“No,” Gabriel said. “No, Tom. We’re fine. There’s nothing left now but the fighting.”

Tom’s face broke in his broad grin. “Ah, laddy. Now yer fewkin’ talkin . . .” He looked up. “Watch yer pennons!” he roared. “Keep your dress!”

He rode off, and the army continued to pour through the gate even as the archers of the red banda engaged a charge of imps, the small greyhound-sized monsters quick and deadly and very vulnerable to plunging shafts in this open ground.

Gabriel mounted the big bay. “Do you have a name?” he muttered. “I’ll call you John.”

John pricked his ears.

The attacks coming at the face of his square were uncoordinated, the creatures clearly Odine-animated. Gabriel watched the army unfold; there was confusion early on when the casa wheeled up into line as the Venikan marines came up on their flank; almost a half-century of Venikans died, caught moving by a flood of imps and a tide of sorcery, before Peterarcha stepped forward and countered it. Conte Simone was surprised by another assault coming from behind the gate, because it had a two dimensional quality that was evident only to the hermeticists; but the Etruscan knights were all fully armoured, from toe to groin to helm, and the imps found them almost invulnerable, and even a man pulled down by their horrible strength was cut free without loss.

Despite the setbacks, it was not a battle, or if it was a battle, it was one of near constant movement. The army fed through the gate, and the army advanced, filling in from the flanks, scouting the ground fifty paces ahead. It called for constant management; a bad decision could result in fifty people lost, or taken but the company stepped forward, stepped forward again, shaking off the counter attacks and occupying the ground and the magisters began to shift from defensive to offensive and the rate of movement increased.

Gabriel began to feel like a spectator. He rode back and forth along his line, making corrections, but he avoided the aethereal. He was on the edge, and he knew it; and he was damned if he was going to God before his task was finished.

But when the immediate ground of the gate was clear, his staff pulled themselves out of their combat roles; Michael was back at his side, and Tom Lachlan, and Sauce, and Milus.

Michael looked at the imperial standard flapping over their heads in Toby’s fist.

“Like old times,” he said to Sauce.

She gave him a grin. Her face seemed lit from within with the ferocity of her joy, and that look was reflected in every archer, every man-at-arms, every marine and every waggoner. The golden emperor raised his sword and pointed; Adrian Goldsmith sketched rapidly with charcoal in his book, and Francis Atcourt prayed.

The line moved forward.