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Little had been said on the return journey, but they had ridden their horses into the ground in their haste, and for all but Udinaas the ride had been a flight Not from the Forkrul Assail and its immutable fascination for the peace of cold corpses, but from the death, and the rebirth, of the emperor of the Tiste Edur

They re-joined the ar’s report that contact had been established with the K’risnan in the other two ar the fated battlefield, where, shadoraiths witnessed, the Letherii forces awaited the skein of preparation, Udinaas was indifferent to the chaos An arration, each beast bound by instinct, the imperatives of violence Armies marched from complexity into simplicity It was this detail that drove them onward A field waited, on which all matters could be reduced, on which dust and screaer of warriors and soldiers, of governs and emperors The simple mechanics of victory and defeat, the perfect feint to draw every eye, every ame Focus on the scales Count the measures and mull over balances, observe the stacked bodies like stacked coins and time is devoured, the mind exercised in the fruitless repetition of the millstone, and all the world beyond was still and blurred for theas no-one jarred the table

Udinaas envied the warriors and soldiers their si back froation They fought for the warrior, the soldier, at their side, and even dying had purpose – which was, he now believed, the rarest gift of all

Or so it should have been, but the slave kneould be otherwise Sorcery was the weapon for the battle to come Perhaps it was, in truth, the face of future wars the world over Senseless annihilation, the obliteration of lives in nuoverns and emperors War as a clash of wills, a contest indifferent to its cost, seeking to discover ill blink first – and not caring either way War, no different an exercise fro of the Merchants’ Tolls, and thus infinitely understandable

The Tiste Edur and their allies were arraying the duller,wave of suspended dust In places sorcery crackled, shimmered the air, tentative escapes of the power held ready by both sides Udinaas wondered if anyone, anyone at all, would survive this day And, a those who did, what lessons would they take frooes too far

She was standing beside him, silent and small and wrapped in a supple, undyed deerhide She had said nothing, offered no reason for seeking hihts Unknown and profoundly unknowable

Yet now he heard her draw a shuddering breath

Udinaas glanced over ‘The bruises are alone,’ he said

Feather Witch nodded ‘I should thank you’

‘No need’

‘Good’ She seemed to falter at her own vehemence ‘I should not have said that I don’t knohat to think’