Fall of Light

TWENTY-FIVE

Although it left him with confused emotions tugging him this way and that, the idea pursued Orfantal, and L. no matter where his mind raced, the idea swept up around him the instant he paused. Children should be able to choose their own mothers. Of course such a thing was impossible. And yet, was it not even worse that mothers could not choose their children? He knew enough about being unwanted and unwelcome. He knew even more about being a disappointment.

The mother he sought, could he so choose, would have the strength to look him in the eye, and to see and not fear who he was. There would be a reserve about her, a kind of selfishness, perhaps, that in itself would give him enough room to grow into his own world, making his own choices about how to live.

Gripp Galas would have laughed at the notion. The child, he would say, needs guidance. The child, he would insist, was not ready to understand the world, not ready to make a place in it. And these things were probably true, but a balance was needed nonetheless. Until his arrival in the Citadel, Orfantal had been smothered beneath his mother’s needs. He had been weighted down with the fears and dreads of his grandmother. Of his father there was only absence, a vast realm of ignorance in which Orfantal could raise heroes standing beneath bold standards, and that suited him well enough.

Heroic death appealed to him like nothing else, when he imagined his future life, when at last he clawed free of his mother and her shrinking world.

He’d sensed his mother’s arrival. His powers had grown, and now the city and its outskirts trembled as if sheathed in his own skin. The black river, with its crisp shelves of ice along the banks, felt like his own heartline, rich with the tireless flow of blood, too swift to freeze solid, too fierce to be turned aside. He felt his mother and her uncertain steps. He shivered to the sudden presence of the First Son of Darkness, whose spirit was like a mailed fist; and the stranger beside him, in the moments before retreating back into the forest – that man held in his heart all the resolve of a wounded world, of nature steeling itself against a storm of its own making.

Orfantal was still a child, and yet in the space given to him, since his arrival at the Citadel, he had soaked in the dubious wisdom of ancient stone walls, of floors laid out in ritual, of magicks swirling down every passage, murmuring the memories of old gods. He had prodded awake sleeping spirits, and each one had given him new words, new thoughts, new ways of seeing. But, for all that, his mind remained as it had always been, quick to absorb all the new things given him, and as quick to find itself wandering lost in confusion, knowing he was not yet able to understand it all. Knowing that such gifts, these blessings of stone and old gods, were meant for someone older, wiser – someone who understood enough to be afraid.

He saw the boy Wreneck, his old friend who’d stopped being his friend, rushing into the keep. It was startling to find that Wreneck could see the wolf ghost he’d left there, near the Terondai, and Orfantal was not yet sure if he was pleased by that, or alarmed.

Wreneck looked much older than Orfantal remembered, scarred and sure-eyed, like a warrior or a hunter. He carried a spear, and no one he passed in the corridors challenged him. Orfantal did not know if he should be frightened as Wreneck followed the ghost ever deeper into the Citadel, and ever closer to where he now hid.

But all these details were shoved to the wayside upon the return of Emral Lanear, the mother he would have chosen for himself. He longed to curl up in her lap again, not just in spirit, but with his own body, its solid limbs and the weight of his head resting on her breast.

Everywhere there was the talk of war, of the battle to come. Everywhere in the Citadel, and in the city beyond, there was a miasma of fear and uncertainty. People were in motion, restless and at times scurrying, as if their labours could reshape the future. And how their hands worked! He watched pots being scrubbed, stacked and dried, and then hung on hooks in neat rows. He watched clothes being folded, floors being swept, cords of wood perfectly stacked. Axe-edges honed, blades polished. Everywhere his mind looked, he saw a frenzy of order taking hold of men and women.

Panic was the enemy, the mundane necessities of living a ritual of control, and as control was torn away – out beyond the walls, out beyond the city itself, those busy hands at the ends of those arms – they all retreated to what was in reach. That and nothing more.

And this is us. This is the Tiste.

And, the ghosts tell me, this is how a civilization falls.

He would curl into her lap, as she sat in her chair, tendrils of smoke rising about them. In a chamber well guarded by his ghostly wolves. Children only ever had one place of retreat.

My real mother is skin over wounds. She hurts everywhere inside, and she wants to bring it to me. She has a new child, a thing of sorcery, a thing of terrible power. I see the Eleint in the baby’s eyes, the father’s ancient power.

If Mother keeps her close, that toddling thing, she will poison it. She will make a monster.

Wreneck was coming closer. He would reach this room in only a few moments. Orfantal blinked, withdrawing his vision, his multitude of strange senses that quested everywhere like unseen draughts. He glanced down at Ribs, watched the dog dreaming in a cascade of twitches. Easier to make the beast sleep than to see it ever fleeing.

If he had the words, he would tell Emral Lanear so many things. If he had the words, he would say this: Mother Emral Lanear, I feel your clouded mind, and all the guilt you refuse to think about. I feel your grief at beauty lost, there in the mirror. And I would tell you otherwise, how your beauty is something no mirror could capture.

Mother of Darkness cannot be seen, so you stand in her stead. Her true representative. Even you do not understand that. Just like the goddess, you are the mother of us all. And that space surrounding you, that vast space, it is your gift of freedom. To your children.

But it seems we’ve made it a place for killing.

But no such words came to him, except in the echo of someone else’s voice. There were times – and he heard this in a whisper – when the poet took liberties, to sweep aside the confusion in service of clarity. To make things plain.

Some indulgences must be borne. For others, patience was wearing thin.

The door opened. Wreneck stepped warily into the chamber. ‘Orfantal?’

Orfantal uncurled from Lanear’s chair. ‘She’s back,’ he said. ‘She’s coming here, I think.’

‘What? Who?’

‘The High Priestess. Hello, Wreneck.’

‘I’ve come to warn you.’

‘Yes, my mother. And her new child.’

‘Korlat. She’s named Korlat.’

‘Ah.’

‘Orfantal, what’s happened to you?’

‘I escaped,’ he replied. ‘Only now I’m going to be dragged back, and not even the High Priestess can help me. I mean, she won’t, because it isn’t her place and anyway she doesn’t understand. Mother’s here. She’s on her way.’

‘She wants Korlat to protect you.’

Orfantal laughed. At the sound, Ribs awoke, lifted his head to study Orfantal, and then looked to Wreneck. Wagging his tail, he rose and approached the boy.

Frowning, Wreneck patted the dog’s head. ‘I like this one the best,’ he said. ‘The ghosts scare me a bit.’

‘What’s that spear for?’

‘For the ones who attacked us, who burned down the estate and killed Lady Nerys and hurt Jinia. They’re in Urusander’s Legion.’

‘You’d better hurry,’ Orfantal said, unsurprised at any of the news Wreneck delivered, unsurprised and, he realized, unaffected. Perhaps he’d heard it all before. He couldn’t remember. The Citadel’s wise stone filled his head, but the wisdom was lost, confused, wandering the corridors.

‘I will. But I needed to warn you first. About your mother.’

Orfantal held out a hand to forestall Wreneck’s explaining any further. ‘Yes. Don’t worry, I see her. All of her. Thank you. Wreneck, were you my friend once?’

The boy’s eyes widened, and he nodded.

‘Are we still friends?’

‘I am,’ Wreneck replied. ‘To you, I mean.’

‘I think you’re a hero now, Wreneck. Remember how we played? All those battles? The last two to fall, you and me. Remember that?’

‘It isn’t like that, though,’ Wreneck said. ‘It’s about not being strong enough, or fast enough. It’s about enemies with empty eyes, stabbing you with their sword. It’s about you lying there, bleeding and hurting, while soldiers make an innocent girl bleed between the legs, and there’s nothing you can do, because you weren’t good enough to stop them.’

‘The heroes always die,’ whispered Orfantal.

‘I’ve got people to kill,’ Wreneck said, backing towards the door.

‘And I’ve got to be a big brother, just like you were once, to me.’

‘Be good to her?’

‘I will, Wreneck.’

‘Better than I was to you.’

Orfantal smiled. ‘Look at us now. We’re all grown up.’

* * *

Lord Draconus was sitting in the dark, motionless in a high-backed chair near the unlit hearth. The air was cold, lifeless, yet the chamber felt suffocating as Kellaras stepped inside and closed the door behind him. ‘Milord.’

It may have been that Draconus had been asleep, for he now started and straightened slightly. ‘Captain.’

‘I was to come here, milord, to tell you of your impending audience with Lord Anomander.’

‘Yes. I will speak to him. There is much to discuss.’

‘Instead,’ Kellaras resumed, ‘I must inform you that Anomander has ridden out with Silchas Ruin, to the Valley of Tarns. Urusander’s Legion draws close. There will be a battle before the sun has set.’

Draconus was motionless, and he said nothing for a long moment, and then he rose from the chair. ‘Where are my Houseblades?’

‘They ride to the battle, milord.’

‘This was not what was agreed.’

Kellaras said nothing.

‘Who has taken command of them, captain?’

‘Lord Anomander has chosen to set aside Mother Dark’s prohibition. He commands the forces of the Tiste Andii.’

‘And the highborn?’

‘They too assemble for the battle, milord. All are in attendance, with their Houseblades. Also, the Hust Legion returns to us, not as it once was, but nonetheless …’

Draconus moved past the captain, swinging open the door. When he set out down the corridor, Kellaras followed.

A damned pup again, rushing to someone else’s pace. Would I could take any door, to either side of this passage, and simply step out of this mess. Find myself in an empty room, a place of silence, big enough to swallow the echoes of my raging mind. Instead, he said, ‘Milord, will you ride after them?’

‘I will have what is mine,’ Draconus said.

‘In the Chamber of Night, milord, you acceded to Silchas Ruin’s request-’

‘He has deceived me, and I will know if his brother was part of that.’

‘Sir, your presence-’

Reaching the door leading into the hall, Draconus halted and turned to Kellaras. ‘Anomander understands honour. At least, he once did.’

‘He will yield to you your Houseblades, milord. I am certain of it.’

‘And see us withdraw from this farce?’

Kellaras nodded. ‘So I believe of my master, milord.’

Draconus bared his teeth. ‘If only to keep the loyalty of the highborn.’

‘Sir, will you make him choose?’

Draconus swung round again and moments later they were crossing the hall, the Consort indifferent to the Terondai beneath his boots.

They were not alone in the vast chamber. The High Priestess and the historian stood nearby, still in their outdoor garb, halted now by the abrupt appearance of Draconus. Kellaras saw in both faces a sudden, misplaced unease, and he wondered at that, even as both bowed to the Consort.

‘Milord,’ said Emral Lanear. ‘Does Mother Dark stir at last? Will she advise me on what must be done next?’

Draconus strode past her without replying.

Kellaras saw the shock on Lanear’s drawn face, followed swiftly by indignation. Beside her, the historian smiled without much humour, and rested a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

‘High Priestess, is it not clear? He rides to the Valley now.’

She spun to face him, but said nothing – and then Kellaras too was past, stepping swiftly to catch up to Draconus.

This farce spills out. It mocks its way through the Citadel, dancing down the corridors. Soon, it will howl.

Once outside, they headed for the stables, Kellaras trailing Draconus like a man on a leash.

* * *

The streets were clear when the companies of Houseblades set out, each from their highborn’s respective holding in the city. Most were on foot, ordered into a slow jog as they headed first eastward and then, once beyond the outer gates, on to the northeast road, where company upon company linked up to form a column.

At the very head and forming a vanguard rode the highborn themselves. Vanut Degalla, Venes Turayd, Aegis, Manalle, Baesk, Drethdenan, Trevok and Raelle. Immediately behind them, also mounted, the masters- and mistresses-at-arms, along with a score of lesser officers, aides, signallers and message-bearers.

Riding a massive, broad-backed horse, Rancept found himself in the company of Captain Horult Chiv and Sekarrow. In their martial accoutrements, the night in the kitchen at Tulla Keep seemed long ago and impossibly far away.

Sekarrow, her iltre stored inside a leather case strapped to her saddle, her gloved hands resting on the horn, reins loosely wrapped about them, leaned companionably close to the castellan and said, ‘Has Lady Hish preceded us, then?’

The jostling from the trotting horse sent stabs of pain through Rancept’s bent frame, forcing his breath out in sharp gasps. It was a moment before he managed to speak. ‘She leaves this to her uncle.’

Sekarrow uttered a surprised grunt, and said, ‘That seems … unlikely. Something must have happened-’

‘Yes, something did.’

Riding up on to Rancept’s other side, Horult Chiv rapped his gauntleted knuckles against the wooden scabbard of his sword. ‘Castellan, know this: my lord Drethdenan is resolved. If it comes to calling out cowards, he will not hesitate!’

Rancept nodded, although he was far from convinced. It seemed that Horult elevated his beloved far beyond the opinions most might hold of the man’s fortitude. That said, Rancept hoped the captain was right.

Venes Turayd was not a man to be trusted, not on this day. Pelk, riding at Turayd’s side, had made clear her opinion in this matter, conveyed with a simple glance instead of words. Rancept had been already resolved to follow orders, as expected, until such time as a command threatened his honour, at which moment he would do what needed doing.

He’d lived long enough to find the weight of a crime – even one of murder – a burden he would willingly carry. There was little that could be done to him that would not, in truth, prove a salvation. His bones ached incessantly. Drawing breath was like drinking draughts of pain, without surcease. He’d seen enough of life to know he wouldn’t miss it much. His only regret was the grief his death would level upon those who cared for him.

Venes Turayd was a man inclined to abuse the honour of others, as if needing to despoil what he himself lacked. But he would not have Rancept’s last surviving virtue, and in the moment of its challenge the castellan would give answer. And Pelk would guard his back.

Deep in his twisted body, he knew that betrayal was coming.

The heavy, long-handled axe at his hip was a comforting weight. The armour wrapped tight about his shoulders clattered as he rocked in the saddle. The surrounding gloom did little to diminish the acuity of his eyes as he looked out upon stubbled fields, and, glancing back over his sloped shoulder, upon the ranks of Houseblades, each House bearing its proud standard.

Sleeping Goddess, hear my prayer. Your earth will drink deep this day. Nothing will change this. But this surface here, these shallow thoughts and quick deceits, they are where I will find myself. Grant me a clear path, and I will leave you the severed head of Venes Turayd, raper of children, betrayer of the Sons and Daughters of Mother Dark.

Today is our day of accounting. Sleeping Goddess, walk with me and dream of death.

Sukul Ankhadu, forgive me.

‘One day,’ said Sekarrow, ‘I will learn to play the damned thing.’

Her brother snorted. ‘But not today.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ she replied. ‘I am told, however, it makes a sorrowful sound.’

‘Not today,’ Horult Chiv repeated in a growl.

‘No, not today.’

* * *

The afternoon was drawing to a close. They were late readying horses, and Endest Silann stood watching as Cedorpul harangued the grooms. In a few moments, the two of them would set out again, upon the track they had but just traversed, well in the wake of the Houseblades and the Hust Legion. Should they then return to Kharkanas, one more time, everything would have changed.

His hands were cold, but not numb. This was something that made his blood into ice, and that ice burned as it leaked out from the wounds in his palms. He thought, idly, that it might be an indication of Mother Dark’s fury.

Moments earlier they had seen Lord Draconus and Captain Kellaras ride out, their horses’ hoofs hammering the stones of the courtyard and then the bridge, the sound discordant, as if some madman was working an anvil. Haste and anger, hurts ill disguised. Iron and stone made for bitter music.

The pilgrim makes a path. But no longer is he followed. Miracles pall in the disapproval of authority, and what was once a gift is now suspect. And so, yet again, we crush the blossom in our hand, lift our gaze from the tumbling petals, and ask the world, ‘Where, then, is this beauty you promised?’

But beauty could be a terrible thing, a force to cut the eye and leave wounded the witness. Even perfection, if such a thing could be said to exist, could arrive like an affront. Endest Silann lifted his gaze to the sky, studied its fierce contradiction of afternoon light and enervating gloom, and wondered if, on this day, dragons would take to the air, with eyes eager to feast on the slaughter below.

There is this, you see. They are drawn to sorcery. Reasons unknown, my knowledge itself a mystery. I know what I know, but know not how I know it.

Cedorpul shouted him over to where he waited with the two now saddled horses. Nodding, Endest Silann joined him, and a short time later they rode out across the first bridge, leaving the looming hulk of the Citadel in their wake.

With renewed energy, Cedorpul grinned across at him. ‘Today, my friend, we shall see the power of magic! The power to withstand, to defy, to refuse!’

‘We will do what we can,’ Endest replied.

‘We shall prevail,’ Cedorpul said, his face flushed. ‘I feel it in my heart.’

‘We need only hold.’

‘Sorcery will see an end to armies and battles,’ Cedorpul said. ‘Perhaps even an end to war itself. Together, the two of us, we can lead our realm into a new era of peace. Mark my words.’

The sound of the hoofs beneath them was a cacophony, rattling Endest Silann’s thoughts, and he could think of no reply to Cedorpul’s assertions. They rode on at a quick canter, the road before them strangely empty this close to the city, though the air itself seemed turgid. If there were refugees fleeing Kharkanas, they were on the south road, although in truth Endest did not believe the city’s inhabitants were fleeing. Mother Dark, your children have nowhere to go.

Even if Urusander’s Legion proved victorious, the notion of his soldiers looting Kharkanas was too heinous to consider. No, this will be decided in the Valley of Tarns. Nothing else is required. The Wise City will survive this.

‘We will drive this Liosan from our world!’ Cedorpul said. ‘What say you?’

Endest Silann nodded, but could manage nothing more. His hands wept with the anguish of a goddess, and yet the tears of blood burned, making him think of rage.

* * *

All the soldiers were gone. Wreneck hurried through a city emptied of almost everyone except ghosts, and they too had begun a march, eastward, in a silent progression of damaged and diseased figures. He saw children with bloated faces, bruised by the pillows that had stilled their last breath. Others, much younger than Wreneck himself, bore broken limbs, from beatings, he imagined, as he recalled the cane coming down upon his own body, and all this made him rush through the city of Kharkanas, barely seeing the magnificent buildings on either side of the street. He drew his spear around so that he could find strength in its solid shaft of dark wood, gripping it with both hands. As if, with this weapon, he could fend off his own memories.

There were so many ghosts who had been hurt somehow. He wondered at that, fighting a chill that burgeoned from somewhere deep inside him. He wondered at all the broken people, and all their secret histories, and at how none seemed able to hide their hurts now that they were dead. Yet none wept. They walked, instead, with eyes like dusty stones plucked from a dry riverbed. They were too pathetic to frighten him, too hopeless to make him think he could in any way help them.

The world was a big place, bigger than he’d ever imagined. And it was old, too, impossibly old. The dead never went away, he knew now, and they crowded him, moving in a noiseless mass, spilling out through the gate in the outer wall, and on to the road. He didn’t want to be seeing any of this, and he wondered at the curse that now afflicted him. I must have done something wrong. All those times I failed. All the times I proved too weak, and because of my weakness people got hurt. This is where it comes from. It must be. I was never good enough.

His breaths harsh, he ran through the ghosts, striving to win free of them all, to find a clear space on the track. A few turned to follow him with their dull eyes. One or two reached out as if to take hold of him, but he evaded their grasp even though he knew their efforts were useless – their flailing hands simply slipped through him, no different from the last of the bodies he pushed through as he finally outraced them and found himself alone on the cobbled road.

Some distance ahead, he saw another lone figure, tall, dressed in heavy robes, hobbling like a man with broken feet. It did not take long before Wreneck caught up and came alongside the man.

A narrow, deeply lined face, an iron-grey beard snarled and seemingly stained with rust. Seeing Wreneck, the old man smiled. ‘Late to the battle, soldier! As am I, as am I. Shall we hasten? I have no Houseblades. They must have left without me – no, wait, that’s not right. My Houseblades bear the swords I forged, my armour, too. I made them into a legion. I left them somewhere. I’ll remember where, I’m sure, sooner or later. Ah!’ He took a few quick steps forward, leaned down to collect a rock, and showed it to Wreneck. ‘Slag,’ he said, his face twitching. ‘You find it everywhere. Our legacy – my son’s wife, you know her? When they were but betrothed, I happened upon her in a room and saw that she had a small blade in one hand, and she was using it to cut the insides of her thighs. She was hurting herself, you see. I could make no sense of it. Can you?’

Wreneck wanted to hurry on, leave the strange old man behind. Instead, he shrugged. ‘She was trying to feel something. Anything.’

‘But she was loved. We all loved her. Surely she understood that.’

Wreneck glanced back to the mass of ghosts on the road behind them. ‘She didn’t believe you. You loved her because you didn’t really know her. That’s what she believed, I mean. You didn’t know her so whoever you loved wasn’t her, it was someone else, someone who just looked like her. But she knew better.’ Jinia, wait for me. Don’t do anything to hurt yourself. And please, please, don’t let me see you among these ghosts.

The old man still held out the ragged piece of slag, and now he closed his fingers about it, tight enough to break skin and draw blood. It ran down the edge of his palm, down to stain his cuff. He offered Wreneck a ghastly smile. ‘Every pit we carved into the earth. Every hill we tore down. Every tree we burned, the wastelands of poison we left behind. It’s the same, young soldier, exactly the same. Wounding ourselves. And, as you say, wounding ourselves because we’re not who we think we are. We’re far less than that.’ He grunted. ‘I used to play in the murdered places, with my toys, my painted heroes of lead and pewter.’ He reached round and drew out a heavy leather satchel he had been carrying hidden beneath his cloak. ‘I brought them along, you see, because we’re going to have a battle.’

‘It’ll be a real battle, sir, and I need to get there in time, so we have to hurry-’

‘You take one side and I’ll take the other. I have ones painted in green livery, others in blue. Upon either side of the ditch here, we line them up, you see?’ He reached out and grasped Wreneck’s arm, pulling him to the side of the road. ‘I’m green and you’re blue,’ he said, his eyes bright as he spilled out what was in the satchel.

Wreneck looked down on the battered toy soldiers, a hundred or more. He watched as the old man deftly separated the two colours, pushing the blue-painted ones up against Wreneck’s worn boots.

‘But we need rules for this,’ the old man continued as he collected up the green soldiers and made his way across the snow-filled ditch and seated himself on the far bank. ‘Fronting strength, flanking weakness. Adds and subtracts. The attrition of unrelieved pressure – I have dice for this, knucklebones in fact. Not Tiste, of course. Forulkan. I’ll explain the adds and subtracts once our troops engage. Quickly now, line yours up, there along the valley’s crest!’

‘Sir, the real battle-’

‘You will obey your lord!’

Wreneck flinched at the shouted command, and then he set the spear down to one side and knelt on the edge of the road. ‘Yes, milord.’

The first of the ghosts reached them, passing along on the road, paying no attention whatsoever to the two figures off to one side.

The old man licked his purple lips and began speaking in a quick, almost breathless tone. ‘I have my Hust Legion. See? I told you I would find them, and here they are!’ He gestured down at his green-painted toys. ‘Superb soldiers one and all. Can you hear their swords? Bitter prisons, making the iron howl. They have bonuses against pressure. But you, Urusander, you have bonuses for ferocity, for all that your soldiers learned fighting the Jheleck. You see how it balances out? We are well suited in opposition, yes? My legion can hold its ground. Yours can attack like no other. Our strengths lock horns, as it should be.’

Wreneck paused in lining his soldiers up along the edge of the ditch. He thought back to all the mock battles he’d played with young Orfantal, and tried to recall what Orfantal had said about strategies and tactics and other things Wreneck didn’t really understand. But just like Orfantal, this old lord had a fever for war. Wreneck frowned. ‘But, milord, if our strengths lock horns, then more soldiers die. I should trick you into attacking me, and then withdraw once you’re down in the valley, and then come in on your flanks. I should make you turn to defend and then get you to attack, over and over again. That way, I can still use my strength even as I turn yours into a weakness.’

The lord stared across at him, and then giggled. ‘Yes! Of course! Of course! But you see, nobody’s supposed to win. We both get bloodied and then we both withdraw. Better yet, we turn on our commanders and, why, we cut their heads off! We throw down our weapons! Throw away our armour! We tell the bastards to go fuck themselves and then we go home! Hah!’ He half slid down on to the ditch’s slope. ‘Now, it’s time to advance! To war! The standards are raised! This is the secret joke, you see. When we all agree on insanity … it’s still insane!’

Wreneck watched the old man laugh, watched the face redden, the watery eyes bulging. He wondered at the joke, not quite sure of it, and then he wondered if that joke might end up killing the lord, as the tears ran down the old man’s lined cheeks, as the laughter grew more helpless, and finally as, hysterical, the breaths growing harder and harder to draw, the man choked and gagged, clutching his chest.

The ghosts marched past, pebble-eyes fixed on nothing.

Upon each side of the ditch, a few of the tiny soldiers toppled in the wind as the wet mud gave way beneath them.

Gasping, the lord righted himself and wiped at his eyes. ‘Now,’ he said in a rasp, ‘it begins with magic, or so I’m told. Powerful spells, but the first and most powerful one no one even sees. It’s the sorcery of war itself, the ritual words flung back and forth, everyone moving into place – there, set those up again, it’s not yet time for them to fall. But they’ve all agreed. There’s no choice. You have to agree on that first, you have to weave it, a web that snares everyone. No choice, no choice, must be done, draw the sword. There’s no choice, we agree on that. We have to agree on that, to begin with. No choice, oh dear, no choice, oh, how sad, how regrettable. No choice. Keep saying it and it comes true, do you understand? No choice!’ He sighed, leaned back to study his troops. ‘Split into three. The centre will advance first. The wings will stretch and form the horns – this is simple tactics, you understand. Nothing subtle or clever on this day. But wait! Before all that, the mages must duel!’

Wreneck looked back to the road, watching the dead filing past. There were many soldiers among them.

‘What do the mages do?’ he asked the lord.

The old man frowned. ‘I don’t know. Let me think. Magic. There must be a structure to it, lest it serve nefarious purposes. It cannot simply be a force no one understands. Not a metaphor, then, nothing like a poet’s meat. People make use of it, after all, don’t they?’

‘Milord, I don’t understand.’

‘Sorcery! If this then not that, if that then not this! Chart the cause and effect, mutter and write notes and pretend that such things impose limits and rules, abeyances and prohibitions, all these contingencies to milk the brain with an inventor’s delight – pah! The poet’s meat is a better way of seeing it. Metaphor. Meat to be wrung until the blood drips. Meat to invite thoughts of rendering, something hacked away from some unseen body, a giant’s corpse lying unseen in the forest, or among the hills, or amidst storm-clouds in the sky. The flesh in one hand, dripping with heat, the butcher’s take on the world, where all invites the cleaver and knife, where all must perforce be lifeless to take the cut, the cold, empty chop! Yet look! The flesh cut away bleeds still, and there is heat, and something pulses – the twitch of wounded nerves.’ He paused to regain his breath, and then pointed across at Wreneck. ‘The poet knows it’s alive. The butcher believes it dead. Thus, the gift upon one side and upon the other the taker of that gift, the sorceror, the butcher, the blind, clumsy bastard.’

The lord shifted to study his rows of soldiers, and then reached down and lifted one free. ‘Here he is. The poet recoils. All those tales of childhood, the magicks and the witches and wizards, the cursed gems and sacred swords – magic, my young friend, belongs to twin goddesses’ – and he smiled – ‘I see them still. Name this first one Wonder, and she leads you by the hand into unlikely realms. Your delight is her reward! Now, the other, why, let’s call her Warning. The other side to every magical gift, to every strange world. The poet knows all this, or the poet should, at any rate. Wonder and Warning, what other detail does one need in the comprehension of magic?’

Wreneck shrugged, and then, when that did not seem enough, he shook his head.

‘We use what we don’t understand,’ the lord explained, scowling. ‘It’s a simple message, a simple metaphor. We use what we don’t understand. To invent rules and make charts and lists is to forget the meaning of the metaphor. Such a mind is locked into its rational cage, a most limited realm, a realm of self-delusion and presumption, a narcissistic stance, and the rules and logic only serve to reflect the brilliance of the one using them, as if, indeed, that is the singular purpose of the entire pointless exercise!’ He wagged a finger at Wreneck. ‘The poet cocks a leg and pisses on them all! It’s meat and the meat bleeds, and the blood is warm and the blood fills the cup of the hand and to use it is to kill it and to kill it is a crime.’ He set down the soldier he’d collected, positioned further down the bank of the ditch. ‘My idiot champion of ignorance. Now you – wait, what is your name?’

‘Wreneck.’

‘Now, good Wreneck, select your champion.’

Wreneck picked up one of his soldiers and moved to place it opposite the lord’s lone figure. ‘Like this, milord?’

The old man frowned. ‘I must add another.’

‘Two against one?’

‘No matter. One of mine is going to die.’

‘How do we fight with magic, milord?’

‘Why, I’ll roll the bones, of course.’

‘Then how do you know one of yours is going to die?’

‘Because magic demands meat, Wreneck. Blood in the hand, fading heat, something broken, something dying, a crime unforgivable.’

Wreneck looked down at all the soldiers. ‘Milord, are we gods?’

The old man snorted. ‘Less than that, less than who we are, in fact. Toy soldiers and dolls, puppets and deeds writ small, we’re the venal manipulators of the unpleasant. With secret purpose, we lay waste to lives we ourselves have invented. With hopeless despair, we hammer home lessons no one pays any attention to.’ He laughed again, a bitter, caustic sound. ‘All a waste, my young friend, all a waste.’

The old man began weeping then, and after a time, Wreneck reached down to the lord’s second mage, and tipped the figure over until it was flat upon the ground.

* * *

‘Soon,’ said Lord Vatha Urusander as they rode towards the valley, ‘the thaw will come. There is a will to water, never as wayward as it might seem. It finds certain paths in its hunt for the lowest land, for the places where it can rest. When the flood takes the streams, the streams flow into the river, and the flood rises yet higher. It spills out and finds refuge in hollows and sinkholes, in pits and trenches. When I was a child, the thaw was the season I loved the best. Those pools of cold, cold water – water beetles would appear in them, from where I knew not, and yet their glory would be brief, as the pools slowly dried up.’

Renarr rode at Urusander’s side. They were not part of the Legion’s vanguard. Well ahead, Hunn Raal and his captains commanded the army’s bristling point, and behind them trundled the heavy carriage bearing High Priestess Syntara, Sagander the one-legged scholar, and young Sheltatha Lore. Riding alongside the carriage was Infayen Menand. Renarr and the commander had only each other for company, with the first company of soldiers marching a dozen paces behind.

‘I had a clay jar,’ Urusander resumed. ‘I spent my days capturing the beetles, and then releasing them into the streams. Nothing mattered more to me than saving their small lives. Unlike those bugs, you see, I knew what was coming. This incurred in me a responsibility, young as I was, and from that an obligation. I could not stand to one side, yielding to cruel nature.’

‘The water beetles,’ said Renarr, ‘probably bred in the mud left behind by the pools, and there the eggs remained until the next season of flood.’

Urusander was silent for a time then.

Renarr twisted slightly round to observe the soldiers marching behind them. After the midday’s break, they had donned their armour and readied their weapons. Scouts had reported the enemy massing on the south side of the valley. It seemed that no one was much interested in delaying the battle. The following dawn offered no gift of light – not this close to Kharkanas. And yet it seemed precipitous nonetheless, at least to Renarr’s mind. The soldiers would be weary after the day’s march, after all.

‘Did I kill in my misplaced mercy?’ Urusander suddenly asked.

‘You were a child, as you say. At that age, we are easy playing at gods and goddesses. Carve a trough at the pool’s edge, watch it drain away. Stir up the silts and mud, scattering whatever had been hidden there. We become fickle chance to the life that knows nothing of us. The life we victimize, the life buckling to our misguided will.’ She paused, and then shrugged. ‘The thaw offers up a world of pools. Year after year. All that you altered eventually returned to what it had been before. You but passed through, hastening as always into an older body, older interests, older desires.’

‘You speak with the voice of a crone, Renarr, not a woman half my age. In your company, I am belittled. How then was this wisdom of yours earned? In the whores’ tent? I should think not.’

Perhaps, Urusander, beneath the eager weight of your son. Now there was a self-proclaimed god, far past the age when he should have abandoned the conceit. He settled his body on mine, pushed himself inside to my small cry of pain, and looked into my eyes seeking the twin reflections of his own face. Just as every woman he takes finds herself gazing up into his frantically searching eyes. A boy desperate to find the man he should have been. And no amount of thrusting cock can grant him that one benediction.

To your son, Urusander, every woman is a whore.

‘You confuse age with wisdom,’ she said. ‘The whores’ tent was my temple. I paid in years for the blessing of moments. While the men and women who used me bled out worthless coin, and thought themselves absolved of the bargain’s sad and sordid truth. Consider, sir, the abject failure that is sex without love. The act denigrates both flesh and soul, and all the gasps and moans that cut through the night cannot replace what was so willingly surrendered.’

‘And what, Renarr, did you and your men and women surrender?’

‘Why, dignity, I should imagine.’

‘Just that?’

‘No. If intimacy is a virtue.’

‘And is it?’

She turned her head away from his regard, as if hearing a strange sound to one side, and this was sufficient to hide her unbidden and unwelcome smile. ‘A fragile one, of course. Too fragile, perhaps, for this world.’ The smile lingered, a thing of unbearable pain and grief, and then faded. A moment later and she was able to look ahead once more, offering the man at her side an untroubled profile.

‘You confound me, Renarr.’

‘There is an unexpected gift to my years of unrelieved education. But you know it as well. See us here, two dispassionate orphans. Uprooted before a flood of foreign ideas, unexpected discoveries and terrible realizations. Your eternal hunt for justice, sir, but circles a host of simple truths. We are all believers in justice as applied to others, but never to ourselves. And this is how we make virtue a weapon, and delight in seeing it make people bleed.’

‘The imposition of law is civilization’s only recourse, Renarr.’

‘And in its inevitable exceptions lies civilization’s downfall.’ She shook her head. ‘But we have argued this before, and again I say to you, make every law subservient to dignity. By that rule and that rule alone, sir. Dignity to and for each and every citizen, each and every enslaved beast of burden, each and every animal led to slaughter – we cannot deny our needs, but in serving those needs, we need not lose sight of the tragedy of those who in turn serve us with their lives.’

‘The people are never so enlightened, Renarr, as to comprehend such a thing.’

‘A judgement inviting your contempt.’

‘Perhaps. But sometimes, contempt is all many of them deserve.’

Renarr nodded, her gaze on the army’s vanguard. ‘Yes. Too many gods and goddesses in this world, this world and every other.’

‘I am a figurehead,’ said Lord Urusander.

She felt no need to respond to that. Some things were too obvious for words.

‘I fear Hunn Raal,’ he added.

‘So do we all.’

* * *

Sagander fidgeted, his watery gaze darting again and again to the leg that was not there. He licked his lips, sipping constantly from a flask of water he carried in a pocket on the inside of his robe. The carriage rocked its occupants, sliding at times on slick ice covering one or two cobbles, crunching down with a jolt that rattled the shutters and made the dozen bright lanterns swing wildly on their hooks. Each jarring motion made the old man wince.

From beneath veiled lids, High Priestess Syntara watched the self-proclaimed official historian of the Liosan. Here in this sanctified temple on wheels, she could read his innermost thoughts and with idle ease she plundered them. Each one was bright with outrage and venom, swirling madly around a vortex of betrayal, for betrayal was at the core of everything for poor Sagander. He blamed Lord Draconus. He blamed now dead Borderswords. He blamed Draconus’s bastard son Arathan. But she saw for herself the blow he sent to Arathan’s head, the boy reeling in his saddle, stunned into witlessness. She saw Arathan’s horse attack, saw its hoofs stabbing savagely down, heard the snapping of bones.

No one else was to blame for the loss of that leg – no one but Sagander himself, and of course that was something he could not – could never – admit. It was pathetic, the raving accusations of an ego blind to its own lies. And the manner in which a thousand exculpatory words could drown out a simple truth was something that made her thoughtful, as they drew ever nearer to the Valley of Tarns.

They were fast approaching the time when the shout of words would give way to the shout of swords. She would finally discover the extent of Hunn Raal’s sorcerous power, and that was the source of some trepidation. No matter how certain her own faith and no matter the vast reach of her own magic, the Mortal Sword of Liosan posed a threat, and with this recognition she discovered a new irony, in that the only obstacle blocking Hunn Raal’s true ambitions was Lord Vatha Urusander.

Our reluctant Father Light, who already moves like a puppet, confounded by a tangle of strings. Still, a throne waits for him, and once Urusander is seated in it, Hunn Raal can reach no higher.

Her secret missives with Emral Lanear made it clear that both High Priestesses understood the politics of what was coming. This very evening I shall ride into Kharkanas, and in the company of Urusander’s Legion shall cross the bridges and claim the Citadel. And I shall be met by Emral Lanear, and before all we will embrace like old friends.

And in the Chamber of Night, Mother Dark will have to acknowledge us. She will have to face us, and accede to the inevitable.

‘This battle shall be glorious,’ said Sagander suddenly, startling both Syntara and a dozing Sheltatha Lore. Tathe Lorat’s daughter had been injured while on the march, when a slipping horse inadvertently stepped down on her foot, breaking bones. She now sat directly opposite Sagander, her bandaged foot occupying the space where his missing leg would have been, and Syntara knew well that the pose was not accidental.

Venal child. I am of a mind to give her to Emral Lanear, as she’d make a fine temple whore. Her and her new tutor, Renarr. Such women are worthy of contempt and little else. But they have a value nonetheless, as things to be used.

‘I shall witness,’ Sagander went on. ‘And record, as befits a proper historian.’

‘There may be no battle,’ said Syntara.

Sagander frowned, then took another sip from the flask and licked his lips. ‘Winter’s dry air is a curse,’ he muttered, and then shook his head. ‘High Priestess, of course they will fight. Their backs are to the wall – hah, the city’s wall, in fact.’

‘The highborn still hold their lands and their wealth,’ Syntara pointed out. ‘To gamble all that upon a single field … no, they are not all fools, historian. They’ll not make it so easy to dislodge them from their privilege. I would hazard,’ she concluded, ‘they will choose to bide their time. Once we crowd in, and days turn into months, they will begin sowing discord.’

‘The Legion’s loyalty-’

‘Ends when the Legion is dissolved,’ she said. ‘Once that happens, avarice and acquisitiveness will burgeon. Friends will fall out.’

‘We need only pronounce an expansion of our borders,’ Sagander said. ‘This will ensure there is enough land to go round.’

Sheltatha Lore snorted. ‘Historian, look at a map before speaking so foolishly. Our borders are rough things for a reason. We are surrounded by poor land, once home to wild herds that are no more. Wherever settlers tried to break the soil, they failed. To the north are the Jheleck, already pushed as far as they can go – if we renew that war, sir, we will be facing a most desperate enemy and it will be a fight to the death with no quarter possible. But oh, that’s right, we won’t have our legion any more, will we? The east belongs to the Vitr’s foul influence, while the Forulkan are to the south. West? Ah, but you know that path well enough, yes?’

Sagander’s frown was now a scowl. ‘Do not presume to know more than your betters, child. I am well aware of our geographical limits. The push must be south and west. As you say, I do know, firsthand now, the land of the Azathanai, and I tell you: they have yielded it. And to the south, well, the Forulkan are defeated. They live in fear of us.’ He waved a hand. ‘The fighting that may come of that we can leave to the Hust Legion.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Sheltatha smiled. ‘And it will be most informative, I should think, watching them today, these embittered prisoners and cast-offs.’

‘In any case,’ Sagander said, ‘we need only clear the forests to find more arable land.’

‘And the fate of the Deniers?’

‘You have not been paying attention,’ Sagander snapped. ‘Most of the women and children have been slaughtered. No, their time is done, and like so many other forest creatures, they will fade away.’

‘And you admit no pity for them, historian?’

‘Pity? A waste of effort.’

‘Yet not,’ Sheltatha said, ‘when it comes to your own infirmity.’

Sagander glared at her.

‘Be silent, Sheltatha,’ said Syntara with a weary sigh. ‘We all have our appointed roles, after all, to occupy our thoughts. Look to yourself instead, and the destiny soon to find you.’ She smiled across at the young woman. ‘I see you already spreading your legs in a temple cell – shall we make you a gift to Mother Dark?’

‘Well, Syntara, who knows? I’ll see if your old cell is still there, shall I? Though I imagine the sheets will need a thorough washing, with a nice flat rock to beat out the worst of the stains, if such a thing is even possible.’

In cold fury, Syntara lashed out, a sorcerous eruption of raw power meant to strike Sheltatha in the face. Instead, it was somehow shunted aside, slamming into the carriage door’s shutters. Splintered wood exploded within the confines, slivers striking both Sagander and Syntara. Crying out, the High Priestess reached up to her face and felt splinters jutting out from her cheeks. Uncomprehending, she pulled her hands away and stared at the fresh blood covering them.

Sagander, in the meantime, was clutching at his throat, where a large shard of wood jutted out, and blood pumped in fast spurts, spilling down into his lap. Syntara frowned across at the historian. That was too much blood, and there was horror in the man’s eyes.

Unscathed, Sheltatha stared at Sagander too, expressionless, watching as the man choked, and then drowned in a welter of red.

The carriage had rocked to a halt moments after the flare of magic, the horses screaming in shrill fear. Now the battered door was yanked from its weakened hinges, and Infayen Menand leaned in. Her flat eyes scanned the wreckage within, and then, as Sagander sagged down in his seat, she reached out and dragged the historian outside.

Syntara saw the woman drop the old man’s body to the cobbled road, glance down at it briefly as others quickly gathered round, and then lean back into the carriage, her gaze fixing on the High Priestess.

‘Not blinded? Lucky you. But really, unleashing magic inside a carriage? What possessed you to display such stupidity, High Priestess?’

When Syntara struggled for an answer – still shocked by the blood on her hands, the wet trickles upon her cheeks – Sheltatha Lore said, ‘Captain, I think I’d prefer to ride my horse, painful as that might be.’

Infayen blinked at the young woman. ‘While you are untouched. Curious.’

‘Her temper missed its mark. Now, will you lend me an arm, captain?’

With another glance at Syntara, and then a shrug, Infayen reached up to help Sheltatha climb out of the carriage.

Leaving Syntara alone with her wounds, and the soaked cushion seat opposite her, which still dripped.

In near hysteria, the High Priestess screamed for her servants.

* * *

Renarr remained on her horse while Lord Urusander dismounted to crouch down beside the dead historian. From her vantage point, she could see Hunn Raal riding back from the vanguard.

A half-dozen priestesses had crowded into the carriage, from which Syntara’s harsh voice still rang out its shock and fury. Captain Infayen Menand was helping Sheltatha Lore to a waiting horse, but the limping woman seemed otherwise unharmed and free of blood-spatter, and nothing of her comportment evinced the horror of what had just happened within the carriage.

Renarr’s eyes narrowed on her student for a moment longer, and then Hunn Raal reined in alongside Infayen. Low words were exchanged, before the Mortal Sword dismounted and moved to where Urusander was now straightening above Sagander’s corpse.

‘Commander, the High Priestess?’

Urusander frowned. ‘A few cuts, I am told. Nothing more.’

‘To her face, one presumes,’ Hunn Raal said, something in his tone hinting at amusement. ‘I have sent for a Denul healer – it wouldn’t do to have such beauty permanently marred, would it now? Especially on this auspicious day.’

Urusander seemed to study Hunn Raal before saying, ‘Auspicious, captain? Poor Sagander here marks the first tragic, meaningless death on this day, but not, unfortunately, the last.’

‘Blood is always the price,’ Hunn Raal said, shrugging. ‘For anything worthwhile, that is. Come now, commander, are we not soldiers? And who better would know the truth of what I say?’

‘Sorcery claims its first victim,’ Urusander said, ‘but, presumably, not the intended one. Heed the lesson, captain. Control is but an illusion – sorcery is indifferent to how it is used.’

‘An expert now, commander?’ Hunn Raal asked with a smile.

‘No, just clear-eyed. Not eager to surrender my reason, my ability to think. Of course, Raal, you’ve had decades of practice in dulling your wits.’ Dismissing the man, Urusander swung round and returned to his horse. With his back to Hunn Raal, he saw nothing of the Mortal Sword’s momentary glare, before the easy smile reappeared.

Renarr’s attention now fixed upon Sagander. The blood looked black in the weak gloom, like a strange beard covering the man’s chin and neck. His eyes were still open, but now only partly so, the lids settling halfway down. She thought of all the fires that had burned behind those eyes only moments ago. Defiant in every surrender, as befits an ageing man. For the right ones, a laudable resolve, sufficient to earn respect and dignity. For one such as Sagander, alas, far too infused with envy and self-pity. No matter – all is dull now, every flame quenched.

A man of accidents, was Sagander. Our historian is dead, but make of that no ill omen. He just failed at luck. And that is a failure awaiting us all, sooner or later.

Urusander mounted his horse and settled into the saddle. ‘Blood in the temple,’ he said. ‘Inauspicious.’

She glanced at him. ‘The High Priestess wields a dull knife.’

‘Your meaning?’

‘Expect nothing subtle. Not in this magic so harshly blessed by Light.’

‘Abyss take us,’ Urusander said in a low voice, ‘I will stop this battle.’

Renarr shook her head. ‘And if you should die, by design or’ – and she gestured down at Sagander’s body, which soldiers were now lifting from the road – ‘mischance, who will step forward to claim the throne? Who will reach, in your stead, for Mother Dark’s hand?’

Urusander said nothing, but he watched as Hunn Raal rode back towards the vanguard.

‘Warn her,’ Renarr said. ‘Warn her about the Issgin bloodline. Proclaim your heir as soon as you can and leave no doubt.’

Urusander flinched. ‘My son is nowhere to be found. And if he was here at my side … ah, still I would hesitate.’

‘An absent heir is in fact ideal, is it not?’

He stared at her, for a moment uncomprehending. She looked away, to wait it out.

The horns sounded, and it was time to resume the march. Sagander’s body now sprawled in careless repose by the roadside. The first of the crows that had been tracking the Legion landed in the muddy field close by, heads cocking as they regarded the waiting feast. Their time would be short, as the army’s train included grave-diggers, near the back of the column.

It didn’t take much courage for the first crow to hop closer, but what followed Renarr did not see, for she had already ridden past. Ah, now, a life dismissed. As easy as that.

Shortly after, even as the rim of the valley opened out ahead of them, Lord Urusander said, ‘As you said, Renarr, as you said.’

She wondered why she bothered.

* * *

Tathe Lorat could feel the heat of her fury, like a fever beneath the skin. A score of survivors from her husband’s company had finally caught up with the Legion, bearing news of the disaster. The fool was dead, his soldiers slaughtered in the manner of beasts. The Deniers of the forest had won a great victory, but she knew it would be short-lived.

We officers of the Legion are to be given land, holdings. Where else but in the forests? We will cut down every tree and leave the Deniers nowhere to hide. We’ll ride them down as if they were no more than rabid curs. I’ll see them skinned, their hides tanned, and make banners for my Houseblades.

Still … to be honest, he wasn’t much of a husband. Slow of wit, a man who delighted in the thought of my spreading my legs for other men – well, there are worse flaws than that, I suppose. Once I settled into it. Once I gave up the notion of driving him into outrage. Once I understood that I couldn’t hurt him, no matter how hard I tried.

Betrayal loses its heat with an indifferent, uncaring victim. He smiled the first time I announced that I’d taken to another man’s bed. That smile stung – oh, how it stung! After that, it got easier, but something was gone from it. The excitement of deceit, of forbidden lusts, all of that went away. Until all I had left was the novelty.

He thought to give me to Hunn Raal. If Raal had invited me to his bed I would have done it, with a knife hidden in my sleeve. I would have slit the drunk’s throat, and now we’d be free of him and his sorcery, free of this new tyranny.

Lord Anomander, I’ll not dissuade you should you reach Hunn Raal. I’ll not defend the bastard. Mother Dark, hear my prayer though my skin is white, though I am Liosan! Grant your First Son the power to defy Hunn Raal’s magic. Do this, and I will reject the Light. I will return to you. This I promise.

Infayen Menand rode up alongside her. ‘A misplay of magic,’ she said. ‘That one-legged scholar is dead.’

Tathe Lorat grunted but said nothing.

‘It’s on the wind,’ Infayen said. ‘Violence, bittersweet. Can you not feel it, Tathe?’

‘No.’

‘Ah, the tragic news of your husband’s death has left you wounded.’

‘I have no time to grieve,’ she replied, scowling. ‘My husband’s death has made me ill. Violence? This wind smells of mud and little else. Oh, do not give me that shining gaze, Infayen Menand, I know well the grisly glory you seek for yourself. You enjoy killing, and that is not something I can abide.’

‘And yet, can you not hear the mocking laughter of the Deniers?’

‘I hear that well enough, but they shall have to wait for my vengeance. And should I make it one of horror, they have earned it. I may yield to satisfaction, once I am done, but no gleam shall light my eyes.’

‘War is simple,’ Infayen Menand said. ‘This is why I love it so. Free yourself of all restraint in what is to come, Tathe Lorat.’

‘I will keep my head, thank you. We have grievances with the highborn and today they will be made to answer for them. They are one and all servants of Mother Dark, and she is to blame for this day. Her and none other. Those we face in this battle do not deserve to die.’

Infayen shook her head. ‘But die they will. This is not the time for pity, or mercy. With such notions clouding your head, you will be killed in the valley below.’

‘I will defend myself but no more than that,’ Tathe said, startled by her own decision. ‘You are too quick to cast away your respect for those about to face us. Lord Anomander, Draconus, Silchas Ruin. Have you forgotten how they fought at our side? Is it so easy for you to find hate for those who were once your friends? Be assured, I will bear that in mind.’

Infayen Menand laughed. ‘You were never my friend, Tathe Lorat. I’ve no time for sluts.’

Tathe Lorat smiled. ‘I have often wondered at that.’

‘At what?’

‘You and your kind, so quick to judge.’

‘What “kind” would that be?’

‘Fish-cold, frightened of love and quick to point a finger, when what you truly feel is envy, at my freedom, my willingness and all the pleasures I embrace.’

‘As you pushed your daughter into a man’s arms.’

‘Oh, is that what is bothering you? Do not be deceived by Sheltatha and her airs of sophistication. She begged me the first time, and after that, there was no stopping her.’

‘I do not believe you.’

Well enough, but Infayen, did you really think I would tell you the truth of what lies between me and my daughter? As you point out, we’re not friends. ‘Think what you like, then.’

They reached the valley, the cohorts spilling out from the old road and forming up along the crest, and for the first time Tathe Lorat saw the enemy arrayed upon the opposite side. The highborn were there, with all their Houseblades. She didn’t think she had quite believed that would happen. And there, holding the centre, the Hust Legion. Her gaze narrowed on those solid ranks. Are they drugged? Prisoners, criminals, they should be agitated, nervous, terrified. They should be rioting even now. Instead, the ranks were motionless, the only movement coming from the three standards raised above the companies, where the faint wind rippled the dark cloth.

Infayen said, ‘The wind moans its promise of-’

‘You fool!’ Tathe Lorat snapped. ‘That’s not the wind moaning. It’s the Hust swords – look, they’re drawn!’

* * *

The soft keening filled the air, as if iron could know pain, and pain could rise and twist like threads, weaving a tapestry to trap this moment, binding every soul of the Hust Legion. Wareth stood motionless, feeling himself circling an emptiness inside, wondering if the absence within him announced an end to things, a fate, his future wiped clean. A future without me, without Wareth of the Pits, the coward, the fool. Just a name now, uttered by the survivors, at least in passing, and soon to be forgotten.

Like so many others.

It was no wonder the Hust iron mourned, for surely that was what this sound was, all these voices making the noise that precedes a sob, and he waited for that wrung-out cry with trembling limbs, his hands feeling drained of blood, his legs watery beneath him.

He wore his helmet now, as did his fellow soldiers of the Hust. The hinged cheek-guards were locked in place, shutting out most of the world to left and right, barring a curved gap at eye-level that Wareth found far too narrow for his liking. The keening of the iron filled his ears, but there was a coldness to this intimacy, as if it whispered like a lover who promised nothing but grief.

His fear circled the emptiness, terrified of slipping and plunging into that unknown. Yet the panic he felt was somehow constrained, trapped in its mad circling. There was nowhere to run to, no ‘away’ in the midst of this press of bodies. He had believed that he would escape this fate, remaining among the commanders in their place at some high vantage point, well away from the actual fighting. Instead, Toras Redone had seen through him, her sodden gaze too knowing, her recollection of him uncanny in its detail. What source her omniscience? How so easily her striking home, and that smile! She knew too well my mind, this drunken goddess. Who now cups my soul in one hand, rolls me to the fore, no less and no more than just another piece in this dread game.

He imagined himself now, a skein of tangled threads at the mercy of the artist, woven in fate, just one more life made immortal in this panoply of stupidity. He saw his likeness upon a greasy wall, almost lost in some wick-addled corridor, a thing to pass in life’s bright-spark scurry, while his own colours dulled to candlesmoke and dust, and the knotted threads of his eyes faded to the senseless march of decades, and then centuries.

What manner the ritual of those Bonecaster witches? What truth now caps my soul, set down by their infernal dance? I see it blank. I circle it in terror, fearing my fall, my steps round and round in furious haste, tottering, slipping, catching, wheeling and reeling – oh, gods!

As the iron wept, the prisoners stood unmoving and made no sound, not a mutter, not a sigh. While, upon the other side of the valley, Urusander’s Legion shook out to form solid ranks. Bleached faces in the distance, iron polished almost white, now the hue of bone in the faltering light.

Wareth of the Pit, oh yes, he fell that day. ’Tis said the artist caught him, there in that front line of the Hust Legion. Toras Redone promised the coward a quick death. There was mercy in that, don’t you think?

Prazek and Dathenar? Why, they held the flanking companies. But in that moment – so I’m told – even they said nothing. The poet soldiers were struck silent, muted by the iron’s grief. And that sound! From the helm, piercing the skull to run riot in the brain – that was no battle cry! That was no promise of glorious victory. The Dog-Runner witches cursed them one and all, those poor fools of the Hust!

‘But you don’t know,’ he whispered. ‘You weren’t there. The witches promised us truth, and we were on the edge of it. Here, in this moment. We all felt it. We all trembled before it. And the iron? This dread keening? Why, it is the sound of knowing.’

The Hust iron grieves, and it grieves for us.

He looked across at the enemy ranks, and felt pity.

* * *

Renarr rode with Lord Urusander to where Hunn Raal and the other captains now gathered, positioned centrally as the Legion assembled in ordered ranks along the ridgeline to either side. She reined in a few moments before Urusander and watched him continue on, pushing his horse forward until he reached the very edge, where he stared across at the enemy.

‘They mean to make a fight of this,’ Hunn Raal said, his voice carrying. ‘Or so they would have us believe. I for one am unconvinced.’

Renarr saw Urusander glance at Hunn Raal, but he said nothing and a moment later returned his attention to the ranks lining the far side of the valley.

‘I see Lord Anomander’s standard!’ said Infayen Menand, half rising in her stirrups. ‘He defies Mother Dark! Mortal Sword, I beg that you allow my company to face him!’

Hunn Raal laughed. ‘As you wish, captain. Ride to your cohort, then. Inspire them with a bold speech. Promise them glory and loot. Go on, Infayen, lift yet again the honour of the Menand bloodline.’

She studied him quizzically, as if uncertain of his tone, but then wheeled her horse round and set off.

Still smiling, Hunn Raal raised a flask to his lips and drank down three quick mouthfuls. ‘Lord Urusander,’ he said, ‘glad you could join us. Under normal circumstances, I would of course yield to your genius for tactics and whatnot. Alas, this will not be a battle for clever manoeuvres. Even your legendary cunning, commander, will but flail in what is to come.’

‘You remain determined to bring sorcery to this battle, Hunn Raal?’

‘I do, Lord Urusander. We are past a civil war. Now, two faiths are about to collide. Which camp of the faithful has prepared best for this? Let’s find out, shall we?’

‘And if your magic is answered in kind, captain?’

Hunn Raal shrugged. ‘Make your faith a wall against which the enemy will scrabble, desperate for purchase, eager for a breach. The strength of your belief is proof against such things.’ He twisted in his saddle to regard Urusander. ‘Do you doubt me, sir?’

‘And will the confession of doubt see my corpse laid out in the field below?’

Hunn Raal shrugged. ‘I do not anticipate you riding down into the press, sir. If you do, no assurances are possible.’

‘And the failing shall be mine.’

‘Make your faith a wall.’

Urusander said nothing for a moment, as if considering all that hid behind Hunn Raal’s words, and then he seemed to cast away all that troubled him. ‘Walls may shield you, but they blind you as well, Hunn Raal. Will you make faith synonymous with ignorance? If so, I shall with great interest observe this battle, and, to your satisfaction, I shall do so from here.’

Hunn Raal’s laugh was easy, almost careless. He gestured and a number of his own guards edged their mounts forward, moving until they in effect surrounded Urusander. ‘I acknowledge your courage, sir. Contrary to your promise, it has occurred to me that you might be of a mind to ride down into the valley, not with your soldiers, but alone, to parley with Lord Anomander. Seeking a path to peace, an end to this battle before it is even begun.’

Urusander made no immediate reply, and then he shrugged. ‘I see now that peace is no longer a possibility.’

‘Not here. Not yet. Peace, sir, will but delay the inevitable. We are here in strength. A year from now, with each captain off building estates and breaking new land, we become vulnerable. We need this battle. We need this victory, and we need to make it an overwhelming one. Only then will true peace be possible. More to the point,’ he added, ‘we need you on a throne beside Mother Dark.’

‘So I am to yield command of my legion to you, Hunn Raal?’

‘For your safety, sir, I will stand in your stead.’

A golden glow was building around the group of officers, and Renarr saw the approach of High Priestess Syntara, the refulgent light spilling out from her. Flanked by priestesses bearing bright lanterns on poles, she walked slowly, and soldiers parted for her, some fighting suddenly skittish horses. Unmindful of the jostling, Syntara strode up close to Hunn Raal, and then past him, taking position beside Urusander.

‘Father Light,’ she said. ‘I will remain at your side here. I will be your shield against all sorcery.’

‘She should be able to manage that well enough,’ Hunn Raal said, nodding. He gathered his reins. ‘Now, this miserable day falters. The time has come. Captains, to your cohorts.’ Nudging his mount forward, he guided his horse to the crest. He then dismounted and set off, alone, down the gentle slope.

Upon the opposite side of the valley, Renarr could make out two figures, both on foot and both working their way down a short distance before separating and taking position directly below the two gaps in the army’s three distinct divisions.

It seemed a strange way to begin a battle. In her mind’s eye a memory suddenly returned, and she saw a bloodied girl chasing a boy with a stone; saw her catch up, saw her swing the stone down with both hands, crushing the boy’s skull.

Where were the whores now? Rising on her stirrups, she looked until she found them, a ragged row well off to the right. Collecting her reins, she headed for them.

Leave it to the whores to find the best vantage point.

She had vowed to remain at Lord Urusander’s side, but such a thing was not possible at the moment. No matter, he will be safe enough where he is. Syntara will see to that.

She was halfway to where the camp-followers were gathered when the first wave of magic ignited the dusk.

* * *

The horse’s broad back creaked beneath her, shedding dust and seeds that whispered down through the woven grasses of its body. Sergeant Threadbare cursed under her breath, fighting against a shudder. Golems of twisted grass and roots, of twigs and branches – the horse was dead as the winter, and yet its limbs moved, its long head dipped, and the track beneath its bundled hoofs slid past as they rode towards the Valley of Tarns.

Beside her, T’riss was clad once more in her strange armour of woven reeds and grass. Hardly proof against the chill, but the Azathanai woman seemed unaffected by such things. Her long blonde hair hadn’t seen a comb in a long while, leaving it knotted, ratty and wild, lending her an air of quiet madness, and Threadbare had come to believe that the unkempt halo of hair mimicked the scattered thoughts of the woman herself.

The cave that had been their refuge was far behind them now, as Threadbare’s impatience finally succeeded in wearing down the Azathanai’s distracted indifference. They had fallen into a kind of rapport on this journey. Threadbare found most of it nonsensical, but she had gleaned enough to feel a growing urgency, as if something terrible was about to happen.

‘Tell me again,’ she said, resuming her assault upon her companion’s obfuscation, ‘what is so important about the Valley of Tarns?’

‘The spirits whisper the name,’ T’riss replied.

‘Yes, so you keep saying.’

‘And you know where it is. So we ride there.’

‘Right.’ Threadbare considered for a moment, and then said, ‘You see, it’s like this, Azathanai. I don’t argue against the idea that ghosts exist. That is, I’ve never seen one. But even so, some places where people died badly, well, they stink of it, no matter how long ago it all was. It’s not a stink you smell with your nose. It’s some other kind of stink. And it seeps straight in and makes you feel awful. In any case, these spirits you keep listening to – are they ghosts?’

‘Your words make them cringe. The world wears down. What once were mountains are now hills. Rivers change their paths. Cliff-sides crumble, forests rise and then disappear again. There are different kinds of life, and some of them move too slowly for you to even see. Unless you’ve been away, returning only to discover that nothing is as it once was.’

‘How fascinating,’ Threadbare replied. ‘This thing about ghosts and spirits, though. You see, I’m of a mind to think that ghosts have nothing useful to say, nothing good, nothing pleasing. I figure that, mostly, they’re miserable things, trapped halfway between one place and the other. I wouldn’t follow any advice from that quarter, is what I’m saying.’

‘Coming back,’ the woman riding beside her said, ‘foments a crisis. Has everything truly changed? Those rivers, the forests and the worn-down crags? Or is it just the world of the one who returns that has changed? The world inside her, that is. And so an argument begins, between the soul and this rock, or that hill, those trees. This sorcerous night, so powerful in shrouding the day. Anger builds, frustration mounts. Denial becomes a fever, and that fever begins to rage.’

The day was drawing to a close. Somewhere to the south was the rumble of thunder, a strange thing for the season. Threadbare caught the occasional flash of lurid light, flickering through the heavy clouds that grew darker by the moment. ‘What do the spirits care about the Valley of Tarns? What’s happening there?’

‘They speak of an old man in a ditch. A boy is with him, and toy soldiers fight on the floor of the ditch. The old man casts the die. Soldiers fall. A most ferocious battle, and in the boy’s mind he can see it all, every detail. He can hear the screams of the wounded and the dying. He can see the faces filled with fear, or pain, or grief. But the old man crows with every victory, even as tears track down his lined cheeks.’

‘The spirits told you all this?’

‘They watch. It is all they can do. But events far away have stirred them awake. Now they walk the earth, helpless. The time for their own war is yet to come.’

The first stinging spatter of sleet bit at Threadbare’s face. Ahead, the clouds were unleashing their slivers of frozen rain in slanted columns that marched across the land. She pointed to the south. ‘Azathanai, is any of this natural? That thunder and lightning – is that happening at the valley?’

T’riss reined in suddenly, forcing Threadbare to pull hard on the braided reins of her own golem, swinging it round to face the Azathanai in time to see the woman twist in the woven saddle, tilting her face upward …

… as three dragons burst from the heavy cloud cover behind them, low enough for both Threadbare and her companion to feel the roiling wall of air buffet them an instant before the enormous creatures sailed overhead.

Turning, Threadbare’s gaze followed the dragons as they sailed southward into the storm. Her mouth was dry, her chest tight. She shot T’riss a wild, frantic look. ‘What in the Abyss are we riding into?’

‘Do you hear laughing?’ the Azathanai asked, her brows lifting. ‘The dead are laughing even as they weep. Why is that, I wonder?’

‘You wonder? You fucking wonder? What is all this, damn you?’

T’riss shrugged. ‘Oh, Light and Dark never liked each other. Worse than Sky and Earth. But, as must be obvious to anyone who cares to consider such matters, Life and Death rule us all. Unless, of course, Death forgets itself. I fear that has occurred. Death had forgotten itself. The ghosts are here and still here, because they can’t find the gate.’ She shook her head, as if exasperated. ‘What a mess.’

‘What’s happening at the Valley of Tarns?’

‘A battle. A battle is happening. The one everyone expected, but few wanted. Or so they claimed. But the truth is, bloodlust is a plague, and it has found your people. Oh well.’

Swearing, Threadbare yanked her mount around and, eyes narrowing to slits, glared into the sleet and the roiling clouds of the south. Driving her heels into the flanks of the golem snapped twigs and branches, but the creature surged forward, and in moments reached a gallop.

A short time later T’riss caught up with her, and swung a bright face to Threadbare. ‘I had no idea they could go so fast!’ she shouted, and then yelped with laughter.

‘Get away from me, you lying witch!’

Surprise flashed in the Azathanai’s face. ‘I never lied, my dear, I but confused. There is a difference, you know!’

‘Why, damn you?’

‘Well, to keep you alive, I suppose. I like you, Threadbare. I like you a lot.’

Abyss below, she’s fallen for me! Stupid woman!

T’riss angled her horse closer, until almost within reach, and said, ‘But I admit to wondering, with not a little trepidation.’

‘What?’ Threadbare snapped.

‘Those Eleint, of course. Worse than vultures, those things.’

What? ‘They weren’t summoned?’

‘Summoned? Dear me, I certainly hope not!’

‘Then what the fuck do they want? A field of corpses to feed on?’

‘Not corpses, Threadbare. Magic. They feed on magic. Alas, there’s far too much of it about, these days.’

‘And whose fault is that?’

T’riss blinked. ‘Why, mine, I suppose.’

‘I should kill you!’

‘Oh, don’t think that – you break my heart! Besides, if it all gets out of control, you’ll want me there.’

Threadbare glared ahead to the storm-wracked clouds, the incessant flash of lightning, and the now endless drum roll of thunder. If it gets out of control?

‘Either way,’ T’riss continued, ‘let us hope that no more dragons come to the fray.’

‘Meaning you can handle three of them?’

‘Of course not, but if others come, there will be a storm like none other, and that wouldn’t be good. No, never mind, my dear. Rather, let’s think more pleasant thoughts, shall we?’

‘Oh I am, T’riss. Believe me, I am!’

‘Your expression breaks my heart!’

* * *

His body filled with agony, bruised and battered bloody, Endest Silann crawled towards the motionless form of Cedorpul. Steam rose from the deep furrows gouged into the slope of the valley side. Overhead the sky convulsed, the black clouds splitting apart to flashes of blinding light. The darkness itself was rent with strange slashes, through which the afternoon’s setting sun cut without obstruction. Whatever sorcery had been cast upon the land by Mother Dark was now wounded.

The distance between them seemed vast, as if Endest had set upon himself the task of crawling across an entire world. The pain rolled through him in waves, still echoing the barrage of assaults he had just weathered. Upon the opposite slope, Hunn Raal was down on one knee, head hanging. He had flung wave upon wave of Light-filled, coruscating magic, tumbling it down the slope, tearing up the ground as it crossed the valley’s basin, until it rolled up the slope in a surge to hammer into the two priests.

But they had held.

Until now.

The armies lining the crest upon either side had yet to move. Endest wondered what they had just witnessed. The sorcery, when at last it struck him, had at times lifted him from the ground, until he hung in the air, tendrils of actinic light tearing at him as an enraged child would savage a rag doll.

But for all that, nothing slipped past. Dark and Light swirled in deadly embrace, spiralling skyward to convulse in the clouds overhead. Flung back to the earth, Endest Silann had fought on, and a hundred paces to the west, Cedorpul had done the same.

Until the latest waves had crashed into them. Endest Silann had heard Cedorpul’s scream, the sound like an iron blade scoring slate. He had caught flashes, amidst his own torment of defence, of Cedorpul’s suspended body spraying out horrifying volumes of blood, and when at last he fell back to the ground he was limp, broken.

Still, Endest crawled towards his old friend, watched by thousands.

He could excuse it. Shock was a terrible force. Horror stole all strength from flesh and mind. Nothing was left. Every choice seemed impossible. The world had just tilted, and every soul upon it struggled to regain balance.

This is the death of innocence. The child’s world is gone. Torn to pieces. What follows? None can say. But see me here, squirming like a broken-backed snake. See me here, in your stead, my friends. Such power as you witnessed has brought us low. Every one of us.

His grasping hands leaked thick, sluggish blood. His palms pressed down upon the broken, steaming mud and stones. He blinded her with every reach, but even that no longer mattered. Endest felt himself to be dying, and a dying man should be left alone.

‘My lords, we have failed you. Soldiers of the Hust, Houseblades, we have failed you. Forgive us.

‘But no! Disregard this self-pity. We fail from a crisis of faith. Violent defence revealed the truth of that, just as Hunn Raal impugns the glory of Light. Ah, such weak vessels …’

He crawled onward, as strange shadows swept over him. Head twisting, he peered up at the heavy clouds, squinted as he saw massive dark shapes wheeling through them. My love, are you there? Turn away now, please. Do not look down.

Simple truths are often the hardest ones to bear. Dying alone is the only real way of dying, after all. The most personal act, the most private battle. Leave me to it, and if my strength holds I will reach my friend’s side. I ask for nothing more. I seek no other solace.

Death punctuates this pilgrim’s path. He should have known that all along.

* * *

‘Dissension among the commanders!’ cried the ancient lord, his knees now stained with mud, his hands strangely blue with the cold. He’d placed a number of the lead soldiers in a circle behind the ranks. ‘Dismay has stolen the First Son’s heart. Others hold him back – he would rush down to that dying man, the only one left. Sleet and fierce winds buffet them! Winter freezes their tears! He strains, fearless against the terrible sorcery!’

Wreneck stared down at the small figures to either side of the ditch. The advance had involved scant few of the soldiers, as the lord had insisted that champions must magically duel first. In the midst of frantic rolls of the knucklebones and triumphant cries from the old man, the sky lowered, and frozen rain began to pummel them. Shivering and miserable, Wreneck sat hunched beneath the torrent. Again and again he glanced to where he’d set down the spear, watched the ice growing upon its iron point, water trickling across the wooden shaft. In the meantime, the old man continued his tale.

‘Here then,’ he said in a ragged voice, ‘is where the heart breaks. Old standards are raised. Honour, loyalty. Even … ah, that is most sorrowful, is it not? To lift high this last virtue, to utter its lonely name, and in its sweet shadow, ah, Wreneck, I see soldiers toppling by the score.’ He fell back on to the slope of the ditch and stared up into the blackened sky, the sleet slashing at his weathered face. ‘Shall we hear their words, then? They stand, almost alone. They face each other, and all that once bound them now unravels. And yet, such decorum! Such … dignity.’ He reached up filthy hands to claw at his face.

Wreneck studied the soldiers, and saw now that the old man had moved his ‘dying’ champion to the side of his fallen comrade; whilst upon Wreneck’s own side of the ditch, his lone champion remained standing, ankle-deep in the mud. Do I push him down too? Are we done with these ones, then?

The thunder was gone, the last of the lightning had flashed and now sunset and gloom fought a silent war in the sky. The column of ghosts continued on, too many to even comprehend, but heads turned to watch them as they passed.

‘One day,’ the old lord muttered as he eyed Wreneck, ‘you will become a man – no, make no spurious claim. You may wear the accoutrements. You may wield that artless spear and play at the dead-hearted, and make dull coins of your eyes, but these masks you don are too fresh. Your face is yet to settle into the mould it would so bravely display.’

Wreneck lifted his head, frowned across at the man as he continued.

‘Cast in fire-hardened clay, an empty space defined, simply awaiting all that is malleable. By this means we pour our children into adulthood. Alas, too many of us prove unskilled in the shaping of that mould. Or careless, or so bound up in our own torments that all we make becomes twisted in its own right, a perfect reflection of our malformed selves.’ He waved weakly down at the soldiers. ‘Yielding this.’

‘The world,’ said Wreneck, ‘needs soldiers. Things were done. People were ruined. A soldier gives answer. A soldier makes right.’

‘You describe an honourable pose.’

‘Yes, milord. Honour. That must be at the heart of a soldier, or a guard, or a city watch. You keep honour inside and it becomes what you defend – not just your own, but everyone else’s too.’

‘Then I must ask you, Wreneck of Abara Delack, does honour wear a uniform? Do describe it, boy.’ He waved at the lead soldiers. ‘Blue or green? Does honour wear a skin’s hue? Black or white? Blue or grey? What if it wears all of them? Or none? What if no uniform can make such a claim for the one wearing it? It’s naught but cloth, leather and iron, after all. It protects one and all and cares nothing for virtue.’ He sat up suddenly and leaned forward, his eyes bright. ‘Now imagine a new kind of armour, my young friend. One that does care. Armour of such power that it changes the wearer. A mould to challenge the set ways of the grown man and woman, a mould that forces their bodies, and the souls cowering within them, to find a new truth!’

Wreneck rubbed at his face, feeling his cheeks stinging with heat. ‘Gripp Galas told me that Lord Anomander’s Houseblades is a company that demands the highest virtues of its members. So the uniform does have a virtue.’

The lord made a face and settled back. ‘Until it’s lost. Iron is hard but words are soft. You can squeeze words, all those spoken virtues, into any mad and maddening mould. You can make honour drip blood. You can make honesty the destroyer of lives. You can make conscience a weapon of fear and hate. No, young Wreneck, I speak of an unyielding truth – look here, see my Hust Legion! I have discovered something, about my swords and my armour. The reason for their screams, their howls. It’s not pleasure. Not bloodlust. No glee in the midst of slaughter. It’s none of those things.’

‘Then what is it?’

The lord’s face suddenly crumpled, folded in on itself with grief. He fell back as a sob took him.

Wreneck stared down at the lead soldiers. He knew about the Hust Legion. He knew about swords that were said to be cursed. And now there was armour, too. He glanced back at the spear lying on the ground, the shaft and point now crusted with frozen rain.

He wanted to be away from this old man and all his tears and confusing words. Soldiers were needed, for when things went bad. For when people needed protecting. Blue or green? Is the only difference the side they’re on? What happens when soldiers stop protecting people? When they start protecting other things? And what if those things are awful, or cruel or selfish? What happens to honour then?

‘Dignity,’ the old lord muttered again, as he began to weep in earnest.

‘Milord?’

A frail hand waved carelessly, ‘Advance your cohorts, child, and see us break like chaff before the breeze.’

‘But milord, nothing has changed!’

He drew a deep, shuddering breath, and then shook his head. ‘Everything has changed, my young friend. The game drips blood. Upon my side, priests buckle beneath the weight of their doubts. The goddess has no face – her darkness swallows all. Upon your side, the light blinds. We wage a war against our own irrelevance, which is what gives it such a nasty edge. Do lead your troops down into the valley. We can ignore the dragons for now.’

Dragons? ‘Milord, tell me more about the First Son. Why does he argue with his companions? I don’t understand.’

The old man wiped at his face, smearing it with mud. ‘He is made to feel useless, with that sword he would draw. He is witness to a priest’s death, torn apart by Kurald Liosan’s indifference. He sees how power ignores the righteous; how it can be grasped by anyone – a blade in the night, a gesture that kills. His soul quakes, young Wreneck, and now the Consort arrives, and anger swirls, but dignity holds. Do you comprehend the cost of that?’

Wreneck shook his head. ‘I don’t understand dignity, milord. I don’t know what it means, or what it looks like.’

The lord’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed on Wreneck, and then the old man grunted. ‘I see it well enough,’ he said in a mutter.

After a moment, Wreneck began moving his soldiers down into the ditch’s uneven base. Runnels of rain pooled in pockets here and there, where the frozen sleet gathered to build crystals, raised up like tiny castles. He knocked down many of these icy forts as he arranged the toys into something resembling a line.

‘We’ll see the mud red,’ the lord said. ‘Bodies will make their own rain, crimson and hot. Cowards and heroes get lost in the mix …’ He began moving his soldiers down to meet the enemy. ‘Meanwhile, the highborn curse one another and then withdraw, exposing my flank on that side. They deem themselves clever, you see. Unlike the Hust, they hold to the privilege of choosing. If hearts break among them, they fail in turning this tide, this wash back into the sea of the future. Gone, Wreneck. I lie exposed. No matter, the Consort will take his Houseblades and ride to meet you. That clash proves a shock, for no other soldier is as well trained, or as fierce behind their lord.’

The old man leaned closer to Wreneck, his own eyes suddenly fierce. ‘He had no choice, you see. You have to see that, don’t you? Tell me that you understand. He had no choice! Nor did the First Son! They are of a kind, mirrors of honour.’ He leaned back and set two soldiers on the ridge and made them face each other. ‘Here, like this. Remember what you see here, Wreneck. No sculpture will render them in this pose. No painter will stroke their likeness on this day. Not paint, I say, nor marble nor bronze. Not thread, not song. No poem to capture this moment. Nothing, my friend, nothing but you and me. Their eyes meet and they accept the other, and now they ride down into battle, to reconcile themselves with failure.’ His voice caught in another ragged sob and he wiped viciously at his tears.

‘Will you cast the bones, milord?’

‘What? No. No need. Cowards and heroes, the wise and the fools, the red mud takes them all. No matter. I once came upon a hare caught in a snare. It fought that trap. It sought to leap away, again and again – and when I knelt there beside it, I saw how its efforts had stripped the skin from its ankle, down to the very bone. And looking into its eyes, I saw something. A truth. Anguish, my friend, is not exclusive to people. Anguish is a language known to, and shared by, all things that live. Battle strips away everything until only anguish remains – even the triumphant cry betrays the echo of what is lost. Relief comes in tears to match any sorrow. The living bemoan their luck, the dying curse theirs. To survive is to stagger away in disbelief, and see before you a life spent in flight from this moment, the memory of this day and others like it. You run, my friend. Every veteran runs, on and on, to their dying day.’ He flattened both hands over his eyes, clawing at his brow. ‘Oh my, who dares face the tragedy of this? The survivors who must live with this … this loss.’

Wreneck watched as the lord, pulling his hands away from his face, began toppling his soldiers, slowly, one by one. Without the cast of the die, without a single triumphant cry. And now Wreneck too was weeping, though he was not sure why.

‘Build your estates,’ the lord mumbled. ‘Clear the land. Plant your crops. Let loose your herds. Into your cherished rooms bring the finest furniture, the most beautiful tapestries. Thick rugs upon the floor, wood for the hearth, the squeal of playing children and mouths to the tit. Poets and minstrels to visit, feasts to invite, wealth to display. While in the dead of night, before ebbing flames, you sit alone, fleeing behind your eyes. Fleeing, and fleeing, for ever and for ever more.’ He sent another soldier falling into the mud. ‘Pity the victors, Wreneck. In winning, they lost everything. In killing, they surrendered their own lives. In all that they won, they murdered love, the only thing worth fighting for.’

‘I fight for love,’ Wreneck whispered. ‘I mean to, for Jinia, who they hurt.’

The lord blinked at him, his face grave. ‘Leave your spear,’ he said. ‘Run to her. Give back to her whatever she lost.’

‘But – how?’

‘Vengeance shrinks the heart, Wreneck. It is not a worthy path.’

Wreneck wiped away his tears, studied the toppled soldiers in the ditch.

‘It’s done,’ the lord whispered. ‘Strike the flag. Draconus has fled, his Houseblades cut down to the last. He weeps in rage, and darkness devours him. The Hust – my beloved Hust – almost half gone. A coward came to the fore, seeing the exposed flank and imminent slaughter. He rallied his fellow convicts and, with extraordinary fortitude, he led them into a withdrawal. Many who would have died now live thanks to him. Toras Redone – ah, my sweet Toras – I cannot say her fate. I dare not. The poet soldiers live still – the First Son will be pleased to discover that, I’m sure. They fought well, as expected, and now, unhorsed by battle, they walk with their fellow Hust. Weapons sheathed, the iron silent, they lick their wounds and look upon one another – it was the ritual, you see. That terrible ritual. It took away the virtues – every one of them. Honour, integrity, loyalty, duty – flung them away! Not one soldier among them can find comfort in the lies they would tell themselves. Those so very necessary lies, the ones that keep a man or a woman sane. My poor Hust!’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Wreneck.

‘Each soldier now faces the truth, inside and out …’

‘Milord? What truth?’

‘Only this: for all that they have done, there is no excuse. None. Justification sloughs off each and every deed. Nothing holds, nothing hides. Deceit is impossible. They have taken lives! Not just in this battle, but in all the battles they ever fought – the ones that sent them to the mines, the ones that wounded so many, the ones that made so many people – loved ones – suffer for what they’d done! This is why the iron mourned, you see. It knew what was coming.’ He leaned forward once more, his eyes wide. ‘Take a man or a woman, strip away all the lies they tell themselves, until they stand naked unto themselves, their souls utterly exposed. Then, make them soldiers. Tell them to kill. Do you see? No armour can defend them. No sword can be other than what it is – a length of sharpened iron that steals lives. Now,’ he added in a hoarse whisper, ‘see them walk from the field of battle. See their faces, there beneath the helms. See their eyes. I tell you, Wreneck, you cannot imagine the anguish writ there. You cannot. Nor can I. And yet, and yet I see it. I see it! ’

They sat in silence for a time, unmoving, although it seemed that waves of pain struck the old man, making his face twist. Wreneck looked away from the distress. He scanned the lead soldiers lying in the ditch. In his mind he heard the wails of the wounded and the dying. He saw soldiers reel from the field, and just as the lord had described, there was something shattered in their eyes. While elsewhere others shouted in brittle triumph, as if each was somehow trapped into doing something they thought they were supposed to do. That pleasure. The satisfaction.

But the old man had spoken of relief. The wonder of it, and the quivering disbelief, to have survived by luck what took down so many. He remembered his own failure, yet again, lying on the ground outside the estate, curling up round the wounds in his body.

The sad thing was, he now knew, the dying still had things to do, things to say. The dying still had faces they wanted to look upon one more time. Pleasures they wanted to reach for, holding tight. The dying longed for all the embraces that would never find them, and theirs was a world of sorrow.

He thought he could hear the grieving swords of the Hust, the moaning helms and keening hauberks. They crowded each and every soldier of the Hust as they filed from the valley, in lines ragged and broken, with many helping their injured comrades. The iron gave voice to exhaustion, and all the things lost on this day.

For a moment, his will to go on faltered. When adults stumbled this badly, what was the point in looking up to them?

‘Wreneck.’

He looked over at the old lord, and saw how one side of the man’s face sagged, as if being pulled down by unseen hands. Even the utterance of his name had come out muddy, muffled. ‘Milord? What’s wrong with your face?’

‘Mask. Broken. Listen.’

‘Milord?’

The old man was slipping to one side, his right arm limp. ‘Go then. If you must. Go. To your battle. Tell them.’

‘Tell who? What?’

‘My Hust. Tell them. I’m sorry.’

‘Tell them you’re sorry? Sorry about what?’ Wreneck moved over to collect the spear. The shaft and its crusted sheath of ice bit into his palm, but as he tightened his grip, the ice melted.

The lord lurched to one side, closer to his line of lead soldiers. He struggled, face straining, to drag his left arm – the one that still worked – closer to the toys. And then, with one careless sweep of his forearm, he knocked the rest of them down. He settled on to his side then, head on his arm as if ready to sleep. When he opened his eyes, the left one was red, leaking. ‘Sorry,’ he said in a whisper. ‘All done. All done.’

He fell asleep.

Wreneck hesitated, and then set down the spear once more. He crossed the ditch, pulling off his own waxed cloak – the one given to him by Lord Anomander himself – and settling it over the lord.

The wind clawed through the weave of his tunic. Shivering, he retrieved the spear and then stiffly regained the side of the road, joining the mass of ghosts still marching along it.

By keeping to the road’s verge, he was able to avoid passing through too many of them, and once he quickened his pace, the cold went away.