Two nights before the whole of the Faery Knight’s army was due to march east, he held a great council in his hall. Harpers sang of wars from the past. No song was of glory, and most were of defeat and pain, the agony of loss, the despair of a bad wound. The music was haunting and beautiful.

Bill Redmede sat thinking of his distant brother. And of the Kingdom of Alba.

Of how little it all meant to him, now. He smiled grimly as he realized what Wat Tyler had known at midwinter.

To Redmede, this hall, N’gara, and its disparate inhabitants, had become home.

He twisted his mouth and glanced at Fitzalan, who was sharing a long stone pipe with Aun’shen, one of Mogon’s lieutenants. Some of the great wardens smoked. Some also ate their meat raw.

Living at N’gara was predominantly a matter of not being offended by the alien behaviour of others.

“The comrades might get more spirit from happier songs,” Redmede said.

Fitzalan shrugged. “They’re true songs, those,” he said.

Lady Tamsin appeared out of the air, or so it seemed. “The irks send warriors away with a reminder of where they go and what they leave behind,” she said. “Perhaps for your kind, with the life so short, there is less to lose. Yet this seems to me odd—I would think that with the life so short, your people would be more careful of it.”

Redmede found it hard to look at Tamsin for any length of time, so he tore his eyes away and looked at the harpers on the dais instead. Behind them, on the tapestry-that-lived, spear-armed warriors were cut down by humans in strange armour. Redmede had seen the armour somewhere before—on old statues outside Harndon. Archaic armour, helmets with crests, big rectangular shields. The legions.

Just when you thought you might understand the irks, or you thought they were just folks, they’d remind you that the older ones had been alive for a thousand years or so and remembered things that were long forgotten by most humans. Even in books.

Nor did they remember events the same way.

Redmede kept his eyes on the musicians. “Few of us are careful of life, my lady.”

“For your own sweet Bess’s sake, and all her kisses, mortal, the least you could do is bring yourself home.” She smiled sweetly, like all the young women in all the passionate springs of the world rolled into one woman with pointed teeth. “Forget about glory. Go late, fight briefly, leave early and come home alive.”

Bill Redmede laughed. “Lady, you incline me to desert.”

Tamsin spread her hands. “War is a monster that eats the sentient races. I would counsel any friend to avoid him.”

Bill Redmede nodded. “But who will stop the power of the sorcerer? Who will save the bears in the ’Dacks or the serfs in the fields?”