flesh and armor, scattering the enemy commander’s bodyguard and clearing the way for Klia.

Beka was in the lead when they broke through at last and there was the Plenimaran officer, wearing the insignia of a cavalry commander.

Klia must have been as exhausted as any of them, but she gave no quarter as she shouted “For Skala and the queen!” and lunged past Beka to attack the commander with Beka and Captain Danos at her back. The others had their hands full holding off the Plenimaran soldiers.

Suddenly a cry went up from the enemy. Beka dispatched the man she’d been fighting with a blow to the neck, then looked over her shoulder quickly to see the Plenimaran commander on the ground, with Klia’s blade at his throat.

“Bretza!” Klia shouted, loud enough to carry around to the men still fighting. It was the Plenimaran command to yield.

The fallen officer glared up at her for a moment, then dropped his hands to his sides, relinquishing his sword. The day was theirs.

It took well over an hour for word to spread around the field that the Plenimarans had lost. Meanwhile, Klia had the captured officer and his bodyguard disarmed and escorted to the edge of the river, where Beka and several of her riders stood guard over them.

The sun had passed noon when the fighting finally stopped and the last of the enemy were disarmed. Klia had the Plenimaran provision wagons emptied, then gave them to the vanquished commander so he could gather and transport his dead. The wagons were nearly empty to begin with, just a few barrels of salt fish and hard biscuit; the Plenimarans were as badly supplied as they were, if not worse.

Leaving Klia with a sizable guard, Beka, Captain Anri, and Danos went to gather the remaining squadron.

“That was a bloody day.” Anri sighed, looking around. She was as filthy as the others, and there were dark circles under her darker eyes. She was a good friend, too. Years of bitter war had forged a solid bond between them.

“Do we see anything else?” asked Danos, yawning.

They continued on in silence, taking in the carnage. As the battle fever drained away, Beka felt exhaustion creeping into its place, but there was still much to do.

One by one, they found their lieutenants and listened to their reports. Urghazi Turma, which had already taken losses that summer, had lost eleven riders more and Braknil, who’d been lieutenant since Beka’s promotion, was mortally wounded. Sergeant Zir had only three riders left. Most of the others had wounds of some degree.

Klia allowed her exhausted forces to eat what they had, then gave orders to recover the Skalan dead for burning. What was left of Beka’s Red Horse Turma were ordered to guard the ford, sparing them the grim task of dispatching the enemy wounded and speeding on those of their own who were too badly hurt to survive. There was no time to grieve for the fallen.

The field was lit with funeral pyres and rank with the stench of death and burning flesh. The battle had cost Klia nearly half her remaining force, and the Plenimarans far more, but they had the crucial ford.

Klia’s tent stood just upstream near the burned farmhouse, so Beka set off on foot to make her own report. The waxing moon turned the rising mist to a gently roiling silver blanket spreading up from the river.

She used the funeral fires to guide her over the churned ground. The bodies had been cleared in this area, but the smell of death still hung on the damp night air. She was between fires when she heard low voices nearby.

“You see how the queen throws us into the dragon’s maw?” a man was saying. She couldn’t make out who the dark forms were, or recognize the voice. “Sending her own sister out with less than a full squadron!”

“Half sister,” said another.

“And for what?” a third voice scoffed. “Phoria could have rolled in here with her entire force and swept the whoreson bastards out like spiders out of a drain!”

It was the usual soldiers’ talk, and nothing Beka hadn’t thought herself. She was about to walk on when another said,

“What about the officers, Restus? Whose side would they take?”

“Can’t say about Anri, but from what I’ve heard that redheaded one is Klia’s friend,” another man replied. “I expect she’d take her side of things.”

Beka paused, frowning. Take Klia’s side in what?

“It’d be different if Commander Klia was general, wouldn’t it?” a young-sounding rider asked. “Then maybe she could talk sense to the queen.”

“Mind your tongue, Callin, and keep your damn voice down!”

“And about time, though,” one of the others muttered.

“To better days,” one of the others said, and she heard a murmur of agreement.

This was not the first time Beka had heard the sentiment. There’d been growing discontent since Phoria had refused the Overlord’s offer of a truce. Most of the officers, Klia included, shared Phoria’s belief that they would finally see victory before the summer was over; the state of the enemy’s captured provisions was a good sign. But it was hard to convince the ranks of that, even after a day like this.

Cursing the darkness, she listened for more, but the talk turned to the day’s fighting and no more was said of Klia or herself. After a few minutes they set off in her direction. Beka moved away, then trailed them to see who they were.

There were five of them, and as they stepped into the glow of a nearby watch fire, she recognized Sergeant Werneus of Captain Anri’s Fourth Troop; he’d saved her life that morning. She owed him something.

“Sergeant,” she called out.

Startled, the man turned and squinted through the darkness, then saluted. “Evenin’, Captain. Good to see you’re still in one piece and breathing.”

“And I have you to thank for it,” she replied, coming closer and lowering her voice. “Listen, I overheard you just now and I should report you to your captain.”

Werneus’s men exchanged nervous glances, but the sergeant saluted and went down on one knee. “We meant no harm.”

Beka held up her hand. “Given the good turn you did me, I’m not going to-this time. But don’t ever forget, we’re the Queen’s Horse Guard, the best and bravest regiment in the army. Leave the running of the war to the generals and the queen and keep your mouths shut. Is that clear?”

“As springwater, Captain.”

“Good. Blood and Steel, men.”

“Blood and Steel, Captain!” the others replied, fists to hearts.

CHAPTER 6. Ulia

ULIA squatted in the weeds above the breakwater, poking at the dead gull’s shiny gold eye with a twig. It was pretty, and she wished it were a bead she could wear on a string around her neck. But it also meant that the bird was freshly dead.

The child’s bare arms and legs were like knobby twigs themselves, sticking out of the shapeless grey folds of her sister’s cast-off dress. She picked the bird up by one still-supple orange foot and carefully held it at arm’s length so the blood dripping from its gaping bone-colored beak wouldn’t get on her clothing or bare feet. The bird was nearly as big as she was. Even when she held her hand up high, the head dragged on the ground and the broad grey-backed wings flapped clumsily, as if it didn’t want to go in her mama’s stewpot. Ulia looked around quickly, judging the distance across the barren shorefront to the row of sagging tenements where she and her large family lived, and measuring who else was around to see. An older child, or even a grown-up, would take it from her for sure, and then her family would go hungry another night. But there was no one at the moment, except for the bent old woman sitting on one of the granite anchor stones nearby, leaning on a gnarled stick.

Ulia would have avoided her, too, except that the woman was holding something up between her gloved fingers that caught the light and sparkled like sunlight on ice. Curious, Ulia sidled over toward her, arm already aching from the weight of the bird. Keeping out of reach, she craned her neck, trying to see what it was that was sparkling so.