Errollyn entered the RESH’ULAN, and surveyed the scene. There were serrin present, gathered about the lower stage, which stood alone before rows of amphitheatre seating and surrounded by a small moat. The serrin were asking questions of a man who sat at the centre of the stage, his wrists manacled together.
It was Reynold Hein.
Errollyn walked gingerly down the steps. He no longer hurt like he once did, but efforts to rebuild his strength met resistance from bruised flesh and strained muscle. Lesthen stood by the moat, speaking at length, his long white hair spilling on blue, formal robes. He saw Errollyn and pointed serrin to face him, without breaking sentence. Two serrin rose to confront him, expressions apologetic but firm. Errollyn abandoned his first plan, to draw his blade and strike off Reynold’s head. And he was in no physical condition yet to charge past his people, and execute their prisoner.
Aisha emerged from the group, took his arm, and guided him to a bench. Errollyn counted nearly thirty serrin present, many of the Mahl’rhen’s most prominent remaining names among them.
“It’s a formal etoth’teyen,” he muttered to Aisha as Lesthen droned on, and the two serrin who had opposed him returned to their seats, but kept a careful eye upon him. “Why does he warrant the formalities?”
“It’s the way, Errollyn,” Aisha told him. Her words lacked conviction. Errollyn was not entirely certain why she was still in Tracato. Rhillian had gone, and taken the Steel with her. Aisha had remained, ostensibly because she was Rhillian’s trusted lieutenant and would carry out her preferences, and make certain that the new peace with the feudalists would hold. Also, Errollyn knew, she’d been keeping an eye n him. But others could have performed either task as well.
“It’s not the way,” Errollyn retorted. “We have no way for this, we only use our formalities and debates because that’s all we have.”
“Well the human courts can’t take him,” Aisha said. “We’re all there is for law and order in Tracato right now.”
“Maybe we always were,” said Errollyn.
He stared at Reynold, hoping that certain peasant superstitions were true, and the weight of a hateful stare alone could bring misfortune upon a person. Reynold did not look particularly troubled. He sat serenely, with excellent posture, and listened to Lesthen’s droning-in Saalsi, too, for Reynold spoke excellent Saalsi, like any Nasi-Keth scholar. This was not a man who expected to die, not even given what he’d done. Reynold was a persuasive talker, and could think just like a serrin-round and round in circles. It had taken some time for Errollyn to ride here, after he’d heard, from out on the practice fields. This session had surely been progressing for more than an hour so far.
“Where was he caught?” Errollyn asked. Lesthen was talking about the philosophy of Mereshin, who had been dead fifteen hundred years. Gods help them all.
“Elisse,” said Aisha. “Some Civid Sein went that way, amongst the villages we liberated in the south. They were talking revolution.”
“What did the peasants say?”
“They expressed a preference for bread,” Aisha said drily. “Several heard of a reward and alerted the talmaad.”
“They’ll eat well on that reward,” said Errollyn. “Reynold finally achieves something for the poor.” Aisha gave him a faint smile, and put a hand on his arm.
Lesthen’s recital on the life of Mereshin moved into the phase of Mereshin’s realisations on usden’ehrl, the acceptance of loss, and the uselessness of vengeance. Errollyn wondered if all the serrinim were mad, that he were the only one to find the whole scene utterly preposterous.
“I interrupt,” came a new voice, and Lesthen paused. Not the only one, then. Across the stage, Kiel rose to his feet. “My apologies for the indelicate rupture,” Kiel continued, in florid Saalsi, “yet my point is pressing, and none too far removed. This man has done us a great crime and he should die. If none disagree, and I feel the point is indisputable among reasonable serrin, then we should proceed with the obvious resolution and return to more important matters.”
“I second the learned serrinim!” Errollyn called in reply. Kiel seemed a little surprised at his support and accepted it with a graceful bow.
“Third!” called Aisha. Seven more voices followed in support. Ten, from thirty. Errollyn rolled his eyes to the high ceiling. One of these days, the serrinim would realise that taking necessary action was more important than the pursuit of interesting debates. He only hoped that those serrin who reached that realisation would not be the small, huddled handful remaining after the rest had been slaughtered by foes who cared nothing for clever argument.
“Ten is insufficient,” said Lesthen. “I believe that I continue to hold the floor.”
“Horse shit you do,” Errollyn muttered, and got to his feet. The two serrin opposing him also stood. Errollyn unbuckled his bandoleer, and handed it to them, sword and all. They waited for his knives, too.
“Errollyn,” Lesthen said tiredly, “you do not have the floor. It would interest the impartial debate for you to remain seated, and follow the-”
“I’ve no time for that,” said Errollyn, walking down to the stage side. “None of us has time for that. I am required at training for the new talmaad sent from Saalshen, they have little experience in battle and my presence here may deprive them of the one vital lesson they need to keep them alive. I submit to you that the life of Reynold Hein is not worth the small finger of a serrin talmaad, let alone his life.”
“Much agreed,” said Kiel. It disturbed Errollyn only a little, to have found a point of agreement with Kiel. Kiel seemed to find it amusing.
“Do you then suppose that we should abandon our learned debate?” Lesthen asked. “Abandon the one facet of serrin life that has served us best in all times, our search for truth?”
“You do not offer truth, Lesthen,” said Errollyn, putting a foot upon a raised stone so he could lean on a knee. “You offer procedure.”
“One finds truth by searching. The simple or brief thought is usually wrong, driven by emotion, by desires and wants of the heart. And so we have procedures, to serve as the filter for our thoughts.”
“Lesthen.” Errollyn looked at him, attempting patience. “We stand here in human lands. Some humans may care for our debates, but their society does not function by it. Human society functions by rules. They do not persuade each other as to the wrongness of their ways, they simply kill them, as necessary. We seek now to rule in human lands, yet we do not learn to follow the methods that work.”
“We seek to elevate humanity,” Lesthen replied. “In Tracato, humanity has reached a level of civilisation unmatched elsewhere in all human lands. Do you dispute this achievement?”
“For everything, there is a time,” said Errollyn. “Not now, Lesthen. Not here, and not in this. A very simple rule was broken, and this man attempted to unbalance everything that you, and all serrin, have worked so hard to create, and that you now laud as a great achievement. We kill him not from vengeance but because to fail to do so will cause all right-minded humans to lose faith in us, or to view us as helplessly weak.”
“And quite rightly too,” Kiel interjected, “should we fail in something so obvious.”
“And what should we become, if we kill this man?” Lesthen looked at Reynold. Reynold watched, with more trepidation now than before. The intelligence was there, in his blue eyes. The charm. At another time, Errollyn might have wondered how it were possible for a man who possessed so many admirable qualities to be so evil. Now, he only remembered the pain of blades and shackles, and the scars on Sasha’s body.
“Should we become like our very worst enemies?” Lesthen contined. “Should we kill any who oppose us? Should we seek the sword before the word? Can truth be found in blood?”
“Yes,” said Errollyn. “The poets write of a mystical balance in nature, yet I grew up in the wilds, and I see nothing like what they describe. Nature’s creatures do not seek harmonious relations, they would all grow to a plague if allowed, and rape all the land. But they don’t, because first, the food runs out, and second, the predators kill them. That is the truth of blood, Lesthen, that we serrin have forgotten. All the way of the world is blood, and the harmonious balance of the poets is nothing more than an equal measure of death. We forgot it for a thousand years and more, and now, the humans remind us. Yet you…you do not thank them for the reminder of a vital truth, but rather cling to unwise myths of the loving mother earth. Mother earth eats her children, Lesthen. So shall we, should we seek to live on this earth much longer?”
Lesthen said nothing. He was considering. About the resh’ulan, many were. Errollyn was surprised. It had been a while since he had stood in a space such as this, and exchanged the idis’iln, the force of reason, with his fellow serrin. For so long he had been exasperated by them, by the hypocrisy of a people so proud of their equanimity, yet so lacking in its practice. Had he misjudged his people? Or rather, had he simply grown?
Reynold cleared his throat. “Might I speak my piece?” he suggested. Lesthen ignored him, considering how to respond to Errollyn’s idis’iln, with one of equal force. Reynold took it for encouragement, and carefully stood. “I have heard often of the justice of the serrin, and I am encouraged, noble serrinim, to see it in practice here today….”
Lesthen made an irritated gesture to another serrin. That man hopped the small moat and struck Reynold to the face. Reynold hit the ground hard, and lay groaning. Not one serrin face, in all those surrounding, displayed any shock nor displeasure.
“Your words are pure poison, Master Reynold,” said Lesthen. “You and your kind suffer from the worst disease of humanity, the willingness to subordinate truth, to lock reason in chains and to rape the objective thought, in order to achieve your objective. Never mind if the objective is just, you have forfeited by your methods any right to speak in the resh’ulan, for now and ever. Your life belongs to us now.”
To the rear of the amphitheatre, some serrin were rising. Errollyn turned, and saw Kessligh walking down the stairs. His eyes were on Reynold, and deadly serious.
“Yuan Kessligh,” said Lesthen. “I welcome you. Perhaps you wish to speak?”
Kessligh appeared to be considering it, as he walked to Errollyn’s side. Errollyn noted that no one had thought to remove his weapons. Kessligh stopped, and looked at Lesthen. Then at Reynold. Everyone waited for him to speak.
Instead, Kessligh stepped across the moat, dropped his staff in favour of his blade, and struck off Reynold’s head where he sat. The body fell, fountaining blood. Kessligh examined his blade, critically, as Reynold’s head rolled on the stone, then stopped. Finding no blemish, or even a stain of blood, so fast had been the strike, Kessligh resheathed the sword. And turned, to confront the entire resh’ulan staring at him, silently.
“What are you doi here?” Kessligh asked, in exasperation. “The purpose of debate is to change opinions. Some humans are not capable of that. In such confrontations, it’s them, or it’s us. I choose us. Now, Rhodaan is under attack, I submit we all have better ways to spend our time than here.”
“The purpose of the debate, Yuan Kessligh,” said Lesthen, “is not to convince our enemies. It is to convince ourselves. Serrin are not born wise, we must teach ourselves wisdom every day.”
“Wisdom?” Kessligh walked close to Lesthen, and stared at him. “Serrin have had two centuries to prepare for this moment, yet still the main force that defends you is human. Where are Saalshen’s heavy forces? Saalshen makes steel unknown to human methods, and breeds fine horses and horsemen, and engineers projectile weapons of terrible force, and flaming oils that can melt steel and crack stone, but still you will not make your own armies save for the talmaad’s light cavalry! Heavy armies require a change in methods, a change in civilisation, a recruitment of soldiers, a reordering of society. Serrin have refused all this and chosen instead to place their burden upon the shoulders of humans. And why? Because you’re too busy fucking debating!”
He glared about at them all, in genuine anger.
“It’s wise to learn how to cook,” Kessligh fumed, “but a meal prepared over three weeks is inedible! There is wisdom in action! So stop talking, and act!”
He walked up the stairs, between standing serrin who stared at him. Kiel, no habitual friend of Kessligh’s, began to applaud. Several of Kiel’s ra’shi joined him. So did Errollyn, and Aisha. Then some more.
Errollyn followed Kessligh up the stairs, and those applauding followed. It seemed an odd collection of people, Errollyn supposed, within which to finally find consensus with his people. But for now, it was enough.
From upon the crest of a low hill, Sasha sat ahorse and observed the most awesome sight she had ever seen. Across what the locals called Thero Valley assembled the Army of Lenayin. It had been assembling since midmorning, and now the sun drew past midday, and soldiers were still arriving. They filled the valley, a swarm too vast to comprehend. Infantry gathered to the middle, thousands of men from the towns, villages and farms of Lenayin, bristling with swords, with shields to the front. Across the flanks and to the rear clustered cavalry, milling in ragged ranks that had no regard for the thin walls that divided one pasture from another.
A narrow stream twisted across the valley floor, lined with trees. Several small, huddled villages hugged its banks, with little mills and bridges of simple wooden planks. The inhabitants had fled, Sasha heard, upon sighting the first Lenay formations.
The Army of Lenayin’s line was directed up the gentle slope of the valley’s left flank, on the diagonal. There atop the hill was a castle. Before the castle stretched a thick, silver line of steel, glinting like jewellery in the fall of sunlight through broken cloud. The rest of the Enoran Steel lay out of sight over the ridge, but there was no doubt they were there. The Steel of any Saalshen Bacosh province did not divide its forces, relying on maximum numbers to multiply the fighting power of its formations. And to divide one’s forces in the face of any enemy’s superior numbers was folly.
Sasha stared now at the slope that the Army of Lenayin must climb to do battle. The diagonal angle was a complication that such a ragged army as the Lenays, unaccustomed to grand formations, did not need. The better news was that the slope was not steep, but for massed armour like the Steel, any high ground was a huge advantage. Koenyg had the option of moving his forces down the valley to the base of the slope directly opposite the Steel lines and the castle, but that could easily have placed him within reach of the Steel’s artillery, whose range would be extended by the slope to the tune of a hundred paces at least. Koenyg had chosen well, Sasha thought. But the Enorans had chosen better.
Great Lord Faras of Isfayen came galloping to her side at the head of his entourage. “This shall be a battle unlike any in all the history of Lenayin,” he observed. Sasha had expected him to be bursting with excitement, as were all too many of the men she’d observed. Instead, he seemed subdued, as though the scale of what confronted him had reduced him to a state of awe. “Our ancestors shall curse the fates that they lived too soon to see the likes of this. Men shall tell of this for centuries.”
“Best that they tell it well,” Sasha said grimly. “Should we attack straight up that slope, we’re all dead, and our grandchildren will tell only of what fools we were.”
“There is no other place,” Lord Ranas declared from his friend Faras’s side. “North of here is forest, while land to the south is too broken for large formations.”
Faras nodded. “The Enorans move faster than we, the Enoran border is all paved roads and bridges. Look how fast they come forward from their border to counter us here. Should we go south, we could manoeuvre for days attempting to find better ground than this, and would be greeted every time by the Enorans atop another fucking hill. I say we go here. The slope is gentle, and we have flanks for our cavalry.”
They were still on Larosan land, yet barely so. The Enorans doubtless knew this land nearly as well as their own, having scouted it often. This valley was the obvious approach to the border with a large army, and once their serrin scouts had discerned that the Army of Lenayin was indeed headed this way, it would have been a relatively simple thing for the Enorans to use their paved roads to cut across the Lenays’ path, and forward to this point overlooking the valley, thus cutting the route.
“The location is good enough,” said Sasha, “but we should not attack here. We should hold, and make them come to us. Our task is merely to prevent them from advancing into Larosa, and attacking the main force engaging the Rhodaanis to the north.”
Faras frowned. “This is not a strong defensive position. Should they come, they come down the hill.”
“And their artillery comes down the hill with them,” Sasha replied. “I learned in Petrodor that artillery does not fire well on a slope. Perhaps they can move it downslope over there,” and she pointed to the fork in the valley that turned into Enora, “but that will give us an opening where their main force is undefended by artillery. Either way, it is in our advantage to make them move first.”
Sasha was thankful that Koenyg saw matters the same as she. At midafternoon, the army was fully assembled, and growing impatient. A ridge beside a farmhouse had become the royal command post, and Gred that trd Faras rode that way to consult, leaving Sasha with the remaining Isfayen nobility. She practised some taka-dans, and wondered just how many serrin talmaad were probing their flanks right now, and testing the strengths of Lenay cavalry.
Lord Faras shared those concerns, and with a party of ten nobility they rode back along the gentle valley slope. Across the valley was thick forest, making any leftward flanking move troublesome. It would be crawling with talmaad, Sasha was prepared to bet. And now, down the valley, came the Torovans, a great snaking army of metal helms and wooden shields. They rode with a glitter and polish that the Army of Lenayin did not, armour sparkling silver, and great, colourful banners flying. Sasha and the Isfayen galloped close, and were greeted with hearty cheers and waves from the cavalry at the front.
“They look very fine!” an Isfayen nobleman remarked above the thunder of hooves.
“Aye,” said Faras, with a twisted smile, “if it made them better warriors, the Isfayen would put feathers in their hats too!”
Upon their return to the main formation, a wild-haired Goeren-yai messenger on a little dussieh came flying to intercept them.
“M’Lady Sashandra,” he called, “you are wanted on the field. Negotiators from Enora have requested your presence for parley.”
It took a while for Sasha to find the centre of the formation. She galloped along the Lenay lines, jumping pasture walls where they obstructed her, dodging about small camps in fields or milling groups of men who did not seem to know where their place was, or did not seem to care. Banners were difficult to spot amidst the enormous crowds.
Finally, to the front of the formation, she saw a small cluster of men on horses beneath a royal banner. She edged her horse through one of the gaps in the line, and rode to the little group. It was Koenyg, she realised, and Damon, and…her father.
The king did not look at her as she approached. Sasha reined up beside Damon, and waited.
“What do they ask?” she asked him in a low voice, above the thunder of hooves, and the roar of many thousands of voices. It would have been too much to expect Lenay warriors to sit quietly and wait. They seethed with anticipation.
“To talk,” said Damon with a faint shrug. “It is customary, in the lowlands.”
Sasha nodded. In Lenayin, individual warriors might talk before a duel, but rarely entire armies. She did not think that most Lenay warriors would disapprove of the notion, however. To discuss protocols with a man you were about to kill seemed honourable. Oddly, she found herself wondering why Lenays had never adopted the custom for grand battles. Probably, she thought, because there was so little flat ground in Lenayin. Armies did not line up, but struck with the first advantage. An odd case of terrain dictating custom, perhaps.
From the top of the slope near the castle, a small party of men rode forth. Sasha squinted, but could not make out the flags. Sweat prickled on her brow. She thought she knew why she had been asked for. She wanted to say no. To plead off sick, or find some lameness in her horse. But she could not appear weak before the men. And if her horse was lame, they’d find her another.
“It must be them,” ged her hooncluded as the party kept coming. The king tapped heels to his horse, and rode with his three children toward the stream and the slope beyond. The stream barely came up to the horses’ knees, and soon they were cantering across fields as the ground began to rise. There were three in the oncoming party, two human and one serrin. Sasha nearly turned back.
Koenyg signalled to her and Damon, and Sasha moved up on Koenyg’s side, the far left position in their line. Damon took the far right, beside their father. They came to a trot, and then a halt, perhaps ten strides from the opposing line of three.
“I’m General Rochan,” said the central man, in Torovan. He wore a helm with a general’s crest, and wore chest and shoulder guards over mail. A middle-sized man, with intense, close-set eyes, of perhaps forty summers. “Commander of the Enoran Second Regiment, acting Commander of Armies for this engagement. To my left is my second, Formation Captain Lashel. To my right, Vilan, of the talmaad.”
Sasha forced herself to look. The serrin had pure white hair like Rhillian’s, worn long and untidy. His eyes were nearly gold within a pale face. It gave him the look of an albino, but Sasha doubted that he was. He was simply serrin. Sasha wished he were elsewhere.
“King Torvaal Lenayin,” her father replied grimly. “My sons, Koenyg and Damon. My daughter, Sashandra.”
General Rochan looked across their line with his sharp eyes. Something about his manner disturbed Sasha further. She had hoped that perhaps some turmoil of Enoran politics would lead the Enorans to place an incapable general in command of this battle. To observe the thoughts racing through Rochan’s eyes, she did not think that had happened.
“You come a long way, King of Lenayin,” Rochan said finally. He drew himself up, and his gaze held little of respect or fear. “Why are you here? We Enorans have done nothing to you.”
“You sin against the Verenthane faith,” said Torvaal. “You hold lands that are not yours.”
“Truly?” Rochan looked genuinely astonished. “I can trace my ancestry back a dozen generations on this land. How is this land not mine?”
“You sin against the Verenthane faith,” Torvaal replied, as though he had not heard the general. “The Archbishop of Torovan has decreed it.”
“Ah,” said Rochan. “Torovan. And how many have the Torovans sent you? It looks perhaps fifteen thousand from our vantage? Eighteen, at the most? They had promised you thirty, had they not? Why does the Archbishop of Torovan send Lenays to die for his cause?”
“Any Verenthane would serve as well,” said Torvaal darkly.
“And barely half of you are Verenthane,” said Rochan, giving Sasha a long stare. Sasha looked at the slope behind him, and the castle, large against the sky.
“We have not ridden all this way to debate,” Koenyg interrupted. “State your terms, if you have any, or offer your surrender. Should you offer it, you shall be given honourable terms from Lenayin.”
Rochan snorted and smiled unpleasantly. “This from a Lenay, who finds nothing honourable in surrender. Have no fer, Prince of Lenayin, we like it as little as you do. Your allies have made it plain for two hundred years that they shall offer no terms. We think it preferable to die on our feet with a sword in our hands than at the end of a Larosan rope, or beneath their torture knives.”
Sasha barely repressed a shudder. The serrin Vilan noticed. Again, Sasha looked away, hoping it would all end soon. Battle would be preferable to this. In battle, one did not have to think.
“Do you have terms?” Koenyg repeated.
“Withdraw now,” said Rochan, coldly. “Those are my terms. You are foreigners to this kind of warfare. Know that the Enoran Steel has faced armies twice the size of what confronts us here, and left them barely a man alive. I think it an abomination that Lenayin’s rulers should lead its sons to die by the thousand upon this foreign field, for this most ignoble cause. You are a curse upon your people, sirs. They will curse you when we are done.”
“The wounded and surrendering shall not be harmed,” said Torvaal, as though he had not heard. “Whatever your previous opponents may have practised, we Lenays practise honourable warfare. Prisoners shall not be tortured, and shall be returned to their families upon the reaching of terms. Neither do we ransom for gold, nor otherwise partake in hostages, as is the frequent custom here. There is no honour in gold. Submission, by death or surrender, is all that honour requires.”
Rochan frowned, and was silent for a moment, considering that. Then he nodded. “I accept these terms,” he said, less coldly than before. “We shall reciprocate, when you are defeated.”
“I hear you have not in the past,” Koenyg accused him.
“No,” the general admitted. “Two centuries of dishonourable warfare by our opponents put a stop to it. Ask of your allies of our captured soldiers tortured and disembowelled alive. Ask them what worse things they do to captured serrin. Our captured enemies we attempt to rehabilitate. Some refuse and prefer death. Others are sent to Saalshen. Others still have come to recognise the error of their ways. Formation Captain Lashel here was once a knight of Merraine. Now, he fights for us, by choice.”
Koenyg seemed astonished. He stared at the captain, who nodded, and said nothing. Sasha felt that she might be ill.
“Sashandra,” said the serrin Vilan. He leaned forward on his saddlehorn, gazing at her with those impossible golden eyes. “You are troubled, Sashandra,” he said in Saalsi. His voice was gentle. “You have the look of one lost, and struggling to recognise the path upon which you walk. It seems familiar to you in parts, but then it plunges into foreign mists. You struggle on, more and more certain that you are lost, only to recognise a tree, or a rock, or to think you recognise them. Surely your path is correct. Surely it is true. Is it not?”
Serrin verbs played games through the undergrowth of Saalsi grammar, twisting about to ambush entire sentences unawares. Sasha stared at him, helplessly. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her family all frowned at her, wondering what was said. The Enorans also frowned, but their eyes were comprehending.
“Can you truly fight us, Sashandra?” Vilan asked as though he knew her personally. “Have we caused you such pain in your heart?” A shiver flushedher skin. And she recalled abruptly the battlefield before the walls of Ymoth, and Errollyn talking with her of the Synnich, and of how he, Aisha, Terel and Tassi had known how to come to Lenayin, despite word of the impending battle being a two-month round trip away.
Dear spirits, she realised in horror, she’d never asked him how. And he’d never told her, perhaps sensing that she did not truly wish to know, lest she discover something that would shake her world. Vilan now looked at her as though he knew her, and somehow, she did not doubt that he did. What was the vel’ennar truly? And if Errollyn lacked it, being du’jannah, how had he known to come to Lenayin when he had? And why had she never asked him how?
“I do not hate you,” Sasha replied in Saalsi, her voice straining to make itself heard across the distance. “But my people march to war, and I have seen how the Steel of the Saalshen Bacosh fights. If I do not help them, they may all die.”
“And you shall be their saviour?” Vilan asked sadly. “Dear girl, you are but one warrior, and though you have a gift of tactics and command, this army is not yours to lead. Can you save them all?”
“No,” said Sasha, more firmly. A tear trickled down her cheek. “I shall die with them.”
“And if, by your death, Enora shall fall? And then Rhodaan? And then, left undefended, Saalshen?”
Sasha looked at the ground, and could not speak.
Koenyg broke in, and brought the parley to a conclusion. Riding back to the Lenay lines, he cantered close to her side.
“What did he say?”
“He said we’re all going to die,” Sasha lied.
“And what did you say?”
“I said that’s why I’m here.”
The Army of Lenayin did not attack that afternoon. Instead, it retreated up the other side of the valley, and camped across the slope and the hill crest. The men of Lenayin were not happy, and grumbled about glory delayed, but there were enough wise tactical heads among them to keep the discontent at bay.
Andreyis sat by the campfire and gazed across the valley at the fires on the hill beyond. His boots were off, as had become the habit this long march, to allow hardened feet to breathe. Dinner sat ill in his stomach. About him, clustered men caroused, laughed and sang, but Andreyis felt no urge to join in. He never had, particularly. He thought now of Kessligh and Sasha’s ranch, and the horses, and how he’d loved to spend time there. Mostly, he’d loved the solitude. And the company of some people he genuinely liked, it was true, particularly as two of them were among the most famous people in Lenayin…but solitude, in Andreyis’s life, had been a rare and precious thing. Little enough that he’d been getting here.
Valhanan had marched roughly in the middle of the Lenay column, and now occupied the central position in the Lenay front line. It was not such a bad place to be, Teriyan and other, older men had assured him, as in most mass formation warfare, the flanks were harried hardest, not the centre. But the centre, he’d figured, would be the easiest place for the Enoran artillerymen to aim.
Teriyan returned from hearty conversation with others to plonk himself down at Andreyis’s side. “Pity the sentries tonight,” he said. “They’ll have no sleep with these hills crawling with serrin.”
“How many serrin, do you think?”
“Oh…could be thousands.” Teriyan shrugged. “Sasha said just recently, at training…she said most serrin don’t fight. Don’t know how to fight. Amazing, no? All we see are warriors because those are the ones who travel. And svaalverd’s only a small part of serrin knowledge. Most serrin know more about crafts, medicine, farming and forestry than about warfare.
“But the talmaad’s still big, and there’ll be a lot of them coming to help. I’d guess there could be close to ten thousand here.”
“That’s a lot,” said Andreyis. “I spoke with men who’d seen those four serrin fight, the ones who came with us to the north. Errollyn, that was the man’s name. And Terel. It was said they fought like demons.”
“Aye,” said Teriyan. “And here, they’ll be fighting for their homes.” He took a deep breath. “Sasha says Terel’s dead. He died in Petrodor. Errollyn’s alive, and the little one, Aisha. Pretty girl she was. Smart as all hells too. Sasha thinks the reason serrin are so smart is their memory. No, she doesn’t think, she’s certain of it. She says Errollyn and Aisha remember conversations she’s had with them word for word, when she can barely recall the topic. That’s why your average serrin knows so much, they just learn much faster. That’s how little Aisha knows seventeen languages. She learns a word once and doesn’t need to repeat it, she just remembers.”
“That’s amazing.” For a while, they both said nothing, but listened to the sound of forty-plus thousand men at camp. Already the air was thick with smoke, from small fires and cooking. “A warrior is not supposed to doubt before a battle,” said Andreyis. “But I can’t help it.”
“Every man feels fear, lad. That’s why they drink, sing and laugh, to drown out the fear.”
“No, it’s not fear. Or at least, it’s not just fear. It’s doubt.” He looked at Teriyan, and saw the big man’s face troubled. This was one of the only men in all Lenayin he’d have dared express such things to. “We should not be fighting serrin. Nor Enorans. I’m certain of it. And I’ll bet Sasha’s certain too.”
“Aye lad.” Teriyan sighed. “She is. But she’s Lenay, and she’s here because her people need her. If we could turn around and walk out now, all our men would have to fight that much harder to cover our absence.”
“I know that,” Andreyis retorted crossly. What Teriyan suggested was dishonourable. Like any Lenay, Andreyis was certain he would rather die. “I’m just saying. We fight for honour. But the cause is dishonourable.”
“The cause is out of our hands. That’s for the king to decide.”
“And since when did any Lenay man listen to him?”
Teriyan looked at him for a long moment, then shook his head in faint exasperation, but not at Andreyis’s question. At the circumstance.
“I wish Sasha had visited,” Andreyis said quietly. “I know why she can’t, but I wish she had. Tell me some more of her adventures.”
“I’ve already told you all she told me,” Teriyan objected.
“Think of something.”
Sasha had bad dreams. She dreamed of being dragged from Errollyn’s arms, and the bed set on fire, burning sheets scorching her flesh. Of Errollyn screaming, a blade dripping blood, and rattling chains that tore at her wrists. She saw Rhillian, emerald eyes burning with grief and fury, wrestling with a wolf that snarled and snapped at her throat. Kiel fired an arrow, but struck Rhillian instead of the wolf. The wolf retreated to Kiel’s side, and licked his hand. Kiel pulled the shaft from Rhillian’s side, and blood poured out.
The wolf ran away, and Sasha followed, as it ran down familiar palace halls, and through a wood panelled doorway. Sasha recognised a royal bedroom, with grand furnishings and gilt-edged paintings on the walls. From the huge, four-posted bed came squeals and grunts of sexual pleasure and pain. Sasha walked closer, and found that the wolf had become a man, yet still with a long snout and fangs. Beneath him was Sofy, naked legs about his hairy hide, grunting and crying out as he ravaged her, and his claws reaved her flesh.
Then she was running down a city street, struggling for space in the hot air between oppressive walls. Behind her ran a mob, waving clubs and farm tools, howling like crazed animals. She rounded a corner, and found herself trapped before a formation of Steel, shields interlocked. One lofted a spear, and atop it was impaled Alythia’s severed head, eyes wide and mouth gaping. Sasha spun, and the mob behind lofted more spears, each with another head. The one closest was Kessligh’s.
She awoke in an eruption of limbs and blanket, kicking the covering away as she surged to her knees. And knelt there gasping, her heart hammering, her old wounds throbbing like fire. She rubbed at the burns on her ribs, and felt no scab, only the smoothness of new skin. It should not hurt like this. But still it burned, like the fire from her dreams.
About, on the hillside, all was black save the occasional glow of a sentry’s fire. The moon was new, and Sasha thought of serrin eyesight, and if it might be possible that serrin were creeping through the Lenay camp even now. From nearby came the snoring of Isfayen noblemen. They had camped barely a hundred paces from the farmhouse that was the royal command post, with many other senior nobility. Should an order be given, these men wished to be the first to know. Sasha had been offered a bed in the farmhouse, but had refused, saying she preferred the outdoors. In truth, a bed would have been nice. Yet a bed of broken glass would have been preferable to sharing a roof with her father.
Her heart and breathing recovering, she got up. There were enough fires lit to make for a little light across the long valley slope. Sasha picked her way carefully between sleeping men, and stopped at a small clean patch. She strained her eyes to see across the valley. The lights of the Enoran camp were still there, yet she felt uneasy. She felt like…like…
She could not find the word to describe it. Yet it was like at Ymoth, during the great charge of horses, when it felt as though there were a formless dark shape moving at the edge of her vision, covering her flank. In fact, she thought she’d seen it, dodging a hidden tree stump, and warning her to do the same. She had seen it, hadn’t she? She’d not thought about it in a long time, being busy with other matters, most of them not concerned with old Lenay superstitions. And there’d been a wind, in the second charge of that second fight, when the Hadryn had attempted to regroup. A great gust of wind, that had torn across the flattened fields of crops, and thrown dust and debris into the eyes of the Hadryn soldiers, distracting them from their defence.
It had happened, hadn’t it? Or was her memory playing tricks on her, in the aftermath of vivid, horrible dreams from which she had not yet fully woken? A man dreams he is a butterfly, went the serrin tale. When he awakes, he wonders, was I then a man, dreaming I was a butterfly? Or am I now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man?
Sasha squeezed her eyes shut, and put her hands over her face. Her wrists throbbed from recently healed scabs. Memories and pain. She wished that not all memories were painful. She knew she had some pleasant ones tucked away somewhere, but she did not know where to find them now.
She opened her eyes once more, and stared out into the dark. In Petrodor, Rhillian had told her tales of King Leyvaan’s army in Saalshen, and how the serrin would stalk them by night, beneath a new moon such as this one, and how no soldier could sleep for the terror of the screams of sentries dying. She heard no screaming now. And she recalled how she’d sat with Rhillian, sipping tea and talking, close as unexpected friends could be, who had known each other only a short time but found some common language of the soul. How had they come to hate each other? Somehow, she found it difficult to recall. Perhaps it was because they were so similar. Like her and Alythia, so similar, so aggressive and self-obsessed, merely the modes of expression differed. She’d hated Alythia, then come to love her. With Rhillian, it was the reverse. Perhaps.
She thought she heard a creaking. A distant squeal, as though of a cart, or some wooden axle. Then nothing. Perhaps something was trying to tell her something. Perhaps through dreams. They called her the Synnich again, in some parts of this army. At Ymoth, she’d felt like this, and seen a dark shadow running through the grain fields. She set off walking toward the farmhouse.
She found Damon sitting on the verandah, and a pair of Royal Guardsmen at watch by the door. Many others stood about, and some slept, watching in shifts. Lanterns were placed further from the farmhouse, not near, as Sasha had instructed-best to make any attacking serrin come out of the light rather than into it, and take away that advantage of a darkened approach. And Errollyn had always said that he found it hard to adjust his eyes from one strength of light to another.
She took a seat at Damon’s side, and put her head against his shoulder. Damon said nothing, yet did not seem surprised. He rested his cheek against the top of her head.
“Damon?”
“Hmm?”
“I think they might be moving the artillery.”
“What makes you think that?”
“It’s a new moon, amp;201D; said Sasha. “They’ve seen we’re too smart to attack immediately. They know they’ll have to attack at some point, if they’re going to get past us and outflank the Larosans to the north. The longer they wait, the more moon there’ll be. Serrin don’t see too well in a new moon, but we don’t see at all, so it’s a much bigger advantage for them than any other kind of moon. Why should they wait, and give us time to scout their forces?”
Damon thought about it. “So you didn’t see or hear anything that might suggest they’re moving the artillery? Some kind of actual fact?”
“No. It’s a stupid hunch.”
Damon put his arm around her, and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll listen to your stupid hunch. Go on.”
“We can’t scout the far end of the valley. It’s too close to the border, they have artillery covering it, a fast charge down the slope will kill anyone getting too close. The hills aren’t that steep either, the Steel ballistas are mounted on oxen carts, those oxen are strong, they could get up or down these hills pretty quickly. Big catapults are oxen pulled too, but those are much heavier and less stable…. I’m sure they could do it, though.”
“Hard in the dark,” suggested Damon.
“Not if each team borrows a few serrin to guide the way. We’d not even see lights moving to know what they were up to.”
Damon nodded slowly. “Where do you put the artillery?”
“Along this ridge,” said Sasha, pointing along the ridge where the Army of Lenayin was encamped.
“We can outflank them.”
“With infantry? We’ll have to split our force…. I mean, if they send their main force down into the valley, that is.”
“Give away the advantage of height? And risk encirclement on their high flanks?” Damon shook his head. “Damn, I’d love it if they did that.”
“No, Damon…” Sasha sat up and looked him in the eye. “You’re discounting the artillery. I’ve been trying to drum it into your thick heads what it can do, but no one’s listening. We won’t be able to assemble above the Enoran force in the valley, because the artillery will keep the slopes clear. They’ll be guarded, like…”
Sasha sprung off the verandah, pulled her knife and began drawing in the dirt. There was just enough light from the nearby lanterns. “You see? The main infantry force in the valley, covered by their artillery on either flank, high on the slopes. Height means extra range, they can fire at us if we go into the valley, or right into us if we assemble directly above the Enoran infantry for a charge.”
“So all of their cavalry will be defending their artillery,” said Damon, kneeling alongside. “What if we concentrate our infantry,” and he drew a big cluster on one side of the valley, “and send everyone against one lot of artillery, since they’ve conveniently divided their force. If we overrun that lot, we not only remove half of their greatest advantage, but we hold the heights above their infantry too.”
“They’ll move every cavalryman they have to defend that side,” Sasha warned. “With all these talmaad around, that’ll be a lot.”
“Yes, but light cavalry,” Damon countered. “It’s made for attacking, not defending.” He considered the squiggles in the dirt. “This would be cunning of them, but it gives us many options. They’d have to be desperate to try it.”
“We have them bottled up otherwise,” said Sasha. “And if the Larosans are not flanked, Rhodaan may well fall. If Rhodaan falls, Enora loses its defensive line, and will have to fight invasion from Rhodaan, not from Larosa, which is far easier.”
“Or from Saalshen,” Damon added, “if the Larosans cross the Ipshaal.” Sasha nodded, and looked up at footsteps on the verandah.
“What are you two muttering about that’s so important you’d wake me up?” Koenyg asked grumpily.
“Sasha has an idea.”
“Oh aye,” said Koenyg sarcastically, jumping down to look at their scribblings, “this should be good.”
He wasn’t so sarcastic after she’d explained it, though. He knelt, looking at the squiggles for a long time. And looked up, staring into the dark, as though wishing he had serrin vision with which to probe the night.
“You’re probably wrong on the details,” he said finally, “but you’re right about the intent. If I were them, I’d move soon. Immediately, even. The longer they wait, the worse their overall position.”
He got up and strode to a guardsman. The man listened to the instructions, and hurried off. Soon, some cavalry scouts arrived, wild Taneryn men, newly woken. Koenyg instructed more scouting sweeps, in addition to the many he’d already assigned. Those men strode off. More lanterns were lit about the farmhouse, and nearby camps stirred.
The king appeared in the doorway, a black sentinel in a robe. “Trouble?” he asked Koenyg.
“Perhaps. Sasha fears they may be moving. I think she may be right.” Torvaal looked at Sasha, long and hard. Sasha ignored him, leaning on a verandah post and waiting.
Yasmyn emerged from the doorway, wrapped in a cloak. Her face, swollen when she had left Sofy’s service eight days ago, was now somewhat recovered, though her right eye remained partly closed. Her hair, previously long and loose, had been covered by a red scarf, patterned with ancient black markings. There were new scars on her cheek, that Balthaar’s men had not inflicted. It was the arganyar, in Isfayen Telochi. In Lenay it translated as “the impatience.” The red of the headscarf was for blood. The cuts on Yasmyn’s cheeks were for intent. And the two gold rings in her left ear were for two heads, delivered to her father, in apology for the dishonour brought upon the family.
Lord Faras would have preferred an honourable combat, but the daughters of Isfayen were no warriors to deliver such honour. Instead, he spoke of marysan ne tanar, in Telochi, “the honour of women,” which in Isfayen was a different thing entirely. It was said in Isfayen that by the marysan ne tanar, women were far more dangerous to offend than men. Awould at least declare his intention to kill you before he did so, and present you with the opportunity to defend yourself on equal terms. A woman, with honour as pricklish as any man, yet without the option of honourable combat, would achieve her ends however she could. Poison was not unknown, nor seduction followed by a knife in the bed. Yasmyn had been proudly direct, as befitted a daughter of nobility, and ambushed with a blade in the night. It was not by accident that Isfayen women had by tradition the greatest authority of any women in Lenayin. It was a respect built on fear.
Yasmyn came now to Sasha’s side. “They move their army by night, yes?”
“Perhaps. We’ll see.”
“I would ride with you.”
“You’re not trained,” said Sasha. Yasmyn and Sasha had ridden together, these past eight days, at the head of the Isfayen column. Sasha had been impressed with Yasmyn’s strength, given her ordeal. Revenge helped, Sasha knew well. It suited Yasmyn’s character, and the Isfayen character in particular.
“I am a good rider,” Yasmyn said stubbornly. “You have admitted yourself that you are not the equal of most men in cavalry warfare.”
“Not an equal in offence,” Sasha corrected. “But I’m very good at defence. I know how to evade, how to predict, and I know my strengths and limitations. I also have skills of command and tactics, so I have some other uses, even should I not kill many enemies with my sword.”
Yasmyn folded her arms, wrapped in her cloak. “I never asked to play lagand,” she murmured, gazing into the night. “It is strange. I should have asked, so that I could gain skills like you.”
“Why?” Sasha asked. “It does little good for a noble daughter to fight in wars. Her purpose is to produce heirs.”
Yasmyn frowned at her. “You would say such a thing?”
“That is why I am no longer a noble daughter.” Her father stood nearby, doubtless hearing every word. “I have little interest in raising heirs.”
“I think a noble daughter of Isfayen should be permitted to fight, should she choose,” Yasmyn said stubbornly. “If she has the skills.”
“And if all Isfayen noble daughters fight? To be slain before birthing an heir, or depriving her family of the bonds of marriage that bind clans together? If you died on this field, Isfayen could fall apart for the lack of such bonds, and your family ended.”
“And also should the men die.”
“But you being safe is their guarantee,” said Sasha. “You cannot escape it, Yasmyn. I agree that women are capable of more than our tradition allows. But for as long as families rule, and the line of succession is all important, women shall always be shielded from such risk.”
Yasmyn thought about it for a moment. More men gathered by the edge of the torchlight, clustered about Koenyg. Damon joined them, but the king remained on the verandah, waiting. Was he truly listening, Sasha wondered? Could he ever admit to listening, and understanding what she was?
“Semily of thwomen fight,” Yasmyn said then, thoughtfully.
Sasha nodded. “Succession means nothing to serrin. Family means much to them as individuals, but little as a society. Serrin like to say they are all of one family. It frees women to do as they choose.”
“Serrin are not human,” Yasmyn objected. “We should not imitate them and expect good results any more than we should live in packs like wolves.”
“Aye,” Sasha agreed. “Serrin share emotion and thought as humans never shall. It binds them together as humans can never bind. For us to live as serrin do would be to build a great stone house with no mortar, and expect it to stand. But we can think upon our limitations. And we can wonder at what we may learn from their study, not so much of them, but of ourselves.”
“I should like to be Nasi-Keth myself,” Yasmyn declared. “Perhaps not to fight in wars, though to wield a blade as you do would be glorious. But I would like to think on these things, for the benefit of my people. Perhaps that can be the role of an Isfayen noble daughter. If we cannot fight in wars, then surely we can learn and teach those things that may frighten or offend our lessers.”
Sasha gazed at her, in mild surprise. “I think that is a fine idea. Tradition is important, but it is the foundation of the house, not the house itself. For that, we must learn to build, and not be scared of building.”
“Would you be my uman?” Yasmyn asked.
“I’m still uma myself.”
“After,” said Yasmyn. “I would be honoured. I have only sixteen summers, I am not too old.”
“I’d thought you older. But no age is too old. I’m flattered you’d ask, but it is too early to think on such things. Chances are good I will not live out the day that dawns.”
“As I will not likely survive my arganyar. Balthaar’s cousin Elias still lives, and I cannot kill him yet for the damage it would cause our alliance, and the risk it would cause to Sofy. But eventually, he will die. In the meantime, I shall dream great dreams, and sharpen my darak.”
A horse approached, cantering along a line of campfires left clear precisely to guide horses to the farmhouse. The rider dismounted and Sasha recognised Jurellyn, her friend from that first ride to Ymoth, and one of the finest scouts in Lenayin.
“Y’Highness,” he announced to Koenyg and Torvaal, “we’re fucked.” He looked exhausted, and had never been a man for formalities. “I’m pulling our scouts back, I’ve sent word out for them all to head home to camp.”
“You did what?” Koenyg exclaimed.
Sasha saw fear in Jurellyn’s eyes, and felt abruptly cold. A man like Jurellyn wasn’t scared of much, and certainly not of royalty. “It’s the serrin, Y’Highness. They’re not attacking the fucking camp like we feared, they’re after my poor bloody scouts. I’ve seen ten dead just this night, they…they aren’t riding, they’re walking and running, all quiet-like, you can’t see them coming, they hide in bushes and behind trees and walls, and they shoot for the smallest gaps in a man’s armour without a fucking candle’s worth of light to see by….”
He took a deep breath, attempting to regain composure. No one interrupted him. “I can’t fight that, Y’Highness. No man can. We’ve safety in numbers, but a man can’t fight what he can’t see. If I hadn’t ordered our scouts back-”
“You did well,” Sasha interrupted. “We’ll need our scouts later.” Most of Lenayin’s scouts were Goeren-yai men, foresters with a great respect for the serrin. Serrin, being serrin, would know that. Surely it pained them to do it. But Saalshen was fighting for its right to exist, and serrin for their right to live.
Jurellyn gave Sasha a grateful look. “There’s something moving down the valley,” he continued. “None of us got close enough to hear. But one of us reckoned he could hear wheels, wooden axles. You could ask him more, but he got an arrow in the neck on the way back.”
“How long till dawn?” Koenyg asked no one in particular.
“Soon,” said a guardsman, lifting his palm to the horizon of stars. “Another hand.”
“Wait until the very first light,” said Koenyg. “We’ll just make a mess in the dark otherwise. Battle formations, and we’ll see what the dawn brings us. Father?”
King Torvaal merely nodded, and folded his arms within the black robe he wore. An assent, that he had faith in his eldest son’s command. Koenyg nodded, and strode off to give orders for the nobles to gather. Damon joined him, instructing a guardsman to wake Myklas. Sasha gave her father a final stare, and followed. Torvaal did not seem even to notice. He gazed at the horizon, with all the patience of stone, and awaited the rising sun.
Dawn brought them new silhouettes on the same ridgeline as the command post. The Steel had indeed crossed the valley in the night.
“All of them?” Damon wondered aloud, as they stood atop the farmhouse roof, and viewed the enormous mass of glittering steel that now formed a huge line across the rolling fields to this side of the valley.
“Looks like,” Koenyg said. “They mean to flank us on our right, and push us back into the valley toward their own border.”
“With the forest at our back,” added the king, looking at the thick trees that covered the opposing slope. All had been surprised when Torvaal had clambered with his children from a horse’s back onto the rooftop. He looked to Sasha more animated than she’d ever seen him. “My son, they will advance on us, and attempt to win around our right flank. We must not let them.”
“Aye, Father. But the surest way to defend the right flank is to attack on the left. They have opened up their entire previous position, and we shall divide their attention by taking it.”
“Could be a trap,” Damon warned, looking out at the formerly surrounded castle.
“If they waste forces setting traps for our cavalry,” said Koenyg, “I would not mind a bit.” He looked down at the Great Lord Heryd, waiting patiently below in full black cloak and armour. “Lord Heryd! The left flank is yours! Should you win through, recall that the artillery is your primary target!”
“My Prince,” Heryd called up, “the north shall bring glory to Lenayin!” He turned and strode to his horses, armoured nobility close behind.
“Is that wise?” Damon asked his brother. “With the primary attack coming on our right flank, we commit our heaviest cavalry to the left.” All three northern provinces, refusing to divide their number to fight amongst pagans, had declared that they would form one entire flank together, leaving the remaining eight provinces to form the opposing cavalry flank, and the reserve. The arrangement was not as lopsided as it first sounded, given that the north were almost entirely cavalry, and were the heaviest in armour and weight of horse.
“I mean to break through, Brother,” Koenyg replied. “We must penetrate their defences and harry their artillery directly. We will achieve it by committing our heavy cavalry to their weakest defence.”
“Only look,” said Sasha, crouched low on the opposite slope of rooftop, “that weakest defence now means riding uphill from the valley.”
“These Enorans improvise well,” the king observed. “They appear as tactically astute as in all the tales. Do not underestimate them, my son.”
“I shan’t, Father. There is no clever move against this foe that could win us a painless victory. We shall fight them, and fight them hard. Damon, our time grows short, I need you on the right.”
“Aye,” said Damon, with something that sounded more like relief than trepidation. He and Koenyg embraced, and then he embraced their father. “Sasha,” he said then, “you’re with me.”
Koenyg embraced Sasha too. “Good call last night,” he told her. “Your details were wrong, but good call anyway.”
“I can’t be right all the time,” Sasha said lightly. She paused before her father. Torvaal extended his hand. Sasha took it hesitantly. Her father looked…concerned. There was a light in his dark eyes that she could not recall having seen before. It was not a confident light, but a light all the same. Sasha could not say if she found it encouraging or disturbing.
“Daughter,” Torvaal said gravely. “Lenayin called, and you came.”
That was it, Sasha realised. No mention of fatherly pride, no smile, nothing. Only this, reluctant acknowledgement. She was still the daughter who failed, the one who shamed all Lenay tradition in her choice of life, the one who had abandoned him as Kessligh had abandoned him after Krystoff’s death, and had finally led an armed rebellion against his personal authority.
“I’ve always come,” Sasha said coldly, and walked carefully across the roof to the edge, and a short jump to the ground. Damon followed, and she walked with him to their horses. “Why does he always do that?” she asked him plaintively.
“Do what?”
“Make me feel like my entire existence is an affront to him!”
“I heard a compliment,? Damon said drily. “That you rejected.”
“Where’s Myklas?” Sasha asked him, changing the subject.
“He rides with Heryd.”
Sasha did not like the thought of Myklas riding with the northern cavalry. But he was too young for a command, he was a good rider, and the northerners should have at least one royal riding with them.
Jaryd was waiting with the horses, and holding a round, wooden shield. He presented it to Sasha.
“What’s this?”
“And to think they ever called me a dunce,” Jaryd remarked.
“I can’t ride with this,” Sasha snorted. “I’m a girl, it’s too heavy for me.”
“It’s the lightest I could find, and it would barely trouble a fifteen-year-old lad,” Jaryd said impatiently, pressing it onto her.
“Take it or I’ll have you tied to a tree and left in the rear,” Damon told her, mounting quickly.
Sasha scowled, and tried its leather straps. It dragged on her arm, and did horrible things to her balance. She smacked it onto the horse’s saddle, and used that weight as a hold to drag herself up. She spurred off after Damon, Jaryd, several Royal Guards and three of Damon’s selected nobility. To their left, facing southward, the Army of Lenayin was slowly forming up.
“Sasha, I want you to ride with the Isfayen!” Damon shouted above the noise of their passage. “They have the hottest heads of the bunch, and they’re most likely to lose them in a fight! Try to keep them sane!”
“I’ll try,” said Sasha, “but I can’t promise anything!”
Upon the far right flank, the Lenay cavalry were forming. Damon, Jaryd and Sasha rode before the forward line, where vanguards for each Lenay province formed behind long banners that swirled in the gusting wind. A great, stamping, swirling mass of many thousands of horse, stretched across fields, fences and thickets of trees. They formed in provincial groups, nobility and standing company soldiers to the fore. They rode past the Valhanan cavalry, and Sasha glimpsed her old enemy, Great Lord Kumaryn, amidst a crowd of mounted noble riders, armour and leathers polished spotless for the occasion. A little across from the nobility, she spotted the banner of the Valhanan Black Wolves.
Here next were Tyree, behind their green banner. Sasha saw Jaryd give the Great Lord Arastyn and his noble company a burning stare in passing, and saw it returned with equal venom. She’d heard tales of the Tyree nobility’s outrage at Damon’s selection for promotion to his personal company. A little further, and she saw the banner of the Tyree Falcon Guards…. Jaryd pulled his sword to salute them, and a huge cheer rose from the guardsmen. Sasha performed her own salute, and the cheer rose to a roar. This part of Lenayin, at least, was hers and Jaryd’s forever.
More cheers greeted them as the line companies, and a few of the nobles, saluted their passing. The line of cavalry seemed to go on forever. Damon and Jaryd rode with her past the royal vanguard, and out along the entire line. And here, squeezed between Lenay horsemen, were the Torovans-rows and ws of tall, muscular horses mounted by warriors in gleaming silver chain and helms. Most of the front row wielded tall steel lances, a forest of spikes against the brightening sky, and they too were arranged behind their provincial flags. Passing the flag of Pazira, Sasha saluted once more, and was received by more cheering. Duke Carlito Renine saluted back.
Riding along the Torovan ranks, Sasha felt her hopes rise. Dear spirits, there were a lot of them. And Carlito was right-while not of Lenay quality on foot, Torovans had long made excellent horsemen. Sasha counted only four Torovan provinces, meaning that Koenyg would be deploying the others on the left flank with the northern cavalry, as the northerners had no complaint riding with foreign Verenthanes, only Lenay pagans. If Lenayin could win this battle, it would be won with cavalry. Gazing out across this great sea of horseflesh and steel, Sasha thought that surely, now, the advantage was with them.
Upon the farthest reach of the flank, they found the Fyden, Yethulyn, and finally, at the very end, the Isfayen. Sasha peeled off to join Great Lord Faras beneath his waving red, green and blue banners, unable to give Damon and Jaryd any more of a farewell than a wave. They waved back, as the Isfayen cheered, and wheeled about at the formation’s far end, to ride back to the royal vanguard. From there, Damon would command the entire right flank cavalry…perhaps fourteen thousand horse. The left flank would have about ten thousand-six Lenay and four Torovan, but those six thousand northerners were rightly reckoned to be worth more, man for man. In the middle, fifteen thousand Lenay infantry, with perhaps two thousand Torovan archers and five thousand Torovan infantry for a reserve.
She had ridden to a rebellion in the north of Lenayin, and thought that an impossibly large force. Beside this, it was nothing.
Great Lord Faras did not object to Sasha taking a place at his immediate side, one of his nobles even moving aside to suggest it. He looked magnificent, long black hair immaculately brushed beneath the ferocious, horned helm, mail armour reflecting the sun, his horse’s mane and bridle tied with many colourful tuffets.
“Why the far flank, Lord Faras?” Sasha asked, though she already knew the answer.
“In the lowlands, who loses the flank, loses the war,” Faras said grimly.
“The Isfayen shall hold this flank.” Sasha wondered whose arm he’d twisted for the honour. Or cut off, more likely. “You have a new shield,” Faras observed. “It does not like you.”
“The feeling’s mutual.”
“There is no shame for a woman not to ride in war like a man,” Faras said confidently. “The glory of the Synnich is on two feet, with no shield. The Isfayen shall protect you.”
“Thanks,” Sasha muttered. And wondered exactly why Damon had told her to ride here, instead of with him. Clearly they had grown attached to her, and she them. But she suspected something more political afoot.
The Enoran Steel sprawled across a rise of fields, making it difficult to discern their number. A single line gleamed silver in the middle, and darker here on the flanks, where horse dominated. In the distance Sasha could hear horns, high and clear. Communications, she reckoned. Surely more convenient than messengers or flags.
“They’re coming,” one of the Isfayen nobles remarked. So soon? Sasha frowned, squinting at the line. Surely enough, it seemed to advance. There was no additional flurry of trumpets, no clashing of swords on shields. The Enorans merely came, in perfect formation. This was not an army that relied on threats or bluster to sow fear. This army relied on reputation and capability alone.
Lenay men began noticing, and yells went up, joined by others, until the challenge grew to an ear-splitting roar. Sasha steadied her nervous mare, flexing her left arm against the unaccustomed weight of shield. Great Lord Faras did not yell with his nobles, he merely watched, his narrowed eyes unreadable.
“Confident,” he surmised, watching the Steel.
“They’ve never lost,” Sasha reminded him.
“Today that changes.”
“They bring their artillery into range. It moves up behind them. We must move now.”
Faras smiled. “You worry like a woman. They are not well rested, they spent all night moving.” The signalman ahead of them raised his flag. “See, your brother’s signal.” Faras raised his sword. The flag fell. Faras lowered his sword, and put heels to his horse.
They began at a canter, and already the sound of hooves was deafening. The canter stretched to a slow gallop, as the front rank made to spread the formation for those riding behind. Sasha left her sword in its sheath, trying to figure the best way to steer with this weight on her left arm, concentrating solely on keeping her mare’s path straight. If she were jostled in this crush, and fell, the hooves behind would smash her to pulp.
A low wall approached, potential catastrophe if any horse refused the jump and blocked others behind…. Sasha’s mare cleared it easily, across a dirt road, a farmhouse approaching on the right, and a thin line of trees….
Sasha heard a whistle and looked about, as a horse abruptly vanished from the corner of her vision. She risked a fast look behind, to see a horse rolling, two others falling in collision, others rearing aside in panic…what the hells had happened? She saw other riders staring up and ahead, as they approached the foot of the long, gentle incline toward the Steel cavalry. There were dark shapes streaking through the air, fast against the broken cloud. Surely they were not in range already?
She ducked reflexively as a bolt zipped overhead, and risked another look to see a horse fall, and more riders evading desperately behind. How the hells were the furthest flank of cavalry under fire from artillery that should only have been positioned behind protective infantry? And so far out?
Faras waved his sword and with a roar they accelerated up the slight incline, racing at full gallop. Suddenly the air was thick with incoming fire, and Sasha saw at least five coming low as though they might hit her. A noble to her left simply disappeared from his saddle as though he’d ridden into an invisible low branch. Horses were upended, legs folding beneath them, riders catapulted into the turf at breakneck speed. Faster horses were getting ahead of her, and Sasha wove to find a better approach…and saw for the first time the Enoran cavalry, a spiked ridge of steel lances, big shields and ridged helms. Dear spirits, there were thousands. The charging Isfayen line was fragmented at the front, where it mattered. The terrible line of lances was lowered, and noran cavalry charged down the incline.
That was it, Sasha realised. The front rank of Isfayen were finished, and she was dead. But she could not stop, for the torrent of riders coming up behind, nor for her honour.
The Enorans were nearly upon them when Sasha realised there were in fact more gaps in their formation than was apparent from a distance. She headed for one, and saw two Enoran lances swinging toward her. She slowed to a fast, high-stepping canter, and her mare, knowing well the lagand field, read her right-feint, then left-dash, as she snapped abruptly across the oncoming Enoran’s path. The lance swivelled to track her, but the Enoran rider pulled the reins to miss her, and abruptly he’d passed, and there were horses, riders and lances flashing by to all sides. She nearly died three more times, as fast-adjusting Enorans tried to impale her, but luck and a fast duck saved her. She swung at one man, but struck only shield, and swung about now to find more space than expected, and Isfayen riders fighting clear behind.
The rear Enoran ranks bore swords rather than lances, and laid about them furiously…. Sasha threw her shield up to a blow that nearly broke her arm, hauling at the rein and applying heels with wild reflex to lurch past that rider’s nose, lengthening his reach, then parrying right as one swung from the other side. Far from annihilated, the Isfayen were everywhere, roaring and swinging with crazed fury, hammering Enoran shields, ramming horses, severing limbs with their huge, curved swords.
Suddenly the Enorans were leaving, a high trumpet sounding, cavalry simply breaking off the fight and sprinting for higher ground. Isfayen flag bearers waved their banners, and nobles stood in their stirrups, calling to regroup. Sasha rode toward one of them, and abruptly there were ballista bolts falling, and that noble’s horse took a bolt through the ribs. She saw the bolt simply disappear inside the horse, ripples of impact contorting the huge body like a rock striking the water, and the animal fell as a bag of broken bones. It shocked Sasha as much as anything she’d seen. This was not warfare as she knew it. This was unfair.
She pulled alongside the now dismounted noble, and gave him a hand up to sit behind, searching for a riderless horse…but under ballista fire, horses were falling faster than riders. More commotion sounded from the far flank, and Sasha applied heels, the big man behind clutching her with little regard for her modesty. Weaving through the massed, wheeling horses, Sasha found enough vantage to regard the entire far flank of Isfayen riders now racing away from the fight, further to the flanks, in pursuit of light horse. Talmaad.
Sasha put her heels in hard, and the mare tore off after them, more Isfayen riders joining her. “Wall!” she yelled for her passenger’s benefit, and they cleared the next wall without difficulty. Ahead, she saw serrin riders closing from the left, paralleling Isfayen riders, bows pulled. Arrows fired, and two Isfayen tumbled from their saddles. Another raised his shield high, leaving little exposed flesh to fire at, so the serrin shot his horse instead. It stumbled, reeling, its rider pulling it to a halt.
“Shields up!” Sasha screamed at the riders coming up on her flanks. “Shields up! Archers, archers!”
Those serrin were now falling back, inviting her to chase them. That was death…. Sasha waved her sword to the right, where other riders had gone, and wheeled that way. Behind her, perhaps fifty Isfayen had formed, having recogn Another her. Several ignored her evasion and pursued the serrin.
“Get back here!” Sasha yelled at them, but they either couldn’t hear or ignored her. The serrin waited until they were close enough, then accelerated once more to equal their speed. Turning in their saddles, they drew arrows, and fired straight back over their horses’ flanks. One Isfayen fell, another clutched his arm, and a third’s horse ploughed a nose first furrow in the field.
Sasha skirted a small village, and two serrin barely cantering in the near fields, again inviting pursuit. Sasha waved half of her formation left about the village, herself heading right, and the two serrin took off at fast gallop, realising they were about to be trapped. Others played cat and mouse with Isfayen riders across nearby fields, reluctant to engage directly, seeking only enough running space at close range to fire a lethal arrow at horse or rider.
On the far side of the village, maybe thirty serrin emerged from a line of trees to send long range arrows hurtling toward Sasha’s riders. Several clutched at strikes, and the rest charged. The serrin reloaded, cut several more Isfayen off their horses, then split in every direction. Bewildered Isfayen tried to intercept one or another, more arrows coming at odd angles, catching them past their shield alignment. Sasha saw one cut a racing serrin from her horse, only to lose his head to a second with a breathtakingly beautiful overhead…. Sasha angled to intercept, but with a passenger she was too heavy, and the serrin darted from range, sheathing sword and recovering his bow. Sasha saw his eyes as he flashed her a stare in passing, green like emerald, hair red like flame.
This, she decided as fast serrin horses scattered away from slower Isfayen riders, was pointless. She reined to a halt, waving her sword for a recall. Eventually the Isfayen came back to her, short another six or seven of their number. Sasha wheeled about and set off back to the Lenay lines.
“We can’t fight as light cavalry against talmaad!” she yelled at the Isfayen village headman who came up on her right. “They make us look stupid!”
The headman did not disagree, and gave the man riding at Sasha’s back a grim look. Only when Sasha returned to the line and dismounted at a small stream by an oak did she see why. Instead of dismounting, her passenger remained astride, clutching the saddle to keep from falling. From his back protruded a serrin arrow. Sasha dumped her shield and with the aid of two men helped him from the horse. They tended to him by the stream, while Sasha watered her horse, and checked her for injuries.
Then she remounted, with still many of her riders surrounding, and galloped off to find Lord Faras. There were a lot of Torovan wheeling about instead, recovering from their first charge, collecting wounded slumped in their saddles and exchanging limping horses. Across the far rise, the battle still raged. Nearer the centre of the fight, smoke streaked the battlefield, and flame flashed at regular intervals. Sasha was very glad she had not been within range of the catapults.
Not seeing anyone she recognised, she instead found the Valhanan Black Wolves, regrouping at the head of a cluster of other Valhanan cavalry. Sasha galloped to their captain, who welcomed her with a wave.
“They’ve moved their ballistas all the way out to the flanks!” Sasha shouted to him. “We took heavy fire on the approach, it split our front rank so their cavalry could carve us up. With allistas so far from the central formation, we should be able to pick them off, but I don’t know if anyone got through.”
“We only had a little ballista fire,” replied the captain, sweaty and wild eyed beneath his helm. “I think they may have clustered defensive firing positions on the flanks to break down our cavalry thrusts, they know we have to try to flank them. But we were closer to the centre, we got catapults instead. I lost about twenty men to just one of those fucking things. I think Lord Kumaryn’s dead, I saw another hit right in the noble vanguard, lots of burning horses.”
“Look,” said Sasha, pointing off across the field, “we have to go again, they’ve nearly halved the distance. They’ll be firing into our infantry soon.”
More yelling came before the captain could reply. “Serrin in the rear!” came the cry. “Serrin in the rear!”
“Damn my pig-headed brother!” Sasha exclaimed. “I told him this would happen if he didn’t hold enough cavalry back!”
“What’s happened?” asked the captain.
“The talmaad have gone way around our flank,” Sasha replied in exasperation, pointing well wide of the battlefield. “They were always going to, but it wouldn’t have mattered if Koenyg had held a few thousand extra cavalry back. Only I’m betting he hasn’t made certain they’ve stayed put, and some hotheads have decided to charge rather than staying behind. Our infantry will have a few thousand serrin archers feathering their backsides if we don’t stop them.”
She spun her mare around, waving with her sword to indicate they should all follow. The captain did likewise, and Sasha, perhaps seventy or eighty Isfayen, and several hundred of her native Valhanan’s finest, went charging into the rear to cover for her eldest brother’s oversight.
Andreyis was frightened. He’d been frightened before, at the Battle of Ymoth. But there, he’d been ahorse, and facing a known enemy. Today, he stood shoulder to shoulder in a mass of Lenay warriors, and heard the sounds of battle draw closer. He could see little above the heads and helms of the ranks before him, but the thunder of cavalry was everywhere. He had no idea how the battle went, save that it drew closer, and louder, by the moment. He’d heard it said often enough that the cavalry would need to win through in the opening phases, and harry or destroy the Enoran artillery, for the Army of Lenayin to have a chance of winning. Yet from ahead, he could smell smoke, and see regular flashes of fire, mostly off to the flanks.
“They’ve shifted their artillery to the flanks,” said Teriyan at his side. “It won’t come down so hard on us then.”
“Just get ready to run,” Byorn said grimly, hefting his shield on one muscular arm. “When they get within artillery range, we’re going to need to run like the wind to close on their infantry. The closer we get, the less the artillery can hit us.”
They could not go now, Andreyis knew; they had to wait, hoping that the cavalry could turn a flank. About him, men practically bounced on the spot, armour and all, as tense as cats. They were a mixture, these Valhanans-some from Baerlyn, others frt from rrounding townships, others still from places Andreyis had not heard of. He could only see several other Baerlyners besides Teriyan and Byorn, as all had decided that, in the face of the reputed effects of Enoran artillery, it would not do to have entire villages standing clustered together.
“Ready!” came a yell from the distant front. “Ready!” echoed headmen, and appointed militia officers deeper through the ranks. A war chant started, the location uncertain, but Andreyis had never heard its like before.
“HEEL-Chun, GOER-Rhun! HEEL-Chun, GOER-Rhun!” As with most old Lenay war chants, the tongue was forgotten and largely extinct…but the words sounded like glory, blood and ancient spirits. Andreyis realised it was a tsalryn, a battle cry only to be uttered in war, and unknown by any who had not fought in one. Andreyis’s skin flushed hot and cold all over. This was the first time he’d heard a tsalryn. Soon they were all yelling, and the noise was like nothing else in the world. It drowned out all the battle, all the world. Warriors beat shields with swords for accompaniment, roaring like men possessed. Andreyis felt his fear fade, swept aside by an intoxication of rage and power.
He did not hear the ballista fire, but he could see it, dark streaks against the clouds. It rained down across the Lenay formation, but none struck near. Men broke off their chants to howl their derision. If that was the famed Enoran artillery, it would have to become a lot worse to frighten the Army of Lenayin. The front ranks began to move, space rippling through the formation until Andreyis himself was moving, no more than a walk. It accelerated to a jog, and then to a run, warriors still chanting, gripping their shields, eyes on the sky for more ballista fire. The force of their momentum seemed unstoppable. Ballista bolts rained about, to little effect. This was the Army of Lenayin, the most formidable warriors in all Rhodia, charging en masse, fearless and devastating. Andreyis felt invincible, and had to fight the urge to sprint madly ahead of his position, so desperately did he lust for an enemy to swing at, to hack, to maim and slaughter.
Something flashed to his left, bright and hot. Another roar from the warrior horde, and the run increased to a mad sprint. Another flash, then another…. Andreyis saw objects soaring across the sky, flames rippling, leaving trails of black smoke like stars falling to earth. One soared straight overhead, and impacted some distance behind him, but close enough that he could feel heat. He ran now in a jostling crush, sword arm held close to his side so that he did not involuntarily cut his neighbours. His shield arm felt heavy, his breath beginning to labour. The artillery range of the Enoran Steel was no inconsiderable distance to run in full armour…surely it could not be much further?
Ballista fire increased, like a light rain shower suddenly erupting into a cloudburst of hailstones. Men fell, in front and to the side…. Andreyis ducked in sudden fear as one whistled just overhead. The thud of bolts hitting the turf resonated like a drumbeat. Andreyis hurdled a fallen man, his wooden shield pinned to his chest by a bolt that was protruding from his back.
A burning ball streaked to ground not thirty paces to the right, followed by an impossible, eye-burningly bright flash. In that mesmerised moment, time seemed to slow, and Andreyis saw the billowing orange flames actually double, then triple and quadruple their size and intensity, rather than fading. They thrust out greedily, an avalanche of fire, roaring through clustered, running men, engulfing them.
He did not see the next catapult shot coming until the entire world before him transformed to molten fire. He fell, to see the wall of flame coming right at him, blotting out the world. Heat seared his skin, singed his eyebrows, filled his ears with a ghastly sound like a fire demon on eagles’ wings. And then it was gone, and the world was full of ash and cinders, black smoke and the screams of men. He stumbled to his feet, and saw men on fire, rolling on the ground, thrashing in agony. A Goeren-yai’s long hair and beard had gone up like a torch, a ball of flame now engulfing his head.
A hand grabbed his arm. “Move!” Teriyan bellowed. “If we stay here we’re dead!” He hauled Andreyis forward, through the circle of blackened, burning grass and flaming corpses. The smell was appalling, acrid, and burned his lungs. At the circle’s far side, men helped survivors to sit, pouring water on wounds…one was hit by a ballista bolt through the back, smashed into the turf and pinned like a bug.
Andreyis stumbled on after Teriyan, aware that the charge continued, Lenay men pouring forward like the tide. And now, ahead, there was an advancing, silver line of shields, helms and armour. Spears flew from behind the front line, and more Lenay men fell, or took entangling spikes through their shields. Andreyis ran at them, knowing only that the closer he came to the Steel infantry, the less the chance of being burned alive.
He dodged aside a flying spear, found a gap on the battle line and flung himself onto it, using the weight of his momentum to drive the Enoran soldier back a step. His neighbour pulled his shield aside to stab with the short Enoran sword, but Andreyis was ready, having drilled many times for precisely that event. He angled his shield sideways, driving down on the thrust, and slashed back for the man’s head. The Enoran ducked, and Andreyis’s strike smashed off his shield rim. The Enoran Andreyis had run into recovered his place in line, and the shield line attempted to advance. Andreyis backed off enough to gain space, and flashed a low blow to get under the shield. It was blocked, and he reversed immediately to a high overhead. Again the Enoran ducked his head away in time as Andreyis’s edge struck the shield’s high edge, but this time a space opened between him and his left-hand neighbour. Andreyis thrust his blade through it, catching that man’s arm. He faltered with a yell, the shield dropped a fraction, and Andreyis’s partner leaped high to drive a blade down over the shield rim, straight through the Enoran’s throat.
The next Enoran behind leapt over the fallen man to fill his space, but Andreyis’s partner stepped in, using his shield to protect him on one side, hacking at the next man in line to the other. That man went down, and the line faltered. A whistle blew shrilly above the roar and clashing, and the front rank turned abruptly sideways and melted into the gaps between the ranked soldiers behind. Andreyis found himself facing a new, fresh soldier.
“My turn lad!” yelled a warrior behind, pushing past.
“Find the gap!” Andreyis yelled at him as he attacked. “Make the shield move! Find the gap!”
Despite the chaos, a kind of order was developing, Lenay men unable to attack all at once, and awaiting their turn, lunging into space, leaving enough room for their neighbours to swing. This was better, Andreyis thought, fighting to retain his place against the jostle of fellow Lenays behind. The Enoran advantage in artillery was terrifyg, but now they were to grips with fifteen thousand Lenay warriors on foot, they’d not find them like any opponent they’d yet encountered. Not merely brave, Lenay warriors studied warfare like scholars studied tongues. They had been puzzling over the Enoran problem for the entire march from Lenayin, and now that they were here, they would put their theories to the test, and force holes in the Enoran line where the Enorans were not accustomed to any holes appearing.
Now if the cavalry could only win out on a flank, and do something about that artillery, the day may yet be won.
Sasha’s reward for chasing talmaad about the rear of the army’s formation was an arrow shaft through her shield. It ended only when reinforcements arrived, whereupon the serrin simply faded back across the fields, their task of forcing the Lenays to divert large forces away from the front largely complete.
Sasha returned to the stream that had become the right-flank cavalry’s rallying point, and allowed her mare to drink. Leaving the horse with some Isfayen men, she walked to a paddock wall and climbed up, to gain a slightly better vantage of the fight.
The scale of it defied belief. From horizon to far horizon, formations were engaging. Smoke made a haze about the interlocked lines of infantry, but flashes of flame were relatively few-the Lenay infantry had pressed itself thin against the Enoran lines, making it difficult for the Enoran artillery to shoot without hitting their own men. Even from this limited vantage, Sasha could see the strategic risk-one big push from the Enorans could break a hole through the thin Lenay lines, and split their formation. But for now, the Enorans were struggling, simply unable to inflict the level of casualties upon Lenay infantry that they were accustomed to doing. Tactical ingenuity, Kessligh had told her often, was more truly a matter of knowing your own forces’ relative strengths and weaknesses, and deploying them accordingly, than a matter of brilliant commanders winning battles single-handedly with inspired manoeuvres. Lenay infantry simply did not die in face-to-face combat as quickly as the Steel were accustomed. Sasha wondered if the heavily armoured Enorans would tire more quickly, and wished that the cloud would break up further, and the day would warm as the sun rose higher.
She bit from a fruit she’d stowed in her saddlebag. It felt odd to be eating in the middle of a war, but if she didn’t keep her strength up, she wouldn’t be much use to anyone. Over a vast sweep of rolling green fields to her right, cavalry charged and wheeled like great flocks of starlings above a wheatfield. The talmaad, with their swift horses, had succeeded in spreading the massed Lenay and Torovan cavalry far out to the right flank, and far back behind the Lenay lines. She suspected the talmaad may have brought fresh horses, and were hiding them somewhere beyond the immediate battlefield, so that they could cover the extra ground without exhausting their mounts.
An Isfayen village headman leaped to the wall beside her in a rattle of mail, and handed her some bread. Sasha gave him her second fruit. She had no idea where anyone she knew was-most of the morning she’d fought by the side of strangers. She thought she liked this better. If she survived, she expected to find many friends dead at the end of the day, and did not know that she could continue fighting if she saw them fall in person.
“We’re not breaking through on this side,” the Isfayen growled, chewing their swihe fruit. “I’ve never seen anyone fight like these serrin. They’ve got heavy cavalry protecting their damn artillery, and anyone who attacks is immediately outflanked and hit from the side by serrin archers.”
Sasha had expected some bitterness, Lenays never having had much admiration for archery, regarding it a coward’s art. But the talmaad’s horseback archery was breathtaking, and when one was on its receiving end, terrifying. Sasha heard nothing but respect in the bloodwarrior’s voice.
The fact that much of the right-flank Lenay cavalry were riding smaller dussieh wasn’t helping, Sasha reflected. This right flank was superior in numbers to the Lenay left, but the left was northern, and huge, and somewhat more skilled as cavalry, rider for rider. Against the Enoran cavalry, most Lenay riders were outmatched, and the Torovans, while riding bigger horses and more well armoured, were failing to press home their attacks with the ferocity required. Perhaps the left was where the breakthrough would come.
“Come,” said Sasha. “We’ve had our rest.” She jumped from the wall and strode back toward the horses. Riders galloped past, and Sasha spared them a wary look, to be certain they weren’t serrin sneaking through the lines once more to cause havoc in the rear. “I think we might be wasting time trying to make a wide flanking move about the far side. I think there might be a way through closer to the middle.”
“Against the infantry flank, aye,” the Isfayen agreed. “Then there’s the artillery.”
“We can’t become so paralysed with concern for the artillery that we don’t dare venture near it. Our infantry are right under it, we have to take some pressure off them.”
She didn’t dare use the word “fear,” or else the Isfayen might have charged straight into the teeth of the worst artillery fire, just to prove they weren’t frightened.
On the way in, she found Damon and the royal vanguard, partially hidden behind a cluster of barn and trees. Sasha indicated to her riders, who now numbered perhaps a hundred and fifty, to wait aside while she rode to converse with her brother. Royal Guards pulled aside, and she found Damon and Jaryd pointing at the unfolding confusion ahead of them, seeking an opportunity. Both looked relieved to see her as she halted alongside.
“Hell of a fight, yes?” Jaryd remarked to her. Though it was now midmorning, and they had been fighting since dawn, he seemed yet to overcome his awe.
Damon seemed as grim as ever, yet less anxious than she’d seen him, as though warfare was preferable to waiting. His left shoulder guard was torn, yet from the angle of the cut, it seemed that the mail beneath had deflected it, and his face betrayed no pain.
Sasha explained her trials in the rear with the talmaad.
“I’m tempted to try the artillery just to get away from those damn serrin,” Damon agreed, eyes searching the way ahead. “I think we erred to suppose that the artillery would be Enora’s greatest advantage.”
“Sasha, what do you think?” Jaryd pressed. “Perhaps like Ymoth? A two-force feint?”
“Perhaps,” said Sasha. “How many are you? amp;x201D;
“Immediately, perhaps two hundred,” Damon replied. “If we rally properly, we could collect thousands….”
“But we’ll afford the Enorans the same opportunity,” Sasha finished for him. “I think that’s our next option, if this doesn’t look like it’s working. We’ve maybe three hundred and fifty between us, any more may be more hindrance than help. You go first, spring the trap, I’ll get in behind and get straight into their infantry. See if we can turn one of their formations, get our infantry an edge.”
It worked superbly, but not how she’d thought. Riding out in front, Damon and Jaryd’s two hundred cavalry were countered by a similar-sized formation of defensive Enoran heavy cavalry. Thus committed, those cavalry were in no position to stop Sasha’s hundred and fifty Isfayen, who tore down on the exposed flank of Enoran infantry. Ballista fire adjusted too late, raining mostly behind the Isfayen charge, and a single catapult shot erupted close enough to singe the leftmost Isfayen rider, but no more.
The redeploying formation of Enoran infantry was caught squarely in the face of the charge, soldiers running madly to lengthen their square into a wide wall as the horses bore down on them. Then, just before impact, the Enorans did the utterly unexpected, and ducked. Soldiers curled up on the ground, shields overhead, and charging Isfayen horses simply jumped, unwilling to risk that metal underfoot. Isfayen riders swung at the Enorans, yet those that could reach hit only steel. Once the charge had passed over and around, the Enorans jumped back to their feet, and completed their previous manoeuvre of widening the flank. Sasha could only be impressed with the discipline.
But now, she could see the Enoran artillery for the first time: rows of wide-armed ballistas on cartback, guarded behind a wall of yet more infantry-the reserve, Sasha realised, doubling as artillery guards in case of a cavalry breakthrough like this one. Men on those ballistas were winding them frantically downward to meet the onrushing threat, and as Sasha looked left and right, she saw no immediate cavalry support rushing to assist. She lowered her sword, and yelled.
The Isfayen roared, and were onto the ballistas before they could winch low enough to fire. Sasha slashed at the Steel defensive wall, again and again, more in hope of a lucky strike than assurance. A few spears soared past, but the Isfayen were too numerous, flanking the defences, spreading them, then driving horses into their midst and hacking about them with huge, curved swords. Steel infantry fell as powerful strokes found gaps in their armour, trying to re-form, clustering back-to-back for protection, shields above their heads to ward the blows that fell on them from all sides.
Other Isfayen jumped from their horses and onto the carts, as mostly unarmoured ballista men abandoned posts to grab defensive weapons, only to be hacked down in fives and tens by furious, howling bloodwarriors. Long-haired warriors then clambered over the ballistas, hacking the taut ropes, stabbing the mechanisms, disabling the weapons, killing the cart oxen along with any remaining men who resisted. No Enorans ran. A group of perhaps twenty Steel, managing to regroup at one side of the carnage, formed a wedge and counterattacked, taking down several unprepared Isfayen in the process. But more surrounded them, attacking from above on horse while those on the ground dropped to a knee to cut under their shields, amputating legs in great scything sweeps. The rest folded quickly, but fought until all were dead.
Sasha did not join in, but circled with the four warriors who had assigned themselves her protectors, watching for a counterattack. Barely two hundred paces to the side, more Steel clustered about the great, swinging arms of the dreaded catapults, oxen teams to the fore, ammunition teams to aft. Not one of those infantry abandoned position to come running to their comrades’ assistance. On the forward infantry line, Sasha could see the rear ranks glancing back to monitor the slaughter of the ballista team, but again, none broke their formation. The Enoran cavalry was the artillery’s protector in such events, she knew, but the cavalry was vastly stretched, with little or no reserve.
Very concerningly, a pair of catapults were now being turned about to face upon them directly, infantry shifting ahead of the driving oxen teams. Sasha yelled orders to disperse, uncertain if the catapults could in fact fire accurately at such short ranges, but unwilling to find out. Isfayen men finished the last of their carnage, and ran for their horses. For a brief moment, Sasha pondered attacking the catapults too, but she saw horses tearing along the rear of the Enoran line toward them, and figured she’d pushed her luck as far as was sane. Perhaps she and a hundred and fifty Isfayen would be a fair sacrifice for a couple of catapults, but those reinforcements were heavy cavalry against Isfayen dussieh, and besides, she’d glimpsed the Enoran rear, found a tactic that worked, and discovered a key Enoran weakness. She had to get out and tell someone.
Again she rode for the rear of the Enoran infantry line, who were now engaged with Lenay infantry at their front. The rear soldiers turned, and those on the outside made a shield wall, while the ranks behind formed the roof. Isfayen riders crashed their horses into it, making some stumble, and opening holes that others attacked…but it was taking too long, and Sasha, again on the fringes, saw that there were indeed hundreds of Enoran heavy horses galloping past the catapults with murder on their minds.
She yelled for a retreat, and enough heard her to follow, which the others copied in turn. They streamed back onto the Lenay side of the lines, Lenay infantry cheering them madly, and pursued in turn by Enoran heavy horse. Ahead, Damon and Jaryd’s cavalry were still entangled in a frantic melee with the initial, defensive formation of Enorans. Sasha led her Isfayen squarely into the fight from behind, and for a brief moment, their numbers overwhelmed the Enorans, their cavalry blindsided, cut down unawares by racing Isfayen, or abruptly outnumbered in their various duels. They scattered, wheeling outward, and Sasha was circling while standing in her stirrups, screaming to re-form rather than pursue.
Again, enough heard her to comply, and when the pursuing Enoran cavalry tore into them, they too were quickly outnumbered. This time it was Damon who was yelling at them all to retreat before Sasha did, and they turned and raced from the field as two catapult shots landed in the vacated fields behind them.
The Isfayen had lost men, and others were wounded, but they were whooping and yelling in Telochi as though they’d defeated the Enoran Steel on their own. The village headman who’d stood with Sasha on the wall came alongside, blood flowing down a slashed arm, but grinning toothily.
“You are the Synnich,” he told her in Lenay, “and I’d follow you to the last hell!”
Sasha felt relief to be alive, but there was no joy. She thought only of the ballista teams as she’d last seen them, crumpled piles of bloodied corpses, killed to the last man in the certain knowledge that defeat was worse than death. Not fanaticism, no. Determination. Selflessness. Pride.
Suddenly she wanted to cry.