The morning lengthened, gathering its own violence with a sharp, buffeting wind that flattened the grasses on the hill where Renarr stood, a short distance from the other men and women. Behind them, on this island of ill desires, the orphaned children who had, in no official manner, adopted the score or so whores who shared this particular tent ran and laughed and cursed the frenzied insects. Some were building a fire from a few ragged dung-chips, in the hope that the smoke would send the bugs away, but such fuel offered up little in the way of relief. Others lit pipes if they could beg the rustleaf from a favoured whore. Those who could not simply stuffed grass into the bowls. Their wretched coughing triggered gales of piping laughter.

Whores from other tents were appearing along the hilltop, a few shouting insults across the gaps. The rival groups of children began throwing stones at one another. The day’s first blood was drawn when a sharp rock caught a girl on the temple, adding to her facial scars. In fury she charged the boy who had thrown the rock and he fled squealing.

Renarr watched with all the others as boy and girl ran down the slope.

To the right, Hunn Raal had drawn up his own cohort, although the ancient title was misplaced, as each cohort of Urusander’s Legion now comprised a full thousand soldiers. This was the force Raal offered up to the measure of Ilgast Rend and his Wardens, who were arrayed on the valley’s opposite ridgeline. Unseen by the Wardens and their lord, two flanking cohorts waited on the back-slope, with units of lightly armoured cavalry among the foot soldiers.

Along the crest, she could see, pikes were being readied in the six-deep line behind Hunn Raal and his officers, and she understood such weapons to be the best suited when facing cavalry. A few hundred skirmishers were moving down the slope, armed with javelins. Some of these shouted now at the two children, warning them off, but neither reacted, and the girl’s long legs were closing the gap between her and the smaller boy, whose laughter was gone, and who ran in earnest.

Renarr could see how the blood now covered one half of the girl’s face.

The boy made a sharp turn moments before she reached him, rushing out towards the distant enemy.

Catching up again, the girl pushed with both arms, sending the boy tumbling. He rolled and sought to regain his feet but she was quicker, driving him down with her knees, and only now did Renarr see the large rock in her right hand.

The shouts from the skirmishers fell away, as the girl brought the stone down on the boy’s head, again and again. The waving arms and kicking legs of the boy flopped out to the sides and did not move as the girl continued driving the rock down.

‘Pay up, Srilla!’ cried one of the whores. ‘I took your wager, so pay up!’