The slope was deceptive, both steeper and longer than it had seemed from the base.

The burst of a partridge from cover shattered the night.

A dog barked. Shapes moved suddenly at the crest of the stony ridge, which rose steeply above them—still higher than Morgon had imagined.

“Freeze!” hissed No Head.

A voice shouted far away, and a horn sounded.

Sheep gave voice at the sound of the horn.

“I know that voice,” No Head said.

“Shut the fuck up before we’re all made into someone’s breakfast,” spat Tippit.

“Sod yourself, ya whack.” No Head stood in his stirrups. “Hullo!” he roared.

The shout rang, and echoed off two great hillsides. A dozen No Heads greeted each other.

“Ya daft weasil!” growled Tippit. “Fuckin’ scout? Fuckin’ dimwit is what you are. That’s what comes of readin’ books!” He was sidling away.

Another horn sounded, this one closer, and then there were horsemen—at least a hundred of them—pouring over the ridge.

“Fuck me!” Tippit shouted. “It’s the Wild Hunt.”

But No Head had been in the company since its earliest days, and he sat on his small mare and waited while Tippit started noisily down the slope. “Wager you ten silver, hard coin, it’s friends,” he said.

Tippit pulled in his horse. “Yer only saying that ’cause if ya lose we’re all dead anyway.”

“That’s just stupid,” No Head said. “Death against ten silver?”

Smoke was a man of few words. But he put out a hand. “Shut up,” he said gently. “Shut up and listen.”

Nonetheless, his hand went to his sword.

Three horns sounded, and one was already down slope of them.

“Hulloooooo!” No Head roared.

The horsemen were close enough to be more than movement and noise. They were big men on ponies, their feet incongruously close to the ground, but the leader rode a war horse that stood seventeen hands, black as the night.

“Bad Tom,” No Head shouted.

“You’re in the wrong valley, you loons!” Bad Tom roared back. “Tar’s tits, we almost gave up on you!”

Chapter Seventeen

Albinkirk—The Company

The arrival of the Queen and the young King should have been a wonder in the streets of Albinkirk, but the threat of imminent war—war with the Wild—was distracting, and the distraction was personified by the soul-splitting shrieks that emanated from the citadel. The citizens should have grown used to them, after three weeks, but they couldn’t—the sounds were always discordant and sudden, and there was neither rhyme nor reason to them—just the endless screams of an anguished soul in the fires of hell, or so many said to one another as they looked at their terrified children and their equally terrified cats and dogs, ears back, hissing or barking.