“I can tell you what you will see,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “You will see the Rulers whipped back through the Gap, back beyond the Glacier, like the dogs and sons of dogs they are.”

Dashru laughed in his face. “A bison may bellow before it goes over the cliff, but it goes over all the same. And even the bison here have small horns. They are weak, as the folk here are weak.”

“Do not laugh too soon,” Marcovefa warned him.

The prisoner laughed again. “You are another who pretends to be stronger than she is.”

Marcovefa looked at him. She muttered something in her own dialect of the Bizogot language. It really was almost a separate tongue in its own right; Hamnet couldn’t recognize more than a couple of words. Her hands shaped quick passes, all of them aimed at Dashru.

He stared defiantly back at her. After a moment, defiance changed to alarm. He shouted something in his own language. Hamnet Thyssen made out “Away with you!” in the midst of guttural gibberish. Dashru’s fingers twisted in a sign much like the one the Bizogots used to turn aside evil.

That seemed to buy him a few heartbeats of relief, but no more. Marcovefa went on muttering. Dashru started to have trouble breathing. His face went a mottled purple above the edge of his beard.

“Will you kill him?” Hamnet asked.

“Unless he admits I am stronger, I will. And I will roast his heart afterwards and eat it, too.” Marcovefa would have sounded more excited talking about an unexpected shower. And when she spoke of roasting Dashru’s heart, she meant it. Up atop the Glacier, captives from another clan were meat, nothing more.