Something fell over him.

“Stay down!” Anne screamed. That made it through; almost, in the place he was, it made him laugh.

As if I have a choice.

And then the line of Mamluks burst over them like water bursting a dam in springtime, and the earthquake was all around him, and then past, like rain on a sparing day, sweeping along the plain. It was almost silent, and then he could hear the singing—very faintly, the Gallish Te Deum.

“Oh God, my lord, he’s . . . dead . . .” Woodstock said.

Gabriel lay still for another eternal moment, unable to speak or rise.

And then he admitted that he was not dead. And that he had to complete his task, or die trying.

He flexed his right hand.

“He’s alive!” called a man in Gallish.

They got him up; embarrassed as, aside from abrasions and a deep bruise, he was uninjured. But so was Woodstock, and she flushed at his praise and the praise of others: Tom Lachlan, Ser Michael, Sukey . . .

Hamwise and Cully got his harness off; it was scorched, and the gilding was ruined, but it had kept him alive. There was a terrible mark in the back plate; a stone axe had bitten deep, but it hadn’t touched his spine. He had a bruise; when he pissed, blood came out, but it wasn’t the first time.

Sukey put a cup of hippocras into his hand. There was still fighting on the next ridge; the scarecrows were passing over the field in a huge long line, killing the wounded. Sukey had a field chair.

The casa knights and the Nordikaans began to gather around him.

Francis Atcourt threw his arms around his emperor. “God!” he all but sobbed. “If you are going to die, take us with you.”

Then both of them turned to the unusual site of the emperor’s squire with her mouth firmly planted on the mouth of Ser Tobias.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow and began to feel alive.

Michael shook his head. “I’m sorry, Gabriel,” he said. “I’m so fucking sorry. I stayed with the casa.”

Gabriel managed a smile. He was coming out of it; he’d been . . . somewhere else. “We were fine,” he quipped. “Weren’t we, Anne?”

She surfaced from the longest armoured kiss anyone had seen and flashed a smile.

“Where’s Morgon?” Gabriel asked.

Sukey pointed.

The young master magister stood with his head down, in the midst of his desiccated enemies.

He wasn’t moving.

Gabriel looked at Michael. “Finish it,” he said. “Did Long Paw . . .”

“He’s holding the gate,” Michael said. “Pavalo is cutting through to him.” He nodded to the far ridge. “If they surrender, do we accept?”

“Fuck, yes,” Gabriel said, exasperated. He was looking over a battlefield with at least ten thousand dead. “Christ, Michael, why would we not accept their surrender?”

Michael quailed. “I’m sorry. Of course we will.”