Anomander shook his head. ‘None. I hear only the promise of purity.’

‘In its will,’ said Henarald, ‘it demands the purest hand. To draw a weapon is to announce an end to uncertainty. It brooks no doubt in its wielder. It is, sirs, a sword for the First Son of Darkness. If he should deny it, in seeing weakness or flaw, or in sensing malign intent in its clear song, then I shall shatter it, and cast the shards across the world. No other shall claim this blade. Understand this of this sword: in the hands of a king, he is made tyrant. In the hands of a tyrant, he is made abomination. In the hands of the broken, he breaks all that he touches.’

The words hung in the small chamber, like echoes that wouldn’t die.

Hust Henarald stood tall before Anomander: an apparition of soot and weals, scars and mottled skin, and Kellaras was reminded of his first meeting with the Lord, when it seemed that iron hid beneath Henarald’s flesh and blood; that he was held in place by twisted bars still glowing from the forge. For all of that, Kellaras saw fear in the old smith’s eyes.

Silchas Ruin spoke into the heavy silence, ‘Lord Hust, what have you done?’

‘There is a secret place,’ Henarald said, ‘known to me. Known to certain Azathanai. There is a forge that is the first forge. Its heat is the first heat. Its fire is the first fire, born in the time before the Dog-Runners, in the time of the Eresal who have long since vanished into the grasslands of the south, where the jungles crawl down to unknown seas. There is no death in these flames. Often they have dimmed, but never have they died. It was in this forge that this weapon was made. One day, I knew – I know – I will be a child again.’ He turned to fix Kellaras with a hard stare. ‘Did I not say so, good sir?’

Kellaras nodded. ‘You did, Lord, but I admit, I did not understand then. I do not understand now.’

Henarald looked away, and to the captain’s eyes he seemed to deflate, as if struck to pain by Kellaras’s admission – his ignorance, his stupidity. One gnarled hand waved as if in dismissal. ‘The child knows simple things,’ he said in a near whisper. ‘Simple emotions, each one solid, each one raw. Each one honest in its bold certainty, no matter how cruel.’

It is the madness of iron. This weapon has been forged by a madman.