The Caerith proceeded by a different route, sustained by the villages along their line of march. From their well-fed appearance by the time we rendezvoused in sight of the mountains, I deduced the villagers had been busy stockpiling in anticipation of this advance. The Caerith might not see much value in numbers or formal hierarchy, but they had their own brand of efficient governance.

  Despite contrary counsel from myself and Ehlbert, Leannor insisted on accompanying the army, although she was wise enough to leave the king and Ducinda behind at Castle Tomas. I had left a small but doughty garrison at the bay to ensure their safety, mainly older recruits, sturdy of bearing but with a few too many years under their belt to march the many miles to Alundia. I made a muted attempt to persuade both Ayin and Juhlina to stay also, receiving a laugh from the former and a slap from the latter. In the aftermath, Juhlina maintained a decidedly frosty attitude that at times exceeded the increasingly chilled climate.

  “My sole intent was to preserve your life,” I offered on the tenth day of the march. The Crown Host was encamped about a small natural harbour a few miles back. As the only riders in the entire army, we had taken on the duty of scouting the route of the next day’s march. It was more ritual than necessity, since we traversed a land free of foes, one Juhlina’s persistent scowling silence made something of a trial.

  “Meaning you expect this campaign to fail,” she replied. Our mounts had come to a halt, apparently curious about the abrupt resumption of conversation. The way their ears twitched and swivelled as we spoke made me wonder just how much the paelah understood of human language.

  “Meaning many dangers await us on the other side of the mountains,” I said. “You know war as well as I. It offers no favours to either the brave or the cowardly.”

  “Did you try to persuade Tiler to stay behind, or Wilhum?”

  They never kissed me. I didn’t speak this thought, surmising it would only earn me another slap. I sighed, recognising defeat when I saw it. “I’m sorry,” I said. This brought a marginal softening of her features, but it was clear she expected more. While I fumbled for more suitably worded contrition, Uthren shifted beneath me, the suddenness of the movement nearly tipping me from the saddle. Juhlina’s mount was similarly alarmed, both horses wheeling about to face east.

  Snow had been falling continuously for days now, rendering the landscape a perennially obscured enigma broken only occasionally by patches of forest. I squinted into the drifting swirl of wind-tossed snow, my heart stirred to a faster beat. As ever these days, when confronted with a mystery my mind instantly resorted to conjuring visions of yet more dead come to plague me. Perhaps the paelah were sensitive to their presence. Blinking against the icy caress of the wind, I searched for spectres, seeing nothing but smelling the familiar, musty scent of many horses. Ghosts hadn’t found me, but our enemies apparently had.

  “Ride back to the camp!” I ordered Juhlina, drawing my sword. “They must have crossed before the snows. Tell Wilhum to take command and make haste back to the bay.”

  Whether she intended to comply or argue would remain an unanswered question, for her mount consented to move not one inch. Neither did Uthren, despite my urgings. He responded to the kick of my heels with a backward glance, irritated rather than angry, before returning his gaze to the east and standing in apparently unperturbed anticipation.

  “Alwyn,” Juhlina said in a quiet voice as shapes began to resolve out of the snow. A dozen at first, then twice that, appearing to either side until we confronted a force several hundred-strong, and growing. I searched for a banner, expecting to see the rearing horse of Duke Viruhlis Guhlmaine. However, these riders bore no banners. Nor did I see the gleam of armour among their rapidly growing ranks. As they drew nearer, one of the riders spurred to a trot, the size of his mount becoming clear as it drew closer; a beast larger even than the mightiest warhorse to be found in all Albermaine, bearing a rider with stature to match.

  “Best put that away,” the Eithlisch advised, nodding to my sword as the paelah he rode came to a halt a few paces away. I had thought Uthren the most impressive horse I would ever encounter, but the stallion the Eithlisch rode was taller at the shoulder by at least a foot, broader too. Its coat was speckled with snow but I perceived a hide dappled in an autumnal shade of brown. The enormous paelah snorted as it plodded towards Uthren, both horses engaging in a bout of bobbing heads and nuzzled necks. I discerned a definite subservience in Uthren’s bearing, his head swinging lower than the dappled stallion’s and his snorting more muted.

  “Your sword, Scribe,” the Eithlisch persisted as I gaped at the other paelah appearing out of the snow, each bearing a stern-faced rider. “Confronting an ally with a weapon is considered very rude among the Paelith.”

  “How did you do it?” I asked him, sliding the sword into its scabbard. “What persuaded them to come?”

  The Eithlisch gave no answer, though I saw an unfamiliar expression pass across his face. Shame, I realised. Whatever he did, he took no pleasure in it. Scanning the faces of the nearest Paelith, I recognised a few from our escort to the Mirror City, the fanatical Morieth among them. His visage today was a picture of miserable resentment rather than the ardent anger I remembered. Of his yet more ardent uncle Corieth, however, I saw no sign. I resisted the impulse to ask after the elder’s fate, divining it would surely be connected to the Eithlisch’s guilt.

  “They’ll cross the mountains?” I asked instead. “They’ll fight with us?”

  “They will,” the Eithlisch rumbled. “But they’ll need steel to do it.”

  “Steel we have, and the means to shape it.” Like all armies, the Crown Host travelled with a moveable forge. I raised my voice, casting it out to the onlooking Paelith. “Soon your lances and arrows will bear steel points! Great will our enemies across the mountains fear you!”

  If this grandiloquent greeting found any credence among this mass of riders, it failed to show on their uniformly grim faces. I saw not a single warrior who appeared glad to be here, yet they had all come. The paelah were more appreciative of my words, at least I believe the sudden upsurge of snorts and stamping hooves bespoke an approval the folk they bore didn’t share.

  “The Vahlisch leads the toalisch a few miles south of here,” I told the Eithlisch. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”

  “We follow our own path, Ishlichen,” Morieth snapped. “We’ll fight your war for you, but don’t expect us to abide your stink.”

  The Eithlisch turned a hard glance on the Paelith, one returned with flint-eyed defiance. It was only when the dappled stallion flicked his tail and angled his head towards Morieth that his demeanour abruptly changed. Bitter temerity became cowed discomfort, the warrior seeming to shrink in his saddle.

  “Is this all the Paelith?” I asked the Eithlisch, knowing it would be pointless to enquire after the full number.

  “All that can ride and fight,” he replied.

  “And very welcome they are.” A change in the wind caused the snow to thin for a moment, affording a view of the distant grey-white peaks. The Winter Pass was still days away, but the sight of the mountains stirred a lurch in my chest. The sense of being expected had been growing during the days on the march, so too the suspicion that my invisibility to Evadine’s arcane sight might not be as absolute as I imagined it to be. I wondered if the curse had brought this new pall of doubt upon me. Perhaps I had been unnerved by proximity to the dead, but I didn’t think so. One thing my recently acquired curse had taught me was that truth was its only reward. In the world of the dead, lies had no dominion.

  “She waits for us,” the Eithlisch said, revealing again his uncanny facility for mirroring my thoughts. “I feel it too.”

  “She knows we’re coming, but not where or when,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “But battle will surely greet us when we cross those mountains, in weeks if not days. Battle the likes of which the Caerith have never seen. Roulgarth has done well in preparing the toalisch for what lies ahead, but the Paelith know nothing of what it’s like to face armoured knights in combat.”

  “You doubt us, Ishlichen?” Morieth said, letting out a derisive laugh. “Worry more for your own kind, for these knights of yours have never faced the Paelith.”

  The pass of Kain Laethil was much as I remembered it from the shared dream with the Sack Witch, although the weather was considerably worse the day the Crown Host began to traverse it. A blizzard descended when I led the first companies into the channel betwixt the mountains, and persisted for the three days it took to complete the crossing. Since the line of march forced us away from the coast, supplies now had to be carried on our backs along with weapons and the sundries accrued by soldiers. The incline of the southern route was gentle but persistent, causing many a slip and tumble due to the frost-covered rock or packed snow we walked upon. Thanks to the unending snowfall, few fires could be successfully kindled, and nights were spent under canvas that sagged with piled snow come morning. Despite the soldiers lost to ankle-snapping falls or the depredations of the cold, I found myself thankful for the blizzard. No ambush could be laid for us amid mountains subject to such torment.

  On the morning of the third day the incline levelled off and soon became a winding downward slope. By midday the snow finally began to abate, and we beheld the foothills of southern Alundia. The land was blanketed in white and most of the streams and rivers appeared frozen, but after the pass it appeared as welcoming as the lush and verdant fields of summer.

  “One hundred and twenty-four,” Ayin said, looking up from her neatly arranged stack of parchment.

  “Is that all?” Wilhum asked. “Thought we’d have lost a thousand at least.”

  “One is too many,” I said. We gathered atop a ridge overlooking the rolling land beyond the hills, my gaze roving the white fields for any tracks that might indicate the presence of scouts. I wouldn’t have been overly surprised to have found the Covenant Host drawn up in full battle order to greet us, but so far there was no sign our passage had been detected.

  “We’ll camp there until the Caerith join us.” I pointed to a large, flat-topped rise some miles off. “Close order and double pickets. When the Paelith get here they can scout the route north.”

  Although I chafed at the delay, I was forced to accept Roulgarth’s advice to rest the army once the last few stragglers had completed their weary descent from the mountains. Striking north immediately would have pushed already tired soldiers to the brink of exhaustion. A pause was also needed to allow our smiths time to forge the steel weapons promised to the Paelith. The various accoutrements of our moveable workshop had been manhandled through the pass thanks to the efforts of twenty-strong teams of soldiers taking turns to drag sleds laden with anvils and steel rods across the icy route.

  Morieth, who appeared to be the closest thing the Paelith had to a commander, agreed to my request for reconnaissance with a surprising lack of truculence. I deduced his keenness arose from a desire to spend as little time among Ishlichen as possible. An offer to share my carefully prepared maps of the region was met with disparaging bafflement, since the Caerith had no more use for charts than they did numbers. The Paelith duly divided themselves into smaller contingents according to their various clan affiliations and rode off in different directions. They returned over the course of the next few days with reports of ruined farms and villages bare of people. I knew from my previous sojourn through this region that it had suffered greatly after the fall of Duke Oberharth. Now it appeared to have become a wasteland.

  With the army rested and our Caerith allies gathered, I ordered a westward march to the coast where a flotilla of Shilva’s ships awaited us with much needed supplies. A week of marching brought us to a long beach where the vessels bobbed in the swell a mile offshore. Most were broad-beamed merchantmen, with one sleek exception.

  “You look worse than last time,” Toria said as she climbed from the Sea Crow’s launch, wading towards me while her crew went about unloading the barrels. Coming to a halt, she squinted at me in both mockery and concern. “Have you been sleeping at all?”

  “As much as I can,” I said. I didn’t add that sleep had become an all too brief refuge, my waking hours being fraught with dread expectation. I had glimpsed a few wayward spectres since crossing the mountains, most fleeting and indistinct. However, once in a while I caught sight of a more solid soul, usually bearing the signs of torment on their dead flesh. These were the victims of the bannerless marauders who had ranged across southern Alundia in the aftermath of Algathinet victory. Most were set on simple plunder and cruelty, while others had claimed divine inspiration for their atrocities in the words of the Anointed Lady. In retrospect, it was a warning of things to come to which I should have paid far greater heed.

  Toria’s lips formed a smile that I found odd, for it was patently forced. “Well, here’s another morsel of news to keep you from slumber: you’re a father now, Alwyn Scribe.”

  I had known this was coming, but upon hearing it I found myself frozen, regarding Toria’s wincing visage with mouth agape and eyes unblinking. “When?” I managed eventually, the words spoken in a hoarse mutter. “Where?”

  “Seven days back, in Athiltor. The Ascendant Queen has decreed the holy city her capital, got a whole army of masons raising a wall around it.” Toria paused, watching my slack-mouthed surprise shift into something far more sorrowful. “A boy,” she added, as expected, but what she said next was not. “She named him Stevan, in honour of Martyr Stevanos, apparently. His official title is the Divine Prince Stevan Courlain.” Toria grated out a laugh, one I might have taken as cruel if not for the sympathy I saw in her gaze. “Congratulations.”

  Divine Prince. The words echoed as the dream vision of my future son played out once more in my head. Would that Mother was here to see this…

  “Thank you,” I said, stiffening. Now was not a time to surrender to introspective despair. “Do you have any more intelligence for me?”

  “Great deal of trouble in the Shavine Marches. Seems the commons aren’t too keen on forking over their goods and chattels to feed the queen’s taxes, regardless of what their duchess commands. Bunch of Covenant soldiers and tax collectors got themselves surrounded and massacred by a mob of churls a few miles east of Farinsahl. Story goes that they stuck the heads on pikes and posted them along the King’s Road.”

  “Evadine will have to answer that,” I mused with some satisfaction. The more soldiers she set to punitive action in the Shavine, the less the Crown Host would have to face on the march north.

  “She already has,” Toria said. “Word is the duchess has been presented with a royal command to appear before the queen in Athiltor and answer for this outrage.”

  “Lorine would never be foolish enough to go.” This provoked further satisfaction, but also worry. A diversion of Evadine’s attention was welcome, but the prospect of Lorine facing her might alone was not.

  “How swiftly can you get a message to the duchess?” I asked.

  “Eight to ten days,” Toria replied after some pondering. “If the seas are kind.”

  “Good. I won’t write it down, lest it fall into treacherous hands. Tell her to prepare Castle Ambris for siege, provision it as much as is possible and send the common folk to seek what shelter they can in the forest. All her vassal lords should be advised to do the same. And tell her the wayward cub is coming home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Southern Alundia proved to be so bare of life that it wasn’t until we marched north along the coast for two full weeks that we garnered our first batch of new recruits. Paelith scouts returned to complain of being assailed with arrows, fortuitously poorly aimed, amid the steep, vine-covered slopes a dozen miles to the west. Roulgarth immediately set out in company with Merick, carried on the backs of two paelah who appeared outside their tents that morning. They returned a few days later at the head of three score Alundian rebels, a mix of farmers and soldiers from the ducal levies. Judging by their ragged appearance, I guessed they must have been hiding in the hill country since the fall of Farinsahl. Unsurprisingly, they regarded the sudden arrival of an army under Algathinet command with a good deal of suspicion. If not for the evident, near-awed level of respect they showed to Roulgarth, I knew few if any would have consented to join our campaign.

  “There’s other bands north and east of here, my lord,” the rebel leader told Roulgarth that night. He was a former sergeant in the Alundian ducal levies with scars too recent not to have been won in the war against the Algathinets. From the fierce glare he shot in my direction upon hearing Roulgarth’s introduction, I deduced he had been at Walvern Castle. “Each a score strong or more. They’ll march with you, of that I’ve no doubt. But they’ll need to see you, hear your voice for themselves.”

  “And they will,” Roulgarth assured him, clapping the fellow on the shoulder.

  “Do you have horses?” I asked him. “Or know where any might be found?”

  The sergeant’s mouth formed a hard line and he only consented to speak at a nod from Roulgarth. “Most went into the pot months ago. Those that didn’t were gathered up by the witch queen’s bastard soldiers and taken north to that death pit of hers on the border.”