A junior officer trampled heedlessly past, waving a bent sword. ‘Form up! Form up! You! Where the hell—’

‘Lord Marshal.’ An unmistakable high voice. Gorst stood, somewhat unsteadily, from a group of tattered soldiers, and gave Finree’s father a tired-looking salute. Without doubt he had seen a great deal of action. His armour was battered and stained. His scabbard was empty and drooped about his legs in a manner that might have been comical on another day. He had a long, black-scabbed cut under one eye, his cheek, his jaw, the side of his thick neck streaked and crusted with drying blood. When he turned his head Finree saw the white of the other eye was bruised a sickly red, bandages above it soaked through.

‘Colonel Gorst, what happened?’

‘We attacked.’ Gorst blinked, noticed Finree and seemed to falter, then silently raised his hands and let them fall. ‘We lost.’

‘The Northmen still hold the Heroes?’

He nodded slowly.

‘Where is General Jalenhorm?’ asked her father.

‘Dead,’ piped Gorst.

‘Colonel Vinkler?’

‘Dead.’

‘Who is in command?’

Gorst stood in silence. Finree’s father turned away, frowning towards the summit. The rain was slackening off, the long slope leading up to the Heroes starting to take shape out of the grey, and with each stride of trampled grass that became visible, so did more corpses. Dead of both sides, broken weapons and armour, shattered stakes, spent arrows. Then the wall that ringed the summit, rough stones turned black by the storm. More bodies below it, the spears of the Northmen above. Still holding. Still waiting.

‘Marshal Kroy!’ The First of the Magi had not bothered to dismount. He sat, wrists crossed over the saddle-bow and his thick fingers dangling. As he took in the carnage he had the discerning, slightly disappointed air of a man who has paid for his garden to be weeded but on inspecting the grounds finds there is still a nettle or two about. ‘A minor reverse, but reinforcements are arriving all the time and the weather is clearing. Might I suggest you reorganise and prepare your men for another attack? It would appear General Jalenhorm made it all the way up to the Heroes, so a second effort might—’

‘No,’ said Finree’s father.

Bayaz gave the slightest puzzled frown. As at a normally reliable hound who refused to come to heel today. ‘No?’

‘No. Lieutenant, do you have a flag of parley with you?’

Her father’s standard-bearer looked nervously over at Bayaz, then back, then swallowed. ‘Of course, Lord Marshal.’

‘I would like you to attach it to your flagstaff, ride carefully up towards the Heroes and see if the Northmen can be prevailed upon to talk.’

A strange mutter went through the men within earshot. Gorst took a step forward. ‘Marshal Kroy, with another effort I think—’

‘You are the king’s observer. Observe.’

Gorst stood frozen for a moment, glanced at Finree, then snapped his mouth shut and stepped back.

The First of the Magi watched the white flag raised, his frown growing ever more thunderous even as the skies cleared. He nudged his horse forwards, causing a couple of exhausted soldiers to scramble from his path.