The Jaghut ghost . . . why do I think of him now? Of that eternity of grief? What is he to me? What is anyone or anything to me, now? I await Hood’s Gate at last – the time for memories, for regrets and comprehensions is past. You must see that now, old

man. Your nameless marine awaits you, and Bult and Corporal List, and Lull and Sulwar and Mincer. Kulp and Heboric, too, most likely. You leave a place of strangers now, and go to a place of companions, of friends.

So claim the priests of Hood.

It’s the last gift. I am done with this world, for I am alone in it. Alone.

A ghostly, tusked face rose before his mind’s eye, and though he had never before seen it, he knew that the Jaghut had found him. The gravest compassion filled that creature’s unhuman eyes, a compassion that Duiker could not understand.

Why grieve, Jaghut? I shall not haunt eternity as you have done. I shall not return to this place, nor suffer again the losses a mortal suffers in life, and in living. Hood is about to bless me, Jaghut – no need to grieve . . .

Those thoughts echoed only a moment longer, as the Jaghut’s ravaged face faded and darkness closed in around the historian, closed in until it swallowed him.

And with it, awareness ceased.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Laseen sent Tavore

Rushing across the seas

to clasp Coltaine’s hand

And closing her fingers

She held crow-picked bones.

The Sha’ik Uprising

Wu

Kalam threw himself into the shadows at the base of a low, battered wall, then dragged the still-warm corpse half over him. He ducked his head down, then lay still, battling to slow his breathing.

A few moments later, light footfalls sounded on the street’s cobbles. A voice hissed an angry halt.

‘They pursued,’ another hunter whispered. ‘And he ambushed them – here. Gods! What kind of man is he?’

A third Claw spoke, a woman. ‘He can’t be far away—’

‘Of course he’s close,’ snapped the leader who had first called the halt. ‘He doesn’t have wings, does he? He’s not immortal, he’s not immune to the charms of our blades – no more such mutterings, do you two hear me? Now spread out – you, up that side, and you, up the other.’ Sorcery cast its cold breath. ‘I’ll stay in the middle,’ the leader said.

Aye, and unseen, meaning you’re first, bastard.

Kalam listened as the other two headed off. He knew the pattern they would assume, the two flankers moving ahead, the leader – hidden in sorcery – hanging back, eyes flicking between the two hunters, scanning alley mouths, rooftops, a rib-less crossbow in each hand. Kalam waited a moment longer, then slowly, silently slipped free of the corpse and rose into a crouch.