Down the road, uncontested, rode the silent Knights of the Order, cloaked in black, a great golden and green shield rising over them, and behind them came Donald Dhu, tall as a monster himself, grim, in black maille, with a great axe over his shoulder, and behind him came all the men of the Wyrm of Erch. And with them were the survivors of the royal foresters, while north of the woods, in echelon, were the two bristling phalanxes of 1Exrech and 53Exrech.

Then came the militia, already formed in long lines, interspersed today with wedges of the Count of the Border’s knights. Tamsin rode with Lord Gareth, the count, and he shook his head ruefully at their thinness on the ground.

Lord Gareth’s Northern Prickers were out to the right, moving over ground heavily infested with worms. He got a regular stream of reports, but at a high cost, as horses and men were taken.

He sent messengers forward to the Earl of Westwall, but none were coming back.

Harmodius could not withstand Ash’s full power. His resistance had a cost, and doubt began to creep in; he knew that Ash had not been fully manifest when he attacked Desiderata in Harndon, and even as he doubted, a wash of black began to seep through his golden bricks . . .

He made his move. He had the working ready to hand, and he went . . . elsewhere.

Ash turned over the falls, located his true target, and threw his will upon her. And had the immense satisfaction of watching the gold melt away, until he realized that this puny thing was not even a woman.

His fury was beyond rage. He had been deceived; tricked by Tamsin and misled by Desiderata; his loathing of their kind peaked in a kind of insane malevolence that leveled forests and hills and laid waste to the countryside for a mile as he flew back toward Albinkirk.

Master Pye took his hands from his ears, and blinked many times against the scene burned onto his retinas.

Then he ran lightly, for such an old man, down the steps carved by the falls.

“Would be a funny time to slip an’ fall,” he said aloud. He went all the way to the base of the falls, where the rich green grass was now burned to ash, and rocks themselves were scorched.

He poked his head in through the edge of the falls.

“He’s gone,” Master Pye called.

Ser Ranald pushed through the falls and ran for the steps.

Harmodius surfaced in the real long enough to throw a powerful attack, and then left.

Ash, lost to rage, turned and followed him. Again.

North of Lissen Carak, the white bear’s scouts froze, far out across an autumn marsh, and the white bear’s paws shot up, and every man, every irk, and every warden froze, or went to ground.