Pieter wiped the muddy mixture of ashes and rain from his face with his sleeve.

"Can't deny I'm curious about that barrow, myself. But it would be decent to show some concern for the fallen and the wounded before we do anything else."

He gave Ricard Talberg a nod. "Well done for a noble's son," he said sincerely. "You're not half the coward I thought you were." Part of him was disappointed to lose a reason to dislike the pistolier.

He walked around the scene of the carnage, trying to count the corpses still entangled in the roots. The tree... it had been screaming, hadn't it? Then again, it had been trying to strangle them with its roots, so nothing should surprise him.

Ranald's teeth, what a disaster.