The lance trembled. It was getting too hot to hold, but what else did he have? Some damned daggers-against these things? Gods, what am I even doing here?

But he would stand. He would die here, beside a giant-who was just as doomed. And for what? There is nothing… there is nothing in my life. To explain any of this. He glared at the white Hounds. It’s just a sword. What will you even do with it? Chew the handle? Piss on the blade? He looked across at the huge warrior beside him. ‘What’s your name at least?’

The giant glanced at him. ‘Yes,’ he said with a sharp nod. ‘I am Karsa Orlong of the Teblor. Toblakai. And you?’

‘Crokus. Crokus Younghand.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘I was once a thief.’

‘Be one again,’ said Karsa, teeth bared, ‘and steal me a Hound’s life this night.’

Shit. ‘I’ll try.’

‘That will do,’ the Toblakai replied.

Thirty paces away now. And the white Hounds fanned out, filled the street in a wall of bleached hide, rippling muscle and rows of fangs.

A gust of charnel wind swept round Cutter; something clattered, rang sharp On cobbles, and then a hand swept down-

The Hounds of Light charged.

As, on the side street to the left, the daughters of Draconus unleashed their warrens in a howling rush of destruction that engulfed the five beasts before them.

Scything blade of notched iron, driving Spinnock Durav back. Blood sprayed with each blow, links of ringed armour pattered on the ground. So many tiny broken chains, there was a trail of them, marking each step of the warrior’s rocking, reeling retreat. When his own sword caught Kallor’s frenzied blows, the reverberation ripped up Spinnock’s arm, seeming to mash his muscles into lifeless pulp.

His blood was draining away from countless wounds. His helm had been bat-tered off, that single blow leaving behind a fractured cheekbone and a deaf ear.

Still he fought on; still he held Kallor before him.

Kallor.

There was no one behind the High King’s eyes. The berserk rage had devoured the ancient warrior. He seemed tireless, an automaton. Spinnock Durav could find no opening, no chance to counterattack. It was all he could do to simply evade each death blow, to minimize the impacts of that jagged edge, to turn the remaining fragments of his hauberk into the blade’s inexorable path.

Spreading bruises, cracked bones, gaping gouges from which blood welled, soaking his wool gambon, he staggered under the unceasing assault.

It could not last.

It had already lasted beyond all reason.

Spinnock blocked yet another slash, but this time the sound his sword made was strangely dull, and the grip suddenly felt loose, the handle shorn from the tine-the pommel was gone. With a sobbing gasp, he ducked beneath a whistling blade and then pitched back-

But Kallor pressed forward, giving him no distance, and that two-handed sword lashed out yet again.

Spinnock’s parry jolted his arm and his weapon seemed to blow apart in his hand, tined blade spinning into the air, the fragments of the grip a handful a shards falling from his numbed fingers.

The back-slash caught him across his chest.

He was thrown from his feet, landing hard on the slope of the ditch, where he sagged back, blood streaming down his front, and closed his eyes.

Kallor’s rasping breaths drew closer.

Sweat dripped on to Spinnock’s face, but still he did not open his eyes. He had felt it. A distant death. Yes, he had felt it, as he feared he might. So feared that he might. And, of all the deeds he had managed here at these crossroads, all that he had done up until this moment, not one could match the cost of the smile that now emerged on split, bleeding lips.

And this alone stayed Kallor’s sword from its closing thrust. Stayed it… for a time.

‘What,’ Kallor asked softly, ‘was the point, Spinnock Durav?’

But the fallen warrior did not answer.

‘You could never win. You could never do anything but die here. Tell me, damn you, what was the fucking point?’

The question was a sob, the anguish so raw that Spinnock was startled into opening his eyes, into looking up at Kallor.

Behind the silhouette with its halo of tangled, sweat-matted hair, the heaving shoulders, he saw Great Ravens, a score or more, flying up from the south.

Closer and closer.

With an effort, Spinnock focused on Kallor once more. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Not yet, Kallor, but you will. Someday, you will.’

‘He does not deserve you!’

Spinnock frowned, blinked to clear his eyes. ‘Oh, Kallor…’

The High King’s face was ravaged with grief, and all that raged in the ancient man’s eyes-well, none of it belonged. Not to the legend that was Kallor. Not to the nightmares roiling round and round his very name. Not to the lifeless sea of ashes in his wake. No; what Spinnock saw in Kallor’s eyes were things that, he suspected, no one would ever see again.

It was, of sorts, a gift.

‘Kallor,’ he said, ‘listen to me. Take this as you will, or not at all. I-I am sorry. That you are driven to this. And… and may you one day show your true self. May you, one day, be redeemed in the eyes of the world.’

Kallor cried out, as if struck, and he staggered back. He recovered with bared teeth. ‘My true self? Oh, you damned fool! You see only what you want to see! In this last moment of your pathetic, useless life! May your soul rage for eternity in the heart of a star, Tiste Andii! May you yearn for what you can never have! For all in-fernal eternity!’

Spinnock had flinched back at the tirade. ‘Do you now curse me, High King?’ he asked in a whisper.

Kallor’s face looked ready to shatter. He dragged a forearm across his eyes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not. I will kill you clean. For what you have shown me this night-I have never before faced such a defence.’ And then he paused, edging forward again, his eyes burning in their pits. ‘You had chances, Spinnock Durav. To strike back. You could have wounded me-yes, you could have…’

‘I was not here to do that, Kallor.’

The High King stared, and a glint of comprehension lit in his face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You only needed to delay me.’

Spinnock closed his eyes once more and settled his head back. ‘For a time. You may never accept this, but it was for your own good. It’s a mess over there. In that city. My Lord wanted you kept away.’

Kallor snarled. ‘How generous in his mercy is your Lord.’

‘Yes,’ sighed Spinnock, ‘he was ever that.’

Silence, then.

Not a sound. A dozen laboured heartbeats. Another dozen. Finally, some odd unease forced Spinnock to open his eyes yet again, to look upon Kallor.

Who stood, head bowed.

‘Yes,’ said Spinnock, in true sorrow, ‘he is gone.’

Kallor did not lift his gazc. He did not move at all.

‘And so,’ continued Spinnock, ‘I have stood here. In his stead. One last time.’ He paused. ‘And yes, it makes my death seem… easier-’

‘Oh shut up, will you? I am thinking.’

‘About what?’

Kallor met his eyes and bared his teeth. ‘That bastard. The bold, brazen bastard!’

Spinnock studied the High King, and then he grunted. ‘Well, that’s it, then.’

‘I don’t ever want to see you again, Spinnock Durav. You are bleeding out. I will leave you to that. I hear it’s quieter, easier-but then, what do I know?’

The Tiste Andii watched him set off then, up the road, to that fair city that even now bled with its own terrible wounds.

Too late to do anything, even if he’d wanted to. But, Spinnock Durav now sus-pected, Kallor might well have done nothing. He might have stood aside. ‘High King,’ he whispered, ‘all you ever wanted was a throne. But trust me, you don’t want Rake’s. No, proud warrior, that one you would not want. I think, maybe, you just realized that.’

Of course, when it came to Kallor, there was no way to know.