The foreigner jumped at the sudden sound, then crouched down over the general, peering into his eyes. He nodded to himself, and took the general's dagger from his belt. With an assured movement he cut away the sleeve of the general's shirt and tied that above the bleeding arm; the other sleeve was similarly removed and used to bandage the wound itself.

'It's a clean cut, but deep,' he told Chalat. When he received no reply, he looked up from his charge. The Lord was squatting by the creature's head, muttering something, one hand placed flat against the ground. A tremble ran through the stone beneath their feet, rippling towards the white-eye, and then a face appeared on the temple floor. The flat stone billowed up, as though it was nothing more than a sheet of silk held up against a man's face, though the face was far from human. Though the eyes were overly large and the thick jaw extended too far back, somehow there was a beauty in the curve of the nose, cheek and forehead that redeemed its strangeness.

'What happened to him?' Chalat muttered to the face, ignoring the foreigner's presence. 'These regimental tattoos mark him as Charr's bodyguard, but-' The white-eye's voice tailed off as he gestured over the body. 'Has the same happened to Charr?'

The being in the ground rose up a little further so that the tops of its shoulders were now protruding from the rock. There was no seam between the being and the stone floor; they were made of the same substance. Mihn stared at the Ralebrat – the earth elementals were known to be allies of the Chetse, but he had never heard of them being seen outside of battle.

'Your Krann is dead. Something else possesses his body now.' There was a smooth quality to the Ralebrat's voice, sand running over stone. Something underneath the corpse reached up to tap one of the horns. The nearly decapitated head twitched under the movement as the elemental cocked its head to one side.

'I couldn't sense it as it attacked,' Chalat said. 'If more than a handful have been changed, I cannot kill them. Can your kind help?'

'We dare not. The Gods are at play, and others. We will not be involved this time.'

Chalat seemed to take the refusal with remarkable calm. The Ralebrat had allied themselves with Aryn Bwr during the Great War – clearly the slaughter on both sides had taught them to keep clear of anything similar.

'You must leave.'

'What?' Chalat was surprised.

'You cannot fight these daemons; you must leave for the sake of your people. We have expected this Age for a thousand years – we will go deep into the earth until we are called by one who is known to us.'

'How can I leave Charr to rule the Chetse?'

'You cannot avoid it. The only question is whether you will be alive when the time comes to save your people.' An arm appeared from the ground, rising up as though from a perfectly still lake. It pointed at the foreigner. 'Take that one with you.'

'Him? Why?'

The Ralebrat emitted a sound like sand brushing over steel; it was amused. 'Fate intervened to put him in your enemy's path. He is marked, that one.'

'Marked for what?'

'For suffering and service. What he has lost from his soul, he must confront and surpass. If he does as he must, his name will be honoured for a thousand years.'

'I don't understand.' Chalat now stared at the foreigner in curiosity and fascination.

'It is not yours to understand. He belongs to another.' With that the Ralebrat slid back down into the ground, disappearing without trace.

Chalat stared at the blank stone for a moment, then a gust of wind tugged at his hair and stirred him to movement. He stood up and cleaned his sword on the clothes of the dead bodyguard.

'It looks like we both have some long years ahead of us. If you're not my business, I don't want to know any more. I know the Ralebrat well enough to keep my silence. How badly injured is Chate?'

The foreigner looked down and shrugged. The man had passed out and he pushed back the man's thinning silver hair to show Chalat a ripe swelling visible on the general's hairline.

'Right, then. I'll carry him to the Temple of Asenn; they'll be around soon for the dew rituals and it's next to the Temple of Shijhe. Then we go north.'

CHAPTER 17

Koezh Vukotic watched the beacons on the walls struggle against the unremitting wind. The flames sent faint shadows cavorting over the glistening cobbles of Daraban's streets, but they made little inroad into the coating of liquid darkness that had descended upon his city. Bulging clouds obscured his sight of the moons; he preferred it that way, without Alterr's watching eye.

But the shouts and calls out there, the clank of iron and drum of hooves, they were all sounds of another life, aspects of a time when he had been truly alive. The long years of his curse were an indistinct ache, quite separate from the sharp years of mortal life; as few as they had been. Though they were mere seconds compared to the long years that followed, their light still burned fiercely.

Out there, men preparing to die thought of their wives, their children. They smiled over those years that had been their span, hoping, praying, for a few more, however cold and harsh life might be in the Forbidden Lands.

It sickened Vukotic that his people would die in winter. The season was long here, long and harsh and violent, and he believed this attack had come about because a Krann was desperate to prove his worth. It was fear of meeting some unfortunate accident now that Lord Styrax's own son had come of age that had driven Lord Cytt to risk marching to the Forbidden Lands in winter. He was obviously trying to emulate Lord Styrax's great victory here.

Vukotic imagined ten thousand men, stamping their way over treacherous frozen ground, their fingers and toes black and festering, lost to frostbite and gangrene before they even reached these walls. What lurked in the shadows of these streets would only compound their misery: bright eyes and twisted smiles, and pale skin that barely noticed the bite of winter flushed in grotesque anticipation of the

slaughter to come.

He could feel his breed slipping through streets and alleys now, nostrils flaring, tasting the first blood on the wind. Many were close enough for him to sense individually, more lingered at the fringes of his mind, and as each recognised his presence, they begged permission to join.

He rarely let them take part – he wanted them to have as little to do with his citizens as possible – but they would always be there on the edges. Most were worse than animals, beautiful, degenerate daemons that preyed on those they would now be protecting – for this was different. This battle had nothing to do with the people of the city, and Vukotic saw no reason why they should suffer any more than necessary.

As he turned away from the window, echoes of lusty jubilation rang out with revolting familiarity. He steadied himself on the desk and lifted a foot to tug at the black mail covering it. It had been several years since he last wore his armour and the leather padding was chafing at skin more used to the finest silks. The curse gave him enormous strength and resilience, but his senses were likewise magnified. Pain was something he had learned to endure; his many deaths had provided more than sufficient practice.

A little more comfortable now, Vukotic eased himself into the sturdy leather chair before him and pushed aside the stack of papers on the walnut desk that were awaiting his attention. Now was not the time for civic affairs, not even the most pressing matter, a legal dispute between minor nobles – he found himself hoping one or the other died in the coming battle. It might not be a human solution, but few would ever accuse a vampire of excessive compassion.