Eventually, the night’s quiet descended once more, punctuated only by the groans and cries of the wounded, who lay amidst slush and puddles. Taim went to the inn and slumped in a chair before the fire. He was foggy from lack of sleep, dull-eyed and heavy-limbed. He stared into the flames.

Someone brought him a bowl of broth. Someone else set a beaker of ale down on the table beside him. No one was talking. There was coughing, thick and liquid; mutters of pain from the wounded who were scattered around the room. A child was curled up on the floor in front of the fire, asleep. Taim’s head nodded. His face slackened.

A hand on his shoulder startled him back to wakefulness.

“There’s beds upstairs,” someone was saying to him. “We’ll find you if you’re needed.”

Taim climbed the stairs, and found a bed with a coarse blanket and a hard mattress. He stretched out on it and was instantly asleep.

Dawn lit the village in muted greys. There were still corpses strewn across the road and slumped against the walls of huts. A torpid silence hung over the little collection of buildings. Those who moved did so quietly and carefully, as if fearing to draw even the slightest attention to themselves. Some were readying themselves to walk southwards: folding a few possessions into packs, searching out the last few scraps of food they could find.

There would soon be no one left here save those without any choice in the matter, Taim knew as he looked out from the doorway of the inn. Behind him, laid out on tables and on the floor, were the sick and the injured. They could not walk away from here. Nor would the old woman he’d seen sitting on a stool in the inn’s kitchen. She was too frail for the long road to Ive.

He could see the barricade across the bridge. All through the night, huts had been stripped of their contents to build it higher. Twenty or so Lannis and Haig warriors were sitting in its shelter now, talking softly amongst themselves, sharing water from their skins. Taim lifted his gaze, followed the rise and fall of the bridge across to the far side of the river. There was movement on the tall, steep slope above the road: shapes shifting amongst the rocks. A lot of them. And he thought he could make out a long line of riders snaking its way up the valley. He wondered dispassionately how long the bridge could be held; how many dead it would take before the Black Road could overwhelm them. How much time could be bought for those struggling southwards. And whether he had any choice in any of this. Did he want to sacrifice his men – himself – in this cause?

Something flashed out from the high ground north of the river. His first, instant thought was that it was a bird, but it darted down and skittered across the surface of the road not twenty paces from where he stood: a crossbow bolt. Another followed it. He heard its dry, muffled impact in the turf roof of one of the cottages.

Someone was behind him, peering over his shoulder.

“What’s this place called, anyway?” Taim asked.

“Ive Bridge.”

Taim nodded. “Ive Bridge. Yes, I suppose it would be.”

“At the bridge. Ive Bridge,” the old woman said.

Orisian moved closer, coming up to Torcaill’s shoulder.

“You’re sure?” the warrior asked the woman.

She grimaced at him. “I’m old, not stupid. I can tell the difference.”

“Lannis men?” Orisian said.

She fixed him with a look that bordered on the contemptuous. “Is it that you’re all deaf, is that it? Yes, Lannis men. Fighting on the bridge. Black Road all over the place, other side of the river, apparently. Not this side yet, though.”

“How far is it?” asked Orisian.

She considered her answer for a few moments longer than he would have liked. “Half a day, I should think. Not more. Probably less.”

They watched her shuffle off down the road. She moved steadily, for a woman of such age. They had seen others, on this road, less strong and more desperate. The long trail down from Stone had been all but empty. Only a handful of goatherds and hunters had shared it with them. That mountain track had brought them to the Ive road now, though, and they had found themselves caught up in a steady trickle of people trudging southwards. All of them told the same tale of defeat and destruction, and testified to the truth of it with their bent backs and fretful faces. Every one of them – men, women, children – looked lost, cast adrift; hounded by fears and grim memories.

“See who’s coming here,” Torcaill murmured, nodding up the road.

Three warriors were trotting along. They carried nothing save spears and shields. Orisian moved into the centre of the road.

“Have you come from Ive Bridge?” he shouted at them as they drew near.

The lead warrior slowed a fraction, glared at Orisian. And dismissed him. Orisian saw the decision in the man’s eyes. He shifted sideways to block his path, and stretched out an arm. Torcaill’s men, scattered along the roadside, were rising to their feet.

“What’s happening at Ive Bridge?” Orisian asked.

“Nothing any more,” the first of the warriors muttered. The three of them fell into a walk, but showed no inclination to stop. They made to pass Orisian by. He took hold of an arm and pulled at the man.

“Are there Lannis men there?”

The warrior jerked his arm free and glared at Orisian. His lips drew back in a nascent snarl, only to loosen as he saw Torcaill and his men crowding up. He was suddenly uneasy.

“Might be,” he grunted. “Their luck’s run out, though. Too few of them to hold the bridge.”

“You left them. Is that it? You’re Haig, aren’t you?”

“What of it?”

“Perhaps you don’t think Lannis men are good enough to die beside.”

The warrior snorted and brushed past Orisian.

“I don’t mean to die beside anyone today, or any day soon.”

Torcaill gently pulled Orisian aside.

“Sire…” he said.

Orisian stared after the three Haig men as they hurried on. They quickly overhauled the old woman, and disappeared around a dipping turn in the road. A pair of buzzards were spiralling up, Orisian saw, higher and higher into the sky like dancers to some silent tune.

“You know where we’re going,” he said to Torcaill, still watching the birds.

They were moving too slowly. Taim Narran knew that. All his men must know it, though no one spoke of it. They spoke of nothing, walking in steadfast silence behind the dishevelled flock of survivors from Ive Bridge. There were half a dozen wounded there, carried on makeshift litters; a little gang of lost children, who never strayed more than few paces from one another; the last few stubborn villagers who had left their homes only after long argument; a sick woman, swaying on the back of a sullen donkey. It was not much to salvage, but it was the best that Taim had been able to do.

Ive Bridge was gone. Anyone they had left behind – and there had been some, too sick or frightened or infirm to move – was in the hands of the Black Road now. Dead, or enslaved. Taim had left most of his warriors there, too: corpses in the streets of a village they had never heard of until the time came for them to die in it. He still did not know whether he could justify their deaths to their families, should he ever be asked. He did not know whether he could justify his own death, which he thought was likely to come before the end of this cold day.

Once already he and his handful of men had turned to stand against the pursuit. They chose a place where the road narrowed between two rocky spurs. The stretch leading up to the gap was steep, weaving its way between boulders. The Black Road warriors were panting and distracted by the time they finished the ascent, and had perhaps not known that there were still fighting men amongst those they hunted. Taim had led the rush down upon them. He rode the tide of reckless abandon that was in him, surrendered himself to it. He almost paid a heavy price. A sword got under his guard and slammed across his side. Had its wielder been more deft or skilled, it would have been a crippling wound, but the blade came at an acute angle. It cut him, possibly broke a rib, to judge by the stabbing pain that now accompanied each breath. His own countering cut was more sure and more telling. It opened his assailant’s shoulder joint and sent him slithering away down a scree of loose rock.