A Sword from Red Ice

NINE The Crab Gate

The Ganmiddich roundhouse commanded a bend in the Wolf where the river changed course from west to south. Built from the same green traprock that formed the cliffs and banks of the river, it sat on high ground above a crescent-shaped gravel beach. The great dome of the roundhouse dwarfed the east and north wards, which had been added at a later date. The primary entrance to the dome was through a pair often-feet-high double doors known as the Crab Gate. Carved from seasoned oak and armored with plates of fossil stone, the Crab Gate was held to be one of the great wonders of the clanholds. How the fossils had been fixed to the wood, where they came from, and what creatures they revealed were sources of wonder and myth. Marafice had once seen them up close for himself and they had given him a chill. Segmented eyes, pronged claws, winged fish, cloven tails, serrated fangs, scaled birds, basilisk spines, kraken heads: all displayed in deep relief in bone yellow limestone.

It made for a good show, but not necessarily good defense. Marafice knew the gates were heavy and resistant to flames, but he suspected the fossil stone would crack if barraged with missiles, and double gates, by their very nature, were weaker than single ones. If he remembered correctly, there were two big couplets on the interior of each door that were large enough to accommodate the girth of a hundred-year oak. So a single tree trunk barred the entrance to Ganmiddich. Marafice saw it most nights in his dreams.

Now, though, looking north upriver toward the bend, flanked by an army of eleven thousand hideclads, mercenaries and brothers-in-the-watch, he looked upon the Crab Gate's pale exterior a quarter-league in the distance and felt some measure of fear. He did not believe in the God of priests and knights, of temples and prayer books and a thousand fussy rules, but he did believe in something. Exactly what was hard to quantify, but if pressed he'd call it power. He spoke to that power now. Guard me. Guard my men.

Snow fell as the army of Spire Vanis advanced at slow march. The wind was from the east and it channeled along the river and through the bluffs. The Wolf ran shallow here, boulders and gravel banks slowing the flow. Birches and willows choked the water margin, and evidence of recent high water could be seen in uprooted trees, undercut banks and newly exposed stone. The frost that begun in the early hours of the morning had claimed shallow pools and slow meanders, coating them with opaque crusts of ice.

Close to midday now, the temperature was barely warmer. Marafice felt his plate armor sucking away his body heat and did not much like the thought of donning the birdhelm. Like many in the lines he was putting it off until they were within fire range.

Shifting in the saddle, Marafice looked back over the ranks. The rear guard, led by the improbably named Lord of the Glacier Granges, had cleared the bend and was forming ranks. Hideclads, Marafice thought with some heat, a man could be blinded looking at so much steel. Which damn-fool surlord had been responsible for repealing the Hide Laws, that's what he wanted to know. The Hide Laws had prohibited private armies from wearing chain mail and metal plate unless directly under the command of the surlord. The law had given the hideclads their name. For hundreds of years the armies maintained by the grangelords to defend their granges were allowed to armor themselves only in hardened hide. It had been, as far as Marafice Eye was concerned, a very fine law, and one which he wouldn't think twice about reinstating. Nothing wrong with a surlord having the best army. Nothing wrong at all.

Facing forward, Marafice gave the command to sound the drums. Tat Mackelroy, who was Jon Burden second-in-command but today was riding at Marafice's right hand, stood in his stirrups and bellowed the order down the ranks. Seconds passed, and then the kettledrums began to sound. Slowly, rhythmically, forty drumbeats fell in time. The deep hollow booms sent waterfowl into flight and spooked the horses. Some shied and broke the line. One reared and threw its rider into a rank of foot soldiers. The teams pulling the scorpions and the battering ram were unaffected by the noise: they had been brought in from the south and were trained to stillness in battle. Marafice had thought his own mount trained, but training and experience were different things and the great black warhorse was unsettled.

Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum. The noise hurt Marafice's ears.

"Shall I call horns?" Tat Mackelroy asked. He was a six-year veteran of the watch, an expert broadswordsman who'd been promoted so quickly through the ranks that some resented him for it. Mackelroy didn't care. He was too busy doing his job.

"No horns. Not yet." Marafice glanced east at the Ganmiddich Tower, perched atop the inch. Old beyond knowing, it was the tallest standing structure in the clanholds. On clear nights some said you could see the fire burning in its top-floor gallery from the far side of the Bitter Hills. Marafice didn't know about that. He looked and saw a five-sided tower erected on an overgrown rock in the middle of the Wolf. It was not constructed from the same traprock as the roundhouse and it did not resemble any structure built by clansmen. It was occupied, the darkcloaks had informed him of that. Close to a hundred long-bowmen, mostly Hailsmen, lived in and patrolled the three upper floors.

Today, for them, there would be no going back to the roundhouse. Last night the darkcloaks had sabotaged their boats. Marafice could see the boats from where he sat, their keels drawn up high on the rocky beach. They looked fine, but they weren't. That was the way the darkcloaks liked to work.

"I won't have them," Marafice had roared at Iss two months back in Spire Vanis. "They're sly, skulking. They cannot be trusted. And the men won't stomach them."

"Don't be a fool," Iss had replied. "Stop thinking like a butcher's son from Hoargate and think like a man with something to lose. You'll be commanding an army in excess often thousand. You'll be responsible for their food, safety, lives. You cannot afford to indulge your backwoods notions of what is and isn't right. Take the darkcloaks and use them. Put them to work, let them be your ears in the ranks and your eyes in the field. The things they know can tip the balance; tricks with fire and smoke, snares, bluffcraft, sabotage. They're trained to see what is hidden: weaknesses in buildings, concealed doors, animal tracks, strategies, men. If you must, use them only to gather intelligence. It will be little, but it may be enough."

"They are sorcerers!" Marafice had cried, punching his fist against the Blackvault's door. "How can I look my men in the eye knowing I countenance such foulness?"

Iss waived a pale hand, unconcerned. "Do not look them in the eye then. A surlord does what is best for a surlord, not what the majority of his acquaintances decree acceptable. You are going into Ganmiddich blind, with your enemies beskfe you. I'd say you need all the help vou can get."

Even then Marafice had not relented. Fear of the old skills ran deep. There was a dirtiness to them, a sense that once you used them their stench clung to you and you were lessened in some essential way. It was only a week later, when Iss had visited him at the Red Forge and casually thrown a curl of parchment on the table, that Marafice had changed his mind. "What is that?" he had barked, unnerved at having the surlord interrupt him as he ate his dinner of ham and beans.

Again, there had been a wave of the pale hand. "Read it," Iss had said, knowing full well that Marafice was barely capable of writing his own name.

Angry, Marafice had pushed away his plate. "Just tell me what it says."

"It says that last night Garric Hews met with Alistair Sperling, Lord of the Salt Mine Granges, in the back room of a small tavern south of the Quartercourts. They discussed you. Hews knew Sperling had just committed to riding to Ganmiddich with three hundred men, and he sought to discover how the esteemed lord might react to a possible mutiny on the road."

Marafice had stood. "What was Sperling's response?"

"Oh he was for it, bless his salty little soul."

"Then I do not want him or his men."

Iss had laughed then, a superior sound that did not let Marafice in on the joke. "You cannot exclude everyone who does not like you. You'll end up with an army of one. The questions to ask are these: How did my surlord receive this information? And: How can I stay one step ahead of those who mean me harm?" Iss had paused, more for effect than to allow Marafice the opportunity to reply. "The answer to both questions is dark cloaks. These are men who love to spy."

So Marafice had taken them, a half-dozen in all, perhaps more. Their numbers were hard to pin down.

Already they had earned their keep. Most evenings he met with one of them in the privacy of his tent. Usually it was the man named Greenslade, a thin trapper with elaborately queued hair. That was another detail he'd learned about the darkcloaks: they often masqueraded as other things. Greenslade kept him well informed about loyalties in the camp. A day south of the Wolf, Hews had arranged something Greenslade called a tester. Hews' plan had been to separate Marafice from his brothers-in-the-watch during the river crossing, then stand back and observe if any other factions in the army of eleven thousand would step forward to protect their leader when it appeared he might be vulnerable. Knowing that one simple fact about the river crossing had been enough to foil the plan. Marafice had simply ordered the Whitehog to cross the river first and it was done. Even arranged to have one of the guide ropes break so the whole damn lot of them got a soaking.

It had been a very satisfying moment, and it had changed his opinion of the darkcloaks. Iss was right: Even though he was uneasy with their services, he could not afford to waive them.

Since then Marafice had learned other useful things. Greenslade had provided a headcount of the forces in the Ganmiddich roundhouse, and also disclosed information about messengers sent to Blackhail for reinforcements. By Marafice's calculation the reinforcements were at least five days away: more than enough time for him to gain possession of the house.

Today he rode to break the Crab Gate, and it was a strange feeling to know the darkcloaks were in place and ready. Their aid made him less of a man and more of a surlord, and that was probably the way it had to be.

"Quick march," he commanded Tat Mackelroy. It was time they started the dance.

As the order was relayed down the ranks, Marafice looked over his left shoulder toward the center. The line was good, you had to give the Whitehog that: he knew how to marshal men. Hog Company formed a solid column, a hundred wide and seven deep. A dozen in the fore carried pennants of snow-white silk embroidered with the likenesses of fat, mean-looking pigs. There was white silk also on the men's backs, short half-circle dress capes that were attached to the plate armor by spiky little horns. They were a fair and deadly sight, impossibly proud, splendidly accoutered. Every clansman's nightmare.

Hews himself forwent the pleasures of the cloak, creating an island of steely sparseness amongst the white. Aware that he was being inspected, Hews turned to look Marafice in the eye. Over the heads of seventy-five men they appraised each other. Just as Marafice thought he would be the first to look away, the Whitehog bowed his head. "Helmets!" he commanded, and Marafice watched with amazement as seven hundred men donned their helmets in perfect synchronization.

It was a chilling sight. And a lesson. Any confusion regarding whisk] company had superior training had just been cleared up.

Now, of course, Marafice could not give a similar command himself. Of his crew of three hundred and fifty, he reckoned at least flour of them would fall off their horses attempting to place the nine-pound closed-visored birdhelms correctly on their heads. Even putting on his own helmet at that moment would have made it look as if the Eye was taking orders from the Whitehog. Still, it had to be done, damn it. At this distance a shot from the roundhouse would fall well short of the line, but there was no telling how a shot from the top of the tower might fare.

Clansmen were watching. Marafice could feel their attention in the hollow of his dead eye. The curved walls of the roundhouse might look as blank as stone, but peer closer and you'd see the crude arrow slits, the embrasures, the murder holes above the door. Smoke rising from vents, not chimneys, gave the impression the entire dome was steaming. River water lapped on the empty beach, and Marafice marked the drag lines of boats hauled up the hill to the roundhouse for safekeep.

This house had been taken twice in half a year. First by Bludd and then Blackhail. It was not easy to secure. It looked it—with its implacable stone walls and defensible position above the river—but it was a crab, and once its shell was broken there was soft meat inside.

As the line accelerated to full battle march Marafice put on the birdhelm. It was like wearing a lead coffin on your head. Snowflakes had found their way inside and Marafice felt their icy sting against his cheeks. Once the neck cinch had been tightened his head movements were severely restrained and he had to twist at the waist to check on the column he commanded. Good, most helms were in place.

Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum. The kettledrums boomed and the line advanced, fanning out as the land opened up. Protected by a twelve-deep rank of cavalry and foot soldiers, the archers and boltmen readied their bows. It had been Andrew Perish who had advised Marafice of the one-in-seven rule. "Every company, no matter their numbers or purpose, needs to assign one man in seven to a bow. The grangelords will fight you on this, but ignore them. Range weapons may not get the high-and-might-ies excited—too humble, no glory, little chance to deck out the body in fine and expensive plate—but a good bowmen is worth his weight in gold on the field."

It had been surprising advice coming from a former master-at-arms whose specialties were the sword and pike, but that was Perish for you: hard, practical, inclusive.

As long as you believed in God. From his position at the the head of the east flank, Marafice could not see Andrew Perish back down the ranks. The master-at-arms was ahorse, picking up the rear and keeping a watchful eye on the two hundred mercenaries directly behind him and the Lord of the Salt Mine Granges' hideclads. Marafice reckoned it was a good fit. High and low. Perish could handle them all.

Suddenly a cry went out to Marafice's right. Cursing his birdhelm he swung wildly in the saddle, searching out the source of noise. A brother-in-the-watch, one of his own men, was slumped over the neck of his horse, a perfectly placed arrow stuck deep into the strip of vulnerable flesh circling his neck where his birdhelm and backplate failed to meet. Should have had mail collars, Marafice thought angrily. The Surlord should have ponied up the cash.

"Easy," Marafice roared down the line. "Break rank at your peril." The poor sod with the arrow in his neck would just have to lie there and die.

As he spun to face forward, he glanced at the tower. Someone within its black granite walls knew how to shoot.

Snow blew against his horse's flank as the wind quickened. The fancy silk pennants snapped against their poles and the even fancier cloaks fanned out like bells.

The Whitehog commands the charge," came the call from the center. "We move on his say."

Marafice didn't like this one bit, but if you gave a man the center you didn't have much choice but to let him lead. As a reluctant nod of acquiescence was relayed back up the line, Marafice studied the sky. It had to be midday by now, and by the look of things it would get no lighter. Now was not a good time to wonder why he was here, yet he could not seem to help himself. What did Iss want from the clanholds? It barely made any sense for Spire Vanis to claim land here. True enough the border clans were well stocked and wealthy, but if Spire Vanis occupied Ganmiddich it would be a sitting duck. There was a lot of angry clansmen out there, not to mention the lake men from Ille Glaive. All were closer to the Crab Gate and had better access to supplies.

Was it just a glorified raid then? Eleven thousand men chasing spoils? Marafice did not think that was the whole answer. It did not fully explain why the grangelords were here. Yes, they liked livestock and plundered swords as much as anyone, but they were also using this campaign as a chance for self-promotion. Returning to Spire Vanis with the glow of victory would raise a grangelord's status amongst his peers. For ambitious grangelords like Garric Hews, Alistair Sperling and Tranter Lennix, grandnephew to the old surlord Borhis Horgo, it was a convenient field of play. For his own part Marafice knew what he was getting out of today—the sponsorship of his claim for surlord—but what Iss sought to gain was a mystery. Perhaps he hoped each and every one of his rivals would die.

That made Marafice crack a smile. Glancing again at the tower, he decided to steal a little of the Whitehog's thunder. "Sound the horns!"

Tat Mackelroy relayed the order and within seconds the first blasts of trumpets could be heard. The battle for the Crab Gate had been engaged.

You could not hear the horns and not be stirred. Marafice felt it. His men felt it and pushed against the line. Garric Hews was no fool and knew better than to fight the moment.

"Charger!" he screamed. 'To the gate!"

The charge was like being propelled forward on a crashing wave. The noise was deafening, the colors blurred, the danger of tumbling out of control real. Air and snow rushed through Marafice's eye slit as his armor creaked and sawed, shaving skin from the back of his neck. He could no longer risk glancing at the tower, but the signal had been given. It was in the hands of the darkcloaks now.

As the charge moved forward, the line spread, opening up space in the interior for the machinists and bowmen to work The scorpions had been carried in pieces to the clanholds and assembled at the camp; once they were set down and loaded they'd be ready to deploy.

Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum. The drums boomed and the horns wailed as a wall of arrows shot from the tower rained down on the east flank.

Marafice stared ahead. The Ganmiddich roundhouse and its square ugly outbuildings were still a blank. As the charge grew closer the risk of looking foolish increased. A city-men army at full charge was a fearsome sight, but if the clansmen did not engage the charge would break on the walls and they'd be forced into a siege. No one on the line wanted that.

What was taking the darkcloaks so long? Marafice could see the fossil stone on the Crab Gate clearly now, see brief shadows of movement behind the arrow slits and embrasures. Part of the east flank had spilled into the river shallows—easy targets for the bowmen in the tower. One man fell. Then another; his foot catching in the stirrup as he slid from his mount. The panicked horse bucked and reared, trying to shake itself free of the body. The momentum of the fall had dragged the saddle down the horse's torso and the belly strap was now pressing against the stallion's scrotum. Poor beast, Marafice thought before yelling, "Either kill it or cut the straps."

An arrow pinged off the right side of his birdhelm, grazing his horse's leather rump armor as it continued its flight. An instant later a second arrow buzzed right past his left ear. It took him a moment to realize it had come from the direction of the Crab Gate. The roundhouse had opened fire.

Behind him the first wave of crossbolts were loosed against the roundhouse. Thuc, thuc, thuc, thuc: hundreds of times in Marafice's still-ringing ear. When the bolts met the traprock walls they simply stopped and fell to the ground. It was not a reassuring sight. Bolts first, cavalry next.

Insanely, Hews was still holding the charge. They were less than two hundred yards away now. Did Hews think so little of clannish buildings that he imagined horses could knock down their walls?

Suddenly there was a scream from within Hog Company. Two lines deep, a hideclad's cloak was alive with flames. Fire arrows, and even as Marafice realized the cause, the sky blackened with smoke as a volley of flaming missiles was loosed from the roundhouse. Swatting one away with the flat of his sword, Marafice watched as Hog Company started to panic. Hideclads began tearing at their fancy white capes and driving their horses away from the center where the greatest concentration of arrows were falling. Hews spun in his saddle to calm them, but he could only do so much. Men afraid of fire made poor troops. As the line met the hill the charge slowed. The horses were tiring. Nerves were worn. It was hard to look at the blank walls of Ganmiddich and not be discouraged. Hews had been counting on the famous jaw of the clansmen, the pride that demanded fight, not hide.

But not Marafice Eye. As, they scaled the base of the hill and the first stone ball was loosed by the scorpion, a cry went up from the ranks.

"Fire in the tower!Fire!"

The stone ball smashed into the top of the hill, cratering the slope and throwing up a hail of dirt and snow. Horses in the line shied, some halted. Marafice's own mount shook out his head, but kept its pace. "Fine beauty," he murmured, angling his upper body toward the tower.

Black smoke gouted from the narrow windows and upper gallery of the Ganmiddich Tower. Weird green flames shot from one window, swiftly followed by a fountain of sparks. A short explosive crack sounded, and the stench of sulfur and smelting metal drifted over with the smoke.

"Mother of God," Tat Maekelroy whispered. "What's happening?"

Marafice did not look him in the eye as he replied, "Calll it a lucky break."

Tat waited to hear if his Protector General would say more, and when the great man said nothing, returned his attention to his mount.

Marafice barked an order into the center to halt the charge. He did not like himself much just then.

For a wonder, Garric Hews minded what he'd said and broke the charge. The steepness of the hill made for a surprisingly short stop and for a few minutes there was chaos as six thousand reined-in horses scrambled for space.. Marafice used the time to monitor events in the tower, it was telling that all missile fire had stopped. Smoke was pouring from every window in the stone structure. If there were flames it was now too dark to see them. The sole entrance to the tower was by way of a small rounded door plated with lead that directly faced the roundhouse across the water. Marafice sent out the order to bow-men and machinists to target the door. Reckoning he now stood within hearing distance of the roundhouse, he made sure his voice rang clear.

The Crab Gate remained closed, but Marafice imagined it wouldn't stay that way for long. At midwinter he'd visited this very roundhouse and met with clansmen firsthand. He'd come away impressed. They were fighting men, fiercely loyal, and he did not think for one instant they would stand by and let their fellow clansmen die.

Behind the roundhouse the old growth forest known as the Nest clicked eerily in the rising wind. The trees were gnarled and ancient crippled by the weight of overgrown limbs. The darkcloaks said there were paths running through them leading north toward Withy and west to Bannen. According to Greenslade, thlfpaths were always vigorously defended.

Marafice's attention was drawn back to the tower by the retort of a half-dozen crossbolts splitting wood. The door had moved. Those inside wanted out.

Quietly now, Marafice sent an order propagating down the line. "On your guard. Be ready." He did not know exactly what the dark-cloaks had done to fill the tower with fire and noxious smoke, and he decided now he would never ask them. Let them keep their bags of tricks to themselves. Spying ashes on the flat of his sword, he wiped the blade clean against the back of his sheepskin mummah.

All was silent for the longest moment and then the Crab Gate swung open and the battle was met.

Mounted clansmen rode out of the roundhouse: Hailsmen, Crabmen, Withymen, and Bannenmen. More poured from behind the outbuildings, as stable doors were flung apart.

"Kill Spire! Kill Spire!" they chanted as they used the downhill momentum to steal a charge.

"Spears out!" screamed Garric Hews, scrambling to harden his line. Marafice's own line was hard, though he knew his men felt fear. Clansmen were like animals, wild and brutal, wielding hammers as big as children as they bellowed at the top of their lungs for their enemies to die. Heads low, battle cloaks streaming out behind them, they met their enemies full-on.

A great clash of metal sounded. Men gasped. Horses squealed. Blood jetted through Marafice's eye slit and into the socket of his dead eye. Where it JKne from he could not tell. His great bloodred Rive blade was up and cutting. He figured as long as he did not let it rest he would be safe.

Clansmen came at him in hordes, hammers and axes swinging. They had the advantage of high ground and superior maneuverability, but the city men had heavy-gauge plate and four times their numbers. It was hard to remember that in the fray. The sheer relentlessness of the clansmen was something Marafice had not counted on. You wounded a man, he should fall away. Not clansmen though. They smiled grimly and attacked again.

Marafice became a machine. One mailed fist on the reins to drive the stallion forward, the other on his sword hilt to thrust the blade. At his side Tat Mackelroy was fighting two-handed. In his left hand he braced a spear against his horse's flank, protecting his Protector General's right flank, and in his right he wielded the Rive blade. The reins were between his teeth. Marafice had several occasions to be grateful for his chief aide's spear. Sometimes when a hammer came close to his body he could not see it. There were blind spots with his one good eye.

In the center, Garric Hews and Hog Company had fallen back and then rerallied. This might have been the Whitehog's intention, for it had created space for the clansmen to charge into, which Hews slowly began to close off. Jon Burden had disengaged the west flank and was pursuing the clansmen who were pouring from the outbuildings. It was in the east, in Marafice's turf, that the fighting was fiercest. Clansmen were desperate to break through the Eye's line to reach the shore and save the tower men.

Trapped within the birdhelm, Marafice's sweat began to steam. Between gaps in his stallion's armored plates, lather was rising. He no longer had the time or energy to monitor events on the inch. Perhaps the tower men had risked the door. Perhaps they were still inside. One thing was sure: they were not visibly dead, for the look in the clansmen's faces told him they still hoped to rescue their men.

The day darkened as the battle wore on. Bodies piled up on the field. A man's severed head was rolling between the horses like a kick-ball. The machinists were still launching missiles at the Crab Gate and the outbuildings, cracking stone walls and flattening the odd clansmen. The bowmen had been charged with targeting the lines of clansmen leaving the outbuildings, but the mass exit had ceased and now the bowmen were still. In any other battle they'd be assigned to pick off runaways. But these were clansmen…and clansmen didn't run away.

Marafice's armor was black with blood. The pain in his sword arm was so intensely ingrained that it actually hurt more when he rested it than it did when he just kept thrusting. So he kept thrusting. His voice was hoarse, but he barely knew what he'd been screaming. His line still held, so he imagined he'd been screaming something right. At some point during the long hours of fighting, he realized that the battle had turned in their favor. Hews had successfully drawn out and cut off their center, Jon Burden had killed their side guard, and Marafice's men had held the water margin. All that remained was to finish off. Down the ranks, the foot soldiers and mercenaries already knew this and began a serious push for the Crab Gate.

With the luxury of more time the machinists actually managed to align one of the scorpions perfectly with the double doors, and launched a stone that bowled down the left door. Fossil dust shot up in a great cloud and although Marafice didn't much fancy breathing in those old and freakish remains he knew he didn't really have a choice. He wasn't the only one to spit a lot after that, he noticed.

With the door gone there was no chance of retreat for the clansmen, and the part of Marafice that respected honest fighting men felt for them. It did not prevent him joining the final charge.

As he kicked his horse forward two things happened that seemed strange. The first was the sight of a lone horseman, freshly mounted and lightly armored, galloping along the river and up through the ranks. A Spireman, no doubt about it, and from the looks of his kit some sort of messenger. The army hadn't received word from Spire Vanis in several weeks, and Marafice wondered at the wisdom of a messenger riding onto the battlefield. If the news had waited that long, a couple hours more would make no difference.

The second thing was a horn call from the north. It sounded so quickly, Marafice had to glance over to Tat Mackelroy to confirm that he had really heard it. Tat's brief nod had told him all he needed to know. At first Marafice assumed that the call must have come from a crew of Hailsmen in the Nest, sounding a retreat, but when he looked into the unguarded faces of the enemy he saw confusion and something that might have been fear. Troubled, Marafice put all his energies into the charge. The sooner they took the roundhouse and secured it the better. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the Whitehog was also preparing for the final push. Just this morning Marafice had planned to kill the Lord of the Eastern Granges if a suitable opportunity presented itself. The rush for the gate would be as good a time as any. While an army of eleven thousand attempted to wedge itself through a nine-foot opening there was no telling what mischief a man could do. Yet Marafice knew he would not act. Not here. Not now.

The Whitehog had fought like a demon. He'd made mistakes-they all had—but he'd never failed to watch his men, never paused to rest never once issued an order that excluded himself from danger. The clansmen had a saying, "You are worthy of respect," and it summed up how Marafice felt as he watched his rival on the field. You could not fight all day with a man and then turn around and kill him. Marafice hadn't known that this morning, but now he did.

Strange, but he felt lighter than he had all day. It was as if a weight had been removed from his chest. Good fighting men: that's what counted. Tomorrow he would send the darkcloaks home to Iss. The Surlord could keep them.

The charge for the gate was poorly planned but enthusiastic, with foot soldiers, hideclads and mercenaries moving forward in a disorganized line. Even as he approved of their high spirits, Marafice worked to restrain them. Many of the men pushing to the front had not seen hand-to-hand combat with the clansmen and didn't realize the remaining force, while small, was deadly dangerous. As the Whitehog appeared distracted by something in the center, Marafice decided to head the line himself. He was Protector General of Spire Vanis and leader of this army: it was right and fitting that he claim this territory first.

The final push was surprisingly hard. The clansmen who were left were mostly Hailsmen and they fought like cornered wolves. Helmets were off now and their braids banded in silver snapped against their necks as they moved. Marafice was so intent on the fight that he didn't immediately register the softening. He was so close to the door now he could see individual scales on the kraken's ugly hide. Tat was at his back, blade long abandon, fighting solely with his spear. Worrying noises sounded, but as lifts Marafice didn't hear the horn from the north he figured he could let them pass. Then Tat touched his arm.

"Hog company and the grangelords are withdrawing."

This sentenft made so little sense to Marafice that he ignored it, and chopped his Rive blade into clansman's hand, cutting off two fingers at the tip. The man's heart was beating wildly and there was a lot of blood. In the small pause that followed, Tat grabbed his Protector General's forearm and yanked him out of the line.

"They're going. The grangelords are leaving."

Marafice tried to catch his breath. "Going?" he repeated stupidly. "Yes. Look." Tat was taking no chances and physically spun Marafice around.

Blinking, Marafice attempted to take in what he saw. Over half the army was leaving the field. All those who were retreating were mounted. All were grangelords and grangelords' men. Lord of the Salt Mine Granges, Lord of the Glacier Granges, Lord of the Two River Granges, Lord of the Iron Hills, Lord of the Spirefield Granges … Lord of the Eastern Granges, Garric Hews.

"What is this?" Marafice asked, blood draining from his skin. Andrew Perish trotted his horse forward. The former master-at-arms was bleeding from a wound to his foot. A small gobbet of flesh was glued to his ancient breastplate; it did not appear to be his own. "Messenger from the city. The Surlord is dead."

Sweat and blood dripped from Marafices helmet to his neck. At the door the battle was still waging, but more and more men were congregating at the top of the hill.

Iss dead. It made no sense. Who could have slain him? Marafice watched the retreating forces gain momentum, accelerating from walk to trot to gallop, rushing to get back to the city and stake their claim. A surlord was dead. A new one would be made. Me, Marafice thought. Me.

He looked at Andrew Perish, stared straight into his occluded eyes. "I will not leave the field until His work is finished," Perish said, "and I have a thousand men here who'll back me."

The believers and fanatics. About two hundred of them were Rive Watch, Marafice reckoned.

Perish did not wait for a response. Extending his Rive Blade forward he cried solemnly, "For His glory!" and joined the charge for the gate. Others followed. Marafice didn't blame them. Victory was so close you could smell it. It smelled like a broken door.

Scanning the motley remains of his army—the mercenaries, machinists, foot soldiers, drummers, retired brothers-in-the-watch, and walking wounded-Marafice wondered what to do. He, Marafice Eye, should be the one rushing back to Spire Vanis. The surlordship was his. The whole point of being here was to secure that one glittering jewel.

Yet he could not leave men unsupported on the field. He was not Garric Hews. If Perish was right and he did indeed intend to lead a thousand into the roundhouse, then that would be a thousand men at grave risk. Marafice glanced at the one remaining door. A great chunk of fossil stone had broken off, revealing plain old oak beneath. Marafice thought of the clansmen, and the darkcloaks, and Garric Hews. Nodding softly to himself he made a decision.

"We take the house as planned."

Even as he spoke, the unfamiliar horn sounded from the woods directly behind die roundhouse. Whoever they were, they had arrived.