Stonewielder

CHAPTER VII

Shell thought the strait of water that ran along the south side of the long narrow island of Korel very calm given the constant storm raging just to the north. It had been snowing for the last three days and nights. She couldn’t recall when she last saw the sky. Thick dark clouds hung so low she thought the masts would scour them. It was dark and bitterly cold. Snow flurries gusted over the boats constantly — an improvement, however, on the numbing sleet that had left her wet and chilled to the bone. So cold was she that she found herself wondering about that rendered fat Ena had been offering.

As their small flotilla approached the Korel shore the Sea-Folk brought her and Lazar over to the boat carrying Blues and Fingers. If anything, Fingers was even more miserable than she. His seasickness had left him weak and now he complained of chills, aches, a racking cough, and a constantly running nose. He spent all his time hunched under blankets at the bows, where they sat with him now.

‘Orzu hasn’t said so,’ Blues began, ‘but if they land there’s a good chance the Korelri will just grab the lot of them.’

‘They must’ve known that from the start,’ Fingers objected, and coughed wetly.

‘That’s why we’re paying them,’ Lazar said.

‘Since we’re talking problems anyway,’ Fingers said, sniffing and hawking something up over the side, ‘maybe Shell should ’fess up about ours.’

Blues sat back against the side as the boat rocked in the rolling waves. It was evening and the Korel shore was a jagged dark line dominating the north. Shell watched his gaze move between them. ‘You mean about this “Lady”.’

‘Un-huh. Look, I know the plan was for us to get hold of Bars then the five of us blast through to a Warren to escape. But you must feel her strength. This is way more than we bargained for back in Stratem. There’s a good chance she could slap us down…’ He coughed, holding his chest and grimacing in pain.

Blues was nodding, eyeing the distant shore. ‘So maybe something more… mundane.’

‘In which case’ — Fingers pressed shut one nostril and blew heroically, emptying the other over the side in a blast of stringy wetness — ‘we’ll need a boat. And a crew.’

Lazar raised his dark brows in silent appreciation. Shell inclined her head to the suffering little man. God’s grin, Fingers. You may be as sick as a dog, but you are your usual cunning self.

Blues turned away, gestured amidships, and called: ‘Get Orzu.’ Then he looked Lazar up and down. ‘You look the part more than any of us. How would you like to be the next Champion of the wall?’

The big man considered, frowning, then spat over the side. ‘I hear the pay is the shits.’

Orzu at first refused. What else could the man do? Shell mused. After all, when four armed and dangerous passengers ask you to sell them into slavery it would be prudent to show some reluctance. Only their continual assurances of their seriousness half convinced him. Then Fingers pointed out that in any case they intended to be let off on the Korel shore, and so he, Orzu, and his clan of Sea-Folk might as well profit from it. The old man finally bowed to that logic.

The deal struck was their bounty in return for one boat, with a minimal volunteer crew, to remain behind until the spring’s turn, celebrated here by bonfires lit in the name of the Lady’s Blessing. For the rendezvous, if any, Orzu suggested a maze of isthmuses, saltwater swamps, and narrows south of the city of Elri. Blues agreed.

Then the man said he had to go ahead to make the arrangements. He peered at them all for a time, a hand pressed to the side of his face, shaking his head, then gave a heavy sigh. ‘You are crazy, you foreigners. But fare you well. May the Old Ones guide you.’

‘You too,’ said Shell.

‘Take care of your family,’ Blues said.

The old man pressed his hand atop his head. ‘Aya! They are so many! Such a burden. It is heavy indeed.’

They took shelter in an isolated cove on the uninhabited south shore of Korel. It seemed the Korelri had no interest in what they named Crack, or sometimes Crooked, Strait. All their attention was reserved for the north, and the threat beyond.

In the morning Ena accosted Shell while she ate a breakfast of fish stew. ‘What foolishness is this I hear?’

‘Foolishness?’ Shell answered mildly.

‘You giving yourselves over to the Korelri? In truth?’

‘Yes.’

The girl-woman made an angry gesture. ‘Stupidity! You will be killed.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Look at you. You are no warrior.’

‘Ena… I’ve served in a mercenary company for a very long time. You’d be surprised.’

‘The Riders…’

‘An enemy like any other. Listen, Ena. You would do whatever you must for your family, yes?’ A guarded angry nod answered that. ‘Very good. And so would I. At least grant me that dignity.’

Again, a slow nod. ‘You do this for your people?’

‘Yes.’

The young woman sat and cradled her broad stomach. ‘I will stay with the boat.’

Now it was Shell’s turn for anger. ‘You most certainly will not.’

‘The Korelri will not harm me.’

‘When are you due?’

An indifferent shrug. ‘Soon.’

‘Can’t have that kind of complication.’

‘Babies are born all the time everywhere. It is not a complication.’

‘It is if it’s not necessary.’

Ena smiled mockingly. ‘Babies are not necessary? You have been too long in your mercenary company, I think.’

That stopped Shell. She could not maintain her anger in the face of chiding from someone certainly younger in years, but perhaps older in other ways, than her. True. There is no stricture. It would not seem to be against the Vow. Why not, then? Time away from duties, I guess. Always something else to do. And now I am too old. Yet, am I? I took the Vow in my twenties… Strange how this had not occurred to me before. Change in company, I suppose.

She studied the girl’s blunt profile while she looked out to sea. Straggly dirty hair, grimed face; yet sharp intelligent dark eyes. ‘Don’t stay with the boat, Ena.’

She smiled wistfully, agreeing. ‘The Elders wouldn’t allow it anyway.’

‘Good luck with your life and your child, Ena.’

‘And you, Shell. May the Old Ones guide you.’

Old Ones? Shell thought about that. Which Old Ones might that be? Burn, she imagined. The Elder Gods. Hood. Mael. D’rek. Osserc? K’rul? Sister Night? That sea-cult that was probably another face of Mael, Chem’esh’el? Who knew? Something chthonic, certainly. Perhaps they should accept all the help they could get, but with the proviso this cult of the Lady presented: one should be careful of whom one accepts help from.

*

The exchange took place on a military pier at the Korelri fortress named Shelter. Shell, Blues, Lazar and Fingers were led up, hands securely tied. It was overcast as usual, a grim dark day. Snow blew about them in flurries. The flat grey fortress walls and the stone pier all had a military look to them. No colour, starkly functional. A troop of guards accepted them. From his dark blue cloak and silver-chased armour, the one leading the detachment was the lone Korelri Stormguard. And he was old, grey-bearded.

He looked them up and down, each in turn, while Orzu watched, clasping and reclasping his hands. Blues and Lazar the Chosen accepted immediately. He stopped in front of Shell.

‘You can fight?’ His accent reminded Shell of the rural Malazan Isle twang.

She raised her bound wrists. ‘Untie me and find out.’

The man ran a hand through her blonde hair, longer now than she usually kept it. ‘Perhaps you could contribute more in one of the brothels.’

Twins’ laughter! I didn’t even think of that! Maybe I have spent too long in a mercenary company.

And so she head-butted him.

He lurched away, gasping his pain, a hand to his nose. Blood gushed over his mouth. The guards leapt forward, weapons sliding from sheaths. But the Stormguard raised his other hand. His eyes were black with rage, yet that rage slipped away and the mouth twisted into a grin revealing blood-stained teeth. ‘Show the Riders your spirit, woman.’

Next he turned to Fingers. He regarded him carefully, his thin shivering frame, pale drawn face, cracked lips, sick watery eyes and running nose, and was not impressed.

‘I don’t want to be in the brothel either,’ Fingers said.

‘Show me your hands,’ the man growled.

Fingers held them up. The Stormguard turned them over, felt the palms. Then there was a metallic click and Fingers yanked his hands away: a dull metal bracelet encircled one wrist.

‘That’s otataral, mage. Don’t try any of your daemon tricks.’

Fingers’ shoulders sagged. He glared at Orzu. ‘Did you tell him? Bastard!’ He went for Orzu but the Stormguard kicked him down. Lazar lashed out, but somehow the Chosen slipped the blow.

Shell was impressed. And he was probably assigned this duty because he was too old to stand the wall. For the first time she wondered just what they had gotten themselves into.

The Stormguard pushed them along. ‘Pay the man, Gellin. Standard bounty.’

‘Standard?’ Orzu yelped. ‘But they are skilled fighters. Champion material.’

‘Oh yes? Then how is it you got the better of them?’

Orzu held up his open hands. ‘Come now, Chosen sir. You are too old for such naivety. Even the greatest fighter must eat and drink. And it is so very easy for d’bayang or white nectar to find its way into such things. And as for the rest… well, then it is all so very easy.’

The old Chosen stomped over to the guard called Gellin and took the bag of coin from him. He threw it down before Orzu, where it split amid the slush and footprints on the stone pier. The coins clattered, some sliding into the water. ‘You disgust me. Take your money and go before I run you through here and now.’

Orzu fell to his knees, bowing and scooping up the coins. ‘Yes, honoured sir. Certainly. Yes.’

Shell wanted to say something, but of course she couldn’t. She allowed herself one glance back: the old man was still on his knees, pocketing the coins, peering up through his hanging grey hair. He did not so much as wink.

She remembered some of her conversations with Ena; thought of deception and false fronts. For generations this was how the Sea-Folk survived. And now we, too, have elected for that same strategy. I can only hope our own subterfuge will prove as successful.

Devaleth found the nightly staff gatherings increasingly uncomfortable. The remaining Roolian force had held them at the bridge for four days now. Each time a push gathered yardage, or established a foothold on the opposite shore, a counterattack from elite forces, mainly the Black Moranth, pushed them back. The narrow width of the bridge was now their bottleneck. And they were stuck in it.

Greymane’s van had arrived near dawn of the night they took the bridge, scattering the remaining Roolian forces on the east shore. Unfortunately, the forced marching had taken its toll and his troops could not break through.

It was winter, and food was scarce. What meagre supplies Greymane’s forces had carried with them were exhausted. Foraging parties ranged everywhere. Any effort to harvest fish from the Ancy was met with bow-fire from the opposite shore. Not one horse or mule remained. Some troops now boiled leather, moss and grasses. Fist Khemet’s relief column, escorting all their logistics, was still a week away.

They had to break through soon, before they were too weak to fight at all.

The stalemate was taking its toll on the High Fist. He obviously felt the suffering of his troops. His temper was hair-thin and increasingly it sharpened itself on one target: the Untan aristocrat, Fist Rillish. Greymane stood leaning forward on to the field table, arms out, long hair hanging down obscuring his face. Kyle sat beside him, legs out straight. Devaleth hung back close to the tent flap as if waiting for an excuse to flee. Fist Rillish stood rigid, back straight, helmet under one arm.

‘One more assault…’ Greymane ground out, as he had these last days.

‘With respect, the troops are too weak, sir,’ Rillish countered, again.

Greymane raised his head just enough to glare at the Fist. ‘The more time passes, the weaker they are!’

The nobleman did not flinch. ‘Yes, High Fist.’

‘Then what do you suggest?’

Rillish drew a deep breath, pushed on. ‘That we defend.’

‘Defend? Defend! Defence has not gotten us this far! If we could just break through there is nothing between us and Paliss!’

‘Yes, High Fist. But we cannot. Therefore we should dig in, defend. Wait for Fist Khemet’s column.’

Greymane’s bright blue gaze, almost feverish in the tent’s gloom, shifted to Kyle. ‘What do you say?’

The Adjunct shifted uncomfortably, the chair leather creaking beneath him. He cleared his throat. ‘I am no trained officer, of course… But I have to agree with the Fist.’

‘It is sound, High Fist,’ Devaleth cut in.

Without turning his head to acknowledge her, he grated, ‘I did not ask you.’

‘Sir!’ Rillish objected.

The High Fist pushed himself from the table, scattering maps. He went to a sideboard and poured a drink. Tossing it back, he slammed down the glass. ‘Very well. Fist Rillish, order the troops to raise defences across the west approach to the bridge and to hunker down.’

Rillish bowed. ‘Yes, High Fist.’ He nodded to Kyle and Devaleth, pushed aside the flap. Greymane watched him go, his mouth sour.

Kyle stood. ‘Greymane…’

But the High Fist threw himself into a chair, his chin sinking to his chest, arms hanging loose at his sides. ‘Not now, Kyle.’

Devaleth edged her head to the flap; Kyle nodded reluctantly. ‘Goodnight,’ he offered.

Greymane did not answer.

They walked side by side in silence for a time and then Devaleth cleared her throat. ‘You have seen him like this before?’ she asked.

Kyle’s first reaction was to deny it, but he paused, acknowledging it. ‘Yes. He can be very… emotional.’

Devaleth nodded her agreement. ‘I believe your friend is very frightened.’

‘Frightened? What do you mean?’

‘I mean just what I said, frightened. Kyle, you were not here for the first invasion. I was in training in Mare. I heard first-hand accounts. I’ve read histories of the campaign. Kyle, I think he sees it all happening to him again. That first time they were held up in Rool. Delay followed delay. Eventually, they never made it out. I think he fears it will be the same this time, like some sort of awful recurring nightmare.’

The young plainsman turned away. To the west the Ancy flowed like a dark banner beneath overcast skies. Camp fires dotted the valley across the river. Devaleth knew that they had food and supplies. Here, the troopers hoped for snow so that they could eat it.

‘But it won’t happen again,’ he said, certain. ‘This time it’s different.’

‘Yes. We may not even make it to Rool.’

He spun to her. ‘No. I don’t accept that. The army facing us is fragile, pressed to its limit. I can sense it.’

She crossed her arms. Her tangled hair blew in the frigid wind and she pushed it aside. ‘So are we.’

‘So what are you saying, woman? Come, out with it.’ His tone almost said the word traitor.

She held her face flat. ‘It is early yet. And speaking of fragility, is it not fragile to fall apart at the first sign of resilience in the enemy?’

She arched one brow and turned away.

Kyle did not answer, but looking back, Devaleth saw him still standing there, peering out over the river, presumably reflecting on her words. She was fairly confident she’d made her point, and that this young man would make the same point to his friend.

The Army of Reform now straggled like an immense snake over the southern Jourilan plains. Ivanr no longer marched with his brigade; Lieutenant Carr had that in hand. The overcast winter skies continued to threaten rain that rarely came. Jourilan cavalry utterly surrounded them, harrying and probing, though not yet massed for a sustained charge. Ivanr didn’t think it would be long before that day came.

In all his searching he still hadn’t found the nameless lad he had rescued. What he did find was that he was accreting a bodyguard. Slowly, day by day, more and more fighters, men and women, surrounded him in the lines or marched nearby. It annoyed him that ranks of guards should stand between him and the regular troopers, but nothing he said would deter these self-selected bodyguards. They wore plain armour and for weapons favoured either the sword or a spear haft set with a long curved single-edged blade named, simply enough, a sword-spear. Most, Ivanr noted, were sworn to the cult of Dessembrae.

They even claimed to have frustrated two assassination attempts. ‘Frustrated?’ he’d demanded, disbelieving. ‘How?’ Their stubborn gazes sliding aside to one another told him his answer. ‘No more killing!’ he ordered and they bowed.

This morning, just after the long train had roused itself enough to begin moving, a few of their remaining mounted scouts came galloping from the far advance. Something ahead. Ivanr scanned the horizon; hardly any Imperial cavalry in sight. Not good. If they were not here, they were all somewhere else.

Later, during the march, word came via that soldiers’ gossip-train of word of mouth that the Jourilan cavalry had been spotted ahead. They were pulling together to the west of the army’s line of march. If the cavalry were finally forming up, then it seemed to Ivanr that Martal would have to respond — though just how she could respond still remained a mystery to him. This was the crux where most of the past uprisings and peasant rebellions had been smashed: the impact of horseflesh and the trampling and lancing of panicked civilians.

The march continued as usual that day, however, until late afternoon, when the order came to make camp. All through the evening, bivouacking, hovering around fires, the men and women of the Army of Reform could not help gazing to the distant hillside where the bright pennants of the Imperial cavalry flew in the wind; where tall tents of white linen glowed warm and bright from within, and the occasional nicker of a horse reached them through the night.

This facade of normality as if nothing had changed, the calm ordering of the camp, all of it infuriated Ivanr. Meeting the cavalry in open battle was exactly what the Imperials wanted; that was their game. Martal should not play it. Yet try as he might, he could not see any alternative to the failed old tactics of forming up obligingly to meet the enemy. It never worked for any of the past uprisings and peasant movements, and he could not imagine it working now.

He could not help snorting and chuffing his frustration. He would eye the distant encampment then turn away to prowl before his tent, rubbing his jaw, thinking, the eyes of his bodyguards following him, until finally he could stand it no more and he stalked off to talk to Beneth.

He found the old man ensconced in his tent as he always was, heaped in blankets next to a travelling hearth, his eyes covered. Even as he entered Beneth spoke. ‘Greetings, Ivanr.’

Ivanr froze. ‘How did you-’ The man was blind!

Beneth gave his wry smile. ‘Who else could shake the camp with his fury?’

‘I have good reason, Beneth. What is the plan-’

‘Of course you believe yourself fully justified,’ Beneth cut in. ‘Doesn’t certitude stand behind both sides in almost all confrontations?’

‘The situation doesn’t call for philosophy, old man.’

‘No? Then just what does it call for?’

Ivanr thrust a hand out to the north. ‘Withdrawal! We should keep moving as we have been. Cooperating like this only plays into their hands. And you’ll have dragged all these people to their deaths.’

The tent flap was thrown aside and Martal came in. She wore her dark travel-stained leathers. Her hair was unkempt and sweaty from her helm. She regarded Ivanr thinly. ‘Your lack of faith is troubling, Grand Champion.’

Again, he could not read the woman’s guarded angular face: was she serious? Or mocking? More than ever he was certain she was from foreign lands. ‘Faith? Faith in what? It’s faith that has brought us all these troubles.’

‘In that at least we are agreed.’ She crossed to a table, pulled off her gloves and began washing her hands in a basin.

‘Ivanr is worried about the morrow,’ Beneth offered.

‘I do not have the time to reassure every jumpy trooper,’ she said into the basin, and splashed her face.

Reassure! Ivanr gaped, absolutely furious. How dare she! ‘I demand-’

She turned on him. ‘You are in no position to demand anything! And your little show of pique has only unnerved everyone further. I am not used to being questioned by my subordinates, Brigade Commander. I suggest that if everyone does their job tomorrow we will have a good chance of victory. More than that, no responsible commander can promise her people.’

‘I can hardly do my job if I do not even know what it is.’

The woman was drying her hands on a cloth. ‘Ivanr… you have been a champion, not a soldier. Whereas I have been a soldier all my life. Your job is now that of the soldier — to follow orders. The simplest, and the hardest, of jobs. If there is secrecy regarding plans and tactics, remember that our camp is rotten with spies. We dare not reveal anything yet.’

A long exhaled breath took much of Ivanr’s tension with it; he found himself agreeing with this demanding woman. Secrecy for secrecy’s sake he scorned. Spies he could understand. So, the best she was willing to offer at this time was the indirect promise that something was in the works. Very well. He inclined his head in assent. ‘I’m only worried for the safety of my people.’

‘I know, Ivanr. Otherwise I would not even be talking to you.’

He snorted at that. ‘Well. Thank you for your condescension.’

Her smile was utterly cold. ‘Of course.’

He bowed to Beneth. ‘Tomorrow, then.’

‘Good luck, Ivanr.’

‘My thanks.’

After the tent flap fell the two within were silent for a time. Beneth inhaled to speak, but Martal forestalled him. ‘I know!’

‘You are too harsh.’

‘If he wilts then he is hardly worthy, is he?’

‘She chose him.’

‘I certainly didn’t,’ she muttered, taking a mouthful of bread.

The old man’s expression softened. ‘You’ve been spoiled, Martal.’

The woman was nodding her agreement as she sat among the piled blankets, sighing her exhaustion. ‘There was only ever one champion worthy of the name.’

‘You must let all that go. This one is no longer a champion, nor will he be required to serve as one again.’

‘Then why is he here?’

The old man was silent for a time in the dark. He brought a wavering hand up to touch the cloth across his eyes. ‘I am tiring, Martal… the pressure she is bringing to bear upon us is almost unsupportable. She knows what might be coming and she is desperate-’

The woman sprang to her feet. ‘No! No more such talk.’

‘Martal…’

‘No.’ She snatched up her gloves and a goatskin of water. ‘You are why we are here.’ She stormed out, leaving the old man alone in the gloom. He winced, pressing his fingertips into his brow.

‘I’m sorry, child. It has all come so late. So damned late.’

*

Ivanr sat on a collapsible camp stool, glowering into the fire. He couldn’t sleep. All that had been said, that could have been said, that wasn’t said, tramped in maddening circles in his mind. Was he a good commander? He thought he was. He believed he had the best interests of his people at heart. What more could be asked? But was he a commander of this army? What had been his own opinion not so long ago? That an army was like a snake — it shouldn’t have two heads. Had he been agitating to become that extra head? Surely not! He hadn’t asked the Priestess to name him her successor! Was it his fault then that many looked to him? No, of course not.

Was Martal threatened? Did she see him as a rival? No. That was not worthy. She’d given him the brigade for the sake of all these opportunistic gods! No, that was not it. It was him. He’d expected the treatment he’d been given as a Grand Champion, but here he was merely a new face. That was it.

He lowered his head and clenched it in his hands. Damn the Lady! He’d behaved like some sort of aristocrat demanding privileges! He groaned. Foreign gods! Just the sort of behaviour that made him sick.

‘Ivanr,’ a woman said nearby. ‘Ivanr?’

Head squeezed in both hands he croaked, ‘Leave me alone.’

‘Poor Grand Champion! Having a pout, are we?’

‘Who the-’ Ivanr peered up to see ragged shapeless skirts rising to the wide midriff and layered shawls of the old woman, Sister Gosh. She held a long-stemmed clay pipe in her blackened teeth, and her hair was a wild mess of grey curls. He lowered his head. ‘What do you want?’

‘Need your help. Gotta run an errand.’

‘Go away.’

‘No. Has to be you. In the blood, you could say.’

He straightened, frowning. All about the camp fire his self-appointed guards lay asleep. He eyed the woman narrowly. ‘What’s going on?’

She drew a slim wooden box from her shawl, shook it. Something rattled within. ‘Martal wants rain. We’re gonna get her some.’ She shook the box again. ‘Skystones to bring it.’

He snorted. ‘You don’t believe those old stories and superstitions. Stones from the sky!’

The woman’s lips drew down, sour. She sucked heavily on the pipe, exhaling twin plumes from her nose. ‘’Struth! Like to like.

Once touching, always so. These are the old truths. Long before anything. Houses or such.’

‘What do you need me for?’

‘They’ll recognize you.’

‘Who-’

A tall shape emerged from the gloom: a pale fellow in ragged black clothes, hands clasped behind his back. ‘Time, Sister,’ he called.

‘Yes, yes!’ She urged Ivanr up. ‘Come.’

Still he did not rise. ‘Who’s this?’

‘A compatriot.’

‘What have you done to my guards?’

Sister Gosh waved a hand impatiently. ‘Nothing. They sleep. If they awoke they would see you gone. Now come.’

He stood, peered around at the darkness. ‘Gone? Where?’

She headed off. ‘The land here sleeps, Ivanr. We have entered its memories. Come.’

He followed, if only to ask more questions. ‘Memories? The past?’

She took the pipe from her mouth, spat. ‘Not the true past, the real past. Only a memory of it. See ahead?’ She pointed the pipe.

It was a shallow bowl in the countryside far to the east of the encampment. There, two figures awaited them, another man and a woman. The woman was petite, perhaps even older than Sister Gosh, her face as dark as ironwood, hair pulled back in a tight bun; the man was a short skinny fellow, his hair and beard a tangled mess. The man was digging at something. He called, ‘Here! Hurry!’

It was some sort of smooth domed stone. As the fellow wiped it clean Ivanr realized it was a fisted knot of dirty ice. ‘What is this?’

‘Look behind you,’ the other woman invited.

He turned, saw a distant wall of ice white and emerald blue. Horizon to horizon it stretched, shot by refractions of light. ‘What is it?’ he breathed, awed.

‘Do you not recognize the Great Ice Barrier?’ Sister Gosh asked, having come to his side. ‘Or the Barrier as it was, ages ago?’

‘Time!’ the tall one insisted again.

‘Yes, Carfin.’ Sister Gosh indicated the other woman: ‘Sister Esa.’ The bearded man: ‘Brother Jool.’

With an effort, Ivanr kept his gaze from the distant icefield. So it’s true. The Barrier once covered all these lands.

‘The stones?’ Jool asked. Sister Gosh raised the box and it seemed to fly to him on its own. It struck his hand with a loud slap.

‘What is this?’ a new voice called and everyone turned, then relaxed. Another older man emerged from the gloom, bearded, in tattered finery. ‘The Synod has not convened! This has not been agreed!’

‘We agreed to act, Totsin,’ Sister Esa snapped.

The newcomer drew himself up straight. ‘Ritual magic? Consorting with Elders? This exceeds all Synod procedural conventions.’

‘What conventions?’ Jool asked, frowning.

‘Time is wasting!’ Carfin called out, rising panic in his voice.

Totsin opened his hands. ‘Well… obviously it’s understood that anything extreme would endanger us all…’

‘We’re pretty much all here,’ Sister Gosh observed tartly.

‘This will draw her!’ Totsin hissed.

‘That tends to happen when you actually do something.’

‘I want no part of it.’

Sister Gosh peered round at everyone. ‘Ah — we didn’t invite you.’

Totsin took hold of his chin. His brows rose high in shocked surprise. ‘I see. Well… I’ll go then.’

‘Yes. Go then.’

Bowing, the man turned and walked off to disappear into the night as if stepping behind shadows.

‘I sense her attention!’ Brother Carfin called. ‘Prepare him!’

‘This place is of your kind, Ivanr,’ Sister Gosh said, facing him. ‘Toblakai is one name. Your ancestors came here to make propitiations, offerings. Like to like. Power to power. It is the old way.’ She drew a wicked-looking thin curved blade from within her shawls. ‘Give me your hand.’

He resisted the urge to hide his hands behind his back. ‘For what?’

‘A small cut. Then you rub that hand over the ice. We will do the rest.’

‘That is it?’ he asked, dubious.

‘Yes.’

He held out his left hand. She slit his palm in a swift — rather practised — flick. ‘On the ice, now!’

‘She comes,’ Carfin intoned, his voice catching.

Ivanr knelt and ran his hand over the knotted lump. At first it was cold under his palm but quickly it warmed. He was shaken to see no trace of blood left behind. Something shook the ground to the north and Sister Gosh growled in her throat like a beast. He glanced over but saw nothing in the dark.

‘She should not have found us so easily,’ Jool said.

‘The tiles,’ Sister Gosh barked to him, then, ‘Carfin, Esa. Do something.’

Something halfway between a sob and a groan escaped the tall fellow, Carfin, as he walked stiffly off. ‘Madness!’ he said to the night, his voice choking. ‘Madness.’ It seemed to Ivanr that wisps of utter darkness now spun about the man like fluttering scarves. Sister Esa knelt to gather handfuls of mud, then followed.

Jool pressed a thin wooden tile to the ice, which hissed, steaming.

‘Now call your gods,’ Sister Gosh told Ivanr.

He peered up at her, frowning. ‘What?’

‘Call them. Hurry!’

‘How?’

‘How?’ She gaped at him, almost dropping her pipe. ‘What do you mean, how?’

‘I’ve never… that is… our old gods and ways are gone. Listen — you never said anything about praying or anything like that!’

She and Jool shared a strained look. In the dark, something shook the ground again and a high-pitched keening started up. ‘Cowled one help us now,’ she muttered. ‘Look. In your mind call to your ancestors. All the way back — as far as you can reach. Do it!’

Feeling like an utter fool, Ivanr strove to comply. He imagined his ancestors, generation before generation, all serried off into the past like an infinite regression, back as far as possible. And he called to them.

‘Sister Esa and Carfin have fled,’ Jool announced.

‘Then it’s up to me,’ Sister Gosh answered.

‘Good luck.’

Ivanr opened his eyes, straightened. Jool was backing away, box held high, shaking it like a musical instrument. Sister Gosh threw the pipe away; it streamed an arc of embers as it went. She took a quick nip from a silver flask that disappeared just as swiftly into her shawls. ‘Are you with me?’ she asked Ivanr, her gaze fixed to the north.

From the dark, a soft crying-like keening started up again.

‘What is it?’ Ivanr asked.

‘If flesh — our flesh — can be blasphemed… this would be it.’

He grasped at his belt: he was unarmed. ‘What can I do?’

‘Stop it from reaching the shrine. Or me. Or Jool.’

Ivanr raised a brow. ‘Right…’

Behind, Jool shook the box ever faster until its rattling seemed a continuous hissing. Ivanr had no idea what he was to do. ‘How do I-’

A shape lumbered out of the dark. Its appearance almost sent Ivanr running. Very large, fully as tall as he, humanoid, yes, but more like a sculpture of flesh: pale fish-white, so obese as to seem poured of fat. And atop the heap of bulging flesh, a tiny baby’s head, hairless, mouth wet with drool, babbling and crying.

‘Gods!’ Ivanr cursed, wincing his disgust, his stomach rising to sour his mouth.

Sister Gosh threw her hands down as if pushing at the ground before the thing. The topsoil beneath it was gouged apart as if by a scythe. The thing rocked backwards, keening and gibbering — in pain or fear, Ivanr could not tell. The naked ground under its feet heaved and roiled like mud. Heat coursed so intensely from the old woman that Ivanr had to step away. The thing pushed ahead once more. A colossal leg sucked free of the dirt to swing forward.

‘Damn the gods, she’s strong,’ Sister Gosh snarled through clenched teeth. ‘Do something!’

‘Do what?’

‘Stop it!’

‘All right!’ He edged up to the gash of mud. He noted that the water that fed it was melting from the knob of ancient ice. The monstrosity seemed to be ignoring him as it fought to make headway. Gingerly, he stepped into the mud. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so. He crouched, arms out, and launched himself forward to take the thing at its huge belly. Striking it was like sinking into a vat of blubber. He heaved, legs bent, straining.

The creature did not even seem to notice him. It continued lumbering ungainly, attempting to advance. One swinging great tree trunk of an arm gave him a fearful blow to the back but he didn’t think it deliberate. All the while the creature kept up a babble that sounded eerily like an infant’s mouthings.

Another blow cracked against Ivanr’s head, sending him face down into the mud. He rolled aside before the thing could trample him, deliberately or not. Heavy with the clinging dirt, he rose and threw himself on its back. He hooked an elbow beneath its tiny chin and squeezed as tightly as he could. So far the thing’s rolling empty eyes seemed not to have even rested upon him. But now that he had a choking grip, the head turned and wide-open eyes found him. Ivanr believed that he could have held on, could have finished the monstrosity, but at that moment words emerged from within its baby-like babble and a child’s voice begged, ‘Help me.’

Shocked and horrified, he lost his grip and slid down the thing’s mud-slick back.

Jool let out a shout then, the rattling of the box deafening. There was an eruption like a thunder blast directly overhead, accompanied by a blinding flash and the sound of multiple impacts thudding into the creature like sling bullets. It tottered, mewling and whimpering, and fell face forward. Ivanr lay in the mud, staring. All the gods forgive them. Had that been a child?

He tried to sit up and realized that he was sinking. Panic seized him. The mud had his legs and arms in a grip of iron. He almost laughed hysterically as all he could think to shout was, ‘Help me!’

Sister Gosh called something but he couldn’t make it out as the mud had his ears. He saw her pointing, her mouth moving. ‘Do something!’ was all he managed before the wet choking glop filled his mouth, stopping his breath, and the fire of complete terror burned all conscious thoughts from his mind. His last impression was of something even more crushing taking hold of him like an immense fist round his middle, and squeezing him.

He awoke on the floor of his tent, a scream of terror echoing in his ears. The flap shot open and two of his guards bolted in, weapons bared. Ivanr peered around, blinking; the guards stared at him. He noted that water ran from them. In fact, the deafening drumming of a downpour hammered the tent’s roof. He stood to push past them and look out: sheets of rain were coursing down like a lake upended.

He turned to the guards, who were still eyeing him, uncertain. ‘I thought I was drowning.’

They laughed, sheathed their swords. He let them out then stood for a time at the open flap watching the rain hammer down. Wet and muddy tomorrow. So Martal had her rain as she wished. Yet surely she couldn’t have been counting on it. It was all so uncertain — she must have more than this pulled together. Or so he hoped.

Tomorrow then. They’d all find out tomorrow. He lay back down to try to get some sleep.

The downpour lasted all through the night. A cloudburst. As if all the month’s rain had been stopped up only to come blasting out in a single night. It was still falling so heavily in the morning that Ivanr could not make out the distant Jourilan Imperial cavalry. He pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulders and squinted against the sheets of water as he made his rounds. Cold drops ran from his helmet to his neck and he kept his hands tucked inside his belt to warm them. The ground had become sodden and pulled at his sandals as he walked. It seemed to him that Martal had placed her cohorts too deeply, on too narrow a front. What if the lancers wheeled round them? It looked as if there was room to edge past on the right flank where the ground fell off slightly towards a copse. True, the ranks had been trained to fend off in more than one direction, but they were untested, and there could be a panic if the enemy appeared from another quarter. Or the cavalry could ignore the infantry entirely to scour the train where it had been gathered together in a camp on the far side of the trunk road. This time, however, he kept his misgivings to himself and hoped that Martal was holding Hegil Lesour ’an ’al and his remaining cavalry in reserve for just such a danger.

He walked the lines, trailed by his bodyguard. Men and women in the ranks called to him and it took some time before he understood the shout: ‘Deliverer.’ Deliverer? When had that started? He sensed the cynical hand of Martal behind the word. He scanned the hillside where it dissolved into the grey misted rain. It seemed the deluge had delayed the Imperials. They were no doubt waiting for the worst to pass. Very well. What to do? The truth was he felt completely useless. What would be his role now? Carr had the brigade in hand; lingering there would only undermine the man’s authority. Foreign gods, where even to stand? To the rear with Martal? No, that would only make both of them uncomfortable. He should go where he could do the most good. That meant the lines; his presence might save lives among the troops, harden the unit against breaking.

He went to find Carr.

Scarves of fog traced their way across the field and between the cohorts, making the silent men and women seem an army of ghosts. His cloak hung heavy and sodden, though warmed now by his body heat; his feet, however, in soaked swathings and leather sandals, were clotted in mud and chilled numb.

He found the lieutenant to the rear of the brigade, flanked by messengers. Carr bowed. ‘Ivanr.’

Ivanr answered the salute. ‘Permission to join the front line, Lieutenant.’

The man’s brows wrinkled. ‘I thought you took a vow against killing…’

‘True. But I never said anything about horses.’

The lieutenant seemed to be taken by a coughing fit. ‘Ah! Well, then, by all means…’

Saluting, Ivanr chose a pike from the weapons standing in reserve and joined the lines. He took a kind of cruel satisfaction seeing the five men and three women of his guard likewise take up pikes to join him. Good! If they really are skilled, then maybe we’ve just strengthened this unit more than our presence disturbs it.

The heat of the climbing sun thinned the clouds, though they did not disperse entirely. The fog clung to the lowest hollows and coursed over the neighbouring cohorts, leaving only the tops of the pikes pointing up like a forest of markers. The hillsides drifted into view, revealing rank after rank of horsemen, each as still as a statue. The only movement was the occasional shake of a horse’s head, the only noise the faint jingle of harness. Ivanr studied the lines. Lady’s curse, there were a lot of them. More must have arrived in the night. He saw few of the heaviest of the heavies: the mailed Jourilan aristocrat on a fully caparisoned warhorse. The vast majority were Imperial lancers supported by light cavalry.

Then horns sounded from the hillsides: the Imperial call to readiness. Ivanr wiped the cold mist from his face, raised an arm. ‘Stay firm! They’ll break if you stay firm!’ Another blast of the horns and the front ranks started forward. The low rumbling of the thousands of hooves reached him as a distant shudder in the ground. ‘Crowd up! Brace yourselves!’

The enemy’s pace quickened, reaching a gallop. Lances came levering down to be tucked firmly under arms. Even Ivanr, who had faced countless opponents over a lifetime of training and combat, felt the almost overwhelming urge to run, to flinch away, to be anywhere but in front of this mountain of horseflesh about to crush him. That these men and women, ex-villagers, farmers, burgher craftsmen and women, should somehow find the determination and courage to stand firm shamed and awed him. All gods, true and false, where do people find such resolve? Where does it come from? Ivanr was the closest he’d yet come to conversion to some idea of divine inspiration.

Then the landslide struck.

He’d deliberately aimed low, meaning to take a horse in the chest. But despite their training and the rough spurring of their lancer masters, the mounts could not be forced to wade straight into the solid wall of unmoving humans. They sawed aside at the last instant, or reared. Ivanr’s pike took one low in the shoulder and was almost torn from his grasp as the horse continued on aslant of the formation. Elsewhere, the formation was uneven in places where a horse tumbled into the lines, kicking and thrashing, screaming amid the cohort. But the majority of the charge milled ineffectually at the rear of the first wave, only to edge on round, picking up speed once more, aiming for another unit.

‘Form up!’ Ivanr bellowed, panting, his blood thrumming within him. He strained to watch the manoeuvring. Would they take on another cohort? Or would they make for the train? Where were the blasted skirmishers? He realized they couldn’t take charge of the field without breaking formation. There was no way to stop the charges. Where were all those blasted archers Martal was training?

He watched with tightening dread as a second charge formed up unmolested, the horses nickering and stamping.

Damn the gods! They could keep this up all day. All they needed was one solid strike. A bit of luck. He and the troopers were safe in their cohorts — but they were also just as effectively trapped.

*

From a wooded hillock overlooking the camp of the Army of Reform, Sister Nebras sat next to her smouldering fire and knitted. She pulled her layered shawls tighter, keeping one eye on the gathered camp, the assembled carriages, the corralled horses, staked dray animals, carts and tents. Somewhere within that train the heart of the movement against the Lady, its voice and rallying point for nearly half a century, lay dying.

And she did what she could to help him hang on.

The uproar of warfare reached her as animal screams, the commingled roaring of thousands of throats and the rumbling of massed hooves somewhere beyond the misted rain where slanting shafts of sunlight broke through here and there. But all that commotion was no business of hers. She was embroiled in the real battle; the true duel of wills and intent that would guide these lands for the next century. She and her sisters and brothers had committed themselves, finally stepped out into the open to declare their opposition.

And it was about damned time, too.

Yet Beneth was dying. He’d directly resisted the Lady for decades. She had no idea how he’d done it. Sister Nebras was a witch, a manipulator of chthonic spirits and the lingering wells of power at ancient shrines, cairns and ritual sites. And she had no illusions regarding her strength. In her youth she’d travelled abroad, sensed the aura of true magi — in Malaz she knew she’d be regarded as no more than a hedge-witch. Yet Beneth delved into none of these sources. He merely set his will against the Lady, whom Sister Nebras regarded not as the goddess she claimed to be, but rather as a sort of force of nature, if not a natural one. How did he do it? His very success unfortunately undermined her own personal thesis that one need not resort to the divine to explain any of this. She knitted with greater fury, the wooden needles a blur.

It was most irksome.

A presence nearby, and she tilted her head to peer aside through her thick pewter-grey hair. ‘I see you there, Totsin. No sneaking up on ol’ Nebras.’

Totsin bowed, a hand at his ragged beard. ‘Sister Nebras.’ He stepped up out of the woods.

‘What are you doing here? The Lady’s gaze is near.’

Totsin nodded gravely. ‘Yes. That’s why I’ve come.’ He sighed, rueful. ‘I’ve come to lend a hand.’

‘Ha! There’s a turn to startle everyone! Well, though damned late, you’re welcome. I would be lying if I said I did not need the help. The burden is-’

Sister Nebras froze, needles poised. Glaring off to the woods she leapt to her feet. ‘By all the- She’s here! She slipped in behind you!’

Totsin spun, mouth open. ‘I sensed nothing…’

‘Idiot! Well, too late now.’ She dropped her knitting to raise her hands. ‘Ready yourself — we must fight.’

‘Yes, Sister Nebras. We must fight,’ he answered, his voice pained.

She glanced aside, unsure at his tone. ‘What…?’

Totsin unleashed a blast of force that threw Sister Nebras from her feet to fly crashing into a thick birch trunk that quivered from the blow. She fell in a heap, back broken, staring up at the sky. He stood over her, peering down.

‘Any last insults?’ he asked.

‘You will die…’ she breathed.

He shrugged. ‘Undoubtedly — but long after you.’

She mouthed: ‘… why…?’

A shining light was approaching, casting stark shadows of light and dark among the trees. Totsin bowed to the source somewhere out of her vision then returned to her. ‘Why, you ask? Surely that ought to be clear. You and the others pay me no deference. You mock me. Defy my wishes. I have seniority. I am a founding member. I am in charge! I will recruit a new Synod. One where it will be absolutely clear that I am the ranking member and no one will dare challenge me!’

‘Totsin…’

‘Yes?’

‘You couldn’t be in charge of a privy.’ And Sister Nebras laughed, coughing, to heave up a mouthful of blood that drenched her chin and shirt-front.

Totsin frowned his disgust and turned away. He bowed down on one knee before a floating brightness that held the wavering outline of a robed woman.

‘Well done, Totsin Jurth the Third,’ came a woman’s soft voice, filling the clearing. ‘The Synod is yours to mould as you wish. For is that not your right? Your obligation? As founding member and most senior practitioner?’

‘I am yours, Most Blessed Lady.’

‘And now I must go,’ said the vision, regret tingeing its voice. ‘I am so very late for a much overdue visit. Until later, most loyal servant.’

Totsin bowed his head to the ground. When he raised it she was gone and the clearing was dark once more. He straightened his vest, brushed his sleeves, then walked off into the woods already thinking ahead, wondering which minor — very minor — talents he might approach once all this unpleasantness was behind him.

*

Ivanr held the broken haft of his pike in one hand while waving back the line. ‘One step back!’ Twice already he’d nearly tripped over the fallen — theirs and the enemy’s. He also limped where a wounded Imperial had stabbed him in the foot. That was the problem with twelve-foot pikes… useless for infighting. Panting, he regripped the broken haft, squinted into the thinning mist. Was it another rush? Disembodied horns sounded a recall across the slope. Somewhere to the east a cohort had shattered and the Imperials had descended like kites on meat to run down the fleeing refugees. Now the cavalry were reforming higher on the hillside, readying for another rush and choosing their targets at will. Damn Martal! Had she placed all the skirmishers with the train? Where were they? He was of half a mind to find her. But of course he wouldn’t: not because of the likelihood of being trampled, but because of what the men and women would think seeing him run off.

A great mass of lancers, the largest remaining body of them, came thundering down to the west, thinning across their front as they went. Ivanr watched them pass — damn them! Bored with taking runs at us they’re off for the train!

Troops of about fifty lancers coursed among the cohorts to keep them pinned. They swung about, charging, but mostly sawing off at the last instant to avoid the pikes. At least they too had no archers, Ivanr thought ruefully. The men and women of the cohort peered about, blinking. ‘Keep formation!’ Ivanr bellowed. ‘They’ll be back!’

He swallowed, parched, glancing down to the south, waiting for the telltale plume of smoke, the screams, the refugees fleeing the wreckage of the train.

But nothing appeared. Silence. Occasionally the smaller troops thundered past, threatening them, but by now the cohorts mostly ignored them — they hadn’t the mass to press any attack. Then, from the west, one by one, and in larger squads, bowmen and women appeared — theirs. They halted to pull back their child-like short-bows to loose in unison then retreated back to the distant woods.

The lancers curved in upon them, charging across the field, only to suddenly rein up as a great dark cloud came arcing overhead, descending in a hissing swath, smacking into chests, limbs, shoulders. Horses screamed, rearing. Men fell unhorsed or dead already. The nearest cohort roared and charged. Pikes took mounts and men in ghastly impaling slashing wounds to heave them over. Ivanr felt his own cohort quivering to join the melee and he raised an arm: ‘Steady! Keep formation!’

To the west a deep roar sounded from the misted lowlands and out charged muddy waves of archers numbering in the thousands. Ivanr felt the knotted tension of battle uncoil in his stomach. He straightened, resting his weight on the shattered pike haft, letting out a long low breath.

‘At ease!’ came Lieutenant Carr’s command from the rear. The waves of archers overran them, searching for more cavalry. Men and women among the cohort cheered them as they dashed past, some grinning. Ivanr noted muddy Imperial cavalry helmets bouncing from the belts of some of those who ran by. He turned to congratulate the men and women around him, squeezing shoulders and murmuring a few compliments. Then he limped off to find Carr.

The lieutenant was still at the rear, and he saluted. Responding, Ivanr saw a sabre cut across the man’s shoulder. He knew the rear had been charged a number of times; he’d felt it in the animal-like flinching of the cohort as the impact reverberated through the tightly packed ranks. It seemed the lieutenant had been fighting outside the lines the entire time. ‘Permission to leave formation.’

Grinning, Carr nodded, wiped his face. ‘Of course. And thank you. You steadied the front enormously… no one wanted to be seen giving way.’

Ivanr waved that aside. ‘Congratulations, Lieutenant. Well done.’

He limped off across the churned slope, heading west. His bodyguard, the remaining two men and two women, followed closely.

As he walked the gentle slope the dark bodies of fallen horses and riders emerged from the mist. The grisly humps gathered in numbers until a swath of butchered cavalry choked the landscape. Ivanr flinched back as one sandal sank into oozing yielding mush. A marsh? There had been no such feature here yesterday. Horses thrashed weakly, exhausted and mud-smeared, disturbing the ghostly scene. Every lancer had been cut down by bow-fire right where they’d stuck. A merciless slaughter. Tracing the route, Ivanr saw it all in his mind’s eye: the swooping charge, the sudden lurching massing, the milling confusion. Then from the woods archers emerging to fire at will. And this boggy lowland; Sister Gosh’s skystones abetted by his own blood?

A horse nickered nearby; he turned to see Martal herself coming, followed by a coterie of officers and aides. She stopped her mount next to him. Kicked-up mud dotted her black armour. She drew off her helmet, leaned forward on the pommel of the saddle and peered down at him. He thought she looked pale, her eyes bruised and puffy with exhaustion, her hair matted with sweat.

‘Congratulations,’ he ground out, his voice a croak.

Her gaze flicked to the killing-fields. ‘You disapprove.’

‘They were trapped, helpless. You murdered them all without mercy.’ He eyed her: ‘You’re proud of it?’

The woman visibly controlled herself — bit down a curt retort. ‘This is no duel in some fencing school, Ivanr. This is war. They were prepared to cut down all of us — you included.’

‘Enough died there. We had no support!’

‘It had to be convincing. They had to have control of the field.’

He shook his head, appalled by the chances she’d taken. ‘An awful gamble.’

‘Every battle is.’

Shaking his head he felt hot tears rush to his eyes and wiped them away. ‘I know. That’s why I swore off it all.’ He laughed. ‘Imagine that, yes? Ridiculous.’

Martal cleared her throat, drew off one gauntlet to rub her own sweaty face. ‘Ivanr…’

‘Yes?’

‘Beneth is dead.’

He stared. ‘What? When?’

‘During the battle.’

He turned to the forces coming together on the field, troopers embracing, cheering, and he felt desolate. ‘This will break them.’

‘No it will not,’ Martal forced through clenched teeth.

He eyed her, unsure. ‘You can’t hope to withhold it…’

Her lips tightened once more against an angry response. ‘I wouldn’t do something like that. And besides, word has already gotten out. No, it won’t break them because they have you.’

He regarded her warily. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean his last wish — his last command to me. That you take his place.’

‘Me? That’s ridiculous.’ It seemed to him that Martal privately agreed with the evaluation. He considered her words: ‘his last command to me’. She’s only doing this because of her extraordinary faith in and devotion to that man.

And what of him? Had he no faith in anything? Anyone?

He examined his hands: bloodied, torn and blistered. He squeezed them together. ‘Well, perhaps I shouldn’t be in the lines now anyway… rather awkward place for someone who’s sworn a vow against killing.’

The foreign woman peered down at him with something new in her gaze. ‘Yes. About that… a rare thing to have done. Beneth did not mention it, but did you know that some fifty years ago he swore the same vow?’

Ivanr could only stare, struck speechless. Martal pulled her helmet back on, twisted a fist in her reins. ‘No matter. You have me to spill the blood. The Black Queen will be the murderess, the scourge.’

He watched her ride off and he wondered: had he also heard in her tone… the scapegoat? A mystery there, for certain, that feyness. It occurred to him that perhaps she was no more relishing her role than he. And just what is my role? What was it Beneth did? I’ve no idea at all. All the foreign gods… I have to find Sister Gosh.

The Shadow priest, Warran, led Kiska and Jheval across the dune field out on to a kind of flat desert of shattered black rocks over hardpan. The lightning-lanced storm of the Whorl coursed ahead, seemingly so close Kiska thought she could reach out and touch it.

The two great ravens kept with them. They coursed high overhead, occasionally stooping over the priest, cawing their mocking calls. Warran ignored them, or tried his best to, back taut, shoulders high and tight as if he could wish the birds away.

After a time Jheval finally let out an impatient breath and gestured ahead. ‘All right, priest. There it is. You’ve guided us to a horizon-to-horizon front that we could hardly have missed. You’ve done your job. Now you can go.’

The priest squinted as if seeing the mountain-tall front for the first time. ‘I think I will come along,’ he said.

‘Come along?’ Jheval motioned for Kiska to say something.

‘You don’t have to,’ she offered.

Warran gave a deprecating wave. ‘Oh, it’s quite all right. I want to.’

‘You do?’

‘Oh yes. I’m curious.’

Jheval sent Kiska a this-is-all-your-fault glare.

‘Curious?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes.’ He stroked his unshaven cheeks, his beady eyes narrowed. ‘For one thing — where did all the fish go?’

Jheval made a move as if to cuff the fellow. Kiska glared at the Seven Cities native. ‘I think,’ she said, slowly and gently, ‘they’re probably all dead.’

Warran examined Kiska closely as if gauging her intelligence. ‘Of course they are, you crazy woman! What does that have to do with anything?’

Kiska fell back next to Jheval. They shared a look; Kiska irritated and Jheval knowing.

Curl by curl, mounting clouds over clouds, the Whorl rose higher in the dull sky of the Warren until it was as if it were leaning over them. The closer they came the more it resembled the front of a churning sandstorm, though seeming immobile. It cut across the landscape as a curtain of hissing, shimmering dust and dirt.

‘Can we cross it?’ Kiska yelled, having to raise her voice to be heard over the waterfall-roar.

‘How should I know?’ the priest answered, annoyed.

The ravens swooped past them then to land to one side where something pale lay half buried in the sands. They pecked at it, scavenging, and Kiska charged. Waving her arms, yelling, she drove them from their perches atop what appeared to be the body of a huge hound.

Jheval ran up, morningstars in his fists. ‘Careful!’

Kiska knelt next to the beast, stroked its head; it was alive, and pale, as white as snow beneath the dirt and dust.

‘A white hound,’ Jheval mused. ‘I’ve never heard of the like.’ He beckoned the priest to them but the man refused to come any closer. He stood alone, hunched and bedraggled, looking like the survivor of a shipwreck. The hound was panting, mouth agape, lips pulled back from black gums, its fearsome finger-long teeth exposed. ‘Is it wounded?’

Kiska was running her hands down its sides. ‘I don’t see any wound. Perhaps it is exhausted.’

‘Well, there’s nothing we can do.’

‘No.’ She stroked its head. ‘I suppose not. A handsome beast.’

Jheval snorted. ‘Deadly.’

The thing in the bag at Kiska’s side was squirming now, as though impatient. She rose. ‘We should pass through.’

Jheval gestured helplessly to the storm. ‘And what is on the other side? Is anything? We’ll be lost in this front, just like at home.’

Kiska freed the cloth from her helmet, wrapped it round her face. ‘There must be something. The hound came from there.’

‘Yes, fleeing!’

A shrug was all she would give to such an unknown.

Glaring his irritation, Jheval undid his sash — it proved to be a very long rope of woven red silk. He offered an end to Kiska and she tied it to her belt, asking, ‘What of the priest?’

The warrior made a face. ‘If we lose him, we lose him. Something tells me, though,’ he added, sour, ‘we won’t be so lucky.’

‘Very well.’ Kiska hunched, raising one arm to her face and clamping her staff under the other like a lance.

Before the wall of churning dust took her, Kiska cast one last glance to the priest. He was motionless, as if torn, peering back into Shadow, then at them. She urged him on with a wave of the staff and then she had to clench her eyes against the storm of dust.

The passage through the barrier, or front, or whatever it was, took far less time than Kiska anticipated. Within, she was tense, readied for an attack, though none came. All she noticed were voices or notes within the rampaging wind. Calling, or wailing, or just plain gibbering. She did not know what to make of it. At one point she thought she was seeing things as, in the seeming distance, immense shapes grappled: one a rearing amorphous shape with multiple limbs, the two others dark as night. It appeared to her that the two night-black shapes ate the larger monstrosity. Quite soon she stumbled out into clear still air to find herself on naked rock.

She pulled the scarf from her face. Dust sifted from her cloak and armour to drift almost straight down in the dead air.

She flinched as Jheval began untying the rope at her belt, but then she relaxed and allowed him the intimacy. ‘Where are we?’ she breathed, wondering.

The man peered round, narrow-eyed. ‘I don’t know. But I don’t like it.’

‘Is it the Abyss?’

‘No,’ answered a third voice and they turned to see the priest. Dirt layered his robes and grey kinky hair. He shook himself like a dog, raising a cloud of dust. ‘Though it is close, now. Closer than we would like. This is still Emurlahn, now a border region of Chaos. Half unformed, sloughing back into the inchoate.’ The priest’s eyes tightened in anger, almost to closed slits. ‘Lost now to Shadow.’

For an instant Kiska believed she’d seen him somewhere before. Then the man peered about, confused. ‘I see no fish…’

The thing at her side wriggled and pushed at the sides of the burlap bag. She knelt. ‘I suppose now is as good as any time.’ Jheval stepped close — a hand, she noted, on the dagger at his belt. She laid the bag down, now bulging and shifting from whatever was within. She undid the string and straightened up. The thing worked its way free of the coarse cloth. It looked like a sculpture of twigs and cloth, bat-shaped, winged, somehow animate. It launched itself in the air, the wings of tattered cloth flapping.

It flittered about them as agile as a bat or a moth. Then suddenly the two ravens were among them, stooping, black beaks snapping. Kiska raised her arms. ‘No!’

The thing pounced on Warran’s head, clutching his hair with its little twig fingers, chirping angrily. The priest bellowed and leapt into the air. He ran in a blind panic, batting at the thing while the two ravens whirled overhead, harrying him. Kiska and Jheval watched him go, arms waving, to disappear amid the rocks.

She eyed Jheval, uncertain. ‘Sometimes I think that fellow is much more than he seems… at other times, far less.’

‘I think he’s lost his mind,’ Jheval muttered. He scanned the horizon then pointed. ‘There’s something.’

Kiska shaded her eyes though the light was diffuse. There was a smear in the distance, a dark spot low on the horizon like a storm cloud. ‘Well… Warran did run in that direction, more or less.’

Jheval shrugged and started off. She followed, arms draped over the stave across her shoulders.

After a time the bat-thing returned to circle Kiska then flew off again in the general direction of the smear on the horizon. They came across Warran fanning himself on a rock. Of the ravens, she saw no sign. Jheval peered down at the winded sweaty priest for a moment and then said, ‘Perhaps we should rest here.’

‘I’m not tired,’ Kiska said.

‘Perhaps not. But who knows how long it has been. Or,’ and he caught her eye, ‘when we may get another chance.’

She grunted at that, acquiescing. ‘Our guide…’

‘No doubt it will return.’

‘Yes. Sleep,’ Warran enthused, brightening. ‘I will keep watch.’

Jheval and Kiska shared a look. ‘I’ll go first,’ said Jheval.

Kiska arranged her cloak, set her staff and knives on their belt next to her. Then she rolled on to her side and attempted to rest.

It seemed the next instant that someone was shaking her booted foot and she raised her head to see Jheval wave her up. It was darker now — not as night proper, as the light of ‘day’ was not proper either. She sat up as he sat down. There was something in his expression as their gazes met. Wonder? Apprehension? She couldn’t quite tell. In any case with a nod he directed her attention to one side then lay down. She rose, collected her weapons.

She found Warran standing off to that side, but he was obviously not what Jheval meant with his nod — it was certainly what Warran himself was staring at in the far distance.

For a moment the bizarre horizon line confused her until she remembered that this was Chaos and so need not make sense to her. The darkened sky was dominated by rippling curtains of light such as those she’d seen over the Strait of Storms in her youth. But these lights circled and danced around an empty black spot in the sky close to the horizon. And it may be that she was mistaken, but it also seemed as if the land itself curved up to meet the thing.

‘Is that it?’ she asked Warran, hushed. ‘The Whorl?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. That is it. And it looks as if it does not end in Chaos. It looks as if it touches upon the Abyss. Upon nonexistence itself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that hole is eating everything. Chaos included.’

At first she rejected the man’s melodramatic pronouncement. Ridiculous! Yet, Chaos was stuff. Just unformed or differently organized stuff that she would call chaotic. Not nothingness. That was Outside. Beyond. The Infinite Abyss.

Gods above and below. Infinite. Did that mean unquenchable? Would it perhaps never stop? Was Tayschrenn somehow involved in such a… such a flaw in existence?

Or was he its first victim?

‘Yes, everything,’ Warran continued, eyeing the distant bruise as if personally affronted. ‘Even all the fish.’

Bakune did not think his time wasted while he waited for the eve of the new year, the Festival of Renewal. He haunted the common room of the Sailor’s Roost — or Boneyman’s, as everyone called it — and listened to the bustle and murmur of illegal commerce surrounding him. Then slowly, as he became a familiar face, he started asking questions. And in less than a week he learned more about the habits, preferences and operations of the Roolian black market and smuggling than he’d pieced together in a lifetime administering justice from the civil courts. At first he fumed at Karien’el. It seemed he’d been the man’s pet; fed only what the captain wanted pursued. But then, as he had more time to reflect, he realized that as much of the blame lay with him.

This deeper understanding came one night while he sat with the Jasstonese captain of a scow that plied the main pilgrim way of the Curl, from Dourkan to Mare. The man, Sadeer, was rude, a glutton, and smelled like a goat, but he loved to talk — especially if the audience was appreciative of his wisdom.

‘These pilgrims,’ Sadeer announced, belching and wiping his fingers on his sleeves, ‘we feed on them. They are our food.’

Bakune cocked a brow. ‘Oh? How so?’

The fat captain gestured as if encompassing the town and beyond. ‘Why, our entire economy depends upon them, my friend. What would this town be but a wretched fishing village were it not for your famous Cloister and Hospice? And what demand would there be for my poor vessel, such as it is? We feed upon them, you see?’

‘Their gold is much needed, yes,’ Bakune admitted, sipping his drink.

Sadeer choked on a mouthful of spice-rubbed fish. He waved furiously. ‘No, no,’ he finally managed, and gulped down a glass of wine. ‘That is not really what I mean. Gold is just one measure — you see? The meaningless transfer of coin from one bag to another is just a mutually agreed-upon measure of exchange. The important value lies elsewhere…’

Bakune dutifully rose to the bait: ‘And where is that?’

Sadeer wagged a sausage-like finger. ‘Ah-ha, my friend! You have hit upon it. The true value, the deeper measure, is attention. Attention and relevance. That is what really matters in the end. The lack of gold, the condition of poverty, that can be remedied. But the lack of attention? Irrelevance? These are much harder to overcome. They are in fact terminal.’

‘I see… I think.’

The Jasstonese captain was picking his teeth with a sliver of ivory. ‘Exactly. The true economy is relevance. Once you are judged irrelevant — you are out.’

Later that night, after Sadeer had risen, belching, and lumbered off to find a brothel, Bakune sat at his small round table thinking. Attention. He’d not paid attention. Or had turned a convenient blind eye to what he did not want to pursue. That was his fault. A narrowed vision — and wasn’t that precisely what the priest had accused him of?

Two days later came the Festival of Renewal. Boneyman’s was crowded. It was not a day, nor a night, to be a foreigner on the streets of Banith, or in all of Rool for that matter. Unless one wore the loincloth of the penitent. From the door, Bakune watched while the holy icons were paraded through the streets on their cumbersome platforms held aloft by hordes of the devout all competing for the privilege — some trampled underfoot in an ecstasy of fervour. A number of the platforms carried young girls or boys draped in the white silk of purity, dusted with the red petals of sacrifice. Drops of blood spotted the silks of some, dripping from the stipulated woundings at wrists and neck.

Bakune now winced at the sight. How could he not have seen it before? The children, the red petals symbolizing blood, the woundings. All prescribed. All handed down as ancient ritual. What was all this but a more sophisticated playing out of what in earlier times had been done in truth? Ranks of the penitents came next, marching in step, naked but for their loincloths, each wielding flail or whip or chain, each lashing their backs in step after slow measured step up the devotional way to the Cloister doors.

Blood now flowed in truth. No stand-in. No delicate inferential symbolism. Flesh was torn. A carmine sheen smeared the backs of these men. It ran down their legs to paint their footsteps red. Bakune flinched as cold drops struck his cheek. He raised a hand and examined the traces on his fingers.

I am implicated. Marked as accomplice and abettor. Sentenced. My hands are just as red.

Unable to stand the sight of it all, he went inside.

He stood at the bar of the low-ceilinged common room and glimpsed Boneyman himself sitting in a far corner: bald, gleaming in sweat, nothing but hollow skin and bones; hence the name.

‘Not a good night to be out,’ growled a voice next to Bakune and he turned: the priest had emerged from their room.

Bakune signed for a glass of wine. ‘Does everyone know my plans?’

‘Not so hard to guess.’

‘You would dissuade me?’

A slow shake of the head. ‘No. I’ll come along.’

‘You will? Why?’

‘You’ll need me.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘In case you succeed.’

Bakune studied the man: the squat toad-like posture that instead of conveying weakness or sluggishness somehow gave the impression of great power held in check. ‘And if you are along, then so too your companion, Manask, yes?’

The man grimaced his irritation. ‘Yes. But on a night like this… he would hardly be noticed.’

But Bakune was not listening; he was plucking at half-memories. Something about two men, a priest and a giant. Something about the first invasion… ‘Did you fight in the first invasions?’

The man’s gaze slid to the open door where hordes still lined the way and the occasional icon or statue of the Lady tottered past over the heads of the crowd. ‘You are Roolian,’ he said. ‘What do you think of your quaint local festival now?’

So, a change of topic. Very well… for now. ‘It disgusts me,’ Bakune answered curtly, and he downed his wine.

The narrow weighing gaze slid back to Bakune. ‘Disgust… Is that all?’

Bakune considered. He examined his empty glass. No. There was more than that. Far more. ‘It terrifies me,’ he admitted.

The priest was nodding his slow profound agreement.

At dusk Hyuke and Puller thumped down at Bakune’s table. ‘What’s the plan?’ the sergeant asked. He was tossing nuts into his mouth one by one and spitting the shells to the floor. The nuts stained his mouth red.

‘Surveillance,’ Bakune said, and he grimaced his distaste at the sight of the man’s carmine lips, teeth, and tongue.

‘Is that all? What if we get a bite?’

‘Then capture.’

The ex-Watchmen nudged one another, winking.

‘Alive!’ Bakune said.

The two lost their smirks.

‘You have your truncheons?’

‘Yeah. Got ’em.’

‘And the priest will be along as well.’

‘Hunh,’ grunted Hyuke. ‘That means the big guy.’

‘You’ve seen him?’

Hyuke gave a look that asked how stupid he could be.

Bakune coughed into a fist. Right. How could anyone not see that thief?

Puller had been pinching his lower lip. ‘Where?’ he suddenly asked.

‘Where what?’ Hyuke said, annoyed. ‘Where’d we see him? When he escaped. That’s when. Eluding pursuit, he called it. Throwing a guy off a roof! That’s eluding pursuit all right.’

‘No, no. Not that. And anyway, you weren’t hurt so bad. No, what I mean is where are we going?’

Hyuke glared at his partner. ‘Fine. Right.’ He looked to Bakune.

The Assessor envisioned his map. How useless that they should have taken it, he realized, when he had every detail impressed upon his mind. ‘We’ll keep watch on the South Way.’

Hyuke grunted his ill-tempered agreement and spat more shells on to the floor.

The priest was waiting for him in the kitchen. The old cook — whose name Bakune had yet to discover — eyed the two of them like chickens ready for dismemberment. Bakune bowed a wary farewell to her and they hurried out into the alley. They kept to the lesser side streets, but even here the noise was inescapable, a constant low roar punctuated by cheering and chants.

As the dusk deepened, bonfires lit the night at major crossroads. Crowds circled them, chanting prayers to invoke the renewal and return of the Lady. Bakune saw the flaw in his plan then. Tradition dictated that these fires be kept alight all through the night. The most devoted would circle them continuously in a slow shuffle till dawn. The Cloister would be jammed with pilgrims and the priests would all be pressed into performing cleansings and blessings.

The night was just too damned busy. Still, was that not cover enough for anyone who could slip away or go unnoticed among the hordes and the tumult? What to do? He leaned to the priest. ‘We can’t see anything from here.’

The priest was nodding. He slipped a hood up over his head and motioned Bakune onward. They joined the throngs pushing and shoving their way up and down the street. Hawkers waved roasted meats on sticks and all the usual amulets, beads, blessed healing salves, and other trinkets.

The crowd thickened, pulling them along. Not even the priest’s none so gentle thrusts could free them. Bakune heard chanting ahead, and as the words uttered from hundreds of throats clarified in his mind the hair on the nape of his neck rose.

Burn her! they chanted. Burn her!

He caught the priest’s gaze, horrified. The man pushed ahead, drawing Bakune in his wake. At a tall heap of bracken and firewood two Guardians of the Faith held a girl wearing a torn white slip. Her hair was frizzy and wild, a Malazan half-breed. She was weeping, her hands tied at the wrist.

‘No!’ Bakune heard torn from the priest in a muffled grunt.

‘This one is known to many of you!’ one of the Guardians was shouting. ‘Long has she preached against the Lady! She espouses foreign gods! In our fathers’ time she would have been cleansed long ago… but we have been wayward in our fidelity!’ The man gestured to the east. ‘And look how we are rewarded. Fresh invasions. The insult of foreign occupation!’

He raised both hands over the now silent crowd. ‘My friends — we are being punished! Yes, punished! For we have been lacking. Negligent. Too many of us give lip service only to our guardian, our deliverer, our one and only protector! The Lady is turning her face from us, and rightly so…’

He took a torch from a man next to him. ‘We must rededicate ourselves. Prove our devotion with blood… and with sacrifice…’ He pushed the girl down on to the piled bundled branches. She lay weeping, perhaps crazed with fear. He thrust the torch into the kindling.

Bakune stared, horrified, paralysed with disbelief. How could such an appalling barbaric thing be occurring before his eyes? Were they not all beyond such things? Would no one stop this?

The flames leapt up then almost immediately fell away. It was almost as if they were sucked down and snuffed. At Bakune’s side the priest had simultaneously smacked his hands together in a loud slap. Bakune stared at the man, as did many others nearby.

Oh no. More than a mere priest?

The two Guardians shared a bewildered look, then they peered out over the crowd. ‘Who is here?’ one called. ‘Reveal yourself!’

A woman who had been next to the priest suddenly pointed, shouting: ‘It was this one! I saw!’ She made a sign against evil at her chest. Bakune thought it prudent to join the crowd flinching away from the man.

One Guardian pushed forward. ‘Hold him!’

‘Ha ha!’ a great voice bellowed and a giant figure straightened from among the press, throwing off a cloak. ‘My diversion worked!’ Manask took one long step up on to the heaped bracken. ‘Now, while all eyes are elsewhere I shall snatch this innocent away!’

Everyone stared at the bizarre apparition. ‘Who in the Lady’s name are you?’ the remaining Guardian demanded. In answer Manask kicked the man down into the crowd. He threw the girl over his shoulder and followed. Pilgrims swung at him with staffs and sticks but all rebounded from the man’s rotund figure. He bulled forward. People fell like dry grass before him.

‘And now I make my furtive escape! Where has that phantom gone, the crowd gasps!’ He kicked down a door and ducked inside. The priest pressed a hand to his forehead as if to blot the sight from his eyes.

The Guardians arrived at the doorway. ‘After him!’ one shouted, pushing another fellow to the door. But none appeared willing to chase so gigantic a quarry. Snarling, the two dived within.

‘Disperse now!’ the priest suddenly yelled in a surprisingly strong voice. ‘Go home and examine your consciences, each and every one of you! What if that were your daughter, your wife, or yourself upon that blaze? What then?’

The nearest pilgrims turned on him. Those carrying staves held them in white-knuckled grips. The priest returned their furious stares calmly, almost haughtily. He crossed his thick arms. One by one the press thinned until all had drifted away. Bakune and the priest were left alone in the darkened midnight square. Alone but for two figures across the way sitting on the stone steps of a bakery, heads back as if asleep: Hyuke and Puller.

The priest sighed and waved to invite Bakune to accompany him to the gaping doorway. On the second floor they found the two Guardians unconscious and bound. Manask was standing at a window, eating a wedge of cheese. The girl lay on a child’s pallet. Bakune joined Manask to peer nervously over the streets. ‘More will come,’ he warned.

‘They are too busy, I think,’ the priest answered. He sat on the pallet, brushed the girl’s hair from her face. ‘Ella,’ he whispered gently. ‘Come to me.’

The eyelids fluttered. A gasp, chest heaving. The eyes opened wild, white all round, then found the priest. The trembling limbs eased, relaxing. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I tried. Really I did. After you disappeared I took up your message. They came for me — but I am not as strong as you.’

He brushed her brow. ‘You shouldn’t have taken up the burden, Ella. That was not my intent… I am the one who should be sorry. I should have realized.’

She sat up then, gripping his arm. ‘They have seen you! You must hide!’

Gently, he removed her hand, stood. ‘No. No more hiding or running. In fact, I think it is long past the time when I should have acted. Yes.’ He pressed a hand to her cheek. ‘I go now to confront the demon in her den. You are the one who must hide. Go to the settlement just outside the town. You’ll find sympathizers there. Continue the mission. In secret for a time. Do I have your word?’

‘She will destroy you!’

His frog smile was reassuring, and unconcerned. ‘They have you now, Ella. I am not required.’

Clearly the girl wanted to argue but clearly she also respected his wishes, and so she was silent, tears coursing down her cheeks. The priest went to the window where Manask stood tapping the wedge of cheese against his chin, frowning. ‘I am not so clear on this plan, my friend,’ Manask said. ‘As I see it, your delivering yourself gains us entry to the Cloister. Once there, while they are busy prodding you with red-hot pokers and eviscerating your bowels, I clean out the treasury. Is this the plan?’

‘Something like that,’ the priest growled, glaring.

‘Ah!’ Manask nibbled the cheese. ‘Well, I like my half of it.’

Bakune eyed the priest, uncertain. ‘You’re not really going to walk into the Cloister, are you?’

The priest appeared distracted, his head cocked as if listening to some distant sound. ‘No, not the Cloister,’ he said, his brows furrowing. ‘That’s not where she is… What is that noise?’

Bakune heard it as well. Roaring, yelling. A mob — a riot. ‘Things have gotten out of control,’ he murmured.

‘No. Worse than that. That’s real terror. Come.’ He started to head for the stairs, but stopped and turned to the girl. ‘Leave town now. Speak to no one. Farewell, and may the gods overlook you.’

‘Farewell,’ she managed huskily, barely able to speak.

At the street Hyuke and Puller were waiting for them. ‘Somethin’s up,’ Hyuke drawled. The two ex-Watchmen were eyeing Manask, their truncheons in their hands.

Townsfolk ran past, coming up the street from the waterfront in an ever-thickening torrent. Screaming was clearer now, rising from downslope. ‘What’s going on?’ the priest asked.

Hyuke thrust out a leg, tripping a man, who fell without a sound. He lay on his back struggling to rise while Hyuke held him down with his foot. ‘What’s going on!’ Hyuke demanded.

‘I like your way of tricking information out of people,’ Manask said. ‘Reminds me of my own techniques.’

‘They’re coming!’ the man gasped, his eyes fixed downslope.

‘Who?’

‘The Stormriders! They’re here! In the harbour! Run! It’s the end of the world!’ And the man brushed Hyuke’s foot aside to scramble away.

‘Riders here?’ the priest muttered. ‘Absurd.’

The crowd thickened; all rushed past, ignoring them. Bakune heard more shouts warning of Stormriders. The priest headed down against the rising tide of humanity. Bakune followed. Manask clomped away into a side street. A number of distracted townsfolk ran into the priest, only to rebound as if having encountered an iron post; Bakune kept in his wake. Several shops were aflame on the waterfront — perhaps from abandoned bonfires. And out past the pilgrim ships at anchor, further out on the dark azure blue of the bay, rested a score of far larger vessels.

They were nothing like any ships Bakune had ever seen before, and he’d grown up next to the sea. Three-masted, extraordinarily large, with dark-painted hulls and tall castles at the fore. ‘What are they?’ he asked of the priest.

For the first time Bakune heard awe in the man’s voice as he answered, ‘I’ve never seen them myself, but they match descriptions I’ve heard. Moranth vessels. Moranth Blue.’ The priest faced him, his expression amazed. ‘The Malazans are here, Bakune. This means they’ve completely broken Mare. Passed through Black Water Strait.’

Bakune could only stare at the man while townsfolk pushed past. Some carried snatched precious goods wrapped in cloths or in baskets. He knew where all were fleeing; where the entirety of Banith’s population plus thousands of pilgrims would end up: clamouring before the doors to the Cloister. The very place he had to go. ‘I must speak to the Abbot.’

‘I imagine the man’s rather busy right now.’

Bakune pointed to the harbour. ‘We must decide how to respond to this. We don’t even have a militia!’

‘No doubt the Guardians will order everyone to fight to the death.’

Bakune turned away to head with the tide. ‘Don’t be foolish.’

He just caught the priest’s dark: ‘I wasn’t.’

Long before they were far enough up the Way of Obtestation to glimpse the tall copper doors of the Cloister it became clear that the night’s panic and confusion had degenerated into open terror and riot. Looting had begun, citizens breaking into shops to snatch what provisions or supplies they could before heading for the presumed safety of the Cloister, or striking inland to flee the coast.

Bakune’s two guards now walked at his sides, truncheons at the ready, which they swung at the slightest provocation. The priest went ahead; so far no one had become so drunk on panic as to attack him. Of the giant Manask, he’d seen no sign. This must be his night — the night the thief dreamed of all his life. Law and order shattered. All households and shops open to plunder. This must be what a sacking is like. Something we in Rool hadn’t witnessed in generations.

Pushing round a turn in the Way, they saw ahead a milling press of humanity filling the narrow path like a solid wedge that ran fully up to the distant torchlit — and now firmly closed — copper doors. Before the entrance massed Guardians fought to keep back the mob. Staves rose and fell like scythes. Everyone begged for entry, arms raised, hands beseeching. Bakune leaned to the priest to shout: ‘This is impossible! I know another way!’

Nodding, the priest forced a path through the press to a side alley. Once within he turned to Bakune and invited him to lead. Bakune caught Hyuke’s eye. ‘The gardens.’

‘That low wall?’

Bakune nodded.

Hyuke heaved Puller forward by his soft leather hauberk. ‘Let’s go.’

Bakune and the priest hurried side by side behind. ‘Where are we headed?’ the priest asked.

‘There’s a large garden within the grounds. Parts of it touch upon an exterior wall. We’ll try there. And your friend,’ Bakune added. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s with us.’

‘Really? On a night like this? Any building would be open to him. Gem merchants, goldsmiths.’

‘He’s convinced the Cloister sits on a mountain of riches. Nothing will keep him from it.’

Bakune could not resist asking the question that had been on his mind since first encountering the astonishing fellow: ‘So — he really is a thief?’

The priest eyed him, one brow raised. ‘He takes money from others. Does that make him a thief? So too then are most advocates and bankers.’

Bakune did not think that explanation entirely convincing but he said nothing. Personally, he thought the fellow would come away empty-handed from any search of the Cloister. Still, all those contributions from so many thousands of pilgrims and devout over all these generations… but no, the operating costs of such a huge establishment no doubt consumed all of it.

Once they reached the length of street where one wall ran alongside the Cloister gardens it became clear that Bakune was not the only resident to think of this alternative route. Makeshift ladders leaned against the brick wall; abandoned possessions cluttered the street. The foreign pilgrims might come bashing against the main gates, but the Banith residents had headed for the back entrance. Hyuke took hold of a ladder and shook it to test its solidity.

‘Don’t go in,’ a hoarse voice warned from nearby.

Everyone turned; an old woman sat in the shadow of the wall.

‘Why not?’ Hyuke asked.

The woman pointed up. ‘No one’s come back. I’ve called and called. And there were screams. Terrible, they were.’

‘There’s panic all over,’ Hyuke said dismissively.

‘Where is everyone, mother?’ Bakune asked.

‘Run off. Fled when the screaming started.’

Bakune caught the priest nodding. ‘Stay here, mother,’ the man said gently. ‘Warn everyone away.’

Then a great voice boomed from an alleyway: ‘Touch nothing! It may be a trap!’

The priest flinched as if he’d been stabbed and he cursed beneath his breath. Manask came lumbering from the darkness. The two ex-Watchmen smacked their truncheons in their palms, jaws clenched.

‘Silence now, everyone!’ he shouted. ‘This is my particular specialty. I will climb the wall!’ The huge man took hold of the ladder, and with much grunting and fumbling dragged himself up its length. The wooden poles bent like bows under his weight. From beneath, Bakune saw that the man’s boots were thick platforms, perhaps solid wood or iron. No wonder he could kick down doors! They must weigh as much as mattocks.

Gasping and grunting, the man levered himself up on top of the wall and sat panting. In this awkward position his thick padded armour puffed up around him like a globe. ‘Ha ha! I have ascended the wall! From here I will secretly scout ahead!’

‘No!’ the priest hissed. ‘Wait, damn you!’

But Manask had swung his feet over and dropped from view. A great thump sounded from the far side. Followed, shortly, by a bellowed: ‘Hello? Anyone there? Hello?’

Puller was scratching his head. Hyuke thrust his truncheon through its loop on his belt. ‘Well I’m not usin’ that ladder — the guy wrecked it.’

They selected another and the four of them climbed over. Hyuke went first, and Puller last. The gardens were extremely dark and quiet considering the tumult churning the night just beyond its walls. Only Manask’s hollered hellos broke the relative silence. Bakune led the way to the Cloister.

It was here on the path that he came across the first body. He tripped over it and fell into a low evergreen shrub. Hyuke helped him up. The priest examined the body. It was a middle-aged man, a citizen. ‘No wound,’ he said.

‘So what happened?’ Hyuke asked.

‘His life was taken from him.’

‘Taken? How? By who?’

The priest did not answer. He gestured ahead to the dark shadow of the large building ahead. ‘The Cloister?’

‘Yes,’ Bakune said.

The priest started ahead. ‘Only I should enter.’

Bakune followed. ‘What? After all this? I have to see the Abbot.’

The priest glanced back, his gaze sympathetic. ‘He may not see you,’ he growled, enigmatic.

Bodies now lay thick upon the gravel paths and across the manicured beds of flowers. They lay where they’d fallen, undisturbed, as if asleep. Across the grounds pounding could be heard from the direction of the main gate. The tall iron-studded doors of the Cloister itself hung agape. A few low lamps glowed within. The priest turned to the ex-Watchmen. ‘Guard the doors. Don’t let anyone in.’

Puller was yanking on his lower lip; Hyuke’s doubtful gaze slid to Bakune. The Assessor nodded. They shrugged. Puller leaned against one door. The priest headed in, Bakune following. ‘And Manask?’ he whispered.

The priest took hold of Bakune’s sleeve and the Assessor was astonished by the man’s strength as he easily yanked him back. ‘Never mind him. You shouldn’t come.’

‘I have to. The answer to a mystery is here. I must have it.’

‘It’s no mystery,’ the priest growled. ‘You already know the answer. You just refuse to see it.’

A great acid bite was taken from his stomach then and Bakune grimaced, clenching his jaws against it. The priest steadied him. ‘You look pale, Assessor. Are you well?’

Bakune nodded, curtly, gestured the priest on. ‘I have to know,’ he gasped through his teeth. ‘Please.’

Obviously against his better judgement the priest relented. He released Bakune. ‘If you must. Stay behind me.’

Together they walked the halls and rooms of the Cloister. The priest’s path seemed to be taking him unerringly towards the inner chapel of Our Blessed Lady. Early on they came to more bodies. ‘These are all priests and acolytes of the Lady!’ Bakune exclaimed, shocked.

The corpses lay like twisted dolls amid dropped boxes and chests, bundled clothes and even silver icons all tumbled together. ‘Looks like they were packing,’ the priest observed drily. Bakune winced, seeing blood pooled and caked around mouths, nostrils, glazed eyes, and even ears. He swallowed, tasting iron in his own throat.

As they neared the inner chapel, the corpses lay even more thickly. Heaped, even. Picking his way between them Bakune imagined he was seeing most of the hierarchy of the entire abbey. ‘Who could have done this?’ he whispered, awed. Again the priest did not answer.

They came to the chapel doors, which stood slightly open. The priest pulled one leaf aside, revealing a scene of devastation. Heavy stone pews lay scattered like toys. Dark stains marked swaths across the gleaming polished granite floor. Mangled bodies lay pushed up against walls as if flattened by the blows of a giant. The stink of blood and voided body fluids drove Bakune to cover his nose and mouth with a sleeve. After a few moments, the priest entered. His sandals slapped noisily on the tacky smeared stone floor. Bakune followed even though he did not wish to — he feared being separated from the priest even more.

Ahead, sitting on the white marble altar stone beneath a broad shimmering starburst tapestry of gold and silver thread, waited a tiny figure. A child. A young girl with long black hair wearing a plain orphan’s smock.

She smiled, brightening, and slid off the altar. ‘Ipshank!’ she piped, delighted. ‘You’ve come!’

The priest gave a slight bow. ‘M’lady.’

Bakune stared at the man. Ipshank? Where had he heard that name before? Of course! Renegade! One of the highest of the Lady’s hierarchy to throw off her worship. That was during the first invasion. The animal tattooing… turned to one of the foreign gods then. Now I begin to understand.

Ipshank inclined his head to indicate the tossed bodies crumpled amid the broken stonework. ‘Still as impatient as ever, I see.’

The child stamped her foot and the entire edifice shuddered around them. Dust came sifting from the hidden ceiling and enormous blocks of stone grated and shifted. Candelabra hung on long chains from the darkness above swung overhead, moaning. ‘They would flee! Flee!’ Bakune clamped his hands to his ears in agony. He fell to his knees. Warmth made him pull his hands away — blood smeared his palms. A pink mist swam before his vision.

‘And this one?’ the child’s voice asked.

‘He had to see with his own eyes what no one could convince him of.’

‘Well, he has seen enough.’ A blow like the slap of a battering ram batted Bakune aside. He struck a fallen stone pew, heard bones crack. The agony blackened his vision for a time. But he fought to retain his consciousness: he had to see! Had to witness!

‘You have reconsidered my offer?’ the child was saying.

‘You know the answer to that,’ came the man’s coarse gravelly voice.

‘A pity. Now you are bereft. You betray me, and then that god you clove to… the one your grunting ancestors squirmed before… the beast

… you rejected him as well! Such an honour he offered you! Destriant! Arch-priest! And now he is cast down. Who could possibly be next for you? Truly, I am curious. Who will you run to next?’

‘None. I’ve made up my own.’

A very un-girlish laugh echoed through the chapel. ‘Your own? You cannot do that!’

‘I have done so. And I have sent it out into the world to make its own way.’

‘Enough foolishness, Ipshank. I renew my offer. Be my Destriant. The power you will wield will be unlimited. Join me! I have found my High Mage. And my Mortal Sword — or should I say Spear? He awaits my enemies on the Stormwall. Together we will sweep these invaders from our shores.’

‘I am sorry, m’lady, but it is too late for that. They are here now. Banith is defenceless. You must withdraw.’

‘Withdraw? Leave? This is mine!’

The building shook beneath another blow. The floor bounced, shifting the strewn wreckage, and glass shattered all along the walls. A candelabrum fell to explode in shards. Something wet struck Bakune and he turned his head, blinking and squinting. It was an arm. The arm led to the robed body of the Abbot Starvann Arl. The priest had been right: he would not see Bakune. For no legs emerged from beneath those wet stained robes, and upon his bearded face, frozen surprise. Stunned astonishment. You thought you could control her, didn’t you? And perhaps, over time, you came to think you were in charge. You came to think that she truly was just a child. You poor deluded fool.

‘No? You will not go? Very well.’ Sandals slapped the wet sticky floor. Gentle arms lifted Bakune. ‘Stay then, if you must. Those inhuman Moranth are coming. I leave you to them. Best of luck… I hear they have no blood within their armour.’

‘No! How dare you! I order you to stop!’

Bakune watched the chapel swing around him as he was carried to the doors. ‘Goodbye. I can’t imagine what they’ll do to you.’

‘Come back!’ the child shrieked. ‘I demand that you return! Do not leave me!’

Past the doors, they were halfway down the hall when a great scream tore the air around them. The almost inhuman noise was like a spike penetrating Bakune’s skull and he yelled his agony, bashing the heels of his hands to his forehead as if he could force the needle points from behind his eyes. The priest, Ipshank, paused, shaking his head to clear it, then set Bakune down. ‘Wait here.’

Bakune could not even speak to answer. He lay propped up against the wall, panting in agony.

Shortly, Ipshank returned; he carried the young girl slack in his arms.

‘Is she… dead?’ Bakune mumbled, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

Ipshank shook a negative. ‘No. Unconscious. She will awaken remembering nothing.’ He extended an arm and pulled Bakune upright. The Assessor clutched hold of the man’s shoulder to take one limping step. ‘So… who is she?’

‘Just a vessel. A body used and cast aside. An avatar, some might say.’

‘Then… what of the Lady?’

They were approaching the entrance hall and the priest was peering ahead, frowning in puzzlement. ‘She is elsewhere, as I said.’

Bakune squinted as well: the outer doors were closed and barred. With Hyuke and Puller was Manask. But Bakune frowned, for it looked as if both ex-Watchmen were struggling to stab the giant with a spear. Then the scene reversed itself in Bakune’s rattled mind and it became clear that both men were struggling to yank out a spear stuck in the huge man’s chest. Hyuke had one foot up against Manask’s stomach and was heaving while Puller was jerking the haft up and down. Manask himself had his back to a wall, both fists on the haft, his face crimson with effort.

‘Ah ha!’ he called, noticing them. ‘The holy man comes descending from the mount! What wisdom for us mere mortals?’

‘Find anything, Manask?’

The giant’s eyes flicked left and right. ‘Why… no. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not a thing. No sacks of pretty gems set aside in secret hordes. No jewel-encrusted gold icons. Odd that, a cloister without icons! No stone chest of gold coins so large I could not move it hidden in the foundations. A shame that. In short, I come away empty-handed.’ And he let go the spear.

‘And this?’ Ipshank flicked the end of the spear haft.

‘A mere token of affection from the thousands of devout surrounding us.’

Ipshank’s brows rose. ‘Ah. I see.’

Hyuke peered at the girl. ‘Who’s this?’

‘A survivor,’ Bakune quickly said. ‘Everyone else is dead.’

Ipshank eyed him for a moment, saying nothing. He looked to Hyuke. ‘Find me somewhere she can sleep.’

‘Sure. There’s lots of rooms.’

Bakune eased himself down one wall. His left arm ached ferociously and he couldn’t move it. He suspected it was broken. At last Manask managed to pull the spear from his thick armour; he eyed its bright razor tip, impressed. ‘This one almost tickled me.’

Bakune had been studying the man’s face — one quite thin and long for someone supposedly fat. ‘You’re Boneyman, aren’t you?’

The man grabbed at his great mane of bushy hair, patting it. ‘What’s that? Boneyman? Ridiculous!’ He cleared his throat and peered around. Lowering his voice, he asked, ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a hammer and chisel, would you?’

‘No. Why?’

‘No reason! None at all.’ He examined the long spear, its wide thick blade, and rubbed his chin. ‘Hmm. Well, while no one is looking, I shall sneak away unnoticed! Here I go, stealthily, like a very shadow.’ And the man clumped off down the hall.

Farewell, Manask. Best of luck with whatever mad plan it is you’ve concocted.

Bakune gathered a handful of sleeve and wiped at the blood drying on his face. ‘What are they doing out there?’ he asked Puller.

The man frowned, thinking about that. ‘Sitting. Praying.’

Bakune slowly nodded at the news. ‘Right.’ No more challenging questions for that one…

Ipshank returned. Bakune raised a questioning brow.

‘She’s sleeping.’

‘What now?’

The priest looked off towards the front, his wide mouth turned down. ‘Wait till dawn then get you out of here.’

Bakune paused in wiping the flakes of blood from inside his ears. ‘I’m sorry? I can’t hear so well right now. Did you say… me?’

‘Yes. You.’

‘Whatever for?’

The priest found a carved stone fount in which he splashed his face. ‘What for? Hasn’t it occurred to you, Assessor, that you are now the senior authority here in Banith? Who else must negotiate with the Moranth?’

Bakune stared. ‘Me? Negotiate?’

‘Yes, and soon.’

‘Soon?… Why?’

Ipshank pressed his fingers to his brow, sighed. ‘Before someone else does.’

‘Someone else? But whoever would do that?’

The priest peered down at him as if to see whether he was serious. ‘Boneyman, for example. He just might decide to take himself down to the wharf.’

Bakune lurched to his feet. ‘No! All the gods — not him! We must go.’

Ipshank was nodding steadily.

From the doors Hyuke spoke up: ‘If you’re in charge now can I be captain? I mean… you have to have more’n a sergeant guarding you. Gotta impress these backwoods Moranth, an’ all.’

Smiling evilly at Bakune’s discomfort, the priest gestured up the hall.