‘Brothers,’ the emperor said, ‘dismount and ready your weapons.’

Trull swung down from his horse. He turned. ‘K’risnan, can you sense anything?’

The young Arapay warlock’s face was sickly. He nodded. ‘In the town, I think. It knows we’re here.’

Rhulad closed both hands on the grip of his sword and raised it to centre guard position. ‘Udinaas, remain with the horses. Fear, on my left. Trull, my right. K’risnan, stay behind us five paces. Demons, out to either side.’

‘Can’t we eat first?’

‘Or pee? I need to pee.’

‘You should have thought of that before we left,’ the first demon said.

‘And you should have eaten. We’ve plenty of spare horses, you know.’

The emperor hissed. ‘Silence, both of you. We’ve had to listen to you the entire journey. No more, lest I decide to kill you first.’

‘That wouldn’t be wise,’ the second KenrylPah said. ‘I smell more than meat, I smell the one thing still alive in there, and it isn’t pleasant.’

‘I taste it,’ the first demon said. ‘And it makes me want to retch.’

‘You should have thought of retching before we left,’ the second one said.

‘I think of retching every time I look at you.’

‘Enough!’

‘I apologize for my brother,’ the first demon said.

‘And I for mine,’ the second one added.

Strange tyrants . Trull unslung his spear and strode to Rhulad’s side.

They made their way across the clearing. Reaching the pit, they saw the first of the bodies. Broken and tossed at the base of the deep, ragged excavation, like an open mass burial. Workers and soldiers. Flesh dark and bloating in the heat. Flies swarmed.

They skirted the pit and approached the town. The gates opposite them had been knocked down, inward, the heavy doors shattered. Somewhere in the town a dog was barking.

The street was strewn with corpses just inside the wall. The doors of every house and building within sight had been stove in. Ahead and to the right, two horses stood yoked to a wagon that had been knocked over. Exhaustion and the strain of the yokes had driven one of the beasts into an awkward sitting position. Trull hesitated, then walked over to them, drawing the knife at his belt. The others paused and watched as he cut the horses loose. Neither animal was in any condition to flee, but they slowly made their way outside on trembling, uncertain legs.

Trull returned to his position beside Rhulad.

‘It’s coming,’ the first demon said.

Further down the main street a flock of starlings swirled into view, spinning between the buildings. In a mass of black, the birds seemed to boil towards the Tiste Edur and the KenrylPah. Striding in the midst of the birds, a tall figure, spectral, its skin white, its hair pallid yellow and hanging in limp strands. It was wearing a leather harness that looked wrinkled and blackened with rot. There was something strange about its limbs.

‘He is unarmed,’ Fear said.

‘Yet,’ the K’risnan hissed behind them, ‘he is the one.’

The starlings spun higher, alighting on roof edges to either side, as the figure halted ten paces away.

‘Peaceful,’ it said in Letherii, ‘is it not?’

Rhulad spoke. ‘I am Emperor Rhulad of the Tiste Edur. Who, and what, are you, stranger?’

‘I am Forkrul Assail. I am named Serenity.’

‘You are a demon, then?’

The head cocked. ‘I am?’

‘This is not your world.’

‘It isn’t?’

Rhulad half turned. ‘K’risnan, banish him.’

‘I cannot, Emperor.’

‘The tumult of your presence invites discord,’ Serenity said.

Watching the Forkrul Assail’s movements, Trull realized that it possessed extra joints in the arms and the legs, and there was some kind of hinge across the creature’s breastbone. Its motion was oddly loose.

‘Discord?’ Rhulad asked.

‘I desire peace once more.’

Fear spoke. ‘If it is peace you seek, Serenity, then you need only turn and walk away. Leave.’

‘To leave here is to arrive elsewhere. I cannot retreat from disorder, for it shall surely follow. Peace must be asserted where one finds oneself. Only when discord is resolved will there be peace.’ The Forkrul Assail then stepped forward.

‘ ’Ware!’ one of the demons snarled.

Serenity surged closer, even as the starlings exploded skyward once more.