Amron looked at Torus. “I want the both of you to ride ahead and catch a whiff of the enemy’s scent. Take fifty of our best men. I want you to harry their rear and slow them down.”

Sir Torus was smoking his rosewood pipe, which Amron took as a good sign. He had given up on all such joys during their weeks in King’s Point, as the man mourned the death of his sons. The grief was still there, but less acute, and the long days on the road had helped him get a grip of his demons. Battle and blood will help more, Amron knew. “How many Agarathi are we talking?” Stoutman asked.

“Fifteen to twenty thousand.”

Torus spat smoke. “Fifteen to twen…you’re out of your godsdamn mind!” He grinned like he used to, big and broad, through the bushy tangles of his beard. “Fifty against fifteen thousand. Aye, I like those odds.” He tapped at Sir Taegon with the back of his knuckles. “How about it, Hammer? Shall we go win this battle alone?”

“I’ll do the winning. You can watch, Halfman.”

“Nothing reckless,” Amron was quick to say. “They have a three-day lead, though their army is afoot. Chase them down and raid their rear and flanks. Do it by night if you can. The woods can be confusing west of here, and even men who walk them their entire lives can get turned around sometimes. Focus on chaos and disruption. I’ll have riders coming and going, so watch your tail as well. I want to know how you’re faring.”

“Aye,” said Stoutman. “When should we leave?”

“You know the answer to that, Torus.”

“I’ll pack my bags, then.” The dwarfish knight had a deep swallow of smoke, blew out and strode away. The Giant of Hammerhall bent his back in a bow, then turned, stamping after him.

Lord Gavron watched them go. “Maybe we should put all our mounted strength into this, Amron?” the gruff old lord suggested. “Conwyn will have horses. We add them to our own, and we might have a good enough host to cause the Agarathi some trouble.”

Amron thought on that for a moment. Only one in five of their own men was ahorse. If Sir Harold had a similar number to hand it would prove a worthy weapon should they find the enemy unawares. A night charge by warhorses was a fearsome prospect, more so when you were already lost and tired and struggling to find your way through a fearsome wood. And the Greenwood was just that, on the western side especially. It was wilder that way, with crags and cliffs and rugged hills with hidden caves and eerie valleys between them. There was no road along the coast from here, not west, and what tracks there were could be hard to find lest a man know the way. Few enemy armies had ever managed to assault the rear of the Twinfort for this very reason - getting there was by no means easy. It would be plenty to put many an Agarathi horde on edge.

And then the thunder of hooves in the night, he thought. The ring of steel and scream of a brother, dying right beside you. And the trailing mist of godsteel as a knight charges past. Armies had broken and scattered under those conditions in the past. We would do well to do the same.

“It’s a good notion,” Amron said eventually. “We’ll remain together for now, but if we hear that we are closing in on them, it may be worth sending a charge. The coming days will tell.”

“Then we need to be in striking distance. That means setting a good pace.” Grave was already looking over his men. “Mine will keep on going hard, I’ll make sure of it. Not so certain of these Green Harbour men. Not after what Conwyn said.”

“They’re not all Green Harbour men,” Amron pointed out. The west was being defended by the Borringtons and Crawfields and Rothwells and their banners, and all paid fealty to House Daecar. “These are my people, Ironfoot. Many are men of the North Downs. I’ll see that they don’t hold us up.”

The host took two hours to assemble outside the walls. It was longer than Amron had wanted, but in all truth his hopes of getting it all done within the hour were unrealistic to the point of being unattainable. He had anticipated that, and two hours was a reasonable effort. “How many?” he asked Sir Harold Conwyn, as the men trailed out through the Green Gate in a solemn, weary stream, to join the rest of the host.

“Three thousand four hundred and twenty-six, my lord.”

“Very exact. Mounted?”

“We have three hundred and eighty men ahorse. Most are light cavalry, my lord, but we have some heavy horse as well. A hundred and twenty, I believe. There are fourteen Bladeborn knights in the company, some of whom you will know, and several times that number in sellswords and freeriders with a drop or two of Varin’s blood. None of the knights are fully armoured, except for Sir Trystan. The rest all have the essentials of godsteel plate, however, with good castle-forged steel to fill in the gaps.”

Amron nodded. “I’d like to see them,” he said. “Line them up for inspection, Sir Harold.”

The Bladeborn knights were brought forward, each of them wearing their house colours and arms. Amron recognised some of them and knew a few by name. Five were Green Harbour men, household knights to Lord Westwood and the other noble houses here. Of them Amron knew only Sir Lambert Joyce, who had commanded Lord Westwood’s guard. He had a brother, Amron recalled, who had gone missing a long while ago. Another claimed to know Amron by way of House Colborn. “I served Lady Colborn for a time, my lord,” the tall knight said. “She told me her boy Jovyn was squire to your son Elyon.”

Amron had half forgotten that Jovyn’s family hailed from Green Harbour. “That is true, Sir…”

“Sir Dederick, my lord, of House Dudden. We are a small knightly house, founded by my grandfather. I serve beneath the banners of Westwood now.”

Sir Lambert nodded. “And he does so well, my king. Sir Dederick has proven himself most reliable.”

“I should hope so,” Amron said. Reliability was the minimum standard for any good knight or serving man. “Tell me, is Lady Colborn well?” He directed the question to any of the Green Harbour men who might know, Sir Harold included.

It was Sir Lambert who gave answer. “I understand that she left, some weeks ago, my lord. To seek safer pastures.”

“Most of the city evacuated before the fighting,” Sir Harold Conwyn put in. “We knew we would be targeted eventually, so Lord Westwood put the call out to empty the city as best we could. Most made for Crosswater, to take ship up the river to Varinar. But now…well, I’m not sure what has become of them.”

It was an all too familiar tale.

The rest of the knights performed their courtesies, as Amron spoke to them one by one. Sir Trystan was a proud, golden-haired youth of seventeen, the last living son of Lord Tymon Spencer. House Spencer had become wealthy from mining operations in the North Downs, where they had struck upon a rich vein of gold. The lord had spent a small fortune garbing his son in full plate, and a fine suit it was, gilded and gleaming, lobstered and sleek. As his last living heir, Trystan must be protected, Lord Spencer had been known to say.

The other knights were all older. There were hedge knights here, and households knights, and a former Varin Knight as well. Amron smiled at seeing that last. “Sir Bryce. I had not expected to see you here.” Byrce Coddington had retired from the order a decade ago, after long years of noted service. He had settled into a stout little keep of his own, east of the Greenwood, with servants and staff to attend him. “How are you, old friend?”

“Pissed off,” the old man grumbled. “Was enjoying the quiet life before all this war broke out. Got a library full of books that need reading, and a cellar full of wine that needs drinking. Well, now all of that’s burned and ruined, and my staff are scattered and dead. So I’m here again, with godsteel to grasp, and my mood is red as blood.”

Amron could tell. Bryce had always been intense and the years had not softened him. “Well, I’m glad to have you. Ride with me at the front, Bryce. You can catch me up on the battle.”

“Oh, there was a battle here, was there?” he snorted. “More like a grown man shoving a toddler aside. Might have been different with you here, Amron, but this lot…” Clearly, he did not think much of the other knights. “They’re wet, most of them. Green as summer grass and just as easily felled. Sir Tefler did what he could to lead them, but after he died…”

“We did our best,” said Sir Harold, overhearing. He looked insulted. “Every man here fought as well as he could.”

Bryce Coddington gave a throaty laugh. “All relative, I suppose. Can see why you never made the order, Conwyn, if that’s your best.”

Sir Harold looked at a loss for words. He turned to Amron. “My king, I assure you I am a capable fighter. You know that yourself. You have seen me in the melee and the lists, and…”

“Playfighting,” broke in Sir Bryce. “That’s all those tourneys really are, a bit of pretty swordplay. How did your first taste of the real world go down, Conwyn? Not quite the same, is it?”

The man had no response. Sir Bryce turned away from him. “So we’re on a hunt are we, my lord?” he said to Amron. “Heard you’ve sent the Giant of Hammerhall ahead with Torus Stoutman? You don’t mind if I ride to catch up, do you? One of these other lads can fill you in on the battle if you want. But as I say, not much to tell.”

Amron could see that there were some fractured relationships here. And he knew Sir Bryce as a fierce combatant. That was a decade ago, but still…those were skills a man never lost. “Do you have a mount?”

“No. Was planning to run after them.” He smiled gruffly. The flesh about his face was haggard and folded, heavily seamed about the eyes and forehead, with patches of stiff grey whiskers on cheeks and chin. “Course I’ve got a horse.”

“Very well. Then go. Did you bring any men with you when you came here?”

“No. Just me. Had a squire but he died on the journey. Wasn’t much use anyway, if I’m honest. Good lad, but good isn’t enough to survive these days, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.” Amron thought a moment. “If you must have your taste of blood, fine, but I would prefer you not to ride alone. Pick out a few of these knights and take them with you. Sir Harold, see him supported by some men-at-arms as well.”

“Yes, my lord. How many?”

“A dozen will serve.”

That was all done within a short ten minutes, and away Sir Bryce Coddington went, riding hard into the murky woods on the back of his barded horse, with young Sir Trystan Spencer, tall Sir Dederick Dudden, and an old, one-eyed hedge knight called Sir Cod Murray for company. After that Amron gave his speech, calling forth to the gathered men to inspire them and speed them on the march. He spoke of the families whom they must avenge, the living loved ones they must protect, how a man defending his own country counted for ten invaders on the field of battle. They were words he had spoken a hundred times before, dressed up in a hundred different ways, but the essence was always the same.

“Standard battle script,” the Ironfoot called it after. “But it’s the delivery that’s important.”

Amron nodded and steeled his eyes. He hoped he would continue to deliver for his people…with script and steel both.

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