'Yes, sir, thank you.' West had not eaten since last night, and even then not much. The very idea of food made him feel sick.

'Well at least one of us did.' Burr placed a hand sourly on his stomach. 'Damned indigestion, I can't touch a thing.' He winced and gave a long burp. 'Pardon me. And there they go.'

General Kroy must finally have declared himself satisfied with the precise positioning of every man in his division, because the soldiers in the valley had begun to move forward. A chilly breeze blew up and set the regimental standards, the flags of the battalions, the company ensigns snapping and fluttering. The watery sun twinkled on sharpened blades and burnished armour, shone on gold braid and polished wood, glittered on buckles and harness. All advanced smoothly together, as proud a display of military might as could ever have been seen. Beyond them, down the valley to the east, a great black tower loomed up behind the trees. The nearest tower of the fortress of Dunbrec.

'Quite the spectacle,' muttered Burr. 'Fifteen thousand fighting men, perhaps, all told, and almost as many more up on the ridge.' He nodded his head at the reserve, two regiments of cavalry, dismounted and restless down below the command post. 'Another two thousand there, waiting for orders.' He glanced back towards the sprawling camp: a city of canvas, of carts, of stacked-up boxes and barrels, spread out in the snowy valley, black figures crawling around inside. 'And that's without counting all the thousands back there—cooks and grooms, smiths and drivers, servants and surgeons.' He shook his head. 'Some responsibility, all that, eh? You wouldn't want to be the fool who had to take care of all that lot.'

West gave a weak smile. 'No, sir.'

'It looks like…' murmured Jalenhorm, shading his eyes and squinting down the valley into the sun. 'Are those… ?'

'Eye-glass!' snapped Burr, and a nearby officer produced one with a flourish. The Marshal flicked it open. 'Well, well. Who's this now?'

A rhetorical question, without a doubt. There was no one else it could be. 'Bethod's Northmen,' said Jalenhorm, ever willing to state the obvious.

West watched them rush across the open ground through the wobbling round window of his own eye-glass. They flowed out from the trees at the far end of the valley, near to the river, spreading out like the dark stain creeping from a slit wrist. Dirty grey and brown masses congealed on the wings. Thralls, lightly armed. In the centre better ordered ranks took shape, dull metal gleaming, mail and blade. Bethod's Carls.

'No sign of any horse.' That made West more nervous than ever. He had already had one near-fatal encounter with Bethod's cavalry, and he did not care to renew the acquaintance.