“Thtay!” she snarled at him, her battered throat hardly able to get the air, her battered mouth hardly able to make the words. “I’ll handle thith.”

She caught the haft of the big axe and dragged it towards her, blade scraping against the stones. Bloody hell, it was a weight, thick haft riveted with strips of steel, she could scarcely even lift it.

Smiler was on his feet, facing her from the other side of the chain room, near the open door, one of his dead comrades’ fallen swords in one hand, the other clapped to the gash Vick had dug into the side of his head. His leather jerkin was splattered all over, no way of telling what was red paint, or his blood, or hers. His face twisted into a snarl.

“Come here, bitch!” he roared at her.

Vick charged. Or at any rate she half-stumbled, half-fell. But not straight at him. Sideways at the portcullis. She dropped, which wasn’t hard to do, and slid the axe along the floor, ramming the haft straight through the grating until the blade caught against it.

Gorst let go of the windlass. There was a whirr of gears as the portcullis dropped, then a clank as one of the steel bars caught on the axe haft and was held there, loose chains faintly rattling.

Gorst gave a soft growl as he peeled his hands from the handles. He bent down, narrowed eyes fixed on Smiler. He came up with his bloody steels in his fists. He worked his shoulders, then stretched his neck one way, then the other.

“Come here, bitch,” he said in that piping voice.

Smiler glanced at Vick. She stayed on her knees and gave a little shrug. He tossed away the sword and bolted through the open doorway. Gorst stepped over one of the corpses, put his shoulder to the door and heaved it shut again, ended up sitting on the floor with his back to the wood. The Burner who’d been stuck in the guts had stopped screaming. Just lay there on his side in a great slick of blood, each breath a shallow squeak.

“You hurt?” asked Gorst.

Vick put her fingers gingerly to her nose. A barely recognisable sticky mass on the front of her throbbing face.

“I’ve had worth,” she mumbled. Would’ve sounded more dauntless if she could’ve made the “s” sound, maybe. She thought she could hear something. The blood rushing in her skull, or hooves at a distance? She stumbled on wobbling legs, gripping hard at her aching hip, over to the slit windows facing the dry moat. She squinted into the brightness outside, face pressed to the stone.

She saw the bridge. The slogan-daubed buildings beyond. The wide street that led into the city. And coming up it, at a clattering canter, a great mass of horsemen. Armed and armoured, bristling with steel. Leo dan Brock’s lion standard flew at the head, the sun of the Union beside it.

“They’re here,” she croaked. Would’ve felt more relief if her neck hurt less, maybe. She tried to sniff and failed, then worked her tongue around her mouth and spat more blood. “So… that’s good.”