and yellow stars fallen to earth. His attendant rushed up, blinking
sleep from his eyes.
"Most High," the boy said, falling into a pose of abject apology. "I had
thought to let you sleep. Your breakfast is nearly ready-"
"Bring it to my tent," Otah said. "I'll be back for it."
He walked to the edge of the camp where the firelight would not spoil
his night vision and looked out into the darkness. In the east, the sky
had become a paler blackness, the deep gray of charcoal. The stars had
not gone out, but they were dimmed. In the trees that lined the valley,
birds were beginning their songs. A strange tense peace came over him.
His disquiet seemed to fade, and the dawn, gray then cool yellow and
rose and serene blue that filled the wide bowl of the sky above him, was
beautiful and calm. Whatever happened here in this valley, the sun would
rise upon it again tomorrow. The birds would call to one another. Summer
would retreat, autumn would come. The lives of men and nations were not
the highest stakes to play for. He pulled his hands into his sleeves and
turned back to the camp. At his tent, his messengers awaited him,
including Nayiit.
"Call the formation," Otah said. "It's time."
The messengers scattered, and it seemed fewer than a dozen breaths
before the air was filled with the sounds of metal against metal, shouts
and commands as his army pulled itself to the ready.
"Your food, Most High," the attendant said, and Otah waved the man away.
By the time Otah's footmen and horsemen had taken their places between
and just behind the wedges of archers, it was bright enough to see the
banners and glittering mail of the Galts. Utah's mount seemed to sense
the impending violence, dancing uncomfortably as Utah rode back and
forth behind his men, watching and waiting and preparing to call out his
commands. From across the valley, the shout and silence came again as it
had the night before. Then twice more.
"Call the archers to ready!" Otah called out, and like whisperers in
court relaying the words to lower men waiting in the halls, his words
echoed in a dozen voices. He saw his archers lift their bows and shift
in their formations. A long shout, rolling like thunder, came from
across the valley. The Galts were moving forward. "Call the march! And
be prepared to loose arrows!"
As they had drilled, his men moved forward, archers to the front,
footmen between them with their makeshift shields and motley assortment
of swords and spears and threshing flails. Horsemen in the colors of the
great houses of the utkhaiem trotted at the sides, ready to wheel and
protect the flanks. At a walk, three thousand men moved forward across
the still-wet grass and patches of ankle-deep mud. And perhaps half
again as many Galts came toward them, shouting.
In the old hooks and histories, the flights of enemy arrows had been
compared to smoke rising from a great pyre or clouds blotting out the
sun. In fact, when the first volley struck, it was nothing like that.
Otah didn't see the arrows and bolts in the air. He saw them begin to
appear, heads buried deep in the ground, fletching green and white in
the sunlight, like some strange flower that had sprung up from the