She caught a flash of movement in the darkness, then a sick crunch.

She gave a snorting gurgle. Mouth full of blood. Her face felt weird. Someone was screaming. Choking, horrible screams. Was that her?

There’d been something important she had to do. Couldn’t think what. Couldn’t think at all.

Something about a tunnel. Ah, portcullis! She groggily shook her head. She could see Gorst, still straining at the windlass, jaw squirming, but he looked a long way off. Everything dim.

There was something tight around her neck. Tried to slap it away but her hands were so weak. It squeezed tighter, and tighter. Couldn’t breathe.

Smiler had her around the throat, pressed up against the wall, her feet barely touching the floor. He was snarling in her throbbing face. She tore at his hands with her nails, her mouth blowing breathless, bloody squelches in his face. She wriggled, struggled, but he was too strong. Couldn’t breathe.

She managed to work her heel up the wall behind her. He twisted her head up, back, as if he was killing a chicken. Wringing her neck. She wriggled, squirmed, till her fishing hand found the grip of the knife in her boot. Felt like he was going to twist her head off, felt like her skull was going to burst. Couldn’t breathe.

He kept holding her with one hand, made a big fist with the other, bringing it back to smash her face again, and she pulled the knife and lashed at him, overhand. Her arm was numb, tangled with his elbow on the way, but the blade still caught something.

He let go and she flopped down on hands and knees. She could just hear his wail over the sudden roaring of blood in her ears. She saw him lurch away, one hand clapped to the side of his head, and he tripped in the darkness and went over backwards.

Fuck, she wanted to lie down. The bastard with the guts was curled up on his side now, sobbing. She wanted to join him. Instead she struggled to her feet, clinging to the corner of a crate full of flatbow bolts, knees bent like a sailor on the slick deck of a storm-tossed ship. She gasped for air, wheezing, braying, wanting to puke with each breath. Her face was one pulsing mass of pain.

Gorst was still straining at the handles of the windlass, veins bulging from his neck, sweat beaded on his forehead, the mechanism grinding. His eyes flickered to his steels, on the floor beside his boot, then to the other side of the room. Over there, in the shadows, Smiler clambered up, growling through gritted teeth. He had a great ragged wound down the side of his head, blood pattering his shoulder and streaking his armour, his ear hanging off by a shred of gristle. A wound bad enough to make him very angry. But not bad enough to put him down.

Vick could certainly have used Gorst’s help. But if he let go and that portcullis dropped, all their plans were fucked.