All at once, his love for his sister almost overwhelmed him, and for an instant he felt tempted to steal her away from what was to come. Perhaps the disembodied soul of the child sensed the risk, the terrible danger awaiting them, and was crying out to him, in a voice faint as the wind that reached through him, slipping past his own hurts, his mass of wounds. Then he looked round to study his companions. Ville, silent and hunched – there had been a young man he had longed to give his heart to, but was too frightened of rejection to make his feelings known. That young man had been a potter, possessing such talent with clay that no one questioned his rejection of fighting ways, and were ever pleased at his work. He was dead now, cut down in the village.

Rint’s eyes travelled past Ville and settled briefly on Galak. In the days before they had left on their mission, Galak had lost the love of yet another young woman in the village, the last in a pattern of failures. Galak had blamed only himself, as he was wont to do, although Rint could see nothing in the man to warrant such self-recrimination. He was kind and often too generous, careless with coins and his time, prone to forgetting meetings he had arranged with his mate, and hopeless at domestic tasks – but in all these things he had displayed a child-like equanimity and innocence, traits which seemed to infuriate women. As they had ridden out for House Dracons to begin their journey west, Galak had sworn off love for all time. Looking upon him now, Rint wondered if his friend regretted that vow.

He saw Traj, with his red face and belligerent expression, both permanent fixtures. Rint could not recall ever seeing the man smile, but his wife had loved him deeply, and together they had made four children. But now Traj was alone in his life, and no love surrounded him to soften his stony presence, and he sat as one exposed, suffering the weathering of a harsh world.

There were others, and each one he looked upon reminded Rint of his stoic marches through the village, with his sister trapped in his arms. The wounds could not be hidden and so must be worn as a child would wear them, struggling not to cry at the pain, or the shame, determined to show everyone else a strength well disguising its own fragility.

The sun stood high above them. Below, on the killing field beyond the plots of farmland, the heavily armoured Houseblades sat motionless on their caparisoned mounts. Some bore lances; others held long-handled axes or strangely curved swords. The round shields slung on their left arms were black and showed no crest. There were, Rint judged, more than five hundred of them.

There are too many. All this time, while we were away, that damned captain was building his forces, preparing for war. We sat and watched them, and pretended to be unimpressed, and not once did we take heed of the portents.