“Second, and third, and fourth,” Crovan replied. “Trastorov once wrote that we delight in breaking oaths. The ultimate freedom.”

She spat. “There’s a reason they burned Trastorov. Bugger was a witch.”

“Three factions muster below. I’ve given my oath to each, at different times. I’ve broken one already. By dusk, I’ll have broken at least one more.”

“Then rejoice,” she replied. “For you’re about to be freer than ever.”

Crovan shook his head angrily. On the field below, Tressian shields formed up beneath towering kraikons. There’d be simarka too, prowling the wheat. “I haven’t felt free since I came home. I never wanted any of . . . this.”

“Then what do you want?”

A good question. He’d wanted to fight injustice. Once, he’d had a plan. Now . . . Now he wasn’t sure how he’d even got here, or where he was going. The path ahead was steep, but the path behind was shrouded in the mist of inconstant memory, and a dark voice tempting him to ruin. How could a life change so much without conscious choice?

“To live out my days with a clear conscience,” Crovan replied.

“Can’t be done. Better to embrace it.”

Maybe Drenn was right. A few paces more; the slope would lessen and the mists would part. He’d feel the sun on his face, instead of the chill in his bones.

Drawing himself up, Crovan turned his back on the quickening battle. “We’ll let the Hadari take the brunt. We may have to fight at their side, but I’ll embrace the Raven before I let our people win Saran’s war.”

Drenn nodded and slipped away through the trees.

The phoenix re-buckled and re-sited her sword belt three times before Viktor passed her. Her neighbour in the shield wall scraped a whetstone across a dagger already sharpened to a razor’s kiss. Hands pressed to lockets, sun pendants and wedding rings. Talismans all on a bleak day where even the wind seemed stale and unwilling.

Viktor understood the rituals, but he’d none of his own. You fought, maybe you died. In the aftermath you remembered friend and foe. Until then, there was only the killing.

The twin banners of their centre twitched fitfully in the breeze. The swan banner was one of two Viktor had brought from Tressia. The second streamed to the south, above the walls of Blackridge Farm. The phoenix seemed drab by comparison. But miracles couldn’t be expected from a refashioned tabard.

Revekah and Calenne waited beneath, the former on foot and the latter astride a steed. Their conversation fell silent as Viktor approached. Revekah offered a sharp nod and strode away south to the company of her phoenixes.

“She doesn’t care for me,” rumbled Viktor.

“She’s spent fifteen years hating you,” said Calenne. “That doesn’t pass overnight.”

“It did for you.”