Perhaps the strangest group of warriors Paran had seen was the Gilk. Their hair was cut in stiff, narrow wedges and they wore armour assembled from the plates of some kind of tortoise. Distinctively short and stout for Barghast, they looked to the captain to be a match for any heavy infantry they might face.

Scores of minor tribes contributed to the confused mix that made up the White Face nation. Mutually antagonistic and with longstanding feuds and rivalries, it was a wonder that Humbrall Taur had managed to draw them all together, and more or less keep the peace for four days and counting.

And today is the crux. Even if Trotts wins the duel, full acceptance is not guaranteed. Bloody eruptions could follow. And if he loses . . . Paran pulled his thoughts away from that possibility.

A voice wailed to greet the dawn, and suddenly the camps were alive with silent, rising figures. The muted clank of weapons and armour followed, amidst the barking of dogs and nasal bellowing of geese. As if the Challenge Clearing drew an invisible breath, warriors began converging towards it.

Paran glanced over to see his Bridgeburners slowly gathering themselves, like quarry pricked alert by a hunter’s horn. Thirty-odd Malazans – the captain knew they were determined to put up a fight if things went wrong; knew as well that the struggle would be shortlived. He scanned the lightening sky, eyes narrowing to the southwest in the hopes that he would see a dark speck – Twist and his quorl, fast approaching – but there was nothing to mar the silver-blue vastness.

A deeper silence among the Barghast alerted Paran. He turned to see Humbrall Taur striding through the press to take position in the centre of the clearing. This was the closest the captain had come to the man since their arrival. The warrior was huge, bestial, bedecked in the withered, hair-matted skins of deboned human heads. His hauberk of overlapping coins glittered in the morning light: the horde of ancient, unknown money that the Senan stumbled across some time in the past must have been huge, for every warrior in the tribe wore such armour. There must have been shiploads of the damned things. That, or an entire temple filled to its ceiling.

The warchief wasted no time with words. He unslung the spiked mace at his hip and raised it skyward, slowly turning full circle. All eyes held on him, the elite warriors from all the tribes ringing the clearing, the rest massed behind them, all the way to the valley’s slopes.

Humbrall Taur paused as a witless dog trotted across the expanse. A well-flung stone sent it scampering with a yelp. The warchief growled something under his breath, then gestured with his weapon.