'At Aostum the river splits in three, and the canyon is much less deep. The Emperor's architects built islands, and made their bridges of many small arches. Even so, it took them twelve years to build. The bridge at Darmium is the work of Kanedias himself, a gift to his brother Juvens when they were yet on good terms. It crosses the river in a single span. How he did it, none now can say.' Bayaz turned for the horses. 'Get the others, we should keep moving!'

Ferro was already walking back from the brink. 'So much rain.' She looked over her shoulder, frowned and shook her head.

'Don't get rivers like that where you come from, eh?'

'Out in the Badlands, water is the most precious thing you can have. Men kill over a bottle of it.'

'That's where you were born? The Badlands?' A strange name for a place, but it sounded about right for her.

'There are no births in the Badlands, pink. Only deaths.'

'Harsh land, eh? Where were you born, then?'

She scowled. 'What do you care?'

'Just trying to be friendly.'

'Friends!' she sneered, brushing past him towards the horses.

'Why? You got so many out here you couldn't use another?'

She stopped, half turned, and looked at him through narrowed eyes. 'My friends don't last, pink.'

'Nor do mine, but I reckon I'll take the risk if you will.'

'Alright,' she said, but there was nothing friendly in her face. 'The Gurkish conquered my home when I was a child, and they took me for a slave. They took all the children.'

'A slave?'

'Yes, fool, a slave! Bought and sold like meat by the butcher! Owned by someone else, and they do as they please with you, like they would with a goat, or a dog, or the dirt in their gardens! That what you want to know, friend?'

Logen frowned. 'We don't have that custom in the North.'

'Ssss,' she hissed, lip curling with scorn. 'Good for fucking you!'

The ruin loomed over them. A forest of shattered pillars, a maze of broken walls, the ground around it strewn with fallen blocks as long as a man was tall. Crumbling windows and empty doorways yawned like wounds. A ragged black outline, chopped out from the flying clouds like a giant row of broken teeth.

'What city was this?' asked Luthar.

'No city,' said Bayaz. 'At the height of the Old Time, at the greatest extent of the Emperor's power, this was his winter palace.'

'All this?' Logen squinted at the sprawling wreck. 'One man's house?'