Facing forward, Marafice gave the command to sound the drums. Tat Mackelroy, who was Jon Burden second-in-command but today was riding at Marafice's right hand, stood in his stirrups and bellowed the order down the ranks. Seconds passed, and then the kettledrums began to sound. Slowly, rhythmically, forty drumbeats fell in time. The deep hollow booms sent waterfowl into flight and spooked the horses. Some shied and broke the line. One reared and threw its rider into a rank of foot soldiers. The teams pulling the scorpions and the battering ram were unaffected by the noise: they had been brought in from the south and were trained to stillness in battle. Marafice had thought his own mount trained, but training and experience were different things and the great black warhorse was unsettled.

Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum. The noise hurt Marafice's ears.

"Shall I call horns?" Tat Mackelroy asked. He was a six-year veteran of the watch, an expert broadswordsman who'd been promoted so quickly through the ranks that some resented him for it. Mackelroy didn't care. He was too busy doing his job.

"No horns. Not yet." Marafice glanced east at the Ganmiddich Tower, perched atop the inch. Old beyond knowing, it was the tallest standing structure in the clanholds. On clear nights some said you could see the fire burning in its top-floor gallery from the far side of the Bitter Hills. Marafice didn't know about that. He looked and saw a five-sided tower erected on an overgrown rock in the middle of the Wolf. It was not constructed from the same traprock as the roundhouse and it did not resemble any structure built by clansmen. It was occupied, the darkcloaks had informed him of that. Close to a hundred long-bowmen, mostly Hailsmen, lived in and patrolled the three upper floors.

Today, for them, there would be no going back to the roundhouse. Last night the darkcloaks had sabotaged their boats. Marafice could see the boats from where he sat, their keels drawn up high on the rocky beach. They looked fine, but they weren't. That was the way the darkcloaks liked to work.

"I won't have them," Marafice had roared at Iss two months back in Spire Vanis. "They're sly, skulking. They cannot be trusted. And the men won't stomach them."

"Don't be a fool," Iss had replied. "Stop thinking like a butcher's son from Hoargate and think like a man with something to lose. You'll be commanding an army in excess often thousand. You'll be responsible for their food, safety, lives. You cannot afford to indulge your backwoods notions of what is and isn't right. Take the darkcloaks and use them. Put them to work, let them be your ears in the ranks and your eyes in the field. The things they know can tip the balance; tricks with fire and smoke, snares, bluffcraft, sabotage. They're trained to see what is hidden: weaknesses in buildings, concealed doors, animal tracks, strategies, men. If you must, use them only to gather intelligence. It will be little, but it may be enough."

"They are sorcerers!" Marafice had cried, punching his fist against the Blackvault's door. "How can I look my men in the eye knowing I countenance such foulness?"

Iss waived a pale hand, unconcerned. "Do not look them in the eye then. A surlord does what is best for a surlord, not what the majority of his acquaintances decree acceptable. You are going into Ganmiddich blind, with your enemies beskfe you. I'd say you need all the help vou can get."

Even then Marafice had not relented. Fear of the old skills ran deep. There was a dirtiness to them, a sense that once you used them their stench clung to you and you were lessened in some essential way. It was only a week later, when Iss had visited him at the Red Forge and casually thrown a curl of parchment on the table, that Marafice had changed his mind. "What is that?" he had barked, unnerved at having the surlord interrupt him as he ate his dinner of ham and beans.

Again, there had been a wave of the pale hand. "Read it," Iss had said, knowing full well that Marafice was barely capable of writing his own name.

Angry, Marafice had pushed away his plate. "Just tell me what it says."

"It says that last night Garric Hews met with Alistair Sperling, Lord of the Salt Mine Granges, in the back room of a small tavern south of the Quartercourts. They discussed you. Hews knew Sperling had just committed to riding to Ganmiddich with three hundred men, and he sought to discover how the esteemed lord might react to a possible mutiny on the road."

Marafice had stood. "What was Sperling's response?"

"Oh he was for it, bless his salty little soul."

"Then I do not want him or his men."

Iss had laughed then, a superior sound that did not let Marafice in on the joke. "You cannot exclude everyone who does not like you. You'll end up with an army of one. The questions to ask are these: How did my surlord receive this information? And: How can I stay one step ahead of those who mean me harm?" Iss had paused, more for effect than to allow Marafice the opportunity to reply. "The answer to both questions is dark cloaks. These are men who love to spy."

So Marafice had taken them, a half-dozen in all, perhaps more. Their numbers were hard to pin down.

Already they had earned their keep. Most evenings he met with one of them in the privacy of his tent. Usually it was the man named Greenslade, a thin trapper with elaborately queued hair. That was another detail he'd learned about the darkcloaks: they often masqueraded as other things. Greenslade kept him well informed about loyalties in the camp. A day south of the Wolf, Hews had arranged something Greenslade called a tester. Hews' plan had been to separate Marafice from his brothers-in-the-watch during the river crossing, then stand back and observe if any other factions in the army of eleven thousand would step forward to protect their leader when it appeared he might be vulnerable. Knowing that one simple fact about the river crossing had been enough to foil the plan. Marafice had simply ordered the Whitehog to cross the river first and it was done. Even arranged to have one of the guide ropes break so the whole damn lot of them got a soaking.

It had been a very satisfying moment, and it had changed his opinion of the darkcloaks. Iss was right: Even though he was uneasy with their services, he could not afford to waive them.

Since then Marafice had learned other useful things. Greenslade had provided a headcount of the forces in the Ganmiddich roundhouse, and also disclosed information about messengers sent to Blackhail for reinforcements. By Marafice's calculation the reinforcements were at least five days away: more than enough time for him to gain possession of the house.

Today he rode to break the Crab Gate, and it was a strange feeling to know the darkcloaks were in place and ready. Their aid made him less of a man and more of a surlord, and that was probably the way it had to be.

"Quick march," he commanded Tat Mackelroy. It was time they started the dance.

As the order was relayed down the ranks, Marafice looked over his left shoulder toward the center. The line was good, you had to give the Whitehog that: he knew how to marshal men. Hog Company formed a solid column, a hundred wide and seven deep. A dozen in the fore carried pennants of snow-white silk embroidered with the likenesses of fat, mean-looking pigs. There was white silk also on the men's backs, short half-circle dress capes that were attached to the plate armor by spiky little horns. They were a fair and deadly sight, impossibly proud, splendidly accoutered. Every clansman's nightmare.

Hews himself forwent the pleasures of the cloak, creating an island of steely sparseness amongst the white. Aware that he was being inspected, Hews turned to look Marafice in the eye. Over the heads of seventy-five men they appraised each other. Just as Marafice thought he would be the first to look away, the Whitehog bowed his head. "Helmets!" he commanded, and Marafice watched with amazement as seven hundred men donned their helmets in perfect synchronization.