I dismounted and knelt beside a boy of four or five. His skull had been smashed, but he was breathing. Raven dropped beside me. “Nothing I can do,” I said.

“You can end his ordeal.” There were tears in Raven’s eyes. Tears and anger. “There’s no excuse for this.” He moved to a corpse lying in shadow.

This one was about seventeen. He wore the jacket of a Rebel Mainforcer. He had died fighting. Raven said, “He must have been on leave. One boy to protect them.” He pried a bow from lifeless fingers, bent it. “Good wood. A few thousand of these could rout the Limper.” He slung the bow and appropriated the boy’s arrows.

I examined another two children. They were beyond help. Inside a burned hut I found a grandmother who had died trying to shield an infant. In vain.

Raven exuded disgust. “Creatures like the Limper create two enemies for every one they destroy.”

I became aware of muted weeping, and of cursing and laughter somewhere ahead. “Let’s see what that is.”

Beside the hut we found four dead soldiers. The lad had left his mark. “Good shooting,” Raven observed. “Poor fool.”

“Fool?”

“He should’ve had the sense to run. Might’ve gone easier on everyone.” His intensity startled me. What did he care about a boy from the other side? “Dead heroes don’t get a second chance.”

Aha! He was drawing a parallel with an event in his own mysterious past.

The cursing and weeping resolved into a scene fit to disgust anyone tainted with humanity.

There were a dozen soldiers in the circle, laughing at their own crude jokes. I remembered a bitch dog surrounded by males who, contrary to custom, were not fighting for mounting rights but were taking turns. They might have killed her had I not intervened.

Raven and I mounted up, the better to see.

The victim was a child of nine. Welts covered her. She was terrified, yet making no sound. In a moment I understood. She was a mute.

War is a cruel business prosecuted by cruel men. The gods know the Black Company are no cherubim. But there are limits.

They were making an old man watch. He was the source of both curses and weeping.

Raven put an arrow into a man about to assault the girl.

“Dammit!” Elmo yelled. “Raven!...”

The soldiers turned on us. Weapons appeared. Raven loosed another arrow. It dropped the trooper holding the old man. The Limper’s men lost any inclination to fight. Elmo whispered, “Whitey, go tell the old man to haul ass over here.”

One of the Limper’s men took a like notion. He scampered off. Raven let him run.

The Captain would have his behind on a platter.

He did not seem concerned. “Old timer. Come here. Bring the child. And get some clothes on her.”

Part of me could not help but applaud, but another part called Raven a fool.

Elmo did not have to tell us to watch our backs. We were painfully aware that we were in big trouble. Hurry, Whitey, I thought.