“Wyverns stopped fighting,” Gabriel said through his fatigue and depression. “And wardens. Demons. Whatever. They made peace. They even fight alongside us.” He shook off Anne’s hand. “I need to see our people buried,” he said. And turned to stalk off.

“Sixty dead?” Bad Tom insisted. “Sixty, and we scragged the fewkin’ Necromancer.” He looked out over the stinking corpses. “Wyverns don’t ha’e empires, don’t lay waste to civilizations. We scragged the Necromancer. We win. It lost. The end.”

Gabriel turned back, and his jaw set a moment. “Tom,” he said, “Has it occurred to you that we’re taking losses in every one of these fights? We lead from in front, and we die. Kerak and Kronmir and Master Smythe and Wilful Murder and John Crayford and, in the end, you and me. You get that? They were alive. Now they are dead.”

Bad Tom shrugged. “No, laddie. They will live forever in song. An’ so will we. An’ when ye go down, I’ll be there wi’ ye, and that’s why what we have to do here an’ now is drink the fewkin’ wine and sing the songs and e’en, God save us, smell flowers. An’ pretty girls. Life is too short to waste on yon; they’re dead, all praise to ’em, and we’re alive. Amen.”

“I wish I found it so simple,” Gabriel said.

“Simple, you lout? You sound like bloody Mortirmir here. Nothin’ simple about yon, laddie. I kilt fifty loons before I kenned it. They’re dead and I’m not.” Tom pushed him gently with one ham-size hand. “I ha’e always gi’in ye the best advice, have I not?”

That made Gabriel smile. “That you have,” he said. “Except . . . never mind.”

“Aye. So take this as read. Mourn the dead when you’ve the luxury of time. Until then, the only rule is that you are alive and they’re dead.” Tom raised an eyebrow. “Eh? Don’t mourn inside, whatever you do outside. Wastes your strength.”

“Tom Lachlan, the philosopher of war,” Gabriel said.

“Ach, aye,” Tom said with a grin. “Like enow’.”

Gabriel turned back to Mortirmir. “What happened at the very end? The . . . Necromancer . . . went out like a light.”

Morgon’s eyes sparkled. “I subsumed it,” he said, unable to hide a gleam of triumph.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

The San Colombo Pass and central Etrusca—Long Paw

Long Paw had just returned from a long patrol south, trying to net the Patriarch or any of his officers; a waste of time. They’d questioned terrified peasants and ridden hard on exhausted horses and they hadn’t seen or heard a thing. The Duchess of Venike had just unleashed the whole of the Venike ranger company into the hilly country above Firensi, where the Patriarch was rumoured to be hiding among his own people.