He studied his own rasped-raw palms and the soles of his feet, his bloodied nails cut short by a knife – and all self-inflicted! Was there a metaphor here of some kind for the pursuits of him and his companions? If so, it was not a pleasant one.

Mouthings pulled his attention to Grief – Blues – at the stern tiller along with Treat and Dim. The man's eyes were on Yath, his lips moving as he followed along in the invocation, nodding to himself at Yath's choices in his groundwork for the merging to come. Ho straightened, amazed – the man's a mage! Yes, one of us indeed!

‘You're a mage as well,’ he said to Blues.

The man shared a glance with Fingers, a sardonic smile raised one edge of his lips. ‘Don't spread it around. Fingers and I like to surprise people with it.’

‘What Warren, may I ask?’

A shrug. ‘D'riss.’

So, the Paths of the earth. A Warren very appropriate to their researches in the Pit. Was this how the man was able to so shrug off what happened to him there? Yet had he? He also, Ho noted, was not participating in the ritual. But Blues and his fellow Avowed now fought the heavy tiller arm, swinging it hard over. Devaleth stood, studied the waves surging towards them like slate towers.

‘Shorten the sails further,’ she called to Blues. ‘Now.’

Blues did not waste time thinking or reacting, he merely nodded to Treat who ran to relay the order. ‘We're much too damned light,’ the woman grumbled under her breath. ‘Should've taken on more ballast at the Pit…’

‘More Otataral?’ Ho asked of her, mockingly.

As an answer the sea-mage gestured ahead. ‘This will kill us just as surely.’

Icy spray slashed Ho's face. He wiped it away. ‘Then let's hope Yath succeeds.’

The Mare mage was now the only person standing unaided on the deck. Everyone else was sitting or clung to ropes or the sides. She stood with her feet widely spread, her hands clasped at her back. She looked down to Ho. ‘You and I both know it'll take all day to bring everyone into harmony for the casting. A wave could swamp us any time before then.’

‘Then you best help us,’ Su said, her dark face wrinkling up in a smile.

Devaleth raised her eyes to the clouded sky, muttered curses to her self in Korelan. Ho thought he heard echoes of the old Malazan accents in the language. ‘Oh, very well,’ she hissed in Talian. She took the tiller arm, pushed at Blues. ‘Let go, you damned oaf.’ He shot an uncertain glance to Ho who gave his assent. Taking a deep breath, he and Dim relinquished the arm to Devaleth's control. Immediately the Forlorn steadied, its progress smoothing. She pushed the arm with just the finger and thumb of one hand and the prow fairly leapt to meet an oncoming wave. ‘Too light,’ the woman muttered, distastefully.

‘Is there no interference?’ Su called, eager.

‘Yes, there's bloody interference!’ the sea-mage snarled. The Otataral is a rasp gouging my mind! But I can push that aside – no, there's something else…‘ Her eyes narrowed to slits as she sought within, searching. ‘… Something I cannot identify. But it's there. It's pulling, like a tide or current, urging me aside…’ She shook her head. ‘Too ephemeral. Can't spare the time or effort – you chase it down!’ And she turned her back, putting an end to any further distraction.

Su offered Ho a knowing conspiratorial smile, and again he wondered: what did the old woman mean by such gestures? Was it no more than an invitation to read whatever suited his own fears or plans? Would she later claim to have known all along how everything was going to unfold? The affectation annoyed him no end. No one can know another's mind or their own deepest motivations, hopes or feelings. People were all of them strangers – sources of continual surprise – at times disappointing but at other times affirming. And so it must be for everyone, he imagined.

At the mid-deck Yath had sat as well, staff across his lap, struggling to weave the commingled contributions of the participants into one seamless flow of channelled power to be held, coalesced and distilled, then released in one awesome revelation of willed intent: the transference of the ship through Warren from one physical location to another.

‘What're they waiting for?’ Brill asked, an arm over his shovel, gazing off at the Guard lines to the south.

Nait didn't stop hacking furiously at the dry earth. ‘How in the Abyss should I know? Now stop your shirking and get to work!’ Grinning, Brill set once more to deepening their trench. Just hold up a while longer, Nait pleaded, an we'll have us a nice defensive perimeter. Just a mite longer… He swung a leg up and crouched in the grass, peering left and right. Not much movement. Pot-shots from the skirmishers, nothing serious. What's everyone waiting for? It's damned unnerving is what it was. No one eager to get killed, I guess. May had chosen a good hill – not high enough to attract unwanted attention, but not too shallow neither. Not close to the centre, but not too far to the side. Once he'd snuck his squad down Nait had set everyone to digging a long semicircle of trench – their hidey-hole when the mages and Veils came hunting. May and the regulars were setting up the stone arbalest. This engagement, instead of stones, it will be throwing something far more deadly at any Avowed or mage who's fool enough to reveal his or her position.

Speaking of mages, Heuk was with them. A number of saboteur squads had been assigned cadre mages, though what use the old soak was going to be was beyond Nait. He pulled at his iron and leather brigantine – liberated from the quarter-master wagons by his light-fingered recruits. They too now sported better armour, as well: padded and layered leathers set with rings and studs, iron helmets, greaves and boiled leather vambraces. Too much armour, in truth. But they were young; if they lived long enough they'd come to find the proper balance between protection and weight.

Mixed League and Malazan cavalry patrolled the outlying edges of the field – too few to do anything more. Most of the field commanders had dismounted to stand with their battalions. At centre front the Sword standard threatened advance but never quite committed; waiting word from Laseen. Nait wondered how long that would last. What was the woman waiting for? Why not unleash the skirmishers, sound the advance? Mid-afternoon now and still no one had exchanged blows in anger.

A brown grasshopper landed on Nait's mailed sleeve and he blew to send it flying. Get along, little fellow – things are about to get far too hot for the likes of you. Untan militia fire, he noted, was thickening to the west flank. Some Guard Blade or line had pushed forward or done something and the irregulars responded. Now, seeing their brothers and sisters firing, more and more of the crossbowmen and women were popping up to fire. The flights of bolts became a constant pattering, then a darkening rain, thickened to a punishing storm. This was how it would start: some inconsequential move would invite retaliation, would spur a countermove, would become an escalation in resources and before either side knew it they were committed. Being utterly without personal delusions Nait knew he was a neophyte, but such a scenario of chaos, of blind forces groping at one another in the dark and reacting without thought, made sense when compared to what he'd seen so far. And it would be dark soon enough – shit! As if things couldn't get any worse! The dark! There's no way they'd be off this field before night.

Nait cast about for the cadre mage. ‘Heuk! Get up here!’ The old man appeared, greasy-haired, squinting. ‘What good you gonna do us anyway?’

Heuk shaded his eyes from the afternoon sun. ‘You pray you don't need me-’