Viktor slipped his hand in hers. “Lead on.”

To his relief and surprise, Calenne struck a faultless path through the shrouded graveyard, guiding him by gentle – and increasingly not-so-gentle – tugs on his hand, and hissed warnings. Hazy grey murk spilled across the cobbles beyond the lychgate. Somewhere in Eskavord, there was light.

Calenne at his side, they headed west, crossing the bridge where he’d fought Katya Trelan so many years ago. With every step, the Dark receded. He almost wished it hadn’t. What before had been indistinct masses at the roadside were revealed as huddled bodies. Some had the black vein-work and glittering eyes of thralls. Most did not. The stench of death hung heavy on the still air.

Viktor gritted his teeth and pressed on. He’d heard so many stories of Malatriant, both as a child and in the years since. Some fanciful, others starkly real. The Abdon Temples, where ritual coaxed forth demons with the scent of innocent souls. Children stolen and raised to be their parents’ executioners. The blood tithes levied against every family, some taken as conscripts, others in service of the darkest gluttonies. How she’d poisoned her husband, but dragged his bodiless spirit back from the mists to console an irredeemable conscience. By the time they reached the marketplace, he believed them all.

Calenne had warned him Malatriant had made herself a throne of the dead. Reality transcended bleak imagining. The mass of corpses rose out of what had once been the fountain, a hummock of souring flesh and broken bone pinned in place by timber spars. So twisted and jumbled was the mound that Viktor could seldom tell where one victim ended, and the next began. The rich scarlet of an archimandrite’s robes brought no satisfaction. Some fates, not even Makrov deserved.

That Viktor made the detail out at all was possible only because of the single firestone lantern set at the summit, resting beside a wooden chair anchored among the dead. Viktor couldn’t see the occupant, for the chair faced west towards Branghall. But he’d no doubt of her identity. Elda Savka, or at least the old woman’s puppeteered body.

“I knew you’d come.” The hollow words echoed about the marketplace. “Did you really think I wouldn’t?”

The gloom of alleyways parted. Thralls flooded into the marketplace. Scores. Hundreds. Only the road to the church remained open.

“I thought you said they were all at Branghall?” said Viktor.

“They were!” Calenne hissed.

Irrelevance. The gamble had failed. Only one last throw of the dice remained. He stared at the implacable tide. Too many to fight. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

“Go! Find your brother! Tell him everything!”

“I won’t leave you!”

“Keep your promise!”

She glared at him – glared at him with a hatred he’d never seen in her face before. Then, tears streaming down her cheeks, she fled.