“Perfect,” Gabriel said as Tom Lachlan entered and kissed Blanche. “Tar’s tits, Gabriel. You look like a fewkin’ angel.” Behind Tom, Sukey came in with a tablet in her hand, and she and Blanche kissed and then began to copy.

“That’s me,” Gabriel said. “Kneel, Ser Thomas. Sukey? Come. Kneel.”

Thomas Lachlan did not kneel easily; it took an effort of will, but he managed it, his great blue-black armoured knee crashing down. Sukey knelt with bony grace at his side.

Gabriel took his great sword of war, which was naked on the table. “Thomas Lachlan, I hereby vest you with the title of Earl of the North Wall, and the lands adjoining that wall and formerly owned by the Orleys, as well as the Imperial Barony of Birdeswald. And Sukey, I vest you in your own right as Imperial Count of Osawa. I recommend that you two get married and solidify all this feudal magnificence before I change my mind.” He grinned, and Sukey rose and gave him an almost unsisterly kiss, and then so did Bad Tom.

“Couldn’t that ha’e waited?” Tom asked.

“No,” Gabriel said. “I will leave my house in order, and my debts paid.” He blew a kiss to Blanche, who made herself smile.

They walked out into the fading sunlight of an alien world.

“What the hell did he mean by that?” Tom asked.

Blanche finally burst into tears.

Full dawn. To the west, heavy black clouds, like thunderheads, and behind them a leaden sky. To the east, a bright sunrise, and the red ball of the sun sitting on the Green Hills.

The emperor stood on the Albin Ridge with the Earl of Westwall and his officers. All the ground from the distant slopes of the Kanata ridge to the ruins of the Ambles Inn and the shattered steeple of Saint Mary’s was full of the enemy—a dense carpet of monsters.

The first attacks had been made at dawn, against the garrison of Livingston Manor. The cave trolls had discovered that Ser Ranald and the royal guard had moved in during the night, and they had the direct support of the entire choir of magistery up the hill behind them five hundred paces.

As the sun rose, and Gabriel flew slowly and carefully at very low altitudes along the line of the Lily Burn to the Cohocton and around to Ser Gavin’s position, a massive sorcerous assault shattered the out-walls of Albinkirk and discovered a nest of workings and a labyrinth of pre-dug defensive trenches behind the walls, and legions of bogglins flung themselves into the assault. Prince Tancred of Occitan and the new Captain of Albinkirk stood with almost a thousand knights and most of the militia who’d survived the day before and stopped the bogglins in the breach.