She glanced over her shoulder and caught him looking. 'Don't you have an army to run?'

'They'll last ten minutes without me.'

She drew the cold, black blade from the water and tossed it clattering onto the heap beside the whetstone. 'You sure?'

Maybe she was right at that. West took a deep breath, sighed, turned with some reluctance, and ventured out through the door of the shed and into the camp.

The winter air nipped at his cheeks after the heat of the smithy, and he pulled up the collars of his coat, hugged himself as he struggled down the camp's main road. It was deathly quiet out here at night, once he had left the rattling of the forge behind him. He could hear the frozen mud sucking at his boots, his breath rasping in his throat, the faint cursing of some distant soldier, grumbling his way through the darkness. He stopped a moment and looked up, arms folded round himself for warmth. The sky was perfectly clear, the stars prickling bright, spread across the blackness like shining dust.

'Beautiful,' he murmured to himself.

'You get used to it.'

It was Threetrees, picking his way between the tents with the Dogman at his shoulder. His face was in shadow, all dark pits and white angles like a cliff in the moonlight, but West could tell there was some ill news coming. The old Northman could hardly have been described as a figure of fun at the best of times, but now his frown was grim indeed.

'Well met,' said West in the Northern tongue.

'You think? Bethod is inside five days' march of your camp.'

The cold seemed suddenly to cut through West's coat and make him shiver. 'Five days?'

'If he's stayed put since we saw him, and that ain't likely. Bethod was never one for staying put. If he's marching south, he could be three days away. Less even.'

'What are his numbers?'

The Dogman licked his lips, breath smoking round his lean face in the chill air. 'I'd guess at ten thousand, but he might have more behind.'

West felt colder yet. 'Ten thousand? That many?'

'Around ten, aye. Mostly Thralls.'

'Thralls? Light infantry?'

'Light, but not like this rubbish you have here.' Threetrees scowled around at the shabby tents, the badly built camp fires, close to guttering out. 'Bethod's Thralls are lean and bloody from battles and tough as wood from marching. Those bastards can run all day and still fight at the end of it, if it's needed. Bowmen, spearmen, all well-practised.'

'There's no shortage of Carls and all,' muttered the Dogman.