“Bill.” Harald nodded. Both Redmedes were tall and ruddy-haired and rough-hewed; where Bill wore the stained, loose off-white wool cote of the Jacks, his brother wore a sharply tailored jupon in the forester’s forest green, although he carried his hat in one hand like a beggar. He stopped at the crest, and his weary men shuffled past; Bill was starting to know their names, and John Hand, tall and strong as an old oak, sporting a knightly beard and mustache, was Harald Redmede’s best officer. He grunted a greeting and kept going, glancing back at the rising tide of bogglins behind them as almost every man and woman did on reaching the crest.

“I heard a rumour we won a big fight in Etrusca,” Harald said. “Heard it this morning from Ser Gregario.”

“I heard that there’s a thousand dead of the plague in Harndon,” Bill said.

“Aye, or three times that.” Harald Redmede leaned on his bow staff.

The first drops of rain fell from the golden sky.

“We winning or losing?” Bill asked his brother.

“Losing,” Harald said. He held his hat—full of berries—out to his brother, who took a handful and ate them, seeds and all; black raspberries, fresh picked.

Bill nodded. “Well, that makes me feel better,” he said.

Both of them looked down the ridge they’d just abandoned without a fight to the enemy, who were already crowding the ground below them; a flood of bogglins, so many that the ground seemed to move with chitonous lava.

The irk knights were the last in the column. Even their magnificent animals seemed dejected; stags with racks of antlers that were themselves weapons walked with their heads down, and their riders walked beside them.

“We’re fucking doomed,” Harald muttered. “Sweet Jesu, I’ll end up being taken for a Jack if I keep on like this.”

Bill Redmede shrugged. “I trust Tapio,” he said. “He’ll see us right.” He didn’t say, The happiest hours of my life were spent in N’gara and I’ll fight for it. N’gara was just a few leagues away, and Ash’s entire autumn campaign seemed bent on taking it.

Harald smiled without mirth. “My brother the fuckin’ Jack believes an elf will save us, and I think that the queen’s commander is a lackwit. Well played, my brother. We can change off; I’ll take the Jacks, you take the foresters.”

Bill shrugged. “You always was contrary, Harald.” He looked at the looming sky. Thoughtfully he said, “We need shafts.”

“As do we. Best hope the mighty Ser Gavin knows it, too.” Harald shook his head. “If’n we stand and talk any longer, we’ll be eaten alive by bugs.”

The two men turned, and began to trot along to catch their people, who were retreating into the strange, wet, golden evening.

The Vale of Dykesdale—Ser Gavin Muriens