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It was a quiet, but not peaceful several hours as we worked. I kept slathering the meat with the sauce each time it threatened to dry out while the guys kept it turning. It was strangely anticlimactic, as some of the guys sat around and smoked to pass the time as the others turned.

“Well, now, let's take a look,” Adam said, looking much redder as he strode into the room. “Mmm…you’ve done a good job.” He pulled a knife off his belt and sliced off a sliver, taking a bite. “Mmhmm, that’s good. Here,” he proffered a piece to me, “take a bite.”

I moved in almost shyly. The guys’ eyes were on me, as food was somehow tied up with mating rituals with Tirian men, but I took a polite bite.

My eyes widened as the taste exploded in my mouth.

It was like rotisserie chicken and barbeque ribs and some other tangy awesomeness all rolled into one.

My stomach rumbled at that, thinking this was a damn fine start, and could I please have some more.

“The sauce seals in the moisture in the meat, keeping it tender, and the herbs bring out the flavour,” Adam said proudly.

“This is why the Volken have never replaced me as cook. Come, you must eat. We get our meals in shifts around the different courses. The entrees are going out now along with the drinks, so come and eat while the serving staff are out.”

“What about the spits?” Slade said.

“The back ones are close, these others can be brought in to rest. If half of you stay to finish off the meat, the others will eat and then swap. No more sauce is needed,” Adam said.

“Aaron, Brandon, and Slade will go with Jules,” Finn said. “Stick by her side. We’ll stay here and finish off the meat. Maybe we should take our meals in here.”

“Yeah?” Slade said, eyeing the thin slot of windows high up on the walls. “Be good to get away from this heat.”

“Yeah, but to anyone who works here, we’re obviously strangers. Let’s keep a low profile, even if it's a hot one.”

That settled, Adam steered me out into the kitchen as the guys brought in the massive skewers of meat, and deposited them on the workbench before going back for more.

“Through here,” he said, ushering me into what looked like a break room.

There was a large table surrounded by stools, a couple of young kids in there, hunched protectively over their plates, and an older woman dozing in the corner.

“Sit, sit,” he said. “I’ll bring you a plate. Help yourself to some water.”

I smiled at the kids as I reached for the pitcher, poured the water into a rough earthenware cup, and took a sip.

God, it was cool and tasted faintly of lemons, which was bloody lovely after the spit room.

I settled back against the wall, and my muscles relaxed as I watched the guys ferry the meat in.

I took a deep breath, feeling really tired after all the excitement of the last few days, and closed my eyes for a second.

“What are you doing sitting down on the job?” They flicked open just as fast to see an irritated looking woman standing in the doorway staring down at me. “Well?”

“Adam told me to?—”

“Don’t try to palm this off on Adam. You must be new here, otherwise you’d know no one sits down on feast days.

We need everybody we’ve got to get the meals out.

The bloody crows have staked out a couple of my best girls on the main table to have their way with, but no more coming to supply the bastards with food.

Come along now.” She pulled me to my feet, then paused for a second by an internal door in the kitchen, listening to the dull roar coming from beyond it.

“If we don’t get the food out there fast, there’ll be a bloody riot. ”

“But my clothes…” I said, looking down at the sauce stained shirt I was wearing.

“Don’t think that’ll be enough to excuse you.

Here now.” She reached over to unhook a voluminous white pinafore from beside the door.

“Now tie your hair up neater than that and put one of these on.” She passed me something that looked like a cloth bathing cap but with an extensive frill that fell in my eyes when I pulled it on. “Very good, now come on.”

The noise got louder as she opened the door, directing me down a dark corridor that led into a serving area.

Women loaded their arms up with big platters of various delicacies.

I nodded when I looked at it, they were bigger than I was used to, but I’d learned the fine art of carrying six plates at the same time long ago, so one or two of these couldn’t be too hard.

Then I saw the women returning from serving.

“They’re feral today,” one woman snapped as she entered the room. She was tugging the pieces of her pinafore back into place, using the waist tie to secure it, but I could still see the raking red marks along her neck and shoulders. “Poor Annie… We’ll have to break the news to her mother.”

“She knew what she was doing, sending her daughter to work the banquet. The money’ll help her dry her tears,” the original woman said, passing her another platter. “Well, new girl, ready to earn your hazard pay?”

Was I? I didn’t need to do any of this. This woman was human, she didn’t have the strength to compel me to do anything, and anyway, a quick check in with Adam would have set her straight.

I looked to the open doorway the other women entered and disappeared through, heard the waves of raucous noise coming from it, and wondered.

We’d talked about the Volken, seen them in visions, plotted and planned our way around them, but apart from those we saw at the gate and passed as we walked to the kitchens, I’d seen little of them.

Who were these people that threatened my home?

Why were they like this? The guys had taken point all the way here, but now it was as if all my experience dealing with dickhead customers at the diner had come to this.

I could use my skills as a waitress to deliver some platters and get some real information to report back to the guys.

I reached over and grabbed the nearest platter, hoisting it to my shoulder.

The woman who’d dragged me here nodded grimly, then pointed a finger to the door.

“Take that to the nobs at the high table. That’s several thousand marks of fish eggs on there, though the gods only know why anyone would pay so much for it.

Be careful not to drop it, and be in and out, no matter what you see.

You tarry, you’re next. Lizzy, show her where to go. ”

There’s a curious kind of unreality that comes from watching films like Schindler’s List .

There’s the black and white thing, and the differences in people’s dress and speech, but mostly it's the conflicting awareness of watching something that should be the fare of some kind of gore-porn film and knowing it actually happened. People’s brains blown out for arbitrary reasons, using others as target practice, hauling kids away to be gassed, people hiding in latrines full of piss and shit to avoid it, all both completely terrifying and somehow prosaic as it happens.

Over and over, people’s lives are ruined or ended, and for what?

What did the Nazis achieve with this completely wanton massacre?

There was something of that feel when I walked in.

The first things I noticed were the noise and the many, many bodies, sitting at long tables complete with pristine white tablecloths and shining metal cutlery.

Great gleaming tankards were at every place setting, and large bottles of wine and spirits were scattered all over the tables.

Volken, each in their best armour, every single piece gleaming with the kind of dull, well-oiled look of conditioned leather, drank and filled theirs and their comrades’ cups with gusto.

Nothing too untoward about that. People get boisterous at feasts.

Then there were the crystals. Great clusters, like those we had pulled from the ruins only to be taken by the Uldariel, were mounted on elaborate plinths.

They marked each quadrant of the room, glowing softly, as did the many smaller ones the men wore.

The largest was in the centre, carved into the form of Lonan, his head thrown back, frozen mid howl.

But in contrast with all this food and drink and geologic formations and art were the screams and the specially designed tables.

“Come on,” Lizzy said, giving me a nudge. “You stare, you might be next.”

I snuck looks at them as I walked to the far end of the room, past row after row of Volken.

There was a large dais with bigger tables, more elaborate glassware, and what must be finer wine decanted into bottles, and the Volken that sat there had many small silver insignias to indicate whatever special rank they possessed.

I drew on all my previous experiences in hospitality and kept on walking quickly and efficiently towards my target, as serving women were hauled over to what looked like specially designed tables to be tied down and raped.

I admit, I flinched a little as I heard the sound of fabric ripping.

Which was weird, since I had heard one screaming her pain since I walked in.

I'm not sure why that caught my attention, but it did. Then the other woman’s screams joined her sister’s as they moved to tie her down, her cries mostly muffled by the Volken’s shouts of encouragement and suggestions of what to do to the victims. I regretted my curiosity.

If ever the saying ‘curiosity killed the cat’ applied to anyone, it was me.