“We should attack,” said Stand-i’-the-Barrows, sitting in his bone-covered armour on his bone-covered horse. “Attack, attack, sweep over them, a black wave. Drive them into nothingness. Into hell.” That was pretty much the full range of his strategy. “Let’s not faff with the talk before. The talk before is always lies and boasting. Waste of your time. Waste of my time. Some day I will die. I wish to gather as many bones as I can first. They say the cities of the South go on for ever, people flooding through them like rivers. And all those people are full of bones. Every one of them.” He gave a dreamy smile. “I wish to visit those places.”

“They have my son,” said Calder, still glaring at the city. “Once I have him, you can have Carleon, and all the bones inside.”

Stand-i’-the-Barrows smiled wider. “That is acceptable.”

Clover glanced over at Sholla and found her staring back, unable to hide her horror. “You stay here wi’ Flick,” he muttered.

“Chief, I—”

“Stay here,” he said, looking her in the eye.

“Don’t worry,” said Downside. “I’ll look after ’em.”

“What a comfort.” Clover clambered up onto the horse he was borrowing. He found he liked it even less than he remembered. You forget how bloody high horses are. And it turned all the way around while he was leaning down to grab the reins.

Black Calder was having his own troubles getting mounted. He had to bounce a couple of times before he could haul himself into the saddle. He looked weak when he got there, and grey, and grim. Not much left of the handsome joker who nicked the North from under everyone’s noses. A man who’d lasted past his time. A man dragged back for one fight too many.

But then, one is one too many.

Clover had a low feeling as he rode out towards Carleon. As he frowned to the left, towards the great mass of Crinna bastards working themselves up for the bone harvest. As he frowned to the right, watching Calder’s Carls bring their many-coloured shield-wall forward across the sun-splashed fields. As he frowned straight ahead, towards the black battlements above the city’s gate. A feeling this’d all end badly.

But then, if you leave it long enough, what doesn’t end badly?

Rikke took a deep breath. By the dead, she needed to piss. She’d gone not long ago, but now she felt like she was bursting. Wouldn’t look too clever, that fearsome witch with the Long Eye, pissing herself on the battlements in full view of her two worst enemies and a hostile army. Still, her da had always said he near pissed himself in every fight. Hadn’t stopped him winning most of his.

“Here we go, then.” And she twisted her face into that knowing smile and swaggered up to the parapet. The very spot where the Bloody-Nine killed Bethod. Might be the stones she propped her hands on were the ones the first King of the Northmen got his brains smashed out on. She hoped the significance wasn’t lost on anyone as she leaned over, grinning down at the two-dozen riders before the gates.