‘Remember temples?’ she asked the boy beside her. ‘Fathers in robes, the bowls filling with coins no one could eat. And on the walls gems winked like drops of blood. Those temples, they were like giant fists built to batter us down, to take our spirits and chain them to worldly fears. We were supposed to shred the skin from our souls and accept the pain and punishment as just. The temples told us we were flawed and then promised to heal us. All we needed to do was pay and pray. Coin for absolution and calluses on the knees, but remember how splendid those robes were! That’s what we paid for.’

And the Quitters came among us, down from the north. They walked like the broken, and when they spoke, souls crumpled like eggshells. They came with white hands and left with red hands.

Words have power.

She lifted a hand and pointed at the city. ‘But this temple is different. It was not built for adoration. It was built to warn us. Remember the cities, Saddic? Cities exist to gather the suffering beneath the killer’s sword. Swords-more than anyone could even count. So many swords. In the hands of priests and Quitters and merchant houses and noble warriors and slavers and debt-holders and keepers of food and water-so many. Cities are mouths, Saddic, filled with sharp teeth.’ She snapped another fly from the air. Chewed. Swallowed.

‘Lead them now,’ she said to the boy beside her. ‘Follow Rutt. And keep an eye on Brayderal. Danger comes. The time of the Quitters has arrived. Go, lead them after Rutt. Begin!’

He looked upon her with alarm, but she waved him away, and set out for the snake’s tattered tail.

The Quitters were coming.

To begin the last slaughter.

Inquisitor Sever stood looking down on the body of Brother Beleague, seeing as if for the first time the emaciated travesty of the young man she had once known and loved. On her left was Brother Adroit, breathing fast and shallow, hunched and wracked with tremors. The bones of his spine and shoulders were bowed like an old man’s, legacy of this journey’s terrible deficiencies. His nose was rotting, a raw wound glistening and crawling with flies.

To her right was Sister Rail, her gaunt face thin as a hatchet, her eyes rimmed in dull, dry red. She had little hair left-that lustrous mane was long gone, and with it the last vestiges of the beauty she had once possessed.

Sister Scorn had collected Beleague’s staff and now leant upon it as would a cripple. The joints of her elbows, high-wrists and wrists were inflamed and swollen with fluids, but Sever knew that strength remained within her. Scorn was the last Adjudicator among them.

When they had set out to deliver peace upon the last of the south-dwellers-these children-they had numbered twelve. Among them, three of the original five women still lived, and but one of the seven men. Inquisitor Sever accepted responsibility for this tragic error in judgement. Of course, who could have imagined that thousands of helpless children could march league upon league through this tortured land, bereft of shelter, their hands empty? Outlasting the wild dogs, the cannibal raiders among the last of the surviving adults, and the wretched parasites swarming the ground and the skies above-no, not one Inquisitor could have anticipated this terrible will to survive.

Surrender was the easy choice, the simplest decision of all. They should have given up long ago.

And we would now be home. And my mate could stand before his daughter and feel such pride at her courage and purity-that she chose to walk with the human children, that she chose to guide her kin to the delivery of peace.

And I would not now be standing above the body of my dead son.

It was understood-it had always been understood-that no human was an equal to the Forkrul Assail. Proof was delivered a thousand times a day-and towards the end, ten thousand, as the pacification of the south kingdoms reached its blessed conclusion. Not once had the Shriven refused their submission; not once had a single pathetic human straightened in challenge. The hierarchy was unassailable.

But these children did not accept that righteous truth. In ignorance they found strength. In foolishness they found defiance.

‘The city,’ said Scorn, her voice a broken thing. ‘We cannot permit it.’

Sever nodded. ‘The investment is absolute, yes. We cannot hope to storm it.’

Adroit said, ‘Its own beauty, yes. To challenge would be suicide.’

The women turned at that and he flinched back a step. ‘Deny me? The clarity of my vision?’

Sever sighed, gaze dropping once more to her dead son. ‘We cannot. It is absolute. It shines.’

‘And now the boy with the baby leads them to it,’ said Sister Rail. ‘Unacceptable.’

‘Agreed,’ said Sever. ‘We may fail to return, but we shall not fail in what we set out to do. Adjudicator, will you lead us into peace?’

‘I am ready,’ Scorn replied, straightening and holding out the staff. ‘Wield this, Inquisitor, my need for it has ended.’

She longed to turn away, to reject Scorn’s offer. My son’s weapon. Fashioned by my own hands and then surrendered to him. I should never have touched it again.

‘Honour him,’ Scorn said.

‘I shall.’ She took the iron-shod staff, and then faced the others. ‘Gather up the last of your strength. I judge four thousand remain-a long day of slaughter awaits us.’

‘They are unarmed,’ said Rail. ‘Weak.’

‘Yes. In the delivering of peace, we will remind them of that truth.’

Scorn set out. Sever and the others fell in behind the Adjudicator. When they drew closer, they would fan out, to make room for the violence they would unleash.

Not one Shriven would ever reach the city. And the boy with the baby would die last. By my husband’s daughter’s hand. Because she lives, she still lives.

Something like panic gripped the children, dragging Brayderal along in a rushing tide. Swearing, she tried to pull loose, but hands reached out, clutched tight, pushed her onwards. She should have been able to defy them all, but she had overestimated her reserves of strength-she was more damaged than she had believed.

She saw Saddic, leading this charge. Plunging after Rutt, who was now almost at the city’s threshold. But of Badalle there was no sign. This detail frightened her. There is something about her. She is transformed, but I do not know how. She is somehow… quickened.

Her kin had finally comprehended the danger. They waited no longer.

Scuffed, tugged and pushed, she waited for the first screams behind her.

Words. I have nothing but words. I cast away many of them, only to have others find me. What can words achieve? Here in this hard, real place? But doubts themselves are nothing but words, a troubled song in my head. When I speak, the snakes listen. Their eyes are wide. But what happens to all I say, once the words slip into them? Alchemies. Sometimes the mixture froths and bubbles. Sometimes it boils. Sometimes, nothing stirs and the potion lies dead, cold and grey as mud. Who can know? Who can predict?

I speak softly when all that I say is a howl. I pound upon bone with my fists, and they hear naught but whispers. Savage words will thud against dead flesh. But the slow drip of blood, ah, then they are content as cats at a stream.

Badalle hurried along, and it seemed the snake parted, as if her passage was ripping it in two. She saw skeletal faces, shining eyes, limbs wrapped in skin dry as leather. She saw thigh bones from ribbers picked up on the trail-held like weapons-but what good would they do against the Quitters?

I have words and nothing else. And, in these words, I have no faith. They cannot topple walls. They cannot crush mountains down to dust. The faces swam past her. She knew them all, and they were nothing but blurs, each one smeared inside tears.