'And what? Bethod won't have thought of that?' Dogman's grin started to fade. 'If he's got men to spare he might think they'd be well used up here, waiting for the right moment, just like we are. He might send 'em through these trees here and up this hill to right where we're sitting. What'd happen then, d'you reckon?'

'We'd set to killing each other, I daresay, but Bethod don't have men to spare, according to Shivers and his boys. He's outnumbered worse'n two to one as it is.'

'Maybe, but he likes to cook up surprises.'

'Alright,' said Dogman, watching the Carls heaving the fallen tree trunk around so it blocked off the top of the slope. 'Alright. So we drag a tree across here and we hope for the best.'

'Hope for the best?' grunted Threetrees. 'Just when did that ever work?' He strode off to mutter to Grim, and Dogman shrugged his shoulders. If a few hundred Carls did turn up all of a sudden, they'd be in a fix, but there weren't much he could do about it now. So he knelt down beside his pack, pulled out his flint and some dry twigs, stacked it all up careful and started striking sparks.

Shivers squatted down near him, palms resting on his axe-handle. 'What're you at?'

'What does it look like?' Dogman blew into the kindling, watched the flame spreading out. 'I'm making me a fire.'

'Ain't we waiting for a battle to start?'

Dogman sat back, pushed some of the dry twigs closer in and watched 'em take light. 'Aye, we're waiting, and that's the best time for a fire, I reckon. War's all waiting, lad. Weeks of your life, maybe, if you're in our line o' work. You could spend that time being cold, or you could try to get comfortable.'

He slid his pan out from his pack and onto the fire. New pan, and a good one, he'd got it off the Southerners. He unwrapped the packet inside. Five eggs there, still whole. Nice, brown, speckled eggs. He cracked one on the edge of the pan, poured it in, heard it hiss, grinning all the while. Things were looking up, alright. Hadn't had eggs in a good long time. It was as he was cracking the last one that he smelled something, just as the breeze turned. Something more than eggs cooking. He jerked his head up, frowning.

'What?' asked Cathil.

'Nothing, most likely.' But it was best not to take chances. 'You wait here a moment and watch these, eh?'

'Alright.'