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  Krom opened the door, and strode into chaos.

  A square reception hall stretched ahead. Around the wall, various pages and squires stood ready with wine and ale, while the centre of the open space was a clutter of inebriated lords and military commanders. Some had acquired chairs for themselves, but with the shortage of wood out on the Spur most had been forced to settle for cushions. Those of lowest standing and means suffered with only garish rugs.

  Krom headed towards the rabble, searching the faces of the assembled men. There wasn’t one he recognised. Minor lords and second sons, he guessed. Nobody with any real authority. The din was ferocious with a dozen men arguing in the centre while smaller clusters around them seemed to have lost interest altogether and instead carried out their own conversations. They’ll be arguing till the gates fall unless we do something.

  ‘Which one of you idiots is in charge of the army?’ he roared as he neared the centre with Patrick, Balvador, Korwane and Valeron flanking him. Probably, he thought, to make sure I don’t kill anyone.

  The hubbub died down as Krom kicked a chair out of his way, the young lord seated on it toppling to the ground.

  ‘You can’t come in here a—’

  Krom floored the man in one punch. Some other fool took a step towards him, his mouth opening to protest. Krom drew and with a sword at his neck the fool fell silent.

  ‘Krom,’ Patrick whispered, the usually jovial knight sounding worried.

  Krom ignored him and addressed the room, ‘Have you idiots decided which one of you is responsible for the army?’

  ‘We are discussing the matter,’ one Meracian spoke up. ‘The succession following General Convin’s demise is uncertain.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to worry,’ Krom said, his sword arm still steady at the neck of the nearest Meracian. ‘The Reve are taking command of the army.’

  The uproar was brief, tapering off as Krom lifted the Meracian lord’s neck with the tip of his sword. He tilted his head as if considering the best way to decapitate the man, although in truth he already knew.

  ‘You have no authority over us,’ the same young lord – a thin, sallow-faced man with long, curly brown hair – objected. ‘It is our borders the Gurdal threaten, and it is for Meracians to decide how best to defend against them.’

  Krom lowered his weapon an inch. ‘Sounds fair,’ he said. ‘Except you’ve had, what, two days? And you haven’t even decided who’s in charge. If the Gurdal arrive tomorrow, they’ll sweep round the city walls, swarm through the poorest excuse for a camp I’ve ever seen, and then take the city while you’re all still drunk. Not one of you’s thought to place sentries or build fortifications; the Gurdal will be through before you know what’s happening.’

  ‘We will organise our men as we see fit to defend our country.’ A low chorus of agreement rose from the other lords.

  ‘No,’ Krom growled, ‘you’ll get your men killed needlessly and hand the Gurdal the free lands in one day. I don’t care about Meracia, but this isn’t about your homeland, this is about saving the souls of men from the demons and their Gurdal minions. This is the church’s war and the Knights Reve are running the show; you’re just here to make up the numbers.’

  One of the lords stood. ‘Why, you insolent—’

  He didn’t get any further as Balvador floored the man with one punch. ‘He’s right,’ the big Norvek knight added. ‘The Reve have been fighting the Gurdal for two centuries while you’ve been finding new things to do with lace. If you want to defeat the Gurdal, you need us.’

  ‘I am sure we will manage without you,’ someone to Krom’s right replied. ‘Stay and help Meracia if you will, but we will plan the defence of Galantrium. And if you think threatening us into submission will work, I suggest you think again; there are fifty of us and only five of you.’

  ‘Join us or lose your homeland,’ Krom snapped. ‘We need your men, but that doesn’t mean we need you. And,’ he added, ‘five of us is more than enough to cull this pitiful crowd. Even if it isn’t, we brought some friends.’ He nodded towards the doors, and saw several of the lords follow his gaze to the open entrance and a clump of white tabards standing there.

  ‘But it doesn’t need to come to that,’ Korwane said quickly as the mood began to change. ‘We all want the same thing, to defeat the Gurdal, and the Knights Reve know all about them: how they fight, how they think, and – above all – how to defeat them.’

  ‘No Meracian will put themselves under this man’s command,’ one of the lords objected. ‘You can’t expect any of us to follow a descendant of the man who killed Valeron.’

  ‘I ain’t asking you to follow me,’ Krom said, ‘I’m telling you you’re going to follow the Seven,’ he gestured to his companions, ‘else die here. The Reve takes their orders from them, and so will you.’

  ‘Seven?’ a young man on the edge of the group hiccoughed. ‘There’s only four. You can’t even count.’

  Krom felt Balvador’s heavy hand on his shoulder. ‘The Seven are only ever six in number,’ Balvador explained. ‘One is elsewhere, and the other already lost. The Reve have been fighting the Gurdal for years. You will not defeat them without our help.’

  ‘Yet nor will we place ourselves under your command.’

  ‘A compromise, then?’ the young man who had spoken to Krom suggested. ‘We decide our own commander, but he is advised by the Seven.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ Krom said before any of the others could get a word in. ‘You decide a commander right here, right now, and that man damn well does as he’s told by the Seven.’

  The young man smiled. ‘If you kill us, the men will turn against you.’

  Krom met his gaze head-on. ‘And if we leave, how are you going to kill the demons that come with the Gurdal? Know how to summon an angel, do you?’

  A worrying murmur rose among the lords and their captains, and Krom knew he had guessed right: they had been so preoccupied with their little power struggle they had forgotten what the war was really about, forgotten that the Gurdal likely wouldn’t come alone. And if the stories I’ve heard about Tol are true, we’re going to need him and that angel before this over.

  ‘You leave us with little choice.’

  Several men voiced protests but the young noble shook his head sadly. ‘A reasoned man would see the stalemate,’ he explained, ‘but these are not reasonable men. I believe they will leave us if they think we will lose.’ He looked to Krom. ‘Is that not right?’

  ‘Right enough,’ Krom agreed. ‘Don’t fight a battle you can’t win. If you fail here, we’ll wait till they leave the Spur. They’ll have to split up and that’s when we’ll hit them; take them apart piece by piece.’

  ‘But Meracia…’

  ‘Ought to have leaders that see sense,’ Krom finished.

  ‘We would rather stop them here,’ Korwane added, ‘but as things stand you will lose.’

  The grumbling slowly subsided. ‘We command our own units,’ the young noble said, ‘but the Seven direct our overall strategy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Krom agreed.

  ‘Until a more experienced commander arrives in the field.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you will listen to the suggestions of the captains?’

  ‘A good commander always does.’

  The young man nodded. ‘It is our only option,’ he told the others. Slowly, heads began to nod, even if the attached faces didn’t look happy.

  ‘Good,’ Krom said. ‘You’ve got some sense, lad. You’re the new Meracian commander. Unless, of course, anyone objects?’

  One lord a few feet behind Krom objected louder than the others. ‘Patrick?’

  Krom heard two footsteps, then the sound of a soft impact followed by the unmistakable groan of a man recently kicked in the plums. He smiled. ‘Anyone else?’

  6.

  Krom ground a knuckle into the side of his forehead. ‘You’re sure the numbers are right?’ He was back in the Shadowed Cup, this time with five
sullen Meracians alongside the four knights of the Seven.

  ‘I have checked them twice,’ said Lord Ry Carswell, the young nobleman who had suddenly found himself in charge of the Meracian army. The Meracian commanders had been dismissed a bell ago, but Carswell had insisted on two lords and three captains staying with him to offer counsel.

  ‘Patrick and I brought a thousand apiece, but fourteen thousand still isn’t enough to hold Galantrium, not against the full host the Gurdal will bring.’

  ‘Just how many of these Gurdal savages do you think there are?’

  Lord Bluff Deloris had been the other main candidate for leading the Meracian forces, a big, ruddy-faced man with girth enough for two. Part of Krom could see Carswell’s move to include his opponent as a clever way of gaining legitimacy among the Meracians. The other part was wishing the fat oaf would shut up, and stop arguing against the only sensible plan.

  ‘They’ve had two hundred years to prepare for this,’ Balvador said. ‘They’ll have more than fourteen thousand. A lot more.’

  ‘So why go charging down the Spur to meet them?’ Deloris demanded. ‘Dig in here, I say.’

  Krom looked the man in the eye. Deloris was lord of a minor Meracian house, but like Carswell his lands bordered the Karalvian Empire and it wasn’t uncommon for small bands to launch a raid into eastern Meracia. A defender, Krom decided, a man content to build high walls and let his enemies throw themselves against them while he whittles down their numbers. It was a good tactic, Krom knew, but only in the right circumstances. And that isn’t here. He rubbed his chin and considered how much to tell Deloris. Not everything, he decided, not yet. ‘It will probably come to that,’ he said, ‘but it’s a risk if we don’t know the numbers we’re facing.’ Krom noticed Patrick and Korwane looking at him suspiciously, as if they thought he might be building up to swift violence. He smiled to reassure them, but the furrows in their brows deepened.

  ‘Send some scouts,’ Deloris snorted, ‘but however many savages they bring, they won’t be enough for us, not if we lay out our defences properly.’

  ‘Charging south to meet the enemy offers no less risk,’ Ry Carswell pointed out. ‘Some might argue more, in fact.’

  ‘There’s a lot we don’t know,’ Krom agreed, ‘and that means we need to plan accordingly – and plan for the worst scenario we can think of.’

  One of the captains spoke up, a scrawny, dark-haired man with an overly long face. ‘And what might that be?’ he asked.

  ‘The worst case is that we’re outnumbered and the Gurdal aren’t just a bunch of disorganised savages but actually know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ Deloris barked.

  ‘Planning for the worst,’ Krom said evenly, ‘is the best way to keep your men alive.’

  ‘So we just send the whole army south and hope we get them behind a wall before the Gurdal arrive?’

  Krom felt Patrick’s hand on his arm and realised his hand was halfway to his dagger. He relaxed and nodded at Patrick, the Vrondi knight’s hand cautiously retreating a moment later. ‘No,’ he said, ‘we need a plan to shatter the Gurdal, to break them utterly so that they don’t come back for another two hundred years.’

  ‘And how do we do that?’ Carswell asked before Deloris could complain.

  ‘An advance party will leave when we are done here,’ Krom said. ‘The main army will follow at dawn tomorrow and work their way down to Obsidian – and then Siadendre, if we can reach it before the Gurdal.’ He leaned forward, and pointed at Bluff Deloris. ‘We do exactly as you say at each city,’ he said. ‘We hold the walls and rain arrows down on the Gurdal as they approach. The Spur’s narrow – only a couple of miles in places – so they’ll be bunched up tight and we’ll take a good number of them before they reach the gates. If they’ve got the numbers they’ll break through, but we retreat through the city, fight house-to-house with archers placed on the roofs.’

  ‘Tricky to do, that,’ the thin-faced captain offered.

  ‘Drade’s right,’ Carswell agreed. ‘It has to be perfectly co-ordinated otherwise…’

  ‘Did I miss something?’ Patrick drawled. ‘All I ever hear is how Meracians are the most organised fighting force in all the world – or is that just Meracian bluster?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Patrick grinned. ‘Well then, it shouldn’t be a problem for you five, should it?’

  Krom resisted a grin of his own as the Meracians realised they had been outmanoeuvred. ‘We make a fighting withdrawal north,’ he said. ‘With a bit of luck that will finish the Gurdal off and send them running back to the desert, but if it doesn’t we’ll cut their numbers with minimal losses of our own. If all else fails, we make our stand here – back where it all began.’

  The knights of the Seven were all nodding at that, and Krom knew that replaying that bit of the Reve’s history would appeal to them. But more importantly, he thought, it will give the King of Meracia a chance to send reinforcements.

  ‘That’s where you come in,’ Krom told Deloris. ‘Yours will be the most important job of all: making sure that Galantrium doesn’t fall.’

  The bulky lord seemed to puff himself out. ‘Might work,’ he grudgingly admitted.

  ‘It also,’ Captain Drade said, ‘gives us more time should other regiments arrive.’

  ‘There’s that, too,’ said Krom. He shrugged. ‘It’d be nice if we could send your king a message saying we’ve broken the Gurdal, but if there’s too many at least you’ll get the chance to ask for more men.’

  ‘It seems the best plan,’ Ry Carswell sighed.

  ‘You got a better one and I’ll listen.’ Krom drained the rest of his watered wine and watched as Ry Carswell sought counsel from Deloris and the three captains. Smart move, he thought as Carswell asked each in turn for their thoughts. He sounds genuinely interested, and that’s rare among commanders. A commander prepared to listen isn’t all stupid. And that’s something we can work with.

  Krom could sense the anxiety in his Reve brothers as one by one the captains offered their opinions. The three Ry Carswell had chosen as advisers were all experienced men who had seen some action in their service. Krom didn’t think it was coincidence that the chosen captains also commanded the three largest contingents of soldiers now on the Spur.

  Captain Dinshore was the first to offer his opinion. A broad-shouldered, plain-faced man, Dinshore looked like just an ordinary soldier. His clothing, Krom noticed, was only slightly more ostentatious than any other soldier a man might find on the battlefield. For most of the discussion his eyes had been heavy-lidded, and Krom had almost thought the man was dozing, but now, as Carswell asked for advice, Dinshore’s blue eyes opened wide and he spoke in a thick yet decisive voice, ‘Good plan.’

  Krom heard a quiet sigh of relief from Valeron. It was followed by a low grunt like he’d just been kicked under the table. Patrick winked and Krom forced down a smile. One in favour, he thought as Dinshore returned to a semi-somnolent state.

  Captain Velmark, in contrast, was tall, thin as a sapling, and immaculately dressed, his long earthen hair tied at the nape of his neck. He fingered a long, droopy moustache as he bathed in Carswell’s attention, seemingly giving great weight to the question. Not surprising, Krom thought. Velmark was in service to Lord Brondersley, whose lands bordered Serria on Meracia’s western flank. There, too, bandits and marauders crossing the border were no longer a rare sight – from what Krom had heard, raids into Meracia were becoming more and more commonplace. Velmark, so the tales went, had acquitted himself well in several large border scuffles, but it was clear from his manner that he had picked up a little of Lord Brondersley’s legendary self-importance.

  ‘I can find no fault with the plan,’ Velmark announced after a moment, his slightly disappointing tone suggesting he had really wanted to find a flaw.

  Captain Drade snorted loudly. ‘We bleed them and lose as few of our lads as possible. Plans don’t get any better than that; I like it.’ />
  The bench that held up Bluff Deloris groaned as he shifted his weight. ‘Seems a waste of time if you ask me,’ he grumbled. ‘The damned savages will break as soon as they see Meracian steel.’

  ‘We don’t know much about them,’ Valeron offered suddenly. He clamped his mouth shut as soon as the knights looked at him, and Krom wondered if the young knight had intended to speak aloud.

  ‘They bleed, they die, that’s all I need to know,’ Drade said.

  ‘No, we don’t know much,’ Krom agreed. ‘Every scout, every expedition that’s gone looking for them has never been heard from again. What’s your point?’

  Valeron offered a weak shrug. ‘For all we know they might be just as civilised as us,’ he said. ‘They might live in cities as grand as High Mera, or maybe they can work metal better than us.’ He shrugged again. ‘It’s unlikely, I know, but we just don’t know what to expect, do we?’

  Maybe there’s more to Valeron than I thought, Krom decided as the Meracians fell quiet. He remembered – all too well – everything he had learned about Hunt Valeron in Kur Kraven’s journal, and though Lareon seemed on the surface nothing like the bold yet thoughtful knight, Krom couldn’t help think there might be a touch of his ancestor in him. But how much?

  ‘Fine,’ Bluff Deloris barked with a wave of his hand. ‘I’ll support the plan if it reduces our losses.’ He adjusted a lace-frilled cuff. ‘But I still think it unnecessary.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Krom said to Carswell, ‘seems your commanders are of a like mind.’ He scowled at Deloris. ‘More or less,’ he added.

  ‘And I agree,’ Carswell replied. He ran his thumb along the pitted edge of the table. ‘The biggest threat will come from the demons. How many will the Gurdal bring?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Korwane admitted. ‘Could be none, or one, or a dozen.’

  Carswell swallowed, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘The Knights Reve are the chosen of the angels. Tell me, knights, how many angels will come to our aid?’

  The others were silent so Krom answered for them. ‘One,’ he said. ‘Always a single angel holds watch over Korte, never more, never less.’