'There were more.' He looked sad rather than angry. He looked all squeezed out and, one could only hope, ready to give up.

'My name is Sufeen, and I have come to warn you-'

'We're surrounded, apparently,' sneered Danard. 'Surrender to the Inquisition and Averstock stands another day.'

Sheel turned his watered-down grey eyes on Temple. 'You'd have to agree it's a far-fetched story.'

Easy, hard, it mattered not what crooked path they'd followed here, there was only one way through this now, and that was to convince this man of what they said. Temple fixed him with his most earnest expression. The one with which he had convinced Kahdia he would not steal again, with which he had convinced his wife that everything would be well, with which he had told Cosca he could be trusted. Had they not all believed him?

'My friend is telling you the truth.' He spoke slowly, carefully, as if there were only the two of them there. 'Come with us and we can save lives.'

'He's lying.' The bony man poked Temple in the side with the pommel of Sufeen's sword. 'There ain't no one up there.'

'Why would we come here just to lie?' Temple ignored the prodding and kept his eyes fixed on the old man's wasted face. 'What would we gain?'

'Why do it at all?' asked Sheel.

Temple paused for a moment, his mouth half-open. Why not the truth? At least it was novel. 'We got sick of not doing it.'

'Huh.' That appeared to touch something. The old man's hand drifted from his sword-hilt. Not surrender. A long way from surrender, but something. 'If you're telling the truth and we give up, what then?'

Too much truth is always a mistake. Temple stuck to earnest. 'The people of Averstock will be spared, that I promise you.'

The old man cleared his throat again. God, his lungs sounded bad. Could it be that he was starting to believe? Could it be that this might actually work? Might they not only live out the day, but save lives into the bargain? Might he do something that Kahdia would have been proud of? The thought made Temple proud, just for a moment. He ventured a smile. When did he last feel proud? Had he ever?

Sheel opened his mouth to speak, to concede, to surrender . . . then paused, frowning off over Temple's shoulder.

A sound carried on the wind ever so faintly. Hooves. Horses' hooves. Temple followed the old rebel's gaze and saw, up on the grassy side of the valley, a rider coming down at a full gallop. Sheel saw him, too, and his forehead furrowed with puzzlement. More riders appeared behind the first, pouring down the slope, now a dozen, now more.

'No,' muttered Temple.

'Temple!' hissed Sufeen.

Sheel's eyes widened. 'You bastards!'

Temple held up his hand. 'No!'

He heard grunting in his ear, and when Temple turned to tell Sufeen this was hardly the time saw his friend and Danard lurching about in a snarling embrace. He stared at them, open mouthed.

They should have had an hour.

Sheel clumsily drew his sword, metal scraping, and Temple caught his hand before he could swing it and butted him in the face.

There was no thought, it just happened.

The world jolted, Sheel's crackly breath warm on his cheek. They tussled and tore and a fist hit the side of Temple's face and made his ears ring. He butted again, felt nose-bone pop against his forehead and suddenly Sheel was stumbling back and Sufeen was standing beside Temple with the sword in his hands, and looking very surprised that he had it.

Temple stood a moment, trying to work out how they had got here. Then what they should do now.

He heard a flatbow string, the whisper of a bolt passing, maybe.

Then he saw Danard struggling up. 'You fucking-' And his head came apart.

Temple blinked, blood across his face. Saw Sheel reaching for a knife. Sufeen stabbed at him and the old man gave a croaking cough as the metal slid into his side, clutched at himself, face twisted, blood leaking between his fingers.

He muttered something Temple couldn't understand, and tried to draw his knife again, and the sword caught him just above the eye. 'Oh,' he said, blood washing out of the big slit in his forehead and down his face. 'Oh.' Drops sprinkled the mud as he staggered sideways, bounced off his own porch and fell, rolling over, back arching, one hand flapping.

Sufeen stared down at him. 'We were going to save people,' he muttered. There was blood on his lips. He dropped to his knees and the sword bounced out of his limp hand.

Temple grabbed at him. 'What . . .' The knife he had handed over to Danard was buried in Sufeen's ribs to the grip, his shirt quickly turning black. A very small knife, by most standards. But more than big enough.

That dog was still barking. Sufeen toppled forward onto his face. The woman with the flatbow had gone. Was she reloading somewhere, would she pop up ready to shoot again? Temple should probably have taken cover.

He didn't move.

The sound of hooves grew louder. Blood spread out in a muddy puddle around Sheel's split head. The boy slowly backed away, broke into a waddling trot, dragging his crippled leg after. Temple watched him go.

Then Jubair rounded the side of the inn, mud flicking from the hooves of his great horse, sword raised high. The boy tried to turn again, lurched one more desperate step before the blade caught him in the shoulder and spun him across the street. Jubair tore past, shouting something. More horsemen followed. People were running. Screaming. Faint over the rumble of hooves.

They should have had an hour.

Temple knelt beside Sufeen, reached out to turn him over, check his wounds, tear off a bandage, do those things Kahdia had taught him, long ago. But as soon as he saw Sufeen's face he knew he was dead.

Mercenaries charged through the town, howling like a pack of dogs, waving weapons as though they were the winning cards in a game. He could smell smoke.

Temple picked up Sheel's sword, notched blade red-speckled now, stood and walked over to the lame boy. He was crawling towards the inn, one arm useless. He saw Temple and whimpered, clutching handfuls of muck with his good hand. His satchel had come open and coins were spilling out. Silver scattered in the mud.

'Help me,' whispered the boy. 'Help me!'

'No.'

'They'll kill me! They'll-'

'Shut your fucking mouth!' Temple poked the boy in the back with the sword and he gulped, and cowered, and the more he cowered the more Temple wanted to stick the sword through him. It was surprisingly light. It would have been so easy to do. The boy saw it in his face and whined and cringed more, and Temple poked him again.

'Shut your mouth, fucker! Shut your mouth!'

'Temple! Are you all right?' Cosca loomed over him on his tall grey. 'You're bleeding.'

Temple looked down and saw his shirtsleeve was ripped, blood trickling down the back of his hand. He was not sure how that had happened. 'Sufeen is dead,' he mumbled.

'Why do the Fates always take the best of us . . . ?' But Cosca's attention had been hooked by the glint of money in the mud. He held out a hand to Friendly and the sergeant helped him down from his gilt saddle. The Old Man stooped, fishing one of the coins up between two fingers, eagerly rubbing the muck away, and he produced that luminous smile of which only he was capable, good humour and good intentions radiating from his deep-lined face.

'Yes,' Temple heard him whisper.

Friendly tore the satchel from the boy's back and jerked it open. A faint jingle spoke of more coins inside.

Thump, thump, thump, as a group of mercenaries kicked at the door of the inn. One hopped away cursing, pulling his filthy boot off to nurse his toes. Cosca squatted down. 'Where did this money come from?'

'We went on a raid,' muttered the boy. 'All went wrong.' There was a crash as the inn's door gave, a volley of cheering as men poured through the open doorway.

'All went wrong?'

'Only four of us made it back. So we had two dozen horses to trade. Man called Grega Cantliss bought 'em off us, up in Greyer.'

'Cantliss?' Shutters shattered as a chair was flung through the window of the inn and tumbled across the street beside them. Friendly frowned towards the hole it left but Cosca did not so much as twitch. As though there was nothing in the world but him, and the boy, and the coins. 'What sort of man was this Cantliss? A rebel?'

'No. He had nice clothes. Some crazy-eyed Northman with him. He took the horses and he paid with those coins.'

'Where did he get them?'

'Didn't say.'

Cosca peeled up the sleeve on the boy's limp arm to show his tattoo. 'But he definitely wasn't one of you rebels?'

The boy only shook his head.

'That answer will not make Inquisitor Lorsen happy.' Cosca gave a nod so gentle it was almost imperceptible. Friendly put his hands around the boy's neck. That dog was still barking somewhere. Bark, bark, bark. Temple wished someone would shut it up. Across the street three Kantics were savagely beating a man while a pair of children watched.

'We should stop them,' muttered Temple, but all he did was sit down in the road.

'How?' Cosca had more of the coins in his hand, was carefully sorting through them. 'I'm a general, not a God. Many generals get mixed up on that point, but I was cured of the misapprehension long ago, believe me.' A woman was dragged screaming from a nearby house by her hair. 'The men are upset. Like a flood, it's safer to wash with the current than try to dam it up. If they don't have a channel for their anger, why, it could flow anywhere. Even over me.' He grunted as Friendly helped him up to standing. 'And it's not as though any of this was my fault, is it?'

Temple's head was throbbing. He felt so tired he could hardly move. 'It was mine?'

'I know you meant well.' Flames were already hungrily licking at the eaves of the inn's roof. 'But that's how it is with good intentions. Hopefully we've all learned a lesson here today.' Cosca produced a flask and started thoughtfully unscrewing the cap. 'I, about indulging you. You, about indulging yourself.' And he upended it and steadily swallowed.

'You're drinking again?' muttered Temple.

'You fuss too much. A nip never hurt anyone.' Cosca sucked the last drops out and tossed the empty flask to Friendly for a refill. 'Inquisitor Lorsen! So glad you could join us!'

'I hold you responsible for this debacle!' snapped Lorsen as he reined his horse up savagely in the street.

'It's far from my first,' said the Old Man. 'I shall have to live with the shame.'

'This hardly seems a moment for jokes!'

Cosca chuckled. 'My old commander Sazine once told me you should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterward. These things happen in war. I've a feeling there was some confusion with the signals. However carefully you plan, there are always surprises.' As if to illustrate the point, a Gurkish mercenary capered across the street wearing the bard's beribboned jacket. 'But this boy was able to tell us something before he died.' Silver glinted in Cosca's gloved palm. 'Imperial coins. Given to these rebels by a man called . . .'

'Grega Cantliss,' put in Friendly.

'That was it, in the town of Greyer.'

Lorsen frowned hard. 'Are you saying the rebels have Imperial funding? Superior Pike was very clear that we avoid any entanglements with the Empire.'

Cosca held a coin up to the light. 'You see this face? Emperor Ostus the Second. He died some fourteen hundred years ago.'

'I did not know you were such a keen devotee of history,' said Lorsen.

'I am a keen devotee of money. These are ancient coins. Perhaps the rebels stumbled upon a tomb. The great men of old were sometimes buried with their riches.'

'The great men of old do not concern us,' said Lorsen. 'It's today's rebels we're after.'

A pair of Union mercenaries were screaming at a man on his knees. Asking him where the money was. One of them hit him with a length of wood torn from his own shattered door and when he got groggily up there was blood running down his face. They asked him again. They hit him again, slap, slap, slap.

Sworbreck, the biographer, watched them with one hand over his mouth. 'Dear me,' he muttered between his fingers.

'Like everything else,' Cosca was explaining, 'rebellion costs money. Food, clothes, weapons, shelter. Fanatics still need what the rest of us need. A little less of it, since they have their high ideals to nourish them, but the point stands. Follow the money, find the leaders. Greyer appears on Superior Pike's list anyway, does it not? And perhaps this Cantliss can lead us to this . . . Contus of yours.'

Lorsen perked up at that. 'Conthus.'

'Besides.' Cosca gestured at the rebels' corpses with a loose waft of his sword that nearly took Sworbreck's nose off. 'I doubt we'll be getting any further clues from these three. Life rarely turns out the way we expect. We must bend with the circumstances.'

Lorsen gave a disgusted grunt. 'Very well. For now we follow the money.' He turned his horse about and shouted to one of his Practicals. 'Search the corpses for tattoos, damn it, find me any rebels still alive!'

Three doors down, a man had climbed onto the roof of a house and was stuffing bedding down the chimney while others clustered about the door. Cosca, meanwhile, was holding forth to Sworbreck. 'I share your distaste for this, believe me. I have been closely involved in the burning of some of the world's most ancient and beautiful cities. You should have seen Oprile in flames, it lit the sky for miles! This is scarcely a career highlight.'

Jubair had dragged some corpses into a line and was expressionlessly cutting their heads off. Thud, thud, thud, went his heavy sword. Two of his men had torn apart the arch over the road and were whittling the ends of the timbers to points. One was already rammed into the ground and had Sheel's head on it, mouth strangely pouting.

'Dear me,' muttered Sworbreck again.

'Severed heads,' Cosca was explaining, 'never go out of fashion. Used sparingly and with artistic sensibility, they can make a point a great deal more eloquently than those still attached. Make a note of that. Why aren't you writing?'

An old woman had crawled from the burning house, face stained with soot, and now some of the men had formed a circle and were shoving her tottering back and forth.

'What a waste,' Lorsen was bitterly complaining to one of his Practicals. 'How fine this land could be with the proper management. With firm governance, and the latest techniques of agriculture and forestry. They have a threshing machine now in Midderland which can do in a day with one operator what used to take a dozen peasants a week.'

'What do the other eleven do?' asked Temple, his mouth seeming to move by itself.

'Find other employment,' snarled the Practical.

Behind him another head went up on its stick, long hair stirring. Temple did not recognise the face. The smoked-out house was burning merrily now, flames whipping, air shimmering, the men backing off with hands up against the heat, letting the old woman crawl away.

'Find other employment,' muttered Temple to himself.

Cosca had Brachio by the elbow and was shouting in his ear over the noise. 'You need to round up your men! We must head north and east towards Greyer and seek out news of this Grega Cantliss.'

'It might take a while to calm 'em.'

'One hour, then I ask Sergeant Friendly to bring in the stragglers, in pieces if necessary. Discipline, Sworbreck, is vital to a body of fighting men!'

Temple closed his eyes. God, it stank. Smoke, and blood, and fury, and smoke. He needed water. He turned to ask Sufeen for some and saw his corpse in the mud a few strides away. A man of principle must make hard choices and suffer the consequences.

'We brought your horse down,' said Cosca, as though that should make up for at least some of the day's reverses. 'If you want my advice, keep busy. Put this place at your back as swiftly as possible.'

'How do I forget this?'

'Oh, that's too much to ask. The trick is in learning to just . . .' Cosca stepped carefully back as one of the Styrians rode whooping past, a man's corpse bouncing after his horse. 'Not care.'