The Blue Horde's soldier, Murat, reminded Naz of an obese Caspian seal with mange, a delipidated upright freezer with a patchy beard, Brutus' stupider and eviler twin brother. His head was shaved into a crew cut like a dog's chewed-up and spit upon tennis ball. He had eyes liked stewed teabags, skin the colour of old newspaper, ears like the handles of a rugby trophy, distended and with more hair in and on them than a wild pig. There was a scar running down his cheek that looked like the two pieces had been joined with a welding torch. His teeth were yellow and stained, crooked, half of them stainless steel crowns and fillings.

Complete the portrait with grey-black stubble littered over acne scars like the ice on the Ural River just after spring breakup. It smelled like he was hoarding a sack of goose shit under a stinking sweatshirt that looked like it had been washed in an ashtray. The stink of body odour – deadly, like with most sub-humans – stuck on him like lesions on a leper. There was something hard and unformed about him, like a man who had grown up forced to eat gravel and had a soul full of ashes to match.

Naz scanned the walking Douglas Fir tree for crude prison tattoos and her suspicions were confirmed. If this – what? "Man" didn't describe him — wasn't vor, then he was only a short droshky ride away.