But here, on this strange hill in the middle of this strange country, there was still time. Still a chance for the comrades to live. That was the difference, and for all her scorn, and her scowls, and her anger, she clung to it as she clung to the spade, desperate tight.

Strange how she never stopped hoping.

“You dig well,” said Ninefingers. She squinted up at him, standing over her at the edge of the pit.

“Lots of practice.” She dug the spade into the earth beside the hole, planted her hands on the sides and jumped out, sat on the edge with her legs hanging down. Her shirt was stuck to her with sweat, her face was running with it. She wiped her forehead with her dirty hand. He handed her the water-skin and she took it from him, pulled the stopper out with her teeth.

“How long do we have?”

She sucked a mouthful out of the skin and worked it round, spat it out. “Depends how hard they go.” She took another mouthful and swallowed. “They are going hard now. They keep that up, they could be on us late tonight, or maybe dawn tomorrow.” She handed the skin back.

“Dawn tomorrow.” Ninefingers slowly pushed the stopper back in. “Thirteen you said, eh?”

“Thirteen.”

“And four of us.”

“Five, if the Navigator comes to help.”

Ninefingers scratched at his jaw. “Not very likely.”

“That apprentice any use in a fight?”

Ninefingers winced. “Not much.”

“How about Luthar?”

“I’d be surprised if he’s ever thrown a fist in anger, let alone a blade.”

Ferro nodded. “Thirteen against two, then.”

“Long odds.”

“Very.”

He took a deep breath and stared down into the pit. “If you had a mind to run, I can’t say I’d blame you.”

“Huh,” she snorted. Strange, but she hadn’t even thought about it. “I’ll stick. See how it turns out.”

“Alright. Good. Can’t say I don’t need you.”

The wind rustled in the grass and sighed against the stones. There were things that should be said at a time like this, Ferro guessed, but she did not know what. She had never had much talk in her.

“One thing. If I die, you bury me.” She held her hand out to him. “Deal?”

He raised an eyebrow at it. “Done.” It was a long time, she realised, since she touched another person without the purpose of hurting them. It was a strange feeling, his hand gripped in hers, his fingers tight round hers, his palm pressed against hers. Warm. He nodded at her. She nodded at him. Then they let go.

“What if we both die?” he said.

She shrugged. “Then the crows can pick us clean. After all, what’s the difference?”

“Not much,” he muttered, starting off down the slope. “Not much.”

The Road to Victory

West stood by a clump of stunted trees, in the cutting wind, on the high ground above the river Cumnur, and watched the long column move. More accurately, he watched it not move.

The neat blocks of the King’s Own, up at the head of Prince Ladisla’s army, marched smartly enough. You could tell them from their armour, glinting in the odd ray of pale sun that broke through the ragged clouds, from the bright uniforms of their officers, from the red and golden standards snapping at the front of each company. They were already across the river, formed up in good order, a stark contrast with the chaos on the other side.

The levies had started eagerly, early that morning, no doubt relieved to be leaving the miserable camp behind, but it hadn’t been an hour before a man here or a man there, older than the others, or worse shod, had started to lag, and the column had grown ragged. Men slipped and stumbled in the half-frozen muck, cursing and barging into their neighbours, boots tripping on the boots of the man in front. The battalions had twisted, stretched, turned from neat blocks into shapeless blobs, merged with the units in front and behind, until the column moved in great ripples, one group hurrying forward while the next was still, like the segments of some monstrous, filthy earthworm.

As soon as they reached the bridge they had lost all semblance of order. The ragged companies squeezed into that narrow space, shoving and grunting, tired and bad-tempered. Those waiting behind pressed in tighter and tighter, impatient to be across so they could rest, slowing everything down still further with the weight of their bodies. Then a cart, which had no business being there in any case, had lost a wheel halfway across, and the sluggish flow of men over the bridge had become a trickle. No one seemed to know how to move it, or who to get to fix it, and contented themselves with clambering over it, or slithering around it, and holding up the thousands behind.

Quite a press had built up in the mud on this side of the fast-flowing water. Men barged and grumbled shoulder to shoulder, spears sticking up into the air at all angles, surrounded by shouting officers and an ever increasing detritus of rubbish and discarded gear. Behind them the great snake of shambling men continued its spastic forward movement, feeding ever more soldiers into the confusion before the bridge. There was not the slightest evidence that anyone had even thought about trying to make them stop, let alone succeeded.

All this in column, under no pressure from the enemy, and with a half decent road to march on. West dreaded to imagine trying to manoeuvre them in a battle line, through trees or over broken ground. He jammed his tired eyes shut, rubbed at them with his fingers, but when he opened them the horrifying, hilarious spectacle was still there before him. He hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.

He heard the sound of hooves on the rise behind him. Lieutenant Jalenhorm, big and solid in his saddle. Short on imagination, perhaps, but a fine rider, and a trustworthy man. A good choice for the task that West had in mind.

“Lieutenant Jalenhorm reporting, sir.” The big man turned in his saddle and looked down towards the river. “Looks like they’re having some trouble on the bridge.”

“Doesn’t it just. Only the start of our troubles, I fear.”

Jalenhorm grinned down. “I understand we have the advantage of numbers, and of surprise—”

“As far as numbers go, maybe. Surprise?” West gestured down at the men milling around on the bridge, heard the vague, desperate shouts of their officers. “This rabble? A blind man would hear us coming from ten miles distance. A blind and a deaf one would probably smell us before we were halfway to battle order. We’ll be all day just getting across the river. And that’s hardly the worst of our shortcomings. In the area of command, I fear, the gulf between us and our enemy could not possibly be wider. The Prince lives in a dream, and his staff exist only to keep him there, at any price.”

“But surely—”

“The price could be our lives.”

Jalenhorm frowned. “Come on, West, I hardly want to be going into battle with that thought first on my mind—”

“You won’t be going.”

“I won’t?”

“You will pick out six good men from your company, with spare mounts. You will ride as hard as possible for Ostenhorm, then north to Lord Marshal Burr’s camp.” West reached into his coat and pulled out his letter. “You will give him this. You will inform him that Bethod is already behind him with the greater part of his strength, and that Prince Ladisla has most ill-advisedly decided to cross the river Cumnur and give the Northmen battle, directly against the Marshal’s orders.” West clenched his teeth. “Bethod will see us coming from miles away. We are handing the choice of the ground to our enemy, so that Prince Ladisla can appear bold. Boldness is the best policy in war, apparently.”

“West, surely it’s not that bad?”

“When you reach Marshal Burr, tell him that Prince Ladisla has almost certainly been defeated, quite possibly destroyed, and the road to Ostenhorm left open. He’ll know what to do.”