In the west, the man who’d once been Ota Qwan and more lately been Kevin Orley led his own horde over the smoking ruins of Hawks Head and Kentmere and across the fields, pushing back a skirmish line of rangers and militia archers and then advancing into the woods that lined all seven miles of the Lily Burn’s length. Orley and his master expected the Lily Burn to be unoccupied or thinly defended.

As the sun rose over the Green Hills, Orley’s first attack on the Lily Burn woods was stopped dead by Mogon. The fighting spread from the center, just south of the Flow, but as the enemy spread, they found ambush after ambush, and the icy waters were in flood and difficult to cross.

But Ash and his lieutenants had learned a great deal about war in the real. And so a second captain led all the schiltrons of irks, and tlachs of daemons west, into the low hills around Lady Helewise’s manor house, clever enough to know that their enemies coming through the gate would be trapped between the two pincers and destroyed, or neutralized.

But all of those were merely pinning attacks. None was Ash’s great effort.

Ash unleashed that as the sun rose.

Gabriel pointed out over the fields of Woodhull. “He’ll attack right here,” he said. “Right down between the ridge and Penrith, and break our army into two pieces.”

Gavin was smiling, and so were the rest of the men and women on the hilltop.

“He’ll attack in the real to draw us out,” Gabriel continued. “And then, when we contain his attack, he’ll turn to the aethereal.” He smiled like a beatific saint.

“And we will stop him,” said the Patriarch.

“Holiness, we will more than stop him. We will leave him no choice but to come at us in person. On our ground, in a place of our choosing, on a day of our choosing.” Gabriel smiled his most damning superior smile.

The Patriarch narrowed his eyes. “How are you so sure?” he asked.

Gabriel laughed. “I’m not. I’m telling you what I’d like to happen.” He shrugged. “But the pinning attacks are happening, and we’re in it. And there . . .” He smiled again. “There they are.”

Out in the fields south of Woodhull, there came a seeping stain of dark colours, tinged with the rose pink of the snowy dawn.

Gabriel pointed with his baton and continued his commentary. “Front is about a mile wide,” he said. “Three thousand creature front. Fifty deep? A hundred?” He nodded, and behind him, Anne Bateman made a note and accepted a message from a black-and-white bird. By now she knew her friend Ser Gerald was dead; everyone knew that Harndon was in the hands of the traitor. But the messengers were still flying; the garrisons were all still linked.