Evie is surprised to see that Lariat’s torso is bare, except for a series of leather straps and buckles. Together they form a harness that extends over his shoulders and down both his arms to his fists. Embedded in the leather at every joint are short curved blades surrounded by jagged barbs. His elbows, his shoulders, every knuckle of his fists, even his hips have been adorned with weapons to make a strike from them lethal.

As if that weren’t enough, he’s fisting the horizontal grips of two katars, their triangular blades extended down a foot-and-a-half from his fists.

Go with what works, I suppose, Evie thinks to herself.

She finds Spud-Bar at their tinker’s wagon from hell, frantic Savages besieging Spud-Bar in these final moments for a weapon, any weapon to see them through the morning. Evie is already outfitted for battle, or at least as outfitted as anyone can be in this makeshift legion, but she asks the armorist if they can spare a dagger.

“Why do you need two daggers?” Spud-Bar asks her, nodding at Evie’s long knife.

“In case I want to stab them more than once,” Evie answers without missing a beat.

Her flat, humorless tone more than anything else makes Spud-Bar laugh.

“Take mine.” Spud-Bar unsheathes a beautifully flared blade from their belt, extending its bone handle to Evie. “The rest of this trash is… well… you know. Trash.”

Evie accepts it gratefully. “You’re sure?”

Spud-Bar nods, their voice darkening. “Just bring it back to me and I’ll consider it well spared. You understand?”

Evie nods, sheathing the blade securely through her belt.

A group of new faces makes their way past the armory wagon. There are almost a dozen of them, young men and one woman. The woman looks just old enough to be Evie’s mother’s age, and she walks at the head of the group as if she’s their leader. They all have blankets or pelts draped over their shoulders to ward off the cold, but the bodies Evie glimpses beneath are all well shaped and heavily tattooed, the many unfamiliar symbols and animal tableaus obscured by the webs of blood coin runes staining their flesh. Most of them have shaved their scalps except for long, dark topknots of hair, or a single strip down the middle of their heads. Beneath the blankets and pelts they’re clad in little more than loincloths and boots with fur tied around the calves.

They look and carry themselves like seasoned warriors, a rare sight among Savages, from what Evie has thus far seen.

“Who are they?” Evie asks Spud-Bar.

“They’re B’ors.”

“I can see that. I meant I haven’t seen them in camp, or at the Revel.”

Spud-Bar shrugs. “They keep to themselves. Live apart. Eat apart. Never seen ’em step foot in the Revel.”

“My whole life I’ve heard about what fierce fighters they are.”