'Well you got it all figured, don't you?' said Dow, looking sideways. 'There's just one thing we still need to know. She suck your cock yet?'

'What?' said the Dogman, caught not knowing what to say. Tul spluttered with laughter. Threetrees started chuckling to himself. Even Grim made a kind of sound, like breath, but louder.

'Simple question ain't it?' asked Dow. 'Has she, or has she not, sucked it?'

Dogman frowned and hunched his shoulders. 'Shit on that.'

Tul could barely hold his giggling back. 'She did what to it? She shit on it? You was right, Dow, they don't do it the same down there in the Union!' Now they were all laughing, apart from the Dogman of course.

'Piss on the lot o' you,' he grunted. 'Maybe you should suck each other's. At least it might shut you up.'

Dow slapped him on the shoulder. 'Don't think so. You know how Tul is for talking with his mouth full!' Tul clamped his hand over his face and blew snot out of his nose, he was laughing so hard. Dogman gave him a look but that was like hoping a look would stop a rock falling. It didn't.

'Alright now, best be quiet,' muttered Threetrees, but still grinning. 'Someone better take a closer look. See if we can work out where Bethod's boys are all at before the Union come fumbling up that road like a pack o' fools.'

Dogman felt his heart sinking. 'One of us better? Which of you bastards is it going to be then?'

Black Dow grinned as he slapped him on the shoulder. 'I reckon whoever got to stick his twig in the fire last night should be the one to face the cold this morning, eh, lads?'

Dogman crept down through the trees, bow in one hand with a shaft nocked to it but the string not pulled back, for fear of letting it go by accident and shooting himself in the leg or some foolishness. He'd seen that happen before, and he'd no wish to be hopping back to the camp, trying to explain to the others how he got one of his own arrows through his foot. He'd never hear the end of it.