'You're babbling, Quick. It's embarrassing.'

'You want babbling, try this. Has it not occurred to you that we lost this one?'

'What?'

'Dryjhna, the Apocalyptic, the whole prophecy – we didn't get it, we never did – and you and me, Kal, we should have, you know. The Uprising, what did it achieve? How about slaughter, anarchy, rotting corpses everywhere. And what arrived in the wake of that? Plague. The apocalypse, Kalam, wasn't the war, it was the plague. So maybe we won and maybe we lost. Both, do you see?'

'Dryjhna never belonged to the Crippled God. Nor Poliel-'

'Hardly matters. It's ended up serving them both, hasn't it?'

'We can't fight all that, Quick,' Kalam said. 'We had a rebellion. We put it down. What these damned gods and goddesses are up to – it's not our fight. Not the empire's fight, and that includes Laseen. She's not going to see all this as some kind of failure. Tavore did what she had to do and now we're going back, and then we'll get sent elsewhere.

That's the way it is.'

'Tavore sent us into the Imperial Warren, Kal. Why?'

The assassin shrugged. 'All right, like you said, she's a mystery.'

Quick Ben moved further into the narrow space between cargo. 'Here, there's room.'

After a moment, Kalam joined him. 'You got anything to eat? Drink?'

'Naturally.'

'Good.'

As the lookouts cried out the sighting of Sepik, Apsalar made her way forward. The Adjunct, Nil, Keneb and Nether were already on the forecastle. The sun, low on the horizon to the west, lit the rising mass of land two pegs to starboard with a golden glow. Ahead, the lead ships of the fleet, two dromons, were drawing near.

Reaching the rail, Apsalar found she could now make out the harbour city tucked in its halfmoon bay. No smoke rose from the tiers, and in the harbour itself, a mere handful of ships rode at anchor; the nearest one had clearly lost its bow anchor – some snag had hung the trader craft up, heeling it to one side so that its starboard rail was very nearly under water.

Keneb was speaking, 'Sighting Sepik,' he said in a tone that suggested he was repeating himself, 'should have been four, maybe five days away.'

Apsalar watched the two dromons work into the city's bay. One of them was Nok's own flagship.

'Something is wrong,' Nether said.

'Fist Keneb,' the Adjunct said quietly, 'stand down the marines.'

'Adjunct?'

'We shall be making no landfall-'

At that moment, Apsalar saw the foremost dromon suddenly balk, as if it had inexplicably lost headway – and its crew raced like frenzied ants, sails buckling overhead. A moment later the same activity struck Nok's ship, and a signal flag began working its way upward.

Beyond the two warcraft, the city of Sepik exploded into life.

Gulls. Tens of thousands, rising from the streets, the buildings. In their midst, the black tatters of crows, island vultures, lifting like flakes of ash amidst the swirling smoke of the white gulls. Rising, billowing, casting a chaotic shadow over the city.

Nether whispered, 'They're all dead.'

'The Tiste Edur have visited,' Apsalar said.

Tavore faced her. 'Is slaughter their answer to everything?'

'They found their own kind, Adjunct, a remnant population. Subject, little more than slaves. They are not reluctant to unleash their fury, these Edur.'

'How do you know this, Bridgeburner?'

She eyed the woman. 'How did you know, Adjunct?'

At that, Tavore turned away.

Keneb stood looking at the two women, one to the other, then back again.

Apsalar fixed her gaze back upon the harbour, the gulls settling again to their feast as the two lead dromons worked clear of the bay, sails filling once more. The ships in their immediate wake also began changing course.

'We shall seek resupply with Nemil,' the Adjunct said. As she turned away, she paused. 'Apsalar, find Quick Ben. Use your skeletal servants if you must.'

'The High Mage hides among the cargo below,' she replied.

Tavore's brows lifted. 'Nothing sorcerous, then?'

'No.'

As the sound of the Adjunct's boots receded, Fist Keneb stepped closer to Apsalar. 'The Edur fleet – do you think it pursues us even now, Apsalar?'

'No. They're going home.'

'And how do you come by this knowledge?'

Nether spoke: 'Because a god visits her, Fist. He comes to break her heart. Again and again.'

Apsalar felt as if she had been punched in the chest, the impact reverberating through her bones, the beat inside suddenly erratic, tightening as heat flooded through her veins. Yet, outwardly, she revealed nothing.

Keneb's voice was taut with fury. 'Was that necessary, Nether?'

'Don't mind my sister,' Nil said. 'She lusts after someone-'

'Bastard!'

The young Wickan woman rushed off. Nil watched her for a moment, then he looked over at Keneb and Apsalar, and shrugged.

A moment later he too left.

'My apologies,' Keneb said to Apsalar. 'I would never have invited such a cruel answer – had I known what Nether would say-'

'No matter, Fist. You need not apologize.'

'Even so, I shall not pry again.'

She studied him for a moment.

Looking uncomfortable, he managed a nod, then walked away.

The island was now on the ship's starboard, almost five pegs along. '

He comes to break her heart. Again and again.' Oh, there could be so few secrets on a ship such as this one. And yet, it seemed, the Adjunct was defying that notion.

No wonder Quick Ben is hiding.

'They killed everyone,' Bottle said, shivering. 'A whole damned island's worth of people. And Monkan Isle, too – it's in the wind, now, the truth of that.'

'Be glad for that wind,' Koryk said. 'We've left that nightmare behind fast, damned fast, and that's good, isn't it?'

Cuttle sat straighter and looked at Fiddler. 'Sergeant, wasn't Sepik an Imperial principality?'

Fiddler nodded.

'So, what these Tiste Edur did, it's an act of war, isn't it?'

Bottle and the others looked over at the sergeant, who was scowling – and clearly chewing over Cuttle's words. Then he said, 'Technically, aye. Is the Empress going to see it that way? Or even care? We got us enough enemies as it is.'

'The Adjunct,' Tarr said, 'she'll have to report it even so. And the fact that we already clashed once with that damned fleet of theirs.'

'It's probably tracking us right now,' Cuttle said, grimacing. 'And we're going to lead it straight back to the heart of the empire.'

'Good,' Tarr said. 'Then we can crush the bastards.'

'That,' Bottle muttered, 'or they crush us. What Quick Ben did, it wasn't real-'

'To start,' Fiddler said.

Bottle said nothing. Then, 'Some allies you're better off without.'

'Why?' the sergeant demanded.

'Well,' Bottle elaborated, 'the allies that can't be figured out, the ones with motives and goals that stay forever outside our comprehension – that's what we're talking about here, Sergeant. And believe me, we don't want a war fought with the sorcery of the Holds.

We don't.'

The others were staring at him.

Bottle looked away.

'Drag 'im round the hull,' Cuttle said. 'That'll get him to cough it all up.'

'Tempting,' Fiddler said, 'but we got time. Lots of time.'

You fools. Time is the last thing we got. That's what she's trying to tell us. With this eerie wind, thrusting like a fist through Mael's realm – and there's not a thing he can do about it. Take that, Mael, you crusty barnacle!

Time? Forget it. She's driving us into the heart of a storm.