The outer wall. Chel had forgotten about the outer wall. He could see it now, through the misting gloom, a black stockade stretching along the extremes of their vision, the dark mass of the city rising beyond it. Not hugely tall or thick, but a serious obstacle for two bedraggled mercenaries lugging a box of contraband in the dark.

‘Where’s the outer gate from here? It won’t be manned overnight, will it?’

He could feel the force of Rennic’s glare, even without seeing it.

‘That a chance you want to take, little man? Piss this magnificent escape away on a hunch?’

They made for the wall’s nearest section. The tolling of the bell up on the hill had ceased, but still occasional shouts drifted over. Chel wondered how Laralim was taking the news of his escape. His betrayal.

‘I can probably shin it, if I climb on your back?’

‘What?’ Chel started, already lost in a spiral of worries of Rasha, punished for her collaboration. His hand was at his mouth again, without him even being aware, his finger running over his lip, reliving the feel of her.

‘Wake up, little man! The fuck’s got into you? I said, I can shin it, you’re my mounting block. And fuck knows if I can pull you up after me, especially after slogging through all this shit.’

The thick carpet of cloud cracked overhead, thin streams of moonlight slipping through as if through water. A silver sliver washed over them, hazy and meandering, bathing the stout logs of the stockade in a heartbeat’s pale radiance before vanishing.

Something caught Chel’s eye. A flutter at the crest of the wall, a little further down by a cluster of thin trees. ‘What’s that? It looks like …’ He squinted in the moonlight. ‘A ribbon?’

Rennic was by his side immediately, one hand heavy on his shoulder, peering past. ‘It’s not …’ he began, then, ‘it can’t be!’ At once he barked a sudden laugh that seemed to echo from the hillside, and clamped a grimy hand over his mouth.

Chel was whirling between hope and terror like a wind-driver in a gale. ‘What, what is it?’

Rennic only waved to follow. ‘Come on.’ He loped toward the fluttering object with long, sure strides, his mud-dogged slouch forgotten. Chel was a few steps behind him, arriving in time to see Rennic reach up with his staff and poke at the fluttering object above them, jabbing and teasing.

Something flashed between them, squirming and half-formed, then slapped against the wooden palisade, rebounding once before hanging still. Chel shied back, heart thudding, before his eyes processed what had fallen: a rope.

He looked up to the wall’s summit as another glimmer of moonlight rode over them. There, jammed into the wood, stood a black-shafted arrow, its fletching stripped. Instead, a set of long, fabric tassels of various colours flowed from it, dancing on the wind.