Now Raj Ahten’s men raced along the wall-walks to the east, while a trio of salamanders cleared the walls to the west. Everywhere the cries of dying men arose, insubstantial to his ears. The scents of blood and smoke and sulfurous powders carried on the wind.

Little remained for him to do.

He raced for the Dedicates’ Keep, thinking to slaughter the two hundred warriors who stood guard, when a great feeling of anxiousness swept over him, that familiar twist of the stomach that accompanies the death of a Dedicate.

Eremon Vottania Solette throttled Salim al Daub. It takes a long time to strangle a man, particularly if he has endowments of stamina. Eremon found the job immensely difficult. Sweat began to bead on his brow, and his fingers grew wet, making his fingers slip.

Salim didn’t fight, remained unconscious. Yet he turned his head slowly, uncomfortably, tried even in his stupor to escape. His legs began to kick feebly, rhythmically. Salim’s lips went blue, and his tongue bulged. His eyes opened in blind panic.

The guard didn’t see, for the man stood gazing out the rough door of the wagon to watch the storming of the castle. Among the stinking, ill-kept Dedicates, the silent struggle attracted no notice. The rhythmic kick of Salim’s feet seemed but a background noise, the shuffle of a sleepy Dedicate as he sought comfort among the moldy hay.

Nearby a deaf Dedicate watched Eremon, eyes wide in fear. This was no knight brought to embarrass a Northern lord. This was one of Raj Ahten’s own Dedicates, a fellow who vectored hundreds of endowments of hearing to the Wolf Lord. For his service, he was treated worse than a dog. The Dedicate had reason to hate his lord, had reason to wish him dead. Eremon held the deaf man’s eye as he strangled Salim, silently hoped the man would not raise a cry.

Salim kicked once, hard, made a pounding noise with his boot.

At the wagon door the guard spun, saw Salim’s feet kicking. The guard lunged forward, sliced Eremon’s arm with his curved knife, hacking it off.

Blood spurted from Eremon’s arm, just below the elbow, and the severed stump burned like fire. But his hand, the hand that had been robbed of grace, that could hardly unclench over these many years, clung to Salim’s throat like death itself, fingers locked on the big eunuch’s esophagus.

The guard snatched at it, tried to pull the severed hand from Salim’s throat. Eremon managed to kick the guard behind the knee, so that he fell back among the Dedicates.

In that moment, Eremon felt a great easing in his chest as grace flowed through him, felt his heart and muscles unclench completely for the first time in many years. Salim was dead.