And found himself lying on his back, staring up through the bleached weave of the cloth, the sun bright and blinding-

– suddenly eclipsed. She was speaking. ‘… just lie there for a while longer, Withal. I wasn’t intending to hit you that hard. I fear I’ve cracked your skull.’

No, no, it’s hard as an anvil. I’ll be fine. See, I’m getting up… oh, why bother. It’s nice here in the sun. This shirt smells. Like the sea. Like a beach, with the tide out, and all the dead things rotting in fetid water. Just like the Inside Harbour. Got to stop the boys from swimming in there. I keep telling them… oh, they’re dead. All dead now, my boys, my apprentices.

You’d better answer me soon, Mael.

‘Withal?’

‘It’s the tent. That’s what the Nachts are trying to tell me. Something about the tent…’

‘Withal?’

I think I’ll sleep now.

The trail ran in an easterly direction, roughly parallel to the Brous Road at least to start, then cut southward towards the road itself once the forest on the left thinned. One other farm had been passed through by the deserters, but there had been no-one there. Signs of looting were present, and it seemed a wooden-wheeled wagon had been appropriated. Halfpeck judged that the marauders were not far ahead, and the Crimson Guardsmen would reach them by dawn.

Seren Pedac rode alongside Iron Bars. The new stirrups held her boots firmly in place; she had never felt so secure astride a horse. It was clear that the Blueroses had been deceiving the Letherii for a long time, and she wondered if that revealed some essential, heretofore unrecognized flaw among her people. A certain gullibility, bred from an unfortunate mixture of naivete and arrogance. If Lether survived the

Edur invasion and the truth about the Bluerose deception came to light, the Letherii response would be characteristically childish, she suspected, some kind of profound and deep hurt, and a grudge long held on to. Bluerose would be punished, spitefully and repeatedly, in countless ways.

The two women soldiers in the squad had dismantled a hide rack at the first farm, using the frame’s poles to fashion a half-dozen crude lances, half again as tall as a man. The sharpened, fire-hardened points had been notched transversely, the thick barbs bent outward from the shaft. Each tip had been smeared with blood from the breeder and his family, to seal the vengeful intent.

They rode through the night, halting four times to rest their horses, all but one of the squad managing a quarter-bell’s worth of sleep – a soldier’s talent that Seren could not emulate. By the time the sky paled to the east, revealing mists in the lowlands, she was grainy-eyed and sluggish. They had passed a camp of refugees on the Brous Road, an old woman wakening to tell them the raiders had caught up with them earlier and stolen everything of value, as well as two young girls and their mother.

Two hundred paces further down, they came within sight of the deserters. The wagon stood in the centre of the raised road, the two oxen that had been used to pull it off to one side beneath a thick, gnarled oak on the other side of the south ditch. Chains stretched from one of the wheels, along which three small figures were huddled in sleep. A large hearth still smouldered, its dying embers just beyond the wagon.

The Crimson Guardsmen halted at some distance to regard the raiders.

‘No-one’s awake,’ one of the women commented.

Iron Bars said, ‘These horses aren’t well trained enough for a closed charge. We’ll go four one four. You’ll be the one, Acquitor, and stay tight behind the leading riders.’

She nodded. She was not prepared to raise objections. She had been given a spare sword, and she well knew how to use it. Even so, this charge was to be with lances.

The soldiers cinched the straps of their helmets then donned gauntlets, shifting their grips on the lances to a third of the way up from the butts. Seren drew her sword.

‘All right,’ Iron Bars said. ‘Corlo, keep them asleep until we’re thirty paces away. Then wake ’em quick and panicky.’

‘Aye, Avowed. It’s been a while, ain’t it?’

Halfpeck asked, ‘Want any of ’em left alive, sir?’

‘No.’

Iron Bars, with Halfpeck on his left and the two women on his right, formed the first line. Walk to trot, then a collected canter. Fifty paces, and no-one was stirring among the deserters. Seren glanced back at Corlo, and he smiled, raising one hand and waggling the gloved fingers.

She saw the three prisoners at the wagon sit up, then quickly crawl beneath the bed.

Lances were levelled, the horses rolling into a gallop.

Sudden movement among the sleeping deserters. Leaping to their feet, bewildered shouts, a scream.

The front line parted to go round the wagon, and Seren pulled hard to her left after a moment of indecision, seeing the glitter of wide eyes from beneath the wagon’s bed. Then she was alongside the tall wheels.

Ahead, four lances found targets, three of them skewering men from behind as they sought to flee.

A deserter stumbled close to Seren and she slashed her sword, clipping his shoulder and spinning him round in a spray of blood. Cursing at the clumsy blow, she pushed herself forward on the saddle and rose to stand in her stirrups. Readied the sword once more.

The leading four Guardsmen had slowed their mounts and were drawing swords. The second line of riders, in Seren’s wake, had spread out to pursue victims scattering into the ditches to either side. They slaughtered with cold efficiency.

A spear stabbed up at Seren on her right. She batted the shaft aside, then swung as her horse carried her forward. The blade rang in her grip as it connected with a helmet. The edge jammed and she pulled hard, dragging the helm from the man’s head. It came free and flew forward to bounce on the road, red-splashed and caved in on one side.

She caught a moment of seeing Iron Bars ten paces ahead. Killing with appalling ease, a single hand gripping the reins as he guided his horse, sword weaving a murderous dance around him.

Someone flung himself onto her sword-arm, his weight wrenching at her shoulder. She shouted in pain, felt herself being pulled from her saddle.

His face, bearded and grimacing, seemed to surge towards her as if hunting some ghastly kiss. Then she saw the features go slack. Blood filled his eyes. The veins on his temples collapsed into blue stains blossoming beneath the skin. More blood, spraying from his nostrils. His grip fell away and he toppled backward.

Drawing in close, a long, thin-bladed knife in one hand, Corlo came alongside her. ‘Push yourself up, lass! Use my shoulder-’

Hand fisted around the grip of her sword, she set it against him and righted herself. ‘Thanks, Corlo-’

‘Rein in, lass, we’re about done here.’

She looked round. Three Guardsmen had dismounted, as had Iron

Bars, and were among the wounded and dying, swords thrusting down into bodies. She glanced back. ‘That man – what happened to him?’

‘I boiled his brain, Acquitor. Messy, granted, but the Avowed said to keep you safe.’

She stared at him. ‘What sort of magic does that}’

‘Maybe I’ll tell you sometime. That was a nice head-shot back there. The bastard came close with that spear.’

He did. She was suddenly shaking. ‘And this is your profession, Corlo? It’s… disgusting.’

‘Aye, Acquitor, that it is.’

Iron Bars approached. ‘All is well?’

‘We’re fine, sir. All dead?’

‘Twenty-one.’

‘That’s all of them,’ the mage said, nodding.

‘Less than a half-dozen actually managed to draw their weapons. You fouled ’em up nicely, Corlo. Well done.’

‘Is that how you soldiers win your battles?’ Seren asked.

‘We wasn’t here to give battle, Acquitor,’ Iron Bars said. ‘Executions, lass. Any mages among the lot, Corlo?’