Logen scrabbled up in time to see the blue hand coming at him again. He ducked underneath it, hacked at the Feared's tattooed flesh as he reeled past. The Maker's sword thudded deep into the giant's thigh like a spade into turf. The huge leg buckled and he dropped forward onto his armoured knee. It should have been a killing blow, right through the big veins, but there was hardly more blood than from a shaving-scratch.

Still, if one thing fails you try another. Logen roared as he chopped at the Feared's bald head. The blade clanged against the armour on the giant's right arm, raised just in time. It scraped down that black steel and slid off, harmless, chopping into the earth and leaving Logen's hands buzzing.

'Ooof!' The Feared's knee sank into his gut, folded him up and sent him staggering, needing to cough but not having the air to do it. The giant had already found his feet again, armoured hand swinging back, a lump of black iron the size of a man's head. Logen dived sideways, rolling across the short grass, felt the wind of the great arm ripping past him. It crashed into the shield where he'd been standing, broke it into splintered pieces, flung the man holding it wailing into the earth.

It seemed the spirit had been right. The painted side couldn't be hurt. Logen crouched, waiting for the clawing pain in his stomach to fade enough for him to breathe, trying to think of some trick to use and coming up with nothing. The Feared turned his writhing face towards Logen. Behind him on the ground the felled man whimpered under the wreckage of his shield. The Carls either side of him shuffled in to close the gap with some reluctance.

The giant took a slow step forwards, and Logen took a painful step back.

'Still alive,' he whispered to himself. But how long for, it was hard to say.

West had never in his life felt so scared, so exhilarated, so very much alive. Not even when he won the Contest with all the wide Square of Marshals cheering for him. Not even when he stormed the walls of Ulrioch, and burst out from the dust and chaos into the warm sunlight. His skin tingled with hope and horror. His hands jerked helplessly with Ninefingers' movements. His lips murmured pointless advice, silent encouragement. Beside him Pike and Jalenhorm jostled, shoved, shouted themselves hoarse. Behind them the wide crowd roared, straining to see. On the walls they leaned out, screaming and shaking their fists in the air. The circle of men flexed with the movements of the fighters, never still, bowing out and sucking in as the champions came forward or fell back.

And almost always, so far, the one falling back was Ninefingers. A great brute of a man by most standards, he seemed tiny, weak and brittle in that terrifying company. To make matters a great deal worse, there was something very strange at work here. Something West could only have called magic. Great wounds, deadly wounds, closed in the Feared's blue skin before his very eyes. This thing was not a man. It could only be a devil, and whenever it towered over him West felt a fear as though he was standing at the very verge of hell.