“I wanted to stop the war,” she said. “I wanted to stop all this from happening. I wanted to save you-”

“Can’t,” said Odin. “Prophecy.”

Maddy began to protest, but Odin shook his head. “Let me-see you-again,” he said as, blindly and with great gentleness, he raised his hand to Maddy’s face.

For a moment Maddy held her breath as his fingers moved from her cheek to her chin, lingered at her forehead; traced the lines of sorrow and stubbornness around her mouth, the slight wetness around her eyes.

A good face, Odin thought. Strong but gentle-though perhaps not so wise…

He smiled and lowered his head to the sand.

And behind them the Nameless stepped in to deliver the final blow.

Meanwhile, at last, Nat and the Folk had reached the clearing. Passing unseen through the ghostly ranks, they found themselves mesmerized by the scene unfolding before them.

Ethel recognized it and sighed.

Adam gaped at it, openmouthed.

Dorian clutched Fat Lizzy.

Sugar looked down at the Captain’s runestone resting in the palm of his hand, and his stomach lurched as he saw it pulse with a violet light-just once, and faintly, like a heart that has not quite stopped beating.

Oh no, Sugar thought. Surely not. Not now…

The runestone flared, a little brighter this time, and a strange little shiver went up Sugar’s spine, almost as if a familiar voice-

You’re beyond reprieve. You said it yourself. There’s nowt I can do.

He made as if to drop the stone. But as he emerged from the Order’s ranks, he found himself still gripping it tightly and pushed it deep into his pocket. Perhaps there was something after all. You never did know with runes.

Nat Parson stared in wonderment, his eyes filled with the glory of the Nameless. He had traveled so far-suffered so much for the sake of this moment-that he hardly dared hope that he had reached it at last.

This Being shot through with wonderful lights; this terrible, glorious, all-powerful Being, born in Aspect from the stone Head-could this be the Word his heart had longed for? Slowly he began to push his way through air that was curdled with glamours and barbs. No one reached a hand to stop him; no one saw the joy in his eyes as he moved toward the two opponents.

“Don’t cry, My dear,” the Nameless said. “I told you that you were special.”

Maddy turned to look at it as it stood over her, lifting its staff. Glamours clung to it like wool to a spindle, spitting sheaves of static into the dead air. It was impressive; Maddy sensed she should have been impressed. But the ground was wet with One-Eye’s blood and the color of it was all she could see; that red, like Harvestmonth poppies, on the desert sand…

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, as once she had told a one-eyed Journeyman long ago, on Red Horse Hill.

The Nameless smiled. “I’m glad,” it said. “Because you and I are going to be very close.”

Now, Maddy had not heard the conversation between Odin and the Nameless as they fought it out across the plain. But she was no fool, and the thought had already crossed her mind that if Loki’s body could be used to make another live again, then perhaps the same was true of hers. An unmarked body was best, of course; One-Eye’s was damaged-perhaps beyond repair-but her own was healthy and, more importantly, her unbroken glam would give its bearer the power of gods…

She narrowed her eyes at the Nameless. “Special?” she said.

“Very special, Maddy,” it said. “You’re going to take us to the stars. Together we’re going to rewrite Creation from the top. Rebuild the Sky Citadel. Remake what the Æsir destroyed through their greed and carelessness. Instead of Nine Worlds in opposition, there will be only One World. Our World. A World where things make proper sense. A World with Good and Evil in their proper places and One God ruling everything, forever and always-”

Maddy gave it a scornful look. “That sounds a lot like something One-Eye used to call gobshite.”

The Nameless brightened angrily. “You think you have a choice?” it snapped. “You heard the prophecy.”

Maddy smiled. “I see an army poised for battle. I see a general standing alone. I see a traitor at the gate. I see a sacrifice.” She leveled her dark gray eyes at the Whisperer. “I asked you once if you thought I was supposed to be the sacrifice.”

No! said Odin.

No one heard.

Maddy looked around-at Hel, this time standing in silence with her dead profile averted; at Balder, clothed in Loki’s flesh; at the ten thousand troops-minus a few-standing in eerie silence before them.

“Don’t think of it as a sacrifice,” it said in its most soothing voice. “Think of it as a new beginning. You won’t be dead-you’ll just be Me, as everything else will just be Me. I’ll leave My mark on every blade of grass, every drop of water, every human heart-and everything will worship Me, and love Me, and fear Me, and be judged…”

It paused for effect and pulled back its hood. Its Aspect was almost completed, the stone Head it had occupied for so many years now standing forgotten to one side. Maddy could see her own colors swimming faintly behind those of the Whisperer and feel a kind of static in her hair and teeth as the Word gathered all around her.

Ten thousand dead were ready with it; ten thousand corpses drew breath. And in the anticipation of the Word, no one saw the small, cautious figure of Sugar-and-Sack as he left the shelter of his group and moved softly across the dead sand, unremarked and unregarded, in the direction of the two adversaries.

Now, Sugar was far from heroic material. As far as he was concerned, he should never have been a part of this business in the first place. The General was dead-or as good as-the Captain was dead-or worse than-and Maddy was about to be consumed by the Nameless, which made her at least as dead as both of them.

He really didn’t know why he didn’t just run. No rune or cantrip forced him to act. No profit was likely to come to him. Not even the runestone bound him now, though he could still feel the force of its pulse, as if some part of the Captain were still trapped there, urging him on in a soft voice.

It wasn’t even as if he quite understood what he was expected to do-or why-and yet he kept moving, low to the ground, toward the nasty old glam-the Whisperer-that had started all this off in the first place and that now lay forgotten to one side as the thing that had blossomed out of the stone moved closer to Maddy and spoke.

“Dear girl,” said the Nameless. “Listen to Me.”

And such was its glamour that she almost obeyed, almost succumbed to the mellifluous voice. “You’re so tired, Maddy,” the Nameless went on. “You deserve to rest. Don’t fight Me now that we’ve come so close…”

And now the dead began to speak, their voices toneless as the drifting sand.

I name you Modi, child of Thor,

Child of Jarnsaxa, child of wrath.

I name you Aesk,

I name you Ash-

Maddy had fewer names than One-Eye, and she knew that her canticle was likely to be short. Already she could feel it working on her: her head was heavy, her legs half rooted to the ground…

With an effort she shook herself. “Fight you?” she said. “I suppose I could try.” And she pulled out of her pocket not a rune, not a glamour, not a mindsword, but a simple country clasp knife, such as might be carried by any smith or farmer’s boy in Malbry and beyond.

And now Maddy could see something truly surprising-Maddy, who had thought never to be surprised by anything ever again. It might be a mirage, she told herself, but wasn’t that Ethelberta Parson, with Dorian Scattergood at her side, and Adam Scattergood, and Nat Parson-and could that be…a potbellied pig?