“You killed my uncle, you bastard!” hissed the scratty lad. “You better be looking over your shoulder, ’cause one o’ these days I’ll—” There was a crack as Downside split his skull and blood spattered right in Clover’s face.

“Gah!” he squawked, flinching back and nearly falling off his stump, and the body pitched forwards, boots swinging up, then flopping down. A red pool quickly spread, hissing faintly as its edge touched the embers of the fire. Downside frowned at his stained axe-blade, started wiping it on the boy’s back.

“Could you bloody not?” Clover shouted at him.

Downside shrugged. “Sorry, Chief. Had the feel of a feud brewing, and it’s always best to settle a feud at the outset, rather’n let it fester.”

Clover took a hard breath, still wiping spots of blood from his face.

“I can see your point, I suppose.”

“I’m shot,” whimpered the one with the arrow.

“We see. Where was I?”

“Black Calder,” said Flick.

“Right, yes. Black Calder. How’s his mood?”

Sholla slipped her arm around Trapper’s head and eased the point of her knife up his nose. “And like the man said, naught but the truth.”

“Never seen him this angry,” squeaked Trapper, staring cross-eyed at Sholla’s knife. “But cold, too. Cold and careful.”

“I was worried that might be the way of it,” muttered Clover. “How many men does he have?”

Trapper winced as Sholla’s knife tickled his nostril. “More coming in every day. Fresh men, and strays got back from the Union, and he’s made a deal with this new bastard from beyond the Crinna. What do they call him?”

“Stand-i’-the-Barrows,” said one of the others. “They say he sleeps in a nest of bones.”

“That don’t sound good,” said Flick.

“Sounds bloody uncomfortable,” said Sholla.

Sounded bloody uncomfortable for the whole North. When Black Dow brought Stranger-Come-Knocking and his savages over the Crinna to help him fight the Union, the trouble had lasted years. It was plain Calder was going to make a real fight of it. And that was a fight Clover didn’t want to be on either side of.

When he turned on Stour, he’d had no doubt it was the right choice. For his own sake, for Wonderful’s sake, for everyone’s sake. But he’d been sure Rikke would kill the bastard. Then she hadn’t, and he started to worry she might be too soft for the job. Siding with the winner is forever sensible, of course. The trouble starts when you’re not sure who the winner might be. Quite the pickle.

“All right, Trapper, I’m letting you and your lads go.” Clover winced at the dead old man’s bare foot, dirt under the big toenail. “Well, the ones still capable o’ going. Tell Black Calder you ran into us. Tell him I tried to be reasonable.”

“This what you call reasonable?” squealed the one with the arrow in his shoulder.

“Reasonably reasonable, anyway. Tell him I’d like a word, in due course, explain how things stand. Information to our mutual advantage and so on.”