The Count of the Borders nodded. “Mayhap a foolish notion,” he said. “But I wanted to be here to support you if you were close pursued.”

“As far as I know, I’ve broken contact, and the enemy is moving along the north bank of the Cohocton,” Gavin said.

“I put all my foot into the works at Lissen Carak and came on,” Count Gareth said. “Ranald Lachlan and the queen’s advance guard should be only two or three days behind me; we should arrive at Lissen Carak together.”

“Pray God that the dragon can’t break past your infantry,” Gavin said, deeply worried. “How is your hermetical support?”

“Thin,” Count Gareth admitted.

Gavin’s eyebrows seemed to knit together.

The Wild—Bill Redmede

Well north of the river, the Jacks and the irks moved very slowly east, sometimes making less than ten miles a day. The country was broken; the western flanks of the Adnacrags in autumn, with beautiful stands of beech interspersed with vast marshes and alder brakes that ran for hundreds of paces. The irks moved easily, the men less so.

Bill Redmede leaned on his bow and looked at the endless golden leaves. “We’re too far north,” he said.

Tapio shrugged. “We have to be well to the north,” he said. “We cannot afford even the chanssse of detecssshion.”

Redmede shook his head. “My people have mayhap five shafts a bow,” he said. “I agree; we cannot fight. But this is mortal slow.”

Kwoqwethogan was recovering. He raised his head. “I know these trees,” he said. “I know that great burl there, by the stream.” He pointed with a bronze talon, and Redmede could see an ancient maple with a burl the size of a farmer’s table growing from the side.

“We call him the old god,” Kwoqwethogan said. “We are not so far from roads the people travel. Over the next ridge is one of our trails. It runs to the Sononghelan; what you call the Black.”

Redmede’s heart flickered with hope. “A trail?”

“Broader than my shoulders and smooth as my tail,” the warden replied.

Redmede sighed. “Damn.”

The Cohocton—Ash

Ash’s war of metaphysical logistics had reached its limits, and the loss of his well in the north demanded an instant counterattack. But for the first day, he had to be careful; he’d overspent his resources, and he was vulnerable, and the endless limitations of the real continued to cloud his plans.

He abandoned a grandiose plan to trap the remnants of the enemy army with a force of bogglins thrown across the Cohocton with sorcery; he gave up the notion of throwing bridges of ice or even stone at key positions. He had the power, but it would have a cost. Even as it was, he knew he’d lost a sizable number of bogglins; some to the enemy, and some simply wandering off to live their own lives or return to their nests.