‘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.

Dathenar whipped his sword blade downward, shedding gore from its length. ‘Wise words, Prazek, are rarely understood.’

Their horses stamped and snorted, eager for another charge into the press, but both men were quick to quiet them.

Prazek eyed the deserters. ‘Few enough now, I think, to see them march in proper cadence.’

‘The cadence of the limp, yes.’

‘The limp, the shuffle, the stagger and the reel.’

‘You describe the gait of the defeated and the cowed, the battered and the bruised.’

‘I but describe what I see before me, Dathenar. Which of us, then, shall round up and make them proper?’

‘ ’Twas your stirring speech, was it not?’

‘Was it? Why, I thought it yours!’

‘Shall we ask Biskin?’

Prazek sighed. ‘Alas, Biskin tried to swallow my horse’s left forehoof. What remains of his brain bears the imprint of a horseshoe, decidedly unlucky.’

‘Ah, and do we see the other two from the front? One I know flung his head out of the path of my sword.’

‘Careless of you.’

‘No, just his head. His body went the other way.’

‘Ah, well. This is poor showing on our part, as the other man lost his hat.’

‘He wore no hat.’

‘Well, the cap bearing most of his hair, then.’