Standing at the rail, Atri-Preda Yan Tovis, known to her soldiers as Twilight, watched the sloping shoreline of the Lether River track past. Gulls rode the waves in the shallows. Fisher boats sculled among the reeds, the net-casters pausing to watch the battered fleet work its way towards the harbour. Along the bank birds crowded the leafless branches of trees that had succumbed to the last season’s flood. Beyond the dead trees, riders were on the coast road, cantering towards the city to report to various officials, although Yan Tovis was certain that the palace had already been informed that the first of the fleets now approached, with another a bare half-day behind.

She would welcome solid ground beneath her boots again. And the presence of unfamiliar faces within range of her vision, rather than these tired features behind and to either side that she had come to know all too well, and at times, she had to admit, despise.

The last ocean they had crossed was far in their wake now, and for that she was profoundly relieved. The world had proved.. immense. Even the ancient Letherii charts mapping the great migration route from the land of the First Empire had revealed but a fraction of the vast expanse that Was this mortal realm. The scale had left them all belittled, as if their grand dramas were without consequence, as if true meaning was too thinly spread, too elusive for a single mind to grasp. And there had been a devastating toll paid for these fated journeys. Scores of ships lost, thousands of hands dead-there were belligerent and all too capable empires and peoples out there, few of whom were reluctant to test the prowess and determination of foreign invaders. If not for the formidable sorceries of the Edur and the new cadres of Letherii mages, there would have been more defeats than victories recorded in the ledgers, and yet fewer soldiers and sailors to rest eyes once more upon their homeland.

Hanradi Khalag, Uruth and Tomad Sengar would have dire news to deliver to the Emperor, sufficient to overwhelm their meagre successes, and Yan Tovis was thankful that she would not be present at that debriefing. She would have more than enough to deal with in her own capacity, besides. The Letherii Marines had been decimated-families would need to be informed, death-pensions distributed, lost equipment charged and debts transferred to heirs and kin. Depressing and tedious work and she already longed for the last scroll to be sealed and signed.

As the stands of trees and undergrowth dwindled, replaced by fisher shacks, jetties and then the walled estates of the elite, she stepped back from the rail and looked round the deck. Seeing Taralack Veed positioned near the stern, she walked over.

‘We are very close now,’ she said. ‘Letheras, seat of the Emperor, the largest and richest city on this continent. And still your champion will not come on deck.’

‘I see bridges ahead,’ the barbarian observed, looking back up the length of the ship.

‘Yes. The Tiers. There are canals in the city. Did I not tell you of the Drownings?’

The man grimaced, then swung about once more and spat over the stern rail. ‘They die without honour and this entertains you. What is it you would wish Icarium to see, Twilight?’

‘He shall need his anger,’ she replied in a low voice.

Taralack Veed ran both hands over his scalp, flattening back his hair. ‘When he is next awakened, matters of resolve will mean nothing. Your Emperor shall be annihilated, and likely most of this sparkling city with him. If you choose to witness, then you too will die. As will Tormad Sengar and Hanradi Khalag.’

‘Alas,’ she said after a moment, ‘I will not be present to witness the clash. My duties will take me back north, back to Fent Reach.’ She glanced across at him. ‘A journey of over a month by horseback, Taralack Veed. Will that be distant enough?’

He shrugged. ‘I make no promises.’

‘But one,’ she pointed out.

‘Oh?’

‘That he will fight.’

‘You do not know Icarium as I do. He may remain below, but there is an excitement about him. Anticipation, now, unlike any I have ever seen before. Twilight, he has come to accept his curse; indeed, to embrace it. He sharpens his sword, again and again. Oils his bow. Examines his armour for flaws with every dawn. He has no more questions for me, and that is the most ominous detail of all.’

‘He has failed us once,’ she said.

‘There was… intervention. That shall not occur again, unless your carelessness permits it.’

At a gentle bend in the river, Letheras revealed itself, sprawling up and back from the north shore, magnificent bridges arching over garishly painted buildings and the haze of innumerable cookfires. Domes and terraces, towers and platforms loomed, edges blurred in the gold-lit smoke. The imperial quays were directly ahead, just beyond a mole, and the first dromons of the fleet were shipping oars and swinging in towards berths. Scores of figures were gathering along the waterfront, including a bristling procession coming down from the Eternal Domicile, pennons and standards wavering overhead-the official delegation, although Yan Tovis noted that there were no Edur among them.

It seemed that Triban Gnol’s quiet usurpation was all but complete. She was not surprised. The Chancellor had probably begun his plans long before King Ezgara Diskanar downed the fatal draught in the throne room. Ensuring a smooth transition, is how he would have defended himself. The empire is greater than its ruler, and that is where lies the Chancellor’s loyalty. Always and for ever more. Laudable sentiments, no doubt, but the truth was never so clear. The lust for power was a strong current, roiling with clouds that obscured all to everyone, barring, perhaps, Triban Gnol himself, who was at the very centre of the maelstrom. His delusion of control had never been challenged, but Yan Tovis believed that it would not last.

After all, the Tiste Edur had returned. Tomad Sengar, Hanradi Khalag and three other former war chiefs of the tribes, as well as over four thousand seasoned warriors who’d long ago left their naivety behind, lost in Callows, in Sepik, Nemil, the Perish Coast, Shal-Morzinn and Drift Avalii, in a host of foreign waters, among the Meckros-the journey had been long. Fraught-

‘The nest is about to be kicked awake,’ Taralack Veed said, a rather ugly grin twisting his features.

Yan Tovis shrugged. ‘To be expected. We have been absent a long time.’

‘Maybe your Emperor is already dead. I see no Tiste Edur in that contingent.’

‘I do not think that likely. Our K’risnan would have known.’

‘Informed by their god? Yan Tovis, no gift from a god comes for free. More, if it sees fit, it will tell its followers nothing. Or, indeed, it will lie. The Edur do not understand any of this, but you surprise me. Is it not the very nature of your deity, this Errant, to deceive you at every turn?’

‘The Emperor is not dead, Taralack Veed.’

‘Then it is only a matter of time.’

‘So you continually promise.’

But he shook his head. ‘I do not speak of Icarium now. I speak of when a god’s chosen one fails. And they always do, Twilight. We are never enough in their eyes. Never faithful enough, never fearful enough, never abject enough. Sooner or later we betray them, in weakness or in overwrought ambition. We see before us a city of bridges yet what I see and what you see are two different things. Do not let your eyes deceive you-the bridges awaiting us are all too narrow for mortals.’