As clouds sailed over a setting semi-moon, the regiment called Dear-to-the-Wind filtered through trees and frozen underbrush. Stocky men in fur cloaks, felt trousers, and felt boots, they managed fairly quietly through deep snow, carrying strung bows. The bow-staves were short and curved as yataghan blades were curved, both, some said, to honor that same crescent moon that rode through Great Sky above them.
… Lieutenant Francisco Doyle, always insubordinate, didn't hesitate to lean close to his colonel and whisper in her ear. "Get back out of here, ma'am. Get up the hill."
It was not a suggestion most would have cared to make to Colonel Loomis. Charmian shrugged him away and ignored it. One of the Kipchaks, scouting, stepping shuffling through a drift, was coming close to the evergreen overhang where she and Doyle stood in darkness.
Doyle, really a brave young man, was considering another whisper when his colonel strode suddenly out into the snow, her moon-shadow stretching lean and swift beside her. She flicked her rapier's bright blade to set the startled tribesman's half-drawn bow aside, then thrust him through the throat.
The man convulsed, dropped his bow, and clawed at the blade's razor edges, arching back and back to get a breath for screaming. But the blade point stayed in him. The colonel, as if dancing, accompanied him as he lurched away, still slicing frantic fingers along the steel.
Their shadows pranced over the snow while the bowman managed a sound at last, a soft squealing that ended as he fell, in liquid fart and stink.
Arrows – one, then another, whistled past into the woods, and Doyle saw hundreds of Kipchaks now coming on foot through the trees downslope, kicking through the snow in ragged ranks. Some shooting as they came, but most with yataghans out, steel flashing in moonlight. There were no war cries, yet, or shouted orders.
A second rank of many more hundreds was emerging from the trees behind them.
Colonel Loomis, wiping her blade, paced across the hillside a little higher, with Doyle hurrying behind, arrows flirting past them through moonlight and shadow. As they went, a thousand of her men and women – waiting buried or half-buried in fallen-branch rambles, in clearing drifts, on snowy slopes – stirred slightly, so she could mark their places as she passed.
At the line's west, anchor end, more than half around the hill, Colonel Loomis stopped and looked back across the moonlit breast of the slope. To Doyle, she seemed – in a shifting wind that blew snow-powder swirling – a copybook witch, so tall, angle-faced, and fierce, her long black hair sailing free… her sword's sharp, slender yard the brightest part of her.
She stood waiting and watching, until soon the first screams were heard with the snap of light crossbows, the harder twang of the tribesmen's weapons. Then, like anticipated music, the clash of steel rang through the night, and Kipchak war horns sounded their deep, bellowing notes.
… Sam spurred Difficult up the main-ridge rise, through wet snowflakes barely visible in the dimness before dawn. His trumpeter, Kenneth, followed, and six horse archers, at Howell's insistence, paced along. Arrows nocked to the strings of their odd longbows, they trotted guard in shifting order beside, before, and behind him. To the west, the uneven voices of battle sounded, softened by falling snow.
Both regiments of heavy cavalry were standing dismounted, each trooper by his horse, in long ghost rows along the ridges, their armor dimly lit to gleaming here and there by wind-blown torches. Two thousand big men – with a number of big women – waited in silence, but for the stamping of impatient chargers.
Sam found Howell, torch-lit, beneath the scorpion banner – and stayed mounted so the people near enough could see him.
"It's slippery, Sam." Howell looked up at him, squinting snowflakes away from his good eye. "Falling footing."
Sam leaned from the saddle to answer. "Footing enough for down-slope charges. If men and horses fall then, they fall into the enemy."
"True."
"Where's Carlo?"
"Down the line."
"He knows to move without your order?"
A nod. "If the Kipchaks get through."
"Right. If the Light Infantry breaks on our left flank, Howell, they'll fall back up these slopes. If that happens, if you see it's happening – "
"Charge as they clear."
"No. If Charmian's people start breaking, start backing up the ridges, you and Carlo are to take both regiments – at the charge – down those slopes and into the Kipchaks. That's my order, and that's what you will do."
"We'd be riding our own people down!"
"Yes, Howell, you would. You'd have to go over them to strike the Kipchaks as soon as possible, as hard as possible, to give Phil time to pull out of the center and march his people west."
"Dear Jesus…"
"Howell, am I right in this – or wrong?"
"… You're right."
"Then be sure Carlo also understands that order."
Howell nodded, and they both listened to the battle sounds, west. No cheering, of course, from their people, only shouted commands, shouts of warning. The Kipchaks were noisier fighters, calling battle cries, war horns sounding their mournful notes… Still, there was in that dull, shifting roar, a sort of music to commanders, and they heard in it no advantage yet, either way.
"Holding," Howell said.
"And probably will." Sam reached down, shook Howell's hand, and found reassurance in that grinding grip.
… Beside being a painful trotter, and uncertain in response, Difficult almost always lunged out a start – did so now, only touched by the spurs, so Sam had a moment's vision of being dumped into the snow in front of his soldiers, the battle's loss beginning with that comic humiliation. But he found his balance, settled the beast smartly between the ears with the butt of his quirt, and managed to ride along ranks of cavalry… then down the far-western slopes in a reasonable way, with Kenneth following. Three of the horse archers rode before them, three behind.
As if they'd entered a different country deep in the draw, dawn-light darkened almost to night again, and the battle's sound grew louder, so that screams of dying men and women, grunts of effort for savage blows, and officers' shouted orders all became individual under countless strokes of steel on steel.
Sam rode to angle across the hillsides, and soon, high in a rise's deep shadow, he looked down and saw a roiling motion beneath him, as if the dark forest below the hillsides had come alive, writhing like one of the great far-southern serpents, coiling up and up to reach the dawn's light. The noise rose terrific with clashing steel, shouts, the Kipchaks' yelping battle cries. Sam could hear the tribesmen's bowstrings twang – and as if hearing made fact, one of his flanking guards grunted and fell, white fletching at the side of his chest.
Another dismounted to him, as the four still mounted bent their longbows, shooting down into shadow. Kipchak arrows hummed around them, and the escort's sergeant, a man named McGee, rode to crack Difficult across the hindquarters with his bow-stave. The charger leaped forward and bounded across the slope like a deer, Sam only a bundle hanging on.
He'd found nothing more unusual in battle than laughter. On campaign, of course, and even in maneuver under threat. But rarely in the heart of slaughter. Now, Sam was treated to that sound as he saw, in dawn's light, Charmian Loomis – with two officers, and blood down her side – leaning on the staff of a battle pennant and laughing at him amid a flickering sleet of arrows.
"Never saw a man so eager!" she called to him. "Damn near flew down the line!"
Sam wrestled Difficult to a skidding halt, swung down – and resisted temptation to draw and take off the animal's head. McGee'd followed, and Sam tossed him the charger's reins as the other bowmen rode up.
"And what are you doing on the line?" He had to shout. "You're the fucking commander here!"
"Came down to listen to the fighting."
"You get your ass up on the ridge!" And to the officers standing by, both crouching a little as if arrow flights were pressing them down: "Get her out of here!"
Charmian grinned. "Listen…" An arrow passed almost between them, a slight disturbance in the air.
"Your wound – "
"I've had worse." Still smiling, a happy woman in battle. "Listen, something's wrong with the fighting here." Supporting herself a little on her rapier's springing blade, she turned, slightly stiffly, to look back down the slope. The light was good enough, now, for Sam to see clearly the tide of Kipchaks coming against the supple, almost silent formations of Light Infantry all along this hillside and another beyond it. The dismounted tribesmen attacking in a surf of slaughter… then slowly, slowly easing back down the slopes to gather and come again.
Between these advances and withdrawals, men and women fought stranded on the snow in sudden knots, wrestling at knife-point, slashing with swords and yataghans. But Sam saw it was the short Kipchak bows that were hurting his people most. The Light Infantry crossbowmen were overmatched.
"See?" Charmian pointed with her rapier's blade. "We need to keep close!" As if to prove it, an arrow came whisking past her throat, touched her long hair like a lover fleeting past. "And we can keep close, and hold them. They hit us and hit us hard – "
"But they're not pushing your people back."
"Right. There's no weight to this attack."
A surprising smacking sound, and the younger officer – Sam hadn't known his name – pitched down into the snow with an arrow in the side of his neck, just beneath his helmet's edge. The officer grunted, kicked at the snow, and died.
"Oh… Bobby." Charmian bent to stroke the dead man's back, then straightened. "They're coming at us as if they meant it – "
" – But with no army coming behind them." Now, listening, Sam could hear a fragility in the Kipchaks' shouts and war cries, their lowing battle horns. Two thousand men, perhaps more, attacking along the slopes. But not with ten thousand coming behind them… Mistake… mistake. I've made a very bad mistake.
He turned and shouted to his trumpeter. "Kenneth! Ride to the center! Tell Phil Butler they're coming at him after all! – And he's to refuse! Refuse and fall back slowly, in order!"
"Comin' at him… to refuse an' fall back slow, in order."
"Ride! Ride!"
As the trumpeter spurred away, Sam pointed at the bowman sergeant. "McGee – to General Voss and Colonel Flores! The Khan's main attack is to the center! They're to withdraw cavalry formations as his people come in – we'll let them push us back.
Light Infantry will then attack his right flank from here. All cavalry – all cavalry to move east now, into position to attack his left flank as it exposes!"
"Voss an' Flores." The sergeant already reining his horse away. "Comin' at the center – we're lettin' 'em push in so their flanks get bare – then Lights hit his right, Cav goes east, gets set to hit his left!" And he was off, his horse spurning snow across the slope.
As the man rode, Sam gripped Charmian by an arm he hoped unwounded, and tugged her up-hill. "Come on – come on! Get out of this! And put your fucking helmet on!"
"I can't see with the thing." She looked back, called down-slope, "Manuel!… To your left!"
Sam thought he saw an officer there look up.
"Shit!" Charmian yanked her arm free and was off, limping awkwardly down the hillside as twenty or thirty Kipchaks hacked their way up into the Infantry's line – then broke it.
"Charmian…!" She was gone and at them. Sam drew and ran down after her… heard his bowmen yelling, "No!" He saw more Lights coming along the slope to reinforce as he galloped down the hill, snow flying.
Charmian had gone for the nearest, a big Kipchak in black furs. Sam saw the man's face, a mask of rage and effort as he struck at her.
Then it was not fighting, but killing.
Charmian caught his curved blade coming across – picked it out of the air with her rapier's tip, guided it sliding to the right, and thrust the long, slim blade of her left-hand dagger into his belly.
Two more stomped up through the snow at her, and Sam yelled, "On the left!" ducked low and swung a two-handed cut across the first man's leg. He felt the sword's grip kick as the blade hacked through boot-top and bone – then yanked the steel free to spin the other way and thrust, one-handed, into the second man's armpit as he raised his yataghan to strike.
The crippled one slashed at Sam from the snow and caught him lightly at the thigh – a touch below his hauberk – with the so-familiar icy stroke of steel, then burning.
Sam drove his point into that man's mouth – felt his blade break teeth, then slide through delicate stuff in a spurt of blood to split the spine.
Joy came to him as he freed his blade, joy at the wonderful simplicity of action, and he and Charmian, on guard for any others, shared an instant's glance of pleasure.
Then his mounted bowmen, and a storm of Light Infantry from above, struck the two of them and the advancing Kipchaks together, knocking Charmian down and sending Sam sprawling. Furious officers and men stood over them – "Stupid… stupid fuckers!" – picked them up, and listening to no orders, showing no respect for rank, hauled them up the hill.
Loosed near the ridge, his sword wiped and sheathed, Sam looked back and saw the Kipchaks once more in shallow retreat… then gathering to charge up the slope again. The base of the hill was thick with their formations – by squadrons, as if they were mounted. The dead and dying lay scattered across the snowy slope, streaks and pools of bright red gleaming under the rising sun. The hillside breeze brought the coppery smell of spilled blood, the stink of the dyings' shit… There were great concentrations of tribesmen, and driving activity along the base of the hills. But no massive movement coming on through the forest beyond. No trembling of tangled foliage, no glimpses of columns followed by more columns marching toward them through the snow.
"Busy," Charmian said, catching her breath beside him. She staggered a step. "Busy…"
"Now, you stay the fuck out of that line!"
"Yes, sir."
Sam glanced down, saw where his leather trousers were slit a few inches at his right thigh, and felt a little blood sliding warm to his knee.
"Sir," a bowman said, "you're hurt."
Sam waved him to silence as flights of arrows whistled up the slopes, and the Kipchaks shouted and came again, charging higher… higher on the hillsides, their battle lines extending half a Warm-time mile.
"Charmian, can you hold them?" He had to lean close, almost shout in her ear; the noise was terrific.
"Yes, I can hold them – unless we're wrong, and they're strongly reinforced."
"They won't be. I've made my mistake for the day."
"I can hold them. And if they bleed a little more, and I commit every man and woman – and the wounded still walking – I can drive them!"
"Not yet." Sam ducked – thought an arrow had come near him. "Not yet. Wait for a galloper with the word. We need him to come deep into the center, uncover both his flanks while he thinks we're breaking."
"Understood." Charmian turned to yell across the slope. "Catherine! What the fuck are you waiting for? Crossbows front, for Christ's sake!" The last, a phrase once forbidden. "Stupid bitch," Charmian muttered, standing bent a little to the right to favor her wounded side, " – looking around with her thumb up her ass! Made her a fucking captain and I can damn well unmake her. I could have used Margaret here…"
She turned back. "Sam – I know what you want. Now please go away; I don't have time for you." She limped off over the snow, calling, "Where is Second Battalion? We're replacing in echelon here. We're supposed to be replacing in echelon along the fucking line! Where are they?"
"Can I help you, sir?" The bowman had brought Difficult to mount.
"No." Though Sam wished he had the help, struggling aboard the beast. His leg held the stinging tingle of injury… and the fucking horse kept sidling away. "Will you hold this animal still?" A Kipchak arrow moaned past. They were fighting higher on the slope, now. Sam could hear the sword blows, like camp-axes chopping soft wood. But screams followed these.
He heard trumpets as he rode fast, east along the ridges, four bowmen riding behind him. He saw, in morning sunlight, the armored columns of Heavy Cavalry, the spaced squadrons of Lights, already slowly shifting along the heights, beginning to shake out into line of march, their banners leading east.
"Thank you, Howell, for getting them moving."
"Sir?" A bowman spurred up alongside.
"Nothing…" As if a deck of pasteboard playing cards – but these for fortune-telling – cascaded in his mind, Sam saw on each, as it flashed by, a different problem, or an opportunity already lost to him. Great or small, it made no difference as they dealt… Lieutenant Gerald Kyle carried vodka with him, and lied about it – what now, to keep him from misjudging and killing his company? Man should have been replaced… Thousands of crossbow bolts needed to be greased for this wet winter weather. Had that been done? Company officers' responsibility. Had it been done?… Fodder clean? No mold or mildew to sicken the horses. Might have spoken to Ned, might have checked to be sure… When the cavalry swung in to flank the Kipchaks to the east, had it been made clear they were to hook in – hook in after, to hold the tribesmen while the infantry marched back from their false retreat to finish them? Fucking cavalry always galloping off into nowhere, and full of excuses afterward. Had that hooking-in been made clear?
Difficult – not so bad a horse. Stupid, stubborn, but strong for this kind of uneven going. Steep going… And for Weather's sake, promote Jack Parilla! Poor man a captain for years – always a hard fighter, always took care of his men. No fool, and ready for more rank. Overlooked, a good man overlooked, and no complaint about it, either… Sonora – what was it about those people? Where the fuck did they think those taxes went? Having to build that son-of-a-bitch Stewart a bridge!… Should have at least shown Rachel how much he liked her, that he thought her an interesting woman. And good-looking, really. Should have told her that…
Some of the cavalry saw Sam riding by, shouted and raised their lances in salute. As he passed a second column of Heavies, three horsemen broke through their formation and came galloping after him. One carried the army's banner on a stirrup-staff – the great black scorpion on a field of gold – cloth rippling in the wind of his riding so the creature seemed to crawl and threaten. All three were coming fast through a light snowfall.
"Sir! Sir!" One of them was a captain Sam knew. Collins – Roberto Collins. "Sir," – Collins rode up beside him – "General Voss's compliments." The captain a little breathless. "He says you are to keep the fucking banner with you, sir! So people can find you, sir! And you are to have me and Lieutenant Miranda with you. Also additional escort, sir!"
From the captain's mouth, to fact. As they rode up a rough draw to the Middle Ridge, the horses slowing with the climb, a half-dozen more mounted bowmen – Sam saw Sergeant McGee leading them – came riding to join. So, it was with a thundering tail of twelve men and one woman, the large Lieutenant Miranda, that Sam kicked Difficult through a last deep drift to lunge out along the iron ranks of Butler's Heavy Infantry.
As they heard Sam's party coming, every second man of the nearest company's rear file had reverse-stepped together, lowering fourteen-foot pikes.
"Platoon, put… up!" The pikes rose all together. The men stepped back into ranks.
"Phil – or Horatio!" Sam called to their officer.
"General's down-slope, sir! One rise over!"
Sam was reining Difficult in when the charger suddenly shied away, sidestepping through frozen crust. Sam steadied him, looked for the cause, and saw something high in the filtered sunlight… a shadow coming down with the snow. Someone behind him called out.
Sam blinked snowflakes away, and the Boston girl sailed down and down to him out of sunlight and snow flurry, her open dark-blue coat spread like wings.
"Over there!" She pointed north with her drawn scimitar, struck the snow, stumbled, and went to a knee. "Short walkings…" She got to her feet. "They make me weary."
Sam saw blood on her blade.
"The savages shot arrows at me!" Her pale, perfect face twisted in fury, and she stomped a little circle in the snow. Sam was reminded, for a moment, of the Queen's raging at Island… Patience flourished her sword; little crimson drops flew from its curved edge. "I took one's hand – then backstroked to his throat!"
"Be quiet," Sam said. "Now, take a breath… and tell me what you saw."
"Oh, those fools are coming."
"Here – here, to our center?"
"Yes." Patience nodded. "I saw them in the forest. All of them – well, almost all. I think there are a few over there," – the scimitar swung west. "And even fewer over there," – her blade flashed toward the river.
"Sir…" Horacio Duran, shoving the escorts' mounts aside.
"Colonel."
Duran, blocky as a tree stump in dull steel-strap armor, came to Sam's stirrup with his helmet under his arm. "General's received your orders, sir. Resist as we retire – not making it too easy for them."
"Right, Colonel, and have your rear ranks guide."
"We'll keep in formation, sir." Duran smiled, though he had a face unfitted for it. " – But with occasional cries of panic and despair."
Sam leaned down to thump Duran's armored shoulder with his fist. "Perfect. They'll be coming soon."
"Coming now, sir. We've seen birds and deer clearing out of those woods."
"Good," Sam said. "I'll want some daylight left, to finish them." At which vainglory, he was slightly saddened to see Lieutenant-Colonel Duran smile again… hear pleased murmurs from his escort.
Birds were flying almost over them – a doom of crows, cawing. Sam supposed it would be crows, in these hills – not ravens – who would come to take the eyes of the dead.
He saluted Duran – it had become, after all, the army's habit – was briskly saluted in return, and reined Difficult around. It was time for the Captain-General to get out of his soldiers' way.
"Wait! Take me up!" Patience sheathed her scimitar and came floundering through the snow. "I'm tired of walking." Meaning, apparently, traveling in the air.
Sam reined in, seeing himself parading before his troops with this odd creature riding pillion behind him. Then Patience, with a boost from Duran, was on the charger's rump and settled. Seemed almost no shift of weight at all… and as he kicked Difficult through falling snow along the ridge, no odor either. No lady's perfume, no woman's warm scent. He might have had a doll behind him, or a child's snow-person.
Patience gripped his waist, leaned her head against his cloaked and chain-mailed back. "I have a headache," she said, as they went bounding. Difficult's only virtue, strength.
As they rode, the banner-bearer and escort spurring after, a sound like distant storm-wind, like a change in Lady Weather's wishes, seemed to come rising the long wooded slopes behind them. Barely heard… then slowly, slowly heard more clearly… until, in a rolling thunderclap – with flights of winter birds across the sky – the storm became the voice of an attacking army, its war horns a chorus, as if wild bulls bellowed from the woods.
"Oh-oh." A child's exclamation in almost a child's soprano, and Sam felt Patience turning back to look – though nothing would be seen but the backs of serried ranks of Phil Butler's two thousand pikemen and crossbowmen, draped like a segmented steel-link chain across the ridges and hollows… Sam closed his eyes as he rode, seeing them standing ready to receive, as ten thousand Kipchaks came boiling out of the forest, surging up the slopes in tides of steel and arrows.
Difficult tripped on a branch in the snow, and Sam hauled him up on the reins. Along the ridge-line, the snow grew thinner, and he urged the charger to a gallop, heard his escort coming up behind. Troops were cheering as he passed – squadrons of Light Cavalry riding east. He saw a pennon through falling snow. Second Regiment, Elman's people. Good officer, but mad for fighting, and perhaps not the best second-in-command for Ned. Two madmen…
There was a sound like a great steel door slamming. The falling snow seemed to swirl with the impact of it. The center was being hit with everything that Toghrul had. Thank God – that oldest thanks of all – thank God for Chairman's sharp ears and battle sense, her call to him to listen. It had given him just time enough. May have given him just time enough…
The smash and roar of engagement sounding behind him, Sam rode along Main Ridge to be certain all the cavalry had shifted east. So difficult, to leave commanders alone in a battle, to depend on them to do what had to be done. It was hard to see how the Khan managed without a Howell Voss, a Ned Flores. Without a Phil Butler, a Charmian, and all their officers. Toghrul must be an extraordinary man to depend, really, only on himself. Must be lonely…
Sam reined up, reached behind him to give Patience an arm to dismount. "Now, go down that south slope. Stay with Portia-doctor and her people."
"I will," Patience said, "but only to rest to go back again. They shot arrows at me!" And she trudged off into the snow.
"Comin' up!" One of the mounted bowmen.
An officer galloping, chasing the banner… then drew up in a spray of snow, and saluted. A lieutenant, very young – what was his name? Carlton… Carter? Boy was crying, or snow was melting down his face.
"Sir – Colonel Duran regrets to report…" Tears, they were tears. "General Butler has been killed, sir. At the very first engagement. An arrow struck him."
Carter. Boy's name was Carter. "… Thank the colonel for his report, Lieutenant. He assumes command, of course – and is to retreat his regiments as previously ordered."
"Sir."
" – The dog," Sam said. "His little dog."
"We have the dog safe, sir." A weeping lieutenant – nothing new in war.
Sam saluted, and the boy turned his horse and was gone north, back to the center of the line, where companies, battalions, regiments of Heavy Infantry stood killing with long needle-pointed pikes, killing with hissing crossbow volleys – as ten thousand grim shepherds with slanting eyes came swarming up the hillsides.
Phil Butler would be out of all that, lying safe behind the ranks in a warm woolen army blanket, his imperial spectacles folded and tucked into his parka pocket… Horacio Duran would now be wearing the yoke of responsibility. He'd be here and there and everywhere, shouting orders, watching for the time to begin to back away. Then more orders, and galloping back and forth to keep the formations steady as the Kipchaks yelped their battle cries and came on, certain they were winning.
Sam spurred Difficult south, imagining Phil had only been wounded, and Carter had said, 'Injured, sir. Seems not too serious.' If Carter had only said that, then Phil would be alive, fondly cursing his soldiers as they hustled him to the rear. Odd that a single arrow could carry a friend so suddenly away, that there was no time for goodbye… Unfair. Unfair.
Sam saw Heavy Cavalry where there should have been none. Saw two troops… three, through the light snowfall. Three troops standing in a defile. Standing! He spurred that way, down a steep dip, then rode up the column with his people behind him – took an officer by the cloak and hauled him half out of his saddle. "What are you people doing?"
Startled face behind a helmet's basket visor. "Cover reserve, sir! In case of retreat."
Sam shook him hard. "There is no fucking reserve held today, you jackass! No retreat! We lose, they'll follow and kill us all!"
"Orders, sir!" Fool almost shouting, as if Sam were deaf. " – Orders."
"Whose orders?" Shake, shake. The man's cloak tore a little.
Lieutenant Miranda, very large, had heeled her horse alongside. Her saber was drawn.
"Major d'Angelo's orders."
Major d'Angelo… decent officer. "The major was mistaken. Orders are no reserves. Everyone to the line!"
Nods from Torn-cloak.
"Now, you get your ass and these troopers east at a fucking gallop! You understand me? Join General Voss's people to attack on that flank."
More nods. Sam shoved the man upright in his saddle. " – Move!"
Sam stayed to watch them go – go galloping, as Lieutenant Miranda sheathed her saber, backed her big horse… Three troops of Heavy Cavalry almost lost to the attack. Have to speak to d'Angelo. A little less attention to the usual ways of doing things; a little more attention to fucking immediate orders!
"Who was that officer?" A question asked of the snowy air.
"Captain Hooper, sir," said Captain Collins, behind him. " – Good man." Which recommendation, in the face of his commander's anger, also recommended Roberto Collins.
Sam felt tired as if he'd stayed with the Lights to the west, been fighting all this time… He turned Difficult's head, kicked him back up onto the ridge, and looked for a place to stand on the hilltop. Now, unless disaster came, he would be only a watcher, avoiding the dangerous confusions of casual interference. Separate from his soldiers as if he were sleeping far south in Better-Weather, or eating roast pork at the high tables in Island's hall.
Now, he would be a ghost of war, all a commander's directions given. As the Boston girl had done, he could only hover over, his sword blooded once, and watch below him for a battle won. A battlefield ghost, perhaps to be joined by Phil Butler, and many more.
It seemed to Sam he already heard a different music sung from the northern slopes, the higher-pitched chorus of fighting men seeing a triumph before them. Duran would be beginning to coax his men back… back. But slowly, Horacio, and in formation for the love of Mountain Jesus.
Sam found a sensible place, high enough to see all the center below and before him, and at least some of the distant hillsides left and right. Difficult seemed pleased to be rested from snow-galloping. He and the other horses stood blowing and farting. Comical beasts, really…
"McGee."
"Sir?" The sergeant kicked his mount alongside.
"Sergeant, take your bowmen off to the east. Join Colonel Flores, or any Light squadron you come to, and go in with them. They'll be moving now, need every archer they can get."
A sudden roar from the northern slopes, as if snow-tigers had come to fight. Sam saw the first ranks of Heavy Infantry retreating… falling back toward him, some men running this way, over the first ridge.
"Runnin'!" McGee said.
But as they watched, the scatter of running men slowed as retreating formations overtook them. They stepped back into ranks, waited… and broke to run again, making another show of flight.
"That's okay," said Sergeant McGee.
"Sergeant – take your people and move off."
"Musn' leave you, sir." Then, more definitely: "Won't do it."
"Yes, you will, Jim." How had he remembered this man's first name?
After a silent moment, the sergeant said, "Shit…" Then turned and called, "We're goin' east. So kick it!"
As the bowmen rode away, Captain Collins drew his saber and came up on Sam's left side, Lieutenant Miranda did the same on his right. The three of them – with the banner-bearer stoic behind – sat their horses and watched the Heavy Infantry of North Map-Mexico, never before defeated, slowly driven crumbling back along the ridgelines, seeming just short of desperate flight.
Sitting his horse in safety, Sam closed his eyes, imagining every sword slash, every hissing arrow come by merciful magic to strike him instead of a soldier. So that he, who commanded suffering, received it.
Lieutenant Miranda murmured beside him, and he opened his eyes to see the Kipchak horse-tails rising on the ridge, hear the war horns' dark music triumphant.
"Come on… come on." Sam felt the oddest flash of sympathy, of sadness for Toghrul, as if he were a friend. The Khan's looming defeat would have been a victory instead, if Sam had held to his blunder only a little longer. Now, the tumans lunging deeper into disaster, the Heavy Infantry stepping back and back to draw them in, Toghrul – like Sam, a young man chained to authority – would likely end the day destroyed.
It was remarkably like riding up a shallow river in rapids, though these currents were tumultuous with gray fur, drawn bows, and steel. Mounted, of course, with only his hundred of the Guard mounted with him, Toghrul spurred Lively on in the midst of the tumans' assault.
An oddity, this attack on foot, but an oddity that was succeeding. They had already struck the first of North Mexico's lines of heavy infantry, and despite desperate – if fairly ineffective – resistance, were driving them back up their slopes to destruction… Future use of infantry was perhaps something to be considered, with the forests, hills, all the broken country to be encountered east of Kingdom's river, should the New Englanders continue arrogant. Infantry…
A roar of cheering up ahead. Through fading snowfall, Toghrul saw the horse-tails of First and Third Tumans on the ridge. He and his Guards rode among the second – which began to run. More than five thousand men racing, flooding up snow-drifted slopes to join the thousands driving into the enemy's center.
Toghrul spurred on, his Guardsmen swinging whips to win a way through rushing ranks of soldiers, the nagaikas' cracking lashes heard even over war cries, over the sounds of battle as the North Mexican infantry fell back into the hills in retreat.
Once on the heights, the tumans would divide, strike east and west along the ridge-lines to complete the victory. Then, Shapilov's foolish loss in the north forgotten, the subjugation of Middle Kingdom would become inevitable.
His center destroyed – in only Warm-time minutes, now – Monroe would, of course, dream of flanking movements. But dream too late… too late to reposition troops, to reorganize his army. There would be no time for it.
There was a sound to the east… Toghrul rose in his stirrups to hear better over the noise of the advance. Something there at the left flank – from the left flank.
There was… something. A trembling in the air. A sound from the eastern slopes as if a great barrel of stones were rolling… Cavalry.
Toghrul shouted, "Cavalry!" Sul Niluk, at the head of the escort, heard him as other Guardsmen heard him – and all turned to stare east.
Out of a fading curtain of falling snow, blowing, drifting with the wind… movement. Shifting movement on the hillsides' snow-draped brush and bramble. Gray gleams of steel, and the rumbling noise louder and louder.
Then a grand choir of trumpets – and horsemen, banners, a host of three… four thousand riding in an armored tide a half-mile wide across the slopes, thundering down on tumans dismounted. The men scrambling – so slow on foot – crowding, surging away to avoid that avalanche of cavalry, its trumpets blaring like the cries of monstrous beasts.
Then bugles answering from the west. Toghrul looked to the right, saw nothing yet, but heard the bugles. That would be their Light Infantry coining, of course. And commanded by a woman, of all absurdities.
There… there. The first formations coming at the ran to swing the western gate shut upon him… some sunshine coming with them, shining on their steel. His Guardsmen were shouting… the dismounted men, thousands of them, also slowing their advance on the hillsides, calling, crying out as they saw death come riding from the east… running from the west.
"Rally!" Toghrul howled it, and hurt his throat. "Rally and fall back!" Hopeless… hopeless.
Monroe had dreamed of flanking after all, and dreamed in time. His Heavy Infantry's so-convincing retreat would now end as a blocking wall of pikes and crossbows at the last high ridge, to hold the dismounted Kipchak army as it was flanked, slaughtered, then hunted as those still alive fled north… Really fine generalship. An interesting man.
Toghrul's Guardsmen had reined to face the cavalry attack, to hold it for the instants he would need to gallop free. Everything was perfectly clear, went very slowly, could be seen in each detail. Sound, though, seemed muffled, so that trumpet calls, men's screams, and the rumbling shock of hoofbeats were like distant music. He saw the pennants' colors perfectly… noticed an officer in the first rank of those horsemen, brown uniform, black cloak streaming as he rode, a shining steel hook for a hand.
Toghrul reined Lively around, blessing the animal, and spurred away as his escort of one hundred wheeled to guard. His standard-bearer had turned to stay with him – but reined his horse left, rather than right, so Lively lunged shouldering into it. Caught off-balance, the man's horse stumbled in the rush and went down as if it had taken an arrow.
Lively, stepping over the fallen horse, was kicked and his left fore broken.
Toghrul picked him up on the reins and heeled him staggering away, three-legged, as the hundred of the Guard – tangled by fugitive soldiers into disarray – were struck at a gallop by a surf of cavalry. The Guards and their mounts were hurled aside, ridden down, driven back and back in a tumble of flesh, bone, and steel.
This great breaking wave of frantic thrashing beasts, of dead and dying men, caught Lively and drove him under.
Toghrul had an instant to try to kick free of the stirrups – leap for his life in a desperate scramble, then run, run… And, of course, look ridiculous in the attempt.
He stayed in his saddle, called only, "My son…"
Sam had noticed before, that the near silence at a battle's end seemed loud as the fighting had been. This end of the day sounded only with distant trumpets calling the chase, with orders spoken nearby, with conversations and the rasp of grave-digging, the hollow chock of axes cutting campfire wood. And an occasional muffled scream as the parade of wounded was carried on plank hurdles over snowy slopes, then down the main-ridge reverse to the medical tents, and Portia-doctor's people.
The remnant Kipchaks were scattering north, pursued by Light Cavalry. They would ride, killing those people, until their horses foundered.
Poor savages. Only shepherd tribesmen now, without their brilliant Lord of Grass – and hunted by every people they'd conquered before. It would be years before the Kipchaks were an army again – if ever.
Victory. Its first taste, chilled imperial wine – its second, rotting blood.
"General Voss comin', sir." Corporal Fass – alive and on tent-guard as usual… More than could be said for Sergeant Wilkey, that quietly dangerous young man. Assuming Sam might have some special affection for him, Charmian had sent a word of regret that he'd been killed.
A people whose bravest men and women died in wars to defend them… after years and years of such losses, might a country of mountain lions became a country of sheep?
Howell was riding a strange horse – his charger must have been killed in the fighting. A tired horse, and a tired man climbing off it.
"Thank you," – Sam took his hand – "for Map-Fort Stockton, and for here."
"Sam, don't thank me for giving orders, and I won't thank you for it. Our people did the dying, enough so Lady Weather let us win." Voss – left eye already lost, its socket hidden under his black patch – had nearly lost the right. A blade-point had struck his cheek just beneath; a run of blood was clotted down his face… But it seemed one eye was enough to reveal sorrow.
"Tell me, Howell."
"Phil…"
"I know Phil's dead. Dead in the first engagement. Horacio sent a runner when it happened. He's got Phil's little dog…"
Howell made a face like a punished child's. "And Carlo."
"Carlo… All right. Go on."
"Teddy Baker, Fred Halloway, Michelle Serrano, Willard Reese… and a number of junior officers."
"A number…"
"Two hundred and eleven, Sam."
"By the dear Lady… Certain?"
"As reported. Still could be more – or less. A few may turn up, might only have been wounded."
"Soldiers?"
"Sam, it's too soon to say; still calling rolls. Likely at least three thousand killed or wounded. A number of companies don't seem to exist, now. Fourth Battalion of Lights is gone, but for twenty or thirty people. – And Oswald-cook is dead. Apparently heard 'No reserves,' and brought his people up on the line as the center fell back. Fought with cleavers and kitchen knives, some of them."
"Kitchen knives… Elvin would have been relieved. No more experiments for dinner."
"Southern peppers stuck in everything…" Howell tried a smile.
"Who else?"
Howell stopped smiling.
"Who else?"
"Ned."
"You're – you don't know that. He could be anywhere out there!"
"Sam, they found him. Sword cuts. Elman saw him fighting in the charge, surrounded by those people… Found the Kipchak Khan a little farther on. Fucker had been trampled – his own people rode over him."
"Yes… One of Horacio's officers, Frank Clay, told me they'd found Toghrul dead."
"Ned was maybe a bow-shot away from him. Going to kill the son-of-a-bitch, I suppose, and there were just too many to ride through."
"… Howell, I gave him that order. I said, 'The Khan is to be killed.' "
"A proper order, Sam – and Ned and his people drove the Kipchaks over their own commander."
For a while, they stood and said nothing. It had become a beautiful day, no snowflakes falling. The evening sun shone warm as egg-yolk through clear, cold air. The blood in Sam's right boot had turned to icy slush.
By the greatest effort, he managed not to recall a single day of the numberless days he and Ned had spent together in the Sierra. Laughing – always laughing about something… usually mischief, sheep stealing, trying to lure ranchers' lean, tough daughters out into the moonlight. Always some… nonsense.
"There'd better be two worlds," he said to Howell. "There'd better be a place with open gates, for all the ones we've lost."
"If not," – Howell managed a smile – "we'll take the army and break those gates down." He saluted, and went to mount his tired horse. A lucky man, not to have been blinded by that wound…
At dark, by a campfire built high of hardwood – as, Sam supposed, a sort of victory beacon – his commanders, senior officers surviving, many limping and bloodied in battered armor, stood around him on the high-ridge hilltop like monuments to war's triumphs and disasters. Some were drawing deep, exhausted breaths, as if still uncertain of their next.
The Boston girl, Patience – no longer looking quite so young – knelt in the fire's light, polishing her scimitar's slender steel.
"Sam…" Howell had cleaned the dried blood from his face, and looked only weary. "Sam, what do we do now?"
The campfire roared softly, its smoke rising into deeper night.
"We bury our dead," Sam said, looking into the flames. He held Phil's little dog, trembling in a fold of his cloak. "Then ride to the river, to celebrate a wedding."
The elderly Bishop of the Presence of Floating Jesus – a man habitually bulky and full in flesh – stood a little shrunken in his Shades-of-water robe, on which many little jeweled fish were sewn, mouths open to sing adoration of the Lord.
Old Queen Joan had been the bishop's casual enemy for years – supposedly he'd bored her; she'd certainly refused him residence at Island. But her death, nevertheless, had struck him such a surprising blow that these new matters, these over-settings of what had once been so, had worn him severely, and made what was real seem unreal.
True, the sun shone into the eight-week summer; true, the river's wind blew richly through the stone of Island – he felt his robe-hem ruffle to it – and true, men and women wed.
But standing on the wide balcony of North Tower, he faced not only the familiar – he'd known the Princess Rachel since she'd been a child – but the unfamiliar as well, a stocky North Mexican war-chief, supposedly soon to be the King… His officers, still battle-lame, crowded the chamber beyond, alongside great river lords – and one of the Boston creatures as well.
The sun shone, and the river's wind blew, but all else seemed a dream, and his reading of the marriage vows – 'fidelity to flow,' and so forth – unreal as the rest.
But he ended at last, and the Princess was gathered – cream lace crushed, diadem tilted awry – into her husband's arms and kissed with rather coarse energy, and apparent affection. Then a great rolling roar, an avalanche of shouts, welled from the crowds packing the wide landings, staircases, and distant broad, paved squares of Island – though many still wore blood-red in mourning for the Queen they'd loved. The granite rang, hundreds of hanging, ribboned decorations swung to that thunder, and the banners, pennants, and flags flying from every tower, flying from every ship in the near gate-harbor, seemed to ripple out also in celebration, as if with the river's blessing.
Still, the bishop felt he dreamed… until the bridegroom, smiling like a boy, reached out to take his hand – and woke him with an iron grip, eased to gentleness.