“Suits me. Bad enough spending Ascension out in the middle of nowhere without a body to cosy up to. Makes me long for the border . . . all those farm-lads impressed by a uniform.” Kurkas set his empty tankard aside and reached for Viktor’s with his good arm. “Won’t be needing this, will you?”

Viktor snorted at his captain’s presumption. The audacity of an old comrade. He left the tent, skirting ordered lines of sleeping soldiers and smouldering watch fires. A handful of hearthguards were awake. The thin birch-scented breeze carried the soft murmur of their conversation.

He felt wary eyes upon him, sensed the apprehension of orders soon to be issued. They were good lads and lasses all. The best. After two days of hard marching and the prospect of difficult days ahead, Viktor couldn’t blame them for wanting a quiet night.

Nor did he especially want to stretch his legs, as he’d told Kurkas. But since they’d crossed into the Southshires, he’d been assailed by the lingering sense of . . . something. It wasn’t fear, not exactly. More, it was a feeling of loss tinged with anticipation. Drink could not ease that feeling, though Raven knew he’d given it many opportunities to do so. Nor could any other form of bodily pleasure drive it out. Only activity saw it suppressed, and in the still watches of the night there was little activity to be found. Worse, his shadow revelled in the sensation.

Sentry pickets stiffened to attention at his approach.

“You heard?”

Sergeant Brass gave a sharp nod. Another veteran of Zanya, he was as glumly unenthused about a return to the Southshires as Captain Kurkas. “Off to the south, my lord. A quarter mile. No more. Was about to take a couple of the lads for a gander.”

Viktor grunted. In another life, Brass had been a poacher – the scourge of the Akadra estates. Age had done little to blunt his senses. If he said a quarter mile, a quarter mile it would be.

“The watch is yours,” he said. “Stay on post. I’ll see for myself.”

The thin man’s grip tightened across Calenne’s throat. Blood seeped from the cut on her brow, stinging her eyes. She blinked it away and sought her sword.

There. By the fire. Within reach, if she could get free.

Fingers closed on her wrist, dragging it up and behind her back. Black spots danced behind her eyes.

“You have her, Gregor?” asked Vorn.

“I have her. A fighter, isn’t she?”

Over by the fire, Keera moaned and grasped ineffectually at her bloody shoulder. Calenne clung to the memory of her screams as the blade bit home. A bright point in a night growing steadily darker.

“Hush your noise,” growled Vorn. “We’ve had enough caterwauling.”

“Easy for you to say,” Keera bit out. “It’s not your arm.”