"I appreciate that." Mykel studied the rock pile, then the forest to its left and behind it. The rocks rose close to thirty yards above the base, not quite so high as the tallest of the giant pines, but higher than most.

Between the top of the ridge and the forest were a few of the scrub oaks, spaced irregularly. There were none on higher ground short of the rock pile and the cliff, and nothing else that would offer cover.

Mykel studied the ground for a while, then nodded. He turned and started back down the back of the ridge. Jesakyt followed.97 In the darkness close to three glasses before dawn, Mykel stood on the back side of the ridge, looking at Bhoral. "You can let the men sleep or rest for another glass. We're aiming at riding through the defile at the base of the cliffs at a glass before dawn, while it's still dark. I don't want it to be dark that long, though, because they'll need the light once we're in the forest and clear of the rocks. When you get word from Jasakyt or one of the scouts, you'll have to bring the men through in single file and quickly."

"Yes, sir." Bhoral nodded stiffly.

Mykel understood the older squad leader's feelings-that the only dangerous thing officers were supposed to do was to lead charges against enemy fire, and that was something Mykel had always preferred not to do until he'd found a way to change the odds. One simple way of changing the odds was sneaking through the darkness in which he could see better than could most people, then shooting sentries with his gift-was it a talent?

"Every so often," Mykel went on, "have someone near the crest of the ridge fire a rifle. Not at the forest, either." He didn't want to get hit by his own men, even by accident. The occasional shots were another cover.

Mykel hoped his own use of the rifle, with shots from outside the forest, would be heard as an intermittent exchange of fire between scouts and sentries.

"Yes, sir. Jasakyt and Dhozynyt will be watching the defile for your signal. They'll bring your mount."

"Good." Mykel lifted his rifle and walked up the hill toward the first of the scrub oak bushes, keeping low so that he would not be outlined against the sky. He wore crossed ammunition belts over his chest, heavier than he would have liked, but he was afraid he might need every cartridge.

Behind the first scrub oak, he paused, looking across the flat section of the ridge and planning his route from oak to oak toward the dark and looming mass of the pine forest. Keeping low, he slipped from behind the first scrub oak and moved at a quick, but measured pace, still staying low.

He crossed a space of thirty yards before he reached the second, where he stopped and caught his breath, peering through the leaves toward the forest.He didn't sense any of the tension he felt when people were watching him, but he also didn't want to feel that instants before a bullet blasted into him.

After several moments, he slipped downhill toward the next scrub oak, a distance of less than ten yards. His boots skidded as he stopped, and a small stone skittered down the steeper section of the slope, clicking several times before it came to rest. Cool as it was in the darkness, Mykel had to blot his forehead with the back of his sleeve to keep the sudden sweat from running into the corners of his eyes.

He looked through an opening in the leaves, focusing his eyes on the darkness of the forest, but while he could make out tree trunks, and some undergrowth, he could see no sentries. He knew they were there and could sense their presence in that clear but undefined feeling he had always had, but which had become more and more certain since he had been in Dramur. Absently, he wondered why, then pushed away the question.

The next scrub oak was back to the right, more than twenty yards away. Mykel was halfway there when he could feel someone, something looking at him.

He flattened himself on the ground, just before the crack of a rifle. Then he scrambled forward over the last ten yards, zigzagging erratically before dropping flat behind the base of the small bush, just before two more shots sounded.

Mykel did not move, waiting to see what would happen. His head and chest were shielded, but a really good shot might hit his legs-if the shooter were far enough to one side. From what Mykel could tell, the shooter seemed to be directly south of him.

Slowly, he eased the rifle into position, still waiting, and looking out the right side of the base of the tree. Nothing happened.

He eased himself sideways, just a fraction and aimed at where he thought the shooter was, and fired once. The return shots were high, but Mykel marked the slight flare of the muzzle flash and took aim and fired, once more willing his shot to its target.

He could sense that he had hit the other, with a flare of emptiness.Not waiting, he scrambled forward, dodging forward and behind several scrub oaks in a row, but without the sense of anyone looking for him until he was within a few yards of the edge of the forest. Once more he half flattened, and half scramble-dived toward the roots of a huge tree. His chest slammed into a root that felt as hard as iron.

Crack! Crack! Crack! At least one bullet struck the trunk love him at enough of a glancing angle to drop fragments bark across the back of his all-too-damp neck. He squirmed around the base of the tree so that it was be-'een him and the direction of the shots. For a time, he re-ained silent, letting his straining lungs take in air until he is no longer breathing hard, while listening intently. The rock pile lay to his right, but there was at least one ntry in the trees to his left. The sentry he thought he had lied lay somewhere more immediately to his right. For a oment, he froze. How did he know the man was dead? e'd been acting on those kinds of feelings more and more, e longer he'd been on Dramur. He'd always had some use of where people were, but not to the degree he did )w, and the sense of knowing death was far more recent. 7as that part of the talent the ancient soarer had been say-g he had to find?

In the darkness of the forest, he shook his head. Now asn't the time for that.

A shot from up on the ridge, from the area of Fifteenth ompany, echoed through the darkness. Mykel nodded, len eased, as quietly as he could, from the trunk of the one ine to the next, trying to keep trunks between him and here he thought/felt the nearest sentry was. As he moved, he picked up sounds that became more ear as he moved eastward.

"... shots... swear one came from out there... like the ist one... you heard it."

"... Dhurcan's always shooting at shadows... wastes mnunition..."

"... saw something... sure I did..."

"... could have been a forest cat... seen some here..." Mykel stopped, then stepped sideways behind a slender ine trunk. There, less than ten yards away, three yards back om the northern edge of the forest, were two rebels, tieeling behind a crude log barrier, looking out into the arkness.

Slowly, he raised his rifle, aiming, and firing.The sentry on the right dropped. The other dropped behind the logs, his head below the topmost, but clearly still visible from where Mykel stood.

Mykel fired again. He did not move for several moments, but heard nothing. He quickly but quietly reloaded, then began to move back through the forest to the northwest. He kept his senses alert, knowing that at least one more sentry was stationed somewhere between where he was and where the rock pile was. He had to keep moving, because he had less than two glasses before it started to get light. Should he have started earlier? That had risks as well, such as running into changes in the watches.

The last sentry in the forest was in the same kind of revetment as the pair had been. Like them, he never seemed to have considered someone approaching from behind. Mykel dropped him with one shot.

That left the men in the rock pile, and Mykel had to remove them all, if he possibly could.

He circled to the south in the darkness, still remaining in the darker shadows of the trees. As he moved southward, a slight clearing appeared between the forest and the rocks. He stopped and moved back northwest, halting behind the trunk of one of the last giant pines. Then he peered around the ancient trunk, studying the jumbled mass of scrub pine and rock at the far side of the clearing, directly west. At one time in the past, part of the cliff farther to the southwest had peeled off and fallen, leaving the jumble of rock and trees from which the rebel sentries could rake the approach to the defile between the cliff and the rock pile, barely wide enough for a single mounted Cadmian at a time. If any sentries remained, the Cadmians would be better targets than tethered chickens, even in the darkness, standing out against the face of the cliff.

He eased around the tree, moving as quietly as he could toward a large boulder at the base of the rock pile. From /hat he could sense, there were only a handful of rebels in tie rocks, perhaps as few as four or five. While he would pproach them from the side, almost the rear, coming up rom the southeast, he would have to be careful, because the outhern part of the rock jumble overlooked the rear of the orest, the area where the rebels had set up camps.

Mykel would have placed more men to guard the flank, tut even therebels only had so many men, and the rocks ooked impassable, especially to men on horseback. He noved up the back of the rocks, a boulder at a time.

The first sentry heard something, and turned. "That you, Juirstyn?"

Mykel put the single shot through his forehead.

"Stop the target practice!" came a call from Mykel's left.

Mykel coughed, loudly.

"What's the matter there, Visort?"

Mykel made choking sounds, even as his eyes, ears, and enses tracked the oncoming squad leader. He assumed that he man was something like that.

Scraping sounds, and the clicking of small displaced ocks suggested that the squad leader was descending from i position slightly higher and to the west.

Mykel just waited.

As he did, another shot rang out from the ridge, followed )y one from the far side of the rock pile.

"Stop it! They're firing to see if you'll fire back so they ;an figure out where we are." The man's voice carried icross the rocks, as though he were within yards, but Mykel itill couldn't see him.

Another rock bounced past Mykel's foot. A large figure ap-jeared three yards or so upslope, sliding down the flat smooth iurface toward Mykel.

The Cadmian barely had to aim.

The shock of the other's death slammed through him, ind he took a half step backward, before catching himself, -fe'd sensed death before, at least recently, but he'd not felt i physical impact. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

"What was that?"

"Don't know, squad leader went down to see Visort."Mykel noted the general direction of the second voice and started to make his way up through the rocks. He was getting tired, and the actual operation hadn't even begun.

The last two sentries were less than ten yards apart, one at each end of a boulder that had split. The rear section had dropped, leaving the forward part as a near-perfect stone revetment.

Despite his care, his boot scraped on the rock as he moved into position behind and above the two.

"That you, squad leader?" The nearer sentry turned his head, but not his rifle or his body.

Mykel hated to shoot. He did. Then he hurried his shot at the second man, who whirled, looking around blindly.

Mykel forced himself to concentrate on the last shot. Then he just stood there for several moments. There were no sounds, no voices, and no sense of any other rebels nearby.

He reloaded, his fingers seeming stiff, but he managed, before he began to climb down the northwest side of the rock pile. When he reached the corner, where the defile started, he whistled, once.

Two low whistles responded.

He returned a triplet, and waited.

After what seemed a good quarter of a glass, but was probably less, Jasakyt appeared, riding slowly, peering into the darkness, his face tight with apprehension. Mykel wanted to laugh, seeing the scout with a look that mirrored a belief he was about to be shot.

"Jasakyt..." he hissed. "Just ahead on your left."

"Captain?"

"Right here. Get the others. We don't have as much time as I'd hoped."

"Yes, sir."

The sky was beginning to show signs of silver-gray to the ast by thetime all of Fifteenth Company had ridden irough the narrow defile and formed up behind a copse of rees below the southwest comer of the rock pile.

"We'll ride by squads around the back of die rocks. If no me challenges us, we'll move into the edge of the trees and eeping moving south toward the cookfires. We'll walk the tiounts as close as we can. If they give an alarm, or when I irder a charge, we'll ride to a firing line on the north side of lie cookfires, then fire until they start to regroup. That's vhen we'll switch to sabres and use the trees." Mykel ooked across the squad leaders.

"Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"Let's head out. Silent riding." According to any tactics nanual or training Mykel had received, what he was doing vas unsupported and dangerously foolish, but there was a ime to follow standard tactics and a time not to. He hoped le was right in choosing the time not to.

He and first squad rode close to half a vingt, around the ock pile, and another three hundred yards just inside the rees at the back edge of the forest, on the flat short of vhere the ground rose toward the rocky and sandy plateau ibove and to the west. The sky had lightened into the silvery gray that immediately preceded dawn.

Then, from the trees, came a shout. "Cadmians! They're lere!

Cadmians!"

"Forward!" Mykel urged the chestnut into a fast trot, as nuch as he dared while dodging trees and branches, an->ling out of the forest and pushing his mount into greater ;peed toward the northernmost of the cookfires.

A good three hundred rankers were gathered, either in ines at the cookfires or standing or sitting. Others were still ying on their bedrolls and blankets. At the sight of the nounted Cadmians, rebels in blue scrambled for weapons aid for cover.

"Fifteenth Company! Firing line!"

Mykel reined up and took aim at a man dressed in blue and silver, wearing something similar to what Seltyr Ubar-jyr had worn. He fired,and the seltyr dropped. He turned his rifle on a captain and fired again.

He had dropped more than five bluecoats and reloaded once before the rebels began to return fire with more than scattered shots-and those faded away quickly. He surveyed the space around the cookfires, taking in the bodies lying at so many odd angles, and swallowed. Now what? The rebels had melted into the trees.

Only a fraction of a glass had passed, or so it seemed, but the angled rays of the early-morning sun sifted through the tops of the giant pines.

Mykel caught sight of mounted rebels to the southeast. "Sabres!

Fifteenth Company! Forward!"

Pressing the attack seemed less dangerous than trying to withdraw through a forest he did not know, and going back through the defile would take too long and allow the rebels to regroup and fire at Fifteenth Company when the Cadmi-ans would be in a position where they could not return fire effectively.

While he did not know how much of Fifteenth Company followed his lead, he could hear the hoofbeats and sense riders behind him, and several moving up abreast of him, if separated by the pines.

Mykel had his sabre at the ready as the chestnut carried him toward the middle of a single squad of rebels. Several had rifles up. Mykel ducked as shots whispered past him.

Then he was among the rebels, slashing the shoulder of a too-young ranker, then parrying a thrust from an older rebel.

"South! To the cliffs! South!"

'To the cliffs... to the cliffs!"

The surviving bluecoats spurred their mounts up the gradual slope to the southwest and away from Fifteenth Company, now spread in the trees.

Mykel didn't like that, and realized he'd pushed too much.

"Fifteenth Company! Re-form! Re-form!"

The company hadn't been that scattered, because he had his men backin squads in less than a quarter glass, and they were following the fleeing rebels. When they came out of the trees at the top of the gradual slope, there were other bluecoats riding slowly southward, less than a hundred yards away.

"Full firing line!" Mykel ordered.

He waited only until his men were in a rough semblance of a firing line.

"Fire at will!"

After the first shots, the rebel laggards began to spur their mounts.

Even so, another ten or fifteen rebels went down before those fleeing vanished into the welter of boulders, although Mykel could see dust and sand rising in various places.

"Cease fire!"

At the top of the slope, as he reloaded, Mykel studied the area before him more closely, a sandy plateau, with boulders and long and short rocky ridges rearing up everywhere. The ridges were as short as ten yards, but in length some seemed to stretch for a hundred. A few of the boulders were as small as his foot. Most standing alone were larger than a peasant's cot, and one to his right was as large as a seltyr's villa.

Should he follow the rebels?

A shadow flashed over him, and he glanced up. Two pteridons circled overhead. One bore two riders, the other but a single Myrmidon.

A skylance flared down, then another.

"By squads!" Mykel ordered. "Toward the cliffs! Measured pace! No quarter! Third squad on me!"

"First squad! Toward the cliffs..."

"Second squad..."