Chaldez gathered from Dan that a naval battle had been fought and lost and that an invasion was imminent. The enemy was known by the name of its formidable commander, Cregitzig.
Very early the following day the army struck camp and by mid-morning was marching in-land, Thweddag's company in the vanguard.
The prospect of action transformed Chaldez. He had no wish to fight for those who had enslaved him, but he sensed that from then on nothing could be the same again; it was as though he were about to enter a new world. He was animated and excited, as was Dan.
The march continued for two days. Before sunrise on the third, Thweddag awoke his men and told them that their task was to reconnoitre the approach to the battlefield. They advanced cautiously through a belt of hilly, wooded country which fell away steeply to an open plain dissected by the silvery ribbon of a meandering river. On its banks could clearly be seen Cregitzig's encampment, while away on the horizon a grey, even line betrayed the sea.
During the course of the morning the defending army took up a position at the foot of the escarpment. Cregitzig's army moved forward to a low ridge, and towards midday battle was joined, Thweddag's and several other companies being held in reserve on the slope of the escarpment.
From their vantage point, Chaldez and Dan had a grandstand view of the tumult and confusion as the two armies clashed. During the next few hours the reserve companies were committed, either to support a weakening section or to add impetus to an advance, and eventually only Thweddag's remained inactive.
"It'll all be over before we get down there," grumbled Dan. Almost immediately there was a shout. More voices joined in, and then arms were waving and pointing at the right hand extremity of the battlefield. Precisely what was going on there was difficult to estimate, but a body of enemy soldiers had seemingly detached itself from the main conflict and was moving away towards a band of trees which soon masked it from view.
The order then came for Thweddag's company to return to the top of the escarpment; someone near Chaldez suggested that what they had seen was the beginning of an attempt to encircle them. "Thweddag will put a stop to that," he muttered.
With a degree of ill-ease Chaldez realised that if he had been in Thweddag's place he would have had no idea where to intercept the enemy's movement; Thweddag, on the other hand, was unfaltering. The place he chose was a wooded, steep-sided valley. Here he disposed his men whose silent vigil was eventually rewarded with the arrival of the enemy column strung out beside the stream.
Its size was very much larger than Chaldez had expected. He whispered to Dan: "There's too many of them." Indeed, Thweddag's force was well out-numbered, but the advancing column broke in disarray almost as soon as it was attacked.
Dan, Chaldez and three others chased after a small group which ran into a boulder-strewn depression. Dan, shouting and swinging his sword, led the charge and there was a general melée. Chaldez engaged a youth of about his own age; they were evenly matched and were still fighting after Dan and the others had forced their own oponents to surrender.
"Go on Chaldez!" shouted Dan. "There! Get him now! Too late, too late! Move, man!"
Chaldez was fighting with real desperation. He fended off one blow, but moved too slowly to escape its successor which opened up his left arm from the shoulder almost to the elbow. He was less aware of the pain than of the blood which flowed down his forearm and dripped from his fingers. He struck three frenzied blows in quick succession, causing his opponent to back away and then to stumble among the loose boulders. Chaldez pressed his attack with another thrust, and in the next moment his opponent had fallen, his sword clattering among the mossy stones.
Chaldez envisaged sweeping off his head with a mighty two-handed blow, but his left arm was useless. Should he run him through? As he stood there, his sword raised falteringly, the youth on the ground at his feet shouted: "Don't! Don't kill me! I am a prince. I am worth more to you alive than dead."
Dan stepped forward, helped him to his feet and said: "Your adversary is also a prince. Prince Chaldez of Sair Jisenner."
"I thought that was the name I heard you shouting just now. If you are Chaldez then we are cousins, for I am Havil of Kroya."
Chaldez was becoming dizzy from loss of blood. He repeated: "We are cousins? How is that?"
"I will tell you," said Havil, "but first we must attend to your wound," and he called to one of Chaldez's companions: "You, bind his wound. Yes, yes, with your tunic - don't delay man. If you can't tear it, cut it. Here, use this," and he handed him a short dagger.
The wound was bound tightly. Chaldez said he was thirsty and was brought some water, which revived him somewhat. While he sipped it, Havil explained that he was the son of Kallistra, and when he saw that the name meant nothing to Chaldez he went on: "Kallistra, your mother's only sister. That is how we are related."
Chaldez asked: "But why are you here?"
"I serve the King."
"You mean Beune of the Theigans?"
"The same."
"Who is Cregitzig, then?"
"The King's long arm which he has stretched out to punish the Lord Jedseg and his people of this island."
Chaldez knew Jedseg to be the local ruler. He began to smile. "Dan," he said, "our captors brought us here to fight our liberators! We must go to Cregitzig - cousin, will you please conduct us to him?"
This statement brought confusion to his and Dan's erstwhile comrades-in-arms, and when Havil replied: "I am bound to obey; am I not your prisoner?" they were even more muddled.
Dan acted before they had worked out what was going on. Turning on them, he ordered them to surrender, and the three of them meekly gave up their swords.
Dan said they should wait were they were and keep their heads down. After a while a horn was sounded, summoning the scattered men of Thweddag's company to reassemble. Dan picked a moment when he guessed that he, Chaldez and the others would not yet have been missed, then told Havil to lead them back the way he had come.
They left their hollow unobserved.
Later Chaldez was to say that immediately after his duel with Havil he had heard the voice of Arwarnhi, God of the Forests, address him from the surrounding trees, telling him that Havil had been sent to bring him to his protector, King Beune. The certainty of it was to become a central feature of Chaldez's belief.
The party followed a circuitous route which eventually brought it down a gully towards the plain. Rising ground on the left hid the battlefield, and before it came into view Dan stopped. "Can't you hear?" he said. "The battle's over."
They all listened, and were aware that there was none of the clamour and uproar which they had left behind, and in all their heads there was but a single thought: if the battle had been decided, who then were the victors and who the vanquished? It was a question to which they dreaded discovering the answer. They exchanged grim glances, and pressed on reluctantly.
When the battlefield did come into view they saw that it had been abandoned to the fallen who lay sometimes in heaps and sometimes singly, and everywhere were surrounded by abandoned and broken weapons.
The small group of spectators stood in silent awe, then one of them exclaimed: "The camp!"
For a moment Chaldez was not sure in which direction he should be looking, but Dan nudged him and pointed, and then he saw it. At that distance the pavilions and tents of Cregitzig's camp were only just visible - but visible they were.
"If Jedseg had been victorious." said Havil, "it would be burning now."
The uneasy apprehension which they had all been under lifted, and they smiled and laughed as they set off towards it.