Kingdom River

panic and despair.'

Sam leaned down to thump Duran's armored shoulder with his fist. 'Perfect. They'll be coming soon.'

'Coming now, sir. We've seen birds and deer clearing out of those woods.'

'Good,' Sam said. 'I'll want some daylight left, to finish them.' At which vainglory, he was slightly saddened to see Lieutenant-Colonel Duran smile again… hear pleased murmurs from his escort.

Birds were flying almost over them – a doom of crows, cawing. Sam supposed it would be crows, in these hills – not ravens – who would come to take the eyes of the dead.

He saluted Duran – it had become, after all, the army's habit – was briskly saluted in return, and reined Difficult around. It was time for the Captain-General to get out of his soldiers' way.

'Wait! Take me up!' Patience sheathed her scimitar and came floundering through the snow. 'I'm tired of walking.' Meaning, apparently, traveling in the air.

Sam reined in, seeing himself parading before his troops with this odd creature riding pillion behind him. Then Patience, with a boost from Duran, was on the charger's rump and settled. Seemed almost no shift of weight at all… and as he kicked Difficult through falling snow along the ridge, no odor either. No lady's perfume, no woman's warm scent. He might have had a doll behind him, or a child's snow-person.

Patience gripped his waist, leaned her head against his cloaked and chain-mailed back. 'I have a headache,' she said, as they went bounding. Difficult's only virtue, strength.

As they rode, the banner-bearer and escort spurring after, a sound like distant storm-wind, like a change in Lady Weather's wishes, seemed to come rising the long wooded slopes behind them. Barely heard… then slowly, slowly heard more clearly… until, in a rolling thunderclap – with flights of winter birds across the sky – the storm became the voice of an attacking army, its war horns a chorus, as if wild bulls bellowed from the woods.

'Oh-oh.' A child's exclamation in almost a child's soprano, and Sam felt Patience turning back to look – though nothing would be seen but the backs of serried ranks of Phil Butler's two thousand pikemen and crossbowmen, draped like a segmented steel-link chain across the ridges and hollows… Sam closed his eyes as he rode, seeing them standing ready to receive, as ten thousand Kipchaks came boiling out of the forest, surging up the slopes in tides of steel and arrows.

Difficult tripped on a branch in the snow, and Sam hauled him up on the reins. Along the ridge-line, the snow grew thinner, and he urged the charger to a gallop, heard his escort coming up behind. Troops were cheering as he passed – squadrons of Light Cavalry riding east. He saw a pennon through falling snow. Second Regiment, Elman's people. Good officer, but mad for fighting, and perhaps not the best second-in-command for Ned. Two madmen…

There was a sound like a great steel door slamming. The falling snow seemed to swirl with the impact of it. The center was being hit with everything that Toghrul had. Thank God – that oldest thanks of all – thank God for Chairman's sharp ears and battle sense, her call to him to listen. It had given him just time enough. May have given him just time enough…

The smash and roar of engagement sounding behind him, Sam rode along Main Ridge to be certain all the cavalry had shifted east. So difficult, to leave commanders alone in a battle, to depend on them to do what had to be done. It was hard to see how the Khan managed without a Howell Voss, a Ned Flores. Without a Phil Butler, a Charmian, and all their officers. Toghrul must be an extraordinary man to depend, really, only on himself. Must be lonely…

Sam reined up, reached behind him to give Patience an arm to dismount. 'Now, go down that south slope. Stay with Portia-doctor and her people.'

'I will,' Patience said, 'but only to rest to go back again. They shot arrows at me!' And she trudged off into the snow.

'Comin' up!' One of the mounted bowmen.

An officer galloping, chasing the banner… then drew up in a spray of snow, and saluted. A lieutenant, very young – what was his name? Carlton… Carter? Boy was crying, or snow was melting down his face.

'Sir – Colonel Duran regrets to report…' Tears, they were tears. 'General Butler has been killed, sir. At the very first engagement. An arrow struck him.'

Carter. Boy's name was Carter. '… Thank the colonel for his report, Lieutenant. He assumes command, of course – and is to retreat his regiments as previously ordered.'

'Sir.'

' – The dog,' Sam said. 'His little dog.'

'We have the dog safe, sir.' A weeping lieutenant – nothing new in war.

Sam saluted, and the boy turned his horse and was gone north, back to the center of the line, where companies, battalions, regiments of Heavy Infantry stood killing with long needle-pointed pikes, killing with hissing crossbow volleys – as ten thousand grim shepherds with slanting eyes came swarming up the hillsides.

Phil Butler would be out of all that, lying safe behind the ranks in a warm woolen army blanket, his imperial spectacles folded and tucked into his parka pocket… Horacio Duran would now be wearing the yoke of responsibility. He'd be here and there and everywhere, shouting orders, watching for the time to begin to back away. Then more orders, and galloping back and forth to keep the formations steady as the Kipchaks yelped their battle cries and came on, certain they were winning.

Sam spurred Difficult south, imagining Phil had only been wounded, and Carter had said, 'Injured, sir. Seems not too serious.' If Carter had only said that, then Phil would be alive, fondly cursing his soldiers as they hustled him to the rear. Odd that a single arrow could carry a friend so suddenly away, that there was no time for goodbye… Unfair. Unfair.

Sam saw Heavy Cavalry where there should have been none. Saw two troops… three, through the light snowfall. Three troops standing in a defile. Standing! He spurred that way, down a steep dip, then rode up the column with his people behind him – took an officer by the cloak and hauled him half out of his saddle. 'What are you people doing?'

Startled face behind a helmet's basket visor. 'Cover reserve, sir! In case of retreat.'

Sam shook him hard. 'There is no fucking reserve held today, you jackass! No retreat! We lose, they'll follow and kill us all!'

'Orders, sir!' Fool almost shouting, as if Sam were deaf. ' – Orders.'

'Whose orders?' Shake, shake. The man's cloak tore a little.

Lieutenant Miranda, very large, had heeled her horse alongside. Her saber was drawn.

'Major d'Angelo's orders.'

Major d'Angelo… decent officer. 'The major was mistaken. Orders are no reserves. Everyone to the line!'

Nods from Torn-cloak.

'Now, you get your ass and these troopers east at a fucking gallop! You understand me? Join General Voss's people to attack on that flank.'

More nods. Sam shoved the man upright in his saddle. ' – Move!'

Sam stayed to watch them go – go galloping, as Lieutenant Miranda sheathed her saber, backed her big horse… Three troops of Heavy Cavalry almost lost to the attack. Have to speak to d'Angelo. A little less attention to the usual ways of doing things; a little more attention to fucking immediate orders!

'Who was that officer?' A question asked of the snowy air.

'Captain Hooper, sir,' said Captain Collins, behind him. ' – Good man.' Which recommendation, in the face of his commander's anger, also recommended Roberto Collins.

Sam felt tired as if he'd stayed with the Lights to the west, been fighting all this time… He turned Difficult's head, kicked him back up onto the ridge, and looked for a place to stand on the hilltop. Now, unless disaster came, he would be only a watcher, avoiding the dangerous confusions of casual interference. Separate from his soldiers as if he were sleeping far south in Better-Weather, or eating roast pork at the high tables in Island's hall.

Now, he would be a ghost of war, all a commander's directions given. As the Boston girl had done, he could only hover over, his sword blooded once, and watch below him for a battle won. A battlefield ghost, perhaps to be joined by Phil Butler, and many more.

It seemed to Sam he already heard a different music sung from the northern slopes, the higher-pitched chorus of fighting men seeing a triumph before them. Duran would be beginning to coax his men back… back. But slowly, Horacio, and in formation for the love of Mountain Jesus.