The old Seti veteran grew still. His tight disapproving frown vanished. ‘What was that?’

Toc shrugged, puzzled. ‘I just said that she'd sent out the call to gather up everyone she can, even from Malaz.’

The Wildman tightened his reins. ‘I'm going now. I will tell you one more time, Toc – do not pursue this allegiance.’ He clucked his mount into motion and signed his warriors to follow. They thundered away.

Toc sat still for a time, watching them while they rode from sight. Something. Something had just happened there, but exactly what it could have been, he had no idea. Shaking his head, he urged his horse on.

He rode through most of the rest of the day before catching any sign beyond empty horse tracks. Dust rose to the north-east. He kicked his mount to pick up his pace a touch. He was just becoming worried about being caught out in the dark when he topped a gentle grassed rise to see below a horde of mounted warriors circling in a slow churning gyre, calling war chants in crowded rings around tents of the shamans. The clouds of yellow dust they raised plumed into the now darkening sky. He approached and waited but the young bloods ignored him. Most of the youths carried white hair fetishes on their lances, around their arms or in their hair. Eventually, perhaps at a command from within, grudging space was allowed for Toc's mount to push through.

In past the flank-to-flank pressing rings of hundreds of horsemen the atamans were sitting before the central tent, that of Imotan, the White Jackal shaman. Toc bowed and Imotan gestured him forward, patting the ground next to him. He sat and greeted the atamans while Imotan eyed him with a steady, weighing gaze. Toc met it, waiting. ‘I am sorry for your dead, Toc,’ the shaman finally said.

‘My thanks. It is him, then? The very one named Ryllandaras?’

Imotan used a short eating knife to cut meat from a haunch. ‘Yes, it is he. We've hoped and prayed for generations and now he is returned to us.’

‘Hoped? You hoped? If it is him, who do you think he'll turn to once we're gone?’

‘That is our concern, Malazan. We lived with him long before you ever came.’

‘We rid you of a predator.’

‘You interfered.’

‘We freed you!’

The old man stabbed the knife into the ground between them. ‘Freed us! Can you free a man from himself? A people from themselves?’ Taking a long hard breath to master himself he turned to the platter of food and gathered a handful of grapes. He laughed and shook his head at some thought that struck him. ‘Liss's curse! We are a lost people, wandering lost. Lost from ourselves. But now our way has returned to us.’

‘I see no true path.’

‘You are not Seti.’ The shaman was silent for a time. He appeared troubled while he pulled and studied the blade of his knife. Toc the Elder,’ he began carefully, ‘we honour you for what we have accomplished together in the past, but you should not have come.’

‘The old agreements still stand, Imotan.’

‘Do they?’ The shaman glanced aside to Hipal, the ferret shaman, who grinned, evilly, Toc thought, then he scanned a circuit of the men and women sitting in a circle before him. Many glanced away when his gaze reached them. Toc was struck by how much had changed in one night. Before, at the councils, Toc spoke with the atamans, the warrior society warchiefs and tribal Assembly chiefs, while Imotan and Hipal sat relegated to the rear. Now, though, Imotan occupied the seat of honour while the atamans sat at his feet, looking like no more than supplicants.

Having reviewed his council, Imotan sighed, thrust his knife into his sash. ‘What is it you ask, Toc?’

‘This coming battle will be the final arbiter of all. After it, you may consider all agreements fulfilled, all obligations met. It is the last and final request I shall make of you.’

The White Jackal shaman had nodded through Toc's statement. He held his thickly-veined hands up open. ‘So be it. We will be there. Now, for obvious reasons I suggest you spend the night here in our encampment. You will be safe with us. Tomorrow you may join your command.’

Toc bowed. ‘I thank you, Imotan of the White Jackal.’

Nait threw another handful of dried dung on to the fire and sat back in disgust. ‘I'm tellin’ you guys, if he says “clozup” one more time I'm gonna knife the old fart.’

Least let out his own loud fart while Honey pointed into the night. ‘You're welcome to it – he's over that ways.’

‘That's offensive,’ Hands commented to Least who looked abashed. Lim Tal, the Kanese ex-bodyguard, undid a clasp in her hair allowing its full black shimmering length to fall down past her shoulder to her shirt front. Nait, who looked about to say something, appeared to have forgotten what that was and stared along with everyone except Heuk, the company mage, who lay snoring wrapped around a brown earthenware jug. Hands watched as well, sighing. ‘I wish mine would do that.’

Brushing her hair, Lim smiled, flexed her bare bicep. ‘I wish I had your arms.’

‘Listen,’ Nait called across the fire, ‘you two wanna compare any more body parts I got me a nice big ol’ blanket over here…’

‘Should we bring him naked to the line tomorrow?’ Lim asked of Hands. ‘Push him out front?’

Hands snorted – either at the image or at the idea of Nait at the front of anything. ‘They might die laughing…’

‘Tomorrow?’ Nait asked, leaning forward. ‘You think maybe it's tomorrow? You heard that?’

Lim shrugged. ‘Tomorrow or the next.’

‘I hear there's a demon out there who will eat us all,’ Least said.

Beside him, Honey stared. ‘Where'd you hear that?’

Least pointed to the fetishes of wood and bone tied in his hair.

‘No – really?’

A sombre nod.

‘G' wan! No! I heard it from a guy in line.’

Least's eyes widened. ‘They speak to other people?’

A youth in an oversized studded leather hauberk came out of the night and squatted at the fire, warming his hands. He carried large canvas bags at each side hung from leather straps crossed over his neck. A crossbow hung ungainly on his back and a wooden-handled dirk was thrust through his belt. ‘You got any food?’ he asked them.

‘Who in the Abyss are you?’ Nait demanded. The youth looked confused. ‘Listen, kid. This fire's for sergeants only, right? Bugger off.’

The boy straightened, sneering, pointed to Nait. ‘You're no sergeant.’

All except Nait laughed. Honey handed over a cut of hardbread. ‘You tell him, kid.’ The youth snatched the bread and ran into the night.

‘Too full of themselves, they are,’ Nait grumbled, and he took a stick from the fire to examine the blackened, shrivelled thing at its end. He pinched it in his fingers, frowning.

‘I'd say it's done,’ Least offered.

‘I'd say we're all done,’ Nait said without looking up. At the long silence following that he raised his eyes. ‘C'mon – you all got ears, eyes. I heard what they were sayin’ in Cawn.’ He pointed to the darkness. ‘They got ten thousand Moranth Gold! They got twenty thousand Falaran infantry – plus the Talians! Plus the Seti!’ He threw down the stick. ‘An’ what have we got? A horde of civilians is all, maybe ten thousand real soldiers?’

‘That horde beat the Guard,’ Hands said, her voice low and controlled. ‘I heard seven Avowed died. Those Gold come marching against us and they'll find themselves so full of quarrels they won't be able to fall over.’

‘The Seti will sweep those amateurs from the field.’

‘They're so hungry out there they'll be happy to see all those Seti horses.’

‘They'll-’

‘Enough!’ Honey bawled. ‘Hooded One take you both! Quit bickering like you're already married. We already got us two High Fists.’

Snorting, Hands dismissed Nait with a wave; Nait chuckled at Honey's comment. ‘Two,’ he mocked. He picked up the stick and dusted off the burnt wrinkled thing at its end.