Logen worked at his sore side with one hand, trying to make himself feel something. But a scrap of extra pain helped no one. 'I lost a friend yesterday.'

'It was a bloody day. But a victorious one.'

'Oh aye? For who?' He could see people moving among the ruins, insects picking at the rubble, searching for survivors and finding the dead. He doubted many of them were feeling the flush of victory right now. He knew he wasn't. 'I should be with my own kind,' he muttered, but without moving. 'Helping with the burying. Helping with the wounded.'

'And yet you are here, looking down.' Bayaz' green eyes were hard as stones. That hardness that Logen had noticed from the very start, and had somehow forgotten. Somehow grown to overlook. 'I entirely understand your feelings. Healing is for the young. As one gets older, one finds one has less and less patience with the wounded.' He raised his eyebrows as he turned back towards the horrible view. 'I am very old.'

He lifted his fist to knock, then paused, fingers rubbing nervously against his palm.

He remembered the sour-sweet smell of her, the strength of her hands, the shape of her frown in the firelight. He remembered the warmth of her, pressed up close to him in the night. He knew there had been something good between them, even if all the words they had said had been hard. Some people don't have soft words in them, however much they try. He didn't hold much hope, of course. A man like him was better off without it. But you get nothing out if you put nothing in.

So Logen gritted his teeth and knocked. No reply. He chewed at his lip, and knocked again. Nothing. He frowned, twitchy and suddenly out of patience, wrenched the knob round and shoved the door open.

Ferro spun about. Her clothes were rumpled and dirty, even more than usual. Her eyes were wide, wild even, her fists clenched. But her face quickly fell when she saw it was him, and his heart sank with it.

'It's me, Logen.'

'Uh,' she grunted. She jerked her head sideways, frowning at the window. She took a couple of steps towards it, eyes narrowed. Then she snapped round suddenly the other way. 'There!'

'What?' muttered Logen, baffled.

'Do you not hear them?'

'Hear what?'

'Them, idiot!' She crept over to one wall and pressed herself up against it.

Logen hadn't been sure how it would go. You could never be sure of anything with her, he knew that. But he hadn't been expecting this. Just plough ahead, he reckoned. What else could he do?