By the time the church bells were singing out the midday, there were thousands of men and women facing various problems at pairs of stakes one hundred and twenty feet apart. More than a hundred practitioners, led by Mortirmir and Petrarcha, stood in another field, casting and casting, working potentia, passing ops, sharing palaces in the aethereal. The whole army was treated to a spectacular display as they raised a set of layered shields powered as a choir, each shield like a snakeskin armour, composed of thousands, tens of thousands, of scales that interlocked, and moved, flowed, layered up, and thinned out at the will of the conductor.

The emperor moved from meeting to demonstration to drill, watching, coaching, joking. He watched the mamluks of the Sultan of Ifriquy’a ride into camp; he saluted them graciously.

“No one has done this in two thousand years,” he said.

Tom Lachlan shook his head. “What do we ha’e? All told?”

Michael raised a tablet. “Fifty-six thousand, two hundred and seventeen,” he said.

Tom stood in his stirrups. “And ye’re takin’ ’em all?” he asked.

“Every blessed one,” Gabriel said.

“Ye’re a loon,” Tom said. “How many fights?”

The emperor shook his head. “No idea. We have to pass through at least three gates. I’m fairly confident it’s three. It might be four. Or five. At least two fights.”

“How do you figure?” Michael asked.

“The rebel and the shadow expect an ally to come through this gate,” Gabriel said. “So there’s someone on the other side right now.”

“Aye,” Tom said, brightening. “Who is it?”

“Little green cheese eaters,” Gabriel snapped. “How do I know?”

“Ye generally pretend that ye know everything,” Tom said. “I just like to see ye squirm.”

“And the second?” Michael asked. “Is whoever Ash expects to find at Lissen Carak?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t know. Is Ash trying to conquer or defend?” He looked around. “But assuming that the will is concentrated there, and Ash is there, then they might have an ally waiting on the other side of the gate. Or one or both of them is leaving, bent on the conquest of other . . . places.” He reined in, looking over the vast, flat field. As far as the eye could see, tens of thousands of men and women were eating, polishing, building, drilling, shooting, wrestling, cursing. The breeze raised little dust devils. The sun shone down, still fierce enough to burn Tom’s nose.

“. . . or . . .” the emperor said. “Damn.”

He turned Ataelus to face his staff. “It doesn’t matter. Morgon and I have a plan for the first moments, when the gate starts to open.” He shrugged. “And after that we play it by ear. This is as far as the plan ever made it, really. Fighting—a lot of it—and then, when we come through that tunnel, if we win, there will be another set of plans, for rebuilding. For feeding the Albin and the Brogat from Etrusca. And eventually, for preparing to face all this again in some hundreds or thousands of years.”