Tom Lloyd - The ragged man

'Colonel Uresh knows where I am if he needs me, so do my men. I'm doing as much good tending to you as anywhere else – more, probably.'

'"Stretched the truth"?'

The lovely smile returned. 'You don't need to worry about that right now,' she said with a soft laugh, 'but I think Hain's reached a whole new level of admiration for you now.'

Amber couldn't help but cough at the thought. He knew full-well what was pretty much always on Captain Hain's mind when he wasn't fighting. The sight of Kirl in that tunic really wouldn't have helped.

'Well, look at that,' Kirl said with a purr of interest. 'That thought's put some colour in your cheeks! For now, Major Amber, you might want to hear what's been happening since you fainted on the battlefield.'

'Fainted!' Amber gasped as the memory of the battle finally appeared in his mind: Lord Chalat, Chosen of the Fire God Tsatach, wading through the Menin ranks wreathed in flame; Amber fighting his way through the ranks to slam a spiked axe into Chalat's chest -

'So one witness, who'll remain nameless, is telling everyone he can,' Kirl continued, 'and by the way, Captain Hain's treating that axe like it's a holy relic now.' She paused and cocked her head, then added, 'Which I s'pose it might be. Anyway, Lord Isak's dead, but not before he killed Scion Styrax – and for that our lord sent him straight to the Dark Place!'

She shivered at the thought and fell silent, all traces of her smile gone.

Amber felt the strength drain from his body. He'd not been close to Kohrad Styrax, but he had known the hot-tempered youth for years, and had fought beside him more than once. The idea of Kohrad dead was too much for him to grasp immediately. It felt unreal, even to a man used to the loss of comrades.

'You can tell where it happened too,' Kirl said in a hushed voice. 'There's a point out on the field where the ground's as hot as new-fired clay, so folk've been saying. We routed the Farlan, killed a large part of the Penitent Army and chased the rest most o' the way to Helrect. Lord Styrax's overcome with grief so General Gaur's been giving the orders – you can image how close he is to disembowelling anyone who comes near.'

Amber nodded, wincing, all too easily able to imagine General Gaur's current state of mind. The beastman's overriding sense of duty would not allow him to withdraw into grief when there was an army to manage, but Gaur had been as much of a father to Kohrad as Styrax himself.

'And then there's the small matter of the dragon,' Kirl said after a pause.

'Dragon?' Amber coughed.

'Aye, our lord woke it up about the time you fainted and broke half-a-dozen bones on your way to the ground. The beast is just a bit fucking angry at the situation. No one knows what's left of the Library of Seasons, but a large part of Ismess has been levelled and the Fortinn quarter has taken quite a battering too. So's Byora, but some folk are saying that's because some Raylin mercenary went mad during the battle.'

'And Lord Styrax isn't doing anything about it?'

She reached for a waterskin and helped him to drink. 'Ah, well now, Lord Styrax ain't doing much of anything at the moment, and as long as that continues, the chaos outside is just going to go on getting worse.'

Amber took a minute or two to drink, then announced, 'I need to be out of this room.'

'Don't be bloody stupid, you can't even stand up.' Kirl enumerated his injuries: 'Three bones in your foot are broken, and your shin snapped when a horse trod on you. On top of that you've managed to break your wrist, your arm in two places, your collarbone and three ribs – for pity's sake, Amber, you even managed to break your nose when you smacked yourself into that mad white-eye! You're staying here until the priests o' Shotir tell me you're healed enough to move and that's that.' She gave him a small pat on the head. 'Don't worry. I reckon the Menin Army will manage to survive a few more days without their newest hero.'

Mihn worked his way further into Ghenna, moving quietly, hand over hand along the roof until he found a ledge where he could rest. Once there he took stock, listening to the sounds of the Dark Place. The main tunnel to Jaishen, the lowest domain of Ghenna – so far as such things could be placed – fell away sharply at a right-hand bend, after which were dozens of smaller tunnels branching off in all directions.

Now he was inside, the old myths weren't going to be much help to him; those poor troubled mortals who had been afforded visions of the Dark Place had never learned much of use. Malich Cordein had been told more than most by the daemons he bargained with, thanks to the fact that he was an unusually powerful necromancer. Those who sold their souls for power were received with all ceremony into whichever of the chaotic domains their master dwelled, but the three greater domains were made up of many hundreds of others that were in a constant state of shifting allegiances. All Malich had confirmed was that Coroshen was the most ordered, Gheshen the most prone to open war, and Jaishen – Jaishen hung over an endless void from which even Gods would never return.

And it was here that Mihn intended to go, to the very depths of Jaishen, where the fissures in the rock opened onto nothingness. Lord Isak had left him a letter detailing his dreams since Scree. It was written in a shaky hand, and described being bound to the rock above an endless emptiness. It was not something he had ever managed to tell anyone out loud, but for an unlettered young man brought up in a world far from books or school learning, the disjointed sentences had conveyed a sense of horror that had made Mihn's skin prickle.

The clamour surrounding the soul's arrival had long died down, and away from the preternatural blackness that shrouded the gates, Ghenna was only as dark as a moonless night – if the stars had been tinted with blood. Not far down the tunnel Mihn came to a crossroads of sorts, where another, flatter, tunnel crossed the main one before splitting into two. The crossroads was marked by a blazing wheel hanging from the rocky roof. Mihn approached cautiously, but though he saw movement there, he thought the scampering daemons had vanished long before he got near -

– until a drawn-out scream pierced the air. It took Mihn a moment to realise the sound had come from the wheel itself, from a figure bound to it, writhing in the flames. He picked his way carefully down the tunnel wall, moving as quickly as he could, but still he could hear the figure wailing, until at last it fell into silence. He turned to look back – just as a dark shape shook free of the shadows and leapt towards the wheel, a long fan-like tail thrashing. The daemon's jaw latched onto the figure's leg and dangled there for a second before its weight caused the flesh to tear and it fell away. As the daemon fell, the figure's screams were renewed.

Mihn turned his back on the terrible sight. The rune burned into his chest was hot to the touch now; concentrating, he thought he could feel it drawing him, so he followed it to the smallest downward-leading tunnel he could see. He moved as quickly as he dared, listening all the while for footsteps, or any other movement. There were plenty of shadows to keep him concealed while the faint red light of Ghenna shone from the rock walls.

To his relief Mihn didn't find himself tiring as much as he'd feared as he made his way from handhold to foothold. Up and down seemed to have less meaning here; despite the clear path on the ground, he found he could keep to the walls with ease. There was a light from somewhere down the tunnel, and though he kept turning corners and discovered nothing, nonetheless the light illuminating the path continued, remaining steadfastly sourceless.

It took him a while to realise the light was not natural – as if anything could be, in a place such as this. The side tunnels he passed were almost pitch-black, and while the light ahead was barely enough to see by, without it he would have been lost. A cold finger of horror ran down Mihn's spine as he imagined trying to find his way through Ghenna without it.