'Hah!' Ninefingers sent up another glittering spray of water, then he stumbled, clutching at the air. 'Ah!' The fish flapped from his hands, a streak of flipping brightness, and the Northman crashed into the water on his face. He came up spitting and shaking his head, hair plastered to his skull. 'Bastard!'

'Every man has, somewhere in the world, an adversary cleverer than himself.' Bayaz stretched out his legs in front of him. 'Could it be, Master Ninefingers, that you have finally found yours?'

Jezal woke with a start. It was the middle of the night. It took him a dizzy moment to remember where he was, for he had been dreaming of home, of the Agriont, of sunny days and barmy evenings. Of Ardee, or someone like her, smiling lop-sided at him in his cosy living room. Now the stars were scattered bright and stark across the black sky, and the chill, sharp air of the High Places nipped at Jezal's lips, and his nostrils, and the tips of his ears.

He was back up in the Broken Mountains, half the width of the world from Adua, and he felt a pang of loss. At least his stomach was full. Fish and biscuit, the first proper meal he'd eaten since the horse ran out. There was still warmth from the fire on the side of his face and he turned towards it, grinning at the glowing embers and dragging his blankets up under his chin. Happiness was nothing more than a fresh fish and a fire still alight.

He frowned. The blankets beside him, where Logen had been sleeping, were moving around. At first he took it for the Northman turning in his sleep, but they carried on moving, and did not stop. A slow, regular shirting, accompanied, Jezal now realised, by a soft grunting sound. He had taken it at first for Bayaz' snoring, but now he saw otherwise. Straining into the darkness he made out Ninefingers' pale shoulder and arm, thick muscles straining. Under his arm, squeezing hard at his side, there was a dark-skinned hand.

Jezal's mouth hung open. Logen and Ferro, and from the sound of it there could be no doubt that they were coupling!

What was more, not a stride from his head! He stared, watching the blankets bucking and shifting in the dim light from the fire. When had they… Why were they… How had they… It was a damned imposition is what it was! His old distaste for them flooded back in a moment and his scarred lip curled. A pair of savages, rutting in full view! He had half a mind to get up and kick them as you might kick a pair of dogs who had, to the general embarrassment of all, unexpectedly taken to each other at a garden party.

'Shit,' whispered a voice. Jezal froze, wondering if one of them had seen him.

'Hold on.' There was a brief pause.