The officer hardly looked convinced. “How do we know that you aren’t one of them? That you weren’t spying on us? That they aren’t waiting out there now, for you to give them a signal when we’re vulnerable?”

“You’ve been vulnerable the whole way,” snorted Logen. “But it’s a fair question. I thought you might ask it.” He pulled the canvas bag out from his belt. “That’s why I brought you this.” The officer frowned as he reached out for it, shook it open, peered suspiciously inside. He swallowed. “Like I said, there were five. So you got ten thumbs in there. That satisfy you?”

The officer looked more sick than satisfied, but he nodded, lips squeezed together, and held the bag back out to him at arm’s length.

Logen shook his head. “Keep it. It’s a finger I’m missing. I got all the thumbs I need.”

The cart lurched to a stop. For the last mile or two they’d moved at a crawl. Now the road, if you could use the word about a sea of mud, was choked up with floundering men. They squelched their way from one near solid spot to another, flowing through the thin rain between the press of mired carts and unhappy horses, the stacks of crates and barrels, the ill-pitched tents. Logen watched a group of filth-caked lads straining at a wagon stuck up to its axles in the muck, without much success. It was like seeing an army sink slowly into a bog. A vast shipwreck, on land.

Logen’s travelling companions were down to seven now, hunched and gaunt, looking mighty tired from sleepless nights and bad weather on the trail. One dead, one sent back to Uffrith already with an arrow in his leg. Not the best start to their time in the North, but Logen doubted it would get any better from here on. He clambered down off the back of the cart, boots sinking into the well-rutted mud, arched his back and stretched his aching legs out, dragged his pack down.

“Luck, then,” he said to the lads. None of them spoke. They’d hardly said a word to him since the night of the ambush. Most likely that whole business with the thumbs had got them worried. But if that was the worst they saw while they were up here they’d have done alright, Logen reckoned. He shrugged and turned away, started floundering through the muck.

Just up ahead the officer from the supply column was being dealt a talking-to by a tall, grim-looking man in a red uniform, seemed like the closest thing they had in all this mess to someone in charge. It took Logen a minute to recognise him. They’d sat together at a feast, in very different surroundings, and they’d talked of war. He looked older, leaner, tougher, now. He had a hard frown on his face and a lot of hard grey in his wet hair, but he grinned when he saw Logen standing there, and walked up to him with his hand out.

“By the dead,” he said in good Northern, “but fate can play some tricks. I know you.”

“Likewise.”

“Ninefingers, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. And you’re West. From Angland.”

“That I am. Sorry I can’t give you a better welcome, but the army only got up here a day or two ago and, as you can see, things aren’t quite in order yet. Not there, idiot!” he roared at a driver trying to get his cart between two others, the space between them nowhere near wide enough. “Do you have such a thing as summer in this bloody country?”

“You’re looking at it. Didn’t you see winter?”

“Huh. You’ve a point there. What brings you up here, anyway?”

Logen handed West the letter. He hunched over to shield it from the rain and read it, frowning.

“Signed by Lord Chamberlain Hoff, eh?”

“That a good thing?”

West pursed his lips as he handed the letter back. “I suppose that depends. It means you’ve got some powerful friends. Or some powerful enemies.”

“Bit of both, maybe.”

West grinned. “I find they go together. You’ve come to fight?”

“That I have.”

“Good. We can always use a man with experience.” He watched the recruits clambering down off the carts and gave a long sigh. “We’ve still got far too many here without. You should go up and join the rest of the Northmen.”

“You’ve got Northmen with you?”

“We have, and more coming over every day. Seems that a lot of them aren’t too happy with the way their King has been leading them. About his deal with the Shanka in particular.”

“Deal? With the Shanka?” Logen frowned. He’d never have thought that even Bethod would stoop that low, but it was hardly the first time he’d been disappointed. “He’s got Flatheads fighting with him?”

“He certainly does. He’s got Flatheads, and we’ve got Northmen. It’s a strange world, alright.”

“That it surely is,” said Logen, shaking his head. “How many do you have?”

“About three hundred, I’d say, at last count, though they don’t take too well to being counted.”

“Reckon I’ll make it three hundred and one, then, if you’ll have me.”

“They’re camped up there, on the left wing,” and he pointed towards the dark outline of trees against the evening sky.

“Right enough. Who’s the chief?”

“Fellow called the Dogman.”

Logen stared at him for a long moment. “Called the what?”

“Dogman. You know him?”

“You could say that,” whispered Logen, a smile spreading right across his face. “You could say that.”

Dusk was pressing on fast and night was pressing in fast behind, and they’d just got the long fire burning as Logen walked up. He could see the shapes of the Carls taking their places down each side of it, heads and shoulders cut out black against the flames. He could hear their voices and their laughter, loud in the still evening now the rain had stopped.

It had been a long time since he heard a crowd of men all speaking Northern, and it sounded strange in his ears, even if it was his own tongue. It brought back some ugly memories. Crowds of men shouting at him, shouting for him. Crowds charging into battle, cheering their victories, mourning their dead. He could smell meat cooking from somewhere. A sweet, rich smell that tickled his nose and made his gut grumble.

There was a torch set up on a pole by the path, and a bored-looking lad stood underneath it with a spear, frowning at Logen as he walked up. Must’ve drawn the short straw, to be on guard while the others were eating, and he didn’t look too happy about it.

“What d’you want?” he growled.

“You got the Dogman here?”

“Aye, what of it?”

“I’ll need to speak to him.”

“Will you, now?”

Another man walked up, well past his prime, with a shock of grey hair and a leathery face. “What we got here?”

“New recruit,” grumbled the lad. “Wants to see the chief.”

The old man squinted at Logen, frowning. “Do I know you, friend?”

Logen lifted up his face so the torchlight fell across it. Better to look a man in the eye, and let him see you, and show him you feel no fear. That was the way his father had taught him. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“Where did you come over from? Whitesides’ crew, is it?”

“No. I been working alone.”

“Alone? Well, now. Seems like I recognise—” The old boy’s eyes opened up wide, and his jaw sagged open, and his face went white as cut chalk. “By all the fucking dead,” he whispered, taking a stumbling step back. “It’s the Bloody-Nine!”

Maybe Logen had been hoping no one would know him. That they’d all have forgotten. That they’d have new things to worry them, and he’d be just a man like any other. But now he saw that look on the old boy’s face—that shitting-himself look, and it was clear enough how it would be. Just the way it used to be. And the worst of it was, now that Logen was recognised, and he saw that fear, and that horror, and that respect, he wasn’t sure that he didn’t like seeing it. He’d earned it, hadn’t he? After all, facts are facts.

He was the Bloody-Nine.

The lad didn’t quite get it yet. “Having a joke on me are yer? You’ll be telling me it’s Bethod his self come over next, eh?” But no one laughed, and Logen lifted his hand up and stared through the gap where his middle finger used to be. The lad looked from that stump, to the trembling old man and back.