The battle was winding up now. Been winding up since before it began. Last desperate stand of the Illyian people. Always knew it was going to end like this. Down to mopping up operations. The Army of Amrath making damned sure no one was still alive who might possibly otherwise be dead. Ensuring they squeezed every last drop of enjoyment out of it. The final conquest of Illyr. Might not get to really kill people again like this for, oh, weeks. Kind of like when you lick the last taste of something off your plate, it’s that tasty. Don’t want to lose a drop.

I said “kind of,” didn’t I? Stop bloody looking at me like that.

Maggots on a corpse, thought Tobias. That’s what people are. Maggots on a corpse. Life really is a pile of shit. Life’s shit and unfair and pointless and hurts.

But it’s better … He looked at the piles of bodies heaped up around him. Life’s better than death.

So maybe you shouldn’t have killed so many of them, he thought. Maybe?

A horseman ran past them, screaming. Both the man and the horse were on fire. A woman ran past them, screaming. Three men ran past them after her. The woman tripped and fell over someone’s body part. The three men jumped on top of her. Swords went up. The woman shrieked. The men laughed. Started … doing things.

Tobias bent down and ripped a dark red badge off a dead soldier of Amrath. Tied it on himself.

I think it’s fair to say we’ve lost.

Began to skirt towards the ruins. Find Raeta. Find Landra. Find … it. There’s nothing left here, thought Tobias. Just the last desperate attempt to destroy him. Lie to myself that what’s been unleashed here can be stopped if he dies.

If I hadn’t … If Landra hadn’t … If I’d …

If, if, if.

Any semblance of order was collapsing. The Army of Amrath, triumphant in its victory, dancing across the killing ground. A knot of Illyian prisoners rounded up and hacked to pieces. A knot of Illyians still fighting. A knot of Whites cavalry charging into them, still excitedly trying to trample them all to bits. Most of the Army of Amrath had given up fighting now, even. Running around drinking celebrating shouting “Victory! Victory! Ruin! Death! Death! Death!” Even more low aspiration than the Sorlostians’ “Hooray, we survived past sunset!” as something to celebrate, really. Whoop whoop, look, some people were alive and now they’re dead! Amazing achievement, hey, isn’t it?

Some blokes rolled a big barrel of something past him, cheering. Trumpets sounding, drums beating out a victory chant. In the pockets where people were still fighting, quick glances: they’ve stopped fighting? They’ve started drinking already? Damnit, they could have waited for us! But wait, on the other hand, we’re still killing people and they’re not. Their loss.

Another explosion rocked the battlefield, almost knocked Tobias over. Winged clawed shadows flew off south over the line of the river. A troop of cavalry thundered in their wake.

Tobias began to steer round towards the walls of Ethalden. Passed a knot of White Isles soldiers looting a corpse. “It’s young Lory from Red Fields!” a man shouted as he turned over the body. “Bastard diddled my cousin out of some money once over a pig. No idea he’d even joined up. Never ran into him out here when he was alive, and now here he is. Funny old world, isn’t it?”

Passed a knot of White Isles soldier wailing over some big nob’s battered body. Seemed genuinely upset big nob was dead. “Lord Erith is going to fucking disembowel me,” a man shouted as he turned over the body. “One perfectly understandable little mistake and his son’s dead.”

Another man brought down his sword hard on the corpse’s face. Up down up down up down. “I know it was a mistake. Could have happened to anybody. So Lord Erith doesn’t have to know the ins and outs of it, does he?”

Came to the walls of the fortress. Stopped. Maybe, thought Tobias, maybe I should just go up to those soldiers back there and ask them to kill me?

Gold walls. Huge. Solid gold. Studded with rubies. Winked and flashed and laughed and mocked and boiled with hate. Blank cold hard metal, and it looked like the most evil thing Tobias had ever seen. This is death. This is power. This is the house of the one true god. This is life and death.

Made the bronze walls of Sorlost look like the epitome of restrained good taste.

The walls were gold and rubies. And the gatehouse was human skulls. Each one had diamonds set where its eyes had been.

The blokes he’d fought beside today, they were going to look pretty good up there.

Soldiers were busy beside the ruins of the gateway, piling up a huge bonfire. Bodies writhing screaming shrieking as they burned. Men dancing naked and blood covered around it. Reek of drink and vomit and piss. Joyful shouts of “Amrath! Amrath!” “Avenged!” “Victory! Victory!” “Death and all demons!” “Death! Death! Death!” A man dancing wrapped in what Tobias thought at first must be blood-red clothing. “Amrath’s banners!” he was shouting. “Ben’s banners, too!” A man dancing with a man’s torso in his arms for a partner. A man dancing around a living man impaled on a sarriss. “Victory! Victory!” “Death and all demons!” “Death! Death! Death!”

One of the soldiers noticed them looking. He had blood around his mouth. Tobias shouted, “Victory to the Ansikanderakesis! Victory! Ruin and death!” Crossed his fingers desperately in the hope he wasn’t about to die himself.

“Victory and death!” a maelstrom of voices shouted back. The diamonds winked in the firelight. All those shiny bald heads.

A woman ran up to him singing, hugging and kissing every man she met. She threw her arms around Tobias. “Tobias! Hurrah! Glorious!”

Sweet Face. She kissed him. Ran off. Her amber necklace flashed in the firelight. Tobias walked through the ruins of the gates.

“This way. This way.”

Landra and Raeta walked in and out of the ruins. Throne rooms. Feasting chambers. Armouries. Dungeons. Tombs.

A wall of obsidian, higher than tree tops, wider than a man is tall. Cracked top to bottom like a sword blade. The edges of the crack still sharp as knives. A pool of blood at its base. A wall of mage glass, silver and shimmering, flickering with iridescent light. A doorway of green marble, with vast broken doors of green jade. The shattered pillars of a banqueting hall, column lintels carved in the shape of dragons’ heads.

The whole place was an orgy of celebration. Drums beating, alcohol, roast meat. Bonfires of human bodies. Roaring choruses of Why We March.

“Never gets stale, does it, that ditty?” Raeta said. “I swear, soon I’ll be humming it in my sleep.”

Two men staggered towards them out of the ruined banqueting hall. Both already dead drunk from the look of them. One having to hold the other up.

Oh, gods. Landra and Raeta ducked behind a column. Froze. Landra’s hands shook.

Osen Fiolt’s voice: “There you go, then … Oh, come on! You can’t expect me to do that …? Yes, but I really don’t care what Carin did … Okay! Okay. There you go.”

Landra’s hands went to her knife hilt. Raeta touched her arm. Shook her head.

Osen Fiolt’s voice: “‘Death’s Lieutenant,’ I heard some of the men calling me earlier, you know? ‘Death’s Lieutenant,’ standing here holding King Ruin King of Dust and Shadows Ansikanderakesis Amrakane King of All Irlast’s dick out so he can have a piss …”

Landra moved towards them. Raeta grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

Osen Fiolt’s voice: “Gods, watch it, you’re pissing on your boot! That’s better … Come on, then … No, look out! Gods, Marith … maybe you ought to think about stopping soon …? Okay, okay. Just try not to throw up on me again.”

Disappeared back into the forest of pillars, King Ruin King of Dust and Shadows Ansikanderakesis Amrakane King of All Irlast mumbling something about needing another drink.

But … but …

All Raeta’s rotting animal faces sighed at Landra. “It wouldn’t work, Landra. Not bronze or iron. You know that. Come on. This way.”

They crept on through the ruins. Landra’s heart pounding. But … but … They crept past soldiers drinking and celebrating. Piled up towers of Illyian corpses. Illyian prisoners tied up and tortured and still half alive. Soldiers decking the walls with banners of human skin.

Here and there a man stood staring at it. Perhaps amazed and astonished. Perhaps, some desperate lying hope whispered to Landra, perhaps horrified at what it was his companions did.

They crept on. On. On. On.

They stopped.

A shattered rib cage. A shattered skull case. The bones of an arm. The bones of a hand.

It was just lying there, in a jumble of fallen stonework. Just yellow old dry bare cold bone. Blind eye holes. Hole where the nose had been. White pearly teeth. Missing its lower jaw. A bronze helmet was lying beside it, red horse-hair plume still attached. It was still wearing the remains of battered, corroded bronze armour, marked with claw marks and the smoke of vast flames.

Just lying there.

Just a man who died and lay dead and unburied. A man who had no one left at the end to mourn for him.

It stank of hatred.

Landra fell to her knees.

“Amrath. My god. My Lord. My ancestor. World Conqueror. Demon Born. Dragon Kin. Greatest of all who ever lived.”

Thalia was standing over the skeleton, looking down at it. All the grief and guilt in the world on her beautiful face.