The northern edge of the Hadari line shrank inwards. Warchiefs bellowed orders. Strung out across the hillside in a battle for gulley and outcrop, they’d no chance to reform. Josiri had just enough time to worry about the balance of the numbers before and behind. Then the first shield was before him, and such concerns lay in the past.

Josiri leapt the streambed. His shoulder struck a shield and drove it aside. His sword-thrust skirted the heavy wooden rim and bit into flesh. The Hadari fell, and Josiri ran on.

Panting, he hacked down another. The first wolf-cloaks overtook him, driving deep into the disorganised foe. One died without landing a blow, ribs crushed by a war hammer’s punishing strike. One of Gavamor’s simarka pounced past Josiri’s right shoulder and bore the hammer-wielder to the ground.

Josiri hefted his sword high. “On! On! Keep them off-balance!”

That was the trick. The only hope the wolf’s-heads had. Hammer at the Hadari, keep them off-kilter. Deny them time to react. If the Hadari formed up, much less brought their numbers to bear . . .

Josiri swung at a shield bearing the likeness of a snarling wildcat. Hide tore. Wood splintered. He parried a spear and rammed his heel against the shield-boss. His opponent staggered back and lost his balance on the rocks.

Josiri ran on, leaving the man’s fate to those who came behind.

“On!” he shouted, though he doubted anyone heard. “On!”

The first serious attempt at a shield wall came as the gorse of the upper slopes gave way to grass. A dozen wolf’s-heads died on its spears before a pride of Gavamor’s simarka ripped it apart. The next came on the steep banks of a stream. Josiri lost most of a sleeve in that clash, and damn near an eye. But a volley of arrows hissed out of the western rock, and the Hadari melted away.

Shivering with exertion, Josiri halted for breath. Already, the madness of battle was slipping away. Memory gladly regaled him with every near-miss, every mistake and every botched strike. Harbingers of a death not yet earned.

He growled and shook the recollections away. He was alive. The details were of no account.

A woman in a high-necked naval jacket picked her way through the rocks. She held a bloodied cutlass. Her battered tricorne couldn’t hide the soiled bandage about her head.

“Is that what passes for armour among the nobility?” she asked.

Her appearance struck a chord in Josiri’s memory, but he couldn’t quite place the tune. Josiri stared down at his torn coat and bloodstained shirt.

“One tries to stay abreast of fashion,” he said evenly. “I seem to have failed.”

She offered a stiff bow. “Captain Kalla Masnar. I’m rationing out this particular barrel of disaster. At least I was. Reckon that’s you now, your grace.”