Once again the slap of bowstrings, the hiss of fletchings, the thud and crack of arrowheads penetrating armour, yells, the neighing of horses, squelching, and blood splashing. The marshal looked back and saw bowmen on the bank; small, stocky, pot-bellied shapes in mail shirts, basinets and pointed chichaks. Dwarves, he thought.

The slap of bowstrings, the whistle of bolts. The squeal of horses threshing around. The yelling of men choking on water and mud.

Ouder de Wyngalt, turning towards the marksmen, cried in a high, squeaky voice that he was surrendering, asked for mercy and compassion, promised a ransom and begged for his life. Aware that no one understood his words, he raised his sword, held by the blade, above his head. He held the weapon out towards the dwarves in the international, outright cosmopolitan gesture of surrender. He wasn’t understood, or was misunderstood, for two bolts slammed into his chest with such force that the impact hurled him up out of the bog.

Coehoorn tore the dented helmet from his head. He knew the Common Speech of the Nordlings quite well.

‘I’m Marfal Coeoon…’ he mumbled, spitting blood. ‘Marfal Coeoon… I furrender… Merfy… Merfy…’

‘What’s he saying, Zoltan?’ one of the crossbowmen asked in surprise.

‘Bugger him and his chattering! Do you see the embroidery on his cloak, Munro?’

‘A silver scorpion! Haaaa! Wallop the whoreson, boys! For Caleb Stratton!’

‘For Caleb Stratton!’

Bowstrings clanged. One bolt hit Coehoorn straight in the chest, the second in the hip and the third in the collar bone. The Nilfgaardian field marshal fell over backwards in the watery mush, the knotgrass and swamp yielding under his weight. Who the bloody hell could Caleb Stratton be? he managed to think, I’ve never heard of any Caleb…

The murky, viscous, muddied and bloodied water of the River Chotla closed over his head and gushed into his lungs.

She went outside the tent to get some fresh air. And then she saw him, sitting beside the blacksmith’s bench.

‘Jarre!’

He raised his eyes towards her. There was emptiness in those eyes.

‘Iola?’ he asked, moving his swollen lips with difficulty. ‘How come you’re—’

‘What a question!’ she interrupted him at once. ‘You’d better tell me how you’ve ended up here!’

‘We’ve brought our commander… Voivode Bronibor… He’s wounded—’

‘You’re also wounded. Show me that hand. O goddess! But you’ll bleed to death, lad!’

Jarre looked at her, and Iola suddenly began to doubt whether he could see her.

‘It’s a battle,’ said the boy, teeth chattering slightly. ‘You must stand like a wall… Steady in the line. The lightly wounded are to carry the heavily wounded to the field hospital. It’s an order.’

‘Show me your hand.’

Jarre howled briefly, his clenching teeth snapping in a wild staccato. Iola frowned.

‘Oh my, it looks dreadful… Oh, dear, Jarre, Jarre… You’ll see, Mother Nenneke will be angry… Come with me.’