One of the workmen shook the last of the wood shavings from his barrel, another raked the heap of pale powder smooth, and they were done. The whole Square of Marshals, from the towering white walls of the Halls Martial on Ferro's right to the gilded gates of the Lords' Round on her left, was entirely covered in sawdust. It was as if snow had come suddenly, only here, and left a thin blanket across the smooth flags. Across the dark stone, and across the bright metal.

'Good.' Bayaz nodded with rare satisfaction. 'Very good!'

'Is that all, my Lord?' called their foreman from the midst of their cringing group.

'Unless any of you wish to stay, and witness the destruction of the indestructible Hundred Words?'

The foreman squinted sideways at one of his fellows with some confusion. 'No. No, I think we'll just… you know…' He and the rest of the workmen began to back off, taking their empty barrels with them. Soon they were away between the white palaces. Ferro and Bayaz were left alone in all that flat expanse of dust.

Just the two of them, and the Maker's box, and the thing that it contained.

'So. The trap is set. We need merely wait for our quarry.' Bayaz tried his knowing grin, but Ferro was not fooled. She saw his gnarled hands fussing with each other, the muscles clenching and unclenching on the side of his bald head. He was not sure if his plans would work. However wise he was, however subtle, however cunning, he could not be sure. The thing in the box, the cold and heavy thing that Ferro longed to touch, was an unknown. The only precedent for its use was far away, in the empty wastes of the Old Empire. The vast ruin of blighted Aulcus.

Ferro frowned, and loosened her sword in its scabbard.

'If they come, that will not save you.'

'You can never have too many knives,' she growled back. 'How do you know they will even come this way?'

'What else can they do? They must come to wherever I am. That is their purpose.' Bayaz pulled in a ragged breath through his nose, and blew it out. 'And I am here.'

Sacrifices

« ^ »

Dogman squeezed through the gate along with a rush of others, some Northmen and an awful lot of Union boys, all pouring into the city after that excuse for a battle outside. There were a few folk scattered on the walls over the archway, cheering and whooping like they were at a wedding. A fat man in a leather apron was standing on the other side of the tunnel, clapping folk on the back as they came past. 'Thank you, friend! Thank you!' He shoved something into Dogman's hand, grinning like a madman all the way. A loaf of bread.