Trumpets sounded in the distance. Kildragon had made contact.

On the column's right, only yards away but invisible in the mist, the lake waters lapped gently against the shore.

"Here," Tarlson said at last.

"To your left!" Ragnarson shouted. "Upslope. Move it!"

The soldiers began climbing.

The hills, barely tall enough to be called such, rose above the mist. In the dawnlight Ragnarson arranged his troops in strong clumps on their lakeward faces.

He hoped the mist would not burn off too soon.

Reskird's party soon passed below, invisible, raising a clatter, and moments later were followed by a strong force of cavalry. Ragnarson signaled his officers to hold fire.

The mist had begun to thin by the time the enemy main force moved to where Ragnarson wanted them. He could discern the vague dark shapes of mounted officers hurrying their infantry companies... He gave the signal.

Arrows sleeted into the mist. Cries of surprise and pain answered them. Ragnarson counted a minute, during which thousands of arrows fled his bows, then signaled a charge. The Trolledyngjans led, shaking the hills with their warcries.

Ragnarson leaned forward in his saddle, wearily, and awaited results.

The Volstokiners had been in good spirits, confident of victory. The sudden rain of death had stunned them. They could see no enemies. And while trying to form up over the dead and wounded, the Trolledyngjans hit them like an avalanche of wolves.

The fog cleared within the hour. Little but carnage remained. The surviving Volstokiners had run into the water. Some, trying to swim away, had drowned. Ragnarson's archers were using heads for targets. Trolledyngjans on captured horses were splashing about, chopping heads. The water was scarlet.

"Won't you take prisoners?" Tarlson asked. He spoke not a word of praise.

"Not yet. They'd just go home, re-arm, and come back. I hope this'll put Volstokin out of the picture."

A messenger from Blackfang arrived. The commander of the Volstokin vanguard, some four hundred men, stunned, had asked terms after only a brief skirmish.

"All right," said Ragnarson, "they can have their lives and shoes. The enlisted men. Strip them and send them packing."

I Below, his men, tired of slaughter, were allowing surrender. "Let's see what we've caught." He wanted to get down there before there were disputes over loot. The Volstokiners had even brought a bevy of carts and wagons full of camp followers.

He dismounted and walked slowly through the carnage. His own casualties were few. In places the Volstokiners were heaped. Luck had ridden with him again. He paused a moment beside Ragnar Bjornson—no older than he had been in his first battle—who grinned through the pain of a wound. "Some folks will do anything to get out of walking," Bragi said, resting a hand on the youth's shoulder. Someone had said the same to him long ago.

It was terribly quiet. It always seemed that way afterward, as if the only sound left in the world was the cawling of the ravens.

A dead man caught his eye. Something odd about him. He paused. Too dark for Volstokin. An aquiline nose. Haroun had been right. El Murid had advisers in Volstokin.

He shook his head sadly. This little backwater kingdom was becoming the focus of a lot of intrigue.

Haaken came in with thirty prisoners and hundreds of heavily laden horses. "Got some odd ones here, Bragi," he said, indicating several dusky men.

"I know. El Murid's. Kill them. One by one. See if the weakest will tell you anything." The remainder he had herded together with officers already captured.

Volstokin had lost nearly fifteen hundred men while Bragi had had sixty-one killed. Had his people been more experienced, he thought, even fewer would have been lost. It had been a perfect ambush.

"What now?" Tarlson asked.

"We bury our dead and divide the spoils."

"And then? There's still Lord Breitbarth."

"We disappear. Got to let the men digest what they've done. Right now they think they're invincible. They've got to realize they haven't faced a disciplined enemy. And we'll need time to let the news spread. May swing some support to the Queen."

"And to Lord Breitbarth. Hangers-back would join him to make sure of you. They've got to keep the Crown up for grabs."

"I know. But I want to avoid action for a few weeks. The men need rest and training. Haaken! See the Marena Dimura get shares." He had noticed the scouts, as ragged and bloody as any of his troops, lurking about the fringes, eyeing plunder uncertainly. One, who was supposed to be a man of importance, seemed enthralled by a brightly painted wagon filled with equally painted but terrified women. "Give the old man the whore wagon."

That proved a providential act. It brought him warning, next day, of a party of Breitbarth's horses ranging far ahead of the Baron. In a brisk skirmish he took two hundred prisoners, killed another hundred, and sent the remainder to their commander in a panic. Tarlson said Breitbarth relied heavily on his knights and was a cautious sort likely to withdraw after the setback. He did so. And more barons rallied to Damhorst. Breitbarth's force swelled to three thousand.

The westward movement of baronial forces left partisans from the under-classes free to slaughter one another elsewhere. More and more Marena Dimura gravitated toward Ragnarson, who remained in the hill country near the Volstokin border, moving camp every few days. The natives kept him informed of Breitbarth's actions.

Those amounted to patrols in force and a weekly sally north a day's march, followed by a day's bivouac, then a withdrawal into Damhorst.

Ragnarson began to worry about Mocker. He should have heard from the fat man by now.

Eanred left him, declaring it was time to resume his command. The Queen was under little pressure, but rumor had marauders riding to the suburbs of Vorgre-berg. That had to stop.

It was now an open secret that Breitbarth held the money intended for Bragi's men, but they, fat on loot and self-confidence, weren't grumbling. Everyone told every­one else that the Colonel would take them down to Damhorst and get it back.

i) In flight

The news the Marena Dimura brought caused Ragnarson to grow increasingly unsettled. Breitbarth grew stronger by the day. His numbers reached four thousand, many heavily armed knights. The Baron's sallies became more daring. Ragnarson's patrols came under increasing pressure. He had added four hundred men to his force, but they were Marena Dimura and Wessons without training. He used them as guides and raiders.

He began to fear Breitbarth would split his force and move against Vorgreberg.

During his examination of the country toward Damhorst he had found the place where he wanted to do battle. It was on the north side of a dense forest belonging to Breitbarth himself. It began near the Ebeler a dozen miles northeast of Damhorst. Roads ran round both sides, from Damhorst to the town and castle of Bodenstead, but the western route was the shortest and likeliest way Breitbarth would come to relieve Boden­stead.

This was gently rolling country. A lightly wooded ridge ran from Bodenstead northwest a mile to the hamlet of

Ratdke, overlooking plains on either side. From Boden-stead through the forest ran a hunting trail, unsuitable for Breitbarth's knights, along which Ragnarson could flee if the worst happened. North of the western route were thick apple orchards on ground too soft for heavy cavalry. The baron would have to come at him through a narrow place, under his bows.

But even the best-laid plans, and so forth. To taunt Breitbarth, Ragnarson brought his main force south, moving swift as the news of his coming, laying a trail of destruction from one Nordmen castle to the next. He met surprisingly little resistance. The knights and lesser nobility who remained in their fiefs showed a preference for surrender to siege. The fires of burning castles and towns bearded the horizons as Ragnarson's forces spread out to glean the richest loot.