‘Very well,’ Vashenda said with exasperation that seemed to transcend the events of the parley. ‘We want only the prince. His safe return, to the loving arms of his family.’

‘Horseshit! Corvel wants him dead.’

‘Are you still speaking as the prince?’

‘Let’s assume so,’ Matil murmured.

Vashenda took a step forward, and Chel flinched back, unable to stop himself. Still she had power over him. Fest laughed, too loud and too long.

‘Then, ear of the prince, I suggest you listen carefully, if you can summon the wit. It is imperative that—’

A shout came from behind them, and Fest tapped her arm. They turned to see a rising plume of dust approaching from the direction of the army’s camp, something dark and glinting at its head.

‘No,’ Vashenda whispered, soft enough that only Chel heard.

Matil had one hand on the hilt of her sword, relaxed but deliberate, one eye on her escort beyond the awning. ‘What is this? What is coming?’

Fest puffed air from his cheeks, leaned over and spat in the dirt. He looked up with a cheeky grin that did not reach his eyes. ‘The big lad, isn’t it?’

Matil squinted at the oncoming cloud. ‘Gods be damned … Is that a chariot?’

Fest’s head was close to Vashenda’s. ‘Why would he come to negotiate?’

‘He isn’t going to negotiate.’

The chariot pulled right up to the awning, scattering the waiting confessor host. A barrel of black steel hauled by two powerful horses, it shone dark and hot in the sunshine. At its back stood a giant figure, cream-coloured cloak still billowing in the strong breeze. It waved an angry arm, and confessors ran forward to attend to it. Clanking came from the back of the chariot, the sound of metal drawn against metal, and then the figure thumped down to the dust, stomping stiff-legged under the awning, which bowed over its beetroot-red head, crested with a shock of blond hair.

Hurkel. Chel’s eyes went immediately to the man’s missing hand, the appendage removed by Loveless somewhere in the snows of the western mountains. A short, three-pronged fork, a miniature trident, jutted from his stump, fixed into a gleaming silver setting. It looked new, and reinforced. He moved slowly but with great power, angry red face snarling at the effort of dragging his legs. Chel saw the metal bands beneath his luxuriant robes, the rigid braces for the limbs. In his remaining hand, he held a long, grand staff, gilded and hooked. Chel had seen it before, in the private chambers of now-former Primarch Vassad.

The beady eyes seized on Chel immediately, widening with a mixture of astonishment and murderous glee. ‘Sand-crab!’

‘Oh, you just know everyone, don’t you?’ Matil said, incredulous, amused. ‘And who is this, who joins us so late?’

‘Brother Hurkel,’ Chel kept his voice steady, trying to hold Hurkel’s mad-eyed gaze. ‘And he’s a piece of shit too.’