She had woken in a dark cellar, surrounded by empty, broken kegs. She had been robbed, most of her armour stripped away. Sword and knife gone. The ache between her legs told her that worse had happened. Lips puffed and cut by kisses she had never felt, her hair tangled and matted with blood, she crawled across greasy cobbles to curl up against a stained brick wall. Stared out numbly on the panicked scene.
Smoke had stolen the sky. Brown, murky light, the distant sound of battle – at the harbour front to her left, and along the north and east walls ahead and to her right. In the street before her, citizens raced in seemingly random directions. Across from her, two men were locked in mortal combat, and she watched as one managed to pin the other, then began pounding the man’s head against the cobbles. The hard impacts gave way to soft crunches, and the victor rolled away from the spasming victim, scrambled upright, then limped away.
Doors were being kicked down. Women screamed as their hiding places were discovered.
There were no Tiste Edur in sight.
From her right, three men shambling like marauders. One carried a bloodstained club, another a single-handed sickle. The third man was dragging a dead or unconscious girl-child by one foot.
They saw her. The one with the club smiled. ‘We was coming to c’llect you, Acquitor . Woke up wanting more, did ya?’
She did not recognize any of them, but there was terrible familiarity in their eyes as they looked upon her.
‘The city’s fallen,’ the man continued, drawing closer. ‘But we got a way out, an’ we’re taking you with us.’
The one with the sickle laughed. ‘We’ve decided to keep you to ourselves, lass. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe.’
Seren curled tighter against the wall.
‘Hold there!’
A new voice. The three men looked up.
Iron-haired, blue-eyed – she recognized the newcomer. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. She’d never seen armour like that before: she would have remembered the blood-red surcoat. A plain sword at the stranger’s left hip, which he was not reaching towards.
‘It’s that foreign bastard,’ the man with the club said. ‘Find your own.’
‘I just have,’ he replied. ‘Been looking for her the last two days-’
‘She’s ours,’ said the sickle-wielder.
‘No closer,’ the third man growled, raising the child in one hand as if he meant to use the body for a weapon.