After the meal, when the dark amber sunset in the west had faded completely, they would head off into the darkness to circle among the campfires. As Kynortas had said to Roper just six months before, they had no battle plan. They could merely reassure the legionaries, exhorting them to their most honourable duty and their bravest conduct the following day.
The nature of the huge altar that lay between the Anakim and the Sutherners was such that neither side could tell much about the enemy they faced. If they sent scouts forward over Harstathur, they would find the front of their enemy’s encampment but be unable to estimate numbers or composition. Two prizefighters had agreed to a fight to the death without ever having seen each other.
“So what can we tell the men, Gray?” began Roper, over his stew. “Are there any comparable battles you know of, where the armies were so unfamiliar?”
Gray considered this. “I suppose this makes our position more like that of an invader, rather than a defensive force,” he said. “As a defending army, it isn’t hard to gather information on your enemies. You know the land, the locals are on your side and there are good opportunities to know your foe before you fight them. It is much easier to be a defender than an invader and that is why I believe Bellamus has erred by bringing his forces here. Remind our warriors that this is our ground they fight on. Remind them that we have defended it again and again over thousands of years, and on this battlefield especially, we have broken one of the gravest Suthern threats we have ever faced. Connect them to this land and make sure the Sutherners pay for each foot they take in more blood than they can afford.
“If we are to fight the unknown tomorrow, we cannot feel our way into the battle. If we stand off and allow Suthern aggression to shade the opening exchanges, we may find quickly that it is too late to recover.”
“If we lose tomorrow,” said Roper, then trailed off. He shook his head. “This is the weakest full call-up that I can remember.”
“Perhaps in numbers,” said Gray. “In the years that my memory covers, this is the first time we have had less than eighty thousand soldiers at the Black Kingdom’s disposal. But we are more battle-hardened than ever. Not only are there true heroes in this army, but most of the legionaries here have fought more battles than a Sutherner could squeeze into a lifetime. We may be a mere seventy thousand, but these are the seventy thousand hardest, most cussed legionaries ever to walk these lands. They are the descendants of the greatest heroes of our culture. Take our friend here,” and Gray gestured at Helmec, who was licking his bone spoon carefully, “how many battles have you been through, Helmec?”
“I don’t know,” said Helmec, a smile splitting his ruined face. “Many.”
“Too many to count?”
“Yes.”
“And how many times have you lost?”
Helmec thought about that. “We’ve lost small skirmishes. We lost that day in the flood waters.” He glanced apologetically at Roper. “That’s all I can remember. There’ve been victories which felt like losses, though, because so many died. Lundenceaster was one.”
“Yes, it was,” said Gray. “Lundenceaster was ten times worse than the defeat on the flood plain.”
“That’s where I said goodbye to my face,” said Helmec. “But it’s probably better this way. I was never very pretty, and now Gullbra can imagine that I was once.” The reference to his tiny wife caused Helmec to grin again. “Better it happens to me than someone like Pryce. He did make a fuss when he lost his ear.”
“It suits you,” said Roper, who then broached the question he had long wanted to ask. “How did it happen?”
“A morning star,” said Helmec. “Just caught me lengthways,” he covered the right half of his face with a hand, “as I was climbing a ladder. The infection nearly killed me, which is why I think it never healed properly.”
Both Roper and Gray had put down their stew. “You are a man of remarkably little self-pity,” commented Gray, admiring Helmec across the glow of the fire.
Helmec blushed. “That is praise from you, sir,” he said, looking down at his stew again.
Above them, a chasm had opened in the mountainous clouds that hung overhead; the sky behind painted with starlight. Just as the last time he had been at Harstathur, Roper could see the Winter Road: the band of stars that marked the route they would all one day take to the underworld. It was a place of cold wonder: illuminated only by moonlight, surrounded by endless forests composed of giant ice crystals and many of the paths blocked by hard, frozen fog. Wolves with spines of frost instead of fur watched your progress and would act as guides for the brave and the well prepared; for the rest, they were a more insidious presence. Some wandered the Winter Road for ever, never finding the underworld on the other side, and watched
