Banouin's spirit floated high in the sky above the Rigante army, while his body lay in a small wood to the north, Brother Solstice sitting beside it. To the casual onlooker the young druid would appear to be sleeping. Instead he was tasting the freedom that only the mystic could ever know; no yearning from the flesh, no hunger, no passion, no anger. To soar free of the body was unlike any other experience in Banouin's life, and he could not describe the exquisite joy of it. It was, he once told Connavar, like seeing the sun dawn following a night of fear and trembling. But this was a pale and inadequate description. It was said that in the far north the sun shone for six months without cease, and then night would fall and darkness remain throughout autumn and winter. Perhaps, thought Banouin, the people who dwelt there would understand better the analogy.

He gazed down at the army. They were travelling in four columns, and it seemed to Banouin, from this great height, that the columns resembled immense serpents, slithering over the hills. Furthest south was Connavar and his ten thousand Iron Wolves. Sunlight glittered on their mail shirts and helms, giving the snake the appearance of scales. Behind, and a half mile to the west, came the Horse Archers, followed by heavily armoured infantry. A long way back were the baggage and supply wagons, hundreds of them, drawn by oxen.

Banouin flew to the south, covering more than twenty miles in a few heartbeats.

The soldiers of Stone were building their nightly fortress, a massive undertaking involving the creation of ramparts ten feet tall, set in a great square with sides close to half a mile in length. This daily feat of engineering was a tribute to the skills of Stone, and the cold, calculating genius of Jasaray. Every morning three Panthers, nine thousand fighting men, would leave the fortress and march a specified distance into enemy territory – usually around twelve miles. An advance guard of mounted officers would mark out the next night camp, using coloured stakes to signify the placement of the general's command tent, the officers' area, the section where the troops would pitch their own tents, and sectors for latrines, baggage wagons, and picketing for horses. Once the Panthers arrived the first and second would take up defensive positions around the site of the camp, while the third would begin to dig the enormous square trench, throwing up earth to form the walls of the fortress.