In all, the Captain was pleased with his kingdom. His slaves were breeding, pro-viding what would be the next generation drawing his palace. Hunting parties car-ried in bhederin and antelope to supplement the finer foodstuffs looted from passing caravans. The husbands and wives of his soldiers brought with them all the neces-sary skills to maintain his court and his people, and they too were thriving.

So like a river, meandering over the land, this kingdom of his. The ancient, half-mad spirits were most pleased.

Though he never much thought about it, the nature of his tyranny was, as far as he was concerned, relatively benign. Not with respect to foreigners, of course, but then who gave a damn for them? Not his blood, not his adopted kin, not his responsibility. And if they could not withstand his kingdom’s appetites, then whose fault was that? Not his.

Creation demands destruction. Survival demands that something else fails to survive. No existence was truly benign.

Still, the Captain often dreamed of finding those who had nailed him to the ground all those years ago-his memories of that time were maddeningly vague. He could not make out their faces, or their garb. He could not recall the details of.their camp, and as for who and what he had been before that time, well, he had no memory at all. Reborn in a riverbed. He would, when drunk, laugh and proclaim that he was but eleven years old, eleven from that day of rebirth, that day of beginning anew,

He noted the lone rider coming in from the southwest, the man pushing his horse hard, find the Captain frowned-the fool had better have a good reason for the beast in that manner. He didn’t appreciate his soldiers posturing and to make bold impressions. He decided that, if the reason was insufficient, he would have the man executed in the traditional manner-trampled into bloody ruin beneath the hoofs of his horses.

The rider drew up alongside the palace, a servant on the side platform taking the reins of the horse as the man stepped aboard. An exchange of words with the Master Sergeant, and then the man was climbing the steep steps to the ledge sur-rounding the balcony. Where, his head level with the Captain’s knees, he bowed.

‘Sire, Fourth Troop, adjudged ablest rider to deliver this message.’

‘Go on,’ said the Captain.

‘Another raiding party was found, sire, all slain in the same manner as the first one. Near a Kindaru camp this time.’

‘The Kindaru? They are useless. Against thirty of my soldiers? That cannot be.’

‘Troop Leader Uludan agrees, sire. The proximity of the Kindaru was but coincidental-or it was the raiding party’s plan to ambush them.’

Yes, that was likely. The damned Kindaru and their delicious horses were get-ting hard to find of late. ‘Does Uludan now track the murderers?’

‘Difficult, sire. They seem to possess impressive lore and are able to thor-oughly hide their trail. It may be that they are aided by sorcery.’

‘Your thought or Uludan’s?’

A faint flush of the man’s face. ‘Mine, sire.’

‘I did not invite your opinion, soldier.’

‘No, sire. I apologize.’

Sorcery-the spirits within should have sensed such a thing anywhere on his territory. Which tribes were capable of assembling such skilled and no doubt nu-merous warriors? Well, one obvious answer was the Barghast-but they did not travel the Lamatath. They dwelt far to the north, along the edges of the Rhivi Plain, in fact, and north of Capustan. There should be no Barghast this far south. And if, somehow, there were… the Captain scowled. ’Twenty knights shall ac-company you back to the place of slaughter. You then lead them to Uludan’s troop. Find the trail no matter what.’

‘We shall, sire.’

‘Be sure Uludan understands.’

‘Yes, sire.’

And understand he would. The knights were there not just to provide a heav-ier adjunct to the troop. They were to exact whatever punishment the sergeant deemed necessary should Uludan fail.

The Captain had just lost sixty soldiers. Almost a fifth of his total number of light cavalry.

‘Go now,’ he said to the rider, ‘and find Sergeant Teven and send him to me at once.’

‘Yes, sire.’

As the man climbed back down, the Captain leaned hack in his throne, staring down at the dusty backs of the yoked slaves. Kindaru there, yes. And Sinbarl and the last seven or so Gandaru, slope-browed cousins of the Kindaru soon to be en-tirely extinct. A shame, that-they were strong bastards, hard-working, never com-plaining. He’d set aside the two surviving women and they now rode a wagon, bellies swollen with child, eating fat grubs, the yolk of snake eggs and other bizarre foods the Gandaru were inclined towards. Were the children on the way pure Gandaru? He did not think so-their women rutted anything with a third leg, and far less submissively than he thought prudent. Even so, one or both of those children might well be his.

Not as heirs, of course. His bastard children held no special rights. He did not even acknowledge them. No, he would adopt an heir when the time came-and, if the whispered promises of the spirits were true, that could be centuries away.

His mind had stepped off the path, he realized.

Sixty slain soldiers. Was the kingdom of Skathandi at war? Perhaps so.

Yet the enemy clearly did not dare face him here, with his knights and the en-tire mass of his army ready and able to take the field of battle. Thus, whatever army would fight him was small-

Shouts from ahead.

The Captain’s eyes narrowed. From his raised vantage point he could see with-out obstruction that a lone figure was approaching from the northwest. A skin of white fur flapped in the breeze like the wing of a ghost-moth, spreading out from the broad shoulders. A longsword was strapped to the man’s back, its edges oddly rippled, the blade itself a colour unlike any metal the Captain knew.

As the figure came closer, as if expecting the massed slaves to simply part be-fore him, the Captain’s sense of scale was jarred. The warrior was enormous, eas-ily half again as tall as the tallest Skathandi-taller even than a Barghast. A face seemingly masked-no, tattooed, in a crazed broken glass or tattered web pattern. Beneath that barbaric visage, the torso was covered in some kind of shell armour, pretty but probably useless.

Well, the fool-huge or not-was about to be trampled or pushed aside. Motion was eternal. Motion was-a sudden spasm clutched at the Captain’s mind, digging fingers into his brain-the spirits, thrashing in terror-shrieking-

A taste of acid on his tongue-

Gasping, the Captain gestured.

A servant, who sat behind him in an upright coffin-shaped box, watching through a slit in the wood, saw the signal and pulled hard on a braided rope. A horn blared, followed by three more. \

And, for the first time in seven years, the kingdom of Skathandi ground to a halt.

The giant warrior strode for the head of the slave column. He drew his sword. As he swung down with that savage weapon, the slaves began screaming.

From both flanks, the ground shook as knights charged inward.

More frantic gestures from the Captain. Horns sounded again and the knights shifted en masse, swung out wide to avoid the giant.

‘The sword’s downward stroke had struck the centre spar linking the yoke harnessess. Edge on blunt end, splitting the spar for half its twenty-man length. Bolts scattered, chains rushed through iron loops to coil and slither on to the ground.

The Captain was on his feet, tottering, gripping the bollards of the balcony rail. He could see, as his knights drew up into ranks once more, all heads turned towards him, watching, waiting for the command. But he could not move. Pain lanced up his legs from the misshapen bones of his feet. He held on to the ornate posts with his feeble hands. Ants swarmed in his skull.