Amara blinked up at the man. “Sorry…I must have misheard. I could have sworn you said there were sixty or eighty thousand Agarathi heading our way.”

Lord Styron nodded. “And dragons. Those numbers we don’t know. They have been melting the snow with their fire to speed the enemy’s advance, it would seem. Smart. Though it will tire and weaken them. Dragons don’t like the cold, my lady.”

She stared at him. “Are they to attack?” Her heart gave a thick beat, squeezing up her throat. She had only just found Lillia again. Now this? “Blackfrost is not built to withstand dragons, Styron. Let alone such a massive horde.”

“I have a strong host of my own,” the lord reminded her.

“One a quarter of the size,” Amara came back.

“A northman counts for five Agarathi,” declared Lord Victor Manson. Amara did not know where he came up with that number. “And in this weather? Ten.”

She blew out a sigh. “And a dragon counts for a thousand northmen. You see, Victor. I can spout nonsense too.” Her mind was whirling, leaping from one thing to the next. If they were so close… “The Twinfort,” she said, trying to swallow her heart back down. “They breached the Twinfort?” It was unthinkable. The Last Bastion was unbreakable, many believed. But the same fools said that about Dragon’s Bane too, and Varinar, and looked how that turned out.

“We must assume so,” Lord Styron said. His voice was calm.

Amara’s was not. “Then the men there….Lord Borrington’s host…”

“We don’t know what has become of them.”

“We can guess,” Amara said. “Randall is hardly likely to have opened his gates to let them pass unchallenged, Styron. And what of Amron?” She looked at Sir Gerald. He had been the one to tell them of Amron’s plans to march west to help defend the Twinfort, carrying with him the order for his father’s host to divert there as well. “You said Green Harbour was going to come under attack?”

The doughy, pock-faced knight licked his lips. “Yes, my lady. Lord Daecar…the king, he marched there to defend it. Whether he got there in time…”

“Clearly not,” Amara said. She had it figured out even if the dimwit was struggling to piece it together. “The Agarathi must have come in behind them,” she stated to the group. Some men nodded and gave agreeing murmurs. Lord Strand smiled. “They got the Fists opened from the rear.”

“You always had a piercing mind, Lady Amara,” Styron observed. “Yes, I think you’re right.” He waved a hand over the map, gesturing to King’s Point, then Green Harbour, then the Twinfort, and all the coastlands and woods in between, carved into the old pine. “Amron was always going to be in a race and it would seem he had been pipped to the post. As to his fate, and that of Lord Borrington, we can only speculate. But the signs are not good.”

No, Amara thought, agreeing. For all they knew this horde might once have been twice the size, only to lose half its strength defeating both Amron and Lord Randall and battling their way up the western gate. What remained was plenty large enough to deal with Styron’s twenty thousand swords, she feared. “How many men do you have, Gereth?” she asked the castellan, clutching at straws.

Gereth Daecar limped forward on his maimed men. “Scant few, my lady. Most of our strength was sent to the Twinfort. We can count on some two thousand fighting men in the city. If we send all the greybeards and green boys to the armoury, perhaps we can double that number.”

Amara had always loved how small Blackfrost felt compared to Varinar and Ilithor. Now she cursed its frail little size. “That won’t be enough. Not near enough to repel them.”

Lord Abel Darring gave her a curious frown. “I was not aware you were an expert in siege strategy, Lady Daecar.”

“I’m an expert in common sense. Now I’ll admit it’s been a while since I polished my skill at sums, but it would seem we’re a tad outnumbered.”

Lord Darring of the questionably daring disposition smiled at her. He had a hooked beak of a nose and a thin jaw, not your typical hero. His smile was ugly as well. “Lord Manson has the right of it,” he said. “Man for man, we are much the stronger. I would not pay too much attention to numbers, my lady, they can be terribly misleading. And we have these walls as well, and some stout towers to help defend us. Behind them we can outlast this horde and watch smiling as they freeze to death.”

This man is a fool. “You think they will sit back and lay us to a long siege?” She laughed at him. “I have spent years in this city, my lord. Those towers you speak of are few and the walls might as well be wet paper for all the good they will do when the dragons get a sniff of us. Have you not been paying attention? Dragon’s Bane has fallen, and King’s Point has fallen, and Varinar has fallen. Against them we are nought but a daub and wattle dwelling cowering in the shadow of a castle. It is dark, I know, so perhaps you haven’t had a proper look. Come dawn you’ll see how vulnerable this city is. Even calling it a city is a stretch.”

Her speech did not endear her to Lord Darring the Not-So-Daring. “Are you done? Or can the men continue their discussion?”

Sir Gereth Daecar rounded on him. “You’ll not speak to her like that in my halls, Lord Darring. Amara’s voice has always been welcomed in council here.”

“A council of cripples and harlots,” Darring said, unwisely.

Several blades came ringing from sheaths and Amara’s Knights Assorted leaped to defend her honour. “Guard your tongue or lose it,” Sir Connor Crawfield growled.

Lord Darring thought little of the threat. He gave a sniff. “You at least have some honour about you, Sir Connor, but these…” His eyes passed over Sir Talmer, Sir Ryger, and Sir Montague. “Cravens and runaways, the lot of them. I ought not have to share my air with them.”

“Then bugger off outside,” spat Sir Talmer Hedgeside. “I’ve had enough of you and your slurs, Darring.”

Lord Styron raised a hand. “As have I,” he said, unexpectedly. “These men strayed from the path, but they have admitted to their follies and righted their course. You will extend them the proper courtesies, Abel.”

“My lord? They’re traitors and cowards, every one of them…”

“Enough. I have spoken.” Lord Strand’s power was absolute among his men, and Darring quickly submitted. “And if you lay such an insult upon either Lady Daecar or Sir Gereth again, I will happily let Sir Connor carry out his threat. I will even hand him my own blade for the task. Do you quite understand me, Abel?”

The foul little lord gave a bow. “I do, my lord.”

Strand stared down at him. Amara had never liked the man so much. He let a long moment of silence pass and then turned to Sir Gereth Daecar. “Tell me of the mountain stronghold, Sir Gereth. How many can it hold?”

“The entire city at a push.” Gereth’s voice was a little stiff. Crippled though he might now be, he’d once been a great warrior, and did not much care to have his disability highlighted so crudely. No more than I like being called a harlot, Amara thought. She would shed no tears to hear of Darring’s death during battle, to be sure.

“Then push,” Lord Styron said. “Ring the city bells and get them waking. If I’m to defend this city, I would sooner do it knowing the smallfolk are withdrawn.”

It was one of Blackfrost’s best defences. Her provision of towers was poor as northern cities went, her walls were not laced with godsteel like others, and she hardly boasted the sort of siege weaponry to make a dragon think twice, but of a good strong sanctuary for the commons to retreat to, she was well blessed. For long centuries the North Downs had been mined of tin and iron and deposits of precious metals, and its interior was as pocked as Sir Geralds cheeks with vast open caverns and deep mining shafts. There were tunnels that led there, smoothed out and reinforced over the years, through which the smallfolk would flee at times of need. If the city should fall, there were ways out that led away to the north. Amara wondered what they would find on the other end. Snow was a firm bet.

Sir Gereth Daecar gave a nod. “I shall see to it at once, Lord Strand. Ought I send the old and young to the armoury as well?”

“It cannot hurt to have a few more swords.”

Amara pondered the awakening that awaited these poor souls. As their mothers and wives and children were being ushered to the caves, they would be ushered to the armoury to take up sword and spear. Boys as young as Lillia, Amara knew. And men as old as Artibus. War was cruel, she’d always thought. No matter how romantic the bards tried to make it.

The command was quickly passed along to the city captains. A minute later the bells began ringing out through the snowy streets to herald the approaching doom. Amara took Lord Darring’s advice and left the men to their debate, moving over to the high windows to look out as the lights winked awake through the drifting snow. She could only imagine the panic that was permeating this city she loved so much. From here she could see the vague outline of the walls below her, see the tents pitched in whatever square and quad the men could find. Elsewise the city was white, every thatched roof heaped with snow, the pretty winding streets of Blackfrost lost beneath that thickening winter coat.

It would be warmer inside the mountains, she told herself. They would get great fires going to beat off the chill, and the little children would like that better. And if they went far enough and deep enough, they wouldn’t even hear the strains of battle outside, as their fathers and brothers and sons fought and died. She liked that thought as well.

Sir Connor stepped over from the table to join her. “My lady. You should think about going as well. To the caverns.”

She had not even considered herself as yet.

“And Lady Lillia,” the knight added.

Amara nodded. “She won’t like it.” The girl would probably want to put on her own armour and fight, but that would not happen. “Have a man sent to wake Artibus, Connor. He sleeps soundly and the bells may not wake him up here. Carly too.” The Flame Mane had also been given her own room in the castle. Most likely she’d have gone to visit Lillia by now.

“As you say, my lady. I will leave a pair of guards to protect you. Who would be your preference?”

“You,” she said. “But I know you’ll want to fight.”

He nodded, and she would not want to deprive the defence of the city of such a gallant knight. In Connor the descriptor was well-earned. Sir Connor the Courageous, she thought, smiling. “Perhaps Daryl will want to continue in the role?” she offered instead.

“Sir Daryl would be a good choice.”

His laughter will boom all through the caverns. No man in the world had a laugh like Sir Daryl Blunt.

“And Carly,” Connor said. “She is a gifted fighter, but too reckless for this sort of battle. I fear she would do something rash and get herself hurt or killed.