Early Winter, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, near Caraskand The hub of the abandoned estate had been built by the ancient Ceneians. On his first visit, Conphas had amused himself by touring the structures according to their historical provenance, finishing with the small marble tabernacle some Kianene Grandee had raised generations past. He despised not knowing the layout of the buildings that housed him. It was a general's habit, he supposed, to think of all places as battlefields.

The Inrithi caste-nobles began arriving in the afternoon, troops of mounted men cloaked against the interminable drizzle. Standing with Martemus in the gloom of a covered veranda, Conphas watched them hasten across the courtyard. They'd changed so much, it seemed, since that afternoon in his uncle's Privy Garden. If he closed his eyes he could still see them, scattered among the ornamental cypresses and tamarisks, their faces hopeful and unguarded, their manner arrogant and theatrical, their finery reflecting the peculiarities of their respective nations. Looking back, everything about them seemed so . . . untested untested. And now, after months of war, desert, and disease, they looked grim and hard, like those infantrymen in the Columns who continually renewed their terms-the flint-hearted veterans that recruits admired and young officers mortally feared. They seemed a separate people, a new race, as though the differences that distinguished Conriyans from Galeoth, Ainoni from Tydonni, had been hammered out of them, like impurities from steel.

And of course they all rode Kianene horses, all wore Kianene clothes . . . One must not overlook the superficial; it ran too deep.

Conphas glanced at Martemus. "They look more heathen than the heathen."

"The desert made the Kianene," the General said, shrugging, "and it has remade us."

Conphas regarded the man thoughtfully, troubled for some reason.

"No doubt you're right."

Martemus fixed him with a bland stare. "Will you tell me what this is about? Why summon the Great and Lesser Names secretly?"

The Exalt-General turned to the black, rain-curtained hills of Enathpaneah. "To save the Holy War, of course."

"I thought we cared only for the Empire."

Once again Conphas scrutinized his subordinate, trying to decipher the man more than the remark. Since the debacle with Prince Kellhus, he continuously found himself wanting to suspect the General of treachery. He begrudged Martemus much for what had happened in Shigek. But not, strangely enough, his company.

"The Empire and the Holy War travel the same road, Martemus." Though soon-he found himself thinking, they would part ways. It would be so very tragic . . .

First Caraskand, then Prince Kellhus. The Holy War must wait. Order must be observed in all things. Order must be observed in all things.

Martemus had not so much as blinked. "And if-"

"Come," Conphas interrupted. "Time to tease the lions." The Exalt-General had instructed his attendants-after the desert he'd been forced to enlist soldiers to do the work of slaves-to take the Inrithi caste-nobles to a large indoor riding room adjacent to the stables. Conphas and Martemus found them spread in clots throughout the airy gloom, warming themselves over the orange glow of coal braziers, muttering in the low voices of sodden men-some fifty or sixty of them all told. For an instant, no one noticed their arrival, and Conphas stood motionless beneath the arched entranceway, studying them, from their eyes, which seemed desert-bright in the grey light, to the straw clinging to their wet boots. How much, he idly wondered, would the Padirajah pay for this room? The voices trailed as more and more men noticed his presence.

"Where's the Anasurimbor?" Palatine Gaidekki called out, his look as sharp and as cynical as always.

Conphas grinned. "Oh, he's here, Palatine. In theme theme if not in body." if not in body."

"More than Prince Kellhus is missing," Earl Gothyelk said. "So is Saubon, Athjeari . . . Proyas is sick, of course, but I see none of Kellhus's more ardent defenders here . . ."

"A felicitous coincidence, I am sure . . ."

"I thought this was about Caraskand," Palatine Uranyanka said.

"But of course! Caraskand resists us. We're here to ask why why."

"So why does she resist us?" Gotian asked, his tone contemptuous. Not for the first time Conphas realized that they despised him-almost to a man. All men hate their betters.

He opened his arms and walked into their midst. "Why?" he called out, glaring at them, challenging them. "This is the question, isn't it? Why do the rains keep falling, rotting our feet, our tents, our hearts? hearts? Why does the hemoplexy strike us down indiscriminately? Why do so many of us die thrashing in our own bowel?" He laughed as though in astonishment. "And all this Why does the hemoplexy strike us down indiscriminately? Why do so many of us die thrashing in our own bowel?" He laughed as though in astonishment. "And all this after after the desert! As if the Carathay weren't woe enough! So the desert! As if the Carathay weren't woe enough! So why? why? Need we ask old Cumor to consult his omen-texts?" Need we ask old Cumor to consult his omen-texts?"

"No," Gotian said tightly. "It is plain. The anger of the God burns against us."

Conphas inwardly smiled. Sarcellus had insisted the so-called Warrior-Prophet would be dead within days. But whether he succeeded or not-and Conphas suspected not-they would need allies following the attempt. No one knew precisely how many "Zaudunyani" Prince Kellhus commanded, but they numbered in the tens of thousands at least . . . The more the Men of the Tusk suffered, it seemed, the more they turned to the fiend.

But then, as the saying went, no dog so loved its master as when it was beaten.

Conphas glared at the assembled lords, pausing in the best oratorical fashion. "Who could disagree? The anger of the God does does burn against us. And well it should . . ." burn against us. And well it should . . ."

He swept his gaze across them.

"Given that we harbour and abet a False Prophet."

Howls erupted from among them, more in protest than in assent. But Conphas had expected as much. At this juncture, the important thing was to get these fools talking talking. Their bigotries would do the rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

Caraskand

And We will give over all of them, slain, to the Children of Eanna; you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire. You shall bathe your feet in the blood of the wicked.

-TRIBES 21:13, THE CHRONICLE OF THE TUSK THE CHRONICLE OF THE TUSK

Winter, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Caraskand Coithus Saubon bound through the rain, skidded across a section of slop, leapt a small ravine, and climbed the far side. He raised his face to the grey sky and laughed.

It's mine! By the Gods it will be mine!

Realizing that this moment demanded a certain modicum of jnan, composure at the very least, he reduced his gait, walking briskly through the clusters of ad hoc shelters. When finally he spied Proyas's pavilion near a copse of rain-dreary sycamores, he hastened toward it.

King! Yes I shall be King!

The Galeoth Prince halted before the pavilion, puzzled by the absence of guards. Proyas was somewhat soft-hearted with his men-perhaps he'd bid them stay within, out of the fucking rain. All around, muddy ground sizzled with waters. The turf was moated with flooded ruts and puddles. The rain drummed across the sagging canvas before him.

King of Caraskand!

"Proyas!" he shouted through the ambient roar. He could feel the rain at long last soak through the heavy felt beneath his hauberk. It felt like a warm kiss against his skin. "Proyas! Blast you man, I need to talk! I know you're in there!"

At length he heard a muffled voice cursing from within. When the flap was at last pulled aside, Saubon was taken aback. Proyas stood before him, thin, haggard, a dark wool blanket wrapped about his shivering frame.

"They said you'd recovered," Saubon said, embarrassed.

"Of course I'm recovered, you idiot. I stand."

"Where are your guards? Your physician?"

A gravelly cough wracked the ailing Prince. He cleared his throat, blew strings of sputum from his mouth. "Sent them all away," he said, wiping his lip with a sleeve. "Needed to sleep," he added, raising a pained brow.

Saubon roared with laughter, almost grabbed the man in his mailed arms. "You won't be able to sleep now, my pious friend!"

"Saubon. Prince. Please, to the point if you will. I'm grievously sick."

"I've come to ask a question, Proyas . . . One question only."

"Ask it then."

Saubon suddenly calmed, became very serious.

"If I deliver Caraskand, will you support my bid to be its King?"

"What do you mean 'deliver'?"

"I mean throw open its gates to the Holy War," the Galeoth Prince replied, fixing him with a penetrating, blue-eyed stare.

Proyas's whole bearing seemed transformed. The pallor fell from his face. His dark eyes became lucid and attentive. "You're serious about this."

Saubon cackled like a greedy old man. "Never have I been so serious."

The Conriyan Prince scrutinized him for several moments, as though gauging the alternatives.

"I like not this game you-"

"Just answer the question, damn you! Will you support my bid to be crowned King of Caraskand?"

Proyas was silent for a moment, but then slowly nodded. "Yes . . . You deliver Caraskand, and I assure you, you'll be its King."

Saubon raised his face and his arms to the menacing sky and howled out his battle cry. The rains plummeted upon him, rinsed him in soothing cold, fell between his lips and teeth and tasted of honey. He'd tumbled in the breakers of circumstance, so violently that mere months ago he'd thought he would die. Then he'd met Kellhus, the Warrior-Prophet, the man who'd set him onto the path toward his own heart, and he'd survived calamities that could break ten lesser men. And now this, the lifelong moment come at last. It seemed a giddy, impossible thing.

It seemed a gift.

Rain, so heartbreakingly sweet after Khemema. Beads pattered against his forehead, cheeks, and closed eyes. He shook water from his matted hair.

King . . . I will be King at long last.

"Where," Proyas asked, "have all these hard silences come from?"

Cnaiur regarded him from the pavilion's gloomy heart. The Conriyan Prince, he realized, hadn't been idle during his convalescence. He'd been thinking.

"I don't understand," Cnaiur said.

"But you do, Scylvendi . . . Something happened to you at Anwurat. I need to know what."

Proyas was still sick-grievously so, it appeared. He sat bundled beneath wool blankets in a camp chair, his normally hale face drawn and pale. In any other man, Cnaiur would have found such weakness disgusting, but Proyas wasn't any other man. Over the months the young prince had come to command something troubling within him, a respect not fit for a fellow Scylvendi, let alone an outlander. Even sick he seemed regal.

He's just another Inrithi dog!

"Nothing happened at Anwurat," Cnaiur said.

"What do you mean, nothing? nothing? Why did you run? Why did you disappear?" Why did you run? Why did you disappear?"

Cnaiur scowled. What was he supposed to say?

That he went mad?

He'd spent many sleepless nights trying to wring sense from Anwurat. He could remember the battle slipping from his grasp. He could remember murdering a Kellhus who wasn't Kellhus. He could remember sitting on the strand, watching the Meneanor hammer the shore with fists of foaming white. He could remember a thousand different things, but they all seemed stolen, like stories told by a childhood friend.

Cnaiur had lived the greater part of his life with madness. He heard the way his brothers spoke, he understood how they thought, but despite endless recriminations, despite years of roaring shame, he couldn't make those words and thoughts his own. His was a fractious and mutinous soul. Always one thought, one hunger, too many! But no matter how far his soul wandered from the tracks of the proper, he'd always borne witness to its treachery-he'd always known known the measure of his depravity. His confusion had been that of one who watches the madness of another. the measure of his depravity. His confusion had been that of one who watches the madness of another. How? How? he would cry. he would cry. How could these thoughts be mine? How could these thoughts be mine?

He had always owned his madness.

But at Anwurat, that had changed. The watcher within had collapsed, and for the first time his madness had owned him. For weeks he'd been little more than a corpse bound to a maddened horse. How his soul had galloped!

"What does it matter to you, my comings and goings?" Cnaiur fairly cried. He hooked his thumbs in his iron-plated girdle. "I am not your client."

Proyas's expression darkened. "No . . . But you stand high among my advisers." He looked up, his eyes hesitant. "Especially since Xinemus . . ."

Cnaiur grimaced. "You make too mu-"

"You saved me in the desert," Proyas said.

Cnaiur quashed the sudden yearning that filled him. For some reason, he missed missed the desert-far more so than the Steppe. What was it? Was it the anonymity of footsteps, the impossibility of leaving track or trail? Was it respect? The Carathay had killed far more than he . . . Or had his heart recognized itself in her desolation? the desert-far more so than the Steppe. What was it? Was it the anonymity of footsteps, the impossibility of leaving track or trail? Was it respect? The Carathay had killed far more than he . . . Or had his heart recognized itself in her desolation?

So many cursed questions! Shut up! Shut- "Of course I saved you," Cnaiur said. "What prestige I hold, remember, I hold through you." Almost instantly he regretted the remark. He had meant it as a dismissal, but it had sounded like an admission.

For a moment, Proyas looked as though he might cry out in frustration. He lowered his face instead, studied the mats beneath his bare white feet. When he looked up, his expression was at once plaintive and challenging.

"Did you know that Conphas recently called a secret council to discuss Kellhus?"

Cnaiur shook his head. "No."

Proyas was watching him very closely. "So you and Kellhus still don't speak."

"No." Cnaiur blinked, glimpsed an image of the Dunyain, his face cracking open as he screamed. A memory? When had it happened?

"And why's that, Scylvendi?"

Cnaiur struggled to hide his sneer. "Because of the woman."

"You mean Serwe?"