When the darkness dissipated, the bodies were gone, those on the hilltop and those on the bed of the wagon that Picker and her soldiers had guided onto the side of the road below. There had been nothing elaborate to the interment. The disposition of the fallen within the massive, floating edifice was left to the Tiste Andii, to Anomander Rake himself.

Gruntle turned and looked up to study Moon’s Spawn. Leaning drunkenly, it drifted seaward, blotting the brightening stars that had begun painting the land silver. The night’s natural darkness would soon swallow it whole.

As Moon’s Spawn drew its shadow after it, there was revealed, on the ridge on the other side of the trader road, a small gathering of soldiers, positioned in a half-circle around a modest bier and a pile of stones.

It was a moment before Gruntle understood what he was seeing. He reached out and drew Stonny closer to him. ‘Come on,’ he whispered.

She did not protest as he led her from the hill, down the slope, through silent, ghostly ranks that parted to let them pass. Over the road, across the shallow ditch, then onto the slope leading to the ridge.

Where the remaining hundred or so Grey Swords stood to honour the man who had once been Fener’s Shield Anvil.

Someone was following at a distance behind Gruntle and Stonny, but neither turned to see who it was.

They reached the small gathering.

Uniforms had been scrubbed clean, weapons polished. Gruntle saw, in the midst of the mostly Capan women and gaunt Tenescowri recruits, Anaster, still astride his horse. The Mortal Sword’s feline eyes thinned on the strange, one-eyed young man. No, he is not as he was. No longer . . . empty. What has he become, that he now feels like my . . . rival?

The Destriant stood closest to the still form on the bier, and seemed to be studying Itkovian’s death-pale face. On the other side of the bier a shallow pit had been excavated, earth heaped on one side, boulders on the other. A modest grave awaited Itkovian. Finally, the Capan woman turned.

‘We mark the death of this man, whose spirit travels to no god. He has walked through Hood’s Gate, and that is all. Through. To stand alone. He will not relinquish his burden, for he remains in death as he was in life. Itkovian, Shield Anvil of Fener’s Reve. Remember him.’

As she made to gesture for the interment to begin, someone stepped round Gruntle and Stonny, and approached the Destriant.

A Malazan soldier, holding a cloth-wrapped object under one arm. In halting Daru, he said, ‘Please, Destriant, I seek to honour Itkovian...’

‘As you wish.’

‘I would do ... something else, as well.’

She cocked her head. ‘Sir?’