'Dreams can be naught but an imagination's fashioning of its own fears, Mhybe,' the Malazan said. 'You are projecting a just punishment for what you perceive as your life's failure.'

Her eyes narrowed on him. 'Get out of my sight,' she growled, turning away, drawing her hood tighter about her head, cutting off the outside world — all that lay beyond the warped, stained planks of the wagon's bed. Begone, Whiskeyjack, with your sword-thrust words, the cold, impervious armour of your ignorance. You cannot answer all that I have seen with a simple, brutal statement. I am not a stone for your rough hands. The knots within me defy your chisel.

Your sword-thrust words shall not cut to my heart.

I dare not accept your wisdom. I dare-

Whiskeyjack. You bastard.

The commander rode at a gentle canter through the dust until he reached the vanguard of the Malazan army. Here, he found Dujek, flanked by Korlat on one side and the Daru, Kruppe, on the other, the latter tottering uneasily on a mule, hands waving about at the swarming midges.

'A plague on these pernicious gnats! Kruppe despairs!'

'The wind will pick up soon enough,' Dujek growled. 'We're approaching hills.'

Korlat drew closer alongside Whiskeyjack. 'How does she fare, Commander?'

He grimaced. 'No better. Her spirit is as twisted and shrunken as her body. She has fashioned a vision of death that has her fleeing it in terror.'

'Tat- Silverfox feels abandoned by her mother. This leads to bitterness. She no longer welcomes our company.'

'Her too? This is turning into a contest of wills, I think. Isolation is the last thing she needs, Korlat.'

'In that she is like her mother, as you have just intimated.'

He let out a long sigh, shifted in his saddle. His thoughts began to drift; he was weary, his leg aching and stiff. Sleep had been eluding him. They had heard virtually nothing of the fate of Paran and the Bridgeburners. The warrens had become impassable. Nor were they certain if the siege of Capustan was under way, or of the city's fate. Whiskeyjack had begun to regret sending the Black Moranth away. Dujek and Brood's armies were marching into the unknown; even the Great Raven Crone and her kin had not been seen for over a week.

It's these damned warrens and the sickness now filling them.

'They're late,' Dujek muttered.

'And no more than that, Kruppe assures one and all. Recall the last delivery. Almost dusk, it was. Three horses left on the lead wagon, the others killed and cut from the traces. Four shareholders gone, their souls and earnings scattered to the infernal winds. And the merchant herself! Near death, she was. The warning was clear, my friends — the warrens have been compromised. And as we march ever closer to the Domin, the foulment grows ever more … uh, foul.'

'Yet you insist they'll make it through again.'

'Kruppe does, High Fist! The Trygalle Trade Guild honours its contracts. They are not to be underestimated. 'Tis the day of their delivery of supplies. Said supplies shall therefore be delivered. And, assuming Kruppe's request has been honoured, among those supplies will be crates of the finest insect repellent ever created by the formidable alchemists of Darujhistan!'

Whiskeyjack leaned towards Korlat. 'Where in the line does she walk?' he asked quietly.

'At the very rear, Commander-'

'And is anyone watching her?'

The Tiste Andii woman glanced over and frowned. 'Is there need?'

'How in Hood's name should I know?' he snapped. A moment later he scowled. 'Your pardon, Korlat. I shall seek her out myself.' He swung his mount around, nudged it into a canter.

'Tempers grow short,' Kruppe murmured as the commander rode away. 'But not as short as Kruppe, for whom all nasty words whiz impactless over his head, and are thus lost in the ether. And those darts aimed lower, ah, they but bounce from Kruppe's ample equanimity-'

'Fat, you mean,' Dujek said, wiping dust from his brow then leaning over to spit onto the ground.

'Ahem, Kruppe, equably cushioned, blithely smiles at the High Fist's jibe. It is the forthright bluntness of soldiers that one must bathe in whilst on the march leagues from civilization. Antidote to the snipes of gutter rats, a refreshing balm to droll, sardonic nobles — why prick with a needle when one can use a hammer, eh? Kruppe breathes deep — but not so deep as to cough from the dust-laden stench of nature — such simple converse. The intellect must needs shift with alacrity from the intricate and delicate steps of the court dance to the tribal thumping of boots in grunting cadence-'