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He stood a long breath with his hand on the spear and the crown vanishing slowly above him, feeling the air change around the fallen three. The flats were suddenly very large and very empty. Far off, scattered dots moved where remnants had run and would keep running. None of that needed his legs.
He crouched and searched Mardek without hurry — throat pendant, command-stone cracked through its beetle back; a ring heavy with the stink of pride; a small folded script sealed with lacquer that read Orders for succession. He took the stone and the paper, left the ring, and closed the dead man's fist around it so the desert would have something to laugh at.
Then he made the choice he owed to the living and the dead.
