Javed was a pit-fighter, one of the few who had risen up through the ranks with Maquin. He was from Tarbesh in the east – small, slim, seemingly built solely of wire-like muscle. Lykos had offered him and a handful of others their freedom, one last fight and a chest of silver at the end of it for the victor. Javed had won his bout, earned his freedom and his silver, and yet he had chosen to fight beside Maquin and Orgull. He sat with his head bowed, refusing to look at Lykos.

‘I saw the Old Wolf set you free. He used you, you know. Needed some help in getting out.’

Javed looked up then, glaring, but still he said nothing.

‘You could have had a chest of silver, and yet you’re back in a cage.’

‘I saw my chance for freedom and I took it,’ Javed said.

No doubt I would have done the same.

‘Not for long, by the look of things.’ Lykos grinned.

‘I’ll earn another chest from you,’ Javed said.

He always had a pair of stones on him, I’ll give him that.

‘Maybe, but you’ll have to earn your way back into the pit first. It’s an oar-bench for you.’

He saw the light dim in Javed’s eyes as the horror of his fate swept him.

‘That’s right. Back to the very beginning. Then the first level of the pits, if you’re still alive. Perhaps I’ll see you back here in a year or two.’ He walked on, Javed’s eyes burning into his back. He counted five eagle-guard warriors within the cage, ordered that they be brought out.

‘Peritus was behind your uprising. Where is he?’

None answered. He drew his sword and buried it in a warrior’s belly, ripped it out, intestines spilling to the ground like a barrel of writhing snakes. The man screamed.

‘Where is Peritus?’ Lykos asked again.

Silence, except for the agonized screams of the man who had just been gutted.

Lykos swung at the next warrior’s ankle. There was a crack as the bone broke. Lykos struck again, hacking through flesh and bone, leaving the man’s foot hanging by a thread of skin. Lykos felt a sharp pain in his back, stitches pulling, tearing. He brushed hair from his face, breathing hard.

The warrior with his guts on the ground had stopped screaming, was now making pitiful mewling sounds, like a hungry kitten.

‘Where is Peritus?’

Three men looked silently back at him. One grey-beard stared flatly, one glared. The third was a young man, barely past his Long Night. Urine dribbled down one leg, pooling in the dirt. Lykos left him, went to the man who glared.

‘Where is Peritus?’