and the dogs were let loose. Confused, several attacked each other. Shouting men hauled them apart, throwing the hounds bodily at the bullock. Others thrust their torches into the faces of dogs trying to flee.
Straining so hard that the rope cut into its neck, the bullock thrust a horn through a piebald hound's flank. The wretched creature yelped as the bullock tossed it to its death. Two others seized their chance to go for its throat. More were nipping at its heels. Every time a bite drew blood, the crowd roared drunken approval.
Swallowing his revulsion, Tathrin followed Sorgrad and Gren to another dark alley offering sanctuary. As they reached it, a man stumbled out of the shadows. Oblivious to the cold in shirt and breeches, he saluted them with his bottle of white brandy.
'Fair festival!'
Trepidation twisted Tathrin's stomach. Did these renegades carouse night and day? Could they reach their goal undiscovered? How would their other men fare, sneaking through the town?
'Celebrating Solstice early?' Gren waved the man on with a cheery laugh. 'Good luck to you, friend!'
'He won't see midwinter.' Sorgrad picked up the pace as the drunk disappeared into the m锚l茅e around the bull-baiting.
Glad to leave the brutality behind, Tathrin lengthened his stride. He could smell spilled liquor, piss and shit in every doorway. There was no savour of cooking meat or any other homely scent. These renegades had plundered the town and picked the surrounding country as bare as a crow-scavenged carcass.
His own stomach rumbled disapprovingly. For the past three days, they had marched on dry biscuit, cold bacon and cheese grudgingly doled out by the quartermasters and no one was expecting to feast in Wyril.
'Here we go!' Gren halted, looking upwards.
A fiery ball soared overhead. Tathrin followed its course down into a huddle of houses. As the first startled shouts rang out, more spheres drew blazing arcs across the moonlit sky.
'Move!' Sorgrad urged him on with a merciless thump.
Tathrin ran after Gren, trusting his knowledge of Wyril's streets. The frosted cobbles were slick beneath his feet.
He braced himself for a challenge. Surely someone would wonder why they were turning their backs on this inexplicable incident. Where were they heading, if not to help put out the fires? He could already hear cries for buckets being raised by those still sober enough to recognise the peril of fire amid these narrow streets of close-packed houses.
There it was: the Tyrle Road Gate. Tathrin drew his sword as he followed Gren.
The rising tumult in the town's centre was beginning to draw people out of nearby taverns. Tathrin picked out badges on jerkins and cloaks. The Bonebreakers' cloven skull grinned back at him. There would surely be mercenaries here who'd seen how effectively the rebels had used trebuchets at Tyrle.
'What's amiss?' a woman shouted, a billowing cloak draped over her ill-fitting gown.
Tathrin just shrugged and forced his way past two bleary-eyed drunks leaning on each other as they gawked.
What he was about to do sickened him. But they hadn't been able to come up with any other plan, not with the limited forces at their disposal. They must rid Wyril of these renegades, to be free to deal with Reniack and to scour the rest of Lescar clean. Only then would they see a lasting peace.
They had to do that fast, according to Branca. Charoleia was warning that the clamour among the Tormalin princes would soon force Emperor Tadriol to intervene.
Tathrin recalled something else his father had said. The hardest journey is only a series of steps. He set his jaw. He had come too far to give up now, whatever it might take to see this dreadful night through.
'Who goes there?' A man swaddled against the cold stepped out of the shadowed archway.
So the Bonebreakers had set a sentry. Sorgrad had said they were the best of this treacherous rabble.
Gren was already there, his blade slicing through the torchlight. The man's blanket tangled around his sword-arm and he died on a gurgle of surprise as Gren's thrust slid deep into his chest.
Tathrin spun around in case someone had noticed. He saw the open expanse inside the gate was now filling with people but they were all looking at the fires taking hold in the heart of the town or at the blazing missiles still raining down.
'Watch the battlement stair.' Sorgrad was already unbolting the little postern set into the gate.
Tathrin glanced at the doorway to the spiral steps and then back at the gathering mob. Would they be expecting an