‘Aye, right, three my freckled arse.’ She blew at a loose strand of hair, freed from a braid and drifting across her blood-dappled face. ‘Must have been at least seven. Easy-fucken-peasy.’ She laughed, then winced, her arms so tightly strapped to her sides she could barely move. ‘Ouchie. Ach, I told her those things were dangerous. I told her.’

‘You saved her life.’

‘Ah, what can I say? We do the strangest things for the ones we loathe.’

‘Highness!’ Another scout from somewhere. They were younger and younger.

‘Yes?’ came Tarfel’s voice.

‘Black flag at the bridge.’

Lemon offered Chel a sickly grin. ‘Sounds like you’d better pop along, wee bear.’

‘You’ll be all right?’

‘Me? My porters will be here any moment. Fossy and I are going to have a nice little lie-down upstairs. Go on, off you sod. Your day’s not over yet.’

***

Vashenda had aged in the few days since he’d seen her last. Chel wondered if she was thinking the same of him. This time she came alone but for a single hulking guard. He’d brought no one. He’d had no one to bring, and felt so numbed to danger by now that the thought of being betrayed and murdered seemed fanciful, not terrifying. They met at the centre of the bridge, Chel walking the surviving boards of the damaged long-wagon with a casual ease that masked his exhaustion. This time, he had no trouble staring past the blackened wood into the darkness below. He and Lemon had flown over the gorge, then soared back. Walking over it seemed … pedestrian.

‘Sand-flower.’

‘Where’s your boss?’

She didn’t rise to it. ‘Sand-flower, you must bring the prince. His majesty has demanded it, and …’ She leaned a touch closer, her gaze flicking to the armoured form at her shoulder. ‘… He is desperate.’

‘Desperate?’

‘I can say no more. But with the Pentarch removed, I can guarantee his safety at any parley.’

‘What does Prince Tarfel have to gain by exposing himself to such risk? Your forces are spent. Your engines are wrecked. Your supplies are dwindling. You’ll be in full retreat by noon.’

‘Sand-flower, you don’t understand.’ She rubbed her palms against her hollowed eyes. ‘He will never give up. We lost hundreds of men, drowned, in the caverns of the city, and his only words were that they had failed him, they had failed the kingdom. The … empire. The south has fallen to anarchy – reavers have swallowed the south-west, the territories are aflame … Even the rebel cities of the south are riding out, pushing their insurrections into the wider kingdom. He does not care. He has emptied our coffers in pursuit of the black powder. He has summoned the armies. All of them. Every oath-holder and pennant in the kingdom, every brotherhood. They must come to this place, to the ruin of the lands, because he has decreed it.’

‘Sounds like your problem, not ours.’