‘Now this is living!’-the Seguleh roared, tilting his head back to loose a manic laugh. Then he leaned forward on the saddle and cocked his head, long filthy hair swinging like ropes. ‘Well,’ he amended in an amused rumble, ‘not quite. But close enough. Close enough. Tell me, mortals, do you like my army? I do. Did you know the one thing a commander must battle against-more than any enemy across the plain, more than any personal crisis of will or confidence, more than unkind weather, broken supply chains, plague and all the rest? Do you know what a commander wages eternal war with, my friends? I will tell you. The true enemy is fear. The fear that haunts every soldier, that haunts even the beasts they ride.’ He lifted a gauntleted hand and waved to the valley below. ‘But not with this army! Oh, no. Fear belongs to the living, after all.’

‘As with the T’lan Imass,’ said Gruntle.

The darkness within the mask’s elongated eye-holes seemed to glitter as the Seguleh fixed his attention on Gruntle. ‘Trake’s cub. Now, wouldn’t you like to cross blades with me?’ A low laugh. ‘Yes, as with the T’lan Imass. Is it any won-der the Jaghut recoiled?’

Master Quell cleared his throat. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘what need has Hood for an army? Will he now wage war against the living?’

‘If only,’ the Seguleh replied in a grunt. ‘You don’t belong here-and if you drag that infernal carriage of yours back here any time soon, I will seek you out myself.

And then Trake’s spitting kitten here can fulfil his desperate desire, hah!’ He He twisted in his saddle. Other riders were approaching. ‘Look at that, my watchdogs. “Be reasonable”, indeed. Have I chopped these two interlopers to pieces? I have not. Constraint has been shown.’ He faced Gruntle and Quell once more. ‘You will confirm this, yes?’

‘Beyond you goading Gruntle here,’ Quell said, ‘yes, I suppose we can.’

‘It was a jest!’ the Seguleh shouted.

‘It was a threat,’ Quell corrected, and Gruntle was impressed by the man’s sud-den courage.

The Seguleh tilted his head, as if he too was casting new measure upon the mage. ‘Oh, trundle your wagon wherever you like, then, see if I care.’

Three riders mounted the summit and, slowing their horses to a walk, drew up to where waited the Seguleh, who now sat slumped like a browbeaten bully.

Gruntle started, took an involuntary step forward. ‘Toc Anaster?’

The one-eyed soldier’s smile was strained. ‘Hello, old friend. I am sorry. There may come a time for this, but it is not now.’

Gruntle edged back, blunted by Toc Anaster’s cold-even harsh-tone. ‘I-I did not know.’

‘It was a messy death. My memories remain all too sharp. Gruntle, deliver this message to your god: not long now.’

Gruntle scowled. ‘Too cryptic. If you want me to pass on your words, you will have to do better than that.’

Toc Anaster’s single eye-terrifying in its lifelessness-shifted away.

‘He cannot,’ said the middle horseman, and there was something familiar about the face behind the helm’s cheekguards. ‘I remember you from Capustan. Gruntle, chosen servant of Treach. Your god is confused, but it must choose, and soon.’

Gruntle shrugged. ‘There is no point in bringing all this to me Trake and me, we’re not really on speaking terms. I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t even want it-’

‘Hah!’ barked the Seguleh, twisting round to face the middle rider. ‘Hear that, Iskar Jarak? Let me kill him!’

Iskar Jarak? I seem to recall he had a different name. One of those odd ones, common to the Malazan soldiery-what was it now?

‘Save your wrath for Skinner,’ Iskar Jarak calmly replied.

‘Skinner!’ roared the Seguleh, savagely wheeling his horse round. ‘Where is he, then? I’d forgotten! Hood, you bastard-you made me forget! Where is he?’ He faced the three riders. ‘Does Toc know? Brukhalian, you? Someone tell me where he’s hiding!’

‘Who knows?’ said Iskar Jarak. ‘But there is one thing for certain.’

‘What?’ demanded the Seguleh.

‘Skinner is not here on this hill.’

‘Bah!’ The Seguleh drove spurs into his horse’s senseless flanks. The animal surged forward anyway, plunging off the hilltop and raging downslope like an av-alanche.

Soft laughter from Brukhalian, and Gruntle saw that even Toc was grinning-though he still would not meet his eyes. That death must have been terrible indeed, as if the world had but one answer, one way of ending things, and whatever lessons could be gleaned from that did not ease the spirit. The notion left him feeling morose.

It was a common curse to feel unclean, but that curse would be unbearable if no cleansing awaited one, if not at the moment of dying, then afterwards. Look-ing upon these animated corpses, Gruntle saw nothing of redemption, nothing purged-guilt, shame, regrets and grief, they all swirled about these figures like a noxious cloud.

‘If getting killed lands me with you lot,’ he said, ‘I’d rather do without.’

The one named Iskar Jarak leaned wearily over the large Seven Cities saddle horn. ‘I sympathize, truly. Tell me, do you think we’ve all earned our rest?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘You have lost all your followers.’

‘I have.’ Gruntle saw that Toc Anaster was now watching him, fixed, sharp as a dagger point.

‘They are not here.’

He frowned at Iskar Jarak. ‘And they should be, I suppose?’

Brukhalian finally spoke, ‘It is just that. We are no longer so sure.’

‘Stay out of Hood’s realm,’ said Toc Anaster. ‘The gate is… closed.’

Master Quell started. ‘Closed? But that’s ridiculous! Does Hood now turn the dead away?’

Toc’s single eye held on Gruntle. ‘The borders are sealed to the living. There will be sentinels. Patrols. Intrusions will not be tolerated. Where we march you can’t go. Not now, perhaps never. Stay away, until the choice is taken from you. Stay away.’

And Gruntle saw then, finally, the anguish that gripped Toe Anaster, the bone-deep fear and dread. He saw how the man’s warning was in truth a cry to a friend, from one already lost, already doomed. Save yourself. Just do that, and it will all be worth it-all we must do, the war we must seek. Damn you, Gruntle, give all this meaning.

Quell must have sensed something of these fierce undercurrents, for he then bowed to the three riders. ‘I shall deliver your message. To all the pilots of the Trygalle Trade Guild.’

The ground seemed to shift uneasily beneath Gruntle’s boots.

‘And now you had better leave,’ said Brukhalian.

The hill groaned-and what Gruntle had imagined as some internal vertigo was now revealed as a real quaking of the earth.

Master Quell’s eyes were wide and he held his hands out to the sides to stay balanced.

At the far end of the range of hills, a massive eruption thundered, lifting earth and stones skyward. From the ruptured mound something rose, clawing free, sin-uous neck and gaping, snapping jaws, wings spreading wide-

The hill shivered beneath them.

The three riders had wheeled their horses and were now barrelling down the slope.

‘Quell!’

‘A moment, damn you!’

Another hill exploded.

Damned barrows all light! Holding dead dragons! ‘Hurry-’

‘Be quiet!’

The portal that split open was ragged, edges rippling as if caught in a storm.

The hill to their right burst its flanks. A massive wedge-shaped head scythed in their direction, gleaming bone and shreds of desiccated skin-

‘Quell!’

‘Go! I need to-’

The dragon heaved up from cascading earth, forelimbs tearing into the ground. The leviathan was coming for them.

No-it’s coming for the portal-Gruntle grasped Master Quell and dragged him towards the rent. The mage struggled, shrieking-but whatever he sought to say was lost in the deafening hiss from the dragon as it lurched forward. The head snapped closer, jaws wide-and Gruntle, with Quell in his arms, threw himself back, plunging into the portal-