It was more alien than anything he’d seen.

But Thorn seemed content with their route, and they pressed forward. It was terrible walking for the men—the sailors and the brigans—but Hartmut put them deep in the column so that the great daemons, the stone trolls and the other forest folk could make a trail for them. At last they broke out of the lowlands and into the higher ground with bigger trees, and every step they climbed seemed to rid them of the clinging hobblebush and the terrible alders.

Cunxis, one of the warlords of the Dead Trees, appeared out of the light rain, his feather cloak making him almost invisible until he chose to be seen.

“Thorn—they are right here! A whole army!”

Cunxis was intolerably excited; his red crest stood up, engorged with blood, and his teeth all but glowed white.

“Where?” Thorn demanded. There was a very faint sound of horns—above them on the next ridge. Further north.

Ears of many shapes pricked.

Without any order being given, the whole host began to flood up the ridge, led by the daemons of the Dead Tree Clan, followed—and sometimes outrun—by a thousand Outwaller warriors. The column had only been moving on a path ten or so creatures wide, crushing the underbrush as they moved, and now it gathered speed—but there were bands and bands, stretching away down the last three ridges…

Hartmut spat. “Halt,” he roared at his own human auxiliaries. They halted—and creatures flowed around them.

The enemy—Outwallers and daemons—got to the top of the ridge first.

The captain swore—palpably.

“Don’t halt!” the captain roared, when the line faltered. Even in the rain, the feather cloaks and the slick skin—and sheer size—showed the fearsome enemy. Everyone had nightmares of the daemons at Lissen Carak.

The ground was actually becoming more broken as they climbed the ridge, and on the narrow front where the daemons emerged from the rain, there was naked rock and a steep slope.

“Household—dismount,” the captain called. Cursing—no knight likes to fight on foot—the veteran knights swung off their war horses and handed them back to pages—and in some cases lost only a few strides.

“Stay open,” the captain ordered. He was on foot, and they were going up the slope—the steepest.

Heavy rocks came down on them. A daemon lobbed a rock as big as a man’s head, and Chris Foliak died, his head crushed.

His squire pushed forward into his space and they continued up. Lord Wimarc slammed his face-plate closed as a smaller stone broke his nose.

Stones were not their only weapons. The daemons had heavy axes. They had halted, and stood waiting near the crest—and Outwaller warriors started to leak around their edges.