'But we hope we may achieve much more than that.'

'Aye, but, I mean ...' The Dogman took a deep breath as he frowned up towards the hill. 'Fuck.' I'm not sure I could have said it better. 'You sure about this?'

'My opinion does not enter into the case. The plan is Marshal Kroy's, on the orders of the Closed Council and the wishes of the king. My responsibility is the timing.'

'Well, if you're going to go, I wouldn't leave it too long.' The Dogman nodded to them, then turned his shaggy horse away. 'Reckon we'll have rain later. And lots of it!'

Jalenhorm peered up at the sullen sky, bright enough now to see the clouds flowing quickly across it, and sighed. 'The timing is in my hands. Across the river, through the orchards, and straight up the hill. Just go north, basically. That should be within my capabilities, I would have thought.' They sat in silence for a moment. 'I wanted very much to do the right thing, but I have proved myself to be ... not the greatest tactical mind in his Majesty's army.' He sighed again. 'At least I can still lead from the front.'

'With the greatest respect, might I suggest you remain behind the lines?'

Jalenhorm's head jerked around, astonished. At the words themselves or at hearing me speak more than three together? People talk to me as though they were talking to a wall, and they expect the same return. 'Your concern for my safety is touching, Colonel Gorst, but-'

'Bremer.' I might as well die with one person in the world who knows me by my first name.

Jalenhorm's eyes went even wider. Then he gave a faint smile. 'Truly touching, Bremer, but I am afraid I could not consider it. His Majesty expects-'

Fuck his Majesty. 'You are a good man.' A floundering incompetent, but still. 'War is no place for good men.'

'I respectfully disagree, on both counts. War is a wonderful thing for redemption.' Jalenhorm narrowed his eyes at the Heroes, seeming so close now, just across the water. 'If you smile in the face of danger, acquit yourself well, stand your ground, then, live or die, you are made new. Battle can make a man ... clean, can't it?' No. Wash yourself in blood and you come out bloody. 'Only look at you. I may or may not be a good man, but you are without doubt a hero.'

'Me?'

'Who else? Two days ago, here at these very shallows, you charged the enemy alone and saved my division. An established fact, I witnessed part of the action myself. And yesterday you were at the Old Bridge?' Gorst frowned at nothing. 'You forced a crossing when Mitterick's men were mired in the filth, a crossing that may very well win this battle for us today. You are an inspiration, Bremer. You prove that one man still can be worth something in the midst of ... all this. You do not need to fight here today, and yet you stand ready to give your life for king and country.' To toss it away for a king who does not care and a country which cannot. 'Heroes are a great deal rarer than good men.'

'Heroes are quickly fashioned from the basest materials. Quickly fashioned, and quickly replaced. If I qualify, they are worthless.'

'I beg to differ.'

'Differ, by all means, but please ... remain behind the lines.'

Jalenhorm gave a sad little smile, and he reached out, and tapped at Gorst's dented shoulder-plate with his fist. 'Your concern for my safety really is touching, Bremer. But I'm afraid I cannot do it. I cannot do it any more than you can.'

'No.' Gorst frowned up towards the hill, a black mass against the stained sky. 'A shame.'

Calder squinted through his father's eyeglass. Beyond the circle of light cast by all the lamps, the fields faded into shifting blackness. Down towards the Old Bridge he could pick out spots of brightness, perhaps the odd glint of metal, but not much more. 'Do you think they're ready?'

'I can see horses,' said Pale-as-Snow. 'A lot of horses.'

'You can? I can't see a bloody thing.'

'They're there.'

'You think they're watching?'

'I reckon they are.'

'Mitterick watching?'

'I would be.'

Calder squinted up at the sky, starting to show grey between the fast-moving clouds. Only the most committed optimist could've called it dawn, and he wasn't one. 'Guess it's time, then.'

He took one more swig from the flask, rubbed at his aching bladder, then passed it over to Pale-as-Snow and clambered up the stack of crates, blinking into the lamplight, conspicuous as a shooting star. He took a look over his shoulder at the ranks of men ranged behind him, dark shapes in front of the long wall. He didn't really understand them, or like them, and they felt the same about him, but they had one powerful thing in common. They'd all basked in his father's glory. They'd been great men because of who they served. Because they'd sat at the big table in Skarling's Hall, in the places of honour. They'd all fallen a long way when Calder's father died. It looked like none of them could stand to fall any further, which was a relief, since a Chief without soldiers is just a very lonely man in a big bloody field.

He was very much aware of all those eyes on him as he unlaced. The eyes of a couple of thousand of his boys behind, and a fair few of Tenways' too, and the eyes of a few thousand Union cavalry ahead, he hoped, General Mitterick among them, ready to pop his skull with anger.

Nothing. Try to relax or try to push? Bloody typical, that would be, all this effort and he found he couldn't go. To make matters worse the wind was keen and it was freezing the end of his prick. The man holding up the flag on his left, a grizzled old Carl with a great scar right across one cheek, was watching his efforts with a slightly puzzled expression.

'Can you not look?' snapped Calder.

'Sorry, Chief.' And he cleared his throat and almost daintily averted his eyes.

Maybe it was being called Chief that got him over the hump. Calder felt that hint of pain down in his bladder, and he grinned, let it build, let his head drop back, looked up at the bruised sky.

'Hah.' Piss showered out, drops shining in the lamplight, and spattered all over the first flag with a sound like rain on the daisies. Behind Calder, a wave of laughter swept down the lines. Easily pleased, maybe, but large bodies of fighting men don't tend to go for subtle jokes. They go for shit, and piss, and people falling over.

'And some for you too.' He sent a neat arc across the other flag, and he smirked towards the Union as wide as he could. Behind him men started to jump up, and dance about, and jeer across the barley. He might not be much of a warrior, or a leader, but he knew how to make men laugh, and how to make them angry. With his free hand he pointed up at the sky, and he gave a great whoop, and he shook his hips around and sent piss shooting all over the place. 'I'd shit on 'em too,' he shouted over his shoulder, 'but I'm all bound up from White-Eye's stew!'

'I'll shit on 'em!' someone shrieked, to a scattering of shrill chuckles.

'Save it for the Union, you can shit on them when they get here!'

And the men whooped and laughed, shook their weapons at the sky and clattered them against their shields and sent up quite the happy din. A couple had even climbed up on the wall and were pissing at the Union lines themselves. Maybe they found it a good deal funnier because they knew what was coming, just across the other side of the barley, but still Calder smiled to hear it. At least he'd stood up, and done one thing worth singing about. At least he'd given his father's men a laugh. His brother's men. His men.

Before they all got fucking murdered.

Beck thought he could hear laughter echoing on the wind, but he'd no idea what anyone might have to laugh about. It was getting light enough to see across the valley now. Light enough to get an idea of the Union's numbers. To begin with Beck hadn't believed those faint blocks on the other side of the shallows could be solid masses of men. Then he'd tried to make himself believe they weren't. Now there was no denying it.

'There are thousands of 'em,' he breathed.

'I know!' Whirrun was nearly jumping with happiness. 'And the more there are, the more our glory, right, Craw?'

Craw took a break from chewing his nails. 'Oh, aye. I wish there were twice as many.'

'By the dead, so do I!' Whirrun dragged in a long breath and blew it through a beaming smile. 'But you never know, maybe they've got more out of sight!'

'We can hope,' grunted Yon out of the corner of his mouth.

'I fucking love war!' squeaked Whirrun. 'I fucking love it, though, don't you?'

Beck didn't say anything.

'The smell of it. The feel of it.' He rubbed one hand up and down the stained sheath of his sword, making a faint swishing sound. 'War is honest. There's no lying to it. You don't have to say sorry here. Don't have to hide. You cannot. If you die? So what? You die among friends. Among worthy foes. You die looking the Great Leveller in the eye. If you live? Well, lad, that's living, isn't it? A man isn't truly alive until he's facing death.' Whirrun stamped his foot into the sod. 'I love war! Just a shame Ironhead's down there on the Children. Do you reckon they'll even get all the way up here, Craw?'

'Couldn't say.'

'I reckon they will. I hope they will. Better come before the rain starts, though. That sky looks like witch's work, eh?' It was true there was a strange colour to the first hint of sunrise, great towers of sullen-looking cloud marching in over the fells to the north. Whirrun bounced up and down on his toes. 'Oh, bloody hell, I can't wait!'

'Ain't they people too, though?' muttered Beck, thinking of the face of that Union man lying dead in the shack yesterday. 'Just like us?'

Whirrun squinted across at him. 'More than likely they are. But if you start thinking like that, well ... you'll get no one killed at all.'

Beck opened his mouth, then closed it. Didn't seem much he could say to that. Made about as much sense as anything else had happened the last few days.

'It's easy enough for you,' grunted Craw. 'Shoglig told you the time and place of your death and it ain't here.'

Whirrun's grin got bigger. 'Well, that's true and I'll admit it's a help to my courage, but if she'd told me here and she'd told me now, do you really reckon that'd make any difference to me?'

Wonderful snorted. 'You might not be yapping about it so bloody loud.'

'Oh!' Whirrun wasn't even listening. 'They're off already, look! That's early!' He pointed the Father of Swords at arm's length to the west, towards the Old Bridge, flinging his other arm around Beck's shoulders. The strength in it was fearsome, he nearly lifted Beck without even trying. 'Look at the pretty horses!' Beck couldn't see much down there but dark land, the glimmer of the river and a speckling of lights. 'That's fresh of 'em, isn't it, though? That's cheeky! Getting started and it's hardly dawn!'

'Too dark for riding,' said Craw, shaking his head.

'They must be as bloody eager as I am. Reckon they mean business today, eh, Craw? Oh, by the dead,' and he shook his sword towards the valley, dragging Beck back and forth and nearly right off his feet, 'I reckon there'll be some songs sung about today!'

'I daresay,' grunted Wonderful through gritted teeth. 'Some folk'll sing about any old shit.'

The Riddle of the Ground 'Here they come,' said Pale-as-Snow, utterly deadpan, as if there was nothing more worrying than a herd of sheep on its way. It hardly needed an announcement. Calder could hear them, however dark it was. First the long note of a trumpet, then the whispering rustle of horses through crops, far off but closing, sprinkled with calls, whinnies, jingles of harness that seemed to tickle at Calder's clammy skin. All faint, but all crushingly inevitable. They were coming, and Calder hardly knew whether to be smug or terrified. He settled on a bit of both.

'Can't believe they fell for it.' He almost wanted to laugh it was so ridiculous. Laugh or be sick. 'Those arrogant fucks.'

'If you can rely on one thing in a battle, it's that men rarely do what's sensible.' Good point. If Calder had any sense he'd have been on horseback himself, spurring hard for somewhere a long, long way away. 'That's what made your father the great man. Always kept a cold head, even in the fire.'

'Would you say we're in the fire now?'

Pale-as-Snow leaned forward and carefully spat. 'I'd say we're about to be. Reckon you'll keep a cold head?'

'Can't see why.' Calder's eyes darted nervously to either side, across the snaking line of torches before the wall. The line of his men, following the gentle rise and fall of the earth. 'The ground is a puzzle to be solved,' his father used to say, 'the bigger your army, the harder the puzzle.' He'd been a master at using it. One look and he'd known where to put every man, how to make each slope, and tree, and stream, and fence fight on his side. Calder had done what he could, used each tump and hummock and ranged his archers behind Clail's Wall, but he doubted that ribbon of waist-high farmer's drystone would give a warhorse anything more than a little light exercise.

The sad fact was a flat expanse of barley didn't offer much help. Except to the enemy, of course. No doubt they were delighted.

It was an irony Calder hadn't missed that his father was the one who'd smoothed off this ground. Who'd broken up the little farms in this valley and a lot of others. Pulled up the hedgerows and filled in the ditches so there could be more crops grown, and taxes paid, and soldiers fed. Rolled out a golden carpet of welcome to the matchless Union cavalry.

Calder could just make out, against the dim fells on the far side of the valley, a black wave through the black sea of barley, sharpened metal glimmering at the crest. He found himself thinking about Seff. Her face coming up so sharp it caught his breath. He wondered if he'd see that face again, if he'd live to kiss his child. Then the soft thoughts were crushed under the drumming of hooves as the enemy broke into a trot. The shrill calls of officers as they struggled to keep the ranks closed, to keep hundreds of tons of horseflesh lined up in one unstoppable mass.

Calder glanced over to the left. Not too far off the ground sloped up towards Skarling's Finger, the crops giving way to thin grass. Much better ground, but it belonged to that flaking bastard Tenways. He glanced over to the right. A gentler upward slope, Clail's Wall hugging the middle, then disappearing out of sight as the ground dropped away to the stream. Beyond the stream, he knew, were woods full of more Union troops, eager to charge into the flank of his threadbare little line and rip it to tatters. But enemies Calder couldn't see were far from his most pressing problem. It was the hundreds, if not thousands, of heavily armed horsemen bearing down from dead ahead, whose treasured flags he'd just pissed on, that were demanding his attention. His eyes flickered over that tide of cavalry, details starting from the darkness now, hints of faces, of shields, lances, polished armour.

'Arrows?' grunted White-Eye, leaning close beside him.

Best to look like he had some idea how far bowshot was, so he waited a moment longer before he snapped his fingers. 'Arrows.'

White-Eye roared the order and Calder heard the bowstrings behind him, shafts flickering overhead, flitting down into the crops between them and the enemy, into the enemy themselves. Could little bits of wood and metal really do any damage to all that armoured meat, though?

The sound of them was like a storm in his face, pressing him back as they closed and quickened, streaming north towards Clail's Wall and the feeble line of Calder's men. The hooves battered the shaking land, threshed crops flung high. Calder felt a sudden need to run. A shock through him. Found he was edging back despite himself. To stand against that was mad as standing under a falling mountain.

But he found he was less afraid with every moment, and more excited. All his life he'd been dodging this, ferreting out excuses. Now he was facing it, and finding it not so terrible as he'd always feared. He bared his teeth at the dawn. Almost smiling. Almost laughing. Him, leading Carls into battle. Him, facing death. And suddenly he was standing, and spreading his arms in welcome, and roaring nothing at the top of his lungs. Him, Calder, the liar, the coward, playing the hero. You never can tell who'll be called on to fill the role.

The closer the riders came the lower they leaned over their horses, lances swinging down. The faster they moved, stretching to a lethal gallop, the slower time seemed to crawl. Calder wished he'd listened to his father when he'd talked about the ground. Talked about it with a far-off look like a man remembering a lost love. Wished he'd learned to use it like a sculptor uses stone. But he'd been busy showing off, fucking and making enemies that would dog him for the rest of his life. So yesterday evening, when he'd looked at the ground and seen it thoroughly stacked against him, he'd done what he did best.

Cheat.

The horsemen had no chance of seeing the first pit, not in that darkness and those crops. It was only a shallow trench, no more than a foot deep and a foot wide, zigzagging through the barley. Most horses went clean over it without even noticing. But a couple of unlucky ones put a hoof right in, and they went down. They went down hard, a thrashing mass of limbs, tangled straps, breaking weapons, flying dust. And where one went down, more went down behind, caught up in the wreck.

The second pit was twice as wide and twice as deep. More horses fell, snatched away as the front rank ploughed into it, one flailing man flung high, lance still in his hand. The order of the rest, already crumbling in their eagerness to get at the enemy, started to come apart altogether. Some plunged onwards. Others tried to check as they realised something was wrong, spreading confusion as another flight of arrows fell among them. They became a milling mass, almost as much of a threat to each other as they were to Calder and his men. The terrible thunder of hooves became a sorry din of scrapes and stumbles, screams and whinnies, desperate shouting.

The third pit was the biggest of all. Two of them, in fact, about as straight as a Northman could dig by darkness and angling roughly inwards. Funnelling Mitterick's men on both sides towards a gap in the centre where the precious flags were set. Where Calder was standing. Made him wonder, as he gaped at the mob of plunging horses converging on him, whether he should have found somewhere else to stand, but it was a bit late for that.

'Spears!' roared Pale-as-Snow.

'Aye,' muttered Calder, brandishing his sword as he took a few cautious steps back. 'Good idea.'

And Pale-as-Snow's picked men, who'd fought for Calder's brother and his father at Uffrith and Dunbrec, at the Cumnur and in the High Places, came up from behind the wind-blown barley five ranks deep, howling their high war cry, and their long spears made a deadly thicket, points glittering as the first sunlight crept into the valley.

Horses screamed and skidded, tumbled over, tossed their riders, driven onto the spears by the weight of those behind. A crazy chorus of shrieking steel and murdered men, tortured wood and tortured flesh. Spear shafts bent and shattered, splinters flying. A new gloom of kicked-up dirt and trampled barley dust and Calder coughing in the midst of it, sword dangling from his limp hand.

Wondering what strange convergence of mischances could have allowed this madness to happen. And what other one might allow him to get out of it alive.

Onwards and Upwards 'Do you suppose we could call that dawn?' asked General Jalenhorm.

Colonel Gorst shrugged his great shoulders, battered armour rattling faintly.

The general looked down at Retter. 'Would you call that dawn, boy?'

Retter blinked at the sky. Over in the east, where he imagined Osrung was though he'd never been there, the heavy clouds had the faintest ominous tinge of brightness about their edges. 'Yes, General.' His voice was a pathetic squeak and he cleared his throat, rather embarrassed.

General Jalenhorm leaned close and patted his shoulder. 'There's no shame in being scared. Bravery is being scared, and doing it anyway.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Just stay close beside me. Do your duty, and everything will be well.'

'Yes, sir.' Though Retter was forced to wonder how doing his duty might stop an arrow. Or a spear. Or an axe. It seemed a mad thing to him to be climbing a hill as big as that one, with slavering Northmen waiting for them on the slopes. Everyone said they were slavering. But he was only thirteen, and had been in the army for six months, and didn't know much but polishing boots and how to sound the various manoeuvres. He wasn't even entirely sure what the word manoeuvres meant, just pretended. And there was nowhere safer to be than close by the general and a proper hero like Colonel Gorst, albeit he looked nothing like a hero and sounded like one less. There wasn't the slightest glitter about the man, but Retter supposed if you needed a battering ram at short notice he'd make a fair substitute.

'Very well, Retter.' Jalenhorm drew his sword. 'Sound the advance.'

'Yes, sir.' Retter carefully wet his lips with his tongue, took a deep breath and lifted his bugle, suddenly worried that he'd fumble it in his sweaty hand, that he'd blow a wrong note, that it would somehow be full of mud and produce only a miserable fart and a shower of dirty water. He had nightmares about that. Maybe this would be another. He very much hoped it would be.

But the advance rang out bright and true, tooting away as bravely as it ever had on the parade ground. 'Forward!' the bugle sang, and forward went Jalenhorm's division, and forward went Jalenhorm himself, and Colonel Gorst, and a clump of the general's staff, pennants snapping. So, with some reluctance, Retter gave his pony his heels, and clicked his tongue, and forward he went himself, hooves crunching down the bank then slopping out into the sluggish water.

He supposed he was one of the lucky ones since he got to ride. At least he'd come out of this with dry trousers. Unless he wet himself. Or got wounded in the legs. Either one of which seemed quite likely, come to think of it.

A few arrows looped over from the far bank. Exactly from where, Retter couldn't say. He was more interested in where they were going. A couple plopped harmlessly into the channels ahead. Others were lost among the ranks where they caused no apparent damage. Retter flinched as one pinged off a helmet and spun in among the marching soldiers. Everyone else had armour. General Jalenhorm had what looked like the most expensive armour in the world. It hardly seemed fair that Retter didn't have any, but the army wasn't the place for fair, he supposed.

He snatched a look back as his pony scrambled from the water and up onto a little island of sand, driftwood gathered in a pale tangle at one end. The shallows were filled with soldiers, marching up to ankles, or knees, or even waists in places. Behind them the whole long bank was covered by ranks of men waiting to follow, still more appearing over the brow behind them. It made Retter feel brave, to be one among so many. If the Northmen killed a hundred, if they killed a thousand, there would still be thousands more. He wasn't honestly sure how many a thousand was, but it was a lot.

Then it occurred to him that was all very well unless you were one of the thousand flung in a pit, in which case it wasn't very good at all, especially since he'd heard only officers got coffins, and he really didn't want to lie pressed up cold against the mud. He looked nervously towards the orchards, flinched again as an arrow clattered from a shield a dozen strides away.