‘Yes. Sooner the better.’
The ex-Letherii officer tilted her head, wheeled and strode from the chamber.
Captain Brevity stepped forward to face the throne and settled on one knee. ‘Highness, shall I summon the palace staff?’
‘In here? Abyss take me, no. Start with all the other rooms. Go on. You are, er, dismissed. Husband! Don’t even think of leaving.’
‘The thought had not even occurred to me.’ And he managed to hold his neutral expression against her withering scepticism.
As soon as they were alone, Sandalath sprang from the throne as if she’d just found one of those ancient tacks. ‘That bitch!’
Withal flinched. ‘Yan-’
‘No, not her — she’s right, the cow. I’m stuck with this, for the moment. Besides, why should she be the only one to suffer the burden of rule, as she so quaintly put it?’
‘Well, put it that way, and I can see how she might be in need of a friend.’
‘An equal of sorts, yes. The problem is, I don’t fit. I’m not her equal. I didn’t lead ten thousand people to this realm. I barely got
He shrugged. ‘But here we are.’
‘And she knew.’
‘Who?’
‘That bitch Tavore. Somehow, she knew this would happen-’
‘There’s no proof of that, Sand,’ Withal replied. ‘It was Fiddler’s reading, not hers.’
She made a dismissive gesture. ‘Technicalities, Withal. She trapped me is what she did. I should never have been there. No, she knew there was a card waiting for me. There’s no other explanation.’
‘But that’s no explanation at all, Sand.’
The look she threw him was miserable. ‘You think I don’t know that?’
Withal hesitated. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘your kin are coming. Are you really certain you want me standing there at your side when they do?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What you’re really saying is: do I want to be standing at her side when they arrive? A mere human, a shortlived plaything to the Queen of Darkness. That’s how you think they’ll see you, isn’t it?’
‘Well …’
‘You’re wrong. It will be the opposite and that might be just as bad. They’ll see you for what you are: a threat.’
‘A
She regarded him archly. ‘Your kind are the inheritors — of everything. And here you are, along with all those Letherii and blood-thin Shake, squatting in Kharkanas. Is there anywhere you damned bastards don’t end up sooner or later? That’s what they’ll be thinking.’
‘Mael knows, they’ve got a point,’ he said, looking away, down the length of the throne room, imagining a score or more regal Tiste Andii standing there, eyes hard, faces like stone. ‘I’d better leave.’
‘No you won’t. Mother Dark-’ Abruptly she shut her mouth.
He turned his head, studied her. ‘Your goddess is whispering in your ear, Sand? About me?’
‘You’ll be needed,’ she said, once more eyeing the lone amphora. ‘All of you. The Letherii refugees. The Shake. And it’s not fair.
He took her arm as she moved to assault the crockery. Pulled her round until she was in his arms. Startled, terrified, he held her as she wept.
But there was no answer, and his god had never felt so far away.
Yedan Derryg dragged the tip of the Hust sword, making a line in the crumbled bones of the Shore. The cascading wall of light flowed in reflection along the length of the ancient blade, like tears of milk. ‘We are children here,’ he muttered.
Captain Pithy hawked phlegm, stepped forward and spat into the wall, and then turned to face him. ‘Something tells me we’d better grow up fast, Watch.’
Yedan clenched his teeth, chewed on a half-dozen possible responses to her grim observation, before saying, ‘Yes.’
‘The faces in the wash,’ said Pithy, nodding at the eternally descending rain of light rearing before them, ‘there’s more of ’em. And seems they’re getting closer, as if clawing their way through. I’m expecting t’see an arm thrust out any time now.’ She hitched her thumbs in her weapon belt. ‘Thing is, sir, what happens then?’
He stared into the Lightfall. Tried remembering memories that weren’t his own. The grinding of molars sounded like distant thunder in his head. ‘We fight.’
‘And that’s why you’ve recruited everyone with arms and legs into this army of yours.’
‘Not everyone. The Letherii islanders-’
‘Can smell trouble better than anyone. Convicted criminals, almost the whole lot. It’s a case of the nerves all around, sir, and soon as they figure things out, they’ll start stepping up.’
He eyed the woman. ‘What makes you so sure, Captain?’
‘Soon as they figure things out, I said.’
‘What things?’
‘That there’s nowhere to run to, for one,’ she replied. ‘And that there won’t be any bystanders, no — what’s the word? Non-combatants. We got us a fight for our very lives ahead. Do you deny it?’
He shook his head, studied the play of light on the blade again. ‘We will stand on the bones of our ancestors.’ He glanced at Pithy. ‘We have a queen to protect.’
‘Don’t you think your sister will be right here in the front line?’
‘My sister? No, not her. The queen of Kharkanas.’
‘It’s her we’re gonna die protecting? I don’t get it, sir. Why her?’
He grimaced, lifted the sword and slowly sheathed it. ‘We are of the Shore. The bones at our feet are
‘Yours maybe. The rest of us just want to live another day. Get on with things. Making babies, tilling the ground, getting rich, whatever.’
He shrugged, eyes now on the wall. ‘Privileges, Captain, we cannot at the moment afford to entertain.’
‘I ain’t happy about the thought of dying for some Tiste Andii queen,’ Pithy said, ‘and I doubt I’m alone in that. So maybe I take back what I said earlier. There could be trouble ahead.’
‘No. There won’t.’
‘Plan on cutting off a few heads?’
‘If necessary.’
She muttered a curse. ‘I hope not. Like I said before, so long as they all realize there’s nowhere to go. Should be enough, shouldn’t it?’ When no answer was forthcoming she cleared her throat and said, ‘Well, it comes down to saying the right things at the right time. Now, Watch Derryg, you might be an Errant-shitting warrior, and a decent soldier, too, but you’re lacking the subtleties of command-’
‘There are no subtleties in command, Captain. Neither my sister nor me is one for rousing speeches. We make our expectations plain and we expect them to be met. Without complaint. Without hesitation. It’s not enough to fight to stay alive. We must fight determined to win.’
‘People ain’t stupid — well, forget I said that. Plenty of ’em are. But something tells me there’s a difference between fighting to stay alive and fighting for a cause bigger than your own life, or even the lives of your loved ones, or your comrades. A difference, but for the life of me I couldn’t say what it is.’
‘You were always a soldier, Captain?’
Pithy snorted. ‘Not me. I was a thief who thought she was smarter than she really was.’
Yedan considered that for a time. Before him, blurred faces pushed through the light, mouths opening, expressions twisting into masks of rage. Hands stretched to find his throat, clutched empty. He could reach out and touch the wall, if he so chose. Instead, he observed the enemy before him. ‘What cause, Captain, would you fight for? In the manner you describe — beyond one’s own life or those of loved ones?’
‘Now that’s the question, isn’t it? For us Letherii, this ain’t our home. Maybe we could come to want it to be,
