The Heroes

hardened warriors even so. Then there are Named Men, veterans who have won a celebrated place through deeds on the battlefield and serve as officers, bodyguards or scouts in small groups called dozens. Like them.’ She pointed out a shabby set of the Dogman’s men, shadowing the column on the ridge-line to their right. ‘I’m not sure anyone knows how many Black Dow has, altogether. Probably not even Black Dow does.’
    Aliz blinked. ‘You’re so knowledgeable …’
    Finree very much wanted to say, ‘yes, I am’ but settled for a careless shrug. There was no magic to it. She simply listened, observed, and made sure she never spoke until she knew what she was speaking of. Knowledge is the root of power, after all.
    Aliz sighed. ‘War is terrible, isn’t it?’
    ‘It blights the landscape, throttles commerce and industry, kills the innocent and rewards the guilty, thrusts honest men into poverty and lines the pockets of profiteers, and in the end produces nothing but corpses, monuments and tall tales.’ Finree neglected to mention that it also offered enormous opportunities, however.
    ‘So many men injured,’ said Aliz. ‘So many dead.’
    ‘An awful thing.’ Though dead men leave spaces into which the nimble-footed can swiftly step. Or into which nimble wives can swiftly manoeuvre their husbands …
    ‘And all these people. Losing their homes. Losing everything.’ Aliz was gazing moist-eyed at a miserable procession coming the other way, forced from the track by the soldiers and obliged to toil through their choking dust.
    They were mostly women, though it was not easy to tell, they were so ragged. Some old men, and some children along with them. Northern, certainly. Poor, undoubtedly. Beyond poor, for they had virtually nothing,their faces pinched with hunger, jaws dangling with exhaustion, clutching at heartbreakingly meagre possessions. They did not look at the Union soldiers tramping the other way with hatred, or even with fear. They looked too desperate to register emotion of any kind.
    Finree did not know who they were running from exactly, or where they were going. What horror had set them in motion or what others they might still face. Shaken from their homes by the blind tremors of war. Looking at them, Finree felt shamefully secure, revoltingly lucky. It is easy to forget how much you have, when your eyes are always fixed on what you have not.
    ‘Something should be done,’ murmured Aliz, wistfully.
    Finree clenched her teeth. ‘You’re right.’ She gave her horse the spurs, possibly flicking a few specks of mud over Aliz’ white dress, covered the ground in no time and slid her mount into the knot of officers that was the frequently misfiring brain of the division.
    They spoke the language of war up here. Timing and supply. Weather and morale. Rates of march and orders of battle. It was no foreign tongue to Finree, and even as she slipped her horse between them she noticed mistakes, oversights, inefficiencies. She had been brought up in barracks, and mess halls, and headquarters, had spent longer in the army than most of the officers here and knew as much about strategy, tactics and logistics as any of them. Certainly a great deal more than Lord Governor Meed, who until last year had never presided over anything more dangerous than a formal banquet.
    He rode at the very centre of the press, under a standard bearing the crossed hammers of Angland, and wearing a magnificent azure uniform rigged with gold braid, better suited to an actor in a tawdry production than a general on campaign. Despite all that money wasted on tailoring, his splendid collars never seemed quite to fit and his sinewy neck always stuck from them like a turtle’s from its shell.
    He had lost his three nephews years ago at the Battle of Black Well and his brother, the previous lord governor, not long after. He had nursed an insurmountable hatred for Northmen ever since and been such a keen advocate of war he had outfitted half his division at his own expense. Hatred of the enemy was no qualification for command, however. Quite the reverse.
    ‘Lady Brock, how wonderful that you could join us,’ he said, with mild disdain.
    ‘I was simply taking part in the advance and you all got in my way.’ The officers chuckled with, in Hal’s case, a slightly desperate note. He gave her a pointed look sideways, and she gave him one back. ‘I and some of the other ladies noticed the refugees on our left. We were hoping