To the north of the road, in the closed fields bordered by hedges of the Albinkirk out-towns, companies of bills and bows, or heavily shielded crossbowmen guarded by armoured men with heavy spears, stood their ground against a sudden flood of bogglins and worse. A whole company of Jarsay militia were caught moving by a sudden charge of imps and annihilated in a spray of blood and flesh, and the greyhound-sized monsters fed on the corpses and then on each other in a frenzy of bone and blood as hideous as anything a storyteller could imagine of some distant hell. But in most of the fields, the stone walls and low hedges helped the militia make their stands, and where they failed, a sudden charge by armoured knights could stem the tide or at least buy the militia time to retire.

Most of the fighting to the north was a development of commitments from Lord Gareth’s second line; he was cautious, and fed only as many of his infantry into the fields as were absolutely needed to cover the flank of the advance on the road to Lissen Carak.

When the sun had begun to go down the sky in the west, there were three mighty pulses of light in the west. Just after, Gavin rode back from the edge of the Lillywindle Woods and looked out over the battlefield to the north.

“We’re overextended,” Montjoy said.

As they watched a horde of enemies roll down the distant Kanata Ridge and across the north road, they were joined by Ser Alcaeus. He dismounted and changed to a big stallion, a warhorse, even as he greeted them.

With him were a hundred knights of Liviapolis. Behind him, on the Morea road, could be seen a dense column of men and baggage wagons. Ser Christos was in among the phalanx of the men of Thrake, dismounted, greeting men he knew, men who’d survived the last three weeks in the west, and more.

“We’re too overextended,” Montjoy said again.

“Give us another hour,” Ser Gavin said. “The woods are a nightmare.”

Montjoy slammed his visor up. It kept falling over his face; the catch had broken in the fighting. “My lord earl; I am struggling to hold Woodhull. Livingston Hall is virtually under siege. The tide is rising, my lord.”

Alcaeus looked blank. “Woodhull?” he asked. “Living-stone?”

Gavin waved a hand. “Livingston Hall is just north of here; look, there, through the trees at the base of the hill. A castle.”

Montjoy shook his head. “A fortified hall at best.”

“It can hold off an army,” Gavin said. “Woodhull; see the steeple of the church? North. Farther.” He pointed beyond the creek at the foot of the ridge, almost a mile distant. The red light glinted on men and steel.