She stood there a moment, eyes scanning about her, body rigid. Then she stuttered into motion, picking her way through the square, eyes sweeping the ground until she reached the gallows. She faltered, looked up at the children, their bloated corpses swinging in a gentle breeze. Ropes creaked.

She saw the black and gold of Cambren upon the dead warriors’ cloaks. ‘Rhin, even here.’

Camlin came and stood beside her, saw tears running down her cheeks.

Lorcan pushed forward and took her hand. ‘Come away now,’ he said.

‘These are my people,’ she snapped, yanking her hand out of his grip. ‘I am not some innocent girl . . .’ She trailed off. ‘Not any more.’

‘But, why do you stare so? You do not need to be here. We have seen, now let us go.’

‘I stare so that I will not forget. This is my land, these are my people. Rhin and her ilk have slain them. Slaughtered children. They will not be forgotten. There will be a reckoning.’

Lorcan looked into Edana’s face, then nodded.

‘What happened here, Camlin?’

Good question. And why were there warriors still here? He glanced at the roundhouse where the enemy had appeared from. Something’s wrong. We need to get out of here.

‘What happened here, Camlin?’ Edana repeated.

‘Hard to say. Rhin has warriors down this way, for some reason. Maybe the word that there is a resistance based in the marshes is true? Looks to me like they were making some kind of example.’ He nodded to the gallows. ‘My guess is it didn’t go down too well, got out of—’

‘Over there,’ Edana blurted, pointing behind Camlin. To the stables. ‘Something moved . . .’

I’m an idiot. These buildings need checking.

‘You should leave,’ he muttered to Edana as he set his bow down and drew his sword, Baird following him as he entered the stable. Camlin waited a moment for his eyes to adjust, then started skewering the straw in each stable. He got to the last partition, saw a lump in the straw.

‘If you don’t want an extra hole in your body, you’d best be standing up now.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘All right, I warned you,’ he said, stepping in.

The straw exploded upwards. He saw a flash of red hair as a small figure darted past him.

‘Got it,’ Baird shouted, hoisting the figure into the air. ‘I mean her,’ he suddenly bellowed as the child squirmed in his arms and bit his hand.

‘Enough, girlie,’ Camlin said. He made a point of sheathing his sword for her to see. She slowly calmed, then went limp in Baird’s arms.

‘We’re not going t’hurt you. What’s your name?’ Camlin asked. She just looked at him, big dark haunted eyes in a dirty face. She can’t be more’n eight, nine summers old. What’s the poor little mite had to witness to put such fear into her?