‘There could be ten Northmen out there or ten thousand,’ muttered Jalenhorm. ‘We must be careful. Mustn’t underestimate Black Dow. I was at the Cumnur, you know, Gorst, where Prince Ladisla was killed. Well, the day before the battle, in fact, but I was there. A dark day for Union arms. Can’t be having another of those, eh?’

I strongly suggest that you resign your commission, then, and allow someone with better credentials to take command. ‘No, sir.’

Jalenhorm had already turned away to speak to Wetterlant. Gorst could hardly blame him. When did I last say anything worth hearing? Bland agreements and non-committal splutterings. The bleating of a goat would serve the same purpose. He turned his back on the knot of staff officers and wandered over to where the Northmen were digging graves. The grey-haired one watched him come, leaning on his spade.

‘My name is Gorst.’

The older man raised his brows. Surprise that a Union man should speak Northern, or surprise that a big man should speak like a little girl? ‘Hard-bread’s mine. I fight for the Dogman.’ His words slightly mangled in a badly battered mouth.

Gorst nodded to the corpses. ‘These are your men?’

‘Aye.’

‘You fought up here?’

‘Against a dozen led by a man called Curnden Craw.’ He rubbed at his bruised jaw. ‘We had the numbers but we lost.’

Gorst frowned around the circle of stones. ‘They had the ground.’

‘That and Whirrun of Bligh.’

‘Who?’

‘Some fucking hero,’ scoffed the one with a red bird on his shield.

‘From way up north in the valleys,’ said Hardbread, ‘where it snows every bloody day.’

‘Mad bastard,’ grunted one of Hardbread’s men, nursing a bandaged arm. ‘They say he drinks his own piss.’

‘I heard he eats children.’

‘He has this sword they say fell out of the sky.’ Hardbread wiped his forehead on the back of one thick forearm. ‘They worship it, up there in the snows.’

‘They worship a sword?’ asked Gorst.

‘They think God dropped it or something. Who knows what they think up there? Either way, Cracknut Whirrun is one dangerous bastard.’ Hard-bread licked at a gap in his teeth, and from his grimace it was a new one. ‘I can tell you that from my own experience.’

Gorst frowned towards the forest, trees shining dark green in the sun. ‘Do you think Black Dow’s men are near?’

‘I reckon they are.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Craw fought against the odds, and he ain’t a man to fight over nothing. Black Dow wanted this hill.’ Hardbread shrugged as he bent back to his task. ‘We’re burying these poor bastards then we’re going down. I’ll be leaving a tooth back there on the slope and a nephew in the mud and I don’t plan on leaving aught else in this bloody place.’

‘Thank you.’ Gorst turned back towards Jalenhorm and his staff, now engaged in a heated debate about whether the latest company to arrive should be placed behind or in front of the ruined wall. ‘General!’ he called. ‘The scouts think Black Dow might be nearby!’