‘Water…’ the woman croaked through lips swollen and bloodied. Tinsmith glanced aside to a pail. The woman let him fall, grasped the pail and upended it over her head. Hands cocked a questioning look to Tinsmith who waved wait.

The woman spluttered and gasped, swallowing. Panting, she turned to them. Order your men to stand aside, sergeant, and they won't be harmed. Our argument isn't with you.‘ Tinsmith rubbed his neck and slowly nodded his agreement. ‘Very wise, sergeant.’ She gestured and the wind rose again, raising dust and sand and Nait glanced away, shielding his eyes. When he looked back, she was gone.

‘Who the Abyss was that?’ Hands demanded.

Tinsmith crouched at the side of the dock rat, felt at his neck. The man looked to have been slain by a single thrust. The sergeant returned to the window. ‘So they're back,’ he said as if thinking aloud.

‘Who?’ said Hands.

The Crimson Guard.’

Nait barked a sneering laugh. ‘A name to frighten children!’

‘Pass the word, Corporal. No hostilities. Fight only if attacked.’

Hands frowned her disapproval, her thick dark brows knotting. But she nodded and withdrew.

‘And Corporal!’

‘Aye?’

Put everyone to work readying the chains.’

Aye, sir.’

His back to Nait, Tinsmith said, ‘That was Isha. Lieutenant of Cowl.’

Nait opened his mouth to laugh again but the name Cowl silenced him. Cowl, truly? But he'd been the long-time rival of… Dancer. And Dancer was… gone… as was Kellanved. And Dassem. In fact, no one was left. None who could oppose them. Nait dropped his gaze to his knife; he sheathed it. As the sergeant says, no hostilities.

Mallick Rell was reclined on a divan enjoying a lunch of Talian grapes and a Seven Cities recipe for spiced roast lamb when a servant entered. ‘The streets are seething with news, sir,’ the servant offered, his voice low.

‘Oh, yes? And this news contains specifics?’

The servant paused, coughed into a fist. ‘Well, sir. They say the Crimson Guard has returned.’

Mallick chewed a pinch of lamb meat, savouring it. ‘You interrupt my meal to tell me this? A rumour I myself started?’

‘Ah, no. Sir. I understand they're here now. In the harbour.’

Mallick gagged on the meat, spat it to the marble floor. ‘What?’

‘That is what some are saying, sir. Reliably.’

Sitting up, Mallick wiped his face, waved the cloth at the servant. ‘Get out. Now.’

The servant bowed.

‘I said get out of my sight!’

The servant hurried out. Mallick gulped a glass of wine, straightened his robes. ‘Oryan!’

A shimmer of heat-rippled air and the old man appeared. He bowed. ‘Yes?’

‘The Crimson Guard are here, Oryan?’

The Seven Cities mage blinked his black stone eyes. ‘Some entities of great potential have entered the harbour, yes.’

‘Some entities…’ Mallick reached out as if to strangle the old man. He let his arms fall. ‘That is the Guard.’

‘So you say, Master.’

Mallick's voice was a snake hiss, ‘Yes.’ He snatched up a crystal carafe of red wine, pressed the cold vessel to his brow, sighing. ‘Gods deliver me… At least Korbolo isn't in the city.’

The old man snorted his scorn. ‘How unfortunate for him.’

‘Now, now. So, what steps have you been taking?’

‘I have been raising wards, strengthening protections…’

The carafe slammed cracking to the marble table. ‘What?’

‘Strengthening-’

‘No!’

Oryan blinked anew. ‘I'm sorry, Master?’

‘No, you fool! You'll only pique Cowl's interest. Drop them. Drop them all then hide.’

The mage's wrinkled face puckered in consternation. ‘I'm sorry…’

‘Hide, Oryan. That's your only hope. Now go.’

Visibly struggling with his commands, the old man bowed, arms crossed. The air sighed, shifting, and he was gone. For a moment Mallick thought he could detect a sharp spice scent in the air in the man's passing, but it drifted away before he could identify it. He raised the carafe to pour himself another glass but he found it empty, the blood-red wine pooled on the marble flagging; he threw the carafe aside. The fools! They weren't supposed to come here. What could they hope to – Mallick clasped his hands in front of his face as if praying. Of course! ‘Sennit. Sennit!’

A far door opened, the servant reappeared. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Ready my carriage. I will travel to the Palace.’

‘Sir?’

‘The Palace, man! The Palace! We have important guests.’

Shimmer set her mailed feet on the stone wharf and paused to offer up a prayer of gratitude to any of the Gods who had had a hand in their deliverance from Mael's Shoals of the Forgotten. Gods! What a trial. Mael, you have made your point! A third of their force lost to thirst, exhaustion, sickness and those monstrous eels. And how long had it taken to bull their way through the maze of becalmed rotting vessels – some still manned by crews driven insane by their torment? Months? A year? Who knew? Time did not run parallel from Realm to Realm or even Warren to Warren. And that the least of the dangers of daring such short-cuts.

Yet against all odds they had returned. Once more the Guard faced its true opponent – the entity they had vowed to see negated. The Imperium. She waved Smoky to her. ‘Activity?’

The mage rubbed the crust of salt and blood from his lips. ‘Negligible,’ he croaked. ‘But he is here.’

He. The mage who overturned all the comparisons of numbers and strategies. Tayschrenn, their old nemesis. Shimmer adjusted the hang of her mail coat; damned loose, she'd lost a lot of weight. She drank a long pull from a skin of water scavenged from the merchantman they'd taken. ‘He's Cowl's worry. It's the Palace for us.’

‘Cowl might not be up to it.’

‘Then Skinner will be.’

Smoky picked at the salt-sores on his forehead, frowned in thought. ‘True.’

‘Blades form up!’ Shimmer called, and she started up the wharf. Greymane came to her side.

‘I'll take possession of some better vessels, and await your return, if you don't mind?’

Shimmer eyed the renegade. Ah! Ex-Malazan, of course. ‘Our return you say?’

The man's glacial-blue eyes shared the humour. ‘If necessary, of course.’

‘Very well. You have command.’

Greymane bowed, waved for a sergeant.

It had been over half a century since Shimmer had last seen Unta. It looked bigger, more prosperous, as befitted the adopted Imperial capital. Stone jetties and a curved sea-wall of fitted blocks now rose where wood and tossed rubbish once served. Many more towers punched high into the air over the sprawling streets, including those of the tallest, the Palace.

They formed into column at the mouth of a main thoroughfare leading to Reacher's Square and the government precincts beyond. She and Skinner led; he ordered the silver dragon banner unfurled. As they marched Shimmer watched the gazes of the citizens who jammed the storefronts and stalls lining the sides of the thoroughfare. She searched their faces hoping to see eager friendliness, even welcome, fearing that she would instead meet hostility and resentment. Yet what she found troubled her even more: open perplexity and confusion. Some even pointed and laughed. One woman called out to ask whether they'd come from Seven Cities. Had none of them any idea who they were? Smoky, at her side, muttered, ‘It's like the goddamned carnival's hit town and we're it.’

‘Perhaps we have outlived ourselves…’ And she felt dismay close even more tightly upon her, for the capital was a much larger city than she remembered. The populace lining the street numbered perhaps more than a hundred thousand and it seemed to her that, should they be roused, they could tear them limb from limb. ‘Cowl?’ she asked of Smoky.