The silence was utter.
'Most High?' Nayiit said.
'They won't begin a battle now that they'd have to finish in darkness. This is all show and bluster. 'ell the men to set their tents and build what cook fires we cap in all this wet. Put them here where those bastards can see the light of them. 'Tell the men to rest and eat and drink, and we'll set up a pavilion and have songs before we sleep. Let the Galts see how frightened we are.'
The messengers took poses that accepted the order and turned their mounts. Otah caught Nayiit's gaze, and the boy hesitated. When the others had gone, Otah spoke again.
'Also find the scouts and have them set a watch. In case I'm wrong.'
He saw Nayiit draw breath, but he only took the accepting pose and rode away.
The night was long and unpleasant. The rain had stopped; the clouds thinned and vanished, letting the heat of the ground fly out into the cold, uncaring sky. Utah passed among the fires, accepting the oaths and salutes of his men. He felt his title and dignity on his shoulders like a cloak. He would have liked to smile and be charming, to ease his fears with companionship and wine, just as his men did. It would have been no favor to them, though, so he held back and played the Khai for another night. No attack came, and between the half candle and the threequarter mark, Utah actually fell asleep. He dreamed of nothing in particular-a bird that flew upside down, a river he recalled from childhood, Danat's voice in an adjacent room singing words Utah could not later recall. He woke in darkness to the scent of frying pork and the sound of voices.
I IC pulled on his robes and boots and stepped out into the chill of the morning. The cook fires were lit again or had never been put out. And across the valley, the Gait army had lit its own, glittering like orange and yellow stars fallen to earth. His attendant rushed up, blinking sleep from his eyes.
'Most High,' the boy said, falling into a pose of abject apology. 'I had thought to let you sleep. Your breakfast is nearly ready-'
'Bring it to my tent,' Otah said. 'I'll be back for it.'
He walked to the edge of the camp where the firelight would not spoil his night vision and looked out into the darkness. In the east, the sky had become a paler blackness, the deep gray of charcoal. The stars had not gone out, but they were dimmed. In the trees that lined the valley, birds were beginning their songs. A strange tense peace came over him. His disquiet seemed to fade, and the dawn, gray then cool yellow and rose and serene blue that filled the wide bowl of the sky above him, was beautiful and calm. Whatever happened here in this valley, the sun would rise upon it again tomorrow. The birds would call to one another. Summer would retreat, autumn would come. The lives of men and nations were not the highest stakes to play for. He pulled his hands into his sleeves and turned back to the camp. At his tent, his messengers awaited him, including Nayiit.
'Call the formation,' Otah said. 'It's time.'
The messengers scattered, and it seemed fewer than a dozen breaths before the air was filled with the sounds of metal against metal, shouts and commands as his army pulled itself to the ready.
'Your food, Most High,' the attendant said, and Otah waved the man away.
By the time Otah's footmen and horsemen had taken their places between and just behind the wedges of archers, it was bright enough to see the banners and glittering mail of the Galts. Utah's mount seemed to sense the impending violence, dancing uncomfortably as Utah rode back and forth behind his men, watching and waiting and preparing to call out his commands. From across the valley, the shout and silence came again as it had the night before. Then twice more.
'Call the archers to ready!' Otah called out, and like whisperers in court relaying the words to lower men waiting in the halls, his words echoed in a dozen voices. He saw his archers lift their bows and shift in their formations. A long shout, rolling like thunder, came from across the valley. The Galts were moving forward. 'Call the march! And be prepared to loose arrows!'
As they had drilled, his men moved forward, archers to the front, footmen between them with their makeshift shields and motley assortment of swords and spears and threshing flails. Horsemen in the colors of the great houses of the utkhaiem trotted at the sides, ready to wheel and protect the flanks. At a walk, three thousand men moved forward across the still-wet grass and patches of ankle-deep mud. And perhaps half again as many Galts came toward them, shouting.
In the old hooks and histories, the flights of enemy arrows had been compared to smoke rising from a great pyre or clouds blotting out the sun. In fact, when the first volley struck, it was nothing like that. Otah didn't see the arrows and bolts in the air. He saw them begin to appear, heads buried deep in the ground, fletching green and white in the sunlight, like some strange flower that had sprung up from the meadow grass. Then a man screamed, and another.
'Loose arrows!' Otah called. 'Give it back to them! Loose arrows!'
Now that he knew to look, he could see the thin, dark shafts. They rose up from the Galtic mass, slowly as if they were floating. His own archers let fly, and it seemed that the arrows should collide in the air, but then slipped past each other, two flocks of birds mingling and parting again. More men screamed.
Otah's horse twitched and sidestepped, nervous with the sounds and the scent of blood. Otah felt his own heart beating fast, sweat on his back and neck though the morning was still cool. His mind spun, judging how many men he was losing with each volley, straining to see how many Galts seemed to fall. They seemed to be getting more volleys off than his men. Perhaps the Galts had more archers than he did. If that was true, the longer he waited for his footmen to engage, the more he would lose. But then perhaps the Galts were simply better practiced at slaughter.
'Call the attack!' Otah yelled. He looked for his messengers, but only two of them were in earshot, and neither was Nayiit. Otah gestured to the nearest of them. 'Call the attack!'
The charge was ragged, but it was not hesitant. He could hear it when the footmen got word-a loud whooping yell that seemed to have no particular start nor any end. One man's voice took up where another paused for breath. Otah cantered forward. His horsemen were streaming forward as well now, careful not to outstrip the footmen by too great a distance, and Otah saw the Galtic archers falling back, their own soldiers coming to the fore.
The two sides met with a sound like buildings falling. Shouts and screams mingled, and any nuanced plan was gone. Otah's urge to rush forward was as much the desire to see more clearly what was happening as to defend the men he'd brought. His archers drew and fired sporadically until he called them to stop. There was no way to see who the arrows struck.
The mass of men in the valley writhed. Once a great surge on Otah's left seemed to press into the Galtic ranks, but it was pushed back. He heard drums and trumpet calls. That's a good idea, Otah thought. Drums and trumpets.
The shouting seemed to go on forever. The sun slowly rose in its arc as the men engaged, pulled hack, and rushed at one another again. And with every passing breath, Utah saw more of his men fall. More of his men than of the Galts. He forced his mount nearer. He couldn't judge how many he'd lost. The bodies in the mud might have been anyone.
A sudden upsurge in the noise of the battle caught him. His footmen were roaring and surging forward, the center of the enemy's line giving way. 'Call them to stand!' Otah shouted, his voice hoarse and fading. 'Stand!'
But if they heard the call, the footmen didn't heed it. They pressed forward, into the gap in the Galtic line. A trumpet blared three times, and the signal given, the Galtic horsemen that had held to the rear, left and right both, turned to the center and drove into Utah's men from either side. It had been a trap, and a simple one, and they had stepped in it. Call the retreat, Utah thought wildly, I have to call the retreat. And then from the right, he heard the retreat called.
Someone had panicked; someone had given the order before he could. His horsemen turned, unwilling, it seemed, to leave the footmen behind. A few footmen broke, and then a few more, and then, as if coming loose, Otah's army turned its backs to the Galts and ran. Otah saw some horsemen trying to draw off the pursuing Galts, but most were flying hack in retreat themselves. Otah spun his horse and saw, back on the field, the remnants of his wedges of archers fleeing as well.
'No!' he shouted. 'Not you! Stop where you are!'
No one heard him. He was a leaf in a storm now, command gone, hope gone, his men being slaughtered like winter pork. Otah dug his heels into his mount's sides, leaned low, and shot off in pursuit of the archers. It was folly riding fast over mud-slick ground, but Otah willed himself forward. The fleeing archers looked hack over their
