Three hundred farmers poured through the Winter Gate in a screaming mob, flinging spades and kettles in every direction. Hans ran at the front with his one arm pumping, bellowing the loudest of them all, his bells clanging.
"Scream like your mother-in-law is chasing you with a ladle!" he roared.
"That isn't hard, sir!" Barton wheezed, a spade bouncing on his shoulder.
"Louder, Barton, I want them to hear it all the way in the capital, scream like you mean it!"
Behind them the Flint infantry swarmed through the abandoned gate, eight hundred strong, their spears dipping as they laughed. Beyond them the Cinder Hounds spilled down the road, Brandmother howling the pace in Dreth's warm, lazy, amused voice.
"They run, they run, the marshal wants the one-armed cripple on a spit!" a Flint sergeant shouted, laughing.
'Good, laugh, laugh all the way down to the throat.'
Jonas pounded along at his elbow, glancing back every third step, "Sir, they're gaining, they're almost—"
