Eventually, he looked up, to the nobleborn commander who had been bound in chains and made to kneel on the cold, hard ground opposite him. The distance between them was modest, and yet impossibly vast, and this notion made Hunn Raal drunker than any jug of wine could achieve. ‘Do you recall,’ he now said, ‘how we rode together out to the Wardens’ summer camp?’

‘I should have cut you down then.’

‘In conversation with my friends,’ Hunn Raal said, ignoring Rend’s pointless, redundant assertion, ‘with you lagging out of earshot, I made a comment about you. There was laughter. Do you, perchance, recall that moment?’

‘No.’

Hunn Raal said nothing as he slowly leaned forward, and then he smiled and whispered, ‘I think you lie, friend.’

‘Think what you like. Deliver me to Urusander now. This scene grows tired.’

‘What words, like rotten fruit, have you collected up, Ilgast, to deliver to my commander, I wonder?’

‘I leave you to tend that garden alone.’

Hunn Raal waved his free hand. ‘You know, you impressed me today. Not the whole day, mind you. Your desire to seek this battle, for example, was ill conceived. But I saw your genius in that clash against my pikes – I would think only the Wardens could have managed that. The finest riders this realm has ever known. And see what you’ve done – you’ve thrown them away. If in the name of justice I would deliver you to someone, surely it would be Calat Hustain.’

At that, he was pleased to see, Ilgast Rend flinched.

The pleasure did not last, and he felt a sudden regret. ‘Oh, Ilgast, look what you’ve done this day!’ The words came out in pain, in honest anguish. ‘Why did you not bring the Wardens to our cause? Why did you not come here to embrace our desire for what’s right? How differently this day would have played out.’

‘Calat Hustain refused your invitation,’ Ilgast said, trembling. ‘I could not in honour betray that.’

Hunn Raal scowled in exasperated disbelief. ‘My friend!’ he whispered, leaning still closer. ‘By your honour you could not betray him? Ilgast – look upon the field behind you! Yet you would fling those words at me? Honour? Betrayal? Abyss below, man, what am I to make of this?’

‘Not even you can deepen my shame, Hunn Raal. I am here, clear-eyed—’

‘You are nothing of the sort!’

‘Deliver me to Urusander!’

‘You’ve taken your last step, my friend,’ Hunn Raal said, leaning back. Closing his eyes, he raised his voice and said, in a weary tone, ‘Have done with it, then. This man is a criminal, a traitor to the realm. We’ve already seen how the nobleborn can bleed like any other mortal. Go on, I beg you, execute him now, and show me no corpse when I next open my eyes.’