The Grave thief

Zaler nodded and waved over General Lahk's twin brother. He was an Ascetite – a soldier whose latent magical abilities had never developed properly, but who was nevertheless gifted beyond normal standards. Lesarl had seconded him from Isak's personal guard to help Suzerain Torl deal with the more unfriendly clerics.

Thus far there had been two direct attempts on Torl's life, and most nights had seen violence of some sort, but the Chief Steward's agents were more than a match for the mercenaries trying to eliminate opposition to the cults' control. Tiniq himself now slept in the baggage carts during the day so he could be awake all night.

'Suzerain Torl,' Tiniq acknowledged, walking over briskly. His left arm was bandaged, but it didn't seem to be bothering him much.

For the twin of a white-eye – an impossible feat, so every doctor would claim- Tiniq was far from remarkable to behold. The former ranger was of average height and build, and his eyes were normal. The only apparent skill he had was that of fading into the background wherever he went. Other differences became clear when one found out he was only five years younger than Torl, and saw his speed when a priest of Nartis had tried to murder the suzerain.

'What happened to your arm?' Torl asked, grumpily noting that one of them wasn't feeling his age that morning. There was an u

'Assassins tried to take us out,' he a

'And they ambushed you?'

'Tried to, but they didn't notice Leshi and Shinir ghosting along behind us.'

'Prisoners?'

Tiniq shifted his feet. 'Ardela got a little over-excited.'

'Ardela? The shaven-headed hellcat?'

'That's the one,' Tiniq agreed, gri

Raised voices not far off interrupted their conversation and they all turned to watch a party of men approach. Suzerain Torl's hurscals reached for their weapons.

Torl looked past his men and spotted the massive figure swathed in white at the centre of the group of priests. 'Gods, that's all I need,' he muttered before raising his voice. 'Sir Dahten, stand your men down.'

A grey-haired hurscal turned to the suzerain and gave him a pained expression. Torl ignored it, so Sir Dahten growled an order to the rest of the bodyguard. None of them dropped their weapons, but they stood less belligerently as the breaking of camp went on around them.

'Chalat, good morning,' Torl called out. The Chetse white-eye didn't immediately respond. His attention appeared to be focused on the other army's camp in the distance. Torl knelt and offered his sword hilt, the Farlan custom. He had not met the former ruler of the Chetse before this campaign, but there were stories aplenty. His appetites were legendary, as was his remarkable physical prowess, but it appeared some of the stories would have to be revised.

'Torl, your men are not performing the morning devotionals.' Chalat said at last, his gaze moving over the assembled hurscals before settling on the suzerain. 'Their lack of piety is a concern for us all. All success depends on the blessing of the Gods.'

Chalat was tall as General Lahk, but far more heavily built than any Farlan. His forearms were as thick as a man's thigh – his recent fasting had done little to reduce them – but where Chalat had once been famously barrel-shaped, now his belly had reduced and he tapered dramatically below his enormous rib-cage, the new shape highlighted by the robe he wore tied at the waist by a length of rope. His face was gaunt, and he had dark rings under his eyes. His hair was silvery grey, rare for a white-eye. Though Chalat had lived far longer than a normal human, until the summer it had been the normal Chetse light brown.

'I do not question their piety, Chalat,' Torl said in a strained voice, 'which ca

The crows behind fluttered their feathers angrily, but Chalat stilled them with a raised finger. His face showed no emotion – he was at peace with the Land and secure in his purpose. For Suzerain Torl, father to a white-eye and Lord Bahl's confidant for many years, it was a worrying sight. No white-eye at the centre of an army should look that way; it went against everything that drove them.

'They are moths, not crows, and they are flocking to my light,' Chalat intoned solemnly. On his back he still wore the great broadsword he had been given when he became the Fire God's Chosen all those years ago. The Bloodrose amulet that had accompanied it, however, he had given away before leaving Lomin. Torl had laughed when he first heard that, refusing to believe any white-eye would give away an artefact of such power, but Chalat really had: he had been irrevocably changed.

'A white-eye no more,' Torl remembered Chalat saying the day he joined them, 'a lord no more, but envoy of the Qods.'

That's too close to 'prophet' for my liking, and everyone knows they're all mad. Do you think faith will turn spears? he wondered to himself.

'Moths are brainless creatures, soon consumed by the flame,' Torl responded.

Chalat nodded slowly, clearly interested only in the glory itself and not the effect it might have. 'The army must perform the devotionals each morning, the officers alongside their men. The priests shall oversee them and instruct them in the ways of the Gods. There is talk of the godless among us, of creatures that sleep during the day and stalk the camp at night.'

Instruct them in the ways of the Qods? 1 can just imagine what that will mean. Do they really think men will stand by and watch their friends be dragged off?

Torl looked at the priests lingering in the Chetse's shadow, seeing if he recognised any – they changed regularly, which pointed to a savage struggle for supremacy within the clerics of the crusade. Two were priests of Tsatach, still of fighting age, who Chalat had taken as his disciples. The rest were predominantly a mixture from the temples of Nartis and Death, although today there were representatives of Belara

'To make the men perform the devotionals en masse would delay us by an hour each day,' Torl protested, 'and that gives the enemy greater time to detect us and prepare.'

'You claim your mages and scryers hide us from his sight. Is this not true?'

'I make no promises; the Chosen of Larat may prove too strong for our mages.' Now you have a use for them? Yesterday you wanted me to hang the lot as heretics, even as they told us where the Menin were!

'In that case they are of no use to us,' Chalat replied simply. 'They shall stand before a Morality Tribunal and account for themselves.'

Torl bowed in what he hoped would look a conciliatory ma

'They are under my command,' Chalat said, for the first time actually focusing properly on Torl. A spark of the white-eye he had once been flickered in his eyes. 'They are tools of the Gods, to do with as I see fit. Tell the boy to send them back.'

'As you wish,' Torl said, amazed at Chalat's behaviour. The white-eye could not conceive that his order would be refused. Presumably he expected Lord Isak would meekly comply.