He glared about, as if in the day’s fading light he might see her floating spirit, a wraith with a dirt-smeared face and disbelieving eyes. No, eyes with the patience of the eternally freed. Freed from all this. Freed… from everything. In a new place. Where no sickness grows inside, where the body does not clench and writhe, flinching at the siren calls of every twinge, every ache.

Spirits of stone, give me peace!

Maral Eb’s army had doubled in size, as survivors from shattered encampments staggered in from all directions-shame-faced at living when wives, husbands and children had died beneath the iron of the treacherous Akrynnai. Many arrived bearing no weapons, shorn of armour, proof that they had been routed, had fled in waves of wide-eyed cowardice. Cold waters were known to wash upon warriors in the midst of battle, even Barghast warriors, and the tug of currents could lift into a raging flood where all reason drowned, where escape was a need that overwhelmed duty and honour. Cold waters left the faces of the survivors grey and bloated, stinking of guilt.

But Maral Eb had been sobered enough by the news of the defeats to cast no righteous judgement upon these refugees with their skittish eyes. Clearly, he understood he would need every warrior he could muster, although Bakal knew as well as anyone how such warriors, once drowned beneath panic, were now broken inside-worse, in the instant when a battle tottered on the fulcrum’s point, their terror could return. They could doom the battle, as their panic flooded out and infected everyone else.

No word had come from the Senan. It seemed that, thus far at least, the Akrynnai had yet to descend upon Bakal’s own clan. Soon, Maral Eb would grasp hold of the Senan army and claim it for himself. And then he would lead them all against the deceitful Sceptre Irkullas.

A thousand curses rode the breaths of the mass of warriors. It was obvious now that the Akryn had been planning this war for some time, trickling in and out their so-called merchants as spies, working towards the perfect moment for betrayal. How else could the Sceptre assemble such forces so quickly? For every refugee insisted that the enemy numbered in the tens of thousands.

Bakal believed none of it. This was the war Onos Toolan did not want. The wrong war. Maral Eb walked flanked by his two brothers, and surrounding these three was a mob of strutting idiots, each one vying to find the perfect words to please their new Warleader and his two hood-eyed, murderous siblings. Arguments sending the arrow of blame winging away. Onos Toolan was no longer alive and so less useful as a target, although some murky residue remained, like handfuls of shit awaiting any rivals among the Senan. Now it was the Akrynnai-Irkullas and his lying, cheating, spying horsemongers.

By the time this army arrived at the Senan camp, they would be blazing with the righteous fury of innocent victims.

‘whatever he needs,’ Strahl had said at the noon break. ‘Falsehoods cease being false when enough people believe them, Bakal. Instead, they blaze like eternal truths, and woe to the fool who tries pissing a stream on that. They’ll tear you to pieces.’

Strahl’s words were sound, ringing clear and true upon the anvil, leaving Bakal’s disgust to chew him on the inside with no way out. That ache warred with the one in his barely mended elbow, making his stride stiff and awkward. But neither one could assail the shame and self-hatred that closed a fist round his soul. Murderer of Onos Toolan. So fierce the thrust that he broke his arm. Look upon him, friends, and see a true White Face Barghast! He had heard as much from Maral Eb’s cronies. While behind him trudged his fellow Senan warriors, nothing like the triumphant slayers of Onos Toolan they pretended to be. Silent, grim as shoulderwomen at a funeral. Because we share this crime. He made us kill him to save our own lives. He made us cowards. He made me a coward.

Bakal felt like an old man, and each time his gaze caught upon those three broad backs arrayed like bonepicker birds at the head of the trail, it was another white-hot stone tossed into the cauldron. Soon to boil, yes, raging until the blackened pot boiled dry. All that useless steam.

What will you do with my people, Maral Eb? When Irkullas shatters us again, where will we run to? He needed to think. He needed to find a way out of this. Could he and his warriors convince the rest of the clan to refuse Maral Eb? Refuse this suicidal war? Teeth grating, Bakal began to understand the burdens under which Onos Toolan had laboured. The impossibility of things.

The real war is against stupidity. How could I not have understood that? Oh, an easy answer to that question. I was among the stupidest of the lot. And yet, Onos Toolan, you stood before me and met my eyes-you gave me what I did not deserve.

And look at me now. When Maral Eb stands before me, I choke at the very sight of him. His flush of triumph, his smirk, the drunken eyes. I am ready to spew into his face-and if I had any food in my guts I would probably do just that, unable to help myself.

Onos Toolan, you should have killed us-every warrior you brought with you. Be done with the stupid ones, be done with us all-instead, you leave us with the perfect legacy of our idiocy. Maral Eb. Precisely the leader we deserve.

And for our misplaced faith, he will kill everyone.

Bakal bared his teeth until the wind dried them like sun-baked stones. He would do nothing. He would defy even Strahl and his companions here. There would be justice after all. An ocean of it to feed the thirsty ground. So long as he did nothing, said nothing.

Lead us, Maral Eb-you are become the standard of Tool’s truth. You are his warning to us, which we refused to heed. So, warrior of the Imass, you shall have your vengeance after all.

Strahl spoke at his side. ‘I have seen such smiles, friend, upon the warrior I am about to slay-the brave ones who face their deaths unflinching. I see… crazed contempt, as if they say to me: “Do what you must. You cannot reach me-my flesh, yes, my life, but not my soul. Drive home your blade, warrior! The final joke is on you!’ ” His laugh was a low snarl. ‘And so it is, because it is a joke I will not get until I am in their place, facing down my own death.’

‘Then,’ said Bakal, ‘you will have to wait.’ But not for long. And when the time comes I too will laugh at this perfect jest.

The place belonged to Stolmen, but it was his wife who walked at the head of the Gadra column. And it was to Sekara the Vile that the scouts reported during the long march to the Senan encampment-which was now less than half a league away.

Her husband’s face was set in a scowl as he trudged three paces behind her. The expression did not belong to offended fury, however. Confusion and fear were the sources of his anger, the befuddled misery of the unintelligent man. Things were moving too fast. Essential details were being kept from him. He did not understand and this made him frightened. He had right to be. Sekara was beginning to realize that his usefulness was coming to an end-oh, there were advantages to ruling through him, should that opportunity arise in the aftermath of the imminent power struggle, but better a husband who actually comprehended his titular function-assuming it was even necessary, since many a past warleader had been a woman. Although, truth be said, such women were invariably warriors, possessing the status of experienced campaigners.

Sekara had fought many battles, of course, in her own style. She had laid sieges, in tents and in yurts. She had drawn blood beneath the furs in the armour of night, had driven knives-figurative and literal-into the hearts of scores of lovers. She had unleashed precision ambushes with utter ruthlessness, and had stared down seemingly insurmountable odds. Her list of triumphs was well nigh unending. But few would countenance any of that. They held to out-of-fashion notions of prowess and glory, and for Sekara this had proved and would ever prove the greatest obstacle to her ascension.