The Duchess of Venike shrugged into a fur-lined khaftan held by her servants. Edmund Chevin’s hand gonners were filing through the gate and gazing around in astonishment, and then Ser Michael was there with her, and Sauce.

“It is fucking cold,” muttered Sauce. “Hello, honey,” she said, kissing the duchess.

Michael bowed.

Sauce stepped back, snapping orders, as the Venikan marines began to move through the gate, followed by her other Etruscan infantry.

“The emperor will come through in person in a few minutes,” Michael said. “We’ll eat and sleep in shifts—back there. It’s too damned cold here.” He was already shivering.

The duchess nodded. “How long?” she asked.

“Two hours,” Michael said. “Tom Lachlan says to watch for worms and not-dead.”

The duchess nodded. “Can I take some ground?” she asked. “There’s a house over there, and farm fields, and a hill . . .”

“We need someone who’s been here before,” Michael said. He shivered again.

And then the emperor was there; he came through the gate on foot, and Anne Woodstock was leading Ariosto, who was beaming at her.

“I’ve been here before,” Gabriel said. “This is Lady Helewise’s back garden; what a lot of blood. You can tell Tom’s been here, can’t you? Giselle, there’s a ridge just there, to the west. Take it and clear all the ground from there to here. Sauce? I’m going for a fly. Don’t lose the gate. And someone stay awake; I’ll want a drink when I come back.” He grinned. “We did it!”

He swung up into the high-backed saddle. He was grinning ear to ear, and Sauce found that she was grinning, too.

“We did it,” she shouted at him.

“We certainly did,” he said, and then the griffon leapt into the freezing air.

Outside Lissen Carak—Gavin Muriens

It was colder atop the ridge than down in the valley, but the view was better. Gavin was very cold, and he had no one to blame for it but himself; his cloak was somewhere with the camp, away down by Southford.

But there was a line of huge fires along the top of the hill, as much to rally the army as to warm it, and he had a stool, and he sat with his back to one fire and his face to the battlefield. Now that the snow squall had passed, he could see Penrith, still burning, in the distance; closer in, he could see the smoking ruins of Woodhull to the northwest, now full of bogglins, and the church steeple of Saint Mary’s almost due north, at Ambles Inn. He could not find the inn itself. At the foot of his ridge, directly to the north, lay Livingston Hall, which had been the scene of brutal fighting since late afternoon; even now, another clutch of daemons attempted to storm it in darkness.