It did not come with an army. It was the army. Nine hundred years ago, something came up out of the deep places under Vaskaryn, and every man who fell before it stood up again behind it. Eleven kingdoms fell learning it could not be killed — because there was nothing there to kill. Only multitude. So it was bound instead. Not with a spell — with a load-bearing structure. Seven living women, each shackled to one chain, each holding one aspect of the thing down beneath the bedr