“And it didn’t occur to you,” the Aspect said, “to share this information with myself or Master Sollis?”

Vaelin could only shake his head in numb silence.

“You arrogant idiot,” Master Sollis said, very precisely.

“Yes master.”

“What’s done is done,” the Aspect said. “Do you have any notion of where this man with one eye might take our brother?”

Vaelin’s head snapped up. “He’s alive?”

“Master Hutril found a body, but it wasn’t Brother Frentis, although the unfortunate fellow had one of our Order’s hunting knives buried in his chest. There were signs of a fierce struggle, several blood trails, but no Brother Frentis.”

Somehow they knew he was here. So stupid to think One Eye’s servants wouldn’t find him. They must have followed the cart, took him alive. The words of Gallis the Climber came back to him: One Eye says he’s gonna take a year to skin him alive when he finds him…

“I will recover him,” he told the Aspect, his voice cold with certainty. “I will kill those who took him and bring him back to the Order. Living or dead.”

The Aspect’s eyes flicked to Master Sollis.

“What do you need?” Sollis asked.

“Half a day outside the walls, my brothers, and my dog.”

Scratch seemed to know what was expected of him, sniffing the sock they had found under Frentis’s bunk and immediately sprinting off with a brief yelp. Vaelin had led him to the road leading to Varinshold's North Gate before producing the sock, the slave-hound’s evident joy at finding himself beyond the confines of the Order House muted by their grim mood. They ran after him, labouring to keep him in sight, the slave-hound setting a killing pace as he traced a winding route away from the road and towards the banks of the Brinewash. Vaelin found him pawing uncertainly at a patch of mud near some shallows, a plainting whine coming from his throat as he pointed his nose at something lying in the river. Vaelin’s heart plummeted at the sight of the body, face down and covered with a blue cloak.

He jumped into the shallows and waded towards it, his brothers soon joining him to pull the body onto its back.

“Who’s this bugger?” Dentos asked.

The dead man was short, only a little taller than Frentis, with a pock-marked face and a recent cut on his cheek.

“He’s drained,” Nortah observed, noting the man's pallor and ripping open his shirt to reveal a stab wound to the lower belly. “Our little brother's work perhaps.”

Vaelin pulled the cloak from the corpse and they searched it for any clue as to Frentis's whereabouts, finding nothing save some sodden pipe leaf.

“I make it five horses,” Caenis said, crouching to examine the tracks in the mud at the water’s edge. “He fell from his mount when they forded so they took anything of value and left him to bleed. ”

“And I thought Outlaws were such admirable folk,” Nortah commented.

“Brother,” Barkus said, nudging Vaelin and pointing to where Scratch was busily sniffing the grass on the bank. After a moment the slave-hound raised his head and bounded off, following the line of the river as they ran in pursuit. He paused again a few hundred paces short of the city walls, circling around some deep parallel tracks ploughed into the earth.

“Cart wheels,” Caenis said. “They hid him in cart to get him through the gate.”

Scratch was already off again, making for the north gate. The city guards waved them through with puzzled expressions but no words. The Order was never to be questioned. It was no surprise to Vaelin when Scratch soon led them to the southern quarter.

The streets were mostly deserted save for the usual assortment of drunks and whores, most of whom found somewhere else to be when they saw five brothers from the Sixth Order running behind a very large dog. Eventually Scratch stopped, standing tensed and still as he did when he was pointing out a trail when they hunted together. His nose pointed directly at a tavern nestled in a shadowed alley way. The sign hanging over the door marked it as the Black Boar. Lamplight glowed dimly through the windows and they could hear the raucous babble of liquor induced merriment.

Scratch began to growl, a soft but chilling rumble.

Vaelin knelt down, patting him gently on the head. “Stay,” he commanded.

The hound gave a plaintive whine as they moved towards the inn but did as he was told.

“What’s the plan?” Dentos asked as they paused at the doorway.

“I thought I’d ask them where Frentis is,” Vaelin replied. “After that I expect we’ll find out if we’re as well taught as we think we are.”

The vocal good humour of the inn’s patrons died instantly at the sight of them. A room of mostly unwashed and prematurely aged faces stared at them with a mixture of fear or palpable hatred. The man behind the bar was large, bald and clearly less than happy to see them.

“Good evening sir!” Nortah greeted him, striding towards the bar. “A fine establishment you have here.”

“Order ain’t welcome ‘ere,” the barman said. Vaelin noted the thin sheen of sweat on his top lip. “Ain’t right you comin’ in ‘ere. ‘Snot your place.”

“Oh don’t fret my fine fellow.” Nortah clapped the man on the shoulder. “We want no trouble. All we want is our brother. The one who stuck a knife in your master’s eye a few years ago. Be a good fellow and tell us where he is and we won’t kill you or any of your customers.”

A rumble of anger ran through the crowd and the barman licked his lips, his bald head now shining with sweat. For the briefest second his eyes flicked to his right before snapping back to Nortah. “No brothers here,” he said.

Nortah gave one of his best smiles. “Oh I beg to differ. Tell me, did you know a man can live for several hours, in agonising pain of course, after his stomach has been slit open?”

Vaelin followed the line of the barman’s brief glance, seeing little but the shuffling feet of nervous patrons and a dusty floor, except for a clean patch near the fireplace, a patch about a yard square. As he moved forward to take a closer look a man rose from a table, a muscular man with the broad knuckles and indented nose common to prize fighters.

“Where’re d’you think you’re go-”

Vaelin punched him in the throat without breaking stride, leaving him choking on the dusty floorboards. There was a cacophony of scraping chairs as other patrons rose, a murmur of anger building in the crowd. Vaelin crouched to inspect the patch of dust free floorboards which quickly revealed itself as a trap door. Well made, he judged, his fingers tracing the joins.

“Got no right here!” the barman was shouting as he straightened. “Comin’ in here hitting customers, making threats. Ain’t right.”

There was a loud growl of assent from the inn’s patrons, most now on their feet, many holding a variety of knives and cudgels.

“Order bastards,” one of them spat, brandishing a broad bladed knife. “Ventured where you shouldn’t. Need cutting down to size.”

Nortah’s sword came free of its scabbard in a blur, the man with the knife staring at his severed fingers as the blade clattered to the floor.

“No need for that kind of language, sir,” Nortah cautioned him sternly.

The rest of the crowd drew back a little and silence stretched, broken only by the knife man’s keening over his mutilated hand and the rasping chokes of the prize fighter Vaelin had punched. They’re afraid, Vaelin decided, scanning the faces in the crowd. But not scared enough to run. Numbers give them strength.