That night, the moon shone bright amid scattered stars, and the beautiful, brilliant light of the Great Star of Hope had begun to glimmer faintly in the sky.
The Personal Guards had woken Hamish as soon as the flames rose. They did not even need to explain. The battle-hardened Easterling warlord knew what was happening the moment he heard the chaos outside.
"Fucking hell."
Cursing, Hamish vigorously rubbed his heavily bearded face, clearing a little of the fury clouding his mind.
"Go, all of you! Gather every soldier who can still follow orders and have them assemble here. Now!"
Despite the cries of alarm and screams coming from every corner of the camp, the Personal Guards took their orders and scattered from Hamish's camp wagon. Before long, groups of half-equipped Easterling soldiers carrying a motley assortment of weapons followed them back.
Hamish threw everything unimportant out of his chariot, even dismantling its canopy. Then he personally harnessed four fine horses to it and fitted its wheels with razor-sharp blades.
He planted himself in the driver's seat and pointed the chariot south, toward the fiercest sounds of fighting. As soon as enough soldiers gathered around him, he would charge straight at the enemies who had broken into his camp.
The surprise attack Allen and the others had planned had indeed thrown the Easterling soldiers into considerable confusion, especially those living around the edges of the camp. The fires Allen and his cavalry had started quickly spread from the chariots and wooden palisades to the Easterlings' tents and the wealth they had painstakingly plundered. Some fires had been set directly on their tents, and those sleeping inside were caught by the flames and died horribly in burning agony.
The Easterling camp now resembled a ring of fire slowly burning inward, though there