On the western face of the mountain side, Syr Ydrik and Tapio opened the action by charging the enemy scouts on a wide front, collapsing the bogglins and a handful of enemy wardens on great swamp trolls back against their support. But Ash’s column was not an organized body in battalions, or even in the traditional human divisions of vanguard, main body, and rear guard; and despite his control of a major part of their wills, there were still instincts of self preservation at work even in the scent-captive bogglins, and the steady casualties among the leaders of the column had led to a certain caution.

Ydrik and Tapio went forward almost a mile, and withdrew only when they were hard against a shield wall of irks. That was an ugly surprise; Tapio had not imagined that all the irks were under his own banner, but the sight of them in their close array, their bronze mail gleaming in the light rain, oppressed him. He called out to him, and they named him traitor, and Man Friend.

A tall irk in gold maille stepped out of the line, axe in hand. “Come and fight me, Man Friend,” he said. “You have betrayed the trust of the Free People.”

Tapio reined in. “If Asssh winsss, there will be no Free People.”

“If your men win, there will be no Free People,” rejoined the other. “I am Hukas Helli! We are the Free People!”

Tapio shook his head slowly. “I will not fight you, cousssin. Let usss agree that no irk will fight another irk.”

“I will kill you, and I will have your woman for my own,” Hukas roared. “I will take your slaves and your castles and I will keep the people free. You have forgotten what it is to be an irk. Dismount, and let me teach you.”

“You are a fool, and ‘my’ woman would devour you,” Tapio said. “I leave you to find death without me.”

He rode away to the jeers of the enemy irks, which fell on him like blows.

Tapio’s charge bought the rear guard an hour; by the time that Ash’s horde was fully in motion, the lower slopes were defended; Mogon’s wardens held the center, with most of the Long Dam Clan bears standing with her; the Morean mountaineers had a small redoubt of felled trees just above them, and the Albin militia were dropping more trees in a crisscross abatis to cover the bears. The irk knights went up the hill into reserve.

A very small creek ran across the western slope of the mountain, which the Outwallers called Loomsack, and ran into the swelling Cohocton. Before the first bogglin reached the creek, Magister Nikos spoke a single word, fotia. His controlling structure was perfect, despite the rain, and every tree on the whole front on the far side of the tree and extending west almost a hundred paces burst into flame.