“He’s right,” Xonghis called from the gloom to their rear. He was crouched near the wall, his Jekki pack high on his shoulders, his mailed forearms pressed against his knees. He reached to the ground before him, raised a long bone from the dust, something that could have belonged to a dog. “Dead skinny,” he said. He held it to the light, then peered through it like a tube: The knobs at either end had been snapped off. He turned to the rest of the company, shrugged. “Something was hungry.”

The scalpers looked around, cursed at the sight of bones scattered everywhere, like the remains of some forgotten flood, sticks beneath silt. Lord Kosoter continued to mutter in Cleric’s ear, a grinding discourse, full of hate. The words “miserable wretch” climbed into clarity. Achamian found himself staring into the black portal between the towering wolves, expecting, any moment now, something …

When he blinked, he saw yammering figures from his Dreams.

“Sranc?” one of the Galeoth scalpers cried—Hoat. “What eats Sranc?” He had to be the youngest of the Skin Eaters, his body still hooked by an adolescent ranginess.

Every one of them, Achamian realized, every company that had dared these halls. All of them had paused before this broken gate and suffered the very same premonition. And still they marched onward, carrying their war, whatever it was, deeper, deeper …

Never to be seen again.

“Where are the doors?” Galian blurted. He looked around in the quarrelsome manner that some use to conceal their fright. “What does it mean? Gates without doors?”

But questions always came too late. Events had to be pushed passed the point of denial; only then could the pain of asking begin.

They spent their first night in the grand chamber beyond the Wolf Gate. Achamian hung his sorcerous light high in the air, an abstract point of brilliance that illuminated the ceiling and the finned capitals of the pillars ascending about them. The light seemed to creep down, dim enough to be shut out by closed eyes, expansive enough to provide the illusion of security. Alien images glared from on high, their recesses inked in utter black.

True to his word, Kiampas organized shifts and posted sentries along their perimeter of light. Cleric sat alone on the dust and stone, gazing into the passageway they would take upon waking. Lord Kosoter stretched across his mat and seemed to fall instantly asleep, even though Sarl sat cross-legged at his side, muttering inanity after inanity, pausing only to cackle at the turns of his own wit. The rest of the company formed sullen clots across the floor, tossing on their mats or sitting and talking in low tones. Their crowd of mules stood in the nearby shadows, looking absurd against the surrounding grandeur.

The air remained chill enough to fog deep exhalations.