The Southerner tried to push himself up and Lightsleep knocked him on the back of the head with his mace and bonked his helmet in. One boot kicked a little and he was done.

‘Lovely.’ The rest of the Union men were all surrounded and going down fast or scattering like a flock o’ starlings, just like Golden said they would. Lightsleep knelt, tucked his mace under his arm and started trying to twist a nice-looking ring off the dead Southerner’s finger. Couple of other lads were claiming their prizes, one was screaming with blood running down his face, but, you know, it’s a battle, ain’t it? If everyone came out smiling there’d be no point. Away south Golden’s riders were mopping up, driving the fleeing Southerners to the river.

‘Turn for the hill!’ Scabna was bellowing, pointing at it with his axe, the smug arse. ‘To the hill, you bastards!’

‘You turn for the hill,’ grunted Lightsleep, legs still sore from all that running, throat sore from all that screaming besides. ‘Hah!’ Finally got the Union lad’s ring off. Held it up to the light and frowned. Just some polished rock with a face cut into it, but he guessed it might fetch a couple of silvers. Tucked it into his jerkin. Took the lad’s sword for good measure and stuck it through his belt, though it was a light little toothpick of a thing and the hilt rattled.

‘Get on!’ Scabna dragged one scavenger up and booted him in the arse to set him going. ‘Bloody get on!’

‘All right, all right!’ Lightsleep jogged on after the others, towards the hill. Upset at not getting the chance to go through the Southerners’ pockets, maybe get his boots off. It’d all be swept by the pickers and the women following after now. Beggar bastards too cowardly to fight, turning a profit out of other men’s work. A disgrace, but he guessed there was no stopping it. Facts of life, like flies and bad weather.

There were Union men up on the Heroes, he could see metal glinting round the drystone wall near the top, spears pricking the sky. He kept his shield up, peering over the rim. Didn’t want to get stuck with one of those evil little arrows they used. Get stuck with one o’ those, you won’t never get yourself unstuck.

‘Will you look at that,’ Scabna grunted.

Now they’d climbed a little higher they could see all the way to the woods up north, and the land between was full of men. Black Dow’s Carls, and Tenways’, and Ironhead’s too. Thralls surging after. Thousands of ’em, all streaming across towards the Heroes. Lightsleep had never seen so many fighters in one place, not even when he fought with Bethod’s army. Not at the Cumnur, or Dunbrec, or in the High Places. He’d half a mind to let ’em take the Heroes while he hung back, maybe pleading a twisted ankle, but he weren’t going to raise a sharp dowry for his daughters on a cheap ring and a little sword, now, was he?