Ferro’s fists were clenched, nails digging into her palms. “Peace, Ferro,” whispered Yulwei, with a warning note in his voice.

“God’s teeth but you drive a bargain boy! Seven, and that’s my last offer. Seven, damn it!” The soldier waved his helmet around in frustration. “Use her gently, in five years she’ll be worth more! It’s an investment!”

The soldier’s face was just a few feet away. She could see each tiny bead of sweat forming on his forehead, each stubbly hair on his cheeks, each blemish, nick, and pore on his skin. She could smell him, almost.

The truly thirsty will drink piss, or salt water, or oil, however bad for them, so great is their need to drink. Ferro had seen it often in the badlands. That was the extent of her need to kill this man now. She wanted to tear him with her bare hands, to choke the life from him, to rip his face with her teeth. The desire was almost too strong to resist. “Peace!” hissed Yulwei.

“I can’t afford her,” Ferro heard herself saying.

“You might have said so before, boy, and saved me the trouble!” The soldier stuck his helmet back on. “Still, I can’t blame you for looking. She’s a good one.” He reached down and grabbed the girl under the arm, dragging her back towards the others. “They’ll get twenty for her in Shaffa!” he shouted over his shoulder. The column moved on. Ferro watched the girl until the slaves disappeared over a rise, stumbling, limping, shambling towards slavery.

She felt cold now, cold and empty. She wished she had killed the guard, whatever the cost. Killing him could have filled that empty space, if only for a while. That was how it worked. “I walked in a column like that,” she said slowly.

Yulwei gave a long sigh. “I know, Ferro, I know, but fate has chosen you for saving. Be grateful for it, if you know how.”

“You should have let me kill him.”

“Eugh,” clucked the old man in disgust, “I do declare, you’d kill the whole world if you could. Is there anything but killing in you Ferro?”

“There used to be,” she muttered, “but they whip it out of you. They whip you until they’re sure there’s nothing left.” Yulwei stood there, with that pitying look on his face. Strange, how it didn’t make her angry any more.

“I’m sorry, Ferro. Sorry for you and for them.” He stepped back into the road, shaking his head. “But it’s better than death.”

She stayed for a moment, watching the dust rising from the distant column.

“The same,” she whispered to herself.

Sore Thumb

Logen leaned against the parapet, squinted into the morning sun, and took in the view.

He’d done the same, it felt long ago now, from the balcony of his room at the library. The two views could hardly have been more different. Sunrise over the jagged carpet of buildings on the one hand, hot and glaring bright and full of distant noise. The cold and misty valley on the other, soft and empty and still as death. He remembered that morning, remembered how he’d felt like a different man. He certainly felt a different man now. A stupid man. Small, scared, ugly, and confused.

“Logen.” Malacus stepped out onto the balcony to stand beside him, smiled up at the sun and out over the city to the sparkling bay, already busy with ships. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“If you say so, but I’m not sure I see it. All those people.” Logen gave a sweaty shiver. “It’s not right. It frightens me.”

“Frightened? You?”

“Always.” Logen had barely slept since they arrived. It was never properly dark here, never properly quiet. It was too hot, too close, too stinking. Enemies might be terrifying, but enemies could be fought, and put an end to. Logen could understand their hatred. There was no fighting the faceless, careless, rumbling city. It hated everything. “This is no place for me. I’ll be glad to leave.”

“We might not be leaving for a while.”

“I know.” Logen took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m going to go down and look at this Agriont, and find out what I can about it. Some things have to be done. It’s better to do them than to live with the fear of them. That’s what my father used to tell me.”

“Good advice. I’ll come with you.”

“You will not.” Bayaz was in the doorway, glaring out at his apprentice. “Your progress over the last few weeks has been a disgrace, even for you.” He stepped through into the open air. “I suggest that while we are idle, waiting on His Majesty’s pleasure, you should take the opportunity to study. Another such chance may be a long time coming.”

Malacus hurried back inside with no backward glances. He knew better than to dawdle with his master in this mood. Bayaz had lost all his good humour as soon as they arrived at the Agriont, and it didn’t look like coming back. Logen could hardly blame him, they’d been treated more like prisoners than guests. He didn’t know much about manners, but he could guess the meaning of hard stares from everyone and guards outside the door.

“You wouldn’t believe how it’s grown,” growled Bayaz, frowning out at the great sweep of city. “I remember when Adua was barely more than a huddle of shacks, squeezed in round the House of the Maker like flies round a fresh turd. Before there was an Agriont. Before there was a Union, even. They weren’t half so proud in those days, I can tell you. They worshipped the Maker like a god.”

He noisily hawked up a lump of phlegm and spat it out into the air. Logen watched it clear the moat and vanish somewhere in amongst the white buildings below. “I gave them this,” hissed Bayaz. Logen felt the unpleasant creeping sensation that always seemed to accompany the old wizard’s displeasure. “I gave them freedom, and this is the thanks I get? The scorn of clerks? Of swollen-headed old errand-boys?” A trip down into the suspicion and madness below began to seem like a merciful release. Logen edged towards the door and ducked back into the room beyond.

If they were prisoners here then Logen had been in some harder cells, he had to admit. Their round living room was fit for a King, to his mind at least: heavy chairs of dark wood with delicate carvings, thick hangings on the walls showing woods and hunting scenes. Bethod would most likely have felt at home in such a room. Logen felt like an oaf there, always on his toes in case he broke something. A tall jar stood on a table in the chamber’s centre, its sides painted with bright flowers. Logen eyed it suspiciously as he made for the long stair down into the Agriont.

“Logen!” Bayaz was framed in the doorway, frowning after him. “Take care. The place may seem strange, but the people are stranger still.”

The water frothed and gurgled, spurting up in a narrow jet from a metal tube carved like a fish’s mouth, then splashing back down into a wide stone basin. A fountain, the proud young man had called it. Pipes, beneath the earth, he’d said. Logen pictured underground streams, coursing just beneath his feet, washing at the foundations of the place. The thought made him feel slightly dizzy.

The square was vast—a great plain of flat stones, hemmed in by sheer cliffs of white buildings. Hollow cliffs, covered with pillars and carvings, glittering with tall windows, crawling with people. Something strange seemed to be happening today. All around the distant edges of the square an enormous, sloping structure of wooden beams was being built. An army of workmen swarmed over it, hacking and bludgeoning, swinging at pegs and joints, hurling bad-tempered shouts at each other. All around them were mountains of planks and logs, barrels of nails, stacks of tools, enough to build ten mighty halls, and more besides. In places the structure was already far above the ground, its uprights soaring into the air like the masts of great ships, as high as the monstrous buildings behind.

Logen stood, hands on hips, gawping at the enormous wooden skeleton, but its purpose was a mystery. He stepped up to a short muscular man in a leather apron, sawing furiously at a plank. “What’s this?”