Minka paused. But even she was shocked at how little damage the besieging forces had done. How many of the people stood around her now would still be standing when the fortress fell?

Orugi and Dreno walked up to the edge of the camp. It didn’t take long for a squad of Drookians to take up position across from them.

‘What’s your regiment?’ the Drookians shouted.

‘Hundred-and-First,’ Orugi shouted. ‘Hell’s Last.’

There was a pause. ‘We are Clan Boskobel.’

Orugi and Dreno had never heard of them. They took little interest, but started moving along the wire.

‘Cadians!’ the shout came again. ‘You have wronged us.’

Dreno made a rude sign.

‘By the Emperor, we shall have our honour returned!’

‘What do you think they’ll do?’ Orugi said.

Dreno was dismissive. ‘They’ll steal a truck or a delivery of slab.’

The day wore on with routine jobs as everyone settled into their new camp and the regimental supplies and armour began to trickle in from Starport. But that evening, as the sun set over the blackened land behind them, there was activity in the Drookian camp facing the Cadians.

Baine had the auspex raised to his face. He watched four Drookians carrying something heavy between them. They fixed something to the end of a pole and then lifted it up and set it in the ground.

Baine wanted to laugh. ‘It’s a grox,’ he said. ‘They’ve skinned it and lifted its head on a pole.’ It was so tribal. Typical of a world wreathed in superstition as much as it was in mists.

The grox stared blindly towards the Cadian camp. The rest of the skin draped down on either side.

Lyrga shuddered involuntarily. She put her hand up to her face to see better. It looked particularly eerie in the half light. She shivered again. ‘It’s creepy,’ she said.

Baine looked at her as if she were simple, but then he felt it too – a chill that went down his back. He looked about. Nothing was there.

‘We’d better tell Minka,’ he said.

Everyone felt it. A strange chill in the air as soon as they turned towards the Drookian camp. It didn’t take long before news of the ritual insult started to spread. Colonel Sparker summoned Minka to his office.

‘You’ve seen the curse-pole they’ve put up?’ he started.

‘Yes, sir. Feral world superstitions.’

Sparker nodded. ‘Maybe. But I don’t like it. The captain you ran into was nephew to the commander of the Boskobel chieftain, or whatever he calls himself. The whole clan has taken it as an affront to their honour.’

Minka nodded. She noted how Sparker had used the word ‘you’ in describing the run-in on the highway. She felt the weight of regimental disapproval bearing down upon her. She had started this, the attitude was, so it was she who had to end it.

‘I could challenge him to a duel.’