\hypertarget{chapter-16-anchor}{%
\section{Chapter 16: Anchor}\label{chapter-16-anchor}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``To suffer defeat is not to be defeated. One is an occurrence,
the other a state of mind.''}

-- Dread Empress Sanguinara, the Shrewd
\end{quote}

It was as if our armies had played a round of musical chairs.

The Loyalist Legions had been camped at the tip of Moule Hills, south of
us, but they'd burned that camp to force us out of our camp in Kala
Hills. Then we'd gone around those same hills and stolen a march south
of them, taking Kala Fortress and setting up over their supply lines.
The final bit of surprise, though, had been when Marshal Nim had marched
her army south expel us from our new position and instead been forced to
retreat north: Sepulchral's vanguard had popped up atop Moule Hills,
threatening to flank her if she gave battle. So now here we were, the
three of us staring at each other as the afternoon sun pounded down on
our helmeted heads.

The vanguard set up shop at Nim's old camp in Moule Hills, in what I
could only call a fit of irony. Not without paying for the nice campsite
and half-filled dry moat, though, going by the detonations and screams
that'd followed the rebel forces moving there. Looked like I'd been
right to think that the Black Knight had trapped the area with goblin
munitions before leaving it. We were keeping an eye on both the other
armies in the region, scouts out and about, but not going on the
offensive. The unexpected arrival of Sepulchral's three thousand had
bought us time and we intended to use it to the fullest.

See, even after having outmanoeuvered the Loyalist Legions none of us
thought it was anything but stupidity to try to go and attack them in
their -- formerly our -- fortified camp in northern Kala Hills. And
given the disparity in our numbers and the fact we'd taken some bruising
losses, none of us were particularly eager to face Marshal Nim in a fair
pitched battle either. The chances were high that even if we won the
costs would make it a strategic defeat. If Juniper had been herself I
might have risked it, but as she was\ldots{} The Hellhound was still
largely silent during the war councils she was supposed to be leading.

On the other hand, we couldn't just let the Black Knight slap us out of
our superior position either. We could cut off her supply lines from
here and ensure we wouldn't run out of water. So Sapper-General Pickler
had given us our solution.

``We raise a wall,'' she said, leaning over the map. ``Between Moule
Hills and Kala Hills, at the narrowest part of the valley.''

And so while half our army had gone in the rest to shade, the rest had
spread out across the valley. Sappers and regulars were digging
trenches, going from east to west, while palisades were being raised.
Our main camp was still next to Kala Fortress, where we could use the
wells and the walls, but out in the valley two makeshift forts were
already under construction behind the trench line. The Legions hadn't
taken that lying down, of course. The auxiliary cavalry had come out in
force the moment it'd become clear what we were doing, but we'd been
waiting and ready. It'd not been lightly armed Levantines facing down
the riders, this time, but a proper shield wall with crossbowmen behind
it.

After a hard reminder of the difference in range and power between
javelins and standard-issue Legion crossbows, the enemy horse had beaten
a retreat. They kept harassing us all afternoon, though, even as the
Loyalist Legions mounted their answer to our new stratagem. I was
standing next to Pickler as it began to play out, sighing.

``We should have seen that coming, really,'' I admitted.

She spat to the side.

``They'll get their fortifications up faster than we will ours,''
Pickler warned. ``We're outmatched in both sappers and labour.''

In answer to our containment of them with a trench and wall, the Legions
of Terror had begun building their own to our north. Not even that far,
damnably enough. About two hundred feet beyond our furthest crossbow
range, with their cavalry waiting out in the valley just in case we got
foolish enough to try a skirmishing war. Pickler was right, I grimly
thought, as she tended to be when it came to sapper's work. I could
already see the gap between the capacity of our armies in action: the
Legions had begun working three hours after us yet already they'd caught
up to two thirds of our trench length.

``Theirs are more vulnerable,'' I noted. ``They still have Sepulchral's
three thousand on the wrong side of the walls.''

Which might actually be part of the plan, I thought. The Black Knight
would either bait them down from the hills in an ill-advised attack or
fortify around them until they became irrelevant. That might explain why
she wasn't being more aggressive in trying to get us off her supply
lines. She wasn't digging in to stay so much as putting up defences to
prevent being flanked before she hammered away at us. From her point of
view, this battle would be settled long before her stores of food were
at any risk of running low.

``I can't speak to that,'' Pickler shrugged. ``You know my interest in
tactics is limited. What I can tell you, though, is that we'll need our
best skirmishers in Kala Hills tomorrow.''

I had to crane my neck more than I wanted to so I could have a look at
her. She was standing on the side of my missing eye. I felt my fingers
clench. It was always the little things that got to me.

``Why's that?'' I frowned.

``We don't have enough stakes to make a wall the length of the entire
valley,'' she said. ``And neither do the Legions. So we're going to have
to cut wood, Catherine, and the only place in the region that has any in
the quantity needed-''

``- is Kala Hills,'' I finished.

Plenty of brushlands in those rocky hills, some proper trees too. With
this having turned into a war of entrenchments, those bushes and trees
had just become as precious a commodity as water. We'd begin by cutting
the wood closest to our camps, of course, but then they'd need to go
south and we would need to go north. Closer to each other.

``The moment we both run out of \emph{sudes}, the easiest way to slow
the other side from building up is to harass the soldiers cutting
wood,'' I said, rubbing at the bridge of my nose. ``Shit. That's going
to get \emph{messy}.''

``That's a word for it,'' Pickler snorted.

She seemed amused, but her face suddenly stilled. She looked away,
biting at the inside of her cheek. A long moment passed, a silence I did
not dare to break. I knew whose memory had struck her like a punch in
the gut.

``He would have loved it,'' Pickler finally said. ``The mess. The
chaos.''

``The danger,'' I ruefully said.

She nodded, then returned to silence. Honest emotion was not something
that came easy to goblins, so I let her choose her words at her own pace
without sticking my foot in it.

``After Ratface died,'' Pickler said, ``I thought we were done losing
them. That we'd paid our due to the Gobbler, that the rest of us would
make it.''

``Nauk,'' I quietly said.

``He was gone long before they killed him,'' she said, shaking her head.
``The Warlock\ldots{} didn't bring much of him back. Not enough for it
to count.''

I did not disagree, keeping my shame to myself. I'd thought, once upon a
time, that Night might have mended that. These days I was not so sure,
but I had clutched that hope close in the early days of my return from
the Everdark.

``Then they got Hune,'' Pickler continued. ``That was\ldots{}''

``I didn't think you two were close,'' I said.

``We weren't. She wasn't the kind that made friends. But she was one of
\emph{us}, Cat,'' the goblin quietly said.

Over the years, somewhere along the line the veil that'd once separated
the Rat Company cadets from the Fifteenth had fallen. There just weren't
enough of us left for the distinction to matter. With every fresh war I
dragged us into, every hard stand, another body had dropped. We were a
dying breed, those few that'd been in it from the start.

``She was,'' I acknowledged.

Hune had not been my friend and I had never trusted her entirely. But
she had been one of us anyway, in that intangible way they only ever
quite became real when it started feeling like loss.

``And somehow I still didn't see it coming when Robber died,'' Pickler
said, tone bitter. ``He used to go around telling us he was invincible,
that he just couldn't seem to croak-''

My throat tightened and she stopped herself, looking at the men raising
walls in the distance.

``I guess I believed him a little, even when I rolled my eyes. I thought
that even if we all died, Catherine, he'd be the last one to bite it,''
she said. ``Somehow. It just never felt real that he could be\ldots{}
gone.''

``Sometimes I still feel like he'll pop out from behind a stone,'' I
admitted. ``Grinning, making fun of us for having gone soft.''

``But he won't,'' Pickler harshly said. ``He \emph{won't}. And there's
so many things with him I left half done, because I always thought
there'd be more time. After this battle, that plan, that book. I waited
until the Gobbler took him because I was too\ldots{} lazy to talk to
him.''

``We always think we could have done more, when people die,'' I said.
``Especially people we loved. It's not fair to either them or us.''

``What does fair ever matter?'' Pickler tiredly said. `'It won't fix a
thing. It's not wood and steel, I can't take out what's broken and make
good again. Instead what I have is regrets and a letter I'm too afraid
to open.''

I breathed in sharply. Hakram had told me Robber had left her a letter,
but I'd not known she had yet to read it.

``Why?''

``I know what's in it,'' Pickler said, then snorted. ``Or maybe I don't.
I don't know which scares me more.''

Robber had loved her, once. When we'd been little more than children he
and Nauk had both courted her attentions and fancied each other rivals,
not that anything ever came of it save bickering. She'd liked the
attention, but she'd never been all that interested in romance. Besides,
goblins thought of love differently than humans. It didn't mean the same
things, didn't carry the same expectations even when it was returned.

``Did you love him?'' I quietly asked.

Hesitation.

``No,'' Pickler replied.

Then she chuckled bitterly.

``Maybe,'' she admitted. ``It was\ldots{} messy. I thought he'd want
more than I wanted to give, so I never let him ask.''

I breathed out, hand itching for my pipe. I restrained myself.

``I think you did,'' I murmured. ``At least a little.''

Her shoulders tightened.

``After the war,'' Pickler finally said, ``I wanted us to go to the same
place.''

It was as close to admitting affection as she would ever get, I thought.

``I expect we all will, Pickler,'' I softly said. ``He's just gone on
ahead one more time.''

She laughed, a little grimly but genuinely. Goblin humour tended to run
even darker than my people's. There was a reason they got on so well
with Lycaonese, whose gallows humour was black enough even Callowans
balked at it.

``It feels like unfinished business,'' Pickler eventually said. ``That's
all. And I don't know how to finish it.''

\emph{Sometimes you don't}, I thought. \emph{You keep walking with that
weight on your back, knowing one day you'll buckle.} My instinct was to
lay a hand on her shoulder in comfort, but it would be no such thing to
a goblin. Instead I gave her the sole courtesy I had to offer: work to
disappear into.

``Prepare our builders for skirmish,'' I said. ``Draw on our reserves
for regulars if you need to.''

``You're going to hiss at the snake?'' Pickler asked, sounding
surprised.

Poke at the bear, I decided, only for the Grey Eyries. It always
surprised me that even after all these years there were still
expressions from east of the Wasaliti I'd never heard. In Lower Miezan,
anyway.

``Something like that,'' I said. ``I figure that we've got one asset the
Legions have no answer to, so it's about time to use it.''

I wasn't going to be sending skirmishers out to fight theirs in the
space between our trenches, I wasn't that much of a fool. They had
crossbow companies waiting for that mistake, same as us, and my men were
a lot more tired than Nim's anyway. The Army of Callow had marched all
night and not had a full eight hours of sleep since, it was on the
ragged edge. Instead I sent for two people: Archer and the Silver
Huntress. My instructions were straightforward.

``You see these people?'' I asked, pointing north.

The two of them eyed the enemy legionaries and sappers raising a wall
and digging a trench, a swarm of ants just outside the range of our
crossbows.

``Sure,'' Archer shrugged.

``I do,'' the Silver Huntress gravely replied.

``You've got bows and I want corpses,'' I bluntly said. ``Have at it.''

That got a delighted laugh out of Indrani and a measuring look out of
Alexis. Neither of them bothered to use the elaborate bows they'd
received as gifts from the Lady of the Lake, instead stringing good yew
longbows from Daoine after ensuring they were well provisioned with
arrows.

And then, easy as breathing, they began taking lives.

The enemy were maybe seventeen hundred feet away, well out the range of
even the longbowmen of the Watch. But these two were Named, sharpened to
a razor's edge in the greatest war of our time, and so they began
killing their way through the enemy as if were not impossible. Archer
went for officers, Huntress for the sappers. It took a while before the
enemy even realized what was happening: they scrambled about looking for
skirmishers that weren't there, at first. And even when they did
realize, the response was slow. Archer had killed the people who should
be shouting orders. Within half an hour the regulars were in a full
testudo and sappers were either huddling in their trench or gone.

At the hour's turn the sappers came back having assembled rough
mantlets, wooden walls on wheels they could bring forward and take cover
behind. It was a mixed success: the two archer Named first bled the
regulars that broke cover to put them in place and then ignored them
entirely, curving their arrows to fall down from above. Those shots
weren't anywhere as lethal, but they still disrupted the sappers trying
to get back to work. It was only half an hour after that the situation
came to a close, when mage lines were sent out to raise shield spells
around the sappers to protect them entirely. In the distance I recognize
the woman who led them. Tall, dark of hair and with strange golden eyes.
Akua looked our way as well, but nothing was spoken.

It was still too early.

``We could have at the mages,'' the Silver Huntress said. ``If we start
using our proper bows and our stock of mage-killing arrows.''

I shook my head. I might have considered it if they were mfuasa and
nobles, but these were Legion mages. We did not have enough mage-killer
arrows for this to be a good trade.

``Better to let them win now,'' I said. ``Let them feel safe and get
sloppy.''

Indrani eyed me amusedly.

``You're sending us back after nightfall,'' she said.

My smile was cold.

``Get some rest, you two,'' I said. ``You have a long night ahead of
you.''

And I needed to get back to camp. The fortifications were a good measure
to take, Pickler had been right to suggest them, but they weren't a
plan.

If we were going to win this, we needed one of those.

---

Vivienne wasn't alone in her tent when I went to see her. I'd been about
to enter anyway when I overheard the voice of who she was speaking with.
The Laure drawl wasn't rare in my army, but I knew the timbre of that
voice too. I was curious enough about what had brought the Squire to her
that I decided to\ldots{} actively overhear. It wasn't called
eavesdropping when it was a queen that did it, there were laws about
this stuff.

``-did a number on him,'' Vivienne was saying. ``I know there are parts
of Callow where he still has a good reputation, but they tend to be the
ones that saw little of him.''

``He was chosen by a Choir, I am told,'' Arthur hesitantly said. ``Can
that truly be a harmful thing?''

``Angels are a lot of things,'' Vivienne said. ``Most of them are good.
But do not ever, for a moment, believe them to be harmless. Even their
kindness has teeth, and Contrition has little other than the teeth to
offer.''

``Yet you fought with him,'' the Squire said, voice daring her to deny
it. ``At his side.''

``Some of the things we did back then were right,'' Vivienne said, tone
gone quiet. ``But some of the others\ldots{} we weren't fighting the
right battles, and not against the right people. Doing good's not always
the same thing as doing Good.''

``There's priests who would call that heresy,'' he said.

``Heard lot of that talk, when I was your age,'' Vivienne said, and I
could hear the hard smile in her voice. ``Heresy this, blasphemy that.
What did the Praesi care? Wasn't priests whining that got the Empire to
leave. Keep to Above of you want, there's nothing wrong with that. But
like Jehan the Wise said, prayer and a sword work better than prayer
alone.''

A sentiment I could get behind. The sword part of it, anyway. Deciding
I'd eavesdrop- actively overheard for long enough, I made my presence
known by loudly approaching. Fuck, I thought as I entered the tent, but
someone was going to have to teach the kid to hide his thoughts better.
He looked like I'd just caught him with his hand in a honey pot, it was
painfully obvious he thought he'd been doing something bad. I wasn't too
worried about talk of the Lone Swordsman, myself. Contrition had been
trying to hook the Squire from the start, but William was not a great
angle for them to take. A lot of Callowans hadn't been fond of the man.

That tended to happen when you carved messages into people's foreheads,
even when those people were Praesi.

``If you'd excuse me, Your Grace, Your Majesty,'' Arthur said, bowing.

I shrugged and Vivienne waved him away. She waited until he was gone
from the tent to cock an eyebrow at me.

``So how much did you listen at?''

I put a hand over my heart, deeply wounded by the implication.

``How dare you,'' I gravely said, ``and when you started talking about
the way people remember William.''

``The end, then,'' Vivienne said. ``Kid's been dreaming, but they're all
over the place.''

I frowned.

``Still the broken sword?''

I'd broken the Penitent's Blade and good luck to anyone trying to -- no,
Catherine, that was a good way to get stabbed with pointed irony in a
few years. Let it simply be said I had been thorough in dispersing the
shards of the angel's feather.

``He has a whole array of them,'' Viv replied, shaking her head.
``Different Squires. He does get the sword dreams, but I'd bet that's
Contrition trying to nudge him down that road.''

``Those nosy fuckers,'' I grunted. ``They need to learn when to quit.''

I wasn't above asking Zeze to look into the practicalities of a pointed
lesson for those vultures when this was all over. Malicia and Amadeus
had outlawed the Name of Chancellor, when she climbed the Tower, so
maybe I should look into outlawing the Hashmallim getting their sticky
fingers into any of my countrymen.

``He's not like William was,'' Vivienne frankly said. ``Nowhere enough
self-loathing. I imagine they'd like him on the throne instead of you or
me, but he's a lot more interested in knighthood than crowns. That bodes
well.''

``He's still a wild card,'' I said. ``Different Squire dreams means he's
not settled, Viv. No telling what kind of a Knight Name he'll end up
transitioning into.''

It sounded a lot to me like the Heavens dangling shiny paths in front of
their newest Callowan hero to find out what might stick. And there were
some that I simply wouldn't be able to tolerate. Rebel Knight, for one,
Eleanor Fairfax's old Name that'd popped up in Callowan history whenever
a tyrant needed toppling. It irked me how much Name lore about the days
of the Old Kingdom had been lost. I understood why my father had
destroyed pretty much all he could -- legacies were dangerous things
when you'd destroyed the last iteration of them -- but it still left me
more knowledgeable in the ways of Praesi Named than those of my own
kingdom.

Maybe it was for the best, I told myself. Using old tools and old means
tended to lead to the same old ends.

``Lots of that going around,'' Vivienne admitted. ``Yours is so close I
can almost taste it, Cat. You're already starting to get the
coincidences again -- what were the odds of you stumbling into this
talk?''

Low, practically speaking.

``I think it'll take shape when we settle the Tower,'' I admitted.

I'd know for sure if I started getting the reflexes again.

``You're not far either,'' I said. ``Or he wouldn't have been having
that talk with you in the first place.''

She grimaced.

``I'm not sure what it is,'' Vivienne said. ``And there's\ldots{}
something missing, I can't quite put it into words.''

``You need something to take you over the top,'' I said, tone clinical.
``You've got your Role and the will, but you need weight. A story that
people will talk about.''

That famous charge at the Battle of Hainaut had not been quite enough.

``I thought you might be angry,'' she admitted. ``I know you wanted
Callow to be ruled by someone without a Name.''

I sighed.

``Those provisions of the Accords are essentially dead,'' I said. ``And
in the end it's not a theoretical candidate I'm entrusting that throne
to, it's Vivienne Dartwick. I stand by that choice whether it comes with
a Name attached or not.''

Her eyes shone and I looked to the side.

``Thanks,'' Vivienne quietly said.

I cleared my throat uncomfortably.

``I did come for something,'' I said. ``Your scheme in the Legions?''

``Won't work if it looks like we're losing,'' she replied. ``I'm still
looking into getting in contact. It's ready, I just need my foot in the
door.''

``Hurry it up,'' I asked. ``I'm not sure we'll be getting a decisive
battle before Sepulchral arrives. If the rest of her army arrives in
time, I want our finger ready to pull the trigger.''

``I'll see it done,'' she firmly replied.

I nodded. I was about to take my leave when I saw hesitation on her
face.

``Viv?''

She brushed back an errant strand that'd fallen out of her braid. It
still looked like a crown, her milkmaid's braid, even when she did not
wear the silver circlet that'd become hers when I formally named her a
princess of Callow. She bit her lip.

``The Name,'' Vivienne quietly said, ``I do not know if it will
be\ldots{}''

She trailed off, hesitating again.

``I don't think it will be one of Below's,'' she said. ``Cat, I know
that-''

I limped forward a step, leaning over the desk, and even as her eyes
widened in surprise I pressed a kiss against her forehead. She looked
up, startled, as I drew back.

``I didn't name you my successor so you could keep making my mistakes,''
I said.

There was nothing more to say, as far as I was concerned, and so on
those words I left her.

---

Staff Tribune Aisha Bishara still brewed what was probably my favourite
tea in the world. Herbal Wasteland stuff, nothing like the horrid
imported leaves that Hasenbach was so wild about, and I'd yet to ever
dislike a mug she'd made me. Not that the pleasant taste made what we
had to talk about any more pleasant.

``I've never seen her like this before,'' Aisha said. ``In her first
year at the College she had moments, before she found her footing, but
this is different.''

I grimaced.

``I didn't see it coming,'' I admitted. ``I know Nim pulling one over us
twice in a row had to be a shock, but we've had hard rides before. What
makes this different?''

Aisha elegantly sipped at her tea, which was the polite Taghreb way of
gathering's one's thoughts without being uncouth.

``It has been coming for some time, I think,'' Aisha finally said.
``Looking back now. But I am afraid that the tipping point would be
you.''

I froze in my seat a moment, taken aback.

``I thought I'd made it clear I still had full trust in her abilities,''
I slowly said.

``Yes,'' Aisha gently said. ``Which made it sting all the more when she
failed your trust by being defeated so starkly.''

\emph{Fuck}, I eloquently thought. Had I been turning the knife without
even realizing it?

``She said things, after you left,'' I began, hesitant to continue.

``She's afraid it didn't all come back,'' Aisha murmured. ``Yes, she has
confided as much in me before.''

``The Grey Pilgrim himself said she was all there,'' I told her. ``It
wrecked her body to extract the commands, the hooks were deep, but the
weakness is purely physical.''

``You trusted the man, which weighs on the scales, but not all of us are
eager to take the word of the Peregrine for anything at all,'' she
replied. ``It is doubts, Catherine. She believes she was either lessened
by Malicia's spells or never on even footing with the Empire's marshal,
and cannot believe in either without loathing.''

Aisha sighed and then, for one of the few times in all the years I'd
known her, slumped into her seat.

``And she loathes the indecision too,'' she continued, ``which makes
even standing still a defeat. It is\ldots{} tangled, Catherine. And
perhaps this was a long time coming. We all rose swiftly under you. Some
might say too quickly.''

I sipped at my tea.

``I'm not one of those people,'' I said. ``And unless someone else has
taken to wearing my crown, that's the only trust in need of keeping.''

She met my eye, then slowly nodded. Aisha had always been hard to read,
her lovely heart-shaped face ever showing anything she did not want it
to.

``I am proud, you know,'' Aisha quietly said. ``Of the army we built,
all of us. The kingdom. It was bitter and often thankless work,
Catherine, but you did not pretend otherwise when you asked us to follow
you. And looking at all we have done, even after all it cost us, I am
deeply proud.''

She slid a finger around the rim of her cup.

``I would not let that legacy bury us,'' Aisha said. ``Juniper\ldots{}
if she fails you here, it will haunt her to her grave.''

``I don't know how to make her eager for the fight again,'' I admitted.

I'd never had to, before. Never learned to.

``I might,'' she said. ``I looked through her papers as she slept.''

My eye narrowed but I did not interrupt.

``She has been sketching out theories,'' Aisha said. ``And one stood
out. I would have us show her, Catherine, that she is not blind and
lost.''

``I'm listening,'' I said.

And we planned, the two of us, how to follow the plan my Marshal hadn't
given me.

---

For a bit, it looked like we'd accidentally started a night battle.

Archer and Huntress had come out to reap another harvest of lives, but
when they began shooting at the legionaries sleeping in forts exactly
like those we'd raised -- it was the same damned pattern both sides used
-- it looked like we'd kicked a hornet's nest. Not only did goblins and
regulars come out in force, but so did a large force we hadn't
anticipated. The entire Eighth Legion had left the camp in Kala Hills
and begun marching towards the trenches. Our watches and horns did their
job properly, calling for a brisk assembly, but it was clear that we'd
not get to our fortifications in force before the enemy did. Not that it
mattered, I thought, because the Eighth wasn't actually there to attack
us. Juniper had believed it would be two legions, but she'd written that
a delaying force at least one strong would march our way.

Now there were two more of her predictions left to come true.

The first came true within a quarter bell. In perfect marching order,
the Eleventh and Fourteenth Legion crossed the valley to begin an
assault on the camp in Moule Hills where Sepulchral's vanguard was now
beginning to wake in a panic. Eight thousand legionaries marching
against the three thousand mixed force of household troops and cavalry.
If the Black Knight closed in before they were ready, and she would, it
would be a slaughter. I was rather proud of how quickly the Army of
Callow began gathering in the valley facing the Legions. By the time the
Eighth finished living up to their cognomen of Trailblazers and took
over the Legion fortifications facing ours, our own vanguard of three
thousand was on its way to our side of the trenches.

``I think we took them by surprise with the harassment by Archer and
Huntress,'' I mused. ``At a guess, because of the dark they thought it
was an attack on their position.''

``Then why did the Eighth march out so quickly?'' Vivienne asked with a
frown.

``Dedicated response force,'' I said. ``Nim had them waiting for
something like this. Which is why there's only one other legion marching
to reinforce them.''

I pointed in the distance, where the Thirteenth was marching to bolster
the Eighth in their defensive position. The Black Knight's own legion,
the Seventh, was staying back. Serving as a reserve, most likely.

``And now the Legions gamble on our being too slow to stop them from
wiping out the Askum troops,'' Vivienne muttered. ``Isn't Marshal Nim
afraid we'll overwhelm the eight thousand she's putting in our way?
Sepulchral sent household troops, not the sort of men who die quickly.
If we gather enough soldiers here, we could break the two legions in our
way and perhaps even defeat her army while it's divided.''

``Good instinct,'' I praised. ``She's very much afraid of that. It's why
she's kept her own legion as a reserve, it keeps her options open. That
way she can either use the Seventh to shore up the defences in the
valley or to give second breath to the assault on Sepulchral should it
stall out.''

``It still seems risky, especially trying it at night,'' Vivienne said.
``What if we gather quicker than she anticipated?''

``Here's where it gets interesting,'' I mused. ``See, what we sent to
reinforce our trench was our readied troops. Night watch, soldiers on
duty. It was a pretty solid number for an army our size. But the second
wave of our soldiers is going to come slower. They'll need to wake, put
on armour, find their officers and muster before marching out. There's
going to be a beat between the two waves.''

``So she attacks us when she still has more soldiers on the fronts than
we do?'' Vivienne guessed.

``That'd be a blunder,'' I said. ``If she tries to overwhelm our
trenches, she risks our people holding and her men being out of
formation when our second wave does arrive. That could go \emph{really}
badly for her, the kind of disaster you were talking about earlier.''

``So what does she do?'' the sole princess of Callow asked. ``Why are we
here, Catherine?''

``Because the Hellhound believes that Marshal Nim is going to make use
of that beat between the waves,'' I said. ``Not to overwhelm our
position in the valley, no, but to delay the reinforcements. To make
sure that we can't threaten to overwhelm \emph{her} position in the
valley while she deals with the Askum camp.''

``And how would she do that?'' Vivienne asked.

I wasn't the one who answered her. It was, instead, the thunder of
thousands of hooves against the half-road. Three thousand auxiliary
horse rode down the sole road of the valley, well to the west of the
standoff between the Eighth and our vanguard. They weren't heading there
in slightest, after all: they were going to continue doing the road
before taking a brisk turn east towards Kala Fortress, to strike at my
soldiers before they could properly form up into a second wave. They'd
retreat soon enough, light horse couldn't handle the Army of Callow in a
lasting fight, but all they had to do was sow enough chaos and death to
slow us down before running away.

It would buy the Black Knight long enough to do achieve what she was
after, removing Sepulchral's vanguard from the board.

Of course, there was just one little bit of trouble with that. Three
thousand light cavalry, packed in a tight column so they could make the
best use possible of the road, were a fearsome force. But also a fragile
one. So I wanted until they were in deep, too late to easily leave, and
then I turned to Grandmaster Brandon Talbot. He'd been waiting all this
time, listening with an eager look on his face.

``I'm going to pull down the veil,'' I said. ``Ready?''

``At your word, Your Majesty,'' he replied.

It'd been a pain to get Masego to anchor the Night-working in a stone
and meant it had been a pretty basic illusion, but it'd allowed me to
get around that little trick of Akua's with the red light circle. The
Legions had gotten too dependent on that for sniffing me out, they
really ought to have known better. With a murmured prayer I tore the
Night out of the stone, feeling it crumbled to dust in my hand, and
suddenly the moon shone pale above the glinting ranks of the Order of
the Broken Bells. Lances down, shields up, the knights were in broad
flanking positions just ahead of the largest cavalry force left in the
Wasteland. I glanced at Vivienne, grinning and gesturing at our foes.
She grinned back.

``KNIGHTS OF CALLOW,'' she shouted. ``FORWARD!''

Once, twice, thrice the horn sounded.

Death followed.
