The apprentice sat back in the cart and stared up at the sky. “There’s no saying. Maybe hours. Maybe forever.”

“Forever?” Logen ground his teeth. “Where does that leave us? You have any idea where we’re going? Or why? Or what we do when we get there? Should we turn back?”

“No.” Quai’s face was sharp as a blade. Sharper than Logen would ever have expected from him. “We have enemies behind us. To turn back now would be more dangerous than to continue. We carry on.”

Logen winced, and rubbed at his eyes. He felt tired, and sore, and sick. He wished he’d asked Bayaz his plans when he’d had the chance. He wished he’d never left the North, if it came to that. He could have sought out a reckoning with Bethod, and died in a place he knew, at the hands of men that he at least understood.

Logen had no wish to lead. The time was he’d hungered after fame, and glory, and respect, but the winning of them had been costly, and they’d proved to be hollow prizes. Men had put their faith in him, and he’d led them by a painful and a bloody route straight back to the mud. There was no ambition in him any more. He was cursed when it came to making decisions.

He took his hands away and looked around him. Bayaz still lay muttering in his fevered sleep. Quai was gazing carelessly up at the clouds. Luthar was standing with his back to the others, staring down the gorge. Ferro was sitting on a rock, cleaning her bow with a rag, and scowling. Longfoot had reappeared, predictably, just as the danger ended, and was standing not far away, looking pleased with himself. Logen grimaced, and gave a long sigh. There was no help for it. There was no one else.

“Alright, we head for this bridge, at Aulcus, then we see.”

“Not a good idea,” tutted Longfoot, wandering up to the cart and peering in. “Not a good idea in the least. I warned our employer of that before his… mishap. The city is deserted, destroyed, ruined. A blighted, and a broken, and a dangerous place. The bridge may still stand, but according to rumour—”

“Aulcus was the plan, and I reckon we’ll stick with it.”

Longfoot carried on as though he hadn’t spoken. “I think, perhaps, that it would be best if we headed back towards Calcis. We are still less than halfway to our ultimate destination, and have ample food and water for the return journey. With some luck—”

“You were paid to go all the way?”

“Well, er, indeed I was, but—”

“Aulcus.”

The Navigator blinked. “Well, yes, I see that you are decided. Decisiveness, and boldness, and vigour, it would seem, are among your talents, but caution, and wisdom, and experience, if I may say, are among mine, and I am in no doubt whatsoever that—”

“Aulcus,” growled Logen.

Longfoot paused with his mouth half open. Then he snapped it shut. “Very well. We will follow the road back onto the plains, and head westward to the three lakes. Aulcus is at their head, but the journey is still a long and dangerous one, especially with winter well upon us. There should be—”

“Good.” Logen turned away before the Navigator had the chance to say anything more. That was the easy part. He sucked his teeth, and walked over to Ferro.

“Bayaz is…” he struggled for the right word. “Out. We don’t know how long for.”

She nodded. “We going on?”

“Er… I reckon… that’s the plan.”

“Alright.” She got up from her rock and slung the bow over her shoulder. “Best get moving then.”

Easier than he’d expected. Too easy, perhaps. He wondered if she was thinking of sneaking off again. He was considering it himself, truth be told. “I don’t even know where we’re going.”

She snorted. “I’ve never known where I was going. You ask me, it’s an improvement, you in charge.” She walked off towards the horses. “I never trusted that bald bastard.”

And that only left Luthar. He was standing with his back to the others, shoulders slumped, thoroughly miserable-looking. Logen could see the muscles on the side of his head working as he stared at the ground.

“You alright?”

Luthar hardly seemed to hear him. “I wanted to fight. I wanted to, and I knew how to, and I had my hand on my steels.” He slapped angrily at the hilt of one of his swords. “I was helpless as a fucking baby! Why couldn’t I move?”

“That it? By the dead, boy, that happens to some men the first time!”

“It does?”

“More than you’d believe. At least you didn’t shit yourself.”

Luthar raised his eyebrows. “That happens?”

“More than you’d believe.”

“Did you freeze up, the first time?”

Logen frowned. “No. Killing comes too easy to me. Always has done. Believe me, you’re the lucky one.”

“Unless I’m killed for doing nothing.”

“Well,” Logen had to admit, “there is that.” Luthar’s head dropped even lower, and Logen clapped him on the arm. “But you didn’t get killed! Cheer up, boy, you’re lucky! You’re still alive, aren’t you?” He gave a miserable nod. Logen slid his arm round his shoulder and guided him back towards the horses. “Then you’ve got the chance to do better next time.”

“Next time?”

“Course. Doing better next time. That’s what life is.”

Logen climbed back into the saddle, stiff and sore. Stiff from all the riding, sore from the fight in the gorge. Some bit of rock had cracked him on the back, that and he’d got a good punch on the side of his head. Could have been a lot worse.

He looked round at the others. They were all mounted up, staring at him. Four faces, as different as could be, but all with the same expression, more or less. Waiting for his say. Why did anyone ever think he had the answers? He swallowed, and dug his heels in.

Let’s go.

Prince Ladisla’s Stratagem

“You really should spend less time in here, Colonel West.” Pike set down his hammer for a moment, the orange light from his forge reflecting in his eyes, shining bright on his melted face. “People will start to talk.”

West cracked a nervous grin. “It’s the only warm place in the whole damn camp.” It was true enough, but a long way from the real reason. It was the only place in the whole damn camp where no one would look for him. Men who were starving, men who were freezing, men who had no water, or no weapon, or no clue what they were doing. Men who’d died of cold or illness and needed burying. Even the dead couldn’t manage without West. Everyone needed him, day and night. Everyone except Pike and his daughter, and the rest of the convicts. They alone seemed self-sufficient, and so their forge had become his refuge. A noisy, and a crowded, and a smoky refuge, no doubt, but no less sweet for that. He preferred it immeasurably to being with the Prince and his staff. Here among the criminals it was more… honest.

“You’re in the way, Colonel. Again.” Cathil shoved past him, a knife-blade glowing orange in the tongs in one gloved hand. She shoved it into the water, frowning, turning it this way and that while steam hissed up around her. West watched her move, quick and practised, beads of moisture on her sinewy arm, the back of her neck, hair dark and spiky with sweat. Hard to believe he’d ever taken her for a boy. She might handle the metal as well as any of the men, but the shape of her face, not to mention her chest, her waist, the curve of her backside, all unmistakably female…

She glanced over her shoulder and caught him looking. “Don’t you have an army to run?”

“They’ll last ten minutes without me.”

She drew the cold, black blade from the water and tossed it clattering onto the heap beside the whetstone. “You sure?”

Maybe she was right at that. West took a deep breath, sighed, turned with some reluctance, and ventured out through the door of the shed and into the camp.

The winter air nipped at his cheeks after the heat of the smithy, and he pulled up the collars of his coat, hugged himself as he struggled down the camp’s main road. It was deathly quiet out here at night, once he had left the rattling of the forge behind him. He could hear the frozen mud sucking at his boots, his breath rasping in his throat, the faint cursing of some distant soldier, grumbling his way through the darkness. He stopped a moment and looked up, arms folded round himself for warmth. The sky was perfectly clear, the stars prickling bright, spread across the blackness like shining dust.