'Now you got me curious,' Fiddler said. 'Here you are, marching with us once again, Apsalar, when I'd figured you'd be settled in some coastal village back in Itko Kan, knitting greasy sweaters for your da. Maybe you left Crokus behind, but it seems to me you ain't left nothing else behind.'

'We travel this same road,' she said, 'for the moment. Sergeant, you need fear nothing from me.'

'And what about the rest of us?' Quick Ben asked.

She did not reply.

Sudden unease whispered through Kalam. He met Quick's eyes for a brief moment, then faced forward once more. 'Let's just catch up with that damned army first.'

'I'd like to see Pearl disposed of,' Quick Ben said.

No-one spoke for a long moment. It wasn't often that the wizard voiced his desire so… brazenly, and Kalam realized, with a chill, that things were getting bad. Maybe even desperate. But it wasn't that easy. Like that rooftop in Darujhistan – invisible enemies on all sides – you look and look but see nothing.

Pearl, who was once Salk Elan. Mockra warren… and a blade sliding like fire into my back. Everyone thinks Topper's the master in the Claw, but I wonder… can you take him, Kalam? Quick's got his doubts – he's just offered to help. Gods below, maybe I am getting old. 'You never answered me, friend,' the assassin said to Quick Ben.

'What was the question again?'

'Ever get tired of your own memories?'

'Oh, that one.'

'Well?'

'Kalam, you have no idea.'

Fiddler didn't like this conversation. In fact, he hated it, and was relieved as everyone fell silent once more, walking the dusty track, every step pushing that damned ruin of a city further behind them. He knew he should be back in the column, with his squad, or maybe up ahead, trying to pry stuff loose from Faradan Sort – that captain was full of surprises, wasn't she just. She'd saved all their lives – there was no doubting that – but that didn't mean that he had to trust her. Not yet, despite the truth that he wanted to, for some arcane reason he'd yet to comprehend.

The little girl with the runny nose sniffled in her sleep, one small hand clutching his left shoulder. Her other hand was at her mouth, and her sucking on her thumb made tiny squeaking sounds. In his arms, she weighed next to nothing.

His squad had come through intact. Only Balm, and maybe Hellian, could say the same. So, three squads out of what, ten? Eleven? Thirty? Moak' s soldiers had been entirely wiped out – the Eleventh Squad was gone, and that was a number that would never be resurrected in the future history of the Fourteenth. The captain had settled on the numbers, adding the Thirteenth for Sergeant Urb, and it turned out that Fiddler's own, the Fourth, was the lowest number on the rung. This part of Ninth Company had taken a beating, and Fiddler had few hopes for the rest, the ones that hadn't made it to the Grand Temple. Worse yet, they'd lost too many sergeants. Borduke, Mosel, Moak, Sobelone, Tugg.

Well, all right, we're beaten up, but we're alive.

He dropped back a few paces, resumed his march alongside Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas. The last survivor of Leoman's rebel army – barring Leoman himself – had said little, although the scowl knotting his expression suggested his thoughts were anything but calm. A scrawny boy was riding his shoulders, head bobbing and dipping as he dozed.

'I was thinking,' Fiddler said, 'of attaching you to my squad. We were always one short.'

'Is it that simple, Sergeant?' Corabb asked. 'You Malazans are strange. I cannot yet be a soldier in your army, for I have not yet impaled a babe on a spear.'

'Corabb, the sliding bed is a Seven Cities invention, not a Malazan one.'

'What has that to do with it?'

'I mean, Malazans don't stick babes on spears.'

'Is it not your rite of passage?'

'Who has been telling you this rubbish? Leoman?'

The man frowned. 'No. But such beliefs were held to among the followers of the Apocalypse.'

'Isn't Leoman one such follower?'

'I think not. No, never. I was blind to that. Leoman believed in himself and no other. Until that Mezla bitch he found in Y'Ghatan.'

'He found himself a woman, did he? No wonder he went south.'

'He did not go south, Sergeant. He fled into a warren.'

'A figure of speech.'

'He went with his woman. She will destroy him, I am sure of that, and now I say that is only what Leoman deserves. Let Dunsparrow ruin him, utterly-'

'Hold on,' Fiddler cut in, as an uncanny shiver rose through him, 'did you call her Dunsparrow?'

'Yes, for such she named herself.'

'A Malazan?'

'Yes, tall and miserable. She would mock me. Me, Corabb Bhilan Thenu' alas, Leoman's Second, until I became his Third, the one he was content to leave behind. To die with all the others.'

Fiddler barely heard him. 'Dunsparrow,' he repeated.

'Do you know the hag? The witch? The seductress and corrupter?'

Gods, I once tossed her on my knee. He realized of a sudden that he was clawing a hand through the remnants of his singed, snarled hair, unmindful of the snags, indifferent to the tears that started from his eyes. The girl squirmed. He stared over at Corabb, unseeing, then hurried ahead, feeling dizzy, feeling… appalled. Dunsparrow… she'd be in her twenties now. Middle twenties, I suppose. What was she doing in Y'Ghatan?

He pushed between Kalam and Quick Ben, startling both men.

'Fid?'

'Tug Hood's snake till he shrieks,' the sapper said. 'Drown the damned Queen of Dreams in her own damned pool. Friends, you won't believe who went with Leoman into that warren. You won't believe who shared Leoman's bed in Y'Ghatan. No, you won't believe anything I say.'

'Abyss take you, Fid,' Kalam said in exasperation, 'what are you talking about?'

'Dunsparrow. That's who's at Leoman's side right now. Dunsparrow.

Whiskeyjack's little sister and I don't know – I don't know anything – what to think, only I want to scream and I don't know why even there, no, I don't know anything any more. Gods, Quick – Kalam – what does it mean? What does any of it mean?'

'Calm down,' Quick Ben said, but his voice was strangely high, tight.

'For us, for us, I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. It's a damned coincidence and even if it isn't, it's not like it means anything, not really. It's just… peculiar, that's all. We knew she was a stubborn, wild little demon, we knew that, even then – and you knew her better than us, me and Kalam, we only met her once, in Malaz City. But you, you were like her uncle, which means you got some explaining to do!'

Fiddler stared at the man, at his wide eyes. 'Me? You've lost your mind, Quick. Listen to you! Blaming me, for her! Wasn't nothing to do with me!'

'Stop it, both of you,' Kalam said. 'You're frightening the soldiers behind us. Look, we're all too nervous right now, about all sorts of things, to be able to make sense of any of this, assuming there's any sense to be made. People choose their own lives, what they do, where they end up, it don't mean some god's playing around. So, Whiskeyjack' s little sister is now Leoman's lover, and they're both hiding out in the Queen of Dreams' warren. All right, better that than crumbling bones in the ashes of Y'Ghatan, right? Well?'

'Maybe, maybe not,' Fiddler said.

'What in Hood's name does that mean?' Kalam demanded.

Fiddler drew a deep, shaky breath. 'We must have told you, it's not like it was secret or anything, and we always used it as an excuse, to explain her, the way she was and all that. Never so she could hear, of course, and we said it to take its power away-'

'Fiddler!'

The sapper winced at Kalam's outburst. 'Now who's frightening everyone-'

'You are! And never mind everyone else – you're frightening me, damn you!'