The meeting site was beyond the gorge, but still just within theoretical bowshot of the city walls. Chel wondered if Kosh’s special crossbow could still punch through armour at this range, and hoped he wouldn’t need to find out. The outriders had staked out a small area of plateau and erected a wide awning, shielding a low table beneath from the sun’s heat. They’d even brought out food and water jugs, before retreating past the lines and back to the safety of the city. Over the awning, a black pennant danced and snapped in the wind.

‘They are late.’ Matil had bidden Chel recline by the table, but seemed unable to relax herself, pacing in her mail, staring out to the blood- and rust-coloured lines forming up beyond the abandoned ruins of the refugee camp. The confessors were already cannibalising the former buildings for their materials. More of the giant engines had risen from the pass like dark demons, as big as houses and trailing ribbons of black smoke. A pall hung over the church lines, constantly renewed despite the wind’s harrying, a haze of smouldering alchemy.

‘There. At last.’

From within the lines and the smoke rose a plume of paler dust, and in time a wagon appeared, rocking over the roadway in their direction, a black sheet streaming from an improvised mast. It took Chel a moment to recognize it as one of the same troop transports that he and the others had ridden from the fortress into the city. They must have pulled it from the ruins, or found it abandoned. He cast a look back at their own escort, waiting beyond the stakes. A company of fine horse, long spears and bows held ready.

‘We could shoot them now and be done with it,’ he said. ‘Back over the bridge before they know it.’

Matil cracked half a smile. ‘We are not the animals, Chel of the South.’

Chel returned the half-smile, but he honestly wasn’t sure if he’d been joking.

The wagon halted at the line, and its occupants disembarked. Grim-faced confessors, true believers to a man, their long red robes patchy from dust, were followed by plusher figures. The last to dismount wore a robe of cream and vermilion.

Chel started. It couldn’t be.

Vashenda swept up to the awning, bright sunlight casting her silver crop to gold. She seemed older than when Chel had seen her last, somewhere beneath the citadel, and less belligerent than she’d been in Denirnas. There was a cold reserve to her gaze, a questioning that had not been there before, but she remained as imperious as ever.

Falling in behind her came another familiar face.

‘Motherless horse-fucker,’ Chel said, remembered himself, then repeated it under his breath.