Kingdom River

Colonel Rodriguez had come from Indian people – and wasn't ashamed of it. He'd never kissed a man's ass because that man was pale under sunshine, and could grow a fine mustache.

His mother had told him that good comes to those who wait for it, and Colonel Rodriguez – though not yet forty – had waited out several such officers, milky as girls, who spoke only the Beautiful Language, not Nahua, and knew women at court. The northern bandits had worn those men out, or killed them – and the Emperor, who knew truth when evil men permitted him to see it, saw the value in officers such as Michi Rodriguez, and gave him at last his regiment.

And see the result – with only three squadrons brought north! Victory. The troopers had celebrated every evening since the battle. Six slow marches riding south through the passes, the men dancing in camp every evening – and drinking aguardiente they were forbidden to have with them. Easier to find a cavalryman's soul than his hidden leather bottle.

Victory. A first victory. Now, the court ladies would coo and flutter… then moan, lie back and raise their lace skirts in dark, secret rooms smelling of the oils of flowers, so that a hero might do as he pleased, and so please them.

Perhaps… Though perhaps only smile and murmur behind their fans. 'See the little Indio… watch our brown hero try to manage both his chocolate cup and cake plate. See him spill crumbs on his uniform, perhaps a drop or two of chocolate as well…'

But either way – a victory. The Indian colonel would come with his regiment to The City, and the Emperor would see he brought a battle won, as his banner.

'Something shone, high in the mountains.' Tomas Reyes, a milk-face but a decent fellow, had spurred up alongside on that showy gray – a trumpet-horse color.

'What something?'

'Colonel, I don't know. Two of the men saw it.'

'Bandits. Curious shepherds.'

'I don't know, sir. Should we arm a squadron?'

Rodriguez considered. It was the cataphract problem. – Well, there were two cataphract problems. One was the size of horse required to carry both the heavy chain-mail that guarded its own chest and flanks, and a man wearing that same chain-mail draped and belted from helmet to boot.

So, the proper horse was one problem; the full suit of mail was itself the other problem. No man, not even a very strong man, wished to wear it day and night.

Bandits, probably, high in the mountains above the pass. A spear-tip or sword-blade flashing an instant in the sun. Too far south, too many days south, now, for any interference by the northerners. They wouldn't have more than a few hundred Light Cavalry left at This'll Do. Would have been busy for a day or so just burying their dead. And wouldn't have had time to bring more than… say, a headquarters' detachment down through Please Pass to follow.

'Unlikely,' Rodriguez said.

'Sir?'

'I said, 'Unlikely.' But just in case' – a favorite Warm-time phrase of his father's – 'just in case, have Third Squadron fall out and arm.'

'Sir.' Captain Reyes saluted with a cadet-school flourish, showed off with a rearing turn, and galloped back along the files. Fair enough, the man was a fine horseman – unlike, say, a certain nearly-plump Indian, who nevertheless had won a victory.

Almost a sand-glass later by the sun's shadow across the narrow pass, and deep into an afternoon now truly warm, his guidon-bearer, Julio Gomez, saw steel glittering on the steep mountainside above them – and properly called it out.

There was, as Rodriguez had quickly discovered, a sadness nesting amid the pleasures of command. It was the sadness of knowing – knowing more than his officers and men. Knowing unpleasant things they did not yet know.

– Such as realizing immediately that this second conveniently revealed sparkle of steel was deliberate, meant to provoke him to action, and so, was no affair of bandits, but a military matter.

Which therefore meant that some of the northerners had followed him down. And since no local commander would have taken the remarkable risk, after a lost battle, of pursuing days deep into imperial country – certainly riding day and night to do so, certainly killing horses to do so – and with what must be a modest force of the few troops at hand, it meant as well that this northern commander was probably the commander, Monroe himself.

Rodriguez felt chilled and hot at once. Chilled, because such determination, such an extraordinary pursuit of several days south, was frankly a surprise, and disturbing. But hot as well, at the notion of doubling a triumph and bringing to Mexico City not one victory, but two. And the head of Sam Monroe.

He stood in his stirrups, turned, and called for Captain Reyes. It was going to be… it was going to be all right. This pass, Boca Chica, was narrow, its sides much too steep for cavalry to come down on his flanks. So, whether the northerners maneuvered in front of him as the pass widened, or tried to attack from the rear, the result would be the same. His people would hammer them, ride them down.

The colonel saw Captain Reyes cantering to him for orders… and felt the early autumn wind's caress as a promise of victory.

* * *

'He's armed a squadron – no, he's arming all his people down there.' On the mountainside, Howell Voss sat slumped on a sweated horse, a remount. He'd left his wonderful Adelante wind-broken and dying two days back, as they'd left other horses his troopers had ridden to death on the fast chase south through these mountains. A brutal cost in fine animals. They had no fresh mounts left.

Beside him, Sam Monroe sat his horse, a weary sore-backed bay, looked down the mountainside's steep slope, and said, 'Perfect.'

In the narrow defile below, the cataphracts were lifting their heavy folds of chain-mail from the pack-horses' duffels, shaking them out, wrestling into them, fastening latches and buckles. Then, weighty, lumbering to their chargers to dress them in oiled jingling steel skirts.

' 'Perfect'? I don't see how this is going to get done at all.' Voss leaned from his saddle to spit thirst's cotton. His empty eye-socket itched, as always when sweat ran into it under the patch. 'We've got only Headquarters' Heavies, that's two hundred and fifty of my troopers – and what's left of Ned's Lights fit to fight, another two, three hundred.'

'Yes.'

'Sam, there are maybe seven hundred cataphracts down there.'

'Seven hundred and fourteen.'

'Our people are tired, and our horses – the ones we have left – are even tireder from chasing these imperials for almost a fucking Warm-time week.'

'So?'

'Sir, go down there, I'd say we're asking for another cavalry disaster.'

Sam smiled at him. 'That's what I'd say, too, Howell, where cavalry's concerned. But what we have down there, to quote old Elvin, is 'an infantry situation.' '

'We're not infantry.'

Sam swung off his horse. 'Ah – but we're going to be.'

***

'Pass begins to widen up ahead,' Rodriguez said, 'past the next turn of rock.' Captain Reyes stood in his stirrups to look.

'Scouts out, sir?'

'To report what, Captain? That the pass widens slightly past the turn, as we know it widens? That the enemy has come down and is waiting, as they surely are?… Now, I want our formations shaken out into ranks three deep