‘Very good. Now, we shall have to ride overland – I expect this road to be impassable at least as far as Yannis Monastery.’

‘Could you have made such a bargain, sir?’

Finarra shot her a look. ‘I have never birthed a child, Warden, so I cannot say.’ Then she shook her head. ‘If they see no hope ahead, and yet are offered salvation for their children … well, what mother and what father would not sacrifice their own lives to save those of their children?’

‘The Shake well understood that, I think,’ Faror said. ‘Still. When I came upon one of their troops, in the wreckage of a bandit camp, it was said in passing that they had made a similar offer, only to have the mothers slit the throats of their own get.’

Finarra blinked. ‘That seems a selfish act.’

‘Perhaps, sir, some hold freedom higher than life itself.’

‘Well enough if that life is your own. I doubt a single child welcomed the blade’s kiss.’

Faror Hend fell silent, unable to argue against her captain’s words. But the recollection haunted her. They rode on for a time, slowly as the ground was uneven and stony. Then she said, ‘Sir, for nights afterwards, I dreamed of mothers and fathers killing their own children. But no bargains had been offered them, and no threat drew close to force their hands.’

‘A disturbing dream, Warden, if there was no cause to their deeds.’

‘But there was, sir, of sorts. With each child slain, I saw the slayer’s wealth grow, in coin stacks, in gems and silks, and slaves at their feet. I saw them grow fat, but through windows there was the flicker of flames, drawing ever nearer.’

‘Let us bend to our task here, Warden, and speak no more of ill dreams.’

When Finarra Stone pushed her mount ahead, into a pace verging on reckless, Faror Hend followed. The day’s light was fading, and upon the track to their left, the stream of figures lost all colour, gave up no light, and soon were swallowed in the gloom.

Chapter Nineteen

NINETEEN

THE SOUNDS OF revelry filled the hust legion camp outside the command tent. Smiling, Hunn Raal studied the woman seated opposite him. ‘It seemed a modest gesture at the time,’ he said, ‘but I cannot refute the blessing of this outcome.’

Toras Redone did not smile in return. Her expression remained unchanged, and this detail had begun to unnerve the captain. She held her tankard in her left hand and the jug of wine, from her private stores, in her right, resting both on her thighs. ‘If you think,’ she said, only slightly slurring her words, ‘gifts of wine and ale to my soldiers are sufficient to win everlasting accord between our legions, captain, then your drunken ways have led you astray.’

Hunn Raal lifted his brows. ‘It ever pained me, commander, that we came to view each other as rivals—’