“The Emperor beat us here, for all that our dark allies promised us his horses would be dead and his men forced to walk,” Ser Hartmut said. While he was talking a pair of his brigans dragged a Morean—swarthy, middle-aged, a tough man with a long beard—in. His hands were bound, and his legs ran with blood.

“Got him off the bugs,” one man said. “Milord. That is, we killed the bugs and took him, because you said you wanted prisoners.”

Ser Hartmut nodded. He snapped his fingers, and Cree-ah, his latest squire, a Huran boy, came at a run.

“Pay them—a silver soldus each.” He nodded.

Cree-ah bowed, reached into his master’s purse and paid both men. He was a northern Huran, and he seemed to feel it was a great honour to serve the famous knight.

Ser Hartmut looked at the bleeding Morean. “Tell me about your army,” he said.

The man frowned.

“Find someone who speaks Archaic, have him question the man, and if that’s not enough, torture him. Threaten to give him back to the boglins.” Ser Hartmut laughed grimly. “That ought to be enough threat for any man.”

He was brought a cup of water and he sat on his stool and watched the imperial army at the top of the ridge. “He beat us here,” he said, to no one in particular. “But now he’s waiting. Can he be fool enough to fight?”

There was a rapid displacement of air, and then Thorn was there.

Ser Hartmut made a moue of distaste. “Did you hear me, and come?”

Thorn grunted. “No. I cannot hear you from a mile away. Not yet. I came for my own reasons. Tell me what you propose.”

Hartmut looked around. “Where is your master?”

Thorn grunted again. “Close. We are on the ground that is claimed by one of his peers. He is very tense.”

Ser Hartmut pointed up the hill, where men were digging rapidly, deepening the ditch in front of ramparts already eight feet of packed earth and logs high.

“It will not get any better. Unless we wait here for the siege train, in which case this is our whole summer.” Hartmut shrugged.

“I am, if needs be, a siege train,” Thorn said. He gestured with his staff and spoke some slow, old, dark word.

Nothing happened.

Ser Hartmut raised an eyebrow. “Be that as it may,” he said, “we may as well attack before they are reinforced. Right now we have heavy odds—four or five to one, at least.”

“My skywatchers tell me that there is another force behind them on the road—all afoot. My master killed their horses.” He bent slightly at the waist. “We could send your humans further east, moving quickly—cut off this force and destroy it.”