The rain was still pouring down from the swollen sky as we marched in close ranks on the Ac Pass. The battle plans had been drawn up and I found myself once again with the infantry, right in the middle of the soldiers' square, but this time Ulrick wasn't there to support me.

Between the blinding gusts of the deluge and the adult bodies crowded all around, I couldn't make out much except the banner. Someone had dyed the waddan plow with walnut stain in a sickbay sheet, and the wind tormented the faded icon three spans above me. I had Jask on my right and Ringer had moved back behind me to prevent anyone from stepping on me. Around us were two hundred other meat shields sputtering, coughing, and shaking as they tried to keep pace with the main troop further south. We were going to war this time and it was worse than Lager, because we had a whole night to think about it.

The square of mercenaries to which I had been assigned was the pivotal point in the bold strategy that Vittori had presented to the vaïdoerk. Since I was of no use to the cataphracts or the archers, I was a spare part. I was put with the scum, the rejects and the pot-boys, where I wouldn't get in the way of anyone. Ulrick didn't like it, but I puffed my chest and said I had to earn my pay like the others. I didn't know many people, except for the thirty or so survivors who remained from the ragged rear guard, but in the end they all looked alike. Gaudy, boastful and brave, full of spite and bad wine. We were the seneschal's unlikely bet, and it was a daring one. If we ran away, everything would be ruined. If we held on, every dying soldier would buy time, and the battle would be decided by the price we sold our lives for. Only the handful of Five-Cities swordsmen greeted this news with a smile. No one else was fighting for glory, and most had families to feed.

In the distance, over the plains of Wadd, a storm was rumbling.

Amplified by the surrounding mountains, the dry detonations sometimes added their voice to the deafening clamor of the advancing army.

"They're still on the walls, those bastards!" shouted the tall lancer with dilated nostrils who was squeezing me on the left. By reflex I looked up, seeing nothing but shivering necks and helmets and bodies. The soldier who had shouted squinted because of the drizzle, then looked down at me. His eyes were stupid and bovine, amazingly blue, and water ran down his nasal cervelliere. "You can thank your gods for the rain, little Val," he sputtered in his gruff voice. I spat, chilled by the downpour. My partner was right, but he wasn't telling me anything I didn't know, and I despised him for his ignorance, his stupid look and his loud voice. "I have no gods and I'm not Val," I muttered in a surly voice, but with the din the soldier didn't hear me. Somewhere ahead, on walls I couldn't see, ten detachments of Hillian longbowmen were preparing to welcome us.

Corin Gon's army was deployed in exactly the same way as when Vittori had first attempted to approach them a week earlier. Wisely, the young seneschal had turned back.

Today, he could not hope for better conditions, and retreat was not an option. Our opponent knew he had the advantage of terrain and numbers, and he seemed confident about his strategy, so confident that he didn't bother to change it. The situation proved him right. In all likelihood, the Hillians could simply wait, firmly planted in their positions. If Vittori didn't try something, if he didn't go and play on the enemy's ground, according to the rules that the enemy dictated, the winter snows would force us to turn back.

At its widest, the Pass was half a dozen miles long, a true crucible through the Thorns, which gave the impression that a mountain should have been placed there. Ac-Pass was sheltered against the heights of the northern flank of the gap, nearly fifty spans above the huge gorge. In spite of this, during the first Pass war, more than a century before, the little town had changed hands four times, and in the meantime Hill had seen fit to provide it with proper fortifications.

The labor must have been unbelievably hard and I could see how it had taken a hundred years. Today, the chief town of this rocky little canton had enough to give any army pause. If I had been there for any other reason, I would probably have laughed in the face of the man who told me he could get past its defenses and take the town.

On top of Windy-Pass - the rocky peak around which Ac-Pass had been built - a thick hexagonal wall had been erected to reinforce the old citadel. Below, dominating the Pass and the road that crossed it, the rest of the city straddled the foundations of this rocky ridge, surrounded by walls and towers. In the shadow of Windy-Pass, tiny streets clung to it, most of them steep and winding, chaotic grooves carved into the most welcoming corners of the rock. The city could only be reached by two winding paths, which rose from the relatively flat bottom of the Pass to climb up to the gates. There was a third entrance, narrow and crooked, which opened directly onto the mountain, behind the town itself, but this gate was only used by shepherds and was almost impossible to reach from the Pass because of the ravines.

From the edge of the main road in the south to the foot of the cliff on which the city walls had been erected, a deep depression ran along the entire length of the pass. Whether it was the remnant of an ancient earthquake or a forgotten river, no one could say. The locals called it the Breach, and even though erosion had softened the slopes, wooden walkways had been thrown across it to make it easier to walk. All this created an uneven terrain, easy to defend for those who knew it, and Corin Gon exploited it as best he could.

We advanced from the west. The Hillians were waiting for us in a solid line, stretching from the Breach to one of the farms south of the road, deserted for the occasion. They had positioned themselves backwards, so as to force us to pass in front of the towers and ramparts of Ac-Pass before reaching them. In the shelter of these battlements, more than thirty spans above the roadway, Corin Gon had placed his archers. It was a diabolically simple plan. The Hillians were protected by their shooters, no matter which direction we approached. If we engaged them head-on, their line could pin us down while we wisely offered our left flank to the arrows coming from the battlements. The square of soldiers in which I marched was that left flank, and Vittori's strategy was to give the opponent exactly what he expected.

My boots were sinking into the wet ground. As the square advanced, it kneaded the quagmire as one plows a field. The heaviest men, Vaw's soldiers and their heavy coats of mail, struggled to keep up.

We had only two assets: the torrential rain, and Val's cataphracts, who were biding their time with the rest of the cavalry somewhere behind the main troop. On my left I could see the walls now, the dark, dripping battlements clouded by the downpour, and the blurred figures bending their bows there. "Watch out for the arrows," Ringer growled as he patted my aventail. Other men were already beginning to raise their shields. I held my breath, listening to the hissing.

The first shots appeared through the rain, black and swift. Then, soft thunks, as the projectiles found the shields. To the rhythm of the march was added this dangerous staccato, a fast drum that came to bite the wood in search of the flesh that shivered beneath. In retaliation, the foot soldiers shouted curses and insults at the wall. "Sons of whores!" barked Ringer in my ear, and for once it wasn't his tongue that found itself the most flowery. Another warning shout, we raised the shields again, and another ineffective volley found them. A longbow projectile came to plant itself in the shield of my stupid neighbor, another bounced on the meshes of the soldier in front of me, who cursed and broke it under his foot. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Jask grinning. We had the rain on our side and we were walking a hundred spans from the walls. For the moment, the projectiles were falling short, or losing enough strength in flight not to be an immediate danger. Low and threatening, the clouds that I had cursed for two weeks were finally redeeming themselves.

"Chop chop, boys!" bellowed the captain of the Children of Yss, the most substantial of the poor companies employed by Vittori. He was a grizzled, experienced mercenary who had lost an ear and picked up his share of scars on the other side of the Strait, working for Rajja, Vass, or the dukes of Lema. His hound-like face was imposing, and it only took one glance to see that he knew what he was doing. Since his job was to kill as an example and to motivate other men to march with him to their deaths, he had been given command of the square. As obedient dogs, under the command of his rough voice, we pressed forward. The cadence of the boots became faster, covering the whistling of the arrows and the snapping of the big bows on the battlements.

The shots were no longer coming in volleys now, but were falling incessantly, popping up unexpectedly through the gusts. Two rows behind me, an unlucky highlander stumbled and yelped. On the left side, someone else shouted a comrade's name - or maybe it was his mother's - and collapsed coughing into the mud. Tightly packed bodies regularly hit my shield, in front, behind, beside, but I cherished those bumps and each bruise. The square was beginning to reek of fear, a pungent smell of sweat and slaughter, and the men were praying to their gods between gasps. Ten incantations in ten different languages so as not to be the next to fall. Grunts and curses. Howls and gurgles, when the gods turned away for good. Small as I was, well in the center of the formation, I wasn't at much risk of being shot at, but that didn't stop me from bending under my shield like the others. I wasn't Vittori, and my startled heart wasn't in the mood for betting. "How far are we?" I asked between breaths, to anyone who would listen to me. "Three hundred paces!" the captain shouted a few moments later, as if he could have heard me from the second row.

"Hold the line!"

There was a wet cry on the left. The brownian with the flaring nostrils staggered with an arrow across his cheeks, spitting his red blood into the mud. He tried to slow down, the man behind him swore and shoved him forward.

"Don't stop, you son of a bitch!" shouted another fierce soldier, and the wounded man moaned while bleeding. Jask's hand came up to my face like a snake. There was a sharp rubbing. The man screamed, his mouth full of tailplane, his tongue split open, and Jask swung the arrow over his shoulder. "If you fall...", Ringer began before an arrow ricocheted off his dented helmet and silenced him. The guy nodded and cried, and it trickled down his pierced cheeks. I shuddered and looked away from behind the shield to avoid seeing his red sobs. "Two hundred paces, boys," the captain said.

"Let's run, come on!" A long arrow pierced the neck of the lancer who was running three rows ahead of me. He collapsed and the square ran over his twitching body.

"A hundred paces!" The rain was lashing my face, and my mails were heavier than ever. The leader of the Children of Yss was foaming and, given the speed at which we were moving, I wondered where he could find the strength to yell so loudly. "Stay in formation! No one goes beyond the Breach! Keep your eyes on the flanks, that's where they'll be! A crown for the first to kill one of these fuckers!" A great shout went up from our ranks, I found myself shouting too, and then the answer came from the line ahead. I could not see it, I could not see anything, I could only hear a thousand thundering voices, spitting their hatred and fear at us. I had the time to wonder briefly what I was doing there, then we struck the hillian front with a crash. Other, less glorious screams followed right after. Next to me, the mercenary with the split cheeks was sobbing softly. His trousers were smoking, because he'd pissed himself.

Like many here, this was his first fight. I snorted, arched against the back of the enraged Vawan soldier who bellowed insults at the top of his lungs.

From where I stood in the cold mire, squeezed between a greasy coat of mails and Ringer's shield, I had even less visibility than before, and I didn't dare expose myself, for fear of suffering the same fate as my neighbor. I still had my ears. The drops that pounded on my head and the armors all around. The hopeless or furious cries in front, and the hissing of the arrows that always fell heavily on the square, some from behind as we were so far ahead. Then on the right there was a new concert of shouts, Wadd's regular troops charging the enemy. The clash of weapons, more and more deafening, the nervous gasps of those who wielded them. I could not see anything, but I could guess what was happening, and for the moment everything was happening as Vittori had foreseen. The commander, being a great slaughter artist, kept us where he had to, on the edge of the Breach. Hill's line wrapped itself around our square from the left, gripping us tightly like a murderous suitor.

Soon there was much less shooting, because the archers on the walls did not want to risk hitting their brothers in arms. Our soldiers were still paying for the embrace, and were dying slowly, one man after the other.

The mercenaries were advancing to replace those who had fallen under the roar of the captain, who was fighting at the front, swearing like a sailor. At the very back, some of the soldiers had turned around to face the archers, and they were trying to protect us from the projectiles that were coming from behind us. The square was holding under the deluge, but we were fighting on two fronts, and everyone knew that this could not last. We moved forward, one fighter at a time to fill in the breaches, to replace the dead. Bodies were piling up, the wounded were heading back to the rear. My stupid neighbor barked as the tip of a new arrow went through his boiled leather, just under his shoulder. "Today's really not your day," sneered the mercenary behind him. The guy wiped his beard, sniffed the projectile, and spat in the mud. "I don't think it came from the shit bucket," he yelled in the unfortunate man's ear. Then the soldier in front of me awkwardly stepped aside to let a familiar limping figure pass.

The smiling Vassi, whose blood leaked from twenty different wounds, went and sat down a few men away, between two indifferent highlanders.

"He's done," Ringer muttered, as the man hugged his bloody arms. His lips, tinged with the blue of Rigan grass, trembled silently. Ringer was right. The Vassi was dying far from home, his eyes raised to the metallic sky. His faded kohl washed out with the rain, giving him the look of a sad minstrel. I don't think he was in too much pain, and he wasn't trying to fight what was happening to him. The Vassi had already fought enough that day. An arrow hit my shield, the swordsman shouted a couple of words that no one understood, and then his head swayed.

His braids fell before a grayish face, and he fell silent. Jask watched him die under the captain's insults and waited until the man stopped fidgeting to leave my side, take a step forward, and fill the empty space.

We were only three rows back from the front line when relief finally came.

Hill had three or four hundred men more than us, they were better equipped for the most part, and held the best positions. The only weakness Vittori had spotted on his first approach was their significant lack of cavalry: apart from his horsemen - the twenty close guards of Corin Gon - the enemy had only his infantry to oppose us. The seneschal had decided to bet everything on this: his own escort, the liege men of this handful of noblemen who had come to fight at his side, the cuirassiers of legate Carson, and especially the Val's cataphracts, that was nearly a hundred cavalrymen to tip the balance in our favor. The foot soldiers had played their role by keeping the enemy on the same spot. Well sheltered behind the line, our own longbowmen had pushed back Corin's horsemen. The noose had tightened around us, but it was a trap that bit both ways. The soldiers had held their ground against the arrows and the embrace of the enemy line, and now fear would change sides. Twenty horns resounded in the Pass. The vibration reverberated above the din in a thousand supernatural echoes, which I could have believed capable of splitting rock. Then, with a thunder of hooves, the Vals charged the Breach.