The Crippled God

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THESE SOLDIERS. THE TWO WORDS HUNG IN HER MIND LIKE MEAT from butcher hooks. They twisted slowly, aimlessly. They dripped, but the drips had begun to slow. Lying on her side atop the packs of wrapped food, Badalle could let her head sink down on one side and see the rough trail stretching away behind them. Not much was being left behind now – barring the bodies – and beneath the light of the Jade Strangers those pale shapes looked like toppled statues of marble lining a long-abandoned road. Things with their stories gone, their histories for ever lost. When she tired of that view, she could set her gaze the opposite way, looking ahead, and from her vantage point the column was like a swollen worm, with thousands of heads upon its elongated back, each one of them slave to the same crawling body.

Every now and then the worm cast off a part of it that had died, and these pieces were pushed out to the sides. Hands would reach down from those walking past, collecting up fragments of clothing which would be used during the day, stitched together to make flies – gifts of shade from the dead – and by the time those discarded pieces came close to her, why, they’d be mostly naked, and they’d have become marble statues. Because, when things fail, you topple the statues.

Directly before her, the bared backs of the haulers glistened with precious sweat as they strained in their yokes. And the thick ropes twisted as they went taut and gusted out breaths of glittering dust all down their length. They call these soldiers heavies. Some of them anyway. The ones who don’t stop, who don’t fall down, who don’t die. The ones who scare the others and make them keep going. Until they fall over dead. Heavies. These soldiers.

She thought back. The sun had been spilling out along the horizon. The day was going away, and it had been a day when no one had spoken, when the Snake had been silent. She had been walking three paces behind Rutt, and Rutt walked hunched over around Held, who was huddled in his arms, and Held’s eyes were closed against the glare – but then, they were always closed, because so much in the world was too hard to look at.

This would be their last night. They knew it – the whole Snake knew it. Badalle had said nothing to change their minds. Perhaps she too had given up – it was hard to know for certain. Defiance could hold its shape, even when it was made of nothing but cinders and ash. Anger could look hot to the touch, when in truth it was lifeless and cold. In this way, the world could deceive. It could lie, and in lying it invited delusion. It invited the idea that what it was was true. In this way, the world could make belief a fatal illness.

She stared down at the backs of the heavies, and remembered more.

Rutt’s steps wavered. Halted. His voice cracked as it made a wordless sound, and then it cracked a second time, and he said, ‘Badalle. The flies are walking now.’

She looked down at her legs, to see if they could take her up alongside him, and, slowly, agonizingly, they did. And far ahead, to the place where he was looking with his blinded, closed-up eyes, she saw swarming shapes, black as they came out of the sunset’s red glare. Black and seething. Flies, walking on two legs, one clump, then another and another, emerging from the blood-light.

‘The flies,’ said Rutt, ‘are walking.’

But she had sent them away. Her last command of power, the one that used her up. And now, this day, she had been blowing nothing but air from her lips.

Badalle squinted.

‘I want to be blind again, Badalle.’

She studied the puffed masses filling his sockets. ‘You still are, Rutt.’

‘Then … they are in my head. The flies … in my head.’

‘No. I see them too. But that seething – it is just the sun’s light behind them. Rutt, they are people.’

He almost fell then, but widened his stance and, with terrible grace, he straightened. ‘Fathers.’

‘No. Yes. No.’

‘Did we turn round, Badalle? Did we somehow turn round?’

‘No. See, the west – we have walked into the sun, every day, every dusk.’ She was silent then. The Snake was coiling up behind the two of them, its scrawny body of bones drawing together, as if that could keep it safe. The figures from the sunset were coming closer. ‘Rutt, there are … children.’

‘What is that, upon their skin – their faces?’

She saw the one father among them, his beard grey and rust, his eyes suffering the way the eyes of some fathers did – as they sent their young ones away for the last time. But the faces of the children drew her attention. Tattoos. ‘They have marked themselves, Rutt.’ Droplets, black tears. No, I see the truth of it now. Not tears. The tears have dried up, and will never return. These marks, upon face and hands, arms and neck, shoulders and chest. These marks. ‘Rutt.’

‘Badalle?’

‘They have claws.’

A ragged breath fell out from him, left him visibly trembling.

‘Try now, Rutt. Your eyes. Try to open them.’

‘I – I can’t—’

‘Try. You must.’

The father, along with his mob of clawed children, drew closer. They were wary – she could see that. They did not expect us. They did not come looking for us. They are not here to save us. She could see their suffering now, the thirst that gripped their faces like taloned, skeletal hands. Claws will make you suffer.

Yet the father, now standing before Rutt, reached down to the waterskin strapped to his sword belt. There was little water in it – that was obvious by its thinness, the ease with which he lifted it. Tugging the stopper free, he held it out to Rutt.

Who in turn thrust out Held. ‘Her first,’ he said. ‘Please, the little one first.’

The gesture was unambiguous and without hesitation the father stepped up, and as Rutt pulled the cloth from in front of Held’s small, wizened face the bearded man leaned close.

She saw him recoil, saw him look up and stare hard into Rutt’s slitted eyes.

Badalle held her breath. Waited.

Then he shifted the waterskin, dipped the mouthpiece over Held’s mouth, and the water trickled down.

She sighed. ‘This father, Rutt, is a good father.’

One of the clawed children, a year or two older than Rutt, came up then and gently took Held from Rutt’s arms – he might have resisted, but did not have the strength, and when the babe was in the cradle of the strange boy’s arms Rutt’s own arms remained crooked, as if he still held her, and Badalle saw how the tendons at his elbows had shrunk, drawn tight. And she thought back, trying to recall when she had last seen Rutt not holding Held, and she couldn’t.

The baby was a ghost in his arms now.

The father was weeping – she could see the tracks down his darkened, pitted cheeks – and he guided the mouthpiece into Rutt’s mouth, forced it past the boy’s lips. A few drops, and then out again.

Rutt swallowed.

The other children with claws slipped past them, into the coiled Snake, each pulling out their own waterskins. But there were not enough of them. Still they went.

And now Badalle saw a new Snake, coming out of the sunset, and this one was of iron and chains, and she knew that she had seen it before, in her dreams. She had looked down upon this glittering serpent. Fathers and mothers, but children all. And there – I see her – that is their one mother – I see her. She comes.

People spilled out around the woman, with more waterskins.

She halted close to the bearded father, her eyes on Badalle, and when she spoke it was in the language of Badalle’s dreams. ‘Fiddler, they are walking the wrong way.’

‘Aye, Adjunct.’

‘I see only children.’

‘Aye.’

Standing behind this woman was another soldier. ‘But … Adjunct, who do they belong to?’

She turned. ‘It doesn’t matter, Fist, because they now belong to us.’

Rutt turned to Badalle. ‘What are they saying?’

‘They’re saying we have to go back.’

The boy mouthed the last word. Back?

Badalle said, ‘Rutt, you did not fail. You guided the Snake, and your blind tongue flicked out and found these strangers who are strangers no longer. Rutt, you led us from death and into life. Rutt,’ she stepped close, ‘you can rest now.’

The bearded man – whose name was Fiddler – managed to break Rutt’s fall, but both went down to their knees.

The Adjunct took a half-step. ‘Captain? Does he live?’

He looked up after a moment. ‘If his heart still beats, Adjunct, I can neither feel nor hear it.’

Badalle spoke in their language. ‘He lives, Father. He has just gone away. For a time.’

The man Mother had called Fist, who had been standing back, now edged forward and said, ‘Child, how is it you speak Malazan? Who are you?’

Who am I? I don’t know. I’ve never known. She met Mother’s eyes. ‘Rutt led us to you. Because you are the only ones left.’

‘Only ones?’

‘The only ones who will not turn away from us. You are our mother.’

At that the Adjunct seemed to step back, her eyes flaring as if struck to pain. And then she looked away from Badalle, who then pointed at Fiddler. ‘And he is our father, and soon he will go away and we will never see him again. It is the way of fathers.’ That thought made her sad, but she shook her head against the feeling. ‘It is just the way.’

The Adjunct seemed to be trembling and unable to look upon Badalle. Instead, she turned to the man beside her. ‘Fist, broach the reserve casks.’

‘Adjunct! Look at them! Half will die before dawn!’

‘Fist Blistig, I have given you an order.’

‘We cannot spare any water! Not for these – these …’

‘Obey my command,’ said the Adjunct in a weary tone, ‘or I will have you executed. Here. Immediately.’

‘And face open rebellion! I swear it—’

Fiddler had straightened and now he walked to stand in front of Fist Blistig, so close that the Fist took a step back. He said nothing, only smiled, his teeth white amidst that tangle of rusty beard.

Snarling an oath, Blistig swung round. ‘On your heads, then.’

The Adjunct spoke. ‘Captains Yil and Gudd, accompany Fist Blistig.’

A man and a woman who had been hanging back swung round to flank Blistig as he marched back into the column.

Fiddler returned to where Rutt was lying. He knelt beside the boy, settled one hand to one side of the thin face. Then he looked up at Badalle. ‘He led you?’

She nodded.

‘How far? How long?’

She shrugged. ‘Kolanse.’

The man blinked, looked over at the Adjunct for an instant, and then back to Badalle. ‘How many days, then, to water?’

She shook her head. ‘To Icarias, where there are wells … I – I can’t remember. Seven days? Ten?’

‘Impossible,’ said someone from the crowd gathered behind the Adjunct. ‘We have a day’s supply left. Without water, three days at the most – Adjunct, we cannot make it.’

Badalle cocked her head. ‘Where there is no water, there is blood. Flies. Shards. Where there is no food, there are children who have died.’

Someone said, ‘Fist Blistig is right this time, Adjunct. We can’t do this.’

‘Captain Fiddler.’

‘Aye?’

‘Have your scouts guide the ones who can walk back to the food wagons. Ask the Khundryl to attend to those who cannot. See to it that everyone gets water, and food if they can manage any.’

‘Aye, Adjunct.’

Badalle watched him ease his arms under Rutt, watched him lift the boy. Rutt is now Held. He carried Held until he could carry her no longer, and now he is carried, and this is how it goes on.

‘Adjunct,’ she said as Fiddler carried Rutt away, ‘I am named Badalle, and for you I have a poem.’

‘Child, if you stand there unattended to for much longer, you are going to die. I will hear your poem, but not now.’

Badalle smiled. ‘Yes, Mother.’

And for you I have a poem. She stared at the straining backs, the shedding ropes, the toppled statues by the wayside. Two nights now since that meeting, since the last time Badalle had seen the Adjunct. Or the man named Fiddler. And the water was now gone, and still Rutt would not wake, and Saddic sat atop the bales putting his things in patterns only to pack them away again, until the next time.

And she listened to the arguments. She heard the fighting, saw the sudden roiling eddies where fists lashed out, soldiers grappled, knives were drawn. She watched as these men and women stumbled towards death, because Icarias was too far away. They had nothing left to drink, and now those who drank their own piss were starting to go mad, because piss was poison – but they would not bleed out the dead ones. They just left them to lie on the ground.

This night, she had counted fifty-four. The night before there had been thirty-nine, and on the day in between they’d carried seventy-two bodies from the camp, not bothering to dig a trench this time, simply leaving them lying in rows.

The children of the Snake were on the food wagons. Their walking was done, and they too were dying.

Icarias. I see your wells. They were almost dry when we left you. Something is taking the water away, even now. I don’t know why. But it doesn’t matter. We will not reach them. Is it true, then, that all mothers must fail? And all fathers must walk away never to be seen again?

Mother, for you I have a poem. Will you come to me? Will you hear my words?

The wagon rocked, the heavies strained. Soldiers died.

They were on a path now. Fiddler’s scouts had little trouble following it. Small, bleached bones, all the ones who had fallen behind the boy named Rutt, the girl named Badalle. Each modest collection he stumbled over was an accusation, a mute rebuke. These children. They had done the impossible. And now we fail them.

He could hear the blood in his own veins, frantic, rushing through hollow places, and the sound it made was an incessant howl. Did the Adjunct still believe? Now that they were dying by the score, did she still hold to her faith? When determination, when stubborn will, proved not enough, what then? He had no answers to such questions. If he sought her out – no, she’s had enough of that. They’re on her constantly. Fists, captains, the cutters. Besides, talking was torture – lips split open, the swollen tongue struggled, the back of the throat – tight and cracked – was pained by every uttered word.

He walked with his scouts, not wanting to drop back, to see what was happening in the column. Not wanting to witness its disintegration. Were his heavies still pulling the wagons? If they were, they were fools. Were any of those starved children left? That boy, Rutt – who’d carried that thing for so long his arms looked permanently crippled – was he still in a coma, or had he slipped away, believing he’d saved them all?

That would be the best. To ride the delusion into oblivion. There are no ghosts here, not in this desert. His soul just drifted away. Simple. Peaceful. Rising, carrying that baby – because he will always carry that baby. Go well, lad. Go well, the both of you.

They’d come looking for a mother and a father. A thousand children, a thousand orphans – but he was beginning to see, here on this trail, just how many more there had once been – in this train Badalle had called the Snake, and the comprehension of that twisted like a knife in his chest. Kolanse, what have you done? To your people? To your children? Kolanse, had you no better answer than this? Gods, if we could have found you – if we could have faced you across a killing field. We would give answer to your crimes.

Adjunct, you were right to seek this war.

But you were wrong thinking we could win it. You cannot wage war against indifference. Ah, listen to me. But am I dead? Not yet.

The previous day, when the entire camp was silent, soldiers lying motionless beneath the flies, he had reached into his pack, settled his hand upon the Deck of Dragons. And … nothing. Lifeless. This desert was bereft and no power could reach them. We have made the gods blind to us. The gods, and the enemy ahead. Adjunct, I see your reason for this. I did then and I do now. But look at us – we’re human. Mortal. No stronger than anyone else. And for all that you wanted to make us something more, something greater, it seems that we cannot be what you want.

We cannot be what we want, either. And this, more than anything else, is what now crushes us. But still, I am not yet dead.

He thought back to the moment when they’d found the children; the way his scouts – not much older themselves – moved so solemnly among the refugees, giving all the water they carried – their entire allotment for the night’s march given away, from one mouth to the next, until the last drops had been squeezed from the skins. And then the Khundryl youths could only stand, helpless, each surrounded by children who reached out – not to grasp or demand, but to touch, and in that touch give thanks. Not for the water – that was gone – but for the gesture.

How far must one fall, to give thanks for nothing but desire? Empty intent?

The ones who drove you away …

But we have allies, and there is no barrier before them, nothing to slow their march on Kolanse. Gesler, show Stormy the truth of this, and then cut his leash. Leave him to voice a howl to make the Hounds themselves cower! Let him loose, Ges, I beg you.

Because I don’t think we can make it.

The bones of his neck grinding, Fiddler looked up, glared at the Jade Strangers. They filled the night sky now, blazing slashes across heaven’s face. Omens make me puke. I’m sick of the miserable things. But … what if you’re nothing like that, you up there? What if your journey belongs to you and you alone, no destination, no reason or purpose? What if, tomorrow or the next day, you finally descend – to wipe out all of us, to make pointless our every struggle, our every great, noble cause? What is it then, O glorious universe, that you are telling us?

Destiny is a lie.

But, then, do I even care? Look at these bones we step over. We go as far as we can go, and then we stop. And that is how it is. That is all it is. So … now what?

‘Snakes,’ said Banaschar, blinking against the hard clarity of sober vision. It was better when everything was blurred. Much better. ‘That might have been my first fear, the one that had me stumbling right into the pit of vipers we so blithely call the Temple of D’rek. Face what you fear, isn’t that the sage advice? Maybe that’s sobriety’s real curse, the recognition that being frightened is not character-building after all, and that the advice was shit and the world is full of liars.’

The Adjunct was silent as she walked beside him. Not that he was expecting a reply, since he was no longer certain that his words were actually getting past his throat. It was possible, indeed, highly likely, that everything he’d been saying for the past two days had been entirely in his own mind. But then, it was easier that way.

‘Rebellion. Even the word itself makes me … envious. I’ve never felt it – here, in my soul. Never experienced a single moment of defiant fury, of the self demanding its right to be just the way it wants to be. Even when it doesn’t know what that being looks like. It just wants it.

‘Of course, drinking is the sweet surrender. The sanctum of cowards – and we’re all cowards, us drunks, and don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. It’s the only thing we’re good at, mostly, because it’s both our reason and the means by which we run away. From everything. Which is why a drunk needs to stay drunk.’

He glanced across at her. Was she listening? Was there anything to listen to?

‘Let’s move on – that subject makes me … cringe. Another grand notion awaits us, as soon as I can think of one. Snakes, you ask? Well, of course it was a grand notion – the girl giving us names like that. Theirs. Ours. Snakes in the desert. It’s bold, if you think about it. Snakes are damned hard to kill. They slide past underfoot. They hide in plain sight.

‘So … hmm, how about knowledge? When knowing becomes a fall from grace. When truth is seen to condemn rather than liberate. When enlightenment shows nothing but the dark pathos of our endless list of failures. All that. But these attitudes, well, they come from those who want to encourage ignorance – a vital tactic in their maintenance of power. Besides, real knowledge forces one to act –

‘Or does it?’

He paused then, trying to think it through. Only to feel a spasm of fear. ‘You’re right, let’s move on yet again. If there’s one thing I know it’s that about some things I don’t want to know anything. So … ah, in keeping with unexpected guests, shall we speak of heroism?’

Smiles staggered to one side and dropped to one knee. Bottle took up position behind her, guarding her back. The short sword in his hand seemed to be trembling all on its own.

He watched Tarr bull his way back through the milling press. His visage was darker than Bottle had ever seen before. ‘Koryk!’ he snapped.

‘Here, Sergeant.’

‘You’ll live?’

‘Caught a look in an eye,’ the man replied, edging into view. One side of his face was sheathed in blood, but it wasn’t his own. ‘Seen hyenas looking saner.’ He pointed with a bloodied long knife. ‘That corporal there gave ’im a nudge …’

The man Koryk indicated was on his knees. A regular. Burly, broad-shouldered, with a knife handle jutting from the right side of his chest. Blood was streaming from his mouth and nostrils, filled with bubbles.

Tarr glared round, his eyes catching Bottle. He walked over. ‘Smiles – look at me, soldier.’

She lifted her head. ‘Like Koryk said, Sergeant – we ain’t blind and we ain’t stupid. Caught the same nudge, so I gave him my knife.’

Tarr met Bottle’s eyes.

Bottle nodded. ‘Twelve paces between ’em, in the dark, in a crowd.’

The dying corporal had dropped his bearded chin to his chest and seemed to be staring at his knees. Corabb edged closer and gave the man a push. He fell over. The thudding impact, as he landed on the ground, spurted one last mass of foam from his mouth and nose.

‘Two down?’ Tarr asked.

Bottle could feel the hatred in the eyes of the regulars crowding the scene, and he flinched when Corabb said, ‘Three, Sergeant. The first two were the distraction – two more came in low from behind, making for the wagon. I got the first one, then Cuttle chased the last one away – still after him, I guess.’

‘He’s out there?’ Tarr demanded. ‘Hood’s breath!’

Smiles straightened and, moving drunkenly, made her way to the dead corporal, where she retrieved her knife. ‘It ain’t right,’ she muttered. She faced the crowd. ‘We’re guarding empty casks, you damned fools!’

Someone called out, ‘Wasn’t us, marine. That was the Fist’s gang.’

Bottle scowled. Blistig. Gods below.

‘Just leave us alone,’ Smiles said, turning away.

Cuttle returned, caught Tarr’s eye and with one hand casually brushed the crossbow slung down behind his left arm.

The sergeant faced the haulers. ‘Pull up the ropes, soldiers – let’s get this moving again.’

Smiles came up to Bottle. ‘Killing our own – it ain’t right.’

‘I know.’

‘You had my back – thanks.’

He nodded.

The crowd of regulars was melting away. The wagon started rolling, the squad falling in alongside it, and the bodies were left behind.

‘It’s the madness,’ said Corabb a short time later. ‘In Seven Cities—’

‘You don’t need to tell us,’ Cuttle interrupted. ‘We was there, remember?’

‘Aye. Just saying, that’s all. The madness of thirst—’

‘That was planned out.’

‘The corporal, aye,’ Corabb said, ‘but not that fool going for Koryk.’

‘And the ones coming in from behind? Planned, Corabb. Someone’s orders. That ain’t madness. That ain’t anything of the sort.’

‘Mostly, I was talking about the rest of them regulars – the ones closing in on the smell of blood.’

No one had any response to that. Bottle found that he was still holding his short sword. Sighing, he sheathed it.

Shortnose took the blood-stained shirt and pushed it beneath the collar of the leather yoke, stuffing it across the width of his collar bones where his skin had been worn away and things were looking raw. Someone had brought him the shirt, sopping wet and warm, but all that blood didn’t bother him much – he was already adding to it.

The wagon was heavy. Heavier now with children riding atop all the bundles of food. But for all their numbers, not as heavy as it should have been. That was because they were mostly starved down to bones. He didn’t like thinking about that. Back when he’d been a child he remembered hungry times, but every one of those times his da would come in with something for the runts, Shortnose the runtiest of them all. A scrap. Something to chew. And his ma, she’d go out with other mas and they’d be busy for a few days and nights and then she’d come back in, sometimes bruised, sometimes weeping, but she’d have money for the table, and that money turned into food. His da used to swear a lot those times she did that.

But it was all down to feeding the runts. ‘My beautiful runts,’ his da liked saying. And then, years later, when the garrison had up and left town, suddenly Ma couldn’t get the money the way she used to, but she and Da were happier for all of that anyway. Shortnose’s older brothers had all gone off by then, two of ’em to war and the other one to marry Widow Karas, who was ten years older than him and who Shortnose secretly loved with all his might, so it was probably a good thing he ran away when he did, since his brother wouldn’t have taken kindly to that trouble behind the barn with Karas drunk, or maybe not, and anyway it was all in good fun –

He noticed a boy walking beside him. Carrying a sack. His hands were bloody and he was licking them clean.

Brought me that shirt, did you? ‘Ain’t good, runt,’ he said. ‘Drinking blood.’

The boy frowned up at him, and went on with his licking until his hands were clean.

– and he’d heard later how one of his brothers got killed outside Nathilog and the other one came back with only one leg, and then the pensions came through and Ma and Da stopped having to struggle so, especially when Shortnose joined up himself and sent two-thirds of his pay back home; half of that went home to Da and Ma; the other third went to his brother and his wife, because he felt guilty about the baby and all.

Still, it wasn’t good being hungry so young, and starving was worst of all. His da used to say, ‘If ya can’t feed ’em, don’t have ’em. Hood’s proud pole, it don’t take a genius to see that!’ It sure don’t, and that was why Shortnose kept paying for his runt, and he’d still be paying for it if it wasn’t for them being fired and made outlaws and deserters and all the other names the military came up with for not doing what they told you to do. By now, though, that runt would be old enough to work all on its own, so maybe his brother would have called off the bounty on his head. Maybe everything was all right by now, the dust settled and all.

It was nice to think so. But now he’d gone and fallen in love with Flashwit and Mayfly and wasn’t that silly, since there were two of them and only one of him. Not that he saw that as a problem. But women could get funny about things like that. And lots of other things too, which was why they were so much trouble.

The hauler on his right stumbled. Shortnose reached down one-handed and lifted the woman back on to her feet. She gasped her thanks.

Now women. He could think about women all—

‘You’re Shortnose, aren’t ya?’

He glanced down at her. She was short, with big, strong-looking legs – now that was bad luck for her, wasn’t it? The one thing that made proper men drool turned out getting her yoked like a – like a – ‘Yah, that’s me.’

‘Been tryin to look, y’see?’

‘No.’

‘I heard you got the same ear bitten off twice.’

‘So?’

‘Well, er, how’s that possible?’

‘Don’t ask me. It was all Bredd’s fault.’

‘Bredd? Nefarias Bredd? You were fighting him?’

‘Might have been. Save your breath, soldier. See this runt here? He ain’t saying a thing, cause he’s smart.’

‘It’s because he doesn’t understand Malazan.’

‘As good an excuse as any, I always say. Anyway, just keep pulling, and think about things you like to think about. To distract ya from all the bad stuff.’

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Me? Women.’

‘Right,’ she said in a strangely cold tone. ‘So I guess I’ll think about handsome, clever men.’

He smiled down at her. ‘You don’t have to do that, lass – you got one walking right beside you.’

The boy went away and came back a short time later with some more cloth, which he gave to Shortnose so that he could stop his bleeding nose.

Like his da used to say, ‘There ain’t no figurin’ the ways of women.’ Too bad too. She was kinda pretty and, even better, she could swear the hide off a bhederin. Could there be a sexier combination? He didn’t think so.

‘You’d think I was some kind of leper. It ain’t my fault I been dead once, and maybe being dead once means things like getting thirsty don’t hurt as much – I don’t know.’

‘I have been condensing everything in sight,’ Bavedict said. ‘That’s what’s been keeping me going.’

Hedge eyed the alchemist quizzically, and then he shrugged. ‘Beats talking all day, I suppose.’

Bavedict opened his mouth and then shut it again.

‘How are the kittens?’

‘The kittens are just fine, Commander.’

‘We got enough of ’em?’

‘For more than one engagement? Hard to say, sir. I’m comfortable with one battle, using what we need and not holding back.’ He glanced back at the carriage, and then said, ‘I have given some thought to strategies, sir, with respect to alchemical … er … kittens. I don’t think being misers with them works. You want to go the opposite way, in fact. Flood the field of battle, hit them so hard the shock overwhelms them—’

‘I thought you wasn’t going to talk all night? Listen, we worked that out years ago. Walls and waves, we called it. Walls when you was holding a line or position. Waves when you was on the advance. And there ain’t no point in holding back – except the one with your own name on it, of course. Because every sapper will tell you, if you’re gonna kill ’em they’re gonna kill you at the same time, guaranteed. We call it disincentive.’

Bavedict glanced back a second time, frowned at the troop stumping along beside the carriage. The captains weren’t doing well. Thinning out, but not in a good way. They’d not said much in days. Behind them walked the Khundryl, still leading their horses – so I wasn’t quite telling Hedge the truth. I didn’t just dose the oxen but you’d think they’d see—

‘Still nervous?’ Hedge asked him. ‘I’d be, if I was you. Khundryl like their horses. A lot. Between a warrior’s horse and his mother, it’s even odds which one he’d save, if it came down to choosing. Then you just went and killed ’em.’

‘They were dying anyway, sir. In a single day, a horse needs more water than four soldiers, and those Khundryl were running out. Try bleeding a dehydrated animal, sir – it isn’t easy.’

‘Right, so now they got undead horses and still no water, meaning if you’d done that a week ago, why, all that sacrifice wouldn’t have been necessary. They want to kill you, alchemist – it took me half a day to talk ’em out of it.’

Bavedict glared at Hedge. ‘You just said, between horses and their mothers—’

‘They’d save their mothers, of course. What are you, an idiot?’

The alchemist sighed.

‘Anyway,’ Hedge continued after a moment, ‘we’re all Bridgeburners now. Now it’s true, we killed a few officers every now and then, if they was bad enough. Who wouldn’t? Get a fool in charge and they’re likely to get you all killed, so better top ’em first, right? But you ain’t done nothing to earn that. Besides, I need you and so do they. So it’s simple and all – nobody’s gonna cut your throat.’

‘I am most relieved, Commander.’

Hedge moved closer, dropping his voice. ‘But listen. It’s all about to fall apart – can you see that? The Bonehunters – those regulars – they’re losing it.’

‘Sir, we’re not much better off.’

‘So we don’t want to get caught up in the slaughter, right? I already told my captains. We’re gonna pull out hard as soon as it starts up – I want a hundred paces between us before they start looking for somebody new to kill.’

‘Sir, do you think it will get that bad?’

Hedge shrugged. ‘Hard to say. So far, the marines are holding ’em all in check. But there’s gonna come a scrap, any time now, when a marine gets taken down. And the smell of blood will do it, mark my words.’

‘How would the Bridgeburners have handled this, sir? Back in the day?’

‘Simple. Sniff out the yappers and kill ’em. It’s the ones who can’t stop bitching, talking it up, egging on the stupider ones to do something stupid. Hoping it all busts out. Me’ – he nodded to the column walking beside them – ‘I’d jump Blistig and drag him off into the desert – and for a whole damned day nobody’d be sleeping, ’cause of all the screaming.’

‘No wonder you all got outlawed,’ Bavedict muttered.

The sky to the east was lightening, the sun rising to wage war with the Jade Strangers before they plunged beneath the north horizon. The column broke down in sections, clumps of soldiers spilling away on to the sides of the trail. Sinking down, heads lowered, weapons and armour clashing as packs dropped to the ground. The haulers stopped, struggled out of the heavy yokes. Wailing from the Khundryl as yet another horse stumbled and fell on to its side – and out flashed the knives, and this day there would be plenty of blood to drink, but no one rejoiced among the Burned Tears.

Where the wagons halted, the marines settled, red-eyed and slack-faced with exhaustion. On all sides, the soldiers moved like old men and women, fighting to raise tarps and flies, roll out bedding, pausing to rest between tasks. Weapons were slowly drawn, the day’s damage repaired with oiled whetstones, but the act was almost mindless: gestures of instinct observed by dull, sullen eyes.

And then out from the wagons came the children, in ones and twos, into the midst of the soldiers. They came not to beg or plead, but simply to sit, watching over the soldiers as they slept. Or suffered with staring eyes. Or, in the case of some, quietly died.

Sergeant Sinter observed this as she sat leaning against the wheel of the wagon they’d been guarding. The tremulous arrival of a child into every knot of soldiers seemed to have a strange effect upon them. Arguments fell away, glaring eyes faded, resentments sank down. The sleepless rolled on to their sides and surrendered to weariness. Pain was swallowed back and those who sat weeping without tears eventually settled into silence.

What gift was this? She did not understand. And when a soldier awoke in the closing of dusk, and found curled at his or her side a small, still form, cool and pale in the dying light, she’d seen how the squad then gathered to set shards of crystal over the lifeless child, raising a glittering mound. And the soldiers would then cut fetishes free from their belts and harnesses – the bones they’d carried since Aren – and set them upon the pathetic heaps of rock.

‘They’re killing us.’

She looked over at her sister, who sat against the back wheel, her splinted leg stretched out. ‘Who is it this time, Kisswhere?’

‘They come and share the last moments. Ours. Theirs. It’s not fair, what they bring.’

Sinter’s eyes narrowed on Kisswhere. You’ve gone away, sister. Will you ever come back? ‘I don’t know what they bring,’ she said.

‘You wouldn’t.’

A dull awakening of anger, which then drained away. ‘Why do you say that?’

Kisswhere bared her teeth, the back of her head resting between two spokes, her eyes closed. ‘What you always had, Sinter. What I never had. That’s why you can’t see it. Can’t recognize it. It’d be like seeing into your own soul, and that’s something nobody can do. Oh, they say they can. Talk about revelation, or truth. All that shit. But inside us, something stays hidden. For ever.’

‘There’s nothing hiding inside me, Kisswhere.’

‘But those children – sitting, watching, lying close – it hurts you to see them, doesn’t it?’

Sinter looked away.

‘You fool,’ Kisswhere sighed. ‘They bring dignity. Same as you. Same as the Adjunct herself – why do you think so many of us hate her? Hate the sight of her? She shows us everything we don’t want to be reminded of, because there’s nothing harder for most of us to find than dignity. Nothing. So, they show us how you can die with dignity – they show us by dying themselves, and by letting us die while being watched over.

‘The Adjunct said unwitnessed. These children don’t agree.’

But it’s all pointless anyway.

Kisswhere went on, ‘Did you think this would be easy? Did you think our feet wouldn’t start to drag? We’ve walked across half a world to get here. We stopped being an army long ago – and no, I don’t know what we are now. I don’t think there’s a person in this world who’d be able to give us a name.’

‘We’re not going to make it,’ Sinter said.

‘So what?’

Sinter looked across at her sister. Their eyes briefly locked. Just past Kisswhere, Corporal Rim sat hunched over, rubbing oil into the stump of his right arm. He made no sign of listening, but she knew he was. Same for Honey, lying shrouded under stained linen to keep the sun from her eyes. ‘So you don’t care, Kisswhere. You never did.’

‘Surviving this ain’t the point, Sinter. It stopped being the point some time ago.’

‘Right,’ she snapped. ‘So enlighten me.’

‘You already know. You said it yourself – we’re not going to make it. And those children, they come among us, like homunculi. Made up of everything we surrendered in our lives – all that dignity, and integrity, and truth – all of it, and look at them – starved down to bones and not much else. We ain’t been too good with the best in us, sister, have we?’

If tears had been possible, Sinter would have wept them. Instead, she sank down on to the hard ground. ‘You should’ve run,’ she said.

‘I bet the Adjunct says that to herself a thousand times a day.’

The Adjunct? Sinter shook her head. ‘She’s not the running type.’

‘No, and neither are you. And now, it turns out, neither am I.’

This is not my sister.

‘I think,’ Kisswhere resumed, ‘tomorrow will be our last march. And you know, it’s all right. It was worth the try. Someone should tell her that. It was worth the try.’

‘No spiders,’ said Hellian, settling her head back on the bedroll. ‘This is the best there is. This desert, it’s paradise. Let the flies and capemoths take my corpse. Even those damned meat-eating locusts. You won’t find a spider making a nest in my skull’s eye sockets – what could be better than that?’

‘What got you so scared of ’em, Sergeant?’

She thought about that. But then her mind wandered away, and she saw heaps of skulls, all of them smiling. And why not? Oh, yes, no spiders. ‘My father tells a story, especially when he’s drunk. He thinks it’s damned funny, that story. Oh, wait, is that my father? Could be my uncle. Or even my stepfather. Might even be my brother’s father, who lives down the lane. Anyway, it was a story and how he laughed. You got to know Kartool, Maybe. Spiders big enough to eat gulls, right?’

‘Been there once, aye, Sergeant. Creepy place.’

‘The redbacks are the worst. Not big, not much poisonous by themselves. One at a time, I mean. Thing is, when they hatch, there’s thousands, and they stick together for days, so they can kill big prey and all of them feed on it, right? And the egg-sacs, why, they can be hidden anywhere.

‘So, I was maybe two. Spent all day in a crib, every day, since my mother had another baby on the way only she kept getting fevers and eventually she went and lost it, which was stupid, since we had a good healer down the street, but Father drank up all the coin he made. Anyway. I had this doll—’

‘Oh gods, Sergeant—’

‘Aye, they came out of its head. Ate right through the stuffing, and then out through the eyes and the mouth and everywhere else. And there I was: food. It was my half-brother who came in and found me. My head was swollen to twice its size – couldn’t even see my eyes – and I was choking. Counted two hundred bites, maybe more, since they were mostly in my hair. Now, as far as prey goes, I was too big even for a thousand redback babies. But they tried damned hard.’

‘And that story made him laugh? What kind of fucked-up—’

‘Watch it, that’s my father you’re talking about there. Or uncle, or stepfather, or the guy down the lane.’

‘Now I see it, Sergeant,’ said Touchy. ‘It’s all right. I see it. That’d scar anyone for life.’

‘The story ain’t finished, Corporal. I ain’t got to the whole point of it. Y’see, I was eating them damned spiders. Eating ’em like candy. They said my belly was more swollen than my head, and that’s why I was choking so bad – they were biting me all the way down.

‘So they brought in the healer, and she conjured up big chunks of ice. Into my mouth. Back of the throat. And all around my neck, too. Story goes that I had a stroke, from all that ice. Killed the part of my brain that knows when it’s time to stop.’ She stared up at the brightening sky. ‘They say I stole my first jug from my father’s stash when I was six. Got so drunk they needed to bring the healer back a second time. And that’s when she scried me inside and said I was in for a life of trouble.’

A hand brushed her upper arm. ‘That’s a heartbreaking tale, Sergeant.’

‘Is it?’ I suppose it is. Of course, I just made it up. Tug those heartstrings, see all that sweet sympathy in their sweet little faces. They’ll forgive me anything now.

Why do I hate spiders? Gods, who doesn’t? What a stupid question.

‘Faces in the Rock,’ said Urugal the Woven, crouching to scrape patterns in the hard ground. ‘Seven of the Dying Fires. The Unbound. These are our titles – we T’lan Imass cast out from our clans. We who failed in the wars. We who were cursed to witness.’

Nom Kala shifted to look back upon the human camp – a dissolute column forming a jagged line across the hardpan. All motion was dying away there, the growing heat stealing all that was left. The humps of prostrate bodies stretched long shadows.

‘We chose a Knight of Chains,’ Urugal went on, ‘and by his will we were freed from our prison, and by his will the chains shall one day shatter. Then we awaited the sanctification of the House of Chains.’

‘This knight,’ rumbled Kalt Urmanal, ‘is he among us now?’

‘No, but he awaits us,’ replied Urugal. ‘Long has been his journey, and soon the fate of us all will fall at his feet. But, alas, the Fallen One does not command him, and the King in Chains has turned his back on our cause – for the King of the House is cursed, and his chains will never break. It is our belief that he will not sit long upon that throne. Thus, we discard him.’

Beroke Soft Voice said, ‘The Knight is a despiser of chains, but understanding eludes him still. Many are the chains that cut cruel, that enslave with malice. Yet other chains also exist, and these are the ones we each choose to wear – not out of fear, or ignorance. These are the noblest of chains. Honour. Virtue. Loyalty. Many will approach the House of Chains, only to falter upon its threshold, for it demands within us strengths rarely used. When suffering awaits, it takes great courage to stride forward, to enter this unrelenting, unforgiving realm.’

Urugal had scraped seven symbols on the ground. He now pointed to each in turn and said, ‘The Consort. She who is known to us. The Reaver – there are two faces. One man. One woman. Knight, we have spoken of. The Seven of the Dead Fires, the Unbound – we T’lan Imass, for now, but that will change. Cripple, he whose mind must crawl to serve the sacred life within him. Leper, that which is both living and dead. Fool, the threat from within. All, then, but the Knight walk among the mortals in our keeping. Here. Now.’

Nom Kala studied the symbols. ‘But Urugal, they are all dying.’

‘And there is no wind to carry us,’ Beroke said. ‘We cannot travel to what lies ahead.’

‘Thus, we cannot give them hope.’

Kalt Urmanal grunted at Urugal’s conclusion. ‘We are T’lan Imass, what know we of hope?’

‘Are we then lost?’ Nom Kala asked.

The others were silent.

‘I have a thought,’ she said. ‘It is as Kalt says – we are not creatures of hope. We cannot give them what we surrendered so long ago. These mortal humans will die, if we cannot save them. Do any of you dispute that?’

‘We do not,’ said Urugal.

‘And so’ – Nom Kala stepped forward and with one skeletal foot broke the patterns in the dirt – ‘the House of Chains will die.’

‘In another age, it will awaken once more.’

‘If it must be us – and we do wish it to be us, do we not? If it must be us, Unbound, then we have no choice. We must go to the Adjunct.’

‘And say what?’ Urugal demanded.

‘Why, we must lie to her.’

None spoke for a time.

Nom Kala studied the camp, the stretched shadows. ‘Let us seek to steal one more day.’

‘To what end is one more day?’

‘I cannot say, Urugal the Woven. Sometimes, hope is born from a lie. So be it. To her, we shall lie.’

Ruthan Gudd’s eyes tracked Lostara Yil as she approached the Adjunct. The two women stood studying the east as if to defy the savage dawn. He wondered what kept Tavore on her feet. Each night she set out, marching without rest, and by her will alone she dragged an entire army in her wake. If she would not stumble, then neither would the soldiers behind her. It had become a battle, a silent war. And she’s winning it. Every body left behind is testament to that.

But how much longer can she keep this up? Look at that rising run, Adjunct, and the emptiness beneath it. Sometimes, when people speak of forbidding, deadly places, it’s not just a story. Sometimes, it’s all true, and the warnings are honest warnings. There are places that will kill you. And we have found one.

‘What are they saying, do you think?’ Skanarow asked.

He looked down at her, eyes tightening. ‘Sleep, my love.’ He watched her settle her head back on the hard ground, her eyes closing.

Not much longer. And now it’s too late – I can’t save you. I can’t just steal you away, because you won’t make it. He wondered if he would walk out of this desert alone. One survivor left, leaving behind six thousand corpses. A damned Otataral sword in one hand, for the day when he’d need it. Aye, Ruthan Gudd, he’s been a one man army before, after all. Here he goes again. Lifting his gaze, he studied the two women standing twenty paces away, and frowned. Lostara – she’s been possessed by a god. Does that make her tougher than she used to be? Who knows? But she’s looking in better shape than Skanarow. Better than the Adjunct, too.

‘Please, lie beside me.’

Ruthan flinched. He combed through his beard. ‘I will. In a moment.’

‘Beloved?’

‘A moment.’ He walked over to Tavore and Lostara.

If they were in a conversation, it wasn’t one using words. The Adjunct heard him approaching and turned to regard him. ‘Captain. The ice armour you conjured—’

‘Not here, Adjunct. Nothing works here.’

Her eyes flattened. ‘But you will … persevere.’

Lostara Yil coughed, and then said, ‘Ruthan, the T’lan Imass bow to you. They title you Elder.’

‘I am not a god, Elder or otherwise, Lostara. I’m sorry. Wouldn’t it be nice to be one, though? For each and every one of us. Just to be … outside all this. The T’lan Imass will manage, when—’

‘So will you,’ the Adjunct cut in. ‘Yet you are not a god.’

‘We do not choose to whom we are born.’

‘Indeed not. Who, then, are your parents?’

He scratched his beard vigorously. ‘Adjunct, does it matter? It may be that this desert doesn’t kill me. It’s equally likely that it will.’

‘You will reach the city with the wells.’

‘Will I?’ Ruthan shook his head. ‘Let me be honest with you – I cannot fathom how those children got as far as they did. What did Badalle say? Ten days away? But Icarias is two, even three weeks’ march from here.’

‘How do you know this?’

He grimaced. ‘I was once a guest of the Jaghut who dwelt in Icarias along with a refugee enclave of K’Chain Che’Malle. The simple fact remains, the only way those children could have come as far as they have, Adjunct, is by warren.’

Tavore turned to Lostara. ‘Get the girl. Bring her to me.’

‘Aye, Adjunct.’

When she’d departed, Tavore fixed Ruthan with a hard stare. ‘A warren.’

‘Which is impossible. I know.’ He saw a glitter of hope in her eyes and shook his head. ‘Do not, Adjunct. The desert is sucked dry, and if you’re not careful things are likely to get much worse.’

‘Worse? Explain to me how this could get worse, Captain.’

He looked away, back to where Skanarow slept, and sighed. ‘Draw your sword, Adjunct.’

‘What?’

‘Unsheathe your Otataral blade.’

She had the sword half out of the scabbard before Ruthan reached out and grasped her wrist. And then, retching, he fell to his knees, turning his head away.

Tavore slammed the weapon back down and staggered back a step. ‘Gods!’ she gasped.

Ruthan spat, and then used the back of his wrist to wipe at his beard. ‘It’s what none of you ever understood,’ he said, staring down at his trembling hands, studying the smears of blood in what he’d coughed up. ‘It’s not just some damned metal that just happens to devour magic. Otataral is aspected.’ He pushed himself back on to his feet. ‘The next time you draw that weapon, Adjunct, the act will summon. She is loose upon the world now, the dragon that is the source of all Otataral – the living heart of that which takes life. She has been freed.’

Tavore took another step back, shaking her head. ‘What has been done?’ she demanded, her voice breaking.

He saw panic rising within her – vast cracks in her armour – and held out a hand. ‘Wait – listen to me. Tavore Paran, listen! It will be answered – everything is answered. Everything!’

And now, all at once, it was as if a child was standing before him. Lost, frightened. The sight tore at his heart. ‘They’re not interested in the Crippled God. Do you understand me? The ones who did this – they don’t care what happens to him. They’re reaching for something bigger – and they think they will sweep all this aside. You, the Fallen One, the Forkrul Assail – all of it, swept away!

‘But they’re fools. Do you understand me? Anomander Rake is gone, but Draconus now walks the world. Do you see? Everything is answered.’ And that is the true madness of this – the Otataral Dragon cannot remain unchained. Draconus will have to kill it – him or the Eleint – and by killing it they will end all magic. They will cast us all out into a world devoid of sorcery.

She had turned away from him, was now staring into the east. ‘This is what he meant,’ she murmured.

‘Adjunct?’

‘He said my sword would not be enough – we argued that, again and again. He said … he said—’ She faced him, eyes suddenly shining, and Ruthan was struck by a sudden beauty in her face, a thing that seemed to rise as if from nowhere. ‘He said … “it will be answered.” His words, the same as yours.’

‘Who are you talking about?’ he demanded. Who’s been scheming this nightmare all along? What raving, lunatic idiot—

‘Ben Adaephon Delat.’

He stared, disbelieving, thunderstruck at his own stupidity. ‘That name …’

‘High Mage Quick Ben, Captain. He vowed he would save Burn, and that was one vow he would not surrender. He said the cancer needed cutting out – Ruthan? What is wrong?’

But he had turned away, struggling to hold it all in. Struggling – and then failing. Laughter burst from him. Disbelieving, wondrous laughter. ‘Delat? Adaephon Delat? Quick Ben – oh, by the Abyss! The bloody nerve of him! Was it a glamour, that made me so thick? No wonder he stayed away from me!’

‘Captain?’

He stared at her, and he could feel his mouth stretched wide in a manic, helpless grin. ‘And down he went, in the battle with the Short-Tails? Like Hood he did!’

Her lips thinned into a straight line. ‘Captain Ruthan Gudd, even you could not be so dense. Of course he isn’t dead.’ She pointed to a nearby figure perched atop an outcrop of rock. ‘Ask our resident Septarch of D’rek. He will tell you, since he at last has figured it out.’

As if commanded, Banaschar rose then, tottering as he walked to them. He wagged a finger at Ruthan Gudd, and through cracked, bleeding lips, he said, ‘This is Quick Ben’s game, O Elder. The bones are in his sweaty hands and they have been for some time. Now, if at his table you’ll find the Worm of Autumn, and the once Lord of Death, and Shadowthrone and Cotillion, not to mention the past players Anomander Rake and Dessembrae, and who knows who else, well – did you really believe a few thousand damned Nah’ruk could take him down? The thing about Adaephon Delat’s game is this: he cheats.’

He turned to the Adjunct and managed a faint bow. ‘Lady Tavore, it is fair to say that I will remember the light in your eyes – as I am privileged to see it now – for the rest of my days. Did I not speak of heroism? I believe I did, though in your despond perhaps you were not listening.’

‘By your words, High Priest, I found the strength for the next step. Forgive me if I could give you nothing in return.’

He cocked his head and regarded her, and then said softly, ‘My lady, have you not given enough?’

Ruthan Gudd clawed at his beard. The delight was fast fading, and he feared stirring the ashes and finding that hope had been nothing but a lone spark, already gone. ‘We still face a dilemma, and oh how I wish Delat was here, though I think even he would have no answers for our plight. This desert will have us.’

Tavore said, ‘Captain, if I fall – take up my sword.’

‘If I do, Adjunct – and if indeed a time comes when I must draw that weapon – it will kill me.’

‘Then as you have said, you must not be an Elder God.’

‘As I said,’ he agreed wryly. ‘But the matter is simpler than that. I have lived a long time, and that is by magic alone. Without sorcery, I would be less than dust.’ He glanced at Banaschar. ‘Delat is not the only one to have gamed at the table of the gods.’

‘I would know your story some day, Ruthan Gudd,’ said Banaschar, with a sad smile.

Ruthan Gudd shrugged. ‘To be honest, too sordid to tell.’

They were silent, as if so thoroughly wrung out by all that had been said – and felt – that nothing remained.

Lostara then returned, and at her side was the girl named Badalle, and a boy carrying a sack.

Nom Kala walked through a silent camp, bodies lying motionless on all sides, half-closed eyes tracking her as she strode past. She saw suffering on a scale that made long-dead emotions tremble inside her, and she remembered the fate of her own kind, when walls of ice closed in, when the animals died out or went away, when there was nothing left to eat, when the humans hunted them down.

Their answer had been the Ritual, an escape that proved a prison. But such a thing was not available to these mortals. Another day. A lie to give them that, if one is even possible. See how weak they are. See how they fail. Another day – but would that be a gift? The marching, the dragging steps, the ones falling to the side to surrender. Will they thank me for those extra moments?

Perhaps her desire to help was in fact one of cruelty—

‘So, how does it feel?’

At the faint voice she halted, looked round, saw a soldier sitting nearby, studying her. ‘How does what feel?’ she asked.

‘Being … dust.’

She did not know how to answer him and so was silent.

‘We’ll be joining you soon enough, I suppose.’

‘No, you won’t. No memory will remain, nothing to draw you back.’

‘But I have strings, T’lan Imass. That’s my private curse. I will be pulled back together – or they’ll try, anyway. Over and over again.’

Nom Kala studied the man, and then shook her head. ‘I see no strings, mortal. If they once existed, now they are gone. Nothing holds you. Not the will of gods, not the lies of destiny or fate. You are severed from everything but that which lives within you.’

‘Truly? No wonder I feel so lonely.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is the reason.’

‘But … you are not alone, are you, T’lan Imass?’

‘No, but that is no salvation. Together, we but share our loneliness.’

He snorted. ‘Not sure that makes sense, but I think I understand you anyway. Listen, do us a favour. Once the last of us has fallen, don’t fall to dust, don’t give up just yet. Walk out of this desert. Walk out of it. Please, will you do that?’

‘Because it is said that this desert cannot be crossed. Yes, I understand you, mortal.’

‘Will you do it?’

‘We shall.’

He settled back on his bedroll with an uneven sigh. ‘Good. Prove them wrong. It’s good enough, I think.’

Nom Kala hesitated, and then said, ‘Do not give up, soldier. One more march.’

Eyes closed, he asked, ‘What would be the point of that?’

‘Push your comrades on – through this next night. Do this, please. As I have agreed to do as you wish, I ask that you reciprocate.’

He opened his eyes, squinted at her. ‘Is it that important?’

‘Suffering is a chasm. But there is the other side, and upon that side waits the Fallen God. I am one of the Seven now. I am one among the Unbound. The Fallen One understands suffering, mortal. In that you are not alone. In that, neither are the T’lan Imass alone.’

‘Aye, I’ll grant you that he knows a thing or two about suffering. That you do, as well. I just don’t see the comfort in that kind of sharing.’

‘If not comfort, then find strength.’

‘To keep bearing that suffering? What for?’

Yes, Nom Kala, what for? Do you have an answer? Does anyone? ‘When you at last reach across that chasm, mortal, and grasp tight the hand of the Fallen One, ask him your question.’

He managed a sour smile. ‘Convenient.’ And he closed his eyes once more.

She continued on, troubled, heavy with anguish. The T’lan Imass have seen civilizations rise and fall. We have seen lands die, only to be reborn. We have seen the seas rise and we have walked ancient seabeds. We have witnessed life’s myriad struggles. From the lone creature suffering its last moments to thousands dying in a bleak season.

And what have we learned?

Only that life is its own purpose. And that, where there is life, there shall be suffering. Has it any meaning? Is existence reason enough?

I am an Unbound. I am free to see, and what is it that I see?

I see … nothing.

Ahead, at the vanguard of the column, there were figures. Standing. Now, I must find a worthy lie. And if my name is to be cursed in the last breaths of these humans, so be it. My crime was hope. My punishment is to see it fail.

But the T’lan Imass have weathered that punishment for a long time, and the failure of hope has a name: it is called suffering.

‘Words,’ said Badalle, meeting the Adjunct’s eyes. ‘I found power in words. But that power is gone. I have nothing left.’

Mother turned to her companions, but said nothing. There was almost no life left in her plain face, her plain eyes, and seeing that hurt Badalle somewhere inside. I had a poem for you. But it is gone. Dried up.

A man combed his beard with filthy fingers and said, ‘Child … if your strength returns – another day …’

‘It is not that kind of strength,’ Badalle replied. ‘It is gone, perhaps for ever. I do not know how to get it back. I think it has died.’ I am not your hope. I cannot be. It was meant to be the other way round, don’t you see that? We are children. That and nothing more. ‘The god that died here, it was the same.’

Mother frowned. ‘Can you explain that, Badalle?’

She shook her head.

The other man – the one with the haunted eyes – then spoke. ‘What can you tell us of that god, Badalle?’

‘He broke apart.’

‘Did he just break apart or did someone break him apart?’

‘He was murdered by his followers.’

The man reacted as if he’d been struck in the face.

‘It is in the Song of the Shards,’ she continued. ‘The god sought to give his people one last gift. But they refused it. They would not live by it, and so they killed him.’ She shrugged. ‘It was long ago, in the age when believers murdered their gods if they didn’t like what the god had to say. But it’s all different now, isn’t it?’

‘Aye,’ the bearded man muttered. ‘Now we just ignore them to death.’

‘It’s not the gods that we ignore,’ said the woman standing beside Mother, ‘just their gifts of wisdom.’

The other man spoke. ‘Do that long enough and the gods just wither and die. So it takes longer, but in the end, it’s still murder. And we’re just as vicious with mortals who have the nerve to say things we don’t want to hear.’ He cursed, and then said, ‘Is it any wonder we’ve outstayed our welcome?’

Mother met Badalle’s eyes and asked, ‘This city – Icarias – who dwells there?’

‘Only ghosts, Mother.’

Beside her, Saddic had seated himself on the ground, taking out his useless things, but at the mention of Icarias he looked up and then pointed at the bearded man. ‘Badalle,’ he said. ‘I saw this man. In the crystal caves beneath the city.’

She considered this, and then shrugged. ‘Not ghosts, then. Memories.’

‘For ever frozen,’ the bearded man said, eyeing the boy. He faced Mother. ‘Adjunct, they cannot help you. Look at them – they’re dying just as we are.’

‘Would that we could have done better by them,’ said the other man.

Mother hesitated, and then nodded, as if in defeat.

This is not how it should be. What am I not seeing? Why do I feel so helpless?

The bearded man was still watching Saddic, and then he said, ‘Send them back to their beds, Adjunct. This is all too … cruel. The sun and heat, I mean.’

‘Lostara—’

‘No, I will escort them, Adjunct.’

‘Very well, Captain. Badalle, this man, Ruthan Gudd, will take you back now.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

The captain settled into a crouch, facing Saddic. ‘Here,’ he said gruffly, ‘let me help with these toys.’

Badalle stared, suddenly breathless, watching as Ruthan Gudd and Saddic filled the tattered bag. Something made Saddic look up then, his eyes meeting hers.

‘Badalle? What is it? What did he say?’

She struggled to breathe, struggled to speak. Something fierce and wild rushed through her. She fell to her knees, snatched the bag from Saddic’s small hands. She spilled the objects back out and stared down at them in wonder.

‘Badalle?’

The captain had leaned back, startled by the vehemence in her gesture, yet he said nothing.

‘Badalle?’

‘Saddic – these things – they’re toys.’

He looked up at her, the colour leaving his face. Showing her, bared and raw, wretched astonishment. Then that shattered, and she could see that he was about to cry.

I’m sorry. I’d … forgotten.

She watched as Saddic’s attention returned to the collection of objects spilled out on the ground before him. He reached out as if to touch one – a bundle of twine and feathers – and then snatched back his hand. ‘Toys,’ he whispered. ‘They’re toys.’

The captain climbed to his feet and backed away. His dark eyes met her gaze, and she saw the horror in them, and she understood. Yes, this is what we lost. ‘Thank you, Captain,’ she said quietly. ‘We will go back. Just … not yet. Please?’

He nodded, and then led the other adults away, and though it was obvious that they were confused, that they had questions, not one of them said a word.

Badalle moved to kneel across from Saddic. She stared down at the array, weakened by a sudden feeling of helplessness. I – I don’t remember. Yet, when she reached down to pick up the pommel from a knife or sword, when she hesitated and looked over at Saddic, he simply nodded his invitation.

Thirty paces away, hot but dry-skinned in the burgeoning heat, Ruthan Gudd stood watching, his only company the Adjunct. In a few terse, difficult words, he had explained his sense of what had just happened.

Neither spoke for some time.

It wasn’t fair. Of all the crimes he had seen in a life almost too long to comprehend … this one surpasses them all. The look on her face. On the boy’s when she told him. That pathetic collection, carried like a treasure, and is it not a treasure? Finally, he wiped a hand before his eyes and said, ‘We spoke of murdering gods, with a strange diffidence, almost a bluster – and what did they show us? Adjunct, what are we, when we murder innocence?’

Tavore’s sigh was ragged. ‘It will be answered.’

He saw her take on the burden, in the settling of her shoulders, recognized the breathtaking courage in the way she lifted her head, the way she refused to look away from the scene – of two children, trying to remember what it is to play. Adjunct – do not do this. You cannot carry anything more—

Hearing someone behind them, they both turned.

A T’lan Imass. Ruthan Gudd grunted. ‘One of our deserters.’

‘Nom Kala,’ the apparition replied. ‘Now in the service of the Fallen One, Elder.’

‘What do you wish to tell me?’ Tavore asked.

‘Adjunct. You must march for another night – you cannot stop here. You cannot give up. One more night.’

‘I intend to march for as many nights as we can, Nom Kala.’

She was silent, as if nonplussed.

Ruthan Gudd cleared his throat. ‘You don’t want us to give up – we understand that, Nom Kala. We are the Fallen One’s last hope.’

‘Your soldiers fail.’

‘They’re not interested in worshipping the Crippled God,’ he said. ‘They don’t want to give their lives to a cause they don’t understand. This confusion and reluctance weakens their spirit.’

‘Yes, Elder. Thus, there must be one more night of marching.’

‘And then?’ the Adjunct demanded. ‘What salvation will find us by tomorrow’s dawn?’

‘The Seven of the Dying Fires shall endeavour to awaken Tellann,’ Nom Kala replied. ‘We have begun our preparations for a Ritual of Opening. Once we have created a gate we shall travel through, to a place where there is fresh water. We shall fill the casks once more and return to you. But we need another day.’

‘There are but seven of you,’ Ruthan said. ‘In this desert, that is not enough.’

‘We shall succeed in this, Elder.’

Ruthan cocked his head. ‘If you say so.’

‘I do. Now, please inform your soldiers. One more march.’

‘To reach salvation,’ said the Adjunct.

‘Yes.’

‘Very well, Nom Kala.’

The T’lan Imass bowed to them both, turned and then strode back into the camp.

When she was gone, the Adjunct sighed. ‘In your obviously long life, Captain, did you ever throw dice with a T’lan Imass?’

‘No, and I used to think that wisdom on my part.’

‘And now?’

Ruthan Gudd shook his head. ‘They are terrible liars.’

‘Still,’ she said under her breath, ‘I appreciate the effort.’

‘We don’t need it, Adjunct. To keep us all going – we don’t need it.’

‘We don’t?’

‘No.’ And he pointed to Badalle and Saddic. ‘I will go among the troops this day, Adjunct, for I have a story to tell. Two children, a sack of toys.’

She eyed him. ‘These children?’

He nodded. ‘These children.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HE FELT THE NUDGE AND IMAGINED HIMSELF IN THE HOLD OF A SHIP, rolling in heavy swells. When the nudge came a second time, he thought of drunken nights, sprawled beneath a table with someone’s booted foot thudding against him. With the third nudge – harder this time, delivered with irritation or impatience – he muttered a curse. But something had gummed together his lips, so the word came out as a moan.

He decided it was time to open his eyes.

That too proved a struggle, lids pulling apart as if glued, stinging viciously once he blinked his way clear. Gloom, blurred shapes, something like a face hovering over him. The air smelled of decay. The taste in his mouth was of old, old blood. And something else. Bitter. It was, he decided, the taste of failure.

‘Get up.’

Another figure, now kneeling beside him. A soft hand pressing against the side of his face – but his beard was stiff and it crackled under the palm, and the hand slipped away. Only to come back, hard enough to rock his head.

And a woman said, ‘We don’t have time for this. The door’s open. Some people round here got a feel for things like that.’

The first speaker said, ‘Poison’s gone inert. Long ago. But he ain’t moved in a while.’

‘The guardian should’ve—’

‘Off wandering the warrens, is my guess. Lucky us.’

‘Just help him to his feet, will you?’

Hands under his arms, a grunt, and he felt himself leave the stone floor except for his heels. Sudden pain in his lower back and his legs as they tried to take his weight. He couldn’t remember being this heavy – was he ever this heavy?

‘Stand up, damn you – I can’t hold you up long.’

‘How do you think I felt?’ the woman asked beside him. ‘He made all my bones creak.’

He swore at the sharp stabs lancing out from his legs, tottered—

‘There, back a step – lean against the wall. Good, like that. Now look at me, idiot. Look at me like you know me.’

It was dark, but he could make out the man’s face now. Studied the eyes fixing on his own, and frowned.

‘What’s my name?’ the man demanded.

He worked until he had some spit in his mouth, pushed with his tongue to force open his lips. ‘I know you,’ he managed to say. ‘Your name … Blob.’

‘Blob?’ The man’s head turned towards the woman. ‘He says my name is Blob.’

‘Should I slap him again?’

‘Blur,’ he now said, blinking at the woman. ‘Blob and Blur. I remember now. You got me drunk. Took advantage of me. I should probably kill you both. Where are my trousers?’

Still leaning against the wall, still using it to prop himself up, he glared at the man and the woman, watched them both back off a step. They were all in a corridor, and to his right was a thick wooden door, pushed open, revealing a snarled lumpy mess of a yard just beyond, and a cool draught was slinking in, smelling of brackish water and rubbish.

The man spoke slowly, as if to a child. ‘You’re wearing your trousers.’

‘Of course I am. Think I can’t dress myself? Where are my knives?’

The woman swore under her breath and then said, ‘The fool’s lost his mind. Not hard, since it wasn’t great to begin with, but it’s gone now. He’s useless to us – Cotillion lied. Just wanted me out from underfoot, so he sent me riding wild as a she-witch – all for nothing!’

‘I’d agree with you on that assessment,’ said the other man, now crossing his arms, ‘except for one thing.’

‘What?’

‘Blob and Blur? The bastard’s having us on, Minala. And he thinks it’s funny, too. See that glare? Like every ocean storm’s come home to roost on his forehead. Thing is, Kalam never glares. Almost never scowls. Kalam’s got the face of an assassin.’

Kalam sneered. ‘I’m having you on, am I? Tell you what, Wizard, am I having you on the way you had me on when I cracked that acorn and you never showed? With about a hundred Claws closing in on me?’

‘Not my fault. Besides, look at you. You came out the other end still walking—’

‘Crawling, actually,’ corrected Minala. ‘According to Shadowthrone, I mean. In fact, the wispy runt had to drag Kalam up to the door here. It’s a wonder he even managed it.’

Quick Ben snorted. ‘So you ain’t nearly as good as you think you are. What a shock. Look at your clothes and armour – you’re chopped to pieces, O mighty assassin. A handful of Laseen’s weasels made a mess of you, and you’ve got the nerve to blame me.’

‘So where is she?’ Kalam demanded.

‘Who?’

‘Laseen. I got to settle with her – she cut Tavore loose. She said the Wickans have to be sacrificed – and Korbolo Dom. I want that bastard’s knobby head bouncing down every step from Mock’s Hold to the mouth of the sewer – where the fuck are my knives?’

Minala drew out a belted brace and flung the gear at his feet. ‘So I come riding through a thousand warrens, nearly get blasted by lightning, and you ain’t got a single word for your Hood-damned wife?’

‘You threw me out, remember?’

‘Remember? I’m remembering why, is what I’m remembering. This is all Cotillion’s fault.’

Quick Ben said, ‘She won’t say it, but she misses you—’

She rounded on him. ‘You stay out of this!’

‘I’d love to, but we haven’t got time. Look, Kalam, she’s sincere – she even found you a horse—’

‘What do I need a horse for? We’re in Malaz City! If Laseen’s run away, I don’t need a horse – I need a ship.’

‘Kalam, listen to me. Shadowthrone delivered you to the Deadhouse. You were dying. Poisoned. And then you were just, er, left here. Lying there on the floor. For some time – well, a fair bit of time, in fact.’

‘Did you kill Laseen, then? Did you avenge me? And you have the nerve to call yourself my friend – you didn’t kill her, did you? Did you?’

‘No I didn’t – just close that trap of yours and try listening for a change. Never mind the Malazan Empire. Never mind the Regent or Protector or whatever title Mallick Rel’s come up with. And maybe Laseen got killed like they say she did, or maybe she didn’t – it doesn’t matter. We’re not hanging around, Kalam. We’re needed elsewhere. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Not a word. But it sounds to me like we’re wasting time.’ He looked at Minala. ‘So you got me a horse, did you? Is it big enough? Better not be a stallion – you know how they get jealous when I’m around you.’

‘I wasn’t picky,’ she said. ‘But if I’d thought about it, I’d have gotten you a fat one-eared three-legged ass, and you could take turns riding each other. Not that anybody’d tell the difference.’

‘Gods below, you two!’ hissed Quick Ben, with a sharp look out into the yard. ‘Trying to wake up the whole waterfront? We’ve got to go. Now.’

Kalam collected the weapon belt, checked to confirm that the sheaths held his long knives. But his memory still wasn’t the way it should have been, so he couldn’t be sure. But they looked to be decent weapons anyway. ‘Fine. Shut up the both of you and let’s get going.’

Outside, beneath a strangely green cloudy night sky, Quick Ben led the way down the winding path between overgrown mounds and dead trees. They reached the gate and the wizard gestured off to their left.

The horses were tethered to a hitching post in front of a sunken tavern thirty paces away. Rising waters had flooded the taproom, leaving the place abandoned and dark. As they set off for them, Kalam narrowed his gaze on one of the beasts. His steps slowed. ‘Hold on,’ he whispered, ‘that ain’t a horse.’

‘Best I could do,’ Quick Ben muttered. ‘Don’t worry, it’s mine.’

Four paces from the rail and a hulking, armoured figure stepped out from the tavern’s nearest alley. Two heavy blades clashed together, and then lifted threateningly.

Quick Ben swore. ‘Look, Temper, I knocked. Nobody home.’

The visored face swung to study the Deadhouse, and then a deep voice rumbled out. ‘I might have to kill you three anyway.’

‘Why?’ yelped Quick Ben.

Temper pointed with one of his huge swords. ‘You didn’t close the fucking door.’

‘I’ll be right back.’

They watched the wizard hurry back to the Deadhouse.

Temper turned to Kalam. ‘He never fooled me, you know. I don’t know what Whiskeyjack was thinking.’

‘You smell of Coop’s Ale,’ said Kalam. ‘I’m thirsty. Listen, Minala – when Quick gets back, tell him—’

‘Don’t even try,’ she said in a growl. ‘Besides, here he comes.’

‘Done,’ said Quick Ben when he returned. His teeth flashed white as he smiled.

Temper slid his weapons back into their sheaths. ‘I suppose I don’t really need to say this to any of you. But … don’t come back. We like it sleepy here. I see any of you again …’

Quick Ben’s smile vanished and he sighed and shook his head. ‘Temper, you should’ve bolted to the Bridgeburners when you had the chance.’

‘I hear they’re all dead.’

The wizard swung atop his ethereal horse and grinned down. ‘Exactly.’

Examining the natty gelding Minala had found for him, Kalam glanced over. ‘Do you like being retired, Temper? No, it’s an honest question. Do you like it?’

‘Night like this … seeing you all eager to ride out … into serious trouble, no doubt … aye, Assassin, I like it. And if you want to do the same, I’ll stand you a tankard of Coop’s in yonder inn, before throwing you into the harbour.’

‘I’ll get back to you on that,’ Kalam replied, mounting up. He looked across to Minala, and then Quick Ben. ‘All right, unless these horses can run on water, someone needs to crack open a warren.’

‘Well,’ said Quick Ben, ‘mine can.’

‘Smug as ever, I see.’

‘In any case, warrens are my business—’

‘And how’s business?’ Kalam asked.

‘Awful. But that’s all about to change.’

‘Really? How?’

‘Gods below, Kalam. Because I’m back, that’s why. Now stop talking and leave me to it, will you?’

When the three riders were gone, and the tattered wisps of foul-smelling smoke had drifted away, Temper swung round, stepped back into the gloom of the alley, and studied the wraith-like figure standing amidst the rubbish. ‘Old loyalties,’ he said. ‘The only reason I let them go. The Deadhouse isn’t a damned toll booth, Emperor.’

A cane cracked its silver heel hard on the grimy stones. ‘Emperor? I left that behind long ago. And as for the days when I gave kindly advice, well, they never existed. But for this once, and for you alone, Temper, a word of caution. Watch how you talk to gods, mortal, lest they …’ he suddenly giggled, ‘take umbrage.’

Temper grunted, said nothing for a dozen heartbeats, and then: ‘Umbrage … huh.’ He turned to leave, and Shadowthrone struck the cobbles again. The huge warrior paused, looked over.

Shadowthrone hissed. ‘Well? Is that it?’

‘Is what it?’

‘That’s all you have to say? This is a momentous scene, you fat fool! This is where everything really, truly, finally begins! So squeeze the ale from your brain, mortal, and say something worthy of your kind. You stand before a god! Speak your eloquence for all posterity. Be profound!’

‘Profound … huh.’ Temper was silent for a long moment, studying the cobbles of the alley mouth. And then he lifted his helmed head, faced Shadowthrone, and said, ‘Fuck off.’

Sister Belie watched the man pick his way carefully through the mass of rubble that had once been the citadel gate. He wasn’t especially tall. He had nothing of the brawn common to a veteran soldier, though a white scar was visible climbing one side of his jaw, up to a clipped ear – that didn’t look like a sword cut, she decided. Something bit him. Would Sister Reverence appreciate that? A Jaghut’s tusk, perchance? Not likely. No, there wasn’t much to this man, nothing to explain the source of his defiance, his infuriating resistance to the will and voice of the Watered.

This was about to change, of course. The enemy commander had just made a fatal error in agreeing to this parley. For Sister Belie’s blood was not watered, and this man was about to discover the power in the voice of a pure-born Forkrul Assail.

The smoke-stained, cracked walls of the citadel were proof of the effort the Watered commanders had made in seeking to conclude this siege; and the thousand or so rotting corpses lying on the killing ground beneath those walls marked the savage determination of the Shriven. But every assault thus far had ended in defeat.

Yes, the enemy has done well. But our patience is at an end. It is time to finish this.

The fool was unguarded. He came out alone – not that it would have mattered, for she would have used his own bodyguards to cut him down. Instead, she would make him take his own life, here, before the horrified eyes of his soldiers lining those battlements.

The enemy commander picked his way past the corpses and then drew to within ten paces of where she stood. Halting, he eyed her curiously for a moment, and then spoke in passable Kolansii. ‘A Pure, then. Is that the correct term? Not mixed blood – the ones you call Watered, as in “watered down”, presumably. No, you are a true Forkrul Assail. Have you come to … adjudicate?’ And he smiled.

‘Human arrogance ever takes my breath away,’ Sister Belie observed. ‘Perhaps, under certain circumstances, it is justified. For example, when dealing with your own kind, whom you have made helpless and at your mercy. Or in the matter of dealing with lesser beasts, when they presume to defy your tyranny. In the palace of the now dead king of Kolanse, there is a vast chamber crowded with stuffed trophies – animals slain by those of the royal line. Wolves, bears, cats. Eagles. Stags, elk, bhederin. They are given postures of ferocity, to mark that final moment of defiance – their presumption to the right to their own lives, one supposes. You are human – as human as was the king of Kolanse. Can you explain to me this sordid need to slay animals? Are we to believe that each and every beast in that chamber sought to kill its slayer?’

‘Well now,’ the man replied, ‘I admit to having a personal opinion on such matters, but you have to understand, I never could comprehend the pleasure of slaughter. Those whom I have met who have enjoyed such activities, well, the reasons they tend to give don’t make much sense to me. You could have simply asked the king of Kolanse.’

‘I did,’ Sister Belie said, nodding.

His brows lifted. ‘And?’

‘He said it made him feel one with the animal he killed.’

‘Ah. I’ve heard similar.’

‘Accordingly,’ she resumed, ‘I killed all his children and had them stuffed and displayed in the same chamber. It was my wish that he feel one with his offspring, too.’

‘I imagine that wasn’t very successful.’

She shrugged. ‘Let us hear your opinion, then.’

‘Some needs are so pathetic they cannot be satisfied except by killing. I don’t mean those among us who hunt out of necessity. That’s just food. But let’s face it, as soon as you start planting fields and keeping livestock, you don’t need to hunt for food any more.’

‘The king also said it was his means of worshipping nature.’

‘By destroying it?’

‘Just my thought, human. But then, is that not your principal means of worship?’

‘Now that is a perceptive, if slightly painful, observation. But consider this – in killing and stuffing those children, were you not expressing the same detestable arrogance that so offended you in the first place?’

‘It was an experiment to see if I too could feel one with those I had slain. Alas, I did not. I felt … sad. That I should have such power in my hands, and should choose to use it for destructive ends. And yet I discovered something else – a truth about myself, in fact. There is pleasure in destroying, and it is a most sordid kind of pleasure. I suspect this is what is confused with the notion of “oneness” by such chronic slayers.’

‘You’re probably right.’

‘Because they are, in fact, not particularly intelligent.’

‘I assumed you would arrive at that opinion sooner or later.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, it sounds as if you feel a need to justify killing us, and while you have pity for the lesser beasts of this world, your definition of “lesser beasts” does not include humans. Yet, ironically, your justification is predicated on the very same notion of arrogant superiority that you found so reprehensible in the Kolanse royal family. The beast that knows no better can be slain with impunity. Of course, there is no logic to that notion at all, is there?’

Sister Belie sighed. ‘That was most enjoyable. Now I need you to take your own life, so that we may end this pointless battle. I would like to be able to tell you that your army will be well treated, and so on. But the truth is, I will command them – just as I command the Shriven. And with the power of my voice I will set them against my enemies, whoever they may be, and they will fight without fear. They will fight with a ferocity the like of which has never been seen among your kind, because I intend to use them, the way you use horses, or war dogs. In other words, like well-trained beasts.’

‘What a depressing notion, Forkrul Assail. Those pathetic needs I talked about? They all come down to power. The king killed those animals because he had the power to do so, and expressing that power made him feel good. But it never lasts long, so out he goes to kill some more. I find it pathetic. And all that you have just said to me here, well, it’s really the same old shit. By your voice and the sorcery of Akhrast Korvalain you will seek to fill that void in your soul, the void that is the hunger for control, when the bitter truth is, you really control nothing, and the universe is destined to swallow you up just as it does everything else.’

‘You do not believe in the power to do good? To do what is right?’

‘The Hold of the Beasts wants vengeance. It wants to redress the balance of slaughter. Messy as that would be, at least I see the logic of it. But I fear it’s too late. Their age is past, for now.’

‘We will prove the lie of your words, human.’

‘No, you won’t. Because, Forkrul Assail, you are going to fail, and in failing you fail your allies as well, and for them the misery simply goes on and on. The only end to the tragedy of the beasts will come at the hands of humans – and to the Wolves I would advise patience. They need do nothing more, because we humans will destroy ourselves. It may take a while, because there’s lots of us, but we’ll do it in the end, because we are nothing if not thorough. As for you and your kind – you’re not even relevant.’

‘Draw your knife, human. Kneel.’

‘I am sorry, but I can barely hear you.’

She blinked. ‘Draw your knife!’

‘Barely a whisper, I’m afraid.’ He drew out a small wooden card. ‘I am Ganoes Paran. I was a soldier in the Malazan army, a marine, to be precise. But then I became the Master of the Deck of Dragons. I didn’t ask for the title, and had no real understanding of the role for quite some time. But I’m getting the hang of it now.’ He held up the card. ‘This is where your voice is going. It’s another realm, where the only things hearing you – or, rather, succumbing to your power – are insects and worms in the mud. They’re confused. They don’t know what a knife is. They don’t even know how to kneel.’

Sister Belie stepped forward. ‘Then I shall break you with my hands—’

He seemed to lean back, and suddenly he was gone. The card fell, clattered on the stones. She reached down, picked up it. The image was little more than a scratching of lines, a rough landscape, a hint of ground, low plants – and there, vague in the gloom, stood the man. He beckoned and in her mind she heard his voice.

‘Come after me, Forkrul Assail. I invite you to do battle with me here. No? Well, it was foolish of me to think you were that stupid. After all, I need only step out of this wretched place, leaving you trapped – and it’d be a long, long time before you found your way home. Well. We have now met. We are enemies known to one another, as it should be.

‘You cannot enslave my army. If you want to defeat us, you’ll have to do it the hard way. Oh, by the way, I enjoyed our little talk. I think I now understand you better than you do me, which is an advantage I intend to exploit. Oh, if you could see your expression now—’

With a snarl she snapped the card in half, flung the pieces to the ground. Whirling, she marched back to where her officers waited. ‘Summon Brother Grave – assemble the legions. We shall end this!’

One of the Watered stepped forward tremulously and bowed. ‘Pure, we need reinforcements—’

‘And you shall have them. We shall sustain this assault – give them no rest. Brother Grave waits with three legions. I will have that human’s hide nailed to the wall of this citadel.’

The Watered grinned. ‘A worthy trophy, Pure.’

She faced the edifice once more. ‘I will,’ she whispered, ‘because I can.’

‘You fool,’ snapped Noto Boil. ‘She almost had you, didn’t she?’

Paran wiped at the mud caked on his boots. ‘Find Fist Bude. Get the reserves ready. This one’s going to be messy. And tell Mathok to mount up for a sortie – before the bastards get a chance to set up.’

‘Did she seek to command you?’

‘I told you, I had an answer to that. But you’re right, those Forkrul Assail move damned fast. It was close. Closer than I would have liked, but then,’ he smiled at the healer, ‘we’ve stirred them up. Got two pure-bloods over there now – and more legions to boot.’

‘Let me guess – all according to your plan.’

‘Where’s Ormulogun? I need him to work on that etching – in case we need to get the Hood out of here.’

Noto Boil sighed, and set off to look for the Imperial Artist. He chewed on his fish spine until he tasted blood.

‘You always could pick them, couldn’t you, woman?’ She’d been walking in her sleep again, this time out and down the steps into the cellar, where waited a dead friend. He was sitting on one of the kegs Antsy called the Sours – one of those that held bodies of damned Seguleh. Not that they were there any more, but that pickling concoction was still one of the foulest brews she’d ever smelled.

Was it Bluepearl who’d given it a taste? She couldn’t remember, but … probably.

He was sitting working a knife tip under filthy fingernails.

‘Am I sleeping again?’ Picker asked.

‘Yeah,’ Bluepearl replied. ‘But I’m telling ya, Pick, getting dragged into your dreams like this ain’t much fun.’

‘You know what’s happened to this city?’

He grimaced, frowned at his nails. ‘I voted against settling here – do you remember that? But the count didn’t go my way – story of my life. And then Darujhistan went and killed me.’

‘But you didn’t know why, did you? I can tell you why now, Bluepearl. I know why now.’

He sheathed his knife and the sound the weapon made as it locked in the scabbard was sharp enough to make her breath catch. Looked across at her and said, ‘We resanctified this place, did you know that? Spilling all that blood – it was stirring when we moved in, but then we went and drenched the stones in that red stuff.’

‘Meaning?’

He shrugged, drew out his knife again and began cleaning his nails, each gesture the same as the time before. ‘In here, Pick, we’re safe.’

She snorted. ‘Maybe for you.’

‘You got to go soon, Sergeant. Out of the city. Will there be trouble, you doing that?’

‘You called me Sergeant.’

‘Aye, I did. Because I’m passing on orders here. That’s all.’

‘Whose orders?’

He examined his nails. ‘There’s no such thing, Picker, as retiring from the Bridgeburners.’

‘Go back to Hood!’

He grunted in amusement, clicked his knife home, the sound louder and more disturbing than the first time. ‘Where Hood’s at I ain’t going, Pick. We got us the right commander again, the one we should’ve had right from the start. By whose order, Sergeant?’ He drew out his knife and set to his nails again. ‘Whiskeyjack.’

‘What’s he got to do with any of this? I know who I’m supposed to find. I even know where he’s holed up – and staying outa Darujhistan tells me he’s smarter than he looks.’ Lifting an arm, she caught a flash of silver. Stared in horror at the torcs now encircling her upper arms. ‘Gods below! How did these come back! Get ’em off me!’

‘Treach needs you now. Tiger of Summer and all that.’ He grinned at her. ‘It’s all brewing up, my love.’

‘Shit! I just put ’em on because they looked nice!’

He was studying her, head cocked. ‘Getting fat on us, Sergeant?’

She scowled. ‘Taken to wearing chain under everything.’

‘Even when you’re asleep? And you say you ain’t a Bridgeburner no more?’

‘What kind of dream is this?’

He sheathed his dagger. This time the click was sharp enough to make her flinch. ‘The important kind, Sergeant. Look at it this way. Hood’s gone. Death’s Gate was just … gaping. But someone sanctified us. We’ve seen more death than a sane person could stand. But we ain’t sane, are we? We’re soldiers. Veterans. We’re past sane. We’re in that other place, where all the insanity’s been storming around us for so long it can’t touch us no more either. Meaning we’re outside both. What makes us perfect for Death’s Gate? Simple, Picker. It don’t matter what we look at, we don’t blink.’

‘I can get out of the city,’ she said. ‘But it won’t be easy.’

He began cleaning his fingernails, the knife blade flashing dull in the misty gloom. ‘Glad to hear all that confidence has come roaring back. Thing is, we ain’t in the mood to challenge what’s going on here. Besides, we’re kinda busy at the moment.’

‘So I’m on my own, is that it?’

‘Not quite. We arranged for a reliable … guide.’ He rose. The dagger slammed back into its scabbard—

The sound startled her awake. Lying tangled in sweaty blankets, Blend snoring at her side. Something was at the door, trying to get in. Cursing under her breath, Picker collected up the sword propped beside the bed.

She saw the latch flick once – the same sound Bluepearl’s dagger had been making.

Whoever was trying to open that door wasn’t having much luck. ‘What a fine guide you sent there, Whiskeyjack. Can’t even open a stupid door.’

‘Mmm?’

‘Go back to sleep, love.’ She rose and walked to the door, turned the latch with her sword point and stepped back to let the door swing open.

A mangy cat sat in the corridor.

Mangy? ‘The ugly thing’s dead. A Hood-damned undead cat – gods below.’

The creature had a collar made of thick hide or leather, twisted into a coil. A tarnished silver coin or medallion hung from it. Picker crouched, reached out and dragged the cat closer, frowning when it made no effort to walk, just sliding in its sitting position. ‘Gods, you stink.’

Rotted eye sockets offered her about as much expression as any living cat might manage. She bent closer, took hold of the medallion. Feeble scratching marred both sides, a name in archaic Gadrobi or Rhivi. She frowned at it. ‘Tufty?’

So Blend and Antsy weren’t just making stuff up. They were telling the truth. They’d found that Jaghut a damned dead cat.

Then her eyes narrowed on the collar. Skin, mottled here and there by red-ochre tattoos. ‘Oh,’ she muttered, ‘let me guess. T’lan Imass?’

From the room behind her, Blend called out. ‘Pick?’

‘It’s fine,’ Picker said, straightening. ‘Just the cat.’

‘Did you feed it? I didn’t feed it – oh, gods, I can’t remember when I last fed the cat!’

Picker walked into the room. Sure enough, Blend was still sleeping. Having one of those dreams. She went over and settled down on the mattress. Leaned closer and whispered. ‘It’s true, Blend. You forgot. For months!’

The woman moaned, distress twisting her features, but her eyes remained shut.

‘You’ve made a real mess, Blend. That poor cat. I just found it, and Hood knows it ain’t a pretty sight.’

‘You could’ve fed it, Picker – why didn’t you feed it?’

Something sharp pricked under Picker’s chin and she froze.

‘Better answer me,’ Blend said in a casual tone. ‘You see, I loved that cat. Got it for my sixth birthday. It was my favourite cat.’

‘Bluepearl?’ Picker called out. ‘Can you fix this, please? Bluepearl?’

No answer. Picker knew that if she tried to pull away, Blend’s deadly instincts would answer with a fatal thrust – up through her brain. She thought furiously. ‘I was only joking, love. Tufty’s fine.’

Blend’s brow wrinkled. ‘Tufty? Who’s Tufty?’

‘Uh, the cat I forgot to feed.’

The knife vanished beneath the blankets, and Blend rolled over. ‘You never was good with animals,’ she mumbled, and then added, ‘Bet it hates you now. No more cuddles for you, Pick.’ A moment later she was snoring.

Picker’s sigh was ragged. Wiping sweat from her eyes, she glared across at the ugly thing in the doorway. ‘Lords above, I hope so.’

And then she discovered the silver torcs.

The waters calmed, as they were wont to do whenever he came up from below deck. Shurq Elalle watched the Jaghut approach. The rest of her crew – the few that still lived – sat or sprawled amidships tracking the tall, ghastly warrior with a fascination she almost envied. Here was the once-god of death and the exquisite irony of her meeting Hood was simply delicious. Back in Letheras, she’d have wagered her entire fortune that this was one encounter she would never have.

Instead, she was captaining Hood’s Ship of the Dead, or whatever it was he called it. Vessel of Souls? Death Ship? Something ominous, anyway. Not that she had much to do by way of giving orders and the like. Whatever propelled the craft wasn’t slave to winds, canvas and cordage. And not an oar in sight.

Suddenly, the seas had become uninteresting. As if all her skills – and possibly it was the same with her crew – all their skills had become irrelevant. And for all the ease and comfort that came with this kind of sailing, her sense was one of tragic loss. At this moment, her respect for the sea wavered, as if fatally weakened, and she wondered if, before long, there would come to humans a true conquest of the waves, spelling the end of humility. And let’s face it, humanity without humility is a dangerous force. Don’t know why I’m thinking as if I’m seeing the future, but that’s how it feels. Some future time when sorcery does too much, when it solves all our problems – only to invent new ones. If this is to be the real future, I don’t want it.

‘There is a darkness upon your thoughts, Captain Elalle.’

She glanced over at him. Burnished tusks, mottled with unimaginable age. Worn, leathery skin stretched gaunt over sharp bones. Deep-set eyes, haunted in shadow, the vertical pupils barely visible – but they’d not been there when he’d first appeared, so it seemed that life was returning to the Jaghut. ‘You can sense such things, Hood?’

‘You are the captain.’

‘I don’t see the relevance of that – the title has lost all meaning.’

‘To the contrary,’ Hood replied. ‘It is by the currents of your thoughts that we find our course.’ He pointed ahead.

She squinted. A smudge building on the horizon. ‘I’ve conjured up a storm?’

‘Out of witless boredom I created ships like this one, and I set captains upon them, choosing those among the dead for whom death has become an obsession.’

‘I imagine you’d have plenty to choose from. How can the dead not obsess over their being dead?’

‘I am not responsible for small minds, Captain Elalle. Indeed, I always possessed a kind of admiration for those who refused their fate, who struggled to escape my dreadful realm.’

‘Enough to let them go?’

‘Go? I can tell you that all those who have escaped my realm now exist in misery. For their path ahead is no longer a mystery, and for them hope does not exist. They know that no paradise awaits them, and that no amount of diligent worship, sacrifice, or piety can change that.’

‘That is … awful.’

‘What it is, Captain, is inexcusable.’

She considered his words, and then considered them some more. ‘The gods take, but give nothing in return.’

‘Ah, see how the storm dissipates? Excellent, Captain … oh dear, it now returns, much more virulent than before. Captain, I would advise—’

‘Advise me nothing! Couldn’t you have forced their hand? Done something?’

The strange, terrible eyes fixed on her. ‘But I have.’

‘Then … was it necessary for you to leave the realm of death? Is that why you’re here? It must be. You have set something in motion.’

‘I have not acted alone, Captain.’

‘I would hear more, Hood. If there is a reason for all this, I – I need to know it.’

Hood said nothing for a time, studying the roiling clouds marring the way ahead. Then he spoke. ‘I so dislike moments of revelation, Captain. One is invited to infer all manner of deliberation leading us to this place, this time. When the truth of it is chance and mischance rule our every step.’ He sighed. ‘Very well, I am not indifferent to your … needs. This possibility only gained life when two usurpers reawakened the remnants of Kurald Emurlahn – the Realm of Shadow – and then set out to travel the warrens, and indeed the Holds. Seeking knowledge. Seeking the truth of things. What they eventually discovered did not please them. And in the boldness of their … youth, they decided that something must be done.’

‘Two new gods,’ Shurq Elalle murmured. ‘They came to you?’

‘Not at first. Instead, they sought out loyal allies among the mortals they had once commanded. Well, perhaps “mortals” is not quite accurate in some instances. No matter. Let us call it a wondrous conflagration of circumstance and character, a kind of audacity which made anything possible. Before long, they found the need to gather additional allies. Shall I list them for you?’

‘Why not?’

‘The Son of Darkness, who understood the true burden of a surrendered future, the fatality of empty faith. The Warlord of the Sleeping Goddess, who would defy the eternal patience of the earth itself, and Stonewielder, the One who stood facing Caladan Brood, ensuring the world’s balance. These two are destined to walk disparate paths, but what they seek is much the same. The Queen of Dreams, whose pool had grown still as death itself. The Lord of Tragedy – and, well, a host of others, all drawn into the fold.’

‘Those you have named – are they gods?’

Hood shrugged. ‘Ascendants. The complexity of this beggars belief, to be honest. The sheer scale of contingencies … well, for all his peculiarities, let no one accuse Shadowthrone of failings in the matter of intelligence. The same can be said for Cotillion, for the patron of assassins well comprehended that just as certain individuals deserve a knife through the heart, so too do certain … ideas.’

‘Yet mortals are part of this plan, too.’

‘Indeed.’

‘The Adjunct Tavore Paran?’

Hood was silent for a moment. ‘This congress, Captain, is not above cruel use of mortals.’

‘That is … unfair.’

‘But consider what may be won here, Shurq Elalle.’

‘I have – I am, Hood. But … no. That is unfair.’

‘The storm, Captain—’

‘Why does that surprise you?’ she retorted. ‘Try telling me something that doesn’t break my heart, then. Try telling me something that doesn’t make me furious – at your arrogance. Your contempt.’

‘We do not hold the Adjunct Tavore Paran in contempt.’

‘Really?’ she asked, the word dripping with derision.

‘Captain, she takes our arrogance and humbles us.’

‘And what’s her reward?’ Shurq demanded.

Hood looked away, and then shook his head. ‘For her, there is none.’

‘Tell me,’ Shurq said in a rasp, ‘tell me she did not agree to this.’

‘To that, Captain, I shall say nothing.’ He stepped past her then and raised his hands. ‘We cannot survive the violence your thoughts have conjured, Captain. Thus, I have no recourse but to intervene. Fortunately,’ he turned to eye her briefly, ‘Mael concurs.’

‘Push it away, then,’ Shurq Elalle snapped. ‘But I will bring it back, I swear it. To so use an innocent woman …’

‘You begin to try me, Captain Elalle. If you intend to fight me for the rest of this voyage, I must find us another captain.’

‘Please do, Hood. I barely knew the Adjunct, but—’

He twisted round. ‘Indeed, you barely know her. I will tell you this, then. I looked out through her sister’s eyes, through a helm’s visor – in the moment that she died – and I stared up at my slayer, the Adjunct Tavore Paran. And the blood dripping from her sword was mine. You will speak to me of innocence? There is no such thing.’

Shurq Elalle stared at Hood. ‘So, in using her now … is this punishment?’

‘Consider it so, if it eases your conscience.’

‘She murdered her sister?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it guilt that drives her now, Hood? Does she seek redemption?’

‘I imagine she does.’

‘Will she find it?’

Hood shrugged.

What is it you’re not telling me? I can sense … something. The sister … a helm’s visor. ‘Hood, that murder – was it an accident?’

The Jaghut did not reply.

Shurq stepped closer. ‘Does Tavore even know she killed her own sister?’

‘Irrelevant, Captain Elalle. It is the ignorant who yearn most for redemption.’

After a moment, she stepped back, went to the side rail, stared out over the rolling grey swells, what Skorgen called swollen waters. ‘If we had met in your realm, Hood,’ she said, ‘I would not have refused my state. I would not have sought to escape. Instead, I would have tried to kill you.’

‘Many have, Captain.’

‘Good for them.’ Swollen waters. ‘Hood, if she never discovers the truth – if she is made to carry that ignorance for the rest of her days … do you even care?’

‘Do you imagine that knowledge would be a gift?’

‘I … don’t know.’

‘The truth may hide at your feet. The truth may lie coiled in high grasses. But it still has claws, it still has fangs. Be careful, Captain, where you step.’

‘Food reserves are dwindling,’ Felash said, and then sighed and looked up at her handmaiden. ‘Straits are dire for dear Mother.’ She sat straighter, arched her back and groaned. ‘Do you advise rest? These journeys through troubled realms, by Jaghut’s cold breath or not, do take their toll upon my delicate self. But I must refuse your concerns, my dear. Necessity demands – is that wine you’re pouring? Excellent. I’d thought that long gone.’

‘I made a request, Highness.’

‘Indeed? Of whom?’

‘It seems,’ the woman said, passing over a cup, ‘libations in the name of death continue unabated, and if the once-god of that dread underworld is not above trespassing in his old … er, haunts, well, far be it from us to complain.’

‘Just so. Nonetheless, sweetie, I dislike the notion of you consorting with that hoary creature. Best keep a respectful distance, matching my own wise caution in this matter.’

‘As you wish.’

‘But I must say, superb wine, given its provenance – I trust you have acquired a decent supply.’

‘Luckily, yes, Highness.’

‘The other news is almost as dire, I’m afraid. We have cause now to mistrust the motivations of the Perish Grey Helms. Most disturbing.’

The handmaid’s eyes narrowed as she set to filling a bowl of rustleaf. ‘Are we not at this moment sailing to a rendezvous with the Perish fleet, Highness?’

‘Assuming no calamity had struck, yes. But what is their disposition? The answer to that question is now paramount.’

‘Perhaps I could scry—’

‘No, we cannot risk that. The warren of the Forkrul Assail waxes full – hmm, was I being poetic there, or succumbing to cliché?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ murmured the handmaiden, concentrating on lighting the pipe.

‘We have been careless in your education. Never mind. Too late now, for it is well known that a person’s brain ossifies at a certain age, becoming incapable of new acquisition, barring simple matters such as languages, martial skills and so on. There is a moment when true genius is within the reach of any and every child, and the gauge of that moment’s duration is in fact the only means of defining intelligence. Thus, while you are naturally bright, and therefore it is probable that the time of your receptivity could have been measured in months, if not years, we have done all we thought to do at that juncture, and the time for regrets is past – my dear, what was in this wine? My mouth seems to be running all by itself. For most people, of course, that moment of receptivity was sadly brief. A day? Half a day? And alas, once gone, it can never return.’

‘Excuse me, Highness, your pipe is lit.’

‘Good. Give it over. About this wine—’

There was a knock upon the cabin door, and a moment later the latch lifted and First Mate Skorgen Kaban the Pretty loomed in the doorway, knuckling his brow. ‘Princess, Highest of Highs, beg yer pardon. Got urgent happenings up top, if you please. Cap’n requests yer presence.’

Felash sighed. ‘Very well, assuming I am able to, uh, stand. Umph, some assistance—’

The handmaid reached out to steady her.

‘Lead on, Skorgen,’ Felash said with a careless wave of one hand. ‘And if you must ogle my tits, try being subtle about it, will you?’

‘Sorry, Highness. Only got the one good eye, y’know.’

They paused and waited while the handmaid got over a sudden fit of coughing.

Shurq Elalle turned as her first mate clumped up to her.

‘Captain! The Squall Witch – she’s drunk!’

‘Pretty, was that meant to be a whisper? Greetings, Highness.’

‘Drunkenness lies in the purview of the lowborn. Captain, allow me to assure you that I am neither drunk nor lowborn. But, I must ask, where is our Jaghut guest?’

Shurq grunted. ‘Thought you’d have passed him on the way up. There is the matter of keeping at least one knife well hidden, you see.’

‘No, Captain. I am afraid I do not.’

‘Ah, of course.’ Shurq pointed ahead. ‘We have been sighted by that ship and it now bears down on us. Not a Throne of War. Kolansian, one presumes.’

Somewhat unsteadily, the princess made her way to the captain’s side. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘that is an Assail ship. At the very least, a Lesser Watered will be commanding. Most distressing, of course, are the implications.’

‘As in,’ ventured Shurq Elalle, ‘where is the Perish fleet?’

‘Precisely. And if that is not sufficiently alarming, I am afraid that I have been engaged in exhausting rituals this day. If we must fight, I will be of little use. We have already experienced the danger posed by Forkrul Assail, by both their physical prowess and the sorcery of their voice.’

‘I need no reminders, Highness. And while I proved immune to such magics, the same cannot be said for my crew. And now you tell me that you are unable to defend us. So much for hiding one knife, Highness.’

‘We shall see. We have, after all, my handmaid.’

Shurq glanced over at the woman, recalling her attacks upon Sister Equity. ‘She did not fare so well against a Pure, Highness.’

‘Well, a Higher Watered’s Assail blood is, er, watered down, and is not quite as powerful. In any case, it remains to be seen how this will play out. After all, this could be one of the betrayers among the Assail. In the meantime, Captain, may I suggest your first mate gather your crew and make for the hold.’

‘Skorgen, take ’em down and keep ’em quiet.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

There was something skeletal about the Assail ship. Two types of wood were visible, one bone white and the other dull black. The hull was narrow of beam and high-castled, and with the two masts offering minimal canvas, Shurq suspected that it had been built to ply sheltered waters. An open sea gale could well swamp such a ship. At twice the mass of her old raider, the Undying Gratitude, Shurq judged it to have a complement of seventy or so sailors on board, along with twenty or more marines, and as the craft came around and fell off before the wind on the port side of the Death Ship she stepped to the rail and looked across. A tall, spectral figure was staring down on her, flanked by two helmed guards cloaked in chain surcoats.

A few paces behind the captain, Princess Felash said, ‘Dearie, those marines.’

‘Yes, Highness,’ the handmaid replied.

‘Captain?’

‘Highness?’

‘Why not ask them what they want?’

Shurq turned to eye the princess. Before she could say anything, however, there were shouts from the Assail ship, and she swung back to see the handmaid scrambling up the side. Shit, wish I’d seen that leap. The craft was wallowing at least six paces away. ‘Princess, what is that woman doing?’

The handmaid drew herself up and over the rail. The deck was an eye-hurting maze of black and white wood, like a shattered mosaic. Six more helmed, chain-clad marines stood near the main mast, now drawing heavy cutlasses.

The Assail half-blood commander wore a heavy, jewelled cloak, the thick oiled wool dyed a deep blue. Torcs of gold collared her long neck, and her head was shaved, emphasizing the angled planes of her skull. She was unarmed, and she now faced the handmaid with a look of amused surprise, lifting a hand to stay her soldiers.

Looking round, the handmaid saw recent storm damage – much of the rigging had been torn away, and mounds of cordage and shattered stays littered the deck. There seemed to be less than a score of hands working on repairs.

‘Inform your captain,’ said the Assail half-blood, ‘that having entered territorial waters, she must abide by the laws of High Kolanse. I am Lesser Watered Intransigent, Inquisitor of the Southern Fleet.’

‘Not much of a fleet,’ the handmaid observed.

The Inquisitor blinked. ‘A sudden storm has temporarily scattered us. To resume my message to your captain, she and her crew – including all passengers – must accept adjudication.’

‘By “adjudication” do you mean killing?’

The pale-skinned woman smiled, the expression seeming to fold the two sides of her face slightly inward. ‘The Proclamation of Restitution has been sanctioned. We continue the task.’

‘And did this fate befall the Perish?’

‘Yours is not a Perish ship.’ She frowned. ‘I sense enmity from your vessel – and that fat little girl with the pipe, she is a mage, is she not? We shall adjudicate her first.’

The handmaid walked back to the rail and leaned over. ‘Highness,’ she called down, ‘they’re being a little cagey regarding the Perish. Might be you were right.’

‘Anything else that might be important?’ Felash asked.

‘No, Highness. Only that they want to kill us.’

‘Very well. Carry on.’

The handmaid turned round.

The Lesser Watered spoke, ‘Reach not for your weapons. Kneel. For each and every one of you, the healing of the world begins with your death. Among all the reasons to die, is there one more worthy than this? Be thankful that we give meaning to your end. Kneel.’

The handmaid shook her head. ‘A Pure already tried all that. Caught me off guard … for a moment or two. My will is not yours to command.’

She moved then, rather faster than they’d expected, her hands thrusting outward, striking the bodyguards in the chest. Both warriors were lifted from their feet. Over the rail, plummeting to the waters below. She ducked at that instant, evading the Lesser’s lashing attack, and kicked at the second joint on the woman’s left leg, folding it halfway between the knee and the ankle. Her attacker stumbled, and the handmaid slipped past her, spinning round and out to one side to meet the six marines.

Behind them others were coming up from below, she saw.

She drew her fighting knives. She needed bigger weapons. The marine closest to her wielded a nice pair of cutlasses. She would take those.

Shurq Elalle loosed a startled oath and then leaned forward to watch the two armoured guards plunge into the choppy waters between the ships. Both men vanished in a froth of bubbles. Turning to Felash, she asked, ‘Does she need help over there?’

Plucked brows lifted. ‘I certainly hope not!’

The sounds of fighting – blades clashing, shouts and then screams – came from the deck of the other ship. ‘Princess, this handmaid of yours, where did she come from?’

‘Ah, now that is a mystery.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Do we have the time? Well, I suppose we do.’ She puffed on her pipe, her face disappearing briefly behind a plume of smoke, and then said, ‘My mother’s account, this. There were seven of them. Six remain – the seventh, well, there was some kind of private challenge that, um, failed. No matter. Now, I will grant you, they appear young, but do not let that deceive you. My mother concluded that alchemies constituted a worthwhile investment in maintaining the vigour of her six eldest daughters’ handmaids. And we daughters are of course sworn to secrecy in all such matters, perpetuating the illusion that we have simply grown up with our loyal companions, and so on …’

She paused then when another chain-clad marine spun head first over the rail, trailing blood over the side. A loud splash followed.

‘They were most recalcitrant about divesting themselves of their horrid masks, but in the end my mother’s will prevailed.’

Shurq Elalle frowned. Masks?

The sailors made a mess of things as the Lesser Watered, in her pain and panic, used the sorcery of her voice to command them, and it was some time before the handmaid worked her way through the howling mob. Frenzied rage had shock value, and the crew’s utter lack of the instinct for self-preservation made things rather frantic for a few moments, but there was nothing tactical in their efforts to bring her down. When at last the handmaid stepped over a sprawl of bleeding bodies and approached the Inquisitor, she was breathing hard and sweat stung her eyes.

The woman facing her cradled a broken arm, stood hunched over a dislocated shoulder, and glared across at the handmaid. ‘What manner of demon are you?’ she demanded in a ragged hiss.

‘For an answer to that,’ the handmaid replied with a half-smile, ‘best look elsewhere.’

The Inquisitor scythed out one leg. The handmaid leapt high, swung down, and severed the limb just above the knee. As she came down, her other cutlass cut into the vertical hinge of the woman’s face, splitting it in two. A back-swing with the pommel of the first cutlass slammed into the side of the Inquisitor’s skull, punching through.

Pouring out blood, the corpse crumpled at her feet. The handmaid looked round. No movement among any of the other bodies. Just as Mother taught. She glanced down at the cutlasses in her hands, and then let them fall with a clatter. Pieces of shit. She went looking for her knives.

Hood returned to the deck once they were under way. The once-god of death looked back, frowned at the burning ship in their wake.

‘Would’ve stopped her firing it,’ Shurq Elalle muttered, following the Jaghut’s gaze, ‘if I’d had the chance.’

‘Oh? Why is that, Captain?’

‘Well, that column of smoke can be seen from a long way off.’

‘Indeed.’ And Hood turned to her then, and smiled.

‘I must leave you now.’

Ublala grunted. ‘I knew you weren’t my friend.’

‘I assure you,’ Draconus said, ‘that I am, Ublala Pung. But events have occurred that now force my hand. As for you, a different destiny awaits.’

‘I hate destiny.’

‘Do you understand the meaning of the word?’

Ublala looked across at Ralata and scowled. ‘Of course I do. It’s the place where you end up. Everyone knows that.’

‘In a manner of speaking, perhaps. I fear you have mistaken it for “destination”. Ublala, destiny is the fate you find for yourself. Many hold to the belief that it is preordained, as if the future was already decided and there is nothing you can do to escape it. I do not. Each of us is free to decide.’

‘Then I’m going with you. My wife can go somewhere else. She keeps talking about babies but I don’t want babies – they get in the way of having fun, and people who end up having them spend all day talking about how great it is, but they look miserable even when they’re smiling. Or worse, there’re those ones who think their baby is the God of Genius reborn and even its poo smells like flowers, and all they do is talk about them for ever and ever and it’s so boring I want to run away, or break their necks, or drown them all in the slop bucket.’

‘A rather uncharitable view, Ublala.’

‘I don’t give nothing for free, that’s for sure. Whole people disappear when a baby arrives. Poof! Where’d they go? Oh, I know, they’re crawling around making baby noises. It makes me sick.’ He ducked the rock Ralata threw at him and continued, ‘So I’m going with you and if you were a real friend you’d take me because if I make a baby my life is over. Over!’

‘Can you fly, Ublala?’

‘That’s not fair!’

‘Nevertheless, and no, I will not carry you. Now, listen to me. We have gone as far west as needed – now you must strike northward.’

‘Why?’

Draconus glanced away, eyes narrowing, and then he sighed and said, ‘Your innocence is a gift, Ublala Pung. A rare gift. It must endure. It must be protected, but that I can no longer do. Walk northward, that is all I ask.’

‘Where am I going?’

‘I cannot say for certain,’ Draconus admitted. ‘Nothing is certain, especially now.’

‘Will you come back?’

Draconus hesitated, and then he shook his head. ‘I do not think we will meet again, no. And for that I truly grieve.’

‘Are you going somewhere to die?’

‘Do not weep, friend. I do not know what awaits me.’ He stepped close to Ublala. ‘I have left you sufficient food and water for a week’s travel. Beyond that, well.’ He shrugged, and then held out a hand. ‘Now, let us clasp arms.’

Instead, Ublala wrapped the god in a fierce hug.

After a moment, Draconus pulled himself free. ‘You give reason, friend, for what I must attempt. If sorcery must die, the magic in the mortal soul will persevere – or so I choose to believe.’

Ralata hissed, ‘Kill him, Ublala! Kill him now – you can do it! Snap his neck! Take that sword!’

Ublala winced and then shrugged. ‘She’s always going on like this. She don’t mean anything by it, Draconus. Honest.’ He wiped at his eyes. ‘Goodbye. I’ll never see you again.’ And this time he burst into tears, wailing with his hands over his eyes.

When Ralata rushed to him, scrabbling to draw his knife, Ublala batted her away between sobs. She was thrown back, sailing through the air and then landing hard, limbs flailing, before falling still.

Frowning, Draconus walked over. Crouched down. ‘Unconscious. Well, that is something, I suppose.’

Sniffling, Ublala said, ‘Women always get jealous about man friends. Sometimes they say bad things about them. Sometimes they try to knife them. Sometimes they sex them. Sometimes they run away with them. Sometimes they get so mad they just up and die. But it’s all just stupid.’

Draconus straightened, walked a short distance away, and then turned to face Ublala one more time. ‘Be well, Ublala Pung.’

‘Don’t die, Draconus.’

The god smiled. ‘I shall try not to.’

Ublala watched his friend disappear inside a bloom of black, ethereal darkness, watched as the darkness found shape – spreading wings, a long serpent neck, a massive head with rows of scimitar-length fangs, eyes of lurid yellow.

The dragon lifted into the sky, the vast wings hissing with the sound of cold water on hot stones as the creature wheeled and set off.

With an uneven sigh, the Teblor collected the pack containing the food, and then the heavy waterskins. Along with his weapons and armour, the burden was enough to make him grunt when he straightened.

Grasping Ralata by one ankle, he began walking.

The way she was right now, why, a wife was as bad as a baby.

Brother Diligence arrived well ahead of the retinue, his boots echoing as he strode the length of the throne room. All the blood stains remained – splashed and smeared across the marble tiles, along the pillars to either side and the walls behind them, and upon the throne itself, where sat Sister Reverence.

Restitution had begun here, in this very chamber, and it was proper to remind all who would enter. Halting before Reverence – the only other person present – he said, ‘We must assume that they are lost to us, Sister.’

‘I smell smoke, Brother.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Excellent.’ She paused and then said, ‘“Lost.” Now that is a curious word. Are they dead, or are they now treasonous to our great cause?’

‘If the former, Sister, we must then reconsider the enemies arrayed against us.’

‘And if the latter, then we must re-evaluate the loyalty among us.’

‘The issue lies with Sister Calm,’ said Brother Diligence. ‘Equity but follows.’

‘Not precisely true, Brother. Equity is the heart of the ideals which they would hold, but it is Calm who adheres to the practical. Her long imprisonment, horrific as it must have been, has greatly damaged her spirit, I am afraid. We must, indeed, hope that she is dead, more so than poor, misguided Equity.’

‘I have received a missive from the siege, Sister. The assault failed.’

Reverence sat straighter. ‘But how can this be?’

‘Sister Belie informs me that Akhrast Korvalain is ineffectual against the commander of the besieged.’

‘Impossible – unless, is he a god? An ascendant?’

‘Neither, I am told. This man – a mortal – titles himself the Master of the Deck of Dragons. He commands the warrens, in ways Sister Belie cannot quite understand. But what she describes at last explains the sudden appearance of that army. They arrived via a portal, travelling by warren. Incidentally, this is why they could not get closer to us here at the Spire, where our sorcerous influence is strongest.’

‘I see. Then this master’s power cannot challenge us.’

‘He and his army represent a military threat nonetheless. I now advise we dispatch another three legions, commanded by another Pure.’

‘Ready the legions, Brother, but do not send them to Estobanse. Not yet. The challenge posed by the Master of the Deck of Dragons … intrigues me. I will think some more on how to deal with him.’

‘As you wish, Sister.’

The doors swung open then and Diligence turned to observe the approach of the retinue. Flanked by two Pures, the heavily armoured warriors marched towards the throne, a full dozen of the highest-ranking officers.

Brother Diligence murmured, ‘Most formidable, are they not, Sister Reverence?’

‘Indeed, Brother.’

Ten paces from the dais the contingent halted.

Brother Diligence studied them briefly, and then said to one of the escorting Pures, ‘Brother Serenity. They have anchored their ships in the harbour?’

‘They have, Brother. They are now servants of the Restitution.’

Sister Reverence then spoke. ‘Welcome, Grey Helms of the Perish. Your gesture has left no doubt in our minds as to the veracity of your claims.’

One of the commanders tipped his head and said, ‘We have discussed your arguments at length, Sister Reverence, and we are agreed. Our Mortal Sword committed blasphemy in swearing fealty to the Malazans. Furthermore, we are certain that our Shield Anvil has concluded much the same, and that he is now at odds with the Mortal Sword.’

‘And who will win this wrestling for control of your land-based army?’

‘There is no ambiguity, Sister Reverence. The Mortal Sword shall be made to accept her crime, and do penance. If she refuses, she will be divested of her title and the privileges it affords. The time has come. The vengeance of the Wolves of Winter must now begin.’

‘All very delightful,’ Sister Reverence purred, and then she leaned forward. ‘Unfortunately, the Forkrul Assail demand something more than an alliance of forces that just happen to share – for the moment at least – a common cause.’ She raised her voice. ‘Now, you shall kneel. You shall avow your service to the will of the Forkrul Assail.’

Even Brother Diligence felt buffeted by the power of Sister Reverence’s sorcery. Against this, no mere human, no matter how pious or disciplined, could stand.

The chamber echoed with the creak and clatter of armour as the Perish warriors knelt on the bloodstained tiles of the throne room.

Diligence turned to Reverence. ‘Sister, I look forward to using these subjects. And it pleases me to know that yet more are on their way.’

She nodded, leaning back. ‘What are wolves but dogs not yet beaten into submission?’

Diligence frowned. ‘Their cause is just, Sister Reverence.’

‘It is indeed, Brother. But wildness is without discipline. Even savagery must be controlled, given direction and focus. We shall be the guiding hand.’

‘As you say, Sister.’ He regarded the still-kneeling Perish.

‘You look thoughtful, Brother.’

‘I was contemplating setting these warriors against the Master of the Deck of Dragons.’

Reverence arched her brows, and then said, ‘Brother Serenity, what think you of that notion?’

‘I only ask that I be granted the privilege of commanding them, Sister. It is my understanding that the offending army is composed of Malazans, and I have a history with Malazans.’

‘Send them, Brother Diligence. Break their defences, Serenity, and if you can, drive them out into the open. I dare say even mastery of the warrens would not save them then. At that moment, we shall discover what other resources the man possesses, if any.’

‘Do you want him delivered in chains before you, Sister?’

She considered, and then said, ‘No. His head will suffice.’

The swarm of Shards twisted as it lifted high into the air, blotting out a third of the sky. The shadow it cast spread across the ravaged, lifeless desert, flowing like black water. The scent of suffering was in the air, and the hunger of the locusts was, as ever, desperate.

The shadow found the prey, but even the sudden cooling of air was not enough to awaken it to the threat fast closing, and the locusts rushed towards it. As the vast cloud hovered a moment it seemed to tremble, and then out from its heart burst a winged creature. It plummeted down upon the unconscious form lying sprawled on the parched ground, and in its wake descended the Shards, their wings voicing a roar.

Taloned hands reached down, grasped hold of the body, lifted it effortlessly. Wings thundering, the creature rose back into the sky. Behind it, the locusts spun in confusion.

From the body he held, Gu’Rull could taste the flavour of life, but that flavour was weakening. He wondered if he’d end up delivering a corpse to Gesler and Stormy. It made little difference to the Shi’gal Assassin. This one, this Mortal Sword of the Grey Helms, had lost her command, and such failures revealed flaws of character – better that such flaws be exposed now rather than later, when the lives of thousands might be at stake.

A waste of time, this. I was drawing closer to the enemy. The Destriant should not have called me back.

The Shi’gal was looking forward to the imminent war. The bitter flavour of ancient memories remained strong in the K’Chain Che’Malle. There could be no convenient rewriting of histories, such as seemed common among humans. No invented myths of past glory and honour that never was. The crimes committed back then were as sordid as those committed now, or those to come. And in the moment of slaughter, none of that really mattered. Who struck the first blow all those thousands of years ago was without relevance. The only thing that counted was who would strike the last blow.

This contingent of Forkrul Assail – these Pures so twisted away from their own history as to imagine themselves an entire world’s arbiters – was perhaps the most powerful remnant of that species left. And could not the same be said for Gunth’an Wandering? Are we not the last K’Chain Che’Malle? Is it not fitting that we meet for one more battle, a final clash between Elder powers? That this war would make use of humans on both sides was incidental. That entire civilizations might fall – or, indeed, every civilization – well, Gu’Rull would not shed a single drop of oil in grief. Among humans, every faith was nothing but smoke, at times thick enough to blind and at other times cynically thin. And every belief was a fire that devoured its own fuel, until nothing but ashes remained. As far as Gu’Rull could determine, the only virtue humans possessed was a talent for starting over, with stern resolve restored in the sudden glow of renewed optimism, in complete disregard of whatever lessons past failures might offer. And he had no choice but to acknowledge the power of that virtue. It is contingent upon collective amnesia, but as everyone knows, stupidity needs no excuse to repeat itself.

The body he carried voiced a faint moan, and the assassin looked down at her with his lower eyes. She had not fared well in her idiotic attempt to find the Bonehunters. Gu’Rull had found the skeleton of her horse less than a third of a day’s march from the trail the army had made, and making use of the carnivorous locusts he’d tracked her to the trail itself.

He felt a faint disquiet at the thought of the Bonehunters. High in the sky above the desert, he had seen their churned-up, broken path stretching eastwards. Hundreds of corpses and carcasses left behind, but he could see no end to that trail. Surely they must all have died by now.

He crossed the edge of the desert, banked southward.

‘Reduce the rations again,’ Queen Abrastal commanded, and then watched her officers bow obeisance and make their way back to their companies.

Beside her Spax turned to glare for a moment at the setting sun, and then he grunted. ‘They’re suffering, Firehair. The Barghast are used to such deprivations – for generations we’ve been pushed to the poorest regions. We learned what it is to starve.’

‘Tomorrow,’ she said, ‘we shall reach the southern provinces of Kolanse. But I fear we shall find no salvation there.’

He silently agreed with that observation. They had come upon the remains of refugee trains. Camps cluttered with withered rubbish and desiccated corpses. Firepits filled with human bones, many of them belonging to children. Only yesterday a pack of emaciated dogs had attacked a Gilk scouting party, and every animal had to be cut down – desperation had gnawed away all fear, all sense of self-preservation.

‘We shall begin killing the draught animals,’ Abrastal said. ‘Warchief, I think I now understand the Adjunct’s recognition of all that we would face, and the manner in which such truths wounded her. We must divest ourselves of all hope of ever returning from this war.’

He scratched at his beard, considered her words, and then said, ‘The White Faces set out seeking a final battle, a moment of perfect glory. Our young gods stood before us, blackened faces smeared with filth, their hair the colour of blood. From the deepest beds of peat they rose to confront us. And from the ancient burial ships they brought forth the finest weapons of our ancestors. “Our enemies await us,” they said.’

She studied him with narrowed eyes. ‘And yet you Gilk broke away. Abandoned the destiny that brought you to this continent.’

‘Ah, I shall tell you the truth of that, Highness. When Humbrall Taur died, we saw the end of the White Face alliance. There was no flaw in Onos Toolan, who was raised in Taur’s place. Indeed, if certain rumours are to be believed, that warrior is older than our gods, and of his prowess with that flint sword I have no doubt at all. No, he accepted the title out of love – for Humbrall’s only daughter. He possessed nothing of the zeal the younger warriors so desired in their warleader. His eyes did not shine with glory, and his voice – no matter how wise the words – held nothing of fire.’

‘In short, he was no politician.’

Spax grimaced. ‘You’d think tribes beaten down by centuries of defeat, clans rotted with feuds and mutual hatreds, you’d think, wouldn’t you, that we’d listen to measured wisdom – that we’d heed his warnings against self-destruction.’

‘And if Humbrall Taur had not drowned—’

‘Even Taur was barely holding the clans together. I cannot even say for certain that his drowning was an accident – I was not witness to it. In any case, we Gilk saw nothing evil in Onos Toolan, only in what was likely to be done to him. Among the Barghast, Firehair, a leader is not simply ousted, cast adrift. He is killed. And so too his family – his entire bloodline is slaughtered. We Gilk would not be party to that.’

‘And did you warn Onos Toolan before you left?’

‘No, for it is possible that he would have sought our support in the power struggle to come. And, had he asked, well, how could I have looked him in the eye and refused? It’s my thought now that he would not have asked. But even then, it’s likely I would have offered nonetheless.’

She was frowning at him thoughtfully. ‘You chose the coward’s path.’

‘Perhaps you see it that way. Perhaps many did, and still do. But what I did, I did to save my people. And this only Onos Toolan understood – for he did not pursue me, even when he had his chance.’

‘And now, perhaps alone among all the White Face Barghast, you have found that final war to fight, in the name of your bog gods.’

He sighed. ‘And nightly I pray that when the battle begins, Onos Toolan will be there. To lead the Barghast.’

‘But it is not to be, Spax.’

‘I know, Highness. I know. And the Gilk shall stand alone, the last clan, the last of the White Faces.’

‘Will you call upon your gods, Spax, upon the charge?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Then, what shall you do? To inspire your warriors?’

He shrugged loose the tension in his shoulders, felt weariness draining in behind it. ‘I believe, Highness, I shall shame them.’

As Faint swung herself astride the gaunt horse, she glanced back to see the ghost of Sweetest Sufferance standing at the edge of the camp. A shiver whispered through her, and she looked across to Precious Thimble. ‘Tell me you don’t see her.’

‘I don’t see her, Faint. Let’s go, else we lose them in the dark.’

They set off at a canter. Overhead, heavy clouds obscured the Jade Strangers, enough to mute the green glow that had haunted every night for what seemed to be months, if not years. ‘Typical, isn’t it? The one night we could do with that ghoulish light.’

‘Are they rain clouds? That’s what I want to know. Are they, Faint?’

‘What am I, a weather scrier? I don’t know. But I don’t smell rain. I smell … dust.’

‘Thanks,’ snapped Precious Thimble.

Faint could just make out the two riders ahead. Brys and Aranict. A K’ell Hunter had arrived with dusk, delivering a message scratched on a wax tablet, and now they were riding to the Che’Malle encampment. Aranict’s invitation had come as a surprise, but Faint was eager to see these huge lizard warriors who’d be fighting at their side. Fighting – well, not us shareholders – we’re just along for the ride, yee hah. But a good look at the Letherii allies just might put me at ease. At least there’s one army that isn’t starving and half dying of thirst. Or so I’ve heard.

But for all their complaining, and Hood knows there’s been plenty of it, seems no one can get too heated up about it. Not with that Malazan army trying to cross a real desert. No matter how bad we’ve got it …

‘I still hate horses,’ Precious Thimble said beside her.

‘You’ve got to roll with the animal under you, girl. Just think about making love.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Faint looked across at her. ‘Gods below, don’t tell me you’re a damned virgin.’

‘Then I won’t – and no more talking about that. They’re letting us catch up to them.’

Ahead, Brys and Aranict had slowed their horses to a fast trot. ‘The mounts are winded, Precious. We’re all in bad shape.’

Before long, they drew up alongside the prince and the Atri-Ceda. ‘Where’s this army, then?’ Faint demanded. ‘I thought they were camped close.’

‘They are, Faint,’ Aranict replied. ‘They simply have no need of cookfires, or lanterns.’

And now Faint made out a darker stain covering the low hills before them, and the dull gleam here and there of iron, or maybe reptilian eyes. Another shiver rippled through her. ‘How confident are you in these allies?’ She could see massive, elongated heads lifting now, eyes fixing upon them. She could see serrated rows of fangs.

‘They are commanded by three humans, Faint, and two of them were once soldiers in the Bonehunters.’

Precious Thimble muttered something under her breath, probably a curse.

Aranict glanced at the young sorceress, and then over at Faint. ‘Do you share your colleague’s mistrust of Malazans, Faint?’

‘Well, they tried conquering Darujhistan once. But then they turned round and crushed the Pannion Domin – and the Pannions were headed towards Darujhistan, with bad intentions.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t see them as any better or worse than anyone else.’ Turning to Precious, she said, ‘Besides, I visited One-Eye Cat before it got conquered, and that place was a hole.’

‘But at least it was my hole!’ Precious snapped.

‘Did you just say—’

‘Oh, be quiet, will you? You know what I meant!’

The prince and the Atri-Ceda said nothing and managed to hold their expressions – at least as far as Faint could discern in the heavy gloom. Darkness our saviour!

Thirty paces ahead, at the mouth of an avenue between ranks of silent, motionless K’Chain Che’Malle stood two men and a woman. The woman knelt and lifted the shutters on an oversized lantern, bathing the area in light.

As the riders drew closer, Faint studied these … commanders. The men were the soldiers, clad in the uniforms of Malazan marines, and though at first Faint took them to be Falari – with that red and yellow hair – there seemed to be a strange hue to their skin, somewhere between bronze and gold, almost lit from within. The woman was a tribal of some sort. Like the Rhivi, only bigger-boned, her face broad, slightly flat, her eyes dark and glittering like obsidian.

Prince Brys dismounted, followed by Aranict and then Faint. Precious remained seated on her horse, glowering at the Malazans.

‘Sergeant Gesler,’ Brys began, and then stopped. ‘Are you certain you prefer that modest rank? As Mortal Sword to the—’

‘Forgive me for interrupting, Commander,’ Gesler said, ‘but Stormy insists. He won’t even talk to me otherwise. Leave all the fancy titles to other people—’

‘He got busted down for good reasons,’ Stormy cut in. ‘And he ain’t fixed none of those that I can see. In fact, he’s gotten worse. If he showed up in a recruiting line right now I’d send him to the cook staff, and if they was feeling generous they might let him scrub a few pots. As it is, though, he’s a sergeant, and I’m a corporal.’

‘Commanding seven thousand K’Chain Che’Malle,’ Aranict observed, lighting a stick of rustleaf from a small ember-box.

Stormy shrugged.

Sighing, Brys resumed, ‘Sergeant Gesler. Your message – I take it she is awake.’

‘Aye, and she’s not particularly happy. Commander, she’s got something to say, something she needs to tell you.’

‘I see. Well then, lead on, Sergeant.’

As they made their way through the camp, with Gesler out front and Stormy carrying the lantern a few paces behind, Faint found herself walking alongside the tribal woman.

‘You are the Destriant.’

‘Kalyth, once of the Elan. And you are one of the strangers who found the Letherii army.’

‘Faint, of the Trygalle Trade Guild. That miserable girl riding behind us is Precious Thimble. She doesn’t like Malazans.’

‘From her,’ Kalyth said, ‘the flavour is one of fear.’

‘With good reason,’ Precious retorted.

‘It’s this war we can’t make any sense of,’ Faint said. ‘The Malazans fight when and where it suits them. They’re a damned empire, after all. It’s all about conquest. Expansion. They don’t fight for noble causes, generally. Even taking down the Pannions was politically expedient. So we’re finding it hard to work out what they’re up to. From all that we’ve heard, Kolanse is not worth the effort. Especially with a bunch of Forkrul Assail laying claim to it now.’

Those dark eyes fixed on Faint’s. ‘What do you know of the Forkrul Assail?’

‘Not much,’ she admitted. ‘An ancient race – back in Darujhistan, where I come from, most people think of them as, well, mythical. Ruling in an age when justice prevailed over all the world. We’ve long since fallen from that age, of course, and much as people might bemoan our state no one wants it back, if you know what I mean.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because then we’d actually be taken to task for all the terrible stuff we do. Besides, being fallen excuses our worst traits. We’re not what we once were, too bad, but that’s just how it is. Thank Hood and all the rest.’

Kalyth was slowly nodding. ‘Then is it your belief that we can be no better than who and what we are now?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What if I were to tell you that the Malazans seek to change that? That they seek to rise higher, taller? That, once fallen, they now wish to stand? One more time. Perhaps the last time. And not just for themselves, but for all of us.’

A snort from Precious.

Faint frowned, and then shook her head. ‘Then why fight the Forkrul Assail?’

‘Because the Forkrul Assail have judged us – they came among my people, so this I know all too well. And in that judgement, they have decided that we must all die. Not just in Kolanse, not just on the Plains of Elan. But everywhere.’

‘Given our history, that’s not too surprising.’

‘But, Faint of the Trygalle Trade Guild, the Forkrul Assail are in no position to judge. I have tasted the ancient flavours of the K’Chain Che’Malle, and it is as if that history was now my own. The Age of Justice – and the time of the Forkrul Assail – ended not at the hand of enemies, or foreign races, but at the hands of the Forkrul Assail themselves.’

‘How?’

‘They judged their own god, and found him wanting. And for his imperfections, they finally killed him.’

Ahead was a large tent, and the prince, Aranict, and the Malazans entered, taking the lantern’s light with them. Faint held back in the darkness, Kalyth at her side. Behind them, Precious Thimble reined in, but still did not dismount.

Kalyth continued, ‘There was war. Between the K’Chain Che’Malle and the Assail. The causes were mundane – the hunger for land, mostly. The Forkrul Assail had begun wars of extermination against many other races, but none had the strength and will to oppose them as did the K’Chain Che’Malle. When the war began to turn against the Assail, they turned on their own god, and in the need for yet more power they wounded him. But wounding proved not enough. They took more and more from him.

‘The K’Chain Che’Malle nests began to fall one by one, until the last surviving Matron, in her desperation, opened a portal to the heart of chaos and set her back against it, hiding its presence from the advancing Assail. And when at last she stood facing them, when the tortured god’s power rushed to annihilate her and all her kind, she surrendered her life, and the gate, which she had sealed with her own body, her own life force, opened. To devour the Assail god’s soul.

‘He was too wounded to resist. What remained of him, in this realm, was shattered, mindless and lost.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘You have seen the Glass Desert. That is where all that remains of that god now lives. If one could call it a life.’

‘What happened to the Assail, Kalyth?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Their power spent, they were broken. Though they blamed the Matron for the loss of their god, it was by their judgement that he was wielded as would one wield a weapon, a thing to be used, a thing not worthy of anything else. In any case, they had not the strength to exterminate the K’Chain Che’Malle. But the truth was the war had destroyed both races, and when other races appeared through the cracks of chaos – which could now reach this and every realm – neither could stop the invasions. More wars, defeats, betrayals, until the age itself crumbled and was no more.’

‘This has the sound of legend, Kalyth,’ Faint said.

‘The memory of every Matron is passed down in the blood, the oils – the secretions. Nothing is lost. Gunth Mach has offered me some of their flavours. Much of it I cannot be certain of – there was a time, between the stars … I don’t know. And it may be that I did not fully understand the tale I have just told. It may be that many truths were lost to me – our senses are so limited, compared to those of the K’Chain Che’Malle.’

‘You have given reason for why the K’Chain Che’Malle seek to fight the Forkrul Assail. Because their war never ended.’

‘We are each the last of our kind.’

‘Is there not room enough for both of you?’

‘The K’Chain might wish it so, but the Assail do not. Their memory is just as long, you see. And they do see their cause as being just.’

Behind them, Precious spoke in a dark, gleeful tone. ‘You’re using them! The Malazans and all their pathetic arrogance! You K’Chain Che’Malle – you’re using them!’

The Destriant turned. ‘Does it seem that way, sorceress? I taste in you the pleasure of that thought.’

‘Why not? It’s all they deserve.’

‘If it is all that they deserve, then it is all that we deserve.’

‘Just use them, Destriant. Use them up!’

For some reason, Faint was no longer interested in entering the tent. She nodded towards it. ‘What’s going on in there, Destriant?’

‘Krughava, once Mortal Sword of the Perish Grey Helms, speaks to Prince Brys Beddict. She warns him of betrayal. The Perish vowed to serve the Adjunct Tavore. Instead, they will draw swords against us. They will fight under the banner of the Forkrul Assail.’

‘Gods below – why would they do that?’

But Precious was laughing.

Kalyth sighed. ‘The truth is this: the standard of justice can be raised by many, and each may lay rightful claim to it. How are these claims weighed? Gesler would answer quickly enough. They are weighed on the field of battle. But … I am not so sure. The Perish claim to worship ancient war gods, and these—’

‘Which war gods?’ Faint demanded.

‘They are called Fanderay and Togg, the Wolves of Winter.’

Faint turned, stared up at Precious, and then back at Kalyth. ‘And Krughava was the Mortal Sword. Who now commands?’

‘The Shield Anvil, Tanakalian.’

‘And the Destriant? There should be a Destriant among them, right?’

‘He died on the voyage, I am told. The position is still vacant.’

‘No it isn’t.’

‘Leave it, Faint,’ said Precious. ‘You don’t know. You can’t be certain—’

‘Don’t be an idiot. You saw her eyes – those were a wolf’s eyes. And all her talk about the ghosts, and the old crimes, and all the rest.’

Kalyth spoke. ‘I do not understand. Of whom do you speak?’

Shit. Faint turned back to the tent. ‘Seems I need to go in there after all.’

‘The forgiving embrace must be earned,’ Shield Anvil Tanakalian said. ‘Am I of such little worth that the cowards and fools among you can demand my blessing?’ He scanned the faces before him, saw their exhaustion, and was disgusted. ‘You come to me again and again. You ask, is this not the time to elect a new Mortal Sword? A new Destriant? Perhaps it is. Perhaps I am but waiting … for one of you to rise above the others, to show us all your worthiness. Alas, I am still waiting.’

The eyes regarding him from beneath the rims of the helms were bleak, beaten down. The camp behind these officers had lost its orderliness. Discipline had given way to bestial indifference, the torrid pace of the march their only excuse. They had crossed the border into Central Kolanse two days past, trudged down a road already overgrown, through towns little more than burned stains. This was a land returning to the wild, yet it stank of death.

‘It must be,’ said Tanakalian, ‘that for now one man shall suffer the burden of all three titles. I did not ask for this. I do not welcome it. Ambition is a poison – we all saw what it did to Krughava. Must we now invite a return to that madness? I am not—’

He stopped then, as a sudden breath of ice flowed past him. He saw the officers facing him recoil, saw a stirring ripple through the ranks assembled behind them. Mists lifted from the ground, curled and roiled on all sides.

What is this? Who has come among us? He started – something caught in the corner of his eye. A flash of movement. Then another. Low, the whisper of fur, a lurid glint from burning eyes. Sudden shouts from the Perish, the ranks losing formation, weapons hissing from scabbards.

Tanakalian could feel the buffeting tide sweeping past him. Invisible forms slid past his legs, pushed him off balance. He spun round, glared into the darkness. ‘Show yourselves!’

A figure, coming up from beyond the road’s berm. A girl, wearing rags. But he could see the flowing shapes now, the ethereal forms surrounding her. Wolves. She comes in a sea of wolves. But they were not real. Not living. Not breathing. These beasts were long dead. They bore wounds. Stains in the fur, gashes in the hide. The glow from their eyes was otherworldly, like holes burned through a wall – and what lay beyond was rage. Incandescent rage.

She drew nearer, and her eyes were the same. Torn through by fury. One blazed yellow, the other was quicksilver.

Horror filled Tanakalian at the moment of recognition. The Wolves of Winter – they are within her. They are there, inside her – those eyes! They stare out at me from the Beast Throne. Fanderay. Togg. Our gods are among us.

All strength left his limbs when those terrible eyes fixed on him and sank into his skull like fangs, forcing him to his knees.

All at once she stood before him. Those fangs dug deeper, tearing into his brain, ripping loose every secret, every hidden hunger. Raping him with cold remorselessness. As if he was carrion. Something washed back, thick as blood, and it was filled with contempt. An instant later and he was dismissed, made irrelevant. Her gaze lifted past him, to the Grey Helms – and he knew that they too knelt, abject, helpless, their courage drained away, their souls made cold with fear.

When she spoke in their minds, the voice was a multitude of howls, a sound more terrible than anything they had ever heard.

‘I am the voice of the Wolves of Winter. Listen well to these words. We will not be judged.’ She looked down at Tanakalian. ‘You would wield my swords, mortal? Are you the one to lay waste to a thousand realms in my name? I think not. Pettiness consumes your thoughts. Vanity commands your every vision.

‘Look well upon this child. She is Setoc. Destriant. She is our voice. She is our will.’

The girl raised her eyes once more, addressed the entire army. ‘Your kin kneel before the Forkrul Assail in the palace of Kolanse. The Assail would force the Perish Grey Helms to serve them, and they eagerly await your arrival, and the moment when you, too, must kneel in obeisance.

‘This … offends us.

‘When Sister Reverence summons Destriant Setoc, when she seeks to wrest this army from us, she shall know the wrath of the Wolves.’

One of the officers suddenly found the courage to call out, ‘Blessed Wolves – do you wish us to destroy the Forkrul Assail? Did the Mortal Sword speak true?’

‘Around us, mortal, there are only enemies. But we are among you now, and in the moment of battle the ghosts shall rise, in numbers beyond counting, and before us every army shall fall. Before us, every city shall burn. Before us, there shall be slaughter to redress the balance.

‘Think on your faith, my children. Think well on the imbalance of which I speak. The millennia of slaughter at your human hand. We shall give answer. In every realm, we shall give answer!’

Before the power of his gods, Tanakalian bowed his head. To hide his eyes. He was seething, his time of glory ripped away from him, his dreams of power stolen, his ascension left in ruins by this … this girl.

She had walked past him now, into the midst of his soldiers. But no, they were no longer his, were they? ‘It will not end this way,’ he whispered. ‘It will not end this way!’

She staggered away, blood pouring from her wounds.

Gruntle sought to rise, to lift his huge form one more time, but will was not enough. The pain was fading, a dullness seeping in, and in his bloodied nostrils all he could smell was burned fur, scorched flesh. The time surrounding him now, slowly closing in, seemed a force vast beyond countenance. It felt thick, unyielding, and yet he could see its expanse, the way it stretched behind him – but not ahead. No, there, almost within reach, it vanished into dark mists.

If he could, he would have laughed. The irony of life’s end was found in all the truths suddenly discovered, when it was too late to do a damned thing about them. It was said that in the moments before death, there arrived an acceptance, a willingness to see it come to an end, and an indifference to the anguish and grief of the living. If I have let go, why can’t you? It’s these truths, you see, and my helplessness in answering them. I would laugh, but in laughter there is pain. I would bless, but in blessing there is loss. This is not how anyone wants it. But then, it never is.

Don’t you see that, Stonny? In all your fraught moments – and isn’t every moment fraught? – in all of them, you miss the chance of peace. The calm of all these truths, the ones us dying discover, and even then we can say nothing. Offer nothing.

This time. It’s all past. No. It’s my past. And with it, I can do nothing.

They had fought with terrible savagery. For how long he could not guess. Two indomitable beasts spilling out their hot, steaming blood, lashing out in rage, staggering in pain. Claws tearing, slashing deep. Fangs punching through hide and thick muscle. The stone floor of the chamber had grown slick, the air hot and fetid.

And overhead, looming above the ruined carcass of the Azath house, the huge wound fulminated, the edges burning, sizzling as if weeping acid.

Gruntle did not even see the moment the first of the dragons came through. He and Kilava were locked together, claws raking each other’s flanks down to the bone, when something like a hurricane wind slammed them down on to the unyielding ground. Pulverized rock billowed out, filling the chamber even as enormous cracks opened on the rough walls.

Stunned by the thunderous concussion, Gruntle pulled away from Kilava. Yet the rage would not leave him, and he felt his god howling somewhere deep inside his chest – a creature held back for too long by Kilava’s denial – and now it clawed its way free. She could no longer resist him, could no longer find the strength to defy what was coming.

I warned you.

The dragon filled the chamber, impossibly huge, wings hammering at the walls. Gruntle understood, then, that the creature was trapped – by the ancient, heavy stone of the cavern walls. It needed to unleash its sorcery – to shatter these confines, to open the way for the hundreds of other dragons crowding the gate.

He must strike now.

The roar that tore out from his throat was Trake’s own, a god’s call to war. The power within him becoming a thing of agony, Gruntle’s limbs coiled, lowering him into a crouch, and then he leapt.

The dragon’s neck arched, the head snapped down, jaws opening wide.

He slammed into the creature’s neck. Claws sinking deep, his fangs burying themselves in the dragon’s throat. Scales broke as Gruntle’s jaws tightened, closing on the windpipe.

The dragon reared in shock, and with the convulsive motion blood poured into Gruntle’s mouth. As he clung to the creature’s writhing neck, his weight began to pull the dragon down. Wings cracked on the stone floor. Talons gouged wounds in the rock and then scraped frantically. The impact when the dragon struck the ground almost tore Gruntle loose, but he managed to hold on, the muscles of his shoulders, neck and jaws bunching until they creaked. He could hear the desperate wheezing of breath, and tightened his death grip.

The dragon reared a second time, lifting Gruntle into the air.

And then Kilava struck him with all the force of a battering ram. The dragon’s throat was ripped wide open in a torrent of gore, but Gruntle was falling, Kilava’s own fangs scoring deep across his shoulder blades.

They pounded against the stone floor, burst apart, Gruntle scrabbling to find his footing, twisting to find Kilava – to kill her once and for all—

The dying dragon was not yet done. Its jaws slammed down on Gruntle. Fangs long as scimitars impaled him. He was lifted from the ground, and then flung through the air.

Bones exploded inside his mangled flesh when he struck the wall. Leaving a glittering crimson streak, he slid down the stone to slump gasping, too broken to move.

The dragon staggered, head swinging round, eyes blazing as they fixed on him. Jaws opened, and sorcery roiled out in a torrent.

Gruntle heard Trake’s death cry, and that howl itself seemed to catch fire in the conflagration of draconic magic. It raged around him, tore deep into his ruined body. And all at once his god left him, stumbling away, away from this realm. A trail, another cave, a place of darkness, a place to lie down and die.

Again. You damned fool. You never learn. And now … now it’s too late.

The dragon careened against the far wall, sank down, spilling out the last of itself.

But above it, in that tearing wound, another was clawing its way through.

The cavern simply disintegrated as Eleint sorcery annihilated the last barriers surrounding Starvald Demelain. Beyond, the deep snows erupted in clouds of scalding steam. The ground itself was torn away, leaving nothing but swirling chaos.

In clouds of spinning dust and pelting rubble, in the wild fires of chaotic magic, the dragons returned to the world.

In my dreams, a blackened cat, a thing lying bleeding, gasping, dying. Blackened. In my dreams, I saw not her, but myself.

Dear Kilava, you did warn me. And I did not listen.

And when I warned Trake, Tiger of Summer and god of war, he did not listen. You fool. You needed wisdom in the one you chose, Trake. Not just another damned version of you. With all the same, useless, deadly flaws.

All that time, stretching away behind me now. Solid as stone, every shape, every rise and every dip, worn away in these winds of dying. Stonny, see what I have done? Or failed to do. You were right to refuse me. I always thought bigger than I could deliver. I always wanted what I could not hold.

And I saw it in your eyes – the day I stood before you, when I promised that I would come back. I saw in your eyes you knew I wouldn’t. You knew you would never see me again. Ah, my love, so many truths, come too late.

And this love, it is the last thing I have left, the last thing to hold on to. All I ever wanted – feel it slip away, slip away.

Woman, you should never have let me go. I should have given you that power over me. If I had, you would’ve understood. You would have believed my love for you. And if you had believed, in that moment … I would have believed, too. How could I not?

This is my fault. I saw that then and I see it now. My fault.

Stonny, my love, I am sorry.

Time, that stretched behind him for ever, that closed in and became solid, that beckoned ahead with a darkness almost within reach, then ended.

By the time she staggered to his side, she saw that he was dead. Sembled into her Imass form, she sat down weakly beside his carcass, lifted her gaze to the empty, dust-wreathed sky.

The last of them, gone now. Out into the world. She had known that there would be hundreds of them, but still, the sight of that exodus had stunned her.

Blood pooled beneath her, mixing with that of Gruntle, this noble fool lying so still beside her. There was nothing more heartbreaking than to look upon a dead beast, a thing stripped of its terrible strength, its perfect majesty. And there was something still crueller when that beast was a hunter, a predator. A rival. Not killed for food. No. Killed for existing, killed for the presumption of competition. The predator fights to the last. It refuses to surrender. Hunt it down. Corner it. See those bared fangs. Listen to its fury and its fear and its noble defiance.

You understood all of this, Gruntle. You understood the inescapable, profound tragedy that is the beast that hunts, that dares to challenge our domination.

I did not mean to take your life.

She knew she was badly hurt. She knew she might not survive this. Even without the power of his god – whom she had kept away until the dragon’s arrival – he had been … extraordinary. Had he not turned upon the Eleint … yes, he would have killed me.

Gruntle, I will remember you. This I swear. Here, in the cracks in my heart. I will curse Trake until the end of my days, but you, brother of the hunt, I will remember.

Hearing a scrabble of stones, she lifted her head.

The pair of emlava had returned, and now edged towards her. She sensed their distress. Their grief. ‘He lives,’ she whispered. ‘My husband lives. For now. As for what comes …’ I wish I had an answer.

The realm was dying on all sides. Disintegrating into dust, as all dreams must do, when the last dreamer is gone.

When she leaned back, closed her eyes, she felt the world shifting beneath her. So … gentle now, sweet as the rocking of a ship. Husband. Was I wrong to do this? She looked over to see the two sabre-toothed cats lying down beside Gruntle’s carcass. As if to give him warmth.

As if to make him their own.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’

Withal cinched tight the last straps, and reached for the black-scaled gauntlets. ‘I can’t just sit here any more,’ he said. ‘Since it seems we’re all going to die anyway.’ He glanced up at her, and shrugged.

Her lips were dry, chapped. Her eyes were ringed in red, hollowed with exhaustion. ‘What of me?’ she asked in a whisper. ‘You will leave me … alone?’

‘Sand, there are no chains on that throne—’

‘But there are!’

‘No. And there’s no law says you got to sit there until the end. Why give them the glory of dragging you down from it, their delight at seeing fresh Andiian blood splashing the dais steps? Piss on them! Come with me. Die with the ones giving their lives to defend you.’

She looked away. ‘I do not know how to fight.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, rising from where he’d been sitting on the stone steps at the base of the throne. He took up the heavy mace he’d found – along with this arcane armour – in a dust-thick crypt far below the palace. ‘Look at me. Too old for this by half.’ He picked up the shield, slipping his arm through the straps.

She did look at him then. ‘That’s not Andiian armour.’

‘Didn’t think it was,’ he replied, ‘else it would never have fitted me. Better yet, it’s not the kind that needs two people to put on. And the leather bindings – they don’t seem to have aged at all.’

‘How could I bear it, Withal? Seeing them die.’

‘You sit here fighting your own war, Sand. If their dying in your imagination is easier for you to bear, it’s because you don’t see the blood. You don’t hear the cries. The price they’re paying you won’t even deign to witness.’

‘Did I make any bold claims to courage?’

‘You make plenty of claims,’ he said wearily, ‘but none of them come close to courage.’

‘Go then,’ she hissed. ‘I am done with you.’

He studied her, and then nodded.

Walked from the throne room.

Sandalath Drukorlat leaned back on the throne, closed her eyes. ‘Now,’ she muttered, ‘I have my very own ghost.’ The life that was, the one she had just killed. ‘There’s courage in doing that. And if it felt easy, well, we know that’s a lie. But a gentle one. Gentle as a kiss never taken, a moment … slipping past, not touched, not even once.’

The soldier who walked in then, why, she knew him well. She could see through his armour right through to his beating heart, and such a large, strong heart. She could see, too, all his bones, scarred with healed breaks, and beyond that the floor of the chamber. Because this soldier’s arrival had been a long, long time ago, and the one seated on this throne, before whom he now knelt, was not Sandalath Drukorlat.

The soldier was looking down, and then he was laughing. The sound was warm with love, softened by some unknown regret.

‘Gods below,’ said a voice from the throne, seeming to come from the dark wood behind her head. ‘How is it I cannot even remember your name?’

The soldier was grinning when he looked up. ‘Lord, when was the last time a Warden of the Outer Reach visited the throne room of Kharkanas? Even I cannot answer that.’

But Anomander was not yet prepared to excuse himself this failing. ‘Have I not seen you before? Did not your commander at the Reach speak to me of you?’

‘Perhaps, Lord, the praise was faint, if it existed at all. Shall I ease your dismay, Lord?’

Sandalath saw a hand rise from where one of her own rested on the arm of the chair. His hand. Pointing – no, just a gesture, just that. ‘No need. Warden Spinnock Durav.’

The soldier smiled and nodded. ‘Upon word of your summons, Lord, I have come, as at that time I was the ranking officer in the Reach.’

‘Where then is Calat Hustain?’

‘An event at the gate, Lord.’

‘Starvald Demelain? I have heard nothing of this.’

‘It has been only a week, Lord, since he set out for it.’

‘What manner of event was this – do you know?’

‘The word that came to us from the Watchers did not suggest urgency, or dire threat, Lord. An awakening of foreign energies. Modest, but worth closer examination.’

‘Very well. Then, Spinnock Durav, it shall be you.’

‘I am ever at your call, Lord. What is it that you wish me to do?’

Anomander’s answer stole all humour from the soldier’s face. And, she recalled, it was never to return.

The peace of the forest belied the horror waiting ahead. Water dripped from moss, ran like tears down channels in the lichen covering the boles of the trees. Somewhere, above the canopy, heavy clouds had settled, leaking rain. Withal would have welcomed the cool drops, the sweet kisses from heaven. He needed to be reminded of things beyond all this – the throne room and the woman he had left behind, and before him the First Shore with its heaps of corpses and pools of thickening blood. But this forest was too narrow to hold all that he wanted, and to pass from one misery to the next took little effort, and it was not long before he could hear the battle ahead, and between the towering trunks of the ancient trees he now caught flashes of shimmering light – where the world ends.

For all of us.

He was done with her haunting his dreams, done with all the demands that he make his love for Sandalath into some kind of weapon, a thing with which to threaten and cajole. And Sand had been right in rejecting him. No, she was Mother Dark’s problem now.

The chewed-up trail dipped before climbing to the ridge overlooking the First Shore, and as he scrabbled his way up the slope the sounds of fighting built into a roar. Two more steps, a thick root for a handhold, and then he was on the ridge, and before him was a scene that stole the strength from his legs, that closed a cold hand about his heart.

Who then has seen such a thing? Before him, seven thousand bodies. Letherii. Shake. And there, along the base of Lightfall – to either side of that breach – how many dead and dying Liosan? Ten thousand? Fifteen? The numbers seemed incomprehensible. The numbers gave him nothing. In his mind he could repeat them, as if voicing a mantra, as his gaze moved from one horror to the next, and then down to where the knot of defenders fought at the very mouth of the wound – fought to deny the Liosan a single foothold upon the Shore – and still, none of it made sense. Even when it did.

It is the last stand. That is what this is. They keep coming. We keep falling. An entire people, face to face with annihilation.

All at once he wanted to turn round, march back to Kharkanas, to the palace, into the throne room, and … and what? It’s not her fault. There’s nothing here she ever wanted. Gods below, Sand, I begin to understand your madness. No one here will accept surrender, no matter what you say. You could open your own throat there on that throne, and it wouldn’t matter. These people will die defending a corpse. A corpse on a throne, in a corpse of a city. The cause stopped meaning anything some time ago.

I should have seen that.

Two girls were among the dead and dying, stumbling from body to body. They were painted head to toe in crimson. One of them was shrieking, as if seeking to tear her own voice to pieces, to destroy it for all time. The other careered among the corpses, hands over her ears.

There were no reserves. All who remained standing were at the breach, where Yedan Derryg still stood, still fought. But what of Yan Tovis? What of the queen of the Shake? If she was in that dreadful press, Withal could not see her. If she had died, she was buried beneath her fallen subjects.

He found that he was breathing hard, his heart pounding. The grip of the mace was slick in his hand. He set it down, reached for the ornate, full-visored helm slung from his knife belt. Fumbled to loosen the clasp – as if his fingers had forgotten how to work. Finally tugging it free, he worked the helm on to his head, felt its weight settle. He closed the clasp under his chin, the iron hoop tearing at the beard on his throat.

The sounds of the battle dulled then, faint as distant breakers on some unseen strand. A louder squeal when he set the visor and locked it in place, and the scene before him was suddenly split, broken up by the chaotically angled bars. His breaths now filled the confined space.

Withal collected the mace, straightened. Brought the shield round to guard his left side, and lurched into motion.

Someone else had wrested control of his body – his legs, now carrying him down on to the strand; his eyes, searching for a path through the pale, motionless bodies; the hand holding his weapon and the forearm bearing the weight of the shield – they no longer belonged to him, no longer answered to his will. You do not willingly walk into a battle like this. How can you? No, some other force takes you there, moves you like a pawn, a puppet. And you watch yourself going ever forward, and you are baffled, disbelieving. And all that fear, it’s hollowed out – just an empty place now. And the roar outside is lost to the roar inside – your own blood, your breaths – and now your mouth is parched and you would kill your own mother for a drink of water. But of course you won’t, because that would be wrong – and that thought makes you want to laugh. But if you do, you know that you will lose it, you know that if that laughter starts it won’t stop.

Was this how it was in my first battle? Was this why I could remember so little – only frozen moments, those moments that reach up and take you by the throat? That make you see all that you don’t want to see, remember all that you pray to forget?

Is this how it was?

He was clambering over the heaped bodies now, the flesh beneath him cold, taking the imprints of his feet and knees like damp clay – he looked back at the dents and wondered at their wrongness. And then he was moving on, and before him was a ragged wall, Letherii and Shake on their knees, or bent over, or trying to drag themselves out from a forest of legs, shielding wounds – he thought he would see weeping faces, bawling despair, but the pain-twisted faces were dry, and every cry that clawed past his own roaring self was one of raw pain. Just that. Nothing more. A sound without complications, can you hear it?

If there could be one god, with one voice, this is the sound it would make – to stop us in our endless madness.

But look on, Withal. See the truth. We do not listen.

He made his way past these exhausted and wounded comrades, pushed his way into the heaving mass. The stench rocked him. Abattoir, sewer, cutter’s floor. Thick enough to choke him. He struggled against vomiting – here inside this helm – no, he would not do that. Could not.

Faces now, on all sides. None speaking, and the look in their eyes was flat, flatter than anything he’d ever seen. And they were all straining towards the front line, moving up to take their places, to fill the gaps, the unending gaps, as if to say If you will kill us all, kill me next. But do not think it will be easy.

Suddenly, he felt ready for this. Walk until something bars your path. Then stand, until you fall. Whoever said life was complicated?

The channels and currents had carried him to the left flank, well away from that immovable knot at the centre, where a sword’s laughter had taken for itself all the Shore’s madness, every last scrap of it.

He saw Brevity, though at first he did not recognize her – that solid, handsome face, the wry look in her eyes, all gone. In their place a mask of wet blood over dried blood, over blood that had turned into black tar. A slash had opened one cheek, revealing two rows of red molars. There was nothing sardonic left, but she commanded that front line, her will clenched like a fist.

Off her shield side, two Shake fell and three Liosan pushed in to widen the gap.

Eyes widening at the perfect, breathtaking simplicity of what was needed of him, Withal surged to meet them.

This was something new. Yan Tovis could feel it. Yedan Derryg had advanced the line to the very edge of the breach, and there they had held against the Liosan. This time there was to be no foothold. He would refuse them a single step upon the strand.

He had explained nothing, and as she fought, crowded hard against that wound – from which Liosan poured like blood – she began to realize that, this time, there would be no respite, not until one side or the other fell, to the very last soldier. What had begun would not end until the last sword swung down, or sank deep in writhing flesh.

How had he known? What had he done on the other side of the gate? What had he seen?

She caught glimpses of her brother, there, where the terrifying pealing laughter went on and on, where blood fountained, where Liosan bodies piled ever higher and they stood on them, fighting for balance, face to face, weapons flashing. Glimpses. A face she barely knew, so twisted was it, the Hust sword dragging him past exhaustion, past all reason of what the human body could withstand. Of his face, she could see the white bones beneath translucent flesh, could see all the veins and arteries and the root-mat of vessels, could see the bloody tears that streamed down from his eyes.

Night had come to the Shake. The sand had measured the time, in a kind of stillness, a kind of silence that was beneath all this, and the grains slipped down, and now had come the eternity just before dawn, the time of the Watch. He stood. He fought, his stance wide to find purchase on a hill of bodies.

See him. In the eternity before dawn. When among mortals courage is at its weakest, when fear sinks talons on the threshold and will not let go. When one awakens to such loneliness as to twist a moan from the chest. But then … you feel it, breath catching. You feel it. You are not alone.

The Watch stands guard.

They would not break, would not yield – all those who stood now with him. Instead, at his sides they died, and died.

She was a thing of ash and blood, moulded into something vaguely human-shaped, tempered by the crushed bone of her ancestors, and she fought on, because her brother would not yield, because the very border that was Lightfall, and the wound, had now become the place where it would be decided.

And still the Liosan came, lunging wild-eyed from the swirling chaos – most did not even have time to react, to make sense of the nightmare world into which they had just stumbled, before a pike plunged into them, or a sword lashed down. And so they died, there on that threshold, fouling those who came after them.

She had no idea how many of her people were left, and a vision that had come upon her a century ago, maybe longer, of Yedan Derryg standing alone before the breach, the very last to fall, now returned to her, not as some dreadful imagining, but as prophetic truth.

And all because I would not kneel to the Shore.

There was no dragon challenging the breach. If one came, she now would not hesitate. She would fling herself down, trusting in Yedan to kill the damned thing, trusting in the power of her own blood to claim that dying creature, hold it fast, grasp hold of its blood and lift it, higher, yet higher, to make a wall, to seal this gate.

Why did I wait? Why did I resist?

Why did I believe my freedom was worth anything? Why did I imagine that I had the right to choose my destiny? Or choose to deny it?

Only the defeated kneel. Only slaves, the ones who surrender their lives – into the hands of others.

But now … I would do it. To save my people, this pitiful remnant. Come to me now, my child-witches. See me kneel. Bleed me out. I am ready.

A Liosan fell to her sword, on to his knees before her, as if mocking her sudden desire, and over his head she saw her brother – saw him turn, saw him find her. Their gazes locked.

Yan Tovis loosed a sob, and then nodded.

Yedan Deryyg threw out his arms to the sides. Roared, ‘Back! Ten paces!’

And hail welcome to the dragon.

She watched Spinnock Durav enter the throne room yet again, and wondered at the absence of his smile. That face did not welcome solemn regard, wore it like an ill-fitting mask. Made it lined where it should be smooth, made the eyes flinch when he looked up to meet the gaze of the one seated on this throne.

He smelled of burnt wood, as if he had dragged the death of a forest behind him, and now the smoke swirled round his legs, his kneeling form, like serpents only she could see.

‘Highness,’ he said.

‘Speak to me,’ said a strained, half-broken voice, ‘on the disposition of my legions.’

‘Certain leaders among us,’ Spinnock replied, eyes lowering to fix on the dais, or perhaps a pair of booted feet, ‘are in their souls unleashed. ’Tis the scent upon this wind—’

‘If the fire draws closer, the city will burn.’

‘Against that conflagration, Highness, only you can stand, for it is by your will – we see that now. We see your grief, though we do not yet understand its meaning. What pact have you made with Silanah? Why does she lay waste to all the land? Why does she drive ever closer to proud Kharkanas?’

‘Proud?’ The word was a sneer. ‘I am now one ghost among many, and it is only ghosts who belong here. If we are to be forgotten, the city must fall. If we are to be forgiven, the city must swallow our crimes. If we are to be dust, the city must be ash. That is how to end this.’

‘We have journeyed long, Highness. From the Outer Marches, on a hundred hidden paths only a thief would remember. And then the violence took our leaders. The blood of Eleint.’

‘Cursed blood!’

‘Highness?’

‘No! It poisoned me once – you know that, Spinnock Durav! You were there!’

He bowed his head still further. ‘I saw what was done, yes. I saw what you sought to hide away.’

‘I did not ask them to come back. I didn’t!’

He lifted his gaze, tilted his head. ‘I sense … this is important. Highness. Who did you not ask to come back?’

Hard, cold hands closed on her face. She felt them like her own, felt the long fingers like prison bars, smelled the wax of melted candles. ‘Can’t you hear it?’

‘Hear what, Highness?’

‘Their screams. The dying! Can’t you hear it?’

‘Highness, there is a distant roar. Lightfall—’

‘Lightfall!’ Her eyes widened but she could not speak, could not think.

‘What is happening?’ he demanded.

What is happening? Everything is happening! ‘Are they in disarray? Your troops?’

He shook his head. ‘No, Highness. They wait on Blind Gallan’s Road.’

Blind Gallan’s Road? There was no such road. Not then. Not when Spinnock Durav came to kneel before his lord. I have lost my mind. A sudden whimper, and she shrank back in the throne. ‘Take off that mask, Spinnock Durav. You were never so old.’

‘Who did you ask not to come back?’

She licked her lips. ‘She should have taken the throne. She was a true queen, you see. Of the Shake. And the Letherii, the ones she saved. I don’t belong here – I told them—’

But Spinnock Durav was on his feet, a growing horror on his face. ‘Highness! Sandalath Drukorlat! What is that roar?’

She stared at him. Moved her mouth to make words. Failed. Tried a second time. ‘The breach. They’ve come again – tell Anomander – tell him! No one can stop them but him! The Shake – dying. Oh, Mother bless us. DYING!’

Her shriek echoed in the vast room. But he was already leaving. Out in the corridor now, shouting orders – but that voice, too desperate, too frantic. Not like Spinnock Durav at all.

Lord Nimander Golit Anomandaris, firstborn of the fraught union of Son of Darkness and the First Daughter of Draconus, fell to his knees. His body trembled as he struggled against the blood of the Eleint and its terrible need, its inescapable necessity. Where was Skintick? Desra? Nenanda?

The stones of the river bed crunched beside him, and he felt hands clutch his shoulders. ‘Resist this, Lord. We’re the last two left. Resist the call of the Eleint!’

He lifted his head, baffled, and stared into Korlat’s ancient eyes. ‘What – who?’

‘She has commanded Silanah. She has summoned the Warren of Fire, and set upon the dragon the madness of her desire – do you understand? She would burn this realm to the ground!’

Gasping, he shook his head. ‘Who sits upon the throne? Who would do this in Mother Dark’s name?’

‘Can you not smell the blood? Nimander? There is war – here – I don’t know who. But souls are falling, in appalling numbers. And on the Throne of Darkness sits a queen – a queen in despair.’

He blinked. A queen? ‘Where is Apsal’ara?’

Korlat looked across the river. ‘Into the city, Lord.’

‘And Spinnock?’

‘He has followed – to beseech the queen. To make sense of this – Nimander, listen to me. Your Soletaken kin, they have succumbed to Silanah’s power – she now commands a Storm. If we now veer, you, myself, Dathenar and Prazek – we shall be forced to fight them. In the skies above Kharkanas, we shall annihilate each other. This must not be.’

Nimander forced himself to his feet. ‘No. Silanah. She must be stopped.’

‘Only the Queen can command her to stop, Nimander.’

‘Then … take me to her.’

When Korlat hesitated, he studied her, eyes narrowing. ‘What is it, Korlat? Who is this Queen of Darkness?’

‘I fear … no matter. Go, then, Nimander. Convince her to release Silanah.’

‘But – where will you go?’

‘The war. I will go with Dathenar and Prazek. Lord, I believe I know where the battle will be found. I hope that I am wrong. But … go. Walk where your father walked.’

How long ago was it? She could not remember. She was young. The night before she had taken a boy to her bed, to remind herself that not everything was pain. And if she later broke his heart, she’d not meant to. But this was a new day, and already the night just past seemed centuries away.

She’d been with her brother’s hunting party. On the spoor of tenag. The day was warm, the sun bright and pleased with itself.

They heard his laughter first, a deep thing, hinting of thunder, and they followed it down into a depression thick with chokecherry and dogwood. A figure, lying against a slope. He was Imass, like them, but they did not recognize him, and this in itself was startling. Disturbing.

She could see at once, when she and her kin gathered close, that his wounds were fatal. It was a wonder he still lived, and an even greater wonder that he could laugh as he did, and through all the agony in his eyes, that mirth still shone when he looked up at them.

Her brother was first to speak, because that was his way. ‘What manner of stone do you wear?’

‘Stone?’ the dying man replied, showing a red smile. ‘Metal, my friends. Armour. A Tel Akai gift.’

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Clanless. I wandered. I came upon an army, my friends.’

‘There is no army.’

‘Jaghut. Tel Akai. Others.’

They were silenced by this. The Jaghut were despised. Feared. But an army of Jaghut? Impossible.

Were they now at war? Her clan? Her people? If so, then they would all die. An army of Jaghut – the words alone opened like Omtose Phellack in her soul.

‘I joined them,’ said the man, and then, lifting a mangled hand, he added, ‘Set no crime at my feet for that. Because, you see, I am the last left. They died. All of them. The Jaghut. The Tel Akai. The Jheck. All … dead.’

‘What enemy has come among us?’ her brother asked, his eyes wide with fear.

‘None but that has always been with us, friends. Think well on my words. When you slay a beast, when you hunt as you do now, and blood is spilled. When you close upon the beast in its dying, do you not see its defiance? Its struggle to the very last moment? The legs that kick, the head that tries to lift, the blood frothing from the nostrils?’

They nodded. They had seen. And each time they had felt something fill their hearts, choke in their throats. One needed to bite back on that. Things were as they were.

‘Bless the Jaghut,’ the stranger said, his head falling back. He laughed,but it was short, frail. ‘Why defy death, when you cannot help but fail? They would tell you why. No. They would show you why – if only you had the courage to see, to stand with them, to understand the true enemy of all life.’ His eyes found her, her alone, and once more he managed a smile. ‘Now I will die. I will … fail. But I beg of you,’ and his eyes glistened, and she saw that they were beautiful eyes, especially now, ‘a kiss. Many a woman cursed me in my youth. Even as they loved me. It was … glorious.’

She saw the life draining from those eyes, and so she leaned forward, to catch its leaving. With a soft kiss. His breath was of blood. His lips were cracked, but they were warm.

She held that kiss, as that warmth left. Held it, to give him as much of her as she could.

Her brother pulled her away, held her in his arms the way he used to, when she was much younger, when she was not so guarded with her own body.

They took the armour, before leaving his body to the wild. And she claimed that armour for her own. For that kiss.

And now, she wanted it back. Hissing in frustration, Apsal’ara scanned the empty chamber. She was far beneath the ground floor of the palace. She was where they’d put her armour and her mace, the first time she’d been captured in their midst. They’d been amused by her – it was always that way, as if Kharkanas held nothing worth stealing, as if the very idea of theft was too absurd to countenance.

But someone had stolen her armour!

Seething with outrage and indignation, she set out in search of it.

All reason had left the face of their lord. Froth foamed the corners of his mouth as he screamed his rage, driving the ranks into the maw of the gate, and it was indeed a maw – Aparal Forge could see the truth of that. The fangs descended again and again. They chewed his people to bloody shreds and splintered bones. And this was an appetite without end.

They could not push past, not a single damned step – denying the legions a foothold, a place into which their Soletaken masters could come, could veer and, in veering, at last shatter the opposition.

The commander on the other side had anticipated them. Somehow, he had known the precise moment at which to modify his tactics.

Aparal watched the mangled bodies being pulled from the swirling maelstrom of the gate, watched the way those bodies floundered like wreckage, bobbing on human hands and shoulders, out to the deep trenches already heaped high with the dead. Apart from the elite companies, hardly any soldiers remained. This iron mouth has devoured the population of an entire city. Look well, my Soletaken kin, and ask yourself: whom will you lord it over now? Who will serve you in your estates? Who will raise the food, who will serve it, who will make your fine clothes, who will clean your shit-buckets?

None of this was real. Not any more. And all the ordered precision of existence was now in shambles, a bloodied mess. There was nothing to discuss, no arguments to fling back and forth, no pauses in time to step back and study old tapestries on the walls and pray for the guidance of heroic ancestors.

Saranas was destroyed, and when this was done it would be as empty, as filled with ghosts, as Kharkanas. Light finds the face of Darkness, and lo, it is its own. Is this not what you wanted, Kadagar? But, when you finally possess what you wanted, who, O Lord of Ghosts, who will sweep the floors?

And now, at last, the elite ranks were pushing up against the gate – all the fodder had been used up. Now, then, arrived the final battle.

Aparal made his way down to where the wounded were being left, abandoned, alongside the trenches. The chorus of their cries was horrible beyond measure – to enter this place was an invitation to madness, and he almost welcomed that possibility. He pushed past the staggering, dead-eyed cutters and healers, searching until he found one man, sitting cradling the stump of his left arm, the severed end of which trailed wisps of smoke. A man not screaming, not weeping, not yet reduced to a piteous wretch.

‘Soldier. Look at me.’

The head lifted. A shudder seemed to run through the man.

‘You have been through the gate?’

A shaky nod.

‘How many left – among the enemy? How many left?’

‘I – could not be sure, Lord. But … I think … few.’

‘This is what we keep hearing, but what does that mean? Fifty? Five thousand?’

The soldier shook his head. ‘Few, Lord. And, Lord, there is laughter!’

‘Hust weapons, soldier. Possessed blades. Tell me what is few?’

The man suddenly bared his teeth, and then, with deliberation, he spat at Aparal’s feet.

All who return from the other side are subjects no longer. Mark this, Kadagar. Aparal pointed at the legions now crowding the gate. ‘More than them? Look, damn you!’

Dull eyes shifted, squinted.

‘That, soldier, is seven thousand, maybe eight. On the other side, as many? More? Less?’ When the man simply returned his stare, Aparal drew his sword. ‘You have been through the gate. You have seen – assess the enemy’s strength!’

The man grinned, eyes now on the weapon in Aparal’s hand. ‘Go ahead.’

‘No, not you, soldier.’ He waved with the blade of the sword, the gesture encompassing a score of other wounded. ‘I will kill them, one after another, until you answer me.’

‘Do you not see, Lord, why we refuse you? You have already killed us. All of us. Surviving these wounds will not change that. Look at me. I am already dead. To you. To all the world. Now fuck off. No, better yet – take yourself through to the other side. See for—’

Aparal did not know where the rage came from, but the savage strength of his blow lifted the soldier’s head from his neck, sent it spinning, and then bouncing, until it fetched up against another wounded soldier – who turned her head, regarded it for a moment, then looked away again.

Trembling, horrified by what he had done, Aparal Forge backed away.

From one side he heard a weary chuckle, and then, ‘Barely a thousand left, Lord. They’re done.’

He twisted round, sought out the one who spoke. Before him was the trench, piled with corpses. ‘Is it the dead who now speak?’

‘As good as,’ came the reply. ‘You don’t understand, do you? We don’t tell you because we honour our enemy – they’re not Tiste Andii. They’re humans – who fight like demons.’

He saw the man now. Only the upper half of his body was visible, the rest buried under bodies. Someone had judged him dead. Someone had made a mistake. But then Aparal saw that half his skull was gone, exposing the brain. ‘The Hust Legion—’

‘Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? But there’s no Hust Legion. There’s one man. One Hust sword. Slayer of dragons and slayer of hounds, slayer of a thousand Liosan … one man. And when you finally break through, Lord, may he cut you down – you Soletaken, you betrayers. Every one of you.’

If you stood here, Kadagar Fant … if you stood here, you would finally see what we have done.

Aparal retreated, made his way towards the gate. Yes, he would push through. He would step out on to that foreign shore. And, if he could, he would destroy this lone warrior. And then it will be over. Because that is all I want, now, for this to be over.

He spied a messenger corps, a dozen or so runners standing just beyond the nearest legion. ‘Words to my kin!’ he barked. ‘Less than a thousand remain on the other side. And there is but one man with a Hust sword. Inform our lord – the time is now.’

An end. Bless me, an end.

Sheathing his bloody sword, he fixed his gaze on the gate. ‘There,’ he whispered. ‘Now.’

Halfway across the bridge, Nimander paused, stared at the keep’s massive gates. The air was filling with smoke, and he could now hear the detonations. The sorcery of dragons, the Eleint doing what they did best. Destroying everything in their path.

The return of the Tiste Andii should not have been like this. In flames, in annihilation. He had felt his kin being torn away from him. They had veered over the Outer Marches: they had been flying in the company of Silanah. To honour her, of all things. She was of the royal household now, or so Nimander had wanted – another foolish conceit. In Draconic form, she was my father’s lover – but that was long ago. But Anomander Rake’s hunger for awakening the blood of the Eleint within him had waned. Even when faced with the ruination of Moon’s Spawn, he had not surrendered to it.

Nimander could not even imagine the will that had denied such a … gift. Above Pale, he could have killed Tayschrenn – Korlat had said as much. He could have flown down from Moon’s Spawn, Silanah at his side, and brought fire and devastation to the Malazans. The sudden descent of terror from the skies, scattering the enemy, shattering the opposition arrayed against him.

Instead, he waited, and when at last he veered into his Draconic form, it was to save a different city.

‘He would have done so for Pale, if not for the betrayal.’

‘But, Korlat, it was only the mages who broke their vow. Not the people of the city.’

She had nodded then, and looked across to her two companions. Prazek Goul, who had once been Orfantal’s swordmaster. And Dathenar Fandoris, abandoned spawn from a High Priestess and then, much later, Korlat’s own Mistress of Assassination. The three of them, all that remained of his father’s cadre of Soletaken dragons.

Prazek had said, ‘No matter what, there would have been terrible destruction visited upon Pale. Had Anomander Rake veered into a dragon, Tayschrenn would have had no choice but to turn his fullest powers upon him. By the time the two were done, all of Pale would have been ashes. Instead, our lord descended into the city, and hunted down those wizards, taking them one by one. So, in truth, he did indeed save Pale.’

‘Although,’ added Dathenar, ‘he could not have anticipated the revenge of the Moranth upon Pale’s citizens.’

‘The Malazans could have stopped that,’ countered Prazek.

And the three had nodded.

Blinking, Nimander drew a deep breath, pushing away that gnawing hunger within him – to veer, to rise up, to join the Storm. Then he made his way across the bridge, and into the palace.

From the shadows of the entrance, Apsal’ara stepped out to block his path. ‘Lord Nimander, there is a Tiste Andii woman upon the throne.’

‘So Korlat told me. She has bound Silanah – I must convince her—’

‘She is Korlat’s mother, Lord. Once a Hostage, now the Queen of High House Dark. But madness has taken her. It may be, Lord, that you will have to kill her.’

‘What? Where is Spinnock?’

‘Returned to your legions. There is war upon the First Shore. The Tiste Liosan seek to invade, and those who oppose them are few.’

‘There are other Tiste Andii?’

She shook her head. ‘No. They are Shake.’

Shake? The island prison – gods, no. He stood, his desire suddenly torn in two directions.

‘Make the Queen yield, Lord,’ said Apsal’ara. ‘Spinnock will lead your people in battle.’ She stepped closer, reached up and brushed Nimander’s cheek. ‘My love, do this.’

‘I will not usurp the Queen of High House Dark! Do we return, only to spill Andiian blood all over again?’ He shook his head in horrified denial. ‘No, I cannot!’

‘Then convince her to release Silanah – the Storm will be needed. To save Kharkanas – to save the Shake.’

‘Come with me.’

‘No, Nimander. I will go to the First Shore. I will fight. Find me there.’ Her hand slipped behind his head now and drew his face down to her own. She kissed him hard, and then pushed him away, and was past him, out on to the bridge.

The thunder of Silanah’s rage was drawing closer.

Nimander rushed inside.

The elders and the young remained camped near the bank of the river, though Spinnock knew that before long they would have to retreat into the city. If Silanah could not be stopped. Glancing back, up the road, it seemed that half the sky was aflame. Forests were burning, the ground itself erupting into fountains of molten rock. He caught a dark shape sailing amidst the smoke.

Drawing on his gauntlets, he faced his warriors, and saw that all eyes were upon him. At Spinnock’s back was the forest, and beyond it waited the First Shore. They understood what was to come. He need tell them nothing.

And yet …

Anomander, old friend. Do you now sit at your mother’s side? Do you now look down upon us? Are you helpless, unable to reach across, to still Silanah’s savage fury? Or have you ceased to care?

And yet.

‘Anomander, old friend. Do you now sit at your mother’s side? Do you now look down upon us? Are you helpless, unable to reach across, to still Silanah’s savage fury? Or have you ceased to care?’

Spinnock straightened, scanned the helmed faces before him. And then he drew his sword. Caught the eye of Captain Irind, gestured the burly man forward. ‘Face to me your shield, Captain, and hold well your stance.’

The man’s eyes narrowed slightly, and then he took position, raising the shield between them and settling his shoulder beneath its rim, head turned away.

Spinnock half turned, as if dismissing Irind, and then he whirled. The sword cracked hard against the shield, staggering the captain. The reverberation echoed, out into the forest, and then fell back like rain among the troops.

‘When he led you and your ancestors from this place,’ Spinnock said, pitching his voice loud enough to carry – though in truth a sudden silence had taken the scene, and it seemed not even the Storm could reach through, ‘from smoke, from fire, from ruin, Mother Dark had turned away. Before you, before your lord Anomander Rake, there was … nothing.’

Again his sword struck. Again Irind staggered but held his ground.

‘Prepare to advance. We will not form up once clear of the forest.’ He bared his teeth. ‘There is no time for that. Captain Irind, stay at my side.’

Spinnock led the way into the ancient wood. Behind him the ranks spilled out, order almost immediately broken by the boles of trees, by sinkholes and tree-falls. The air was heavy with mists. Water streamed down every trunk, every branch, every dark-veined leaf.

He raised his voice as he advanced, knowing that they would hear him, knowing that Mother Dark had given him this. For her people. For this day, this most fraught day. ‘Lord Nimander has gone to the palace. He seeks to turn Silanah from her path. What value winning the battle if we lose the war? If not for that, he would be here. He would be speaking to you. But he is not. And … this time, this one time, it is well – for like many of you, I was born in this realm.’

Irind was beside him, ready for the blow. The sword hammered the shield, the sound a shout of iron.

‘Lord Anomander Rake led you to another world. He fought to give you purpose – a reason to live. And for many, in that he failed. But those of you here – for you, he did not fail.’

He swung the sword again, the impact shivering up his arm.

‘He asked you to fight wars that were not yours to fight. He asked you to bow to causes not your own. A hundred banners, a hundred cities – allies who welcomed you and allies who did not. Allies who blessed you and allies who feared you. And your kin died, oh, how they died – they gave up their lives in causes not their own.’

The sword cracked again, and this time Irind almost buckled beneath the blow. Spinnock could hear his harsh breaths.

‘They were all different, and they were all the same. But the cause – the true cause he offered you – did not change.’

The blow sent Irind to his knees.

Another soldier moved up, readying his own shield. Bodily dragged Irind back, and then took his place. The sounds from the advancing warriors behind Spinnock was a susurration – breaths, armour, boots scrabbling for purchase.

‘Your lord was thinking – each and every time – he was thinking … of this moment.’

Again flashed the sword.

‘Each time, every time. The cause was just.’

Crack!

‘He needed to keep reminding you. For this day!’

Crack!

‘Today, this is not foreign soil! Today, this cause is your own!’

Crack!

‘Today, the Tiste Andii fight for themselves!’

And this time other weapons found the rims of shields.

CRACK!

‘Your home!’

CRACK!

‘Your kin!’

CRACK!

The sword shivered in his hand. The soldier stumbling beside him fell away, his shield split.

Gasping, Spinnock Durav pushed on. Anomander Rake – do you witness this? Do you look into these faces – all these faces behind me?

‘This time! Strangers fight in your name! Strangers die for you! Your cause – not theirs!’

CRACK!

The reverberation shoved him forward, shivered through him like something holy. ‘Children of Dark, humans are dying in your name!’

CRACK!

The very air trembled with that concussion. A torrent of water – clinging to high branches, to needles and leaves – shook loose and rained down in an answering hiss.

Ahead, Spinnock could hear fighting.

Do you see, Anomander? Old friend, do you see?

This is our war.

CRACK!

Through the boles a glimmer of falling light. A vast shape lifting high. The sudden roar of a dragon.

Gods, no, what have they done?

CRACK!

Anomander Rake entered the throne room. Sandalath Drukorlat stared at him, watching as he strode towards her.

His voice held a hint of thunder outside. ‘Release Silanah.’

‘Where is your sword?’

The Son of Darkness drew up momentarily, brow clouding. One hand brushed the grip of the weapon slung at his belt.

‘Not that one,’ she said. ‘The slayer of Draconus. Show me. Show me his sword!’

‘Highness—’

‘Stop that! This throne is not mine. It is yours. Do not mock me, Lord. They said you killed him. They said you cut him down.’

‘I have done no such thing, Highness.’

A sudden thought struck her. ‘Where is Orfantal? You took him to stand at your side. Where is my son? My beloved son? Tell me!’

He drew closer. He looked so young, so vulnerable. And that was all … wrong. Ah, this is much earlier. He has not yet killed the Consort. But then … who am I?

‘Release Silanah, Sandalath Drukorlat. The Storm must be freed – the destruction of Kharkanas will make all the deaths meaningless.’

‘Meaningless! Yes! It is what I have been saying all along! It’s all meaningless! And I am proving it!’

He was standing before her now, his eyes level with her own. ‘Korlat—’

A shriek shattered his next words. Sandalath recoiled, and only then realized that the cry had been torn from her own throat. ‘Not yet! Where is Orfantal? Where is my beloved son?’

She saw something in his face then, an anguish he could not hide. She had never known him to be so … weak. So pathetically unguarded. She sneered. ‘Kneel, Anomander, Son of Darkness. Kneel before this Hostage.’

When he lowered himself to one knee, a sudden laugh burst from her. Disbelief. Shock. Delight. ‘I proclaim my beloved son Knight of Darkness – you, I cast out! You’re kneeling! Now,’ and she leaned forward, ‘grovel.’

‘Release Silanah, Highness, or there can be no Knight of Darkness.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re destroying Kharkanas!’

She stabbed a finger at him. ‘As you did! When you made Mother Dark turn away! But don’t you see? I can save you from all that! I can do it first!’ She bared her teeth at him. ‘Now who is the hostage?’

He rose then, and she shrank back in the throne. She had gone too far – she could see it in his eyes. His trembling hands. He seemed to be struggling to speak.

‘Just tell me,’ Sandalath whispered. ‘The truth. Where is my son?’

It was as if the question delivered a mortal wound. Anomander Rake staggered to one side, like a broken man. Shaking his head, he sank down, one hand groping for the edge of the dais.

And she knew then. She had won.

Back ten paces.

In the space left by their retreat from the breach, bodies made a floor of trampled, bloody flesh, shattered spears, broken swords. Here and there, limbs moved, hands reaching, feet kicking, legs twitching. Mouths in smeared faces opened like holes into the Abyss, eyes staring out from places of horror, pain, or fading resignation.

Sharl, who had failed in keeping her brothers alive, and who had, thus far, failed in joining them, stood beside Captain Brevity. She held a sword, the point dug into a corpse under her feet, and knew she would not be able to lift it, not again. There was nothing left, nothing but raging agony in her joints, her muscles, her spine. Thirst clawed at her throat, and every desperate breath she drew deep into her lungs was foul with the stench of the dead and the dying.

‘Stiffen up, lads and lasses,’ growled Brevity. ‘They’re suspicious, is my guess. Not sure. But count on this: they’re coming.’

Someone moved past them then, burly, heavy in armour. Sergeant Cellows, the last of the prince’s own soldiers.

He made his way to position himself on Yedan Derryg’s left, drawing round and setting his shield, readying the heavy-bladed sword in his other hand. For some reason, his arrival, so solemn, so solitary, chilled Sharl to the core. She looked to her left and saw Yan Tovis. Standing, watching, a queen covered in blood – and how much of it belonged to her own subjects? But no, the question no longer mattered. Nor the fact that she had led them to this end.

‘We all end somewhere,’ she whispered.

Brevity heard and glanced over, spat blood, and then said, ‘That’s the truth of it, all right. The only truth there is.’

Sharl nodded, and somehow raised once more the sword in her hand. ‘I am ready, Captain.’

‘We all are, soldier.’

Behind them Sharl heard a low murmuring, the words we all end somewhere rippling out, taking hold, and soldiers slowly straightened, drawing up their weapons.

When the words followed the curve of waiting soldiers and at last reached Yan Tovis, Sharl saw her flinch as if struck, and she turned to look upon her people, saw them straightening, readying, saw the look on their battle-aged faces.

Their queen stepped back, then, into the gap. One stride, and then another, and all at once all eyes were upon her. Lightfall streamed down behind her. It could have been a thing of beauty and wonder. It could have been something other than a manifestation of terror and grief. But it was as if it ceased to exist for Yan Tovis as she scanned the faces, as she fixed her eyes upon the last thousand subjects of her realm.

And then, with even her brother looking on, the queen knelt. Not to the First Shore – not to this horror – but to her people.

In the swirling wound eight paces behind her, a row of spear points lashed out, scything empty air. And then, pushing through the miasma, fully armoured soldiers.

‘Shit,’ muttered Brevity. ‘That’s heavy infantry.’

Yan Tovis rose, swung to face her ancient foe. For a moment she seemed deaf to her soldiers, shouting for her to rejoin the line. For a moment, Sharl thought she might instead advance to meet them, and she saw the flank behind bristling up, as if to rush to join her – one last, suicidal rush. To die beside their queen. And oh, how Sharl longed to join them.

Then Yan Tovis turned her back on the enemy, re-joined her soldiers.

The first row of Liosan stepped clear of the wound, another following. They were shouting something, those Liosan, shouting in triumph a single word – but Sharl could not make it out.

Yedan Derryg’s voice rang out above their cries. ‘All lines! Advance five!’

And there, four rows back of the Liosan front rank, a knot of officers, a single figure among them waving his sword – as if to cut down his own people – and they pressed back on all sides. And there, off to the right, another widening swirl of humanity, making space – and there, upon the left, the same. Sharl stared, unable to understand what they were—

The three isolated warriors then dissolved into blinding white light – and the light burgeoned, and inside that light, massive, scaled shapes, taking form. The flash of blazing eyes. Wings snapping out like galley sails.

And the dragon at the centre then rose into the air.

We all end somewhere.

We all end here.

As the centre ranks rose up to collide with the Liosan front line, Yedan Derryg, with Sergeant Cellows at his side, pushed forward. Five lines between him and that veering dragon. His only obstacle. But these were the elites, heavily armoured, perfectly disciplined.

He saw the other two Soletaken, one on each side, but there was nothing he could do about them. Not yet.

The Hust sword howled as he slammed into the front line. The blade was gorged on draconic blood. It had drunk deep the red wine of Hounds’ blood. It had bathed in the life-ends of a thousand Liosan soldiers. Now it shook off the chains of constraint.

So swiftly did it slash that Yedan almost lost his grip. He grunted to see the soldier before him cut through, shield, sword, chain, flesh and bone, diagonally down his torso, gore exploding out to the sides. A back swing split open the chests of the man to either side. Like a cestus, Yedan and the soldiers closest to him drove into the Liosan ranks.

The Hust sword spun, lashed out in blurs, blood sprayed. Yedan was tugged after it, stumbling, at times almost lifted from his feet as the weapon shrieked its glee, slaughtering all that dared stand before it.

All at once, there was no one between him and the Soletaken. The wreaths of white fire were pouring off the shining scales, the solid bulk of the dragon rising to fill Yedan Derryg’s vision.

Shit. Miscalculated. It’s going to get clear. Sister – I’m sorry. I’m too late.

The head lunged.

He leapt.

The sword sank deep into the dragon’s chest. The creature roared in shock and pain, and then the wings hammered at its sides, scattering Liosan and Shake alike, and the Soletaken lifted into the air.

Hanging from his sword, Yedan scrambled, fought his way on to the dragon’s shoulders. He tore his weapon free. Cut two-handed into its neck.

Twenty reaches above the melee, the creature pitched, canted hard and slammed into Lightfall.

The concussion thundered.

Yedan Derryg slid down over the dragon’s right shoulder, down between it and Lightfall.

The dragon’s neck bowed and the jaws plunged down to engulf him.

As they closed, the Hust sword burst from the top of the dragon’s snout. Wings smashing the wall of light, the giant reptile reared its head back, Yedan tumbling free, still gripping the sword.

He was caught by the talons of the Soletaken’s left foot, the massive claws convulsively clenching. Blood sprayed from the body it held.

Again the dragon careered into Lightfall, and this time a wing collapsed under the impact. Twisting, pitching head first, the creature slid downward. Slammed into the ground.

Yedan Derryg was thrown clear, his body a shattered mess, and where he fell, he did not move. At his side, the Hust sword howled its rage.

The journey through the forest by Rake’s last three Soletaken – Korlat, Prazek Goul and Dathenar Fandoris – had been as savage as fighting a riptide. Silanah was among the most ancient of all living Eleint. Her will tore at them, drove them to their knees again and again. Silanah called upon them, called them by name, sought her own summoning. Still, they managed to resist, but Korlat knew that to shift into draconic form would simply make it worse, the blood of the Eleint awakening in each of them, chaos unfurling in their souls like the deadliest flower. At the same time, she knew that there were Soletaken at the First Shore. She could feel them. And what could the Shake do against such creatures?

Only die.

The Liosan Soletaken would be able to resist Silanah – at least for a time – or perhaps indeed they could even defy her, if their own Storm, when it broke upon this world, was strong enough. And she feared it would be. This is not the taste of one or two Soletaken. No – gods, how many are there?

‘Korlat!’ gasped Dathenar.

‘I know. But we have no choice, do we?’

Prazek spat behind her and said. ‘Better to die in Kharkanas than anywhere else.’

Korlat agreed.

As they reached the rise, they saw a frenzied battle at the wound in Lightfall, and the Liosan soldiers now pouring from that breach vastly outnumbered the defenders. They saw a man do battle with a dragon rising skyward. Saw two Liosan warriors veering to join their winged kin.

They did not hesitate. Darkness bloomed, erupted like black smoke under water, and three black dragons rose above the strand.

As they closed, eight more Liosan veered, and the air filled with the roars of dragons.

Yan Tovis dragged herself over corpses, trying to reach her brother’s horrifyingly motionless form. The two witches were taking the last from her – she felt each sorcerous wave they lashed into the flanking dragons, heard the Soletaken screaming in pain and outrage, and knew that all of it was not enough.

But they were stealing from her this one last act – this journey of love and grief – and the unfairness of that howled in her heart.

Soldiers fought around her, sought to protect their fallen queen. Bodies fell to either side. It seemed that the Liosan were now everywhere – the Shake and Letherii lines had buckled, companies driven apart, hacked at from all sides.

And still he seemed a thousand leagues away.

Draconic sorcery detonated. The bed of bodies beneath her lifted as one, and then fell back with a sound like a drum. And Yan Tovis felt a sudden absence. Skwish. She’s dead.

A trickle of strength returned to her, and she resumed pulling herself along.

Her bones were rattling to some distant sound – or was it inside her? Yes, inside, yet still … distant. As far away as hope. And that is a shore I will never reach. It shook through her. Shook even the corpses beneath her, and those to the sides.

Two stood to either side of her, two of her own, the last two, fighting.

She did not have to look to know who they were. The love filling all the empty spaces inside her now could take them in, like flavours. Brevity, who imagined that her friend Pithy was still with her, still fighting for the dignity they had always wanted, the dignity they’d once thought they could cheat and steal their way to find. Sharl – sweet, young, ancient Sharl, who knew nothing of fighting, who knew only that she had failed to save her brothers, and would not fail again.

There were all kinds of love, and, with wonder, she realized that she now knew them all.

Before her, five simple paces away – could she walk – lay the body of her brother.

Another concussion.

Pully. I am sorry.

There is no glory in dying young, unless you were old first.

No witches now to steal her strength. She lifted herself up, on to her hands and knees, and made for Yedan. As she drew up alongside, she saw the hand nearer her move.

Pulled herself up, knelt at his side, looked down into his face, the only part of him that had not been chewed and crushed beyond recognition. She saw his lips moving, leaned close.

‘Beloved brother,’ she whispered, ‘it is Yan.’

‘I see it,’ he whispered.

‘What do you see?’

‘I see it. Yan. It’s there, right before me.’ His broken lips smiled.

‘Yedan?’

‘At last,’ he sighed, ‘I am … home.’

Their queen and the body of their prince, they were now an island upon the sea, and the last of them gathered round, to hold its ever shrinking shoreline. And, above it all, three black dragons warred with ten white dragons, and then there were only two against ten.

Surrounding the island and its shore, the Liosan pushed in on waves of steel and fury. Theirs was the hunger of the ocean, and that was a hunger without end.

But the ground trembled. It shivered. And the source of that steady, drumming thunder was coming ever closer.

Leaning like a drunk on the dais, Nimander struggled for a way through this. It would seem that he had to veer, and soon, and then he would have to somehow resist Silanah’s will. He would have to fight her, try to kill her. But he knew he would fail. She would send his own kin against him, and the horror of the blood that would then spill was too much to bear.

Sandalath Drukorlat still sat on the throne, muttering under her breath. I could kill her. After all, do I not already have Tiste Andii blood on my hands? And then, should we by some miracle prevail here, why, a usurper could take this throne. That, too, has been done before.

And the new kingdom of Kharkanas shall be born in the ashes of murder. Yes, I could do that. But look upon her, Nimander – she does not even remember you. In her madness, I am my father. Sandalath, do you truly not remember? Withal and I – we lied to you. A terrible accident, the suicide that never was.

Shall I lie to you again?

No, I cannot.

There were ghosts in this palace – in this very room. He had never before felt such palpable presence, as if countless ages had awakened to this moment. As if all of the fallen had returned, to witness the end of every dream.

‘Apsal’ara,’ he whispered. ‘I need you.’

Came an answering whisper, ‘It’s not her you need.’

Smiling down on the broken form of Anomander Rake, Sandalath slowly drew her dagger. But he doesn’t have the sword. He hasn’t done what he vowed to do. How can I kill him now?

Look at him, though! This … thing. Against mighty Draconus? Impossible. I suspected it, back on the island. That broken window, the body lying on the cobbles. How few his followers then, how pathetic his lack of control.

A new voice spoke. ‘Orfantal will die if you do not release Silanah.’

Sandalath looked up. Her eyes widened. A ghost stood before her, where Anomander – in that bold, deceitful moment of bluster – had been a moment earlier. A woman, young, and she knew her – no, I do not. I will not. I refuse. How can my thoughts summon?

Silanah? Who was speaking of her? Was it me?

To the ghost standing before her, she growled, ‘I do not know you.’

Smiling, the ghost said, ‘But you do. You knew me all too well, as I recall. I am Phaed. My brother,’ and she gestured down to Anomander, ‘is of such honour that he would rather give you your end, here and now, than hurt you further. Nor will he threaten you with what he cannot do in any case – no matter what the cost – to his people, to those doomed humans upon the First Shore.’

‘I only want my son,’ Sandalath whispered. ‘He took him, and I want him back!’

‘This is not Anomander Rake,’ Phaed said. ‘This is his son. How can you not remember, Sandalath Drukorlat? Upon the islands, across the vast seas – you took us in, as if we were your children. Now Nimander is here, begging you to release Silanah – to end the destruction of Kharkanas.’

Sandalath sneered. ‘I can taste lies – they fill this room. Ten thousand lies built this keep, stone by stone. Remember what Gallan said? “At the roots of every great empire you will find ten thousand lies.” But he was not blind then, was he? I never trusted you, Phaed.’

‘But you trusted Nimander.’

She blinked. Nimander? ‘You are right – he does not lie. What a damned fool, just like his father, and see where it has got us.’

‘Your son Orfantal will die, Sandalath Drukorlat, unless you release Silanah.’

‘Orfantal! Bring him to me.’

‘I will, once you relinquish the throne and all the power it grants you. Once you free Silanah from your will.’

She licked her lips, studied the ghost’s strangely flat eyes. I remember those eyes, the knowing in them. Knowing that I knew the truth of her. Phaed. Venal, conscienceless. ‘You are the liar among us!’

Phaed cocked her head, smiled. ‘I never liked you, it’s true. But I never lied to you. Now, do you want to see your son or not? This is what I offer.’

She stared at the ghost, and then looked down at Anoman— no, Nimander. ‘You have never lied to me, Nimander. Does your sister speak true?’

‘Do not ask him!’ Phaed snapped. ‘This negotiation is between you and me. Sandalath, you of all people should understand what is going on here. You know the way of Hostages.’

‘Orfantal is not a Hostage!’

‘Events have changed things – there are new powers here.’

‘That is not fair!’

Phaed’s laugh stabbed like a knife. ‘The Hostage whimpers at the unfairness of it all.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Oh, shall I show some mercy, then?’

‘Stop it!’

‘Very well,’ said Phaed, ‘I will give you this … gift. Retire to the chamber in the tower, Sandalath. You know the one. Lock the door from within, so that no one else may enter. Remain there. Await your son. And when he comes, why, then you can unlock your door. To take him into your arms.’

My room. My sweet, perfect room. If I wait there. If I hide there, everything will be all right. Tears streamed down Sandalath’s face. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘My son.’

‘Will you yield the throne?’ Phaed asked. ‘It must be now. Once you have done that, then you can go to your room, Sandalath. Where you will be safe, and where you can wait for him.’

There was no end, it seemed, to what could spill down from her eyes. She rose, the dagger falling to clatter on the stones. My room, yes. It’s safe there. I have the lock, there at the door. The lock, to keep me safe.

Silanah – hear me. I will see my son! They will bring him to me! But first, I must release you. Eleint, you are free.

And soon, we will all be free. All of us hostages. We will finally be free.

After Sandalath Drukorlat, making sounds like an excited child, had rushed from the throne room, Nimander looked across at the ghost of Phaed.

Who stared back, expressionless. ‘I vowed to haunt you. My brother. My killer. To torment you for the rest of your days. Instead, you deliver me … home.’

His eyes narrowed on her, suspicious – as he knew he would always be, with this one.

‘Join your kin, Nimander. There is little time.’

‘What of you?’ he demanded.

Phaed seemed to soften before his eyes. ‘A mother will sit in a tower, awaiting her son. She will keep the door locked. She will wait for the sound of boots upon the stairs. I go to keep her company.’

‘Phaed.’

The ghost smiled. ‘Shall we call this penance, brother?’

Blows rang, skittered off his armour, and beneath the banded ribbons of iron, the scales and the chain, his flesh was bruised, split and crushed. Withal swung his mace, even as a spear point gouged a score above the rim of his helm, twisting his head round. He felt a shield shatter beneath his attacking blow, and someone cried out in pain. Half blinded – blood was now streaming down the inside of his helm, clouding the vision of his left eye – he pushed forward to finish the Liosan.

Instead, he was shield-bashed from the side. Stumbling, tripping in a tangle of dead limbs, Withal fell. Now I’m in trouble.

A Liosan loomed over him, thrust down with his sword.

A strange black flash, blocking the blow – a blur, and the Liosan howled in agony, toppling back.

Crouching now over Withal, a half-naked woman, her muscles sheathed in sweat, an obsidian knife in one hand, dripping blood. She leaned close, her face pressing against the visor’s bars.

‘Thief!’

‘What? I – what?’

‘My armour! Your stole it!’

‘I didn’t know—’

‘But you stood long – and there’s more standing ahead, so get off your arse!’

She grasped him by the collar of his hauberk, and with one hand pulled him to his feet. Withal staggered for balance. Brought his shield round and readied the mace.

They were surrounded. Fighting to the last.

Overhead, two black dragons – where in Hood’s name did they come from? – were at the centre of a storm of white- and gold-hued dragons. They were torn, shredded, hissing like gutted cats, lashing out in fury even as they were being driven down, and down.

The half-naked woman fought beside him with serpentine grace, her ridiculous obsidian knives whispering out like black tongues, returning wet with blood.

Confusion roared through Withal. This woman was a stranger – but that was impossible. Through the grille of his visor, he shouted, ‘Who in Hood’s name are you?’

Sharl sank back, knees folding, and suddenly she was lying on the ground. Figures crowded above her, twisted faces, thrusting spear shafts, feet fighting for purchase. She’d lost her sword, and blood was welling from somewhere below her rib cage. Her fumbling fingers probed, found a puncture that went in, and in. ‘Ah, I am slain.’

‘Can you breathe? Take a breath, woman! A deep breath, and that’s an order!’

‘C-captain?’

‘You heard me!’

Sharl couldn’t see her – somewhere behind her head – and her voice was barely recognizable, but who else would it be? Who else could it be? The ground trembled beneath her. Where was that trembling coming from? Like a thousand iron hearts. Beating. Beating. She drew fetid air into her lungs. Deeper, and deeper still. ‘Captain! I can breathe!’

‘Then you’ll live! Get up! I want you with me – till the end, y’understand?’

Sharl tried to sit up, sank back in gasping pain. ‘Been stabbed, Captain—’

‘That’s how y’get into this damned club! Stand up, damn you!’

She rolled on to her side – easier this way to draw up her legs, to make her way to her hands and knees.

Brevity was gasping out words. ‘Girl without a friend … Nothing worse! Know what happens when a girl’s got no friend?’

‘No, Captain.’

‘They get married!’

Sharl saw a sword nearby – a corpse was gripping it. She reached out and prised the weapon free. ‘All right, Captain,’ she said, ‘I’ll be your friend.’

‘Till the end?’

‘Till the end.’

‘Swear it!’

‘I swear! I swear!’

A hand reached under an armpit, lifted her up. ‘Steady now, love. Let’s go kill us some men.’

Zevgan Drouls had killed his debt-holder, and then the bastard’s whole family. Then he had burned down the estate and with it all the records of the hundreds of families swindled into indebtedness by a man who thought he had the right to do whatever he damn well pleased with as many lives as he could chain and shackle. Zevgan had gone on to burn down the bank, and then the Hall of Records – well, only half of it, to be sure, but the right half.

Not that anyone could prove a single thing, because he was no fool. Still, enough suspicions ended up crowding his feet, enough to get him sent to the prison islands. Where he’d spent the last twenty-one years of his life – until the exodus. Until the march. Until this damned shore.

Too old to fight in the ranks, he now knelt on the berm overlooking the First Shore, alongside a dozen or so others in the Children’s Guard. The lame, the ancient, the half blind and the half deaf. Behind them, huddled in the gloom of the forest edge, all the young ’uns and the pregnant women, and those too old or, of late, too badly wounded to do any more fighting – and there were lots of those.

Zevgan and his crew – and the ten or so other squads – waited to give their lives defending the children of the Shake and the Letherii islanders, the children and those others, but it was the children Zevgan kept thinking about.

Well, it wouldn’t be much of a defence, he knew – they all knew it, in fact – but that didn’t matter. Why should it? Those are children behind us, looking up to us with those scared eyes. What else counts?

Mixter Frill pushed up closer beside him, wiping at his nose. ‘So you’re confessing, are ya?’

‘Y’heard me,’ Zevgan replied. ‘I did it. All of it. And I’d do it again, too. In fact, if they hadn’t a stuck me on that island, I would never have stopped. I woulda burned down all the banks, all the Halls of Records, all the fat estates with their fat lenders and their fat wives and husbands and fat whatevers.’

‘You murdered innocents, Zev, is what you did. They shoulda hung you.’

‘Hung. Tortured, turned me inside out, roasted my balls and diced up my cock, aye, Mix. Errant knows, messing with how things are made up for the people in power – why, there’s no more heinous crime than that, and they’d be the first to tell you, too.’

‘Look at ’em dying out there, Zev.’

‘I’m looking, Mix.’

‘And we’re next.’

‘We’re next, aye. And that’s why I’m confessing. Y’see, it’s my last laugh. At ’em all, right? Ain’t strangled, ain’t inside out, ain’t ball-roasted, ain’t dick-diced.’

Mix said something but with all the noise Zev couldn’t make it out. He twisted to ask but then he saw, on all sides, figures rushing past. And there were swords, and that raging forest behind them, with all that deafening noise that had been getting closer and closer, and now was here.

Mix was shouting, but Zev just stared.

Skin black as ink. Tall buggers, all manner of weapons out, hammering the rims of shields, and the look in their faces – as they threaded through the camp where all the children huddled and stared, where the pregnant women flinched and shied – the look on their faces – I know that look. I saw it in the mirror, I saw it in the mirror.

The night I took ’em all down.

The two black dragons would not last much longer – it was a wonder they still lived, still fought on. Leaving them to his kin, Kadagar Fant descended to fly low over the Shore. He could see the last of the hated enemy going down to the swords and spears of the elites – they were surrounded, those wretched murderers, stupidly protecting their leaders – the dead one and the woman kneeling at his side.

Soon he would land. He would semble. Kadagar wanted to be there when that woman was the only one left. He wanted to cut her head off with his own hands. Was she the queen? Of all Kharkanas? He believed she was. He had to acknowledge her bravery – to come down to the First Shore, to fight alongside her people.

But not all bravery was worthy of reward, or even acknowledgement, and the only reward he intended for this woman was a quick death. But a squalid one. Maybe I’ll just choke the life from her.

This realm was thick with smoke, distant forests alight, and Kadagar wondered if the enemy sought to deny him the throne by perniciously burning the city to the ground. He could easily imagine such perfidy from this sort. But I will rebuild. And I will loose the light upon this realm. Scour away the darkness, the infernal shadows. Something new will be born of this. An age of peace. Blessed peace!

He saw one of the black dragons spin past, pursued by two of his kin. That one, he knew, was moments from death.

Aparal, you should never have gone through first. You knew he would be waiting for you. But his brother, his most loyal servant and friend, was now sembled, a lone, motionless body lying at the foot of Lightfall. From this height, pathetically small, insignificant. And this was improper – he would raise a monument to Aparal’s sacrifice, to the glory of his slaying the wielder of the Hust sword. There, at the base of Lightfall itself, he would—

Black as midnight, a tide was flooding out from the forest edge below. Kadagar stared in horror as it rushed across the strand and slammed into his Liosan legions.

Tiste Andii!

He wheeled, crooked his wings, awakening the sorcery within him, and sped down towards his hated foes. I will kill them. I will kill them all!

Something spun past him in a welter of blood and gore – one of his kin – torn to shreds. Kadagar screamed, twisted his neck and glared upward.

To see a red dragon – a true Eleint, twice the size of his kin – close upon a brother Soletaken. Fire poured from it in a savage wave, struck the white dragon. The body exploded in a fireball, torn chunks of meat spinning away trailing smoke. And now, more black dragons sailed down from the sky.

He saw two descend on the kin that had been pursuing the lone dragon, saw them crash down on them in a deluge of fangs and claws.

The lone hunter below them banked then, and, wings thundering the air, rose towards Kadagar.

Against him, she would not last. Too wounded, too weakened – he would destroy her quickly, and then return to aid his kin. This cannot end this way! It must not!

Like a fist of stone, something hammered down on him. He shrieked in agony and rage as enormous talons tore ragged furrows deep across his back. Jaws snapped down, crushed one of his wings. Helpless, Kadagar plunged earthward.

He struck the strand in a shower of crushed white bone, skidding and then rolling, slamming up against the unyielding wall of Lightfall. The sand pelted down, filling his ragged wounds. Far overhead, the death cries of his kin. A thousand paces away, the battle at the breach. He was alone, hurt, broken.

Kadagar sembled. Dragged himself into a sitting position, setting his back to Lightfall, and watched the black dragon that had been rising to meet him now landing thirty paces away, shedding blood like rain.

High overhead, the red Eleint killed another of his Soletaken kin – taking hold of it like a small bird, ripping its limbs off, crushing its skull in its massive jaws.

Before him, she had sembled, and now she walked towards him.

Kadagar closed his eyes. My people. My people. The sound of her boots. He looked up. She had a knife in one hand.

‘My people,’ he said.

She showed him a red smile. ‘Your people.’

He stared up at her.

‘Give me your name, Liosan.’

‘I am Kadagar Fant, Lord of Light.’

‘Lord of Light.’

‘I call upon the ancient custom of Hostage.’

‘We have no need of hostages. Your army is destroyed, Lord.’

‘I will speak for the Liosan. There shall be peace.’

The woman nodded. ‘Yes, there shall be peace. Lord Kadagar Fant, on behalf of the Tiste Andii, welcome to Darkness.’ The knife flashed up towards his eye.

A sudden sting of pain and then …

Korlat stared down at the dead man, at her knife, pushed to the hilt in his right eye socket, and then she stepped back, turned away.

At the breach, her Tiste Andii kin were slaughtering the last of the Liosan. They had driven them back to the wound itself, and when the enemy retreated into the miasma she saw ranks of Andii follow. There would be an end to this. An end.

Overhead, Nimander and his kin were descending, along with Prazek. Dathenar had fallen earlier. Korlat had felt her death cry and its howl still echoed in her soul. Silanah remained high overhead, wheeling like a huntress. Not one of the Liosan Soletaken remained.

She looked down the strand, eyes narrowing at the motley remnants of the Shake – three, four hundred at the most – now hunched over, slumping, some falling, in a ragged circle surrounding a kneeling figure. Her gaze drifted momentarily from this company of survivors, travelled over the solid carpet of bodies spreading out on all sides. And, slowly, the magnitude of the slaughter, here upon the First Shore, found resolution.

Gods below.

She set out for those survivors. A woman dripping blood from too many wounds to count, and beneath her feet, in a steady drizzle, crimson rain.

Impossibly, the sound was gone, and the silence now surrounding them had thickened. Withal knelt, bent over, struggling to find his breath, but some blow had broken ribs, and he was afraid to move, afraid to inhale too deeply.

The half-naked woman settled down beside him, tortured him by leaning against him. ‘Now that was a fight, thief. And for you, maybe not over.’

He was having trouble with his eyes – the blood was drying, seeking to close them up. ‘Not over?’

‘If you don’t give that armour back, I will have to kill you.’

He reached up, dragged his helm free and let it tumble from his hands. ‘It’s yours. I never want to see it again.’

‘Ill words,’ she chided. ‘It saved your life a dozen times this day.’

She was right in that. Still. ‘I don’t care.’

‘Look up, man. It’s the least you can do.’

But that was too hard. ‘No. You did not see them here from the beginning. You did not see them die. How long have they been fighting? Weeks? Months? For ever?’

‘I can see the truth of that.’

‘They weren’t soldiers—’

‘I beg to differ.’

‘They weren’t soldiers!’

‘Look up, old man. In the name of the Fallen, look up.’

And so he did.

He and the Shake, the Letherii, the Queen Yan Tovis, Twilight – these few hundred – were surrounded once more. But this time those facing them were Tiste Andii, in their thousands.

And not one was standing.

Instead, they knelt, heads bowed.

Withal twisted round, made to rise. ‘I’m not the one needs to see this—’

But the woman beside him caught his arm, forcibly pulled him back down. ‘No,’ she said, like him looking across to Yan Tovis – who still knelt over the body of her brother, and who still held shut her eyes, as if she could hold back all the truths before her. ‘Not yet.’

He saw Sergeant Cellows sitting near the queen, the Hust sword balanced across his thighs. He too seemed unable to look up, to see anything beyond his inner grief.

And all the others, blind to all that surrounded them. Oh, will not one of you look up? Look up and see those who have witnessed all that you have done? See how they honour you … but no, they are past such things now. Past them.

A group of Tiste Andii approached from up the strand. Something familiar there – Withal’s eyes narrowed, and then he hissed a curse and climbed to his feet. Nimander. Skintick. Desra. Nenanda. But these were not the frail creatures he had once known – if they ever were what I thought they were. If it was all hidden away back then, it is hidden no more. But … Aranatha? Kedeviss?

‘Withal,’ said Nimander, his voice hoarse, almost broken.

‘You found your people,’ Withal said.

The head cocked. ‘And you yours.’

But that notion hurt him deep inside, and he would not consider it. Shaking his head, he said, ‘The Shake and the Letherii islanders, Nimander – see what they have done.’

‘They held the First Shore.’

And Withal now understood that hoarseness, all the broken edges of Nimander’s voice. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. For all that he had seen – that he must have seen, for surely he numbered among the black dragons – of this strand, this battle.

Nimander turned as another Tiste Andii staggered close. A woman, half her clothes torn away, her flesh flensed and gashed. ‘Korlat. She did what was needed. She … saw reason. Will you go to your mother now?’

‘I will not.’

Withal saw Nimander’s sudden frown. ‘She sits upon the throne of Kharkanas, Korlat. She must be made to know that her daughter has returned to her.’

Korlat’s eyes shifted slowly, fixed upon the kneeling form of Yan Tovis. ‘Her son was the only child that ever mattered to my mother, Nimander. And I failed to protect him. She set that one charge upon me. To protect her son.’

‘But you are her daughter!’

Korlat raised her voice, ‘Twlight, queen of the Shake! Look upon me.’

Slowly, Yan Tovis lifted her gaze.

Korlat spoke. ‘I have no place in the palace of my mother, the queen of Kharkanas. In ancient times, Highness, there stood at your side a Sister of Night. Will you take me – will you take Korlat, daughter of Sandalath Drukorlat?’

Yan Tovis frowned. Her gaze wandered from the Tiste Andii woman standing before her, wandered out to the kneeling Tiste Andii, and then, at last, to the huddle of her own people, her so few survivors. And then, as if borne by an impossible strength, she climbed to her feet. Brushed feebly at the sand clinging to her bloody clothes. Straightened. ‘Korlat, daughter of Sandalath Drukorlat, the Sister of Night in the House of the Shake is not for one of the pure blood—’

‘Forgive me, Queen, but my blood is not pure.’

Yan Tovis paused, and then continued, ‘The blood of the Eleint—’

‘Queen, my blood is not pure.’

Withal suddenly comprehended Korlat’s meaning. Cold dread curled in his chest. No, Korlat will have no place in the palace of Queen Sandalath Drukorlat. And how was it, after all that had happened, here on the First Shore, that his heart could still break?

One more time.

Oh … Sand.

Yan Tovis spoke. ‘Korlat, Daughter of Sandalath Drukorlat, I welcome you into the House of the Shake. Sister of Night, come to me.’

One more time.

‘What are you doing?’ Sharl asked. She was lying down on the ground again, with no memory of how she’d got there.

‘Pluggin’ the hole in your gut,’ Brevity said.

‘Am I going to die?’

‘Not a chance. You’re my new best friend, remember? Speaking of which, what’s your name?’

Sharl tried to lift herself up, but there was no strength left in her. She had never felt so weak. All she wanted to do was close her eyes. And sleep.

Someone was shaking her. ‘Don’t! Don’t you leave me alone!’

Her body felt chained down, and she wanted free of it. I never knew how to fight.

‘No! I can’t bear this, don’t you understand? I can’t bear to see you die!’

I’m sorry. I wasn’t brave enough for any of this. My brothers, they died years ago, you see. It was only my stubbornness, my guilt – I couldn’t let them go. I brought them with me. And those two boys I found, they didn’t mind the new names I gave them. Oruth. Casel.

I couldn’t stop them dying. It was hunger, that’s all. When you have no land, no way through, when they just step over you in the street. I did my best. We were not good enough – they said so, that look in their eyes, stepping over us – we just weren’t good enough. Not clever enough, not brave enough.

Casel was four when he died. We left him in the alley behind Skadan’s. I found a bit of sacking. I put it over his eyes. Oruth asked why and I said it was what they did at funerals. They did things to the body. But why? he asked. I said I didn’t know. When Oruth died a month later, I found another piece of cloth. I put it over his eyes. Another alley, another funeral.

They were so little.

Someone was crying. A sound of terrible, soul-crushing anguish. But she herself was done with that. Let the chains fall away. And for my eyes, a cloth.

It’s what they do.

With the Sister of Cold Nights standing close, Yan Tovis sat once more beside the body of her brother. She looked down on his face, wondering what seemed so different about it now, wondering what details had now arrived, here in death, that made it seem so peaceful.

And then she saw. The muscles of his jaw were no longer taut, bunched by that incessant clench. And suddenly he seemed young, younger than she’d ever seen him before.

Yedan Derryg, you are beautiful.

From all sides, she now heard, there rose a keening sound. Her Shake and her Letherii were now mourning for their fallen prince. She let the sound close round her like a shroud.

Welcome home then, brother.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE SUN HAD SET. THE BOY, AWAKE AT LAST, TOTTERED INTO THE Khundryl camp. He held his arms as if cradling something. He heard the woman’s cries – it was impossible not to – and all the Khundryl had gathered outside a tent, even as the rest of the army pushed itself upright like a beast more dead than alive, to begin another night of marching. He stood, listening. There was the smell of blood in the air.

Warleader Gall could hear his wife’s labour pains. The sound filled him with horror. Could there be anything crueller than this? To deliver a child into this world. By the Fall of Coltaine, have we not shed enough tears? Do we not bear their scars as proof?

He sought to roll over in his furs, wanting none of this, but he could not move. As if his body had died this day. And he but crouched inside it. Born to a dying mother. Who gathers round her now? Shelemasa. The last of the surviving shoulder-women. But there are no daughters. No sons with their wives. And there is not me, and with this child, this last child, for the first time I will not witness my wife giving birth.

A knife pressed against his cheek. Jastara’s voice hissed in his ear. ‘If you do not go to her now, Gall, I will kill you myself.’

I cannot.

‘For the coward you are, I will kill you. Do you hear me, Gall? I will make your screams drown out the world – even your wife’s cries – or do you forget? I am Semk. This whole night – I will make it your eternal torment. You will beg for release, and I shall deny it!’

‘Then do it, woman.’

‘Does not the father kneel before the mother? In the time of birth? Does he not bow to the strength he himself does not possess? Does he not look into the eyes of the woman he loves, only to see a power strange and terrible – how it does not even see him, how it looks past – or no, how it looks within? Does not a man need to be humbled? Tell me, Gall, that you refuse to see that again – one final time in your life! Witness it!’

He blinked up at her. The knife point had dug deep, now grazing the bone of his cheek. He felt the blood running down to drip from the line of his jaw, the rim of his ear. ‘The child is not mine,’ he whispered.

‘But it is. You fool, can’t you see that? It will be the last Khundryl child! The last of the Burned Tears! You are Warleader Gall. It shall be born, and it shall look up into your face! How dare you deny it that?’

His breath was coming in gasps. Do I have this left in me? Can I find the strength she demands of me? I … I have lost so much. So much.

‘This is our final night, Gall. Be our Warleader one last time. Be a husband. Be a father.’

A feeble, trembling hand fumbled with the furs covering him – he caught its movement, wondered at it. My own? Yes. Groaning, he struggled to sit up. The knife slipped away from his bloody cheek. He stared across at Jastara.

‘My son … did well by you.’

Her eyes went wide. The colour left her face. She shrank back.

Gall pushed the furs away, reached for his weapon belt.

Summoned by a mother’s cries, Badalle walked with her children. Saddic stumbled at her side. They were all closing in, like an indrawn breath.

The army was on the move. She had not believed these soldiers capable of rising yet again, to face the wastes ahead. She did not understand the source of strength they had found, the hard will in their eyes. Nor did she understand the way they looked at her and Saddic, and at the other children of the Snake. As if we have been made holy. As if we have blessed them. When the truth is, it is they who have blessed us, because now we children will not have to die alone. We can die in the arms of men and women, men and women who for that moment become our fathers, our mothers.

But, here in the Khundryl camp, a new child was about to come into the world.

When she arrived, the clawed warriors surrounded the birth-tent. She saw the corpse of a horse nearby and walked over to stand upon it.

Her children saw and they faced her, for they knew what was coming. Looking down, she met Saddic’s shining eyes, and nodded.

Badalle awakened her voice. ‘There is a mother this night.’

Warriors turned to her – they had no choice. She would make them listen, if only to give them the one thing that she had left. Where it all began, so it ends. This is what I have, the only thing I ever had. Words.

‘There is a mother this night

In the desert of dreams

Beneath stars burned blind

And soldiers must march where

She leads them on the dead trail

By this truth we are all bound

Past the bodies left in the ditch

She looks up where we fail

And the sky is without end

Follow her for the time of our birth

Is a birth still to come

There is a mother this night

Who leads an army of children

What will you ask of her

When dawn awakens?

What will you demand of her

That she would give

If only she could?

There is a mother in the night

For a child lost in the dark’

Faces stared up at her, but she could make no sense of what she saw in them. And she could barely remember the words she had just spoken, but when she looked down at Saddic he nodded, to tell her that he had them, gathered like the toys in the sack dangling from one hand. And when he is a man, he will write this down, all of this, and one night a stranger will find him, a poet, a singer of tales and a whisperer of songs.

He will come in search of the fallen.

Like a newborn child, he will come in search of the fallen.

Saddic, you will not die here. Not for many, many years. How do I know this? And the woman who sleeps in the other room – who has loved you all her life – who is she? I would see that, if I could.

The mother’s cries were softer now.

A man appeared. Walked through the silent crowd that parted from his path. Strode into the tent. Moments later, the mother inside was weeping, a sound that filled the world, that made Badalle’s heart pound. And then, a small, pitiful wail.

Badalle sensed someone standing near her. She turned to see the Adjunct.

‘Mother,’ Badalle said, ‘you should be leading your children.’

‘Did you truly think I would miss this?’

Sighing, Badalle stepped down from the carcass of the horse. Reached out and took the Adjunct’s hand.

She flinched as if stung, stared down at Badalle as if in shock. ‘Don’t do that,’ she said.

‘Mother, when will you let yourself feel?’

The Adjunct backed away, and moments later she was gone, lost in the crowd. If it made a path for her, Badalle couldn’t see it.

‘There is a mother this night,’ she whispered, ‘but to her the stars are blind.’

Koryk reached up and with one finger probed the line of his gums. When he withdrew the finger and looked down, he saw that it was smeared with blood. And that was a good joke. He was dying of thirst, just like all the others, but he’d been drinking his own blood for two days now. Wiping his finger clean on his thigh, he glanced over at the others.

Smiles was going to outlast them all. Women were stronger in ways no man dared admit. But then they had to be.

There was more blood running down the back of his nose. He could never quite manage to get his throat clear of it, no matter how many times he swallowed. They had to be. A house of whores. I saw all I ever needed to see. Better than any tutor’s endless droning on about history. Better than all the sages and prophets and agitators and rebels. Aye, those ones made fists and shook them, punching walls at the injustice of it all – but those walls, they were just the boxes they’d built for themselves, the boxes they lived in. They could never see past. And for most of them, that box was their whole world. They had no idea there was anything outside it.

But the whores knew. Laughter for the moment, but take the stretch of years and it’s all heartbreak. A woman gives up her body when she has nothing else left to give. She gives it up like a man his last copper. In a whore’s eyes, you’ll find everything that we do to each other. Everything.

He’d killed a fellow Bonehunter last night. A man trying to steal an empty cask. But he wasn’t thinking about that. That damned face so twisted with need, or the sigh that left the man on that last breath. No, he was thinking about whores.

They could have schooled me in shame. But they didn’t. And now, gods help me, I wish they had. Because then, he would understand what it was that forced his comrades back to their feet, that gave them the strength to pick up their gear one more time, knees bending under that weight. ‘The Malazan soldier carries on his back all that’s needed for war.’ Dassem’s credo for campaigns. But what if there’s no war? What if the enemy is inside you? And what if this burden doesn’t belong to just you? What if it belongs to a whole damned world? What then?

He’d listened to that captain, Ruthan Gudd. Lying dry-skinned in the unbearable heat, shivering beneath the last blanket he still owned, he heard about the boy and the girl and the toys spilled out on the ground between them. They’d forgotten the word. Toys. But even finding it again hadn’t helped much, because they’d also forgotten how to play.

There’s a secret few would guess. In a house of whores, the love for children is as close to sacred as a mortal can get. Too precious to mock, because every whore remembers the child she once was. Maybe they were sad memories, maybe they were bittersweet, but it was all before the last thing was given away. So they know. It’s innocence that is sacred.

Nothing else.

On holy days, priests used to incite mobs to stone whores. No one would go out – he remembered all the women hiding in their rooms, speaking only in whispers lest some sound escape past the shutters, or out under the door. And he used to cower with them, terrified, and on those days he came to learn a hatred for priests, for temples, for all those hunters of the unworthy.

So, Crippled God. Fallen One. If I could kill you with my bare hands, I would. If I could kill every priest, and every god, and all those others stalking the streets with stones in their hands, I would. For the whores and all you took from them. And for the children.

He rose, shouldering his pack, his useless weapons, his useless armour, and faced the others, seeing that they too were ready, and when Tarr gestured they fell in one by one.

One more night. In the name of innocence.

Bottle’s joints were on fire. Swollen and red, they made every step agony. Since when was a story enough to keep someone alive? No matter how heartbreaking, no matter how tragic. No matter how incensed the listener might become. The world lacked such simplicity. He’d never believed in speeches, was ever suspicious of that power to incite. Dreams could be voiced, desires could be uttered and then whispered back with fervour, but in the end most people eventually turned away and the crowd dispersed, and it was back home and getting on with living.

For all the boldness of believers on the front line, when the fires ebbed and no one was looking, it was time again to hide away. But maybe we need that. Our little hole to climb down into. For some respite, where all the clamouring voices in your head can just die away. For blessed silence.

And the ones who never get to that, who are so consumed they can find nowhere to hide, no place to rest, see what happens to them – see the fever in their eyes. They have made their lives torture, they have made the voice of their spirit one long, unbroken howl.

Fevered, aye. He was that, and more. ‘We’re the walking dead.’ Fiddler’s words, or someone’s, anyway. Maybe Cuttle. No matter. The walking dead didn’t feel pain like this. The walking dead didn’t carry on their backs a thousand questions – questions with no answers.

His grandmother was now hobbling beside him. She didn’t belong on this trail, in this desert, but there she was. And maybe she wasn’t his grandmother at all, just some other wax witch twisting reeds in her arthritic hands, making dolls for the children in the village ahead. Gifts.

Charms. I remember you giving them away. Toys, you said, head bobbing. Free toys! And they all ran up to you, laughing.

But you wove protections into those dolls. Blessings, wards against illness. Nothing powerful, nothing to stop, say, a flash flood or an avalanche. But the father that lashed out with his fists. The uncle who slipped under the blankets in the dead of night. Those ones paid for what they did.

And the cuts that healed. The fevers that went away.

So, Grandmother, I’ll walk this last walk. In your memory. Make me a doll, for this pain.

And take this child by the hand. And tell him again, how they will pay for what they did.

For years, before her nails were worn down to bloody shreds by all that she clawed at, Smiles had carried a dream, carried it around like a pearl inside a battered shell. Of a day in the future when she was a mother, and she’d given birth to twins. Two girls, squalling and hissing the way girls do. Playing on the beach under her watchful eye.

And then, in a dark, desolate season – with the skies grey and the seas swollen – the older ones would come to her. ‘The fish are gone,’ they’d say. ‘The spirits must be appeased. Choose one, Mother, and make of her the gift of our people, our gift to the thirsty waters.’ And she would walk away, calling her daughters back to the hut.

They were lowborn. The whole family. Her husband and the father of the twins was gone, maybe dead. It was all down to her. One child to be blessed, the other cursed. Yet arguments could be made as to who was which. She knew all about that.

A night of bitter winds, of fires doused by spray. And Smiles would set out, knives in hand. And she would kill every one of those elders – in all their hunger, in all their needs now that they were too old to fish, now that the only authority they still possessed came with their threats and warnings about angry, vengeful spirits. Aye, she would show them a vengeful, angry spirit, and the gifts it would make to the hungry sea would appease a thousand spirits of the deep.

Those kinds of dreams were honey on the tongue, heady with the juices of pleasure and satisfaction. She suspected such dreams hid in the hearts of everyone. Desires for justice, for redress, for a settling of the scales. And of course, that sour undercurrent of knowledge, that none of it was possible, that so much would rise in opposition, in self-preservation even, to crush that dream, its frail bones, its pattering heart – even that could not take away the sweet delight, the precious hope.

Wells for the coin, league-stones for the wreaths, barrows for the widdershins dance – the world was filled with magical places awaiting wishes. And empires raised lotteries, opened games, sought to lift high heroes among the common folk – and everyone rushes up with their dreams. But stop. Look back. Gods, look around! If all we seek is an escape, what does that say about the world we live in? That village, that city, that life?

We are desperate with our dreams. What – oh, what – does that say?

So those two children had forgotten about toys. She wasn’t surprised. She remembered the day she sat with the last dolls she owned, but across from her sat no one. Where was her sister? They’d taken her. But how can I play?

‘Child, she was taken long ago. You cannot remember what you never had. Go out now and play with Skella.’

‘Skella is highborn – she just orders me around.’

‘That’s the way it is, child. Best you get used to it.’

In her dream, she saved murdering Skella for last.

Cuttle’s brothers had been on the wall when it came down. He remembered his shock. Their city was falling. His brothers had just died defending it. Hengese soldiers were in the gap, clambering over the wreckage, coming out of the dust howling like demons.

Lessons, then. No wall was impenetrable. And the resolute in spirit could die as easily as could the coward. He would have liked to believe it wasn’t like that, none of it – this whole mess. And that children could be left to play and not worry about the life ahead. To play the way he and his brothers had played, unmindful of the irony as they charged each other with wooden swords and fought to defend a midden behind the fishworks, dying one by one like heroes in some imagined last stand, giving their lives to save the swarming flies, the screeching gulls and the heaps of shells. Where knelt a helpless maiden, or some such thing.

Maiden, stolen crown, the jewelled eye of a goddess. They wove fine stories around their deeds, didn’t they? In those long winters when it seemed that all the grey, sickly sky wanted to do was collapse down on the whole city, crush it for ever, they lived and died their shining epics.

A backside kick sent him out from childhood. He’d not forgotten those games, however. They lived with him and would until this – his last damned day. But not for the obvious reasons. Nostalgia was like a disease, one that crept in and stole the colour from the world and the time you lived in. Made for bitter people. Dangerous people, when they wanted back what never was. And it wasn’t even our innocence back then – we never felt innocent. They spent day after day living older than their years, after all. And no, not even the ties of family blood, those so-familiar faces he grew up alongside, and all the safety and protection and comfort they offered. No, those games stayed with him because of something else, something he now understood to have been with him, undying, since those days.

Maiden, stolen crown, the jewelled eye of a god. Die for a reason. That’s all. Cuttle, you’re the last brother left who can do this. The others didn’t make it, not to this epic’s end. So you carry them now, here on your back, those boys with their flushed faces, you carry them. You’re carrying them right past their useless deaths on that wall in a war that meant nothing. Take them now to where they need to go.

We’re going to die for a reason. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

You should’ve seen our last stands. They were something.

Corabb was thinking about Leoman of the Flails. Not that he wanted to, but that evil, lying, murdering bastard was like a friend you didn’t want any more who just kept showing up with a stupid grin on his ugly face. He was covered in dust, too, and he had no idea why and no, he didn’t care either.

That’s what came of believing in people. All sorts of people, with their foreheads all hot and burning and not a drink of water in sight. The man burned a city to the ground. Tried killing fifty million people, too, or however many were in Y’Ghatan when the army broke through and the temple caught fire and the priest’s head was rolling around on the floor like a kick-ball with a face on it.

Corabb had wanted to be good. He’d grown up wanting that and nothing else. The world was bad and he wanted it to be good. Was that stupid? What was that his tutor used to say, after the man had cried himself dry and in his fists were tangled clumps of his own hair – what was his name again? Baldy? He’d look over at young Corabb and say, ‘Good? You don’t know the meaning of the word. In fact, you’re about the worst student I have ever had the horror of entertaining.’

That was fine. He didn’t entertain very good either, Corabb recalled, old Baldy. In fact, he was the most boring man in the whole village, which was why they voted him to teach the young ones, because the young ones were causing so much trouble getting underfoot and all the grown-ups decided they needed to be talked at until they turned into motionless lumps and their eyes fell out and rolled like marbles.

But those fists, holding clumps of hair. That was exciting. Birds could use that for nests. So maybe Baldy really was entertaining, when he did his red-face thing and bounced around on his stool.

Leoman was no better. It was just Corabb’s luck, all these bad teachers.

He remembered the day he made his mother cry. The Gafan brothers had been teasing him, for what he couldn’t recall, so he’d chased them down, softened them up a bit, and then used a rope he stole from a rag man to tie them all together, wrist to ankle, the four of them, their faces like burst gourds, and dragged them into the house. ‘Ma! Cook these!’

Grunter Gafan had shown up to get his children back. Had the gall to threaten Corabb’s mother, and since Canarab his father was still off in the wars it fell to Corabb to stand up to the pig-faced bully. But she’d been cooking a stew in that pot, and besides, once Grunter’s head was inside it there was no more room for the boys. They said he smelled like onions for weeks.

It was the spilled supper that made his ma cry. At least, that’s what Corabb worked out, eventually. Couldn’t have been anything else, and if they had to move to get away from the Gafan clan, the new neighbourhood was nicer anyway. And the day Grunter got killed, well, he should’ve known better than trying to slide all the way under that wagon, and Corabb’s kicking him in the head a few times had nothing to do with his tragic end. Nobody liked Grunter anyway, though Corabb probably shouldn’t have used that for his defence at the trial.

So it was the priest pits for young Corabb. Cutting limestone wasn’t that bad a job, except when people got crushed, or coughed their lungs out spraying blood everywhere. And this was where he started listening to stories people told. Passing the time. It had been a mistake. Of course, if not for the uprising he’d probably still be there, getting crushed and coughing his lungs out. And the uprising – well, if he looked back on it, that had been the beginning of his own rebellion, which later led him to join the bigger one. All because people told stories about freedom and the days before the Malazans. Stories that probably weren’t even true.

Leoman. Leoman of the Flails. And Sha’ik, and Toblakai. And all the fanatics. And all the bodies. Nothing good in any of that. When you believe people telling all those lies.

Was the Adjunct any different? He wasn’t sure any more. He didn’t understand all this business about being unwitnessed. That was what he’d been fighting against all his life.

But now I got a kick-ball head and it’s burning up in the sun. And by dawn we’ll all be done with, finished. Dead and no one left to see. Is that what she meant? But … what’s the point of that?

He had been born stubborn. Or so everyone said. Maybe it had made for problems in his life, but Tarr wasn’t one to dwell on them. Here, this night, stubbornness was all he had left. Sergeant to a squad of marines – he’d never thought he’d make it this far. Not with Fiddler there, taking care of everything that needed taking care of. But now Fid wasn’t running this squad any more. Now it’s mine. I’m the one gets to walk it into the ground. I’m the one gets to watch them die like flies on the sill.

He planned on being the last to go down – he had his stubbornness, after all. His way of pushing, and pushing, until he pushed through.

He remembered the day they formed up, officially, in Aren. The chaos, the guarded looks, all the bitching that went on. Unruly, unhappy, close to falling apart. Then a few veterans stepped up. Fiddler. Cuttle. Gesler, Stormy. And did what was needed. And that’s when I knew that I was going to stick with this. Be a soldier. I had them to follow, and that was good enough.

It still is. It has to be.

Fiddler’s up ahead somewhere. Cuttle’s right behind me. Only ever had the Adjunct as commander, and she’s kept me alive this long. She wants another march, she’ll get it. No questions, no complaining.

He twisted round, glared at his squad. ‘First one falls, I will personally curse to the Thirteen Gates of the Abyss. Am I understood?’

‘That calls for a drink,’ said Cuttle.

The others laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh, but for Tarr it was good enough. They’ll make it through this night. Past that, I won’t ask them for a damned thing.

Unless I need to.

Himble Thrup had picked up a new name. Shorthand. He liked it. The old family line of Thrups, well, his brothers were welcome to it. That long, ropy thing tying him to where he’d come from, and who he’d been, well, he’d just cut it. Gone. All the shit going one way, all the shit going back the other way, the rotted birth cord no Thrup dared touch. Snick. Gone. Good riddance.

Shorthand it is, on account of my short hands, y’see? A damned giant lizard took ’em. No, boys, it’s all true. A giant lizard. Chain Kemalles they was called, but we called ’em Stumpies, on account of their tails. This was back when I was a heavy. Aye, I don’t look like a heavy. I know that. But it ain’t just size makes a heavy. In fact, I know a Dal Honese heavy no bigger than a toad, and no prettier either. It’s all attitude.

Just look at the ones hauling those ropes – the ones just up ahead. What in Hood’s name are they doing, dragging these wagons? It don’t matter. They’re heavies and someone told ’em, ‘Haul these wagons,’ and so that’s what they’re doing. Y’see? Attitude.

Aye, we stopped ’em cold, those Stumpies. They swung high, we ducked low. They gave us the blade, we gave ’em the shield. That’s how it’s done. True, I won’t lie, not many of us left. We was outnumbered, badly outnumbered.

These days? I’m working for Master-Sergeant Lieutenant Quartermaster Pores. He’s just gone back to check on a cracked axle three wagons back. Be with us shortly. Me? I’m waiting for our squad of marines, t’stand guard, aye. But they had a scrap last night, got cut up a bit, but it never went further, since nobody’s got the strength to take it further, if you see what I mean. Still, needed some sewing and the like. I’m expectin’ them any time.

The name’s Shorthand—

Something hard as stone smashed into the side of his head.

Rackle lowered the mace, watched as Stull and Bester dragged the body off to one side. A score or so regulars had looked up at the scuffle, and now watched with dull eyes as they went, their legs dragging them along as if those legs were the last parts of them still working.

Rackle wasn’t ready to be like that. Hood take ’em all, he wasn’t. ‘So much for the bodyguard,’ he said.

‘Quiet!’ hissed Bester, nodding ahead to the lines of haulers. ‘Get up on the wagon, Rack, but go slow and careful – they’re going to feel the extra weight no matter what.’

Rackle grunted. ‘Oafs are past feeling anything, Best.’ But he edged up close to the wagon, reached up one hand and set a foot on the helper, and as the wagon rolled ahead he let it lift him from the ground, nice and slow the way Best wanted it.

Rackle watched as Stull re-joined Bester, and the two melted away into the gloom.

So far so good. Somewhere in this wagon, probably packed dead centre, were Blistig’s special casks. Time had come for a drink. He drew himself higher up, leaning against the bales as he did so, reaching for more handholds. That water – he could smell it. Close.

Pores crawled out from under the wagon. ‘Cracked right through,’ he said, climbing to his feet. ‘What’s in this one?’ he asked the man beside him.

The once-company cook scratched at his beard. ‘Some lantern oil. Horseshoes. Wax, grease—’

‘Grease? And it didn’t occur to you to maybe use some of it on this damned axle?’

‘We was saving it for when it got real bad, sir. Aye, maybe that was a mistake.’

‘All right,’ Pores sighed. ‘Cut the haulers loose and send them on. I’ll take a closer look at what else is up there.’

‘Aye, sir, but I don’t think anybody’s going to come back for whatever you think we still need.’

Pores looked round. They’d been left behind by the train. Shit. ‘Even so – there might be a child hiding under the blankets, the way they come crawling out of the unlikeliest of places. Or too sick to move.’

‘I’ll be on with it then, sir.’

‘Spread the haulers out with the rest.’

‘Aye sir.’

Pores watched him go, and then heaved himself up on to the bed of the wagon. Trying to ignore the fire someone had lit in the back of his throat, and his growing sense of helplessness, he set to exploring.

The kegs of grease were pretty much empty – with only a few handfuls of the rancid gunk left – so it probably wouldn’t have been enough to save the axle anyway. He tried pushing clear a cask filled with horseshoes, but he no longer had the strength left to do that. Clambering over it, he thumped the nearest bale. ‘Anyone down there? Wake up or get left behind!’

Silence.

Pores drew his dagger and slit open the bale. Spare uniforms? Gods below! If the haulers find out they’ll skin me alive. He cut open a few more. Tick for mattresses. Lead shot packed in wool for slingers – we don’t have any slingers. Who’s quartermaster of this mess? Oh, me. Right. ‘That’s it, then,’ he muttered, ‘Master-Sergeant Pores, fire Quartermaster Pores. Can I do that, Lieutenant? You can, because I’m telling you so, or do I need to take this to Fist Kindly? Please, sir, no, don’t do that. He hates me! Odd, he doesn’t hate me, Master-Sergeant. Really, sir? I’m certain of it, Master-Sergeant. Reasonably. I hope. All right, no more excuses for the old man – he hates us all. This is what happens to a bald man who starts collecting combs—’

‘Quartermaster Pores.’

He looked up. Saw Fist Blistig standing at the back of the wagon. ‘Fist?’

‘I need to speak to you.’

‘Aye, sir. What can I do for you?’

‘You can give me my casks.’

‘Casks? Oh, those casks.’

‘Get over here, Pores, I ain’t in the mood to be looking up at you.’

He clambered his way to the back of the wagon, dropped down on to the ground – at the impact his knees folded under him and he swore as he sank lower.

And the knife meant for his heart went into his upper chest instead.

Pores fell back, sliding from the blade. Blood sprayed, pattering the dusty ground like raindrops. He found himself staring up at the Jade Strangers.

‘Bleeder,’ Blistig said, moving into his line of sight and looking down at him. ‘That’ll do.’

He listened to the Fist walking away, and he wanted to laugh. Saves me a night’s march.

Things were quiet for a time, as he felt himself fading away. And then he heard the crunch of a foot stepping close to the side of his head. He blinked open his eyes. Look. It’s the Grey Man, the Harrower, come for me. I knew I rated special attention. The rotted skeleton crouched down to stare at him with black, empty sockets.

Pores smiled. ‘Just leave it by the door.’

Balm looked round, scowling. ‘So where is he?’

Throatslitter hacked out a dry cough that left him doubled over. On one knee, he gasped for a time and then said in a voice like sifting sand, ‘Probably running an errand for Pores, Sergeant.’

Deadsmell snorted. ‘Errand? You lost your mind, Throat? Nobody’s running errands any more. He should be here. No, I don’t like this.’

Balm drew off his helm and scratched at his scalp. ‘Throat, climb up and give it a look over, will you?’

‘There ain’t nothing worth stealing up there, Sergeant.’

‘I know that and you know that, but that don’t mean anybody else knows it. Go on.’

Groaning, Throatslitter slowly straightened. Made his way over to the side of the wagon.

‘Widdershins,’ said Balm, ‘go up and talk to the haulers, see what they know.’

‘What they know is the sight of their own feet, Sergeant.’

‘I don’t care.’

The mage made his way to the front of the wagon.

‘Down to a crawl,’ Balm observed, eyeing the wagon’s wobbly wheels rocking past. ‘We’ll be lucky making two leagues tonight.’

Throatslitter pulled himself on to the sideboard.

The crossbow quarrel coming out of the darkness caught him in the right buttock. He howled.

Balm spun round, bringing up his shield. A quarrel slammed into it, skittered up past his face, slicing cheek and ear. ‘Ambush!’

The wagon trundled to a halt.

Throatslitter had dropped back down, only to fall on to his side, a stream of curses hissing from him. Deadsmell threw himself down beside him. ‘Lie still, damn you – got to cut it out or you’re useless t’us!’

But Throatslitter had managed to get one hand around the quarrel’s shaft. He tore it loose, flung it to one side.

Deadsmell stared at the man – he hadn’t made a sound.

With bloodied hands, Throatslitter signalled: Someone in wagon.

The healer nodded, looked round – Balm had squatted down behind his shield, short sword readied. Widdershins was nowhere to be seen. The last of the regulars on this flank had simply melted away, and though the glow from the Strangers was now painting the desert pan a luminous green their attackers were nowhere to be seen.

Deadsmell collected a pebble and flung it at Balm. It struck his hip and the sergeant’s head snapped around.

More hand signals.

Balm backed until he was pressed against the wagon’s front wheel. With his tongue he was trying to lap up the blood trickling down his cheek. He flung a series of gestures off to his right, and then glanced back at Deadsmell and, tongue snaking out yet again, he nodded.

Thank Hood. Deadsmell met Throatslitter’s eyes, jerked his head upward. Make a show.

Drawing his knives, Throatslitter gathered into a crouch.

Rackle held himself perfectly still. Not quite the way they’d planned this. One wounded to show so far. The Fist wouldn’t be happy, but maybe he could salvage this mess.

He heard the wounded one hiss, ‘Get up on top, Deadsmell, and take a look around.’

‘You lost your mind, Throat?’

‘Just do it,’ growled the sergeant.

The weight of the wagon shifted. Here he comes. Hey, Deadsmell, I got me a nice surprise waiting for you. He tightened his grip on the mace in his right hand.

A sound from the back of the wagon. He twisted round to see the wounded one sliding up into view. Shit!

Another shudder of the wagon, as Deadsmell began pulling himself up the side.

Rackle looked across at Throatslitter, saw the man grin.

Time to leave. He rose, spun round—

Widdershins gave the bastard a smile as he drove his short sword into the man’s gut, and then up under his heart.

‘Stay low, Wid!’ Throatslitter hissed.

He let the body’s weight pull him down behind some bales. ‘Where’s the other one?’ he asked.

‘More than one,’ Deadsmell replied, sliding in from the side. ‘Two, I’d guess. Snipers with crossbows, probably lying in shallow pits somewhere out there.’

The wagon rocked violently from the opposite side and a moment later Sergeant Hellian was staring down at them. ‘You lads in trouble?’

‘Head low, Sergeant!’ Throatslitter hissed, ‘Snipers!’

‘Oh yeah? Where?’

‘Out in the desert.’

She squinted in the direction he pointed, and then twisted round. ‘Spread out, squad – we’re going to advance on some dug-in positions. Gopher hunting time. Oh, and shields up – they got crossbows.’

Deadsmell stared across at Throatslitter, who simply shook his head.

‘Listen, Sergeant—’

‘You got a wounded man here, healer,’ Hellian pointed out, and then she clambered across, followed by two soldiers from her squad. Others had gone round the wagon, advancing slowly on the flank. Hellian dropped down. ‘Sergeant Balm, hold fast will ya? We got this.’

‘You won’t find ’em,’ Balm replied. ‘Saw a couple of shadows running off.’

‘Really? Which way?’

‘Into the regulars. We lost ’em, Hellian.’

The woman sagged. ‘What were they after?’

‘Hood knows.’

Having observed all this from atop the wagon, Deadsmell turned back. ‘Nice work, Wid, though it would’ve been good to have taken him alive.’

‘Wasn’t interested in talking,’ Widdershins replied. ‘They probably killed Shorthand.’

Deadsmell was silent. He should’ve thought of that. ‘We need to look for him.’

‘And leave the wagon?’ Throatslitter demanded.

‘There ain’t nothing on this wagon!’

‘Right, sorry. Got caught up, somehow. Anyway, I doubt I can walk, so I can stay behind and, er, guard.’

‘Where’d you get it, Throat?’ Widdershins asked.

‘Where it means I can’t walk, Wid.’

‘In the butt,’ Deadsmell explained. ‘It ain’t bleeding – did that quarrel hit bone?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Miracle, with your skinny—’

‘Just go find Shorthand, will you?’

Deadsmell nodded over at Widdershins, and the two of them climbed down from the wagon.

As all of this had been going on, the rest of the column had simply gone round them. On this flank, Sergeant Urb’s squad had arrived, and after a few words with Balm and Hellian Urb led his marines onward. Balm faced his two soldiers.

‘We was targeted specifically,’ he said.

‘The marked casks,’ said Widdershins. ‘Don’t matter that we used it all up on the children. They still think we’re holding back.’

‘Blistig,’ said Deadsmell.

Balm’s face twisted in distaste and he reached up to wipe more blood from his cheek. Then he licked his fingers. ‘Killing officers is one thing … but a Fist? I don’t know.’

‘Who’d complain?’ Deadsmell demanded.

‘It’s mutiny.’

‘We ain’t going against the Adjunct’s command in this—’

‘Wrong. In a way that’s exactly what we’re doing. She made him Fist.’

‘But now he’s trying to kill his own soldiers!’

‘Aye, Deadsmell.’

Widdershins hissed to get their attention. ‘T’lan Imass coming, Sergeant.’

‘Now what?’

The figure halted before Deadsmell. ‘Healer, there is need for you.’

‘You’re way past helping—’

‘The one named Pores is dying from a knife wound. Will you come?’

Deadsmell turned to Balm.

‘All right,’ the sergeant said. ‘I’ll go find Kindly.’

Shortnose had been cut loose. The rest agreed it should be him, and he went and found Flashwit and Mayfly, and a little while later Saltlick joined them. None of them said much, but it was clear that Shortnose was in charge. He didn’t know why but he wasn’t in the mood to argue anyway so it was him whether he wanted it to be or not.

He led them into the press of the regulars, where soldiers melted from their path and with eyes all hollow and haunted tracked them as they went past.

Maybe they’d been harnessed like oxen, but that didn’t mean they weren’t paying attention to whatever was going on around them. Most of it wasn’t worth chewing on, but sometimes some unguarded comment hung around and then, when something else arrived, it came back, and things started making sense.

They weren’t oxen. They were heavies. And word had reached them that Shorthand had a broken skull and probably wasn’t going to last the night, and that a squad of marines had been ambushed, with one of them down but luckily not dead. Looked like the one who busted Shorthand’s head got himself gutted by a marine, but at least two more attackers had gotten away.

There weren’t just two of them, Shortnose knew. Two with crossbows, aye, stolen from a wagon. At least seven others with them, though. Fist Blistig’s gang of thugs.

Every army had them. They were only trouble when some fool put ’em all together in one place, and Blistig had done just that.

Head-breaking a heavy? And from behind, too? That needed answering. Shorthand had been a knot in the saw of the Stumpies. He’d blunted a lot of teeth on that saw. Bad luck about the fingers, but cutting wood’s a dangerous business, almost – Shortnose frowned – almost as dangerous as being a heavy.

Too bad that Blistig wasn’t with his crew when they found it. They wouldn’t have killed him, though. Just let him watch as they waded into his gang, disarming them and breaking arms and legs, with at least one stamp-down from Mayfly crushing a fool’s pelvis, making him squirt in both directions. Aye, it would have been great for the Fist to see when Saltlick found one of the stolen crossbows and tried to jam it butt-end first down a thug’s mouth. Things tore and snapped and broke but he got it as far down as the middle of the throat, which was something. They left it there.

Shortnose and Flashwit just used their fists and pounded faces into bloody pulps, and that took a lot of punches, but the only people looking on were regulars and eventually those regulars just started walking again, since there was nothing else to be done.

Somebody blindsided a heavy. That wasn’t done. Ever.

But even Shortnose was surprised when a regular, a sergeant leading his squad past, looked down on the bodies of the thugs, and spat at the nearest one – no real spit, just the sound, the stab of his head, clear enough to take its meaning. And Shortnose looked across to Flashwit and then Saltlick and they nodded back.

Just as the heavies weren’t all oxen, the regulars weren’t all pack-mules. They’d seen, they’d listened. They’d made up their minds. And that was good.

Better that than killing them all, wasn’t it? That’d take all night. Or even longer.

‘Found him, Fist,’ said Captain Raband.

Kindly turned to Balm. ‘Pull everybody back now – this is between me and Blistig, understood?’

The sergeant nodded, and then hesitated. ‘Fist? You’re going to kill him, ain’t ya?’

‘Sergeant?’

‘Well, sir, it’s just … if you ain’t gonna, cause of some rules or something, a word to Throatslitter, or Smiles who’s in Tarr’s squad, or—’

‘Marine, listen well to what I’m about to say. Unless you want to see one of your marines executed, you will not touch Fist Blistig. Am I understood?’

‘Begging your pardon, Fist, but come the sun’s rise, we’re all gonna be crawling, if that. So that kinda threat don’t mean much, if you see what I mean. We got us a list under Blistig’s name, Fist, and we’re expecting you to carve a nice red line right through it, starting with him.’

‘You are talking mutiny, Sergeant.’

‘Ugly word, that one, sir. What did the Bridgeburners call it? Culling. Old Malazan habit, right? Picked it up from the Emperor himself, in fact, and then the Empress, who did the same.’

‘As she sought to do with the Wickans, Sergeant, or have you forgotten?’

‘Aye, easy to get carried away, sir. But tonight we’re talking one man.’

Kindly glanced across at Raband, who stood waiting. ‘Is the Fist alone, captain?’

‘No sir. Fist Sort and Captain Skanarow are with him, along with Captain Ruthan Gudd. There’s been an accusation voiced, sir – I was planning on telling you on the way, but,’ and he shot Balm a look, ‘Ruthan Gudd says there’s blood on Blistig’s knife. Pores’s blood.’

Balm swore. ‘Togg’s bloody jowls! By his own hand?’

Raband shrugged.

‘Lead on, Captain,’ Kindly said, so quiet the words barely carried.

Balm watched them go.

Deadsmell followed a pace behind his guide. Ahead, the other T’lan Imass had raised a tarp. Lanterns were lit, shutters slipped back, wicks turned up and blazing. It had been a long way back along the trail, forty or more paces. Nearby squatted a wagon. In the harsh light beneath the tarp, he saw Pores’s body.

Blood everywhere. He won’t survive this. He edged past the T’lan Imass and made his way under the tarp, falling to his knees beside Pores. Studied the wound. This is a bleeder. Above the heart. He should be already dead. But he could see the faint pulse, pushing out thinning trickles of blood. The man’s breathing was shallow, rasping. Not a lung, too. Please, not a lung. ‘I’ve got no magic here,’ he said, looking up and seeing nothing but withered, lifeless faces staring back down at him. Shit, no help there.

He stared back down at Pores. ‘Seen the insides of plenty of people,’ he muttered. ‘Living and dead. Well. Had a teacher, once, a priest. Dresser of the dead. He had some radical notions. Gods, why not? He’s going to die either way.’

Deadsmell drew out his sewing kit. ‘Said it should be possible to go right inside a body, clamp the bleeder, and then sew it back together, right there inside. Not that it’ll help much if he’s got a punctured lung too. But no blood froth at the mouth. Not yet. So … I guess I’ll give it a try.’ He looked up. ‘Two of you, I need your hands – I need the wound held open, wide as you can make it – gods, those are foul-looking fingers you Imass got.’

‘There is nothing living on our hands,’ said one of them.

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Deadsmell asked.

‘We will carry no infection into his flesh, healer.’

‘No, but the knife blade that did this probably has.’

‘His bleeding has cleaned the wound, healer. The greatest risk of infection will be from your hands, and your tools.’

Threading a needle with gut, Deadsmell scowled. ‘That old priest shared your opinion. But there’s nothing I can do about that, is there?’

‘No.’

Deadsmell’s vision spun momentarily, and then steadied once more. Unbelievable. I’m dying, even as I’m trying to save another man from doing the same. And really, is there any point to this?

Two Imass had knelt, reaching to prise open the wound.

‘Dig your fingers in – I need to see as much as I can. No, wait, now all I can see are your fingers.’

One spoke. ‘Healer. One of us shall hold open the wound. The other shall reach inside and find the two severed ends of the vessel.’

‘Yes! That’s it! And once you’ve got them, pinch hard – stop the blood flow – and then bring them together so I can see them.’

‘We are ready, healer.’

‘He’s lost a lot of blood. He’s in shock. This probably won’t work. Surprised he’s not already dead. I might just kill him. Or he’ll die later. Blood loss. Infection.’ He trailed off, looked across at blank, staring, lifeless faces. ‘Right, needed to get all that out of the way. Here goes.’

They were waiting well off to one side of the trail. The column’s ragged end had already passed. Blistig stood facing the others, arms crossed.

Kindly and Raband made their way over.

Overhead, the Jade Strangers blazed with a green light bright enough to cast sharp shadows, and it seemed the desert air itself was confused, not nearly as chill as it should have been. There was no wind, and stillness surrounded the group.

Blistig met Kindly’s eyes unflinchingly. ‘I executed a traitor tonight, Kindly. That and nothing more. I was holding on to reserves of water – knowing a time of great need would come.’

‘Indeed,’ Kindly replied. ‘How many casks was it again? Four? Five?’

‘For the officer corps, Kindly. With some, if we so judged, to the marines and heavies. It wouldn’t have been much, granted, but something … maybe enough. Didn’t the Adjunct make it plain? The marines and the heavies before everyone else. In fact, the rest of them don’t matter.’

‘Lieutenant Pores was not under your command, Blistig.’

‘Acts of treason fall under the purview of any commanding officer who happens to be present, Kindly. I acted within military law in this matter.’

‘That water,’ said Ruthan Gudd, ‘was doled out to the children of the Snake. By the Adjunct’s direct command.’

‘The Adjunct knew nothing about it, Captain Gudd, so what you’re saying makes no sense.’

Faradan Sort snorted. ‘We all knew about your stash, Blistig. We’ve just been waiting for you to make your move. But you can’t reclaim what was never yours in the first place, never mind that it’s now all gone. If there was any treason here, Blistig, it was yours.’

He sneered. ‘That’s where you’ve lost the track – all of you! All this “we’re in this together” rubbish – so that a lowly latrine digger gets the same portion as a Fist, or a captain, or the damned Adjunct herself – that’s not how the world is, and with good reason! It’s us highborn who’ve earned the greater portion. On account of our greater responsibilities, our greater skills and talents. That’s the order of the world, friends.’

‘Never knew you were highborn, Blistig,’ commented Faradan Sort.

The man scowled. ‘There’s other paths to privilege, Sort. Look at you, after all, a deserter of the Wall, now here you are, a damned Fist. And Kindly here, straight up from the regular ranks, and that climb wasn’t exactly meteoric, was it? Decades of mediocrity, right, Kindly? You ended up just outlasting everyone else.’

‘Everything you’re saying, Blistig,’ said Ruthan Gudd, ‘is undermining your original argument. Seems there’s not one highborn among us here. In fact, only the Adjunct can make that claim.’

‘A woman who betrayed her own class,’ Blistig said, with a cold grin. ‘Treason starts at the top when it comes to the Bonehunters.’

‘You plan on killing everyone, then, Blistig?’

‘Kindly, turns out I don’t have to, do I? We’re finished. All those warnings have proved true. This desert can’t be crossed. We’ve failed. In every way, we’ve failed.’ He shook his head. ‘I did Pores a damned favour. I made it quick.’

‘Expecting one of us to make it as quick for you?’ Ruthan Gudd asked him.

Blistig shrugged. ‘Why not? I don’t care any more. I really don’t. She’s already killed us all. Will it be your blade, Captain Gudd? Do me a favour – make it the icy one.’

‘No one will be killing you this night,’ Kindly said. He unclipped his sword belt and threw it to one side. ‘We bear these titles. Fists. Let’s find their original meaning, you and me, Blistig.’

‘You’re joking, old man.’

Faradan Sort turned to Kindly in alarm. ‘What are you doing? Let’s just drag him up before the Adjunct. Kindly!’

But the man bulled forward. And Blistig moved to meet him.

Two men too weak to do any real damage to the other. The fight was pathetic. Punches that couldn’t break skin, blows that could barely bruise. Three or four exchanges and both men were kneeling three paces apart, gasping, heads held down.

When Kindly looked up, Blistig threw sand into his eyes, lurched forward, grasped Kindly’s head and drove it down on to one knee.

Sort moved to intervene but Ruthan Gudd reached out and held her back.

The impact should have shattered Kindly’s nose, but it didn’t. He punched Blistig’s crotch.

The man let out a strangled grunt, sagged down on to his side.

Kindly tried to get up, fell back down, and then rolled on to his back, eyes squeezed shut, his chest heaving for breath.

‘That’s it,’ Ruthan Gudd said. ‘They’re done.’

‘Stupid!’ Faradan Sort snapped, pulling her arm out of Gudd’s grip. She went to stand over the two men. ‘What was the point? If the soldiers up there had seen this – you useless fools! Blistig, if we weren’t all of us about to die, I would kill you. But you don’t deserve that mercy – no, you’re going to suffer through this night just like everyone else.’ She turned. ‘Captain Raband, help your Fist.’

Blistig managed to work himself back on to his knees, and he slowly sat up. ‘She’s killed us all. For nothing.’ He moved his glare from one face to the next. ‘Aye, I see it in your eyes, every one of you, you ain’t got a thing to say to make it different. She’s killed us. You know it the same as me. So, you want to kill me? You want to do her work for her?’ He climbed, with difficulty, to his feet. ‘Give me the dignity of dying on my own.’

‘You should have understood the value of that,’ said Ruthan, ‘before you stuck a knife in Pores, Fist Blistig.’

‘Maybe I should have. But he lied to me, and I don’t like being lied to.’ He pointed a finger at Kindly. ‘We’re not done, you and me. I’ll be waiting for you at Hood’s Gate, old man.’

‘Pathetic,’ hissed Faradan Sort.

They left Blistig where he was, and the way he held himself, it would be a while before he’d be ready to start walking again. Skanarow moved alongside Ruthan Gudd.

‘I was hoping we’d just kill him,’ she said, low under her breath. ‘The man’s a murderer, after all. Pores wasn’t even wearing a weapon belt, and his knife was jammed hilt deep in a bale on the wagon.’

‘If anyone will be looking for Blistig at Hood’s Gate, it will be Lieutenant Pores, don’t you think?’

But Skanarow shook her head. ‘I never believed in retribution beyond Death’s Gates. Nobody is squatting on the other side weighing and balancing a life’s scales.’ She stumbled slightly and Ruthan moved to catch her. Felt her momentarily sag against him. ‘Shit, I may not last the night.’

‘You will, Skanarow. I’m not letting you die, do you understand me?’

‘There’s no way out, and you know it, my love. You know it – you can’t hide what I see in your eyes.’

He said nothing, because there was nothing to say.

‘You’ll forget me, won’t you? Eventually. Like … all the rest.’

‘Don’t say that, Skanarow – it’s the wrong thing to think. For people … like me … it’s not forgetting that is our curse. It’s remembering.’

Her smile was faint, and she disengaged herself from his half-embrace. ‘Then I beg you, love, do all that you can to forget me. Leave no memory behind to haunt you – let it all fade. It shouldn’t be hard – what we had didn’t last long, did it?’

He’d heard such words before. And this is why remembering is a curse.

Blistig faced back the way they’d come. Off in the distance he could make out the glow of lanterns, the lights swinging low to the ground. Frowning, he watched as they came closer.

She killed us. Come the dawn, when we’re all finished, unable to take another step, I’m going to go to her. I’m going to stick a knife in her. Not a fatal wound, not right away, no. In the stomach, where the acids will all leak out and start eating her up from the inside out. And I’ll kneel over her, staring down into her pain, and that will be the sweetest sight I will ever see. A sight to carry me right into death.

But even that won’t be enough, not for what she’s done to us. Kindly, at Hood’s Gate, you’re going to have to wait, because I won’t be finished with Tavore Paran of House Paran.

T’lan Imass, carrying a makeshift stretcher on which lay a swaddled body. Beside this, a marine with blood covering his hands and forearms.

Blistig squinted as they drew closer.

The T’lan Imass walked past him and the Fist looked down at the pale face of the man on the stretcher. He grunted.

The marine halted before him, saluted. ‘Fist,’ he said.

‘Pores ain’t dead yet? What was the point of that, healer?’

Blistig’s answer was a fist smashing into his face, hard enough to crush his nose, send him reeling back. Stumbling, falling to the ground. Blood gushing down, he lay stunned.

The healer moved to stand over him. ‘Thing is, Fist,’ he said, massaging his hand, ‘what with all the shit Pores has gone through because of you, we decided to make him an honorary marine. Now, you go sticking a knife in a fellow marine and, well, we’re out for you now. Understand me, sir? The marines are out for you.’

Blistig listened to the man walk off in the wake of the T’lan Imass. He made it on to his side to spit out slime and blood, and then grunted a laugh. Aye, and a man is measured by his enemies.

Do your worst, marines. So long as I get to her first.

It was some time before he managed to regain his feet, but when he set off after the column, his strides were stiff, jerking, filled with a strength past anything he had known before. In his head three words made a mantra. To see her. To see her. To see her.

The Khundryl camp was being packed up, but the people doing the task moved with aching slowness. The claws upon their skin seemed to be dragging them down, and Badalle watched in the midst of twenty or so of Rutt’s children, as everything that was coming along for this final night was put in its proper place – everything but for the mother’s tent, and she was yet to emerge.

The midwives and other women had come out earlier, expressions guarded, and, though she could not be certain, in Badalle’s mind she saw but three figures remaining inside. The father, the mother, and the baby. Would this be their final home, then?

A Khundryl child came up to Saddic, pressing into his hands yet another toy – a bone top or whistle, she couldn’t quite see it before Saddic slipped it into his sack and smiled his thanks. A new sack, too big to carry now. The Khundryl children had been bringing him toys all day.

The times she’d watched that procession, she’d wanted to cry. She’d wanted Saddic to cry. But she didn’t understand why she wanted that – they were being kind, after all. And she didn’t know why she saw those Khundryl children as if they were but servants to something greater, something almost too big for words. Not at the instigation of adults, not even mothers and fathers. Not at the behest of pity, either. Didn’t they want their toys? She had seen such precious things settle into Saddic’s hand, had seen bright shining eyes lift shyly to Saddic in the moment of giving, and then fall away again – children running off, too light-footed, flinging themselves into their friends’ arms, and this went on and on and Badalle didn’t understand, but how her heart ached. How she wanted Saddic to weep, how she wanted to feel her own tears.

She spoke a poem under her breath.

‘Snakes do not know how to cry.

They know too much

and yearn for darkness.

They know too much

and fear the light.

No one gives gifts to snakes,

and no one makes of them a gift.

They are neither given

nor received.

Yet in all the world,

snakes do not know how to cry.’

Saddic studied her and she knew that he had heard. Of course it was for him, this poem, though she suspected that he did not know that. But the man who will find him will. Maybe he’ll cry, when we cannot. Maybe he will tell this tale in such a way as to make his listeners cry, because we cannot.

A Khundryl elder came up then and helped Saddic load his bag of toys on to a wagon. When the boy glanced over at Badalle, she nodded. He climbed up to settle himself beside his treasure. And there, he believed, he would die.

But it is not to be. How will he survive? I wish I knew the answer to that, because a secret hides inside it.

The birth-tent’s flap was swept aside then, and the father emerged. His eyes were raw with weeping, yet there was a fire in them. He is proud. He is defiant in his pride, and would challenge us all. I like this look. It is how a father should look. Then behind him, out she came, unsteady on her feet, sagging with exhaustion, and in her arms a small bundled form.

Badalle gasped upon seeing Rutt walking towards them – where had he come from? Where had he been hiding?

With his crooked arms, with a terrible need in his ancient face, he walked to stand before the mother.

Anguish gripped Badalle’s heart and she staggered in sudden weakness. Where is Held? Held is gone. Held was gone long ago. And what Rutt carried in his arms was us, all that way. He carried us.

The mother looked across at this boy, and Badalle saw now that she was old – and so too was the father, old enough to be grandparents – she looked at Rutt, his empty arms, the ravaged face.

She does not understand. How can she? He cannot hurt anyone, not Rutt. He carried our hope, but our hope died. But it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t his fault. Mother, if you had been there – if you had seen—

And she stepped forward then, that old woman, that mother with her last ever child, this stranger, and gently laid her baby into Rutt’s waiting arms.

A gift beyond measure, and when she settled an arm about his shoulders, drawing him forward, so that he could walk with them – her and her husband – and they set out, slowly as it was all she could manage, in the wake of the nearest wagon, and all the Khundryl began to move … Badalle stood unmoving.

Saddic, I will tell you to remember this. These are the Khundryl, the givers of gifts. Remember them, won’t you?

And Rutt walked like a king.

From where he sat, Saddic watched as they made space on a Khundryl wagon for the mother, and for Rutt and her child that he held, and then set out to catch up with the rest of the army. The man who was the father took the lead yoke at the wagon’s head, and strained as if he alone could shoulder this burden.

Because it was no burden.

As Saddic well knew, gifts never are.

Ahead, the desert stretched on. Fiddler could see no end to it, and now believed he never would. He remembered that ancient shoreline of bones, the one they had left behind what seemed a century ago. No clearer warning could have been granted them, yet she had not hesitated.

He had to hand it to her. The world was her enemy, and she would face it unblinking. She had led them on to this road of suffering in the name of the Crippled God, and, to that god, what other path could there have been? She was making of them her greatest sacrifice – was it as brutal and as simple as that? He did not think her capable of such a thing. He wanted to refuse the very thought.

But here he walked, fifty or more paces ahead of them all. Even the Khundryl children were gone, leaving him alone. And behind him, a broken mass of humanity, somehow dragging itself forward, like a beast with a crushed spine. It had surrendered all formation, each soldier moving as his or her strength dictated. They carried their weapons because they had forgotten a time when they didn’t. And bodies fell, one by one.

Beneath the ghoulish light of the Jade Strangers, Fiddler set his eyes upon the distant flat line of the horizon, his legs scissoring under him, the muscles too dead to feel pain. He listened to his own breaths, wheezing as the air struggled up and down a swollen, parched windpipe. In so vast a landscape he felt his world contracting, step by step, and soon, he knew, all he would hear would be his own heart, the beats climbing down, losing all rhythm, and finally falling still.

That moment waited somewhere ahead. He was on his way to find it.

Whispering motion around him now, drifting out from a fevered mind. He saw a horseman at his side, close enough to reach out, if he so wanted, and set a hand upon the beast’s patched, salt-streaked shoulder. The man riding the beast he knew all too well.

Broke his leg. A toppling pillar, of all things. Mallet – I see you – you wanted to work on that leg. Got damned insubordinate about it, in fact. But he didn’t listen. That’s his problem, he only listens when he feels like it.

Trotts, you’re still the damned ugliest Barghast I ever saw. They bred ’em that way in your tribe, didn’t they? To better scare the enemy. Did they breed your women to be half blind, too? Keep the stones balanced, that’s the only way to make it through.

So where’s Quick Ben? Kalam? I want to see you all here, friends.

Hedge, well, he’s stepped out of this path. Can’t look him in the eye these days. It’s the one bad twist in this whole thing, isn’t it. Maybe you can talk to him, Sergeant. Talk him back to how it should be.

‘Hedge is where we want him, Fid.’

What?

‘We sent him to you … to this, I mean. He’s walked a lonely path back, sapper.’

Mallet then spoke. ‘Bet he thought he’d made it all the way, too, when he stood before you, Fiddler. Only to have you back away.’

I … oh, gods. Hedge. I better find him, chew it all out, come the dawn – we’ll make it that far, won’t we, Sergeant?

‘Until it rises, aye, sapper. Until it rises.’

And then?

‘You’re so eager to join us?’

Whiskeyjack – please – where else would I go?

‘If we were just waiting for the dawn, soldier, you’d have to ask, what in Hood’s name for? You think we’d see you put through all of this for nothing? And then there’s Hedge. He’s here to die beside you and that’s it? We sent him to you so you could just kiss and make up? Gods below, Fiddler, you’re not that important in this wretched scheme.’

‘Well,’ said Mallet, ‘he might be, Sergeant. Made Captain now, didn’t he? Got himself his own company of marines and heavies. Bloody insufferable now, is old Fid.’

‘Sky’s paling,’ Whiskeyjack said.

Because you’re on damned horses. I can’t see it.

‘False dawn,’ growled Trotts. ‘And Fid’s fading, Sergeant. We can’t hold on here much longer. Once he stops thinking past his feet …’

I was a mason’s apprentice. Had dreams of being a musician, getting fat and drunk in some royal court.

‘Not this again,’ someone said among the crowd. ‘Someone find him a fiddle, and me a hanky.’

Glad you’re all here with me. Well, most of you, anyway. The Bridgeburners deserved a better way to die—

The rider made a derisive sound. ‘Don’t be such an idiot, sapper. In your heads you’ve all built us up into something we never were. How quickly you’ve forgotten – we were mutinous at the best of times. The rest of the time – and that would be almost all the time – we were at each other’s throats. Officers getting posted to us would desert first. It was that bad, Fiddler.’

Look, I ain’t done nothing to make this fucking legend, Sergeant. I ain’t said a damned thing.

‘You don’t have to, and that’s just my point. People can talk up anything, can make a snivelling dollop of shit the god’s own mountain, given enough time and enough lies and enough silences.’

I’m a Bonehunter now. Got nothing to do with any of you any more – which is what I was trying to tell Hedge.

‘Fine. Now go hunt down some bones.’

Sure, why not? Whose bones do you want us to hunt for?

Whiskeyjack rode slightly ahead and swung his mount round, blocking Fiddler’s path. But his old sergeant wasn’t looking good – he was a damned half-mummified corpse, and his mount wasn’t much better off. ‘Whose do you think, Fid?’ And yet that voice was his – no question. Whiskeyjack.

‘Where’d you come by that name, Fid?’ And that was Mallet, but he was badly chopped up, the wounds crusted with dried blood.

The name? Bonehunters? It was finger bones, I think.

‘Whose hand?’

What? Nobody’s – lots of people. Nameless ones, long dead ones – just nameless bones!

They were all fading from his vision now. But he wanted them to stay. They were supposed to be here with him, to take up his soul when he died.

Whiskeyjack was backing his horse even as he grew translucent. ‘Bones of the fallen, Fiddler. Now, who fell the furthest?’

Before him now nothing but that distant, flat line. Nothing but the horizon. Fiddler rubbed at his face. Fucking hallucinations. Least they could’ve done was give me a drink of water.

He resumed walking. No reason to. No reason not to.

‘Who fell the furthest. Funny man, Whiskeyjack.’ But maybe it was so. Maybe she made us and named us to hunt down the bones of a damned god. Maybe she was telling us what she wanted all along, and we were too thick to know it.

But look at that line. That perfect flat line. Just waiting for our bones to make us a shore, and once we’ve made it, why, we go no farther.

Almost time.

Hedge, I’ll find you if I can. A few words. A clasp of hands, or a clout upside the head, whichever best suits the moment.

Bonehunters. Oh. Nice one.

Lostara Yil wanted her god back. She wanted to feel that flow of strength, that appalling will. To take her out of here. To feel a sudden, immortal power filling her body, and she would reach out to draw Henar Vygulf under her shadowy wing. Others too, if she could. This whole army of sufferers – they didn’t deserve this.

Henar walked close by her side, ready to steady her when she stumbled. He had seemed indomitable, but now he was bent like an old man. Thirst was crushing them all, like a vast hand pressing down. The Adjunct was ten paces ahead, Banaschar off to her right, and far ahead walked Fiddler, alone, and she imagined she could hear music from him, a siren call pulling them ever forward. But his fiddle was broken. There was no music, no matter what she thought she heard, just the sluggish dirge of her own blood, the rasps of their breaths and the crunch of their worn boots on the hard ground.

The Jade Strangers hung now over the northern sky, casting confused shadows – those terrible slashes would circle round over the course of the day, now visible even through the sun’s bright glare, making the light eerie, unearthly.

The Adjunct’s march was unsteady, drifting to the right for a time, and then back to the left. It seemed only Fiddler was capable of managing a straight line. She remembered back to the reading. Its wild violence – had it all been for nothing? A rush of possibilities, not one realized, not one borne out in the days to follow. It seemed the Adjunct – who alone warranted no card – had taken them all from their destinies, taken them into a place with no end but death, and a death bereft of glory or honour. If that was so, then Fiddler’s reading had been the cruellest of jokes.

Was he walking out there, ahead of the rest of them, out of some desperate desire? To drag them all into the truth of his visions? But the desert still stretched empty – not even the bones of the children of the Snake could be seen – they had lost them, but no one knew precisely when, and the path that might have led them to the mythical city of Icarias was now nowhere to be seen.

Her gaze found the Adjunct again, this woman she had chosen to follow. And she didn’t know what to think.

Beyond Tavore, the horizon, pale as the water of a tropical sea, now showed a rim of fire. Announcing the end of the night, the end of this march. Shadows spun round.

Fiddler halted. He turned round to face them all.

The Adjunct continued until she was ten paces from him and then slowed, and with her last step, she tottered and almost fell. Banaschar moved close but stopped when Tavore straightened once more.

Henar took hold of Lostara’s left arm, and they were still, and she looked down at the ground, as if to make it familiar to her eyes, knowing that from this place she would not move, ever again. Not her, not Henar. This, this is my grave.

The Fists and their officers were arriving. Faradan Sort with Skanarow and, beside her, Ruthan Gudd. Kindly, his face puffy and red, as if he’d stumbled and driven it into something. Raband standing close, one hand on his sword as he eyed Fist Blistig. That man, Lostara saw, had taken a punch – the evidence was plain in his swollen, misaligned nose, his split lips and the smears of dried blood. Bruises had spread out under his reddened eyes, and it seemed as if those eyes were nailed to the Adjunct. Fevered, burning with malice.

Behind them all, the army slowly ground down into something motionless, and she could see the faces of the nearest soldiers – this legion of old men and old women – all staring. Equipment bags slumped to the ground. A few, here and there, followed their kit to the ground.

It’s done, then.

All eyes were on the Adjunct.

Tavore Paran suddenly looked small. A person none would notice on a street, or in a crowd. The world was filled with such people. They bore no proof of gifts, no lines of beauty or grace, no bearing of confidence or challenge. The world is filled with them. Filled. For ever unnoticed. For ever … unwitnessed.

Her plain face was ravaged by the sun, blistered and cracked. The weight she had lost made her gaunt, shrunken. Yet she stood, weathering this multitude of stares, the rising heat of hatred – as every need was refused, as every hope was answered with nothing but silence.

Now the T’lan Imass arrived. They held their weapons of stone in their lifeless hands, drawing closer to the Adjunct.

Blistig snarled. ‘Bodyguards, bitch? Can they kill us all? We’ll get to you. I swear it.’

The Adjunct studied the man, but said nothing.

Please, Tavore. Give us some words. Give us something. To make this dying … palatable. We tried, didn’t we? We followed where you led. That was duty. That was loyalty. And all you kept asking of us, the battles, the marches … we did them. See how many have died for you, Tavore. See us who remain. Now we too will die. Because we believed.

Gods below, say something!

The Adjunct twisted round, to where Fiddler was standing, and then she faced Ruthan Gudd. ‘Captain,’ her voice was a dull croak, ‘where lies Icarias?’

‘South and east of us, Adjunct. Nine, ten days.’

‘And directly east? Where is the edge of this desert?’

He clawed at his beard, and then shook his head. ‘Another ten, eleven days, if we continue angling northeast – if we continue following this shallow basin as we have been doing since yesterday.’

‘Is there water beyond the desert, Captain? On the Elan Plain?’

‘Not much, I would warrant, or so the children have told us.’

Tavore looked to the T’lan Imass. ‘Upon the Elan Plain, Beroke, can you find us water?’

One of the undead creatures faced her. ‘Adjunct, we are then within the influence of Akhrast Korvalain. It is possible, but difficult, and the efforts we make will be felt. We would not be able to hide.’

‘I understand. Thank you, Beroke.’

She still thinks we can make it. Ten more days! Has she lost her mind?

Blistig laughed, a sound like the tearing open of his own throat. ‘We have followed a mad woman. Where else would she lead us?’

Lostara could not understand where Blistig found the energy for his rage, but he now raised his arms, shouted, ‘Malazans! She gave us nothing! We pleaded – we begged! In the name of our soldiers, in the name of all of you – we begged her!’ He faced the army. ‘You saw us! Marching to her tent again and again – all our questions she spat back into our faces! Our fears, our concerns – they told us this desert was impassable – but she ignored them all!’

Before him stood the ranks, and from them, not a sound.

Blistig spun, advanced on the Adjunct. ‘What power is this? Within you, woman? That they now die without a complaint?’

Kindly, Raband, Sort and Skanarow had all drawn closer, and all at once Lostara knew that if Blistig sought to attack Tavore now he would never reach her, never mind the T’lan Imass. Yet, for all that, those officers kept looking to the Adjunct, and Lostara saw the yearning in their eyes.

No one could withstand this much longer – even a god would fall to his knees. But still the Adjunct stood. ‘Banaschar,’ she said.

The ex-priest limped over to Lostara. ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘your kit bag, please.’

She frowned at him. ‘What?’

‘Can I have your kit bag, Captain?’

Henar helped her lift it off her shoulders. They set it down.

Kneeling before it, Banaschar fumbled at the straps. ‘She judged you the strongest,’ he murmured. ‘Gift of a god? Possibly. Or,’ and he glanced up at her, ‘maybe you’re just the most stubborn one of us all.’ He pulled back the sun-cracked flap, rummaged inside, and then drew out a small wooden box.

Lostara gasped. ‘That’s not—’

‘You stayed close,’ Banaschar said. ‘We knew you would.’

He struggled to straighten, nodding his thanks when Lostara helped him, and then he walked slowly over to the Adjunct.

In Lostara’s mind, a memory … a throne room. That Ceda. The king … complaining, such a plain gift, that dagger. And what did the Ceda tell her? Dire necessity …

Banaschar opened the box. The Adjunct reached in, withdrew the dagger. She held it before her.

‘“When blood is required. When blood is needed.”’

Tavore glanced over at her, and Lostara realized that she had spoken those words aloud.

Banaschar said, ‘Adjunct, the king’s Ceda—’

‘Is an Elder God, yes.’ Tavore continued studying the knife, and then, slowly, she looked up, her gaze moving from one face to the next. And something flickered in her expression, that parched mask of plainness. A crack through to … to such hurt. And then it was gone again, and Lostara wondered if she’d ever seen it, wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing. She is only what you see. And what you see isn’t much.

Banaschar said, ‘Your blood, Adjunct.’

She saw Fiddler then, well behind the Adjunct, saw him turn away as if in shame.

The Adjunct was studying them all. Lostara found herself at Tavore’s side, with no memory of moving, and she saw the faces before her, all fixed upon the Adjunct. She saw their broken lips, the glint of unbearable need in their eyes.

And beside her, in a voice that could crush stones, Tavore Paran said, ‘Haven’t you drunk enough?’

Fiddler could hear music, filled with such sorrow that he felt everything breaking inside. He would not turn round, would not watch. But he knew when she took that knife and cut deep into her hand. He felt it as if that hand was his own. The blood was bright on that simple iron blade, covering the faint swirling etching. He could see it in his mind’s eye – there was no need to lift his head, no need to look over at them all, the way they stood, the thirst and the wound she had delivered so raw in their eyes.

And then, in the weight of a silence too vast to comprehend, blood flowing, the Adjunct fell to her knees.

When she drove that knife into the hard ground, Fiddler flinched, and the music deepened its timbre, grew suddenly faint, and then, in a whisper, returned to him.

His knees were cold.

Lostara Yil lifted her head. Were they killing the last of the horses? She’d not even known that any were left, but now she could hear them, somewhere in the mass of soldiers. Stepping forward, her boot skidded.

Beside her, Henar cursed under his breath – but not in anger. In wonder.

Now voices cried out, and the sound rippled through the army.

There was a whispering sound, from below, and she looked down. The ground was dark, stained.

Wet.

Banaschar was at the Adjunct’s side, lifting her to her feet. ‘Fists!’ he snapped. ‘Have them ready the casks! Move it!’

Water welled up beneath them, spread over the ground. As the sun’s light brightened, Lostara could see, on all sides, a glistening tide flowing ever outward. Through the holes and tears in her boots she could now feel it, cold, almost numbing. Rising to her ankles.

What did Ruthan Gudd say? We’re in a basin? How deep is this going to get?

She fell to her knees, drew her head down, and like an animal in the wilds, she drank.

And still the water rose.

Chaos in the army. Laughter. Howls, voices lifted to gods. She knew there would be those – fools – who drank too much too quickly, and it would kill them. But there were officers, and sergeants, and hands would be stayed. Besides, most of the fools were already dead.

With casks full, with all the waterskins heavy and sweating … could they march another eleven days? They would eat, now, and soak in as much water as they could. They would feel strength return to their limbs. Their thoughts would awaken from the sluggish torpor they had known for days now.

Still the water rose.

Horns sounded. And suddenly, the Bonehunters were on the move. Seeking high ground. For all they knew, that knife had delivered an entire sea.

Thick as blood, the smell of water filled the air.