Topaz awoke and roused her men in the darkness. They marched to the field of battle in a ghostly muffled silence, setting up their lines in the stone-gray shadows fused with a muted pink flicker of daylight. Soft light diffused through a silvery mist cloaking the battlefield. She sensed an ominous presence nearby; that had to be Henry's men beyond the nearest hill.
* * *
Henry's grooms strapped the last of his plate armor in place. Holding out his hands, they slipped the cumbersome gauntlets over his meaty forearms.
“Tell me again, you've heard the maneuvers of man and beast in the fog below?” the king asked one of the lookouts, still panting from his run to Henry's tent.
“Aye, my lord, I'm sure of it. There's an army moving in the valley below.”
Henry left his tent and lumbered over
