‘Sorry. Make the boulders small, please.’

The miasmic clouds churned low over the heaving waves, waves that warred with each other amidst jagged mountains of ice, waves that spun and twisted even as they struck the battered shoreline, flinging spume skyward. The thunderous roar was shot through with grinding, cracking, and the ceaseless hiss of driving rain.

‘Oh my,’ Lady Envy murmured.

The three Seguleh crouched on the leeside of a large basaltic boulder, applying thick grease to their weapons. They were a sadly bedraggled trio, sodden with rain, smeared with mud, their armour in tatters. Minor wounds crisscrossed their arms, thighs and shoulders, the deeper ones roughly stitched with gut, the rows of knots black and gummed with old blood that streamed crimson in the rain.

Nearby, surmounting a jutting spar of basalt, stood Baaljagg. Matted, scabbed, her fur in tangled tufts around bare patches, a hand’s length of broken spear shaft jutting from her right shoulder – three days it had been, yet the beast would not allow Envy close, nor the Seguleh – the giant wolf stared steadily northward with feverish, gleaming eyes.

Garath lay three paces behind her, shivering uncontrollably, wounds suppurating as if his body wept since he could not, massive and half mad, allowing no-one – not even the wolf – to come near.

Only Lady Envy remained, to all outward appearances, untouched by the horrendous war they had undertaken; untouched, even, by the driving rain. Her white telaba showed not a single stain. Her unbound black hair hung full and straight down to the small of her back. Her lips were painted a deep, vaguely menacing red. The kohl above her eyes contained the hues of dusk.

‘Oh my,’ she whispered yet again. ‘How shall we follow Tool across ... this? And why was he not a T’lan Elephant, or a T’lan Whale, so that he could carry us on his back, in sumptuous howdahs? With running hot water and ingenious plumbing.’

Mok appeared at her side, rain streaming from his enamel mask. ‘I will face him yet,’ he said.

‘Oh really. And when did duelling Tool become more important than your mission to the Seer? How will the First or the Second react to such self-importance?’

‘The First is the First and the Second is the Second,’ Mok replied laconically.

Lady Envy rolled her eyes. ‘How astute an observation.’

‘The demands of the self have primacy, mistress. Always, else there would be no champions. There would be no hierarchy at all. The Seguleh would be ruled by mewling martyrs blindly trampling the helpless in their lust for the common good. Or we would be ruled by despots who would hide behind an army to every challenge, creating of brute force a righteous claim to honour. We know of other lands, mistress. We know much more than you think.’

She turned to study him. ‘Goodness. And here I have been proceeding on the assumption that entertaining conversation was denied to me.’