Four thousand men climbed badly.
That was the first thing the mountains taught them.
They did not climb badly because they were cowards. Many were not. They did not climb badly because they had no discipline. Some had more than enough. They climbed badly because no road in the Mountains of the Moon cared how many banners had been blessed below, how many knights had sworn brave words in halls, or how much coin a lord had spent on mules, guides, salt meat, and stripped mail.
Stone narrowed when it pleased.
Mud gave way under the proud and the careful alike.
Mules balked at shadows. Men cursed at mules. Men behind cursed at the men cursing mules. Shields knocked against rock. Bowstrings had to be kept dry. Armor that had seemed light in a courtyard grew heavier every time the path rose. A column of four thousand did not move like a sword. It moved like a wounded snake, head forward, belly dragging, tail forever catching on the world.
Ser Osric Egen knew that.
He watched it from a rise above the lower cut, his cloak tucked beneath his belt, mail stripped to shirt, gorget, and helm. His horse had been left two valleys below with the heavier beasts. Every knight with sense had done the same. Every knight without sense had learned from the first dead horse and the second screaming one.
The column below him crawled upward in colors the mountain tried to dirty into one.
Corbray men came near the front, dark birds and red hearts hidden under mud-spattered cloaks, their eyes too sharp with shame to rest properly. Donnel Corbray walked among them rather than ride, a sword at his hip and the empty sheath of Lady Forlorn wrapped in dark leather on a mule behind him, guarded by two men who looked at it more often than they looked at the path. He had wanted it carried where all could see. Osric had refused. Pride was already leading too many men by the nose.
Belmore men followed with purple scraps under their travel cloaks, silver bells dulled with soot and oil so they would not shine. They complained less than Osric expected, which meant they were either hardier than they looked or saving their breath for better curses. Hunter men walked in green and brown, leaner than the rest, better on broken ground, and less impressed by anyone who needed a guide to find water. Among them came Ser Ronnel of Longbow Vale, a landed knight sworn to Longbow Hall, old enough to know caution, proud enough to resent needing it.
Behind them were Coldwater men, narrow-eyed and quiet, and Templeton riders turned walkers, their nine-star marks wrapped away but not forgotten. Smaller bands from northern and western holdings marched with them: men who owed service to stronger houses, men sent because their lords wished to be seen helping without sending sons, men who knew just enough of mountain paths to be dangerous to themselves and useful to Osric if kept alive.
Four thousand.
Too many for speed.
Not enough for comfort.
"They are running," Donnel Corbray said.
He had come up beside Osric without being called. That was becoming a habit.
Osric looked down at the path where scouts had returned with another bundle of signs: a cold fire ring, broken pots, a torn strip of moon-white hide, goat tracks leading inward, a little blood on stone.
"They are moving," Osric said. "That is not always running."
Donnel's face had not softened since the burned wedding village. If anything, grief had hardened into something cleaner and less useful. "We burned their border fire. We cut their tree. We found two more empty shelters and a hidden grain skin. They know we are coming."
"Yes."
"And they are falling back."
"Perhaps."
Donnel turned toward him. "You say perhaps to every victory."
"I have seen too many victories that were only doors."
Below, a mule slipped and nearly pulled two men backward before three others seized its ropes. One pack split open and spilled salt fish into mud. A Belmore man laughed, then stopped when his captain looked at him.
Donnel watched none of that.
His eyes were on the upper path.
"Every hour we wait, the sword goes farther."
Osric kept his face still. "Every hour we rush, the men carrying your hope grow more tired."
That struck.
Not enough.
Donnel looked at him with the cold fury of a man trying very hard to be reasonable. "Lady Forlorn is not hope."
"No," Osric said. "It is bait."
The Corbray's hand moved near his sword.
Not to draw.
Not quite.
"You think I do not know what they want?" Donnel asked.
"I think you know one thing they want. They want you angry. You are giving them that in both hands."
"They killed Corwyn."
"They killed a village."
"They took the sword."
"And if you chase the sword alone, they will take more."
Donnel's jaw tightened.
For a moment Osric thought he had reached him.
Then one of the forward scouts climbed the last bend and dropped to one knee before them. He was a Hunter man, face scratched, one sleeve torn, breathing hard but not panicked.
"My lords. We found the larger track."
Donnel turned first. "Where?"
"Above the dry spring. Many feet. Fresh enough. They tried to brush it but badly."
Osric frowned. "Badly?"
The scout hesitated.
That was answer enough.
"Show me."
The scout pointed up the path and east. "The track leads toward the old grey cut. Guides say it becomes a throat inside. Narrow, but passable. There are signs of children and goats moving inward."
Donnel looked at Osric.
Osric looked at the scout. "Who found it?"
"Marq, the paid guide from the lower hamlet. Then two Hunter men confirmed."
"Marq has been right before?"
"Twice."
"And wrong?"
The scout glanced at Donnel.
Osric said, "Answer."
"Once."
Donnel stepped closer. "Can four thousand pass?"
The scout swallowed. "Not at once. But yes, my lord. If slow."
"There," Donnel said.
Osric looked down at the long, tired snake of men below.
The mountain was giving them a road.
He disliked gifts.
"Send six forward," Osric said. "Not Corbray. Not Belmore. Hunter and Coldwater. No banners. No fire. They look and return. The column rests where it stands."
Donnel's eyes hardened. "Rest?"
"Yes."
"We are close."
Osric turned to him. "That is what worries me."
...
Above them, the mountains were already lying.
Moon Brother scouts had left the track too clean in two places and too dirty in three. That was Torren's correction. Men below mistrusted things that looked careless. They trusted things they believed they had uncovered despite care. So the signs had to seem partly hidden, partly failed, partly desperate. A broken pot beside the dry spring. Goat dung too fresh to be old but scattered wrong enough to seem hurried. A child's cord dropped near a stone shelf. Blood from a goat smeared thin where someone might have leaned wounded against rock.
Not too much.
Too much was a story.
A little was truth enough.
Torren watched from above Grey Throat while the first lower scouts entered the outer approach.
They came carefully.
That was good.
Careful men told themselves caution saved them, which made them slow to understand when caution had only brought them deeper.
Grey Throat lay below, a long wound in the stone. Its floor bent twice before narrowing between high walls where shelves broke the cliff faces into hidden teeth. The eastern entrance opened wide enough to flatter men into thinking the place was a road. The western exit looked real from below and cruel from above. A lower return cut curled away south, blind for half its length, and a dry spillway climbed toward rocks that could be crossed only by men who already knew where to put their hands.
Orrik had said the place could not hold four thousand.
Torren agreed.
That was why he wanted them stretched.
Around him, the clans took their places.
Moon Brothers were closest to the head. Their best runners moved like pale scraps of moonlight between the forward rocks, showing themselves just long enough to pull eyes and vanish before arrows could punish them. They hated it. Torren could see that in the way they moved. Pale Horn was still smoking behind them in memory. Their tree lay cut. Every Moon Brother wanted to strike with full teeth.
Orrik had made them wait.
That was why Torren trusted him.
Howlers worked the upper shelves. Wyl had men and women stacking loose stone behind low ridges, quiet as hunger. They had wrapped stones in hides in some places so they could drag them without clatter. They would drop the first stones, not shoot the first arrows. Wyl had complained until Torren asked whether he wanted men afraid or mules insane. After that he stopped complaining and began choosing better stones.
Black Ears moved behind the enemy's future tail. Grella's people had vanished before dawn toward rear cuts, mule tracks, and the guides' likely return marks. They would not begin the battle. They would make sure it could not end cleanly.
Stone Crows held the western false exit. Varok had taken the place with his best climbers and no fires. If the lower men reached that way, they would find crows above them and stone underfoot too steep to hold blood without slipping.
Painted Dogs lay near the lower return. Hokor held them there with jaw set and eyes colder than Torren liked. It was the hardest place for him. His blood wanted charge. His new fire needed stillness. Nella had not come to strike him into sense, so he had to carry sense alone.
Burned Men waited behind the red shelf.
They did not wait well.
Dolf came to Torren twice before midday. The first time, he asked how long. The second, he said nothing and simply stared down at the moving Andal scouts as if he could pull them closer with his teeth. The third time, he came while the first six lower scouts vanished back toward their column.
"You promised me fire," Dolf said.
Torren kept his eyes on the throat. "I promised you a place to burn. Not a place to die early."
"My men are not made to sit."
"No men are. Some learn."
Dolf crouched beside him, restless even in stillness. The burn scars on his arm caught the light like old red-brown bark. "Your father taught you patience?"
Torren did not look at him. "My father taught me that impatient men are useful if pointed properly."
The young Burned Man grinned. "And am I pointed properly?"
"Not yet."
"Then point."
"When their middle tries to become a wall."
Dolf's grin faded into something more serious. "You keep saying that."
"Because that is where they will try to live."
Below, the lower scouts reappeared at their own line, small shapes against grey stone. They spoke to the men in front. The front did not move at once. That was the cautious captain, Torren guessed. Then a darker knot moved near the front, Corbray men perhaps, and the line began to shift.
Dolf saw it too.
"They come."
"Yes."
"Now?"
Torren watched the first shields turn into Grey Throat's mouth.
"No."
Dolf breathed out through his teeth.
Torren finally looked at him. "If you go early, you give them one enemy. If you wait, you become the thing they fear after they already know they are trapped."
Dolf stared.
Then he laughed softly.
"That is cruel."
"Yes."
"I like it."
"I thought you might."
Dolf stood and went back to his men, still impatient, but now holding impatience like a knife by the handle instead of the blade.
Brak slid from behind a rock after he left.
"He will either be famous or dead before he is old."
"Both can happen."
"With him? Likely."
Torren nodded toward the throat. "Any word from the back?"
"Black Ears in place. Stone Crows in place. Hokor cursed at one boy for breathing too loud."
"Good."
"Which part?"
"All of it."
Brak looked down. "The lower men come thick."
"They think numbers are a wall."
"Numbers are a wall."
"On flat ground."
Brak spat over the ledge. "Good thing we have none."
...
Donnel Corbray entered Grey Throat with the front third.
Osric hated that.
He hated it before Donnel did it, hated it while Donnel argued, and hated it more when the argument ended in the one way pride always meant it to end. Donnel would not remain with the baggage. He would not remain behind Belmore men. He would not let Hunter trackers follow the signs while Corbrays waited like wet nurses.
Lady Forlorn was ahead.
Or so he believed.
Perhaps he was right.
Perhaps that was worse.
Osric placed Belmore men behind the Corbrays, Hunter and Coldwater men along the upper side where the path allowed, Templeton men near the center, and Egen men split between front and baggage. It was imperfect. Everything in the mountains was imperfect. He kept the mules from entering too quickly and sent orders down the line twice: no shouting, no chasing, no man leaving the column for a glimpse of a pale cloak or goat track.
The orders held for almost an hour.
That was something.
Grey Throat did not look wrong.
That was the trouble.
It looked like every hard road in the mountains had looked since they began: narrow, cruel, climbable, dangerous if handled poorly, useful if handled well. The first bend showed old ashes near a rock. The second had a torn strip of hide caught on thorn. The third opened into a longer floor where men could gather and breathe before the walls closed again. Above them, stone shelves leaned and broke, but no enemy showed.
A Belmore captain muttered, "They fled through here."
A Hunter man said, "Maybe."
"Maybe," Osric repeated.
He wished men would learn to love that word.
Donnel walked ahead with twenty Corbray men and twice that many mixed swords within call. He kept touching the place at his belt where his sword hung, then looking at the wrapped scabbard being carried by a man behind him. The empty sheath had been brought against Osric's advice. Donnel said men should remember why they climbed. Osric had answered that men remembered thirst, cold, and fear well enough.
The sheath came anyway.
At midafternoon, one of the forward guides found another sign.
A narrow print in damp dirt.
Bare foot.
Small.
"Child," someone whispered.
Donnel's face hardened. "They brought children this way."
Osric looked at the print from where he stood.
Too clear.
Too perfect.
Or perhaps he had become suspicious of every true thing.
"Leave it," he said.
Donnel turned. "Leave it?"
"The child is gone."
"The people are ahead."
"Or the sign wants us to think so."
Donnel's eyes flashed. "You see ghosts in mud now?"
"I see mud that has had too many men looking at it."
A shout came from farther ahead before Donnel could answer.
A Moon Brother runner stood on a rock above the next bend.
Pale cloak.
Bare head.
Bow in hand.
He looked down at them for one heartbeat, then vanished.
Corbray men surged before orders could stop them.
"Hold!" Osric shouted.
Donnel shouted something too.
Not hold.
Forward.
The front moved.
Not a charge. The ground would not allow that. But speed entered the column. Men pushed into the next bend. Belmore shields followed. Hunter bowmen swore because they lost angle. Templeton men shouted for room. A mule screamed somewhere behind when its handler pulled too hard on the lead.
Osric felt the road begin to take them.
"Slow the rear!" he called. "Keep the mules back! No crowding the throat!"
The order went down the line.
Some heard.
Some obeyed.
Enough did not.
Above them, one stone shifted.
Small.
Almost nothing.
Osric looked up.
The first boulder fell on the mule line.
It struck not the men at the head, not the proud Corbrays, not Donnel with his shame wrapped behind him. It came down halfway back where three mules were tied too close and six men stood cursing at a stuck wheel frame. The boulder hit one mule across the spine and burst it open against the path. The second mule went mad. The third snapped its lead and crushed a man against the wall.
Then the second stone fell.
Larger.
Then ten.
The Howlers began their work.
Men shouted now.
Not war shouts.
Work shouts.
Fear shouts.
Above, more stones rolled from hidden shelves, some large enough to kill, some small enough to maim, all chosen for noise and panic as much as death. Mules screamed and pulled backward. Men tried to steady them. Men behind shoved forward to escape falling stone. Men ahead shouted to know what happened. The column's long belly clenched.
Then arrows came.
Not many at first.
Enough.
A Belmore man took one through the cheek. A Coldwater guide fell from the side path and hit the floor hard enough not to rise. Hunter bowmen lifted their bows toward the shelves, but the angles were wrong and the attackers gone before strings found them.
"Shields up!" Osric shouted. "Close! Close!"
Donnel turned back, rage on his face. "Forward! They are above the middle. We break through!"
"No," Osric said. "We hold. We clear the mules and pull the front back to the wider bend."
Donnel stared at him.
For the first time, uncertainty entered the Corbray's eyes.
Not enough.
Behind them, a horn sounded from the rear.
Not theirs.
Then another.
Black Ears.
Osric knew without knowing how he knew.
A messenger came running from the back, helmet gone, blood on one sleeve. "Rear cut! Rear cut! Black-painted men at the mule path! Guides dead! Two pack lines burning!"
Donnel went very still.
Osric closed his eyes for half a breath.
The road had teeth at both ends now.
"Turn the rear guard!" he snapped. "Belmore holds middle! Hunter bows to the upper left! Corbray front does not advance!"
A roar rose from above the western stones.
Stone Crows.
Not yet seen.
Heard.
Men at the front began looking everywhere at once.
That was always when men stopped seeing.
Donnel drew his sword. Not Lady Forlorn. Just castle steel, good and bright and suddenly small.
"They have shown themselves," he said.
Osric looked at him. "No. They have shown us the trap."
Then the lower return horn blew.
Painted Dogs.
The sound came from behind the path they had meant to use if the throat proved false.
Osric felt the truth settle.
East, west, rear, return.
The mountains had not fled through Grey Throat.
They had opened it.
At the head of the column, a pale figure appeared high above the stone bend.
No banner.
No horn.
No need.
For a moment, the fighting seemed to draw breath around him.
Donnel Corbray looked up.
Osric saw his face change.
Recognition, though he had never seen the man before.
Or perhaps not recognition of the man.
Recognition of what the man carried.
The wrapped thing at the pale man's back was long, plain, ugly.
Not plain enough.
Donnel's mouth moved.
Osric did not hear the word over the screams and stone.
He did not need to.
Every Corbray near him looked upward as if the mountain had grown a face.
Torren of Pale Roots raised one hand.
The next wave of stones fell.
This time, the arrows followed at once.
Grey Throat filled with shouting.
The wrong path did not look wrong.
That was why men died on it.