Riven is unmistakable now. In fine plate, he is fighting with a long-handled hammer. He turns to trap a bill under his arm and slash its poorly protected owner across the face. Then he spins to take a blow on the languet of his hammer and he switches hands and drives the helve into a man’s face. In the single moment, he has killed two men. It has cost him almost no effort, no thought, and he is preparing to do it again. But now Thomas is before him and for a brief moment Thomas imagines Riven recognises him and hesitates.

But if he does, he does not hesitate for long.

He launches himself at Thomas and Thomas moves to parry the blow, but of course it is a feint, and Riven is on him from below. Thomas throws himself inside the blow, flinching as the hammer fluke slides across his chest, and he crashes his bill into Riven’s steel elbow.

Riven is beaten back but comes again. He goes high but hits low, catching Thomas on the knee, sending a barely manageable jolt of pain up his spine. He cracks a short-armed blow in Thomas’s face, but Thomas ducks, and then the hammer glances off his helmet. It rattles his teeth and he tastes blood but he is not dead. Riven seems surprised. Thomas goes at him. He feints, lunges, draws him left then right, and thrusts for his armpit. But he trips. Staggers. Is down. The bill is gone. Riven rears over him, raises his hammer in both hands. Thomas is down among the dead, nearly one of them. He rolls. The bodies around him trap him, hold him fast, but before Riven can bring down the hammer one of Fauconberg’s men intervenes with a jab. He catches Riven and turns him, distracting him long enough for Thomas to hurl himself forward with the rondel dagger in his fist. He can drive it up under Riven’s steel skirt. But Riven grips him and hauls him upright. They are face to face. Thomas presses his cheek to Riven’s visor to stop him butting him. He forces his right arm free and slides the dagger up his ribs. He will stab him in the armpit.

Then the giant arrives.