Downside hopped once on his good leg, giving a great spitty roar, swinging wildly. Clover whipped back, let the heavy blade sail pass his nose. As Downside spun, he stepped forwards, thrusting under the rim of the shield.

Metal scraped as the point slid through Downside’s mail and into his belly. Clover might never draw the thing in anger, but he kept it sharp even so.

Downside’s eyes went very wide. He tottered forwards as Clover pulled his sword back, his ruined ankle gave under him and he slumped onto one knee. He took a gasping breath. “I think—”

“No one cares.” Clover took his head off with one whipping swing. It bounced once, then rolled down the slope, towards where Calder’s last guards were tossing away their weapons. The body dropped sideways, blood spilling out in a great wash that Jonas Steepfield would no doubt have taken great pleasure in.

Calder raised his brows at it. “You can still swing that sword, then.”

“I try not to advertise the fact.” Clover turned his head and spat blood again. “I find it makes folk want to try to kill you.”

Rikke stood outside the gates of Carleon, rubbing gently at her red-stained hand and frowning down at Stour Nightfall’s broken corpse. No one else was paying it much mind. Nothing on it worth stealing, after all.

She’d often heard it said that there’s no sweeter sight than dead enemies. Usually by folk who’d never really had an enemy, let alone killed one. The truth was she felt no satisfaction, seeing the Great Wolf back to the mud. But she felt no regret, either. It had needed doing. For her father. For her people. For herself. It had been long overdue.

The battle was done with, more or less. A few men still fighting, in little knots against the walls, and a lot running, dotting the valley sides, but mostly Calder’s warriors were tossing their weapons down, holding their hands up, kneeling on the wheel-rutted, boot-smashed, arrow-prickled ground. Those that weren’t lying down already, of course, never to rise, of which there were many.

She felt no satisfaction at the sight. But no regret, either.

“There’s my girl!” Isern came swaggering through the carnage, blood streaking her face from a cut on her forehead but her missing tooth showing in a great smile even so.

“Isern-i-Phail.” And Rikke hugged her tight, and kissed her on the cheek, and her sour sweat and chagga smell was a surprising comfort. “Knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

Isern licked her fingers and rolled a chagga pellet. “Always said you’d come to something, didn’t I? Never once doubted it.”

“You said how much you doubted it every morning, noon and night,” said Rikke, making a grab for the chagga.

With marvellous dexterity, Isern flicked it into her mouth before Rikke’s fingers could close on it. “If your faults aren’t spread clearly before you, how can you improve on the bastards?”

Men shuffled back as she passed, heads lowered. Men stood out of her way, respectful. Men cleared an open pathway for her, and stomped their boots, and rattled their swords, and tapped their axes against their shields till they sent up a great clatter of approval as she strode by. The same one they might’ve made for the Bloody-Nine, or Skarling Hoodless, or any of the great War Chiefs of the past. The truth was she could hardly believe the plan had worked. But it wouldn’t do to let anyone else know that. So she walked head high, shoulders back, the way she’d seen Savine dan Brock walk, as if she’d never known what doubt was, to the foot of a green tummock under the eaves of the forest where the dead were thickly scattered.