Now, for the first time in a long time, the whole of the company was displayed together; almost a thousand lances, with two hundred more in the casa. Carts appeared from the gate, and bags of livery arrows were delivered by pages through the dust, bags of twenty-four heavy arrows held by leather spacers. Other pages appeared with water. Wounded men were dragged to the rear, inside the box that continued to form out of the gate, but the front of the army vomited arrows that fell like a wicked sleet, and the enemy died.

Three hours into the action, Gabriel could see the sea off to the right, beyond a marsh; a glorious expanse of seamless blue.

“Found it,” Mortirmir said.

Instantly, all the magisters’ faces fell, like puppets with their strings cut, but that was only all of them turning inward.

Gabriel joined them, cautious about his expenditure.

They all joined hands, and he stood aloof; Tancreda provided a lead, and they powered shields they’d woven and laid aside, the new, fractal shields of interwoven scales and leaves.

A titanic bolt of purple-white lightning struck their shield.

There was leakage, and in the center, six lances of the red banda died; Ser Richard Smith; Kessin the archer, and Lowper, and twenty other men and women who’d marched across four worlds and fought their way from Lissen Carak to Arles were turned to ash.

Five paces away, Urk of Mogon drew a heavy clothyard shaft to his four cheeks and released into the clump of irks who seemed rudderless and stood in the open. By him, Heron drew, grunted, and loosed. The smell of cooked flesh floated over and Urk’s mouth cracked open to expose his sensory organs to the wonderful smell of cooked human flesh. It was all unconscious; he was drawing his next shaft from his belt, listening for Smoke’s orders.

Forty paces away, Edmund cursed. “Heave!” he roared. His voice cracked, but the wheel came free from between two huge chunks of volcanic rock and the falconet rolled forward again. There were twenty men on each drag rope, every one of them with a hand gonne slung over their shoulder, and a dozen smaller gonnes on platforms were moving forward on donkeys; a last-minute innovation by Sukey.

But there had been no time to employ the slow falconets; he had his third set of crews on the drag ropes and his fourth set ready, but the gonnes moved more slowly than the rate of advance.

There was a purple-white flash that illuminated a faery forest of golden light hundreds of feet in the air. A concussion rolled back over the panting men. The sound rolled like thunder.

Tom Lachlan raised his long sword. “We only get home by going forward,” he roared. “Follow me!”

The casa went forward into the fire.

Out on the right, the Vardariotes joined the line, which was now more than a mile long and seemed to outflank any resistance.