He wondered at his own impulse, at this seemingly thoughtless push to continue onward. Was he fleeing what he knew was coming? There was nowhere he could run to. Besides, he had duties. His lord relied upon him, to train these Houseblades, to prepare them for the sudden loss of control that was civil war. Lord Draconus did not make use of spies. Dracons Hold was isolated. Unknown events swirled around them.

He found himself upon a trail, this one clear to a man’s height. The boles of the trees lining it looked misshapen. Ivis stopped. He studied one, peering through the gathering gloom. The trunk made a shape, as if hands had moulded the wood itself. It bulged outward. He made out a vaguely feminine form, but bloated. He saw something similar in the next tree, and upon others, all lining this trail. A chill crept through him.

He had not known that there were Deniers living in this forest; but then, never before had he walked into its ancient heart. He knew that he had nothing to fear from them, and that they would probably hide from him. It was likely that he had already been seen. But that sense of sickness would not leave him.

Mouth dry, he continued on.

The avenue of trees opened out on to a glade studded with wooden stakes, driven into the ground in a tight pattern, impenetrable and threatening. They stood high as his hips. In the centre of this spiral was a body, impaled through its back, through its arms and its legs. The tips thrusting up through the broken flesh glistened in the faint starlight.

It was a woman, stripped naked. She was lying horizontally above a score of shafts; her head level as if it too had been pierced by a stake. He did not know why she had not simply slid down.

There was no obvious path to her. A stables cat might wend its way through but no grown man could. Ivis edged closer – he could see no one else about. With one boot he kicked at the nearest stake. His foot rebounded from it, proof that it had been driven deep.

‘I am not for you,’ the woman said.

Cursing in disbelief, Ivis stepped back. He drew out his sword.

‘Iron and wood,’ she said. ‘But iron never has anything good to say to wood, does it? It delivers the shout of wounding, and then it promises fire. Before iron, wood can only surrender, and so it does, each time, every time.’

‘What sorcery is this?’ Ivis demanded. ‘You cannot remain alive.’

‘How big do you imagine the world, Tiste? Tell me, how vast is darkness? How far does light reach? How much will shadow swallow? Is it all that your imagination promised? Is it less than you hoped for, more than you feared? Where will you stand? When will you stand? List for me your enemies, Tiste, in the name of friendship.’