‘What the hell—’ Meed began.

‘Northmen!’ somebody wailed. ‘To the east!’

‘What Northmen? Whatever are you—’

‘Then everyone was shouting. ‘There! There!’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘Man the walls!’

‘Do we have walls?’

Men out in the fields – drivers, servants, smiths and cooks – were scattering wildly from tents and wagons, back towards the inn. There were already horsemen among them, mounted on shaggy ponies, without stirrups, even, but moving quickly nonetheless. She thought they might have bows, and a moment later arrows clattered against the north wall of the inn. One looped through a window and skittered across the floor. A black, jagged, ill-formed thing, but no less dangerous for that. Someone drew their sword with a faint ring of metal, and soon there were blades flashing out all around the hall.

‘Get some archers on the roof!’

‘Do we have archers?’

‘Get the shutters!’

‘Where is Colonel Brint?’

A folding table squealed in protest as it was dragged in front of one of the windows, papers sliding across the floor.

Finree snatched a look out as two officers struggled to get the rotten shutters closed. A great line of men was surging through the fields towards them, already half way between the trees and the inn and closing rapidly, spreading out as they charged. Torn standards flapped behind them, adorned with bones. At her first rough estimate there were at least two thousand, and no more than a hundred in the inn, most lightly armed. She swallowed at the simple horror of the arithmetic.

‘Are the gates closed?’

‘Prop them!’

‘Recall the Fifteenth!’

‘Is it too late to take—’

‘By the Fates.’ Aliz’ eyes had gone wide, white showing all the way around, darting about as if looking for some means of escape. There was none. ‘We’re trapped!’

‘Help will be coming,’ said Finree, trying to sound as calm as she could with her heart threatening to burst her ribs.

‘From who?’

‘From the Dogman,’ who had very reasonably made every effort to put as much ground between himself and Meed as possible, ‘or General Jalenhorm,’ whose men were in such a disorganised shambles after yesterday’s disaster they were no help to themselves let alone anyone else, ‘or from our husbands,’ who were both thoroughly entangled with the attack on Osrung and probably had not the slightest idea that a new threat had emerged right behind them. ‘Help will be coming.’ It sounded pathetically unconvincing even to her.

Officers dashed to nowhere, pointed everywhere, screeched contradictory orders at each other, the room growing steadily darker and more confused as the windows were barricaded with whatever gaudy junk was to hand. Meed stood in the midst, suddenly ignored and alone, staring uncertainly about with his gilded sword in one hand and the other opening and closing powerlessly. Like a nervous father at a great wedding so carefully planned that he found himself entirely unwanted on the big day. Above him, his masterful portrait frowned scornfully down.

‘What should we do?’ he asked of no one in particular. His desperately wandering eyes lighted on Finree. ‘What should we do?’