At least, so he hoped. Chance might be a gifted sword, but the T'lan Imass were Elder creations, born of sorceries that made Oponn less than a child.

Paran's grip on the sword's handle was tight. His hand ached, and he could feel sweat between his fingers. Chance felt no different from any other weapon. Should he be expecting something more? He couldn't recall much of the time he'd last used it, against the Hound. But if there was power in the weapon, should he not be able to sense it? As it was, Chance felt cold, as if he clutched a shard of ice that refused to melt in his grip. If anything, Chance felt awkward, as if he was a novice and held it wrongly.

What had triggered this sudden crumpling of confidence? Pulling an Ascendant into the fray: how precisely do I do that? Of course, if Oponn's as eager as last time: Maybe it was no more than just the tension that came with waiting for something to happen. Was Toc mistaken? He turned to the man beside him and opened his mouth to speak.

A loud, manic cackle stopped him. Paran pulled savagely on the reins.

His horse screamed and reared. The air seemed to rip and a cold wind gusted against them. The captain raised his sword and cursed. The horse screamed again, this time in pain. It crumpled beneath him, as if its bones had been turned to dust. Paran sprawled, the sword flying from his hand as the ground rose up to meet him. The horse's fall had the sound of a bag filled with rocks and lamp oil, landing beside him and rolling over his legs.

Toc's bowstring twanged and an arrow shattered against something hard.

Paran pushed himself on to his side and looked up.

The puppet Hairlock floated above the ground twenty feet ahead. A second arrow struck as the captain watched, also shattering.

Hairlock laughed again, swinging his mad stare to Toc. He gestured.

Paran cried out, twisting to see Toc thrown from his mount. The Claw cartwheeled through the air. A jagged tear opened in the air in front of him. Paran shouted a second time in helpless horror as Toc the Younger plunged into that tear and disappeared into swirling mists. The rent closed with a snap, leaving no sign of Paran's companion.

Hairlock descended slowly to the ground. The puppet paused to adjust his tattered clothing, then strode towards Paran.

«I thought it might be you,» Hairlock sniggered. «Isn't vengeance sweeter than honey, eh, Captain? Your death will be long, protracted and very, very painful. Imagine my pleasure at seeing you like this!»

Paran pushed with his legs. The horse's body fell back, freeing him. He scrambled to his feet and dived for his sword, grasping it while rolling, then regained his feet.

Hairlock watched in evident amusement and began to advance. «That weapon is not for me, Captain. It'll not even cut me. So,» the puppet came on, «wail away.»

Paran raised the weapon, a wave of despair coming over him.

Hairlock stopped and cocked his head. He whirled to face the north.

«Impossible!» the puppet snarled.

Now Paran caught what Hairlock had already heard: the howling of Hounds.

In the hut Quick Ben had watched the ambush, dumbfounded. What was Paran doing? Where was Tattersail? «Hood's Path,» he'd whispered angrily,» talk about losing track!» In any case, it had all happened too fast for him to prevent the loss of the one-eyed man accompanying the captain.

His eyes flew open and he snatched the scrap of cloth. «Sorry,» he hissed. «Sorry! Hear me, woman! I know you. I know who you are. Cotillion, Patron of Assassins, the Rope, I call upon you!»

He felt a presence enter his mind, followed by a man's voice. «Well done, Quick Ben.»

The wizard said, «I have a message for you, Rope. For Shadowthrone.»

He felt a heightened tension in his head. «A deal's been struck. Your lord's Hounds hunger for vengeance. I haven't time to explain it all now-leave that to Shadowthrone. I am about to give to you the location of the one Shadowthrone seeks.»

He heard wry amusement in the Rope's voice. «I provide the link, correct? The means by which you stay alive in all this. I congratulate you, Quick Ben. Few mortals have ever succeeded in avoiding my lord's inclination to double-cross. It seems you have outwitted him. Very well, convey to me this location. Shadowthrone will receive it immediately.»

Quick Ben cast forth Hairlock's precise position on the Rhivi Plain. He only hoped the Hounds would arrive in time. He had a lot of questions for Paran, and wanted the captain to reach them alive but he had to admit that the chances of that were slight.

All that remained for the wizard now was to prevent the puppet's escape. He smiled again. That was something he looked forward to.

Onos T'oolan had squatted before the standing stone since dawn. In the hours since, Lorn had wandered the nearby hills, at war with herself. She now knew with a certainty that what they were doing was wrong, that its consequences went far beyond the petty efforts of a mundane Empire The T'lan Imass worked in the span of millennia, their purposes their own..Yet their endless war had become her endless war. Laseen's Empire was a shadow of the First Empire. The difference lay in that the Imass conducted genocide against another species. Malaz killed its own. Humanity had not climbed up since the dark age of the Imass: it had spiralled down.

The sun stood high overhead. She had last looked upon Tool an hour past. The warrior had not moved an inch. Lorn climbed yet another hill already a quarter-mile distant from the standing stone. She hoped to catch a glimpse of Lake Azur, to the west.

She came to the hill's summit and found herself not thirty feet from four mounted travellers. It was hard to determine who was more surprised, but the Adjunct moved first, her sword rasping into her hands as she sprang to close the distance.

Two were essentially unarmed, a boy and a short fat man. They and one other, a gaudily dressed man now unsheathing a duelling rapier, rode mules. But it was the last man who held Lorn's attention. Fully armoured astride a horse, he was the first to react to her charge. Bellowing, he spurred his mount past the others and unsheathed a bastard sword.

Lorn smiled as the fat man attempted to open a Warren and failed. Her Otataral blade steamed briefly before a cold wash of air poured from it. The fat man, his eyes widening, reeled back in his saddle and promptly rolled over the mule's rump, landing heavily in the dust. The boy leaped down from his own mount and paused, unsure whether to aid the fat man or remove the dagger from his belt. As the armoured man rode past him, he reached his decision and ran to where the fat man had fallen. The one with the rapier had also dismounted and approached in the warrior's wake.

Lorn's eyes caught all this between blinks. Then the warrior was upon her, swinging his bastard sword one-handed down towards her head.

The Adjunct didn't bother to parry. Instead, she dodged in front of the horse to come up on the man from his left, away from his sword arm.

The horse reared. Lorn darted past, slicing her blade across the man's thigh, above the plate armour. The Otataral edge sliced through chain links, leather and flesh with equal ease.

The warrior grunted and clapped a mailed hand to the spurting wound even as the horse threw him from the saddle.

Ignoring him, Lorn engaged the duellist, attempting to beat his thin blade aside and close to bring the edge of her weapon into play. But the man was good, deftly disengaging her attempted beat. The sword's swing unbalanced her before she could slow its momentum preparatory to an upper-cut, and in this moment the duellist extended his rapier.

She cursed as her forward motion brought her on to the blade's tip.

The point pushed through the links of her hauberk and entered her left shoulder. Pain lanced like fire up her arm. Angered by the wound, she swung her sword savagely at the man's head. The flat of the blade caught him flush on the forehead and he sprawled back like a limp doll.