Cosca’s eyes were closed, his mouth open, blood streaked his cheek from a wound on his forehead. His skin was waxy pale with the unmistakable sheen of death.

“A man can change, eh?” sneered Morveer. “So much for your promises!”

To his tremendous shock, Cosca’s eyes snapped suddenly open.

To his even more tremendous shock, an indescribably awful pain lanced up through his stomach. He took in a great shuddering breath and gave vent to an unearthly howl. Looking down, he perceived that the old mercenary had driven a knife into his groin. Morveer’s breath whooped in again. Desperately he raised his arm.

There was a faint slapping sound as Cosca seized his wrist and wrenched it sharply sideways, causing the needle to sink into Morveer’s neck. There was a pregnant pause. They remained frozen, a human sculpture, the knife still in Morveer’s groin, the needle in his neck, gripped by his hand, gripped by Cosca’s hand. Cosca frowned up. Morveer stared down. His eyes bulged. His body trembled. He said nothing. What could one possibly say? The implications were crushingly obvious. Already the most potent poison of which he was aware, carried swiftly from neck to brain, was causing his extremities to become numb.

“Poisoned the grape spirit, eh?” hissed Cosca.

“Fuh,” gurgled Morveer, unable now to form words.

“Did you forget I promised you never to drink again?” The old mercenary released the knife, reached across the floor with his bloody hand, retrieved his flask, spun the cap off with a practised motion and tipped it up. White liquid splashed out across the floor. “Goat’s milk. I hear it’s good for the digestion. The strongest thing I’ve had since we left Sipani, but it would hardly do to let everyone know it. I have a certain reputation to uphold here. Hence all the bottles.”

Cosca shoved Morveer over. The strength was rapidly fading from his limbs and he was powerless to resist. He flopped limp across Victus’ corpse. He could scarcely feel his neck. The agony in his groin had faded to a dull throb. Cosca looked down at him.

“Didn’t I promise you I’d stop? What kind of a man do you take me for, that I’d break my word?”

Morveer had no breath left to speak, let alone scream. The pain was fading in any case. He wondered, as he often had, how his life might have differed had he not poisoned his mother, and doomed himself to life in the orphanage. His vision was clouding, blurring, growing dark.

“I need to thank you. You see, Morveer, a man can change, given the proper encouragement. And your scorn was the very spur I needed.”

Killed by his own agent. It was the way so many great practitioners of his profession ended their lives. And on the eve of his retirement, too. He was sure there was an irony there somewhere…

“Do you know the best thing about all this?” Cosca’s voice boomed in his ears, Cosca’s grin swam above him. “Now I can start drinking again.”