So carried on her unspoken thoughts, Felisin saw nothing of Kulat's sudden dark look, the moment before he bowed and turned away.

The boy had a name, but she would give him a new name. One better suited to her vision of the future. After a moment, she smiled. Yes, she would name him Crokus.

Chapter Fifteen

An old man past soldiering his rivets green, his eyes rimmed in rust, stood as if heaved awake from slaughter's pit, back-cut from broken flight when young blades chased him from the field.

He looks like a promise only fools could dream unfurled, the banners of glory gesticulating in the wind over his head, stripped like ghosts, skulls stove in, lips flapping, their open mouths mute.

'Oh harken to me,' cries he atop his imagined summit, and I shall speak – of riches and rewards, of my greatness, my face once young like these I see before me – harken!'

While here I sit at the Tapu's table, grease-fingered with skewered meat, cracked goblet pearled in the hot sun, the wine watered to make, in the alliance of thin and thick, both passing palatable.

As near as an arm's reach from this rabbler, this ravelling trumpeter who once might have stood shield-locked at my side, red-hued, masked drunk, coarse with fear, in the moment before he broke broke and ran and now he would call a new generation to war, to battle-clamour, and why? Well, why – all because he once ran, but listen: a soldier who ran once ever runs, and this, honoured magistrate, is the reason the sole reason I say for my knife finding his back.

He was a soldier whose words heaved me awake.

'Bedura's Defence' in The Slaying of King Qualin Tros of Bellid (transcribed as song by Fisher, Malaz City, last year of Laseen's Reign) Within an aura redolent and reminiscent of a crypt, Noto Boil, company cutter, Kartoolian by birth and once priest of Soliel, long, wispy, colourless hair plucked like strands of web by the wind, his skin the hue of tanned goat leather, stood like a bent sapling and picked at his green-furred teeth with a fish spine. It had been a habit of his for so long that he had worn round holes between each tooth, and the gums had receded far back, making his smile skeletal.

He had smiled but once thus far, by way of greeting, and for Ganoes Paran, that had been once too many.

At the moment, the healer seemed at best pensive, at worst distracted by boredom. 'I cannot say for certain, Captain Kindly,' the man finally said.

'About what?'

A flicker of the eyes, grey floating in yellow murk. 'Well, you had a question for me, did you not?'

'No,' Paran replied, 'I had for you an order.'

'Yes, of course, that is what I meant.'

'I commanded you to step aside.'

'The High Fist is very ill, Captain. It will avail you nothing to disturb his dying. More pointedly, you might well become infected with the dread contagion.'

'No, I won't. And it is his dying that I intend to do something about.

For now, however, I wish to see him. That is all.'

'Captain Sweetcreek has-'

'Captain Sweetcreek is no longer in command, cutter. I am. Now get out of my way before I reassign you to irrigating horse bowels, and given the poor quality of the feed they have been provided of late…'

Noto Boil examined the fish spine in his hand. 'I will make note of this in my company log, Captain Kindly. As the Host's ranking healer, there is some question regarding chain of command at the moment. After all, under normal circumstances I far outrank captains-'

'These are not normal circumstances. I'm losing my patience here.'

An expression of mild distaste. 'Yes, I have first-hand knowledge of what happens when you lose patience, no matter how unjust the situation. It fell to me, I remind you, to heal Captain Sweetcreek's fractured cheekbone.' The man stepped to one side of the entrance. '

Please, Captain, be welcome within.'

Sighing, Paran strode past the cutter, pulled aside the flap and entered the tent.

Gloom, the air hot and thick with heavy incense that could only just mask the foul reek of sickness. In this first chamber were four cots, each occupied by a company commander, only two of whom were familiar to Paran. All slept or were unconscious, limbs twisted in their sweatstained blankets, necks swollen by infection, each drawn breath a thin wheeze like some ghastly chorus. Shaken, the captain moved past them and entered the tent's back chamber, where there was but one occupant.

In the grainy, crepuscular air, Paran stared down at the figure in the cot. His first thought was that Dujek Onearm was already dead. An aged, bloodless face marred by dark purple blotches, eyes crusted shut by mucus. The man's tongue, the colour of Aren Steel, was so swollen it had forced open his mouth, splitting the parched lips. A healer – probably Noto Boil – had packed Dujek's neck in a mixture of mould, ash and clay, which had since dried, looking like a slave collar.