She wanders through the burned camp, forcing the grief and revulsion gnawing at her guts to subside, at least for now. Evie’s eyes, adjusting to the light of day, search through the human and material wreckage for anything usable the Sicclunan night force might not have scavenged after their assault. She and Brio need food and water if they have any hope of surviving an extended journey on foot, not to mention weapons other than the pair of short swords Evie appropriated during the attack.

She sees nothing but burned wood and bloody, torn rags clinging to the dead, all of them in even worse condition than the filthy garb in which she and Brio are clad. Evie wonders if they’ll fare any better in whatever’s left of the Skrain camp, although the thought of running across any surviving Crachian soldiers gives her pause.

“Evie!” Brio hisses at her back. “People!”

She turns, fist already closed around the tsuka of the short sword tucked under her tunic belt.

“Little Sparrow!”

A jubilant voice among such carnage sounds as out of place as laughter in a charnel house. That voice issues from beneath the broomlike mustache of Lariat. The barrel of a man is trampling the husks of tent poles and bones alike as he ambles toward them. The series of leather straps that fasten hooked blades to his every joint creak loudly with every step; both steel and leather have been soaked through with blood. The matched katars that transform his fists into short swords are sheathed awkwardly and dangerously through his belt.

Mother Manai and Bam, the rest of the Elder Company, follow closely behind him. Several of the steel “fingers” protruding from the leather-wrapped stump of Manai’s right hand have been bent in battle, and all five blades are crusted with Sicclunan blood. In her remaining hand she holds the wooden handle of what looks far more like a large kitchen cleaver than any kind of ax belonging on a battlefield. Bam looks no different from the first time Evie laid eyes on him, with the hood of his sleeveless cloak pulled low over the bulbous features of his face. The haft of a giant mallet is slung over his shoulder; what’s happened to his equally giant scythe or where he’s acquired his new weapon she can only guess. Both heads of the mallet’s wooden hammer have what must be brains clinging to their worn surfaces, drying in the sun.

“You’re a wily one, Evie,” Mother Manai compliments her. “A woman after my own heart.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” Evie says, and it is, though it’s difficult to feel it, or anything else, at that moment.