'They are as thinly stretched as we are, Minala.'

'Ah, then I cannot expect more Aptorians. What of the other demons of your realm, Cotillion? Azalan? Dinal? Can you give us nothing?'

'We can,' he said. 'But not now.'

'When?'

He looked at her. 'When the need is greatest.'

Minala stepped close. 'You bastard. I had thirteen hundred. Now I have four hundred still capable of fighting.' She jabbed a finger towards the area beyond the choke-point. 'Almost three hundred more lie dying of wounds – and there is nothing I can do for them!'

'Shadowthrone will be informed,' Cotillion said. 'He will come. He will heal your wounded-'

'When?'

The word was nearly a snarl.

'When I leave here,' he replied, 'I am returning directly to Shadowkeep. Minala, I would speak with the others.'

'Who? Why?'

Cotillion frowned, then said, The renegade. Your Tiste Edur. I have… questions.'

'I have never seen such skill with the spear. Trull Sengar kills, and kills, and then, when it is done and he kneels in the blood of the kin he has slain, he weeps.'

'Do they know him?' Cotillion asked. 'Do they call him by name?'

'No. He says they are Den-Ratha, and young. Newly blooded. But he then says, it is only a matter of time. Those Edur that succeed in withdrawing, they must be reporting the presence of an Edur among the defenders of the First Throne. Trull says that one of his own tribe will be among the attackers, and he will be recognized – and it is then, he says, that they will come in force, with warlocks. He says, Cotillion, that he will bring ruin upon us all.'

'Does he contemplate leaving?' Cotillion asked.

She scowled. 'To that he gives no answer. If he did, I would not blame him. And,' she added, 'if he chooses to stay, I may well die with his name the last curse I voice in this world. Or, more likely, the second last name.'

He nodded, understanding. 'Trull Sengar remains, then, out of honour.'

'And that honour spells our doom.'

Cotillion ran a hand through his hair, mildly surprised to discover how long it had grown. I need to find a hair hacker. One trustworthy enough with a blade at my neck. He considered that. Well, is it any wonder gods must do such mundane tasks for themselves? Listen to yourself, Cotillion – your mind would flee from this moment. Meet this woman's courage with your own. 'The arrival of warlocks among the Tiste Edur will prove a difficult force to counter-'

'We have the bonecaster,' she said. 'As yet he has remained hidden.

Inactive. For, like Trull Sengar, he is a lodestone.'

Cotillion nodded. 'Will you lead me in, Minala?'

In answer she turned about and gestured that he follow.

The cavern beyond was a nightmare vision. The air was fetid, thick as that of a slaughterhouse. Dried blood covered the stone floor like a crumbling, pasty carpet. Pale faces – too young by far – turned to look upon Cotillion with ancient eyes drained of all hope. The god saw Apt, the demon's black hide ribboned with grey, barely healed scars, and crouched at her lone forefoot, Panek, his huge, faceted eye glittering. The forehead above that ridged eye displayed a poorly stitched slice, result of a blow that had peeled back his scalp from just above one side of the eye's orbital, across to the temple opposite.

Three figures rose, emerging from gloom as they walked towards Cotillion. The Patron God of Assassins halted. Monok Ochem, the clanless T'lan Imass known as Onrack the Broken, and the renegade Tiste Edur, Trull Sengar. I wonder, would these three, along with Ibra Gholan, have been enough? Did we need to fling Minala and her young charges into this horror?

Then, as they drew closer, Cotillion saw Onrack and Trull more clearly. Beaten down, slashed, cut. Half of Onrack's skeletal head was shorn away. Ribs had caved in from some savage blow, and the upper ridge of his hip, on the left side, had been chopped away, revealing the porous interior of the bone. Trull was without armour, and had clearly entered battle lacking such protection. The majority of his wounds – deep gashes, puncture holes – were on his thighs, beneath the hips and to the outside – signs of a spear-wielder's style of parrying with the middle-haft of the weapon. The Edur could barely walk, leaning heavily on the battered spear in his hands.

Cotillion found it difficult to meet the Edur's exhausted, despairfilled eyes. 'When the time comes,' he said to the grey-skinned warrior, 'help shall arrive.'

Onrack the Broken spoke. 'When they win the First Throne, they will realize the truth. That it is not for them. They can hold it, but they cannot use it. Why, then, Cotillion of Shadow, do these brave mortals surrender their lives here?'

'Perhaps we but provide a feint,' Monok Ochem said, the bonecaster's tone as inflectionless as Onrack's had been.

'No,' Cotillion said. 'More than that. It is what they would do upon making that discovery. They will unleash the warren of Chaos in this place – in the chamber where resides the First Throne. Monok Ochem, they shall destroy it, and so destroy its power.'

'Is such a deed cause for regret?' Onrack asked. Shaken, Cotillion had no reply.

Monok Ochem pivoted to regard Onrack the Broken. 'This one speaks the words of the Unbound. He fights not to defend the First Throne. He fights only to defend Trull Sengar. He alone is the reason the Tiste Edur still lives.'

'This is true,' Onrack replied. 'I accept no authority other than my own will, the desires I choose to act upon, and the judgements I make for myself. This, Monok Ochem, is the meaning of freedom.'

'Don't-' Trull Sengar said, turning away.

'Trull Sengar?'

'No, Onrack. Do you not see? You invite your own annihilation, and all because I do not know what to do, all because I cannot decide – anything. And so here I remain, as chained as I was when you first found me in the Nascent.'

'Trull Sengar,' Onrack said after a moment, 'you fight to save lives.

The lives of these youths here. You stand in their stead, again and again. This is a noble choice. Through you, I discover the gift of fighting in defence of honour, the gift of a cause that is worthy. I am not as I once was. I am not as Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan.

Expedience is no longer enough. Expedience is the murderer's lie.'

'For Hood's sake,' Cotillion said to Monok Ochem, feeling exasperated, brittle with frustration, 'can you not call upon kin? A few hundred T' lan Imass – there must be some lying around somewhere, doing nothing as is their wont?'

The empty eyes remained… empty. 'Cotillion of Shadow. Your companion claimed the First Throne'Then he need only command the T'lan Imass to attend-'

'No. The others journey to a war. A war of self-preservation-'

'To Hood with Assail!' Cotillion shouted, his voice echoing wildly in the cavern. 'This is nothing but damned pride! You cannot win there!

You send clan after clan, all into the same destructive maw! You damned fools – disengage! There is nothing worth fighting for on that miserable nightmare of a continent! Don't you see? Among the Tyrants there, it is nothing but a game!'

'It is the nature of my people,' Onrack said – and Cotillion could detect a certain tone in the words, something like vicious irony – 'to believe in their own supreme efficacy. They mean to win that game, Cotillion of Shadow, or greet oblivion. They accept no alternatives.

Pride? It is not pride. It is the very reason to exist.'

'We face greater threats-'

'And they do not care,' Onrack cut in. 'This you must understand, Cotillion of Shadow. Once, long ago by mortal standards, now, your companion found the First Throne. He occupied it and so gained command over the T'lan Imass. Even then, it was a tenuous grasp, for the power of the First Throne is ancient. Indeed, its power wanes. Shadowthrone was able to awaken Logros T'lan Imass – a lone army, finding itself still bound to the First Throne's remnant power due to little more than mere proximity. He could not command Kron T'lan Imass, nor Bentract, nor Ifayle, nor the others that remained, for they were too distant. When Shadowthrone last sat upon the First Throne, he was mortal, he was bound to no other aspect. He had not ascended. But now, he is impure, and this impurity ever weakens his command. Cotillion, as your companion loses ever more substance, so too does he lose… veracity.'