Ibra Gholan halted, then took a single step back, lowering its sword.

Onrack studied Monok Ochem. Though the spiritual chains that had once linked them had since snapped, the bonecaster’s enmity-Monok’s fury-was palpable. Onrack knew his list of crimes, of outrages, had grown long, and this last theft of the body parts of another T’lan Imass was the greatest abomination, the most dire twisting of the powers of Tellann thus far. ‘Monok Ochem. The renegades would lead their new master to the First Throne. They travel the paths of chaos. It is their intent, I believe, to place a mortal Tiste Edur upon that throne. Such a new ruler of the T’lan Imass would, in turn, command the new mortal bonecaster-the one who has voiced the summons.’

Ibra Gholan slowly turned to face Monok Ochem, and Onrack could sense their consternation.

Onrack then continued, ‘Inform Logros that I, Onrack, and the one to whom I am now bound-the Tiste Edur Trull Sengar-share your dismay. We would work in concert with you.’

‘Logros hears you,’ Monok Ochem rasped, ‘and accepts.’

The swiftness of that surprised Onrack and he cocked his head. A moment’s thought, then, ‘How many guardians protect the First Throne?’

‘None.’

Trull Sengar straightened. ‘None?’

‘Do any T’lan Imass remain on the continent of Quon Tali?’ Onrack asked.

‘No, Onrack the Broken,’ Monok Ochem replied. ‘This intention you describe was… unanticipated. Logros’s army is massed here in Seven Cities.’

Onrack had never before experienced such agitation, rattling through him, and he identified the emotion, belatedly, as shock. ‘Monok Ochem, why has Logros not marched in answer to the summons?’

‘Representatives were sent,’ the bonecaster replied. ‘Logros holds his army here in anticipation of imminent need.’

Need? ‘And none can be spared?’

‘No, Onrack the Broken. None can be spared. In any case, we are closest to the renegades.’

‘There are, I believe, six renegades,’ Onrack said. ‘And one among them is a bonecaster. Monok Ochem, while we may well succeed in intercepting them, we are too few…’

‘At least let me find a worthy weapon,’ Trull Sengar muttered. ‘I may end up facing my own kin, after all.’

Ibra Gholan spoke. ‘Tiste Edur, what is your weapon of choice?’

‘Spear. I am fair with a bow as well, but for combat… spear.’

‘I will acquire one for you,’ the clan leader said. ‘And a bow as well. Yet I am curious-there were spears to be found among the cache you but recently departed. Why did you not avail yourself of a weapon at that time?’

Trull Sengar’s reply was low and cool. ‘I am not a thief.’

The clan leader faced Onrack, then said, ‘You chose well, Onrack the Broken.’

I know. ‘Monok Ochem, has Logros a thought as to who the renegade bonecaster might be?’

‘Tenag Ilbaie,’ Monok Ochem immediately replied. ‘It is likely he has chosen a new name.’

‘And Logros is certain?’

‘All others are accounted for, barring Kilava Onas.’

Who remains in her mortal flesh and so cannot be among the renegades. ‘Born of Ban Raile’s clan, a tenag Soletaken. Before he was chosen as the clan’s bonecaster, he was known as Haran ’Alle, birthed as he was in the Summer of the Great Death among the Caribou. He was a loyal bonecaster-’

‘Until he failed against the Forkrul Assail in the Laederon Wars,’ Monok Ochem cut in.

‘As we in turn fail,’ Onrack rasped.

‘What do you mean?’ Monok Ochem demanded. ‘In what way have we failed?’

‘We chose to see failure as disloyalty, Bonecaster. Yet in our harsh judgement of fallen kin, we committed our own act of disloyalty. Tenag Ilbaie strove to succeed in his task. His defeat was not by choice. Tell me, when have we ever triumphed in a clash with Forkrul Assail? Thus, Tenag Ilbaie was doomed from the very beginning. Yet he accepted what was commanded of him. Knowing full well he would be destroyed and so condemned. I have learned this, Monok Ochem, and through you shall say to Logros and all the T’lan Imass: these renegades are of our own making.’

‘Then it falls to us to deal with them,’ Ibra Gholan growled.

‘And what if we should fail?’ Onrack asked.

To that, neither T’lan Imass gave answer.

Trull Sengar sighed. ‘If we are to indeed intercept these renegades, we should get moving.’

‘We shall travel by the Warren of Tellann,’ Monok Ochem said. ‘Logros has given leave that you may accompany us on that path.’

‘Generous of him,’ Trull Sengar muttered.

As Monok Ochem prepared to open the warren, the bonecaster paused and looked back at Onrack once more. ‘When you… repaired yourself, Onrack the Broken… where was the rest of the body?’

‘I do not know. It had been… taken away.’

‘And who destroyed it in the first place?’

Indeed, a troubling question. ‘I do not know, Monok Ochem. There is another detail that left me uneasy.’

‘And that is?’

‘The renegade was cut in half by a single blow.’

The winding track that led up the boulder-strewn hillside was all too familiar, and Lostara Yil could feel the scowl settling into her face. Pearl remained a few paces behind her, muttering every time her boots dislodged a stone that tumbled downward. She heard him curse as one such rock cracked against a shin, and felt the scowl shift into a savage smile.

The bastard’s smooth surface was wearing off, revealing unsightly patches that she found cause both for derision and a strange, insipid attraction. Too old to dream of perfection, perhaps, she had instead discovered a certain delicious appeal in flaws. And Pearl had plenty of those.

He resented most the relinquishing of the lead, but this terrain belonged to Lostara, to her memories. The ancient, exposed temple floor lay directly ahead, the place where she had driven a bolt into Sha’ik’s forehead. And, if not for those two bodyguards-that Toblakai in particular-that day would have ended in even greater triumph, as the Red Blades returned to G’danisban with Sha’ik’s head riding a lance. Thus ending the rebellion before it began.

So many lives saved, had that occurred, had reality played out as seamlessly as the scene in her mind. On such things, the fate of an entire subcontinent had irrevocably tumbled headlong into this moment’s sordid, blood-soaked situation.

That damned Toblakai. With that damned wooden sword. If not for him, what would this day be like? We’d likely not be here, for one thing. Felisin Paran would not have needed to cross all of Seven Cities seeking to avoid murder at the hands of frenzied rebels. Coltaine would be alive, closing the imperial fist around every smouldering ember before it rose in conflagration. And High Fist Pormqual would have been sent to the Empress to give an accounting of his incompetence and corruption. All, but for that one obnoxious Toblakai…

She passed by the large boulders they had hidden behind, then the one she had used to draw close enough to ensure the lethality of her shot. And there, ten paces from the temple floor, the scattered remains of the last Red Blade to fall during the retreat.

Lostara stepped onto the flagstoned floor and halted.

Pearl arrived at her side, looking around curiously.

Lostara pointed. ‘She was seated there.’

‘Those bodyguards didn’t bother burying the Red Blades,’ he commented.

‘No, why would they?’

‘Nor,’ the Claw continued, ‘it seems, did they bother with Sha’ik.’ He walked over to a shadowed spot between the two pillars of an old arched gate.

Lostara followed, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest.

The form was tiny, wrapped in wind-frayed tent cloth. The black hair had grown, and grown, long after death, and the effect-after Pearl crouched and tugged the canvas away to reveal the desiccated face and scalp-was horrific. The hole the quarrel had punched into her forehead revealed a skull filled with windblown sand. More of the fine grains had pooled in the corpse’s eye sockets, nose and gaping mouth.