‘Couldn’t say.’

‘I reckon they will. I hope they will. Better come before the rain starts, though. That sky looks like witch’s work, eh?’ It was true there was a strange colour to the first hint of sunrise, great towers of sullen-looking cloud marching in over the fells to the north. Whirrun bounced up and down on his toes. ‘Oh, bloody hell, I can’t wait!’

‘Ain’t they people too, though?’ muttered Beck, thinking of the face of that Union man lying dead in the shack yesterday. ‘Just like us?’

Whirrun squinted across at him. ‘More than likely they are. But if you start thinking like that, well … you’ll get no one killed at all.’

Beck opened his mouth, then closed it. Didn’t seem much he could say to that. Made about as much sense as anything else had happened the last few days.

‘It’s easy enough for you,’ grunted Craw. ‘Shoglig told you the time and place of your death and it ain’t here.’

Whirrun’s grin got bigger. ‘Well, that’s true and I’ll admit it’s a help to my courage, but if she’d told me here and she’d told me now, do you really reckon that’d make any difference to me?’

Wonderful snorted. ‘You might not be yapping about it so bloody loud.’

‘Oh!’ Whirrun wasn’t even listening. ‘They’re off already, look! That’s early!’ He pointed the Father of Swords at arm’s length to the west, towards the Old Bridge, flinging his other arm around Beck’s shoulders. The strength in it was fearsome, he nearly lifted Beck without even trying. ‘Look at the pretty horses!’ Beck couldn’t see much down there but dark land, the glimmer of the river and a speckling of lights. ‘That’s fresh of ’em, isn’t it, though? That’s cheeky! Getting started and it’s hardly dawn!’

‘Too dark for riding,’ said Craw, shaking his head.

‘They must be as bloody eager as I am. Reckon they mean business today, eh, Craw? Oh, by the dead,’ and he shook his sword towards the valley, dragging Beck back and forth and nearly right off his feet, ‘I reckon there’ll be some songs sung about today!’

‘I daresay,’ grunted Wonderful through gritted teeth. ‘Some folk’ll sing about any old shit.’

The Riddle of the Ground

‘Here they come,’ said Pale-as-Snow, utterly deadpan, as if there was nothing more worrying than a herd of sheep on its way. It hardly needed an announcement. Calder could hear them, however dark it was. First the long note of a trumpet, then the whispering rustle of horses through crops, far off but closing, sprinkled with calls, whinnies, jingles of harness that seemed to tickle at Calder’s clammy skin. All faint, but all crushingly inevitable. They were coming, and Calder hardly knew whether to be smug or terrified. He settled on a bit of both.

‘Can’t believe they fell for it.’ He almost wanted to laugh it was so ridiculous. Laugh or be sick. ‘Those arrogant fucks.’

‘If you can rely on one thing in a battle, it’s that men rarely do what’s sensible.’ Good point. If Calder had any sense he’d have been on horseback himself, spurring hard for somewhere a long, long way away. ‘That’s what made your father the great man. Always kept a cold head, even in the fire.’