‘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 Sila nah.’

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 ballroasted, 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.