Kingdom River

'I want the Heavies high on the west ridges, ready to oppose any flanking attack successful enough to threaten our center. I want the Lights positioned, in company and squadron strength, as reaction forces to charge any breach that forms elsewhere along our line – and also prepared to chase when we win. Then, as many Kipchaks as possible are to be ridden down and killed. The Khan is to be hunted and killed.'

'Toghrul killed…' Ned breathed on his hook, polished it with his bandanna. 'Right.'

'Sam,' Howell said, 'who opposes his flank attack directly?'

'I do,' Charmian said, and got up and left, Teddy Baker following.

'I wish she wouldn't do that,' Howell said. 'Damn woman always just walks out. No fucking further planning… no coordination.'

'I know,' Sam said. 'It's annoying.'

'But, Sam – only light infantry?'

'Yes.'

'That's… You're sacrificing them.'

'Yes.'

'Best we have!'

Sam sat looking at him.

'Howell,' Ned said, 'it's because they're the best we have.'

Howell stood, seemed to wish to pace, but found no room for it. 'Still wrong, to sacrifice Charmian like that. If her people go under, she'll go under with them… Hard to forgive, Sam.'

'Howell,' Sam said, 'these things are impossible to forgive. I thought you understood that.'

'… Alright. Alright, where do you want me?'

'Highest hill, back of Butler. Best place to command from, if something happens to me.'

'And you'll be where?'

'He'll be with Charmian, Howell.' Ned stood and stretched. 'Now, let's get out of here, and leave him in peace.'

Sam stood – his back feeling better, standing – and put his hands on their shoulders as he walked them out into falling snow, Petersen and Elman trailing after. 'Listen, both of you; there is another order. Live.'

'That's it?' Ned smiled. 'I'd already decided to.'

'It may be too much trouble.' Howell reached up to rest his hand over Sam's for a moment.

Their boots crunched in the snow. 'Once the people are in place,' Sam said, 'which is going to take time, with the Light Infantry completing a march to the west – once they're in place, no fires, no noise. I'll be along to review dispositions, make any adjustments to our lines.' Ned and Howell swung up onto their horses. ' – Feed the people at least a little hot food, as much Brunswick as Oswald-cook can send up from the field kitchens, then give them a few hours' sleep. But they're to be in position at least two glass-hours before dawn… I'd come with the last of night – and so will he.'

'Good to have you back,' Ned said, saluted with his bright hook, then turned his horse and rode away, Elman spurring after him.

'Sam…' Howell held his big charger still, Petersen just mounted beside him. 'Don't do anything stupid. We've got ten thousand swords on these hills – we don't need yours.'

'And won't have it, if I have the choice.'

'I hold you to that,' Howell said, 'on your honor.'

'On my honor.'

Sam walked back into his tent, past a smiling Corporal Fass, on guard – a tent, now he was alone in it, no warmer than the evening. 'On my honor,’ he'd said. Certainly the least of his concerns – to strike or be struck at with sharpened steel. It would be… such a relief to have only that to consider, and not his thousands of soldiers here, not the hundreds of thousands of men and women in North Map-Mexico, waiting to hear whether they would live free and at peace – or in a desperate resistance of several generations against the Kipchak tumans.

And would be such a relief, also, not to have to consider Rachel – and those hundreds of thousands more – waiting along the river for him to win their war, or lose it.

Sam sat on a camp-stool, spread Charmian's map on the cot, and bent in yellow lamplight to study neat notes inked at its edges, fine lines drawn curving with hills' slopes and rises.

'Corporal.'

'Sir?'

'If they carry up stew, please bring me a bowl.'

'Yes, sir. I can go back to the kettles and get it.'

'No. But if they bring it up to the lines, I'll have some.'

'Yes, sir.'

Sam leaned closer, saw the pen's crosshatching of indicated forest thicken to the west, showing awkward country… then much more awkward. And if the Khan did flank to the right, instead, taking the chance of being trapped against the river? The country east was a little more open… bore thinner forest. But the snow had drifted that much deeper there – slow traveling when he'd come that way, and by tomorrow, even more difficult. It didn't seem a likely line of attack, with all their nice maneuvers slowed to lumbering.

Also, the east flank offered no surprise. The army, camped higher, would see the Kipchaks coming miles away, and all the better as they came over snow, in daylight or moonlight.

Charmian's fine map made the Khan's choice for any flanking clear. 'She'll go under,' Howell had said. 'If her people go under, she'll go under with them.'

And so, of course, she would. How old was Charmian? Twenty-eight? No, certainly thirty, at least. There was gray in her hair – as in all their hair. They were all dyed a beginning gray by blunders, however rare, grim enough to stain anything.

… This was a time, if Margaret were here, that she'd nudge the vodka flask out of sight. Wasted effort. There wasn't vodka enough on earth to drown this difficulty.

Did fine Warm-time Caesar, did fine Napoleon or Lee dream of leaving their tents before battle, of walking away into the night, free of any expectations? So their armies and their people and the future would no longer know of them at all, leaving only a fading mystery to their puzzled, aging soldiers.

Howell had done a very good job, settled like the banner's scorpion on several rough hills, claws and stinger poised and ready. But was there another way than flanking to shift this ten-thousand-soldier scorpion, send it scuttling sideways, then back… and back, until the Kipchak boot came finally down?

Assault to the front. Possible, though not Toghrul's style at all – which, as Ned had said, argued for it. And would have made some sense if he still had a whole army, instead of only half. Here – with, probably, neither force withholding reserves – to lose in a frontal assault would be to lose utterly. It seemed unlikely Toghrul would accept that gamble. Seemed unlikely…

Sam folded Charmian's map – really fine paper, imperial stuff – stood, and tucked it into his belt's wide pouch. To arm, or not yet?… Not yet.

He turned down the lamp's wick, unslung his sword, and lay down on the cot with the weapon beside him. The cot seemed more comfortable than Island's feather bed had been. Probably spoiled for comfort, by soldiering…

Sam dreamed of Rachel, tall, dark-eyed, her father in her face. They were in her solar tower. Sergeant Burke was there with them, sitting reading a copybook, tracing the words with his finger, moving his lips as he read. Sam was explaining to Rachel the difference between the Ancient American Civil War – Red-Badge of Courage – and the wars he'd fought in North Map-Mexico. 'In those ancient battles,' he said to her, 'few screams were heard, because of the noise of tremendous bangs of black powder. Cannon. Muskets. So those were the noises heard during their battles. Very few screams, until the fighting was over.'

Rachel agreed it was probably so, but Burke said, 'Sir.'

Sam said, 'What?' both in the dream and waking.

'Sir…' Corporal Fass. 'Lady to see you, sir. Told her you were asleep.'

'Alright… alright.' Sam rolled off the cot, turned the lamp's wick up.

'I've brought stew,' the Boston girl said, the shoulders of her blue coat dusted with snow, ' – and news. Wasn't