He unscrewed the cap of his own flask, shifted in the captain general’s chair, fondly stroking the battered wood of one of its arms. “Well?”

Victus’ thin face radiated suspicion, causing Cosca to reflect that no man he had ever met had a shiftier look to his eyes. They slid to his cards, to Cosca’s cards, to the money between them, then slithered back to Cosca. “Alright. Doubles it is.” He tossed some coins into the centre of the table with that delightful jingle that somehow only hard currency can make. “What are you carrying, old man?”

“Earth!” Cosca smugly spread his cards out.

Victus flung his own hand down. “Bloody earth! You always did have the luck of a demon.”

“And you the loyalty of one.” Cosca showed his teeth as he swept the coins towards him. “I shouldn’t worry, the boys will be bringing us plenty more silver in due course. Rule of Quarters, and all that.”

“At this rate I’ll have lost all my share to you before they get here.”

“We can hope.” Cosca took a sip from his flask and grimaced. For some reason it tasted even more sour than usual. He wrinkled his lips, sucked his gums, then forced another acrid mouthful down and half-screwed the cap back on. “Now! I am deeply in need of a shit.” He slapped the table with one hand and stood. “No tampering with the deck while I’m away, you hear?”

“Me?” Victus was all injured innocence. “You can trust me, General.”

“Of course I can.” Cosca began to walk, his eyes fixed on the dark crack down the edge of the doorway to the latrine, judging the distances, back prickling as he pictured where Victus was sitting. He twisted his wrist, felt his throwing-knife drop into his waiting palm. “Just like I could trust you at Afieri—” He spun about, and froze. “Ah.”

Victus had somehow produced a small flatbow, loaded, and now aimed with impressive steadiness at Cosca’s heart. “Andiche took a sword-thrust for you?” he sneered. “Sesaria sacrificed himself? I knew those two bastards, remember! What kind of a fucking idiot do you take me for?”

Shenkt sprang through the shattered window and dropped silently down into the hall beyond. An hour ago it must have been a grand dining room indeed, but the Thousand Swords had already stripped it of anything that might raise a penny. Only fragments of glass and plate, slashed canvases in shattered frames and the shells of some furniture too big to move remained. Three little flies chased each other in geometric patterns through the air above the stripped table. Near them two men were arguing while a boy perhaps fourteen years old watched nervously.

“I told you I had the fucking spoons!” a pock-faced man screamed at one with a tarnished breastplate. “But that bitch knocked me down and I lost ’em! Why didn’t you get nothing?”

“ ’Cause I was watching the door while you got something, you fucking—”