'Lucky for you there isn't, or we might be stitching you together right about now!'

'I'd be stitching the fucking pair of you!' hissed Ferro. 'I ought to stitch your useless pink heads together! You're both as worthless as a bag of sand in the desert! There's tracks over there. Horses, more than one cart.'

'Merchants maybe?' asked Logen, hopefully. He and Ferro looked at each other for a moment. 'Might be better if we stay off the track from now on.'

'Too slow.' Bayaz had made it down into the village now.

Quai and Longfoot weren't far behind with the cart and the horses. 'Far too slow. We stick to the track. We'll see anyone coming in good time out here. Plenty of time.'

Luthar didn't look convinced. 'If we see them, they'll see us. What then?'

'Then?' Bayaz raised an eyebrow. 'Then we have the famous Captain Luthar to protect us.' He looked round at the ruined village. 'Running water, and shelter, of a kind. Seems like a good place to camp.'

'Good enough,' muttered Logen, already rooting through the cart for logs to start a fire of their own. 'I'm hungry. What happened to those birds?'

Logen sat, and watched the others eat over the rim of his pot.

Ferro squatted at the very edge of the shifting light from the campfire, hunched over, shadowy face almost stuck right into her bowl, staring around suspiciously and shoving food in with her fingers like she was worried it might be snatched away any moment. Luthar was less enthusiastic. He was nibbling daintily at a wing with his bared front teeth, as though touching it with his lips might poison him, discarded morsels lined up carefully along the side of his platter. Bayaz chewed away with some relish, his beard glistening with gravy. 'It's good,' he muttered around a mouthful. 'You might want to consider cookery as a career, Master Ninefingers, if you should ever grow tired of…' he waved his spoon, 'whatever it is you do.'

'Huh,' said Logen. In the North everyone took their turn at the fire, and it was reckoned an honour to do it. A good cook was almost as valued as a good fighter. Not here. These were a sorry crowd when it came to minding the pot. Bayaz could just about get his tea boiled, and that was as far as he went. Quai could get a biscuit out of the box on a good day. Logen doubted whether Luthar would even have known which way up the pot went. As for Ferro, she seemed to despise the whole notion of cooking. Logen reckoned she was used to eating her food raw. Perhaps while it was still alive.