Trapper slowly nodded. Didn’t say what he thought of the idea. He knew better’n that. “Reckon we’ll head off, then. Can we take our weapons?”

Clover cocked an eyebrow at that heap of ironware. “Can’t say the notion delights me.”

“Come on, Clover. Don’t make me head back disarmed. It’s fucking embarrassing.”

“Aye, but if you’re anything like me, you’d rather be embarrassed than dead. I really don’t want you chasing after us.”

The one with the leather hood looked quite put out. “I need my sword, though. Let me get my sword.”

“I’m saying no,” said Clover, firmly as he could without raising his voice. “It’s not a negotiation. No exceptions. It’s a no.”

The one in the hood looked to be getting a bit upset about it.

“That was my father’s sword, you—”

There was a crack and Clover blinked as blood spattered in his face again. Downside had split this bastard’s head, too.

“What the—”

“Sounding a bit feudy to me, Chief,” said Downside, wiping his axe.

“Me and you need to have a talk,” growled Clover at him. “The rest o’ you, get moving.” And he waved Trapper and the others off into the night. The one with the lambskin cloak groaned as his friends helped him up, and they hurried off towards the darkening trees, leaving their three dead behind, the one with the arrow-stuck shoulder still whining that he was shot.

Clover prodded at the meat. “Well, this is no bloody good now.” Spat on by that dead old-timer, bled on by a couple of others and not cooked anyway. “Feels like all I’m ever doing is trying to convince new masters I can be trusted.”

“Maybe if you didn’t betray the old ones…” muttered Sholla, poking through the weapons.

“You think we should’ve stuck to Stour?”

“I do not.” She took a knife she liked from the pile and pushed it through her belt. “Just saying there are consequences.”

“Don’t much care for that word.”

“Which one?” asked Flick.

“Consequences. Which one do you think? There?” Clover shook his head. “By the dead, boy, you are dense as a stump.”

“If they’ve crossed the river…” Flick was still catching up with where they’d been when Trapper and the rest arrived. “Weren’t we supposed to kill ’em?”

“You may not yet have realised this, but I prefer, in general, to kill as few people as possible.” And Clover gave Downside a significant glance, which had all the impact of an arrow on a rockface. “If we kill ’em all, they can’t take a message back to Calder, and it seems wise to keep the lines o’ communication open.”

“Lines o’ what now?”

Clover sighed. “To keep talking. Downside, since you made the corpses, reckon it’s only fair you bury ’em, too.”

“Fuck,” he grunted, sliding his axe away. “Tell you what, it’s thankless work, killing folk.”

“In a way you’d hope so, wouldn’t you?” said Sholla.

Clover jerked his head at Flick. “You can help him.”