Dogman heard the sound of Crummock's laughter behind him. 'Getting away wasn't ever the purpose o' this, though, eh?'

Bethod's own standard was going up now, near to the back but still towering over the others. Huge great thing, red circle on black. Dogman frowned at it, flapping in the breeze. He remembered seeing it months ago, back in Angland. Back when Threetrees had still been alive, and Cathil too. He worked his tongue round his sour mouth.

'King o' the fucking Northmen,' he muttered.

A few men came out from the front, where they were digging, started walking up towards the wall. Five of 'em, all in good armour, the one at the front with his arms spread out wide.

'Jawing time,' muttered Dow, then gobbed down into the ditch. They came up close, the five, up in front of the patched-up gate, mail coats shining dull in the brightening sun. The first of 'em had long white hair and one white eye, and weren't too hard to remember. White-Eye Hansul. He looked older than he used to, but didn't they all? He'd been the one to ask Threetrees to surrender, at Uffrith, and been told to piss off. He'd had shit thrown down on him at Heonan. He'd offered duels to Black Dow, and to Tul Duru, and to Harding Grim. Duels against Bethod's champion. Duels against the Bloody-Nine. He'd done a lot of talking for Bethod, and he'd told a lot o' lies.

'That Shite-Eye Hansul down there?' jeered Black Daw at him. 'Still sucking on Bethod's cock, are you?'

The old warrior grinned up at them. 'Man's got to feed his family somehow, don't he, and one cock tastes pretty much like another, if you ask me! Don't pretend like your mouths ain't all tasted salty enough before!'

He had some kind of point there, the Dogman had to admit. They'd all fought for Bethod themselves, after all. 'What're you after, Hansul?' he shouted. 'Bethod want to surrender to us, does he?'

'You'd have thought so, wouldn't you, outnumbered like he is, but that's not why I'm here. He's ready to fight, just like always, but I'm more of a talker than a fighter, and I talked him into giving you all a chance. I got two sons down there, in with the rest, and call me selfish but I'd rather not have 'em in harm's way. I'm hoping we can maybe talk our way clear of this.'

'Don't seem too likely!' shouted Dogman, 'but give it a go if you must, I've got nothing else pressing on today!'

'Here's the thing, then! Bethod don't particularly want to waste time, and sweat, and blood on climbing your little shit-pile of a wall. He's got business with the Southerners he wants to get settled. It's scarcely worth the breath of pointing out the bastard of a fix you're in. We've got the numbers more'n ten to one, I reckon. Much more, and you've no way out. Bethod says any man wants to give up now can go in peace. All he has to do is give over his weapons.'

'And his head soon afterwards, eh?' barked Dow.

Hansul took a big breath in, like he hardly expected to be believed. 'Bethod says any man wants to can go free. That's his word.'

'Fuck his word!' Dow sneered at him, and down the walls men jeered and spat their support. 'D'you think we ain't all seen him break it ten times before? I done shits worth more!'

'Lies, o' course,' chuckled Crummock, 'but it's traditional, no? To get a bit o' lying done, before we get started on the hard work. You'd feel insulted if he didn't give it some kind of a try at least. Any man, is it?' he called down. 'What about Crummock-i-Phail, can he go free? What about the Bloody-Nine?'

Hansul's face sagged at the name. 'It's true then? Ninefingers is up there, is he?'

Dogman felt Logen come up beside and show himself on the wall. White-Eye turned pale, and his shoulders slumped. 'Well,' Dogman heard him saying quiet, 'it has to be blood, then.'

Logen leaned lazily on the parapet, and he gave Hansul and his Carls a look. That hungry, empty look, like he was picking which one of a herd o' sheep to slaughter first. 'You can tell Bethod we'll come out.' He left a pause. 'Once we've killed the fucking lot o' you.'

A ripple of laughter went down the walls, and men jeered and shook their weapons in the air. Not funny words, particularly, but hard ones, which was what they all needed to hear, Dogman reckoned. Good way to get rid of their fear, for a moment. He even managed half a smile himself.

White-Eye just stood there, in front of their rickety gate, and he waited for the boys to go quiet. 'I heard you was chief of this crowd now, Dogman. So you don't have to take your orders from this blood-mad butcher no more. That your answer as well? That the way it is?'

Dogman shrugged. 'Just what other way did you think it'd be? We didn't come here to talk, Hansul. You can piss off back, now.'

Some more laughter, and some more cheers, and one lad down at Shivers' end of the wall pulled his trousers down and stuck his bare arse over the parapet. So that was that for the negotiations.

White-Eye shook his head. 'Alright, then. I'll tell him. Back to the mud with the lot o' you, I reckon, and well earned. You can tell the dead I tried, when you meet 'em!' He started picking his way back down the valley, the four Carls behind him.

Logen loomed forward, all of a sudden. 'I'll be looking for your sons, Hansul!' he screamed, spit flying out his snarling, grinning mouth and away into the wind, 'When the work begins! You can tell Bethod I'm waiting! Tell 'em all I'll be waiting!'

A strange stillness fell on the wall and the men upon it, on the valley and the men within it. That kind of stillness that comes sometimes, before a battle, when both sides know what to expect. The same stillness that Logen had felt at Carleon, before he drew his sword and roared for the charge. Before he lost his finger. Before he was the Bloody-Nine. Long ago, when things were simpler.

Bethod's ditch was deep enough for him, and the Thralls had put away their shovels and moved behind it. The Dogman had climbed the steps back to the tower, no doubt taken up his bow beside Grim and Tul, and was waiting. Crummock was behind the wall with his Hillmen, lined up fierce and ready. Dow was with his lads on the left. Red Hat was with his boys on the right. Shivers wasn't far from Logen, both of them stood above the gate, waiting.

The standards down in the valley flapped and rustled gently in the wind. A hammer clanged once, twice, three times in the fortress behind them. A bird called, high above. A man whispered, somewhere, then was still. Logen closed his eyes, and tipped his face back, and he felt the hot sun and the cool breeze of the High Places on his skin. All as quiet as if he'd been alone, and there were no ten thousand men about him eager to set to killing one another. So still, and calm, he almost smiled. Was this what life would have been, if he'd never held a blade?

For the length of three breaths or so, Logen Ninefingers was a man of peace.

Then he heard the sound of men moving, and he opened his eyes. Bethod's Carls shuffled to the sides of the valley, rank after rank of them, with a crunching of feet and a rattling of gear. They left a rocky path, an open space through their midst. Out of that gap black shapes came, swarming over the ditch like angry ants from a broken nest, boiling up the slope towards the wall in a formless mass of twisted limbs, and snarling mouths and scraping claws.

Shanka, and even Logen had never seen half so many in one place. The valley crawled with them a gibbering, clattering, squawking infestation.

'By the fucking dead,' someone whispered.

Logen wondered if he should shout something to the men on the walls around him. If he should cry, 'Steady!', or 'Hold!'. Something to help put some heart in his lads, the way a leader was meant to. But what would have been the point? Every one of them had fought before and knew his business. Every one of them knew that it was fight or die, and there was no better spur to a man's courage than that.

So Logen gritted his teeth, and he curled his fingers tight round the cold grip of the Maker's sword, and he slid the dull metal from its scarred sheath, and he watched the Flatheads come. A hundred strides away now, maybe, the front runners, and coming on fast.

'Ready your bows!' roared Logen.

'Bows!' echoed Shivers.

'Arrows!' came Dow's harsh scream from down the wall, and Red Hat's bellow from the other side. All around Logen the bows creaked as they were drawn, men taking their aim, jaws clenched, faces grim and dirty. The Flatheads came on, heedless, teeth shining, tongues lolling, bitter eyes bright with hate. Soon, now, very soon. Logen spun the grip of the sword round in his hand.

'Soon,' he whispered.

'Start fucking shooting, then!' And the Dogman loosed his shaft into the crowd of Shanka. Strings buzzed all round him and the first volley went hissing down. Arrows missed their marks, bounced off rock and spun away, arrows found their marks and brought Flatheads squealing down in a tangle of black limbs. Men reached for more, calm and solid, the best archers in the whole crew and knowing it.

Bows clicked and shafts twittered and Shanka died down in the valley, and the archers took aim, nice and easy, loosing 'em off and on to the next. Dogman heard the order from down below and he saw the twitch and flicker of shafts flying from the walls. More Flatheads dropped, thrashing and struggling in the dirt.

'Easy as squashing ants in a bowl!' someone shouted.

'Aye!' growled the Dogman, 'except ants won't climb up out of that bowl and cut your fucking head off! Less talk and more arrows!' He watched the first Shanka come up to their fresh-dug ditch, start floundering in, trying to drag the stakes down, scrabbling about at the bottom of the wall.

Tul heaved a great stone up over his head, leaned out and flung it spinning down with a roar. Dogman saw it crash into a Shanka's head below in the ditch and dash its brains out, red against the rocks, saw it bounce and tumble into others, send a couple reeling. More fell, screeching as shafts flitted down into them, but there were plenty behind, sliding into the ditch, swarming over each other. They crushed up to the wall, spreading out down its length, a few of them hurling spears up at the men on top, or shooting clumsy arrows.

Now they were starting to climb, claws digging into pitted stone, hauling themselves up, and up. Slow across most of the wall, and getting torn off by rocks and arrows from above. Quicker on the far side, over on the left, furthest from the Dogman and his boys, where Black Dow had the watch. Even quicker round the gate, where there was still some ivy stuck to the stone.

'Damn it, but those bastards can climb!' hissed the Dogman, fumbling out his next shaft.

'Uh,' grunted Grim.

The Shanka's hand slapped down on the top of the parapet, a twisted claw, scratching at the stones. Logen watched the arm come after, bent and ugly, patched with thick hair and squirming with thick sinew. Now came the flattened top of its bald head, a hulking lump of heavy brow, great jaw yawning wide, sharp teeth slick with spit. The deep set eyes met his. Logen's sword split its skull down to its flat stub of nose and popped one eye from its socket.

Men shot arrows and ducked down as arrows bounced from stone. A spear went twittering past over Logen's head. Down below he could hear the Shanka scratching and tearing at the gates, beating at them with clubs and hammers, could hear them shrieking with rage. Shanka hissed and squawked as they tried to pull themselves over the parapet and men hacked at them with sword and axe, poked them off the wall with spears.

He could hear Shivers roaring, 'Get 'em away from the gate! Away from the gate!' Men bellowed curses. One Carl who'd been leaning out over the parapet fell back, coughing. He had a Shanka's spear through him, just under his shoulder, the point making the shirt stick right up off his back. He blinked down at the warped shaft, opened his mouth to say something. He groaned, took a couple of wobbling steps, and a big Flathead started dragging itself over the parapet behind him, its arm stretched out on the stone.

The Maker's sword chopped deep into it just below the elbow, spattering sticky spots across Logen's face. The blade caught stone and made his hand sing, sent him stumbling long enough for the Shanka to drag itself over, its flopping arm only just held on by a flap of skin and sinew, dark blood drooling out in long spurts.

It came for Logen with its other claw but he caught its wrist, kicked its knee sideways and brought it down. Before it could get up he'd chopped a long gash out of its back, splinters of white bone showing in the great wound. It thrashed and struggled, splattering blood around, and Logen caught it tight under the throat, heaved it back over the wall and flung it off. It fell, and crashed into another just starting to climb. Both of them went sprawling in the ditch, one scrabbling around with a broken stake in its throat.

A young lad stood there, gawping, bow hanging limp from his hand.

'Did I tell you to stop fucking shooting?' Logen roared at him, and he blinked and nocked a shaft with a trembling hand, hurried back to the parapet. There were men everywhere fighting, and shouting, shooting arrows and swinging blades. He saw three Carls stabbing at a Flathead with their spears. He saw Shivers plant a blow in the small of another's back, blood leaping in the air in dark streaks. He saw a man smash a Flathead in the face with his shield, just as it got to the top of the wall, and knock it into the empty air. Logen slashed at a Shanka's hand, slipped in some blood and fell on his side, nearly stabbed himself. He crawled a stride or two and fumbled his way up. He hacked a Shanka's arm off that was already spitted thrashing on a Carl's spear, chopped halfway through another's neck as it showed itself over the parapet. He lurched after it and stared over.

One Shanka was still on the wall, and Logen was just pointing to it when an arrow from off the tower took it in the back. It crashed down into the ditch, stuck on a stake. The ones round the gate were all done, crushed with rocks and bristling with broken arrows. That was it for the centre, and Red Hat's side was already clear. Over on the left there were still a few up on the walls, but Dow's boys were getting well on top of them now. Even as Logen watched he saw a couple flung down bloody into the ditch.

In the valley they started wavering, edging away, squeaking and shrieking, arrows still falling among them from the Dogman's archers. Seemed that even Shanka could have enough. They started to turn, to scuttle back towards Bethod's ditch.

'We done 'em!' someone bellowed, and then everyone was cheering and screaming. The boy with the bow was waving it over his head now, grinning like he'd beaten Bethod all by himself.

Logen didn't celebrate. He frowned out at the great crowd of Carls beyond the ditch, the standards of Bethod's host flapping over them in the breeze. Brief and bloody, that one might have been, but the next time they came it was likely to be a lot less brief, and a lot more bloody. He made his aching fist uncurl from round the Maker's sword, leaned it up against the parapet, and he pressed one hand with the other to stop them shaking. He took a long breath.

'Still alive,' he whispered.

Logen sat sharpening his knives, the firelight flashing on the blades as he turned them this way and that, stroking them with the whetstone, licking his fingertip and wiping a smudge away, getting them nice and clean. You could never have too many, and that was a fact. He grinned as he remembered what Ferro's answer to that had been. Unless you fall into a river and drown for all that weight of iron. He wondered for an idle moment if he'd ever see her again, but it didn't look likely. You have to be realistic, after all, and getting through tomorrow seemed like quite the ambition.

Grim sat opposite, trimming some straight sticks to use as arrow shafts. There'd still been the slightest glimmer of dusk in the sky when they'd sat down together. Now it was dark as pitch but for the dusty stars, and neither one of them had said a word the whole time. That was Harding Grim for you, and it suited Logen well enough. A comfortable silence was much preferable to a worrisome conversation, but nothing lasts forever.

The sound of angry footsteps came out of the darkness and Black Dow stalked up to the fire, Tul and Crummock just behind him. He had a frown on his face black enough to have earned his name, and a dirty bandage round his forearm, a long streak of dark blood dried into it.

'Pick up a cut, did you?' asked Logen.

'Bah!' Dow dropped down beside the fire. 'Nothing but a scratch. Fucking Flatheads! I'll burn the lot of 'em!'

'How about the rest of you?'

Tul grinned. 'My palms are terrible chafed from hefting rocks, but I'm a tough bastard. I'll live through it.'

'And I still find myself miserably idle,' said Crummock, 'with my children looking to my weapons, and cutting arrows from the dead. Good work for children, that, gets 'em comfortable round a corpse. The moon's keen to see me fight, though, so she is, and so am I.'

Logen sucked at his teeth. 'You'll get your chance, Crummock, I'd not worry about that. Bethod's got plenty for everyone, I reckon.'

'I never seen Flatheads come on like that,' Dow was musing. 'Right at a well-manned wall with no ladders, no tools. It ain't too clever, your Flathead, but it ain't stupid either. They like ambushes. They like cover, and hiding, and creeping around. They can be mad fearless, when they have to be, but to come on like that, by choice? Not natural.'

Crummock chuckled, a great raspy rumbling. 'Shanka fighting for one set of men against another ain't natural either. These aren't natural times. Might be Bethod's witch has worked some charm to get 'em all stirred up. Cooked herself a chant and a ritual to fill those things with hate of us.'

'Danced naked round a green fire and all the rest, I don't doubt,' said Tul.

'The moon will see us right, my friends, don't worry yourself on that score!' Crummock rattled the bones around his neck. 'The moon loves us all, and we cannot die while there's-'

'Tell it to those as went back to the mud today.' Logen jerked his head over towards the fresh dug graves at the back of the fortress. There was no seeing them in the darkness, but they were there. A score or so long humps of turned and pressed-down earth.

But the big hillman only smiled. 'I'd call them the happy ones, though, wouldn't you? Least they all get their own beds, don't they? We'll be lucky if we don't go in pits for a dozen each once the work gets hot. There'll be nowhere for the living to sleep otherwise. Pits for a score! Don't tell me you ain't seen that before, or dug the holes your own sweet self.'

Logen got up. 'Maybe I have, but I didn't like it any.'

'Course you did!' Crummock roared after him. 'Don't give me that, Bloody-Nine!'

Logen didn't look back. There were torches set on the wall, every ten paces or so, bright flames in the darkness, white specks of insects floating around them. Men stood in their light, leaning on their spears, bows clenched in their hands, swords drawn, watching the night for surprises. Bethod had always loved surprises, and Logen reckoned they'd have some before they were through, one way or another.

He came up to the parapet and set his hands on the clammy stone, frowned down at the fires burning in the blackness of the valley. Bethod's fires, far away in the dark, and their own ones, bonfires built up and lit just below the wall to try and catch any clever bastards trying to sneak up. They cast flickering circles across the shadowy rocks, with here or there the twisted corpse of a Flathead, hacked and flung from the wall or stuck with arrows.

Logen felt someone move behind him and his back prickled, eyes sliding to the corners. Shivers, maybe, come to settle their score and shove him off the wall. Shivers, or one of a hundred others with some grudge that Logen had forgotten but they never would. He made sure his hand was close to a blade, and he bared his teeth, and he made ready to spin and strike.

'We did good today, though, eh?' said the Dogman. 'Lost less than twenty.'

Logen breathed easy again, and he let his hand drop. 'We did alright. But Bethod's just getting started. He's prodding, to see where we're weakest, see if he can wear us down. He knows that time's the thing. Most valuable thing there is, in war. A day or two's worth more to him than a load of Flatheads. If he can crush us quick he'll take the losses, I reckon.'

'Best thing might be to hold out, then, eh?'

Off in the darkness, far away and echoing, Logen could just hear the clang and clatter of smithing and carpentry. 'They're building down there. All the stuff they'll need to climb our wall, fill in our ditch. Lots of ladders, and all the rest. He'll take us quick if he can, Bethod, but he'll take us slow if he has to.'

Dogman nodded. 'Well, like I said. Best thing to do would be to hold out. If all goes to plan, the Union'll be here soon.'

'They'd better be. Plans have a way of coming apart when you lean on 'em.'

Such Sweet Sorrow 'His Resplendence, the Grand Duke of Ospria, desires only the best of relations . . .'

Jezal could do little but sit and smile, as he had been sitting and smiling all the whole interminable day. His face, and his rump, were aching from it. The burbling of the ambassador continued unabated, accompanied by flamboyant hand gestures. Occasionally he would dam the river of blather for a moment, so that his translator could render his platitudes into the common tongue. He need scarcely have bothered.

'. . . the great city of Ospria was always honoured to count herself among the closest friends of your illustrious father, King Guslav, and now seeks nothing more than the continuing friendship of the government and people of the Union . . .'

Jezal had sat and smiled through the long morning, in his bejewelled chair, on his high marble dais, as the ambassadors of the world came to pay their ingratiating respects. He had sat as the sun rose in the sky and poured mercilessly through the vast windows, glinting on the gilt mouldings that encrusted every inch of wall and ceiling, flashing from the great mirrors, and silver candlesticks, and grand vases, striking multi-coloured fire from the tinkling glass beads on the three monstrous chandeliers.

'. . . the Grand Duke wishes once again to express his brotherly regret at the minor incident last spring, and assures you that nothing of the kind will happen again, provided the soldiers of Westport stay on their side of the border . . .'

He had sat through the endless afternoon as the room grew hotter and hotter, squirming as the representatives of the world's great leaders bowed in and scraped out with identical bland congratulations in a dozen different languages. He had sat as the sun went down, and hundreds of candles were lit and hoisted up, twinkling at him from the mirrors, and the darkened windows, and the highly polished floor. He sat, smiling, and receiving praise from men whose countries he had scarcely even heard of before that endless day began.

'. . . His Resplendence furthermore hopes and trusts that the hostilities between your great nation and the Empire of Gurkhul may soon come to an end, and that trade may once more flow freely around the Circle Sea.'

Both ambassador and translator paused politely for a rare instant and Jezal managed to stir himself into sluggish speech. 'We have a similar hope. Please convey to the Grand Duke our thanks for the wonderful gift.' Two lackeys, meanwhile, heaved the huge chest to one side and placed it with the rest of the gaudy rubbish Jezal had accumulated that day.

Further Styrian chatter flowed out into the room. 'His Resplendence wishes to convey his heartfelt congratulations on your August Majesty's forthcoming marriage to the Princess Terez, the Jewel of Talins, surely the greatest beauty alive in all the wide Circle of the World.' Jezal could only fight to maintain his stretched grin. He had heard the match spoken of as a settled thing so often that day that he had lost the will to correct the misconception, and had in fact almost started to think of himself as engaged. All he cared about was that the audiences should finally be finished with, so he might steal a moment to drown himself in peace.

'His Resplendence has further instructed us to wish your August Majesty a long and happy reign,' explained the translator, 'and many heirs, that your line may continue undiminished in glory.' Jezal forced his smile a tooth wider, and inclined his head. 'I bid you good evening!'

The Osprian ambassador bowed with a theatrical flourish, sweeping off his enormous hat, its multicoloured feathers thrashing with enthusiasm. Then he shuffled backwards, still bent over, across the gleaming floor. He somehow made it out into the corridor without pitching over on his back, and the great doors, festooned with gold leaf, were smoothly shut upon him.

Jezal snatched the crown from his head and tossed it onto the cushion beside the throne, rubbing at the chafe marks round his sweaty scalp with one hand while he tugged his embroidered collar open with the other. Nothing helped. He still felt dizzy, weak, oppressively hot.

Hoff was already ingratiating himself onto Jezal's left side. 'That was the last of the ambassadors, your Majesty. Tomorrow will be occupied by the nobility of Midderland. They are eager to pay homage-'

'Lots of homage and little help, I'll be bound!'

Hoff managed a chuckle of suffocating falseness. 'Ha, ha, ha, your Majesty. They have sought audiences from dawn, and we would not wish to offend them by-'

'Damn it!' hissed Jezal, jumping up and shaking his legs in a vain effort to unstick his trousers from his sweaty backside. He jerked his crimson sash over his head and flung it away, tore his gilded frock coat open and tried to rip it off, but in the end he got his hand caught in one cuff and had to turn the bloody thing inside out before he could finally get free of it.

'Damn it!' He hurled it down on the marble dais with half a mind to stamp it to rags. Then he remembered himself. Hoff had taken a cautious step back, and was frowning as if he had discovered his fine new mansion was afflicted with a terrible case of rot. The assorted servants, pages, and Knights, both Herald and of the Body, were all staring studiously ahead, doing their best to imitate statues. Over in the dark corner of the room, Bayaz was standing. His eyes were sunk in shadow, but his face was stony grim.