As the woman moved to collect up one outstretched arm, Wareth said, ‘No, not you.’

Scowling, she stepped back a step.

Rebble edged close to her. ‘When the lieutenant talks to you, recruit, give ‘im your cat’s stare, and when he asks you something, hiss your words loud and clear. It don’t matter that he’s all bent and ugly. Understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘There,’ and Rebble smiled out through his snarl of beard, revealing startlingly white teeth, ‘now that didn’t pinch too much, did it? Just keep playing at soldier and who knows, you might climb up to become one. Maybe.’

Wareth’s new corporal, and personal strong-arm to the new lieutenant, was certainly enjoying his newly won privileges. With each day that passed, Rebble was sounding more and more like a veteran of many battlefields. Every army has a temper. Abyss save us if it’s Rebble’s.

With the body gone, the remaining onlookers wandered off. The woman alone remained, shifting weight from one foot to the other, not looking at anyone in particular.

‘Your name, recruit?’ Wareth asked her.

‘Rance… sir.’ She lifted her head then and fixed defiant eyes upon him. ‘Drowned my own baby. Or so I’m told and why would anybody lie? I don’t remember any of it, but I did it. Wet hands, wet sleeves, wet face.’

Wareth held her gaze until she broke it. That regard of his was something he had learned to perfect long ago, discovering how easily it could be mistaken for resolve and inner strength. Games of disguise. Wareth knows them all. Yet here he stands, his deepest secret known to us. So should he not feel free? Unencumbered? At last able to dispense with what so hungrily devoured all his energy, year after year, step after step in this useless life? The hiding, the deceptions, the endless pretence?

But no, a man such as Wareth, well, he but finds new hauntings, new instruments of torture.

Still, a rampant murderer stalking the camp will serve as a worthy distraction.

If only it did.

Still grinning, Rebble said to Rance, ‘Yes, it’s a dangerous thing, that speaking up.’

She grimaced. ‘You’re short on opinions, sir? Camp with the cats.’

‘Is that an invitation?’

‘Even you might not survive the night… sir.’

Wareth said, ‘Rance. We need squad leaders.’

‘No.’

Rebble laughed, clapping her hard on the shoulder, enough to make her stumble. ‘You passed the first test, woman. We don’t want them as are hungry for the rank. You got to say no at least five times, and then you’re in.’

‘Once will do, then.’

‘No good. You already said it twenty times in that pretty round skull of yours. You’d be amazed at what old Rebble can hear.’

‘They won’t follow me.’

‘They won’t follow anyone,’ Wareth said, still eyeing her. ‘That’s what makes it an adventure.’

Her sharp glare found him again. ‘Is it true, sir? Did you run?’