The squad was re-emerging from the inn, carrying with them a rag-clad, feebly struggling old man. He was smeared in vomit, the little hair he had left hanging like grey strings, his skin patched and grey with filth. Cursing at the stench, the soldiers of Blistig’s Aren Guard hurried their burden towards the cart’s bed.

‘It was a miracle we found him at all,’ the commander said. ‘I truly expected the old bastard to up and drown himself.’

Momentarily unmindful of his new title, Gamet turned and spat onto the cobbles. ‘This situation is contemptible, Blistig. Damn it, some semblance of military decorum – of control, Hood take me – should have been possible ...’

The commander stiffened at Gamet’s tone. The guards gathered at the back of the cart all turned at his words.

Blistig stepped close to the Fist. ‘You listen to me and listen well,’ he growled under his breath, a tremble shivering across his scarred cheeks, his eyes hard as iron. ‘I stood on the damned wall and watched. As did every one of my soldiers. Pormqual running in circles like a castrated cat – that historian and those two Wickan children wailing with grief. I watched – we all watched – as Coltaine and his Seventh were cut down before our very eyes. And if that wasn’t enough, the High Fist then marched out his army and ordered them to disarm! If not for one of my captains delivering intelligence concerning Mallick Rel being an agent of Sha’ik’s, my Guard would have died with them. Military decorum? Go to Hood with your military decorum, Fist!’

Gamet stood unmoving at the commander’s tirade. It was not the first time that he’d felt the snap of this man’s temper. Since he had arrived with Adjunct Tavore’s retinue, and was given the liaison role that took him to the forefront of dealing with the survivors of the Chain of Dogs – both those who had come in with the historian Duiker, and those who had awaited them in the city – Gamet had felt under siege. The rage beneath the mantle of propriety erupted again and again. Hearts not simply broken, but shattered, torn to pieces, trampled on. The Adjunct’s hope of resurrecting the survivors – making use of their local experience to steady her legions of untested recruits – was, to Gamet, seeming more and more unrealistic with each day that passed.

It was also clear that Blistig cared little that Gamet made daily reports to the Adjunct, and could reasonably expect his tirades to have been passed on to Tavore, in culpable detail. The commander was doubly fortunate, therefore, that Gamet had as yet said nothing of them to the Adjunct, exercising extreme brevity in his debriefings and keeping personal observations to the minimum.