As it fell away, Sukul Ankhadu tried twisting further, to reach across for the second beast’s snout.
It lurched back, tearing away ribs and lung.
She spun, driving her hand between the creature’s clavicles. Through thick hide, into a welter of spurting blood and soft meat, fingers closing on the ridged windpipe—
A taloned paw struck the side of her head – the same side as had been mauled by the first beast – and where the temporal plate had been, cerebral matter now sprayed out with the impact. The claws caught more bone and hard cartilage, raked through forebrain on its way back out.
The upper front of Sukul’s head and the rest of her face was ripped away, spilling brains out from the gaping space.
At that moment, the other paw hammered what remained from the other side. When it had completed its passage, all that was left was a section of occipital plate attached to a flopping patch of scalp, dangling from the back of the neck.
Sukul Ankhadu’s knees buckled. Her left hand exited the wound in the second beast’s throat with a sobbing sound.
She might have remained on her knees, balanced by the sudden absence of any weight above her shoulders, but then the creature that had finally killed her lurched forward, its enormous weight crushing her down as the Soletaken, who had once been Til’aras Benok, collapsed, slowly suffocating from a crushed windpipe.
Moments later, the only sound from this modest clearing was the dripping of blood.
Trull Sengar could hear the faint echoes of sorcery and he feared for his friends. Something was seeking to reach this place, and if it – or they – got past Hedge and Quick Ben, then once more Trull would find himself standing before unlikely odds. Even with Onrack at his side . . .
Yet he held his gaze on the gates. The silent flames rose and ebbed within the portals, each to its own rhythm, each tinted in a different hue. The air felt charged. Static sparks crackled in the dust that had begun swirling up from the stone floor.
He heard a sound behind him and turned. Relief flooded through him. ‘Onrack—’
‘They seek Ulshun Pral,’ his friend replied, emerging from the tunnel mouth, two paces, three, then he halted. ‘You are too close to those gates, my friend. Come—’
He got no further.
The fires within one of the gates winked out, and from within the suddenly dark portal figures emerged.
Two strides behind Silchas Ruin, Seren Pedac was the next in their group to cross the threshold. She did not know what prompted her to push past Fear Sengar – and attributed no special significance to Clip’s hanging back. A strange tug took hold of her soul, a sudden, excruciating yearning that overwhelmed her growing dread. All at once, the stone spear she held in her hands felt light as a reed.
Darkness, a momentary flicker, as of distant light, then she was stepping onto gritty stone.
A cavern. To either side, the raging maws of more gates, flooding all with light.
Before her, Silchas Ruin halted and his swords hissed from their scabbards. Someone was standing before him, but in that moment Seren Pedac’s view was blocked by the White Crow.
She saw a barbaric warrior standing further back, and behind him, a lone silhouette standing in the mouth of a tunnel.
To her left Fear Sengar appeared.
She took another step, to bring her round Silchas Ruin, to see the one who had made the albino Tiste Andii pause.
And all at once, the terror began.
On Fear Sengar’s face, an expression of profound horror – even as he surged past Seren Pedac. A knife in his raised hand. The blade flashing down towards Silchas Ruin’s back.
Then all of Fear’s forward motion ceased. The out-thrust arm with its knife flailed, slashed the air even as Silchas Ruin – as if entirely unaware of the attack – took a single step forward.
A terrible gurgling sound from Fear Sengar.
Spinning round, Seren Pedac saw Clip standing immediately behind Fear. Saw the chain between Clip’s hands slide almost effortlessly through Fear Sengar’s throat. Blood lashed out.
Beyond Clip, Udinaas, with Kettle now held tight in his arms, sought to lunge away, even as a shadow erupted beneath him, writhed about his lower limbs, and dragged the Letherii down to the stone floor, where Wither then swarmed over Udinaas.
Clip released one end of his chain and whipped the length free of Fear Sengar’s throat. Eyes staring, the expression of fierce intent fixed upon his face, the Tiste Edur’s head sagged back, revealing a slash reaching all the way back to his spine. As Fear Sengar fell, Clip slid in a deadly blur towards Udinaas.
Frozen in shock, Seren Pedac stood rooted. Disbelieving, as a scream of raw denial tore from her throat.
Silchas Ruin’s swords were singing as he closed in deadly battle with whomever stood before him. Staccato impacts as those blades were parried with impossible speed.
Wither had wrapped shadow hands around Udinaas’s neck. Was choking the life from the ex-slave.
Kettle pulled herself free, then twisted round to pound tiny hands against the wraith.
All at once, a ferocious will burgeoned within Seren Pedac. The will to kill. Launched like a javelin towards Wither.
The wraith exploded in shreds—
—as Clip arrived, standing over Udinaas and reaching down one hand to grasp Kettle’s tunic between the girl’s shoulder blades.
Clip threw the child across the floor. She struck, skidded then rolled like a bundle of rags.
With focused punches of Mockra, Seren Pedac hammered at Clip, sending him staggering. Blood sprayed from his nose, mouth and ears. Then he whipped round, a hand lashing out.
Something pounded Seren Pedac high on her left shoulder. Sudden agony radiated out from the point of impact and all her concentration vanished beneath those overwhelming waves. She looked down and saw a dagger buried to the hilt – stared down at it in disbelief.
There had been no time to think. Trull Sengar was left with naught but recognition. One, then another, arriving in shocks that left him stunned.
From the gate emerged an apparition – and Trull Sengar had stood before this one before, long ago, during a night’s vigil over fallen kin. Ghost of darkness. The Betrayer. No longer weaponless, as he had been the first time. No longer half rotted, yet the coals of those terrifying eyes remained, fixed now upon him in bright familiarity.
And, in a low voice, almost a whisper, the Betrayer said, ‘Of course it is you. But this battle, it is not—’
At that moment, Trull Sengar saw his brother. Fear, the god of his childhood, the stranger of his last days among the Tiste Edur. Fear, meeting Trull’s wide eyes. Seeing the battle about to begin. Comprehending – and then there was a knife in his hand, and, as he surged forward to stab the Betrayer in the back, Trull saw in his brother’s face – in an instant – the full measure of Fear’s sudden self-awareness, the bitter irony, the truth of generations past returned once more, one last time. Silchas Ruin, an Edur knife seeking his back.
When Fear was tugged backward, when his throat opened wide, Trull Sengar felt his mind, his soul, obliterated, inundated by incandescent fury, and he was moving forward, the tip of his spear seeking the slayer of his brother—
And the Betrayer was in his way.
A slash opened up the Betrayer’s skin at the base of his throat, the tip skittering away across one clavicle; then a thrust, punching into the apparition’s left shoulder muscle.
And all at once the Betrayer’s swords wove a skein of singing iron, parrying the spear’s every lightning thrust and sweep. And suddenly Trull Sengar’s advance stalled, and then he was being driven back, as those swords, hammering the shaft of his spear, tore away bronze sheathing, began splintering the wood.
And Trull Sengar recognized, before him, his own death.
Onrack the Broken saw his friend’s attack fail, saw the fight turn, and saw that Trull Sengar was doomed to fall.
Yet he did not move. Could not.
He felt his own heart tearing itself
to pieces, for the man behind him – the Imass, Ulshun Pral – was, Onrack knew at once, of his own blood. A revelation, the summation of a thousand mysterious sensations, instincts, the echoing of gestures – Ulshun Pral’s very stance, his manner of walking, and the talent of eyes and hand – he was, oh he was . . .
Trull Sengar’s spear exploded in the warrior’s hands. A sword lashed out—
The blow to her shoulder had driven Seren Pedac down to her knees, then pitched her sideways – and she saw, there before Silchas Ruin, Trull Sengar.
Clip, blood streaming down his face, had turned back to pursue Udinaas, who was crawling, scrabbling towards Kettle.
And before her rose a choice.
Trull
Or Udinaas.
But, alas, Seren Pedac was never good with choices.
With her hands she sent the stone spear skittering towards Trull Sengar – even as his own weapon shattered into pieces. And, tearing the dagger from her shoulder, she renewed her Mockra assault on Clip – staggering the bastard once more.
As the sword swung to take Trull in the side of his head, he dropped down, then rolled to evade the second weapon that chopped down. He wasn’t fast enough. The edge slammed deep into his right hip, stuck fast in solid bone.
Trull took hold of the Betrayer’s forearm and pulled as he twisted – the pain as he sought to trap that embedded sword momentarily blinded him, filling his skull with white fire – and against the other sword he could do nothing—
But the Betrayer, pulled slightly off balance, took a step to the side to right himself – onto the shaft of the stone spear which promptly rolled beneath his weight.
And down he went.
Trull saw the spear, reached for it. Closed both hands about the shaft, then, still lying on his side, one of the singing swords pinned beneath him – the Betrayer’s arm stretched out as he sought to maintain his grip – Trull drove the butt end of the spear into his opponent’s midsection.
Punching all the air from his lungs.
He plunged backward, rolled, and the sword under Trull slapped down as the Betrayer’s hand involuntarily released it. And Trull pounded a hand down on the weapon, dislodging it from the bone of his hip.
The white fire remained in his mind, even as he forced himself onto his knees, then upward. The leg beneath the wound refused to obey him and he snarled in sudden rage, willing himself into a standing position – then, leg dragging, he closed in on the Betrayer—
Seren Pedac – all her efforts at incinerating Clip’s brain failing – shrank back as the now grinning Tiste Andii, abandoning his hunt for Udinaas, turned about and advanced on her, drawing out knife and rapier. Crimson teeth, crimson streaks from his eyes like tears—
At that moment, impossibly, Trull Sengar hurt Silchas Ruin – drove the White Crow onto his back where his head snapped back to crunch against the floor, stunning him.
And Clip turned, saw, and raced in a low blur towards Trull.
Meeting a spear that lashed out. Clip parried it at the last moment, surprise on his features, and he skidded to a halt, and was suddenly fighting for his life.
Against a crippled Tiste Edur.
Who drove him back a step.
Then another.
Wounds blossomed on Clip. Left arm. Across the ribs on the right side. Laying open his right cheek.
In a sudden, appallingly fast-shifting attack, Trull Sengar reversed the spear and the stone shaft cracked hard into Clip’s right forearm, breaking it. Another crack, dislocating the right shoulder – and the knife spun away. Third time, this one on the upper left thigh, hard enough to splinter the femur. A final one, against Clip’s left temple – a spray of blood, the head rocking to one side, the body collapsing utterly beneath it. Rapier clunking from a senseless hand.
And Trull then whirled back to Silchas Ruin—
But his wounded leg failed him and he fell – Seren heard his curse like a sharp retort—
The white-skinned Tiste Andii advanced to where Onrack stood. The lone sword in his right hand howled as he readied it.
‘Step aside, Imass,’ he said. ‘The one behind you is mine.’
Onrack shook his head. He is mine. Mine!
It was clear that the Tiste Andii saw Onrack’s refusal in the face of the Imass warrior, for he suddenly snarled – a sound of raw impatience – and lashed out with his left hand.
Sorcery hammered into Onrack. Lifting him from his feet, high into the air, then slamming him into a wall of stone.
As he dropped down hard onto the floor, a single thought drifted through his mind before unconsciousness took him: Not again.
Trull Sengar, lying helpless on the floor, cried out upon seeing Onrack engulfed in magic and then flung away. He struggled to regain his feet, but the leg was a dead weight now, and he was leaving a thick trail of blood as he dragged himself closer to Silchas Ruin.
Then someone was kneeling at his side. Hands soft on one shoulder—
‘Stop,’ a woman’s voice murmured. ‘Stop, Trull Sengar. It is too late.’
Udinaas struggled to breathe. Wither’s shadowy hands had crushed something in his throat. He felt himself weakening, darkness closing in on all sides.
He had failed.
Even knowing, he had failed.
This is the truth of ex-slaves, because even that word is a lie. Slavery settles into the soul. My master now is naught but failure itself.
Forcing himself to remain conscious, he lifted his head. Drag the breath in, dammit. Lift the head – fail if need be, but do not die. Not yet. Lift the head!
And watch.
Silchas Ruin sheathed his remaining sword, walked up to Ulshun Pral.
And took him by the throat.
A low woman’s voice spoke from his left. ‘Harm my son, Tiste Andii, and you will not leave here.’
He turned to see a woman, an Imass, clothed in the skin of a panther. She was standing over the prone form of the warrior he had just flung aside.
‘That this one lives,’ she said, with a gesture down to the Imass at her bared feet, ‘is the only reason I have not already torn you to pieces.’
A Bonecaster, and the look in her feline eyes was a dark promise.
Silchas Ruin loosened his hold on the Imass before him, then reached down and deftly plucked free a flint dagger. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is all I need.’ And as soon as he held the primitive weapon in his hand, he knew the truth of his claim.
Stepping away, eyes holding the woman’s.
She made no move.
Satisfied, Silchas Ruin turned about.
Seren, kneeling beside Trull Sengar, watched the White Crow walk over to where Kettle sat on the stone floor. With his free hand he reached down to her.
A fistful of tunic, a sudden lift, pulling the child into the air, then back down, hard, onto the flat of her back, her head cracking hard on the stone, even as he drove the flint knife into the centre of her chest.
Her small legs kicked, then went still.
Silchas Ruin slowly straightened. Stepped back.
* * *
Udinaas turned his head away, his vision filling with tears. Of course, the child had known, just as he had known. Kettle was, after all, the last desperate creation of an Azath.
And here, in this brutal place, she had been joined to a Finnest.
He heard Seren Pedac cry out. Looked once more, blinking to clear his eyes.
Silchas Ruin had backed away, towards one of the gates.
Where Kettle lay, the leather-wrapped handle of the flint knife jutting up from her chest, the air had begun to swirl, darkness condensing. And the small body was moving in fitful jerks, then a slow writhing of limbs as roots snaked out, sank tendrils into the very stone. Rock hissed, steamed.
Silchas Ruin looked on for a moment longer, then he swung about, collected his second sword, sheathed it, and walked into a gate, vanishing from sight.
His breathing less ragged, Udinaas twisted round, looked for Clip’s body
– but the bastard was gone. A blood trail leading to one of the gates. It figures. But oh, I saw Trull Sengar – I saw him take you on, Clip. You, sneering at that paltry weapon, the lowly spear. I saw, Clip.
The dark cloud surrounding Kettle’s body had burgeoned, grown. Stone foundations, black roots, the trickle of water spreading in a stain.
An Azath, to hold for ever the soul of Scabandari. Silchas Ruin, you have your vengeance. Your perfect exchange.
And, because he could not help himself, Udinaas lowered his head and began to weep.
Somehow, Trull Sengar forced himself back onto his feet. Although without Seren Pedac at his side, taking much of his weight – and without the spear on which he leaned – she knew that that would have been impossible.
‘Please,’ he said to her, ‘my brother.’
She nodded, wincing as the wound in her shoulder pulsed fresh blood, and began helping him hobble across to where Fear Sengar’s body was sprawled, almost at the foot of the now darkened gate.
‘What am I to do?’ Trull asked, suddenly hesitating and looking to where stood the squat woman wearing the skin of a panther. She and the Imass who had carried the Finnest were both now crouched at the form of a third Imass, a warrior. The woman was cradling the dead or unconscious warrior’s head. ‘Onrack . . . my friend . . .’
‘Kin first,’ Seren Pedac said. Then she raised her voice and called out to the Imass. ‘Does the fallen one live?’
‘Yes,’ the warrior replied. ‘My father lives.’
A sob broke from Trull Sengar and he sagged against her. Seren staggered beneath his weight for a moment, then straightened. ‘Come, my love.’
This caught Trull’s attention as, perhaps, nothing else would. He searched her face, her eyes.
‘We must return to my house,’ she said, even as dread clawed at her heart – another, after all I have done to those who came before him. Errant forgive me. Another. ‘I carry a sword,’ she added. ‘And would bury it before the threshold.’
And shall I then kneel there, dirt on my hands, and cover my eyes? Shall I cry out in grief for what is to come? For all that I will bring to you, Trull Sengar? My burdens—
‘I have dreamed you would say that, Seren Pedac.’