“And here was me thinking that that bitch was ugly enough in life,” Lenix Allaway said, looking down distastefully at the remains of Faith’s face.

“Funny, I’d have thought that she’d be on an equal footing with many of the women you’ve bedded, brother,” Gil said. “Even now.”

Fergus came over and tipped his big bearded head on one side. Looked down at the Faith’s caved in head, the dried blood that had leaked out her ears and pooled in the dirt, the smashed in nose with the white bone and pale pink cartilage peaking out; a colour that ought never to see the light of day.

“Probably better looking than many of ‘em, truth be told,” he said.

Lenix shoved his twin brother in the chest, while Fergus snorted in amusement.

“Still think you could have let us give the prisoner a sound kickin’, McCrae,” the big, bald man grunted. “Only fair.”

“I know what a kicking can lead to,” she replied. “Let’s just get him to fucking Castle Dreymark and be done with it.”

Fia looked around the company. They were all harsh, rugged bastards who’d been hammered hard on the anvil of life. They’d seen, and probably done, plenty worse. Even the god-talker, Cleric Vass, looked more weary than shocked. Only Lorna Forbes looked properly disturbed. Her sad face was drawn, her brown eyes fixed on the dead woman’s mutilated features.

“Anyone fancy stripping her down to see what she has of value?” Fia asked, mounting her brumby.

“I believe tying a steak to one’s pecker and running through a pack of hungry dogs holds more appeal,” Darach Lees said, twirling his moustache.

“That can still be arranged, Lees,” Fia said. “It was your watch Faith was killed on.”

“I told you, I was gone for no more than a few moments, while I took care of some personal business,” Lees said acidly.

Hunter snorted mockingly through a cloud of foul cigar smoke and Lees shot the sunken-eyed woman a venomous glance.

“A few moments while you take a shit is all that this son of a bitch needs,” Fia said. She pointed at Gunn, whose face was covered in flecks of dried blood and who had a bruise under one eye from Fergus’ headbutt. His gaze moved from one member of the company to the next.

“Faith doubted his reputation and now she’s lying there with a face like a smashed crab,” Fia continued. “There’s a subtle lesson there. Now, shut up and mount up.”

“What about the departed?” Cleric Vass asked, motioning towards Faith’s body. “Surely, we should do the good thing and bury her?”

“Ain’t no time, Vass,” Fia said. “And I don’t know how you’d gauge ‘good’ out here. Besides, if there’s anyone following us, it might give them pause.”

“Or, it might tell them that their leader is alive and well,” Lorna Forbes said in a small voice.

“Maybe,” Fia said. “Either way Faith stays above ground. Let any beast desperate enough come and pick at her bones if they will. And Hunter?”

Hunter looked up at Fia.

“Faith’s made herself useful one last time,” Fia said. “She’s gifted you a new horse.”

Fia led the procession of eight remaining riders over the grassland and towards the hills to the north of them. These hills were the commonly recognised border that separated the tribelands of Arifold, in which they now rode, and Kynthwaite on the western side of them. At a point a day or so south of the Foldwood, these hills banked east in a sudden sweeping arm and rose into steep tors, between which a labyrinthine series of gullies and passes wound their way.

“We’re heading for the hills, Miss McCrae?” Lorna Forbes asked, nudging her light-footed black gelding up beside Fia’s bigger brumby.

“Those hills are a maze of passes. Might buy us a little more time to keep our noses ahead,” Fia said. “And for gods’ sake, call me Fia.”

Lorna gave her a small, shy smile. “You still think we’re being trailed, Fia?”

Fia chanced a sideways look at Gunn. The man appeared utterly sanguine, gazing out at the landscape and muttering words under his breath.

“I do,” she said.

They galloped the last mile or so, up into the first slopes of the hills. The sky darkened, the clouds massing. A warm wind picked up, smelling of rain and dust. Fia steered her way past great clumps of spiny brush known as herdsmen’s friend, due to its three-inch thorns capable of catching at a drover or traveller and pulling them clean out of their saddle. Behind them thunder rolled suddenly out across the bruised sky, breaking the tension that suffused the air.

Fia reined in, hauling on the rein of the horse that carried Gunn so that it stopped with a snort of protest, clearly wanting to get clear of the coming storm. The temperature dropped in an instant and the wind picked up, whistling its battle-cry through the loose scree that covered the hills around her. Fia turned as the others rode past her into the opening of the ravine. She gazed back out across the miles of folded grass and dirt they had just navigated. They were only a hundred feet or so above the ruffled and puckered grasslands, but it was high enough to see the black specks heading in their direction across the tossing brittle sea of grass.

A dozen.

Twenty, maybe.

Two dozen, even.

Enough.

They looked tiny under the storm-racked sky, with the clouds being buffeted and slapped about this way and that. It was hard to judge distance under such a shifting firmament, but it wouldn’t be all that long before they were within bow shot.

“Fuck,” said Fia.

There was a tiny puff of smoke

“What in the blazes was that?” Darach Lees called.

“Warning shot,” Hunter said promptly. She spat and the brown saliva was whipped away by the rising wind.

“Not a warning shot,” Fia said. “A statement of intents.”

Gunn’s face looked vaguely amused. Almost apologetic.

Almost.

“Here comes the cavalry,” he said.

* * *

Hooves sprayed mud. Scree and grit flew in all directions. Fat drops of rain whipped down, under the brims of hats and hoods. The laboured breathing of the horses and their riders as they thundered through the twisting ravines. The mouthless bellow of the growing tempest that swept in from the prairie and pressed down on the ridge-lines above.

The sensation of a trap closing in, of the snare tightening, left a sour taste in Fia’s mouth.

They continued on, heads down, eyes focused on making sure that their horses didn’t stumble or fall on the slick grass and loose earth. The world turned to sheets of rain, pearly-gunmetal in colour, that they pushed through only to find thicker curtains beyond.

Fia’s wide-brimmed hat barely afforded her cover from the swirling rain. She pulled her coat tighter around her, trying to keep her powder horn and pistols dry. Her eyes were more often behind than in front, alert for any flash of colour that might signify Gunn’s crew. Her ears were full of the rushing roar of the downpour on the hillsides.

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Gunshots rang out, oddly muffled in the rain.

“Here they fuckin’ come!” roared Fergus Allaway, water streaming from his head, his beard plastered to his chest.

“Keep riding!” Fia called. She tightened her grip on the reins of Gunn’s horse, while the outlaw tried his best to maintain his balance as his mount galloped over the uneven ground.

Fia rode up the line, the muscles of her brumby’s legs bunching under its slick sable skin. She drew level with Hunter and Lenix.

“Drop back into the rear,” she ordered them. “We’ll wait until we reach the end of this stretch of ravine. It’s as crooked as a dog’s leg back there. They come through, the three of us loose arrows and then run, got it?”

Hunter’s sickly face paled, but she nodded. Lenix grinned, his hood thrown back and red hair plastered to his head.

“Anything for you, my captain,” he said, winking lasciviously.

The three of them slowed as they reached the end of the gully they were galloping through, allowing the rest of the company to pass. Brought their mounts to a stop. Sat staring back into the rain. Fia pulled her longbow from its canvas shroud on her saddle skirt. Strung it deftly and nocked an arrow.

The ghostly rumble of hooves echoed up the pass. Faith’s old horse fidgeted under Hunter. Lenix was grinning like an idiot.

“Ready,” Fia said calmly, drawing her bowstring to her ear, while behind her Gunn watched on.

The first of Gunn’s riders rounded the mouth of the gully.

“Loose,” Fia said.

The three shafts flitted invisible through the rain. Lenix’s shaft smacked into the shoulder of a horse, causing it to whinny and rear, throwing the rider. Hunter’s missed the foremost horsemen but disappeared into those coming behind. Fia’s arrow punched into the lead rider’s ribs. The man hunched, sawing on his reins. His mount slid in the muck that had been churned up in the narrow passage by Fia’s crew and went down.

“Ride!” Fia yelled, pulling another arrow from her quiver even as she gave the order.

Lenix turned his horse with one hand and disappeared after the others. Hunter though, to Fia’s surprise, knocked another arrow, sighted and fired even before Fia could do the same. The projectile took a rider, a woman who’d had to pull her mount to a stop to avoid the thrashing of the injured horse that Lenix had hit, through the shoulder. Blood and curses mingled with the rain.

Fia’s next arrow flashed towards a red-haired woman with wild eyes, but she hunkered down in her saddle just in time and the dart hit a dark-skinned man in the face, punching out the back of his skull. He tumbled out of his saddle into the muck and mire and was trampled by the riders pulling up behind.

Hunter whooped and rode off, her sickly face more alive than Fia had yet seen it. Fia followed, towing Gunn. Behind them, Gunn’s gang milled about, some turning back their horses while the red-haired woman bawled instructions and they tried to figure out if they were being ambushed or not.

And so it went on. The rain. The mad galloping through the craggy tors. Fia and her marksmen turning every now and again to fire arrows at any of Gunn’s band that were incautious or impatient enough to come within range, or pelt blindly around a corner.

Fergus Allaway and his rifle were put to use. The huge bear of a man plucked one rider clean out of the saddle with a fifty yard gut-shot that blew the woman’s intestines out of a ragged wound in her side. She was tossed, alive, under the hooves of the horse following and brought it down, once more slowing the advance of the pursuers.

“They’re slow to learn their lessons, these longriders of yours,” Fia noted to Gunn, as their horses slid and slithered across the face of a particularly steep slope. They had been obliged to leave the bottom of the ravine, which had turned into a foaming stream.

“That’d be Boni Woe,” Gunn said, water dripping from his dark hair and beard, his grey eyes alight with amusement as he returned Fia’s stare. “She ain’t one for half-measures nor subtleties—a genuine spitfire. There’s some who think that she don’t have the good sense to spit downwind, but what she lacks in finesse she makes up for in pure doggedness. We’re almost through these hills, in case you didn’t notice, Miss McCrae. You’re runnin’ out of gully.”

Fia clicked her tongue at her horse.

“I fucking noticed,” she said. “Just as I noticed how buggered we’re going to be if we try and make a break for it on the flats on the other side.”

“You could always just cut me loose, Fia McCrae,” Gunn said. “Surely whatever Cameron Gray has over you can’t be worse than what Boniface Woe’s gonna want to do to you and your new friends when she finally runs you down. I ain’t goin’ to be able to stop her either—even if I wanted to. In a crew like mine, mercy’s about as much use as tits on a bull.”

“You ain’t all you say you are, Gunn.”

“None of us are, I reckon. You least of all, Miss McCrae.”

They didn’t even make it through the hills before Boni Woe and Gunn’s remaining longriders made their move.

The rain had slackened off some; falling soft and slow, but straight down and bitter cold. The company of eight were cantering down a waterlogged gorge. The rugged plains lay beyond the mouth of the long valley, enemies lay behind, and the unscalable sloping sides of the tors, with bat-wing ferns growing in profusion on their crumbling faces, walled them in.

It was as good a killing floor as Fia had ever seen.

She was riding at the rear of the crew with Gunn, Hunter, Fergus and Lenix, while Lorna Forbes took point. Fia was unsure whether this was the quality of leadership shining through or just a case of the quiet woman trying to get as far away from the encroaching danger as she could.

As they neared a natural choke point spanned by a spindly bridge of stone high above, a rushing chorus of hollering and whooping echoed up the pass from behind them.

Fia pulled the brumby to a halt, even as the other riders in her crew did the same. She looked back, face set and resigned, hand steady, rainwater dripping from the brim of her hat.

“Get on,” she said to the rest of the company. She pulled Gunn’s horse closer to her, tying the loose rein tighter to her wrist with her teeth. “They want Gunn. Looks like the bastards are going to get him no matter what. No sense in us all dying.”

“I’m with McCrae,” Lees said, his moustache hanging limp in the rain. “While she bargains with these hellcats the rest of us can make good our escape.”

Fia hefted her bow as the clamour behind them got closer.

“Be off with you,” she snarled to the group. “Go on now!”

To the credit of all but Darach Lees, the rest of the company looked uncomfortable.

Then, in a spraying splash of rainwater, flying mud and flying curses, Boniface Woe charged around the far end of the ravine at the head of at least a dozen fit riders. Her red hair flew in soaking matted ropes behind her, her teeth were bared, and she stood in her stirrups brandishing a spear.

It was a long shot, but Fia took it all the same. While the arrow cut through the rain, splitting drops, she turned and bellowed, “We ain’t worth dying for, you dumb bastards! Ride!”

With a wordless cry of guilty anger, Fergus set heels to his horse and took off. His brothers followed, Lenix winking at Fia as he spurred his horse away.

“Good luck, Fia,” Lorna Forbes cried.

Fia turned away from her fleeing companions as her arrow landed, striking the rider behind Boni Woe through the chest and causing him to spew blood down his coat and drop his flintlock.

“Whoever you are, girl,” Gunn suddenly said from behind her, “you shouldn't fall here. Run while you can. Leave me.”

Fia drew another arrow to her ear and let fly. A couple of pistol shots barked. One bullet hummed past her head like a lead bluebottle, the other kicking up a geyser of mud in front of her horse.

Gunn’s riders were less than three-hundred yards away now. Coat tails flying, blades drawn. Banshee shrieks tearing the air as they came on.

Fia let go one more arrow, watched it vanish, and slid her bow calmly into the scabbard on her saddle skirt. She drew a pistol from the folds of her coat, cocked it and levelled it at Gunn's head.

The outlaw looked down the length of the dull barrel at Fia. “There ain’t gonna be no bargaining, Miss McCrae.”

Fia’s blue-green eyes were quite sanguine. “Maybe. But if I die, that’s a debt paid that’s been long owed.”

Gunn’s eyes searched her face.

“Tell me who you—”

In a flurry of filth and muck and the incongruously calming scent of torn turf, Cleric Vass’ horse skidded to a halt next to Fia and Gunn.

Without a word of explanation, the cleric slid from the back of his mount, crouched in the mire and thrust his hands into the mud of the bank of the tor to their right. He started to mutter to himself; words spilling out of him like eels, writhing and slick.

“What the fuck're you doing, sky warden?” Gunn asked scornfully.

The cleric said nothing. Just grimaced as he shoved his hands further into the saturated clay.

Boniface Woe came on with the rest of Gunn’s gang. Her face was contorted with jubilation and rage. A rictus smile pulling her lips back from her teeth. Feral. Wild as the Arifold gales.

Fia braced herself. Breathed. Shifted her grip on her broadsword.

The cleric stopped talking.

The hillside collapsed.

Hundreds of tonnes of soil, water and granite cascaded down the side of the tor. Boulders, set loose by the gods knew what, thundered down the hillside.

Boni Woe’s horse dug its feet in, screaming, almost throwing her as its planted rear legs slid in the mud. A few other riders, galloping abreast of Boni, weren’t so lucky. They travelled on and were ground to paste and shattered bone under the suffocating deluge of rock and clay.

The last glimpse Fia caught of Boni Woe’s face, before the cascading landslide blocked the ravine, was a look of undisguised confusion, wrath and disbelief.

As the final sliding slab of granite slithered to rest, the now ashen-faced god-talker rose to his feet and addressed Fia.

“Miss McCrae,” Cleric Vass said, “it would seem that I have a confession.”

“Best you save it until we reach the Foldwood, holyman,” Fia said, spurring her brumby around. “You’ve bought us a good few hours, but we ain’t home yet.”