A voice snapped, equally impatient, ‘Go away!’

‘Open up, Lubben, you pox-blinded lecher!’

‘Hey? What’s that?’ Uneven steps clumped up to the door. ‘I know that voice. Who’s that to speak of lechery when he’s too old to remember it?’

‘Old!’ Temper ducked his head, peered about the tunnel, then leaned to the door. ‘Open up you hunchbacked freak of nature. This is no time to be ashamed.’

‘Ashamed!’ The door whipped open. Lubben glared out, bleary-eyed, a wineskin in one hand. He blinked, stared at Temper’s helmet, then blinked again at his burden and backed away from the threshold. Temper pushed in, hunched under the low roof, and dumped Corinn on the straw mattress. Wine fumes swirled in the closed room as potently as in the Hanged Man on a busy night.

Weaving unsteadily, Lubben scratched his stubbled chin. ‘Who’s this then?’

‘She’s a vet, ex-mage cadre.’ Temper pulled off his helmet, squeezed Lubben’s shoulder. ‘So keep your hands to yourself.’

Lubben snorted, thumped down onto his chair. He eyed Temper suspiciously. ‘What’re you mixing yourself up in now?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t give me that nothing crap.’ He crooked a finger at the helmet under Temper’s arm. ‘You’ve had your head down for a long time friend. Raise it now and you’ll get it chopped off.’

Temper replied with a fatalistic shrug, then said, ‘You’re the second one to tell me that tonight.’

Lubben shook his head sadly. He waved the skin; wine sloshed within. ‘Well, be gone with you then. You sorry-assed fool. Listen,’ and he looked up, his eye bloodshot, screwed nearly shut. ‘I thought we had an understanding. You and I. We were gonna hang around long enough to piss on all their graves.’ He waved the skin up to the ceiling.

Temper laughed. ‘And I still mean to.’

Lubben snorted his scorn, shook his head. ‘You’re being used again.’ He pointed the skin at Temper. ‘Used like before. They don’t care if you live or die, so why should you give a damn for them?’ He drained the skin and threw it, limp, into a corner.

Temper had nothing to say to that. He knew it. He pulled a dirty wool blanket over Corinn. ‘Keep her here, Lubben. Till dawn.’

Lubben nodded tartly.

Temper turned to the door. ‘See you later.’

‘You say she’s mage cadre?’ Temper turned back. Lubben sat scratching his chin, eyeing Corinn.

‘Aye.’

‘What outfit?’

‘Bridgeburners.’

Lubben arched the grizzled brow over his one good eye. ‘Well I’ll be damned.’

Temper hesitated, wondering what the battered old hunchback was getting at, then shrugged it off. ‘Right. So watch yourself.’

Sitting back in the creaking chair, Lubben answered with a crooked smile. ‘Oh, yes. I mean to.’

Temper pointed one last warning at Lubben, then ducked out of the low doorway.

CHAPTER FIVE

FEINTS AND FATES

FROM KISKA’S SIDE ARTAN SIGNALLED THROUGH THE darkness to Hattar, who obviously couldn’t believe what he was being told. Artan signed again, insistent. Furious, Hattar slammed his weapons into their sheaths and stepped away from the door.