The Red Blade smiled. ‘That is our concern, Mebra.’

Mebra drew a deep breath, hesitating, then said, ‘I ask only one thing, sir.’

‘You ask?’

‘I beg, Commander.’

‘What is it?’

‘Kalam lives.’

‘Your wounds are uneven, Mebra. Allow me to caress the other side of your face.’

‘Hear me out, Commander! The Bridgeburner has returned to Seven Cities. He claims himself a soldier of the Apocalypse. Yet is Kalam one to join Sha’ik’s camp? Can a man born to lead content himself to follow?’

‘What is your point?’

‘Kalam is here for another reason, Commander. He sought only safe passage across the Pan’potsun Odhan. He takes the Book because to do so will ensure that passage. The assassin is heading south. Why? I think that is something the Red Blades – and the Empire – would know. And such knowledge can only be gained while he yet breathes.’

‘You have suspicions.’

‘Aren.’

Tene Baralta snorted. ‘To slip a blade between Pormqual’s ribs? We would all bless that, Mebra.’

‘Kalam cares nothing for the High Fist.’

‘Then what does he seek at Aren?’

‘I can think of only one thing, Commander. A ship bound for Malaz.’ Hunched, his face pulsing with pain, Mebra watched with hooded eyes as his words sank roots into the Red Blade commander’s mind.

After a long moment, Tene Baralta asked in a low voice, ‘What do you plan?’

Although it cost him, Mebra smiled.

Like massive limestone slabs each resting against the other, the cliffs rose from the desert floor the height of four hundred arm-spans. Gouged across the weathered face were deep fissures, and tucked inside the largest of these, a hundred and fifty arm-spans above the sands, was a tower. A single arched window showed black against the bricks.

Mappo sighed shakily. ‘I see no obvious approach, but there must be one.’ He shot a glance back at his companion. ‘You believe it is occupied.’

Icarium rubbed the crusted blood from his brow, then nodded. He half slid the sword from its sheath, frowning at the fragments of flesh still snagged on the notched edge.

The D’ivers had caught them unawares, a dozen leopards the colour of sand, streaming from a gully bed less than ten paces to their right as the two travellers prepared to make camp. One of the beasts had leapt onto Mappo’s back, jaws closing on the nape of his neck, the fangs punching through the Trell’s tough hide. It had attacked him as if he was an antelope, seeking to bite down on his windpipe as it dragged him down, but Mappo was no antelope. Though the canines sank deep, they found only muscle. Enraged, the Trell had reached over his head and torn the animal from his shoulders. Gripping the snarling leopard by its skin at neck and hips, he had slammed it hard against a boulder, shattering its skull.

The other eleven had closed in on Icarium. Even as Mappo flung his attacker’s body aside and whirled, he saw four of the beasts lying motionless around the half-blood Jaghut. Fear gripped the Trell suddenly as his gaze fell on Icarium. How far? How far has the Jhag gone? Beru bless us, phase.