beseeching their god for deliverance.’ The mage made a sour face. ‘Alas, the Black-Winged Lord wasn’t home.’
‘What a surprise.’
‘Yes, but there was one, sir. A surprise, that is.’
‘Go on.’
‘That altar, sir, it was truly sanctified.’
Orbyn glanced at the mage with narrowed eyes. ‘Meaning?’
‘Touched by Darkness, by the Hold itself.’
‘I did not know such a Hold even existed. Darkness?’
‘The Tiles possess an aspect of Darkness, sir, although only the oldest texts make note of that. Of the Fulcra, sir. The White Crow.’
Orbyn’s breath suddenly caught. He stared hard at the mage standing before him, watched the shadows flit over the man’s lined face. ‘The White Crow. The strange Edur who accompanies Fear Sengar is so named.’
‘If that stranger is so named, then he is not Tiste Edur, sir.’
‘Then what?’
The mage gestured at the bodies lying on all sides. ‘Tiste Andii, they call themselves. Children of Darkness. Sir, I know little of this… White Crow, who travels with Fear Sengar. If indeed they walk together, then something has changed.’
‘What do you mean?’
The Edur and the Andii, sir, were most vicious enemies. If what we have gleaned from Edur legends and the like holds any truth, then they warred, and that war ended with betrayal. With the slaying of the White Crow.’ The mage shook his head. ‘That is why I do not believe in this White Crow who is with Fear Sengar-it is but a name, a name given in error, or perhaps mockery. But if I am wrong, sir, then an old feud has been buried in a deep grave, and this could prove… worrisome.’
Orbyn looked away. ‘We have slaughtered the last of these Andii, have we not?’
‘In this place, yes. Should we be confident that they are the last Andii left? Even in Bluerose? Did not the Edur find kin across the ocean? Perhaps other contacts were made, ones our spies in the fleets did not detect. I am made uneasy, sir, by all of this.’
You do not stand alone in that, mage. ‘Think more on it,’ he said.
‘1 shall.’
As the mage turned to leave Orbyn reached out a huge, plump hand to stay him. ‘Have you spoken with the Factor?’
A frown, as if the mage had taken offence at the question. ‘Of course not, sir.’
‘Good. Of the altar, and the sanctification, say nothing.’ He thought for a moment, then added, ‘Of your other thoughts, say nothing as well.’
‘I would not have done otherwise, sir.’
‘Excellent. Now, gather our soldiers. I would we leave here as soon as we can.’
‘Yes sir, with pleasure.’
heave Letur Anict to his world made simpler. What he would have it to be and what it is, are not the same. And that, dear Factor, is the path to ruin. You will walk it without me.
Clip stood facing south. His right hand was raised, the chain and its rings looped tight. He’d not spun it for more than a dozen heartbeats. His hair, left unbound, stirred in the wind. A few paces away, Silchas Ruin sat on a boulder, running a whetstone along the edge of one of his singing swords.
Snow drifted down from a pale blue sky, some high-altitude version of a sun-shower, perhaps, or winds had lifted the flakes from the young peaks that reared on all sides but directly ahead. The air was bitter, so dry that wool sparked and crackled. They had crossed the last of the broken plateau the day before, leaving behind the mass of shattered black stone that marked its cratered centre. The climb this morning had been treacherous, as so many slabs of stone under foot were sheathed in ice. Reaching the crest of the caldera in late afternoon light, they found themselves looking upon a vast descending slope, stretching north for half a league or more to a tundra plain. Beyond that the horizon reached in a flat, hazy white line. Ice fields, Fear Sengar had said, to which Udinaas had laughed.
Seren Pedac paced restlessly along the ridge. She had been walking with the others, well behind Clip and Silchas Ruin. There was light left to continue, yet the young Tiste Andii had perched himself on the crest to stare back the way they had come. Silent, expressionless.
She walked over to stand before Udinaas, who had taken to carrying the Imass spear again and was now seated on a rock poking the spear’s point into the mossy turf. ‘What is happening here?’ she asked him in a low voice. ‘Do you know?’
‘Familiar with the jarack bird, Acquitor? The grey-crested thief and murderer of the forest?’
She nodded.
‘And what happens when a jarack female finds a nest containing some other’s bird’s hatchlings? An unguarded nest?’
‘It kills and eats the chicks.’
He smiled. ‘True. Commonly known. But jaracks do something else on occasion, earlier in the season. They push out an egg and leave one of their own. The other birds seem blind to the exchange. And when the jarack hatches, of course it kills and eats its rivals.’
‘Then sounds its call,’ she said. ‘But it’s a call that seems no different from those of the other bird’s chicks. And those birds come with food in their beaks.’
‘Only to be ambushed by the two adult jaracks waiting nearby and killed in the nest. Another meal for their hatchling.’
‘Jaracks are in every way unpleasant birds. Why are we talking about jaracks, Udinaas?’
‘No reason, really. But sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves that we humans are hardly unique in our cruelty.’
‘The Fent believed that jaracks are the souls of abandoned children who died alone in the forest. And so they yearn for a home and a family, yet are so driven to rage when they find them they destroy all that they desire.’
‘The Fent were in the habit of abandoning children?’
Seren Pedac grimaced. ‘Only in the last hundred or so years.’
‘Impediments to their self-destructive appetites, I should think.’
She said nothing to that comment, yet in her mind’s eye she saw Hull Beddict suddenly standing beside her, drawing to his full height, reaching down to take Udinaas by the throat and dragging the man upright.
Udinaas suddenly bolted forward, choking, one hand clawing up towards her.
Seren Pedac stepped back. No, dammit! She struggled to cast the vision away.
It would not leave.
Eyes bulging, face blackening, Udinaas closed his own hands about his neck, but there was nothing to pull away-
‘Seren!’ Kettle shrieked.
Errant fend! What, how… oh, I’m killing him! Hull Beddict stood, crushing the life from Udinaas. She wanted to reach out to him, drag his grip loose, but she knew she would not be strong enough. No, she realized, she needed someone else-
And conjured into the scene within her mind another figure, stepping close, lithe and half seen. A hand flashing up, striking Hull Beddict in his own throat. The Letherii staggered back, then fell to one knee, even as he released Udinaas. Hull then reached for his sword.
A spear shaft scythed into view, caught Hull flat on the forehead, snapping his head back. He toppled.
The Edur warrior now stood between Hull Beddict and Udinaas, spear held in a guard position.
Seeing him, seeing his face, sent Seren reeling back. Trull Sengar? Trull-
The vision faded, was gone.
Coughing, gasping, Udinaas rolled onto his side.
Kettle rushed to crouch beside the ex-slave.
A hand closed on Seren’s shoulder and swung her round. She found herself staring up into Fear’s face, and wondered at the warrior’s strange expression. He-he could not have seen. That would be-
‘Shorn,’ Fear whispered. ‘Older. A sadness-’ He broke off” then, unable to go on, and twisted away.
