Prazek rose as if bidden by some unseen signal from his friend, who moved to draw back the tent flap, and as he stepped into the dull light beyond he said, ‘Well, there’re always children, though the armour might need refitting.’

The two men departed.

Toras Redone coughed, and then asked, ‘Did I dismiss them?’

In every way imaginable, sir. ‘I would depart too, sir, to oversee the preparations of my cohorts.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘as I am too far gone to even fuck right now.’

Without your will or your leave, Toras, there is nothing I could find to make love to. It may seem a fragile agreement, with you sodden most of the time, but I will hold to it nonetheless.

He waited a moment longer, if she would speak again, but then saw that her eyes had closed, her breaths now slow and deep.

The commander cannot see you now, as she communes with her jug of tears, with not a drop spilled to the world.

* * *

‘The ways of the Tiste,’ muttered Hataras Raze, her level blue gaze fixed upon the encampment ahead. ‘They scurry like ants upon a kicked nest. Each one a child to the world.’

‘Soldiers the worst,’ said Vastala Trembler, who now walked holding Listar’s left hand, while he gripped the lead for the horses with his right. The feel of her warm palm against his own was strangely miraculous, a gift undeserved, and he still did not know what to make of it. Earlier in the day, it had been Hataras walking close at his side, her fingers brushing his forearm on occasion, or resting on his hip. There seemed to be few barriers in the sensibilities of the Dog-Runners.

His eyes were not as sharp as theirs and it was a few moments before he made out the bustle of activity in the camp ahead. ‘They’re preparing to march,’ he said. ‘We’re just in time.’ He glanced at Vastala. ‘What did you mean, soldiers were the worst?’

‘Our children play the hunt. To learn the ways. But once the first blood is on their hands, they stop play. They meet the eyes of the hunt as adults, not children.’

‘Cruel necessity,’ said Hataras, nodding. ‘To give thanks to the spirit of the slain beast seeks to silence the terrible guilt within the hunter.’

Listar nodded. ‘I have heard of such practices. Among the Deniers.’

Vastala grunted. ‘Such gratitude is real,’ she said, ‘but if the hunter remains a child inside, the guilt is false. Only a hunter who is grown to an adult inside can understand the burden of such guilt. And knows that no animal spirit is appeased by its slayer’s gratitude.’

Hataras stepped ahead to twist round and study Listar as they walked. ‘A wolf drags you down, Punished Man, and begins to feed on you before your last breath. Its tail wags in gratitude. Tell me, are you appeased? Do you forgive with your last breath? Do you now see,’ she continued, ‘the delusion of the hunter?’