'We'll leave 'em be.'

'Those that want to be left be,' said Dow, leering at the girl with the pitch-fork.

'We'll leave 'em be,' growled Dogman, giving him a hard look. 'I'll see to it.'

'Well then,' wheezed the old man, shuffling up and wincing as he knelt and dropped his rusty blade at Dogman's feet. 'You're a better man than Bethod, far as I'm concerned. I suppose I ought to be thanking you for your mercy, if you keep your word.'

'Uh.' Dogman didn't feel too merciful. He doubted the old boy he'd killed on the dock would be thanking him, or the one-armed man stabbed through from behind, or the lad with the cut throat who'd had his whole life stolen.

One by one the rest of the crowd came forward, and one by one the weapons, if you could call 'em that, got dropped in a heap. A pile of old rusty tools and junk. The boy came up last and let his cleaver clatter down with the rest, gave a scared look at Black Dow, then hurried back to the others and clung to the dark-haired girl's hand.

They stood there, in a wide-eyed huddle, and Dogman could almost smell their fear. They were waiting for Dow and his Carls to set to hacking 'em down where they stood. They were waiting to get herded in a house and locked in and the place set fire to. Dogman had seen all that before. So he didn't blame 'em one bit as they all crowded together like sheep pressed up in a field in winter. He'd have done the same.

'Alright!' he barked. 'That's it! Back to your houses, or whatever. Union'll be here before midday, and it'd be better if the streets were empty.'

They blinked at Dogman, and at Tul, and at Black Dow, and at each other. They swallowed and trembled, and muttered their thanks to the dead. They broke up, slowly, and spread out, and went off their own ways. Alive, to everyone's great relief.

'Nicely done, chief,' said Tul in Dogman's ear. 'Threetrees himself couldn't have done it no better.'

Dow sidled up from the other side. 'About the women, though, if you're asking my opinion—'

'I'm not,' said Dogman.

'Have you seen my son?' There was one woman who wasn't going home. She was coming up from one man to another, half-tears in her eyes and her face all wild from worry. The Dogman put his head down and looked the other way. 'My son, he was on guard, down by the water! You seen him?' She tugged at Dogman's coat, her voice cracked and wet-sounding. 'Please, where's my son?'

'You think I know where everyone's at?' he snapped in her weepy face. He strode away like he had a load of important stuff to do, and all the while he was thinking—you're a coward, Dogman, you're a bastard bloody coward. Some hero, pulling a neat trick on a bunch of women, and children, and old men.