So the Dogman was just lying there on his face, wet to the skin and trying to keep still without freezing solid, looking out across the valley from the trees, and watching Bethod's army marching. He couldn't see that much of them from where he was lying, just a stretch of the track over a ridge, enough to see the Carls tramping by, painted shields bright on their backs, mail glistening with specks of melted snow, spears sticking up high between the tree trunks. Rank after rank of 'em, marching steady.

They were a good way off, but he was taking quite a risk even getting this close. Bethod was just as careful as ever. He'd got men out all around, up on the ridges and the high points, anywhere where he thought someone could get a sight of what he was up to. He'd sent a few scouts south and some others east, hoping to trick anyone was watching, but he hadn't got the Dogman fooled. Not this time. Bethod was heading back the way he'd come. He was heading north.

Dogman breathed in sharp, and gave a long, sad sigh. By the dead, he felt tired. He watched the tiny figures filing past through the pine branches. He'd spent all those years scouting for Bethod, keeping an eye on armies like this one for him, helping him win battles, helping to make him a King, though he'd never dreamed it at the time. In some ways everything had changed. In others it was just the same as ever. Here he was still, face down in the muck with a sore neck from looking up. Ten years older and not a day better off. He could hardly remember what his ambitions used to be, but this hadn't ever been among 'em, he was sure of that. All that wind blown past, all that snow fallen, all that water flowed by. All that fighting, all that marching, all that waste.

Logen gone, and Forley gone, and the candle burning down fast on the rest of 'em.

Grim slithered through the frozen scrub beside him, propped himself on his elbows and peered out towards the Carls moving on the road. 'Huh,' he grunted.

'Bethod's moving north,' whispered Dogman.

Grim nodded.

'He's got scouts out all over, but he's heading north, no doubt. We'd best let Threetrees know.'

Another nod.

Dogman lay there in the wet. 'I'm getting tired.'

Grim looked up, lifted an eyebrow.

'All this effort, and for what? Everything the same as ever. Whose side is it we're on now?' Dogman waved his hand over at the men slogging down the road. 'We supposed to fight all this lot? When do we get a rest?'

Grim shrugged his shoulders, squeezed his lips together like he was thinking about it. 'When we're dead?'

And wasn't that the sorry truth.