grandmother. A moment later Sonia ran up and knelt beside Tess.
'Tess-? Gods!'
'No, I'm all right. Just sick.'
'Ah.' Sonia rose as quickly. 'Mother Sakhalin, come. We need all the women old enough to shoot placed along the wagons. We need to prop up shields for cover. Boys to the herds. Some kind of screen-some wagons upended, I think-for the littlest ones.' They hurried off.
'Aleksi,' said Anatoly. 'Come with me. The women can hold them off for the time, but I'd like your opinion- should we sortie out to that other troop before the ones we routed have time to regroup?'
Aleksi patted Tess on the shoulder and let go of her and went away. Tess sank back on her heels and groped for her water flask at her belt. It was punctured, empty. She stood, feeling dizzy and swept in waves by nausea, and staggered over to Zhashi. Thank God, the flask on Zhashi was unharmed. Tess gulped down water and then cupped water in her hands to let the mare drink. She raised her head.
Chaos. No, not chaos at all. Herds bleated; a string of boys pressed the animals into one corner of the square. The song of bows serenaded her. Sweet-faced Katerina crouched down beside a limp khaja soldier tumbled in the dirt and stabbed him up under the palate, making sure he was dead. Three silver-haired men turned a fourth wagon up onto its side and herded a troop of little children inside. Tess recognized Mira among their number. The little girl was sober-eyed, not crying, clutching the hand of an older child, who carried a baby. There, at the edge of the wagons, two young women staggered in from the outside. Each wore a wicker shield bound onto her back, and between them they carried a jaran man. Tess saw his lips move and realized that he was alive, though wounded. They laid him on the ground next to another injured jaran man, and as they turned and went to run back out, Tess realized that they were Galina and Diana.
Katerina kicked a khaja soldier and unbuckled his helmet and threw it to one side. She glanced up. 'Oh. Aunt Tess! Can you help me strip these two? And then help me drag them out of here?''
The man was dead. Thoroughly dead. Perhaps Tess had killed him herself. Tess felt a haze descend on her as she stripped his armor, his weapons, anything valuable from him. She and Katya dragged the two dead bodies over to one side where a considerable pile of the khaja dead had built up, brought here by other children.
'I think we got all of the ones who were inside the wagons,' said Katya, sounding as practical as her mother.
'You'd better check again,' said Tess. The girl nodded and trotted off. Tess went back to find Zhashi, but the mare was gone. Over to one side a set of wagons had been formed into a square within the square, and here the wounded congregated. Young Galina sat on the ground between two men. She held her left arm with her right hand, gripping her arm where an arrow protruded from the flesh. Her face was pale, her lips set tight with pain, but she talked with the men. Cara moved among the wounded: Niko mirrored her over on the other side, and Juli Danov shouted at someone-gods, it was one of the actors, the chestnut-haired girl-who was offering water to the wounded but spilling more than she gave because her hands shook so badly. Gwyn Jones knelt beside a black- haired jaran man, delicately turning an arrow out of his side by easing the unbroken silk of his red shirt back along the twisting path of entry. Farther, at the outer line of wagons, women stood and shot, a rhythmic, deadly pattern.
'Aunt Tess! Aunt Tess!' It was little Ivan, leading Zhashi. 'I looked for you. Here is Zhashi.'
'Thank you, Vania.' Tess let Zhashi blow in her face and watched as the mare's ears pricked up. She kissed Ivan on the cheek. 'I want you to go make sure the little children are well. Where is Kolia?'
'But, Aunt Tess, I'm supposed to help with the herds.'
'Take care of yourself, then.' He ran off.
'Tess!' Aleksi hailed her. He rode over to her. 'We're about to make another sortie.'
' 'Another sortie?'' She swung up on Zhashi more from habit than volition.
'We drove them back once, but they've re-formed again. That crazed woman Ursula says we should let the women hunt them.'
'Hunt them?' They trotted across to the far wall of wagons, where the remains of Anatoly's jahar milled, forming up for another attack.
'Hunt them,' Aleksi repeated. 'Distance, with arrows. She's right, you know. I know Bakhtiian and the other men would never consider archery in battle, but they're wrong. We're not fighting feuds any longer, that it matters as a point of honor. I suggested to Sakhalin that we use archers. They're only khaja, after all.'
Tess was greeted by the sight of about fifty mounted women, bows ready, each with a sheaf of arrows at her back, ready to ride out with the men. They wore their heavy felt coats as protection. Anatoly's little sister rode with them and-to Tess's surprise-Vera Veselov and little Valye Usova.
Anatoly, deep in discussion with Ursula nodded; his face lit with a grin. 'Now, you women,' he said, and then flushed as if at his own presumption in ordering them about. 'You will fire over our heads into their ranks. Once we engage, if there is room, circle them and fire into the rear where most of their archers stand.' He waved Aleksi over, and Tess and Aleksi took position in the second rank. Mother Sakhalin yelled out the order to move the wagons: a string of men, boys, girls, and women-some actors among the group, Tess saw-rolled four wagons aside. With a shout, Anatoly led the jahar out at a trot.
The khaja infantry unit had marched close enough to fire arrows into the square. The khaja soldiers jeered and let out a great shout at the appearance of the jaran riders.
The jahar broke into a canter. The women began to shoot. The sky went black with arrows. They broke into a gallop, and then hit the front rank of the khaja fighters and she was too busy to see what became of the women.
Until the khaja line disintegrated in front of her. The soldiers ran. Their entire back had vanished, shot through, decimated with archery fire. Out to either flank, Tess saw the women riding in circles, firing off to their left, cutting down the fleeing soldiers from behind with their devastating fire. The men rode the enemy down and cut them to ribbons. Not many escaped back into the hills.
The jahar re-formed quickly, but it took longer to get the women back in order. They rode a great circle around the wagons, and not one arrow disturbed their circuit. The women ululated in triumph. Tess caught a glimpse of Vera Veselov, her face lit with an expression of uncanny glee, as if she had come to life again after so many years in a daze.
'What have we started?' Tess asked Aleksi.
'By the gods,' said Aleksi. His face shone. 'So will they all fall before us.'
The first outriders of the segment of wagons that traveled just behind them reached them soon after. These scouts reported that sporadic arrow fire had impeded the progress of the train, but several forays up into the hills had rooted out-killed or chased away-the khaja rebels. Mother Sakhalin ordered the wagons back into line, but there was delay with the wounded, and the road to be cleared behind them, so in the end, with night lowering down on them, they stayed where they were. They built the debris into a pyre and burned the twenty dead, as was fitting. One of the archers had died-a heart-faced young woman whose mother wept because the girl had left no children to follow her. Tess did not watch the pyre burn, but others attended it all night long.
The khaja dead they left lying, except to clear them from the road and the camp. Of the rest, perhaps two- thirds of the fighters had received some kind of wound, although Tess had come through unscathed-this ascertained in a ruthless examination by Cara. Four children had been wounded by arrow fire. Tess was too tired to eat, but Aleksi made her eat anyway, and she slept next to him and the children under one of the wagons.
At dawn, Tess woke thinking at first that she had just had a bad dream, but when she staggered out from under the wagon, it all came back to her, much too clearly. The battle itself-her fighting, the skirmish-was all a blur, except for the man she had whipped across the face and the line of khaja soldiers wiped out by arrows in front of her. But it was the memory of Katerina stabbing the injured khaja soldier that haunted her. So young to be forced to such a horrible act, and the pragmatic nature of the act made it worse in a way: not done with rage, or viciousness, or sadism, but simply because it was necessary, and little Katya was the one available to do it.
Katerina came by at that moment, looking nothing like a murderer. 'Aunt Tess, did you see? Part of the army is riding back in. Mama says a scout came in, and that it's Cousin Ilya.'
'The scout is Ilya?' Tess felt hazy, a little dizzy.
Katerina's face pulled in concern. 'Have you eaten anything?' She put an arm around Tess's waist. 'Here, come with me. You're looking very pale. The doctor said to bring you to her anyway. I'll get you something to eat. Wait, here's a bit of cheese.'
