Born on a sea dark as spiced wine, the wind moaned its way across the seaside killing ground, over and around the East Watch on its low, brick-strewn hill, where faint torchlight glimmered from the fortress’s battened shutters. The wind’s voice rose in pitch as it rolled up against the city’s mortarless walls, flinging salty spray against its rounded, weathered stone. Rising then, the night’s breath reached the battlements and swept between the merlons and along the platforms, then down into Capustan’s curving, undulating streets, where not a soul stirred.

From the corner tower parapet looming above the ancient barracks, Karnadas stood facing the storm, alone, his boar-maned cloak whipping in the savage gusts. Though the parapet’s killing arc guarded the southeast approach, from his position he could just make out, five hundred paces to the north along the wall, the object of his fiercest attention.

The brooding, cliff-like palace of Prince Jelarkan was like no other building in Capustan. Windowless, the grey-stoned structure towered in a chaotic confusion of planes, angles, overhangs and seemingly pointless ledges. It rose well above the flanking coast-facing wall, and in his mind’s eye the mercenary watched huge boulders arcing towards it from the killing field beyond, crashing into its sides, sending the whole edifice down into ruin.

Unworthy of you. Where resides the comforting knowledge of history’s vast, cyclical sweep, the ebb and flow of wars and of peace? Peace is the time of waiting for war. A time of preparation, or a time of wilful ignorance, blind, blinkered and prattling behind secure walls.

Within the palace, the Mortal Sword Brukhalian was mired in yet another meeting with the prince and a half-dozen representatives of the Mask Council. The Grey Swords’ commander forbore such tangled marathons with what seemed to Karnadas superhuman patience. I would never have suffered this spider-bitten dance, not this long, not night after night, weeks on end. Still, it’s remarkable what can be achieved even as the debates rage on, and on. How many of the Mortal Sword’s – and Prince Jelarkan’s – proposals have already been implemented, whilst the wrangling continues unending and those masked bastards utter their lists of objections in all ignorance. It’s too late, you fools – we’ve already done what we could . . . to save your damned city.

In his mind’s eye rose the fur-painted, articulated mask of the one priest on the Council he and the company should have been able to count on as an ally. Rath’Fener spoke for the Boar of Summer – the Grey Swords’ own patron god. But political ambition consumes you, as it does your rivals in the Council. You kneel before summer’s bloody tusk, yet . . . is it naught but a lie?