An hour later Blade was bruised, horribly thirsty, and dripping with his own sweat and other men's blood. He also began to think he'd been too optimistic about how long his men could hold out.

The scout certainly hadn't exaggerated the number of the Faissans. Whoever was commanding them had more than six hundred fighters with him. Fortunately Blade and his men reached their chosen hill with a few minutes to spare for building a breastwork of logs and boulders. Dug in there on the hill, they gave Duke Klaman's Marshal a problem he couldn't solve quickly.

Or maybe the enemy leader knew the solution but didn't have enough control over his men to apply it. Certainly he was no Marshal Alsin. The only men under his command who were acting together were the horse holders along the riverbank. Most of these were Helpers, and even some of them kept drifting up to join the battle. Blade saw horses breaking away simply for lack of men to hold them.

Otherwise no more than thirty or forty men seemed able to act together. Certainly no more than that attacked at any one time. Blade's men could easily beat off such attacks. They drove back six before they lost count. In the process they killed or wounded more than their own number of enemies.

It couldn't go on like this, of course. Ten of Blade's men were dead and a third of the rest wounded, although some of the wounded were still fighting. The enemy could go on attacking up the hill until Blade's men were too exhausted to lift their weapons, then slaughter them where they stood. Blade decided that before he'd let that happen, he'd lead the survivors in a charge downhill at the enemy's horses. If he could stampede them, Nainan would win today even if he and all his men died. On foot, Duke Klaman's Lords could never escape Alsin, and the war…

Drums signaled another attack. Blade saw that someone among the enemy was finally using his head. About forty Lords were coming uphill together, holding their lances out in front of them like pikes. They might find it hard to get over the breastwork. Blade's men would find it even harder to fight them without leaving the breastwork's protection. Right now Blade would have given his left arm for fifty archers and a chance to turn them loose on the attacking Lords!

He shouted the appropriate orders, although he was beginning to become hoarse. Guardsmen who still had their throwing spears came forward, and also every man with an ax who could be spared from some other part of the line. Blade himself sheathed his sword and picked up an ax he'd taken from one of his victims. It was too light for penetrating armor, but it would chop through lance shafts and maybe break arms very nicely.

The improvised phalanx of Lords came tramping up toward the breastwork. They were chanting a battle song as they came. All around them their comrades stopped their own work, then joined in the song. It seemed to give the attacking Lords new strength. They came up the last few yards of the hill to the breastwork as if they were going to break through or die in the attempt. Blade spat out a mouthful of saliva black with dust and crouched behind his shield. These men might be his last sight on earth, if this was earth….

Suddenly the screaming of scores of horses drowned out the battle song. The attacking Lords stopped as suddenly as if they'd stepped into tar. Blade saw one of his men heave a spear at the enemy and shouted «Hold!» He stood up, ignoring the enemy only a few yards away, and looked downhill.

The enemy's horse lines were churning and boiling like a pot of untended soup. Horses were bolting in all directions, with Helpers frantically running after them or even more frantically jumping out of their way. Dust rose, and mixed with it was a growing amount of greasy black smoke. Blade thought the smoke looked like it came from the fire arrows prepared for use against Castle Muras, but that was…

«Look!» Lord Ebass gripped Blade's arm and pointed. Blade didn't quite hear the word, but he understood the iron grip and the pointing hand in the blood-caked mail glove. Out in the middle of the Crimson River, men seemed to be standing on the water. It was too far to make out their colors, but Blade recognized their motions. They were cocking, loading, and shooting crossbows.

A dozen trails of smoke arched across the river, landing among the enemy horses. This time some of the bolts struck living flesh, and screams of pain joined the screams of fear. Blade saw one horse run wildly uphill with its man on fire. It charged into the middle of twenty Lords, scattering them, then lashed out with teeth and hooves in blind agony. The horse killed three men before someone crushed its skull with a mace.

More smoke trails, more screams, more running horses and men, and then a banner rose among the men out in the river. The sun off the water half-dazzled Blade, but he recognized the banner. It was Duke Padro's, and a moment later the banner of Nainan rose beside it.

Of course. A sandbar out in the middle of the river, just below the surface. Chenosh and Padro got out there somehow with the archers. Now they're shooting up Duke Klaman's horses!

There was still no sign of Alsin and the main body, but the attacking Lords were beginning to look nervously behind them. Losing their horses would be an expensive disgrace, even if nothing else happened to make it a disaster.

Blade decided it was time to see about guaranteeing the disaster. Time to mount his men again and lead them out. On horseback Blade and his fighters could easily get between the dismounted enemy and their home castle, pick them off a few at a time, keep them in the field until Alsin came up….

The enemy was off-balance. In war that was always the best time to give him a good hard shove, so that he fell all the way over. Blade started giving orders.

Ebass wanted to lead the attack, and Blade would have let him do so if he'd been able to speak more clearly. Instead he gave Ebass command of the men assigned to open the breastwork and hold it on foot as the mounted men rode out. They went to work, as the Lords of Faissa began in ones and twos and then in dozens to hurry downhill, hoping to catch their horses before it was too late. As he mounted, Blade saw some of them shaking their fists at him. He thumbed his nose back, then waved to his trumpeter.

The harsh brass voice called out «Charge!» Blade dug in his spurs and set his horse at the gap in the breastwork. Ebass waved as Blade shot past and plunged down the hill, with a hundred mounted Lords on his heels.

Chapter 19

It was exciting to gallop down the hill, but Blade started to rein in his horse before he'd gone far. The slope was steep, the ground was rocky, and Duke Klaman's Lords were running about like cockroaches. Some of them were still full of fight as well. Blade saw one stand holding his lance out in front of him until a Nainan rider impaled his horse on it. The horse and both men went down and none of them got up again.

On the level ground riderless Faissan horses were added to the running men. Blade got his horse down from a canter to a trot. He guided it past the bodies of horses struck down by crossbow bolts and Helpers trampled by maddened horses. Flies were already gathering on some of the corpses, but the crossbowmen out on the river were still shooting furiously. Blade raised his pennant and waved it, but with the sun in their eyes no one out there saw it. The stream of bolts continued.

Blade's horse was a steady, intelligent beast. While its rider was trying to signal to his allies, it went on picking its way cautiously through the confusion. By the time Blade gave up trying to signal, he and his mount were both well south of the battlefield. For a minute or two he was embarrassingly alone, a possible victim for any Faissan Lords who noticed him. Then his men started to come up, and he no longer felt as if he were stark naked in Piccadilly Circus.