‘Gruntle ... Harllo’s dead. They – they left him, buried under rocks. They left him. And Netok – Netok, that dear boy . . . so wide-eyed, so innocent. I gave him his manhood, Gruntle, I did that, at least. Dead – we lost them both.’ She reeled away then, out of the range of his vision, though he heard her rushed footsteps, dwindling.

Another face appeared, a stranger’s, a young woman, helmed, her expression gentle. ‘We are safe now, sir,’ she said, her accent Capan. ‘You have been force-healed. I grieve for your losses. We all do – the Grey Swords, that is. Rest assured, sir, you were avenged against the demons ...’

Gruntle stopped listening, his eyes pulling away, fixing on the clear blue sky directly overhead. I saw you, Harllo. You bastard. Throwing yourself in that creature’s path, between us. I saw, damn you.

A corpse beneath rocks, a face in the darkness, smeared in dust, that would never again smile.

A new voice. ‘Captain.’

Gruntle turned his head, forced words through the clench of his throat. ‘It’s done, Keruli,’ he said. ‘You’ve been delivered. It’s done. Damn you to Hood, get out of my sight.’

The priest bowed his head, withdrew through the haze of Gruntle’s anger; withdrew, then was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.

Dancer

The bones formed hills, stretching out on all sides. Clattering, shifting beneath Gethol as the Jaghut struggled for purchase against the slope. The blood had slowed its flow down his ruined face, though the vision of one eye was still obscured – blocked by an upthrust shard that glimmered pink-white – and the pain had dulled to a pulsing throb.

‘Vanity,’ he mumbled through scabbed lips, ‘is not my curse.’ He gained his balance, straightened, tottering, on the hillside. ‘No predicting mortal humans – no, not even Hood could have imagined such ... insolence. But ah! The Herald’s visage is now broken, and that which is broken must be discarded. Discarded ...’

Gethol looked around. The endless hills, the formless sky, the cool, dead air. The bones. The Jaghut’s undamaged eyebrow lifted. ‘None the less, I appreciate the joke, Hood. Ha ha. Here you have tossed me. Ha ha. And now, I have leave to crawl free. Free from your service. So be it.’

The Jaghut opened his warren, stared into the portal that formed before him, his path into the cold, almost airless realm of Omtose Phellack. ‘I know you, now, Hood. I know who – what – you are. Delicious irony, the mirror of your face. Do you in turn, I now wonder, know me?’