Do you now? ‘What about these Barghast? What makes you think they can be trusted to travel in our company?’

‘If untrustworthy, better they be in sight than out of it, wouldn’t you agree, Captain?’

He grunted. ‘You’ve a point there, master.’ He faced Harllo and Stonny, slowly nodded.

Harllo offered him a resigned smile.

Stonny was, predictably, not so nearly laconic. ‘This is insanity!’ Then she tossed up her hands. ‘Fine, then! We ride into the dragon’s maw, why not?’ She spun her horse round. ‘Let’s go throw bones with the Barghast, shall we?’

Grimacing, Gruntle watched her ride off.

‘She is a treasure, is she not?’ Harllo murmured with a sigh.

‘Never seen you so lovestruck before,’ Gruntle said with a sidelong glance.

‘It’s the unattainable, friend, that’s what’s done for me. I long helplessly, morosely maundering over unrequited adoration. I dream of her and Nektara ... with me snug between ‘em—’

‘Please, Harllo, you’re making me sick.’

‘Uhm,’ Keruli said, ‘I believe I shall now return to the carriage.’

The three Barghast were clearly siblings, with the woman the eldest. White paint had been smeared on their faces, giving them a skull-like appearance. Braids stained with red ochre hung down to their shoulders, knotted with bone fetishes. All three wore hauberks of holed coins – the currency ranging from copper to silver and no doubt from some looted hoard, as most of them looked ancient and unfamiliar to Gruntle’s eye. Coin-backed gauntlets covered their hands. A guardblock’s worth of weapons accompanied the trio – bundled lances, throwing axes and copper-sheathed long-hafted fighting axes, hook-bladed swords and assorted knives and daggers.

They stood on the other side of a small stone-ringed firepit – burned down to faintly smouldering coals – with Stonny still seated on her horse to their left. A small heap of jackrabbit bones indicated a meal just completed.

Gruntle’s gaze settled on the Barghast woman. ‘Our master invites you to travel in our company. Do you accept?’

The woman’s dark eyes flicked to the carriage as Harllo drove it to the camp’s edge. ‘Few traders still journey to Capustan,’ she said after a moment. ‘The trail has become ... perilous.’

Gruntle frowned. ‘How so? Have the Pannions sent raiding parties across the river?’

‘Not that we have heard. No, demons stalk the wild-lands. We have been sent to discover the truth of them.’

Demons? Hood’s breath. ‘When did you learn of these demons?’

She shrugged. ‘Two, three months past.’

The captain sighed, slowly dismounted. ‘Well, let us hope there’s nothing to such tales.’

The woman grinned. ‘We hope otherwise. I am Hetan, and these are my miserable brothers, Cafal and Netok. This is Netok’s first hunt since his Deathnight.’

Gruntle glanced at the glowering, hulking youth. ‘I can see his excitement.’

Hetan turned, gaze narrowing on her brother. ‘You must have sharp eyes.’

By the Abyss, another humourless woman for company . . .