It was impossible to know whether Floki and his followers still survived or had been cut down. Isgrimnur could only be grateful that Brindur was on the far side of the field and had not seen what happened to his son: He would have taken his best men and charged after Floki, compounding the mistake.

So this is what it comes to. I do not tell Brindur what has happened to his son for fear of something worse happening. Usires save me, command is more often a curse than a blessing. Isgrimnur certainly understood Floki and the rest—just the sight of the enemy’s rigid, corpse-pale faces was enough to raise a red mist of hate before his own eyes—but he could not concern himself with the fate of one mere man or even a dozen, not when the fate of thousands hung on his decisions.

No matter, he told himself, and waved another line of men up the hill. There will be time for regrets later. There is always time for regret.

As the day went on the sun should have burned through the fog, or at least so it seemed to Porto on the slopes below the ruins. Instead the mists grew thicker, swirling on the cold breeze until it was almost impossible to see the valley walls or even the old castle. He and Endri hung back to defend the catapult-gunners from counterattack. Black arrows whistled down from the hillside, and occasionally, when the mists cleared for a moment, Norns could be seen peering from the shadows like the unburied dead, but the White Foxes never left the cover of the ancient walls.

The catapult men kept busy, flinging stone after stone at the great tower near the top of the hill, but although they struck it time and again they could not bring it down. As the day lengthened, mists began to swallow up the scarce afternoon light entirely, so that it seemed that night would arrive long before sunset. Determined to break the resistance before dark fell, Duke Isgrimnur and his captains led a troop carrying siege ladders in an attack on the central tower, the last whole piece of the age-old castle. Now the Norns finally came out, and although Porto and Endri were not part of the struggle, it was clear that the fighting was terrible and bloody.

Then, in the middle of the assault, a great braying sound came echoing down from the ridgetop above the castle. Recognizing the horns that had blown at the commencement of battle in the morning, Porto thought a second force of Rimmersmen had made their way up into the valley heights and now meant to attack the castle from above, and his heart filled with hope.

But the blare of horns came instead from a party of scouts hurrying back from farther down the valley. The Northmen up on the ridge were shouting and waving their arms, and in only a few moments Porto went from cheering to mouth-gaping silence as he listened to the growing thunder of something rushing toward them along the valley floor.

The mists began to boil, then a host of armored riders appeared out of the tatters of gray fog at the bottom of the pass, thundering up the valley toward them. The newcomers were all in white or black, riding horses and even stranger creatures.

“Good God!” Endri cried. “What are they?”

“More Norns.” Porto had been worried already, fearful of the battle and of this strange place, but now he felt his insides turning to ice. The oncoming Norn troop seemed big enough to roll through the entire valley like a floodtide, sweeping them all to death or worse.

Porto pushed past fleeing catapult engineers to grab Endri and drag him away from the great machine. All around the base of the hill Rimmersmen broke their lines and scattered, many scrambling upslope to join with their fellows who had surrounded the tower, but the Norn riders were among them in mere moments, stabbing and slashing with weird, angular blades. Some of them rode goats tall as horses, unnatural creatures with eyes yellow as sulfur; but the rider who caught Porto’s attention was the leader, a horned figure with a terrible, inhuman face. The apparition wore white plate armor and rode a huge white horse.

At his first panicked glance, as the newcomer dealt death with a long, silver-gray sword to any mortal unlucky enough to be caught within its reach, Porto thought the horned figure some kind of demon summoned by the fairies, a creature straight from Hell. But as he dragged Endri out of the path of the oncoming troop and the leader galloped by, he realized that the demonic face was only a helmet in the shape of an owl’s head.

It was all Porto could do to fend off the blows smashing down on him from above, but he held his shield up and managed to keep Endri behind him as he backed out of the path of charging Norns. He took a hard swipe to his helmet, and although it almost knocked him down, he stayed on his feet; a moment later the greater part of the Norn troop had ridden past him and up the hill into the ruins. A quick look showed him that Endri seemed to be unhurt.

To Porto’s astonishment, the Norn reinforcements barely engaged with Isgrimnur’s besieging force at all but crashed through, killing a few of them and losing a handful of their own. Then they continued upslope where they met reserves from inside the tower who helped to protect the entrance until the Norn riders could get inside. After what seemed only a few dozen racing heartbeats after Porto had first seen them appear from the mists, the new troop of Norn soldiers had disappeared into the tower.

The hilltop was strewn with bodies, but most of the Rimmersmen who had fought were still standing, faces sagging with surprise, as the Norns forced the gates closed behind them, sealing the tower once more.

The general lifted off her helmet. Her braided white hair had come undone in the charge and hung across her face until she swept it aside. She had the long chin and narrow nose of the oldest Hikeda’ya families and an expression as stern as some ancient tomb effigy. “Who is the master here?”

“That would be me, General Suno’ku—Yaarike sey-Kijada, High Magister of the Builders.” Viyeki’s master made a carefully calibrated gesture of welcome. “You arrive hoped-for but unlooked-for. We had thought ourselves beyond the reach of any reinforcements. Our Echoes received no reply to their calls.”

“It could not be helped,” she said, offering the scantest of ritual salutes in return. “The mortals have one of the Zida’ya with them, and she carries a Witness. We could not risk breaking silence.”

Viyeki stared at this savior that had arrived seemingly from nowhere, like a hero out of the oldest tales of the Garden. He knew of General Suno’ku, of course—most Hikeda’ya did. She might be no higher in the Order of Sacrifice than Viyeki was among the Builders—a subordinate of the ordinal leader—but because of her family blood she moved in much higher circles than Viyeki could ever dream of joining.

As he watched her, fascinated, Suno’ku turned to one of her lieutenants. “See to the wounded. Make them well enough that they can ride.”

“What about those who are too badly injured?” the Sacrifice asked.

She only stared at him, her expression flat as a frozen pond, then turned back to Yaarike. “How many are you here?”

“Perhaps two hundred left, more than half of them Builders,” the High Magister said. “We also have the Celebrants you see with the general’s body, half a dozen Singers under Tzayin-Kha, and a few Echoes. The rest are Sacrifices and now fall under your command.”

“But you stand over us all, High Magister,” the general said. “I would not flout the Queen’s sacred ranks.” Which was only barely true, Viyeki knew. Suno’ku was of the Iyora, the Owl Clan, in the male line of the legendary Ekimeniso himself, Queen Utuk’ku’s long-dead husband. The Iyora were all but co-equal with the queen’s own Hamakha clan, and both of them were as far above even Yaarike’s noble family as the uppermost peak of the great mountain stood above the squares and public markets of the Nakkiga floor. Among the noblest clans, family blood always outweighed the hierarchy of the orders, even the most powerful, like Sacrifice and Song.