The woodcutters extending the road shuddered, and some had to control trembling and actual terror as the boglins passed, or when a pair of fell hastenoch clomped by, their squid-like mouths writhing horribly.

Many flinched when a troop of Outwallers ran along the new road for a few hundred yards—all moving in their endless war-lope, a near-silent flash of red paint and jingle of silver hawk’s bells in the light rain.

Noon came. The scouts of all races pushed out, and the men dismounted, and the pages took the horses.

Nell held a hand for the Faery Knight’s stag. It didn’t even have reins.

“Go with the nissse young woman,” Ser Tapio said. He smiled at her, showing his fangs. He rolled neatly off his saddle, a stunning display of acrobatics.

“Show-off,” Ser Gabriel said. He dismounted with an ordinary turn and slide on his breastplate.

Morgon Mortirmir appeared from the white banda, and Toby passed him forward. Toby was the captain’s field chamberlain—he decided who got into the inner circle and who could wait. Mortirmir looked excited.

“My lord,” he said. He grinned, and stared openly at the Faery Knight, and the beautiful—horrifying—irk woman in brazen armour who stood at his shoulder.

“Oh!” she said. She put a brass hand to Morgon’s cheek. “The power!”

“Handsss off, Lilith!” Ser Tapio said. There was some laughter from the irks.

“Yes?” the captain asked. He had a garlic sausage in his mouth and another in his hand.

“My lord.” Morgon shrugged. “It’s difficult to know where to begin… I’ve solved the horse plague.”

Toby’s face suggested he was regretting allowing the young man to interrupt the captain’s lunch.

“Really?” Ser Gabriel asked.

“Yes. It was under my nose all along. Brutally simple.” He shrugged. “In fact, I was right from the first—all a problem of magnification. You see—”

“Morgon.” The captain’s eyes were kind. “I’m about to face a major battle. I need to prepare. You have the ability to stop the horse plague?”

“Instantly.”

“Bravo. Share it with me and every other hermeticist.” He smiled softly. “Then leave me alone, please.”

Morgon looked shame-faced. Nonetheless, both men’s faces became slack for a few seconds.

The captain returned first. “You really do learn something every day,” he said. “Tapio?”

Again he vanished into his palace, and Toby fetched water—the captain always returned from the aethereal hungry and thirsty.

The Faery Knight shook his head.

“Interesssting,” he said. “Leave it to men to make sssomething of nothing. Sssomething horrible.”

“I don’t really see men as to blame for all the ills of the world.” Ser Gabriel shook his head. “But come—let’s right them, e’er we quarrel about them.”

Ser Tapio smiled. “You are a wight after my own heart,” he said.