Already surrounded by Kerdil dead on the upslope to the fort...

"They won't be ready yet..."

Surrounded by Kerdil dead on the up-slope, Kyre took a breath. ‘I’d better go up there, meet them at Borg Henge Fort.’

‘You can’t—’

‘I must; they won’t be ready with their orrikaan attack yet, not with eight or ten groze men up there—’

‘More than a thousand?’ Perti was shocked.

‘Too many to get roused, fed, dressed, weaponed up, briefed and platformed. It’s not yet dawn. They won’t have fought together in any organised way before – they’re here for the Games Festival, remember?

‘You think you can…?’

‘No.’ Wiping away the blood trickling into his left eye, ‘I don’t stand a raindrop’s chance in The Pit.’ He shrugged, re-checking the shoulder scabbards. ‘Depends on luck – Whether or not I get fast movement, and if I can stay strong. Plus, mostly, more luck. Don’t look at me like that, Sheen, just frugg off to Lordstown and leave me doing my Lord-of-Tyre-ish things.’

He spun away, ‘But it only takes one to play at Orrikaan. Don’t actually need a thousand.

‘Don’t wait up.’

"Ahh... so there's a few more than I thought..."

Striding up the slope towards the fortress town, he recited…

‘My rules – Look after myself above all.

Rest when I can; the pause can confuse them.

Move around. Start in a new spot after every action.

Vary it. Stealth, as well as speed and violence.’

Just round the curve of the ramp, out of sight from all directions… One last check on his weapons, hands and helmet.

‘What else? Would they expect me? Walking alone up this rampway? Perhaps. So they’ll have a blockade in place. Need some other way, to confuse them.

Try for fast movement. Now – before they’re ready.

Kill the most immediate threat first. Then the priory-thingy targets – the officers.

No chances, no mercy.

Think it, Kyre, do it.’

There, he studied the cliff face, looks to be a possible climbing route up.

‘I do this my way. No kroiting warnings this time. Remember that.

What’ll they expect? Right now? Nothing. They must still see themselves as the attackers, readying themselves for an in-force assault.’

He stood and forced, sucked in, concentrated… considered. ‘Do I have it? Can’t tell until…’

At as much of a run as he could manage, he began to scrabble and claw up the near-vertical cliff-face to the left. Hampered and spurred by at least three blood-fetching wounds, exhaustion, growing fear, the steepness of the rock face, the slowly-lifting near-darkness, and trying to look for watchers above – his effort was extreme.

Gasping for breath, he eventually clambered into a barricade-like edging of boulders on the rim. Peering… No-one nearby; not been seen.

‘So that’s Borg Henge.’

Immediately before him, in the dim pre-dawn light, was a parade ground twice the size of the Lordstown arena; crowded with a dark sea of seething, shuffling, marching uniformed Kerds. Beyond the massed soldiery, stretching from the cliff-edge on his left to was a battlemented series of walls and towers. A final tower to the right marked where the wall turned away to follow the rim of the cliff that overlooked the Greenlands.

‘Oh, shyke.’

A spillage of words and blood from the canyons and pages of "Lord of Tyre"