A few moments later one of Silann’s soldiers collected up and delivered the dead man’s spear; as Risp reached for the weapon, Esthala stepped close and took it instead. Ignoring Risp’s scowl, the captain studied the iron point. ‘Might have struck chain – I see the bite of snapped links. The tip’s bloody, so it went through … about three fingers’ worth. If it severed the spine then Gripp’s dead or paralysed. Anywhere else and he’s wounded but not fatally so.’

‘He fell down a damned crevasse!’ Silann shouted.

‘Fell or rolled down it?’ Esthala demanded. ‘Did you see it happen?’

Swearing under her breath, Risp made her way back to her troop. ‘Muster out six more, sergeant! This hunt has turned serious.’

* * *

The sun was low in the western sky when Sukul Ankhadu summoned Rancept to the top floor of the High Tower. Upon the castellan’s wheezing arrival, she gestured to the large window. ‘I trust you have been made aware of smoke to the east.’

Rancept, it was said, was the offspring of a drunken woman and a sadly sober boar. Such observations were rarely made to his face, of course, because Rancept had his father’s temper, and enough brawn to make a bear cower. The castellan’s face looked familiar with tavern floors, his nose broken and mashed by countless brawls in his youth, unfortunately pushed back to give it the appearance of a pig’s snout. His teeth were uneven and stained and ragged from years of mouth-breathing. He was rumoured to be a thousand years old and as bone-weary as a man twice his age.

At her query he squinted at the window.

‘You’ll have to step closer to see it from here,’ said Sukul.

He made no move. ‘Mistress wants us stayin’ put, milady. Says there’s trouble on the way.’

‘Closer than we think, yes? That smoke smells to me of burning hides.’

‘Does it now, milady?’

‘You will have to take my word on that, castellan.’

He grunted, still squinting at the window. ‘Suppose I will at that.’

‘There was a highborn riding with those wagons. A boy of five or six years of age. On his way to the Wise City. To the Citadel, in fact. A child of the Korlas family.’

Rancept pawed at the silver stubble on his jaw. ‘Korlas? Good soldier. Always sad. Heard he killed himself.’

‘Officially died in his sleep or something like that.’

‘Festered wound I think it was, milady.’

‘You’re trying my patience, castellan.’

His squint narrowed until his eyes were thin slits. ‘I do that, yes.’

‘I want us to ride out – tonight – and catch up to that caravan. If there are bandits that close to us, we need to know.’

‘Not bandits, milady.’

‘I know that, you oaf! So who attacked them and are we under threat?’

He grunted a second time. ‘Safe enough up here.’