Certinse smiled inwardly. Lucky for them it's winter and an extra layer is welcome. In summer they actually might have to forego their fighting clothes. 'I mean: our goal is not civil war; we don't need evidence that this was a set-up to provoke a conflict. But that doesn't need to be the only result.'

'Why not? You've got 'em runnin' scared,' Yeren said, gesticulating as he spoke. 'They agreed wholesale to the High Cardinal's reforms. If you ask me, whatever happened in Scree broke Lord Isak's spirit-'

'I do not pay you to think,' Certinse snapped, 'and of that I am glad when your skills at it are so poor. Do you think we would be in such a secure position if Lord Isak was so easily swayed, considering it is the Chief Steward whispering in his ear?'

He reached for the bell-pull and gave it a tug to summon his secretary, a weak-chinned little man whose father had named him Kerek, clearly hoping he'd sired a great warrior rather than the cautious cleric he'd grown into.

The secretary hurried in and, blinking first at Yeren, bowed to Certinse. 'Yes, your Eminence?'

'Prepare a letter to High Cardinal Echer. I advise we distance ourselves from the unfortunate late High Priest Bern, and that we should encourage the investigation be concluded swiftly and quietly. I want it to imply we know more than we're going to tell on the subject.'

'Won't that make him suspicious?' Yeren interjected, failing to pay attention to Certinse's hard look. 'They'll be looking to see who else might have been in league with daemons. You Farlan find conspiracies far more entertaining than the truth.'

'Firstly,' Certinse replied with exaggerated patience, 'they will be looking for conspirators within the cult of Death, not outside it. Bern would be unlikely to take his heresy out of his domain. Secondly, Echer is so far gone he's barely even aware when it's Prayerday. Now that his proposals have been accepted the man's as happy as… well, as happy as an utterly deranged man can be. Kerek, do you think there's an appropriate term?'

'Ecstatic, perhaps, sir?'

Certinse nodded. 'The right hint of fervour, certainly. Anyway, Echer is content to occupy his time devising more strictures to impose on the Farlan people. Fortunately for the Farlan people, he sends them to me for my contribution now that he sees me as his champion, and I have in my employ several talented, albeit argumentative, theologians to help refine the text.'

' Meaning you let him argue with them all day, leaving you to run the cult?'

Certinse inclined his head. 'For a soldier you're not so great a fool.'

Yeren managed to not allow himself to be baited. 'That won't work forever.'

'I know. Kerek, have you seen your friend Ardela recently?'

'I have, your Eminence,' Kerek replied with a bow that wasn't fast enough to hide his smile.

'You should write to her, ask her to put her debating skills to use. Perhaps afterwards you could go and see her, just to ensure she is well. It must be a trying time for her; I hear shocking news about her mistress. Invite Yeren along too, perhaps?'

'Mistress?' Yeren said sharply as Kerek bowed again and retreated out of the room. 'That wouldn't be the Lady, would it? Rumour has it that she's dead, murdered in one of her own temples.'

'I wouldn't know the details, I'm afraid, but I too hear she is dead.' Certinse watched Yeren's face as the soldier fitted the pieces together. A devotee of the Lady. The irritant that was High Chaplain Echer. Honestly Yeren, it's not that difficult, is it? Or are you just trying to believe better of a man of the cloth?

'Piss and daemons!'

Certinse smiled. 'Not quite.'

'Your secretary didn't even bat an eyelid,' Yeren protested. 'What sort of bloody life do you clerics lead?' The man actually looked outraged, as though he had been a paradigm of goodness throughout years of bloody civil war in Tor Milist.

Bat an eyelid? The man barely did that when I told him to renounce his Qod and worship a daemon-prince; I doubt he's going to care about murder. It hardly interests him unless he gets to participate.

'The cut and thrust of clerical debate can be most wounding,' Certinse agreed. 'He will set up a meeting with Ardela after she has presented her argument to the High Cardinal. Perhaps you should take a squad with you to meet her. As with many of those with copper hair she can be somewhat fiery; perhaps it is something in the dye?'

Appetites that need paying for. Certinse recalled Lord Isak's words all too clearly. Damn you, Ardela.' Your sloppiness has put me in the Chief Steward's pocket for the rest of my life, and that's the sort of mistake you don't get away with. I almost wish the daemon-prince had not been killed by whatever it was that managed the feat. I would be pleased to send your soul to him, but I'll have to settle with just killing you.

'Somewhat fiery?' Yeren echoed, T doubt she'll be comin' along quietly, either.'

'The sad realities of life,' Certinse agreed as he returned to his report.

CHAPTER 19

A cold wind whipped across his body, slapping his cheek with fingers of ice. He kept his head low and watched his feet rise and fall to the tune of tortured muscle. His feet were bare, always bare, his clothes ragged and torn. Eolis in his hand tugged him forward, dragging him towards the broken'tooth mountain that filled the horizon. He could smell the mud and burning on the wind, so unlike the furnace of Scree, yet similar for the upwelling of horror it provoked within him.

He stopped and looked at the shadows lying thick on the ground. The sun was absent from a grim grey sky yet the shadows were tangible for their blackness. They began to shift and writhe under his gaze and he staggered a few steps back, seeing sudden movement everywhere he looked. The shadows thrashed and kicked, rising a little then falling back to earth. He felt eyes on him and realised the shadows were not monsters or daemons coming to life. They were much worse.

Faces from all parts of his life, blood-splattered and screaming, enemies he'd barely seen before he'd killed them, butchered friends: they all stared at him from every direction. It was a field of the dead; those slain by his own hand lying in great heaps alongside those who had died because of his order.

He turned to run, unable to face their eyes and their cries any longer, but there were more behind him, and standing over those, five figures watching him from his shadow.

'What do you want?' he moaned, sinking to his knees. He felt the cold in his numb hands and feet, draining what little life remained.

'We wait,' was the only reply he received.

One of the figures stepped closer and bent down so it could look him in the face. The pitiless grey ice. of her eyes made him cry out with pain, but the sound was dulled and muled in her presence. Her dress was once of a rich pale blue cloth, now torn and ragged like his own. A small, withered bunch of flowers hung loose from her fingers.

'We wait for release,' she whispered in his ear, each syllable like the last breath of a dying man. 'We wait for our lord to claim you. Can you hear his footsteps yet? Can you feel his hounds draw closer?'

'Isak,' the voice called as a hand nudged his shoulder.

He flinched. The hand was as hot as a furnace on his skin after the pervading chill of the dream. He squinted up at the figure standing over him, his head feeling muzzy and heavy. Xeliath held out her wasted hand towards him. She looked far stronger now than when she'd arrived. Being a stranger in a strange land had forced her to become stronger, and even crippled she was a white-eye, with more than enough stubborn resilience to rise to the challenge. Invited guest or not, many Farlan would simply see a Yeetatchen, an enemy – but after her weeks of recuperation Isak guessed Xeliath would relish the coming fight.