3

"Seven!" The roar fills the cramped barracks, a mixture of triumph and resigned disappointment. There is no money to bet, but they bet anyway; a strange mixture of odds and ends changes hands, amid raised voices and arguments.

In the middle of the rough circle of spectators, Gamba raises his hand modestly, smiling. "A skill, a skill. Give me a number."

"Nine!" is the first to be called, then numbers are shouted from here and there and everywhere, the mounting excitement palpable.

"Nine it is," Gamba says mildly, when the tumult has calmed slightly. "Bets?"

Dead silence. Most of the soldiers ranged around him have already lost money, and are unwilling to lose more. In ten rounds, after all, he has never failed to throw the number given.

"I'll bet you my blades that I can throw a higher number than you." Ashk pushes through the suddenly silent crowd, his weapons, as ever, strapped across his narrow back, and sits down cross-legged opposite the Yaran.

"Never bet more than you can afford to lose, lad," Gamba cautions him. "I won't take that bet."

"Are you scared?" Ashk demands, narrowing his eyes.

"Only for you." There is a smile there, clear on the scarred brown face. "Don't push it. You may be a good soldier, but dice rely on chance."

"They don't for you," the boy snaps, snatching up the dice, "and they won't for me. My blades against yours, Yaran."

At the back of the press of soldiers, Imial finally gives up trying to see, and turns, wandering off. They have been in Mordor for three days now, and with the sudden supply of food – even in quantities that would seem scarce in peacetime – the whole group is growing fitter and healthier by the day. He still limps from the blisters of the long march, but they are healing, slowly and surely, and the stink of infection is gone from the small, scrupulously tidy room they all share.

"There's a new platoon coming in soon," a voice says from behind him, and he knows without turning, from the accent, that it is Nitin. "And we'll be leaving as soon as they arrive, for the North."

Imial nods, sitting down on the rough stone stairs and looking back at his friend. "We must hope for their sakes that they did not have an encounter with the pale ghosts, as we did. It will be hard enough for them, not being able to rest betweentimes." He does not even think to doubt what the older man says; over the last few days, Nitin has more than proved himself as a reliable informant.

"They bring mûmakil," Nitin goes on, lowering himself down next to the young Sinaen and pulling out his curved sword. As he rummages through his clothes for his whetstone, he looks over at Imial. "Mûmakil and men. Three thousand at least – the last of the army."

"And then we fight?" Imial asks, knowing the answer, as the Mihilman begins to run the whetstone along the edge of his blade.

Nitin nods. "And then we fight."

They sit in companionable silence for a moment, as Nitin sharpens his blade slowly and Imial pulls out an arrow and begins refletching it. Then, as he cuts the last feather to shape, the Sinaen looks up at his friend.

"Do you have family?" he asks curiously, replacing the arrow in his quiver. "Back home? A wife, children?"

The Mihilman thinks for a moment, looking wistful, then shrugs and goes back to his blade. "Engaged," he answers, with a smile. "Elina, her name is. She's beautiful – ten years my senior, and married once already, but beautiful." He laughs quietly, putting the whetstone aside and turning his attention to Imial again. "Before I left, she told me that she wants twenty Northerners for a dowry, or the wedding's off. I asked her if she wanted them living or dead, and she said she didn't care, but she has a thing for golden-haired men. I told her I should bleach it!" He laughs again, plucking at his shoulder-length black hair. His face is so comical that Imial finds himself laughing, too, and the release of it is immediate and striking.

"What about you?" Nitin asks, when they have stopped laughing. "Some raven-eyed beauty pining for you back in the land of the ever-star?" He bats his eyelashes, grinning. "Some Princess Mende locked away in your heart?"

"Princess Mende?" Imial asks, momentarily distracted. Nitin flaps a hand.

"Just an old story. So, do you?"

Imial laughs, the tips of his ears reddening. "No! Not yet, anyway. There's just me, my brothers, my sister Aaqila, and my mother and father."

"And your Uncle Corba, who you love as a brother," says a deep, laughing voice behind Imial, who jumps.

"Uncle!" He leaps to his feet, arrows forgotten, and almost leaps to embrace the huge bear of a man who stands behind him, before remembering that he is a soldier, and not a child. Checking himself, he clasps his hands behind his back and bows deeply. When he looks up, his eyes are sparkling. "Why didn't you tell me you were here?"

Then he remembers, and there is a more pressing issue at hand. "Uncle," he says slowly, lowering his eyes, "Mahoomed..."

"I know," his uncle cuts in, smile fading, before Imial can go on. "I heard. None of us were ever given a guarantee that we would return alive." But there are tears nestling in the deep lines at the corner of his golden eyes, and under his thick black beard, his mouth is set into a painfully tight line.

Standing up, Nitin silently takes his leave, slipping back up the stairs towards the distant roar of Ashk's temper. The instant the Mihilman is gone, Corba steps forwards and pulls his nephew into a tight hug, biting his lip hard. For a moment, shocked, Imial can do nothing but blink. Then, his lips trembling, he puts his arms around the great bear of a man.

"Raheli and Najiyya will not know until we return," Corba tells him sadly, and Imial can hear the tremble in his voice. "If we return at all." He looks down at Imial, sighing. "Alatar and Pollando drew far back from this conflict. Maybe we should do the same."

"Don't say things like that, uncle!" Imial steps back, fire blazing in his eyes. "The Blue Wizards are Northerners themselves, you know that! Why should we trust them to guide our path against the North? We will fight, and we will win. How can we not? We are united now."

"Now, and maybe never again," Corba murmurs, with a sigh. "But you are right, of course. After all these years of warring, oppression, treachery, we can at last defeat the Northerners. We will make them pay for the way they have treated the South all these years. We will make them pay for Mahoomed's death."

Imial smiles up at his uncle, and it is a man's smile; a warrior's smile. It speaks of blood.

"Yes," he agrees, baring his teeth. "We will make them pay."

"Demons of Azgaroth!" Nitin's voice cries from upstairs, and there is a crash as something heavy hits the wall. "Ashk Naze, you damned Ania bastard!"

Imial and Corba exchange glances. Then, suddenly and without warning, they both dissolve into laughter.