Minka was charging forward. ‘You left my platoon exposed.’

His thanes stepped before her but she went for him. She ducked the first blow and barrelled low into the next man’s belly. An elbow slammed her in the back, but Minka was already coming up with her shoulder in Midha’s gut.

There was a satisfying grunt as she connected. She kept driving through her legs. She felt Midha lift off the ground and landed on top of him.

She was outnumbered, but she relied on their confusion.

‘This is for Allun!’ she grunted as her knuckles connected with Midha’s chin. ‘This is for Karni!’ she said with the next hit. She had bare seconds to do honour to Maenard and Dido as well. No mother could have been so ferocious on behalf of her children. She was a blur of fists, even as the retainers dragged her off.

‘Crazy Cadian!’ one of the retainers hissed as they slammed a knee into Minka’s stomach. She had tensed, but the blow was so hard it drove the air out between her clenched teeth, like a burst tyre.

A fist hit her chin, another the side of her face. Instincts were to ball up and protect herself. But Minka was Cadian. She fought back. She kicked, punched, stabbed her fingers into soft tissue, scratching and clawing at the faces of her foes.

‘Little bastard!’ Midha hissed and punched her on the back of the head.

One of them caught her right arm. She swung with her left, lifted her foot and slammed her heel into the foot of her assailant. A blow hit the back of her neck this time. It was a well-aimed strike. She staggered for a moment, and her left arm was caught. She readied herself for another kick.

Midha stood before her. He drew his knife. ‘We’re going to teach you a lesson about starting fights you can’t finish,’ he hissed. ‘I’m going to gut you, Cadian.’

Commissar Knoll strolled out into the corridor. It was quiet and empty. He turned left towards the exit. He was passing through an officers’ wing, but even so, each ward was cluttered with beds, the cots pressed close to each other. Nurses went from bed to bed, tending those whose pain was returning.

The wards were filled with the low and monotonous groan of the dying.

Knoll passed along the corridor. The closer to the exit, the less perilous the state of the occupants. But here and there a voice called out in sudden pain or tedium.

The lack of self-control disturbed Knoll. Everything he had been taught had instilled in him a sense of cold and ruthless discipline. He found the cries of the wounded a declaration of weakness. He hummed a military tune to drown out the moaning.