Fall of Light

TWENTY-FOUR

The Valley of Tarns was broad in its basin, a span three hundred paces across and twice as long. Its ends were marked by narrow gorges, carved out by fast waters long vanished. Upon the north ridge the land behind the crest formed a gentle slope studded here and there with saplings that had been planted a half-dozen years past. None had fared well and what remained of them would pose little obstacle to the enemy’s command of that side.

Closer to hand, the south slope was steeper, rocky, untreed. But the crest line where the three Andii had halted their horses was broad and even. Slumped in his saddle, Rise Herat watched Silchas Ruin survey the impending field of battle. In bearing Lord Anomander’s brother epitomized all the virtues necessary in a commander. Straight and regal in comportment, severe in expression, he and his white horse could well have surmounted a pedestal, a mounted figure rendered in bronze or marble – indeed, marble, white as snow, white as the skin of our enemy. A triumphal statue, ambivalent in what it celebrates. Even the side upon which it resides is ambiguous. But let us invite this enigmatic hesitation and leave it for posterity. ‘Sir, Lord Urusander will delight in this site.’

Silchas glanced at him, as if irritated by the interruption to his contemplation. ‘As do we, historian. See the faint track of the old stream upon that level floor? It divides the valley as would a heartline. Upon that gauge we will measure this battle’s tide.’ He paused, and then said, ‘Describe this well, sir. Was this not the legendary first camp of the Tiste? Down from the ash-filled sky, our first nest?’

‘Our exhausted refuge,’ Herat said, nodding.

‘And did we not feed from the flesh of dead dragons? Perhaps, historian, if there is any truth to such legends, those brittle burned bones remain beneath the earth and snow.’

To be soon joined by countless others. Already, I see the pyre we must make. Our refuge befouled, our nest unravelled. ‘I would think, commander, on the day of battle we will hear the weeping of ghosts upon the wind.’

Silchas Ruin studied him for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Send your arrow again, historian, when next you face Vatha Urusander. It is fitting, I think, that we both bear that wound.’

High Priestess Emral Lanear cleared her throat as she edged her mount between the two men. ‘You are too generous in meting out blame, commander, to so inflict the Andii, when the cause of this rests with the Liosan.’

‘Blame? High Priestess, forgive me for misunderstanding the historian. I thought we referred to grief, not blame. In that, surely, we must share?’

‘I doubt Hunn Raal would agree,’ Lanear replied, the lines of her face stark in the pale morning light.

‘Nor,’ added Rise Herat – against the suddenly bitter taste in his mouth – ‘Lord Draconus.’

Silchas frowned. ‘Draconus?’

All too aware of Lanear’s level gaze upon him, Herat shrugged and said, ‘Repository of the highborn’s ire, obstacle to a peaceful union of the Andii with the Liosan, his refusal to engage with anyone has, as much as anything else, incited this civil war.’

‘I would not think of it that way,’ said Silchas Ruin uncertainly.

‘A cruel assessment, historian,’ opined Lanear, ‘and yet, sadly accurate.’

‘Lord Draconus is an honourable man,’ said the white-skinned commander. ‘He well comprehends the precariousness of his position. In his stead, I wager I would do much the same as he, under these trying circumstances.’

‘Indeed?’ the High Priestess said in some surprise. Then she nodded. ‘Ah, I understand. His appearance on the field … here, would prove disastrous. For us. While Hunn Raal would delight in it. If not for the opportunity to slay the Consort, then for the very real possibility of seeing the Houseblades of the highborn abandon the field.’

Herat cleared his throat, and then said, ‘Well stated, High Priestess. But we can be certain that Lord Draconus understands this dilemma. That, as you say, his sense of honour will win out over his stung pride, and so he will make no appearance, but will remain with Mother Dark.’

‘If not pride to see him unleashed, then the desire for vengeance,’ Lanear added, to Herat’s mind unnecessarily. He could see the agitation and uncertainty in Ruin’s expression. He could see, plainly enough, the doubts he and Lanear had sowed.

‘Pride is the enemy,’ Herat announced. ‘Had Lord Draconus stepped aside – had he chosen to surrender his position as Consort to Mother Dark, well, how vastly different would be this day, and those to come.’

‘And now,’ said Lanear with a sigh, ‘it is too late.’

Silchas Ruin said nothing for a time. He remained upright on the saddle, his red eyes seeming to scan the valley floor below. His horse dipped its head, stamped occasionally at the frozen ground. The statue contemplates, as all statues must. Their moment now trapped in eternity, their eternity not quite as long as they thought it would be. Stony eyes fixed well upon a crumbling future. ‘Perhaps it isn’t,’ he finally said.

It was a struggle to keep his attention on the commander, rather than casting a triumphant look to Emral Lanear. The historian’s breath was suddenly tight in his chest. ‘Milord?’

‘Too late,’ Silchas Ruin explained. ‘I shall go to the Chamber of Night. I shall demand to see Lord Draconus. I shall appeal to his honour.’

‘An honourable man,’ Lanear said slowly, as if searching for words, ‘would not abide the spilling of so much blood in his name.’

And what of Mother Dark? What of her love, wrapped like chains about Lord Draconus? Consort or husband – the distinction means so much less than so many would have it. It has become the weapon, a thousand hands upon the grip. She holds him close to ease the pain in her heart. The pain of a realm bent upon self-destruction. The pain of her children torn apart, of Light bleeding into the Dark, rich as blood, thin as tears.

I’ll not write of this. I’ll not record our venal manipulations. Centuries from now, my ilk will ponder this day and the silence embracing it. They’ll devise theories, they’ll plumb the nadir world of motivations and all the fears we keep hidden. They will even defend Silchas Ruin, whilst others condemn him.

Go now, commander, poke the serpent in its lair. Lord Draconus does not flee, because she does not permit him the luxury. This is not his pride at work, but hers. Pride and love, the power of the former grants sanctity upon the latter. We venture now, commander, into a place where none of us belong.

He stared down at the heartline of the valley.

For we have made a woman’s love our field of battle, and now will see her lover dragged forth in sacrifice.

No, I will not write of this.

Silchas Ruin gathered up his reins. Then he hesitated. ‘I am a warrior,’ he said. ‘I do not shy from necessity. If we are to fight Vatha Urusander and his legion, then I will lead us into that battle.’

‘None doubt your virtue,’ said Lanear.

They waited.

‘And yet,’ said Silchas, ‘if peace can be won, here on the cusp of slaughter, by the will of a single man …’

‘Appeal to his honour,’ said Lanear. ‘Lord Draconus is an honourable man.’

‘The will,’ said Herat, ‘not of one man, commander, but of two men. Such a thing will be remembered, and celebrated.’

Silchas scowled, and Herat wondered if he’d pushed too far, or indeed, if he had erred in his judgement of the man’s vanity. ‘In this,’ Silchas then said in a growl, ‘I am but the messenger of his conscience. When the echoes of my horse’s hoofs have passed, little else will linger.’ He faced the historian with a stern visage. ‘I trust that is understood.’

Rise Herat nodded.

All three turned then at the sound of approaching horses. A pair of riders, coming up from the track that led back to Kharkanas. Cedorpul and Endest Silann.

Lanear spoke. ‘Best ride on, milord. These priests of mine are my business, not yours.’

‘Cedorpul promises sorcery,’ Silchas said.

‘At a battle we may well avoid, milord.’

Silchas Ruin swung his mount around. He would pass the two priests on the narrow track, but Herat was certain that few, if any, words would be exchanged. ‘I ride to the Chamber of Night,’ the commander announced. ‘But that business, as you say, High Priestess, is not theirs to debate. Blunt them. Confound them if you must, but ensure my path remains clear.’

‘I shall do as you say, milord,’ said Lanear.

Silchas Ruin set off, gathering his horse into a quick canter.

Rise Herat glanced back at the valley. ‘We have done with it, then,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Dispense with that tone,’ Lanear snapped. ‘Condemnation avails us nothing. We cannot predict what words may pass between him and Draconus. What comes is now out of our hands, historian.’

But he shook his head. ‘And does that smoke suffice, High Priestess, to fill your body and blind you to guilt? If so, I’m of a mind to join you next time you imbibe. We can wallow in opaque insensibility, and deem all that races past us scant distraction. Let the clouds find our veins, swell the chambers of our hearts, and whisper sweet promises of oblivion.’

If she intended a retort, she bit back on the words with the arrival of Cedorpul and Endest Silann.

‘High Priestess!’ cried Cedorpul as he reined in. ‘I was dismissed with but a single word! Have we not a battle to discuss? To where does he ride?’

‘Take no offence,’ Lanear replied. ‘There is time still. Our commander attends to many things. Tell me, have you brought word of the Hust Legion?’

Cedorpul frowned, and then shook his head. ‘Nothing from the south, and it is indeed worrisome. We cannot hope to defeat the Liosan with only the Houseblades defending us.’

‘Then what manner of plans did you think to discuss?’ Rise Herat asked him.

‘My sorcery, of course! It finds shape.’

‘Shape?’

‘I have mastered malice, historian. I will be ready to face Hunn Raal.’

Herat turned to Endest Silann. The man was gaunt, aged, harried. Herat suspected that he had not come here of his own will. The priest’s hands were tightly bound in strips of linen, stained red in blooms and edged in pallid gold. He wore coarse wool to fend off the cold, but his head was bare. ‘Endest Silann, do you bring Mother Dark’s blessing to this newfound magic of Cedorpul’s?’

‘It has the flavour of darkness,’ the man replied, not meeting the historian’s eyes.

‘Bestowed by her, then?’

After a moment, he shook his head.

‘Myriad are her aspects,’ Cedorpul said, his round cheeks fiery red, his face that of a glutted child. ‘Many forces lie beneath or beyond her notice. I have drawn from such, ensuring not to stir her equanimity.’

Endest glanced across at Cedorpul, as if unimpressed with this explanation, but voiced no opinion.

Lanear cleared her throat, something she did often of late, and then said, ‘Your journey was wasted, alas, and has proved trying for Endest Silann. Your gestures are riddled with haste, Cedorpul, leaving me concerned. One would think eagerness anathema to the control of magic-’

‘One would if speaking from a place of utter ignorance!’

‘Mind your manners, sir!’ said Herat.

Cedorpul turned on him with a sneer. ‘And you comprehend even less, historian. Your pondering ways are in for a shock. Indeed, the entire world is due its rude awakening.’

‘Then do ring the discordant bell, priest,’ replied Herat wearily, ‘and delight in our fleeing its clamour.’

Teeth bared, Cedorpul pulled his mount around and kicked savagely at its flanks. The startled beast leapt forward, hoofs biting at the frozen road.

‘Pray it throws him,’ muttered Endest Silann as they watched Cedorpul ride away. ‘Swift be night’s sudden setting, to defy his newfound dawn. Pray his neck breaks, to leave lolling his interrupted ambition. Pray his limp body rolls beneath indifferent hoofs, to give lie to nature’s horror at what he contemplates.’

‘A potent curse,’ Rise Herat said, chilled by the dry venom of the man’s tone.

Endest Silann shrugged. ‘Nothing potent resides in my words, historian. Like yours, my breath sings useless warnings, bestirring a fistful of air, all too quickly swept away. What we have to say wins us less perturbation than a sparrow’s leap from a twig.’

Rise Herat could find little with which to disagree in that assessment.

But Emral Lanear spoke, ‘You may be surprised, then, priest. Words alone have ushered in civil war, after all, and our fates now reside in the words soon to be spoken, either here or in the Citadel.’

Offering up a second shrug, Endest Silann said nothing. Then he nudged his horse to the crest, and once there he halted the beast and let drop the reins. He began unfolding the strips of cloth binding his hands.

‘What are you doing?’ Lanear demanded.

‘I am showing her the field of battle,’ Endest answered without turning.

‘Why?’

‘To see winter’s end, High Priestess. The unsullied snow of the basin. The empty slopes, the unoccupied ridges. The muted blessing of a simple breeze. The world delivers its own gifts.’ He held up and out his hands, from which blood now dripped. ‘It is our common flaw to make the wondrous familiar, and the familiar a thing bound in the tangled wire of contempt.’

‘You would torture her,’ accused Lanear.

Endest slowly lowered his hands. ‘Her?’ he asked.

They watched him wrap up his hands once more. It was more difficult now, with all the blood that had streamed down from the wounds. Herat was thankful that the priest had not turned those crimson eyes upon him. She would see too much. My goddess, witness to my guilt.

Lanear looked up the track. ‘If Cedorpul should catch up with Silchas Ruin …’

‘Pray,’ said Rise Herat, ‘he cuts him down for his temerity.’

At that, Endest Silann twisted in his saddle to regard the historian. Then he nodded. ‘I see.’

‘Do you?’ Herat asked.

‘Yes. You will lay her out on the altar of her love, and make a knife of your unwelcome cock.’ He raised his hands again, now bound, now blind. ‘She will never forgive him.’

‘Better him than thousands,’ Lanear said, but her onyx skin was ashen.

Endest faced her, and then bowed. ‘Alas, High Priestess, for all your machinations, he won’t be the only man to fall. Her will is not to be scorned.’

The warning chilled Rise Herat, while Lanear looked away to make plain her dismissal. ‘Endest Silann,’ she said, sighing again. ‘Your name is cursed in the city’s markets. Your misguided blessings summoned a dragon. And people went hungry for a time. The very faith of Mother Dark sustained damage in the eyes of the commonfolk, and her blessing has been seen to fade among more than a few of them. You have made yourself an unwelcome prophet, and accordingly, I know not what to do with you, barring a diminishment of your rank in the priesthood.’ She fixed her gaze upon him. ‘You are an acolyte once more, sir. With a difficult path to redemption awaiting you. Indeed, it may prove impossible for a mortal man to achieve.’

If she sought to sting, his sudden laugh crushed that hope. He bowed again. ‘As you will, High Priestess. Then, by your leave, I will return to the Wise City, seeking the glimmer of its namesake.’

‘Do not expect to be welcome to council,’ she said in a hiss.

He smiled. ‘But I never have been, High Priestess. Still, I take your meaning and will abide by it. I embark on a welcome return to being forgotten and, indeed, beneath notice.’ Fumbling at the reins, he managed to pull his horse back on to the track, where he set off at a slow trot.

Neither the historian nor the High Priestess spoke for a time, and yet neither seemed eager to begin the return journey. Finally, Lanear said, ‘If Cedorpul proves his power, he will be most useful in opposing Syntara and Hunn Raal.’

‘Then you had best mend that bridge and be the first to cross,’ Herat said.

‘I shall bribe him with privilege.’

The historian nodded. ‘Among tactics, nothing else proves as successful. Feed his vanity, make costly his ire.’

‘Such efforts would fail with Endest Silann.’

‘Yes.’

‘He remains dangerous.’

‘Indeed. While Mother Dark continues to make use of him.’

‘I will think on what to do about that,’ she said, drawing out a clay pipe and a pouch: rustleaf mixed with something else.

‘He kept her attention away from us.’

‘What of it?’

‘He knew, even then. What she might see.’ Then he shook his head. ‘Look at us, hiding from our goddess, and relieved by her continued ignorance. As prophet, Endest Silann walked among the commonfolk. He opened his hands so that she could not turn away, could not blink. You think by this act did he condemn the faithless, the misguided, the banal selfishness of each person who suffered that regard. But I think, now, the one he sought to condemn was her.’

To that she had no reply. He watched her tamping the herb into the bowl. She then tipped in some embers from a silver and enamel box that was now part of her regular attire, tied to her sash by a leather string. We are creatures of ritual and habit, repeating patterns of comfort. Alas, too often we also repeat patterns of disaster. As every historian cannot help but comprehend. From the minuscule and mundane to the monumental and the profound, we draw and redraw the same maps, enough to make a book, enough to make a life.

Smoke plumed on the breeze.

Clouds inside and out. Obscure me from myself, that I might imagine my demeanour noble, my stance statuesque. Yes, I will have some of that.

* * *

Endest Silann found Cedorpul on the road, leading his horse by the reins. As he slowed his mount to a walk and drew up alongside the priest, Cedorpul cast him a dark glare. ‘Damned beast threw a shoe. I had hoped to catch Silchas Ruin.’

‘You hope for many things,’ Endest said.

‘You were of little use back there. I once knew you as a friend. Now, I know not what you are.’

‘Apparently, an acolyte once more. Punished for my walk in the market. And now, it seems, distrusted. But I wonder, is it me the High Priestess would see excluded from council, or Mother Dark?’

Cedorpul kicked at a stone on the path, watched it roll into the shallow ditch. ‘Elemental Night. It did not take me long to find it. She does not command that realm, Endest. I assure you of that. It is vast. There are rivers, pools of power, of which she knows nothing.’ He glanced up at Endest. ‘What do you make of it? Is our goddess an impostor?’

‘If she does not rule that realm, Cedorpul, then who does?’

‘I wish I knew. Perhaps,’ he added, ‘the throne remains unclaimed.’

‘Ambition unbridled, Cedorpul, can make ugly even the most benign and placid visage.’

The man scowled, and then spat. ‘I am a wizard now. The world bends to my will.’

‘In a small way, to be sure.’

‘Do you mock me?’

Endest Silann shook his head. ‘I advise caution, knowing it will be unheeded. You say there are sources of power within the realm of night, many of them unclaimed. You are right.’

Cedorpul’s small eyes narrowed. ‘What do you know? What has she told you?’

‘She tells me nothing.’

‘You have always been too coy for my liking, Endest Silann.’

Endest could make out the walls of Kharkanas ahead, a grim black line rising from the horizon. The horses’ slow walk on the frozen road made a solemn beat. ‘Wizardry, magery, sorcery, alchemy, thaumaturgy. Myriad arts, each one wondrous in what it can create, and wholly destructive in what it means.’

‘Explain that.’

Endest Silann smiled. ‘You sound like Silchas Ruin. Simplify, reduce, divide and decide. Very well. This power you now possess, it is a way of circumvention. It slips to one side of mundane reality. It draws on unseen energies to twist nature. It imposes a flawed will upon the shape of the world, upon its laws, its rules and its propensities. It is, in short, a cheat.’

Cedorpul was silent for a few steps, and then he nodded. ‘I will allow all of that. Go on.’

‘One cheats to escape the rules, howsoever those rules are expressed. A winter wind casting a chill upon your bones? A simple cantrip warms you through and through. That, or the mere expedient of donning a cloak. You choose the former as it requires less effort. You choose out of convenience.’ He paused, and then continued. ‘A thousand enemies marching upon you. Draw your sword and prepare for a day of brutal fighting. Or, with a wave of one hand, incinerate them all. As you see, each time, we fall upon the side of convenience. But how cold, how cruel, is that measure of worth? Consider again that line of soldiers. Consider each of their lives, wagered there on the field, and consider as well a day’s hard battle, the wounded, the many slain, the wills bent and then broken. Consider, most of all, the survivors. Each one blessing his or her fortune. Each one returning home, at last, to drop the bundled armour and weapon-belts to the floor, to then embrace a weeping loved one, with, perhaps, children gathering round, their eyes alight with the joy only a child can feel.’ Squinting, he could now make out the Citadel’s bulky towers. ‘But wave the hand. Much simpler, much quicker, and call it mercy, against all the suffering and pain. Deliver death sudden and absolute, and to walk a field of ashes invites an easy dismissal – far easier indeed than to stumble across a field of corpses, hounded by the chorus of the dying.’

‘A wave of the hand,’ Cedorpul said in a growl. ‘Hunn Raal will delight in that simple gesture.’

‘And will you match him with destruction of your own? Why not, then, set the two of you upon the other, alone on the field, our champions of magic, there to duel to the death?’

‘In that, our function is no different from that of armies, is it?’

Endest nodded. ‘True. But with armies, a higher body count, a more profoundly disturbing cost for those who fight, and for those who did not fight. We are all damaged by war. Even those who command. Those who insisted upon the necessity whilst remaining safe in their keeps and palaces. Even they pay a price, though few of that ilk have the courage to admit it.’

‘You reach for abstraction again, Silann, as is your predilection. Now is the time to be pragmatic. Even you must see that. But we are astray in this dialogue. You spoke of mysteries gleaned.’

‘Only this, then. I have my own cheats, Cedorpul. But they are without malice. Their strength, such as I understand it, lies in sustainment. Protection. Defence.’

‘Then you will attend the battle?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you defend us against Hunn Raal?’

‘I believe that I can.’

‘Abyss take them, then! We shall win this war!’

‘Understand, Cedorpul, just as Hunn Raal’s sorcery can be negated, so too can yours.’

‘If so, then we’re back to swords and shields!’

Endest Silann nodded. ‘Yes. Most … inconvenient. But I see, upon both sides, no matter the outcome, a host of thankful husbands and wives, a multitude of delighted children. I see tears of joy and relief, and a welling of such love as to sear the sky above us.’

Cedorpul halted then, dropping the reins to bring his hands up to his face, and all at once he was weeping.

Endest Silann reined in his horse and clumsily dismounted. He strode up to his old friend and took him into an embrace. ‘Understand me,’ he whispered as the man in his arms sobbed, ‘I have confidence. But not certainty. I may be able to blunt him only, to save some, but not others. And so I beg you, brother, wring the malice from your power. Twist until the last venal drop falls away. Defend us. That and no more. Be the wall against the fury. Hate finds an easy path with this sorcery. We have reason to fear this new world of ours.’

Face pressed into Endest Silann’s shoulder, Cedorpul managed a nod.

They stood thus, in the dim afternoon light, while the two horses wandered down to crop the brittle grasses at the road’s edge.

* * *

Kellaras stood, girded for war. Around him the Houseblades of Lord Anomander’s company were readying their gear, the arms room crowded with silent men and women while the metal and leather murmured its wholly natural discord, blessedly senseless, yet no less ominous.

Word had come. Urusander’s Legion was but half a day away.

The Houseblades of other highborn families were arriving in Kharkanas, most of them taking up temporary residence in the city’s open squares and rounds, or in the walled compounds surrounding the many private estates.

In his youth, Kellaras had commanded his own fear, on the days leading up to a battle, and in the battle itself. Indeed, he had found a kind of joy in the simplicity of fighting, as if some arguments could only be waged when the last word was spoken, its echo long fading away, and all uncertainty could cleave to the edge of a sword. But rumours had reached them all of sorceries awaiting this clash, against which no shield or armour could defend. Surrounding him now, these Houseblades readied themselves, and their silence was thick with dread. That each of us should be now made obsolete, as useless as sticks against iron blades. Shall we line up only to be cut down from afar? Will Hunn Raal dispense with all honour, even as he calls the rally in that virtue’s name? Can one man kill us all?

A house steward entered the chamber and approached Kellaras. ‘Sir, Lord Silchas Ruin is returning to the Citadel.’

‘Alone?’

‘It seems so, sir.’

Kellaras adjusted his sword-belt, recalling the last time he met Silchas in a hallway of the Citadel while wearing his armour. The man’s fury had been fierce. ‘Its display whispers of panic.’ This time, alas, he did not expect a reprimand. It seemed long ago, now. A thousand excuses uttered with each step they took, now lying discarded in their wake. Time, chewing up the future and spitting out the past. And each moment, trapped in its eternal and instantaneous present, stands helpless and aghast.

Silchas arrives alone. Historian, you dare not return to see all this? Then stand at a distance. We will be your players in this narrative, anonymous as pawns. Oh, do at the very least summarize us as the multitudes. Assign us our ancillary roles, and leave to us, if you will, the shadows.

Pelk, how I miss you now.

He followed the steward into the main chamber, with its vast inky Terondai on the floor and motes of dull dust drifting in the air. He could hear the outer gates being thrown open, their clank and squeal muted by the hall’s thick wooden doors. Silchas Ruin was moments from arriving. Fitted to bursting with commands, you come like a flung torch, scattering shadows everywhere with every lash of your flame.

Rise Herat, why this shying? You rode out with him, after all. Are you now too full to witness any more of this? Our leader returns alone to the Citadel, and would stand as an island in this calamitous storm. We are all on history’s churning tide, historian, and in the end – when every blazing torch has guttered out – we walk in shadow, we of the multitude, anonymous in our victimhood, and yet so very necessary.

Now do heed me, historian. Enough bodies in the flow will raise any river beyond its banks. And against this flood, none will be left standing.

The doors swung open and Silchas Ruin strode into the chamber. Eyes alighting on Kellaras, the lord nodded and without pausing his march, said, ‘With me, captain,’ and then was past.

Kellaras fell in behind the tall, white-skinned warrior. The pace was merciless, the man bristling as he strode down the corridor, heading for – Kellaras now knew – the Chamber of Night. He felt somewhat humiliated hastening in the man’s wake, as if tugged along on a leash. Every step was a surrender, a relinquishing of his own will. It made something inside him – grim as a thwarted child, hands closed into fists – yearn to lash out. This was, he realized with a faint shock, true, in all the countless venues of life, the endless tumble of scenes where wills clashed, where hackles lifted and fangs flashed from beneath stretched lips. The cowering dog is the one most likely to bite, isn’t it? They take us at this moment, these unwavering men and women who presume to rule over us, and but point us in the direction of a weaker victim. This is their game, knowing or not, and as ever the assumption is that we’ll never turn on our masters – so long as an enemy remains within reach of our blunted, frustrated fury.

And what, then, did the soldiers of Urusander’s Legion discover, when the last enemy retreated over the horizon? Nowhere left for that angry child within. The game had ended, the leaders told them to go home.

But see us now, see how we make scenes inviting that old humiliation. And see how we rush to that rage, so familiar, so simple. This child within us never grows up. And, Abyss take me, it doesn’t want to.

Along the narrow corridor with its cracked, uneven floor. Reaching the recently repaired door of warped blackwood, Silchas Ruin set his hand upon the latch, and then paused to look at Kellaras. ‘Stay close to me, captain.’

Kellaras nodded, the gesture deepening his humiliation, his thoughts in a turmoil of something edging towards self-hatred. This, Mother forgive me, is the curse of the one who salutes. One wolf leads the pack, the rest of us expose our throats.

Silchas Ruin opened the door and strode into the Chamber of Night. Kellaras followed.

No preternatural gifts of sight could conquer the darkness within. Even the faint gloom from the doorway fell off only a few steps beyond the threshold.

‘Close the door,’ said Silchas Ruin.

Kellaras pulled it shut behind him, the new latch making no sound.

Now, his eyes might as well be closed. His remaining senses quested, and then contracted, reducing his world to the slow beat of his heart, the rasp of his breath, the feel of lifeless air against his skin.

Silchas Ruin spoke, startling him. ‘Lord Draconus! The time has come!’

The echoes fell away.

‘Urusander’s Legion approaches the Valley of Tarns! Tell me, Draconus, where are your Houseblades? Pray you surrender them to my command. Pray you understand the necessity of your absence on the day of battle.’

Silence answered him.

Kellaras heard Silchas Ruin shifting his stance – the soft click of a ring against the pommel of a sword, the scuff of boot heels on the gritty clay. ‘She does not understand,’ he said. ‘We must speak, Draconus, as one man to another.’

A moment later, Lord Draconus emerged, ethereal and limned in fragmented silver light, as if parts of him reflected something unseen, too cold to be born of flame, too brittle to belong to moonlight. ‘Silchas,’ he said with a smile softening his features.

‘Draconus. Thank you for acceding to my request.’ Silchas Ruin paused, and then said, ‘Even here, sir, you must sense the closing of this noose – we are moments from strangling our own realm, moments from seeing the death of far too many Tiste. They will see another throne, Draconus. They will see a Father Light at the side of Mother Dark.’

Draconus seemed to lose interest halfway through Ruin’s warning, his gaze shifting away, glancing briefly over Kellaras before continuing on, as if something off to the right had caught his attention. ‘You said that she does not understand,’ he said when Silchas had finished.

‘This is a matter of a man’s honour.’

Draconus looked back, brows lifting.

‘None will accept you, sir,’ Silchas said. ‘Even should she marry you, you will ever remain a Consort in the eyes of the highborn. Among Urusander’s Legion, you will be the man who humiliated Lord Urusander, at the very gates of Kharkanas. The followers of Liosan will see you as the thief of their Throne of Light. The High Priestess-’

‘And all this,’ Draconus interjected, ‘arrayed against the simple gift of love.’

Silchas Ruin was silent for a moment. ‘Honour, sir, stands before all else. Should it fail you, the gift you speak of will falter. Poisoned, corrupted by weakness-’

‘Weakness?’

‘Love, sir, is surely that.’

‘It has never touched you, then, Silchas Ruin.’

‘Am I the one holding the realm hostage to it?’ Silchas seemed to struggle for a few breaths, and then he said, ‘I said we must speak, you and me. Please hear my words, Draconus. Her love for you is undeniable – not even your enemies question it. How could they? She defies everyone for you – her children, each one estranged, abandoned by her closed heart. This is obstinacy. It is plunging the realm into destruction-’

‘It is simply love, Silchas.’

‘Then why will she not marry you?’

Draconus barked a bitter laugh. ‘That choice was never given us-’

‘You should have done it nonetheless. They would have swallowed it down, eventually. Had you done so, there would be no civil war. Even the birth of the Liosan-’

‘No,’ Draconus cut in. ‘Not that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Father Light was a title born the moment she took hers. The Azathanai T’riss, who came from the Vitr, did not create it. She but sanctified it. More to the point,’ he added, ‘the Liosan are necessary, and not just them.’

‘Then this civil war belongs to Mother Dark?’

His face hardened. ‘Oh, you mort-’ he halted, and then in a calmer voice said, ‘No. It belongs to all of you. To every face in the battle line, every soul with a command upon his or her lips. It belongs to the ones who turned away when they shouldn’t have, who chose expediency over decency, who make their reality a cold winter, too hard and too harsh for sentimental fools. It belongs to the ones without imagination, without courage-’

‘Courage? You who hide in this – this nothing – you dare challenge our bravery?’

‘Do you claim to be a brave man, Silchas Ruin?’

‘I know what I am!’

‘Then … lay down your sword.’

‘Surrender?’

‘You call it that?’

‘They will take the city! They will raise a second throne! And you, Consort, will be cast out!’

‘These,’ said Draconus wearily, ‘are not revelations.’

Silchas Ruin shook his head. ‘None will sympathize with your plight, Draconus. Not after this. Not after so much blood has already been spilled.’

‘Ah, you lay that at my feet as well?’

‘They will hunt you down-’

‘And in so doing,’ cut in Kellaras, his voice pushing between the two men, ‘break Mother Dark’s heart.’

The words silenced both Draconus and Silchas Ruin, the latter of whom turned helplessly to Kellaras.

‘So,’ said Draconus to Silchas after a long moment, ‘what would you have me do?’

‘Does she listen now, Lord Draconus?’

He shook his head. ‘This is our world here, old friend.’ Then he added, with a slight tilt of his head as he regarded Silchas, ‘I see the hand still upon your sword. None, then, shall surrender.’

‘We cannot,’ snapped Silchas Ruin. ‘We lose too much. We lose it all.’

Draconus slowly nodded, looking thoughtful and then, with narrowing eyes, curious. He waited.

Silchas Ruin hesitated.

Tears filled Kellaras’s eyes, but he could not look away. No, Silchas, don’t do this.

‘The honourable thing, Lord Draconus, is to step aside.’

‘I already have, Silchas, or do you imagine I volunteered this role of Consort?’

‘Then … step again.’

‘Ah, I see. It seems, after all, that at least one man must surrender.’

‘It is-’

‘The honourable thing,’ Draconus finished, nodding, and then looking away once more.

She’ll not forgive you, Draconus. Do not agree to this. I understand you. I have found the love of which you speak, the love that holds and has held you for all this time. Silchas would make honour its enemy, its slayer. He drew breath to speak.

But Draconus said, ‘You spoke of my Houseblades.’

‘As I rode in, sir, their standards were sighted from the north tower. They are upon the forest road, in column.’

‘Ah.’

‘My brother Anomander is with them.’

Kellaras started, facing Silchas Ruin.

‘Yet,’ said Draconus, ‘you still claim command.’

‘You well know his dilemma,’ Silchas said harshly. ‘She forbids him unsheathing his sword!’

‘It is your belief then, sir, that he will not break that covenant?’

‘He is the First Son of Darkness!’

A faint, sad smile creased the hard features of the Consort, and still he kept his gaze averted. ‘As you say. I imagine you know your brother’s mind in this. Very well. But I will have my Houseblades.’ He swung his head and fixed Silchas with a lifeless stare. ‘In my exile.’

The heartbreak burgeoning in Kellaras’s chest was fierce enough to steal his breath.

Silchas Ruin had the decency to bow. Or, perhaps, it was unintentional irony. If anything else, Kellaras would never forgive him. ‘Lord Draconus, will you accompany us, then?’

‘In a moment. The door is directly behind you. Await me in the corridor beyond.’

‘You will make your farewell to her?’

The question seemed to strike Draconus like a slap across the face. What had been lifeless in his eyes suddenly flared, if for but an instant. ‘Silchas,’ he said in a low voice, ‘have you lost your mind?’

As the commander hovered, as if uncomprehending of the wound he had driven into Draconus, Kellaras stepped forward and took Silchas by one arm. ‘Now, sir.’

He very nearly dragged Silchas back to the door. Fumbling, he somehow found the latch. The doorway spilled in a bloom of light that hurt his eyes, and then he pulled Silchas through. At the last moment, before he closed the door once more, Kellaras looked back at Draconus.

The Consort stood watching, a man bereft of love, who had just felt the cold kiss of honour upon his lips. The only man present who understood courage.

It was a sight Kellaras would never forget.

When they were gone, Draconus gestured wearily with one hand, and a moment later Grizzin Farl appeared from the darkness.

The Azathanai stepped close and laid a hand upon the Consort’s shoulder. ‘Forgive me, Draconus. I could not protect your love.’

‘You never could. Nor, it seems, can I.’

‘I did not know,’ sighed Grizzin, ‘that love could die so many deaths.’

Draconus grunted. ‘It has enemies beyond count, my friend. Beyond count.’

‘Why is that, I wonder?’

‘To those never touched by it, it is a weakness. To those in its bittersweet embrace, it lives a life besieged.’

‘A weakness? Surely a judgement born of envy. As to the siege of which you speak …’ Grizzin sighed again and shook his head. ‘What profundity can I find? After all, I fled my wife.’

‘Is your love stretched?’

Grizzin seemed to consider the notion for a moment, and then said, ‘Alas, not in the least. As for hers … I wager she could throw a pot across half a continent as easily as spanning a room.’

‘Well,’ Draconus said with a smile, ‘I have on occasion seen you duck at the slightest sound.’

‘Aye, her love is hard as iron.’

Neither man spoke for a few moments longer, and then Draconus moved forward, towards the door.

Grizzin turned but took no step to follow. ‘Draconus?’

The Consort seemed to flinch, but then he glanced back. ‘Yes?’

‘Where will you go?’

‘Far enough, I suppose, to hear its snap.’

Grizzin turned away quickly, to hide the sudden emotion that threatened to crumple his features. He blinked at the darkness. And heard the door open and then close. Only when alone did he whisper, ‘Forgive me.’

Then he set off to find her. There would be no stretching this love, nothing made so taut as to snap. The words he would bring to Mother Dark were a knife’s cut. He was, after all, the Protector of Nothing.

* * *

When citizens take to the streets of a city, driven there by something agitated and ineffable, a strange fever descends upon them in the course of their restive milling. As if it was a contagion carried on sullen currents of air – too vague and wayward to be a breeze or wind – this thief of reason longed for violence. There were times when a people collectively stumbled, staggering beyond the borders of the civil commons, out into light or plunging darkness, out into screams in the night or the blistering kiss of fire. At other times, this sidestep was something else, less obvious and far more profound. A revelation, breaking the fever with sudden cool air upon the brow and the last of the chills falling away, the sweat drying, a new day begun. A revelation, alas, that delivered a crushing truth to all who discovered it.

We of the multitudes, we of the civil commons, we are the flesh and blood of an enslaved body. This sidestep carried us into the path of an executioner’s axe, and the head is no longer our master. It rolls unanchored, the echoes of the severing cut making it rock to and fro, at least for a time. Motion some might mistake for life. Flickering eyelids and eyes that could have flashed with intelligence, but the glitter is now no more than reflected light. The mouth hangs open, lips slack, the cheeks flaccid and sagging towards the floor.

Once enslaved, we wander without purpose, and yet a rage burns within us. This, we tell each other, was not our game. It was theirs. This, we cry to the gathering crowd, is our final argument with helplessness.

An end! An end to it all!

But mobs are stupid. Venal leaders rise like weeds between the cobblestones. They cut each other down, with nails and teeth. They carve out pathetic empires in a tenement building, or upon a corner where streets conjoin. Some rise up from the sewers. Others plunge into them. Bullies find crowns and slouch sated on cheap thrones. The dream of freedom is devoured one bloody bite at a time, and before too long a new head enslaves the body, and quiescence returns.

Until the next fever.

Surely, thought Rise Herat as he and Emral Lanear rode towards the open gates of Kharkanas, moments from pressing into the crowd, surely, there must be another way. An end to the cycle thus described. That sidestep belongs to a people beaten senseless by the careless onslaught of injustice. For there to be any change – any change at all – it seems the revolution must never end. Instead, it must roil like a storm feeding itself, on the very edge of calamity and loss of all control, tottering imbalanced but never quite falling. With none to rule, all must rule, and for all to rule, they must first rule themselves. With none to guard the virtues of a just society, each must embody those virtues of justice. But this demands yet more – ah, Abyss take me, I have indeed lost my mind.

My very own fever burns in my skull, that of hope and optimism. With love, even, like Endest Silann’s dragon, ever circling overhead.

The severed head on the floorboards is still making faces, still twitching. That glitter in the eyes is indeed the flicker of intelligence, dimming to be sure – as the armies prepare to meet – but alas, this remnant is without reason.

We man ramparts with nothing at our backs. We face a future that has no face but our own, older and no more the wiser. This weariness comes with the tide, rides in the current, and no eddy offers secure respite.

What had Silchas Ruin done? What had he said to Lord Draconus? Assuming the Consort deigned to meet the man. And what of these crowds, the faces now turning to regard us? Strangers. But even that word, ‘stranger’, arose from a time of kin-hearths and a half-dozen huts marking the very limits of a people, a realm, a temporary nest in the seasonal rounds – when we lived in nature and nature lived in us and no other divide existed beyond what was known and what was unknown.

Strangers. We’ve bred and multiplied into the isolation of anonymity, too many to count, no point in trying. Let my eyes glaze over these unfamiliar faces before me. The alternative is too ghastly, should I see in each visage my own longing for something better, and for somewhere else, a place in which we all belonged. A place without strangers, a civilization of friends and family.

But the notion mocked him as soon as his mind uttered it. Civilization entrenched the old words, like ‘stranger’, replete with all the anachronistic fears that had spawned them in the first place. Different ways of doing things, forever jarring us with confusion – and when confusion takes us, every primitive thought returns, weak as an ape’s whimper, savage as a wolf’s snarl. We return to our fears. Why? Because the world wants to eat us.

His snort of bitter amusement was louder than he’d intended, drawing Lanear’s attention even as they drew up to the gateway.

‘Irony,’ she said to him, ‘is a cheap pleasure.’

* * *

The low outer wall of Kharkanas had been raised long ago to defend against spears and the belligerent press of savages. It was born in a time when warfare was simpler, a clash of mere flesh and peacock displays, where warriors stood as heroes who knew their legends were coming. Originally, Ivis saw as he rode at the head of the column, alongside Lord Anomander, Gripp Galas and Pelk, the wall had been little more than a berm, a mounded, sloped embankment of soil and rocks. The trench of its excavation had made the moat surrounding it, but the steep sides were long gone, and the dressed stone now surmounting the bank had the appearance of a row of discoloured, uneven teeth.

The city might as well be an upturned skull, the bowl soon to take our clattering selves, like so many errant thoughts. ‘Milord,’ he said to Anomander, ‘it is my thought to halt the Houseblades here, to encamp beyond the city’s walls. I would think the streets crowded enough.’

The First Son of Darkness seemed to consider the suggestion for a moment, and then he nodded. ‘Settle the household staff as well, then, until such time as I can make arrangements.’

‘Or Lord Draconus makes a reappearance,’ Ivis said.

‘That would be ideal,’ Anomander replied. ‘I see many standards upon the walls. It is clear that the highborn have gathered their forces.’

Gripp Galas cleared his throat and said, ‘Lady Hish Tulla can be persuasive.’

When Anomander reined in, the others followed suit, and the column halted on the road. The First Son of Darkness said, ‘Captain, should the opportunity arise, I will speak to Draconus. I am to blame for the loss of his keep.’ He hesitated a moment, and then added, ‘The daughters are not dead. So I am informed.’ He glanced at Caladan Brood – whose attention seemed fixed upon the city ahead – and continued, ‘Resolutions prove bloody, even unto the breaking of stone. What will others make of the rubble left in our wake? I fear a toppling of these flimsy walls. I fear fire and smoke dressing the buildings within. I fear for the lives of the Tiste.’

‘Milord,’ interjected Gripp Galas, ‘you would drag to your feet a host of ills, few of which belong there.’

‘The First Son of Darkness,’ said Anomander. ‘Is this title an empty one? Is the honour a conceit of the one who bears it? What of responsibilities, old friend? Too easily does title invite indolence, or worse, the cynicism that comes from moral compromise. Advisers will urge necessity, expedience, the pragmatic surrender that settles like a callus upon the soul.’ He looked to Gripp Galas, and Ivis could see the indecision in the Son of Darkness. ‘Is my hide so hardened now? I see the future newly fated, a momentum fierce as a spring flood.’

Gripp Galas’s expression flattened. ‘Milord, she refused you any choice. She still does. Even as Urusander’s Legion descends upon us. What would we have you do?’

‘Now that is the question,’ Anomander replied with a nod. ‘And yet, consider this. I am denied drawing my weapon, but what has this prohibition yielded? Does Urusander honour my constraint? Does Hunn Raal yield to Mother Dark’s plea for peace? Does the Liosan High Priestess counsel a gesture in kind? And what of the Deniers, victims honed into slayers, enemy now to all who would dare their forest home? No, Gripp, denied one choice, there remained many others, a hundred paths to reconciliation, and none taken.’

Ivis spoke, finding his own voice harsh and jarring, ‘Then meet Lord Urusander on the field, milord. Keep your sword sheathed and ask the same of him.’

‘Hunn Raal will defy you both,’ Gripp Galas said in a harsh tone. ‘He wants this. I suspect the High Priestess does as well. They will see the black waters of Dorssan Ryl turn red, to announce their ascension.’

‘But downstream of the city, surely,’ Anomander said in a mutter, once more facing Kharkanas. Crowds were assembling, lining the sides of the Forest Track Road where it plunged like an arrow to the city’s heart. Faces were fixed upon the Son of Darkness and his ambiguous retinue. Others among the citizenry had climbed the bank to appear on the wall.

Ivis turned about and nodded Gate Sergeant Yalad forward. ‘Prepare a camp, among the trees. See to the needs of our hostage and the household staff – it may be we have one last night to spend under the cold stars.’

‘Yes, sir. Captain?’

‘What?’

‘The Houseblades, sir. They’re ready for this fight.’

Abyss knows, so am I. ‘Temper their zeal, Yalad. We serve the wishes of Lord Draconus.’

‘Yes sir. But … should he remain absent …’

‘We will deal with that when the time comes. Go on now, gate sergeant.’

When Ivis returned his attention to Anomander, Caladan Brood was speaking.

‘… on the day I am needed, Anomander Rake.’

‘And until then?’

Brood gestured to the forest. ‘This close to the city … there are many wounds in the earth. I will heal what I can.’

‘Why?’

The question seemed to surprise the Azathanai, and then he shrugged and said, ‘Anomander, ours remains a strained friendship. For all that we have travelled together, we know little of each other. Our minds, the paths our thoughts take. Yet you continue to intrigue me. I know your question was not meant to convey your indifference to such wounding. Rather, you but reveal a hint of your growing despair.’

‘You offered me peace.’

‘Peace, yes, but no peaceful path was promised.’

‘If I stand aside, sword not drawn, will you seek to convince me that none of the blood to be spilled will stain my hands? I should hope not. If I choose peace for myself, Brood, stolid as a stone in a stream, will I not make the currents part? How minor this perturbation – my paltry will? Or will the stream divide, split asunder, to seek different seas?’

Caladan Brood cocked his head. ‘Does it matter? Does what you choose make any difference?’

‘This is what I am asking you, Azathanai.’ Anomander waved back at the forest edge. ‘Does your healing?’

Brood considered for a moment. ‘I appease the ego. The goodness that comes of it is incidental to a dying forest, a fatally wounded earth. Nothing talks back to me. Nothing voices its gratitude. Though I would have it otherwise, if only to make myself feel-’

‘Better?’

‘Useful.’

The distinction seemed to have some impact on Anomander, for he flinched. ‘Off you go, then, until you are … needed.’

With a faint bow, Caladan Brood swung round and made his way towards the spindly treeline where even now the Houseblades were preparing camp.

At that moment, two riders emerged from the city, horses cantering up the Forest Track Road. Eyes narrowing, Ivis identified Lord Silchas Ruin – astride a white mount – and an officer of Anomander’s own Houseblades.

Now, there would be words. The notion – its obviousness – struck him as nonetheless ominous. This is the madness of it all. Mundane conversations, fragments of meaning and dubious import. All the things left unsaid. If we could assemble our words, merge those inside and out, we would be startled to find that we speak but a tenth of what we think. And yet, each of us presumes to expect that the other understands – indeed, hears both the spoken and the unspoken.

Mad presumption!

‘Milord?’

‘Ivis?’

‘Pray you free the words, let them tumble, with not one left unspoken.’

Anomander’s gaze narrowed as he studied Ivis. ‘My brother approaches, along with my captain, Kellaras.’

‘Just so,’ Ivis replied, nodding. He saw Gripp Galas studying him. Pelk, too. He wondered what they saw, what they thought they saw. He wondered at his own log-jam of unuttered words, and his reluctance to kick it loose.

My own courage in this matter fails me. Yet I ask of it him. Lord Anomander, you are the First Son of Darkness. The time has come to show it. I beg you, sir, make us all braver than we are.

* * *

Wreneck climbed down from the carriage, almost slipping on the ice coating the slatted step. He turned about quickly and drew his small knife, to begin hacking away the sheath of ice. ‘Beware, milady,’ he called up as Sandalath prepared to dismount, her bundled daughter crooked in one arm.

‘I see, child,’ she said, evincing once more the new haughtiness that had come to her.

Wreneck chipped away, eager to finish and turn about – eager to set his eyes at last upon the great city of Wise Kharkanas. But that glory would have to wait. The last flat sheet of white ice broke free, slipped away. ‘There, milady,’ he said, returning the knife to his belt and reaching up to offer her his arm.

She took it delicately, and then settled much of her weight upon it, making Wreneck come near to staggering as he adjusted his footing. A moment later she stood beside him, her gaze bright upon the city behind him. ‘Ah, I can see my tower. The Citadel beckons. I wonder, is Orfantal at a window? Can he see his mother at last? I am sure that he can – I feel his gaze upon me, his wonder at what I carry. My present to him.’

Korlat looked three years old now, though she voiced no sounds, sought nothing that might be words in that mysterious language of babies. Yet her eyes never rested, and even now she peered out from the folded blanket, like a thing feeding on all that it saw.

Surgeon Prok stood nearby, watching both the mother and the daughter. He had resumed drinking wine, growing drunker the closer they had come to Kharkanas, and the journey’s end. A clay jug hung loosely from his right hand, and he was swaying slightly. ‘Milady, the child needs to walk.’

Frowning, Sandalath glanced across at the man, and it seemed a moment before she recognized him. ‘She walks already,’ she replied. ‘In realms not seen by you. Realms you cannot even imagine. Her spirit explores the night, the place of all endings, the place moments from rebirth. She walks in the world that exists before the first breath is drawn, and the one that comes when the last breath falls away. They are one and the same. Did you know that? A single world.’ Sandalath straightened, adjusting her cradling arm, and smiled at Prok. ‘She will be ready.’

Wreneck now looked to the city. He saw its low wall, the crowds lining it. He saw the wide street awaiting them, the broad double gate with its massive blackwood doors swung open and tied in place. He saw more people than he’d thought existed, and all were facing him. They see Lord Anomander. They wonder at his hesitation.

But now comes the white-skinned brother with the eyes of blood – that must be him. He looks … terrifying.

Retrieving his spear and his small bundle of possessions from a side-rack on the carriage, Wreneck moved forward. He wanted to be close enough to hear the brothers greet one another. He wanted to know when the battle would start, so he could take up his spear and be ready for it. He saw Captain Ivis approaching. ‘Sir? When do we ride into the city? I must visit the Citadel and speak to Orfantal. It is important.’

Distracted, Ivis moved past, but then said, ‘Tomorrow, perhaps.’

Wreneck stared after the man, and saw now that the Houseblades were making up an encampment.

No, I cannot wait that long. I need to talk to Orfantal before his mother does. I need to explain things.

Wreneck continued forward, in time to arrive close to Lord Anomander even as Silchas Ruin and another man reined in.

To one side, Gripp Galas turned to Pelk and Wreneck heard him say, ‘Lady Hish Tulla is in the city. Find her, Pelk-’

‘In a moment,’ Pelk replied, her gaze fixed on the man beside Silchas Ruin, and Wreneck saw that he studied her in return.

As Pelk moved forward, the man dismounted, and an instant later they were in each other’s arms.

All this before either brother had spoken, and both lords now looked on, startled perhaps, while Pelk and the man embraced.

From where Wreneck stood, he saw the man’s eyes shut, his lips moving as he whispered to her, and she held him all the tighter.

Silchas Ruin broke the moment. ‘Brother, did you find Andarist?’

‘I have set that aside, Silchas,’ replied Anomander. ‘The sword at my hip retains its name, forged in the heat of my outrage. And yet, had I imagined our Mother’s staying hand, I might have set Vengeance upon the blade of my dagger instead. Of all the myriad scenes in the tumult of possibility awaiting us, I would not shy from striking from darkness and shadow. A blow between the shoulder blades no longer seems so crass.’

Anomander’s words drew round all who stood near enough to hear them. When Pelk and Kellaras pulled apart, Pelk stepped back and then, with a nod towards Gripp Galas, set off for the city gate. Wreneck watched her go with an ache in his chest. Jinia sent me away, because of all the broken things inside her. But one day I will return to her, and my love will mend every broken thing inside both of us. Even the stables that caught fire, which is when everything awful first began. Milady said that I was to blame. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was my fault after all. I can’t remember. Could be I killed all those horses. I need to fix that hurt – because it still hurts, if I was the one who did it, and if it wasn’t Sandalath who met her man there and the lantern they’d lit so they could see each other getting drunk on the wine he’d brought with his one arm. If it wasn’t that after all, but me, spying on them and watching what they did when they put their hips together and moved like dancing on the straw, and the horses shuffled and nickered and the lantern light was steady, but the straw stalks were pushed up against the lantern by their feet, up against the hot glaze. I should have seen that, instead of watching them.

It began there, all the hurts. Began with the screams of dying horses, and two shadowy figures running out before the flames got them, and there was Lady Nerys with her cane and she shrieked at me since I was standing right there, watching the fire and listening to the horses, and those blows came down and they hurt so bad but then I got hit on the head and things went numb and strange and that’s why I don’t remember anything any more about that night.

Except what I maybe made up. Her and that one-armed man.

But it was you who cared for me after that, Jinia. And I didn’t forget. I can’t forget. And that’s why I’ll fix everything. Soon. I just need to kill some people first.

‘A dagger from the shadows. You describe betrayal, my brother.’

‘Array before me all manner of obstacles, vengeance finds its own path.’

With a grunt, Gripp Galas said, ‘Just ask Hunn Raal. About betrayal. See how he weighs it in his own mind, Lord Silchas. If need be, I will be the hand and the knife both-’

At that Anomander swung to face his old friend. ‘No. I forbid it, Gripp Galas. Too often have you struck in my stead. Your time as my quiet justice is done. Have we not spoken? Return to your wife. I am past all need for you.’

The harsh words seemed to batter at Gripp Galas, and all the fire of his own rage died in his old man’s eyes. With a single bow, he turned away and walked, unsteadily to Wreneck’s eyes, towards Kharkanas, trailing in Pelk’s wake.

‘We await word on the disposition of the Hust Legion,’ Silchas said to Anomander.

The First Son spoke to Kellaras. ‘Captain, are our Houseblades assembled?’

‘Yes, milord. And the highborn have indeed answered the call. The Greater Houses are all here.’

Silchas Ruin made to speak then, but his brother spoke first. ‘Silchas, I thank you for all that you have done. I know you were reluctant, and yet you indulged me in my efforts to reconcile with Andarist.’ He hesitated, and then continued. ‘It may be that the blood of family, so quick to turn sour on the tongue, had misguided me. In the name of one family, I neglected the other. We three brothers matter less than the Tiste Andii – is this not the burden of command?’

Silchas Ruin’s voice was flat. ‘There have been developments, Anomander. Of those, in a moment. What do you now intend?’

‘I must defy our Mother, in the name of her sons and daughters. Silchas, I will draw my sword. I will take command.’

Silchas was silent for a long moment, and then he nodded. ‘I thank you for that, brother. Give me command of our Houseblades and I will be more than content. Of the more grave demands awaiting us, I leave them to you.’

Anomander sighed and nodded. ‘And these developments?’

Silchas made a gesture for patience before turning to Kellaras. ‘Captain, return to our company. I will be inspecting them shortly.’

Kellaras glanced at Anomander, who remained expressionless, and then the captain saluted Lord Silchas Ruin, wheeled his horse, and set off.

To Wreneck’s eyes, the world seemed to acquire a glow, as of golden light trembling on water. He could smell the old gods of the forest, closing in, crowding around him. But they said nothing, as if they were, one and all, holding their breath.

Silchas Ruin resumed. ‘We have sorcery at our disposal. The priest, Cedorpul, who will stand against Hunn Raal. By this, we may indeed negate the threat of magic. Accordingly, we return to the privilege of mere flesh and the will behind it. To the blade, brother, the clash that drowns all words.’

Wreneck studied Silchas Ruin, wondering what the lord had been wanting to say, instead of what he did say. It was strange to him, as the moment passed unremarked, that Anomander had not seen what he had seen. And, of those figures lining the berm, now numbering thousands, he saw how many of them looked peculiar, almost ghostly. He had no idea so many people lived in Kharkanas. But then, as he watched, he saw yet more appearing, rising from the earth of the berm.

The gods of the forest are back. But they don’t speak in my head. They but show me what no one else here can see.

The Tiste are attending. From every age. Since the very beginning. Come to witness.

Why?

‘Very well,’ Anomander said. ‘Now, shall we ride to the Citadel?’

Wreneck’s gaze was drawn away from the ghostly multitude, so crowding the living that many stood half inside mortal bodies. A flicker of colour had caught his eye: a flag rising above the highest tower of the Citadel. He pointed and said, ‘Milords! What is that?’

Both men lifted their heads.

‘That, young Wreneck,’ said Anomander, ‘announces the approach of the Hust Legion.’

‘We must send a rider to them,’ said Silchas Ruin, his tone suddenly bridling with pleasure. ‘They can march directly to the south flats on the edge of the Valley of Tarns.’

‘The place of battle. Yes, we will do that.’

‘Brother, would you ride with me to the place of battle? There are details to discuss regarding our disposition. Urusander is barely half a day away, after all, and indeed, should he seek haste, we could well greet the dusk with the clamour of iron.’

Anomander seemed momentarily disconcerted. His gaze shifted back to the Citadel. ‘It was my thought that I meet with Mother Dark and her Consort. If only to explain my defiance of her will in this matter. Lord Draconus will understand, perhaps, before she does. I would seek his alliance.’

‘Draconus knows enough to stay away from the battle,’ said Silchas.

That drew Anomander’s attention. ‘You have spoken to him? There have been tragedies I must share with him, for which I am responsible-’

‘Brother,’ said Silchas levelly, ‘Draconus prepares to flee.’

Hurt and confusion marred Lord Anomander’s face. And, whispered a dull voice in Wreneck’s head, disappointment.

‘Ivis and his company,’ said Silchas, ‘are at your disposal. Perhaps, brother, Ivis should ride with us to Tarns?’

Anomander passed a hand over his eyes, and then nodded. ‘That would delight him.’

‘Allow me to deliver the invitation,’ Silchas said, gathering up his reins, then kicking his mount forward, passing Anomander and then Wreneck, who now moved up to just slightly ahead of the Son of Darkness.

‘Milord, I must go to the Citadel.’

‘Indeed?’

‘To speak to someone.’

Anomander said, ‘Proceed in my name, and at the palace gate deliver the news that I ride with my brother to Tarns, and, depending on Urusander’s patience, I may or may not return to the Citadel before the battle.’ He studied Wreneck for a moment, and then removed a thin silver torc from his left arm. ‘This bears my sigil, but even this may prove a dubious escort – the city is crowded and its mood is pensive. Hide my gift, Wreneck, whilst you traverse the streets.’

Wreneck moved up to take the torc.

‘You wouldn’t rather wait for hostage Sandalath and the others?’

‘No, sir. I want to go now.’

‘I envy your vision, so clear of eye, so sharp in its desire.’

Wreneck glanced over at the ghosts massed along the berm, and then back to where Ivis had settled the camp, and there he saw many other ghosts, as many as the trees in the forest, or perhaps more. ‘Milord,’ he said, ‘I don’t always see what I desire. Sometimes, what I see, I don’t understand at all.’

‘You have left childhood behind, then. Should you mourn its passing in the years to come, remember this day.’

I will, whether I want to or not. ‘Thank you, milord, for saving my life. When I’m done at the Citadel, I’ll go to Tarns, too, with my spear in hand, and I’ll fight beside you.’

His vow was meant to please the lord, and yet Anomander’s face seemed to fold in on itself, as if retreating from the promise of grief instead of glory. Wreneck straightened. ‘You have your vengeance, milord, and I have mine.’

‘Then,’ the man said, ‘how is it possible for me to deny you? Until then, Wreneck.’

Nodding, Wreneck bowed, and then he leaned the spear over one shoulder and stepped on to the cobbled road leading into Kharkanas.

The ghosts watched him, but like all the gathered spirits and gods, they too remained silent.

Maybe that’s what death is. The place you find yourself when there’s nothing left to say.

* * *

‘Envy has many teeth,’ said Prazek as he rode alongside Dathenar, near the head of the train. ‘For men such as you and myself, for whom love can deliver the promise of downy cheeks, soft lips and the sweetest nest of delight; or, through the opposite door, a bristled chin and manly tenderness … such as it is.’ He paused to mull, and then resumed, ‘Is it any wonder others look on and feel the gnaw and nip of outrage? Envy, say I, Dathenar.’

‘I am minded, friend Prazek, of the many artful expostulations of love, by decidedly lesser poets and bards of our age, and ages past. Shall I plumb this wretched trench? Ah, know you this one? “Love is a dog rolling on a dead fish.” ’

‘Strapala of the South Fork. Guess this one: “I wallow in my love, and you the heart of a sow …”’

‘Vask, dead now a hundred years!’

‘And still mired in mediocrity, no blow to his fame, no mar to his name, no challenge to all that is lame-’

‘Barring what you peddle, Prazek.’

‘I yield the floor, step lightly over the chalk defining my place, and call an end to toeing the line.’

‘Consider this one, then. So heartbroken this poet he spent four years and a hundred bottles of ink defending his suicide, only to break his neck upon a bar of soap-’

‘Lye to die, dead by suds, quick to the slick and slip away no time for a quip.’

‘“Forsaken this love, my tongue doth probe, to touch – but touch! – the excretion of the snail’s slime, and now all atingle at exquisite poison, my heart dances like a rat on a griddle, but still she stands with but a faint smile ’pon her sweet lips, tending the fire and tending, tending, and tending the fire!” ’

‘There is a delicacy to that anguish, urging me to admiration.’

‘His talent was all accidental. And yet, not.’

‘Stumbling panged into genius – this does seem a rare talent. By nature of suffering, indulged with passion, to make something sticky of excess, and yet the lure of honey in the flower’s budding mouth, drawing one in, and, as he might say, in.’

‘And in,’ Dathenar added, nodding. ‘Have I confounded you?’

‘No, a moment longer. I am on fertile ground and must only sharpen the plough. Was it Liftera?’

‘Of the Isle? No. Her railing was ever too sour to do aught but crush the petals in desperate grip.’

‘Teroth?’

‘That alley cur? You insult the name of the accidental suicide. One more effort and then I must proclaim my triumph.’

‘Still it echoes oh so familiar …’

‘Well it might.’

Before them, the city’s south wall – dismantled here and there, slumping elsewhere – drew closer, the buildings beyond it dark as smoke-stained stone. The gates were open and unattended. Not even a guard was visible.

‘Four years of wallowing?’

‘’Til the soap upon the tiles.’

‘Such an ironic death should have made him famous.’

‘His body of work put paid to that.’

‘Quoth me another line or three!’

‘ “Too dark this dawn! Too bright this sunset! Too gloomy this day, too starlit this wretched night!”’

‘Too miserable this fool who sees nothing good in anything.’

‘He was suicidal, as I said. Four years the span of his career, as he unleashed all that was within him, broken of heart, blind to the insipid self and all its false confessions – broken of heart, said I? Empty of heart, too obsessed with the trappings of rejection to focus upon the object itself. She said no and before her breath left the word he was off, epic visions filling his head, the ordeal stretched out like a welcoming lover. Hark well the willing martyr and make jaded your eye upon his thrashing agony – this is a game played out to its gory end, with an audience evermost in mind.’

‘In the offing a bronze, I should think. Or a painting, broader than high, a swept vista-’

‘Done, and done, too, the bronze.’

‘What? Varanaxa? Gallan’s mocked hero? But that man was an invention! A fiction! Gallan’s public snipe at his fawners!’

‘I posited no distinctions.’

Prazek sniffed. ‘The broken heart of a poet gets pumped dry fortnightly.’

‘From a healthy one, nothing worthwhile bleeds. So some would claim. But it is these appetites of which we should steer well wide, yet not canted too cynical. Instead, invite a curiosity as to the self-made victim and his self-wounded self. What urge spurs the cut? What hunger invites the bite upon one’s own flesh? This is death turned inward, the maw and the wound made one, like lovers.’

‘Varanaxa,’ sighed Prazek. ‘For that epic farce, Gallan was vilified.’

‘He cares not.’

‘More to the fury of his enemies, that!’

‘And herein hangs a lesson, should we dare pluck it.’

Prazek squinted ahead, to the train’s foremost riders: Commander Toras Redone and at her side Captain Faror Hend. ‘Suicidal indifference?’

Dathenar shrugged, and then said, ‘I am wary.’

Galar Baras had ridden back along the column, driven to distraction no doubt by three thousand soldiers marching in silence. There were no stragglers, few conversations, the weapons and armour mute. The sound of the Hust Legion was a dull drum roll that brooked no pause, a slow thunder drawing ever closer to Kharkanas.

The thaw that had been whispered on the south wind the past few days was now dying away, and the snow crunched beneath boot and hoof, a growing bite to the air as the morning lengthened.

‘That confounded ritual,’ said Dathenar in a frustrated growl. ‘I awakened on thin ice. But which way to crawl? No shoreline beckons with high tufts of yellow grass and the stalks of reeds. To shift a hair’s breadth is to hear the ice creaking beneath me. My eyes strain to read this placid, windswept mirror – is it clouds that promise more solid blooms? The grey sky warning of treacherous patches? Do I lie upon my back, or face-down? Still, through it all, something writhes in my gut, my friend, in anticipation of blood.’

Prazek shook himself. ‘What has changed? Nothing. Everything. The ritual tattooed a mystery upon our souls. Blessing or curse? We remain blind to the pattern. And yet, as you say, there is anticipation.’

Dathenar gestured at the unoccupied walls ahead. ‘See the fanfare awaiting us? Bitter indifference castigates us, Prazek.’

‘No matter, friend. Was I not speaking of love?’

‘You were, the heart under siege. Though I cannot fathom your reason for this sudden crisis.’

‘Criminals,’ Prazek said. ‘No punishment allows for the tender caress, the meeting of hands in soft clasp, the hesitations that linger, the confessions that release.’ He paused. ‘A stillborn twin, now the repository of sorcery, and she who would mine it left broken and filled with self-loathing. So Wareth would take her into his arms. Yet he too allows himself no worth, indeed, no right. Can I not wonder, friend, at those who hold that love is a privilege?’

Dathenar grunted. ‘Every god of the past claimed it a benison. A reward. By its fullness are our mortal deeds measured. Doled out like heavenly coins, as among the Forulkan.’

‘Indeed, and consider that. How can this currency so define itself? Value rises in scarcity of love, plummets in surfeit? The gods played at arbiters, yet demanded love’s purest gold in coin. Who then to measure their worth? I challenge the right of this, Dathenar.’

‘And so you may, but to what end?’

‘Dispense with contingency in the giving of love. Shall I push Rance into Wareth’s arms? Shall I insist upon their right to love?’

‘You distract yourself,’ Dathenar replied. ‘The Dog-Runner witches did something to us – all of us barring our commander, that is – and now she leads a legion that knows not itself, yet shows disinclination to introspection. While she in turn … ah, no matter.’

Prazek glanced across at his friend. ‘I distract and you despair. Pray that Toras Redone decides.’

‘Upon what?’

‘Life, and love. For surely the former is an expression of the latter that gives reason for the former.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘Dathenar, did the Bonecasters cleanse our souls?’

Up ahead, the commander and Faror Hend reached the gate and rode without pause into the city.

‘No,’ Dathenar replied. ‘They but reordered its myriad possessions.’

‘For what purpose?’

Dathenar shrugged.

Prazek let loose a low growl. ‘And so … anticipation dogs us all.’

Shifting in his saddle, Dathenar glanced back at the column. The soldiers wore their armour. Their hands rested upon the pommels of the swords. Their kit bags were slung over one shoulder, their shields upon their backs. They wore their helms, leaving every face in shadow.

When Faror Hend returned from the gateway and signalled a halt, the Hust Legion’s incessant thunder ceased its heavy rumble for the first time that day. The silence that fell into its wake sent shivers through Dathenar.

Faror Hend reined in before them. ‘We’re to wheel right and skirt the city,’ she said. ‘We march to the Valley of Tarns. Urusander’s Legion draws nigh.’

‘This very day?’ Prazek asked.

‘Have the soldiers drop their kits and leave the baggage train here,’ she said, her face blank.

Both men swung their mounts around. They could see Galar Baras cantering towards them. Prazek waved a signaller forward. ‘Envy has many teeth,’ he muttered as the signaller rode closer. ‘Enough to spawn a civil war.’

Dathenar nodded.

From the Hust weapons and armour, down the entire length of the column, the iron began to moan.

* * *

Wareth moved to the ditch at the road’s side, leaned over, and spewed out the morning’s breakfast. Behind him, not a single soldier called out in derision or amusement. Not a single man or woman voiced disgust. Wiping at his mouth, and then spitting out the last of the bile, he straightened and turned round.

He was being ignored. The faces beneath the helms were fixed upon the new flag being raised by the signaller. Upon receipt, the squad sergeants called out the commands to ready to wheel and then drop kits. Shields were shifted higher on the shoulder, swords brought round to the point of the hip. Chain links hissed like waves on sand, and then the Hust iron began its song. Pensive, a dirge, perhaps, or something trapped by unseen forces, unspoken wills – the eerie song swept through Wareth like a chill. Shivering, he looked on, as Rebble brought the company around, with the lead elements already descending from the road.

He looked for Rance but could not see her. She had been avoiding him, and he well knew why. Attentions from a coward could not be welcome, especially for a soul as wounded as hers. Her determination to live was weak enough without his dubious presence. He was, after all, a visible affront, for her demons were not ones from which she could flee. But then, neither are mine. If only she could see that.

‘Wareth.’

Blinking, he turned to find Listar at his side. He studied the man’s narrow face. ‘What is wrong, Listar?’

‘What is wrong? Abyss take me, Wareth, everything. Everything’s wrong! Look at them! The ritual-’

‘Which you brought to us, Listar,’ Wareth said. ‘And not even you know what has been done to us.’ He gestured. ‘None of us do.’

‘And yet …’

Nodding, Wareth sighed. ‘And yet.’

There was no joy in the song of the Hust iron. Wareth shook his head. ‘Listen to that,’ he said. ‘What do you make of it?’

Listar rubbed at his face. He mumbled something Wareth could not hear.

‘What?’

‘The iron, Wareth, is filled with dread. The swords do not grieve for those they would slay, but for those wielding them.’ He paused, and then glanced at Wareth. ‘She defied your wish, and Galar Baras’s too. Here you are, ordered to lead us into battle. It seems she is indifferent to your fate, and by extension, to all of us under your command.’

Wareth could not argue against any of that. ‘Do not look to me, Listar.’

‘We won’t. We’ll follow Rebble. Just be certain of one thing, Wareth. Voice no orders. Issue no commands. If you bolt, we’ll not follow you.’

Wareth thought back to a few moments ago, when terror emptied his gut. ‘I am unmade,’ he said. ‘If they look my way at all, they see right through me.’

‘We’ll not burden you with our hope, if that is what you mean.’

The words should have stung. Instead, he felt relieved.

The column was re-forming, and they watched as Toras Redone and her retinue cantered from the city’s gate to take position as the Legion’s vanguard once more.

Horse hoofs thumped in the snow-laden grasses as Galar Baras rode up, reining in beside Wareth. The captain’s face was flushed with the cold. ‘Wareth!’

‘Sir.’

‘Your company is under my command, along with the seventh, the ninth and the third. We are to present the right flank.’

Wareth nodded.

‘Rebble will lead them down into the valley.’

‘We are to fight on this day?’

‘If Urusander seeks it.’

‘Dusk chases him,’ said Listar.

‘It chases us all, Listar,’ Galar replied, gathering up the reins once more.

* * *

Commander Toras Redone rolled unsteadily in her saddle, righted herself with an effort. Her face was slack, her eyes muddy red. A moment later, as Faror Hend drew up alongside her, the commander smiled. ‘Had I known today would be the day …’

‘You would have done what?’

Toras Redone’s smile broadened. ‘Level your tone, darling. And punctuate your query with a “sir”, if you please. Why, I would have rationed the wine, of course. It begins to sour in my belly, as voluminous as I have made it. Plenty of room left, it seems, for anxious thoughts.’

Faror Hend rose in her stirrups, twisted round and checked back on the column. Then she settled once more. ‘Your anxiety not sufficiently dulled? Sir? Not yet drowned? Thrashing still in that dark nectar?’

‘You are too sober a conscience, Faror Hend.’

‘You need not concern yourself with that much longer, sir, as my words are running down. Soon, my silence will give you its final cry.’

‘You surrender too easily,’ Toras Redone replied. ‘Will you yield your life as cheaply in the battle to come? Are you not betrothed to a war hero? Why are you not at his side? Perchance, he awaits us at the Valley of Tarns, or is that consideration the cause for your despondency?’

Faror Hend bit back a cruel retort, and said, ‘Kagamandra Tulas may well be there, the hero in search of yet another war.’

‘Against you, I wager he has no defence,’ Toras Redone said. And, as if she had somehow caught a hint of Faror’s unspoken retort, she continued, ‘He chooses the lesser trial, then. I well understand him, you know. Calat Hustain was always too bright a light for my dulled eyes, too upright in his virtues, too untested his forgiveness – no matter how egregious my crime. He weakened my knees, and to stand at his side was to tremble in the shadow of his piety. Is it any wonder I reached for a lover?’

‘Galar Baras deserves better.’

Toras Redone did not respond for a moment, and then she said, ‘I meant wine, of course. But she’s a generous whore, I find, quick to yield my flesh to someone else’s pleasures.’

Faror Hend closed her eyes briefly, willing a bit between the teeth of her fury.

Beside her, the commander laughed. ‘This war is such a travesty. So crude in its cruelty, so obvious in its tragedy. Look instead to a life in times of peace, to see the subtler – and yet still brutal – battles of the soul. Day upon day, night after night. The soldier longs for the simplicity of war, making a coward of every sword-wielder. Peace, my dear, is the bloodiest affair of all.’

‘I weigh things differently, sir.’

‘Do you? I think not. Instead of finding your husband to be, you rode to the Hust Legion. Instead of claiming an estate and giving it the shape of your heart, you perch here like a crow on my shoulder, quick to judge but oh so slow to cast inward that unflinching regard.’ She waved a hand. ‘But I welcome your spite nonetheless. You are my barbed shield, Faror Hend. I draw you ever closer to feel the sting of the spikes, here on my chest, pricking the skin above my heart, and I but await the first crush of battle to see me home.’

‘You’ll make no descent into the press, sir,’ Faror Hend said. ‘I’ll not let you.’

‘Indeed, and why such mercy?’

‘Because,’ she snapped, ‘it is the very opposite of mercy.’

Toras Redone seemed to reel in her saddle, pulling herself upright with severe effort. Her face was suddenly set, the smile long gone, her gaze fixing forward now, to what awaited them all.

* * *

Once across the inner bridge, Kellaras dismounted close to the Citadel’s gatehouse and, handing the reins over to a steward, made his way into the keep. Its severe façade rose before him as he traversed the compound. It has not the look of a temple, but a fortress. And is it not odd, all things considered, how so often one demands the other. That faith needed defending suddenly struck him awry, the very notion jarring his thoughts, and it seemed that he tottered on the edge of a revelation. After a moment he righted himself, picking up his pace as he reached the broad flight of steps.

Philosophers can’t have been blind to any of this – my startling realizations stumble in well-trodden troughs of discourse, no doubt. No faith worthy of itself needs defending. Indeed, there can be no such thing as an external threat to faith – barring that of genocide. And even there, killing the flesh impugns not the faith held within it.

No, the sordid truth is this. Faith’s only enemy exists in the mind that calls it home. The only forces that can destroy faith are those the believer wields against him or herself.

He reached the doorway, saw the door left open – swung wide, in fact – and strode into the keep.

A believer whose face twists, who points an accusing finger at a disbeliever, who then draws a blade with blood in his mind – that believer pronounces a lie, for his doubts are his own, and were he truly honest before his god, he would voice them. No number of corpses imaginable for this believer to stride over can quell the threat – the potency – of self-doubt.

A true believer, indeed, need never draw a weapon, need never rise in argument, or howl in fury, or make fists, or roll in a mob to crush some helpless, innocent enemy. A true believer needs none of those things. How much of the world insists on living this lie?

Blinking, he found himself standing at the entrance of a side corridor, the one leading to the chamber where Lord Draconus waited. Vaguely, he recalled hearing words spoken near the Terondai, a conversation perhaps, and a question thrown towards him. Frowning, Kellaras turned, in time to see Cedorpul and Endest Silann approaching him.

‘This war,’ Kellaras said, forestalling them, ‘is unnecessary.’

Both priests halted at his words, and then Cedorpul snorted and shook his head. ‘Dear captain, we all know that.’

‘We fight because we have lost faith.’

‘Yes,’ said Cedorpul, his round face grave.

‘Fighting,’ Kellaras continued remorselessly, ‘is proof of our lost faith. And now people will die in payment for our own private failings. This is not a civil war. Not a religious war.’ He paused, helplessly. ‘I don’t know what it is.’

Endest Silann stepped forward. ‘Captain, take care of your loved ones.’ He lifted his hands with their sodden, crimson bandages. ‘It is our folly to see a hole at the centre of our world, one of empty darkness, a manifestation of absence.’

‘But it is not empty,’ whispered Kellaras. ‘Is it?’

Endest Silann glanced back at Cedorpul for an instant, and then, facing Kellaras once more, he shook his head. ‘No, sir. It is not. She has filled it, to the brim. It is swollen with her gift.’

Behind him, tears were falling freely down Cedorpul’s cheeks.

Kellaras brought his hands to his face, as Pelk’s visage filled his mind. ‘Her gift,’ he said.

‘Draconus was the proof of it,’ Endest said, ‘if only we’d the courage to see. All of this,’ and he gestured with his bloody hands, ‘is filled with love. Yet see what rears up to stand in its way. See our innumerable objections to this simple, most profound gift.’ His smile was broken. ‘This is a war of fools, captain. Like every war before this, and every war to come. And yet, as proof of our failings, as proof of our weakness, and every petty distraction we so willingly embrace, it is, alas, no more than what we deserve.’

Kellaras backed away from the two men. ‘I await Lord Anomander and Silchas Ruin,’ he said.

Cedorpul grunted. ‘Too late for that. They ride to the Valley of Tarns.’

The words stilled the torment in Kellaras’s mind, and then horror rose in its wake. ‘What? Surely Lord Anomander would have-’

Endest Silann interrupted him. ‘Lord Anomander has been away. He relies upon his brother’s judgement.’

Kellaras looked to each man in turn, and back again, still uncomprehending despite the dread he felt, still lost by this turn of events. ‘Lord Draconus waits,’ he said.

This was a day of revelations, a cruel cacophony of simple words plainly stated. He saw the flush leave Cedorpul’s face. He saw Endest Silann flinch, and then come close to staggering before regaining his balance. Kellaras turned to the corridor behind him. ‘Here,’ he said, and started walking.

Neither man followed.

The war of fools. And the greatest folly of all, it is now clear to me, is to dream of peace. Faith, with all your promise, and all your betrayal … must I see you as the enemy of hope?

He reached the door and hesitated. Beyond it sat a man bereft of love, a man now profoundly vulnerable to betrayal. And once more, it would be delivered with banal declaration. The world had tilted in Kellaras’s mind. He saw voices, a torrent of words that had done their work, now slowly withdrawing, retreating from what was coming. And by the time this was done, the voices would be without words, reduced to piteous cries.

All to begin again. Born only to die. See what we have made of the time between the two.

Behind him, a priest wept, while another bled. Kellaras reached for the latch.

* * *

Wreneck knew he had nothing to fear as he hurried through the crowds in the street. Ghosts closed tight around him, and it seemed that they blinded most people to the young man slipping between them, rushing fast as his legs could carry him. They made for him a path in ways Wreneck had no hope of understanding.

The shaft of the spear rested heavily across his right shoulder. He held the weapon tilted high, to keep the leather-wrapped iron head away from others. The silver tore that Lord Anomander had given him was tucked under his coat. Among the ghosts he saw warriors, long dead, still bearing their fatal wounds. It was all he could do to avoid their faces, their steady gazes fixed so solemnly upon him. For all he knew, his father was among them.

Something was wrong. He understood that much. The dead of the Tiste belonged somewhere else, a world hidden away from mortals. They had no reason for being here. And yet, he now wondered, perhaps they were always present, and it was only his newfound curse that he could see what others could not. It was possible that such crowds always existed, thousands upon thousands, wherever living Tiste dwelt, drawn like moths, hovering and swarming around what they had lost.

They had nothing to say, or perhaps they could not be heard, which made them nothing more than eyes, trapped in the faint memories of bodies. The thought that death was a prison horrified Wreneck, and he felt his own mind now tracking other, even crueller thoughts. I seek vengeance. I want to hurt the people that hurt Jinia and me. I want to send their souls into this empty ghost-realm. I want them to just stand there, mute, seeing but never able to touch. I want them to suffer.

He had never thought himself evil, but now he wasn’t so sure. Vengeance seemed such a pure notion, a taking away from those who’d done the same. Evening things out, death for death, pain for pain, loss for loss.

Even Lord Anomander believed in vengeance.

But now … what kind of satisfaction would it bring? How was it that even grown-up men and women talked about vengeance, as if it had the power to fix things? But it doesn’t fix much, does it. Yes, the killers and rapists are dead, so they won’t ever do it again. There’s that, isn’t there. Pushing them off the cliff of life, down into the Abyss.

But they don’t go there. They go nowhere. They join every other ghost. They could as easily have died in their sleep, a thousand years old, surrounded by loved ones. It makes no difference, not to them.

But does it make a difference to me? This killing, this justice? I guess … once they’re dead, justice stops mattering to them. So it belongs to the living. It doesn’t belong to any waiting god, because the gods aren’t waiting for those souls. Worse yet, the gods in that realm are themselves dead, no different from anyone else.

Justice belongs to the living.

He imagined driving his spear into the bodies of the soldiers who’d hurt Jinia. Imagined their faces twisting in agony, their bowels spilling out, their boots kicking at the ground. He saw them looking up at him, at his face, at his eyes, with confusion, and all the questions they couldn’t ask. But he’d tell them why they were dying. He’d do that, because that was important if justice was to be served. ‘This is why you’re now dying. I did this, because of what you did.’

He found himself crossing the outer bridge, and then the second, inner one. No one barred his path. He strode under the arch of the open gateway, into the compound, where scores of Houseblades were mounting up, their horses steaming and the hot smell of dung heavy in the air. Even here, ghosts abounded, the dead come to watch, watch and wait. He slipped through the jostling chaos, reached the keep’s entrance, up the steps and then inside.

The ghost of a giant wolf was lying at the foot in the stairs beyond the vast hall, its eyes now fixing on Wreneck as he drew closer. Impulsively, Wreneck said, ‘Take me to Orfantal.’

The beast rose, began climbing the steps. Wreneck followed.

‘You’re one of his,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how I know that, but you are. You died a long time ago, but he brought you back, to keep watch on things. You’re dangerous, but not to the living.’ And now he realized that he had not seen any ghosts within the keep itself. ‘You drive them off. Orfantal sees them, too. He sees them and doesn’t like it.’

The boy was not the boy Wreneck remembered. The Citadel, with its massive walls and hallways, its rituals and worship, had changed Orfantal.

‘I think,’ he said now to Orfantal – as if the boy could hear through the ears of the ghost wolf – ‘you’re going to frighten your mother.’

* * *

Venes Turayd’s expression was wry and almost contemptuous as he regarded Pelk. She had entered the estate’s courtyard, pushing through the readying Houseblades and making for the building entrance when Venes, seeing her, had stepped into her path. Now he blocked her way, his knowing smile showing its edges. ‘Why, Weapon Mistress Pelk, all done folding bed sheets and sweeping out rooms?’

‘Move aside, milord,’ Pelk replied. ‘I must speak to Lady Hish Tulla.’

‘She’s too busy fretting. But if you have relevant news, I will hear it.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you will, but not from me.’ When she rested her gloved hand upon the pommel of her sword, his smile broadened.

‘My wolves surround you, mistress, but even in their absence, I do not fear your skill.’

She cocked her head. ‘What a foolish statement, milord. Any sword-wielder, no matter how talented, should know, and understand, fear. Without it, you are likely to get yourself killed, even by an enemy less skilled than you. I cannot think who trained you, sir, but clearly it wasn’t me.’

Their conversation had drawn a few of Turayd’s wolves closer. The chill air of the courtyard was rank with men’s sweat, and the Houseblades edged in to crowd her.

Sighing, Pelk said, ‘Call off your pups, milord. Playing at bullies demeans them, assuming such a thing is possible. If, on the other hand, each one is brave enough to face me alone, why, I invite it. I have folded enough bed linen, and swept enough corners, and my mood now inclines to killing. And so, do oblige me by holding your ground, sir. If I am to hang for spilling noble blood, I will delight in making you the first to fall.’

There was a commotion behind her, and a moment later someone voiced a shout of pain and staggered to one side. Gripp Galas now moved up beside Pelk, his shortsword drawn and its tip bloody. ‘Apologies, milord,’ he said to Venes Turayd. ‘Hard to draw in this press, and yet I was of a mind to check the edge of the blade, the battle being nigh and all. Now, sir, my wife is within? Excellent.’ Hooking an arm around Pelk, he moved forward, forcing Venes to step aside. ‘But please,’ Gripp added as they made for the door, ‘do maintain your vigil, since we do not wish to be disturbed.’

They entered the building, where Gripp paused to sheathe the sword. ‘Pelk,’ he said in a low voice as the door closed behind them, ‘my wife’s uncle is an unpleasant man, but murdering him on the steps of the estate would have been unwise.’

She bared her teeth. ‘Gripp Galas, I have lost all faith in wisdom. As for my reasons, best you not know them all.’ She paused, and seemed to shiver, as if deliberately shrugging off her bloodlust. ‘One day I will indeed kill him, sir. Best you know that now, and be certain to not stand in my way.’

Gripp’s gaze narrowed on her for a moment, and then he said, ‘His thugs would have cut you down.’

‘Too late to make a difference.’

‘Captain Kellaras would disagree.’

Pelk frowned. ‘I keep forgetting.’

‘You forget your love?’

‘No. I forget that someone else – anyone else – cares about me.’

He studied her for a long moment, and then took her arm again. ‘Let us find your lady, shall we?’

Hish Tulla was in the large room adjoining the master bedroom, attended by servants helping her don her armour. Upon seeing Gripp and Pelk enter, the brooding storm-clouds of her visage suddenly cleared and she let out a heavy sigh. ‘I had begun to wonder,’ she said.

Gripp Galas spoke even as Pelk drew breath to begin her report. ‘Beloved, we are forbidden the field.’

‘What?’

‘Lord Anomander forbids us this battle. It seems your uncle will lead your Houseblades after all.’

‘I will defy him-’

‘And so wound him.’

‘He wounds us!’

Gripp Galas nodded. ‘Yes. He does. He took offence at my return – more than even I expected. I am driven away, an unwanted cur.’ He paused, and then suddenly smiled. ‘There is a certain freedom to this.’

Hish Tulla’s eyes held on her husband for a moment longer, and then shifted to Pelk. ‘My husband’s loyalty lies slain, before the battle’s even begun. What have you to say to me?’

‘I nearly killed your uncle, milady. Prevented only by your husband’s intercession.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Lord Anomander has taken command of the Draconus Houseblades. Lastly, by signal flags above the Citadel, the Hust Legion even now makes for the Valley of Tarns. It is time to assemble and ride from the city.’

‘Lord Anomander takes command? Not Silchas Ruin?’

Pelk shrugged. ‘If he has not already announced it, he will, milady. The First Son of Darkness will defy Mother Dark.’

At that Gripp Galas turned, shock written deep in the lines of his face.

Pelk continued. ‘If Lord Anomander refuses you both, it is because he wants you to live. No, he needs you to live. There will be sorcery. The slaughter awaiting us may be absolute.’

‘What of our honour?’ demanded Hish Tulla.

Pelk scowled. ‘In this new war of magic, milady, honour cannot exist. Respect dies with the distance, the very remoteness of murder. Battle becomes a chore, but one swiftly concluded, and only the ravens will dance.’ She set her hand again upon the pommel of her weapon. ‘All my skill, all that I gave my life to teaching – my very vow to see my students survive – is now meaningless. If death can strike without discrimination, then truly we are fallen. I see a future in which spirit dies, and if this day is to be my last, I will not regret it too much.’ She glanced at Gripp Galas. ‘I expect Kellaras to join me in the dust of death, so think not to chide me again, Gripp Galas.’

Neither Gripp nor Hish Tulla had anything to say to that.

Pelk nodded. ‘Now, by your leave, I will return to your uncle, and inform him of his command.’

‘See that they fight,’ Hish Tulla said, but her tone was empty, hollowed out. ‘You are his second in command. Make certain that he understands that.’

‘I will, milady, and should he betray, I will cut him down in the instant.’

‘I doubt,’ said Hish Tulla as she gestured her servants closer again – this time to begin removing her armour – ‘Venes Turayd holds any delusions about your resolve, Pelk.’ She turned her head to her husband. ‘What say you, beloved? Shall we ride to my western keep?’

Gripp frowned at her. ‘You will surrender all responsibility?’

‘He loves us too dearly, does he not? We shall depart, bearing the cuts of our freedom.’ She shrugged. ‘Our trail will be obvious enough, by the blood we drip. Pelk, keep Rancept close.’

‘Of course, milady, if such a thing is possible-’

‘I said keep him close, Pelk. There is sorcery in that man, far older than anything Hunn Raal might use.’

‘Rancept?’

‘He is Shake, Pelk. A Denier, if you must use the term. But more than that, he once dwelt among the Dog-Runners. He is the child of a different mother. Hold him to your side, Pelk, for I would see you again.’

Pelk bowed.

Hish Tulla said to her husband, ‘You did as Kellaras asked. You returned Lord Anomander to his senses. He commands you no longer.’

‘Yes, beloved.’

‘Never again.’

He nodded.

Pelk departed the chamber, feeling strangely elated, almost content. Whatever came of this day, love would survive. She understood Lord Anomander, and the offence he had taken at Gripp’s return. In this one instance, honour had lost the battle, and simple decency would prevail.

She approached the outer door, eager to both delight and irritate Venes Turayd. Then they would set out for the Valley of Tarns, leading the Houseblades of House Tulla, and she would ride behind Venes and, at her side, old bent Rancept, his breaths as harsh as those of the horse he straddled.

Kellaras would live or he would die. No different from Pelk herself. And you, Ivis, you old fool. Find your new love if you can when all this is done. We’re past every regret, and the past has lost all its claws, all its teeth, and can hurt us no more.

Now, time had come to face the dying day. She kicked open the door.