Trull Sengar had set off in search of water-springs bubbled up from bedrock almost everywhere, as if even the stone itself was saturated with glacial melt.

Onrack eyed the cats for another moment then turned to Quick Ben. ‘There is a sweep of ice beyond these hills,’ he said. ‘I can smell its rot-an ancient road, once travelled by Jaghut. Fleeing slaughter. This intrusion, wizard, troubles me.’

‘Why? Presumably that battle occurred thousands of years ago and the Jaghut are all dead.’

‘Yes. Still, that road reminds me of… things. Awakens memories…’

Quick Ben slowly nodded. ‘Like shadows, aye.’

‘Just so.’

‘You had to know it couldn’t last.’

The Imass frowned, the expression accentuating his strangely unhuman, robust features. ‘Yes, perhaps I did, deep within me. I had… forgotten.’

‘You’re too damned hard on yourself, Onrack. You don’t need to keep yourself shining so bright all the time.’

Onrack’s smile held sadness. ‘I gift my friend,’ he said quietly, ‘for all the gifts he has given me.’

Quick Ben studied the warrior’s face. ‘The gift loses its value, Onrack, if it goes on too long. It begins to exhaust us, all of us.’

‘Yes, I see that now.’

‘Besides,’ the wizard added, watching the two emlava, their bellies full, now mock-fighting on the blood-smeared grass, ‘showing your fallible side is another kind of gift. The kind that invites empathy instead of just awe. If that makes any sense.’

‘It does.’

‘You’ve been making lots of paints, haven’t you?’

A sudden smile. ‘You are clever. When I find a wall of stone that speaks… yes, a different kind of gift. My forbidden talents.’

‘Forbidden? Why?’

‘It is taboo among my people to render our own forms in likeness to truth. Too much is captured, too much is trapped in time. Hearts can break, and betrayals breed like vermin.’

Quick Ben glanced up at Onrack, then away. Hearts can break. Aye, the soul can haunt, can’t it just.

Trull Sengar returned, waterskins sloshing. ‘By the Sisters,’ he said to Onrack, ‘is that a frown you’re wearing?’

‘It is, friend. Do you wish to know why?’

‘Not at all. It’s just, uh, well, a damned relief, to be honest.’

Onrack reached down and snagged one of the cubs, lifting it by the scruff of its neck. The beast hissed in outrage, writhing as he held it up. ‘Trull Sengar, you may explain to our friend why Imass are forbidden to paint likenesses of themselves. You may also tell him my story, so that he understands, and need not ask again why I am awakened to pain within me, recalling now, as I do, that mortal flesh is only made real when fed by the breath of love.’

Quick Ben studied Onrack with narrowed eyes. I don’t recall asking anything like that. Well, not out hud, anyway.

Trull Sengar’s relieved expression fell away and he sighed, but it was a loose sigh, the kind that marked the unbinding of long-held tensions. ‘I shall. Thank you, Onrack. Some secrets prove a heavy burden. And when I am done revealing to Quick Ben one of the details of your life that has served to forge our friendship, I will then tell you both of my own secret. I will tell you of the Eres’al and what she did to me, long before she appeared to us all in the cavern.’

A moment of long silence.

Then Quick Ben snorted. ‘Fine. And I’ll tell a tale of twelve souls. And a promise I made to a man named Whiskeyjack-a promise that has brought me all this way, with farther still to go. And then, I suppose, we shall all truly know each other.’

‘It is,’ Onrack said, collecting the second cub so he could hold both beasts up side by side, ‘a day for gifts.’

From beyond the hills there came the sound of thunder. That faded, and did not repeat.

The emlava were suddenly quiet.

‘What was that?’ Trull Sengar asked.

Quick Ben could feel his heart pound in his chest. ‘That, friends, was a cusser.’

Fiddler made his way across the dirt floor of the barn to where Bottle slept. He stared down at the young soldier curled up beneath a dark grey blanket. Poor bastard. He nudged with his foot and Bottle groaned. ‘Sun’s set,’ Fiddler said.

‘I know, Sergeant. I watched it going down.’

‘We’ve rigged a stretcher. Just get up and eat something and then you’ve got a mobile bed for the rest of the night.’

‘Unless you need me.’

‘Unless we need you, aye.’

Bottle sat up, rubbed at his face. ‘Thanks, Sergeant. I don’t need the whole night-half will do.’

‘You take what I give you, soldier. Cut it short and we could all end up regretting it.’

‘All right, fine, make me feel guilty, then. See if I care.’

Smiling, Fiddler turned away. The rest of the squad was readying the gear, a few muted words drifting between the soldiers. Gesler and his crew were in the abandoned farmhouse-no point in crowding up all in one place. Poor tactics anyway.

There had been no pursuit. The drum had done its work. But that was four cussers lost, to add to the others they’d already used. Down to two left and that was bad news. If another enemy column found them… we’re dead or worse. Well, marines weren’t supposed to have it easy. Good enough that they were still alive.

Cuttle approached. ‘Tarr says we’re ready, Fid.’ He glanced over at Bottle. ‘I got the sorry end of the stretcher to start, soldier. You better not have gas.’

Bottle, a mouthful of nuts and lard bulging his cheeks, simply stared up at the sapper.

‘Gods below,’ Cuttle said, ‘you’re eating one of those Khundryl cakes, ain’t ya? Well, Fid, if we need us a torch to light the way-’

‘Permission denied, Cuttle.’

‘Aye, probably right. It’d light up half the night sky. Hood’s breath, why do I always get the short twig?’

‘So long as you face off against Corabb on that kind of thing,’ Fiddler said, ‘short’s your middle name.’

Cuttle edged closer to Fiddler and said in a low voice, ‘That big bang yesterday’s gonna draw down a damned army-

Assuming they’ve fielded one. So far, we’re running into companies, battalion elements-as if an army’s dispersed, which is more or less what we expected them to do. No point in maintaining a single force when your enemy’s scattered right across Hood’s pimply backside. If they were smart they’d draw up reserves and saturate the region, leave us not a single deer trail to slink along.’

‘So far,’ Cuttle said, squinting through the gloom at the rest of the squad and massaging his roughly healed shoulder, ‘they ain’t been very smart.’

‘Moranth munitions are new to them,’ Fiddler pointed out. ‘So’s our brand of magic. Whoever’s in command here is probably still reeling, still trying to guess our plans.’

‘My guess is whoever was in command, Fid, is now Rannalled in tree branches.’

Fiddler shrugged, then lifted his pack onto his shoulders and collected his crossbow.

Corporal Tarr checked his gear one last time, then straightened. He drew his left arm through the shield straps, adjusted his sword belt, then tightened the strap of his helm.

‘Most people just carry their shields on their backs,’ Koryk said from where he stood by the barn’s entrance.

‘Not me,’ said Tarr. ‘Get ambushed and there’s no time to ready, is there? So I stay readied.’ He then rolled his shoulders to settle his scaled hauberk, a most familiar, satisfying rustle and clack of iron. He felt unsteady on his feet without that solid, anchoring weight. He had quick-release clasps for his pack of equipment, could drop all that behind him one-handed even as he stepped forward and drew his sword. At least one of them in this squad had to be first to the front, after all, to give them time to bring whatever they had to bear.

This was what he had been trained to do, from the very beginning. Braven Tooth had seen it true enough, seen into Tarr’s stolid, stubborn soul, and he’d said as much, hadn’t he? ‘Your name’s Tarr, soldier. It’s under your feet and you’re s tuck fast. When needs be. It’s your job, from now on. You hold back the enemy at that first blink of contact, you make your squad survive mat moment, aye? Now, you ain’t solid enough yet. Strap on these extra weights, soldier, then get sparring…’