"Where can I find King Cadorius and Emrys Myrddin?" Ancelotis asked the guard.

"You'll find Cadorius at the summit, along with King Melwas," the man pointed toward the walls high overhead, "but Emrys Myrddin has gone to Glastenning Tor with Covianna Nim. He left near dawn this morning, although we expect him back within a day or two."

Ancelotis frowned. It wasn't like Myrddin to abandon a task before completion. "Was there news of attack at the Tor, that Emrys Myrddin's presence was required there?"

"If there was, we've heard nothing of it. The kings might know more."

Ancelotis intended to ask them.

A five-hundred-foot climb up a steep, muddy hillside in a blinding downpour was not Stirling's notion of a good time; such a climb made in utter darkness proved treacherous in the extreme. Ancelotis instructed the rank-and-file cavalrymen from Gododdin to find a sheltered spot to bivouac until he could meet with Cadorius about battle strategies. The ranking officers of the cataphracti followed Ancelotis as he reined his horse around and began to climb. The horses slipped and slid and groped for footing while the riders kept their animals centered more or less steadily along a steep path that led toward one of the wooden gates set into the outermost wall. The gate would have been completely invisible, but for the sheltered lantern set atop one post, marking the way in. Ancelotis and Stirling were challenged by sentries, who swung the gate open just enough to let Stirling, Ancelotis' officers, and their shivering horses slip through.

What lay on the other side startled him.

There was no open space between one wall and the next. The gate opened into a narrow trench which ran along the inner edge of the outermost wall.

"I'll lead you through," one of the sentries said quietly, picking up a lamp, its flame protected from the rain by thin sheets of mineral mica, nearly as clear as glass and far less prone to breakage. "The horses will put a foot wrong, else, and end with broken legs—or worse."

Stirling needed the guide, too, as they snaked through a maze of narrow passages and gates leading gradually inward as well as around the upper slopes of the summit. There was just enough room for the horses to crowd their way through, single file. Sentries had been posted every yard or so along the route. By his guide's lantern light, Stirling and Ancelotis could just make out broad, flat paving stones that formed a roof of sorts, covering most of the width of ground between the five walls. These hidden roofs were invisible from lower down the hill's slope because they were recessed some twelve or thirteen inches below the walls' uppermost edges.

"What's inside these?" Ancelotis asked as they snaked their way past the fourth wall, crossing to another gate that took them around the northern slope of the hill toward a gate in the fifth and final wall. A fierce wind battered them, sweeping across from the northwest, a cold wind blowing in from the North Atlantic, driving rain squalls ahead of it. "And why are there other wooden gates with no apparent function?"

The sentry turned his head to call back, "It's Emrys Myrddin's surprise for the Saxons. These," he patted the stone "roof" with one hand, "are full of water. Cisterns to hold the rain pouring off the summit and even more water brought up from the plain by waterwheels."

Water? Stirling frowned. With that much water stored, the Britons must be preparing to hold out for several months under the Saxons' anticipated siege, a prospect he found somewhat less than delightful. Then he made the connection between all that water and the false wooden gates set into the walls. Sluice gates! Ye gods, the man's a genius! Even Ancelotis grinned, albeit wearily.

They finally reached the final gate which would lead them out onto the hill fort's open summit. Beyond this, Stirling could make out the shape of buildings, dark structures made of stone and brick, serving as barracks rooms, storage for supplies and weapons, shelters for civilians, workshops for the armorers whose hammers still rang and clashed despite the increasing lateness of the evening. There were few windows, but doors stood partially open here and there, giving them glimpses of the work under way within.

Stirling had never seen so many blacksmiths in one place in his life. Several of the structures proved to be stables for the cavalry horses and holding pens for livestock—pigs and goats, mostly, along with chickens and geese, too many to easily count in the darkness. Smokehouses and slaughtering pens sent an unpleasant mix of smells drifting through the wet night, where the hogs were being converted with efficient industry into sausages, hams, rendered lard, and pigskin leather.

They found the kings of Glastenning and Dumnonia in the centermost building, which boasted a squat, brick watchtower that would be perfect, Stirling realized, for scanning the northern hills for Artorius' signal. Stirling and the officers of Gododdin's cataphracti slid out of wet saddles, turning their horses over to half-grown boys who led them off to a nearby stable. Ancelotis pushed open a wooden door, stepping into a roomful of warmth, where a cheerful fire crackled in a hearth set into the northern wall. Wood lay stacked along the entire width of that wall, piled higher than Stirling's head. Another wall bore a large oxhide with a map of southern Britain drawn carefully in black ink, marked with important river crossings, hill forts, towns, and the borders of the southern kingdoms—including those currently held by the Saxons. Cadorius paused in whatever discussion was under way and received them with a glad armclasp, although his face was haggard from strain and lack of sleep.

"You are most well come, Ancelotis, most well come, indeed! But is Artorius not with you?" he added, peering at the cataphracti officers at Ancelotis' back.

"No, he rides with the bulk of the army, including the infantry, which will slow him considerably. He is perhaps a full week's march behind me, maybe as much as eight or nine days, given the condition of the roads in this weather."

Cadorius frowned. "Then he will reach us well after the Saxons do. We expect the Saxon army to lay siege within five days, at most. Refugees are flooding into Glastenning ahead of them."

"The sentries tell me Emrys Myrddin has gone to Glastenning Tor?"

Cadorius nodded, gesturing to a servant, who brought hot stew and wine. As Ancelotis tackled the meal with enthusiasm, Cadorius brought him up to date.

"Melwas and I didn't want him to leave Caer-Badonicus, but he insisted. Covianna was afraid for her kinsmen, who would be unprepared if the Saxons broke through here. Myrddin agreed to ride with her to the Tor, to offer his suggestions for defenses. My greatest worry for his safety is the bandits on the roads, taking advantage of all this turmoil, looting empty villages and abandoned farmholds. Such cutthroats care nothing for which set of masters they rob. And we win this war, I'll be after cleaning them out with fire and hangmen's ropes."

"What of our defenses here? Are we ready to meet the enemy?"

Cadorius nodded. "We've laid in a good supply of food. Water," he added with a snort of wry humor, glancing at the ceiling where rain rattled and danced, "is not a problem. A week to nine days, you said, before Artorius arrives? We could hold them off at least ten times that long, and we've deliberately built of stone and brick, as much as possible, so they can't burn us out with fire arrows. We could use some of our shelters, for there wasn't time to roof everything in stone shingles. But we're nowhere nearly as vulnerable as the defenseless villages they've used that tactic against."

"I've some ideas of my own, to add to the defenses." Stirling nodded toward the officers of his cataphracti, men with Asiatic features, who watched and ate in alert silence, many of them wearing the Sarmatian tribal badge embroidered on their tunics, a naked sword thrust through a stone. "There's no force in all of Western Europe to match my Sarmatian bowmen. Come the dawn, I'll work out a few nasty surprises for the Saxons, to teach them the damage Sarmatian archers can inflict."