“Marith! My Lord King!” Osen said proudly, “we have your uncle—the king—Selerie—as you wanted.”

“Wounded?” Marith gestured for Osen to rise.

“Not mortally, no. His arm’s cut up, his face is a bit of a mess …”

Marith frowned. “But he’s recognizable?”

“Oh, gods, yes. Basically. Just bruised.”

“Good.” Marith stretched, found his own body ached a bit. Strange how one never felt it, until afterwards. The usurper King of Sel fought naked and unarmed for three days without ceasing, mortally wounded in the belly and the chest, and, gods, he must have felt like shit when he finally stopped and the rush wore off. “I’m going to my tent. Osen, you’re in charge of things here. Get this mess cleaned up. I want the horses rounded up. See what’s in the tents that’s worth having. Burn Selerie’s tent with everything in it.” He thought a moment. “No, wait, give it with everything in it to the villagers. And they can have any of the horses too badly wounded to be fit for immediate use.”

Osen looked rather irritated that he’d be stuck out here directing corpse disposal duties. Think yourself lucky you’re not digging the latrine pits, Osen, Marith thought.

“Clearing up the mess is harder than making it, you see?”

“And Selerie?”

“Keep him under close guard for now. That’s for tomorrow.”

“And the queen?”

“The queen?” A shock went through him, cold bitter water, salt in the mouth. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Osen laughed. “No, no. Not our queen. Calm down. Gods, to be in love like you are … There are other women living in this world, you know. Look there.” Osen pointed out into the bay. “Her. Selerie’s missus, poor bugger. The enemy.” Through the rain, the Ithish ship could be seen moving off northwards, its sails fat in the wind. Running.

Oh. Yes. Her. “I meant her to go.”

“You meant them to go?”

“Well, yes. Of course.” Smiled at Osen. “We’ve killed everyone here. Who’s going to tell the soldiers of Malth Tyrenae what I’ve done, otherwise?”

He rode back to his own camp. Dreaming of a drink. Several drinks. A hot bath. Thalia. Thalia, Thalia, Thalia. She would be waiting at the grove of white trees, he ordered things prepared then without waiting rode down to find her himself, blood-covered and battered as he was. His heart sang as he went, the trees thick with birds and blossoms, long low evening sun breaking golden through the clouds, her horse whinnied sensing him. He came into the clearing where she waited, wrapped in her dark cloak before the white bark. The horse was tethered, grazing, her guards sat mounted a little way off from her. Her face lit as she saw him. Sun breaking through clouds. Gold and silver of joy. It’s not all dust, he thought. Not all dying.

She said, “Is it … Is it done, then?”

“Yes. It’s done. Easily.” Marith smiled. “You’ll be Queen of Ith soon enough. Wait till you see Malth Tyrenae! We have nothing, even Malth Elelane, to compare with it. And Ith! The mountains. The forests. The great mines, where rivers of quicksilver run beneath the rock.”

As they rode back she looked askance at the men with loot from the Ithish camp in their arms. But in the tent she helped him remove his armour. Her hands at the end were soaked with Ithish blood.

The next morning, he ordered Selerie brought to him.

Yanis Stansel brought him, chained so he walked with an odd waddle like he’d shat his breeches, green and yellow bruises all over his face, right arm heavily bound stinking of pus. Already? They rotted quick, these Ithish lords. All the quicksilver they drank, perhaps: they were already half dead and the sword stroke merely reminded their body of the fact. It looked kind of comic, the King of Ith bound and decayed with his legs spread apart, Lord Stansel of Belen with his withered legs in a wicker chair covered over by a rug, his big strong arms and his black beard, his left hand a club of bandages. Couldn’t manage the chair himself now, the state his hand was in, an attendant who looked like he might be a young Stansel relation pushed him about like he was in a handcart. Marith saw at once that he hated it and so did the relation.

One of the soldiers with them kicked Selerie. He went down in a sprawl on the leather floor of the tent, a funny squishy sound as he landed on his injured arm. The smell got a lot worse.

“Hello, Uncle. I did say it was your decision to come. That I was perfectly happy sitting in my tent.”

Try to put some kind of strength into it. I am death and ruin and murderer incarnate, I am a man of power, I am a king: I can do this, I will do this, this is what power means, what kingship means, this is what I am, I am not afraid to do these things. I’m not, he thought. I’m not. I am an Altrersyr king, I am Amrath, I am born of the blood of demons. This is what I am. What is in me.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. Selerie’s face registered nothing. Mad bastard, as Tobias once referred to him. “Not yet. Later, maybe.” Frowned. “Gods, you stink of death already. Perhaps I should kill you. You’re disgusting.”

Familiar words. A shock, suddenly, a dim memory of Landra staring down at him, dissolving into light and shadows, her voice screaming “disgusting, disgusting” at him. Marith rubbed at his eyes, tried to steady himself.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Marith said again. “Not yet.”

Selerie’s face still registered nothing. Self-righteous old man.

“You told me to kill them. It’s your fault.”

Selerie said then, “I said nothing, King Marith.” His voice sounded horrible, thick and rot sodden, his tongue grown too big for his mouth.

Marith said, “You told me to kill them.”

“I told you the truth about the whore and about your father,” Selerie said. “I would have stood by you, King Marith Ansikanderakesis Amrakane. Fought beside you. So long ago, when you were a child, I had already decided that. I told you, I remember you as child, so full of radiance. I saw you and I was proud of you.”

“Thalia says you lied to me! That my father didn’t kill her. That he loved me!” His own voice sounded like a child’s voice, high-pitched, hurting. I remember that night in Sorlost, Marith thought, that night when I went through a house and killed everything that lived there, and I hated myself as I did it, but I did it, and I didn’t want it to stop. What it feels like, to destroy everything. I remember that. So clearly.

“I would have fought beside you,” Selerie only said again.

“I don’t need anyone to fight beside me. I can do it myself, all of it.”

Of course my father hated me, he thought. Of course my father wanted me dead. Filth that I am. Only a pity my mother wasn’t killed off earlier, with me still in her womb. King Ruin. King of Death. I should have been destroyed before I was born.

Marith drew out his sword and cut his uncle to slow pieces. Hands, toes, nose, earlobes, lips. Smash in the face to take the teeth out, running off on the floor in little white lumps. Hamstrings. Kneecaps. The rotten right arm at the elbow, so that was a waste of the stroke he’d used to take off the right hand. But the arm was foul. There were already worms in it, even. Doctoring, as Tobias used to call it. Doing the man a kindness. Selerie stayed conscious through all of it, silent, his face set blank, only making little snorting noises to choke up blood, groaning a little when his bowel and bladder control finally failed. When it was done, the soldiers dragged Selerie out again.

Yanis had sat in his wicker chair through everything. He looked green and sick. The young Stansel relation looked mesmerized. The boy was only a few years younger than Marith. A kind of guilt, looking at him staring with big child’s eyes, seeing the beauty of it for the first time, the way human flesh crumpled away so easily. Beautiful bleeding! Everyone enjoys it. Anyone who says they don’t is a liar. The greatest thing in the world, destruction. Another thing to help one pretend. I’m not rot and dying! I am as a god! Behold my power! I am indeed alive, for I can maim and ruin and destroy!

Comforting, like.

Thalia came in while servants were still clearing up the mess. She wore green velvet, a posy of white anemones nestled in the bosom of her dress. Her hair was braided with gold. She stopped at the doorway. Her mouth opened. Tal and Garet were visible behind her, trying to see.

“What …? What have you done? Are you hurt? What’s happened?” Then she understood. “Selerie?” Her voice trembled with pain.

“I didn’t kill him. It’s less than he did to Ti. What did you think I’d do, let him go? He deserved it.” His voice echoed in his ears, running on and on.

“Did he?” she said, and then she looked at Marith very gravely and said, “Perhaps he did.”

“It’s what is done,” he said. “No worse than he would have done to me. What Ti would have done to me. What he did to Ti.” Thalia sat down next to him, he curled himself down into her, she stroked her long fingers through his hair. His face felt hot and sore. The sweet, clean smell of her; musty damp seasalt traces on her dress from the ship. The smell of the flowers crushed against her, petals turning brown, pollen smeared on her skin. A tiny beetle crawled off the flowers onto her collar bones.

“Yes,” she said. “It is what is done. So you said.”

They marched for Malth Tyrenae the next morning. Selerie rode at the front of the column, tied to his horse. Stank so badly they had to shoo the crows off him. Maggots were already breeding in his wounds. They dropped off him dying in a trail behind the horses. His body was poison. Quicksilver leeching from his veins. Still he was silent, though his breath came very loud. Marith tried not to think of him, up there in front. Tolling their passing like a leper bell. Osen rode up several times to look. The boy who’d watched with Yanis, Jeram Stansel, Yanis’ nephew, rode up also. Fascinated. Try not to think of it. Try.

There were minor skirmishes on the roads, local men with pitchforks in fear for their farms and their children, a party of swordsmen under the command of a local noble, shouting “death to the invaders” as they died. A barrel of banefire exploded when a cart jogged, killing ten men and a horse. Clouds gathered on the horizon around the towers of the Malth Tyrenae. All the men of Ith would be gathering to crush him. They must outnumber him ten, perhaps twenty times.

Scouts brought back word that Selerie’s brother Leos was mustering on the plain of Geremela, south-west of Tyrenae. Rightly Leos must assume that Marith could not even think of besieging the city with the numbers at his command. Gods only knew what he must assume Marith was thinking. That Marith was mad. Or probably just that he was drunk.

“Is there … is there not some danger the Ithish will be preparing some kind of ambush? Fall on us from behind? It seems, um, strange, that we’ve met so little resistance this far. Can we really believe they are just sitting at Geremela waiting for us to arrive?” said Lord Erith of Third.

“They are afraid,” said Lord Jaeartes of Belen. “They would not dare. They know we will cut them down if they try.”

Even Jaeartes himself couldn’t believe that. The Ithish could fall on them and cut them to ribbons at any moment and they all knew it.

“They don’t need to ambush us,” said Lord Nymen the former fishmonger. “They don’t need to pick us off in bits. The only thing we can do is engage them. We’re here, invading their country. Proclaimed the Ansikanderakesis Amrakane their new king. We have to engage them. They just need to wait. Make us do the work.”

“And we just … ‘do the work,’ do we?” said Lord Erith. “Walk straight up to them and engage them? Their tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands against our few?”

Shuffling. Faces looking away. Marith watched them, waiting.

“We—”

“We—”

Osen said, “We just walk up to them and engage them. Their tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands against our few. Their horse and their foot and their great engines of war. Their choice of battlefield. Their choice of battle plan. Their advantage.” His lords, fussing and eying each other. And Osen Fiolt, who alone understood. Osen smiled with anticipation. “Then we kill them.”

That night the camp was woken by screams in the darkness. Three men were reported lost the next morning. Two vanished. One cut open with his heart shredded up. The men murmured fearfully.

“Wolves,” Lord Stansel told the army. “Wolves and deserters. Fuck them both. If you see either, kill them.” Marith knew what it was that had killed them. Thalia knew, had woken trembling. Osen knew, from the way his eyes laughed when Yanis Stansel spoke. Hungry things. Waiting things. But oh, not much longer to wait. The Mara Hills on the horizon, behind them the city of Tyrenae and the Geremela plain. Another few days’ march. Scouts brought back the news that Leos had taken the title “King.”

Three men lost the next morning, one vanished, two gutted and missing their heads. The men murmured fearfully.

“Wolves,” Marith told them. Tried not to see Osen laughing as he spoke. “Wolves and deserters.” Thalia’s eyes were red where she had not slept. They crossed the hills taking the river pass. Green woods and the smell of growing. Bright new leaves, sticky buds that caught on cloaks and the horses’ coats. In the trees pigeons called. Blackthorn blossom like snowfall. Catkins. They forded the river at a village called Eseen Elevana: “the place of the bright crossing” in Itheralik. Possibly. If you twisted the syllables enough. They made camp in the hills by the river, clearing out the village headman’s house for the king. On the plain beneath, the lights of the Ithish campfires, like a hundred hundred stars. On the horizon, in the west, the towers of Malth Tyrenae showed, just visible as fine needles in the sky. The Fortress of Shadows. Flames flickered around the quicksilver pools at its height.

Silence in the darkness. Marith reviewed his orders, set down his final plans, slept.