was transformed. Before him, riding the coruscating waves of the silver sea, was the carcass of a dragon, rolling up on to the strand, then turgidly flopping as the waves receded. A trail of blood and gore climbed the white sands from the scaled body, wavering drunkenly, ending where Narad stood, punctuated by the point of his resting sword. He was breathing hard, oily sweat cooling on his red-streaked skin.

‘Her name was Latal Menas.’

‘Who?’

‘The dragon, my prince. She was all grief and rage. The path led her here, into our realm. Or, perhaps, through it. When Tiamath last sembled, when the conflagration awakened and all that they kept apart was now one, the Suzerain took the life of Latal’s mate. It was the death of Habalt Galanas, prince, that has precipitated this.’

He felt his jaw bunching, molars grinding, stirring to life the familiar ache in his neck muscles. ‘This? Nothing has precipitated this, my queen. A breach. Opportunity. Expedience.’

Her laugh was soft, but brief. ‘Yedan. You’ve a gift for brevity, and simple lines, sharp as that which divides sea from shore. Habalt Galanas was host to the proper blood. Proper to the Suzerain’s need. Darkness indivisible, until that blood spilled out. The kin should have known. Never trust an Azathanai.’

‘I felt that killer’s return-’

‘Not you, my prince.’

‘No?’

‘And even then, it was your spirit that trembled at his return, long after your sister knelt at the side of your corpse, speaking words you could no longer hear.’

‘But … not me.’

‘Not you, not yet.’

He passed a stained hand over his eyes, seeking to dismiss the scene before him. ‘Grief and rage, you said? It seems I am cursed to stand in the way of such things.’

‘Even Tiamath has weaknesses,’ she said. ‘The host can be sundered by the killing of but one. The thing is, how do you choose which one? Each sembling alters the flaw. You must ask yourself, how did Draconus know which one?’

He snorted. ‘Simple. As you said, darkness indivisible. He knew his own. Had Galanas’s death not shattered the sembling, he would have died beneath the fury of Tiamath, and none of this would have come to be.’

She sighed. ‘Must we ever blame Draconus?’

Shrugging, recovered from his ordeal, Narad shook dragon blood from the blade of his sword.

‘Careful,’ she admonished, ‘lest some of that blood find its way into you. I’d not see you consumed by a stranger’s rage, a stranger’s grief, and memories not your own.’

‘No fear of that,’ he muttered in reply. ‘I’ve no room left inside.’

Her etiolated hand rested lightly upon his shoulder, and with the contact her voice changed. ‘My brother, there is so much I would say to you, if only I could. Your worship unnerved me. I well understood, if but dismissively, your odd aversion to capturing me on canvas. But it so sweetened my vanity-’

‘My queen, I am not that brother.’

‘You are not? Then tell me, please, where is Cryl? How he longed for a depth to me that simply did not exist! His love was a girthed thing, cast upon my shallow self, but how terribly the delusion strained his faith, his belief!’

Narad turned at last to face her, and saw clearly, for perhaps the first time, the young woman in her wedding dress, who was no queen, no high priestess, desired by many yet blessed by none. Her face was past its mask of pain, past the mask of shock that followed, past its last guise of life leaving. Her eyes looked out from a place only the dead knew, but the loss and confusion in them somehow reached across the gulf. Narad raised a hand, brushed her cold cheek. ‘I was a lover of men,’ he said. ‘But in my last days, I told no one how visions of you tormented me. How I stepped from one time into another, the only constant this perfect shoreline – oh, and the blood.’

‘Then,’ she said, ‘are we both lost?’

‘Yes. Until it plays out. Only then will our spirits know peace.’

‘How long?’ she asked. ‘How long shall we have to wait, before our suffering ends?’

Narad hefted his sword. ‘See – the storm awakens again. Not long, I should think, my queen. Not long at all.’ But even as he said it, he knew it for a lie. But he would hold to his false assurances, for her sake.

Behind him as he stepped forward, she asked, ‘Yedan, who killed Draconus? Who chained him within a sword of his own making? I do not understand.’

He paused, did not turn round. ‘Yes. There is that. It is odd,’ he admitted. ‘Who killed Draconus? The same man who frees him. Lord Anomander, First Son of Darkness.’

‘Another one,’ she hissed, ‘whom my brother would not paint. Tell me, my prince, how you know all this?’

Shapes were massing behind the veil of the fiery wall. ‘I have an answer, but it makes no sense.’ He hesitated, and then glanced back at her. ‘You say the crown has been worn?’

She nodded, already fading from his vision.

‘Who? When will I meet her?’

But she was gone.

Facing the shore again, his gaze flicked down to the carcass of the dragon he had just killed. Latal Menas. I feel your blood in my body, the heat of all you knew and all you felt. But against my guilt, you are less than a whisper. Still, how did you know what you knew?

In your language, Eleint, Menas is one name for Shadow. The name you seemed eager to attach to this narrow strand, this Emurlahn of ours. Your voice comes from the half-seen, in the place neither here, nor there, and in the gloom – as if barely sketched by a ragged, dry brush – I saw a throne …

Another blink, and before him was the forest, sullen in its winter white and black as the sky to the east began to pale. He was shivering, joints stiff with cold, his feet numbed inside their straw-packed leather boots. Upon hearing someone approach, he turned to find Glyph.

‘Yedan Narad, you have lingered beyond the Watch. Your visions leave you raw. Come, a fire is being lit.’

He studied the Denier. ‘We are being used.’

Glyph managed a half-shrug. ‘We have made vengeance a god.’

‘A simple answer, but I doubt it.’

‘Then who, Yedan Narad?’

‘Something in need of a refuge, I think. Against what is to come. And it would spend our lives, Glyph, to defend its secret.’

For the first time, Glyph seemed uncertain. He glanced away, and then back again. ‘You promised us to Lord Anomander.’

‘No. He too is an unwitting player.’

Glyph’s breath streamed in the cold air. In … out … in again. ‘I would rather have my god of vengeance.’

Narad nodded. ‘Easily fed, never appeased. I see worshippers beyond counting, a faith too stubborn to die, too foolish for wisdom. But if I am to be its high priest, be warned. My thirst for vengeance seeks no other face but my own.’

‘Once the others are dead.’

‘Once they are dead, yes.’

‘Yedan Narad, I will find you on that day.’

‘And will you do what needs doing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ Narad replied. ‘I am relieved to hear that.’

‘Will you join us in breaking fast, Yedan Narad?’

Gaze shifting to the campfire now lit just behind Glyph, Narad saw Lahanis, wrapped in her furs, moving close to take some of the warmth. ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

* * *

Sergeant Threadbare was halfway to Yannis monastery when her mount slipped on ice hidden beneath a thin smear of snow. The horse struck in a heavy splintering of leg bones and a shriek of pain. In her efforts to throw herself clear of the beast, Threadbare landed awkwardly against a slope studded with boulders, shattering her shoulder and snapping one clavicle.

The damage seemed to have opened a passage deep into her body for the cold, and she sat against the slope with agony riding every harsh breath, watching the horse thrash and kick on the slick trail that was now stained with mud, shit and a few spatters of blood. The animal’s nostrils were flared, its ears flattened and its eyes bulging. She would have to take a blade to its throat, and be quick to ease her remorse with notions of mercy. But it was proving very difficult to move.

Halfway. Whose cruel game is this? There was no chance of reaching the Shake in time, no chance of warning them against the incipient attack. Indeed, she was not even sure that she would have the strength to make it back to Manaleth.

The trail had led her alongside a low range of hills, a serrated line upon her right as she rode east. Now, that same rough spine was at her back, and the level plain stretching out before her was whiter than the sky above it. Another storm was on its way.

The horse’s gusting breaths stirred her awake – she had been dozing, falling into something formless but strangely warm. Blinking, she studied the beast. It was no longer fighting, simply lying on its side, chest heaving with each breath – but now the exhalations came in a spray of frothy blood.

Ribs. Punctured lung.

She pulled free her sword, worked her way down on to the level track. Using the weapon for support, its tip driven into the thick ice, she forced herself upright. With most of the snow melted or swept away, she could now see the full reach of the ice – and it made no sense. The track was actually slightly humped where the horse had slipped and fallen, and yet upon either side the snow was thin upon gravel-studded mud.

It wasn’t easy to bring a four-legged animal down. The sweep of ice stretched longer and reached wider than a horse’s stance, even at a slow trot.

‘Do you delight in its suffering?’

Threadbare swung round, lifting her blade, but both efforts left her gasping in pain.

A woman stood before her, fair-skinned, golden-haired. She was thin, almost gaunt, as if trapped in a body eternally lost in adolescence. Dressed in linen and wearing boots that seemed woven from grass, she stood as if indifferent to the cold.

As the stranger was unarmed, Threadbare turned back to her mount. She readied her sword as she looked for the throbbing jugular in the animal’s neck. But a hand settled on her uninjured shoulder, and the woman’s voice rode a warm breath that caressed her jaw. ‘It was a question in truth. But now I see, you would end its ordeal.’

‘I’m hurt,’ Threadbare said. ‘I won’t be able to make a deep cut. It needs to be right.’

‘Yes. I see that. Shall I help?’

‘I’m not giving you my blade.’

‘No. Of course not.’ The woman’s hand slid away, and then she stepped round, placing herself between Threadbare and the dying beast. Lowering herself into a crouch, she rested a hand upon the horse’s neck. For a moment, it seemed as if the animal lost all colour, until even its sorrel coat looked grey, and then the illusion was gone. And, Threadbare now saw, the horse no longer drew breath, and its eyes were closed.

‘How did you do that?’

The stranger straightened. ‘I learned much regarding mercy,’ she said, now smiling, ‘from a Warden friend. Did my act please you?’

‘Does it matter? It’s done. I was riding east.’

‘Yes.’

‘I need to deliver a message.’

‘But now your message will be too late. Besides, you are injured, and a storm is coming, which will add to your suffering.’

Threadbare stepped back. ‘If you would end mine as you did the horse’s, then I’d rather you didn’t.’

The woman tilted her head. ‘If the horse could speak, would it have said the same?’

‘It was dying.’

‘So are you.’

‘Not if I can find shelter, here in these hills. Somewhere to wait out the worst of the storm.’

‘I am making use of a cave,’ the woman said. ‘It is not far. Will you join me?’

‘I don’t see much choice. Yes. But first, can you help me remove my kit from the saddle?’

Together, they collected Threadbare’s gear. The horse still steamed with heat, and once, when Threadbare inadvertently brushed the beast’s flank, she saw again, in a momentary flash, a hide made colourless. Snatching her hand back, she blinked. ‘Did you see-’

‘See what?’

‘Nothing. Would you be so kind as to carry this?’

The woman collected the bedroll.

‘Lead on,’ Threadbare said.

Smiling again, the woman set out, up the steep hillside. Stepping carefully, hunched protectively around her injuries, Threadbare followed. ‘You’ve not told me your name,’ she said.

‘Nor have you told me yours.’

‘Sergeant Threadbare. You mentioned a friend. A Warden. I know – knew – many of them. Who was this friend of yours?’

They skirted the summit and edged down into a defile. ‘Her name was Faror Hend.’

Threadbare said nothing for a few strides, and then she sighed. ‘It may be that she is dead.’

‘No. She lives.’

‘You’ve seen her, then? Since the battle?’

‘She lives.’

‘You are the one named T’riss, aren’t you? The Azathanai.’

They traversed a twisted track flanked by sheer walls of raw limestone. After fifteen or so wending paces, the path suddenly opened out into a hollow, the level floor of which was crowded with shards of stone, many pieces of which seemed to bear mortar. A broad but low cave-mouth interrupted one of the high walls.

Threadbare studied the scene with narrow eyes. ‘That was sealed,’ she said. ‘It’s a crypt, isn’t it?’

T’riss faced the cave, one finger pressed to her lips. ‘A crypt? Why, yes, I suppose it was. Hence the corpse interred within.’

‘Dog-Runner?’

She glanced across at Threadbare, fine brows lifting. ‘Dog-Runner. Robust, are they not? Broad and strong, thick-boned, a heavy, projecting face, with ever so mild eyes of blue or grey?’ She shook her head. ‘No, not a Dog-Runner.’

Threadbare had begun shivering. ‘I need to get inside. I need to build a fire.’

‘There is one already built. A crack leading up takes the smoke, not that there is much smoke. The bones were very old, I think, to burn so readily.’

‘Azathanai,’ Threadbare said in a mutter, ‘you move awkwardly in this world of ours.’

Inside the shelter of the cave, just beyond a sharp bend, Threadbare found the hearth that T’riss had made, and saw a thigh bone threaded with cracked white, black and the orange gleam of fierce heat, resting athwart the ring of stones. The thigh bone, Threadbare saw, was as thick as her upper arm, and nearly of a length to match that of her shoulder to her fingertips.

‘No,’ she said as T’riss came in behind her, ‘not a Dog-Runner.’

Upon the track left behind, the carcass of the horse shimmered again, bleaching every hue, and a moment later the animal coughed, and then scrambled unsteadily upright, upon legs suddenly hale. The blood flecking its nostrils was already frozen, and no new blood rode the even breaths the beast now took as it stood, momentarily shivering, ears flicking and head turning as it searched for its rider.

But the woman was gone, and the saddle had been removed, left lying on the trail. Even the bit had been drawn from the horse’s mouth.

It could smell snow on the wind.

Sudden thoughts of its warm stable, back in the safe confines of Manaleth Keep, urged the beast into motion. A steady canter, upon a path firm and certain, the purchase of every hoof unquestioned, would take it home before dusk.

* * *

With the wind howling, it was no wonder that it took some time before her pounding against the door elicited a response. A shutter opened, a face pressing into the gap to squint at her.

‘In the name of mercy,’ she shouted, ‘I seek sanctuary!’

The eyes studied her – the ratty wolf furs she’d wrapped about herself, the rags making bulky mittens covering her hands, the ice-studded woollen cloth covering the lower half of her face. Then the gaze shifted past her, searching to either side.

‘I’m alone! Alone, and frozen near to death!’

The face withdrew, and then she heard heavy latches being drawn. A moment later the door swung inward. Hunched against the wind, she slipped through.

Within the gatehouse, one monk stood before a second, inner door, while another now pushed shut the outer door.

Brushing clumsily at the shards of ice crusting her cloak, she said, ‘My hands have lost all feeling.’

‘Winter welcomes no one,’ the first monk said, setting the latches once more. ‘You are foolish to travel.’

‘My horse slipped, broke a leg.’

‘You are pale,’ said the second monk, even as he thumped on the inner door, which opened in answer. In the courtyard beyond stood a child swathed in woollen robes, holding a lantern, its light fighting feebly against the night.

‘Frostbitten, I’d wager,’ she replied, shuffling into the gap of the second doorway, where she paused to squint at the second monk.

‘Too even in tone for-’ began the man.

The knife-point pushed through the rags wrapped about Lieutenant Esk’s hand, driving up beneath the monk’s chin. As the man toppled back into the arms of his fellow, Esk reached out with her other hand, and a second knife hammered into the side of the child’s head. Releasing her grip on that weapon, she leapt to close with the first monk, thrusting with the knife, filling his left eye socket with cold iron, burying it to the hilt.

Letting go of that weapon as well, Esk hurried to the outer door and pulled up the latches. She leaned against the portal until it swung free.

Crouched amidst swirling snow just beyond waited her soldiers. At her gesture, they hurried in to crowd the gatehouse.

‘Take that boy’s body – drag it in here. Scuff up that snow, and see the lantern brought inside – no, no need to light it again. Across the courtyard is the main house. You, Pryll, stay here with Corporal Paralandas. When the first squads arrive, send them to the east building – that’s the barracks – in case they manage to break out. Sergeant Telra, take your three to the barracks. Bar the doors and be liberal with the oil, especially round the windows. Set it all alight as soon as you’re ready. Rathadas, you and Billat are with me – to the main house. All right, then, let’s go about our work – I’m freezing my tits off out here.’

No alarm was raised as Esk and her soldiers set out across the compound. Somewhere on the track west of the monastery, her commander would be leading the remaining troops. Should the warrior monks sequestered in the barracks awaken in time to force their way past the barricaded doors, Esk’s few squads would have a fight on their hands, but so long as they could hold the main gate until Bahann’s advance squads arrived, all would be well.

The best outcome, of course, would be Hallyd Bahann arriving to the chorus of screams from the burning barracks.

In the meantime, she had Higher Grace Sheccanto to hunt down. The woman was rumoured to be ill, bedridden. With Rathadas and Billat behind her, Esk opened the main building’s door and edged inside. Heat gusted round her, scented with the evening meal. Wicks had been turned down in the few lanterns left lit, and the three soldiers padded quietly into the main hall.

Near the hearth was a pair of high-backed, padded chairs, and a figure was seated in one of them, his head tilted to one side, his eyes closed. Muffled beneath furs that someone had settled over him, only his head and his right hand were visible, the wrinkled skin grey-hued and slack in sleep.

Esk approached him, drawing her sword.

She drove the blade deep into the man’s neck, stepping up in the same instant to close her hand over his mouth. She watched his eyes open as the blade slid its way through his neck, and as the point erupted from the other side it made a sluice for a welter of blood. As he died, the man met the lieutenant’s gaze, but without comprehension. His last breath eased out from his nostrils, painting Esk’s left hand in red. Now, the eyes looked at nothing.

Pulling her sword free, she stepped back, looked round, and then whispered, ‘A high room, somewhere the heat rises. Central, away from any outer walls. Billat, take the lead on the stairs.’ But as she moved away, Rathadas reached out to stay her. He had drawn close to examine the dead man in the chair, and now with his other hand he held up the arm that had been hidden beneath the furs.

‘Lieutenant!’ he hissed.

Even as he spoke, she saw the signet ring, and then the faded swirl of tattoos spiralling up the thin, pallid wrist.

‘You just murdered Skelenal!’

Esk scowled. ‘What’s he doing here? Well, saves us a march down to Yedan monastery, doesn’t it?’

‘Royal blood-’

‘Be quiet, damn you. Do you actually think Hallyd Bahann was going to let them live?’

Rathadas stepped back.

Esk eyed both men, gauging the shock on their faces. ‘What the fuck did you expect to happen, you fools? This is a civil war. How crowded do you want the steps to the throne? We’re here, clearing the path. Skelenal’s dead. Now it’s time to see his wife join him.’

By her measure, the barracks should have been fired by now, but thus far the storm’s wild gale was sweeping away all other sounds from outside. Despite this, someone in the main building would see the lurid glow of the flames before too long.

‘We have to move. Billat, you’re point on the stairs. Rathadas, cover my back. Let’s get going.’

They were reluctant, as if dragging free of treacle, but Esk bit back on her frustration, her growing fury. Soldiers followed orders. This was unquestioned, beyond challenging. The Legion obeyed, making for a simpler, sweeter world. There was no need to fret about the royal blood staining her left hand, or its grislier counterpart still dripping from her sword. Skelenal was no king. He had elected to become a priest, to join an order worshipping a now dead god. In her mind, he’d simply made a bad cast of the bones, making his eventual murder if not inevitable, then likely.

Billat reached the top of the stairs, then suddenly withdrew, back down a step. A hand gesture froze both Esk and Rathadas. He edged down another step and leaned close to whisper in Esk’s ear.

‘Two guards, at hall’s end. Either side of a large door.’

Some careless indulgence, she concluded, had left Skelenal alone in the main chamber, an old man asleep in a chair by the hearth. But here, before what had to be Sheccanto’s private chamber, diligence remained. Frowning, Esk brought her sword down, tugging her wolfskin cloak over to hide the weapon, and then, indicating with a nod that her soldiers remain where they were, she climbed past them both and stepped out into the corridor.

At the far door, both warrior monks rose from the wooden chairs upon which they had been sitting.

Smiling, Esk approached. ‘I was told that the Higher Grace would receive me, no matter how late my arrival. Friends, I have important word from Lord Urusander.’

The monk to the right of the door took two steps forward. There was a short-handled throwing axe tucked into his belt, but in his left hand he held a heavy knife with an angled blade. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Come ahead. She will be pleased to see you.’

With her gaze fixed on the monk who was speaking, Esk barely registered the blur of motion from the other man. With ten paces between her and the nearer monk, Esk felt a heavy blow to her left shoulder, of such force as to half spin her round. Looking down, she saw an axe, its blade buried deep in her shoulder.

Shocked, suddenly confused, she felt her back thud against a wall.

The nearer monk was rushing towards her now.

Ah, shit. Fooled no one.

Motion from the stairs revealed both Rathadas and Billat charging forward, their swords drawn.

The monk reached her first. She had raised her sword, thrusting its point towards the man, waiting for his heavy knife to move as he sought to sweep aside her blade – but he would miss, as she disengaged his attempted beat. Or so it should have been.

Instead, the monk threw the knife underhand with barely three paces between them.

Another heavy blow punched under her right arm, and she saw her sword leap from her grip, clattering against the wall before falling to the floor. The thrown knife had slipped between ribs, the massive, crooked blade sliding into her right lung. Sagging, slumping down the wall, Esk gagged as her mouth filled with blood.

Bodyguards. Of course they’re good. It started out too easily, down at the gatehouse.

As the monk swept past her to engage with Rathadas and Billat, he ran the thin blade of a parrying knife across her throat.

A sting, sudden warmth, and then nothing.

Seeing the monk casually slice open the lieutenant’s throat, Rathadas cursed and charged to close with the bastard.

His sword had the advantage of reach, as the monk facing him was readying a short-handled, single-bladed axe in his right hand, and a thin parrying knife in his left. His expression, as he watched Rathadas approach, was calm.

‘She came to parley!’ Billat shouted from behind Rathadas.

‘She came to die,’ the monk replied.

Rathadas bellowed as he attacked, slashing crossways to either cut or force away the monk’s two out-thrust hands. Instead, he cut through nothing but air. Recovering, he brought the blade back up, point angled to take the monk from low should the man seek to close – but something obstructed it, swept it out to the side. The parrying knife tapped his temple, making a sound like a nail driven through the side of a clay pot.

As the sound echoed, Rathadas stepped back, shaking his head. He was having trouble seeing. He then realized that he did not know where he was, or what the strange man now stepping past him had done to him. He stood, uncomprehending, as a second stranger reached him. Frowning, Rathadas watched the man swing a heavy knife casually towards him. Vaguely alarmed, he tried raising an arm to block the knife – which looked sharp and might hurt him – but his arm would not answer, or perhaps it was simply too slow. The knife edge sawed through his neck, cutting muscle, gristle and bone.

The world tilted crazily as Rathadas watched the floor rising to meet him.

Billat screamed when he saw Rathadas’s head roll forward, toppling from the man’s still upright body. A moment later, the lead monk reached the soldier. Cursing that they’d not been permitted to carry their shields, Billat backed away, his sword thrust out, its point dancing to keep his distance from the advancing monk. A shield would have made all the difference. He’d not have needed to worry about that second weapon, and behind a shield he could have charged the man, blocking the axe even if it was thrown at him, and then his sword would have done its work quickly.

He nodded to himself, only then realizing that he was sitting down, almost opposite the staircase. Sweat stung his eyes, making it difficult to understand what his hands were doing, there in his lap, repeatedly moving in a way something like shovelling, as they sought to push his intestines back into his body. It wasn’t working.

A shield. And a sword. Things would have turned out differently if he’d had those. He wouldn’t be sitting here on the floor.

Blinking back on a world that now stung, he saw his hands give up, and the guts roll out. He recalled trying to dig a latrine once, in sandy clay, and how the side walls kept caving in, until that damned pit was fifteen fucking paces across, and his comrades – all laughing – had had to throw him a rope so he could climb up the sloping sides. They’d known about the sand, of course. It was a rite of passage, being made into a fool, but how it had burned, how it had stung.

Humiliation. What a last thing to remember.

* * *

The heat from the fire engulfing the barracks forced Sergeant Telra and her soldiers back towards the entrance to the main building, where she decided they would await the reappearance of the lieutenant, once the ugly work inside was done with.

The shrieks from inside the barracks were gone now. No one had made it outside, meaning that she and her comrades had yet to bless their swords this night. Often, war forgot about being all about fighting, and instead became a sordid exercise in destruction, in flames and burned bodies stepped over, as if the aftermath had a way of creeping unseen over the present. In some ways, of course, that was a relief, but one could be left with the sense of having missed out on everything.

The heat and the flames, the billowing black smoke rising only to tumble over beneath the ceiling of white clouds, all reminded her of the last time she’d set fire to a building. That one had been an estate, empty but for a horrid old woman. Something of a debacle, to be honest. She’d exceeded her orders. Well, truth was, she’d been drunk.

Motion from the gatehouse drew her attention and she turned to see the first of Bahann’s advance squads arriving. Lieutenant Uskan was in the lead, sword in one hand and shield drawn round and set. Telra bit back a sneer. The man’s excessive caution hinted at cowardice, as far as she was concerned. Stepping forward, she said, ‘Sir. Lieutenant Esk is still in the main building. We got the company unawares – not a single man made it out of the barracks.’

‘How long?’ he demanded.

She frowned at his flushed face beneath the helm’s rim. ‘Sir?’

‘How long has she been in there, sergeant?’

‘Well, now that you mention it, some time’s passed.’

‘Stay here,’ he ordered, gesturing his squads to follow him. He brushed past Telra and entered the main building, his soldiers trooping after him.

Stepping back to join her three comrades, Telra watched for a moment, and then shrugged. ‘Well, leave ’em to it, I say. We did our bit.’

None of her soldiers replied.

She looked across at them. ‘Got a problem with any of this?’

The three men shook their heads.

It was then that the first screams erupted from the main house.

* * *

Dawn was paling the sky when Captain Hallyd Bahann at last stepped into the compound of Yannis monastery. He halted upon seeing Sergeant Telra directing her soldiers on the laying out of bodies. Legion bodies.

Scowling, he marched up to Telra. ‘Sergeant, where’s Lieutenant Esk?’

‘Dead, sir. Uskan’s inside. He’s badly wounded. He went in there with eighteen soldiers, sir, came out with three still standing. It was Sheccanto’s bodyguards, sir.’

‘Abyss take me, how many did she have?’

‘Two, sir.’

Hallyd Bahann found himself unable to muster a reply to that. He swung round to scan the corpses that had been lined up in three rows on the ground. The men and women looked chopped to pieces. Most bore multiple wounds. Smoke drifted over them like ethereal veils. The heat from the burned-down barracks had melted all the snow in the compound, leaving the bodies in puddles of sooty water now stained red.

He turned to Telra. ‘And you didn’t go in to help them?’

‘Sir? Lieutenant Esk ordered us to guard the gatehouse. That was the last order she gave us.’

‘Very well,’ Bahann said after a moment.

‘Oh, and sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘We got them both, sir. Sheccanto and Skelenal.’

‘Skelenal? Well, then some good’s come of this mess after all.’ He turned and strode into the main building.

Lieutenant Uskan was seated in a plush chair near the hearth in the main hall. The chair opposite him held a corpse, which Uskan seemed to be studying intently, as if they’d been sharing a conversation just now interrupted. From the waist down the lieutenant was soaked in blood.

Hallyd Bahann cursed under his breath. ‘Uskan,’ he said.

The veteran glanced over with glassy eyes. ‘Sir. Building secured.’

‘How much of that blood on you is yours?’

‘All of it, sir. I won’t see the sun’s rise.’

‘Tell me those bodyguards are dead.’

Uskan bared his teeth in a smile. ‘They are, but as you can see, it wasn’t easy. It’s a damned good thing, sir, that the rest of those monks went up in flames.’

‘Who killed Sheccanto? Was it you, Uskan?’

‘No. Truth is, sir, no one killed her. She was dead when my soldiers finally broke down the door to her room. Cutter Hisk says the body’s long past stiff, too.’

‘Meaning?’

Uskan laughed. ‘Meaning, sir, she probably died yesterday afternoon.’

‘You find that amusing, do you, lieutenant?’

Uskan leaned his head to one side and spat blood. ‘Those poor monks were defending a corpse. They killed eighteen soldiers. And all of it was for nothing. Amusing, sir? No. Fucking hilarious.’ He paused, a frown settling on his pale brow. ‘Did I say eighteen? Wrong. Make that … nineteen …’

Hallyd Bahann glared at him, until he realized that Uskan couldn’t see anything, because the man was dead.

The commander stepped back, eyed the two corpses facing each other in their plush chairs.

Telra appeared at his side. ‘Sir, we should collect his body-’

‘No,’ Bahann replied. ‘Leave him where he is. For all we know, he and that old man are swapping stories right now. Move our other dead back into the hall. We’re going to burn it all down.’

‘We have prisoners, sir-’

‘Prisoners?’

‘Servants. Children, mostly.’

‘Find them a wagon. Send them down to Yedan monastery.’

‘We’re not going to attack it, sir?’

‘No. They’ve lost both their leaders and that monastery is now full of widows. Let them grieve.’

‘And us, sir?’

With some effort, Hallyd Bahann dragged his gaze away from the two corpses in their chairs. He eyed Telra. ‘We’re heading into the forest. We’ve dealt with the Shake. Now we’ll deal with the Deniers.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I’m field promoting you to lieutenant.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

After a moment, he shook his head. ‘Uskan never really seemed to be the kind of soldier to die in battle. Not like this.’

Telra shrugged. ‘Perhaps, sir, he got careless.’

Bahann squinted at her, wondering, but her face was expressionless, and stayed that way.