The stranger’s gloved fingers brushed her wrist. Something cold and sharp pressed to her skin. Warmth swept it away. Muscles tightened in Calenne’s shattered wrist, grinding the bones together. She yelped in pain and glanced down.

She saw no sign of the stranger’s hands, just her own. Her left, somehow free of its sling, held her dagger-blade against her right wrist. The steel was slick with blood from a nicked vein. A hair’s breadth more . . .

“And now you’ve spoilt everything.” The stranger’s voice echoed about her, the syllables thick with disappointment and . . . fear? “I wish you hadn’t. Now there’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”

Invisible wings buffeted Calenne’s head and arms. Harsh voices rose in croaking chorus about her. Heart pounding in terror, she hurled the dagger away and fled.

Forty-Two

Forty-Two

Arrows hissed through the air. Leather-clad outriders scattered away from the volley, leaving dead behind. A ragged cheer went up from the southwealders’ mismatched ranks. In a day of sparse victories, even the smallest counted.

“Form up!” Josiri shouted. “Lock shields!”

The cry rippled up and down the line. Shields scavenged from the dead formed a wall of mismatched heraldry. Here a phoenix. There a swan. The hounds and serpents of vanquished Hadari clansmen. Josiri pictured Makrov’s disapproving expression on seeing the serpent-shield he himself carried. The image provoked a burst of cheer in an otherwise grim moment.

[[A pity no one else wants to play.]]

Anastacia gestured at the nearest redoubt. Soldiers stood silent on its ramshackle battlements. Not one had marched out to join them.

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Josiri.

[[None of us should be here,]] she replied. [[I want to try out my new toy.]]

She hefted a war hammer claimed from a dead Immortal. She looked ridiculously frail – as if one good swing would send her spinning off into the distance.

Josiri shot a glance at Masnar, but the captain was either not listening, or at least giving a good pretence. The same couldn’t be said of the nearby wolf-cloaks who paid unabashed interest. Or possibly it was fear. Word of Vorn’s death – and the manner of it – had spread.

He lowered his voice. “I don’t want to lose you.”

[[You won’t. I’m hard to miss.]] A bitter note crept into her voice. [[Especially now.]]

Josiri stifled a scowl. Even now, she delighted in missing the point. “That’s not what I meant.”

[[I know what you meant. Whatever I have become, I used to be a serathi. A herald of dawn and bringer of hope.]] She raised her voice. The hollow words danced. [[And I’m certain I’ve killed more men than you.]]

Laughter rippled around him – all of it at Josiri’s expense.

“Here they come!” bellowed Masnar.