‘To do what?’

‘ What’s needed .’

It proved easy for her will to evade him, slipping to rush past, thundering like a flash flood. Pouring, like water, like fire. She would assail the First Sword’s Tellann. She would shatter the barrier. She would take him by the throat—

Ahead, a line of horse soldiers across her path, silent and dark upon the plain. Dirty, limp banners, torn standards, helms above gaunt, withered faces.

Her power hammered into them, crashed and broke apart like waves against a cliff. Olar Ethil felt her mind reeling back. She was stunned by the will of these revenants, these usurpers of the Throne of Death. As she staggered back, one guided his horse out from the line.

The grey of his beard was spun iron, the cast of his eyes was stone. He reined in before her, leaned forward on his saddle. ‘You are treading foreign land, Bonecaster.’

‘You dare challenge me?’

‘Anywhere, any time.’

‘He is mine!’

‘Olar Ethil,’ he said, drawing his sword, ‘when you argue with death, you always lose.’

Shrieking her fury, she fled.

Torrent walked to stand beside the kneeling creature. ‘You nearly deafened us,’ he said. ‘Is something wrong?’

She slowly straightened, then lashed out an arm across the front of his chest. Thrown back, he was flung through the air. He struck the ground hard, the breath driven from his lungs.

Olar Ethil walked to him, reached down and closed a hand round his throat. She pulled him upright, thrust her mangled face forward, and in the sockets of her eyes he could see fires raging. ‘If I kill them all,’ she hissed, ‘here and now … what use are you? Tell me, pup, what use are you?’

He gasped, trying to regain his breath. Snarling, she thrust him away. ‘Do not mock me again, Awl.’

Torrent staggered, dropped to one knee.

Close by, the two skeletal reptiles laughed.

Storii ran to his side. ‘Don’t,’ she pleaded, her face tear-streaked. ‘Don’t, please. Don’t leave us! ’

He shook his head, his throat too bruised for words.

His horse moved up behind them, nudged Torrent’s shoulder. Spirits below .

It had been a long time since he’d last unleashed the full power of Tellann, dragging his hold on the Warren with him with each heavy, scraping step. Within its deadened heart, nothing could reach Onos T’oolan; even the furious assault of Olar Ethil felt muted, a muffled rage made indistinct by layer upon layer of the First Sword’s will.

He recalled a desert, a salt flat’s verge of sharp stones. There were rents in the line. There were clans with but a few warriors left to stand, there on that cold, still morning. He stood before Logros, bereft of his kin, and all that held him there was the binding of duty, the knotted webs of loyalty. He was the First Sword, after all.

The last Jaghut in the Odhan had been hunted down, butchered. The time had come to return to the Malazan Empire, to the Emperor who had seated himself on the First Throne. And Onos T’oolan knew he would soon return to the side of Dassem Ultor, his mortal shadow who had taken for himself – and for his closest followers – the title of First Sword. Prophetic inspiration, for they would soon all be dead – as dead as Onos T’oolan, as dead as the T’lan Imass. Or if not dead, then … destroyed .

Instead, Logros had lifted one hand, a splay of gnarled fingers all pointing at Onos. ‘You were once our First Sword,’ he said. ‘When we return to the mortal empire, we shall avow service to Dassem Ultor, for he is your heir to the title. You shall surrender the name of First Sword.’

Onos T’oolan considered that for a time. Surrender the title? Cut through the bindings? Sever the knots? Know freedom once more? ‘He is mortal, Logros. He does not know what he has done in taking for himself the title of First Sword.’

‘In service,’ Logros replied, ‘the T’lan Imass sanctify him—’

‘You would make of him a god?’

‘We are warriors. Our blessing shall—’

‘ Damn him for eternity! ’

‘Onos T’oolan, you are of no use to us.’

‘Do you imagine’ – and he recalled the timbre of his voice, the seething outrage, and the horror of what Logros sought to do … to a mortal man, to a man destined to face his own death, and that is something we have never done, no, we ever ran from that moment of reckoning – Logros, the Lord of Death shall strike at the T’lan Imass, through him. Hood shall make him pay. For our crime, for our defiance – ‘Do you imagine,’ he’d said, ‘that your blessing could be anything but a curse? You would make him a god of sorrow, and failure, a god with a face doomed to weep, to twist in anguish—’