The scout considered. “Maybe half a dozen war mammoths,” he said. “More of the miserable mushrooms on their riding deer, of course, but not too many. I think we can take them.”

“I bet he’s right,” Ulric Skakki said to Hamnet. “Scouts always see bigger forces than the ones that are really there.”

“Most of the time, anyhow,” Hamnet said. He raised his voice to question the Bizogot: “Did they look like men who intended to settle down when they found good grazing, or did they seem on their way to somewhere else?”

“Hard to know for sure,” the scout said, and Hamnet Thyssen nodded impatiently. After more thought, the man went on, “If they wanted to stop, the grazing was good where they were. They were moving pretty steady.”

“Heading for the Empire,” Ulric murmured.

Count Hamnet nodded again. The Rulers already had an army down there fighting against Sigvat II’s soldiers. Hamnet wondered whether Sigvat wished he’d taken all the warnings he’d got more seriously. Too late to worry about that now, for Sigvat and for everybody else.

Trasamund made a fist and slammed it into his thigh. “Let’s hit them!”

Hamnet Thyssen and Ulric Skakki looked at each other. “What do you think?” Ulric asked.

“We might as well,” Hamnet asked. “If we can break the links between the Rulers’ big army down in the south and the Gap, we’ve done something useful. They’d better have a tough time reinforcing their men down in the Empire.”

“I suppose so.” Ulric didn’t sound thrilled. After a moment, he explained why: “Any time you say something that starts with ‘If we can . . . ,’ I start worrying about it.”