"Lisereth Hews' hideclads trounced Sperling," Greenslade had continued easily, confident in his facts. "His men were exhausted; saddle sores burning holes in their arses, horses falling beneath them. Sperling could barely raise a defense. Took a spear to the gut and fell. Lisereth wasted no time and used her momentum to make another strike on the gate. That's when the storm hit. Twice." The smallest upward lilt in Greenslade's voice had suggested unnatural events. His green eyes had glittered knowingly as he awaited the next question. He was a darkcloak, master of tricks and illusions. The cloak he wore could conceal him from dusk to dawn. He could compel a man to look at him in a crowd, draw smoke away from a fire, and project his voice into the bustling spaces of public halls and squares whilst concealing its origin. Marafice did not wish to know how he did these things. He had learned his lesson at Ganmiddich, and would not involve himself in anything that had the taint of sorcery about it. His name was Eye. Not Iss.

Pointedly he had directed the conversation away from the strangeness of the storm. "What happened to Lisereth Hews?"

"As her hideclads rammed the gate, word came that her son was just to the north. The storm was raging by then, temperature dropping, wind whipping up the snow, but she waited for him. Meantime Carrie Hews has called a halt. He knows what's been happening five leagues to the south at Almsgate but he imagines his mother will have withdrawn. She imagines he will force his way through, and refuses to abandon the gate. Hideclads start deserting her and she orders them shot. Large-scale mutiny breaks out and Hews is fighting Hews in the whiteout. The temperature falls so low that timbers in the gate roof start exploding and tiles begin flying like axes. When it's all over and done four hundred hideclads lay dead. Most were wounded then frozen alive. Lisereth Hews survived the fighting but not the cold. Garric had to dig his mother's body out of the snow two days later. It was said her husband's sword was frozen in her fist."

Marafice had shuddered. "What of the Whitehog?"

"He retired to his grange. Some believe he should have pushed that last five leagues to meet his mother and he's lost some support over it. His momentum's gone, his remaining hideclads are disheartened, the ground's still too hard to bury the dead. Word is that he'll rally but it'll take time." Again the green eyes had glittered. "All due to a storm."

Marafice had dismissed the man, and resolved then and there to never use him again.

It was three days later and he knew he would break that resolve and call Greenslade into his presence tonight. Information was his lifeblood. If he intended to approach Hoargate tomorrow he needed to know what to expect.

His father-in-law held Mask Fortress, yet as of three days ago Roland Stornoway had not declared himself surlord. Marafice could not imagine a stranger turn of events. Spire Vauis without a surlord for a month? He did not know the histories and perhaps such a thing had happened before. But he doubted it. He had lived in Spire Vanis all his life, spent twenty-two years close to surlords—first Borhis Horgo and then Penthero Iss. This was not a city that could tolerate a vacuum. Something was happening, but he was not a scholar or a politician; he needed Greenslade and his brethren to help him figure it out.

"All halt!" Tat Mackelroy cried, standing in his stirrups and bellowing down the ranks. "Make camp. All halt!"

Marafice was surprised to see they had arrived at the Vale of Spires. Hours had passed where he had left his progress in the hoofs of his big black warhorse. The sun was failing, dipping into bands of red and silver clouds at the edge of the sky. All farm stench had gone and the air was crisp and gusting. They had approached the granite spires from the east and Marafice wondered how long he had ridden in their long, needle-like shadows and not known it.

Most people believed the spires had been formed by God, given as both gift and warning to the people of Spire Vanis. See my power. A few claimed they had been raised by ancient sorcerer kings who had died in the War of Blood and Shadow, long before the city at the foot of Mount Slain existed. Marafice could not understand the need to explain such things. They were there, you could see them, why invent fancies to turn them into things they were not? What they were was a rough circle of granite fangs that thrust straight out of the bedrock at the center of a grassy plain. Some were as tall as a hundred and twenty feet and others less than thirty. The granite was a dirty off-white color, streaked and potholed with black. To Marafice s mind they looked like rotting shark's teeth. He supposed they might be an alarming sight to those who had never seen them before, especially the taller ones that had edges like serrated knives, but he had always found them oddly pleasing.

And it pleased him to make camp here this night. He dismounted and started issuing orders. Anyone who looked even remotely afraid or doubtful was given latrine duty. Marafice had found it worked as well as anything when it came to refneusing a mans mind, feeling full of energy, he hammered posts with I he mercenaries and raised tents. Cook fires were— a problem as tiiev had run out of timber two days back and had not been able to forage or strip much since. All trees had long since gone from this part of the country, felled to make way for pasture and farms. Marafice thought a fire would be good thing for the men. "Chop down the small cart," he commanded Tat Mackelroy on impulse. "There's no reasons why the captives can't walk to the city tomorrow. The wounded can be jammed into the remaining two."

This turned out to be a spectacularly popular order. Mercenaries and men of Rive Company came together to hack the wooden cart into sticks. One of the old Rive men fetched his stringboard and started plucking out a tune, some outrageously lewd song about a woman who went up a mountain and ended up getting fucked by a bear. Pretty much everyone joined in the chorus. Ale kegs were tapped. The cartbed was reduced to chips. Work began on the wheels. Perish frowned at all the ungodly activity, but had the sense to let it be. He knew the value of such releases to men who had been away from home for too long.

"What should we do with the captives?" Jon Burden was the one sober presence in the camp. As commander of Rive Company, the four clansmen who remained alive were his responsibility.

"Lash them to one of the fangs," Marafice said. "Take off their boots and razor the souls of their feet. Lightly, but enough to keep them from running. Those men aren't fools. They would have figured out by now that tonight's their last chance to escape before we enter the city."

"Aye," Jon Burden said, glancing south toward the mountains and Spire Vanis. From here you could just see the haze of gray smoke the city created billowing above the ice fields of Mount Slain. "Always supposing we are allowed entry."

Marafice had known Jon Burden for as long as he had been in the Rive Watch. They had trained together under Perish; pulled themselves up from lowly brothers to captains, learned how to eat in the grand banquet halls of Mask Fortress without causing grange ladies to faint in disgust, and discovered hard truths about the city they guarded. Marafice would not lie to him. "We'll see what we see."

Jon Burden pulled air into his thick powerful chest. The rubies in the killhound brooch at his throat fired in the setting sun. "A pity we had to trade the ram."

Marafice barked out a laugh. Clapping Burden hard on the shoulder, he said, "Count yourself lucky you never had the pleasure of meeting the Weasel chief firsthand. She's been figuring in my dreams ever since—and God help me, sometimes she's naked."

Burden snorted. "I'll see to the clansmen."