I’ve been outwitted, Amron thought. This was his army, his kingdom, his failure. Could they be wrong? Might the enemy have been scattered by Taegon’s raids? Did they splinter and get separated during the night? He doubted it, but would know for sure. “Sir Quinn. Start asking questions of our southern friends. See what you can find out.”

“Let me,” the Giant of Hammerhall said, hefting his enormous godsteel warhammer. “Sharp’s soft as his mother’s teats. I’ll get them talking.”

Sir Taegon strode off, hunting for a man alive among the legions lying dead. There was still noise enough across the valley to know the battle would go on for a time yet, but it was as good as won already. “We need to get this over quickly,” Amron said. “Sir Quinn, get back out there and make haste. Have our injured gathered; we’re not going to be able to take them with us unless they can fight. Leave what men we can spare to tend them, treat them, and try to get them safely back to Green Harbour.”

Sir Quinn put his heel to his horse and rode off.

Amron closed a fist around the hilt of the Frostblade, squeezing tight. He must have lost his focus; he could feel the deep ache in his left shoulder and right thigh, even with the blade in his grasp. Was he growing immune? He couldn’t think about that now. He concentrated a moment, drinking in the Frostblade’s powers of healing, and his pains dissolved.

Lord Gavron gave a grunt. “It’s their dragons,” he said. “We didn’t count on their dragons, Amron.”

Amron looked at him.

“They’ve been leading them,” the Ironfoot explained. “These woods are thick and hard to pass. We know that. Joyce and his men have all said it. But none of us have counted on their dragons showing them the way. They fly above them and find the right path. Around this hill. Through that valley. Across this gulley. And they’ve been warding off other beasts as well.” He snorted and spat once more. “No wonder they’ve moved so quickly. They’ve had eyes in the skies unlike us.”

He was right, Amron knew. They had not seen dragons during the march, not with the mists and fogs that cloaked the forest, the cold wintry skies, but no doubt they had been out there, guiding and protecting their own. He was starting to fear the worst, fear that the enemy had stretched too big a lead, and if they had…

“There’s smoke in the air,” said a rough voice. Amron turned. Sir Bryce Coddington had come over from the main force, sour-faced and blood-spattered, wearing his old armour and Varin cloak, a warhorn hanging at his hip. His cheeks were flush from battle.

“Where?” Amron asked.

The old knight scowled west. “That way. Far off and unpleasant.”

Amron’s nostrils flared open, drawing in the air in a long, deep breath, eyes closing to focus. Beneath the rotting smell of wet leaves, the earthy tones of mud and bark and branch, the tang of iron and putrid stink of bladders and bowels being emptied…beneath all that was an undertone of smoke, trailing in on a westerly breeze. Coddington was right. It was coming from a long way away, carrying a distinctive, unpleasant scent.

“Brimstone,” the king said. “Dragonfire.”

Sir Harold frowned warily. “Could they be burning the woods? To make it easier for their men to pass?”

Sir Bryce looked at the younger knight like he was a halfwit. “They burn the forest and it’ll only alert Lord Borrington that they’re coming. No, boy, they’ll want to sneak out behind the Twinfort, all silent like. If there’s something burning out there, it’s stone. Towers and walls and men. The Twinfort’s under siege.”

A ripple of worry went through the men.

Amron would not have it

“We don’t know that yet,” he said firmly. He looked up, checking the skies. It was a clear morning, though not often did that last, and shortly after dawn the mists and fogs would descend to reduce visibility. But if they could reach some higher ground before that happened, perhaps they might be able to see across the forest to where the smoke was coming from. He turned to Sir Harold. “Take some men and scale the slopes. Climb trees if you must. Look for smoke rising from the west, Harold. Go. Right now.”

Sir Harold swallowed and bolted off. He was replaced almost at once by Sir Taegon who came marching back over, his gauntleted hand gripping a long black braid. The head to which it was attached swayed freely…without a body. Cargill threw the head down before him. It bounced against Amron’s boot and settled in the mud. “That one laughed at me,” the giant rumbled angrily. “I asked him where the rest were, and I pointed west, and he just laughed. So I’m guessing they went west.”

That was growing obvious now. “Find others,” Amron said. “Try to get them to talk before you take their heads, Taegon.”

The giant shrugged, grunting, and lumbered back off.

Sir Bryce Coddington was looking down at the decapitated head. It had landed face up. The eyes were open, staring, the mouth twisted into a grin. There was something horrifying about that. A red mist was slowly fading from the man’s gaze. “There’s something strange about their eyes,” the old knight said. “Saw the same in Green Harbour. It’s like they have no control. Wild, they are.”

“They’re slaves,” growled Lord Gavron. “Thralls to Eldur. We saw it at the Point. Some break free, but not all.” He stepped in and kicked the head away, unwilling to look at it any longer. “The men aren’t going to like this, Amron,” he said. “They thought this was it. Battle, victory, and then some rest. Well earned too. Now we march on without so much as a second to stop and take stock.”

“There’s no choice…” Amron started. He was weary too. Weary to his bones, but they had to keep going.

“I know,” Grave came in impatiently. “I’m sixty-two years old, Amron. Most men my age can barely get out of bed in the morning. Hell, if there’s a man here older than I am, I don’t know of him.”

“I’m close,” said Sir Bryce. “Though I got all my limbs at least.”

The Ironfoot grunted laughter. It died as soon as it lived. “Just saying it’s going to be an ugly march. And horses won’t be much good in there either.” He looked at the tangle of dark green forest ahead. “Gonna be slow, a full day and night of marching. We’d best set a strong watch and rearguard. Half the men are going to want to slip away after this.”

“I’ll leave that with you.” The Ironfoot had no tolerance for desertion. The king thought a long moment, wondering if he might give the men a few hours to rest at least. They had barely slept for days and most had stayed up through the bitter cold of the night, preparing to launch their attack. The fear that coursed through a man’s veins on the eve of battle kept him alert, but after…after he was prone to collapse when the thrill rushed out of him…and marching for another day and night was about the last thing he wanted to do. They’d expected to have a great fight on their hands; six thousand men afoot and five hundred ahorse against an Agarathi horde some twenty thousand strong. A brutal battle. A stirring victory. The long rest for the dead and a shorter one for the survivors, but a rest all the same. Then onto the Twinfort to join their strength to Lord Borrington and beat back the Agarathi invaders.

None of that had happened. The battle had not been brutal, the victory was not stirring, and they would have no rest. And when we reach the Twinfort…

Amron didn’t want to think about that just yet.

“Get them ready,” he said. “I want us marching within the hour.”

40

The Eagle of Aramatia loomed high above them, staring out to sea with those fierce stone eyes.

“What do you imagine he’s looking at?” asked Bernie Westermont, perching on the forecastle gunwale with his great wide rump. His eyes went lazily to the east, out across the open waters that spread restlessly toward the horizon. “You think there’s anything out there, Robb? Other continents, like they say?”

Robbert Lukar didn’t think it mattered what he thought. “Give me proof and I’ll believe it. Otherwise it’s just a matter of faith.” It was his own lands that the prince cared about, lands he was desperate to return to. He scanned the horizon, eyes moving east to south in a slow arc, clutching hard at his blade. “Still no sails,” he muttered. “No ships.”

Bernie put a big hand on his shoulder. “More will come, Robb. We just have to wait.”

I don’t want to wait, Robbert thought. But he didn’t want to leave either, and that was the problem. Only a fraction of his fleet had managed to battle through the storm and limp to their rendezvous point here at Eagle’s Perch. Six ships. Just six, out of thirty. And most of them battered and bruised.

He supposed he should be thankful that any of them had survived, not least his own ship Hammer. By some miracle, they had seen off the brutal onslaught of the manator’s massive tusks, and the even more brutal onslaught of the mountainous waves as well. Several times they had been enveloped by the sea, the waves rising up like great liquid cliffs around them, black and fearsome, to collapse and swallow them whole…and each time Hammer had bobbed its way back to the surface, belligerently refusing to founder. That another five vessels had survived as well ought to have been cause for celebration. But that meant there were two dozen that had likely gone down. Along with most of my army, he thought.

It had left him with less than three thousand men - three thousand down from twelve - and most of them serving under the banners of Lord Lewyn Huffort whose loyalty was questionable at best. Huffort’s powerful flagship Landslide had escaped the worst of the storm by taking a dangerous line toward the coast. It was risky, the man himself had admitted, but his ship captain had said it was their best hope of survival. He was right. In the end, they’d suffered nothing worse than a shredded sail or two before they broke through the storm and sailed serenely up the coast to the Perch.

They were the first to get there, the first of the six so far. It took four days for the second ship to arrive, another of Lord Huffort’s bulky galleons - The Stone Maiden - carrying almost five hundred men. The third was a Kastor vessel with green and black sails called Blood Bear, the fourth a much smaller caravel ironically named Mountain which had been supplied by Lord Malcolm Marsh, a Huffort bannerman. Those four had assembled over the course of ten days before Hammer finally limped in to join them, in need of serious repairs to the hull and mainmast, which had been torn down during the storm. Three days later, one of Simon Swallow’s ships - Blackthorn - had found its way to the rendezvous as well.

But that was the last, a further three days ago now. And still no sign of Lord Swallow himself, Robbert thought. And more importantly, Lord Gullimer, who he favoured as his right-hand man. His own ship, Orchard, was nowhere to be seen.

Robbert sighed and wiped a length of cloth across his forehead. It was another hot, windless day in the sheltered bay where they had taken sanctuary, protected by the high cliff walls around them. There were some natural stone jetties here, carved and hacked into shape by the Aramatians, forming a small harbour of sorts at the base of the bluffs. Beyond a narrow fringe of stony beach, the cliffs rose up high and sharp, cut with a perilous switchback stair that must, Robbert Lukar assumed, have claimed the lives of more than a fair few men over the years.

Thankfully, none were his. Robbert had ordered that a watch be kept on the coastlands above, to look out for incoming ships and other threats, and no one had tumbled to their demise just yet. He could see Sir Lothar Tunney on the steps now, picking his way carefully down, holding onto the ropes hammered into the cliff-side for support. He had with him several others, relieved of their duties by the new company of watchmen who’d just gone up to take their shift. Lank’s godsteel armour glinted brightly in the sun, which was arcing up from the east in its morning ascent. It cast the sandstone colossus of Calacan in a glowing light, clinging with its enormous talons on the cliffs, mighty wings outstretched, gazing out to sea with that eternal stone gaze.

“You ever noticed how they all look to the ocean?” chirped a voice.

Robbert turned from the forecastle of Hammer and saw that the young midshipman Finn Rivers was approaching. Behind the boy, soldiers and sailors alike sat and lazed about the decks in various states of undress, seeking what shade they could from the searing morning sun. As soon as it summited the cliffs and headed west, the entire bay would be plunged into shadow, but for now the decks were baking.

Robbert looked at the boy. “You mean the eagles?” he asked.

The stocky young sailor nodded happily. “Every one of them. You’ll never find a stone eagle in Aramatia that’s looking inland. Every statue, every fountain, every sculpture…even the iron ones that adorn braziers and the wood ones cast above inns and tavern doors…they all look out to sea.”

“Why?” Bernie asked, interested. Finn Rivers was full of interesting facts.