Out of the woods at their backs appeared the flash of metal, and then his own lances under de Badefol were forming and charging. And from the third line, Kevin Orley’s men ran forward like the Outwallers they were, heedless of the archery in their superior armour.

The Vardariotes didn’t hesitate, but turned, cut their way through the Outwaller line, and ran, but the desperate flight saved only half, and the rest were ground to bloody paste between Orley’s armoured warband and the knights.

Ser Hartmut hadn’t even begun to sweat inside his armour.

He saw a dozen sailors and a pair of brigans vanish over the top of the centre earthwork. And then he saw another man unfurl his personal banner—it flew atop the wall.

He turned to Thorn. “Now we go up the hill,” he said. “I’ll need your trolls for the Nordikaan guard.”

Thorn was black, and no shadow fell from him or on him. “Let us go up the hill,” he said.

But the Moreans had other ideas.

Out on his far right, a column of cavalry in bright silver and scarlet appeared. They had taken their time to work around his right flank, and now they charged—uphill into the unshielded flank of his long assault line of men and monsters.

Hartmut sent his squire to collect Orley and de Badefol and rode himself towards the fighting. Thorn threw a massive working into the front of the bold riders, killing forty of them in a single sweep of his stone talons and as many of his own Outwallers, but the Scholae—for so they were—came on. The right flank of Outwallers—reliable men, southern Huran with good armour and crossbows—was suddenly swept back sharply, and threatened to collapse.

As Ser Hartmut had expected, the Nordikaans, of whom he had so often heard, came over the top of the central redoubt.

With them came a tall man on a magnificent horse. Even a long bowshot away, Ser Hartmut could see the magnificence of his clothes and armour and the dignity of his posture.

The Nordikaans went into his brigans and collapsed them. They tried to stand—their armour was as good or better, but the blond, axe-bearing guard towered over them, and the axes were like scythes for reaping men.

And they had the weight of the hill behind them.

“Thorn!” Ser Hartmut bellowed.

The deadly magus motioned to the ranks of stone trolls—forty of them—who stood like statues at the base of the ridge. “Go,” he said. “Kill them all.”

The lead troll opened his grey basalt lips and roared his challenge, and then they were away, running as fast as a man might charge on a horse, the earth protesting their weight and their stride.