Jalenhorm squinted as he tried to remember. 'Yes, a foundry, I think. I saw smoke above the trees…'

'They would have some skilled metal-workers.'

The big man's eyebrows went up. 'Some criminal metalworkers.'

'I'll take whatever we can get. Today your horse is short a shoe, tomorrow we might have nothing to fight with! Get a dozen men together, and a wagon. We'll leave at once.'

The prison loomed up out of the trees through the cold rain, a fence of great, mossy logs tipped with bent and rusted spikes. A grim-looking place with a grim purpose. West swung from his saddle while Jalenhorm and his men reined up behind him, then squelched across the rutted track to the gate and hammered on the weathered wood with the pommel of his sword.

It took a while, but eventually a small hatch snapped open. A pair of grey eyes frowned at him through the slot. Grey eyes above a black mask. A Practical of the Inquisition.

'My name is Colonel West.'

The eyes regarded him coldly. 'So?'

'I am in the service of Crown Prince Ladisla, and I need to speak to the commandant of this camp.'

'Why?'

West frowned, doing his very best to look impressive with his hair plastered to his scalp and the rain dripping off his chin. 'There is a war on and I do not have time to bandy words with you! I need to speak to the commandant most urgently!'

The eyes narrowed. They looked at West for a while, and then at the dozen bedraggled soldiers behind him. 'Alright,' said the Practical. 'You can come in, but only you. The rest will have to wait.'

The main street was a stretch of churned-up mud between leaning shacks, water trickling from the eaves, spattering into the dirt. There were two men and a woman in the road, wet through, struggling to move a cart laden with stones, up to the axles in mush. All three had heavy chains on their ankles. Ragged, bony, hollow faces, as empty of hope as they were empty of food.

'Get that fucking cart shifted,' the Practical growled at them, and they stooped back to their unenviable task.

West struggled through the muck towards a stone building at the far end of the camp, trying to hop from one dry patch to another, without success. Another dour Practical was standing on the threshold, water running from a stained oilskin over his shoulders, hard eyes following West with a mixture of suspicion and indifference. He and his guide stepped past without a word and into the dim hall beyond, full of the noise of drumming rain. The Practical knocked at an ill-fitting door.

'Come in.'