Fall of Light

TWENTY

The winds battered at the stone walls of Tulla Keep, sweeping round the turreted cones of the tower roofs that had been raised to fend off the winter, scouring free of snow the walkways, the crenellations and the black pocks of the murder holes in the outer walls and gatehouse. The granite, grey as ice, was cold enough to burn skin.

The keep surmounted a crag of stone, but the jagged outcrops of the surrounding ridge rose higher still, like the stubs of rotted teeth, and there the snow huddled in pockets, ice forming rivers in the cracks and fissures. Sukul Ankhadu so disliked this season, with the cold laying siege to the keep and the wagonloads of firewood dwindling as the months dragged on. More than half the rooms and an entire wing of the main building had been abandoned to the chill, and this did nothing to insulate the remaining rooms where braziers burned continuously, or hearths blazed night and day.

Under the disapproving regard of Castellan Rancept, she had taken to drinking more wine than usual, ill befitting a girl not yet into womanhood, and wandering about wrapped in a fur robe the trailing edge of which had once been white.

Restlessness was a dark force in the soul, riding currents of longing for what could not be found, much less recognized. Rooms shrank, corridors narrowed, and the light from lanterns and oil lamps seemed to withdraw, abandoning the world to shadows and gloom.

She stood now, alone, in an unused fitting room crowded with chests and winter gear stored here on behalf of the keep’s guests, of which there were many, with more arriving each day. The floor’s thin planks of wood beneath her moccasins were covered by a worn rug, and both warmth and voices from the chamber below drifted up to her.

Lady Hish Tulla’s return had been less than delightful. A woman torn from her new husband made for fierce moods and a displeased outlook, and already Sukul longed for the days when she and Rancept had been virtually alone amidst servants, grooms and maids, while the Houseblades kept to their barracks gambling with bones or playing Kef Tanar.

But even Sukul could agree that a meeting of the highborn bloods was long overdue. Her own interest in the matter was increasingly losing its intriguing and delightful irrelevance – that sense of its being a game, a curious realm of machination and ambition – and luring her into the world of adults, where she could dwell beneath notice, unremarked upon and thereby made invisible.

The voices rising from beneath her belonged to a trio of guests. Sukul had met Lord Vanut Degalla and his odious wife Syl Lebanas once before, at some event in the Citadel, although her memory of the details was vague – she had been very young then, too wide-eyed to comprehend much beyond a few names and the faces to which they belonged. Her sister Sharenas had expressed disdain for the pair, although Sukul could not quite recall why. The third guest sharing the small chamber below was Lady Aegis, of House Haran, an outlying estate inclined to isolation. Tall, attractive in a regal fashion, somewhat diminished by the obvious efforts she made to maintain that regal air, Aegis had already set herself in opposition to Hish Tulla, for reasons Sukul did not yet understand.

Moving quietly, she seated herself on a chest, drawing her fur robe closer about her shoulders, and listened.

Syl Lebanas was speaking. ‘The fault lies with Anomander,’ she said yet again. ‘I think we can all agree on that. It falls to the comportment of Mother Dark’s champion to affect the proper unity among the highborn. After all, the face of our enemy is hardly obscure-’

‘Oh, enough of that, Syl,’ cut in Aegis, her clipped manner of speaking hinting, as always, at impatience and contempt. ‘Insist upon simplicity as it seems you must, if only to find false comfort in your mastery of the situation. The truth of this matter … far more complicated. Allegiances uncertain. Loyalties suspect. What looms before us is nothing short of a fundamental reordering of power in the realm. As such … promises to be vicious.’

‘Against which,’ Vanut Degalla murmured, ‘even you must acknowledge, Aegis, Lord Anomander has failed and continues to fail in placating. Blood will be spilled in the Citadel itself before this is done.’

‘Let the two priestesses set talons to each other,’ Aegis retorted. ‘All this talk of Father Light and Mother Dark. Since when did matters of religion demand … unveiling of daggers, much less swords? Before this pogrom – before the atrocity … unmitigated slaughter of innocents – we Tiste dwelt well enough in a plurality of faiths.’

Degalla snorted. ‘My dear Aegis, and how many Deniers crowded your distant holdings? Scant few, I should think. No, the worm of disaffection was set among us the day Draconus elevated our queen into a goddess. While even you, wife, would see Anomander the instigator of our present disorder. He is not.’

‘Even so,’ Syl insisted, ‘he has indeed failed in meeting the challenge.’

‘The failure is not his,’ Degalla said.

‘I am content enough,’ said Aegis, ‘seeing him reduced.’

‘I am sure.’

‘What do you mean by that, Vanut?’

‘Sheathe your knives, Aegis. Your refutation on the matter of Andarist’s choice of woman to wed lacked subtlety. What future do you imagine? Why, if a schism now exists between Anomander and Andarist, you will surely offer commiseration to ease a certain grief and the pain of bereavement. But no matter. We would see the Legion weakened, but not necessarily destroyed.’

‘The challenge,’ added Syl Lebanas, ‘lies in achieving that.’

‘Then you two would side with Hish Tulla,’ said Aegis.

Degalla replied, ‘The diminishing of power and influence upon both sides would be ideal, Aegis. Anomander feels free to indulge himself in personal matters – not well suited to the commander of Mother Dark’s armies. We are all agreed on that, yes?’

‘And should he be stripped of such responsibility?’

‘Then a more modest sibling might serve in his place.’

‘But not,’ said Syl, ‘that bloodless brother of theirs. If, among the three, there is one to truly fear, it is Silchas Ruin.’

‘Why?’ demanded Aegis.

Vanut Degalla answered. ‘Silchas Ruin does not understand loyalty.’

Aegis snorted. ‘Meaning, he cannot be bought. But you think Andarist can?’

‘I leave his suborning to your sympathetic hands.’

‘Then we are agreed?’

‘We will attend the battle, and see how it plays out,’ Vanut said.

‘Hish will believe us with her, then?’

‘She can believe what she likes. In this, we are hardly alone in our unwillingness to commit. My sister agrees entirely with this position, and so too House Manaleth.’

Aegis spoke again, her tone suddenly harsher. ‘You know something, Degalla.’

‘Let us say, we are confident in matters, to the extent that anything can be predicted. It is, indeed, more a matter of expectation.’

‘Enlighten me further.’

‘Have faith, Aegis.’

‘Faith?’

‘Just so,’ and Sukul could hear the sly smile in Syl Lebanas’s voice. ‘Faith.’

‘We should return to the dining hall,’ Vanut Degalla said. ‘My sister will not attend, preferring to leave this night to me. I believe I heard the bell announcing the arrival of yet another highborn.’

Aegis grunted. ‘That should be enough to begin things, then.’

‘Hish Tulla will decide.’

Syl laughed softly. ‘Yes, we can be generous on occasion.’

‘When it costs nothing.’

‘It pleases me that we do understand one another, Lady Aegis.’

Sukul listened to them leave, waited a few moments, and then rose from the chest. The game of betrayal was indeed a subtle one, when it came to adults and their ways. And yet, a child’s glee remained, swirling beneath the surface. Recognizing this came to Sukul as something of a shock. Boys and girls in the end after all. Here I believed politics to be something lofty, clever and sharp with wit. But it is nothing like that.

Desire is venal. Needs give way to hunger, fostering the illusion of starvation – as Gallan has said – and the world becomes a pit of wolves. ‘In the cruel game of politics, we are brought low by the child within each of us, until every howl is deafening in its abject stupidity, and none can hear the wails of the suffering.’

She felt sick to her stomach. In need of another goblet brimming with wine.

Restlessness, let me dull thy sting.

* * *

Rancept’s breathing wheezed noisily in the steamy confines of the kitchen. The cook had driven his cast of helpers into the scullery and from within that side chamber with its vast iron sinks came the clash of pots, plates and cutlery, leaving the castellan and his two informal guests alone at the carving table. Sekarrow wore the livery of a Houseblade of House Drethdenan, although her long fingers and delicate hands were clearly better suited to the four-stringed iltre she idly plucked than to the plain sword at her belt. There was a delicacy about her that most men would find endearing, and her eyes were large and luminous, set within a childlike face. Her brother, Horult Chiv, made for a stark contrast, with his face of sharp angles and his frame robust and stolid, and the hands he rested upon the tabletop were broad, battered and blunt. Horult was captain of the same Houseblades, and also Drethdenan’s long-time lover. Such a union could of course produce no heirs, but in all other manner the two men were indeed married and seen as such.

In his long years of life, Rancept had had occasion to reflect on the wondrous variability of love, as might anyone left standing on its periphery, too bent and battered to draw another’s eye. He was no sceptic in his observation of tenderness, but the longing in his soul did not incline him to bitterness. Some were destined to walk alone through life, others not. Drethdenan’s adoration of Horult Chiv delivered a kind of balm to all who witnessed it.

The nobles were gathering in the dining hall, and while Horult might well have elected to sit beside Lord Drethdenan, as was the right of any spouse, instead he appeared in the company of his sister, joining Rancept where he sat finishing his meal.

Horult Chiv’s demeanour suggested some measure of unease, if not frustration, but as Rancept knew neither of these two people well he remained silent, wiping up the last of the stew’s gravy with a piece of bread, pausing regularly in his chewing to draw a breath or two.

Finally, Sekarrow dropped her fingers from the strings and settled the instrument into her lap as she leaned back in the chair. Eyeing her brother, she said, ‘Caution is not a flaw.’

Horult rapped the tabletop with his knuckles, a sharp sound that made Rancept jump. ‘It has its place, I grant you. But not in this matter.’

‘He fears what he might lose,’ she said.

‘So much that what he fears may well come to pass.’

Her thin brows lifted. ‘He will lose you?’

Horult started, and then glanced away. ‘No. Of course not. We have had disagreements before.’

‘You mistake my meaning, brother.’

‘In what manner?’

Sighing, Sekarrow looked across to Rancept. ‘Castellan, I beg you, indulge my dimwitted sibling with an explanation.’

Grunting, Rancept said, ‘Not for me to intrude, unless invited.’

Leaning forward, Horult gestured. ‘Consider it done. Tell me, what so dims my wits that I comprehend nothing of my sister’s warning?’

‘You command his Houseblades, sir. On a field of battle, soldiers die. Officers die.’

The knuckles rapped again, hard enough to momentarily silence the dishwashers in the other room. ‘That is … selfish. What value this presumption of responsibility when the first threat sees it shy away? I am a soldier. That entails risks. We are in a civil war. A pretender seeks to claim a throne.’

‘Not entirely accurate,’ Sekarrow murmured, returning to tuning her iltre. ‘He but seeks a second throne, to stand beside the first, and of the two, at least his would be seen. I have heard tell that no vision proves keen enough to pierce the veil of darkness our beloved Mother now wraps about herself. Indeed, some say she is now nothing more than darkness manifest, a thing of absences so profound as to give the illusion of presence.’

‘Poets can play games with such notions all they like,’ Horult retorted. ‘One throne, two thrones, it matters not one whit. I dream of the day when pedantry ceases to be.’

Smiling, Sekarrow said, ‘And I dream of the day it is no longer necessary. Precision of language is to be valued. Don’t you agree, castellan? How many wars and tragedies might we have avoided if meanings were not only clear, but agreed upon? In fact, I would hazard the suggestion that language lies at the root of all conflict. Misapprehension as the prelude to violence.’

Rancept pushed the plate away and settled back, collecting up his tankard of weak ale. ‘The buck dragged down by wolves might disagree.’

‘Hah!’ snorted Horult Chiv.

But Sekarrow shook her head. ‘There is necessity in hunger, of which we do not speak here, castellan. Nothing of hunter or prey, at least not in the simplest sense of their meaning. Instead, we take such natural inclinations and twist them into our more civil state of being. The enemy to our way of thinking becomes the prey, assuming it is too weak to claim any other title, and we the hunter. But such words themselves, “hunter” and “prey”, seek a kind of synonymy with nature, when the reality is in fact one of murder.’ She brushed at her uniform’s leather shoulder-guards. ‘Murder is then obscured behind a cascade of words intended to deflect that brutal truth. War, soldiers, battles – the mere vocabulary of our existence, as commonplace as breathing, or eating and drinking. And, of course, as necessary.’ She twisted a peg and then strummed the strings, making a discordant clash of notes. ‘Uniforms, training, discipline. Honour, duty, courage. Principles, integrity, revenge. To obscure is to empower the lie.’

‘And what lie might that be?’ Horult demanded.

‘Why, that being a soldier excuses us from the murder we commit. Have you ever wondered, dear brother, what lies at the heart of the Legion’s demand for justice?’

‘Avarice.’

Her brows lifted once more. She turned another peg, strummed again, yielding if anything a more jarring sound. ‘Castellan?’

Rancept shrugged. ‘As your brother suggests. Land, wealth.’

‘To compensate their sacrifice, yes?’

Both men nodded.

‘But … what sacrifice do they mean?’

Horult threw up his hands. ‘Why, the one they made, of course!’

‘And that is?’

Her brother scowled.

‘Castellan?’

Rancept scratched at his misshapen nose, felt wetness on his fingers and reached for his handkerchief. ‘The fighting. The killing. The fallen comrades.’

‘Then one must ask at some point, I should think: what compensation should a civil state give to those who murdered in its name?’

‘There was more to it than that,’ Horult objected. ‘They were saving the lives of loved ones, of innocents. They were standing between the helpless and those who wished them harm.’

‘And does this act require compensation? More to the point, is not that act, of defence of the weak and the helpless, something that should be expected of every able adult? Indeed, are we not describing something we share with every beast and creature of this world? Will not a mother bear defend her cubs? Will not soldier ants die defending their nest and queen?’

‘Then, by your very words, sister, war is indeed natural!’

‘When was the last time you saw thousands of worker ants line a parade of their victorious soldiers? Or the queen emerge from the bowels of her nest to drape medals and honours upon her brave subjects?’

‘Even there,’ Horult said, stabbing at her with a finger, ‘you trap yourself. Some are born weak and helpless, but others are born to be soldiers. Each finds a place in every society.’

She smiled. ‘Workers and soldiers. Queens and kings. Gods and goddesses, all overseeing their fine and finely ordered creation. The worker enslaved to work, the soldier enslaved to the cause of defending and killing. The helpless doomed to remain helpless. The innocent cursed into a lifetime of naivety-’

‘And children? What of defending them?’

‘Ah yes, the children who must grow up to make more workers and more soldiers.’

‘You find your own arguments dragging you into a quagmire, beloved sister.’

She strummed the strings again, making Rancept wince. ‘Language keeps us in our place. And, when necessary, puts us in our place. Let’s go back to that question of compensation. The poor legion out there, even now marching down upon helpless Kharkanas. Land. Wealth. In answer to the sacrifices made. The castellan speaks of that sacrifice: the killing, the wounds, the friends lost. Name me the number of coins sufficient to compensate for being made into a murderer. How high the stack to match a lopped-off limb, or a lost eye? How broad the stretch of land needed to keep the ghosts of fallen comrades at bay? Show me, I beg you, the coin and the land sufficient to ease a soldier’s anguish and loss.’

Slowly, Horult Chiv leaned back.

Sekarrow’s smile was soft. ‘Brother, the man who loves you fears your wounding. Your death. Against that, land is worthless, coin an insult to the soul. He hesitates, because he sees clearly what he might lose. For love, he will do nothing. And, perhaps, love is the only valid reason for doing nothing.’ She shifted her attention to Rancept. ‘What think you on that, castellan?’

He wiped again at his nose. ‘I would hear you play,’ he said.

Snorting again, Horult Chiv stood. ‘She can’t,’ he said, moving off to collect a new jug of ale, and two tankards.

Sekarrow shrugged apologetically. ‘No talent.’

‘The arguments begin in yonder hall,’ said Horult, sitting back down and pouring ale into all three tankards. ‘Let us drink, and in silence – such as we can manage here – bemoan the cruel misuse of horsehair, wood and glue.’

Rancept squinted at the siblings, and decided he liked them both. He reached down for his tankard.

* * *

Families were sordid things, Lady Hish Tulla reflected as she looked upon the uncle she had not seen in decades. The curse of estrangement burned like a brand when its subject made a game of sudden, unexpected appearances, bearing an expression of amusement and expectation, as if past crimes could settle like sand. In the moment of seeing the tall, thin form of Venes Turayd, however, as he brushed snow from his furs just within the entranceway, the storm within her ignited with all the fury of its shocking birth.

An uneasy truce had been achieved in their protracted dance of avoidance in the managing of family lands and interests. Although, upon belated consideration, Hish Tulla realized that this meeting was inevitable. Venes commanded a considerable element of her Houseblades, and she would need them for the battle to come. Her summons had made no provision against his attending.

Berating herself, she stepped forward. ‘Venes, have you brought the company?’

‘Ensconced nearby, milady. The summer high pasture camp upon the slopes of Istan Rise.’ He paused, and then said, ‘If not for my many spies, I could have hoped to find you with your new husband at your side. Gripp Galas, who once stood upon one flank of the First Son of Darkness, less a sword than a dagger, I gather. But then, the court of the Citadel was always an insipid, venal place. You reached down far, dear niece, to win Anomander’s favour.’

‘Oh, Uncle Venes, how it stings you to find yet another man between us. How fares the old wound in this long winter? Do you greet every morning aching deep beneath that scar? I trust it burns you still.’

‘As does your perennial regret, milady, that your blade missed what it sought.’ He drew off his gauntlets, glancing around. ‘The others?’

‘In the dining hall. We’ll consider you the last and begin immediately.’

His smile was hard and cruel. ‘If votes are tallied, I will oppose you.’

‘On principle.’

He nodded. ‘Just so.’

‘I will have your company nonetheless, as is my prerogative.’

‘My dogs are now wolves, milady. Consider yourself warned. More to the point,’ he added, ‘I will twist your every order.’

‘Come to my room tonight, Uncle, and I can finish what I started, and to announce my satisfaction I will nail your severed cock above the door.’

He laughed as he tucked the gauntlets into his sword-belt. ‘Drunken appetites had their way with me in my youth, but no longer. As for past regrets, I believe I can continue to rely upon your discretion.’

‘Oh?’

‘If you hadn’t been discreet, surely Gripp Galas would have found me by now. Dagger or sword? The former, I should think, as my prowess with the latter has not diminished with the years.’

‘Nor his.’

Shrugging, Venes moved past her. ‘This house … as cold as ever.’

She followed her uncle into the dining hall.

* * *

Under the baleful glare of Rancept, Sukul Ankhadu collected a goblet and poured some wine; then, nodding to the castellan’s two companions at the kitchen table, she made her way out into the dining hall.

The vast hearth crackled and spat sparks, flames fiercely devouring the split logs of pine. Smaller braziers squatted in the corners and flanked every entranceway leading into the huge chamber. Lamps hung from hooks high on walls and from ceiling rafters, turning the smoky air amber. For an instant Sukul searched among the dozen or so dogs scuffling here and there, seeking Ribs, but then she recalled, with a pang, the animal’s loss.

Not dead, thankfully. The boy, Orfantal. They’re in the Citadel now. I would have liked him under my wing, that boy. To learn the art of being unseen. It was not so displeasing, too, his obvious adoration of me. There was so much I could have done with that.

And might still. We are sworn to each other, and Orfantal’s not one to cast aside such promises. Future alliances will see sweet fruition, when it is us who stalk the halls of power.

Water-pipes had been set out, adding spice to the bitter woodsmoke and the acrid taint of wine that had been spilled on the table’s wooden surface. Sukul sauntered closer, eyes upon a hunting hound that had accompanied Lord Baesk of House Hellad. The beast looked as old and grey as its master, but its eyes were sharp as they tracked her.

Lady Manalle was speaking, her tone defensive and somewhat despairing. ‘Infayen’s treachery is a family matter, and we should think no better of her daughter – none of us has seen Menandore since Mother Dark’s investiture.’

‘Infayen will see you ousted should the Legion triumph,’ said Lord Trevok of House Misharn in his cracked voice. The scar on his neck, running from beneath his left ear down to the breastbone, was livid, making a track for the sweat that seemed to plague the man even in the cold. ‘Urusander will see us all replaced, by lesser cousins and the like – all those disaffected from our own class who flocked so eagerly to his banner in the wars-’

‘Because,’ cut in Lady Raelle of House Sengara, ‘these waters are far from clear. We must simply accept that this battle will see kin set upon kin. No matter what the outcome, the highborn will lose family members, thus weakening us for generations to come.’

Sukul drew close to the hound, smiled at the slow sweep of its tail.

Vanut Degalla had twisted slightly to regard the woman beside him. ‘Your point, Raelle?’

‘Is this. If we are to be made weaker, our enemies must be made weaker still. Urusander and his legion must be broken. That means ensuring the death of Hunn Raal, Tathe Lorat and Hallyd Bahann. And Infayen Menand, for that matter.’ She leaned her slender frame back, using both hands to sweep away her long hair until it was clear of her shoulders. ‘In such congress, dear Manalle, disloyal highborn cease to be family matters.’

Degalla set down the mouthpiece of his water-pipe and moved his hand to rest upon Raelle’s forearm. ‘My dear, we know how you grieve over the murder of your husband, and this now feeds an obsession to see Hunn Raal dead. In your place, I would feel the same, I assure you. But too much confusion surrounds Ilgast Rend – what he was doing there, how he came to command the Wardens in Calat’s absence, or even why he thought to challenge the Legion without any support. Even a commander can die in battle-’

‘But he didn’t,’ Raelle said in a tight voice, eyes half-lidded as she regarded the man’s hand on her wrist. ‘He didn’t die in the fighting. Raal had him beheaded.’

Glancing over at Vanut Degalla’s wife, Sukul saw a pallid hue to Syl Lebanas’s dark face, her lips pressed into a thin line.

Degalla withdrew his hand, making its departure a caress. He then leaned back, retrieving the mouthpiece. ‘I have heard the same rumours, Raelle.’

‘Not mere rumours, Vanut. I am telling you what happened. All this wringing of hands over Urusander, when it is Hunn Raal we should be concerned about. It’s now said he has come into magic-’

‘This talk of sorcery is a distraction,’ Trevok said in a rasp. ‘Leave Hunn Raal to his conjuries and cantrips. Urusander cannot be allowed to ascend a throne. Lop off the head and the beast dies – Urusander’s death will see Hunn Raal driven in flight from Kharkanas, with all his murderous cronies tucking tail and joining him.’

‘I think not,’ said Drethdenan, his soft voice cutting across the heated words of the others, all of whom now faced him. Clearing his throat, the slight man continued, ‘Hunn Raal is of the Issgin line. With Urusander dead, he will advance his own claim. For the throne. Indeed, he might well be delighted to hear of the bloodlust some of us here now hold for Urusander.’ Drethdenan offered Lord Trevok a sad smile. ‘You, old friend, have never forgiven Urusander’s failure to protect your family in the Summer of Raids. Hunn Raal knows this as well as any of us, and no doubt anticipates and perhaps even relies upon such feelings among us. Not just you, Trevok, but also Manalle and Hedeg Lesser, both of whom blame Urusander for Infayen’s betrayal of the House.’ He waved a hand. ‘Whilst Raelle finds herself virtually alone in recognizing Hunn Raal as the real threat here.’

‘Hardly,’ snapped Manalle. ‘Hunn Raal is a seducer of men and women both, with his whispers of indulgence, his sodden smiles and wild promises. Lord Drethdenan sees well the threat posed by Raal.’

‘I would hazard,’ ventured Hish Tulla from where she sat at the head of the table, ‘none of us is so foolish as to ignore Hunn Raal. By the same measure, we must also recognize the threat presented by High Priestess Syntara, who would see Mother Dark’s pre-eminence ended. Whosoever believes that two sides in opposition achieve a lasting balance that stands superior to a single, undivided loyalty knows nothing of history.’

Degalla hissed out a thick stream of smoke. ‘Lady Hish Tulla, what we seek here is the unity of the highborn. Leave Mother Dark to her own concerns, and with them her precious First Son and House Purake.’

Venes Turayd thumped down his goblet, having just drained it, and said, ‘My niece seeks to make a single bowstring of these precious strands here, to send arrows into the heart of more enemies than we dare count. What value our privileged standing when there are few left to kneel before us?’

Hish Tulla sat back, gaze fixed on Vanut Degalla as she elected to ignore her uncle’s words. ‘Vanut, the matter before us most certainly concerns our position with respect to House Purake and its central role in the defence not just of Mother Dark, but of Kharkanas itself. Urusander will see the highborn reduced, our holdings cut away. Our own blood in his ranks will be elevated into our places at the head of each family.’

‘Then where, in this chamber, is House Purake?’

‘Where it should be, in the Citadel!’

Vanut smiled without much humour and said, ‘Not precisely true, Hish Tulla, as you well know. The First Son? Wandering the forest. Brother Andarist? Hiding in a cave with his grief. No, only Silchas Ruin remains in the Citadel, white-skinned and busy dismantling his brother’s officer corps. Who is left to the Houseblades beyond Silchas himself? Kellaras? Indeed, a fine warrior, but he is only one man who now walks with back bruised by Ruin’s incessant bullying.’ He pulled harshly on his pipe. ‘We all have our spies in the Citadel, after all. None of this should come as any surprise.’

‘White-skinned?’ Hish Tulla said in a deceptively calm tone.

Venes Turayd snorted, reaching for the nearest jug of wine.

Shrugging, Vanut Degalla glanced away. ‘At the very least, proof against Mother Dark’s blessing. Indeed, one might perhaps question Anomander himself, with his hair of white. Only the third and the least of the brothers, it would seem, remains outwardly pure.’ His brows lifted. ‘What are we to make of that?’

There was silence for a time, broken only when Baesk stirred in his seat and said, ‘The question remains before us. Do we gather to defend Kharkanas, and all that we hold dear, or do we yield to Urusander, Hunn Raal, the High Priestess, and three thousand avaricious soldiers?’

‘Too simple,’ Vanut murmured. ‘There is another option.’

‘Oh?’

‘Indeed, Baesk, one which you might well embrace, given your two young children and their uncertain futures. We have the choice of … biding our time. How long before those avaricious soldiers begin squabbling among themselves? How long before certain alliances are sought, tilting a feud’s outcome? Indeed, how long before Hunn Raal petitions for the glorious rebirth of House Issgin?’ He suddenly rose and faced Hish Tulla. ‘Do not misunderstand me, honoured host. I too believe we must indeed assemble our Houseblades on the day of battle, to attend to the defence of Kharkanas if necessary. No, what I suggest here is that we create a contingent plan. That we establish a place and the time in which to regroup, marshal our resources anew, and begin a much longer, far more subtle campaign.’

‘Yield a second throne,’ said Aegis, ‘only to immediately begin gnawing its frail legs.’

Vanut Degalla shrugged. ‘Urusander expects this battle to decide matters. I suggest, should it come to that, we make the peace that follows a bloody one.’

Standing nearby, in the falling off of light between two lamps, Sukul Ankhadu could see the horror slowly descend upon Hish Tulla’s features.

Remorselessly, Vanut continued, ‘Will any House here refuse to attend the battle?’

No one spoke.

‘Will all commit their Houseblades to the fight?’ Drethdenan asked, his placid eyes narrow and fixed on Vanut, as if he sought to read what hid behind the man’s benign expression. ‘And I would think, in this case, silence is no answer.’

Trevok asked, ‘Who will command House Purake – Mother Dark’s very own Houseblades?’

‘Does it matter?’ Vanut retorted. ‘It is tradition that each of us commands our own, yes? As for matters of disposition upon the field, well, the Valley of Tarns offers few opportunities for complicated tactics. No, such fighting as might come will be straightforward.’

‘Lord Anomander will command,’ said Hish Tulla.

‘With Mother Dark’s blessing?’ Manalle asked.

‘She blesses none of this.’

‘Nor the proposed marriage,’ added Hedeg Lesser in a growl.

‘Leave that issue to one side,’ Vanut Degalla said. ‘It has no influence on the battle itself – would you not agree, Hish Tulla? If Anomander commands, he will commit to the battle.’

‘Of course he will,’ said Hish Tulla, her lips strangely pale.

‘You sow confusion, Vanut,’ said Lady Aegis, her brow furrowed. ‘Only to seemingly sweep it all aside.’

Seating himself once more and reaching for his goblet of wine, Vanut sighed and said, ‘Many points of contention needed … airing.’

Sukul noted Lady Manalle’s sudden scowl, and a flash of undisguised hatred in the woman’s eyes as they remained fixed upon Vanut Degalla.

None here could call another friend.

And what they would so desperately defend and preserve is both base and crude. Their own positions, the hierarchy of private privilege. They wage their own perpetual war, here among their own kind, and would keep it so – unsullied by newcomers, with all their crass habits and blunt words.

It is no wonder Mother Dark blesses none of this.

She had forgotten the goblet in her hand, and only now did she drink, watching as most of those at the table did much the same, with similar eagerness. A decision has been reached. Not a consensus, merely the illusion of one. And this is how they play, these people. The hunting hound settled down at her feet, chin upon the floor.

I dream of magic in my own hands. I dream of scouring clean the entire world.

Vermin abounds, and oh, how I would love to see it crushed. Not a corner in which to hide, not a hole deep enough.

Draining her goblet, she leaned against the wall and let her eyes fall half closed, imagining conflagrations of some unknown, but eternally promising, future. While, at her feet, the savage hound slept.

* * *

‘I am going to my favourite room,’ said Sandalath Drukorlat, her eyes oddly bright in the gloom of the carriage. ‘In a tower, highest in the Citadel.’

Clutching the heavy baby in his arms and seated opposite its mother, Wreneck nodded and smiled. Broken people so often sounded no different from children, leading him to wonder what it was that had broken inside their heads. Rushing back into childhood was like trying to find something simple in the past, he supposed, but then, he was closer to such memories, and there was little back there that seemed simple to him.

‘I knew a man with only one arm,’ Sandalath continued. ‘He left me stones, in a secret place. He left me stones, and he left me a boy. But you knew that, Wreneck. He was named Orfantal, that boy. I pushed him out all wrapped up in a story I didn’t want anyone to know about. Much good that did me. It’s what women and men do, there in the high grasses.’

Sitting beside Wreneck, the keeper of records, Sorca, cleared her throat and reached for her pipe. ‘Memories best kept to yourself, I think, milady, given the present company.’ She pulled out a button of compacted rustleaf and crumbled and tamped it into the pipe’s blackened bowl.

Outside, the harsh breathing of Houseblades surrounded the rocking, pitching carriage as men and women leaned shoulders to the wheels, pushing it through the deep snow covering the muddy road. The warhorses fought against the ill-fitting yokes, and all the arguments from two nights past, when the oxen were butchered to feed everyone, now returned to Wreneck as he listened to Horse Master Setyl cajoling the affronted mounts with tears in his voice.

‘She called me a child when I birthed Orfantal,’ Sandalath said to Sorca. ‘A child to birth a child.’

‘Nonetheless.’ Sparks flashed, smoke bloomed, rose, and then streamed out between the shutters of the window.

‘Captain Ivis undressed me.’

Sorca coughed. ‘Excuse me?’

Wreneck glanced down at the babe’s face, snuggled so sweetly in her blanket of fur. So little time had passed, so rare the occasions that her mother offered a tit to appease her hunger, and yet Korlat had gained twice her birth-weight – or so Surgeon Prok had claimed. She was sleeping now, as she often did, her round face black as ink, her hair already thick and long.

‘It was so hot,’ Sandalath continued. ‘His hands upon me … so gentle …’

‘Milady, I implore you, some other subject.’

‘There was nothing to be done for it. That needs to be understood by everyone concerned. The room is safe, the only safe place in the world, up the stairs – slap slap slap go the bare feet! Up and up to the black door and the brass latch, and then inside! Slip the lock, run to the window! Down and down the eyes fall, to all the people below, to the bridge and that black black black water!’

In his arms, Korlat stirred fitfully, and then settled once more.

‘Lord Anomander was braver then,’ Sandalath then said, in a harsher voice.

Sorca grunted. ‘Sorcery can unman the best of them, milady. Was it not the Azathanai who held out a staying hand? You wrongly impugn the First Son.’

‘Up into the tower, we’ll be safe there, where the flames can’t reach us.’

Korlat opened her eyes, looked up into Wreneck’s own, and he felt a heat come to his face. Those eyes, so large, so dark, so knowing, left him shaken, as they always did. ‘Milady, she’s awake. Won’t you take her?’

Sandalath’s gaze flattened. ‘She’s not ready yet.’

‘Milady?’

‘To take sword in hand. To swear to protect him. My son, my only son. I bind her, with chains that can never be broken. Never.’

The fury in her stare made Wreneck look away. Sorca tapped her pipe against the door’s wooden frame to loosen what was left in the bowl, then started producing clouds that a wayward gust through the shutters sent over Wreneck.

His head spun, and as Korlat’s eyes slipped behind veils of smoke, he saw her suddenly smile.

* * *

The household staff and the company of Draconean Houseblades made for a desultory and decrepit escort to the Son of Darkness and his Azathanai companion as they slowly worked their way southward on the road to Kharkanas. Captain Ivis struggled against a sense of shame, as if the private matters of him and his kin had been suddenly and cruelly dragged into the light. The lone carriage and its occupants, trailed by two salvaged wagons loaded down with feed and camp gear, had to his eyes the bearing of a refugee train. Horses fought in their traces, the Houseblades cursed and stumbled as they pushed the conveyances through the heavy snow and now mud, and voices spoke – when they spoke at all – with harsh words, bitter and belligerent.

Amidst these foul moods, Ivis found his own plummeting as they trudged on into the deepening gloom. The fire’s embrace lingered like a heat beneath the skin, appallingly seductive, frightening in its intensity. She was an Azathanai, said Caladan Brood. His kin, a sister and mother to the Dog-Runners. Olar Ethil by name. What has she done to me?

Looking ahead on the road, he squinted at the backs of Lord Anomander and his huge companion. They were speaking, but in tones too low to drift back to the captain. Milord, we are awash in strangers, and these rising waters are cold. Civil war proves an invitation and we are now infected by the venal wants of outsiders. They take to us with contempt, ruining whatever cause we hold to, only to then impose themselves and their own. Until their flavour pervades. Until our every desire tastes awry, spoiled in the heat.

I would spit you out, Olar Ethil. And you, Caladan Brood. I would march into the past and bar the arrival of T’riss and her poisoned gifts. None of you are welcome. And all you gods of the forest, of the stream and the rock, the tree and the sky, begone from us!

I’ll not see us point fingers elsewhere for the crimes we commit here. And yet, it shall come to pass. I am certain of it. The face of blame is never our own.

‘Captain.’

He glanced over to find Gate Sergeant Yalad now at his side, a figure draped in a scorched cloak, a face still singed from past flames. ‘What?’

The young man flinched slightly, then looked away. ‘Sir. Do – do you think they’re dead?’

Ivis said nothing.

Clearing his throat, Yalad continued, ‘The Houseblades fear … retribution.’

‘They’ll not return,’ Ivis snapped. ‘And even if they did, it was Caladan Brood who attacked them, not you, not me. Even there, what choice did any of us have? They would have seen us all dead.’ But even as he spoke, he thought of his own secret desire from months past – to see the Hold burned down, with both daughters trapped within.

Abyss take me, she must have touched my soul long before that night. Her fire, lit beneath my notice, where it smouldered on, feeding the worst in me.

Have we all been manipulated? This entire civil war? Perhaps indeed the blame lies elsewhere.

‘Sir, I meant retribution from Lord Draconus.’

Ivis started. He scowled. ‘Nothing upon you or them, Yalad. Make that plain. I will face Lord Draconus alone. I will take responsibility for what happened.’

‘Respectfully, sir, we don’t agree with that. None of us.’

‘Then you’re fools.’

‘Sir, what has happened to Lady Sandalath?’

‘She was broken.’

‘But … the other thing? The child-’

Ivis shook his head. ‘Enough. We will not speak of that.’

Nodding, Yalad fell back a few steps, leaving Ivis once more alone with his thoughts, which, he realized, proved an unwelcome return. The child deserves no reprobation. Surely, among all things before us, birth must be deemed innocent. There is no culpability in conception, none that should stain her. Nor, I suspect, the unwelcoming mother.

Ah, Sandalath, you have become a most ill-used hostage, your fates arrayed before us in condemnation of our promises to protect you. The blame is mine, as I stood in place of Lord Draconus, and again and again I have failed you.

Now comes sorcery with a rapist’s cock, the blunt demand denying all mercy. Crown the need, bedecked in raiment, and glory in the release, and all the power it announces with an unwanted child’s cry.

What spirit, freed of its chains as the flames rose, laid you down upon the stone floor? Caladan Brood shies from all comment. But something fierce with outrage burns in that Azathanai. I would know its face. I would know its name.

What had happened to Sandalath in Dracons Hold was a far crueller embrace than the one Olar Ethil had given to Ivis. He knew with a certainty that the fire-spirit, the goddess of the Dog-Runners, had taken for herself no active role in Sandalath’s fate. And yet … I felt her glee. And her turning of pain into vengeance invoked crimes I could not discern – perhaps even the crime of Sandalath’s fate. There was something old in all this, something full of ancient wounds and past betrayals.

We were all sorely used. And so, with grinding inexorability, his thoughts returned to his sense of helplessness, and his gaze fixed once more upon the broad back of Caladan Brood. Foolish Azathanai. You meddle among us, and we feel your contempt. But upon the day we have had enough of your torment, you will know the wrath of the Tiste. As did the Jhelarkan and the Forulkan.

Lord Anomander, let not these fools seduce you.

They were in darkness now, swallowed by the immanence of Mother Dark’s influence. Blind as indifference, this strange faith. The faint ethereal blue glow of the fallen snow made for a ghostly path, beckoning them into the last stretch of forest before the land opened out to the environs of the Wise City. Two, perhaps three days to the north gate.

Yalad returned. ‘Sir, our scouts flanking to east report birds.’

‘Birds?’

‘Many, many birds.’

‘How distant?’

‘Perhaps a third of a league, sir. They also say the snow beneath the trees has seen the passage of people.’

‘Which way?’

‘Every way, sir.’

‘Very well, collect a squad and pull out to the side. I will speak to Lord Anomander, and then join you.’

Nodding, Yalad moved off. Picking up his pace, Ivis hurried forward. ‘Milord!’

Both Anomander and Caladan halted and turned.

‘There has been a killing, Lord Anomander,’ Ivis said. ‘To the east, third of a league.’

‘You wish to investigate?’

‘Yes, milord.’

‘I will accompany you.’

Ivis hesitated, and then glanced back at the carriage.

‘Have the remaining Houseblades prepare camp, captain,’ Anomander said, shaking loose his cloak as he adjusted his sword-belt. ‘Defensive perimeter and pickets.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘It may be that companies of the Legion are foraging, or perhaps hunting down yet more Deniers,’ said Anomander, frowning at the fire-scorched line of trees verging the eastern side of the track. He hesitated, and then glanced at the Azathanai. ‘I would have you remain here, High Mason.’

‘As you wish,’ Caladan replied with a grunt. ‘But the blood upon the ground has frozen, and of the bodies you will find, none remain alive.’

‘How long past?’ Anomander demanded.

‘Days, perhaps.’

‘Are we observed?’

‘A curious question. In the immediate, no, none look out from yonder wood.’

‘And in the other?’

‘First Son, if we sense unblinking regard settled upon us, in each of our moments, beginning to end, what then might we do differently?’

Anomander frowned. ‘Best we comport ourselves with such an audience in mind, whether it exists or not.’

‘Why?’

‘I hold that such witnessing does indeed exist, unflinching and beyond the mechanisms of deceit, and that in our eagerness to dissemble, we yield it little respect.’

‘And what witness might this be?’

‘Nothing other than history, High Mason.’

‘You name an indifferent arbiter, subject to maleficence in its wake.’

Anomander made no reply. Gesturing to Ivis, he said, ‘Let us find this killing ground, captain.’

They strode back to Yalad and the waiting squad. Weapons were drawn, but through the shroud of gloom the faces arrayed before Ivis were difficult to distinguish, beyond the faint glitter of their eyes. ‘Thank you, gate sergeant. Remain here and see to the camp. The Azathanai suggests that we are in no danger, but I will have you diligent nonetheless. Pickets and a perimeter.’

‘Yes sir.’ Yalad waved a Houseblade forward. ‘Gazzan was the scout who spied the birds, sir.’

‘Good eyes in this perpetual darkness,’ Ivis commented to the young man.

‘Heard them first, sir. But it’s odd, how they fly with no hearkening to the night.’

After a moment, Lord Anomander said, ‘You mean to say, sir, that the creatures behave as if it was still day.’

‘As it indeed is, milord. Late afternoon.’

‘Perhaps,’ ventured Ivis, ‘Mother Dark has blessed all life within her realm with this dubious gift.’

At a nod, Gazzan set out, leading them into the forest.

Eyes upon us, named history or otherwise, can still make a man’s skin crawl. ‘Milord.’

‘Out with it, captain. I well see your dismay.’

‘These Azathanai now among us … they make me uneasy.’

‘It is my suspicion, Ivis,’ said Anomander in a low voice, ‘that they have always been among us. Unseen for the most part. But in their machinations we are tossed and turned like blindfolded fools.’

The notion rattled Ivis. He combed through his beard, felt ice crystals beneath his fingernails, and then spat to one side. ‘I would we turned on them, milord, if what you say is true.’

‘You would either way,’ Anomander retorted, with some amusement in his tone.

‘My lord’s keep is in ruin,’ Ivis said in a growl. ‘An ancient edifice and ancestral home, brought down in a single night. Was there no other means of dealing with the daughters? Fire and smoke, the tumbling of walls, and such a maelstrom of sorcery as to make me sick with fear for the future.’

Anomander sighed. ‘Just so, Ivis. Yet, did I not bait him? The fault is mine, captain, and I will make that plain to your lord.’

‘You dismiss the threat posed by Envy and Spite.’

‘As any sober reflection would lead us to do, Ivis. No matter their power, their minds remained those of children. The sorcery indeed lent claws to their impulses, a lesson we are all obliged to heed, given the child within each of us. But in truth, old friend, I anticipated an emasculation, a reducing of the threat in a manner more civilized than what we were witness to.’ He shook his head. ‘It was a brutal night, and the shock of it reverberates still.’

‘Sorcery, milord, lacks all subtlety.’

‘As will any force wielded without restraint. And here, Ivis, you set your knife-point into the heart of my dread. I despise the use of the fist, when a caress would better serve.’

‘These Azathanai see it differently, milord.’

‘So it seems. And yet T’riss affected a simple touch, and see now its consequences. I have thought,’ Anomander added with a bitter laugh, ‘my loyalty’s abiding would have seen off this silver hue upon my mane, but she would see me set apart, and that I must now live with.’

‘There was a spirit, milord, within the fire-’

‘Brood spoke of her, yes. Olar Ethil, a matron of the Dog-Runners.’

‘An Azathanai.’

‘If the title means anything, then yes, an Azathanai.’

‘She offered the ecstasy of destruction, milord.’

‘As would any creature of flames.’

‘And desire,’ Ivis added. ‘You speak of caresses, but I tell you, I now live with the curse of such a caress.’

Ahead the trees thinned, revealing part of a glade. The grackle and murmur of ravens descended from the bared branches on all sides, whilst black shapes danced on the churned-up, frozen snow between dark huddled forms. The cold air held the stink of bile and faeces.

Drawing closer, silent now, they reached the glade’s edge and looked out upon scores of corpses, many stripped down near naked, their flesh frozen black, the wounds and gaping holes pecked open, purple-hued and glistening with frost.

‘Their skin misleads,’ said Ivis. ‘These dead are Liosan.’

‘Fleeing Liosan, sir,’ Gazzan added. ‘Struck from behind as they ran. Axe and spear, and arrows. Broken, sir, in a rout.’

‘The Deniers,’ someone muttered from the squad, ‘have found their teeth.’

‘Or the monks have finally ventured out to their flock,’ Ivis said. ‘And yet … arrows. Nothing noble in that.’

Anomander’s breath hissed out in a plume that swept ghost-like into the glade. ‘The nobility adhered to by the Legion slaughtering peasants in the woods, captain?’

‘A crime demanding-’

‘A crime, sir? Is this how we are to divide the blood on our hands? One side just, the other an outrage? Best take a blade to ensure the distinction, and cleave to the cause with a sure eye! But I tell you this: history’s unbidden gaze shall not be given leave to turn away, not by absolving words or the cynical dip into semantics. Remember what you see here, captain, and leave every excuse upon the ground. A life defending itself has right to any means, be they teeth and nails, or arrows.’

‘Then will atrocity be met with atrocity, milord? How swift our descent to the savage!’

Anomander waved a dismissive hand. ‘Best be clear-eyed on that truth, sir, and see the descent for what it is.’ He faced Ivis with fierceness burning in his eyes. ‘We knew war directly, the two of us. In the slaying and the slaughter, savagery was our lover, locked step in step with our relentless advance. Do you deny it?’

‘The cause was just-’

‘Did that stay your hand, even once?’

‘Why would it, milord?’

‘Indeed, why would it?’ He then turned back to the clearing and its corpses. ‘Why would it, when justice serves the savage? Why would it, when the cause justifies the crime? Justifies? Absolves, more like. I wonder if the rise of priests among us was for the sole purpose of blessing the killing we would do. Priests, kings, warlords, highborn. And, of course, officers and the iron-clad fist that backs them.’ He swung round. ‘So bless this field. In the absence of priests, we can leave the gods out of it. Bless it for what it is, Ivis, in a world where killing is no crime.’

Shaken, Ivis backed up a step. ‘Milord, you give cause for despair.’

‘I give it? Abyss below, Ivis. I’ve but carved words to name what we’d rather not name. If the messenger delivers despairing news, is he the cause of it?’

He moved past Ivis then, on his way back to their camp upon the road. Ivis waved his squad to follow, watched them file silently past, and finally, with a lingering glance back at the glade and its hooded sentinels murmuring among the trees, he took up the rear.

We are past distinctions. He said as much. The field behind me announces the same. And if, in these shattered woods, a goddess slowly sinks down upon a bed of spikes, to that crime even history is blind.

* * *

It was a delusion to imagine that a wild forest was filled with such bounty as to keep the belly full. Even in the absence of wolves and hunting cats to keep their numbers down, deer and elk could starve in the winter. Sharenas Ankhadu understood, now, the purpose behind the seasonal hunts of the Deniers. Victuals needed collecting, pits needed digging, meats smoked or salted to be buried in caches. In such a realm, bound to the seasons, a single family struggled, and what congress existed between each one was both fraught and tense.

The moans and pangs of an empty stomach found no relief in the sentiments of nobility and dignity. Nothing proud was conferred by the laying bare of raw need. And yet, she now recalled bitterly, she had, in shared company with her kin, often spoken with a kind of voyeuristic nostalgia, longing for simpler days, when purity meant fingers pressed deep into the earth, or the brutal pursuit of some scampering prey, as if her own blood held a memory of past lives, each one a paragon of virtue.

But time played its tricks with such things. The noble face with its mouth stained red, the battered hands with dirt beneath cracked and chipped nails, the worn furs and threadbare tunics, and the blank, solemn gaze so often mistaken for dignity, did not belong to her past, but existed in step with her – among these forest dwellers, and the castouts in their caves in the hills.

Delivering slaughter upon them had been a crime almost beyond measure.

Beloved Kagamandra, I now comprehend the meaning of unconscionable. No bleaching of the skin can cleanse what we have done here.

And now, see what we have made them, our suffering kindred of the forest. If nobility hid in their mourning shrouds, the time for grief has passed.

She moved among corpses. She saw faces she recognized, although death stole away most of what she remembered of them. Most of the arrows had been cut out from the wounds they had made, although here and there a shattered shaft had been left behind, tossed aside once the arrowhead had been retrieved. Beyond the rough, jumbled line of fallen soldiers, there were others who had been caught in flight. Their frantic paths of retreat were plain enough to see.

Hallyd Bahann’s company, drawn here by Sharenas herself.

Here is a lesson, my love, but one I’ll not venture to broach. In any case, best look away now, as I become another raven amidst this feast. A flicker of this iron beak, some flesh to dull the pangs. While on the branches, jaded black eyes ponder their new rival.

Hearing a noise she turned.

Their approach had been quiet, and now they stood less than twenty paces away. Sharenas adjusted the knife in her hand, eyeing the strangers. Then her eyes narrowed.

Bah, he is anything but a stranger. ‘Gripp Galas,’ she said, her voice cracking with disuse. ‘Marriage palled, did it? The woman beside you is comely enough, but her instead of Hish Tulla? Age has taken your sight along with your wits.’

‘Sharenas Ankhadu?’

‘Why doubt who stands before you? Did I not visit your winter nest? Did I not huddle shivering beneath furs in that unheated cell you call a guest room?’

The woman suddenly scowled. ‘Once the fire was lit, it warmed up quickly enough.’

Sharenas squinted at her. ‘Ah, yes. You, then.’ She waved with her knife to the bodies surrounding them. ‘Seeking old friends, perhaps?’

‘If so,’ Gripp Galas said, ‘then for a different purpose than you, it would seem.’

‘The forest is unfriendly.’

‘And, I believe, has been so for some time, Sharenas Ankhadu.’

‘I am a deserter. A murderer of fellow officers and more than a few of these soldiers and scouts. They were hunting me.’

‘This was a battle, not an ambush,’ said the woman.

‘Widowers with nothing to lose, but the taste of blood on the tongue invites a recurring thirst.’

‘For them, or you?’

Sharenas smiled across at the woman. ‘Pelk. Once on Urusander’s staff. You never had much to say.’

‘Sending soldiers out to fight and die demands little, as you well know, captain.’

‘You were a trainer. A weapon master.’

‘I did what must be done to make an army, captain,’ said Pelk, drawing closer, eyes now scanning the frozen, contorted bodies in the snow. ‘Made orphans of you all, and then showed you the teats of the only bitch left, and her name was War.’

The words chilled Sharenas – her first real sense of cold in what seemed weeks. ‘I am undecided about you two, so halt your advance, Pelk. Be warned, I am now a sorceress.’

‘A piss-poor one,’ Pelk snapped. ‘You look starved. You’re filthy, and you stink.’

‘These ones,’ said Gripp Galas. ‘They were hunting you? Whose company?’

‘Hallyd Bahann. If he isn’t dead, he should be.’ Sharenas paused, and then said, ‘I would have butchered them all in their damned tents, but as it was, I got to Esthala and her useless husband. And Serap Issgin. Before running out of time.’

‘And who set this task upon you, captain?’

Sharenas studied Pelk’s flat face, bemused by her question. ‘Urusander.’

‘By his command?’

‘By his utter uselessness.’

‘And these ones?’

‘Deniers, Pelk. That much should be obvious.’ She grinned at Gripp Galas. ‘Precious Legion soldiers, so finely trained and honed by Weapon Master Pelk there, hunted down like animals.’

Gripp Galas said, ‘We have food, captain.’

‘As do I.’

‘Then the choice is yours,’ he replied. ‘Feast here, or return to civilization.’

Her laugh broke into a cackle and she spread her arms, taking in the battlefield. ‘Yes! This civilization! Strip me down, bathe me, dress me, and see to the buckles of my belt and armour, and why, I can march in step with you. Orphan no longer, hey, Pelk?’

‘Better that than this, captain. Or have you truly acquired a taste for Tiste flesh?’

‘Haven’t we all? Oh, I know, my crime here is my lack of subtlety. No, take your bulging bellies and leave me be, both of you. I care not what mission drags you into this forest, and the Deniers won’t bother asking, either. Await the greeting arrows, but save your shocked looks for them, not me.’

She crouched, cut free a large piece of frozen meat from a woman’s thigh.

From the trees, ravens screamed their outrage.

Gesturing, Gripp Galas led Pelk off to their left, westward. The road was not far in that direction. Perhaps they thought it safer.

Well, my love, I’ll allow them this: if not safer, then certainly more civil in its habit of passage. To and fro, on matters of grave import. Enough self-importance to deflect an arrow’s flight? We’ll see, I suppose. Darling of mine, I have reached such a noble state, that even dignity tastes like raw meat.

Satisfied with the cut she now held in her left hand, she set off in the opposite direction.

* * *

Gripp’s sigh was rough, jagged. ‘Have we seen the future, Pelk?’

‘Now there’s a lesson,’ she replied as they wound among the blackened boles of the trees.

‘Which is?’

‘Future’s face, sir, is no different from the past’s face. Savagery is fangs upon its own tail, and no escape is possible. We are encircled, with no way out.’

‘Surely,’ Gripp replied, ‘civilization can offer us something more.’

She shook her head. ‘Peace is a drawn breath; war the roar of its release.’

‘I have had a thought,’ said Gripp Galas after a time of crunching footsteps through brittle snow. ‘It may be that even Andarist will not tarry in his isolation.’

She seemed to chew on this, before saying, ‘We seek his brother, sir, and will urge him to join us in returning to the estate. Now you suspect that Andarist will not be there?’

‘Just so … a feeling.’

Pelk was silent again for a dozen or so strides, and then she said, ‘Where, then, are we to guide Lord Anomander?’

‘Into the current, perhaps.’

‘And where will this flood take us?’

Gripp Galas sighed. ‘Kharkanas. And a field of battle.’

It was well past dusk when they neared the road, only to see firelight ahead. Raising a hand, Gripp Galas studied the distant camp.

Pelk grunted softly. ‘Carriage and wagons. Many soldiers.’

‘Houseblades, I think,’ Gripp replied.

They approached. Another dozen strides, and from nearby cover two figures rose before them, levelling spears. Gripp spoke. ‘Just the two of us. Your livery is Dracons – is Captain Ivis with you?’

The Houseblades were both women. They moved further apart. One spoke. ‘You’ve not the look of Deniers. Advance and identify yourselves.’

‘Gripp Galas, and with me is the gate sergeant of House Tulla, Pelk. I am known to your captain-’

‘You are known to me,’ the other woman said, lowering her spear and stepping closer. ‘I fought at Fant Reach.’

Gripp nodded. With Pelk at his side, he moved forward.

Escorted by the Houseblade who had fought at Fant Reach, they continued on into the camp straddling the road. It was clear to Gripp that the entire company of Dracons Houseblades was here, meaning the keep was abandoned, and the supplies in the wagons, along with the carriage, indicated that the household accompanied the troops. The implications left him uneasy.

‘Sir,’ said Pelk, pointing to figures standing near one fire. ‘Our search is at an end.’

Now Gripp Galas saw his old master, in the company of Captain Ivis and a huge, broad figure cloaked in furs. The firelight played upon all three in a game of glinting metal and burnished leather. From somewhere near the carriage, a baby was crying.

Lord Anomander’s gaze fixed upon Gripp as he approached.

‘Gripp? Why have you come among us?’

‘Milord, I have come in search of you.’

Frowning, Anomander glanced across at either Ivis or the other man – Gripp could not be sure which – and then the First Son of Darkness stepped out of the firelight. ‘Walk with me, old friend.’ They moved away from the fire, and Pelk stepped forward to greet Captain Ivis.

Anomander continued, ‘I feel the heat upon me already fade. South, then, upon the road. Beyond this civil shell, perhaps we’ll find the familiar stars above us. Sufficient to recall nights long past.’

‘Milord, forgive me-’

‘Yes,’ Anomander cut in, an edge to his tone, ‘forgiveness jostles to the fore, demanding dispensation, as it ever does. You are not with your wife. You are not withdrawn to that sanctuary of love, so high-walled as to be secure from all travails.’

‘We were well retired, milord, wintered and sedate. But our isolation proved far from complete. Emissaries from Lord Urusander. Your own Captain Kellaras. And, milord, one other.’

‘And which of these sent you to me, so unmindful of past gifts?’

‘Kellaras, milord, in his desperation, came with news from Kharkanas. Captain Sharenas Ankhadu, with warnings of the Legion’s impending march. And the other …’ Gripp hesitated, and then said, ‘Milord, Andarist came to us, seeking the privacy of our remote estate.’

Anomander was silent. They walked the frozen slush of the road. Already the lights from the camp’s fires were well behind them, and what heat might have lingered from those flames was long gone from both men.

After a time, Gripp spoke again. ‘Your brother Silchas sent Prazek and Dathenar to the Hust Legion, in aid of Galar Baras, although I am certain that Commander Toras Redone will finally relent, and will resume command in time for the Legion’s march to Kharkanas. In any case, we can presume they have already begun that march. Your own Houseblades await you in the Citadel.’

Anomander raised a hand then, forestalling Gripp. ‘I am well enough informed,’ he said, ‘of matters pertaining to Kharkanas.’

‘Of Prazek and Dathenar, Silchas had your blessing, milord?’

‘My brother’s mind is his own. In my absence, he is free to judge on matters of necessity.’

‘And Andarist? Milord, did you know he had found us?’

‘Not as such, Gripp, but then, who took him into her arms in his bleakest moment? Hish Tulla … ah, Gripp Galas, what have you done in leaving her side?’

‘You are needed, milord. Unless we would see uncontested Urusander’s occupation of Kharkanas.’

‘The blade is denied me, Gripp, by Mother Dark herself.’

‘Milord? Then you will surrender?’

Anomander’s steps slowed, and he tilted his head back, studying the span of stars in the sky above. ‘Captain Ivis begs me to assume command of his Houseblades. His own lord is less than a ghost, yet one whose shadow seems to haunt every one of us. Urusander’s triumph will see Draconus deposed, perhaps even outlawed. At the very least, a self-imposed banishment.’

‘You seek to deliver Ivis to his master, milord? Unto seeing Dracons Keep utterly abandoned?’

‘Draconus is a friend,’ Anomander replied.

‘My wife fears his allegiance.’

‘She fears the treachery of her highborn kin.’

‘Just so, milord.’

‘Tell me, Gripp Galas, do you think, should I request it of him, Lord Draconus would hold his forces in reserve?’

Gripp Galas looked away, south down the road. There was frost in the air itself, glittering like the falling dust of shattered stars. On this night, cold as it now was, he could well imagine the sky cracking with all the sound of thunder, until the darkness descended, a storm to take the world. ‘I’d not jar that man’s pride.’

Anomander was silent, still studying the stars.

Gripp Galas cleared his throat. ‘Milord, how is it you know of Kharkanas? Unless you but recently returned there-’

‘The High Mason knows the trembles of the frozen earth beneath our feet. More to the point, he is close to Grizzin Farl. These Azathanai walk their own roads of sorcery, it seems. In any case, each question I think to ask is in turn answered.’

‘Yet … not the one concerning Andarist?’

Anomander seemed to grimace. ‘A question I chose not to ask.’

But … why?

‘Gripp Galas, your refutation of my gift to you breaks my heart. But even in this, how can I not see my own wounded pride? The faces of both friend and enemy, it seems, offer us a mirror to our own, each in its time, each in its place. Should we not acknowledge these similarities of accord, and so find humility against our righteousness? How many wars must we fight before we ever draw a blade? The answer, I now think, is beyond count.’

‘Mother Dark would not see her lover torn from her arms, milord.’

‘No, I would think not, Gripp Galas.’

‘Then, shall we stand in Urusander’s way?’

‘Gripp Galas, where is your wife?’

‘At her western keep, milord, where she gathers the highborn. She vows they will stand with you. And with the Hust Legion-’

‘Hold little faith in the Hust,’ Anomander said. ‘Convicts have no reason for loyalty. Were I among them, I would frame a curse for the moment of our need, and for every howl of my sword I would show defiance, until the iron itself shatters. No, old friend, if they are to have an instant, united in their congress, it shall burn with such refusal as to sear our souls.’

‘Then, milord, we face a grave battle.’

They stood, unspeaking. Overhead, the stars cast down their unblinking regard.

‘Dracons Keep is a burned ruin,’ Anomander said. ‘Destroyed by magic, at my invitation. Gripp, has this newfound sorcery touched you?’

‘No, milord, and I am thankful for that.’

‘I fear I must one day search it out and claim it for myself. Yet another shield, another skin of armour.’

‘But not yet.’

Anomander shrugged. ‘Neither propensity nor proclivity finds me, alas.’

‘One would think, milord, as a benison befitting the First Son of Darkness, some sorcerous power would be incumbent.’

‘When the title proves less a gift than a curse, I am well relieved that nothing attends it.’

‘How will we face it? On the field of battle, when Hunn Raal unleashes his magical arts?’

Anomander glanced across at him. ‘An Azathanai accompanies me. In singular purpose, bound by vow, he has yet to reward me or my patience.’

A suspicion whispered through Gripp Galas then, and he frowned. ‘What befell Dracons Keep?’

Anomander drew breath as if to make retort, only to instead return his gaze to the stars, and release a long, weary sigh. ‘Then I will see my first invitation to him as yet another weight of burden upon the High Mason, and his efforts that followed. That said, he did indeed warn me: his magic is anything but subtle, when unleashed in fullest fury.’

‘For that reason alone, milord, I am glad to know nothing of the taint.’

‘Forbearance mitigates the Azathanai, and with good reason, as you say. But then, by my cajoling, I saw his power awakened.’ He paused, and then continued, ‘If such a thing is within Hunn Raal’s reach, then I fear that in the meeting of our two armies we shall fall like wheat before the scythe.’

‘Yet the Azathanai chooses to stand at your side, milord. Bound by vow, you said.’

‘He offers me an end to this civil war.’

‘By wise words, milord, or wilful destruction?’

‘It is my thought that he is undecided.’

The chill of the night had reached Gripp’s bones now. Shivering, he drew his cloak tighter about his shoulders. ‘You keep him within sword’s reach, then.’

‘Gripp Galas, you shall not attend this battle.’

‘Milord-’

‘Must I command you again?’

‘My wife will be there, commanding her Houseblades.’

‘Convince her otherwise.’

At a loss for words, Gripp said nothing.

‘Her uncle is a fine commander,’ Anomander said. ‘Take her away, Gripp. Take both of you away.’

‘She would never forgive you,’ Gripp whispered. Nor would I. After a moment, while Anomander remained silent, Gripp cursed himself for a fool. Of course he knows that. And accepts the bargain, to see us live.

Neither speaking, both men turned about, to retrace their way back to the camp.

* * *

Pelk watched the Azathanai move away, presumably heading for his bedrolls. She glanced at Ivis a moment, before crouching to hold her hands closer to the fire.

‘You chose not to return to the Legion,’ Ivis observed after a moment.

‘So it seems,’ she replied.

‘Spared yourself this pogrom against the Deniers.’

‘I did.’

‘The Deniers have begun to fight back.’

She nodded.

‘Pelk.’

‘It’s done with, Ivis. It was a fine season, with misery on all sides, while our private island gave us refuge. Any storm can sweep the sand away. As it did to our blessed idyll. I have no regrets.’

He slowly settled on to a felled tree trunk that had been dragged close to the hearth, positioning himself upon her left. ‘I do,’ he said in a low voice. ‘That I ever turned away. That I was foolish enough to think it meant little. A time away from the fighting and the madness. Those damned Forulkan blathering on about justice, even as they bled out on the ground. When I left you, I left something of me behind.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘When I went back to find it …’ He shook his head. ‘A loss that can never be recovered, never redressed.’

Pelk studied him, and then said, ‘Broken heart, Ivis. Heal it might, but the scar remains, and what you miss most is how it was before it broke, when that heart was whole. So, yes, you can’t get that back.’

‘Then you went and almost died.’

‘I got careless. Wounded people do.’

Ivis put his hands up to his face.

She thought to reach out to him, a touch, offering him the gentle weight of her hand on his shoulder. Instead, she edged both hands closer to the flickering flames and the harsh heat. ‘Best forget all of that,’ she said. ‘It was a long time ago. You weren’t the only fool, you know.’

He looked up with reddened eyes. ‘And now?’

‘I’ve found another.’

‘Ah.’

‘Kellaras.’

‘Yes … a good man. Honourable.’

‘You?’

‘No. No one. Well … no. I always look higher than my station. It’s my own private dance with inevitable disappointment. Someone beyond reach remains forever pure, unsullied. There is that, at least.’

She levelled her gaze on him. ‘You stupid fucking fool, Ivis.’

He pulled back as if she’d struck him across the face.

Pelk went on, ‘I ended up in the service of Lady Hish Tulla. I saw her reach down to Gripp Galas, if you must think of it that way. Bloodlines and rank and station and whatnot. All rubbish. If you find someone who fills your heart, fills in all the cracks and stops all the leaking, to the Abyss with station, Ivis. But you see, I understand you all too well. It’s your excuse for doing nothing.’

‘I can’t. She’s a hostage in my care!’

‘For how much longer? Or, if you can’t wait, then resign your commission with House Dracons.’

He studied her with bleak eyes.

Shrugging, she rummaged in her pack and drew out a flask. ‘In the meantime, old lover, let’s drink against the night and remember other nights from long ago, when we had nothing and everything, when we knew it all but didn’t know a fucking thing. Let’s drink, Ivis, to the sunken islands of our youth.’

He grimaced, and then reached for the flask. His mouth twisted in a mocking grin. ‘I see, looming before us, the shoals of past regrets.’

‘Not me. I regret nothing. Not even not dying.’

‘I hurt you that bad?’

‘As bad as I did you, I wager, though I’m only seeing that now.’

‘You thought me indifferent?’

‘I thought you a man.’

‘I – oh, Abyss take me, Pelk.’

‘Drink up.’

He raised the flask. ‘To fools,’ he said.

She watched him drink, and then took the flask back and lifted it. ‘To every fool who felt like dying, but didn’t.’

At that, she saw his smile transformed, revealing the love still alive in it, and for the first time in decades, she felt at peace. Just as I always said, the heart’s never in the place you think it is. But for all that, it’s good at waiting, when waiting is all there is.

* * *

‘I have been pondering,’ said Surgeon Prok, ‘on the nature of sustenance as it relates to the newborn.’

Wreneck squinted across at the man, his face of sharp angles lit by the firelight, the gauntness of his drawn cheeks, and thought of carvings he had seen in the woods, upon the boles of trees. It was a habit among the Deniers to make faces in trees, often upon the verges of forests, close to the cleared land and planted fields. His mother had told him it was to frighten away strangers, and to warn them against cutting down any more trees. But Wreneck had never been frightened by those visages. And he didn’t think they were warnings. He saw in them nothing but pain.

‘Any midwife would speak plain enough,’ Prok continued, his attention seemingly fixed upon Sorca while he avoided the eyes of Lady Sandalath, who held her swaddled babe but otherwise paid the child no attention, her eyes fixed instead upon the flames in the firepit. ‘Mother’s milk above all else, of course. And coddling, and caressing. A child left unhandled withers in the spirit and often dies. Or, later in life, falls into a habit of needs beyond relief, as of a thirst impossible to quench.’

‘I hold her,’ Wreneck said. ‘And stroke her hair.’

Prok nodded. ‘But it is the mother’s touch, young Wreneck, that gives the greatest sustenance.’ He hesitated, and then reached for some wood to add to the fire. Sparks lifted into the night. ‘Lacking these natural things, what other sustenance is possible for a newborn? One would answer: none. This and only this.’

‘Take her into your arms, Prok!’ snapped Sandalath. ‘Then you will find no starveling feeble in its cries!’

‘No need, milady. A healer’s eyes make the first examination, even before a hand reaches out. Thus, we must broach the mystery. There are unnatural forces here-’

Sorca snorted. ‘Now there’s a stunning diagnosis.’

Grimacing, Prok continued. ‘Not just in the conception – we must assume, lacking as we are in any details – but also in the child herself.’

‘She has but one purpose,’ Sandalath said. ‘To protect her brother. She cannot do this yet. She knows this. She hastens herself.’

‘I doubt there is a will behind-’

‘But there is, Prok. Mine!’

‘You feed her something unseen, then, milady?’

Sandalath’s face was glowing in the reflected flames as she studied the fire, and at Prok’s strange question a curious smile drifted to her lips. ‘Mother would have understood. We make them what we need them to be.’

‘You speak of words delivered in years to come, milady.’

‘I speak of my will, sir. I speak of need as power, which clearly you do not comprehend.’

‘Need … as power.’ Prok frowned into the flames. ‘Indeed, your words confound me. The very notion of need hints at weakness, milady. Where in it do you find power?’

‘Mother took him away from me. She sent him to Kharkanas. That was wrong. It was wrong, too, to send me to House Dracons, to make me a hostage again.’

‘Then I’d question the worth of her advice on matters of parenting.’

‘I will find Orfantal. I will make it the way I want it to be. No one can stop me. Not even Korlat.’

The conversation left Wreneck troubled, but he could find no reason for what he was feeling. Something burned fierce in Lady Sandalath, but he wasn’t sure it was love, or tenderness. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing at all.

‘The child is growing too fast,’ said Prok. ‘In unnatural manner. Sorcery feeds Korlat, a most alarming conclusion. Is she but the first such progeny?’

‘A demon gave her the child,’ said Sorca. ‘You posit an unlikely trend.’

‘Milady,’ Prok persisted, addressing Sandalath, ‘life itself is a burden. Your daughter has her own needs. The brother you would have her protect will not see it as you do. Indeed, he will likely cast a protective eye upon Korlat.’

‘He will not. He is the one who matters. The one I chose.’

‘Was Korlat given leave to choose you, milady? Or the manner of her conception? The seed of her father? How many burdens must she be made to bear?’

‘Only one. She will be my son’s guardian.’

Wreneck thought of the time in the carriage, when he held the baby and looked down into that perfect face with its shining eyes. He saw no burdens there. No, they’re what the rest of us bring, if we’re to people her world. My mother’s fear of the forest, her fear of being alone, her fear of me dying somewhere with her never knowing. Even her fear of Jinia, and me marrying her and us moving away. We bring those things. Those fears.

And like Sandalath said, those fears are needs, and together they have power.

But I turned away. I did what I had to do. I took on a different burden. The one about disappointing people. Needs can pull, or they can push.

I’ll find Orfantal. I’ll explain things. I’ll make him promise to turn away from his mother. Away from her, and straight to Korlat. Be a brother, I’ll say. The older brother. Take her hand, and don’t let your mother ever pull you two apart.

I’ll do all that. In the Citadel. And then I’ll go and look for the bad soldiers. I’ll kill them, and then I’ll go home, to Jinia. I’ll take away Mother’s burdens – not all of them, just the ones I can do something about.

‘You all seem to forget,’ Sandalath said. ‘That demon. He chose me. Not you, Sorca, or any other woman. Me.’

So low were Prok’s words that Wreneck alone heard them: ‘Abyss take me …’

* * *

Sukul Ankhadu found Rancept in an antechamber near the servants’ corridor. He had laid out his scale shirt, his greaves and vambraces and his helm, which still bore its bent nose-guard. The weapons were set in a row on the floor: a mace, a shortsword, and a dagger that was more a spike than anything else. A round shield of a style not used in a generation, a buckler, and a hatchet completed his array of equipment.

His breathing was loud and wet as he crouched, inspecting buckles and straps.

Leaning against one wall, Sukul studied the man. ‘You’re abandoning me,’ she said. ‘Who will be left? Only Skild because of his game leg, and the maids.’

‘Skild will continue your schooling,’ Rancept replied.

‘And what schooling did you have?’

‘Scant.’

‘Precisely. I learn more sniffling underfoot at the meetings than I have from years of Skild’s lessons.’

He was silent for a time, examining the leather wrap of the mace’s handle. And then he said, ‘It takes a superior mind to achieve cynicism, and I don’t mean superior in a good way.’

‘Then how do you mean it?’

‘Convinced of its own genius, levitating upon the hot air of its own convictions, many of which are delusional.’

Grunting, Sukul sipped from the goblet she now carried with her everywhere. ‘The counter to all that, castellan, invariably cites a sense of realism in defence of a cynical outlook.’

‘Cynicism is the voice of ill-concealed despair, milady. The reality the cynic hides behind is one of his or her own making. Convenient, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I liked you better when all you did was mumble.’

‘And I you when the glow of your cheeks was youth’s blessing.’

‘Back to that again, is it? Tell me, did that woman, Sekarrow, ever play that musical instrument – what was it called? That iltre?’

‘Thankfully, no.’ He slowly, awkwardly straightened, reaching for the small of his back.

‘I argued for your staying, Rancept. You’re too old for battle. But Lady Hish Tulla said it was your decision to make. I disagree. It was hers. It remains hers. I will speak to her again.’

‘I would rather you didn’t, milady,’ Rancept replied, collecting his quilted shirt and working his way into it, his breaths harsh and loud.

‘They will use sorcery.’

‘I expect so, yes.’

‘Your armour won’t help any of you against that, will it?’

‘Probably not.’

‘You’re going to die.’

‘I will do my best to avoid that, milady. Is it not time for your lessons? Go and lighten Skild’s mood for a change.’

She set her goblet down on a ledge. ‘Here, that needs tying up the back.’

‘Summon a maid.’

‘No, I’m here and I’ll do it.’ He crouched down again and she moved up behind his broad, misshapen back. She tugged at the drawstrings, then released them suddenly and flung herself against him, arms wrapping tight. ‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded, eyes filling with tears.

He touched one of her hands, the gesture tentative. ‘Milady – Sukul, all will be well. I promise this.’

‘You can’t!’

‘I will return.’

‘You don’t know that – I’m not a child! The Houseblades cannot stand long against Urusander’s Legion!’

‘We have the Hust-’

‘No one has the Hust!’

‘Milady. Something you’ve not considered. Something, it seems, that no one has considered.’

‘What?’

‘The Hust blades. The Hust armour. Against sorcery, what answer will they give?’

He now slowly, tenderly, prised loose her grip around his neck, and then straightened and swung round to face her. His blunt hands settled on her shoulders.

Through tears, she looked up at him. ‘What – what do you mean?’

‘I know only a little of Hust iron, milady, but what I do know is the anger within those swords, and now, perhaps, that armour. It is my belief that the Tiste have possessed sorcery for some time now, much longer than most would believe. There is something elemental in those weapons, in that iron.’

She stepped back, slipping free of his hands and shaking her head. ‘Their rightful owners are all dead, Rancept. Now criminals carry them!’

‘Indeed, and what will come of that?’

‘Your faith is misplaced.’

He shrugged. ‘Milady, I served my own time in the mining pits – a criminal, as you say.’

What?

His smile was a terrible thing to witness. ‘Think you this bent frame was the one I was born with? I was a lead rock-biter. Five years in the tunnels.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I was a thief.’

‘Does Lady Hish Tulla know this?’

‘Of course.’

‘Yet … she made you castellan!’

‘Not at first,’ he said. ‘I needed to earn her trust, of course. Well, her mother’s trust, come to that. It was all long ago.’

‘I don’t want you to go.’

He nodded. ‘I know.’

‘I want to say how much I hate you right now.’

‘Aye.’

‘But it’s the opposite of hate.’

‘I suppose it is, milady.’

‘Don’t get killed.’

‘I won’t. Now, can you tie those strings? But not too tightly. My muscles swell with swinging that mace.’

He turned again and crouched down. She looked at his broad back, the massive bulges of strange muscles, so uneven, like knots on a tree trunk. ‘Rancept,’ she asked as she stepped forward, ‘how old were you, when you were in the mines?’

‘Eleven. Left when I was sixteen.’

‘A lead rock-biter – is that what it was called? You were made that at eleven?’

‘No. Had to earn that, too. But I was a big lad even then.’

‘What did you steal?’

‘Food.’

‘Rancept.’ She pulled at the strings, tied a knot.

‘Milady.’

‘Ours is a cruel civilization, isn’t it?’

‘No crueller than most.’

She thought about that and then frowned. ‘That sounds … cynical.’

He said nothing.

They worked together in silence, getting Rancept readied for war. Through it all, Sukul Ankhadu waged a war of her own, against the despair that threatened to overwhelm her.

But when at last they were done, he reached to rest a finger against her cheek. ‘I think of you, milady, not as a hostage, but as a daughter. I know, I am presumptuous.’

Unable to speak, she shook her head, and felt, in a rush of emotion, the despair swept away, as if before a flood.