Scorry was singing, soft and low and sad as he took needle and thread from his pouch to start the stitching. You get no happy songs after a battle. The jaunty tunes come beforehand and they usually do some injury to the truth.

Craw caught himself thinking they’d come out of it well. Very well. Just the one dead. Then he looked at Athroc’s silly-slack face, eyes all crossed, jerkin all ripped up by Redcrow’s axe and turned sloppy red with his insides, and was sick with himself for thinking it. He knew this would stay with him, along with all the others. We all got our weights to heft.

He lay back in the grass and watched the clouds move, shift. Now one memory, now another. A good leader can’t dwell on the choices he’s made, Threetrees used to tell him, and a good leader can’t help dwelling on ’em.

He’d done the right thing. Maybe. Or maybe there’s no such thing.

‘A rational army would run away’

Montesquieu

Silence

Your August Majesty,

Lord Bayaz, the First of the Magi, has conveyed to Marshal Kroy your urgent desire that the campaign be brought to a swift conclusion. The marshal has therefore devised a plan to bring Black Dow to a decisive battle with all despatch, and the entire army hums with gainful activity.

General Jalenhorm’s division leads the way, marching from first light to last and with the vanguard of General Mitterick’s but a few hours behind. One could almost say there is a friendly rivalry between the two to be first to grapple with the enemy. Lord Governor Meed, meanwhile, has been recalled from Ollensand. The three divisions will converge near a town called Osrung, then, united, drive north towards Carleon itself, and victory.

I accompany General Jalenhorm’s staff, at the very spear-point of the army. We are somewhat hampered by the poor roads and changeable weather, which switches with little warning from sunshine to sharp downpours. The general is not a man to be stopped, however, either by the actions of the skies or the enemy. If we do come into contact with the Northmen I will, of course, observe, and immediately inform your Majesty of the outcome.

I remain your Majesty’s most faithful and unworthy servant,

Bremer dan Gorst, Royal Observer of the Northern War

You could barely have called it dawn. That funeral-grey light before the sun crawls up that has no colour in it. Few faces abroad, and those that were made ghosts. The empty country turned into the land of the dead. Gorst’s favourite time of the day. One could almost pretend no one will ever talk again.

He had already been running for the best part of an hour, feet battering the rutted mud. Long slits of cartwheel puddle reflected the black tree branches and the washed-out sky. Happy mirror-worlds in which he had all he deserved, smashed apart as his heavy boots came down, spraying his steel-cased calves with dirty water.