Return of the Crimson Guard

CHAPTER II

South Kan Hermitages

Under a blazing noon sun the crowd jostling its way up Unta's street of Opals thickened to an immovable clamouring mass. Ahead, the thoroughfare debouched into Reacher's Square where the animal roar of tens of thousands of voices buffeted those straining for entrance. Second-storey balconies facing the street sagged with the weight of more paying spectators than good sense should allow.

For the frustrated citizens caught in the street, advance was impossible. Possum, however, easily slipped his way forward, edging from slim gap to slim gap, passing with a brush here or a well-placed elbow there. Those of his profession were trained to use crowds and this was one reason why he enjoyed them so much. Anonymity, it seemed to him, was assured as one among so many. But it was also his opinion of human nature that with so many people gathered together no one could possibly organize anything.

He stepped out on to the littered bricks of Reacher's Square to find it a heaving sea of citizens of the Empire; for today was execution day. The Empress was dispatching her enemies in as messy and public a manner as possible. All to serve as salutary warnings to those contemplating any such crimes. And of course to entertain her loyal masses. Edging his way around the perimeter of the huge square, Possum kept close to one enclosing wall. He estimated the crowd at some fifty thousand, all peering and straining their attention to the central platform where various minor criminals had already met their ends in beheadings, evisceratings and impalings.

This month's crowd was above average and Possum had no doubt the extra numbers were lured by the star prisoner scheduled to meet his excruciating and bloody end this day: Janul of Gris Province. Mage, once High Fist, who, during the recent times of unrest had named himself Tyrant of Delanss and was only brought to heel by a rather expensive diversion of resources. For this Janul rightly earned the Empress's ire and thus this very public venue for his expiration. Yet it could also be that all these citizens crammed into Reacher's Square — and, Possum could admit, himself as well — wondered that perhaps another reason lay behind this particular execution: that long ago Janul had been of the emperor's select cadre. He was Old Guard.

As Possum slipped behind the backs of men and women, someone addressed him. This alone was not unusual as he had through the Warren of Mockra altered his appearance only slightly while dressing as a common labourer. In the jostling crowd all around him people gossipped, yelled their wares and made bets on the fates of the condemned. This voice, however, had spoken from Hood's Paths. Possum straightened, turned and peered about. No one seemed to be paying him any particular attention.

‘Up,’ the voice urged. ‘Up here’

Possum looked up. The enclosing wall rose featureless, constructed of close-fitted stone blocks mottled by mould and lichen. There, at the very top nearly four man-lengths above, rested small balls resembling some joker of Oponn's idea of battlements: a row of spiked human heads.

He turned away, glanced about — could it be?

‘Yes. Up here.’

Possum leaned against the wall, his face to the rear of the crowd. ‘You can hear me?’ he whispered low.

‘I have ears.’

That's about all.’

Possum sensed exasperation glowing from the other side of Hood's Paths. ‘Fine. Let's have them — get them all over with.’

‘What?’

‘The head jokes. I can tell you re just aching to try one. Like, ended up ahead, didn't you?’

Possum snorted. A few men and women glanced his way. He coughed, hawked up phlegm and spat. The faces turned away.

‘Hood forefend! I would never be so insensitive.’

‘Sure. Like I was spiked yesterday.’

‘Why are we talking then? Poor company up there? Cat got their tongues?’

‘I have a message for you.’

Despite his control, Possum stiffened. Such a message could only be from one source. ‘Yes,’ he managed, his voice even fainter.

‘They are returning.’

‘Who are?’

‘The death-cheaters. The defiers. All the withholders and arrogators.’

‘Who?’

‘Ah — here comes one now.’

Possum lurched forward into a ready crouch, weapons slipping into his palms. He scanned the nearest backs. Who? What was this spirit on about? A woman stepped out from the crowd. Short, athletic with dishevelled tightly cropped grey-shot hair, dressed as a servant in a plain shirt and frayed linen trousers, her feet bare and dirty.

His superior, Empress Laseen.

Possum straightened. ‘I didn't think you'd come.’

Laseen regarded him through half-lidded eyes. ‘Who were you speaking with just now?’

‘No one. I was talking to myself.’

‘How very boring for you.’

Rage flashed hot across Possum's vision. He exhaled, unclenched his shoulders. In time. In due time.

Laseen continued her lazy regard. Always judging, it seemed to Possum. How far could she push? How much does he fear me?

She laughed then, suddenly. ‘Poor Urdren. How transparent you are.’

Possum stared, uncertain. Urdren? How could she know his first name? He'd left it behind — along with the corpse of his father.

Laseen turned away. ‘She's here. I'm sure of it. Keep an eye out. I'll circulate.’

Possum almost bowed but caught himself in time. Laseen disappeared into the crowd. He returned to leaning against the wall.

‘He told me you wouldn't tell her.’

‘Who told you?’

A sigh from the other side. ‘Think about it.’

‘What do you mean, “death-cheaters”?’

‘How do I know? I'm just the messenger boy.’

‘What do you-’

‘Here he is. The main attraction.’

A sussurant wave of anticipation swept through the crowd, surged to a deafening roar. Possum, at the very rear, could see nothing of the stage. ‘Have a good view, do you?’

‘Best seat in the house.’

In many ways Possum was indifferent to the show; it wasn't why he was here. While he scanned the backs of heads, watching for movement or the blooming of Warren magics, he asked, ‘So, what's happening?’

‘Janul's been led out. Looks like he's been worked over already. His hands are tied behind his back, his clothes are torn. Might be doped. We used to do that in the old days before the emperor. But then, I don't recall a Talent ever being up there. How does one manage that anyway?’

‘Otataral dust.’

‘Ah. 1 see.’

‘What about you? You're obviously a Talent. Weren't you executed?’

‘We up here along this wall are all that's left of the last ruling council of Unta.’

Possum was impressed. That was long before his time.

‘When Kellanved's fleet took the harbour I fled inland with half the city's treasury. The horses panicked and the blasted carriage toppled over. Broke my neck.’

The crowd roared, shouting all at once. Fists shook in the air. ‘What is it?’

‘They're reading out the charges. A brazier's been set up. Knives are being sharpened. Looks like they're going to cook his entrails right in front of him while keeping him alive as long as possible. Never seen it work:

‘It will this time.’

‘How so?’

‘A Denul healer will sustain him.’

‘But the Otataral?’

‘Precious little is used. The strain of the opposing forces of the magic-deadening Otataral and the healing magics would kill him, of course — if he lived long enough.’

‘I see. He is being restrained, standing, head forced down to watch. His shirts have been torn away. A cut is being made side to side across his lower abdomen. Another cut, this one vertical down his front. The brazier's being moved closer. Now they're-‘

The crowd thundered a roar that to Possum sounded of commingled disgust, fear, awe and fascination. Yet the mass pressed even closer to the stage, confirming for Possum his opinion of human nature.

‘They've set his viscera on to the hot coals in front of him — he's still standing! — though I cannot say for certain that he is conscious. What is this? A large axe?’

‘They will dismember him now, starting at the hands, cauterizing each cut.’

‘I'll give you this — you Malazans put on better shows than we ever did. A hand is gone. He must be unconscious, supported by the executioner's assistants. No, I see his mouth moving. Here comes another of the defters.’

Startled, Possum flinched from the wall, crouching, scanning the backs of the crowd before him. A woman edged into view, faced him. Not a slim athletic figure such as the Empress but a stocky older woman, grey-haired, mouth wrinkled tight and frowning her displeasure. Their target this night: Janul's sister and partner, Janelle.

‘You,’ she spat. ‘The lap-dog. I'd hoped for the lap itself.’

Possum smiled. ‘I like to think of myself as a lap-guard-dog.’

‘Save your poor wit.’ The woman straightened, crossed her arms. ‘I know what you want and I'm not going to give it to you.’

Edging one foot forward, Possum scanned her carefully. A dangerous mage, an adept of the D'riss Warren. Together the two siblings had run many dangerous missions for Kellanved. Yet he detected no active magics. What was this?

She hissed a long breath through her clamped teeth. ‘Hurry, damn you. I'm losing my nerve.’

Possum darted forward. He hugged her to him, slipped his longest stiletto up through her abdominal cavity. She clung to him with that startled look they always get when cold iron pricks the heart.

‘At least you can stab straight,’ she gasped huskily into his ear.

Faces nearby turned to them. ‘The heat,’ Possum said. ‘Poor woman.’ They turned away. He brought his face close to hers. ‘Why?’

The woman's expression relaxed into a kind of wistfulness. ‘There he goes, they will say,’ she whispered. ‘He took Janelle, they will say… but you'll know. You'll know what you have always known,’ she took a shuddering wet breath, ‘… that you are nothing more than… a fraud.’

Possum lowered her to the ground, kneeling over her. Damn the bitch! This was not how things were supposed to go. He stepped away from the body, slipped behind bystanders, edged his way slowly to the opening of the street of Opals. As he went he relaxed his limbs, allowed himself to merge with the crowd streaming from the square. Behind him the meat that had been Janul was being chopped to pieces and those pieces thrown into a fire to be burned to ashes. Ashes that would then be tossed into Unta Bay.

He walked as just another of the crowd, jostled, head down. But all the while he wondered at the iron self-control it would take, when all that mattered was lost and there was nothing left, to somehow turn even one's death into a kind of victory. Could he manage the same when his time came? Denying one's killer everything; even the least satisfaction of a professional challenge. He couldn't imagine it. A fool might dismiss the act as despair but he saw it as defiance. And was the difference so fine as to reside in the eye of the beholder?

He recognized the calloused bare dirty feet walking along beside his and straightened from his musings.

Laseen too was quiet. Her hands were clasped behind her back. He imagined she too was thinking of the dead woman — dead compatriot — Possum corrected himself. And thinking of that, how far back together might the three of them have known each other? Something not to forget, he decided.

Glancing about, he noted the bodyguard now walking with them ahead and behind. A bodyguard selected by me since Pearl's disaster on Malaz took so many.

After a time Laseen nodded to herself as if ending an internal conversation. She cleared her throat. ‘I want you to personally look into a number of recent things that have been troubling me. Domestic disturbances. Reports of strengthened regional voices.’

‘And the disappearances in the Imperial Warren…?’ He'd heard much talk of this from the Claw ranks.

‘No. I'm sending no more into that Abyss.’

‘I believe it's haunted. We know almost nothing of it, truth be told.’

‘It's always been unreliable. It's these rumours from the provinces that trouble me. Is anyone behind all the troubles? Who? Put as many on it as it takes. I must know who it is.’

Possum gave a slight bow of the head. So, internal dissent. Rising graft and perhaps even feuding within the administrative ranks. An emboldened nationalist voice here. A large border raid there. Old tribal animosities rekindled. And the Imperial Warren becoming increasingly dangerous. Connected? By whom? She is worried. She is wondering. Could it be them? After so long? Was it now because she is alone?

Or, Possum considered with an internal sneer, could it simply be plain old boredom on their part?

He stopped because Laseen had slowed and halted. She glanced to him. ‘We once were friends you know,’ she said, almost reflective. ‘That is, I thought we understood each other…’ She looked away, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes tight.

So why did she do it? Why did she betray you? Is that what you're wondering? Or, what did they know that you do not?

Laseen's jaw line hardened. ‘So. You brought her down. Very good. I didn't think-’

‘That I could?’

Laseen blinked. Her lips drew tight and thin. ‘That she would go so quietly.’

Possum shrugged. ‘I surprised her.’

Her gaze snapped to him, sidelong. Possum refused to acknowledge the attention. Let her imagine what she may. Had she not been his right hand? Was he now not hers? Let her wonder, and consider.

Without a word the Empress moved on. Possum followed.

Atop a wall of Reacher's Square a spiked skull laughed but no one heard.

Ereko and Traveller had left behind the mountains and descended south into the vast leagues of evergreen forest when they met the first brigands. Ereko was not surprised when these men treated with Traveller, for though they were robbers and cutthroats he knew they were still men all the same and so craved company and news of the outside world here in their isolated mountain retreats.

They wore rotting pelts, the remains of smoke-cured leather leggings and shirts, and a mishmash of looted armour fittings and weapons. Pickings, so they appeared to Ereko, were painfully thin here along this desolate pass. To his sensitive nose they stank worse than animals. Traveller crouched at their fire to exchange news.

Ereko kept to the rear, erect, arms crossed. Traveller had told him he loomed much more imposing in this manner. He watched the men eye him up and down impressed, he hoped, by his height — at least twice their squat malnourished measure. But he had walked long enough among humans to know their thoughts; in their shared sly looks he could see them considering that anyone, no matter what their astonishing size or kind, falls down if you put enough holes in them.

‘Late in the season to be coming down from Juorilan,’ said their chief. Grime and grease painted his face nearly black. His beard shone with oil and was shot through with grey. His long black hair was drawn up and tied with a leather thong at the top of his head. ‘Does the Council still claim Jasston, and deny passage to Damos Bay to all?’

‘That is so,’ allowed Traveller.

‘And this one here with you,’ the chieftain pointed the honed knife he played with in Ereko's direction. ‘I have met Thelomen. Even Toblakai. He is not of those. He is far too tall. What is he?’

Traveller glanced back over his shoulder. Ereko saw no humour in the man's dark-blue eyes even though he'd lately been complaining of human ignorance and bigotry. ‘Ask him yourself,’ he answered. ‘He can speak.’

‘Yes?’ The brigand chief raised his chin to Ereko. ‘Well? Who are your people?’

Though Traveller had his back turned, at that particular phrasing of the question Ereko saw him flinch beneath his layered shirts, armour and pelts. Ereko thanked him silently for that gesture of empathy.

‘Cousins. Those you name and I. We are something of cousins.’

The bandit chief grunted, placated. He cut a strip of flesh from a boar's thigh skewered over the fire's embers. ‘And the Malazans? What of them? The traders say they have been as quiet as stones all summer.’

‘That is so. Mare and the Korelans hold them pinned in Fist. There they rot.’

The bandit chief slapped his thigh. ‘Good!’

Ereko kept watch on the woods — was this man delaying while his rabble completed an encirclement? But no one moved through the sparse forest of scrawny spruce and short pine over naked granite. The bandit chief had stepped out to meet them with six men — two of whom appeared to be his own sons. They wanted to kill the both of them, Ereko could see that. How often the chief's eyes went to the slim sword strapped on Traveller's back. But Traveller's assured manner gave them pause. That, and Ereko's size and even taller spear.

‘I say good because we are all descended here by pure blood from the Crimson Guard. Know you that, friend?’

Traveller nodded.

The bandit chief's voice grew louder. He gestured to the woods around. ‘Yes. The Malazans are frightened to come here because the bones of Guardsmen protect these lands. I myself am a descendant of Hap the Elder, a sergeant under Lieutenant Striker. The bones of many Guardsmen litter these northern forests. And there is an ancient legend, you know. A prophecy. A promise that should the Malazans come again the Guardsmen will rise from the dead to destroy them. That is why they have never come back to our lands. They are afraid. We beat them once.’

‘That is true,’ said Traveller. ‘You beat them once.’

‘And you, friend? There are many black men among the Malazans and some among the Korelri as well. But you are no Korelri. You speak the Talian tongue well.’

Traveller shrugged beneath his shaggy bear hide cloak. ‘I am of Jakata myself. My companion is from farther afield as you can see. I'm travelling south to find a spot to build a ship. My companion here wishes to travel beyond, down to the old North Citadel to take passage east around the Cape.’

The chieftain smiled as if he'd been expecting an answer similar to that. ‘It takes much gold to build a ship — or buy any passage. Traders come down this pass each year bearing much wealth for just such a purpose.’

Traveller laughed easily despite this ominous threat. ‘Those men are rich traders. They can also afford many guards, can they not? We have no guards for we have no wealth to guard. I will build the ship myself. With my own hands. My friend here plans to work for his passage east. He is of great use at sea.’

The chief joined in Traveller's easy laughter and stuffed more shreds of greasy boar meat into his mouth. ‘Of course, of course. Visit the coast by all means. See how you like it.’ And he laughed anew.

Traveller handed a drinking skin across the fire and Ereko winced to see it was one of their three of Jourilan brandy. The bandit gulped it down without comment, spilling much from his mouth. He slung it over his shoulder. Ereko groaned silently at that — does Traveller want him to think we're afraid and trying to buy him off?

‘I have heard rumours that the Korelri claim the Malazans have formed unholy pacts with the Ice Demons. What think you of that?’

Traveller's answered that he had neither seen nor heard anything to substantiate such a rumour. The two exchanged more news then on the Council of the Chosen, the likelihood of this winter being a harsh one, and, as usual when such shallow and shifting topics as contemporary politics among humans came up, Ereko became bored. The chief's six men in their mismatching of studded leather hauberks, rusting iron helmets and vests of rings sown on to leather watched him unswervingly. Avarice, boredom, fascination and dull angry resentment glittered in their eyes as they glanced between Traveller and him.

The treat dragged on past the mid-day and into the afternoon and still Traveller made no move to break off. Ereko wondered at such uncharacteristic patience. Normally it was Traveller who chafed to be on, who resented any delay or obstruction in his path. Surely he must see that this man sought to delay them — perhaps he had sent for the rest of his men and now waited for their arrival.

Talk then turned to the subject that preoccupied all the inhabitants of the continent to the north: the state of the Shieldwall, the strength of the ranks of the Chosen, and of Korelri readiness to repel the Riders this coming winter season. Speculation all the more anxious and uncertain these last years now that the Malazans had drained off so much of the needed Korelan strength.

Ereko watched the chief closely then for some sign that he knew: that word had reached him through the mouths of traders who had traversed the pass before them this season. Word of two outlanders who have been named deserters from the Wall. Traitors condemned by the Council of the Chosen with all swords and hands raised against them within northern lands. Yet the man's eyes betrayed no such knowledge; they glittered with animal cunning, yes, but appeared empty of the triumph and satisfaction that hidden advantage can bring.

Eventually, much delayed, the rambling exchange ended and the chief groaned and grumbled as he pushed himself to his feet. His followers rose with him. Their hands went to knife-grips and hatchet handles, and their eyes to their chief for any sign or direction. Traveller backed away from the fire. ‘Many thanks for your hospitality.’

The chief laughed his exaggerated good humour. ‘Yes, yes. Certainly, certainly.’ He waved away his followers. ‘Good travelling. To the coast. Ha!’

Ereko and Traveller backed away for a short time then returned to their path. Traveller struck a south-west course. They walked in silence, listening. They came to a narrow stream that descended steeply among boulders, foaming and chuckling its way west to the coast, and Traveller followed it.

‘I make it to be two,’ he said after a time.

‘Yes. The youths, I think.’

‘They'll wait till night.’

‘Yes. How many, do you think?’

‘More than the six. That's for certain.’

They pushed through a bracken of fallen trees and dry branches, jumped from rock to rock. ‘Why did you not break things off?’

Traveller's nut-brown features drew down into a pained grimace. ‘I hoped to show him that we were not afraid to travel alone. To make him think about that, and what that might mean.’ He shook his head. ‘But the fool did not appear to be the thoughtful kind.’

‘Perhaps he knows.’

Traveller glanced to him. ‘Then nothing will stop them from coming for us tonight.’

They made camp among a tumble of boulders. Traveller struck a small fire but sat with his back to it. Ereko sat across the fire and sometimes watched the darkness and sometimes watched Traveller. The man sat with his sheathed sword across his lap, waiting, and Ereko wondered again at this man who could show such gentleness and what was called, generally, humanity and yet be willing to cut down a handful of ill-armed and untrained rabble, youths included, none of whom could possibly stand a chance against him.

‘Let us just keep going,’ Ereko urged again across the fire. ‘Why stop at all?’

‘I'll not watch my back all the way to North Citadel. Any fool can get lucky with a bow.’

Ereko eyed him, perplexed. Yes, that was true; at least in Ereko's own case. Though he aged very slowly, he could still be killed by mundane physical trauma. But what of Traveller? Was he not beyond such concerns? Obviously not. He was yet a man. He lived still. Clearly, he remained wary of that unlooked-for bolt from behind. Perhaps no matter how competent — or miraculously exquisite in Traveller's case — one's skills in personal combat, a random bolt or arrow could always spell the end.

Extending his awareness out through the earth, Ereko could sense them: a handful of men down the slope closer to the stream. They were gathered together, hesitant perhaps because of Traveller's and his refusal to sleep. Would they wait until they did? He prayed not; already the delay was agonizing.

He glanced back across the dim glow of the embers to find that Traveller had already reached the same conclusion. He now lay wrapped in his bear-hide cloak, pretending sleep. Ereko followed suit by easing himself down the rock he leant against and although he did not feel the cold or heat as sharply as humans, he pulled up his own broad cloak of layered pelts and let his head droop.

They waited. From a great distance up the mountains a wolf's howl drifted through the night and Ereko wondered if it was one of the shaggy pack that had shadowed them across the ice wastes north of the mountains. Owls called, and an even more distant booming as of an avalanche or the cracking of an ice field echoed among the mountain slopes.

A three-quarter moon emerged from behind thick clouds and Ereko sensed the men advancing. They had been waiting for better light; he cursed himself for not thinking of it.

Traveller threw himself aside as arrows and a crossbow bolt thudded into his bedding. Ereko had already rolled into shadow and now crouched, waiting. He held his spear reversed for he couldn't set aside his pity, yet.

A surprised scream of fear and pain tore through the cold night air only to be cut off almost instantly and he knew Traveller was now among them. The scream destroyed any pretence to silence or stealth so now shouts sounded all around.

‘Where is he?’

Tullen? You see him?’

Sandals scraped over stone. Fallen branches snapped. A head appeared silhouetted by the silver moonlight. Ereko lashed out with the butt-end of his spear and connected in a meaty yielding thump. Iron rang from stone. A crossbow cracked its release and simultaneous pain knocked the wind from his chest. The blow rocked him and he fell. As he lay he blessed the efficacy of this human mail he'd adopted and damned these human missile weapons; they were a constant plague.

Someone stood over him. Moonlight revealed one of the youths. He lashed out, tripping him, then wrapped a hand over his mouth and pulled him tight. ‘Shhh!’ he mouthed and waited, motionless in shadow.

Someone approached the camp. He came to stand next to the fire's dying embers. By the fitful sullen light Ereko saw that it was Traveller. The red glow — the colour of war — it suited him; he carried his sword in one hand and its narrow length gleamed slick and wet. His cloaks were gone, revealing his tight shirt of supple blackened mail. He crossed to Ereko and touched the tip of his sword to the youth's chest. Blood, black in the dark, ran down to pool over the layered untreated hides. The youth's eyes swelled huge. His breath was hot and panting against Ereko's hand. It felt to him that he held a trembling colt fresh from foaling. ‘The others?’ Ereko asked.

‘One got away.’ His eyes did not leave the youth. The sword point pressed down further, broke the surface of the leather.

‘No. I forbid it.’

‘He'll just come back. He and his friends will shadow us. Wait for their chance. For vengeance’

‘No. This I will not allow. He is just a child. A child.’

Traveller's eyes flickered then. The fey spell of battle-fury broke, revealing something beneath, something that made Ereko look away, and the man lurched aside. ‘Get him from my sight.’

Ereko whispered, ‘Run now. Don't stop.’ The youth scrambled away, gulping down air, sobs rising in his breaths.

Traveller threw himself on to his bear-pelt cloak. Ereko lay holding himself silent and still as if some enchantment might shatter should he speak or move. In time, the man slept, his breath steadying. Ereko lay awake listening to the night and sensing the mood of this new land. Expectant, it seemed. He wondered whether pain such as he glimpsed in his companion's eyes could ever be healed. Perhaps never. As he should very well know.

Before the new moon he and Traveller topped a hillock to the view of a forested coast, tidal mudflats and the ocean stretching beyond to the western horizon. Some humans, Ereko knew, called this the Explorer's Sea, for so much of it remained to be discovered. Others named it the White Spires Ocean for the islands of floating ice that menaced its mariners. His own people, the Thel Akai, named it Gal-Eresh: The Ice Dancer. ‘What now?’ he asked of Traveller.

Crouched on his haunches, the man took a pine twig from his mouth and shrugged. ‘We follow the coast. Find a settlement.’

‘South, then? We go south?’

‘For now.’ And he started down the forested slope. Ereko followed, sighing his irritation. Oh, Goddess, why did you speak to me of this most difficult of men? Why did you break your silence of centuries to say to me when he appeared dragged out in chains on to the Stormwall: this one shall bring your deliverance.

By that time Ereko had long lost count of his seasons upon the Stormwall. The Korelan winters had come and gone one after the other. The storms unique to the Riders had gathered their ferocity in ice-rafted waves and nimbuses of power that flickered in the night sky as auroras. He came to know that slow stirring of potential just as well as the change of season. The winds would always swing to a steady hard south, south-west pressure that chilled even his bones and left an overnight frost glittering in the morning light on the stone battlements. Snow-flurries blasted the wall during the worst of the storms — and the Riders themselves were never far behind any snow.

Malazan soldiers had been appearing on the wall for some years by then. They came in chains, captured prisoners of war. Their Korelan guards threw them weapons only just before the waves of Riders hit. They acquitted themselves well. The bravest and most cunning turned those weapons upon themselves thereby leaving a portion of the wall unmanned until a replacement could be brought up. Few cowered or wept when the Riders finally appeared cresting waves of ice-skeined ocean to assault the wall, as even some trained Chosen have from time to time. For who could possibly prepare themselves for such a sight as that? A collision of Realms, should certain theurgical scholars be believed. The power-charged impact of alien eldritch sorcery countered purely by brute stubbornness, courage and martial ferocity.

‘Who is that?’ he had asked of his Korelan guards. They answered easily enough as he had stood the wall for longer than some of them had been alive.

‘They say he's a Malazan deserter,’ the guards explained. ‘Caught on a ship trying to run the blockade. The Mare marines say he fought like a tiger so they set fire to the ship beneath him and pushed off. They say he saw reason then. Jumped ship and swam to them. They handed him over to us to stand the wall.’

He watched them drag the man to an empty slot a few hundred yards down the curving curtain wall. The Korelan guards fixed his ankle fetters to the corroded iron rings set into the granite flagging then freed his arms. Ereko studied his own lengths of ankle chain and listened once again for the Enchantress's soft voice. But she was silent. No further guidance would be his.

He resolved to act as soon as a quiet night presented itself. But such a night never came and within weeks the first of the Riders’ storms were upon them and thousands of Korelan soldiery jammed the wall.

They followed the forest's edge south. In the evenings they clambered down to the sand and rock shore to collect shellfish. The first sign of human settlement they met was the fire-blackened and overgrown remains of a fort: a choked trench faced by burned ragged stumps of logs surrounding an open court. The court held a burnt barracks longhouse and the beginnings of a stone and mortar central keep abandoned, or sacked, in mid-construction. They slept wrapped in their pelts in the dry, grass-gnarled court. The fire cast a faint glow upon the vine-shrouded stones of the keep's curving wall.

‘They were here,’ Traveller announced while leaning back on his pelts, his dark brooding gaze on the ruined tower.

Ereko peered up from his share of the fish they'd found trapped in a tide-pool. ‘Who? Who was here?’

The Crimson Guard. Like the old bandit said. This was their work.’

‘When?’

‘More than half a century ago.’

‘You knew them?’

Across the fire the eyes swung to Ereko and he felt a chill such as no human had ever instilled within him. How was it that this man's gaze carried the weight and aching depth of the ancients? Was he deciding just now whether to kill me for my curiosity? Such desolation there within; the gaze reminded him of doomed Togg whom he met once in another forested land — or the beast some call Fanderay — whom he saw last so long ago.

The eyes dropped. ‘Yes. I knew them. This could be Pine Fort, their northernmost outpost on this coast of Stratem. The next settlement would be North Citadel, but that is far to the south and my information is long out of date. I'm hoping to come to a settlement before that.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘You really do not know the story?’

‘Only what the Korelans spoke of. Something about a war in Talian lands to the north.’

‘Yes. A decades-long war. A war of conquest waged by Kellanved across the entire continent. And everywhere his armies marched they found ranks of the Guard opposing them. From Kan to Tali, even out upon the Seti plains, mercenary companies of the Crimson Guard unfurled their silver dragon banner against the sceptre of the invading Malazan armies.

‘Eventually, after decades, the last of their ancestral holds, the D'Avore family fastness in the Fenn Mountains, fell. The Citadel, it was called. Kellanved brought it down with an earthquake. He killed thousands of his own men.’

Traveller fell silent at that, staring into the fire. For some unknown reason he had now opened up and was talking more than all the months they had been together. Ereko waited a time then prompted quietly, ‘I have heard much talk of this emperor. Why did he not use his feared Imass warriors upon the Guard?’

So intent was Traveller upon the fire — reliving old memories? — Ereko believed the man would not answer yet he spoke without stirring. ‘Have you heard of K'azz's vow?’

‘I heard he swore to oppose the Malazans.’

‘That and more. Much more. Eternal opposition enduring until the Empire should fall. It bound them together, those six hundred men and women. Bound them with ties greater than even they suspected, I think. Kellanved ordered the Imass to crush them but the Imass refused.’

This news surprised Ereko. ‘Why should they do that?’ Few things walking the face of the world in this young age terrified him and this army of the undying was one.

‘None know for certain. But I had heard…’ His voice trailed into a thoughtful silence.

‘Yes? What?’

The man scowled, perhaps thinking he had revealed enough. He broke a twig into sections that he then threw upon the embers. ‘I heard that the Imass said only that it would be wrong for them to oppose such a vow. Yet I am sure that by now, to all those who swore it, this vow must seem more of a curse.’

Three days later they came upon the first settlement. A squalid fishing village. Traveller had Ereko remain hidden in the woods while he approached alone to dispel their panic. As it was, the appearance of a single man walking out of the forest generated panic enough. Old men and youths came running carrying spears, javelins and bows. Traveller treated with them at the edge of their collection of shacks where a stream braided its way out of the rocks and trees to run in a sheen down the mudflats to the ocean.

He returned alone. ‘They're a wary lot. The usual fears. Don't know if I soothed them at all. Let's continue on a way south. Keep an eye out for good trees.’

‘Trees? So you are building a boat then.’

‘Yes. I am.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then we wait.’

He walked away and Ereko almost laughed at his own surprised flash of frustration. Dealing with this man was almost as irritating as negotiating with that most reclusive of races, the Assail. He shook his head at himself and followed. To think that during all his many years he had prided himself on his patience!

Traveller pushed his way through the dense underbrush, stopping occasionally to point out a possible tree for harvesting and to talk through its merits. Eventually, Ereko joined in his speculations and they exchanged wisdom on the fine art of wood selection for the construction of a sturdy, yet flexible, ocean-going craft.

Ereko decided that Traveller knew a fair bit on the subject, for a human.

In the aftermath of the Nabrajan contract payment arrived in the form of war material of weapons and armour, treated hides, iron ingots and pack animals. The mercantile houses, traditional slave-traders, were also happy to pay in slaves, which Shimmer was also happy to accept. The Guard marched east, downriver, through rolling farmed plains to the coast. On the trading road to the coastal city of Kurzan, the existence of which had only been a rumour to Kyle's people, Shimmer ordered the slaves assembled in a muddy field.

Dressed in bright mail from her neck to her calves, her helmet under an arm, and her long black hair blowing free in the wind, she faced them. ‘We in the Guard do not accept slavery. Therefore, you will all be released.’

Stunned silence met the announcement. Even fellow tribesmen and women stared a cringing wary disbelief. Kyle was ashamed.

‘Those of you who wish to take up arms and join the Guard of your own free will please go to the standard for examination and induction. The rest of you will be free to go.’

And so through that day the line of men and women wishing induction into the ranks of the Guard ran its course. Those too old or infirm were rejected to rejoin their fellows awaiting their release. Eventually, as dusk came, all those who voluntarily chose to join and were found acceptable were marched away.

Needless to say, those remaining were not released. They were re-bound into their linked manacles and led away. They hardly moaned. So beaten down were they that perhaps they imagined the whole exercise a sham solely meant to single out the strong and young to be sold elsewhere. And perhaps, in its own way, that's exactly what it was.

The army, nearly seven thousand souls strong, wound its way east skirting the River Thin. After two weeks the Guard camped on the coast south of Kurzan, overlooking the Anari Narrows where ships rested at anchor in its sheltered, calm waters. Northward, Kyle could just make out the grey and tan towers of the city harbour defences.

‘Ships!’ Stoop announced, slapping him on the back. ‘Ships,’ he repeated, savouring the word.

‘Ships,’ Kyle echoed, having only heard them described. He did not relish having to enter the belly of one. It seemed unnatural.

‘Now what?’

‘We camp. Train. Wait.’

‘What's happening?’

Stoop adjusted his leather cap of a helmet, scratched his grey fringe of bristles. ‘Negotiations, Kyle. Shimmer's negotiating in the city to hire ships.’ The old saboteur pinched something between his nails, grimaced. ‘Tell me, lad. How do you feel about swimming?’

‘It's not natural for people to go into water.’

‘Well, now's a fine time for you to learn.’

Over the next week Kyle joined some forty male and female recruits being forcefully dunked in the muddy water of one of the broader channels of the River Thin's delta. Veteran Guardsmen enforced the lessons and swung truncheons to quiet all rebellion. Kyle sometimes saw Stoop sitting on the shore, smoking his pipe and shouting his encouragement.

From the first day of practice Kyle witnessed another duty of the Guardsmen keeping a close eye upon them when a shout went up and crossbow bolts hissed into the dark water. Immediately, the surface foamed and a great long beast thrashed and writhed, snapping its jaws and lashing its scaled tail. All the swimmers flailed for the shore. After the beast sank below the surface those same soldiers used truncheons to beat the recruits back into the water. Three youths refused entirely, were beaten unconscious and dragged away.

For his part, Kyle decided not to go meekly. When a Guardsman came to force him into the muddy channel he surprised her, a female veteran from Genabackis named Jaris. Together they tumbled down the slick mud slope into the water. From the shore and the shallows the mercenaries laughed and hooted while Kyle and Jaris thrashed in the murky water. He was lucky and managed to get behind her, hook his elbow under her chin, and he thought he might just force her to take his place as a swimmer. While he strained to push her head down below the water, something sharp and cold pricked his crotch. He jerked, strained to climb higher on his toes.

That's right, boy, ‘laughed Jaris. There's another biter in the water and it's after your little fish.’ The point pricked Kyle's crotch again. ‘What'll it be? You want to get bit?’

Kyle released her and she backed away through the waist-deep water. She raised a particularly wicked-looking dagger. ‘Smart choice. And a stupid move, lad. There's others who would've knifed you just for gettin’ them wet.’

Eventually, Kyle was selected as part of a troop and was given floats of tarred inflated skins to hang on to and paddle around for hours at a time in the river. Guardsmen kept watch on shore and in the tall grasses of the marsh.

The second role of the many Guards Kyle discovered on the eighth day when shouts went up from the shore of a mud island out in the channel and mercenaries came running from all around. They splashed through the murky shallows, dived into the tall stands of grasses. Kyle and the other swimmers stopped to watch.

A boy in a ragged tunic appeared, flushed from the grasses and cattails. He ran down the clay shore of the channel island, barefoot, wild-eyed. A Guardsman jumped from the cover of the grasses and tackled the youth into the water. Both disappeared beneath the brown surface. Kyle swam for them as fast as he could.

The mercenary surfaced, dragged a limp shape to the shore. Kyle arrived to see the thick red of heart's blood smearing the mud and the youth's chest. The Guardsman was the short veteran, Boll, whom Stoop had warned him to stay clear of. Despite this, Kyle charged in sloshing through the shallow water. He raised the boy's head — a bare youth — and dead.

‘What did you have to kill him for?’

The veteran ignored Kyle, began cleaning and re-oiling his knife blade.

‘He's just a kid. Why did you?’

‘Shut up. Orders. No spying allowed.’

‘Spying?’ Kyle couldn't believe what he was hearing. ‘Spying?

Maybe he was just watching. Maybe he was just curious. Who wouldn't be?’

‘You watch your mouth. I don't play nice like that Genabackan cow, Jaris.’

Kyle almost jumped the squat knifeman — from some place called Ehrlitan, he'd heard — but Boll still held his blade while Kyle held only his ridiculous goatskin bladder. He raised the bladder. ‘You and this thing are a lot alike, Boll. You're both puffed up.’ Kyle pried at a tarred seam of the bladder until the air farted out in a stream. ‘And you both make a lot of loud noise.’

Boll slapped the bladder from Kyle's hands. ‘Don't ride me. This ain't a game.’

Other Guardsmen arrived then and waved Kyle away. He went to find a replacement bladder. The mercenaries dragged the body into the thick stands of marsh grasses.

The next week Kyle was kicked awake in the middle of the night. He squinted into the blackness of a moonless night barely able to make out someone standing over him.

‘Get up. Assemble at the beach. Double-time.’

It was Trench, his sergeant. ‘Aye, aye.’

He collected his armour and equipment by the dim glow of a fire's embers then stumbled down to the beach to find a mixture of recruits and veteran Guardsmen assembled in knots. Trench, wearing only pantaloons and a vest of leather, shook all of his equipment from his hands.

‘Won't be needing that.’

Trench moved on to the other recruits. Stalker appeared at Kyle's side, knelt with him to sort through his gear.

‘Take the knife,’ he whispered. ‘Keep it at your neck.’ He examined Kyle's mishmash of armour. ‘Wear the leather alone — no padding — and the skirting's OK. Go barefoot.’

‘What's going on?’

‘We're swimming out to the ships. I hear negotiations have gone sour.’

Kyle pulled on his leathers. ‘Gone sour? Looks like this has been in the works for some time.’

‘An option. Shimmer seems cunning. I'll give her that.’

Squinting out over the water, Kyle could see nothing. The Narrows were calm and smooth, not a breath of air stirred, but it was as dark as the inside of a cave. ‘I can't see a damned thing.’

‘Don't you worry. There'll be plenty of light.’

Kyle hefted his tulwar — more than a stone's weight of iron.

‘Don't take it,’ Stalker said.

‘I want to take it.’

‘Then at least get rid of the blasted sheath. Hang it on a strap over your neck. If it looks like you can't make it — cut it loose.’

‘I'll never part with this.’

A spasm of irritation crossed Stalker's brow. ‘Dark Hunter take you! It's your burial.’

The tall scout stormed away. Kyle found the bladders in baskets. Men and women were strapping them to their chests. He hung the freshly re-gripped tulwar by a leather strap at its hilts and ran the strap under one shoulder and up around his neck. Mercenaries pushed out past him into the placid, nearly motionless surf.

‘Where are we going?’ Kyle asked them.

‘Quiet,’ someone hissed.

‘Hood take your tongue.’

Kyle bit back a retort. He joined the ranks of almost naked men and women pushing out into the water.

The water was cold, terrifyingly so. Kyle felt his toes and fingers already tingling. What use might he be when he eventually reached a ship, too numb to swing a weapon? Had anyone thought of that?

He pulled up short as the water reached his waist. He turned to speak to someone — anyone — but was pushed on.

‘Let's go.’

‘Ain't got much time.’

‘Time till what?’ he hissed.

A hand like a shovel took him by his hauberk and pushed him along. He spun to see the wide shape of Greymane in the dark. Kyle had never seen him without his mail and banded armour, and out of it the man was, if anything, even more impressive. His chest was massive, covered in a pelt of grey hair plastered down by water. Black hair covered his thick arms.

‘Swim to the fourth ship,’ he rumbled to Kyle, and shook him by his hauberk.

‘Fourth?’

‘The fourth most distant, lad.’

‘Oh, right. Yes. What about the cold?’

The renegade blinked, puzzled. ‘What cold?’

Wind preserve him! ‘What ship are you heading to?’

‘Ship? Treach's teeth, I'm not going.’

‘You're not?’

‘No. Water ‘n’ me — we don't get along.’

The renegade pushed Kyle on before he could wonder whether he was being serious or not. He swam, kicked with his legs in a steady rhythm as he had been taught. He hugged the bladder to his chest, but didn't squeeze it, kept his arms and legs as loose as possible, conserving his strength. Soon he was surrounded by shapeless night. The stars shone overhead and from all around, reflecting from the bay's eerily still surface. Men kicked and splashed. Curses and gasps sounded from all sides. Squinting ahead, Kyle could see no sign of ships, the first let alone the fourth.

He kicked and kicked. The cold seeped up his legs and arms in a gathering numbness. He wondered if he was swimming in circles; how would he know? How could any of them know? Yet he lacked the strength to call out. His teeth chattered and his shoulders cramped.

From the middle distance shouting reached him. A cry for help, a plea. A recruit: the voice was a youth's. He had panicked, or was cramped. Splashing sounded followed by a sharp gasp, then, terrifyingly, a long silence. Kyle stopped kicking. He floated, listening to the night. Gods all around! What kind of a brotherhood had he entered into? Did they… could they have killed one of their own?

Someone bumped him and he flinched, the bladder almost slipped from his grasp like a greased pig and he nearly screamed, No!

‘Get a move on.’

Kyle didn't know the voice, though he recognized the accent: north Genabackan. ‘Can't see a damned thing,’ he gasped.

‘Never mind. Keep moving. Keep warm.’

Kyle couldn't argue with that. The dark form swam past. Kyle kicked himself into motion and tried to keep the Guardsman in sight.

The cold took his legs. At least that was how it felt; the water's frigid grasp had somehow cut him off at the waist. He still kicked but he could no longer feel his legs. His arms were likewise numb wrappings clasped around the bladder at his chest. The sword's weight pulling on his left threatened to swamp him. His teeth chattered continuously and so loudly he was sure he would be next to be pushed under the surface.

‘Close now,’ someone whispered behind. Kyle could only grunt an acknowledgement. ‘Right,’ the voice warned.

‘The fourth ship?’ he stammered.

‘Hood kiss that. It's a ship ain't it? Take it! Sharpish, turn. There, reach up.’

Kyle raised his numb arm, found slimy cold timbers. ‘How…?’

‘A rope ladder ahead.’

He bumped his way forward and managed to entangle his arm in the ladder and slowly, laboriously, dragged himself up the first few wood rungs. Hands from above heaved him up the rest of the way and he lay on the warm deck gasping. There's another — help him.’

The dark shape peered down over the side. ‘There's no one there,’ and the man padded off silent.

The ship had already been taken. Kyle warmed himself at coals simmering in an iron brazier at mid-deck. Two Guardsmen hurried about, clearing the ship's deck. ‘We're leaving now?’ Kyle asked of one.

This one paused, eyed him up and down. ‘A new hand, hey?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who swore you in?’

‘Stoop.’

This fellow nodded, impressed by the name. Kyle wondered what could possibly be impressive about the broken-down one-handed saboteur.

‘Know ships?’

‘No.’

Then you are now officially a marine. Scrounge armour and weapons — especially missile weapons. Ready for blockade.’

‘Blockade?’

‘Aye. We'll need all their ships.’

Kyle forced down a laugh of disbelief. ‘But that's an entire city!’

The Guardsman's smile shone bright in the dark. ‘Just their best ships then.’ The smile disappeared. ‘Below, collect equipment.’

‘Yes sir.’

Kyle expected blood-spattered slaughter belowdecks and so descended the set of steep stairs slowly. But what he found disturbed him in a far worse way; all the holds and bunk-lined ways he explored he found completely empty. Not one person, dead or alive. Where was everyone? What had happened? He could find no arms or armour anywhere.

The rattling of metal sounded from sternward. Kyle readied his tulwar and edged forward. The narrow corridor ended at a room cramped by benches and tables. An open door led further to the stern. The noise of metal rattling continued. Kyle peeked in to see the back of a man, barefoot, in a wet shirt and trousers, struggling with a closed and chained cabinet door.

‘Wait a moment,’ the man said in Talian without turning around. Kyle wondered how he could have possibly known he was here. The noise of the vessel's rocking and creaking had covered his approach, he was sure.

‘Aye.’

More rattling, then the chains fell from the door. ‘Ha!’ The man pulled open the metal-bolted and barred door. Kyle glimpsed racks of spears and bows and swords within.

‘Help me bring these up.’

‘Where is everyone? The crew, I mean.’

The Guardsman began unlocking the racks. Kyle now saw that he carried an immense ring of keys. ‘Merchants,’ the man sighed. ‘They want weapons locked away yet they expect to be protected at all times.’ His thick black hair, hacked short, shone like wet fur and the lines of his face appeared ready to creep up into a constant grin. ‘The crew? Just a skeleton watch. Some fought, some dived overboard.’

‘What's the plan?’

The man stopped short, gave an exaggerated frown then returned to his grin. ‘The plan? Ah, you're a new hand. Capture the ships.’

‘Right. Capture ships.’

Thunder rolled over and through the vessel, a burst from the middle distance. Kyle frowned, puzzled — it was a clear night. The Guardsman's grin turned eager. ‘It's started. Let's go.’ He collected an armful of weapons.

A faint orange glow flickered over the deck. Flames now engulfed the Kurzan waterfront. While Kyle watched, a fresh burst of yellow and white flame rocked one harbour tower. It hunched, then, with an awful slow grace, toppled sideways, flattening as it went. More thunder rolled up the inlet.

‘Something's got Smoky all in a froth,’ murmured the Guardsman.

‘What about the ships?’

‘Naw. Don't worry about them. Cowl would murder him.’

‘They're on their way!’ someone shouted from the bows.

The Guardsman laughed. ‘You see? All they needed was a little encouragement.’

‘And just what do we do when they get here?’ Kyle asked.

Surprised, the mercenary looked to Kyle. ‘Sorry. I keep forgetting. It's hard for us old-timers. My name is Cole. You?’

‘Kyle. Are you — Avowed?’

‘Yes.’ Cole gestured to two others with him. ‘I'll hold the deck. You two flank me. You,’ he pointed to Kyle, ‘can you use a bow?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Get up on the foredeck with the man there — follow his orders.’

‘Aye, aye.’ Kyle gathered all the arrow sheaths he could hold.

The man at the raised bow deck was pale, skinny and obviously freezing cold as he stood in a soaked linen shirt and hide trousers hugging himself and stamping his feet.

‘You an archer?’ the Guardsman asked Kyle in accented Talian.

‘I can shoot.’

‘OK. Try out those. Find one you like.’

Kyle strung one bow, took a test shot out into the darkness. Weak, he judged, but true. ‘What's the plan?’

‘I'll pick out targets. You hit them.’

‘OK.’ To get a better feel for the bow, Kyle shot more arrows into the dark.

‘You a local recruit?’ the man asked.

‘Yes. Kyle. You?’

‘Parsell, Lurgman Parsell. Genabackis.’ Distracted, the man peered out over the dark waves of the inlet glimmering with reflected flames. ‘Less than one league now,’ he called to mid-ship.

‘I mark them,’ Cole answered.

Kyle squinted out over the calm waters. He could barely discern dark shapes approaching, pale lines at their bows, let alone any possible target. How was he to hit anything? ‘Ah, there's a problem. I can't see a thing.’

‘You can't-’ Lurgman sighed, pulled a leather pouch from under his shirt, took out a slip of oiled cloth. ‘There might be enough left on this, try it.’

‘What do I do with it?’

‘You rub it over your eyes. Open, mind you — they have to be open.’

‘Doesn't that hurt?’

‘Like a rasp.’

Kyle studied the parchment, dubious. ‘Do I have to?’

The thump of distant crossbows and catapults echoed across the inlet. Incendiaries shot high up into the night, arced to reveal scores of vessels bearing down upon them.

‘No choice now.’

Kyle opened one eye wide and pressed the cloth to it then flinched, snarling and cursing as acid ate at his eye. ‘Wind take you! Gods, man! Gods!’

‘The other one — quick.’

Cole roared, ‘Get rid of those two war-galleys! We don't want them.’

‘Aye, aye.’

Blinking, eyes watering, Kyle straightened to a near monochrome half-light of blindingly bright flames, searing stars in the night sky, and a clear vision of ships, all under oar, making slow progress towards them. Distantly, the clash of battle sounded as ship met ship.

Lurgman was grunting and hissing his effort, eyes shut, hands held out before him, and the hair on Kyle's neck and arms tingled as he realized he stood with a mage, possibly another Avowed.

‘Are they in range?’ Lurgman ground through clenched teeth.

The nearest vessels, two broad-bellied cargo ships, had been attempting to pass to either side of their ship. Both had lost all headway and rocked as if rudderless. The decks of both swarmed with soldiers. Kyle was surprised to see how all their oars were warped and curled — utterly useless.

‘Now, yes.’

Arrows pelted down and Kyle hunched low for cover behind the gunwale. Lurgman didn't move. ‘Stand up. We won't get hit.’ Then he flinched as if slapped. ‘’Ware a mage!’ he bellowed.

At that moment a ball of actinic-bright energy burst alight on deck. It spun about randomly, striking a mast with a flash then ricocheting to a barrel that it consumed in a deafening eruption.

‘Bring that man down!’ Cole bellowed, outraged.

‘Aye,’ Lurgman answered. He scanned the ships.

Grapnels struck the gunwales. The cargo ships drew closer, one to either side. Beyond, two long and low war-galleys foundered in the relatively calm waters, sinking for no reason Kyle could see. Soldiers jammed the decks. They wrestled frantically with their armour. Some fell overboard to disappear instantly. For the first time Kyle felt safe in his thin leathers.

‘There!’ Lurgman shouted, catching Kyle's arm. ‘The stern. The old fellow in the dark hat like a hood. Gold at his neck.‘ Kyle spotted him, sighted and loosed. The arrow hung in the dark as if suspended then took the throat of a man at the mage's side. His gaze darted to Kyle, narrowed to luminous slits. His hands rose, gestured. Gold and jewellery glittered at the fingers.

‘’Ware your back,’ someone called behind Kyle who spun to see a darkening and swirling like oil-smoke at the far side of the bow deck.

‘Lurgman!’ he warned.

The mage turned and gaped. ‘Hood's curse! Cole! A summoning!’

Kyle snapped a glimpse to the deck to see Cole and his two flankers encircled by a sea of Kurzan soldiery.

The mage pushed Kyle forward. ‘Buy me time. Time!’

A scaled and clawed foot emerged from the Warren portal. A long face, scaled olive-green like that of an insect, peered out. Kyle pressed the blade of his tulwar to his lips. Wind save met He edged forward, hunched to receive heavy blows.

The demon, or sending, or whatever it was, reached out as if to simply grasp Kyle in one taloned hand and so he swung. The tulwar severed the forearm sending the hand spinning out overboard. The fiend shrieked. A hot stream of ichor gushed over Kyle who jerked back, stung, blinking to clear his eyes.

Kurzan soldiers appeared at the stairs up from the mid-deck, took in the battle scene at the upper deck, and flinched away.

The fiend grasped the end of his forearm. Smoke fumed from the wound. It withdrew its hand revealing a hardened, cauterized stump. Its jaws moved, crackling and snapping, and somehow Kyle understood the words: ‘Who are you to have done this?

‘Just a soldier,’ he answered because he himself had no idea what had just happened.

Arrows stormed down around the vessel, deflected somehow. Flames spread across the waves engulfing a ship as it rammed the vessel next to Kyle's. The fiend straightened. ‘J was not forewarned that one of your stature awaited. But, so be it. Let us test our mettle, you and L’

Then, and Kyle could only understand it this way, the fiend melted. Its scaled keratin or bone skeleton, or armour, melted and ran, buckling and twisting. It fell to its knees and before its skull collapsed like heated wax Kyle thought he saw horror and astonishment in its black eyes.

Kyle retreated to the ship's side, saw Lurgman slumped, one arm hooked over the gunwale. He helped the mage up. ‘How did you do that?’ he whispered, awed.

‘I could very well ask you the same question,’ the mage anwered, his voice ragged. Blood ran from his nose and blotched his eyes carmine. Those eyes narrowed and Lurgman turned to glare out over the water. Kyle looked — men now supported the Kurzan mage. His hat was gone, his bald head shining.

‘So, it's going to be the hard way is it?’ Lurgman growled beneath his breath. ‘Can you throw better than you shoot?’

‘From this distance, yes.’

‘Then throw this.’ The mage passed Kyle a small ball like a slingstone. Kyle hefted it, nodded. He aimed, reached back and threw. The stone landed, unseen, somewhere near the mage. While Kyle watched, the men at the stern deck suddenly clutched at their faces. Their mouths gaped into dark ovals. Their eyes bulged. Clawed fingers gouged into flesh and all crowding the stern of the vessel fell. The mage toppled among them. Kyle turned away, feeling his stomach rising into his throat. Lurgman eased himself down to sit with his back to the ship's side.

Queasy, his limbs quivering with unspent energy, Kyle threw himself down beside the man. ‘So this is the way you Avowed finish your arguments.’

‘Avowed? Me? Gods no. I'm not in their rank. Anyway, I'm from Genabackis. No Avowed are from Genabackis.’

Kurzan soldiers edged warily up the stairs. Lurgman raised a menacing hand to them and they flinched away. ‘No, I was just a healer in Cat when the Malazans invaded. A Bone Mage we're called back there. Was a damned good one too. I healed breaks, straightened bones, cleaned infections. So, as you saw, I'm really not much of a battle mage.’

‘Could've fooled me.’

The clash of steel and thump and rattle of armour subsided below.

Lurgman eyed Kyle sidelong. ‘What of you? What's the story on that blade?’

Kyle shrugged. ‘Smoky inscribed it, if that's what you mean.’

Cole appeared at the top of one stairway; his tunic hung in bloody shreds about his waist. Shallow cuts crisscrossed his arms and chest. Sweat ran from his soaked hair. He peered around the bow, frowned his surprise. ‘I thought a demon ate you two.’

‘We got lucky,’ said Lurgman.

‘Well, get down here, Twisty. My flankers need healing and more ships are coming.’ He thumped back down the stairs.

Kyle helped Lurgman to his feet. ‘Twisty?’

The mage's mouth curled wryly. ‘Twisty. They insist on calling me Twisty.’

At night in a barren stone valley a man sat wrapped in a thick cloak next to a roaring bonfire. The firelight flickered against surrounding stone cliffs. He sat listening to the distant roar of ocean surf, tossed sticks into the blaze. Presently, a whirring noise echoed about the valley and the man stood, squinted into the night sky.

A winged insect much like a giant dragonfly descended to land amid the brush and rock to one side. An armoured figure slowly and stiffly dismounted.

Cloak cast aside, the man approached. His arms hung at his sides, long and thick and knotted with muscle. His sun-browned and aged face wrinkled in pleasure. Grinning, he called, ‘You're late, Hunchell. But it does my heart good to see you again.’

The flames reflected gold from the figure's armour. ‘My father, Hunchell, is too old for such long flights now, Shatterer. But he sends his continued loyalty and regards. I am first son, V'thell.’

‘Welcome to my humble island.’ The two clasped forearms.

‘Will this then be our marshalling point?’

‘Yes. The island is secure. It will serve as one of our depots and staging grounds.’

‘I understand.’ The Gold Moranth, come by all the distance from far northern Genabackis, regarded the man for a time in silence, the chitinous visor of his full helm unreadable.

‘Go ahead, ask it,’ the man ground out.

‘Very well. Why do you pursue this course? You risk — shattering — it all.’

‘We can't stand idly by any longer, V'thell. Everything's slipping away bit by bit. Everything we struggled to raise. She doesn't understand how the machine we built must run.’

‘Yet she had a hand in that building.’

The man's mouth clenched into a hard line. ‘Yeah, that's true. I didn't say it was easy.’ He waved the topic aside. ‘But what about the Silver. Are they with us?’

‘Yes. We can count on a flight of Silver quorl. Some Green are with us as well. The Black and the Red… well, we shall see. As for the Blue — they tender transport contracts with everyone. I suspect it is they who will come out ahead after all this.’

‘Ain't that always the way. Will you rest here?’

‘No, I must go immediately.’

‘Well, give my regards to your father. Tell him to begin moving materiel. Contract all the Blue vessels you can.’

V'thell inclined his armoured head. ‘Very well.’

The man watched as the Gold Moranth remounted. The wings of the insect quorl became a blur. He ducked his head against the dust and thrown sand, watched the creature rise and disappear into the night. After a time another figure emerged from the darkness. He wore a long dark cloak and hood.

‘Can we trust them?’

The man named Shatterer by the Moranth barked a laugh at that. ‘Yeah, so long as there remains a chance we might win. Then they will renegotiate. What of you?’

‘My loyalty? Or my news?’

Shatterer smiled thinly.

‘There are rumours of the return of the Crimson Guard.’

A derisive snort. ‘Every year you hear that. Especially with bad times. I wouldn't give that any weight.’

The cloaked man's hood rose, yet the absolute darkness within was unchanged. ‘Have you considered the possibility that they might actually return? There are, after all, names among them that echo like nightmares.’

‘There are nightmare names among us too.’

‘When you say us — whom do you mean? Dassem is gone. Kellanved and Dancer are gone. Who remains to face them?’

‘We've always beaten them.’

‘In the past, yes.’

Shatterer rubbed the back of his neck. ‘If you're lookin’ for a sure thing you've come to the wrong place. You toss your bones and the Twins decide.’

‘I'm not one to leave anything to chance.’

‘Everything's a chance. But if you haven't learned that by now then I suppose you never will.’

‘Why should I, when I leave nothing to chance?’

‘Anything else?’

‘No. I am convinced of this Moranth connection. I will report appropriately.’

‘Then do so.’

The cloaked figure inclined its head. ‘We will remain in touch through the usual channels.’

‘Yeah. Those.’

The man — or woman — strolled away into the night.

Shatterer watched the flames for a time, sighed, cracked his knuckles. Dealing with traitors always set his teeth on edge. Especially a Claw traitor. But then, he now fell within that same category as well. He remembered the first contacts with the Moranth and how he had crushed the torso armour of one in a bear hug. They insisted on that ridiculous name after that. Easier if they'd just call him Crust, or Urko.

The traitor Claw's worries returned to him and he recalled the image of Skinner striding across ravaged battlefields, shrugging off the worst anyone could throw at him and killing, killing. He shuddered. Hood help her should he show up again. But no, all analysis said she would simply send the entirety of the Claw lists at them until only the regulars remained. It might take hundreds but eventually superior numbers would tell.

In any case, they would act regardless. It was cruel and hard but they meant to win and this was their best chance this generation. In a way he felt sorry for her; she was caught in a nightmare of her own making — Abyss, she might even thank them for it. Yet he knew in the end she would accept it. Laseen understood exigencies. She'd always understood those.

‘It won't stand.’

‘Sure it will.’

‘No — not enough support on the right. It'll give on that side and bring the whole thing down.’

‘No, it won't. We packed it tight. There's enough counter-strain.’

The two Malazan marines, a man and a woman, sat on a heap of bricks outside Li Heng's east-facing Dawn Gate. They studied the towering outer arch of the massive gatehouse. To the north and south stretched the curtain walls of Li Heng's legendary ten man-heights of near-invincible defences.

A robed man edged his way out of the gate — a shadowed entrance broad enough to swallow four chariots side by side. He peered about, a hand shading his gaze, and spotted the two. He turned and bellowed something that the acoustics of the long tunnel echoed and magnified into an unintelligible roar. Another man came running out, raced up to the first and extended an umbrella over him. This one straightened his robes, adjusted his wide sleeves, and approached. The second kept pace, umbrella high.

‘You there — you two! Where is your commander?’

The two eyed one another. The woman, wearing a mangled leather cap, touched a finger to it. ‘Magistrate Ehrlann. What brings you out to the construction project you're in charge of? Bad news, I'd wager.’

Ehrlann dabbed a white silk handkerchief to his face, smiled thinly. ‘Your disrespect has long been noted, you, ah, engineers. Criminal conviction, I think, will see a due improvement in manners.’

‘Did you hear that, Sunny?’ said the woman. ‘We're engineers. But how are we gonna keep your walls built for you if you take us to court?’

‘In chains, I imagine,’ smiled the magistrate. ‘Your commander?’

‘Working.’

Ehrlann waved flies away. ‘Drunk, you mean. Jamaer! Switch!’

‘Switch what?’ asked Sunny.

‘Not you fools.’

With his free hand the umbrella-holder extended a stick tied at one end with a tuft of bhederin hair. Ehrlann took it and waved it before his face. ‘Don't bother yourselves. I see him now.’

Ehrlann marched off, stumbling over the loose tumbled brick and rock. Jamaer followed, umbrella held high.

The two eyed one another. ‘Should we go along?’ asked the female saboteur and she adjusted the leather cap on her hacked-short brown hair.

‘Storo might kill him. That'd look bad when we're in court.’

‘You're right.’

They followed.

Ehrlann had stopped at an awning made from a military cloak roped from the side of a towering block of limestone half-buried in the ground. A man was straightening out from under it, weaving, coughing, wiping his hands down the front of his stained loose jerkin.

The two engineers saluted crisply. ‘Captain Storo, sir!’

Storo shot them a dark look, swallowed and grimaced at what he tasted. ‘That's sergeant. What is it now, Ehrlann?’

‘I have come to demand the opening of Dawn Gate, sir. Demand it. Our builders tell us that restorations are long complete. They say the structure is now sound and that commercial access is long overdue.’

Storo scratched his sallow stubbled cheeks, shaded his eyes from the sun. ‘Would those be the same builders the Fist ordered you to fire for turning a blind eye to the wall's dismantling?’

‘Mere nuisance pilfering over the years carried out by these undesirables.’ The magistrate waved his switch to the squatter camp spread out from both sides of the east road.

Storo squinted at the camp. ‘They live in tents, Ehrlann.’

‘Nevertheless, you can delay no longer. Work here is done. Your contract is over. Finished. If we must, the court will report to High Fist Anand that we no longer require the services of his military engineers and that the defences of Li Heng have been returned to their ancient bright glory.’

Sunlight shone on Ehrlann and he winced, snapping, ‘Higher, you fool!’

Jamaer raised the umbrella higher.

‘You can report all you like.’ Storo said. He crouched to retrieve a helmet from under the awning, pulled it on. ‘But the only report Anand will listen to is mine.’

Ehrlann dabbed at the sweat beading his face, took hold of the robes at his front. ‘Do not force the Court of Magistrates to bring formal charges, commander.’

Storo's gaze narrowed. ‘Such as?’

‘There have been unfortunate assaults upon citizens, commander. Harassment of officials in the course of their duties.’

Storo snorted. ‘If I were you, Ehrlann, I would not try to arrest any of my men. Jalor, for one, is a tribesman from Seven Cities. He wouldn't take to it. And Rell — ’ Storo shook his head. ‘I'd hate to think of what he'd do. In any case, Fist Rheena wouldn't honour any of your civil writs.’

‘Yes. She would. The city garrison is not behind you, commander.’

‘Meaning you've bought them.’

‘Commander! I object to that language!’

‘Don't bother, Ehrlann. Hurl, Sunny… what's your opinion on the gate fortress, the tunnel, the arches?’

‘Good for fifty years,’ said Hurl.

‘It will fall — sooner than later,’ said Sunny.

‘There you go,’ Storo told Ehrlann.

The magistrate waved the switch before his face, eyed Storo. ‘Meaning…?’

‘Meaning you have your gate. Open it to traffic tomorrow.’

The magistrate beamed, threw his arms wide as if he would embrace Storo. ‘Excellent, commander. I knew you would listen. All finished then. I must admit it has been an education dealing with you veterans — we do not see too many here in the interior. Tell me, just what was the name of those barbarian lands you conquered all to the glory of the Empress? Gangabaka? Bena-gagan?’

‘Genabackis,’ Storo sighed. ‘And we're not finished. Not yet.’

Ehrlann frowned warily. ‘I'm sorry, commander?’

‘That hill over there,’ Storo lifted his chin to the north.

‘Yes? Executioner's Hill?’

‘I want to take one man's height-’

‘Two,’ said Hurl.

‘Two man-heights off it.’

The switch stopped moving. ‘You are joking, commander.’ Ehrlann pointed the switch. ‘That is where we execute our criminals. That is where city justice is enacted. It is an ancient city tradition. You cannot interfere with that. It is simply impossible.’

‘It's not ancient tradition.’

‘Claims whom?’

‘My mage, Silk. He says it only goes back seventy years and that's good enough for me. In any case, you can strangle your starving poor elsewhere, Ehrlann. After you provide the labour to lower the profile of that hill we'll start on the moat.’

‘The moat? A moat? Where is that, pray?’

‘Right where you're standing.’ Storo picked up his weapon belt and dusty hauberk. ‘Good day, magistrate. Hurl, Sunny. I need a drink.’

Magistrate Ehrlann watched the veterans head to Dawn Gate. He peered down to the loose dirt, broken brick and trampled rubbish at his feet. Sunlight struck the top of his head and he flinched.

‘Jamaer! Umbrella!’

The fat man in ocean-blue robes walked Unta's street of Dragons deck readers, Wax Witches and Warren Seers — Diviner's Row — with the patient air of a beachcomber searching a deserted shore for lost treasure. Yet Diviner's Row was far from deserted. As the Imperial capital, Unta was the lodestone, the vortex, drawing to it all manner of talent — legitimate or not. Mages, practitioners of the various Warrens, but also that class of lesser ‘talents’, such as readers of the Dragons deck, soothsayers, fortune-tellers of all kinds, be they scholiasts of entrails or diviners of the patterns glimpsed in smoke, read in cracked burnt bone or spelled by tossed sticks.

Divination was the current Imperial fashion. As the day cooled and the blue sky darkened to purple, the Row seethed with crowds from all stations of life, each seeking a hint of — or protection against — Twin Oponn's capricious turns: the Lad's push, or the Lady's pull. Amid the jostling evening crowd charm-sellers touted the vitality of their clattering relics, icons and amulets. Stallkeepers hectored passersby.

‘Your fortune this night, gracious one!’

‘Chart the influences of the Many Realms upon your Path!’

‘The Mysteries of Ascension revealed, noble sir.’

‘A great many enemies oppose you.‘ The plump man in blue robes froze. He peered down at a dirty street-urchin just shorter than he. ‘You risk all,’ the youth continued, his eyes squeezed shut, ‘but for a prize beyond your imaginings.’ The man's brows climbed his seamed forehead and his thick lips tightened, then he threw back his head and guffawed. His laughter revealed teeth stained a fading green that rendered them dingy and ill-looking.

Of course!‘ he agreed. ‘But of course! The future you have right. A great talent is yours, lad.’ He mussed the youth's greasy hair then handed him a coin. Waving to the nearest stallkeeper, he called, ‘A great future I foretell for that bold one!’ then he continued on, leaving a confused foreteller of Dead Poliel's visitations squinting into the crowd.

Hawkers of Dragons decks thrust their wares at the man. He turned a tolerant eye upon all. The merits of each ancient velvet-wrapped stack of cards he queried until finally purchasing one at a greatly reduced sum due to sudden misfortune within the family that had held it for generations.

Passing a stall offering relics, invested jewellery and stacks of charms, he paused and returned. The man beside the cart straightened from his stool, noted the fat, expensively-robed man's gaze fixed upon a sheath of necklaces. He smiled knowingly. ‘Yes. You have a discriminating eye, noble sir.’ The vendor took down the knotted necklaces, offered them to the man who flinched away. ‘Note the links, sir, chains in miniature. And the pendants! Guaranteed slivers of bone from the very remains of the poor victims of that fiend Coltaine's death march.’ The fat man's eyes seemed to bulge in their sockets. He swallowed with difficulty. ‘My Lord is familiar with that sad episode?’

Mastering himself, Mallick Rel found his voice, croaked, ‘Yes.’

‘A most disgraceful tragedy, was it not?’

Mallick straightened his shoulders. His lips drew back from his stained teeth. ‘Yes. An awful failure. Hauntings of it ever return to me like waves.’

‘Thank the wisdom of the Empress in her call for all Quon to rise against the traitorous Wickans.’

‘Yes. Thank her.’

‘Then my Lord must have this relic — may we all learn from what it carries.’

Bowing, the vendor missed Mallick's eyes, deep within their pockets of fat, dart to him with a strange intensity. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A lesson ever to be heeded.’ Then he smiled beatifically. ‘Of course I shall purchase your excellent relic — and is that a charm to deflect Hood's eternal hunger I see next to it?’

As the evening darkened into night and moths and bats came out, servants lit lanterns outside the shops of the more enduring fortunetellers and deck-readers. Mallick entered the premises of one Lady Batevari. A recent arrival in the capital herself, Lady Batevari had, in a short space of time, established a formidable reputation as a most profound sensitive to the hints and future patterns to be glimpsed within the controlling influences of the Warrens. Known throughout the streets as the High Priestess of the Queen of Dreams, her official position within the cult remained uncertain since she and the Grand Temple on God's Round determinedly ignored each other. Some dismissed her as a charlatan, citing her claim to be from Darujhistan where no one who had ever been there could remember hearing her name mentioned. Others named her the true practitioner of the cult and pointed to her record of undeniably accurate prophecies and predictions. Both sides of the debate noted Mallick Rel's devotion as proof positive of their position.

Unaware of the debate, or perhaps keenly aware, Mallick entered the foyer. He was met by a servant dressed in the traditional leggings and tunic of a resident of Pale in northern Genabackis — for it had become fashionable for wealthy households to hire such emigrants and refugees from the Imperial conquests to serve as footmen, guards and maids in waiting. Mallick handed the man his ocean-blue travelling robes and the man bowed, waving an arm to the parlour.

At the portal, Mallick froze, wincing. A phantasmagoric assemblage of furniture, textiles and artwork from all the provinces of the Empire and beyond assaulted him. It was as if a cyclone such as those that occasionally struck his Falaran homeland had torn through the main Bazaar of Aren and he now viewed the resultant carnage. Entering, he sneered at a Falaran rug — cheap tourist tat, sniffed at a Barghast totem — an obvious fake, and grimaced at the clashing colours of a Letherii board-painting — a copy unfortunate in its accuracy.

A frail old woman's voice quavered from the portal, ‘Is that you, young Mallick?’

He turned to a grey-haired, stick-limbed old woman shorter even than he. A slip of a girl, Taya, in white dancing robes steadied the old woman at one arm. Mallick bowed reverently. ‘M'Lady.’

Taya steered Lady Batevari to the plushest chair and arranged herself on the carpeted floor beside, feet tucked under the robes that pooled around her. Her kohl-ringed eyes sparkled impishly up at Mallick from above her transparent dancer's veil. The footman entered carrying a tray of sweetmeats and drinks in tall crystal glasses. Mallick and Lady Batevari each took a glass.

‘The turmoil among the ranks of these so-called gods continues, Mallick,’ Batevari announced with clear relish. ‘And it is, of course, reflected here with appropriate turmoil in our mundane Realm.’

Mallick beamed his agreement. ‘Most certainly,’ he murmured.

She straightened, hands clenching like claws at the armrests. ‘They scurry like rats caught in a house aflame!’

Mallick choked into his drink. Gods, it was a wonder the woman's clients hadn't all thrown themselves into Unta Bay. Coughing, he shouted, ‘Yes. Certainly!’

Lady Batevari fell back into her chair. She emptied her glass in one long swallow. Taya gave Mallick a dramatic wink. ‘So, Hero of the crushing of the Seven Cities rebellion,’ the old woman intoned, her black eyes now slitted, ‘what can this poor vessel offer you? You, who have so far to go — and you will go far, Mallick. Very far indeed, as I have said many times…’

‘M'Lady is too kind.’

‘That was not a prediction, she sneered. ‘It is the truth. I have seen it.’

Mallick exchanged quick glances with Taya who rolled her eyes heavenward. ‘I am reassured,’ he answered, struggling to keep his naturally soft voice loud.

‘Should you be?’ Mallick fought a glare. ‘In any case,’ she continued, perhaps not noticing, ‘we were talking of the so-called gods.’ The woman stared off into the distance, silent for a long time.

Mallick examined her wrinkled face, her eyes almost lost in their puckered crow's-feet. Not more of her insufferable posing?

‘I see a mighty clash of wills closing upon us sooner than anyone imagines,‘ she crooned, dreamily. ‘I see schemes within schemes and a scurrying hither and thither! I see the New colliding against the Old and a Usurpation! Order inverted! And as the Houses collapse the powers turn upon one another like the rats they are. Brother ‘gainst sister. They all eye the injured but he is not the weakest. No, yet his time will come. The ones who seem the strongest are… Too long have they stood unchallenged! One hides in the dark while they all contend… Yet does he see his Path truly — if at all? The darkest — he-’ She gasped, coughing and hacking into a fist. ‘His Doom is so close at hand! As for the brightest… He is ever the most exposed while She who watches will miss her chance and the beasts arise to chase one last chance to survive this coming translation. So the Pantheon shall perish. And from the ashes will arise… will arise…’

Mallick, staring, drink forgotten despite his utter scepticism, raised a brow, ‘Yes? What?’

Lady Batevari blinked her sunken eyes. ‘Yes? What indeed?’ She held up her empty glass, frowned at it. ‘Hernon! More refreshments!’

Mallick pushed down an impulse to throttle the crone. Sometimes he, who should know better than anyone, sometimes even he wondered… he glanced to Taya. Her gaze on the old woman appeared uncharacteristically troubled.

‘Your presentiments and prophecies astonish me as always,’ he announced while Hernon, the servant, refilled the Lady's glass. She merely smiled loftily. ‘Your predictions regarding the Crimson Guard, for example,’ he said, watching Hernon leave the room. ‘They are definitely close now. Much closer than any know. As you foresaw. And a firm hand will be needed to forestall them…’

Draining her glass of wine in one long draught, Lady Batevari murmured dreamily, ‘As I foresaw… And now,’ she announced, struggling to rise while Taya hurried to help her. ‘I will leave you two to speak in private.’ A clawed hand swung to Mallick. ‘For I know your true motives for coming here to my humble home in exile, Mallick, Scourge of the Rebellion.’

Standing as well, Mallick put on a stiff smile. He and Taya shared a quick anxious glance. ‘Yes? You do?’

‘Yes, of course I do!’

Leaning close, she leered. ‘You would steal this young flower from my side, you rake! My companion who has been my only solace through my long exile from civilization at sweet Darujhistan.’ She raised a hand in mock surrender. ‘But who am I to stand between youth and passion!’

Bowing, Mallick waved aside any such intentions. ‘Never, m'Lady.’

‘So you say, Confounder of the Seven Cities Insurrection. But do not despair.’ Lady Batevari winked broadly. ‘She may yet yield. Do not abandon the siege.’ Taya lowered her face, covering her mouth.

Stifling her laughter, Mallick knew, feeling, oddly, a flash of irritation.

‘And so I am off to my quarters — to meditate upon the Ineffable. Hernon! Come!’

The footman returned and escorted Lady Batevari from the parlour. Mallick bowed and Taya curtsied. From the hall she called, ‘Remember, child, Hernon shall be just within should our guest forget himself and in the heat of passion press his suit too forcefully.’

Taya covered her mouth again — this time failing to completely mask a giggle. Mallick reflected with surprise on his spasm of anger. If only he knew for certain — senility or malicious insult? He poured himself another glass of the local Untan white.

Taya threw herself into the chair, laughing into both hands.

Mallick waited until certain the old hag was gone. He swirled the wine, noting the dregs gyring like a mist at the bottom. ‘Were not I so sure the waters shallow,’ he breathed, ‘profound depths I would sometime suspect.’

Smiling wickedly, Taya curled her legs beneath her. ‘It's her job to appear profound, Mallick. And she really is rather good — wouldn't you say?’

Mallick sipped the wine. Too dry for his liking. ‘And this speech? These current prophetic mouthings?’

‘Her most recent line.’ Taya rearranged the wispy dancer's scarves to expose her long arms. ‘Nothing too daring, when you think about it, what with Fener's fall, Trake's rise, eager new Houses in the Deck and swarms of new cards. Rather conventional, really.’

‘Yet a certain elegance haunts

Taya pulled back her long black hair, knotted it through itself. ‘If there is any elegance, Mallick, dear,’ she smiled, ‘it is all due to you.’

Mallick bowed.

‘So. The Crimson Guard.’ Taya stroked her fingers over the chair's padded rests. ‘I heard much of them in Darujhistan, of course. How I wish we had seen them there. They are coming?’

Mallick pursed his lips, thought about sitting opposite the girl, then decided against it. He paced while pretending to examine the artwork, cleared his throat. ‘Like the tide, they are close and cannot be forestalled. Their vow — it drags them ever onward. As always, their greatest strength and greatest weakness. And so standing idly by I do not see them.’

Taya's gaze flicked to Mallick. ‘Standing idly by during what?’

‘Why, during the current times of trouble, of course,’ he smiled blandly.

Affecting a pout, Taya blew an errant strand of hair from her face. ‘I do not like it when you hold out, Mallick. But never mind. I too have my sources, and I listen in on every one of the old bat's consultations. You would be surprised who comes to see her — then again, I suppose you wouldn't — and no one has such information. Do not tell me you have a source within the Guard.’

Mallick smiled as if at the quaintness of the suggestion and shook his head. ‘No, child. If you knew anything about the Guard such a thought would never occur. It is an impossibility.’

The girl shrugged. ‘Any organization can be penetrated. Especially a mercenary one.’

Mallick halted, faced Taya directly. ‘I must impress upon you the profoundness of your error. Do not think of the Guard as mercenaries. Think of them more as a military order.’

Exhaling, Taya looked skyward. ‘Gods, not like the ones out of Elingarth. So dreary.’ She stretched, raising her arms over her head. The thin fabric fell even more, revealing pale, muscular shoulders. ‘So, why the visit today, Mallick? Who is it now?’

Mallick watched the girl arc her back, stretching further, thrusting her high small breasts against the translucent cloth. Mock me also, would you, girl? I need your unmatched skills, child, but like the depths, I ever remember. Clearing his throat, Mallick topped up his glass and sat. ‘Assemblyman Imry, speaking for the Kan Confederacy, must step down. I suggest illness, personal, or in the family…’

‘Do not presume, Mallick, to tell me how to do my work. I do not tell you how to manoeuvre behind the Assembly.’

Mallick allowed his voice to diminish almost to nothing. ‘But you do, cherished.’

She giggled. ‘A woman's prerogative, Mallick.’

He raised the glass, acknowledging such.

‘So, Councillor Imry… This will take a while.’

‘Soon.’

‘A while,’ Taya repeated, the sudden iron in her voice surprising from such a slip of a girl.

Mallick raised a placating hand. ‘Please, love. Listen. Time for subtlety and slyness is fast dissipating. Waters are rising and all indications tell it will soon be time to push our modest ship on to the current of events.’

Taya leaned back, plucked at the feather-like white cloth draped over one thigh. ‘I see. Very well. But it may be very messy. There may be… questions.’

Mallick set aside his glass, stood. ‘Such questions swept aside by the coming storm. Now, I shall leave you to your work.’

‘Am I to begin tonight, then? Dressed as I am?’ She spread her arms wide.

Mallick eyed her indifferently. ‘If you think it best. I would never presume to instruct you how to pursue your work.’

Taya's slapped the plush cloth of the armrests. ‘Damn you, Mallick, to the Chained One's own anguish. I don't know why I put up with you.’

He bowed. ‘Perhaps because together we have chance of achieving mutual ambitions.’

Taya waved him away. ‘Yes. Perhaps. Why, in the last month alone I have frustrated two assassination attempts against you.’ She peered up at him from under lowered eyelids. ‘You must be gaining influence.’

Mallick hesitated, unsure. A mere reminder, or veiled threat? He decided to bow again — discretion, ever discretion. He had in her, after all, an extraordinary asset. A talent undetected by anyone in the capital. ‘You are too kind. And remember, mention the Guard to the old woman again. And the firm hand needed. She must speak of it more often now.’

Taya nodded without interest. ‘Yes, Mallick. As ever.’

Outside, Mallick pulled his robes tight against the cooling evening air and pursed his fleshy lips. How dispiriting it was to have to stoop to cajoling and unctuous flattery to gain his way. Still, it had proved a worthy investment. No one, not even Laseen and her Claws who used to have this city tied in silk ribbons, could suspect who it was that had so successfully secreted herself within striking distance of the Imperial Palace. It was only his own peculiar talents that revealed her to him. Taya Radok of Darujhistan. Daughter of Vorcan Radok herself, premier assassin of that city. Trained by her own mother in the arts of covert death since before she could walk. Come to Unta to exact revenge against the Empire that slew her mother. And what a delicious vengeance together they would inflict — though not the sort the child might have in mind.

Stepping down into the loud, lantern-lit street, thoughts of assassins and eliminations turned Mallick's mind to his own safety. He glanced about, searching for his own minder but realized that of course he would never catch a glimpse of the man. He sensed him, however, nearby. Another of the orphans he seemed to have a talent for collecting: an old tattooed mage, long imprisoned in the gaol of Aren — how easy to effect his escape and gain his loyalty. And how valuable the man's — how shall he put it — unconventional talents have proven.

Slipping into the tide of citizens and servants crowding Diviner's Way, Mallick allowed himself a tight satisfied grin. Only two, dearest Taya? He had lost count of the number of sorcerous assaults Oryan had deflected with the strange Elder magic of his Warren delvings. Taya and Oryan: two powerful servants, of a kind. And of course, Mael, his God — and something else as well. It was almost as if the fates had woven the pattern for him to trace all the way to…

Mallick stopped suddenly, almost tripping himself and those next to him within the flow of bodies. He thought of the old woman's rantings. The Gods meddling? Him? No. It couldn't be. None would dare. He was his own man. No one led him.

A hand hard and knotted with arthritis took his elbow, eyes as dark and flat as wet stones close at his side studying him — Oryan. Mallick shook him off. It could not be. He would have a word with Mael. Soon.

The first inkling Ghelel had of trouble was when the family fencing-master, Quinn, raised his dagger hand for a pause. She took the opportunity to squeeze her side where the pain of exertion threatened to double her over. ‘Why stop?’ she panted, breathless. ‘You had me there.’

Ignoring her, the old man crossed to the closed doors of the stable and used the point of his parrying blade to open one a slit.

‘What is it? Father come to frown at you again for training me?’ The stamp of many hooves reached her and she straightened, rolling one shoulder, wincing. ‘Who is it? The Adal family early from Tali? I should change.’

‘Quiet — m'Lady.’

She sheathed her parrying gauche and slim longsword, pushed back the long black hair pasted to her face. The front of her laced leather jerkin was dark with sweat. She picked up a rag to wipe her face. How properly horrified they would be to see her all dishevelled like this. But then, in the final count, her reputation didn't really matter; she was only a ward of the Sellaths, not blood-related. She dropped the rag when raised voices sounded from the main house. Shouts? ‘What is it, Quinn?’

He turned from the main doors. Dust curled in the narrow shaft of light streaming into the stables. The horses nickered behind Ghelel, uneasy. He hadn't sheathed either his narrow Kanian fencing longsword or his parrying weapon. Beneath the man's mop of grey-shot hair his gaze darted about the stable, still ignoring her.

A crash of wood being kicked, hooves stamping, a clash of metal — swordplay! She started for the doors. Through the gap she glimpsed soldiers of the Malazan garrison. Damned Malazans! What could they want here? She took breath to yell but Quinn dropped his dagger and slapped a hand to her mouth.

How dare the man! What was this? Was he in league with them? She fought to force an elbow beneath his chin.

Somehow he twisted her around, lifted her at the waist and began backing down the length of the stable. All the while he was murmuring, ‘Quiet lass, m'Lady. Quiet now.’

Kidnapping! Was this all some kind of Malazan plot? But why her? What could they possibly want with her? Struggling, she managed to free a hand and drew her dagger. The man did something at her elbow — a pinch or thrust of his thumb — and the blade fell from her numb hand. How did he do that? He snapped up the blade and kept going.

He carried her to a stall, gently shushed the mare within, then kicked aside the straw and manure. Both her wrists in one hand he began feeling about the wood slats of the floor. ‘We have to hide,’ he whispered. ‘Hide from them. Do you understand?’

‘Hide? We have to help! Are you some kind of coward?’

He winced at her tone. ‘Lower your voice, Burn curse you! Or I'll use this on you.’ He raised her dagger, pommel first.

‘I don't have to hide. I'm not important.’

The sturdy blade of the gauche caught at an edge. A hidden trapdoor, no wider than a man's shoulders, swung up. ‘Yes you are.’

Ghelel stared, bewildered. What? In that instant Quinn pushed her headfirst into the darkness.

She landed face down into piled damp rags that stank of rot. ‘Aw, Gods! Hood take you, you blasted oaf! Help! Anyone!’

Darkness as the trapdoor shut, a thump of Quinn jumping down. ‘Yell again and I'll knock you out,’ he hissed, his voice low. ‘Your choice.’

‘Knock me out? Neither of us can see a thing!’

‘Your eyes will adjust.’

Silence, her own breath panting. ‘What's going on?’

‘Shhh…’ The gentle slide of metal on leather and wood as he raised his longsword.

She could make out faint streams of light now slanting down from between the slats. ‘Are you going to… murder me?’

‘No, but I'll stick whoever opens that trap.’

‘What's going on?’

‘Looks like the local Fist is rounding up hostages from all the first families.’

‘Hostages! Why?’

She could just make out the pale oval of his face studying her. ‘Not been paying attention to things, hey?’ He shrugged. ‘Well, why should you have, I suppose…’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Insurrection. Secession. Call it what you will. The Talian noble houses never accepted Kellanved's rule — certainly not Laseen's.’

‘My father

‘Stepfather.’

‘Yes, I'm a ward! But he might as well be my father! Is he safe? What about Jhem? Little Darian?’

‘They may all have been taken.’

Ghelel threw herself at the ladder she could now just see. He pulled her down. She punched and kicked him while he held her to him. As he had to the mare above, he made soft shushing noises. Eventually she relaxed in his arms. ‘Quiet now, m'Lady,’ he whispered. ‘Or they'll take you too.’

‘I'm not important.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘What-’

He put his finger to her mouth. She stilled. Listening, she kept her body motionless, but relaxed, not straining, worked to remain conscious of her breath which she kept deep, not shallowing — techniques Quinn himself had taught her.

A step above. A booted foot pressing down on straw. The scratching of a blade on wood. Quinn raised his longsword. He held her dagger out to her, which she took.

A pause of silence then boots retreating, distant muted talk. Quinn relaxed. ‘We'll wait for night,’ he breathed. She felt awful about it but she nodded.

A nudge woke Ghelel to absolute darkness and she started, panicked. ‘Shhh,’ someone said from the dark and, remembering, she relaxed.

‘Gods, it's dark.’

‘Yes. Let's have a peek.’

She listened to him carefully ascending the ladder, push at the trapdoor. Starlight streamed down. Ghelel checked her sheathed weapons, adjusted her leather jerkin and trousers. Quinn stepped up out of sight. A moment later his hand appeared waving her up.

Someone had ransacked the stable but most of the horses remained. The double doors hung open. A light shone from the kitchens of the main house. Ghelel strained to listen but heard only the wind brushing through trees. It was more quiet this night at the country house than she could ever remember. Quinn signalled that he would go ahead for a look. She nodded.

Weapons ready, Quinn edged up to one door, leaned out. He was still for a long moment, then he gave a disdainful snort. ‘I can smell you,’ he called to the night.

Movement from all around: a scrape of gravel, a creak of leather armour. ‘Send the girl out,’ someone called, ‘Quinn, or whatever your name really is. She's all we want. Walk out right now and keep walking.’

‘I'll just go get her,’ and he hopped back inside, ducking. Crossbow bolts slammed into the timbers of the door, sending it swinging.

‘Cease fire, damn your hairless crotches! He's only one man!’

Hunched, Quinn took her arm, nodded to the rear. They retreated as far back as was possible. ‘Now what?’ she whispered.

‘If this fellow knows what he's doing this could get very ugly very quick. We'll have to make a run for it — out the back.’

Something crashed just inside the front of the barn then three flaming brands arced through the doors. Blue flames spread like animals darting across the straw-littered floor. ‘Damn,’ said Quinn, ‘he knows what he's doing.’ He clenched Ghelel's arm. ‘Whatever you do, do not stop! Keep going, cut and run! Into the woods, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Now, we dive out then come up running.’

He kicked open the rear door, waited an instant, then dived out, rolling. Ghelel followed without a thought as if this was just another exercise in all the years she'd spent training in swordplay and riding — there'd been little else for her to do as a mere ward. Something sang through the air above her, thudding into wood. Ahead, Quinn exchanged blows with two Malazan soldiers. Then he was off again even though the two men still stood. Coming abreast of them Ghelel raised her weapons but neither paid her any attention. One had a hand clenched to his neck where blood jetted between his fingers; the other was looking down and holding his chest as if pressing in his breath. Ghelel ran past them.

Shouts sounded behind. Boots stamped the ground. Quinn was making for the closest arm of woods, avoiding the nearby vineyards. Whistling announced crossbow fire. Distantly, horses’ hooves slammed the ground. Ghelel cursed; there was no way they could outrun mounted pursuit. What had Quinn been thinking? But then, there was no way they could have remained within.

Further missiles whipped the air nearby. She put them out of her mind, concentrated on running. All that remained ahead was the moonlit swath of a turned field then the cover of dense woods would be theirs. Ahead, Quinn gestured to the right: horsemen racing the treeline, all in Malazan greys. Fanderay take them! They'd been so close.

Quinn kept glancing back, ‘Keep going!’

Ghelel put everything she could into her speed but the soft uneven earth clung to her boots. The horsemen cut ahead of them. They turned their mounts side to side, swords bright in the cold light. Quinn made directly for the nearest. The man's fearlessness almost brought a shout of admiration from Ghelel. He sloughed the man's swing then did something to the horse that made it rear, shrieking. The man fell, tumbling sideways. Quinn ignored him to turn to the next. Ghelel reached their line. The nearest Malazan had already dismounted. He thrust as if she would obligingly impale herself but she stopped short, avoiding the jab, then spun putting everything she had into a thrust of the gauche. The blade caught him full in the stomach, was held by the mail. Perhaps only an inch of blade entered him. Yet she'd been trained to expect this — more importantly the man had just had the breath knocked from him. She knelt then straightened thrusting up with the short blade to feel it enter upwards behind his chin. It locked there so tightly the man's convulsion tore it from her hand. She turned away to check the next threat, thinking, Burn forgive me — I have killed a man.

Quinn was engaging two opponents, the rest were closing.

‘Run, damn you!’ he yelled.

‘No.’ She thrust at the nearest; he parried, declined to counterattack. Damn them! They're holding us up. Hooves shook the ground from behind. She turned: a calvaryman, leaning sideways, blade raised. She thrust hers up crossways. The blow smashed her arm, her hilts slammed high on her chest and she was down.

Yelling came dimly through her ringing ears; rearing horses kicked up mud around her. Her breath steamed in the cold night air. She climbed to her feet, weaving, blinking. Quinn still stood, dodging, parrying blows from above. She bent to retrieve her longsword from the churned mud. Another horse reared, shrieking, stumbled backwards into the brush and Quinn thrust her after it. She fell, clawing at the struggling animal. Its rider was pinned beneath; she ignored him. Quinn forced her on. Together they fell into the thick brush. Branches slashed her face, cutting her cheeks, tore at her hair. She pushed forward.

They burst out into low brush and the thick entangled branches of young pines. Quinn took her arm and suddenly she found she had to support him. Longsword still in her grip, she held him up. Bright blood smeared his left side where his shirt hung open, sliced. He smiled blearily at her, his grey hair wet with sweat. ‘Gave them a good run we did. Proud of you.’

‘Shh, now. We'll be all right.’

‘No, no. You go on. Leave me. Run.’

‘No.’

He raised his hilt to her, saluting. ‘Proud of you. You did well, Ghelel Rhik Tayliin. A pleasure to serve.’

Hooves pounded the treeline, shouts for the crossbowmen. ‘We're not done yet.’ What did he mean, Tayliin? The only Tayliins she knew of had ruled during the last Hegemony. Kellanved and Dancer had the last of them slain when they took Tali.

They heard more horses thundering up the slope of the field. Quinn urged her on. Just pushing her away made him fall to his knees. She couldn't leave him like that and put an arm around him to raise him up. ‘Apologies,’ he mumbled.

‘What did you mean, Tayliin?’

The old man just smiled, his face as pale as sun-bleached cloth. Shouts snapped her head around — angry yelling — the clash of weaponry. What in the name of the Queen of Mysteries was going on out there? Why hadn't they come for them?

Silence but for the thumping of hooves and horses’ nickering.

‘Hello within! Are you there, Quinn?’ someone bellowed from the field.

The weaponmaster raised a finger to his lips, gave Ghelel a wink.

‘It's me, damn you! You know my voice!’

Quinn struggled to sheathe his longsword. Ghelel helped him.

‘Very well!’ came a vexed call. ‘It's me, Amaron!’

Quinn smiled. ‘What are you doing here!’ he called back and winced in pain. He finished, softer, ‘Haven't you heard of delegating?’

‘Yes, yes. Came as quick as I could. Come on down, will you.’

Quinn waved her forward. ‘It's safe, m'Lady. Amaron was my commander.’

‘Your commander?’

‘In the, ah, military. I served under him.’ He tried to walk but stumbled. She held him up. ‘My thanks — apologies.’

‘Here.’ Arm around him, Ghelel guided him forward.

‘Thank you. Not the impression I wish to give.’

‘Togg can take that.’

‘You curse like a marine now, m'Lady. I despair.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Do not apologize. Offer sarcasm.’

‘Always teaching, hey?’

‘Touche.’

They pushed their way through to stumble out on to the field and into a unit of some thirty cavalry, the horses’ breath clouding the night air. Almost all Quinn's weight now rested on Ghelel's arm. Dismounted soldiers immediately took him from her. Calls sounded for a healer. They laid him on a horse blanket.

‘Who of you is Amaron?’ she asked.

‘I.’ A man dismounted, his boots thumping to the mud. He was a giant of a fellow, Napan, in blackened unadorned mail beneath dark-green riding cloaks.

‘He's lost a lot of blood.’

‘He's in good hands.’

‘What of the Sellaths? Can you take me to them?’

Amaron rested his gauntleted hands at his waist, studied her. He dropped his gaze. ‘I'm sorry — Ghelel. They've been taken. Fist Kal'il will no doubt be using them, and others, as guarantors of safe passage.’

‘Safe passage?’

‘Out of Tali. By ship, probably. The capital is now under the control of a troika of Talian noble families.’

Ghelel glanced about at the men; none wore Malazan greys. Amaron himself wore no insignia or sigil at all. In fact the calvarymen wore dark blue — the old Talian colours. ‘Who commands?’

‘Choss. General Choss has been granted military command.’

‘Not the same Choss who was High Fist for a time?’

‘Yes, the same.’

‘I thought he was dead.’

‘That was the general idea.’

Ghelel found herself studying this man; Quinn had called him his old commander. ‘What of you? May I ask what you do?’

A shrug. ‘Whatever needs be done. You could say I'm in charge of intelligence gathering.’

Un-huh. ‘Well, thank you, Amaron, for our deliverance.’ He bowed. ‘But may I accompany Quinn?’

‘Certainly. We'll take him to the manor house, yes? There we can have a private conversation.’

Yes, a private conversation about certain ravings of a delirious wounded man perhaps? Until she knew whether Quinn should have revealed what he had she would play the innocent. Right now she wasn't certain how much she trusted this fellow. Quinn clearly did but the man felt cold to her, oddly detached. Quinn's condition didn't seem to affect him at all. She needed the weaponmaster conscious and well. Startled, she realized that he was possibly the last remaining link to her old life. She hurried to follow the soldiers carrying him down to the house. Their way was lit by the stables now sending tall flames high into the night sky.

Twelve days after descending from the mountains they reached the squalid village Traveller named Canton's Landing — no more than a collection of straw-roofed huts next to a slumped moat and ancient burned-down palisade overlooking the tidal flats of the Explorer's Sea.

‘We must wait here?’ Ereko asked.

He nodded, his guarded, lined brown face revealing nothing.

Ereko sighed. Enchantress give me the patience to endure.

It was close to evening and they claimed an abandoned hut. Ereko attempted to stretch his cramped arms and legs and failed. Human dwellings simply did not agree with him. He'd always been better off sleeping under the stars. A villager, an old woman, came hobbling up with a basket under one arm. ‘A meal approaches,’ he told Traveller. ‘I wish they wouldn't. From the look of them they need the food more than us.’

‘They are afraid of us and it's all that they have to offer. I also believe they want us to do something for them.’

Grinning a mouth empty of teeth, bowing, the old woman set out bowls of fish mush and hard-baked bread.

‘Send your headman,’ Traveller said to her in Talian. ‘We would speak with him.’

‘The headman is dead. His nephew will speak with you. I will send him tomorrow.’

Later, while Traveller slept, Ereko stared out over the embers of the fire to the phosphor-glow of the waves rolling in to the strand. He saw another sea in his thoughts, a far angrier and savage sea, this one iron-grey and heaving with cliff-tall breakers. That last season the Riders had arrived early at the Stormwall. The section of curtain wall he faced remained quiet as the Riders no longer challenged him. Indeed, these last few years his time upon the wall had actually been boring. Of course this pleased his Korelan captors no end; one more portion of the wall they need not worry about.

Ereko had watched the distant figure as he was chained as all were at the ankle. Watched as he'd been lowered to his station, a narrow stone ledge, without commotion or resistance. The man sat unperturbed as the ice-skeined waves smashed the wall and the spray obscured him. Many pointed as Riders surfaced far out in the strait. Some screamed, begged for release. His man remained sitting and the whisper of a fearful suspicion touched Ereko: might this fellow be one of those brave enough to refrain from defending their piece of the wall, sacrificing themselves to contribute in a small way to the enormous structure's erosion?

A file of the Riders closed, distant dark shapes upon the waves. The otherworldly cold that accompanied them gripped even Ereko's limbs. Frost limned the leathers of his sleeves and trousers. Ice thickened over the stones making the footing slick and treacherous. As the Riders neared, the Korelan Chosen tossed down weapons to those lost souls lowest and most exposed.

He was relieved when his man stood, sword in hand. The waves breasted ever higher. Their foaming crests entirely submerged some defenders. He watched closely now; the first rank would strike soon. Arrows and bolts shot from above arced down among the broaching Riders. Ice-jagged lances couched at hips, they rolled forward mounted upon what seemed half wave, half ice-sculpted horse. Armour of ice-scales glittered opalescent and emerald among the whitecaps.

Spray obscured the first strike. When the waters pulled back his man still stood. Up and down the curtain wall men clashed against wave-born Riders. Most failed, of course, for what mere man or woman could oppose such eldritch alien sorcery? Auroras played like waves themselves across the night sky. The lights of another world, or so claimed the Korelri.

In the pause between ranks of attacking Riders the waters withdrew revealing most stations empty or supporting fallen prisoners hanging by their ankle fetters like grotesque fruit. Korelri Chosen descended on ropes to clear away the dead. New prisoners were lowered, arms flailing. These the Chosen did not bother securing by the ankles.

His man remained. He'd sat again, not out of bravado, Ereko realized, but for warmth as he hugged his legs to his chest.

The Chosen used knots that pulled in a certain way released their burden and in this fashion the prisoners were stranded at their landings. Some grabbed hold of the ropes in a futile effort to regain the heights but archers shot these and the lesson was not lost on the others.

The surf of the strait regathered its power. The Riders who had been circling far out swung landward once again. And so it would go for days on end until the storm blew itself out. Then would come a week or two of relative calm when the wall faced mere mundane weather. During this time the incomprehensible presence deep within the strait regenerated its strength.

That night the second wave came swiftly. As it closed, a Malazan prisoner of war farther along the curving wall bellowed a challenge or prayer and launched himself from his landing. A Korelri Chosen was swiftly lowered to take his place. The crest struck, shuddering the stone of the Stormwall as if the force of an entire sea were launching itself against the land.

When the waters and ice slabs sloughed away from the scarred stone, his man remained. Another, a fellow Malazan prisoner by his rags, was shouting to him, calling, one arm out entreating. His man saluted him and the fellow straightened and gravely responded in kind.

As the storm continued through the night Ereko's man was the only original left within his line of sight. Prisoners continued to be lowered from above — the Korelri considered it a favour to offer these men and women the chance to regain their dignity by falling in defence of the wall. The prisoners obviously held other opinions.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the pattern of Rider attacks at this section of wall changed. Pressure eased along the curtain as the Riders circled and withdrew. Korelri Chosen gathered above, watching, pointing excitedly. Ereko peered out to sea: darker smears had emerged from the depths, the Wandwielders, Stormrider mages. He raised himself higher; rarely did he see these beings. Night-black ice was their armour, forged perhaps within the lightless utter depths of the sea. They carried rods and wands of precious stone and crystal, olivine, garnet and serpentine, with which they lashed the wall with summoned power and shattering cold during the most hard-pressed and ferocious assaults.

The Riders circled out amid the whitecaps; one approached, headed directly for the man the Enchantress had pointed out to Ereko as being the instrument of his deliverance. The Rider closed, rearing as his wave crested and smashed upon the wall. When the spume and mist cleared his man still stood and the Rider was gone.

A bloodthirsty, triumphant cheer went up among the Korelri Chosen gathered above. It seemed to Ereko to shake the wall just as ferociously as the waves themselves.

His man peered up for a time, then pointedly turned his back.

Another single Rider rolled forward, lance raised. Ereko was horrified to see his man toss his sword aside to stand unarmed, waiting. The Rider pulled up short, lance couched. It rose and fell with the waves and it seemed to Ereko that the two spoke. Then the Rider leaned to one side and withdrew.

Far out, the Wandwielders lowered their staves of glittering crystal and all withdrew to the right and left of this course of the broad Stormwall curtain. For this section of wall, the attack was over.

The Korelri Chosen left Ereko's man chained to his landing. That night Ereko yanked open the corroded fetter at his ankle, climbed the wall, descended to the fellow's station, tore the fetter from him and carried him numb with cold up and over the wall. He swam the warmer inner Crack Narrows behind the wall with him held high at his shoulder. He reached the abandoned shores of what the Korelri name Remnant Isle before dawn touched the uppermost pennants of the wall's watchtowers.

Within the shelter of boulders he sat and waited for sunrise. The man lay insensate, almost dead from exposure. Yet he was undoubtely much more than a man. Ereko's sight, while nowhere as penetrating as that of his ancestors, told him that. And then there was the attention of his Enchantress, whom some now named the Queen of Dreams. The fellow was fit, certainly. But not overly broad or large, which so many mistakenly equate with prowess in combat. No, it was more an aura about him — even in repose. A great burden and a great danger. Not in the mere physical sense. Rather, a spirituality. Potential. Great potential to create. Or to destroy. And there the danger.

After the sun warmed the fellow sufficiently he wakened and Ereko greeted him. ‘My name is Ereko.’

‘Traveller.’ He peered around at the weed-encrusted rocks of the shore. ‘Why have you done this?’

‘I have been planning my own escape for some time. Yet I knew I would have a much better chance were I not alone. Your performance yesterday convinced me that with you my chances would be much greater.’

The man laughed. ‘It looks like I wasn't much help.’

‘Do not be fooled. We are far from free. We are in the centre of the Korelan subcontinent. The Korelri Chosen have no doubt alerted everyone to hunt for us. We have far to go yet.’

He nodded at that; accepting the story or merely disinclined to pursue it. Ereko could not be certain. ‘And who are you? You are no Jaghut — you are taller. You are not Toblakai either, nor Trell. But there is something of them about you.’

‘We called ourselves “The People” — Thel Akai:

Traveller stared, confused. ‘Tarthinoe… or Thelomen, you mean?’

‘No, Thel Akai. Those you name are descendants of my people.’

‘Their ancestor? But that is impossible. I have never heard of your kind.’

‘All have been gone for ages — save myself. That is, I have met no others.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And I am sorry for something else as well.’

‘What is that?’

‘I must return to the wall. They have my sword.’

Ereko took a long deep breath. Enchantress, how could you have done this to me? ‘I see. Then it seems I must unrescue you.’

The next morning at’ Canton's Landing they marked trees for the ship. At noon they returned to the hut to find an old man crouched there in the shade awaiting them. This was the nephew? The man nodded and smiled and nodded and smiled, stopping only when Traveller knelt beside him and rested a reassuring hand on his arm.

‘You have suffered a tragedy here,’ he said, startling the man.

‘Yes, honoured sir. We are afflicted. Death from the seas. Slavers and raiders. Again and again they come. Soon there will be none of us left.’

‘Move inland,’ Ereko suggested.

The old man's smile was gap-toothed. ‘We are fisher folk here. We know of no other way of life.’

‘We are very sorry but we cannot-’ Ereko began, but Traveller raised a hand.

‘Do you have any possessions from these raiders? Weapons? Armour?’

The old man nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, yes… old gear can be found here and there.’

‘Show us.’

Mystified, Ereko accompanied Traveller and the old man as they patrolled the strand. They picked up a piece of corroded metal here, a fragment of broken stone there. Traveller knelt to pull a length of sun-bleached wood from the sand; the broken handle of a war club. A tassel of some sort hung from its grip. He rubbed the ragged feathers and dried leather in his fingers then stood.

‘I will help you,’ he said, and he brushed his hands clean.

Ereko stared, astonished. What unforeseen turn does the Lady send now?

‘Yes, yes,’ the old man repeated. ‘Yes. Thank you, honoured sir. We can never-’

‘Help us build our boat.’

‘Yes. Of course. Whatever you need.’

As they walked Traveller asked over the loud susurrus of the waves, ‘You are expecting them soon, aren't you?’

The old man flinched, startled again. ‘Yes. Soon. They come this season. The grey raiders from the sea.’

A patrol of Malazan regulars posted to the Wickan frontier spotted the smoke in the distance and altered their route to investigate. They found a burnt camp of the Crow Clan. The Wickan dead lay where they had fallen. The patrol sergeant, Chord, took in the Crow bodies: elders wrapped in prayer blankets, three obvious cripples and an assortment of youths. He studied the trampled wreckage of pennants, flag-staves, a covered cart and painted yurts. All hinted at some sort of a Wickan religious pilgrimage or ceremonial procession. Seated around a roaring fire, a gang of invaders, more of the tide of self-styled ‘settlers’, feasted on slaughtered Crow horses in front of bound Wickan captives. As they gorged themselves on horseflesh they ignored the regulars.

‘Ran out of supplies on your long march, hey?’ Chord called to the closest man.

This one smiled, continued to eat. A felt blanket flew back and a man straightened from one squat dwelling, cinching up his pants. Chord glimpsed a small pale figure curling beneath blankets.

‘Greetings, brother Malazans,’ this one called.

‘We ain't your brothers.’

‘Well, thank you for coming by, but we're safe now from these barbarians.’

‘You're safe.’

‘They attacked us.’

‘You invaded their lands.’

‘Malazan lands, as the Empress has reminded us all. In any case, they refused to sell even one of their horses — and us starving!’

‘Wickans regard their horses like members of their own family. They'd no more sell one of them than their own son or daughter.’

‘We offered fair price. They refused us out of plain obstinacy.’

Chord leaned to one side, spat a brown stream of rustleaf juice. ‘So you helped yourself.’

The man gestured his confusion. ‘We set down a fair price in coin and took the worst of the herd. Lame, useless to anyone. And they attacked! All of them. Children! Crones! Like rabid beasts they are. Less than human.’

The sergeant looked to the bound youths, pushed a handful of leaves into his mouth. ‘And these?’

‘Ours. Captives of war. We'll sell them.’

‘Hey? What's that you say? Captives of war?’

‘Aye. A war of cleansing. These Wickan riff-raff have squatted on the plains long enough. All this good land uncultivated. Wasted.’

Adjusting his crossbow, the sergeant pressed a hand to his side, fingers splayed. As one, the men of the patrol levelled their crossbows on the gang of settlers.

The men gaped, strips of flesh in their hands. Their spokesman paused but then calmly resumed straightening his clothes. ‘What's this? We've broken no laws. The Empress has promised this land to all who would come to farmstead. Put up your weapons and go.’

‘We will, once we've taken what's ours.’

‘Yours? What's that?’

‘Just so happens I'm also a student of Imperial law, an’ those laws say that any captives of war are the property of the Throne. An’ as a duly sanctioned representative of the Throne I will now take possession of the captives.’

‘You'll what? Whoever heard of such a law!’

‘I have, an’ that's good enough. Now stand aside.’

A skinny shape exploded from the tent, a waif in an oversized torn shirt. She yelled a torrent of Wickan at the sergeant, who cocked a brow. ‘Well, well. Seems everyone's a damned lawyer these days.’

‘What's she on about?’ the spokesman asked.

‘This lass here has invoked Wickan law ‘gainst you. A blood cleansing.’

‘What in the name of Burn does that mean?’

‘Knives. Usually to the death.’

The man gaped at Chord. ‘What? Her?’

The men at the bonfire slowly climbed to their feet. ‘Cover them, Junior,’ Chord said aside.

‘Aye.’ The patrol spread out, crossbows still levelled.

‘You can't be serious. You're listening to this Wickan brat?’

‘I am.’

‘She's just a child!’

The sergeant stilled, his eyes hard on the spokesman. ‘Seein’ as she's old enough for you to rape, maybe she's old enough to hold you accountable for it, don't you think?’

The man eased back into a fighting stance, shrugging. He drew a knife from his belt sheath. ‘Fine. I'll just have to kill her too.’

Chord tossed the girl his own knife. She took it, screamed a Wickan curse and leapt.

It was over even more swiftly than Chord had assumed. In the end he had to pull the girl off the hacked body. The patrol lined up the youths and marched them off to the fort. As they went the men swore that word of this would spread and that they'd see the fort burnt to the ground. Part of Chord hoped they'd try; the other part worried that maybe he'd just bought his lieutenant more trouble than their garrison of one undersized company could handle.

Kyle lay in his bunk on board the Kestral, his eyes clenched closed. Seasick, his stomach roiling, he tensed his body against the juddering of the ship as it rolled alarmingly once more. Nearly a month at sea, their last landfall along the west coast of Bael lands, and now for these last five days the Kestral had ridden the leading edge of a storm driving them north-west — a direction the superstitious sailors would not even look.

The tag-end of his dream eluded his efforts to grasp it and he groaned, giving in to wakefulness. For the fleetest moment the sweet scent of perfume had seemed to tease his nose and the soft warmth of a hand seemed to linger at his brow. But now he was still in his bunk aboard the Kestral, weeks at sea and the Gods alone knew how close to, or how far from, its destination: Stratem. The adopted homeland of the Crimson Guard.

A land that meant nothing to Kyle.

Tarred wood shivered and creaked two hand-widths from his nose. Beaded condensation edged down the curved wall of planking to further soak the clammy burlap and straw padding he lay upon. The wood shivered visibly, pounded by the storm that threatened to shake the vessel into wreckage. His eyes watered in the smoke of rustleaf and D'bayang poppy that drifted in layers in the narrow companionway. The stink of old vomit, oil, sweat and stagnant sea-water all combined to make his stomach clench even tighter. Below him, Guardsmen talked, gambled and studied the Dragons deck.

He rolled on to his side. The curved plainsman's knife that he kept on a thong around his neck gouged into his shoulder. Blocking the narrow passage, the men were gathered in a knot around a small wood board on which the Dragon cards lay arranged. Slate was the Talent for this reading — everyone agreed Slate was one of the most accurate in the Guard.

Stoop's grizzled face appeared; he'd climbed the four berths to Kyle's topmost slot. He hooked the stump of his elbow over the cot's lip and winked, motioning down to the reading.

‘Slate's angry as Hood. Says the Queen of the House of Life dominates. Says that's damned odd and the reading's about as useful as a D'rek priest in a whorehouse.’

Kyle sighed and lay back on his berth. ‘Hood's bones, it's just a bunch of cards.’ Since joining the Guard he'd been confronted by more superstitions and gods than he'd ever imagined could exist, let alone keep straight or even believe.

Stoop scratched his grimed fingers through his patchy beard. ‘Lot more'n that,’ he said, mostly to himself.

‘Try again,’ someone urged Slate.

‘Can't,’ he answered. ‘Once a day.’

The thin, painted wood cards clicked as Slate gathered them together.

‘Try anyway.’

‘Bad luck.’

‘You mean maybe we'd see through your horseshit?’

‘I mean I could bring all kinds a trouble down on our heads.’

From the corner of his eye, Kyle saw Stoop nod seriously at that. Once a day, not near a shrine or sanctified ground, burial grounds or a recent battle. Kyle couldn't believe all the folklore and ritual that surrounded the deck. The cards were supposed to reveal the future but how could they if you couldn't use them half the time? He thought that too convenient for whoever sold the damned things.

Bored, weak and nauseous from the constant roll and bucking of the ship, he shut his eyes against the smoke and tried to seek out that dream once more. It eluded him; he attempted to doze again.

The door of the companionway crashed open allowing a rush of water down the stairs and a gust of frigid damp air that pulled at the lanterns. Everyone cursed the man coming down the stairs. It was one of the hired Kurzan sailors. His bare feet slapped the boards and his woollen shirt dripped sea-water on to the planks. Beneath black hair, plastered down by rain and spray, his bearded face was pale.

‘The captain wants you all on deck, armed,’ he announced in Nabrajan, and stood aside. Everyone pulled on what leathers or gambesons they had; most metal armour had been greased in animal fat and stowed against rusting. Besides, it was more a danger than protection at sea. They asked questions of the sailor but he would say no more, only make signs against evil at his chest while his eyes, resigned and haunted, avoided them all. Kyle dressed in his gambeson shirt. He pulled on the leather cap he wore beneath his helmet and cinched his weapon belt as everyone lined up. They climbed the stairs passing the sailor, who shivered and wouldn't raise his eyes.

On deck, Kyle found a guide-rope and covered his eyes from the spray. He took in the reefed sails and the white-capped, churning seas. Men pointed, shouting, their words torn away by the wind. Kyle followed their gazes and couldn't believe what he saw: among the waves and blowing spume moved human figures. What appeared to be armour upon them gleamed sapphire and rainbow opalescent. They seemed to ride the waves. White foam flew about them. While he watched, some of the waves curled into horse-like shapes and dived, carrying their riders with them only to broach the rough waters further along. The armour shone like frost and they carried jagged-edged lances.

Kyle searched the horizons. Of the Guard's fleet of twenty ships, he could only see the Wanderer. The nearest mercenary, Tolt, gripped Kyle's arm, shouted, ‘Stormriders! We've blown into the Cut! We don't have a chance!’

Kyle's immediate reaction was one of awe and numb fear. Two months ago, near the beginning of the journey, Stoop had explained something of the strange convoluted archipelago and continents that the Crimson Guard called home. Quon Tali, and to the north, Falar. To the south, Korel. A deep ocean trench of unpredictable storms and contrary currents, Stoop explained, separated Quon Tali from Korel, or Fist, as it was sometimes known. The Stormriders had claimed this passage for as long as anyone could recall. Twice the Malazans had tried to push through to reach Korel, and twice the Riders sank the fleets. They allowed none to trespass and warred continuously with the Korelans over the coastline of their lands.

Kyle went to the gunwale. Through the spray he could make out a number of Riders circling the ship. While he watched, incredulous, the ones nearest the Kestral saluted the vessel with upraised lances and submerged. More surged abreast of his vessel. One broached the waters close by and seemed to be watching him. But as the tall helm hid the being's eyes, Kyle couldn't be sure. On impulse he drew his tulwar and raised it straight up before his face, saluting the Rider. The alien entity straightened and raised his lance, its barbed point flashing cruelly. Kyle laughed his palpable relief and sheathed his sword. Tolt was right, it seemed to him — if it had come to a fight they wouldn't have stood a chance.

‘That Rider saluted you.’

Kyle turned. There stood Greymane, the only person fully armoured in banded iron, his legs planted wide apart, yet steadying himself at a guide-rope. Kyle remembered the Malazan renegade's words at Kurzan: ‘water ‘n’ me, we don't get along.’ The veteran's eyes held a calculation Kyle had never seen before. ‘Or he was saluting you.’

A tight sardonic smile reached the man's sky-pale eyes. ‘No. I told them to cut that out long ago.’

Kyle turned away; this was not what he wanted to hear from this strange Malazan turncoat. Jokes! This renegade had torn something irreplacable from him — something that drove him to his own vow — but not one in sympathy to the Guard's. He gripped the gunwale. It was numbing cold, yet any change from the rank enclosed quarters below was welcome for a time. They were packed tight on all the ships. Every Guardsman squeezed shoulder to shoulder. ‘You've been through here before, haven't you?’ Kyle asked, facing the slate-grey sea. He watched the Riders circling, submerging one by one. A few mercenaries remained on deck, their faces hardened now that panic had passed. He reminded himself some of these men had witnessed wonders far greater than this.

For some time Greymane didn't answer, but Kyle could feel him there, close. He heard the man's layered banding grating at his shoulders and arms as he shifted his stance with the lurching of the ship. ‘Aye. Many times. I grew up on Geni — an island south of Quon. My father fished the Cut. Saw them many times I did, as a boy. Before my father went out and never came back. Taken by them, some said. I swore off the sea then. Joined the army.’

The renegade paused and Kyle could imagine him offering a rueful grin — fat lot of good that choice had done! But Kyle refused to look. This man had taken all that was precious from him. Murdered a guiding spirit of his people! He did not want to hear this.

‘Command thought my familiarity with the Cut would be an asset for the Korel invasion,’ Greymane continued. ‘And for a time they were right. But as the years passed the stalemate drove me to try something no one had ever tried

The last of the Riders disappeared in swirls of pale emerald froth. Kyle shivered. Despite himself, he turned. ‘What? What did you do?’

The renegade was frowning, his pale gaze fixed on the waters. He wiped the spray from his face then made a gesture as if throwing something away. ‘Well, let's just say it lit a fire under the Korelri like nothing else ever before and got me arrested by command. I made a mistake — misjudged the situation — and a lot of people got killed that didn't have to.’

‘I'm sorry.’

‘Yeah, so was I. But I accept it. Now I'm just plain fed up.’ A crooked smile, the eyes bright as the ice that clings to the mountain-tops in the north of Kyle's homeland. Or these Riders’ own glimmering armour.

Kyle's face grew hot despite the frigid wind, and he turned away. This was not what he wanted: an opening up, confessions. Not from this man. A man of the company he had vowed to… Damn him for this!

‘Well, better go below. Gotta re-oil everything thanks to these blasted Riders.’

Kyle said nothing, not trusting himself to speak. When he glanced back he was alone.

Evening darkened; the low overcast horizon to the west glowed deep pink and orange. The water lost its chop, the troughs shallowing and the wind dropping. The Kestral and the Wanderer, just visible as a smear to the north, were swinging over to a southward heading. Despite the wind that drove knives of ice across Kyle's back, he remained on deck. The closed rankness below churned his stomach. To the stern the glow of a pipe revealed the old saboteur Stoop sitting wrapped in a blanket. Kyle made his way sternward hand over hand by ratlines to stand next to him.

Stoop examined the pipe, tamped the bowl with his thumb, pushed it back into his mouth. ‘You can relax, lad. Be more at ease. You're home now.’

‘Home?’

‘Certainly! You're of the Guard now, son.’

‘Am I?’

‘Aye. Swore you in m'self.’

‘What about you? Where's your home?’

An impatient snort. ‘The soldier's home is his or her company, lad. You should know that by now. Sure, there's always gonna be longing an’ drippy honey memories of the places we've left behind but what happens to us when we go back to those places, hey?’ The old saboteur didn't wait for an answer, ‘We find out something we don't want to know — that they ain't home no more. No one there recognizes us no more. We don't fit in. No one understands. An’ after a while you realize that you made a mistake. You can't go back.’

The saboteur sighed, pulled the horse-blanket tighter. ‘No, those of us who take to soldiering, our home is the Guard, or the brigade, or whichever. That's our true home. An’ there's those who'd sneer at what I'm sayin’ and dismiss it all as maudlin, sayin’ they'd heard it all before so many times — but that don't change the truth of it for us, do it?’

Kyle couldn't help smiling at the saboteur's pet conviction — how they're all brothers and sisters in the Guard. ‘No. I suppose not.’ He looked down at the old veteran, his veined red eyes, grey-shot ragged beard, seamed sun-burnished face. ‘You've been with the Guard for a long time then?’

A broad smile. ‘I've seen about a hundred and sixty years of battle. All of them under this Duke and his father and grandfather afore him.’

Kyle stared, unable to breathe. ‘You're Avowed?’

‘Aye.’ He drew hard on the pipe. ‘You should've been there, lad. Some six hundred swords were raised that evening under a clear sky, and six hundred voices spoke as one. We vowed eternal loyalty and servitude to our Duke so long as he should live and the Empire stand. And he still lives, somewhere.’ The saboteur examined his pipe, pushed it back into the corner of his mouth. The Duke, now he was a man to follow. We stopped them for a time, you know. The only ones that ever did. Skinner fought Dassem, the Sword of the Empire, to a standstill. But it broke us. We were tired, so tired. And the Duke disappeared soon after that. So we divided into companies and went our separate ways.’

‘And now the wandering's over,’ Kyle said, his voice tight, and he felt a searing anger burning in his chest. ‘Then why? Why the contracts? Why come to Bael lands?’ Why… Spur?

Stoop sighed. ‘Aye. The Diaspora's ended. We're going back to reclaim our land. We weren't just wandering though. We searched everywhere — for the Duke. We didn't find him. But maybe one of the other companies… I don't know.’

They remained side by side in silence for a time. Kurzan sailors clambered around them, raising sail. The embers of Stoop's pipe died. The saboteur roused himself, stood. ‘I don't know about you but I'm freezing my arse out here.’ He pulled the blanket higher and went below.

Kyle stayed for a while longer on the deck, watching the waves without really seeing them. His thoughts kept returning to Stoop's words that day on the Spur, ‘We knew someone was up here…’

The next day the storm broke and the Kestral made better time. Word came down from the deck that contact had been lost with all but the Wanderer. Talk went around of wrecks, the Riders and sea monsters, and Slate offered to read Kyle's future from the Dragons deck.

Kyle lay in his berth, sick from the storm-cursed crossing. He was a tribesman, for Hood's sake! What was he doing in a damned ship? Earlier in the voyage he'd laughed at the fat mercenary and his readings but now he welcomed any distraction, no matter how ridiculous. Slate was pleased, he'd done all the other men more times than he could count. Kyle was his last chance for something new.

‘The Field, or Realm, as some call it, can be divided into four parts,’ Slate began, brushing off the square of wood. Kyle knelt opposite him on one knee. A lantern hung above swinging wildly as the ship bucked and heaved. The fat Guardsman wore a felt shirt, its lacing open at the front revealing numerous scars and a thick mat of black hair. He took out the cards. These were tied by white silk ribbon and wrapped in black leather. Kyle knew that the corporal carried them in a thin wood box rolled into his blanket. Claimed they'd been in his family for generations.

Slate searched through the deck. ‘Right now I'm using what we call the “short deck”. These four cards, the Houses, rule the Field.’ He held them up, one after the other. ‘Light, Dark, Life and Death.’ He then held up one other. ‘But when I was young this new House appeared: Shadow.’ He laid the five cards down and began taking out others as he explained them. ‘Each of the four old Houses possess their High Attendants: King, Queen, Knight or Champion, and Low Attendants, or Servants. In some they're known as Herald, Magi, Soldier, Seamstress, Mason and Wife an’ such. Shadow has its own attendant cards: King, Queen, Knight, Assassin — some say Rope — Priest or Magi, and Hound. In some spreads the Houses each have assigned quarters, or directions, where their influence is greatest. Shadow has no such allocation. It can appear anywhere at any time.’

‘There are also these six cards.’ Slate sorted through them. ‘These serve no House: Oponn, signifying chance or odds; Obelisk, meaning the past or future; and these four: Crown, Sceptre, Orb and Throne.’

‘And the rest?’ Kyle asked, looking at the cards still in Slate's hands.

The mercenary grimaced. ‘These are new additions — they go with a house that appeared just recently. New powers, striving influences, these come and go all the time… don't know if these'll last any longer.’ He laid down a card very different from the others. Like those of Shadow House, it differed in manufacture — the rest were obviously a set, cut after the same pattern, painted by the same hand. The Shadow cards were cut from slightly thicker wood, but smoothed now from much handling. Their faces were smoky dark, black almost, hinting at vague shapes and movement. This new card wasn't even squared like the others. Ragged-edged, its plain unfinished wood face bore a design that had obviously been scored there by a knife-blade. It was of a hut or a shack, some sort of shabby dwelling, and it struck Kyle as a kind of mockery of what Slate had named the others, Houses.

‘This new presence is called the House of Chains,’ Slate continued. ‘So far, it supports these Attendants: King, Consort, Reaver, Knight, The Seven, Cripple, Leper and Fool.’

While Slate talked Kyle eyed the card signifying the King of House of Chains. Like its House card, it was of an unfinished wood. Gouged on its face — perhaps by Slate's amateur hand — was a high-backed heavy seat, a throne. Drying, the wood of the card had shrunk, cracking from top to bottom through the solid, imposing chair. Compared to the richly varnished and detailed deck, these additions struck Kyle as ridiculous. Yet he could not deny that the clumsy image held a certain strange menace. The splitting wood was blood-red beneath its bleached surface, giving the appearance of streams of blood running down the surface of the throne. Somehow, Kyle would have felt much more at ease had the throne been occupied; at least then he would know where its occupant was. The face of the card appeared to shift and blur in the swinging lantern light; its uneven grain suggested to Kyle blowing dust, such as over the dune fields one can encounter on the steppes. The throne appeared closer now, dominating much more of the face. No, it was as if he or it were moving together, drawing closer, the dunes blurred by speed.

A hand interposed itself, turned over the card. Kyle pulled his gaze up to Slate's close, gleaming face, the man's eyes hooded. A chilling sweat was clammy on his back and arms and he felt strangely dizzy.

‘Ain't good, starin’ like that,’ Slate said, his voice low and tight. He appeared to want to say more, but collected the cards instead, looking down at them. ‘Maybe we'll give this a try later.’ The Talent's thick hands shook as he tucked the cards away.

Kyle went to his berth, clutched his sword and stared at the beads of moisture running down the tarred wood. He pulled the blade a handbreadth from its wood and leather sheath and rubbed at the symbols etched in its iron. Their depth, cut as if the tempered blade were wax, always surprised him. He breathed a short prayer to the Wind King, prayed trying to believe that somehow he was close and watching over him. But could that magus, or Ascendant, have been the one? It was too outrageous. His world had been turned upside down and with every month he saw how naive and impossible was the vow he swore upon the iron of this blade to somehow avenge what had occurred atop that jutting finger of stone.

That night he tried to dream of a woman's hand and a fountain that no doubt held the sweetest water he had ever tasted. If he succeeded, he couldn't remember.

Nait Simal ‘Ap Url, of the Untan harbour guard, sat in the warm afternoon light watching yet another wallowing merchantman loaded with the collected loot of an empire lumber its way from the wharf pulled along by oared launches. Stinking rats. He leaned forward to spit a red stream of kaff juice into the oily waves beneath the piers. Fat rats. They must smell something — not the Imperial rot we regular vermin smell all around — no, their noses must quiver after other scents shifting in the wind. The stink of influence; the perfume of power. Nait smiled, his lips a red smear. He liked that one. The perfume of power. The musk of money? He frowned. Well, no, maybe not that one.

But where could they expect safe refuge if not here in the capital? Malaz? He chuckled, almost gagged on the wad of leaves tucked into one cheek. Hood no! Maybe a small anchorage somewheres, an isolated bay. Out of the way. Maybe buy protection from the fortified harbours of Nap or Kartool…

Leaning back, he banged on the wall of the harbour guard shack. ‘Sarge?’

‘What?’

‘I was thinkin’-’

‘How many times I gotta tell you not to do that, son. Bad for your health.’

‘I was just thinkin’ that maybe we oughta charge an exit fee. You know, like a departure tax. Somethin’ fancy like that. There's a whole flock o’ sheep skippin’ out unsheared.’

‘You think those merchant houses aren't paid up already? You want a visit from the Claw?’

The Claw? What've they got to do with anything? We got our thing goin’ as do others. Everyone gets a piece of the pie, no one gets hurt. Always been that way.’

‘Some folks want to run the bakery,’ his sergeant said so low Nait barely caught it.

The gold afternoon light warming Nait was occluded. Squinting, he made out a pair of polished black leather boots that climbed all the way up to wide hips, ending under the canted weaponbelt and broad heavy bosom of the corporal of the guard, Hands.

‘You're chewin’ that outland filth again, Nait,’ she said.

‘Yes, ma'am.’

‘That's “sir” to you, skinny.’

‘Yes — sir.’

‘Spit it out.’

‘Aw, Hands-’

‘Sir!’

‘It cost me my last-’

‘I don't give a dead rat to Hood what you choose to waste your money on. You're on duty.’

‘That's right,’ came Sergeant Tinsmith's voice.

Scowling, Nait leaned forward opening his mouth wide and pushed out the wad with his tongue. It landed on the grey slats of the pier with a spray of red spit that dappled Hands’ boots.

‘Damn you to Fener!’

Nait wiped his sleeve across his mouth. ‘Sorry — sir’

Hands reached up to straighten the braid of auburn hair tucked down the back of her scaled hauberk. Raising her chin to the shack she said, low, ‘We'll talk later, soldier.’

As she walked away Nait blew a kiss.

‘Like I said, soldier,’ said his sergeant, ‘bad for your health.’

‘I'm not scared of her.’

‘You should be.’

Bending down again, Nait picked up the wet lump and shoved it back into his mouth. Ha! He could take her. Maybe that's what she's been holding out for all this time — for him to show her who was the boss. Nait smiled again. Then he frowned, puzzled. What the Abyss had that been? He peered out over the edge of the slats. Little pads, like leaves, floating out on the waves. Some appeared to hold copper coins, twists of ribbon, rice, fruit and the stubs of candles, a few still burning. They bobbed along together like some kind of flotilla. It was more of those damned offerings to that ruddy sea god cult. He'd been seeing more of that lately. He spat out a stream, upending a swath of the pads. Ha! Stupid superstitions for fearful times. He could understand such things out in the backwaters of Nap or Geni, but here in Unta? People were supposed to be sophisticated here. He shook his head. What was civilization coming to?

Fist Genist D'Irdrel of Cawn took one glance at Fort Saran and despaired. A four-year stint in this sore on the hind of a mule? Why couldn't command have been moved to the settlement of Seti? Pitiable though it may be. He wiped the sweat-caked sleeve of his grey Malazan jupon once more across his face. Squinting against the glare of the sun, he studied the burnt umber of the low rolling grassland hills, the clumps of faded greenery here and there in cut streams and slumps. But what most caught his attention was the surprisingly large number of Seti camps, collections of their felt and hide tents, gathered around the fort in slums of cookfires, corralled horses and mongrel dogs. By the Gods, he vowed, someone back at staff headquarters was going to pay for this insult.

‘Not so bad if you squint real hard,’ the man riding behind remarked.

Genist swung in his saddle, glared. ‘You said something, Captain?’

The captain, newly transferred to the 15th Horse, shrugged in a way that annoyed Genist. In fact, everything about the man annoyed Genist. The man had only been with the regiment for a few weeks yet almost immediately the sergeants deferred to him — he'd seen how when he gave orders their eyes shifted edge-wise to this captain, Moss, he called himself, for confirmation. Yet there was also something about his sharp eyes, worn gloves and the equally worn sheaths of the two ivory-gripped sabres at his sides that blunted Genist's usual treatment of his subordinates.

Behind them, the double-ranked column of two thousand Malazan cavalry waited silent under the beating sun.

‘Sign the advance,’ Genist snarled to the signaller.

Captain Moss cleared his throat.

‘What now?’ Genist hissed.

The scouts haven't returned from the fort, Commander.’

‘Well, what of it? There it is! The fort! What do we need scouts for, by Hood's own eyes!’

‘It's not regulation.’

‘Regulation!’ Genist blinked, lowered his voice. ‘We're not at the front, you damned fool. This is the centre of the continent.’ Genist took a low breath, turned on the signaller. ‘The advance.’

As they rode, for once Captain Moss said nothing. The man's slowly learning his place, Genist decided. In the distance, cresting the hillocks, groups of mounted Seti cavalry raised plumes of dust into the still hot air. Gods, Genist groaned inwardly. Two years among these half-breed barbarians. What might the whores look like? Probably not a decent one in the whole plains. He squinted at the nearest horsemen — grey fur standard. Wolf soldiers. He scanned the hills, searching. There, to the rear, a white fur standard. Jackal soldiers — the legendary aristocracy of the warrior societies, sworn to the terror of the plains, Ryllandaras, the white jackal. An ancient power of the same blood, so legend went, as the First Heroes themselves. Treach, now Trake, the newly risen god of battle, among them.

Ahead, the tall double doors of Fort Saran opened. The officer of the gate saluted Genist, who nodded his acknowledgement. Within, the central marshalling grounds lay empty. A stone tower stood a squat and broad three storeys at the fort's north palisade wall. Thank the Lady for that, Genist allowed. A delegation awaited before it.

‘Order the assembly,’ he told the signaller, and urged his mount forward. To his irritation, Moss accompanied him. ‘I do not see Fist Darlat.’ Behind them, the cavalry formed up ranks on the grounds.

‘Never met her,’ said Moss.

Instead of Fist Darlat, all that awaited Genist and formal transfer of command was a motley gang of scruffy officers in faded, worn surcoats. Surely they could not be serious! True, Saran was only a fort, but command here was putative Malazan military governor of the entire Seti plains! A region as large as Dal Hon itself to the south. Was this some kind of calculated insult?

Genist pulled up his mount before the gathered officers, examined them for some sign of who was in charge, but failed. He saw no rank insignia or emblems, nothing to distinguish one from the other. They looked alike in their tanned, wind-raw faces and worn equipage. Veterans, one and all. Why here, in the middle of nowhere? Had they been recently rotated in from Seven Cities? As some of his staff suggested Moss may have been? Damn them for staring like that! How dare they?

‘Who commands here? Where is Fist Darlat?’

‘Fist Darlat is indisposed,’ said the eldest of the lot, standing on the extreme left.

Whoever this man was, he had seen many years of hard service. His hacked-short hair stood tufted in all directions. Burn wounding, perhaps. It was sun-bleached pale and grey-shot. His eyes were mere slits in a seamed, wind-scoured face. A black Seti-style recurve bow stood tall at his back.

‘And who are you?’

‘Name's Toc. Toc the Elder.’

After a moment of silence, Genist burst out laughing. ‘Surely you are joking. Not the Toc the Elder, certainly.’

‘Only one I know of.’

Genist glanced to the assembled officers — none were laughing. None, in fact, were smiling. Even Moss now suddenly wore the hardest face Genist had ever seen on the man. ‘But this is fantastic, unheard of. I thought, that is, everyone assumed… you were dead.’

‘Good.’ The man stepped up and stroked the neck of Genist's mount. ‘Fist Genist Urdrel — might I borrow your horse for a few moments?’

Genist gaped at the man. ‘I'm sorry? You'd like to what? Why?’

Captain Moss quickly dismounted. ‘Take mine, sir.’

Toc turned away from Genist. ‘Name, soldier?’

‘Moss. Captain Moss.’

‘Well, thank you, Captain Moss, for the use of your horse.’ Toc the Elder mounted, nodded to the assembled officers and cantered out to the marshalling grounds.

Two of the officers closed on Genist and pulled the reins from his hands. Genist reached for his sword.

‘Wouldn't do that,’ Moss murmured from his side. ‘We're rather outnumbered.’

Genist glared down at him. ‘I have two thousand-’

‘Do you? We'll see.’

‘What by Beru's beard do you mean by that?’

Moss lifted his chin to the grounds behind Genist who turned to stare.

Toc the Elder now walked his mount back and forth before the marshalled ranks. ‘Any veterans among you?’ he shouted in a voice that carried all the way to Genist. ‘Any old-timers from the campaigns? Sergeants? Bannermen? Do you know me? Do you recognize me? Who am I? Shout it out!’

Genist heard responses called but couldn't make out the words. A general mutter swelled among the ranks. Heads turned to exchange words.

‘Do you know me?’ Toc shouted. ‘I was flank commander under Dassem at Valan when Tali fell! I scoured Nom Purge! I brought the Seti into the fold!’

Genist's blood ran cold as he began to consider the possibility that this man could indeed be Toc himself, not some opportunist outlaw trying to exploit the name. Hood's breath! Toc the Elder, the greatest cavalry commander the Empire ever produced! Abyss, there was no Imperial cavalry before this man. Then the man's words brought a shiver to Genist; he recalled who it was that had negotiated the Seti tribal treaties and whom columns of thousands of Seti lancers had followed from these plains across Quon, even into Falar, and he turned, dreading what he might see, to the open fort gates. There, astride their mounts, five tribal elders watched, white furs at their shoulders, lances tufted by fetishes of white fur.

Gods Below! What may be unleashed here?

A call rose from the ranks, gathered cadence to a mounting chant. Toc the Elder! Toc the Elder!’ Blades hissed from sheaths and waved in salute to the sky. ‘Toc the Elder!’

Even Moss, standing beside Genist's mount, thumb brushing his lips, breathed musingly, ‘Toc the Elder…’