shadows of early morning thrown along the length of the vale, birdsong, the sounds of pain. It all soaked into my awareness in waves. My sword was still in my fist, shield still on my arm. I came to the center of things, our men moving north of us in ragged lines, and here the commanders gathered on horseback to confer. The battle mages were here, calm and distant, the healers tending still the wounds of the injured. I had no idea how many men we had lost but I knew we had won a victory to be proud of, and at little cost.
I looked back the way we had come, the gentle empty slope of grasses crushed by our passing in lines where the dew did not show, the woodland as still as a dream, then to the north, our men strung out in vulnerable lines, and I felt suddenly ill at ease.
“Recall the men,” I told Tulian as I joined the command group.
He looked about. Nothing threatened. The surviving enemy were scattered and gone. Yet he nodded. Maybe there was something in my voice. The horns sounded then, too close and joined by ours as Tulian issued the order to regroup on us. Come to the banners, the horns sounded, and our men came. I was still looking back and forth at the two slopes and may have been first to see my equestes burst from the trees to the south, Sheo at the head, thundering toward us. The north slope, our men hurrying now, moving fast into centuries and at the same time in our direction. The trees behind them were suddenly alive with men. The south slope, Sheo and his equestes moving fast, half way to us. Behind them a hint of movement in the dawn light. North slope, there were thousands. All who had fled and more, bunched in a swathe as far as I cared to look east and west. South slope. Barbarians appearing in dribbles that I knew was about to turn into a flood.
I looked at Tulian and he met my gaze. I almost saw him shrug and I knew he had no ideas.
“The runners met the other war band as they fled,” I told him emotionlessly. “They have been calmed and turned about.” South slope. “And the third warband we heard rumor of have come on us as well.” It was clear as glass to me, our doom. Still I turned my head as I spoke. North slope, our men moving fast our way, looking for direction. Tulian, looking back at me with no idea what to do. South slope, a river of barbarians bursting its bank and Sheo closing on us fast. Tulian; still nothing.
“Triangular formation. Mages and healers in the center with the cavalry holding the points of the triangle,” it wasn't in the books but our battle signals are good, a lot of meaning can be put into the flags and trumpets and the men were trained to react as instructed, not to think and puzzle.
He gave orders, flag-bearers moved to their assigned spots, trumpets blew and the enemy horns and drums blended in. But things started to happen as our men reacted to the signals. I continued to look, turning my horse now, seeing with a clarity I never would have imagined possible. We would be surrounded, there was no way out, there were so many of them, we were going to lose, to die, but none of that mattered. Hurt them, hurt them now and slow them and give us time to form properly and be ready.
“Larner Harrat! Mages, north and south, hurt them, slow them down!”
They moved. They didn't wait. Magic looks like almost invisible sheet lightning, but with a shape and a pattern of varying size and complexity, brief flickers of brightness that catch your attention but are gone before you can focus on them. Fire rolled from their outstretched hands in great tumbling balls of red and yellow and black and struck the enemy leaving charring men still running and men whose clothing burned and whose hair was gone in an instant or who were blinded by suddenly burned eyes. Holes appeared in the teeming hoard, leaving scattered burning men in the gaps and those behind split around them as though they were stones in a river. The earth exploded in a great gout of clods of earth and men, knocking a dozen more to the ground; gods knew what that was, though I was glad of it. It wouldn't be enough but it was enough for us to form the triangle so that when they hit us we were not in disarray.
They kept coming out of the woods, filling the slopes no matter how many the battle mages killed by fire and gas. If we had killed eight thousand and wounded a thousand more there were still as many or more than we had broken in the dark. There were too many of them.
It was a nightmare.
48
The nightmare seemed to go on forever. The healers were busy and men went back into the fight without hesitation. The thrum of crossbows sounded behind me. I had forgotten them but Tulian had not. They were ranged wide, fifty facing north and fifty south. Our formation held for a while but buckled as the corners were pushed together and in. We couldn't hold for long, I thought. There was no way to hold for long.
I looked at Tulian, and he was doing the same as me. Seeing disaster and still thinking, trying to find a way out, a way to win where none existed. The equestes milled, pushed back when the corners of the triangular formation met and the lines merged.
“Send messengers to call the equestes in. We'll dismount and be a reserve on foot. Or just join the fight.”
Tulian just looked at me.
“The horses are useless.”
He nodded, gave the order. It was true. The horses were useless. Equestes were only of use in two circumstances, the running down of a fleeing enemy and fast maneuver to counter other mounted troops. Apart from that cavalry are useless and always have been.
We were losing men, being pushed back by sheer weight of numbers though we were hurting them badly, leaving new mounds of dead and trampled wounded. We would be crushed into a small knot and, unable to maneuver, destroyed. The sheer inevitability of it depressed me.
When the cavalry dismounted I joined them. There was nothing else to do. Meran walked with me to join our men and I wished I had not let him come.
Having killed in the night for the first time and slaughtered until after dawn I now faced death with a curious calm.
It was a dream.
49
Everything hurt and I did not think that was fair.
#
I felt like I was on fire, being moved, there was light, vague images. Noise. Pain.
#
When you are spirit, when you are dead, it should stop hurting. No wonder the spirits didn't tell us about this. We would fear death greatly if we knew it hurt this much, was this dark. Cold. This lonely.
#
Wet noises and pain in my face told me I was having trouble breathing. I couldn't see and my eyes ached. After that there was a long list and I knew that it was by no means complete. I also knew I wasn't dead because I wished that I was. I was lying on something comfortable, on my side. It was cold.
#
The grunt was involuntarily and woke me fully from a nightmare into another one. My hand hurt, a sharp stabbing, twisting pain like I had never imagined in my most cruel nightmares. This must be what it is like to be tortured, I thought.
“Make him live.”
I grunted again, trying to say something but my jaw didn't work properly. Nothing did. 'No,' I had tried to say, 'just kill me quickly.'
“As you command.”
I recognized the voice and felt a wave of hope as I realized that the pain was about to go away. It did and so did I.
