Rusk smiled again and nodded. ‘We lost, and you may believe that you won. But when all the beasts are gone, will your victory fill your bellies? Will it taste any less bitter than our defeat? What you own you must nurture. But you Tiste do not understand that. All that you own you use, until it is used up, and then you cast your vision past your borders, and scheme to take again, this time from others.’

‘I have hunted on your lands,’ Ville said. ‘I saw no nurture passing through your kill-sites.’

‘Then you did not look carefully enough. We take the weak and leave the strong.’

‘You took every beast,’ Ville said.

Rusk laughed. ‘We were defeated. We learned your ways of killing, but we found the winters long when we had naught but ghosts to hunt. You killed thousands of us. You made us few, and the irony of that is that it returned us to our old ways. And now we breed but rarely, and keep only the strongest pups. And when at last all the Tiste are dead, then we shall nurture the herds, until their numbers are vast once more, and we will make each new day the same as the day past, for all time, and know contentment.’ He held up his hands. ‘So we dream. But then your hunters pour over the border and the wise ones among us see the truth awaiting us. Yours is the language of death, and it will speak to us.’

Meat sizzled on skewers over the fire. The night had drawn close. Rint pushed away Rusk’s words and stared into the flames. He thought he could see the witch’s face, twisting with pain, the mouth opened to an endless shriek he could not hear but felt in his bones. He had wanted to spend this night alone, saying little and quick to take to his bedding. Instead, he found himself face to face with a filthy half-beast who smiled a smile devoid of humour, and whose dark eyes belonged to a wolf.

‘Rusk,’ said Galak, ‘when did you see the Bordersword hunters?’

‘Hunters, butchers, skinners, bone-splitters. Dogs, horses, mules and oxen pulling wagons. On another day their numbers would make them an army. They rode armed and wary, with scouts tracking our own hunters.’ He waved a greasy hand. ‘Days past now.’

‘How many days? Five? Ten?’

Rusk sat forward, forearms on the knees of his crossed legs, and offered Galak that same, hard smile. ‘We have kin, scouting your lands. They move at night and remain hidden. We have seen armies on this side of the river. One rode into Abara Delack. Another gathers in the hills of House Dracons—’

‘That one is the Lord’s own,’ said Galak. ‘You evade answering, Rusk.’

‘I am indifferent to your need, Bordersword. I tell you what I choose to tell you. Your civil war has begun. We rejoice and sniff the wind for smoke, and look to the skies for the carrion birds. You killed us before, but now you kill each other and this pleases us.’