“By God, no. Listen to me . . .” said the commissar, but Abu interrupted. “Please,” he said, and raised his hand, and even in the half-light, through the cuts and scabs, they could see the tattoo of the golden sun. “Do as I say.”

The commissar cursed, pale with anger, and he turned on the heel of his boot and marched out. Thanakar and Charity followed him, not without backward glances, but Abu had turned back towards the window and was looking out over the city, a glass of liquor in his hand.

Part Four:

God’s Soldiers

T he army of Argon Starbridge, King of Caladon, was camped that night around the monastery of St.

Serpentine Boylove, sixty miles north of Charn. But the king had sent out skirmishers almost to the city walls. In the morning, Colonel Aspe rode out to meet them at the head of his regiment, and accompanied by a ragged corps of antinomials: over a thousand men and women, some with babies at their breasts. He had recruited them from the docksides, where the rising water had driven them from their holes. Or rather, they had chosen to come, and he had armed them and given them horses, huge carnivorous beasts from the emperor’s own stables. Once on horseback, some had simply ridden away over the hills, but most had stayed, because food was very scarce.

They rode all day through haggard countryside—not a house, or a stick, or a flower, or a blade of grass.

In that season, the hills were stripped to their foundations: petrified mud and sand dunes, black, red, and a hundred shades of gray, mile after mile. The valleys were wide and desolate, and there was no water anywhere, despite the recent rain, nothing underfoot but sand, and rocks the size of eggs.

They reached a town about seven miles out, tall stone abandoned houses with the roofs gone and the doors groaning open. In the square was a dry fountain choked with rocks, and a huge statue of Immortal Angkhdt, squatting down on dog’s haunches. His whole face had been worn away by the wind, and towards afternoon the wind began to blow, and it filled their eyes and noses with blown sand. Yet still the antinomials laughed and sang, and when they saw the flags of the enemy on a ridge over the town, they spurred their horses forward without thinking, disorganized and wasting powder. Aspe let them go. At that time he had no control over them. In a few hours they were back, in a swirl of dust, and some carried severed heads on the tops of spears. During their long captivity they had learned much, and if they hadn’t yet discovered love, most had learned to hate, and hate bitterly enough to overcome their solitary pride and make it possible for them to ride together. Many deserted every day, but most of these came back after a while, hungry.

After three days, Aspe overtook some remnants of the bishop’s army, leaderless since the day before, when General Cayman Starbridge and most of his staff had been captured and crucified. These soldiers watched the antinomials with open mouths, and when they saw the women, they turned and spat into the sand. But even so, most were willing to turn again and follow the colonel, especially when he threatened them with death. So Aspe’s army quickly divided itself into three parts: his own silent regiment of horse soldiers, the bishop’s infantry, and the antinomials. These last were terrible soldiers—undisciplined, vicious, undependable. But they were effective too, because in the month that followed they won a reputation in the hills for a kind of random savagery that made the enemy run whenever they appeared.