“Close your mouth, Fergus. You look like a fuckin’ landed carp gaping about like that.”

“You close your fucking mouth, Gil, and don’t pretend like you’ve ever seen anythin’ that even vaguely resembles the likes of this,” Fergus rumbled back at his brother.

“Yeah, Gil, shut the fuck up,” Lenix said, chipping in.

Fia shot the Allaway brothers a quelling look and they shut their noise. She had chosen them to accompany her because, out of those who remained of the company that had set out from Last Hallow, they had struck her as the least conspicuous; just another trio of sellswords moseying around town and poking their noses into a few places.

“Would you listen to these gods-damned hayseeds?” Boni Woe sneered in her jarringly feminine voice, wiping the back of her hand across her nose and poking Fia in the arm. “Where the fuck did you find them, in the middle of the fuckin’ road after they fell of the turnip wagon?”

Privately, Fia would have liked to have the calming, sensible influence of Cleric Vass along for this expedition too, but Gunn had said that a god-talker would lend gravitas to the call to arms that he and his boys were putting out across the countryside. That meant that Darach Lees had gone with him too, as had Hunter, who was adamant that she hadn’t the temperament for a town excursion. It had been Gunn’s idea to send Boni along with Fia, saying that she was just the sort of psychotic firebrand that could stand in the corner of a taproom and attract the notice of the kinds of people that Fia was looking for like a shit does flies.

The two women and three men stalked through early evening streets that were still bustling with life, despite the fact that the market day was over. Fia and Boni walked ahead, while behind them the Allaways pointed things out to one another.

“See that guy there, Fergus, that’s his job to go around this part of town and light every fuckin’ one of those lamps, you see?” Lenix said in disbelieving tones. “Can you fuckin’ imagine? The son of a bitch gets paid ready coin to walk about doin’ that!”

“Sounds a bit too much like a job to me, brother,” Fergus rumbled, running his fingers through his beard and nodding to a gaggle of whores bustling off towards one of the many bed-houses that plied their trade in this part of town.

“What’re they fuelled by, then? Them lights?” Gil asked his twin.

“I don’t fuckin’ know. Oil?”

Boni turned her green eyes on Lenix. “They’re fuckin’ witchlights. Powered by magic long cast––though everyone pretends not to know that, obviously,” she said, dropping her girlish voice into a knowing whisper. “Ain’t you idiots ever been in a town before?”

Fia noticed the way the twin’s smile faded off his face under the incandescent, unblinking gaze of Boni.

“We’ve been in a town,” he said defensively. “Only, it’s been a while now. Me, Fergus and Gil have been trying to stay out of certain social circles, if you catch my drift.”

“Aye,” Fergus said. “We got into a bit o’ strife up in Gjarnroost, in the south of Skyvolla, purloinin’ a few tasty bits and pieces from a noble house there.”

“Cousin of the Countess Sorcha, I think the vindictive old bag was,” Gil mused.

“Anyway, this cranky old bitch starts boilin’ over and put up some mighty generous bounties for the three of us,” Fergus said. “All through the bigger towns in southern Skyvolla and into northern Frekifold. Even in Aldinfang.”

“Yeah, she was pissed alright,” Gil said with a reminiscent smile.

“Which is why we’ve been keepin’ to the quieter trading posts and villages,” Lenix said. “You know, keepin’ our heads down sort of thing.”

“And how the fuck is that workin’ out for you so far?” Boni Woe sneered.

The Allaway brothers looked at one another, as if only just realising the fix they’d walked into upon taking Fia’s coin.

“Fuckin’ two-bit hayseed outlaws,” Boni sighed, and spat on the floor.

“Still, even when we was playing to the crowds in bigger settlements we ain’t never set foot in a place like this,” Gil said.

“Nope, I ain’t ever been in a town where they had stones on the road and fire locked up in them small boxes on poles,” Lenix said. “And that’s a fact.”

“We’re standing in the largest town in Frekifold, outside of Dreymark, lads,” Fia said levelly. “The sooner you get the hell over chatting about the merits of cobblestones and witchlights, the better.”

“Why the blazes do they call it Redstone anyhow?” Gil asked. “Don’t look red to me.”

Fia sighed patiently through her nose. “You’ll see come sundown,” she said. “Now, shut your traps and keep your peepers skinned. My dear half-brother’s bound to have eyes and ears in Redstone, and I mean to use them to get a message to him.”

Boniface Woe wrinkled her nose. “And where the fuck,” she asked, gesturing around at the crowds of people, at the candlelight spilling from the numerous doorways––inns, brothels, tailors, milliners, smithies, and other shops of all kinds––and collecting on the dusky cobbled streets in pools of amber and gold, “do you propose findin’ these eyes and ears, eh?”

Fia gave her a long, level look. There was a challenge in there, but not the sort of forthright challenge that Boniface Woe was used to or knew how to deal with. To the red-haired longrider’s frustrated surprise, she found her gaze dropping away from Fia’s abalone-coloured eyes.

“Where else do you find ears and eyes, Boni,” Fia said, “but on a face.”

* * *

The Chucklehead’s Face was already teeming with folk by the time Fia and her companions had navigated their way through the warren of streets. The sun was setting as they climbed the hill that led to the notorious tavern. Fat bands of sunlight washed the pale stone that many of the older buildings were constructed from, saturating them in pinks and crimsons.

“Ah,” Fia heard Gil say from behind her, “Redstone, you see, Lenix.”

There was a dull thump as Lenix hit his twin.

“That was my fuckin’ injured arm, dolt!” Gil said, his voice twisted in a grimace.

“Don’t hear me complaining about my leg, do you?” Lenix retorted.”Or Fergus about his face?”

“Yeah, but I don’t go around biffin’ them, do I?” Gil hissed.

Boni rounded on the two squabbling twins with a snarl and they simmered down.

“So, this is it?” Fergus said, raising his big bald head and surveying the hulking three-story stone edifice, with its faded sign of a jester’s face hanging over a pair of double doors.

“This is it,” said Fia. “I remember my father telling Arlen one night at supper, out of my mother’s hearing, that if he ever wanted to hear what was really happening in our tribeland, all he needed to do was send a man with open ears and an open purse to spend an evening at the Chucklehead’s Face.”

They might have found the pub sooner, but the alleys and thoroughfares were packed out with people heading for supper or a drink, some quality time with a lady of the line, or a good fight. The smell of roasting meat and frying fish wafted through the intersections to either side of the huge tavern. Women and men flaunted their flesh to hungry-eyed pedestrians. Children scampered under cartwheels, darting out every now and again to try and snare an unwatched purse. Fia saw one tatty urchin caught with her hand at a man’s belt, heard the crack of the back of his hand against her skull and watched the girl flop limply into the road, her scrawny body crumpling into a pile of horse shit. Already, there were scuffles breaking out down some of the darker alleyways, as the sunlight died and was replaced by the wavering silver glow of the witchlights. The shadows were deepening, rising out of the stones to be greeted by the raucous mixed din of laughter and cursing, tears and shrill flirting, drunken japery and maudlin wails.

“The rumour goes that even as the first bricks were being laid for this place, the landlord was running illegal fistfights under the light of the moon,” Fia said, as the five of them made their way through the crowd.

“Aye, it looks like a proper bucket o’ blood and no mistake,” Fergus agreed, tenderly fingering his bearded jaw where the splinter had perforated his cheek.

“Who’re we looking for anyways?” Lenix asked, as they sauntered towards the double doors and the pair of hulking men, who looked like they’d been carved out of the two sides of a hanging steer, that watched it. “And how’re we going to attract their attention?”

“I’d say you boys just have to be yourselves,” Fia said. “If Redmond’s as careful and clever as I remember him being, he ain’t going to be the kind of Viscount who neglects a hotbed of gossip like the Chucklehead’s Face. I’m sure he’s learned the value of information.”

“Right,” said Gil.

“Anyone else’s pulse picked up like someone’s just given their heart the spurs?” Lenix asked.

“What the hell are you nervous about, hayseed?” Boni asked scornfully. “I thought you were a big, bad sword for hire. Ain’t that right?”

Lenix’s forehead creased in a frown. “Nervous? Who the fuck said anythin’ about nervous? Let’s get our arses inside, this place is jumping like hot grease on a skillet!”

The inside of the Chucklehead’s Face was a huge taproom with a ceiling that rose the full three-stories to the smoke-stained beams of the roof. Scarred, worn and burned ironbark pillars held up walkways that ran around the edges of the room on the second and third floors. The main bar, which ran along the entire back wall was constructed of stone and more ironbark, and looked like it had been chiseled from the bones of the hill on which the tavern stood. A blue haze of baccy smoke hung in the air, climbing ever upwards, ferrying the chatter and lies and dreams of the patrons to the thatch above. The tumult of raised voices was a thrumming cacophony, pressing and bludgeoning at Fia’s ears, while the jostling mass of humanity pressed and shoved at her from all directions.

The Allaways were swept away almost as soon as they entered, though Fia could see the top of Fergus’ head above the crowd. The three men settled themselves at a card game in the corner and called for drinks from a bilious-looking brunette wearing an apron who was busy doing the rounds.

Fia and Boni made their way over to the heaving bar. Boni led the way, elbowing her way in between a couple of big old boys who smelled like they’d just stepped in from a cattle yard.

One of them turned, saw Boni’s face, and hurriedly scooped up his tankard and disappeared into the crowd. The other man, red-faced and red-eyed, turned and fixed the slight woman with a glassy stare.

“And here was me about to slap the piss out of ya,” he slurred in surprise, running his eyes lasciviously over what little of Boni’s rangy figure was visible under her open coat. “Would’ve been my lasting regret, miss.”

“It still might be,” Boni said in her sweetly girlish voice. “Any chance you can shuffle along there, mate?”

The man ignored her. “I’m gonna cut to the chase here,” he said, slapping his hand down on the counter between them. “How’d you like to accompany me upstairs, wash the dirt off me, and then spend the evenin’ fucking like a couple of badland bangtails?”

To Fia’s surprise, Boni leaned forward and said, “You know, I’ve been out on the trail awhile myself, and I do find that I’m in the kind of mood that’d see me fuck almost anyone right now…” She took hold of the drover’s clay tankard and winked at him.

The man’s single bifurcated eyebrow went north.

“Well, bully for you, missy,” he said, and took Boni by the upper arm. “If you’ll just foll––”

Boni brought the clay tankard down so hard onto the man’s hand that was still resting on the counter that it shattered. A couple of chunky shards of glazed pottery sliced through the tendons in the back of the drover’s hand, stuck out of the top of it, and looked to have pinned it to the bar-top. He dropped impulsively to his knees and howled.

“I said almost anyone, you fuckin’ arsehole,” Boni said, and smashed the remains of the tankard into the side of the man’s head.

The drover’s skull cracked sharply into the side of the bar and he collapsed to the floor.

The talk in the immediate vicinity of Fia and Boni had died, but the rest of the tavern seemed to have not even registered the altercation.

Boni leaned against the bar and eyeballed the drinkers nearest her.

“Any one of you gentlemen drag this sorry sack of shite out of my view and you’re welcome to what’s in his pockets,” she said. She raised her finger at the barkeep. “Two meads.”

There was a flurry of movement and a couple of sorry-looking fellows bent down and hauled the recumbent drover away.

“Do you think Gunn is going to be able to raise enough fighting men to seriously draw the Viscount out for a confrontation?” Fia asked the other woman, once the chatter had resumed and their own drinks had been set before them.

Boni took a long pull on her drink, the mead spilling down her chin. She burped, set her tankard down and wiped at the corner of her mouth with one of her auburn braids. She chewed at her lip for a moment.

“Folks trust Gunn,” she said. “Come to trust him quick. Look at me. You think I fuckin’ take orders from just anybody? He’s somethin’ in him that people are pulled to.”

“But how––

“I can’t be arsed to explain it so don’t ask me to. Look at you.”

“Me?”

Boni flashed her sardonic smile. “Well, he’s already pulled you in, ain’t he? And you look like one of the flightiest bitches that ever sat a saddle. Proves my fuckin’ point, don’t it?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Fia took a few swallows of mead. It was a good enough brew by any standard. Sweet, clear, and with a hint of cloves. She ran her eyes around the room as she took another drink, watching as a sweating man hurried past holding two plates piled high with beans and topped with eggs.

“There’re a lot of people who think he’s little better than an animal,” she said, licking her lips.

Boni snorted into her tankard as she took another pull. “Look around you, bitch. We’re all of us animals some of the time. So, knowin’ that, if you’re going to be an animal among men, why wouldn’t you be a fuckin’ wolf?”

“But, do you really reckon he can convince them to rise together in the way that we need––that I need? This ain’t some tribeland skirmish being proposed. This is, by the very definition, treason. Gunn’s asking them to rebel against their Viscount, against nobility of Frekifold, against their own tribeland.”

Boni spat on the floor and ran an explorative finger around the rim of one nostril.

“I told you,” she said. “They trust him. They’ve fuckin’ met him and talked to him, which is more than they have ever done with Redmond fuckin’ Marr, or any of the rest of those Count and Countess cocksuckers. They’ve heard his tale. Most of ‘em can relate to it––you think he’s the only son of a bitch to come off the worst at the hands of soldiers who got carried away.”

“The people will suffer. They’ll die. People do in a civil war.”

Boni let loose a strangled laugh, spraying spit. “Ah shit, fancy pants, their ain’t going to be nothin’ civil about it. Now, how about we pass somethin’ a little harder over the tonsils, eh? You ever had much to do with blackstrap?”

“Blackstrap?”

“Gin and molasses,” Boni explained. “You’ll fuckin’ love it. If you’re lookin’ for a way to end up swinging from the rafters with your cunt out, this is it.”

They ordered a couple of blackstraps. Fia followed Boni’s suit and knocked the drink back in one. She bared her teeth and blew burning breath out between her lips.

Boni raised an approving eyebrow.

“Proper gods-damned bumblebee liquor, ain’t it? Stings all the way down.”

They got a couple more.

“Let me ask you somethin’,” Boni said. “Say if you manage to get this meetin’ or whatever the fuck you’re aiming to fix up with Marr, right? What’re you gonna do if it comes down to killin’ the prick? I mean, what’re you really gonna do?”

“Arlen always said if you wanted the velvet you had to be prepared to kill the stag,” Fia said, wincing a little as she took a gulp of her drink.

“Who the fuck is Arlen?”

Fia swallowed. Winced again, though not at the liquor. “A good man I knew once.”

“Yeah, well, I bet he weren’t thinkin’ that your own blood would be the deer in the path of the arrow now, did he?”

Fia bent her elbow and finished the rest of her drink, trying not to dwell on how close to the mark Boni’s remark had just struck.

“I’ll do what needs doing,” she said.

Boni opened her mouth, unquestionably to voice what she thought about Fia’s capabilities at anything, when she caught sight of Fia’s impassive face. Something in her eye must’ve spoken to the other woman, because she smiled widely, and held up a hand.

“I don’t fuckin’ trust you, bitch,” she said. “Nor any of those cut-price fools you were ridin’ with. But I like the way you carry yourself. There’s something unpredictable about you.”

Boni let loose a high-pitched giggle; a sound that was somehow uglier coming from her than the blackest curse would have been.

“Somethin’ that speaks to me of a jinx, you know…”

Fia didn’t know. She watched as Boniface Woe slumped indolently back against the counter and started filling a stubby pipe with baccy.

They stood drinking for a while, watching as the room filled and emptied and filled again. Suppers came and went; plates of beans, bacon and flapjacks mostly, steaming portions of field mushrooms doused with butter and herbs, with here and there a steak for the idiots drunk enough to advertise they were flush with coin. Fia observed sharp-eyed men circling these diners and the heavier drinkers, waiting for their chance to cut loose a purse. It was a risky business, chancing in an establishment like the Chucklehead’s Face. Anyone caught cutting purses or lifting silver amongst the clientele would find themselves missing their fingers if they were lucky, and missing most of the blood in their bodies if they weren’t.

Some time later, there was a racket and commotion over in the corner and Fergus Allaway surged to his feet. He was clutching his wounded face, where a fellow gambler had apparently just flicked a card into his injured cheek from across the table. Fergus was gesticulating, but Fia couldn’t make out his words over the din of the crowd that was gathering around the table.

The tavern’s drinkers were at that convivial stage in the evening where they were more than ready to cheer on a little friendly fisticuffs. A few of them were standing on chairs and tables, while many were swapping coins and making bets.

Fergus roared. With one smooth swipe, he lifted the entire card table and cracked the offender under the chin with it. A spray of blood and teeth went up, amalgamating with the bellow of approval from the gathered watchers. One or two men from around the table dived at the bear-sized Fergus. Without hesitation, or any regard for their injuries, Gil and Lenix leapt in to help their brother.

As the crowd shifted and swayed, a single many-headed entity that smelled blood, Fia suddenly stiffened where she stood. With the parting of the sea of patrons, she had been afforded a glimpse of the far side of the taproom and her sharp eyes had discerned a face that had set the bell of her memory to ringing. Slowly, she allowed herself a rare smile.

“Surely, it can’t be that easy?” she breathed.

“I’d be inclined to agree with that, nothin’ ever is, whatever you’re talkin’ about,” Boni said.

“I think I’ve got our man,” Fia said. “Or woman, I should say.”

“How’s that, then?” Boni asked, peering over to where Fia was looking.

“The woman in the blue cloak sitting on the bench with her back to the wall. She’s a walking stick by her side and a bowl of stew she hasn’t touched since I’ve been watching. Don’t stare.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, bitch,” Boni snapped, but her gaze slid away from the older woman and onto the escalating fight. “Gods-damn, that old gal. How d’you reckon that? She doesn’t look like she could move faster than a walk.”

“She can’t,” Fia said, “but she doesn’t need to. She sits and waits and watches, then reports.”

“How the hell d’you know this?”

“Because,” Fia said, “she’s been doin’ it since I was a girl.”

“What?”

“She’s been doing this ever since my father was Count, ever since I was a girl,” Fia repeated. “I recognise her. She was kind to us children, even Redmond when my father passed. Went by the name of Cutter––short for Cutting Horse, I remember hearing my father’s men say.”

Boni nodded. “‘Cause she cuts the truth out of the gossip she hears or some shit like that, right?”

“I guess so. She must’ve just carried on working for my mother, then Redmond.”

“You’re mother, the Countess, she ain’t dead then? I ain’t heard nothin’ of the sort.”

Fia shook her head. The thought of what had happened to her mother had been playing on and off her mind ever since she had realised that a trip back to her homeland was inevitable.

“She can’t be dead. Redmond would declare that from the rooftops. It’d mean he could stand in her stead as Warden of the High Seat. The Corrival Guard must still be protecting her, but if Redmond’s found himself with the freedom to plot with this Imperator, it must mean she’s inconvenienced or––”

“On her way out,” Boni said.

Fia turned her mind aside from that possibility.

Boni was suddenly clutching Fia’s forearm in a grip of iron. Her green eyes were shiny with drink, her lips moist, her breath strong enough to hang washing on.

Fia’s hand moved instinctively towards her dirk.

“Well then, I guess this spyin’ Cutter hag is gonna thank you,” Boni said. “You’re about to save her a job. Might pay to tell her though, that if she don’t do as she’s bid she ain’t going to be the one doin’ the cutting.”

Fia nodded and moved off through the crowd.

A few moments later, after making sure that there were no watchers watching the watcher, she slipped onto the bench beside the woman wrapped in the blue cloak.

“Still at it, Cutter?” Fia said gently into the older woman’s ear. “No rest for the wicked, I see.”

To her credit, Cutter barely flinched at the unexpected company, and she only tensed briefly when Fia pressed the muzzle of one of her flintlocks into her side under the table.

“Do I know you?” she asked, without turning.

Fia scrutinised Cutter from the side, noting the lines that creased the corners of her mouth, the weathering of her cheeks, and the grey that streaked her once lustrous tawny hair.

“Look around and find out,” Fia said.

The older woman turned her head slowly.

There was a moment of confusion as Cutter’s brows knitted. Fia could almost see her mind trying to erase the lines of care and hardship, the dirt and scabs, that disguised the girl that she had once been.

Then, the light of recognition flared in Cutter’s eyes, even while her face paled.

“Fia Marr…” she breathed. “It can’t be.”

“You look like you've seen a ghost, Cutter.”

“Ghosts are of our own devising, girl,” Cutter said. To Fia’s discomfort, the other woman smiled warmly and shook her head. “We make them to remind us of those we can’t forget. To remind us of business that needs finishing. If such is the case, you’re a ghost every Frekirie in this room will be able to see.”

She moved as if to get closer to Fia but was stopped by the jab of the pistol barrel in her ribs.

Fia shrugged. “I’m in a precarious position, Cutter,” she said.

“So I would imagine, showing your face here after all these years. After what happened with Viscount Arlen.”

“I’m here to rectify that if I can,” Fia said. “And after I’ve done that, perhaps I’ll finally explain to my mother what happened and atone for what I did. But, before I can do that, I need your help.”

Cutter leaned forward, heedless of the flintlock pistol digging into her bony side.

“Name it, Viscountess,” she said.

Fia looked the older woman in the eye, ignoring the stab of pain she felt at the use of the title. “I need you to pass on a message to Redmond for me.”

* * *

“Gods-damn, Gunn,” Fia said softly, her strange cyan eyes wide as she surveyed the collection of tents and bivouacs that had been set up through the trees, “how did you manage to convince so many so fast?”

Gunn finished rolling a smoke, flicked away an errant strand of baccy, and lit it with a snap of his fingers.

“I know you don’t believe it, but I’ve got a couple of silver-tongued orators on my crew. They ain’t all brigands to the bone. Take Breck now. That boy might have shoulders as wide as a couple of axe handles, but he’s a thinker too. Rule as well. That single eye of hers works wonders convincin’ folk as to the merits of standin’ up for the land, rather than the folk that reckon they own it.”

“Didn’t she get her eye taken out going on some raid with you?” Fia asked, her eyes crinkling up in the corners, her crooked mouth tipping up one way in an approximation of a smile.

“That ain’t the point,” Gunn said. “I told you, there are plenty of folk who make a living herding and scrounging out in the badlands and the highlands who have fallen foul of the Counts and Countesses at some point or another. These people aren’t as simple as the nobility do them the disrespect of believin’ them to be. They’re savvy enough to recognise that, tough as times might be, they could be a hell of a lot tougher. They’ve lost as much as me, and more. There comes a point when they can’t be pushed no more, and this, right here, is that moment. Ain’t no sharper spur than that hammered from necessity.”

“We better make sure that we don’t squat on it, then,” Fia said. “Cuts both ways. Both oppressed and oppressors can use that word to commit any amount of heinous shit. I’ve been around. I’ve seen what folk are willing to do in the name of necessity.”

Fia headed off through the trees of the small copse in which Gunn’s ragtag guerilla army was making itself comfortable. She was pleased to see that the few fires that were being lit were being fed with dry fuel only. The men and women that were gathered around the makeshift tents were dressed in mismatched armour and carried a hodgepodge of weapons; boars spears, shortswords, hatchets and clubs for the main part, with a few broadswords and battle-axes thrown in for good measure. Crude weapons, but what did crudeness matter when you hit some round the head with a sodding great meat cleaver? The faces of many of the assembled fighters were pinched with privations but, as she moved under the boughs of the crab apple trees and pushed through the clumps of burgeoning flannel flowers, Fia saw that most were smiling, joking, or set in stoic determination.

“Many flintlocks among them?” Fia asked.

Gunn gave her a mirthless grin. “Flintlocks? Many of these folk are on the bones of their arses, Marr.”

“Don’t call me that. I’ll not share a name with a man hell bent on selling out his own tribeland––his own bloody country.”

“Fine. McCrae, then,” said Gunn. “No more than a few of these warriors have flintlocks, and those are only the most desperate ones that have had to kill soldiers for one reason or another. There’s some damn good archers among ‘em, though. That’s one thing living primarily off the land is good for; you ain’t ever likely to waste a shot when you’ve limited arrows and the alternative to missin’ is starvin’ in the mud.”

“And they know that they’re not fighting against some invading force trying to rob them of their homeland? Not yet, at least. They’ll be fighting Frekirie soldiers who have been brainwashed, bullied or bribed into riding out against their own countrymen.”

“We’ve had more than a few Frekirie soldiers abandon Marr and come over to us, McCrae. When people are desperate, tribeland borders and all that horseshit, well, that all just goes out the fuckin’ window. People just become people, tryin’ to protect the things they love from other people tryin’ to take ‘em. These lands have been fought over many times before, and I’m sure they’ll be fought over again long after we’re nothin’ more than bones in the clay. Seems that fightin’ and killin’ is the one thing people never seem to get sick of.”

“If it comes to fighting, we won’t win it from afar,” Fia said. “Even with those skilled archers you mentioned. Not against flintlocks. It’ll be hand to hand, churning the ground bloody, stepping over your friends as well as your enemies kind of scrapping.”

“The way it’s always been,” Gunn said. “I would’ve liked to gather more from further afield, but there weren’t no time for that. Managed to raise whole villages to the cause in some instances, though. Places that’ve borne the brunt of the neglect from the tribeland leaders. Most are from Frekifold, of course, but there are a few hundred from southern Skyvolla, some from Arifold and Aldinfang. Even got a couple of war parties of Painted Kyn that I met wandering out where Frekifold, Skyvolla and Kynthwaite come together.”

Fia shook her head, as she moved through the hidden guerrilla camp.

“Too many might’ve almost been a hindrance,” she said thoughtfully, watching two women fletching arrows. “At least with a smaller force we gain manoeuvrability. Strike. Retreat. Strike. Retreat. Make use of the hills and gullies around here. Cut dirt and ride into the highlands if things turn completely to shite.”

Gunn returned the nod of a man sitting leaning against a tree and sharpening an old sword spotted with rust. He took a pull on his smoke and breathed in deep.

“Listen to you gettin’ all tactically minded,” he said.

“Benefits of a sheltered upbringing spent in libraries, I s’pose,” Fia retorted drily.

Gunn snorted. Looked down at the pommel of his knife and rubbed a thumb over the worn horn of the handle. He flexed his fingers and the knuckles cracked.

“Gunn,” Fia said, turning to face the windswept outlaw, with his eyes that hinted at the inconsolable grief that he carried around in his chest. “I don’t really know how you’ve done this, or why, but… I thank you. You didn’t have to. Not many men with your reputation would, not after I caught your arse with the intent of takin’ you to hang.”

Gunn walked on a little ways, until they were surrounded by nothing but grass, tree boles and the flame flowers that were dotted amongst the green like embers.

“I don’t know if I believe in fate or any of that horseshit,” he said, fragrant smoke streaming out of his nostrils. “Seems to me like people are all too happy to lump all the dumb shit they do and poor choices they make under that banner––like they ain’t had nothin’ to do with it. The way I see it though, the both of us have been ridin’ trails that have now converged and, for the time bein’, those trails lead towards the same watering hole. We’ve been tryin’ to run from pasts that have only made us the people we are. Let’s see this through.”

Fia nodded and puffed out her cheeks, ran a hand along the slight raises of the Kynnish tattoos that marked her scalp.

“Let’s save what needs saving,” she said, “and change what needs changing.”

Gunn snorted. “Admiral sentiments, Miss McCrae, but have you given any thought as to how you want this to play out? Redmond Marr ain’t apt to play by any rules, not from what I’ve heard of the man.”

“Whatever happens, I mean to meet with him. One last time, if that’s to be the way of things. I want––I need––to look him in the eye and see if any of the boy I once knew is still inside. We might not have got on so well, but we're kin. That's got to count for something."

Gunn ground his dog-end out on a nearby tree trunk. Then, he reached for her and pulled her close.

Fia let the smile bloom across her face this time.

“Would you look at that,” she said. “I only thought about going for my knife at the time. I might come to trust you yet, Torsten Gunn.”