The second banner-bearer sought a middle-ground and spurred his horse to motion in a vain attempt to keep pace with Anliss’s steed. The Thrakkian crooked her elbow and reeled him in. Releasing the reins, she slammed a bunched fist into the knight’s visored face. Stunned, he slumped across his saddle’s pommel and the swan banner came free. Voice raised in a melodic, triumphant cry, Anliss hauled her steed to a halt at the head of Lavirn’s knights. She fell into place on Calenne’s right-hand side, mirroring her brother’s position on the left.

Knights pressed forward, voices raised in outrage.

“What is the meaning of this?” spluttered Lavirn.

He let his lance fall and thrust back his spurs. His sword gleamed in the sun.

Calenne held her ground, surprised at her calm. No room for second thoughts now. Nor fear. There was only the path ahead. The opportunity she’d chosen to forge. Her slender blade felt insignificant before the killing weight of Lavirn’s broadsword. Nonetheless, its threat was enough to check him. That fuelled her confidence even further.

“You know what I intend,” she said, striving for the tone that had come so easily at the fireside the night before. “I’m going to help my people.”

“The three of you?” He snorted. “You’re throwing your lives away.”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether the Knights Essamere are prepared to be known as cowards. Cowards who hung back while a cosseted child and a pair of drunken Thrakkians . . .”

“Oi!” shouted Armund.

Anliss grinned. “Fair. Very fair.”

“. . . shamed them all!”

Calenne swept her gaze across the assembled ranks. She glimpsed no eyes beneath the slitted visors, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t about what she saw of their mood, but what they beheld of her.

“You can do as you wish.” Her voice quickened with confidence. With surety. “Stay. Run. Fight. I don’t care. My people – our people – are dying. If I can save even one, then I’ll face the Raven content. How will you live? Choose, and choose quickly!”

Without waiting for a reply, she urged her steed to the gallop.

Forty

Forty

No one challenged Josiri’s descent into Maiden’s Hollow. Those few wolf’s-heads who paid heed did so with hooded and disinterested eyes before turning their attention back to campfires and conversation. A far cry from past accusations of traitor.

The air beneath the trees lay thick with sullen expectation. Peculiar, given Crovan’s fervent disavowal of battle. Perhaps it was the drums. The screams. The discordant clash of blades. Perhaps they reverberated through the wolf’s-heads’ souls as accusingly as they did Josiri’s own.

He walked his horse to a standstill at the dell’s heart. Anastacia, her face in shadow beneath the shawl’s hood, shuddered at the statues.

“What is it?” he asked.

[[Old memories,]] she muttered. [[Family squabbles.]]