'Uh,' said Grim, scarcely looking up from checking his shafts.

'And you're Threetrees?'

'That I am,' said the old boy, hands on his hips.

'Well,' muttered Shivers, rubbing at the back of his head. 'I feel like I'm in deep water now, and no mistake. Deep water. Tul Duru, and Black Dow, and… bloody hell. You're Threetrees, eh?'

'I'm him.'

'Well then. Shit. My father always said you was the best man left in all the North. That if he ever had to pick a man to follow, you'd be the one. 'Til you lost to the Bloody-Nine, o' course, but some things you can't help. Rudd Threetrees, right before me now…'

'Why've you come here, boy?'

Shivers seemed to have run out of words, so the Dogman spoke for him. 'He says he's got two score Carls following him, and they all want to come over.'

Threetrees looked Shivers in the eye for a while. 'Is that a fact?'

Shivers nodded. 'You knew my father. He thought the way you did, and I'm cut from his cloth. Serving Bethod sticks in my neck.'

'Might be I think a man should pick his chief and stick to him.'

'I always thought so,' said Shivers, 'but that blade cuts both ways, no? A chief should look out for his people too, shouldn't he?' Dogman nodded to himself. A fair point to his mind. 'Bethod don't care a shit for none of us no more, if he ever did. He don't listen to no one now but that witch of his.'

'Witch?' said Tul.

'Aye, this sorceress, this Caurib, or whatever. The witch. The one who makes the mist. Bethod's dabbling with some dark company. And this war, there's no purpose to it. Angland? Who wants it anyway, we got land aplenty. He'll lead us all back to the mud. Long as there was no one else to follow we stuck with it, but when we heard Rudd Threetrees might still be alive, and with the Union, well…'

'You decided to have a look, eh?'

'We've had enough. Bethod's got some strange boys along. These easterners, from out past the Crinna, bones and hides men, you know, hardly men at all. Got no code, no mercy, don't hardly speak the same language we do. Fucking savages, the lot of 'em. Bethod's got some down in the Union fortress there, and they got all the bodies hung up on the walls, all cut with the bloody cross, guts hanging out, rotting. It ain't right. Then there's Calder and Scale tossing out orders like they know shit from porridge, like they got some names o' their own besides their father's.'

'Fucking Calder,' growled Tul, shaking his head.

'Fucking Scale,' hissed Dow, spitting on the wet ground.