The pursuers became more visible, a rag-tag crowd of wild-eyed men. They carried cudgels and poniards. One bore a pike with a broken shaft. He poked the old man with the splintered end.

“Come on, grandfather, let us have the pretty bauble and perhaps we will let you live. It’s little good to you anyway. You’ll never see it glitter no more.”

The old man tried to struggle to his knees, but the mud held him fast. His breath was coming in hoarse whines.

“I beg you, my sons,” he bleated, “in the name of the Blessed Saint, let me be.” Corfe could see now that dangling from a chain around his wizened neck was the A-shaped symbol of the praying hands, the badge of a Ramusian cleric. It was smeared with mud, but the yellow gleam of gold and precious stones could be made out through the filth.

“Have it your own way then, you God-damned Raven.”

The men closed in on the prone figure like vultures moving in on a carcass. The old man’s body began jerking up and down as they tried to wrest the chain off his neck.

Corfe was level with the scuffle. He could either step off to one side and continue on his way or walk right through the middle of them. He stopped, hesitating, furious with himself for even caring.

There was a squawk of anguish from the old man as the chain broke free. The men laughed, one holding it aloft like a trophy.

“You accursed priests,” he said, and kicked the old man in the ribs. “Your sort always have gold about you, even if all around is ruin and wreckage.”

“Cut his saintly throat, Pardal,” one of the men said. “He should have stayed to burn in his precious holy city.”

The man named Pardal bent with a steel glitter in his fist. The old man groaned helplessly.

“That’s enough, lads,” Corfe heard himself say, for all the world as though he were back in barracks breaking up a brawl.

The men paused. Their victim blinked withered eyelids on bleeding holes. One side of his face was as black as a Merduk’s with the mud.

“Who’s that?”

“Just a traveller, like yourselves. Has not there been enough murder done these past days, without you adding to it? Leave the old crow alone. You have what you want.”

The men peered at him, curious and wary.

“What are you, a Knight Militant?” one asked.

“Nay,” another said. “See his sabre? That’s the weapon of Mogen’s men. He’s a Torunnan.”

The man called Pardal straightened. “The Torunnans died with Mogen or with Lejer. He’s got that pig-sticker off a corpse.”

“What else do you think he’s got?” another asked greedily. The men growled and moved into a line confronting Corfe. Six of them.

Corfe drew out the heavy sabre in one fluid movement.

“Who’ll be first to test whether I be one of Mogen’s men or no?” he asked. The sabre danced in his hand. He loosened his feet in the gripping muck.

The men stared at him doubtfully, then one said: “What’s that in your pouch, fellow?”

Corfe tapped his bulging belt pouch, smiling, and said truthfully: “Half a turnip.”

“Throw it over here, and maybe we won’t cut off your prick.”

“Come and get it, you long streak of yellow shit.”

The six paused, greed and fear fighting a curious battle on their countenances.

Then: “Take him!” one of them bellowed, and they were lurching towards Corfe with their weapons upraised.

He moved aside. They bunched on him, which was what he had hoped for. A jab of the sabre point made one throw himself backwards, to slip and tumble in the slithery mud. As he brought the blade back Corfe smashed the heavy basket hilt into another of their faces. The short spike on the hilt ripped up the man’s nostril with a spray of dark blood, and he turned aside with a cry.

Corfe whirled—too slowly. A cudgel caught him just above the ear, grazing his skull and tearing the skin and hair. He hardly felt the blow, but ducked low and swung at the man’s knee, feeling the crunch of bone and cartilage up his forearm as the keen blade destroyed the joint.

He tore the sabre free and the man fell, tripping up another. Corfe swung at the nape of the tripped man’s neck, saw the flesh slice apart and again felt the familiar jar as the sabre broke through the bone.

No more of them came at him. He stood with the sword held at the ready position, hardly panting. His head was ringing and he could feel the burning swell of the blow that had landed there, but he felt as light as thistledown. There was laughter fluttering in his throat like some manic, trapped bird.

One man lay dead, his head attached to his body only by the clammy gleam of the windpipe. Another was sitting holding his mangled knee, groaning. A third had both hands clutched to the hole in his face. The other three looked at Corfe darkly.

“The bastard is a Torunnan after all,” one said with disgust. “Aren’t you?” he asked Corfe.

Corfe nodded.

“We’ll leave you to your Raven then, Torunnan. May you have joy of each other.”

They helped up the crippled man and stumbled off into the curtain of the rain, joining the other anonymous shapes who were staggering westwards. The dead man’s blood darkened the mud, rain-stippled. Corfe felt strangely let down. With a flash of insight he realized he had been hoping to die and leave his own corpse on the churned ground. The knowledge sapped his strength. His shoulders sagged, and he sheathed the sabre without cleaning it. There was only himself again, and the rain and the mud and the shadows passing by.

Someone else was stumbling towards him: a robed shape bent over as if burdened with pain. It was a young monk, his tonsure a white circle in the gloom. He splashed to his knees beside the old, eyeless man who lay forgotten on the ground.

“Master,” he sobbed. “Master, they have killed you.” There was a black bar of blood striping the young monk’s face. Corfe joined him, kneeling in the mud like a penitent.

The terrible face on the ground twitched. The mouth moved, and Corfe heard the old man say in a whisper of escaping breath:

“God has forsaken us. We are alone in a darkening land. Sweet Saint, forgive us.”

The monk cradled his master’s head in his lap, weeping. Corfe stared at the pair dull-eyed, still somewhat blasted at finding himself yet living. But there was something here at least—something for him to do.

“Come,” he said, tugging at the monk’s arm. “We’ll find us some shelter, a space out of the rain. I have food I’m willing to share.”

The young man stared at him. His face was swollen grotesquely on one side and Corfe thought there were bones broken there.

“Who are you, that has saved my master’s life?” he asked. “What blessed angel sent you to watch over us?”

“I’m just a soldier,” Corfe told him irritably. “A deserter fleeing west like the rest of the world. No angel sent me.” The young man’s piety soured his humour further. He had seen too many horrors lately to give it credence.

“Well, soldier,” the monk said with absurd formality, “we are in your debt. I am Ribeiro, a novice of the Antillian Order.” He paused, almost as if he were weighing something up in his mind. Then he looked down at the wreck of a man whose savaged head was pillowed on his knees. “And this is His Holiness the High Pontiff of the Five Monarchies, Macrobius the Third.”

T HE rain had stopped with the rising of the moon, and it looked as though the night sky would clear. Already Corfe could see the long curve of Coranada’s scythe twinkling around the North Star.

He threw another piece of wood on the fire, relishing the heat. His back was sodden and cold, but his face was aglow. The saturated leather of his boots was steaming and beginning to split, what with the heat and the rough usage. Mud was dropping in hard scales from his drying garments.

He shook his head testily. The blood pooled in his ear had dried to a black crust, affecting his hearing. He would see about that when dawn came.