Tall, slender yet as strong as steel, her ash blonde hair cut short. Her clear blue eyes fixed on his own and she gave him a tight-lipped smile. Ignoring the leers of the mercenaries she walked straight over to him. He took her hand and pulled her to him, feeling only the slightest resistance. Not a good sign. Ulrika was one of the most unpredictable women he had ever met, hard when he expected her to be soft, soft when he thought she would be hard. He had almost given up trying to understand her, but at least, at this moment, he thought he had some idea of what troubled her.

“Still no word?” he enquired, using as gentle a tone as he could muster.

“None,” she said in a voice that was flat and purposefully devoid of emotion. He knew that she had been doing the rounds of the guardhouses and taverns, and various noble relatives, hoping for some word of her father. She had not seen or heard from Ivan Petrovich Straghov since they had boarded the Spirit of Grungni and headed south. It was not a good sign. Even allowing for the vast distances that separated the Marchlands from Praag, the old boyar should have been here by now. Unless something terrible had happened.

“I am sure he is all right,” Felix said. He tried to make his tone comforting. “He is a hardy man, and he had over fifty lancers with him. He will make it through if anyone can.”

“I know. I know. It’s just… I have heard what the outriders have been saying about the size of the Chaos army. They liken it to a plague of locusts. No force such as this has emerged from the Wastes in two centuries. This one may be even larger than the one that faced Magnus the Pious and Tzar Alexander.”

“That will just make it easier to avoid.”

“You don’t know my father, Felix. He is not a man to run from a fight. He may have done something foolish.” She glanced around, tight-lipped. He sat down on the nearest chair, put his arm around her waist and drew her down onto his knee.

“I am sure he would not. Have a drink. That might help calm your nerves.”

She gave him an angry glare. “You have been drinking too much since we got here.”

It was the old argument. She always brought it up. Compared to most of the people they travelled with, he hardly drank at all. Of course, most of them were dwarfs, so perhaps that did not mean too much.

“Well, I have not been drinking today,” he said. “I have been at the Gate of Gargoyles, fighting.”

She looked at him slantwise.