chin had tightened and disappeared. She longed to pose question after question, but remained mute. They repaired to the King’s bedside. Golophin looked down on the unconscious, mutilated form, and seemed to calm. He glanced around. “What have we here to work with? Not a lot. We are in too much haste.” He stroked the heavy wood of the bedposts. “It will do for now, I suppose.” He turned to Isolla. “Lady, I need you to hold the King’s hands. Whatever you see, whatever he does, you must not let them go. Am I clear?”
“Perfectly,” she lied.
“Very well. Then let us draw up some chairs and begin.”
She took Abeleyn’s hands. They were hot and feverish, but the King’s face was as still as that of a wax image. The sheets, though changed daily, were soaked with sweat. The King seemed to be burning away like a hearth of coals with a bellows feeding them.
Golophin closed his eyes and sat as motionless as his King. Nothing happened. A quarter of an hour went by. Isolla longed to change her posture, stretch her neck, but she dared not move. She had been prepared for lightnings, thunder, a blaze of theurgy or a chattering of summoned demons—
And then the creak of wood. She started as the bed began to tremble and shake. The canopy overhead billowed like a ship’s sail. It cracked and flapped, the heavy drapes whipping her across the face, and then the whole thing took off and tumbled end over end across the room.
The bedposts, thick carved baulks of timber as wide as her thigh, began shrinking. She gaped at them. They were disappearing from the top down. It was like watching the hugely accelerated work of termites. They had been taller than a man—now they were dwindling foot by foot as she watched.
At the same time, the sheet covering Abeleyn shifted and moved. Isolla stifled a cry as something began to grow under there. It was the stumps of the King’s legs. They were lengthening, pushing up their covering. She glanced at the wizard. His face had not changed, but sweat had set it ashine and his eyes were rolling frantically behind their closed lids.
Two feet poked out at the end of the sheet that covered the King’s body. Isolla jumped in horror. They were human, perfectly shaped down to the very toenails, but they were made of dark wood. And they twitched with life.
The King groaned, and for the first time the wizard spoke.
“Abeleyn,” he said quietly, but low though his voice was it made the very furniture in the room shake.
“Abeleyn. My King.”
The man in the bed growled like a beast. His hands, hitherto limp, clenched tightly upon Isolla’s, squeezing out the blood until her fingers were white. She bit her lip on the pain, determined not to cry out.
Then the King’s body arched up in the bed, his wooden heels drumming on the mattress, his spine bent back like a fully drawn bow. His sweating hands were slipping free. In panic, Isolla threw herself on top of him. Convulsions battered her up and down. One hard knee came up and stove in a rib. The King shrieked, and she wept with the pain.
The convulsions died, and he was quiet again. Isolla’s face was buried in his neck. She could not move. His hands loosed their awful grip and disengaged gently from hers.
“What in the world?” the King said.
She raised her head, peered into his face. His eyes were open, and he smiled at her, looking utterly bewildered and at the same time amused.
“Issy Long-nose,” he said, and laughed. “What
A LL morning, the army had been marching out of the North Gate of Torunn. The line of men and horses and ox-drawn field artillery and baggage wagons and pack mules seemed endless. They had trodden the new snow down into the mud and carved a dark line across the hills north of the capital. On the flanks of the column patrolled restless squadrons of heavy Torunnan cuirassiers. The column’s head was already out of sight three miles away. Over thirty thousand men were on the march, the last field army left in the kingdom.
“There is a grandeur in war,” Andruw said, blowing on his mittened hands. His metal gauntlets hung at his saddle bow.
“I never thought there were so many Torunnans in the world,” Marsch admitted. “If we had known, we might not have fought you for so long.”
“Numbers aren’t everything,” Corfe said.
“Any sign of our lot yet?” Andruw asked.
They were sitting on their horses on a knoll half a mile from the North Gate. They had been here an hour already, and still the stream of men went on.
“Shouldn’t be long now,” Corfe said. “Here comes the main baggage train. We’re behind that.”
A convoy of tall, heavy wagons drawn by mules and oxen. The baggage train held the spare ammunition and rations. Corfe had been given the job of guarding it, and the rear of the army. When the battle occurred, he and his men would be spectators rather than participants. Unless something went badly wrong.
“The best troops in the army, and we’re guarding the wagons,” Andruw said disgustedly. “What a prick that Menin is.”
Corfe disagreed. “He did what he could. It’s a miracle he persuaded the King to march out and fight at all. And besides”—he grinned at Andruw—“the rear is the post of honour. If the army’s beaten, then it’s we who have to cover the retreat.”
“Post of honour my—”
“Here they come,” Marsch interrupted.
Corfe’s command began marching out of the gate behind the last of the wagons. The thousand-strong scarlet-armoured Cathedrallers were unmistakable, their stark banner flapping in the cold wind. Behind them came the black-clad, pike-wielding Fimbrians, marching in perfect time—two thousand of them, with Formio at their head. And finally, the last survivors of Ormann Dyke, five thousand arquebusiers and sword-and-buckler men under Ranafast. The command formed a column almost a mile long.
How would they fight together? There was a strong bond between them, Corfe knew. It came from the North More battle, when they had faced annihilation together. And they collectively despised the garrison soldiers of Torunn, most of whom had never fought in a single pitched battle. But they were certainly a disparate bunch. Wild mountain tribesmen, Fimbrian professionals and Torunnan veterans. They had had a chance to recover from their ordeal at the North More, and were rested, refitted and their morale was superb. If things went well, they would hardly need to fire a shot in the forthcoming contest. Corfe hoped it would be so, much though he would have liked to wield this new instrument of his in battle.
“Snow’s starting again,” Andruw noted gloomily. “God’s teeth, will this winter never end? Bloody unnatural time of the year to be campaigning.”
“Let’s join the column,” Corfe said, and the three riders cantered down the slope, kicking up a cloud of snow which the wind bore away like smoke behind them.
T HE army marched a mere six miles that first day, the endless procession of men halting and starting again, the wagons getting stuck in the mud that lay beneath the snow, the heavy guns losing wheels, mules going lame. Corfe’s men finally halted for the night three hours after the head of the column had pitched their tents. As far as the eye could see, the wink of campfires stretched over the hills and lit the sky from afar. It was good to be in the field again. Things were always simpler here.
Or so he thought. While he was at the horse-lines with Marsch and Morin inspecting some lamed mounts, a courier brought him a message from the High Command. There was to be a strategy meeting that evening in the Royal tent, and his presence was required.
Resigned, he made his way through the vast firelit camp. Everywhere, men sat around their campfires heating their rations and drying their boots. A few flurries of snow had fallen during the day and it was getting colder. The mud was starting to harden underfoot, and the snow crunched.
