At either end of the gully, men and women beyond the flames continued to heap fuel on the crackling monsters. Even paces away, even in the stiff breeze, Gwenna could feel the heat on her face. She tried to dredge up something from her training, some little fact that might save her life. She knew plenty about Urghul mounted fighting tactics and weapons use, but her eyes had tended to glaze over when the trainers droned on about the dull theological details. Balendin had called whatever was coming the Kwihna Saapi. Gwenna had never heard the second word, but Kwihna meant Meshkent, and Meshkent meant pain.

The whole thing had the feel of a ring or arena—the bounded enclosure, the circle of expectant faces, and, oh yeah, the piles of fucking bones strewn everywhere. The place stunk of a fight, and, just as she was scanning the ground, the Urghul shoved someone else into the narrow gully.

Gwenna rocked back and forth, testing her legs. Weeks tied to the horse hadn’t done her any good, but it was no use worrying about that now. The hay, as the Kettral liked to say, was in the barn, and Gwenna offered up a silent thanks to all the bastards back on the Islands—Adaman Fane and Daveen Shaleel, Plenchen Zee and even the Flea—for the long years of brutality, the relentless insistence on perfection. She might not know shit about the ’Kent-kissing Kwihna Saapi, but this was looking like a fight, and she knew a lot about fighting.

Then the young man straightened, and Gwenna’s eagerness drained away. She had expected an Urghul, one of the young taabe or ksaabe. It was an Annurian, however, who faced her, a young man maybe a year or two older than Gwenna, still dressed in the filthy rags of his legionary uniform. Another prisoner. Gwenna had assumed they were the only ones, but the camp was enormous. Long Fist could have a whole legion of Annurians tied up and staked out on the steppe and she never would have noticed. The young soldier looked both baffled and terrified, gaping first at the roaring fires, then at the crowd of Urghul, only turning to Gwenna when the other sights seemed ready to drive him to his knees.

“What’s going on?” he breathed.

Gwenna’s lips tightened, but before she could reply, Long Fist, draped in a huge bison cloak, rose from his seat and stepped to the edge of the gully. He held two stout sticks in one hand, each no wider around than Gwenna’s thumb. He gestured with them to the holes.

“Step in.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Gwenna replied.

She had no idea what the holes were for, but you didn’t fight from a hole.

“Step in,” Long Fist said, unperturbed, “or I will have your arm removed.” He gestured to the young warriors with their long spears. “I give you this choice.”