The mercenary’s coat glistened with dark blood, his trembling face had turned bright red, veins bulging in his neck. He clawed weakly at Cosca’s breastplate, bloody bubbles forming on his lips. Cosca let go the hilt, wiped his hand on Andiche’s sleeve and shoved him over. He fell on his side, spitted, gave a gentle groan and stopped moving.

“Interesting.” Ishri squatted over him. “I am rarely surprised. Surely Murcatto is the one who stole your chair. You let her go free, no?”

“On reflection, I doubt the facts of my betrayal quite match the story. But in any case, a man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women that in ugly men he finds entirely beyond sufferance. And if there’s one thing I absolutely cannot abide, it’s disloyalty. You have to stick at something in your life.”

“Disloyalty?” screeched Rigrat, finally finding his voice. “You’ll pay for this, Cosca, you treacherous—”

Friendly’s knife thumped into his neck and out, blood showered across the floor of the tent and spattered the Musselian flag that Sazine had taken the day the Thousand Swords were formed.

Rigrat fell to his knees, one hand clutched to his throat, blood pouring down the sleeve of his jacket. He flopped forwards onto his face, trembled for a moment, then was still. A dark circle bloomed out through the material of the groundsheet and merged with the one already creeping from Andiche’s corpse.

“Ah,” said Cosca. He had been planning to ransom Rigrat back to his family. It did not seem likely now. “That was… ungracious of you, Friendly.”

“Oh.” The convict frowned at his bloody knife. “I thought… you know. Follow your lead. I was being first sergeant.”

“Of course you were. I take all the blame myself. I should have been more specific. I have ever suffered from… unspecificity? Is that a word?”

Friendly shrugged. So did Ishri.

“Well.” Cosca scratched gently at his neck as he looked down at Rigrat’s body. “An annoying, pompous, swollen-headed man, from what I saw. But if those were capital crimes I daresay half the world would hang, and myself first to the gallows. Perhaps he had many fine qualities of which I was unaware. I’m sure his mother would say so. But this is a battle. Corpses are a sad inevitability.” He crossed to the tent flap, took a moment to compose himself, then clawed it desperately aside. “Some help here! For pity’s sake, some help!”

He hurried back to Andiche’s body and squatted beside it, knelt one way and then another, found what he judged to be the most dramatic pose just as Sesaria burst into the tent.

“God’s breath!” as he saw the two corpses, Victus bundling in behind, eyes wide.

“Andiche!” Cosca gestured at Rigrat’s sword, still where he had left it. “Run through!” He had observed that people often state the obvious when distressed.

“Someone get a surgeon!” roared Victus.

“Or better yet a priest.” Ishri swaggered across the tent towards them. “He’s dead.”