Bridge and gatehouse both had disappeared. Where they'd stood there was nothing but a great heap of broken stone and a yawning chasm carved out of the walls. That and a whole lot of dust. There were still some folk killing, but there were a lot more rolling about, choking and groaning, staggering through the rubbish, the fight all gone out of 'em. Dogman knew how they felt.

Someone was clambering up onto that mass of junk where the moat used to be, heading towards the breach. Someone with a tangled mess of hair and a long sword in one hand.

Who else but Logen Ninefingers?

'Ah, shit,' cursed Dogman. He'd got some damn fool ideas all of a sudden, had Logen, but that wasn't halfway the worst of it. There was someone following him across that bridge of rubble. Shivers, axe in hand, shield on arm, and a frown on his dirty face like a man with some dark work in mind.

'Ah, shit!'

Grim shrugged his dusty shoulders. 'Best get after 'em.'

'Aye.' Dogman jerked his thumb at Red Hat, just getting up from the ground and shaking a pile of grit off his coat. 'Get some lads together, eh?' He pointed off towards the breach with the blade of his sword. 'We're going that way.'

Damn it but he needed to piss, just like always.

Jezal backed away down the shadowy hall, hardly daring even to breathe, feeling the sweat prickle at his palms, at his neck, at the small of his back.

'What are they waiting for?' someone muttered.

There was a gentle creaking sound above. Jezal looked up towards the black rafters. 'Did you hear—'

A shape burst through the ceiling and hurtled down into the hallway in a white blur, flattening one of the Knights of the Body, her feet leaving two great dents in his breastplate, blood spraying from his visor.

She smiled up at Jezal. 'Greetings from the Prophet Khalul.'

'The Union!' roared another Knight, charging forward. One moment his sword whistled towards her. The next she was on the other side of the corridor. The blade clanged harmlessly into the stone floor and the man tottered forward. She seized him under the armpit, bent her knees slightly, and flung him shrieking through the ceiling. Broken plaster rained down as she grabbed another Knight round the neck and smashed his head into the wall with such force that he was left embedded in the shattered stonework, armoured legs dangling. Antique swords tumbled from their brackets and clattered down into the hallway around his limp corpse.