him. A head brushed his boot as a pair of bodies heaved before his feet. He placed his sole against the smooth scalp, pushed until they rolled away from him. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Swan and saw that she was looking at him from afar.
He offered the young woman a nod of his head. She smiled. The moment of connection warmed him, sent a thrill up his spine.
The Monbarri was still watching him from across the room.
Ché decided he needed to clear his head, and rose to his feet in the same moment. He paused to catch Swan’s eye, willing her to follow him, then turned and strode to the entrance as the Monbarri watched him leave.
As he stepped outside he took a deep lungful of untainted air. The sentries ignored him – just another priest of Sasheen’s entourage. Ché looked to his right, where a bonfire burned high into the night sky. Two Acolytes were throwing another empty wine crate onto it, one of many the priests had already worked their way through.
It was to be expected, Ché supposed. With the success of the crossing and the survival of most of the fleet during last night’s storm, the Matriarch and her general staff were in need of venting their tensions. Watching them tonight, feasting and gorging themselves, it had become clear to Ché that until the very moment they had reached land with their forces largely intact, no one had been entirely sure if it was possible.
Ché stepped a little further away from the noise of the tent. He waited in hope that Swan would emerge, while a slight breeze blew down the valley, carrying with it a hint of the winter still to come. They would have to make haste if they were to take Bar-Khos before the first falls of snow.
An Acolyte was escorting a scout through the entrance to the palisade, a weary middle-aged purdah covered in dirt and sporting a limp. His wolfhound was nowhere to be seen. Ché squinted. Behind the messenger and scout, a second Acolyte had been approaching the entrance, though the man had stopped as the screen was drawn across the entrance again, and had doubled over in a fit of coughing, and now was walking off in a different direction entirely.
Odd, thought Ché.
‘You there!’ Ché shouted to the guards at the entrance. They turned to see who was shouting.
Another shriek broke the night air. It recalled to Ché the sound of a scream from a boiling water-heater, the whistle that had finally obscured it.
Ché’s eyes lingered over the retreating Acolyte.
‘Never mind,’ he shouted to the guards.
He looked back to the threshold of the tent. Swan had not ventured out to join him.
Ché stalked off to his tent alone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Old Wants
Ash awoke to an iron-capped boot prodding at his ribs.
He opened his eyes, bleary with what little sleep he’d been able to snatch in the small hours of the night, and felt a warm body pressed against his own.
He tugged the blanket from his face and blinked up at the scowling face of an imperial soldier.
‘On your feet, old man.’
Ash groaned and covered his head with the blanket once again. The boot prodded him harder.
He growled and scrambled to his feet, his sheathed sword in his hand. ‘What?’ he snapped, gaining himself a precious second to take in the situation.
Three soldiers surrounded him. Others were waking people across the dunes to press them with questions. Ash relaxed a little. They didn’t know who they were looking for, not by appearance at least.
Even so, all three soldiers were staring at the confident way he held his sword and had their hands resting firmly on the pommels of their own.
‘Captain Sanson!’ shouted the man with the friendly toecap. Another soldier stepped towards them. He took one look at the old farlander and narrowed his eyes.
‘You like walks in the night, old man?’
‘Is that an invitation?’
The captain tensed. From the corners of his vision, Ash saw that other soldiers were dragging away a man they deemed to be suspicious.
‘He’s with me,’ came a voice from below. All of them looked down to see Mistress Cheer emerging from the blanket, wiping sand from her flanks as she stood up in her heavy nightdress.
Captain Sanson eyed the woman coolly. ‘In what capacity, mistress?’
‘He’s my bodyguard,’ she explained as she took Ash’s arm in her own. ‘What did you imagine he was?’
‘And when did you employ him?’
Her eyes flickered to Ash. ‘Two