‘Varlen… I… sorry…’ he heard himself gasp wetly, then rational thought fled.

Olt had shed his cloak the moment the panic started. These city-cattle had worse things to fear than a barbarian in their midst, he reasoned, and if the sight of him scared them, then good – maybe they’d stay out of his way.

Now he pushed his way through the shoving, yelling masses brandishing a dagger in each hand. Olt preferred to fight with paired weapons. With the unintentional arrogance of the naturally talented, he had never understood why many fighters restricted themselves to a single blade when they had two perfectly good hands to fight with.

‘Get out of here!’ he bellowed, doing his best to herd the terrified feastgoers towards an arch on the western edge of the hall. ‘Move your pampered arses!’ A bespectacled man jostled past him, his arm thrown protectively around a woman in a fine gown, who had blood pouring from a wound to her scalp. Ahead, a gaggle of merchants fought tooth and nail to push their way through the crowded archway. Olt almost stumbled over the prone body of a trampled guard, the man’s face a bloody mess and his fine attire soiled and torn.

‘Stop fighting each other and get moving!’ Olt roared, and as he did so he felt the wyrd come upon him, as it always did when the gods lent him their power. Olt’s skin tingled, and a crimson glow filled the air around him as his tattoos lit with inner fire. The merchants looked back, reacting with precisely the alarm he’d expected and squirming through the doorway in a sweating, finely garbed mass.

A palace guard came at him, hammer in hand. Olt caught the man’s frantic swing upon his crossed blades, and his tattoos glowed brighter as he drew on their strength to push the guard stumbling backwards.

‘I’m on your side, you fool,’ yelled Olt. ‘Stop fighting me and get these people outside!’ The guard blinked, then seemed to grasp who Olt was, what he was saying. Still the man hesitated, and it was that indecision that saved Olt’s life. The guard’s eyes widened in sudden panic at something over Olt’s shoulder, and the tribesman reacted. Instincts enhanced by the gods’ blessings, he spun and ducked, thrusting out with both blades. He caught the charging spore-sickened in the chest and the gut and rolled, hurling the snarling monster clean over himself to crunch headfirst into the wall by the archway. There was a dry snap as his attacker’s neck broke, and they lay still in a spreading pool of blood and purple foam.

Olt turned to find the guard still staring at him.