Curly raised his bow, peering into the darkness. ‘I don’t— Ah!’ There was a searing pain in his ribs and he let go of the string, arrow spinning off harmless into the dirt. Another searing pain, and he looked down, and he saw the man with the red hood had stabbed him. Knife hilt right up against his chest, and the hand dark with blood.

Curly grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt, twisted it. ‘Wha …’ But he didn’t have the breath in him to finish, and he didn’t seem to be able to take another.

‘Sorry,’ said the man, wincing as he stabbed him again.

Red Hat took a quick look about, make sure no one was watching, but it looked like Ironhead’s boys were all too busy legging it out of the orchards and uphill towards the Children, a lot of ’em with brown trousers, more’n likely. He’d have laughed to see it if it weren’t for the job he’d just had to do. He laid down the man he’d killed, patting him gently on his bloody chest as his eyes went dull, still with that slightly puzzled, slightly upset look.

‘Sorry ’bout that.’ A hard reckoning for a man who’d just been doing his job the best he could. Better’n most, since he’d chosen to stick when the rest had run. But that’s how war is. Sometimes you’re better off doing a worse job. This was the black business and there was no use crying about it. Tears’ll wash no one clean, as Red Hat’s old mum used to tell him.

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ he shrieked, broken and horror-struck as he could manage. ‘He’s here! He’s here!’ Then he gave a scream as he wiped his knife on the lad’s jerkin, still squinting into the shadows for signs of other holdouts, but signs there were none.

‘The Bloody-Nine!’ someone roared, no more’n a dozen strides behind. Red Hat turned and stood up.

‘You can stop. They’ve gone.’

The Dogman’s grey face slid from the shadows, bow and arrows loose in one hand. ‘What, all of ’em?’

Red Hat pointed down at the corpse he’d just made. ‘All but a few.’

‘Who’d have thought it?’ The Dogman squatted beside him, a few more of his lads creeping out from the trees behind. ‘The work you can get done with a dead man’s name.’

‘That and a dead man’s laugh.’

‘Colla, get back there and tell the Union the orchards are clear.’

‘Aye.’ And one of the others scurried off through the trees.

‘How does it look up ahead?’ Dogman slid over the logs and stole towards the treeline, keeping nice and low. Always careful, the Dogman, always sparing with men’s lives. Sparing o’ lives on both sides. Rare thing in a War Chief, and much to be applauded, for all the big songs tended to harp on spilled guts and what have you. They squatted there in the brush, in the shadows. Red Hat wondered how long the pair of ’em had spent squatting in the brush, in the shadows, in one damp corner of the North or another. Weeks on end, more’n likely. ‘Don’t look great, does it?’