Kingdom River

'Holding,' Howell said.

'And probably will.' Sam reached down, shook Howell's hand, and found reassurance in that grinding grip.

… Beside being a painful trotter, and uncertain in response, Difficult almost always lunged out a start – did so now, only touched by the spurs, so Sam had a moment's vision of being dumped into the snow in front of his soldiers, the battle's loss beginning with that comic humiliation. But he found his balance, settled the beast smartly between the ears with the butt of his quirt, and managed to ride along ranks of cavalry… then down the far-western slopes in a reasonable way, with Kenneth following. Three of the horse archers rode before them, three behind.

As if they'd entered a different country deep in the draw, dawn-light darkened almost to night again, and the battle's sound grew louder, so that screams of dying men and women, grunts of effort for savage blows, and officers' shouted orders all became individual under countless strokes of steel on steel.

Sam rode to angle across the hillsides, and soon, high in a rise's deep shadow, he looked down and saw a roiling motion beneath him, as if the dark forest below the hillsides had come alive, writhing like one of the great far-southern serpents, coiling up and up to reach the dawn's light. The noise rose terrific with clashing steel, shouts, the Kipchaks' yelping battle cries. Sam could hear the tribesmen's bowstrings twang – and as if hearing made fact, one of his flanking guards grunted and fell, white fletching at the side of his chest.

Another dismounted to him, as the four still mounted bent their longbows, shooting down into shadow. Kipchak arrows hummed around them, and the escort's sergeant, a man named McGee, rode to crack Difficult across the hindquarters with his bow-stave. The charger leaped forward and bounded across the slope like a deer, Sam only a bundle hanging on.

He'd found nothing more unusual in battle than laughter. On campaign, of course, and even in maneuver under threat. But rarely in the heart of slaughter. Now, Sam was treated to that sound as he saw, in dawn's light, Charmian Loomis – with two officers, and blood down her side – leaning on the staff of a battle pennant and laughing at him amid a flickering sleet of arrows.

'Never saw a man so eager!' she called to him. 'Damn near flew down the line!'

Sam wrestled Difficult to a skidding halt, swung down – and resisted temptation to draw and take off the animal's head. McGee'd followed, and Sam tossed him the charger's reins as the other bowmen rode up.

'And what are you doing on the line?' He had to shout. 'You're the fucking commander here!'

'Came down to listen to the fighting.'

'You get your ass up on the ridge!' And to the officers standing by, both crouching a little as if arrow flights were pressing them down: 'Get her out of here!'

Charmian grinned. 'Listen…' An arrow passed almost between them, a slight disturbance in the air.

'Your wound – '

'I've had worse.' Still smiling, a happy woman in battle. 'Listen, something's wrong with the fighting here.' Supporting herself a little on her rapier's springing blade, she turned, slightly stiffly, to look back down the slope. The light was good enough, now, for Sam to see clearly the tide of Kipchaks coming against the supple, almost silent formations of Light Infantry all along this hillside and another beyond it. The dismounted tribesmen attacking in a surf of slaughter… then slowly, slowly easing back down the slopes to gather and come again.

Between these advances and withdrawals, men and women fought stranded on the snow in sudden knots, wrestling at knife-point, slashing with swords and yataghans. But Sam saw it was the short Kipchak bows that were hurting his people most. The Light Infantry crossbowmen were overmatched.

'See?' Charmian pointed with her rapier's blade. 'We need to keep close!' As if to prove it, an arrow came whisking past her throat, touched her long hair like a lover fleeting past. 'And we can keep close, and hold them. They hit us and hit us hard – '

'But they're not pushing your people back.'

'Right. There's no weight to this attack.'

A surprising smacking sound, and the younger officer – Sam hadn't known his name – pitched down into the snow with an arrow in the side of his neck, just beneath his helmet's edge. The officer grunted, kicked at the snow, and died.

'Oh… Bobby.' Charmian bent to stroke the dead man's back, then straightened. 'They're coming at us as if they meant it – '

' – But with no army coming behind them.' Now, listening, Sam could hear a fragility in the Kipchaks' shouts and war cries, their lowing battle horns. Two thousand men, perhaps more, attacking along the slopes. But not with ten thousand coming behind them… Mistake… mistake. I've made a very bad mistake.

He turned and shouted to his trumpeter. 'Kenneth! Ride to the center! Tell Phil Butler they're coming at him after all! – And he's to refuse! Refuse and fall back slowly, in order!'

'Comin' at him… to refuse an' fall back slow, in order.'

'Ride! Ride!'

As the trumpeter spurred away, Sam pointed at the bowman sergeant. 'McGee – to General Voss and Colonel Flores! The Khan's main attack is to the center! They're to withdraw cavalry formations as his people come in – we'll let them push us back.

Light Infantry will then attack his right flank from here. All cavalry – all cavalry to move east now, into position to attack his left flank as it exposes!'

'Voss an' Flores.' The sergeant already reining his horse away. 'Comin' at the center – we're lettin' 'em push in so their flanks get bare – then Lights hit his right, Cav goes east, gets set to hit his left!' And he was off, his horse spurning snow across the slope.

As the man rode, Sam gripped Charmian by an arm he hoped unwounded, and tugged her up-hill. 'Come on – come on! Get out of this! And put your fucking helmet on!'

'I can't see with the thing.' She looked back, called down-slope, 'Manuel!… To your left!'

Sam thought he saw an officer there look up.

'Shit!' Charmian yanked her arm free and was off, limping awkwardly down the hillside as twenty or thirty Kipchaks hacked their way up into the Infantry's line – then broke it.

'Charmian…!' She was gone and at them. Sam drew and ran down after her… heard his bowmen yelling, 'No!' He saw more Lights coming along the slope to reinforce as he galloped down the hill, snow flying.

Charmian had gone for the nearest, a big Kipchak in black furs. Sam saw the man's face, a mask of rage and effort as he struck at her.

Then it was not fighting, but killing.

Charmian caught his curved blade coming across – picked it out of the air with her rapier's tip, guided it sliding to the right, and thrust the long, slim blade of her left-hand dagger into his belly.

Two more stomped up through the snow at her, and Sam yelled, 'On the left!' ducked low and swung a two- handed cut across the first man's leg. He felt the sword's grip kick as the blade hacked through boot-top and bone – then yanked the steel free to spin the other way and thrust, one-handed, into the second man's armpit as he raised his yataghan to strike.

The crippled one slashed at Sam from the snow and caught him lightly at the thigh – a touch below his hauberk – with the so-familiar icy stroke of steel, then burning.

Sam drove his point into that man's mouth – felt his blade break teeth, then slide through delicate stuff in a spurt of blood to split the spine.

Joy came to him as he freed his blade, joy at the wonderful simplicity of action, and he and Charmian, on guard for any others, shared an instant's glance of pleasure.

Then his mounted bowmen, and a storm of Light Infantry from above, struck the two of them and the advancing Kipchaks together, knocking Charmian down and sending Sam sprawling. Furious officers and men stood over them – 'Stupid… stupid fuckers!' – picked them up, and listening to no orders, showing no respect for rank, hauled them up the hill.

Loosed near the ridge, his sword wiped and sheathed, Sam looked back and saw the Kipchaks once more in shallow retreat… then gathering to charge up the slope again. The base of the hill was thick with their formations –