Aranict dropped her mount just behind the two, and found herself riding alongside the ‘Gilk oaf’.


    He glanced across at her and his broad, scarified face was solemn. ‘That Mortal Sword,’ he muttered low, ‘she comes across with all the soft sweetness of a mouthful of quartz. Well done to your commander for recovering.’


    ‘Thank you.’


    ‘Don’t turn round, but if you did you would see tears on the face of Hanavat. I think I like your commander. I am Spax, Warchief of the Gilk Barghast.’


    ‘Atri-Ceda Aranict.’


    ‘That means High Mage Aranict, yes?’


    ‘I suppose it does. Warchief, those Evertine soldiers who have gone out among the Malazans – what are they doing?’


    Spax reached up and made a clawing gesture beneath his eyes. ‘What are they doing, Atri-Ceda? Spirits below, they are being human.’


    BOOK TWO


    ALL THE TAKERS OF MY DAYS


    Well enough she faces away


    Walking past these dripping thrones


    No one knows where the next foot


    Falls


    When we stumble in the shadows


    Our standards bow to wizened winds


    I saw that look beneath the rim


    Of blistered iron


    And it howled to the men kneeling


    In the square and the dogs sleep on


    In the cool foot of the wall, no fools there


    She was ever looking elsewhere


    Like a disenchanted damsel


    A shift of her shoulder


    Sprawls corpses into her wake


    No matter


    There was a child dream once


    You remember well


    Was she the mother or did that tit


    Seep seduction?


    All these thrones I built with my own


    Hands


    Labours of love thin over ragged nails


    I wanted benediction, or the slip away


    Of clothes, whichever bends my way


    Behind her back


    Oh we were guards then, stern sentinels,


    And these grilled masks smelling of blood


    Now sweat something old


    We never knew what we were guarding


    We never do and never will


    But I swear to you all:


    I will die at its feet before I take a step inside


    Call me duty and be done with it


    Or roll from your tongue that sweet curl


    That is valour


    While the dogs twitch in dream


    Like children left lying


    Underfoot


    Adjunct Hare Ravage


    CHAPTER FIVE


    She was dying but we carried her down to the shore. There was light stretched like skin over her pain, but it was thin and fast fraying. None of us dared note in any whisper of irony, how she who was named Awakening Dawn was now fading in this morning’s wretched rise.


    Her weak gestures had brought her down here, where the silver waves fell like rain and the froth at the curling foot was flecked crimson. Bodies bloated and pale fanned limbs in the shallows, and we wondered at the fitness of her last command.


    Is it suit to face your slayer? Soon enough I will answer that for myself. We can hear the legions mustering again behind the flowing wall, and the others are drawing back to ready their rough line. So few left. Perhaps this is what she came to see, before the killing light dried her eyes.


    Shake fragment, Kharkanas, Author unknown


    THE BLACK LACQUERED AMPHORA EMERGED FROM THE SIDE DOOR AND skidded, rather than rolled, diagonally across the corridor. It struck the base of the marble banister at the top of the stairs, and the crack echoed sharp as a split skull before the huge vessel tilted and pitched down the steps. Shattering, it flung its shards in a glistening spray down the stone flight all the way to the main floor. Sparkling dust spun and twisted for a time, before settling like flecks of frost.


    Withal walked over to the edge of the steps and looked down. ‘That,’ he said under his breath, ‘was rather spectacular.’ He turned at a sound behind him.


    Captain Brevity was leaning out from the doorway, glancing round until she spotted Withal. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.


    ‘I was doing just that,’ he replied. ‘Five strides closer and she’d be a widow.’


    Brevity made a face he couldn’t quite read, and then edged to one side to let him pass.


    The throne room was still a chamber of ghosts. Black stone and black wood, the crimson and onyx mosaic of the floor dulled with dust and dried leaves that had wandered in from some high window. It seemed to hold nothing of the now brimming power of the Teronderai, the holy sepulchre of Mother Dark, yet for all that Withal felt diminished as he stepped through the side entrance and edged out towards the centre of the room.


    The throne was on his right, raised on a knee-high dais that was, he realized, the vast stump of a blackwood tree. Roots snaked down to sink into the surrounding floor. The throne itself had been carved from the bole, a simple, almost ascetic chair. Perhaps it had once been plush, padded and bold in rich fabrics, but not even the tacks remained.