He stood in the darkness, under siege. Voices assaulted him from all sides, pounding at his skull. It wasn’t enough that he had been responsible for the death of soldiers; now they would not leave him alone. Now their spirits screamed at him, ghostly hands reaching out through Hood’s Gate, fingers clawing through his brain.

Gamet wanted to die. He had been worse than useless. He had been a liability, joined now to the multitude of incompetent commanders who had left a river of blood in their wake, another name in that sullied, degrading history that fuelled the worst fears of the common soldier.

And it had driven him mad. He understood that now. The voices, the paralysing uncertainty, the way he was always cold, shivering, no matter how hot the daytime sun or how highly banked the nightly hearths. And the weakness, stealing through his limbs, thinning the blood in his veins, until it felt as if his heart was pumping muddy water. I have been broken. I failed the Adjunct with my very first test of mettle.

Keneb would be all right. Keneb was a good choice as the legion’s new Fist. He was not too old, and he had a family – people to fight for, to return to, people that mattered in his life. Those were important things. A necessary pressure, fire for the blood. None of which existed in Gamet’s life.

She has certainly never needed me, has she? The family tore itself apart, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was only a castellan, a glorified house guard. Taking orders. Even when a word from me could have changed Felisin’s fate, I just saluted and said, ‘Yes, mistress.’

But he had always known his own weakness of spirit. And there had been no shortage of opportunities in which he could demonstrate his flaws, his failures. No shortage at all, even if she saw those moments as ones displaying loyalty, as disciplined acceptance of orders no matter how horrendous their outcome.

‘Loud.’

A new voice. Blinking, he looked around, then down, to see Keneb’s adopted whelp, Grub. Half naked, sun-darkened skin smeared with dirt, his hair a wild tangle, his eyes glittering in the starlight.

‘Loud.’

‘Yes, they are.’ The child was feral. It was late, maybe even nearing dawn. What was he doing up? What was he doing out here, beyond the camp’s pickets, inviting butchery by a desert raider?

‘Not they. It.’

Gamet frowned down at him. ‘What are you talking about? What’s loud?’ All I hear is voices – you can’t hear them. Of course you can’t.

‘The sandstorm. Roars. Very ... very ... very very very LOUD!’