Riding beside Gruntle, Itkovian watched the two Grey Sword outriders canter towards the Shield Anvil and Destriant.

‘Where are they coming from?’ Gruntle asked.

‘Flanking rearguard,’ Itkovian replied.

‘With news to deliver, it seems.’

‘So it appears, sir.’

‘Well? Aren’t you curious? They’ve both asked you to ride with them – if you’d said yes you’d be hearing that report right now, instead of slouching along with us riffraff. Hey, that’s a thought – I could divide my legion into two companies, call one Riff and the other—’

‘Oh, spare us!’ Stonny snapped behind them.

Gruntle twisted in his saddle. ‘How long have you been in our shadow, woman?’

‘I’m never in your shadow, Gruntle. Not you, not Itkovian. Not any man. Besides, with the sun so low on our right, I’d have to be alongside you to be in your shadow, not that I would be, of course.’

‘So instead,’ the Mortal Sword grinned, ‘you’re the woman behind me.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean, pig?’

‘Just stating a fact, lass.’

‘Really? Well, you were wrong. I was about to make my way over to the Grey Swords, only you two oafs were in the way.’

‘Stonny, this ain’t a road, it’s a plain. How in Hood’s name could we be in your way when you could ride your horse anywhere?’

‘Oafs. Lazy pigs. Someone here has to be curious. That someone needs a brain, of course, which is why you’ll both just trot along, wondering what those outriders are reporting, wondering and doing not a damned thing about it. Because you’re both brainless. As for me—’

‘As for you,’ Itkovian said drily, ‘you seem to be talking to us, sir. Indeed, engaged in a conversation—’

‘Which has now ended!’ she snapped, neck-reining her horse to the left, then launching it past them.

They watched her ride towards the other column.

After a moment, Gruntle shrugged, then said, ‘Wonder what she’ll hear.’

‘As do I,’ Itkovian replied.

They rode on, their pace steady if a little slow. Gruntle’s legion marched in their wake, a rabble, clumped like sea-raiders wandering inland in search of a farmhouse to pillage. Itkovian had suggested, some time earlier, that some training might prove beneficial, to which Gruntle had grinned and said nothing.

Trake’s Mortal Sword despised armies; indeed, despised anything even remotely connected to the notion of military practices. He was indifferent to discipline, and had but one officer – a Lestari soldier, fortunately – to manage his now eight-score followers: stony-eyed misfits that he’d laughingly called Trake’s Legion.

Gruntle was, in every respect, Itkovian’s opposite.

‘Here she comes,’ the Mortal Sword growled.

‘She rides,’ Itkovian observed, ‘with much drama.’

‘Aye. A fierceness not unique to sitting a saddle, from all that I’ve heard.’

Itkovian glanced at Gruntle. ‘My apologies. I had assumed you and she—’