She smiled a broad smile. 'The way I pick it,' she said, leaning back down and closing her eyes again, 'the first blood you see on your hands is gonna be your own, Captain Paran. Go back to Quon Tali where it's safe. Go on, the Empress needs her feet licked.'

'They're clean enough,' Paran said. He was not sure how to deal with this situation. Part of him wanted to draw his sword and cut Picker in half. Another wanted to laugh, and that one had an edge of hysteria to it.

Behind him the outer door banged open and heavy footsteps sounded on the floorboards. Paran turned. A red-faced sergeant, his face dominated by an enormous handlebar moustache, stormed into the room. Ignoring Paran, he strode up beside Picker's cot and glowered down at her.

'Dammit, Picker, you told me Hedge was having a bad run, and now that bow-legged turd's cleaned me out!'

'Hedge is having a bad run,' Picker said. 'But yours is worse. You never asked me about that, did you? Antsy, meet Captain Paran, the Ninth's new officer.'

The sergeant swung around and stared. 'Hood's Breath,' he muttered, then faced Picker again.

'I'm looking for Whiskeyjack, Sergeant,' Paran said softly.

Something in the captain's tone brought Antsy around. He opened his mouth, then shut it when his eyes caught Paran's steady gaze. 'Some kid delivered a message. Whiskeyjack trooped out. A few of his people are at Knobb's.'

'Thank you, Sergeant.' Paran walked stiffly from the room.

Antsy let out a long breath and glanced at Picker.

'Two days,' she pronounced, 'then somebody does him. Old Rockface has already laid twenty to that.'

Antsy's expression tightened. 'Something tells me that'd be a damned shame.'

Paran entered Knobb's Inn and stopped just inside the doorway. The place was packed with soldiers, their voices a jumbled roar. Only a few showed on their uniforms the flame emblem of the Bridgeburners. The rest were 2nd Army.

At a large table beneath an overhanging walkway that fronted rooms on the first floor half a dozen Bridgeburners sat playing cards. A wide-shouldered man whose black hair was braided into a pony-tail and knotted with charms and fetishes sat with his back to the room, dealing out the cards with infinite patience. Even through the high-tide roar, Paran could hear the man's monotone counting. The others at the table deluged the dealer with curses, to little effect.

'Barghast,' Paran murmured, his gaze on the dealer. 'Only one in the Bridgeburners. That's the Ninth, then.' He took a deep breath, then plunged into the crowd.