‘She took an eye,’ rasped the figure lying on the grasses. ‘With it, I would have seen—’

‘Only what you wanted to see,’ Sechul finished. ‘Never mind that, now. There is no going back. We won’t know what Draconus intends until he shows us—or, Abyss forbid, he finds us.’ He shrugged. ‘He’s thrown his gauntlet down—’

Errastas snorted. ‘Gauntlet? That, Setch, was his fist.’

‘So punch back,’ Sechul snapped.

Kilmandaros laughed. ‘I’ve taught him well, haven’t I?’

The Errant uncurled, and then sat up. He stared bleakly at the altar stone. ‘We cannot just ignore him. Or what his arrival tells us. He is freed. The sword Dragnipur is shattered—there was no other way out. If the sword is shattered, then—’

‘Rake is dead,’ said Kilmandaros.

Silence for a time. She could see in the faces of the two men sweeping cascades of emotion as they contemplated the raw fact of Anomander Rake’s death. Disbelief, denial, wonder, satisfaction and pleasure. And then . . . fear. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Great changes, terrible changes.’

‘But,’ Errastas looked up at her, ‘how was it possible? Who could have done such a thing? Has Osserc returned—no, we would have sensed that.’ He climbed to his feet. ‘Something has gone wrong. I can feel it.’

Sechul faced him. ‘Master of the Holds, show us your mastery. You need to look to your own hands, and the power within them.’

‘Listen to my son,’ said Kilmandaros. ‘Seek the truth in the Holds, Errastas. We must know where things stand. Who struck him down? Why? And how did the sword break?’

‘There is irony in this,’ Sechul said with a wry smile. ‘The removal of Anomander Rake is like kicking down a gate—in an instant the path beyond runs straight and clear. Only to have Draconus step into the breach. As deadly as Rake ever was, but a whole lot crueller, that much closer to chaos. His appearance is, I think, a harbinger of the madness to come. Squint that lone eye, Errastas, and tell me you see other than ruination ahead.’

But the Errant was shaking his head. ‘I can tell you now who broke Dragnipur. There could be no other. The Warlord.’

Breath hissed from Kilmandaros. ‘Brood. Yes, I see that. The weapon he holds—none other. But that only confuses things all the more. Rake would not have willingly surrendered that weapon, not even to Caladan Brood.’ She eyed the others. ‘We are agreed that the Son of Darkness is dead? Yet his slayer did not take Dragnipur. Can it be that the Warlord killed him?’

Sechul Lath snorted. ‘Centuries of speculation—who was the deadlier of the two? Have we our answer? This is absurd—can any of us even imagine a cause that would so divide those two? With the history they shared?’

‘Perhaps the cause was Dragnipur itself—’