“You all right?” Sholla asked him.

“By the dead,” he croaked, holding on to her arm as he straightened up. Still felt dizzy. “I think I nearly shit myself.”

“What the hell happened?”

“What happened is…” Clover narrowed his eyes towards the walls of Carleon, like a man wincing into a storm. “I was hoping I’d never have to fight in another battle.” Black Calder’s men had started forwards. Not the most eager of charges, after all the shit they’d waded through to get here. But they’d started forwards even so. Clover gave a sigh, right from his guts. “But there’s hopes for you.”

The Little People

Corleth had been sure she had everything tied up neat. She’d known exactly how it’d turn out. Couldn’t have known better if she’d seen it with the Long Eye herself.

Then Rikke stabbed Stour in the neck and pushed him off the gatehouse. So now there’d be a battle, then there’d be a sack, and who could say how the hell that’d end? Of a sudden, everyone’s life was balanced on the brink, including hers. Hard to see how anything could’ve been less tied up than this.

All around the city, Calder’s men were surging towards the walls. Thousands of ’em. Tattered mobs, muddy and messy with metal glinting in the midst, torn standards snatched by the wind, dozens of ladders among ’em, their bloodthirsty cries echoing across the valley. Men on the walls bent their bows, sent arrows flickering out into the oncoming crowd. From where she stood, clinging to the pole of Rikke’s standard, Corleth saw a couple fall. Far too few to make any difference.

She’d been sure she had everything tied up neat. Could pick Rikke’s every move. Knew she was too soft, too trusting. But there was naught soft about her now, her grin dotted with Stour’s blood, that one eye starting from her tattooed face and fixed on Corleth. Staring at her, and

smiling, that bloody knife loose in her hand and Caul Shivers huge

and craggy beside her. And Corleth got this bad feeling in her stomach, and not the moon pains.

Shafts were flying the other way now, some on fire. Dropping in the town, clattering from the slate roofs. Corleth hunched down, not too keen on being arrow-pricked. She thought she could smell smoke. Shouting everywhere. Panic everywhere. Except here on the gatehouse roof. Except in Rikke’s face.

“Your granny gets a lot o’ visitors,” she said.

“What?”

“Isern-i-Phail’s a suspicious sort. Maybe that’s what happens when you’ve a madman for a father and no mother but the moon. She took against you right off. So she set some folk to watch your granny and, phew.” Rikke puffed out her cheeks. “They’re in and out of her house like it’s a brothel.”

“Folk come for advice.” Corleth tried to keep her voice level, no mean feat in the midst of a battle. “They hold her in high regard—”

“Three brothers in particular. They get lots of advice.”