Victarion caught the lad about the throat with a bloody fist. " Go and get it, " he said, forcing him backwards over the side into the bloodstained waters.
The bloodstained messenger shook his head. " Our outriders had been vanishing. Marq Piper's work, we thought. The ones who did come back had seen nothing. "
He got painfully out on to the side of the track and limped to the petrol tank at the rear, pulling his bloodstained handkerchief out of his trouser pocket.
I allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and if I felt a twinge of unease that I ought, perhaps, to have told you then, it was swiftly silenced.