Three over-muscled men had stepped out from the crowd. Two wielded spears made of knives bound to shafts, while the one in the centre carried a pair of brush-hooks, one of which appeared to be splashed with frozen blood. This man was smiling.

‘Well met, sirs!’ he cried.

The two riders reined in, but a dozen or so paces distant from the three men.

‘Met well indeed,’ Prazek called back, ‘since by cogent meditation I conclude you to be recruits of the Hust Legion, but it seems you travel without an officer, and perhaps have found yourselves lost so far from the camp. Fortunate for you, then, that we find you here.’

‘For this day,’ Dathenar added, ‘you will see our lenient side, and rather than tangle your mob’s many legs with something as mentally challenging as a proper march in cadence, you can scurry back to the camp like a gaggle of sheep.’

‘Sheep, Dathenar?’ Prazek asked. ‘Surely, by the belligerence arrayed before us, we must consider the simile as inaccurate. Better we deem them goats.’

‘Listen to these shits!’ one of the men said, and the others laughed. ‘You sweat perfume too, do you?’

‘Goatly humour,’ Prazek explained to Dathenar. ‘Forever barking up ill-chosen trees. Sweat, good sir, belongs to the unwashed multitudes, such as are lacking the civil hygiene of panic well hidden. If perfume you seek, why, set nose to your own arse and breathe deep.’

‘Prazek!’ exclaimed Dathenar. ‘You bend low to crass regard.’

‘No more than but to match said gentleman’s anticipated posture.’

‘Shut your mouths,’ snapped the man with the two brush-hooks, no longer smiling. ‘We’ll take your horses. Oh, and your weapons and armour. And if we’re feeling… what was that word? Lenient?… we might let you keep your silk sac-bags, so whatever shrivelled stuff’s inside ’em don’t disappear entirely.’

‘That stretched a breath, Dathenar, did it not?’

‘I myself hearkened more to the stretching of his thoughts, not to mention grammar, Prazek – nigh unto breaking, I’d swear.’

‘Let us dispense with leniency, Dathenar. Surely the Hust Legion can indulge our spat of discipline as might be needed here.’

Someone in the crowd now said, ‘Leave ’em be, Biskin. They’s feckin’ armoured and feck.’

‘Now there are wise words,’ said Dathenar, brightening.

‘Indeed?’ Prazek asked. ‘How could you tell?’

No answer was possible, as the first three men charged them, with a dozen or so others following.

Weapons leapt from scabbards. The mounts surged forward, eager to close.

Hoofs lashed out, blades slashed, stabbed and twisted. Figures flew away to the sides of the track, while others vanished beneath the stamping horses. Blades flickered. Voices shrieked.

Moments later, both Houseblades rode clear and then reined in to wheel round. In their wake, a dozen deserters were still standing. Half that number writhed on the ground, while the remaining bodies did not move at all. There was blood on the track, blood bright upon the thin drifts of snow to either side.