For us, here, all we need to do is sow confusion, cut supplies to the capital whenever we can, and just keep the enemy off balance, guessing, reacting rather than initiating. The fatal blows will come from elsewhere, and I need to remind myself of that. So that I don’t try to do too much. What counts is keeping as many of my marines alive as possible-not that the Adjunct’s tactics with us give me much chance of that. 1 think I’m starting to understand how the Bridgehumers felt, when they were being thrown into every nightmare, again and again.

Especially at the end. Pale, Darujhistan, that city called Black Coral.

But no, this is different. The Adjunct doesn’t want us wiped out. That would be insanity, and she may be a cold, cold bitch, but she’s not mad. At least not so it’s showed, anyway.

Keneb cursed himself. The strategy had been audacious, yes, yet founded on sound principles. On traditional principles, in fact. Kellanved’s own, in the purpose behind the creation of the marines; in the way the sappers rose to pre-eminence, once the Moranth munitions arrived to revolutionize Malazan-style warfare. This was, in fact, the old, original way of employing the marines-although the absence of supply lines, no matter how tenuous or stretched, enforced a level of commitment that allowed no deviation, no possibility of retreat-she burned the transports and not a Quorl in sight-creating a situation that would have made the Emperor squirm.

Or not. Kellanved had known the value of gambles, had known how an entire war could shift, could turn on that single unexpected, outrageous act, the breaking of protocol that left the enemy reeling, then, all at once, entirely routed.

Such acts were what made military geniuses. Kellanved, Dassem Ultor, Sher’arah of Korel, Prince K’azz D’avore of the Crimson Guard. Caladan Brood. Coltaine. Dujek.

Did Adjunct Tavore belong in this esteemed company? She’s not shown it yet, has she? Gods above, Keneb, you’ve got to stop thinking like this. You’ll become another Blistig and one Llistig is more than enough.

He needed to focus on the matters at hand. He and the marines were committed to this campaign, this bold gamble. Leave the others to do their part, believing at all times that they would succeed, that they would appear in their allotted positions when the moment arrived. They would appear, yes, with the expectation that he, Keneb, would do the same. With the bulk of his marines.

Game pieces, aye. Leave the deciding hand to someone else. To fate, to the gods, to Tavore of Home Varan, Adjunct to No-one. So bringing me round, damn this, to faith. Again. Faith. That she’s not insane. That she’s a military genius to rival a mere handful of others across the span of Malazan history.

Faith. Not in a god, not in fate, but in a fellow mortal. Whose face he knew well, remembering with grim clarity its limited range of expression, through grief to anger, to her ferocious will to achieve… whatever it is she seeks to achieve. Now, if only I knew what that was.

Perhaps this kind of fighting was suited to the marines. But it was not suited to Keneb himself. Not as commander, not as Fist. It was hard not to feel helpless. He wasn’t even in contact with his army, beyond sporadic murmurings among the squad mages. I’ll feel better when Faradan Sort returns.

If she returns.

‘Fist.’

Keneb turned. ‘You following me round, Sergeant?’

‘No sir,’ Thorn Tissy replied. ‘Just thought I’d say, before I sack out, that, well, we understand.’

‘Understand what? Who is “we”?’

‘All of us, sir. It’s impossible. I mean, for you. We know that.’

‘Do you now?’

‘Aye. You can’t lead. You’re stuck with following, and not knowing what in Hood’s name is happening to your soldiers, because they’re all over the place-’

‘Go get some sleep, Sergeant. And tell the rest, I am not aware that any of this is impossible. We maintain the advance, and that is that.’

‘Well, uh-’

‘You presume too much, Sergeant. Now return to your squad, tell your soldiers to stow all the theorizing, and go get some sleep.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Keneb watched the squat man walk away. Decent of him, all that rubbish. Decent, but pointless and dangerous. We’re not friends, Thorn Tissy. Neither of us can afford that.

After a moment, he allowed himself a wry smile. All of his complaints regarding Tavore, and here he was, doing the same damned thing that she did-pushing them all away.

Because it was necessary. Because there was no choice.

So, if she’s mad, then so am I.

Hood take me, maybe we all are.

The long descent of the ice field stretched out before them, studded with the rubble and detritus that was all that remained of the Age of the Jaghut. They stood side by side, a body without a soul and a soul without a body, and Hedge wished he could be more mindful of that delicious irony, hut as long as he could not decide which of them was more lost, the cool pleasure of that recognition evaded his grasp.

Beyond the ice field’s ragged demise two thousand paces distant, copses of deciduous trees rose in defiant exuberance, broken here and there by glades green with chest-high grasses. This patchwork landscape extended onward, climbing modest hills until those hills lifted higher, steeper, and the forest canopy, unbroken now, was thie darker green of conifers.

‘I admit,’ Hedge said, finally breaking the silence between them, ‘I didn’t expect anything like this. Broken tundra, maybe. Heaps of gravel, those dry dusty dunes stirred round by the winds. Mostly lifeless. Struggling, in other words.’

‘Yes,’ Emroth said in her rasping voice. ‘Unexpected, this close to the Throne of Ice.’

They set out down the slope.

‘I think,’ Hedge ventured after a time, ‘we should probably get around to discussing our respective, uh, destinations.’

The T’lan Imass regarded him with her empty, carved-out eyes. ‘We have travelled together, Ghost. Beyond that, nothing exists to bind you to me. I am a Broken, an Unbound, and I have knelt before a god. My path is so ordained, and all that would oppose me will be destroyed by my hand.’

‘And how, precisely, do you plan on destroying me, Emroth?’ Hedge asked..’I’m a Hood-forsaken ghost, after all.’

‘My inability to solve that dilemma, Ghost, is the only reason you are still with me. That, and my curiosity. I now believe you intend something inimical to my master-perhaps, indeed, your task is to thwart me. And yet, as a ghost, you can do nothing-’

‘Are you so sure?’

She did not reply. They reached to within thirty or so paces from the edge of the ice, where they halted again and the T’lan Imass shifted round to study him.

‘Manifestation of the will,’ Hedge said, smiling as he crossed his arms. ‘Took me a long time to come up with that phrase, and the idea behind it. Aye, I am a ghost, but obviously not your usual kind of ghost. I persist, even unto fashioning this seemingly solid flesh and bone-where does such power come from? That’s the question. I’ve chewed on this for a long time. In fact, ever since I opened my nonexistent eyes and realized I wasn’t in Coral any longer. I was someplace else. And then, when I found myself in, uh, familiar company, well, things got even more mysterious.’ He paused, then winked. ‘Don’t mind me talking now, Emroth?’

‘Go on,’ she said.

Hedge’s smile broadened, then he nodded and said, ‘The Bridgeburners, Emroth. That’s what we were called. An elite division in the Malazan Army. Pretty much annihilated at Coral-our last official engagement, I suppose. And that should have been that.

‘But it wasn’t. No. Some Tanno Spiritwalker gave us a song, and it was a very powerful song. The Bridgeburners, Emroth-the dead ones, that is; couldn’t say either way for the few still alive-us dead ones, we ascended.

‘Manifestation of the will, T’lan Imass. I’d hazard you understand that notion, probably better than I do. But such power didn’t end with your cursed Ritual. No, maybe you just set the precedent.’