Fall of Light

NINETEEN

‘Restitution,’ said Vatha Urusander, ‘seems such a simple concept. A past wrong made right, even should generations span the injustice. Even if questions of personal culpability no longer obtain, there are the spoils of the crime to consider.’

Renarr slid her gaze from her adoptive father where he stood by the window, over to young Sheltatha Lore, who had a way of making adolescence itself a triumph. Long limbs draped upon the divan, her slim torso slightly curled in feline grace – as if she but awaited the sculptor and the chisel, the unblinking eye finding its myriad obsessions. ‘Art,’ Gallan once said, ‘is the sweet language of obsession.’ Renarr thought that she’d begun to comprehend the poet’s assertion, as she idly gave herself the artist’s eye when looking upon her not-so-innocent charge.

In the meantime, Urusander continued. ‘A concept may seem simple, until its careful consideration unveils unending complications. How does one measure such spoils when cause and effect settle one upon the other in endless repetition, like sediments in stone? Raise up that first cause like a spire – the years after will see it weathered to a stub, its solidity reduced to grains, its height levelled amidst the heaps of its own detritus. Even then, how does one assign a value to all that was gained, over all that was potentially lost? Is innocence worth more than knowing? Is freedom worth more than seeming necessity? What of privilege and greed? And power and force? Are they a match in coin, or weight of gold, to destitution and loss? Helplessness and impotence?’

Plucking at some thread or lint, Sheltatha Lore sighed. ‘Dear me, milord, surely you comprehend that restitution holds a thousand meanings, ten thousand – numbers unending, in fact.’ One supple arm reached out and down to collect up the goblet of wine, which she brought to her lips. A careless mouthful, and then, ‘What about the victim indifferent to gold? Contemptuous of coin? Or the one whose beliefs reject vengeance? What of the Denier in the forest who can only weep for the loss of trees and the deaths of loved ones? How many wagons filled with loot will satisfy him or her? How many newly planted trees, or rebuilt huts? How many monuments to honour their dead? Restitution,’ she said, after another mouthful of wine, ‘may live in the present, promising a just future, but it dwells in the sordid past. The word itself ignores the lesson of its necessity, and so will breed its own generations. But at the last, milord, the only restitution won in the final bargain will be that of the wild’s return, to all that civilization destroyed and enslaved. Restitution is not found in the words of compensation, guilt, and wretched bargaining. It is found in the silence of healing, and that silence only comes when the criminals and their ilk, their very civilization, are gone.’

Urusander turned, with something like delight in his eyes. ‘A sound argument, Sheltatha Lore. I will give your words some thought.’ He turned to Renarr. ‘She is your student? You have many talents indeed, Renarr, to awaken such a lively mind.’

Sheltatha snorted. ‘This lively mind, milord, was forged in neglect and abuse, long before I crossed paths with Renarr. Isn’t that always the way? Isolation hones the inner voice, the unspoken dialogue between the selves – and surely there are many selves within each of us. Some uglier than others.’

There was something of the challenge in Sheltatha’s tone.

‘I see little that is ugly in you,’ Urusander said quietly.

‘Youth is the soul’s disguise, milord. It serves, until it is used up. For now, sir, you are seduced by what you see. What if I told you that a vicious, venal demon hides within me? A thing of scars remembering every wound?’

‘Then, perhaps,’ said Urusander, turning once more to the window, ‘I would welcome you to our company.’

Sighing, Renarr settled back in her chair. ‘Your soldiers don’t want restitution, Father. What they lost can’t be returned to them. No, they want wealth, and land. They want to carve up the holdings of the nobles. They want titles. And see how, for all their simple greed, they are now painted white, as if their every squalid want has been blessed. Is it any wonder they grow bold?’

‘I am subjected to their demands daily, Renarr,’ Urusander replied. ‘If this not be a burden I accept, then someone else surely will.’

‘Hunn Raal,’ said Sheltatha Lore, leaning over to refill her goblet. ‘Now there’s an ugly man.’

‘The Legion readies to march,’ Urusander said, eyes still on whatever had caught his attention through the window. ‘Hallyd Bahann’s delay in returning will no longer hold us back.’

Renarr studied her adoptive father for a moment, and then said, ‘Not by your command? Not in answer to your will? Will you simply be pulled along, swept up in this flood of self-serving indignation?’

‘You advise I defy the wishes of my soldiers?’

‘I advise nothing,’ she replied.

‘No,’ murmured Sheltatha Lore, ‘she’s much too subtle to do that.’

‘In the early morning,’ Urusander said, ‘I can look down upon the pickets. The camp’s guards, standing so still in the whiteness. As if carved from marble. I stand here, a sculptor of these creations, the maker of an army of stone. Three thousand stone hearts in three thousand stone breasts. And I tremble – as I have always done, when I am about to give the command to march, to find battle, to see my creations shattered, broken.’ He lifted a hand and settled it against the cold lead pane. ‘This is a dreadful truth: much as I would like to imagine an army of such perfection that it need never draw a blade, need never deliver death and have death delivered unto it, I recognize the brutal truth. Each and every soldier out there has had his or her flesh hacked away, everything soft – all gone. Leaving nothing but stone, cold and hard. Intent on feeling nothing. Existing only in order to destroy.’

There was silence in the chamber, until Sheltatha stretched on the divan and spoke in a loose tone. ‘More likely the nobles will surrender, milord. There’ll be no battle. Simply show the sword and the will behind it, and your enemies will kneel.’

‘If they do,’ Urusander replied, ‘they will leave the field with their Houseblades intact. We but delay the clash.’ He faced the chamber, eyed both women. ‘This is what Hunn Raal does not understand. Nor the High Priestess. The marriage wins us nothing but an uneasy delay. Which of the noble families will be the first to yield a portion of its land?’ He waved a hand. ‘The two thrones are meaningless. These conjoined hands, dark and light, cannot win us peace.’

Sheltatha slowly sat up, her eyes bright on Urusander. ‘You mean to betray them. Your own soldiers.’

‘I wanted peace. All I ever wanted.’

‘Hunn Raal will see you dead. High Priestess Syntara will hand him the dagger, with every blessing of Light she can conjure.’

‘We march to battle,’ Urusander said to her, voice suddenly cold. ‘We will force the nobles to fight us. We will shatter the Houseblades, and leave the highborn with no choice but to negotiate. And then there will be restitution.’

‘All to keep Hunn Raal from your back.’

‘I will see peace forged.’

‘Hunn Raal-’

‘Is an outlaw and a murderer. I will hand him over to the Hust Legion, with my blessing.’

Sheltatha smirked. ‘Your first gesture of reconciliation.’

Looking between the two, Renarr could not decide which one dismayed her the most. After a moment, she shut down such emotions, mentally turned away from them both. None of this mattered. None of this was relevant. The winter loses its grip upon the Legion. The camp whores, men and women alike, gasp at the sudden rush of coins, the eager tumble of bodies. By this, they know. They understand. We are to march. Cut a heated path through the season. There is excitement riding the lust, because lust comes in so many flavours. Time to taste them all.

None of it concerns me. Not any more.

My adoptive father has come to his sense of duty. He will take the hand of Mother Dark. This is not so vast a deviation for Vatha Urusander. He was always one to embrace sacrifice, to set aside his own wants and needs. Indeed, he yearns for such moments, such gestures. They are what he would use to set him apart from the rest of us.

Noble acts, like the spreading of a peacock’s tail. Nothing for himself, and everything for those who witness. After all, let it not be misunderstood. It is his very reluctance that spawns the virtue, and by the virtue’s power, he will force upon this realm all the justice it can stomach.

But even then, he will defy the most egregious demands from his soldiers, and so they will see him as a betrayer. This too will stand as a sacrifice. This too will taste of virtue.

But none of it matters.

Soon, I will stand with Urusander, in the Citadel. I will see him made a husband once more. I will see the marriage done. I will see the beginning of his overtures. The first gestures at reconciliation, restitution, the sure path to some kind of justice – the kind none like, but all can live with.

The dust will begin settling. There will be relief. Elation. The storm has passed. It’ll not turn now.

She rose. ‘I will take my leave, milord. Sheltatha’s lessons are done for this day.’

But Urusander was at the window once again, and only now did Renarr hear the clamour of the Legion breaking camp. To Renarr’s announcement, he simply nodded, and then, as if in afterthought, he added, ‘Preparations will take some time. We march on the morrow, or perhaps the day after.’

‘Heady times,’ said Sheltatha Lore in a low voice, smiling down at the wine in her goblet. Raising her voice, she said, ‘Milord, I beg you, on the day of your justice, spare not my mother.’

When Urusander made no reply, Renarr quickly left the chamber.

* * *

‘A procession will be necessary,’ said High Priestess Syntara from where she stood near the altar. ‘A lighting of sacred torches, perhaps, to burnish the dawn. I will lead. With awakened Light suffusing my person, bright as the sun, and yet purer. We must make the dawn our first blessing, each and every day, even while on the march.’

Seated on a stone bench, Sagander studied the woman from beneath heavy lids. Pomp to cow the masses was all very well, but this woman’s vanity was too transparent. She lacked subtlety. ‘I was speaking of Sheltatha Lore,’ he said. ‘In the keeping of a whore is not acceptable. A whore but makes other whores, even should they be children. The habits of the adult seduce, and against such things no child can resist.’

‘From my understanding,’ Syntara said, ‘Tathe Lorat’s daughter was never a child. I told you, she is too damaged for my temple. It is a wonder that my blessing of white still remains upon such soiled flesh.’

You were one of Emral Lanear’s temple whores, woman – what of your soiled flesh? Of course, he dared not point out such details, lest they sully this woman’s desperate reinventions. Besides, reinventions are necessary, enough to knock history into some semblance of destiny, when it is all said and done.

I will pen the new truths of all this. The eyes and the hand of a witness, here within the inner sanctum of a newly forged realm. Sagander will be a name revered for ages to come.

‘Besides,’ Syntara continued, ‘your obsession over that child is unseemly.’

‘Baseless lies!’

The High Priestess shrugged. ‘It hardly matters. Tathe Lorat was free in gifting her daughter, and cared little about the nightly unveiling of horrors. If Sheltatha Lore’s lessons with you involved the art of sucking your cock, what of it?’

Sagander’s hands curled into white-knuckled fists where they rested on his lap. ‘I sought her salvation,’ he whispered.

Syntara smiled down at him. ‘Many are the paths to salvation. Or did she remain … unconvinced?’

‘You bait me.’

‘I offer you any child in my temple, historian.’

He glared at her. ‘High Priestess, I was a tutor. An honourable profession that I never – not once – sullied by what you suggest. Indeed, I find your invitation reprehensible.’

She studied him for a moment longer. ‘Good. The fewer of your weaknesses they can exploit, the better.’

The ones they would exploit, or you?

‘The army prepares,’ he said, made uneasy by her steady regard. ‘But Hunn Raal hides in his tent, refusing all messengers.’

‘The Mortal Sword has no time for such mundane trivialities,’ Syntara said, moving to circle the altar and the makeshift throne positioned on the dais behind the altar-stone. Torches blazed in the chamber, with candelabras set on every available niche and flat surface. Every shadow had been banished, every dollop of darkness expunged. The throne awaited a dressing of gilt, and it seemed that this one, at least, would remain here in the temple.

‘I am surprised you have elected to join us,’ Sagander said.

‘The High Priestesses must meet. We must both attend the sacred wedding.’

‘Leaving this temple virtually empty.’

She paused with one hand on the back of the throne. ‘There is no risk, Sagander. What concerns you so?’

He began reaching down to the leg that was not there, but caught himself in time. ‘I will need a cart, and attendants.’

‘No doubt,’ she said.

‘Do you believe there will be a battle?’

‘Consider the blood spilled as a necessary sacrifice. Indeed, as a source of power. Does that bother you, historian? I should think you’d be pleased.’

‘War never pleased me, High Priestess. It is crass, an admission of failure. It is, alas, the triumph of stupid minds.’ He eyed her. ‘Yet now, you hint that Liosan is a thirsty faith.’

‘There is something raw in its power, yes,’ she replied. ‘But on a field of battle, Sagander, men and women will die. Are we to waste such spillage? Are we to deem it useless?’

Sagander gestured. ‘You have one altar. Is that not enough?’

‘Is not every battlefield sanctified? Are there not countless sacrifices made upon that holy ground?’

‘Gods of war are barbaric creations, High Priestess. To consort with them must be beneath us.’

‘They will gather nonetheless.’

‘Then see them defied! Banished!’

Syntara laughed. ‘You’re an old man indeed, historian. Some things are inevitable. But like you, I expect this war to be short. A single day, a single battle. Besides,’ she added, ‘Lord Draconus will be among the victims on that day. Insofar as necessary sacrifices go, he stands alone.’

‘I should think Mother Dark would refuse to hand him over,’ Sagander said, shifting on the bench where he sat, his back to the bare stone wall. ‘Much less see him slain.’

Syntara blinked languidly as she studied Sagander once more. ‘That has been anticipated.’

He squinted up at her. Damn that wretched glow! ‘What do you mean?’

‘Draconus will not leave the battlefield. Or, rather, he will. Laid out cold upon a bier.’

‘Would that he fell by my hand,’ Sagander said, with a rough sigh, his hands once again curling into tight fists.

Syntara smiled. ‘By all means, historian, wade out into the charge of battle, and meet him with a blade. By hatred alone you should blaze with impenetrable armour. Fired with righteous zeal, how could your sword not swing sure and true? How could it not cleave asunder all who would stand in your way?’

His gaze fell from her. ‘I wage war with words,’ he said.

‘Yet it seems you fight every battle in its aftermath, historian, to accommodate a mind insufficiently quickened to repartee. Why, even that whore Renarr can disarm you with a flick of her wit.’

He flinched, and then scowled at the tiled floor. ‘That manner of cunning is a shallow thing, forged in a society of eager malice.’

‘School, you mean.’

‘Just so,’ he said, irritated by Syntara’s ebullience. She gloats. This makes her ugly, despite the penumbra of light, despite the natural beauty of her face, the burnishing of eternal youth offered by this infernal magic. A faith that blinded one to natural flaws made perfection a false conceit, one defying too careful an examination. It must eschew complexity, promising simplicity in its stead. He suspected it would prove popular indeed.

‘I give you leave to spit upon his corpse,’ Syntara said. ‘If such a thing pleases you.’

‘That is one procession I will gladly join,’ he replied.

* * *

The day was nearing its end and from the keep’s tower came faint wailing as the priestesses announced the dying of Light with ritual grief. Captain Infayen Menand supposed it a proper gesture, even if the voices sounded strained and false. But this was as much effort as she was prepared to make in contemplating the myriad complexities of faith, since her attention was fixed upon the distant figure of Hunn Raal, as the Mortal Sword made his solitary way down into the town of Neret Sorr.

Beside her stood Tathe Lorat, while behind them both, soldiers worked into the dusk, preparing for the march. The air was bitter cold with a wind sweeping down from the plains of the north, and it was likely that they would ride that wind all the way to the gates of Kharkanas.

‘Frozen ground,’ she said. ‘Solid underfoot, until the hot blood turns it all to mud.’

‘The glow of white fades,’ Tathe Lorat replied, ‘with every doubt stirring awake in the mind. I yearn to discover a sorcery for myself, if only to lend the illusion of loyalty.’

‘So do we all,’ Infayen said with a grunt. ‘I dislike a faith that knows the mind.’

‘Then we are little different,’ Tathe replied. ‘Hunn Raal-’

‘Is dangerous,’ cut in Infayen. ‘When he’s not spilling his cock into the fire, that is.’

‘I felt his ire, Infayen. I felt its capriciousness. Careless, deadly. He could have broken every bone in my body, all for the crime of insolence.’

‘And the man less a captain with every day that passes.’

‘My appetites never weakened discipline.’

Infayen glanced across at her. ‘It was well known that you played no favourites, Tathe Lorat. If you could make it wet or hard, you’d have it to bed.’

‘When I have title, and wealth, I will take a score or more lovers. I’ll fuck every Houseblade I hire. To ensure their absolute loyalty.’

‘That’s one way, I suppose. What of your husband?’

‘What of him? The man can’t even track down a lone renegade captain. He’ll return here to Neret Sorr, tail between his scrawny legs, only to find us long gone. No, what we must win for ourselves will have to be by my hand, not his, and that’s a debt from which he’ll never recover.’

‘Your esteem is a miserly thing, Tathe Lorat.’

‘I’ve not your hero’s blood, Infayen, to give clout to my claims.’

Infayen watched as Hunn Raal slipped from sight, down between ramshackle buildings. ‘He’s not making for the keep.’

‘No.’

‘Some other task commands him.’

‘Hunn Raal will grant us no favours in the court, Infayen.’

‘No, he will turn on us all.’

‘We need to consider our … options.’

‘That is your need, Tathe Lorat, not mine. The Infayen line finds a grave in every battle. That said, perhaps you would take my daughter under your care when that time comes.’

‘You trust me in this? I will see her sullied. The light of her young eyes dulled with use. Children are like dolls, and this woman here at your side plays rough.’

Infayen turned and smiled at her. ‘You’ve not met my daughter yet, have you?’

Tathe Lorat shrugged. ‘Have you met mine?’

‘Menandore is no fool.’

‘Nor is Sheltatha Lorat, I assure you.’

Infayen frowned. ‘And yet …’

Shrugging, Tathe Lorat drew her heavy cloak about her shoulders and turned back to the camp. ‘Break them young, and all that they make of themselves afterwards lies thinly over the scars.’

Infayen swung round and joined the other captain as they walked back into the army’s encampment. She sighed. ‘Some mothers should never be mothers at all.’

‘I expect both our daughters would agree with you, Infayen Menand.’

* * *

The master blacksmith of Urusander’s Legion was a squat, broad, scar-faced man of middle years. He stood with his back to his forge, limned in its fiery glow, his small eyes narrowed on Hunn Raal. ‘Now what?’

The Mortal Sword of Light glared at the smith. ‘Maybe it’s not big enough,’ he said.

‘Big enough for what?’

‘Legion discipline seems to have failed your manners, Bilikk.’

‘The commander sent me to work in Gurren’s stead. I’m as much the town’s smith as the Legion’s. Besides,’ he added, ‘word is you don’t take the title of captain no more. Mortal Sword? What the fuck is that? Ain’t no Legion rank I ever heard of. You lookin’ for worshippers now? Fuck that on a stick.’

There was a sound from the door to Gurren’s old house and Witch Hale emerged, drawing a tattered shawl about her narrow shoulders. ‘Hunn Raal,’ she said, making the name a sneer. ‘What you’re calling for here isn’t Legion work. Heard you went and stood in a fire. Burned half your clothes off, but left you uncharred. That’s ugly magic, Raal. You want to stay away from the flame bitch, she’s got appetites you don’t want to know.’ She cocked her head, regarding Hunn Raal. ‘Or maybe it’s too late. It is, isn’t it?’

‘You were not invited, witch,’ Hunn Raal said. ‘Don’t test my patience. Go.’

‘Me and Bilikk got history between us now,’ Hale replied. ‘Where he goes, I go.’

‘This is Liosan business.’

‘And we all got stained, didn’t we? Only, when your mind decides it’s not sure, why, the glow fades.’ She lifted an arm, letting the loose sleeve slip down, revealing her scrawny, ashen wrist. ‘’Tis strange purity that washes off, don’t you think?’

‘The stains of your sins hardly surprise me, witch. Your magic’s a sordid thing. Unwelcome on this sanctified ground, and do not think for a moment that all of Neret Sorr isn’t sanctified, in the name of Tiste Liosan.’

‘I feel it,’ she said. ‘But I don’t fear it. Neither does the flame bitch.’

‘You think you can stand against me?’

‘I don’t care about you, Raal. It’s Bilikk I mean to guard this night.’

‘And I need him – do you think I would not protect him?’

‘Once his use is past, no. You won’t give him a second thought.’

He studied her, curious. ‘What do you think is about to happen here, witch?’

‘What did she offer you?’

This night was not going as planned. Build me a fire, she’d said. I will guide you to the First Forge. A sceptre must be made. And a crown … or did she say that could wait? She’d made me drunk on her. Not wine, not ale, but her strong grip on my damned cock.

A goddess of some sort. A demon of the fire. Flame bitch? That will do, I suppose.

Fucked up my memory, to be certain. Sceptre, crown … throne?

‘You are addled,’ Hale said. ‘Already lost in the unnatural heat of Bilikk’s forge – see how nothing burns away? How the flames grow even unfed? She’s coming-’

The forge behind Bilikk suddenly erupted. A tongue of fire arced out like a whip, striking Witch Hale, who shrieked as she was flung back through the doorway of the house, landing crumpled on the wooden floor, where her body began burning like resinous wood. In moments the floor and then one wall of the house were alight.

Stunned, terrified, Hunn Raal sought to back away.

Impossibly fast, the entire house was wreathed in flames. From the second level came screams.

His apprentices.

Fires now rose along the low walls of the smithy, encircling Raal and Bilikk. The stacks of charcoal raged, the buckets of water boiled and spat, the woodshed vanished inside an incandescent maelstrom.

Their clothes burned, and yet neither man was harmed, even as the heat engulfed them, and the air itself was devoured by the torrent of flames.

She spoke then. ‘This will do. Two young lives in the rooms above. Cousins to a slain man, both of them filled with grief. I have purged their torment, taken away the feel of poor Millick’s fists. Now that was a senseless thing, wasn’t it? But all ashes now, all bedded in peace.

‘And the witch! Delightful sacrifice!’

Bilikk cried out something then, but his words were lost in the roar of the conflagration surrounding them.

Tentacles of flames snared the smith, dragging him screaming into the forge, where he vanished inside the white fire.

‘Come along then, Hunn Raal. I was summoned to the fashioning of one sceptre, and now another. I attend the flames. I feed the First Forge all that it needs. The blood in my womb, the lust we ignite between us, the seed you and your kind all spill into me. Step forward, it is time. We await you.’

He was helpless against her invitation. Suddenly without need to draw breath, his skin untouched by the heat and flames, Hunn Raal strode forward.

Where the smith’s forge had been there was now only white incandescence, and yet, at its core, there waited something like a gateway, framed in flickering flames.

The Mortal Sword stepped through.

The world beyond was a thing of ashes and blasted earth, the sky blindingly white.

She spoke in his head, her being filling him, like folds of flesh closing about his soul in a mockery of an embrace. ‘Love remains at the heart of this, Hunn Raal. It is shapeless to begin with, a thing of sensations. Warmth, comfort, safety. So it resides in the newborn child, fanned to life by the one who bore it. This bond takes time, but once made, it is unbreakable, and to challenge it is to awaken fire.’

‘You are a goddess of the hearth,’ Hunn Raal said. Raging flames marred the horizon, as if they had come upon an island in a sea of fire. The ash filling the air drifted on sullen currents. ‘You devour, and behind your warmth there is the promise of pain.’ He saw Bilikk, kneeling a short distance ahead. Just beyond the blacksmith the ground lifted into a rough cone, and from its ragged mouth smoke rose in sinuous coils, shimmering amidst intense heat. ‘Goddess,’ Hunn Raal continued, ‘you know nothing of love.’

‘Every gift of warmth awakens memory of the womb, Mortal Sword. But the child within you drowned in wine long ago. Shall I raise up its tiny corpse? Here, look upon what you have killed.’

He saw before him the body of a small child. For a moment he thought it sheathed in blood, and then he realized the fluid dripping from its limbs, running lazy tracks down its round face, was not blood, but wine. He staggered back a step. ‘Go to the Abyss!’

‘I can return it to life, Hunn Raal. This dead child within you. Dead and deadened. Stained beyond all innocence.’

As he stared in horror, the creature opened its eyes, revealing the perfect blue of the newborn. ‘Stop this! Why do you torment me? This speaks not of love, you cursed bitch!’

‘Oh, we are all mothers to what spawns inside us, for us to nurture or neglect, to love or cast away, to comfort or abuse, feed or starve. To worship as life, or sacrifice with death. No soul exists, Hunn Raal, that does not kneel before a private altar, blessing in one hand and a dagger in the other. What choice do you make for your life? Do you mark each morning with gratitude, or death?

‘That dagger can be many things,’ she continued remorselessly. ‘It serves as the tool of slaying, and no matter how blunt the edge, it draws blood each and every time. Blink sleepy eyes open, Hunn Raal, and reach for the goblet – to numb every cut you make upon your own soul.’

‘No more, I beg you-’

‘Who will bless your beloved altar? That question is asked again and again, day upon day, year upon year. A lifetime of that one question. Set that gift of blessing outside the borders of your flesh, or claim it as your own – the choice matters not.

‘But should you curse instead of blessing, Hunn Raal, ah, that is entirely of your own making. And so wounding yourself, you make a habit of wounding others. A life’s habit.

‘And yet,’ she added in vicious contempt, ‘your Urusander dares speak of justice. If he would have it, who would be left standing?’

The child, hovering in the air, flecked with ashes, blinked languidly.

‘Send it away,’ he whispered.

The conjuration vanished. ‘Balance. The blessing and the knife. The time has come, Mortal Sword, to forge us the symbols you will need.’

As if tugged, Hunn Raal stumbled forward, and moments later found himself standing beside Bilikk. The blacksmith was weeping, but no tears survived the scalding heat.

‘The First Forge. Oh, it manifests in myriad ways. I doubt Draconus found it beneath a sky of white. In his place of finding, it would be dark, with the sky sheathed in impenetrable smoke. Only the glow from the forge’s eager mouth to guide him. Hunn Raal, have you brought what I asked?’

The Mortal Sword reached to the hide-wrapped object he had strapped to his weapon-belt. He loosened the bindings and let the hide fall away, revealing a length of bone, sun-bleached and weathered. ‘Dog,’ he said. ‘Or wolf, if it matters.’

‘One more elegant in its irony than the other, Hunn Raal. The dogs of my children, or their wild brethren. Found on the plain, yes?’

‘Yet another of my commands that left the scouts bemused, but they found what you asked for, goddess. But is this all we are to have? A thigh bone to make the Sceptre of Light? What need for a forge?’

‘Light’s essence dwells in fire.’ He sensed her amusement. ‘You have recovered your arrogance, Hunn Raal. Your sly superiority – the drunk’s first and only game. But you remain utterly ignorant. He kept you all children, and that was a mistake. And in your isolation … when at last he offered you all a mother, it was too late.’

‘Enough of your insults. Bilikk waits – guide him in what must be done.’

‘I am not the one to guide your blacksmith,’ she replied. ‘Here, the will of the First Forge commands. It chooses whom to use. If you had come alone, your lack of talent, the dearth of your knowledge and skill, would have yielded a poor result. But this one, I imagine, will prove a worthy source.’

Bilikk had remained kneeling, motionless, his head lowered with his chin on his chest.

Proffering the thigh bone, Hunn Raal said, ‘Here, take this.’

But the man made no response.

Tapping his shoulder with one end of the thigh bone elicited nothing. Crouching, Hunn Raal leaned close to peer at Bilikk’s face. ‘Abyss take us, the fool’s dead.’

‘Well, yes. You have need of his skills and experience. I think we are ready-’

As if he had been punched, Hunn Raal’s head snapped back, and in the stunned confusion filling his mind, he was assailed by a sudden rush of memories not his own. Fragments, shredded and momentarily nonsensical, images flashing in his thoughts, igniting behind his eyes - the village was little more than his extended family. He knew them all, and there was warmth, and any child – every child – was safe. In those years, had he known it, he had lived in a paradise, in a realm where love abounded, and even the common petty rivalries and disputes as might plague any large family proved rare and quick to wither on the vine.

There was something there. The commonplace was made somehow sacred. There was no reason for it, nothing he could point to, and dwelling in its midst felt wholly natural, and in those early years he had no sense that the world beyond the village was any different. He – I-

How we lived was how we were meant to live. How we lived was, I soon discovered to my horror, what others only aspired to, or dreamed of, or cynically dismissed as impossible.

I was a child there, and then an apprentice to Cage, learning the art of the forge. For all the hard tools of the farmers and the coopers and wheelwrights, Cage’s greatest love was in the making of toys. From castoffs, from tailings, from whatever he could find. And not simple creations for the village children, either! No, my friends, Cage crafted tiny mechanisms, physical riddles and elaborate jokes that confounded and delighted all.

For all his size, he was a gentle man, was Cage. Until the day he left the smithy and walked to the far end of the village, went into the house of Tanner Harok, and there broke the man’s neck.

Paradise was a living thing, like a tree, and occasionally, among its many roots sunk deep into the rich earth, one root turned foul and infected, and finally rotten.

Infidelity. A word I’d not even understood until then. A crime of betrayal. The victim was trust, and its death sent shock through the entire village.

Poor Cage. So bitterly perfect in his naming – he’d found his knowing a prison, tormented by what he could not ignore.

And then there were two widows, not just the one, and the village was in need of a blacksmith.

While I, poor apprentice, not yet ready, not yet recovered, I needed a new village.

There are all kinds of betrayals. By the Abyss, that wide-eyed boy who was me learned that fast enough. Fuck one thing and it fucks everything else.

The Legion found me and then pressed me into service. There was a war to fight. As if I cared. I remember my first sight of you, Hunn Raal-

Snarling, Hunn Raal choked off Bilikk’s voice – the squalid memories, each one crowding the next as they mapped out the dull lessons of a dull life. He had no interest in such things, but there was new knowledge in his muscles and bones, skill behind his measuring eye, a timbre to his senses. He knew the art of the forge now.

Stolen talent, stolen skill.

It’d be useful to learn how this is done-

The fire bitch’s harsh laughter echoed in his skull. ‘Then aspire to godhood, Hunn Raal! But no, not even godhood. Become an elemental force, a disembodied will, a flavour in the air, a stain upon the ground.

‘The First Forge’s gift to you will not last, in any case. Once we leave this realm, the ghost of your blacksmith will flee your wretchedly mortal body. You cannot hold what would not have you. Anything else is possession, and I assure you, Hunn Raal, you would not like possession.’

‘Then we’re wasting time here,’ Hunn Raal said. ‘I have a sceptre to forge.’

‘Then descend into the fires, Mortal Sword. I will await your return.’

A sudden suspicion took him and he scowled down at the thigh bone in his hand. ‘Dog or wolf. This creation will not belong to Light – not in its entirety.’

‘My reward for this bargain, Hunn Raal. By your blessed Light I will see. A privilege I do not mean to abuse, I assure you.’

‘A detail you’d rather the High Priestess knew nothing about, I take it.’

‘True enough. Only you.’

‘Then I in turn might make use of your … sight.’

‘I expect you will. Now go.’

He glanced over at the kneeling corpse beside him. Just as well. Saves me killing him later.

* * *

Old things returned to life exuded an air of fragility that no amount of polish, paint or gilt could hide. Resurrection was an illusion, as what returned was never the same as what had gone away, although a careless glance might suggest otherwise. That, or the willing blindness of belief.

Lord Vatha Urusander’s armour was brought to him. Freshly oiled, lacquered and bearing new leather straps. The vambraces to sheathe his wrists were newly painted, inlaid with a gold sunburst. A breastplate of white enamelled wood, fringed in gold filigree. A fur-lined cloak of crimson, embroidered with gold thread. Only the weapon-belt and its scabbarded sword remained unadorned.

As he was dressed by his servants, Urusander stood motionless, and upon his lined face there was no emotion. Then he spoke. ‘In my mind, I see Kadaspala. Paintbrush between his teeth, three more balanced in one hand. He eyes this regalia with a jaded disposition, and yet nods at its political necessity. He would play that role. Purveyor of legend. The elevation of the banal into myth.’

Renarr, seated in her usual chair, tilted her head and said, ‘In such pose, Father, you more invite the artist who works in stone, or bronze.’

‘They battle each other for permanence, I’m sure,’ Urusander muttered. ‘But my thoughts are on Kadaspala. Some thought him an inveterate complainer, a wallower in misery. Some voiced their dismissal of him with careless ease, as if from a position of intellectual superiority, or at least wizened pragmatism. How that always angered me.’

‘He was well able to fight his own battles,’ Renarr pointed out, watching the servants cinch straps and fasten buckles, fussing over the falling folds of the cloak.

‘Against such fools, nothing he could say would shake them from their judgement.’

‘No, nothing would,’ she agreed. In the compound below, officers of the Legion had gathered, flinging jests and laughter as they readied their mounts or checked weapons. Captain Tathe Lorat had collected her daughter for this, under the wary eye of Infayen Menand, and by all reports Hunn Raal was still missing.

‘So it falls to me,’ Urusander continued. ‘I am disinclined to ignore stupidity, no matter how seemly its garb. Oh, I do not decry the act of judgement itself, or even the notion of righteous opinion. Rather, it is the tone I so despise. No, their dismissal proclaims nothing that is intellectually superior. And the insult behind their judgement fails to hide their venal paucity of wisdom. Every fool eager with an opinion invites the same judgemental weapons wielded against them. As in a field of battle, all is fair. Would you not – no, give me that belt, I’ll set my own sword, damn you – would you not agree, Renarr?’

‘Stunted intellects are rarely stung by such judgement, Father.’

‘Then let us drag them into the clearing, into the light. I am no artist. I am simply a soldier. I will call them out and challenge their defence, such as it is.’

‘You’ve not the audience,’ Renarr replied.

After a moment, Urusander sighed. ‘No. I have not.’

‘In any case,’ she continued, ‘I am less forgiving of the notion that all opinions are equally valid. Some are just plain ignorant.’

Urusander grunted. ‘Leave me now,’ he said to the servants, and watched as they hurried from the room. He faced Renarr. ‘My mind is diminished with age. I lack the verisimilitude of years past. Worse yet, my fires have ebbed. Awaiting me now, Renarr, is the desire to dispense with contemplation. Have done with the musings that so afflict the artist who sees too much, who knows too well, who would defy the rush of base appetites. A battle awaits us. Let us ride to meet it.’

She rose then, collecting her own cloak. ‘You have set your mind as well as your sword.’

Urusander paused, and then sighed. ‘No matter the outcome, this battle will be my last.’

She studied him, but said nothing.

He stood, still possessing all his airs of command, the grace of competence, while beneath all the gilt, the surficial propriety, something broken hid its swollen face.

Duty, it seems, is a harsh mistress to this man. We are invited to sympathy.

But see him march to the river of blood.

‘Will you ride at my side?’ he asked.

‘Father, from this moment on, I’ll not leave it.’

The swollen face lifted then, revealed itself to her, and she saw it clearly.

Well, that is no surprise, is it? We hide our own, each and every one of us. Bruised and beaten by injustice.

And in that child’s face, so bloated with tears, she saw hope.

Oh, how the lessons of betrayal are so quickly forgotten.

* * *

From the high wall of the keep, High Priestess Syntara had looked down upon the curled snake of Urusander’s Legion, watching how it seemed to ripple in the dawn. Steam rose from it as if the entire creature had just crawled out from the earth, mixing with the smoke from the town’s forge, where a fire had burned the building and its yard to the ground, taking with it at least four people, including the Legion’s blacksmith. Townsfolk had fought that fire through the night, finally quenching it just before dawn.

The Legion’s tail half encircled the town, but its blunt head was angled facing south. The image remained with her as she led her procession down into the courtyard, cutting through the gathered officers awaiting the arrival of Urusander.

She was not inclined to join them. While the soldiers of the Legion still turned to their commander in all things, the faith and its sacred servants did not bow to that now insufficient military structure. Until Urusander was made Father Light, he was nothing more than the leader of an army.

This serpent is mine, and we holy servants of Light shall lead the van. With blinding venom, we shall be its fangs. Best Urusander understand this immediately. Best this lesson be delivered to every officer here, and every soldier down below.

Their petty lust for wealth and land is too base for the righteousness awaiting us.

Still Hunn Raal was nowhere to be seen.

If he’ll not be first, surely he’ll be last. The Mortal Sword desires a vast audience, presumably. Or, perhaps, he’s lying insensate in some alley … though I should not hope for such an unlikely ignominy.

I will find me a destriant of the faith. I must choose my champion, a worthy foil to our Mortal Sword. Perhaps among the highborn, or in the Citadel itself.

Passing through the gate in solemn silence, the High Priestess and her flock, one and all brocaded in white, set out down the cobbled track.

* * *

‘The whore has airs,’ murmured Tathe Lorat, watching the procession pass. Torches and lanterns, fine flowing robes of bleached and crushed wool threaded in starburst patterns, and skin so pale as to be cadaverous. She grunted. ‘See how bloodless we seem.’

Infayen Menand set her hand against her mount’s muzzle, letting it breathe in her scent. It had been too long since they had last ridden to battle. The horse was getting on. She might even fail beneath me. A fitting demise for us both. But she’ll taste my eagerness to take down Houseblades – those privileged betrayers so quick to sell their blades to the highborn. She’ll answer me one more time.

‘I set little weight to this faith,’ Tathe Lorat continued in a low voice. ‘Not enough, fortunately, to see this porcelain tarnished. It seems kind to indifference.’

‘If Light blesses,’ Infayen said, ‘it does so indiscriminately. It will touch every scene, from sweet bliss to sweet horror. The scouts make no report of your husband’s imminent return. Are you concerned?’

‘Indeed I am. Incompetence will win us no favours.’

‘And if you had set out to hunt down Sharenas Ankhadu?’

Tathe Lorat bared her teeth. ‘Her head would ride my company’s standard, and on this morning its rotted visage would be mere tatters of flesh on bone.’

Infayen frowned. ‘Hallyd has some capacity for command, Tathe Lorat. You denigrate him for reasons well hidden behind the flag you’re now waving. Contempt blinds both ways.’

Tathe Lorat glanced towards her daughter, who stood a short distance away, lithe and relaxed with her back resting against a wall.

Seeing this, Infayen’s frown deepened. Would that Sharenas had found your tent first that night, Tathe Lorat. But no matter. You’ll not take your daughter under wing again.

Infayen was eager for the battle ahead. The first spilling of highborn blood had been by her hand, after all, a detail none could take away from her. Though my soldiers lost their discipline. The Enes clan fought too well. Blood ran high, especially when Cryl Durav appeared. The rape was a crime too far. Well, even in war there can be regrets.

But we’ll be laying in rows plenty of highborn corpses before this is done, to give the Enes clan company. Sometimes, privilege needs a serious fucking over, to send the message home. And now, it must be said, outrage serves as a banner for both sides. The fighting will be fierce.

I only pray that I can cross blades with Andarist, if not Silchas Ruin. Perhaps even Anomander. Few could agree on which of the three was best with the sword. But by nature, Anomander still seemed the most formidable. If I find him wounded on the field, or exhausted. If I catch him unawares. If he stumbles, slips in bloody mud.

The details would be lost, in time. The truth would be made simple. The day the Houseblades of the highborn fell, Infayen Menand slew Lord Anomander Purake on the field of battle, and thus died the First Son of Darkness.

It was hardly surprising that the surviving brothers then murdered her. Besides, the Menand bloodline was ever fated …

‘Your smile is cold, Infayen Menand.’

She glanced across at Tathe Lorat. ‘Where will it take place, do you think?’

‘What?’

‘The battle, what else?’

‘Tarns.’

Infayen nodded. ‘Yes. Tarns. Urusander will see to it.’

‘They’ll not risk damaging Kharkanas itself. The city is, after all, the prize.’

That city means nothing to me. I’d be just as happy to see it burn. ‘Where Urusander will be made king.’

‘Father Light.’

Infayen shrugged. The only title of interest to me shall be mine. Infayen Menand, Slayer of the First Son of Darkness. A chance shifting of her gaze caught Sheltatha Lore’s eyes fixed upon her. After a long moment, Tathe’s daughter smiled.

Infayen’s unease was momentary, and quickly forgotten with the arrival of Lord Urusander.

Their commander was not one for speeches, but Infayen felt the sudden rise of excitement and anticipation. It was finally coming to pass. We march to Kharkanas, and there will be justice.

* * *

They had managed only a hundred and fifty wicker shields, so Captain Hallyd Bahann paired up his three hundred soldiers, one to bear the shield and the other to wield weapons. The forest line ahead was patchy, broken up by the vagaries of fire and stumps left by past cutting. The snow on the ground looked dirty, crusted and hard and not yet softened by the morning light.

The morning light. Such as it is. What goddess is she that invites gloom? That dims her realm, as if we were all on the edge of losing consciousness?

He was still flush with his triumph at the monastery, though the victory had proved bloodier than anticipated. Sending the children out on to the south track to walk to Yedan panged him somewhat. The winter was reluctant to yield its bitter harvest of cold and snow. But they had been warmly clad, dragging sleds on which provisions had been stored. If they didn’t lose the trail, they would already be at the monastery, warm and safe.

Necessities in war are often cruel. I could hardly take them with us, not with a true battle looming.

These cowardly Deniers, with their bows and ambushes – we will have them.

And, if our luck holds, we may well find Sharenas Ankhadu among them, drawn into their company by shared crimes. Traitors will flock.

Lieutenant Arkandas strode up to him and saluted. ‘Sir, we have been seen.’

‘Good,’ Hallyd snapped. ‘If necessary, we will drive them to the river’s edge.’ They would leave the horses behind, guarded by a half-dozen soldiers. He expected a running battle, quickly mired by the uneven ground, the deep snow and the wreckage of the mostly ruined forest.

Old fire set a stench upon the land that even time struggled to expunge – some caustic residue of burned sap, perhaps, or simply the reek that was born of destruction. Violence was a stain upon the earth. And yet, Hallyd took note of his white hands as he tugged on his gauntlets, crimes leave no stain upon the skin, nor mark upon the face. From this we are to take meaning. Absolved, the crimes cease to be. Blessed, the face is made innocent once again. ‘Lieutenant.’

‘Sir?’

‘Ready the line. We will advance to the trees.’

‘Our scouts report many Deniers awaiting us, sir.’

‘I should hope so! True, it’s a rare courage. Let us take advantage of it, shall we?’

‘Yes sir.’

He eyed her. ‘You have doubts, Arkandas?’

‘That they will contest us? No sir. But I mislike the use of arrows. That said, we shall probably have to rush to close, at which time bows will avail them little against iron blades.’

‘Just so,’ Hallyd agreed. ‘We bloody them until they break, and then we begin the hunt.’

She glanced at him for a moment, and then said, ‘Sir, it may well be that Lord Urusander has already led the Legion on to the south road.’

Scowling, Hallyd Bahann nodded. ‘Once we are done here, we’ll march south.’

‘Yes sir. The soldiers will be pleased by that.’

‘Will they now? Remind them, lieutenant, that this day will deliver its own pleasures.’

As she moved off to relay his orders, Hallyd drew his sword and gestured to his shield man. ‘Stay close and make keen your sight, Sartoril. These bastards have no honour.’

* * *

From the cover of the forest, Glyph eyed the Legion soldiers as they formed up into a skirmish line, backed by three more lines roughly staggered behind it. Beside him crouched Lahanis, knives ready in her ash-hued hands. Glancing at her, seeing her trembling eagerness, Glyph murmured, ‘Patience, I beg you. We must draw them in. Once among the trees, their advance will become uneven. The shields ever more cumbersome. They will think the worst of the threat from arrows is past.’

She hissed in frustration. ‘They’ll see us retreat. Again. They will call out their contempt. And when the arrows finally fly, they will curse us as cowards.’

‘You and the other Butchers will have plenty of wounded to finish off,’ Glyph reminded her. ‘Just stay back until few are left to fight.’

‘Your priest knows nothing of battle.’

‘This is not a battle, Lahanis. It is a hunt. This is driving a herd on to bad ground, and then killing every beast. This is about snags and mires, sinkholes and roots.’

‘Sooner or later,’ she predicted, ‘you Shake must learn how to fight, to stand and not yield a step.’

‘We’ll need armour and blades for that.’ He nodded towards the now advancing Legion lines. ‘And today marks our first harvest.’

She tapped his forearm with the flat of one knife-blade. ‘When they realize their error, Glyph, they will attempt to withdraw – back out on to the plain. Let me take my Butchers in behind them, to await their retreat.’

‘Lahanis-’

‘They look to me now to lead them! They have seen the joy of true combat – they came to me! Your own hunters! Do not forsake them, Glyph!’

He glanced back. He knew Narad waited somewhere among the trees of the deeper wood. No longer a soldier, no longer one to stand among his hunters, his warriors. No, just as Lord Urusander would not join in battle – unless all else was lost – so too was Narad’s value too great to risk. Witches have found him – now attend him. Shamans name him their prince. They speak of old gods, abandoned by faith, bereft of worshippers, who are less than shadows. And yet, they abide at this world’s edge. Like storm-wrack upon a shore.

The lost will gather, to build a dream of home. The Watch welcomes them all.

‘Glyph!’

He nodded. ‘Very well. But be sure to wait until they are well past, and kill all the wounded who might be retreating.’

‘None shall survive,’ Lahanis promised, and then she moved off to re-join her score of followers.

Her Butchers. Among us of the forest, the dressing of meat is a common skill. She takes the name and makes it a horror.

Such are the children of war.

The morning was chilly, but sweat lay slick upon Glyph’s palms, and he shifted yet again his grip on the bow. I walked out of the water, dreaming of death. I left the lake, having wept into the waters the last of my grief. I painted ash on my face to make a mask, but the ash is no longer needed, and the mask has become me.

Narad speaks of a battle. But not this battle. He speaks of a war. But not this war. He speaks of a shoreline, but no shoreline we can see.

No matter. In the meantime, there is this.

* * *

‘Stay the fuck closer, damn you!’ Arkandas snarled.

Telra lifted the shield again and caught up to her lieutenant. ‘Why don’t I just climb into your tunic, sir?’

‘Keep an eye out for the first arrows!’

‘They’re retreating again,’ Telra said, cursing as she stumbled into a hole hidden by deep snow. Her breath was harsh, her throat clawed at by the bitter cold air. Grunting, she climbed free and staggered forward.

Arkandas paused to let her catch up. ‘They’re not running though, are they?’

‘No sir. When you’re laying a trap like this one, you don’t want to get too far ahead of your prey.’

‘Do you see Hallyd?’

‘No.’

‘He needs to sound the recall. We need to close ranks and then begin a withdrawal.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I think he was off to our right. Let’s angle that way.’

Telra blinked at her lieutenant. ‘Because you don’t think the fool’s done any of that.’

‘We’d have heard.’

Offering Arkandas a bright white grin, Telra said nothing.

‘He wants to push them right through the entire forest, all the way to the fucking river.’

‘Yes, well, I guess he used to be smarter.’

‘Watch your mouth, Telra. Now, stay close and let’s find the captain.’

Pausing to wave on those soldiers directly behind them, Arkandas led Telra to the right, across the advance. When the arrows did not come, as the soldiers closed on the forest’s edge; when the Deniers simply melted back another dozen or so paces, keeping their distance and taking cover behind tree-falls and boles and heaps of snow, Telra knew what was coming. Captain Hallyd Bahann seemed oblivious of the tactic being employed against them. Telra felt a burgeoning of fear and growing dread. Someone had organized the bastards. A mind was at work against them. And we’re walking right into this.

‘Lieutenant-’

‘Save your breath, Telra! We’ll get to him – see? There he is. We’ll-’

The arrow that buried its obsidian point into the side of Arkandas’s neck was burning along the last third of its tar-smeared shaft. Impacts thudded against Telra’s wicker shield and she shrank down behind it, even as the lieutenant made a faint gurgling sound, before sinking on to her side, lying almost within reach, her boots kicking at the snow as if trying to run.

Flames now sent smoke up from the facing of Telra’s shield as still more burning arrows hammered into it. Fuck.

Looking down, she met Arkandas’s eyes and was startled by the strangely languid blink the lieutenant gave her, before the life behind those eyes flickered, and then went out.

Soldiers were screaming and shouting around her. Flaming arrows flitted like sparks through the gloom. Bearers with their shields aflame flung them away, scrabbling for their swords and the smaller bucklers they carried, and the arrows kept coming, finding flesh.

Backing up, hunched down, she looked to find Hallyd Bahann and saw, amidst the chaos, the captain’s shield man, Sartoril, his cloak burning, the shafts of three arrows jutting from his back as he stumbled towards cover.

‘Sound the retreat!’ Telra shouted. ‘Withdraw!’

Someone stumbled against her and she turned to find Corporal Paralandas. ‘Telra! Where’s the lieutenant?’

‘Dead,’ Telra replied, pointing six or so paces ahead. ‘Where’s Farab and Pryll? We’ve got to get the squad together and pull the fuck out of this mess!’

‘Hallyd?’

‘Sartoril’s done and the captain’s nowhere in sight. Probably face-down in the bloody snow.’

Paralandas wiped at the snot glistening on his upper lip. ‘Saw thirty or so rushing the enemy. None of them made it twenty paces. Telra, there’s easily a thousand of them in front of us!’

‘We’re cooked,’ Telra agreed. ‘Follow me – we’ll round ’em up as we can.’

‘Retreat?’

‘Damn right we’re retreating!’

Arrows hissed past as the two soldiers, scrabbling and sliding in the snow, began pulling back.

* * *

Lahanis crouched down over the dying soldier, stabbing one slick blade into the snow to one side and using the freed hand to reach into the wide gash in the man’s throat. Cupping the hot blood, she brought it up to smear it across her face. Licking her lips, she smiled down at the soldier. The wound frothed as he struggled to breathe, but she could see he was drowning. Slowly, yes? Good. Know your end is coming. Know it in your soul. Look well on your slayer.

Sometimes when you chase the girl, she turns on you.

There had been a rush of retreating soldiers, only a few of them wounded. Someone had finally ordered a withdrawal. Some had pushed through their ambush, but Glyph and his archers had been close on the Legion’s heels. Arrows thudded into exposed backs, the sound of their impacts all around her like a sudden hailstorm. She found herself running after soldiers who had flung away their swords and bucklers, pulling off their helms to see better, and she cut down one after another from behind, whilst her fellow Butchers did much the same, many using hatchets and axes, crushing skulls and shattering knees.

On all sides, carnage, as the retreat became a rout, and the rout a slaughter.

Laughing, Lahanis moved away from the drowning man, seeking another victim.

* * *

Glyph reached for another arrow but found the hide quiver empty. Letting the bow drop, he drew his hunting knife as he began moving from one Legion body to the next, checking for signs of life. Where he found them, his blade extinguished them.

He had never seen so many bodies, had never imagined what it would be like to move through a battlefield, seeing the blood, the excrement, the food-flecked fluids that had spilled out from gutted men and women. He could not have imagined mortal faces capable of finding so many different expressions for death, as if an artist had gone mad in this forest, carving one white visage after another, chiselled from the frozen snow itself, splashed with crimson as if from bleeding hands.

Glyph found himself staggering among the corpses, no longer examining bodies, no longer caring if he saw the faint stream of breath.

The day was getting colder. Shivering, he paused to lean against the bole of a blackened tree. A hunter stood before him, speaking, but Glyph could find no meaning in the words he heard, as if some other language was spoken in this terrible place.

Slowly, however, as if from a vast distance, comprehension returned to him.

‘… breathes still, war-master. He begs for his life.’

‘Who?’

‘Their leader,’ the hunter replied. ‘He names himself Captain Hallyd Bahann. We found him hiding in the hollow of a fallen tree.’

‘Bind him. Send him back to the Watch. Begin stripping armour and recovering weapons, and arrows.’

‘This is a great victory, war-master!’

‘Yes.’ Now find that sculptor. Chase him down. Pin him to the ground. Still his red hands. No more of his work on this day. An end to it. No more. ‘Yes. A great victory.’

* * *

Narad stood wrapped in furs, watching as they dragged the enemy commander closer. Captain Hallyd Bahann’s crotch was stained. Tears muddied his cheeks. He stank with all the animal smells of panic. Dignity, Narad well knew, was hard to come by, especially in battle and all that came afterwards. Survival itself could leave one feeling sullied.

Better they had killed him. I want nothing to do with this.

Glyph’s hunters, now warriors, were returning to the camp in small groups, burdened with bloodstained leather armour, weapon-belts and helms. Their faces were flushed despite the grey cast of their skin, yet something lifeless hid behind all of that, something scoured out and unlikely to ever return. This deadness accompanied the arriving warriors like a roll of fog across moorland, bleak and miasmic. Narad felt it swirl around him, seeking a way in.

Now warriors, but this is no elevation of stature or rank, no prize freshly won. This is a descent felt deep in the soul, as if a newfound skill was only now comprehended as a curse. This is competence maligned, pride besmirched. We now walk a levelled world.

‘A ransom will be paid. This I promise!’

Narad frowned at the captain who had been thrown down at his feet. He struggled to make sense of the man’s fraught words. ‘Ransom? What need have we for coin?’

‘I have value! I am an officer of the Legion, damn you.’

Yes. I recall taking orders from ones such as you, sir. I recall, as well, where that led. ‘Every soldier,’ he said, ‘holds to a faith. That the ones commanding them are honourable, that necessity is bound to righteousness. This keeps the stains from becoming permanent. Imagine the betrayal, then, when the soldier discovers neither honour nor righteousness in those commanders.’

‘Lord Urusander’s cause is righteous enough, you fool. Abyss take me,’ Hallyd snarled, ‘that I should argue morality with a forest-grubbing murderer.’

Narad tilted his head as he studied the man at his feet. ‘Was it by Lord Urusander’s command that a family at a wedding should be slaughtered? Name for me, sir, the moral justification for that. What of the bride – the poor bride – raped to death upon the hearthstone? Where, I beg you, is the honour to be found in such atrocity?’

‘The excesses of that … event, belong to the captain commanding that company. She exceeded her orders-’

‘Infayen Menand, yes. But I am curious – where did the instances of excess begin? The bride’s ill usage, or the first sword to leave the scabbard? Some paths acquire a momentum of their own, as I am sure you comprehend. One thing leads inevitably to the next. So, from noble beginnings, to unmitigated horror.’

Hallyd bared his teeth. ‘Take it up with Infayen.’

‘Perhaps we will.’

Hallyd Bahann’s face suddenly twisted. ‘They will hunt you down! They will flay the skin from every damned one of you!’

Narad glanced up as three figures approached. A shaman and two witches. They had come down from the northwest, from the lands of House Dracons. With their bags filled with bones and talons, with teeth and acorns, feathers and beads. With magic like smoke around them. Say nothing more to me of ancient spirits and forgotten gods, and I’ll not speak of my memories of your kind screaming inside a burning longhouse.

The one bearing the antlered headdress now spoke. ‘Yedan Narad, we will take him if you like.’

‘Take him?’ He eyed the three. Their flat visages revealed nothing.

‘A clearing,’ the shaman continued. ‘Filled with sharpened stakes. It is fitting.’

‘What are they talking about?’ demanded Hallyd Bahann, struggling to shift position, twisting round in an effort to glare up at the shaman.

‘They seek to prolong your death, I think,’ Narad replied, sighing.

‘Torture? Abyss below, have mercy on me. It’s not done to soldiers – don’t you people understand that? When did the Tiste sink to the level of savages?’

‘Oh, we are savages indeed,’ Narad said, nodding. ‘Not soldiers at all, sir. You should have considered that before you sent your soldiers into the forests to slay the innocent. Before your soldiers raped the helpless. In your world, sir, you called your victims Deniers. What gift of your civil comportment did they so egregiously deny? Never mind. We have now fully embraced your ways, sir.’

‘You’re a damned deserter! That sword at your belt!’

Narad shrugged. ‘But I wonder, sir. What worth this civilization, when savagery thrives within it? When criminals abound in safety behind its walls? And no, I speak not of the Deniers, but of you and your soldiers.’

‘No different from you! What company? Tell me!’

‘Why, none other than Captain Infayen Menand’s.’

Hallyd’s eyes narrowed. ‘Ah, and do I see a bride’s blood on your hands?’

‘Yes,’ said Narad, ‘I think you do.’

‘Then-’

‘Then yes, sir. I followed orders. That was my crime, remains my crime, remains forever my crime.’

‘I’ll give you Infayen Menand,’ Hallyd hissed. ‘Free me. I swear I’ll lead her here, into ambush.’

‘Why is it, captain, that every army kills its deserters? Could it be, perhaps, that such objection by common soldiers in fact threatens the entire façade? That delicate tower of twigs and sticks, of stretched spider-silk and beads of sap, this tottering construct of institutional insanity that makes a cage of every virtue, only to then whisper of necessity?’

‘Deserters are cowards,’ growled Hallyd Bahann.

‘Some are, I’m sure,’ agreed Narad. ‘But others, well, I suspect they simply object. And refuse, and deny. They do what anyone who has been betrayed might do, yes? And if so, must we not look at the betrayers?’

‘Justify what you’ve done all you like.’

‘I did try just that, sir, without much success. In fact, I could not even get past the reasons, sickly and contemptuous as they proved to be, much less justifications. And that was my discovery, captain. The journey from reasons to justifications should be long and difficult, and indeed, few of us truly deserve the journey’s completion. But we know that, don’t we? So, we simply … cheat.’

As he had been speaking, Narad noted Glyph’s arrival, with a blood-drenched Lahanis a step behind him. Have we lost a single warrior?

Hallyd struggled anew against his bindings.

‘Yedan Narad?’

He looked up at the shaman. ‘He is not to die slowly,’ he said. ‘Neither he nor any other made captive. Slit his throat, as you would any other quarry brought down and at last within your reach. Whatever we possess that we believe sets us apart from the beasts, let us not make it cruel.’

After a long moment, the two witches and the shaman bowed to him, and one of the witches knelt down beside Hallyd Bahann. She grasped his sweaty hair in one fist and pulled his head back. Iron flashed and then blood poured out upon the ground. The captain’s wet sigh came from his throat, the only sound he made as he died.

The shaman said, ‘We would take his body to the clearing, and the sharpened stakes. For the forest, Watch. For the weeping trees. For the burned ground beneath the snow, and the sleeping roots.’

Narad nodded. ‘As you will.’

As the shaman helped the two witches drag away Hallyd Bahann’s corpse, Glyph strode up to Narad. ‘Some escaped,’ he said. ‘Made it to the horses.’

‘How many?’

Glyph glanced back at Lahanis, who shrugged and said, ‘A score, perhaps. Half of them wounded before they could ride away, as we were among them. We have captured most of the horses.’ Her smile was stained pink. ‘We’ll not starve, priest. We’ll not,’ she added after a moment, ‘have to eat our slain.’

Narad turned away at that. Two hunters had found the leavings of a meal in a camp not far off. Someone had made a repast of a dead soldier’s thigh. He prayed that someone was not now here in this swollen camp.

In any case, Lahanis was correct. Food was scarce and starvation had gripped their ragged army. It was a poor fate for well-trained horses, but needs must.

‘Yedan Narad.’

‘Glyph?’

‘Your plan worked, but no future commander will be so foolish as to repeat Bahann’s stupidity on this day.’

‘That is true.’

‘Urusander will come for us.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Will you have an answer for them?’

‘Glyph, the same answer. Always the same answer.’

‘Yedan, you have become a war-master in your own right.’

But Narad shook his head. ‘No, I have not. But the one who speaks through me, Glyph … ah, that one. Cold, a soul unloved. There are some for whom doubt does not weaken, for whom uncertainty only strengthens resolve. I said “cold”, did I not? The wrong word. Indeed, there is no word for that man. In my dreams, I become him. In my dreams, he dwells within me.’

‘We lost no one,’ Glyph said.

Narad closed his eyes. ‘Not true.’

‘Yedan?’

‘Before this battle, we lost everyone.’

After a long moment, Glyph suddenly sobbed. Quickly turning away, he stumbled off.

Left in his wake, Lahanis glared at Narad. ‘This is how you celebrate our victory?’

‘When there is nothing to celebrate, Lahanis, then my answer must be yes, this is how we are to celebrate our victories.’

She snarled and then swung about, marching off to re-join her Butchers.

Narad stared after her. The loss of children was a terrible thing.