Kingdom River

across this Boca, wall to wall. Third Squadron to reverse order and hold in place farther back up the pass to cover the rear. If any of the northern cavalry – and it must be cavalry to have caught up with us – if any have followed down the pass, Davila is to immediately charge and strike them.'

'Yes, sir.'

'He is not to wait for my command.'

'Understood.'

'If most, or all their force, has come from the hills and is waiting before us – Mother Mary, please make it so – we will charge them in march order. First Squadron, then Second in support, if there's anyone left to ride over.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Pass those orders – and see they are understood, Tomas.'

'I will!' A fine salute – and another sample of horsemanship as he turned and galloped away on the gray… Man was a pleasant fellow, but really an ass.

Soon enough, another rider came up. Major Moro – practically elderly, and would never be more than a major. Very dark, too, well named Moro.

'Am I to suppose, Colonel, that this time Reyes got an order right? My squadron remains as marching, and first for the charge if the cabrons come down to meet us?'

'That is exactly right,' Rodriguez said. 'And be careful of your language, Major. The angels may be watching us, now.'

Major Moro made a face. 'It is those things from the north the angels need to watch, and carry their filthy souls away!'

'Absolutely.' Rodriguez crossed himself to seal that truth. 'The orders are as given. Now, get back to your men.'

Moro saluted and was gone.

The pass was turning… opening. Two long bow-shots, now – no more.

Rodriguez held up his right hand. First Squadron's trumpeter immediately blew three short, rising notes – and the colonel heard, behind him, more than two troops of heavy-armored cavalry spur to the trot, horses' hooves beginning a rhythmic hammer, draped chain-mail making soft music as they came.

Proud of them, he said to himself, certain such pride was forgivable. The pass was turning. Turning. An edge, a sliver of open grassland was becoming visible past the mountain's slope. Steel sparkled against that hint of green.

Rodriguez reined Salsa far to the right – his guidon-bearer, Gomez, following – to clear Moro's men for the charge.

Called commands… Then First Squadron began to wheel in stately turn to the left, ranks in good order as the pivot files slowed. It swung ponderously out into the pass's mouth; Salsa, champing his bit, was shouldered into the Boca's rough wall as the right-flank ranks rode by.

No mounted troopers were waiting at the pass's narrow entrance. No horses.

Only big, bearded men – and what seemed to be a few women – in polished cuirasses, black-plumed steel helmets, brown wool, leather, and black thigh-boots. Two long rows of these people, all holding short, square shields grounded, and gripping twelve-foot lances like pikemen, heavy straight sabers sheathed at their sides.

There were two more ranks behind them. Those, Light Cavalry – men, and many more of their godless northern women – in hauberks, and armed with lighter lances, curved sabers.

And all on foot, drawn up as infantry.

Clever, if they're up to it… don't miss having horses under them. Rodriguez wanted a moment to think, to consider the situation, but Major Moro was not a thinker. First Squadron's trumpeter sounded two bright notes, then a long silver third – and more than two hundred huge horses sprang from the trot to the gallop, kicking stones, sending red dirt flying. They launched themselves and their riders as one, so chain-mail shook and rang like bells above the drumroll of hooves. As they passed, Rodriguez smelled coppery dust, horse sweat, oiled steel.

The first rank of cataphracts leaned to the right in their saddles, lifting their battle-axes free. And as if in a dance agreed upon, the northerners' long lances swung down in response into a glittering needled hedge, the men crouched low behind them, shields braced.

For a few moments that seemed more than moments, the space of air and light between the gallopers and those waiting ranks contracted, grew shadowy… then collapsed as the ground jarred and shook.

They came together in a great splintering crash that smothered trumpet calls. Bright steel shone through roiling red dust, and horses screamed – not men, not yet, though the cataphracts' own furious armored weight drove them to impalement, even through their draperies of chain-mail. Their battle-axes, flailing down right and left, struck with the solid sound of woodsmen's axes into ripe wood – or rang skidding off shields set slanting.

A black charger – all Moro's squadron rode blacks – exploded out of confusion riderless, bucked and raced away, kicking at its dragging entrails as it went. Under red dust, horsemen spurred in, shouting as they hacked with heavy axes, while the northerners, fighting silent, caught these men and mounts on ranked lance points that rose and fell in rippling lines.

'Column!' Rodriguez shouted for that fool, Reyes. 'Second Squadron to form column!'

'Yes, sir!' And there Reyes was. A fine horseman.

'Second Squadron into column – and advance!' There was an extraordinary amount of dust now… clouds of it, hard to shout through.

'Sir!' Reyes turned his horse – and seemed to meet an arrow come down out of nowhere, that rang off his chest's steel and whined away. 'Look!' He pointed up.

Rodriguez looked up and saw infantry – no, more fucking dismounted cavalry, Light Cavalry by their mail shirts – high on the steep slopes of the Boca. Not many, perhaps thirty of them on each side, but they were using bows – those fucking longbows with the short lower limb. Barefoot, too – most of them he could see – to keep from stumbling and falling into the pass.

Using their bows – as I should have had each squadron's archers deploy to do. Too late now. Rodriguez waved Reyes away. 'Into column! Column!'

'Sir!' Reyes spurred – and galloped into another arrow. This one took him in the belly by worst chance, just where the heavy fall of mail divided at his saddle-bow.

Dead. Rodriguez looked to see the captain fall, but he didn't. He rode bent over his saddle like an old woman – his fine seat gone in agony – but galloped out to Major Ticotin. Second Squadron was shouted slowly out of extended line… slowly into column of ten.

'Receive these!' Colonel Rodriguez called to the enemy as he rode, intending to go in with Ticotin. 'Receive these, you fuckers!' He had no need to see what had happened to Moro's troopers. His ears told him. At the mouth of the pass, under the screams of dying horses, sounded the bright swift hammering of steel… the sobbing, grunting, barely caught breaths of men gutted on the pikes the northerners had made of their long lances.

'Well, you're very clever!' Rodriguez, galloping to Second Squadron's guidon, addressed Sam Monroe. 'Now, let's see you stop cataphracts in column!'

'You are not going in with us. Absolutely not!' Major Ticotin looked furious, face pale above his beard. Dust was drifting around them like red fog. 'You are staying back, Colonel!'

'I'm going in with you!'

There was a squealing sound – a damned pig somehow mixed up in this – and Rodriguez saw Captain Reyes off a way, saw him quite clearly leaning far back in his saddle, plucking at something. – The arrow shaft, of course, sticking out of his belly. He was making the sound.

'Your ass is staying back!' Major Ticotin reached over with the blade of his saber and sliced through Rodriguez's reins. Almost took his hand off.

'You're under arrest!' Rodriguez laughed at having said something so stupid. He tried to turn Salsa to follow with knees alone, then climbed down to catch the reins and knot them together.

Second Squadron poured past him like a river. Chestnut horses. Trumpets… trumpets.

He found the rein ends – goddamn horse circling around – knotted them, and swung up into the saddle, grunting with the jingling weight of his armor, just as Second Squadron, at full gallop, struck the center of the