“You only do your job, eh? A well-trodden way to avoid responsibility.”

“Which of us is it who lives among them, out here in the middle of nowhere? Which of us is it who watches over them, dresses them, feeds them, cleans them, fights the endless, pointless war against their damn lice? Is it you who stops them beating, and raping, and killing each other? You’re an officer in the King’s Own, eh, Colonel? So you live in Adua? In fine quarters in the Agriont, among the rich and well groomed?” West frowned, and Lorsen chuckled at him. “Which of us has truly avoided the responsibility, as you put it? My conscience has never been cleaner. Hate us if you like, we’re used to it. No one likes to shake hands with the man who empties the latrine pits either, but pits have to be emptied all the same. Otherwise the world fills up with shit. You can have your dozen smiths, but don’t try to take the high ground with me. There is no high ground here.”

West didn’t like it, but he had to admit the man made a good case, so he set his jaw and struggled on in silence, head down. They squelched towards a long, windowless, stone-built shed, thick smoke roiling up into the misty air from tall chimneys at each corner. The Practical slid back the bolt on the heavy door and heaved it open, and West followed him and Lorsen into the darkness.

The heat was like a slap in the face after the freezing air outside. Acrid smoke stung at West’s eyes, nipped at his throat. The din in the narrow space was frightening. Bellows creaked and wheezed, hammers clanged on anvils sending up showers of angry sparks, red hot metal hissed furiously in water barrels. There were men everywhere, packed in tight together, sweating, and groaning, and coughing, hollow faces half lit by the orange glow from the forges. Devils, in hell.

“Stop your work!” roared Lorsen. “Stop and form up!”

The men slowly set down their tools, lurched and stumbled and rattled forward to form a line while four or five Practicals looked on from the shadows. A shabby, broken, stooping, sorrowful line. A couple of the men had irons on their wrists as well as their ankles. They scarcely looked like the answer to all of West’s problems, but he had no choice. This was all there was.

“We have a visitor, from outside. Say your piece, Colonel.”

“My name is Colonel West,” he croaked, voice cracking on the stinging air. “There are ten thousand soldiers camped a dozen miles down the road, under Crown Prince Ladisla. We have need of smiths.” West cleared his throat, tried to speak louder without coughing his lungs out. “Who among you can work metals?”

No one spoke. The men stared at their threadbare shoes or their bare feet, with the odd sidelong glance at the glowering Practicals.

“You need not be afraid. Who can work metals?”

“I can, sir.” A man stepped forward from the line, the irons on his ankles rattling. He was lean and sinewy, slightly stooped. As the lamplight fell across his head West found himself wincing. He was disfigured by hideous burns. One side of his face was a mass of livid, slightly melted-looking scars, no eyebrow, scalp patchy with pink bald spots. The other side was little better. The man scarcely had a face at all. “I can work a forge, and I did some soldiering too, in Gurkhul.”

“Good,” muttered West, doing his best to swallow his horror at the man’s appearance. “Your name?”

“Pike.”

“Are any of these others good with metal, Pike?”

The burned man shuffled and clanked his way down the line, pulling men forward by their shoulders while the commandant looked on, his frown growing deeper with every passing moment.

West licked his dry lips. Hard to believe that in so little time he could have gone from so horribly cold to so horribly hot, but here he was, more uncomfortable than ever. “I’ll need keys to their irons, Inquisitor.”

“There are no keys. The irons are melted shut. They are not intended ever to be removed and I would strongly advise you not to. Many of these prisoners are extremely dangerous, and you should bear in mind that you will be returning them to us as soon as you can make alternative arrangements. The Inquisition is not in the business of early releases.” He stalked off to speak to one of the Practicals.

Pike sidled up, pulling another convict by the elbow. “Pardon me, sir,” he murmured, growling voice kept low. “But could you find a place for my daughter?”

West shrugged his shoulders, uncomfortable. He would have liked to take everyone and burn the damn place to the ground, but he was already pushing his luck. “It’s not a good idea, a woman in amongst all those soldiers. Not a good idea at all.”

“A better idea than staying here, sir. I can’t leave her on her own. She can help me at the forge. She can swing a hammer herself if it comes to that. She’s strong.”

She didn’t look strong. She looked skinny and ragged, bony face smeared with soot and grease. West could have taken her for a boy. “I’m sorry, Pike, but it’s no easy ride where we’re going.”

She grabbed hold of West’s arm as he turned away. “It’s no easy ride here.” Her voice was a surprise. Soft, smooth, educated. “Cathil is my name. I can work.” West looked down at her, ready to shake his arm free, but her expression reminded him of something. Painless. Fearless. Empty eyes, flat, like a corpse.

Ardee. Blood smeared across her cheek.

West grimaced. The memory was like a wound that wouldn’t heal. The heat was unbearable, every part of him was twitching with discomfort, his uniform like sandpaper against his clammy skin. He had to get out of this horrible place.

He looked away, his eyes stinging. “Her too,” he barked.

Lorsen snorted. “Are you joking, Colonel?”

“Believe me, I’m not in a joking mood.”

“Skilled men is one thing. I daresay you need them, but I cannot allow you to simply take whatever prisoners catch your eye—”

West turned on him with a snarl, his patience worn right through. “Her too, I said!”

If the commandant was impressed by West’s fury, he didn’t show it. They stood there for a long moment, staring at each other, while the sweat ran down West’s face and the blood pounded loud in his temples.

Then Lorsen nodded slowly. “Her too. Very well. I cannot stop you.” He leaned in a little closer. “But the Arch Lector will hear about this. He is far away, and it might take time for him to hear, but hear he will.” Even closer yet, almost whispering in West’s ear. “Perhaps one day you will find yourself visiting us again, but this time to stay. Perhaps, in the meantime, you should prepare your little lecture on the rights and wrongs of penal colonies. There’ll be plenty of time for it.” Lorsen turned away. “Now take my prisoners and go. I have a letter to write.”

Rain

Jezal had always found a good storm a thorough amusement. Raindrops lashing at the streets, and walls, and roofs of the Agriont, hissing from the gutters. Something to be smiled out at through the wet window while one sat, warm and dry in one’s quarters. Something that took the young ladies in the park by surprise and made them squeal, sticking their dresses excitingly to their clammy skin. Something to be dashed through, laughing with one’s friends, as one made one’s way from tavern to tavern, before drying out before a roaring fire with a mug of hot spiced wine. Jezal used to enjoy the rain almost as much as the sun.

But that was before.

Out here on the plains, storms were of a different stamp. This was no petulant child’s tantrum, best ignored and soon ended. This was a cold and murderous, merciless and grudge-bearing, bitter and relentless fury of a storm, and somehow it made all the difference that the nearest roof, let alone the nearest tavern, was hundreds of miles behind them. The rain came down in sheets, dousing the endless plain and everything on it with icy water. The fat drops stung at Jezal’s scalp like sling-stones, nipped at his exposed hands, the tops of his ears, the back of his neck. Water trickled through his hair, through his eyebrows, down his face in rivulets and into his sodden collar. The rain was a grey curtain across the land, obliterating anything more than a hundred strides ahead, although out here of course, there was nothing ahead or anywhere else.