Someone stepped down from the stairs and into view. A slim figure in an iron-grey cloak. A cultist! Kiska shot Artan a questioning look, but his eyes were wide with amazement. She turned back to the doorway.

The two appeared to be negotiating. Clearly, they knew each other and no love was lost between them. The cultist’s voice was a soft murmur, the warrior’s a hoarse rumble, both echoing in the stillness of the hallway until, eventually, they seemed to come to some sort of an agreement. The cultist lazily waved one hand and a third shape appeared, prone on the hall’s floor. The armoured being, not lowering its attention from the cultist, nudged the figure with its foot. The new arrival responded groggily. It was the dark woman, the mercenary mage, in her black silk shirt and brocaded vest. After a few more exchanges, the armoured figure sheathed its weapons and lifted the woman to its shoulder. It retreated back down the hall, out of sight.

Why take the woman? Kiska wondered. Some kind of sacrifice? She released her breath. It was over. The ancient revenant was gone. Artan, though, gave her arm a painful squeeze. She peered up.

Gaze nailed to the doorway, he mouthed, Be still.

She looked. Whoever the cultist was, he’d turned and now stared straight at them through the door’s narrow yawn. Yet standing in the lamplight it should have been impossible for him to see them hidden in the dark. At her side, Artan stood as tense as a drawn bow. He swallowed, breathed aloud in wonder, ‘By the Autumn Worm. It is he.’

When he’d entered the Hold’s main gate Temper had drawn his twin curved longs words at the sight of the four corpses. He recognized them as members of Ash’s rag-tag platoon and noted there were no ex-Bridgeburners among them. Ash was obviously holding his best close to hand. He hoped fervently that Corinn counted among those.

He paused at the door to Lubben’s quarters, wanting to see if the hunchback still lived, but reconsidered. If alive, there was a chance Lubben might recognize his helmet. There was no telling – the old souse was pretty damned canny in his own way. So Temper passed by the door, stepped out into the empty bailey. He thought of checking the barracks, but dread of what he might discover urged him away. The Claws had perpetrated worse atrocities in their history than the slaughter of one small garrison. After jogging across the bailey, he pushed open the keep’s door with the tip of one sword. More dead chaff here. The Claws, and perhaps even Ash, were thinning their ranks of expendables. He could just imagine Ash figuring that, Twin’s chance, the boys might actually get lucky and kill a Claw or two. Pausing, he tightened his helmet strap, adjusted the frayed rag-ends of gauntlets and shook his shoulders. This was it. Upstairs was the ‘High Official’, her Claw bodyguard, possibly a friend, and perhaps two spectres from his past who had yet to answer for a betrayal they did nothing to prevent. He concentrated, emptied his mind of everything but the objective at the top of the tower.