Cotillion stared at the broken warrior, then looked over at Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan. 'And these, then,' he said in a low voice, ' represent… token obedience.' The bonecaster said, 'We must seek to preserve our own kind, Cotillion of Shadow.'

'And if the First Throne is lost?'

A clattering shrug.

Gods below. Now, at last, I understand why we lost Logros's undead army in the middle of the Seven Cities campaign. Why they just… left. He shifted his gaze back to Onrack the Broken. 'Is it possible,' he asked, 'to restore the power of the First Throne?'

'Say nothing,' Monok Ochem commanded.

Onrack's half-shattered head slowly turned to regard the bonecaster. '

You do not compel me. I am unbound.'

At some silent order, Ibra Gholan lifted his stone weapon and faced Onrack.

Cotillion raised his hands. 'Wait! Onrack, do not answer my question.

Let's forget I ever asked it. There's no need for this – haven't we enough enemies as it is?'

'You,' said Monok Ochem to the god, 'are dangerous. You think what must not be thought, you speak aloud what must not be said. You are as a hunter who walks a path no-one else can see. We must consider the implications.' The bonecaster turned away, bony feet scraping as he walked towards the chamber of the First Throne. After a moment, Ibra Gholan lowered his blade and thumped off in Monok Ochem's wake.

Cotillion reached up to run his hand through his hair once again, and found his brow slick with sweat.

'And so,' Trull Sengar said, with a hint of a smile, 'you have taken our measure, Cotillion. And from this visit, we in turn receive equally bitter gifts. Namely, the suggestion that all we do here, in defence of this First Throne, is without meaning. So, do you now elect to withdraw us from this place?' His eyes narrowed on the god, and the ironic half-smile gave way to… something else. 'I thought not.'

Perhaps indeed I walk an unseen path – one even I am blind to – but now the necessity of following it could not be greater. 'We will not abandon you,' he said.

'So you claim,' muttered Minala behind him.

Cotillion stepped to one side. 'I have summoned Shadowthrone,' he said to her.

A wry expression. 'Summoned?'

'We grant each other leave to do such things, Minala, as demands dictate.'

'Companions in truth, then. I thought that you were subservient to Shadowthrone, Cotillion. Do you now claim otherwise?'

He managed a smile. 'We are fully aware of each other's complementary talents,' he replied, and left it at that.

'There wasn't enough time,' she said.

'For what?'

'For training. For the years needed… for them. To grow up. To live.'

He said nothing, for she was right.

'Take them with you,' Minala said. 'Now. I will remain, as will Apt and Panek. Cotillion, please, take them with you.'

'I cannot.'

'Why?'

He glanced over at Onrack. 'Because, Minala, I am not returning to the Realm of Shadow-'

'Wherever you are going,' she said in a suddenly harsh voice, 'it must be better than this!'

'Alas, would that I could make such a promise.'

'He cannot,' said Onrack. 'Minala, he now in truth sets out on an unseen path. It is my belief that we shall not see him again.'

'Thank you for the vote of confidence,' Cotillion said.

'My friend has seen better days,' Trull Sengar said, reaching out to slap Onrack on the back. The thump the blow made was hollow, raising dust, and something clattered down within the warrior's chest. 'Oh,' said the Tiste Edur, 'did that do something bad?'

'No,' Onrack replied. 'The broken point of a spear. It had been lodged in bone.'

'Was it irritating you?'

'Only the modest sound it made when I walked. Thank you, Trull Sengar.'

Cotillion eyed the two. What mortal would call a T'lan Imass friend?

And, they fight side by side. I would know more of this Trull Sengar.

But, as with so many things lately, there was no time for that.

Sighing, he turned, and saw that the youth Panek now guarded the choke-point, in Ibra Gholan's absence.

The god headed that way.

Panek swung to face him. 'I miss him,' he said.

'Who?'

'Edgewalker.'

'Why? I doubt that sack of bones could fight his way out of a birchbark coffin.'

'Not to fight at our sides, Uncle. We will hold here. Mother worries too much.'

'Which mother?'

A hideous, sharp-toothed smile. 'Both.'

'Why do you miss Edgewalker, then?'

'For his stories.'

'Oh, those.'

'The dragons. The foolish ones, the wise ones, the living ones and the dead ones. If every world were but a place on the board, they would be the game pieces. Yet no single hand directs them. Each is wild, a will unto itself. And then there are the shadows – Edgewalker explained about those – the ones you can't see.'

'He explained, did he? Well, clearly the hoary bastard likes you more than he does me.'

'They all cast shadows, Uncle,' Panek said. 'Into your realm. Every one of them. That's why there's so many prisoners.'

Cotillion frowned, then, slowly, inexorably as comprehension dawned, the god's eyes widened.

Trull Sengar watched the god move past Panek, one hand tracking along the stone wall, as if Cotillion were suddenly drunk. 'I wonder what that was all about? You'd think Panek just kneed him between the legs.'

'He'd earn a kiss from me if he did that,' Minala said.

'You're too harsh,' Trull said. 'I feel sorry for Cotillion.'

'Then you're an idiot, but of course I've known the truth of that for months.'

He smiled across at her, said nothing.

Minala now eyed the uneven entrance to the chamber of the First Throne. 'What are they doing in there? They never go in there.'

'Considering implications, I suppose,' Trull said.

'And where's Shadowthrone? He's supposed to be here by now. If we get attacked right now…'

We're dead. Trull leaned more heavily on the spear, to ease the weight on his left leg, which was hurting more – marginally – than his right.

Or at least I am. But that's likely whether or not I get healed, once my kin decide to take this seriously. He did not understand their half-hearted skirmishing, the tentative probing by the Den-Ratha. And why were they bothering at all? If they hungered for a throne, it would be that of Shadow, not this petrified bone monstrosity they call the First Throne. But, thinking on it, maybe this does indeed make sense. They have allied themselves with the Crippled God, and with the Unbound T'lan Imass who now serve the Chained One. But my Tiste Edur place little weight on alliances with non-Edur. Maybe that's why all they've done thus far is token blood-letting. A single warlock and veteran warriors and this little fete would be over.

And they would come – they will come, once I am recognized. Yet he could not hide himself from their eyes; he could not stand back whilst they slaughtered these young humans who knew nothing of life, who were soldiers in name only. These lessons of cruelty and brutality did not belong in what a child needed to learn, in what a child should learn.

And a world in which children were subjected to such things was a world in which compassion was a hollow word, its echoes a chorus of mockery and cold contempt.

Four skirmishes. Four, and Minala was now mother to seven hundred destroyed lives, almost half of them facing the mercy of death… until Shadowthrone appears, with his edged gift, in itself cold and heartless.

'Your face betrays you, Trull Sengar. You are driven to weeping yet again.'

The Edur looked across at Onrack, then over to where Minala now stood with Panek. 'Her rage is her armour, friend. And that is my greatest weakness, that I cannot conjure the same within myself. Instead, I stand here, waiting. For the next attack, for the return of the terrible music – the screams, the pain and the dying, the deafening roar of the futility our battle-lust creates… with every clash of sword and spear.'