'Apologise? Me, apologise? Hah! You'll be the one saying sorry, I'll see to it! The plan was for you to come in from the left wing! We were hard pressed for more than two hours!'

'Almost three hours, sir,' chipped in one of Kroy's staff, unhelpfully.

'Three hours, damn it! If that is not cowardice I fumble for the definition!'

'Cowardice?' shrieked Poulder. A couple of his staff went as far as to place their hands on their steels. 'You will apologise to me immediately! My division came under a brutal and sustained attack upon our flank! I was obliged to lead a charge myself On foot!' And he thrust forward his cheek and indicated the scratch with one gloved finger. 'It was we who did all the fighting! We who won the victory here today!'

'Damn you, Poulder, you did nothing! The victory belongs to my men alone! An attack? An attack from what? From animals of the forest?'

'Ah-ha! Exactly so! Show him!'

One of Poulder's staff ripped back the oilskin on the cart, displaying what seemed at first to be a heap of bloody rags. He wrinkled up his nose and shoved it forward. The thing flopped off onto the ground, rolled onto its back and stared up at the sky with beetling black eyes. A huge, misshapen jaw hung open, long, sharp teeth sticking every which way. Its skin was a greyish brown colour, rough and calloused, its nose was an ill-formed stub. Its skull was flattened and hairless with a heavy ridge of brow and a small, receding forehead. One of its arms was short and muscular, the other much longer and slightly bent, both ending in claw-like hands. The whole creature seemed lumpen, twisted, primitive. West gawped down at it, open-mouthed.

Plainly, it was not human.

'There!' squealed Poulder in triumph. 'Now tell us my division didn't fight! There were hundreds of these… these creatures out there! Thousands, and they fight like mad things! We only just managed to hold our ground, and it's damn lucky for you that we did! I demand!' he frothed, 'I demand!' he ranted, 'I demand!' he shrieked, face turning purple, 'an apology!'

Kroy's eyes twitched with incomprehension, with anger, with frustration. His lips twisted, his jaw worked, his fists clenched. Clearly there was no entry in the rule book for a situation such as this. He rounded on West.

'I demand to see Marshal Burr!' he snarled. 'As do I!' screeched Poulder shrilly, not to be outdone. 'The Lord Marshal is…' West's lips moved silently. He had no ideas left. No strategies, no ruses, no schemes. 'He is…' There would be no retreat across the fords for him. He was finished. More than likely he would end up in a penal colony himself. 'He is—'

'I am here.'