"Have we missed anything?"

"I hope not. I don't think so."

"If they see us beforehand we are going to have a serious problem."

"The fort's solid, your towers and siege weapons, battle mages, crossbowmen, enough men to man the walls..."

"A serious problem."

He nodded, knowing I was right. "Sleep."

It was my turn to nod. I knew he was right.

"Wake him."

The words alone were enough to bring me to full consciousness. I had a whole new definition of the term restless sleep.

"I'm awake," I said, up and out of bed in one movement, reaching for my sword and helm. I'd slept in my armor, finding the only way to be even half way comfortable was flat on my back.

"We have a signal. There's movement around the town."

I recognized Sheo's voice and headed for it in the dark, moving slowly.

"Anything more concrete?"

I shuffled forward like a blind man, heading for his voice and the cool breeze he let in by holding the tent flap open. I stepped carefully, arms reaching until I touched an outstretched hand. "Here," he said, unnecessarily. Outside was no better, a faint glow from my left. Tul had a lamp lit in the command tent. I could hear people moving in the dark; they sounded as slow and careful as me. Once inside the command tent I could see well enough, lots of shadowy figures but the table was crisp and clear in the light of a single lamp, a map of the immediate area spread out on it. Tul met my gaze but didn't say anything. I had nothing to say either. No one did. We were waiting. So we waited.

Tension oozed around the room, seeping into me in irregular waves. How long would we wait? Knowing there was something going on in the night, that the enemy had been sighted, but not knowing where or how many or what they were doing, sent thrills of uncertainty and fear through us. We waited.

The noise of someone coming to join us sounded loud against our tense silence and we all looked at the entrance even though we could see nothing; the flaps parted and Kerral stepped in, looked around, held the commander's gaze and shook his head. No, he had no news. We all relaxed back into the silent tension of waiting, the thrill of possible action unfulfilled adding to the pressure of expectation.

To keep the pressure at bay I started thinking; the plan was set, more or less, but we could still change it. h.e.l.l, we could right now move west, away from the enemy and seek out our allies and join forces with them. If we had pa.s.sed unnoticed we could sneak away. Too late, I told myself, no one would do that now, there was no way I could persuade Tulian that that was the wiser course, not now. We would meet the enemy in this area, one way or the other, and we would fight them and now there was no choice but to win. I hoped the men were ready. The mood had changed as the stories of the violence of the Orduli had been circulated among the men. They had seen the battered and hurt refugees, their despair and fear, seen them from the walls and at the gates, seen those that had pa.s.sed through the camp, seen the anger of the commanders who had questioned them. Their rage had been raised to a red heat and now they wanted to quench it in the blood of the enemy.

Again we all looked toward the tent flap as the noise of men moving carefully toward us sounded in the silence of the night. Waiting for the news. The tension raised another notch until Gatren Orans poked his head into the tent and gave a terse report in hushed tones, "The mages are outside and ready." We all nodded, as though the report were for all of us. Soon we would step outside the tent and the mages would pick one of us as we emerged and lead him to one side; spells would be cast on us and our weapons and armor. Not many, but enough to give us an advantage that the enemy didn't have. Most of the spells would last out the day, a day of bloodshed and violence.

I listened hard, knowing now that the whole camp was awake, that the mages had done the same for each man; moving from tent to tent pausing briefly at each, casting first a sight enhancement so that they could move in the dark and then hurrying swiftly on. As ranks a.s.sembled other mages would pa.s.s among them, strengthening swords and armor, giving borrowed stamina, speeding reactions, enhancing strength. The men would be wired, tense, ready to act, just as we were. They were commanded to silence yet I could just hear a distant susurration of involuntary movements. A sigh of sound like leaves in a distant tree rustling gently in a breeze, punctuated by the occasional stamp of a horse's hoof or whicker of unease.

Gatren stepped aside and another figure took his place, moving into the tent, stopping at each man, Kerral and then me, an amber glow close to my eyes, a brief flash of unseen light and then I could see, not perfectly and not colors but much better. He moved on, unhurried, silent, casting that one spell over and over until he was done with the room and left as silently as he had come.

Soon, I thought. Soon word would come and we would know where the enemy was and how many and in how many parts and we would move. And I was right. The movements we heard next were purposeful, hurried, quite unlike any of the previous arrivals. We all knew that we would now hear something of what was going on in the night.

They came into the tent without preamble, the two captains of equestes, and another two men with them. s.p.a.ce was made for them, the tent, large as it was, starting to feel cramped.

"Report," Tulian's voice was curt and controlled.

"What we take to be the main body is five miles away but heading in the right direction," Yebratt gestured to the man beside him, a scout who was wired with tension.

"How many?"

"More than ten thousand by my judgment, sir." The scout reported. "They appeared in the night, carrying torches and moving without any urgency, then camped in a long vale southeast of the town and made fires, I counted the fires."

"We could hit them now." The words were out of my mouth before I thought. It would hardly be the first time our armies had taken advantage of the night when our enemies could not see.

Tul held up his hand but didn't raise his voice as he called for quiet to forestall any outbursts. "We could, we are ready and they are not. But the hour, two hours before dawn, we would have less than an hour to break them, if their scouts don't see us coming."

"Even if they do, we can see and they can't and a mage can douse fires as easily as make them."

He nodded. "We can roll them up in the night. To your units; you now know what we are going to do and you know how; nothing complex, an attack on one side of their camp and cut through them till they break. Mages to kill fires first and men afterwards, nothing bright, no fires to help them see. Let's not waste time or this gift." He stood up, "You," he pointed to the scout, "with me." We let him pa.s.s out the tent first, where a mage latched onto him and moved him aside, casting spells as he went. I followed, Sheo and Kerral behind me. "You know what to do," I glanced at them and received nods of rea.s.surance. "No mistakes."

A mage latched onto me, it was Larner. "Stand still, I'll be faster." I did and his hand moved smoothly from point to point, sword, armor, forehead, I felt the thrill of vitality flow into me. Endurance and strength and energy. "Done," he said and was gone.

Meran was close, seated on his own horse, holding the reins of mine; he wore cheap armor and carried a sword. "No time to argue," he said, holding out the reins to me. I wasn't going to. I pulled myself into the saddle effortlessly and we moved, heading for my cohort.

"You saw a mage?"

"I paid Larner."

I snorted in disgust, then followed it with a snort of laughter. Greed, our blessing and our curse. Larner would have taken the money; and now Meran would fight and get a cut of the booty. If we won.

Pakat was my first centurion; he waited with the five others in a group, took my orders and made them happen. We moved out of the south gate and round the fort, joining beside Tul's cohort, Kerral's cohort had emerged from the north gate and moved to his left. The cavalry came behind us, noisier and kept back so the sounds traveled only as far as our marching feet. We marched with a broad front cross country, led by the scouts who knew the lay of the land and the best route to take us swiftly and quietly.

It took an hour, moving fast and as quietly as possible, footsteps on gra.s.s make little sound. We were crossing a meadow and could see the glow of fires reflected off the clouds, when Gatren came with the information and moved on.

"Over the wall at the far end of the field, cross the road, through the trees and we are there."

I didn't like the sound of the road and sent a message to Sheo. "Guard the road. Watch our flank and backs. Make sure we are not taken by surprise." He would hate being removed from the battle but he would do it.

Equestes jumped the low wall, us included, and hit the road. It was the loudest sound so far made and I winced even as I doubted anyone would hear. The men of the cohorts followed and the noise made me hiss with trepidation and disapproval but there was nothing to be done. We reorganized briefly on the road, a narrow chalk cart track but sloped and well drained, then across the ditch and into the woodland, each cohort with a one hundred and sixty man frontage, three men deep.

The woodland was not dense with trees but still there was some bunching and drifting as men went round thickets and bushes. When we came close to the edge of it we were in good order, a long gentle slope ahead of us and thousands of fires and suddenly it seemed insane that we should attack over ten thousand men with less than two and I shuddered with the madness of it; but it was only five men each, I thought, five men and I can do that in the dark when I can see and they can't. We came out of the woods and onto the slope and moved on without a word and came closer and closer without any hint that they had seen us and the tension was killing me and the thinking was over as the horns blew and we charged, fires suddenly doused in great swathes ahead of us.

It was a slaughter.

It was an hour after dawn and the vale was strewn with dead and dying. For as far as I could see, the dead men lay in the dewy gra.s.s, thickly in the middle of the vale and scattered as far as the line of trees to the north to which the enemy had fled in complete disorder. They had scattered in the dawn, great clouds of gas choking them; many were still on their hands and knees coughing their lungs out helplessly and trying to crawl to a safety that didn't exist. Our men moved unhurriedly about the field in rough lines, putting them out of their misery.

Full of boundless energy, I walked my horse about the field, looking around, looking for an enemy, my mood exulted and fierce. I felt like a G.o.d of war. My heart beat slow and hard, lungs working deep and slow. Blood pumped hard and strong through me. The spells in me would probably take a year off my life and I didn't care a bit.

Still looking around the long vale, tense and aware, long gentle slopes to trees to the north and south, long 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 gra.s.ses crushed by our pa.s.sing 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.signed 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 h.o.a.rd, 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; G.o.ds 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.

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 circ.u.mstances, 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.

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.

For a while I just lay on my back with my eyes open. Nothing hurt and I didn't want to move in case it started again. My breathing was easy and I didn't want to push it lest my ribs leap back into the fire-storm they had been.

The bed was the most uncomfortable imaginable. Basically a thin sack of straw on a stone base. My hands explored it. So did my nose. It stank. So did I. I checked my body, it was fine, the cloth of my shirt was stiff, which I thought was odd but didn't think about. I turned my head. There was light coming from a corridor. Bare stone walls and a thick door. I was in a cell. In a prison. We don't have prisons, but the barbarians do. What would we need prisons for? If you are a commoner and guilty we fine you or we kill you, a n.o.ble goes into exile. Foreigners are like commoners. Why would you need a prison? A foreign n.o.ble was a guest if held against his will; guarded but still a guest. Civilization is a wonderful thing. Prisons are for barbarians.

With care I moved my legs off the bed and sat up. Glancing down I saw why my clothes were stiff. Blood and mud and... well, other things. No wonder I stank. There was nowhere to go, but still I stood up. Dizzy and weak, I supported myself with one hand on the wall and shuffled slowly to the door. It wasn't far. There was an opening as big as my head. I couldn't resist the temptation. Outside, looking left and right a corridor of similar doors stretched away to end doors of different design. There were lamps attached to the walls, burning oil and casting a fair light.

"Anyone here?" My throat was so dry that the words came out as a croaky whisper. I tried again, mustering some spit and swallowing first.

Movement here and there, then heads began to emerge. It would have been comical. No, I smiled, almost laughed aloud, it was comical. Disembodied heads, poking through holes in doors into a well-lit corridor, blinking away tears from the added light. I looked left and right, counting and recognizing.

"Next time stick to the plan," Kerral said, trying to make his voice harsh and failing miserably.

I laughed and it hurt my throat, so I stopped. I couldn't think of anything to say. Sheo, Kerral, Yebratt, Larner, Hettar, Lentro, and Gatren. I named them again in my mind, smiling foolishly.

"Have I missed anything?"

They laughed. We all laughed. Well, we were alive against all expectation, and whole and, most importantly, not alone.

The sudden outbreak of morale didn't last. I apologized for getting them into this state. Everyone was very good about it; not your faulting and so on but I still felt like a s.h.i.t.

Standing with our heads shoved through the doors was uncomfortable so we stopped after a while. There wasn't much to say. We were prisoners, our army destroyed. Probably not a man had survived apart from us, and it didn't take long to figure out why. n.o.bles carry a ransom. At least that's what we thought for an hour. After that something happened to change our minds. Someone came to visit.

I'd been stretching, testing my body, finding out how it was. Weak, dizzy, I'd lost more weight. Memories were flashing up in my mind and I was trying not to pay attention to them. Lots of killing. Lots of getting hurt. Not fun. Nothing I wanted to remember. When I heard the key rattle in the lock of a distant door, I froze. By the time the door was open my head was out the hole and I was looking both ways. I wasn't alone. I'd explored the outside of the door with my arm stuck through the hole, nothing useful had come under my fingers. This time it was just my head. My heart lifted for a second at what I saw, then sank. The young battle mage, Ferrian, was at the end of the corridor, stepping casually through the open doorway and walking down the corridor. My heart had lifted at the sight of him but only for that moment. He wasn't alone. He was clean, well dressed, unhurt, and had two barbarians following him. He wasn't going to say anything good.

Hettar didn't get it. "Ferrian, my boy! Get these doors open!"

"Gladly," the young man answered, waving one hand in an easy but meaningless gesture. A stone gleamed on one finger. "As soon as you can convince my master that you have forsaken the evil rule of the city and sworn allegiance to him."

The stunned silence was very effective. I broke it. "Your master?"