Febryl, a mage and elder adviser to Sha’ik

Korbolo Dom, renegade Fist leading the Odhan army

Kamist Reloe, High Mage with the Odhan army

L’oric, a mage with the Raraku Apocalypse

Bidithal, a mage with the Raraku Apocalypse

Mebra, a spy in Ehrlitan

OTHERS

Salk Elan, a traveller on the seas

Shan, a Hound of Shadow

Gear, a Hound of Shadow

Blind, a Hound of Shadow

Baran, a Hound of Shadow

Rood, a Hound of Shadow

Moby, a familiar

Hentos Ilm, a T’lan Imass Bonecaster

Legana Breed, a T’lan Imass

Olar Ethil, a T’lan Imass Bonecaster

Kimloc, a Tanno Spiritwalker

Beneth, a crime lord

Irp, a small servant

Rudd, an equally small servant

Apt, an aptorian demon

Panek, a child

Karpolan Demesand, a merchant

Bula, an innkeeper

Cotillion, patron god of assassins

Shadowthrone, Ruler of High House Shadow

Rellock, a servant

PROLOGUE

What see you in the horizon’s bruised smear

That cannot be blotted out

By your raised hand?

The Bridgeburners

Toe the Younger

1163rd Year of Burn’s Sleep

Ninth Year of the Rule of Empress Laseen

Year of the Cull

He came shambling into Judgement’s Round from the Avenue of Souls, a misshapen mass of flies. Seething lumps crawled on his body in mindless migration, black and glittering and occasionally falling away in frenzied clumps that exploded into fragmented flight as they struck the cobbles. The Thirsting Hour was coming to a close and the priest staggered in its wake, blind, deaf and silent. Honouring his god on this day, the servant of Hood, Lord of Death, had joined his companions in stripping naked and smearing himself in the blood of executed murderers, blood that was stored in giant amphorae lining the walls of the temple’s nave. The brothers had then moved in procession out onto the streets of Unta to greet the god’s sprites, enjoining the mortal dance that marked the Season of Rot’s last day.

The guards lining the Round parted to let the priest pass, then parted further for the spinning, buzzing cloud that trailed him. The sky over Unta was still more grey than blue, as the flies that had swept at dawn into the capital of the Malazan Empire now rose, slowly winging out over the bay towards the salt marshes and sunken islands beyond the reef. Pestilence came with the Season of Rot, and the Season had come an unprecedented three times in the past ten years.

The air of the Round still buzzed, was still speckled as if filled with flying grit. Somewhere in the streets beyond a dog yelped like a thing near death but not near enough, and close to the Round’s central fountain the abandoned mule that had collapsed earlier still kicked feebly in the air. Flies had crawled into the beast through every orifice and it was now bloated with gases. The animal, stubborn by its breed, was now over an hour in dying. As the priest staggered sightlessly past, flies rose from the mule in a swift curtain to join those already enshrouding him.