There were no Tiste Edur in sight.

From her right, three men shambling like marauders. One carried a bloodstained club, another a single-handed sickle. The third man was dragging a dead or unconscious girl-child by one foot.

They saw her. The one with the club smiled. ‘We was coming to c’llect you, Acquitor. Woke up wanting more, did ya?’

She did not recognize any of them, but there was terrible familiarity in their eyes as they looked upon her.

‘The city’s fallen,’ the man continued, drawing closer. ‘But we got a way out, an’ we’re taking you with us.’

The one with the sickle laughed. ‘We’ve decided to keep you to ourselves, lass. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe.’

Seren curled tighter against the wall.

‘Hold there!’

A new voice. The three men looked up.

Iron-haired, blue-eyed – she recognized the newcomer. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. She’d never seen armour like that before: she would have remembered the blood-red surcoat. A plain sword at the stranger’s left hip, which he was not reaching towards.

‘It’s that foreign bastard,’ the man with the club said. ‘Find your own.’

‘I just have,’ he replied. ‘Been looking for her the last two days-’

‘She’s ours,’ said the sickle-wielder.

‘No closer,’ the third man growled, raising the child in one hand as if he meant to use the body for a weapon.

Which, Seren now saw, he had done already. Oh, please be dead, child. Please have been dead all along…

‘You know us, foreigner,’ the man with the club said.

‘Oh yes, you’re the terrors of the shanty town. I’ve heard all about your exploits. Which puts me at an advantage.’

‘How so?’

The stranger continued walking closer. She saw something in his eyes, as he said, ‘Because you haven’t heard a thing about mine.’

Club swung. Sickle flashed. Body whipped through the air.

And the girl-child was caught by the stranger, who then reached one hand over, palm up, and seemed to push his fingertips under the man’s chin.

She didn’t understand.

The man with the club was on the ground. The other had his own sickle sticking from his chest and he stood staring down at it. Then he toppled.

A snap. Flood and spray of blood.

The stranger stepped back, tucking the girl-child’s body under his right arm, the hand of his left holding, like a leather-wrapped handle from a pail, the third man’s lower jaw.

Horrible grunting sounds from the staggering figure to her right. Bulging eyes, a spattered gust of breath.

The stranger tossed the mandible away with its attendant lower palate and tongue. He set the child down, then stepped closer to the last man. ‘I don’t like what you did. I don’t like anything you’ve done, but most of all, I don’t like what you did to this woman here, and that child. So, I am going to make you hurt. A lot.’

The man spun as if to flee. Then he slammed onto the cobbles, landing on his chest, his feet taken out from under him – but Seren didn’t see how it had happened.

With serene patience, the stranger crouched over him. Two blurred punches to either side of the man’s spine, almost at neck level, and she heard breastbones snap. Blood was pooling around the man’s head.

The stranger shifted to reach down between the man’s legs.

‘Stop.’

He looked over, brows lifting.

‘Stop. Kill him. Clean. Kill him clean, Iron Bars.’

‘Are you sure?’

From the buildings opposite, faces framed by windows. Eyes fixed, staring down.

‘Enough,’ she said, the word a croak.

‘All right.’

He leaned back. One punch to the back of the man’s head. It folded inward. And all was still.

Iron Bars straightened. ‘All right?’

All right, yes.

The Crimson Guardsman came closer. ‘My fault,’ he said. ‘I had to sleep, thought you’d be safe for a bit. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’

‘The child?’

A pained look. ‘Run down by horses, I think. Some time past.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Trate’s falling. The Edur fleet held off. Until Nekal Bara and Arahathan were finished. Then closed. The defences were swarmed by shadow wraiths. Then the warriors landed. It was bad, Acquitor.’ He glanced over a shoulder, said, ‘At about that time, an army came down from inland. Swept the undermanned fortifications and, not a hundred heartbeats ago, finally succeeded in knocking down the North Gate. The Edur are taking their time, killing every soldier they find. No quarter. So far, they’ve not touched non-combatants. But that’s no guarantee of anything, is it?’

He helped her to stand, and she flinched at the touch of his hands – those weapons, stained with murder.

If he noticed he gave nothing away. ‘My Blade’s waiting. Corlo’s managed to find a warren in this damned Hood-pit – first time in the two years we been stuck here. What the Edur brought, he says. That’s why.’

She realized they were walking now. Taking winding alleys and avoiding the main thoroughfares. The sound of slaughter was on all sides. Iron Bars suddenly hesitated, cocked his head. ‘Damn, we’ve been cut off.’

Dragged into the slaughter. Bemused witness to the killing of hapless, disorganized soldiers. Wondering if the moneylenders would be next. Udinaas was left staggering in the wake of the emperor of the Tiste Edur and twelve frenzied warriors as they waded through flesh, cutting lives down as if clearing a path through reeds.

Rhulad was displaying skill that did not belong to him. His arms were a blur, his every move heedless and fearless. And he was gibbering, the manic sound punctuated every now and then by a scream that was as much terror as it was rage. Not a warrior triumphant. Neither berserk nor swathed in drenched glory. A killer… killing.

An Edur warrior near him fell to a Letherii soldier’s desperate sword-thrust, and the emperor shrieked, lunged forward. The mottled sword swung, and blood splashed like water. His laughter pulled at his breath, making him gasp. Edur faces flashed furtively towards their savage ruler.

Down the street, carving through a rearguard of some sort. Udinaas stumbled over corpses, writhing, weeping figures. Blind with dying, men called for their mothers, and to these the slave reached down and touched a shoulder, or laid fingertips to slick foreheads, and murmured, ‘I’m here, my boy. It’s all right. You can go now.’

The apologetic priest, chain-snapped forward step by step, whispering hollow blessings, soft lies, forgiving even as he prayed for someone – something – to forgive him in turn. But no-one touched him, no fingertips brushed his brow.

For the burned villages. Retribution. Where were the moneylenders? This war belonged to them, after all.

Another hundred paces. Three more Edur were down. Rhulad and eight brethren. Fighting on. Where was the rest of the army?

Somewhere else.

If one could always choose the right questions, then every answer could be as obvious. A clever revelation, he was on to something here…

Another Edur screamed, skidded and fell over, face smacking the street.

Rhulad killed two more soldiers, and suddenly no-one stood in their path.

Halting in strange consternation, trapped in the centre of an intersection, drifts of smoke sliding past.

From the right, a sudden arrival.

Two Edur reeled back, mortally wounded.

The attacker reached out with his left hand, and a third Edur warrior’s head snapped round with a loud crack.

Clash of blades, more blood, another Edur toppling, then the attacker was through and wheeling about.

Rhulad leapt to meet him. Swords – one heavy and mottled, the other modest, plain – collided, and somehow were bound together with a twist and pronation of the stranger’s wrist, whilst his free hand blurred out and over the weapons, palm connecting with Rhulad’s forehead.

Breaking the emperor’s neck with a loud snap.