“Oh, my brother,” Zanja breathed, and groped for Ransel’s hand.

His fingers clenched hers. “Is it Sainnites?”

“Yes, it is.” She pulled him back from the edge of the slope. They stood for just a moment, staring at each other in the darkness. Zanja thought there might be as many as fifty war horses, which meant a full battalion, with twenty heavily armed foot soldiers for every horse. They outnumbered the katrimby ten to one, and the katrim’s daggers would be no match for the Sainnites’ armor and weaponry.

Zanja said, “The people must flee for their lives.”

“Then we’ll need to defend the northern trail, so they can climb the cliffs into the forest.”

“You go back and shout the alarm. You have the voice for it. Take half the katrimto defend the trail, and send half to me, so we can delay the Sainnites to give our people time to escape.”

For a moment, Zanja thought Ransel would actually waste precious time in argument. But then he bared his teeth in a bitter, mocking grin. “My commander speaks and I obey.”

“Honor to you, Ransel na’Tarwein.” She forced herself to release his hand.

“Honor to you, Zanja na’Tarwein.” He gestured a brisk, graceful salute, and dashed into the darkness. She watched until she could not distinguish him from the shadows. I will never see him again, she thought. For a dreadful moment, she could not bear it. She almost called after him. The two of them would flee … and live in shame forever after. She took a breath and turned to face the enemy.

The soldiers below efficiently and silently crossed the river. Fifty war horses she counted, and three hundred or more foot soldiers. The Ashawala’i numbered some 1,500 souls, but only a hundred of them carried weapons. The katrimwere fine fighters, and fought with each other incessantly: neat, graceful, courteous encounters that rarely drew blood. To the Sainnites they would seem like children who merely played at war.

Trembling now, Zanja heard Ransel’s voice, clear despite the distance. “Rise up, Ashawala’i, and flee for your lives! The enemy is upon us!” Three times Zanja heard this cry, until Ransel’s voice was swallowed in the rising uproar.

The Sainnite commanders, certainly hearing the noise, shouted sharp orders. The soldiers, working with terrible speed, began to form a battle line. Zanja stood alone between her people and disaster, trying to hold it back by will alone. She imagined Ransel and the katrim, running ahead of the fleeing people to secure the northern trail, the only route up the cliffs that could safely be climbed in the darkness. She imagined the Ashawala’i, confused and disorganized, with panicked children and crippled elders in tow, running across the grassland. And how many of the katrimwould have the courage to run the other way, towards the river and the enemy?

Oh, but the katrimwere arrogant. Zanja had scarcely begun to doubt them when they began to arrive, breathless and excited, with their boots on their feet and their blades in their hands. Some hunters arrived as well, with their deer bows and longest arrows. They could see well enough to shoot the horses, they assured her, and she chose not to tell them that the horses were wearing armor. Their courage came from ignorance, and she wished that she had more of both.

She locked her terror into a distant dungeon where it could do whatever it liked, unnoticed, and hastily sorted the katriminto a battle line. A few of them had lances, and she put them first, to try to stop the horses. The hunters she poised behind them, and the katrim, with their daggers, standing to the rear to await the foot soldiers who would follow behind the cavalry. She took a lance herself and stood in front, not from courage but from eagerness for the excruciating wait to end. She noticed, with relief and horror, that the cavalry had begun its charge.

How much time had passed? How quickly could the tribe climb up that single, narrow path and flee into the safety of the forest?

Even though they had to run up slope, the horses picked up speed, and she saw ephemeral sparks flash from their iron hooves.

The katrimbegan to shout: an eerie, shrill, challenging cry. Zanja felt a jolt of pride. Perhaps, she thought, we will survive.

She screamed defiance at the monstrous shadows that reached the top of the slope and blotted out the stars. Arrows clattered uselessly on the horses’ iron plates, but the katrimshouted with satisfaction as one rider fell. And then the dust washed over them like smoke. Choking, Zanja felt a wave of riders veer past as her lance point jarred off a horse’s armored side.

Like a fist through parchment, the cavalry punched through the line of katrim, and wheeled around, sparks showering where iron struck stone. The clenched groups of horses opened up like hands and formed a line, and part of Zanja remembered how she had once watched Sainnite horsemen practice this very drill. At her back now, the foot soldiers were running up the slope. The katrimwere trapped, like a fly between two clapping hands.

Zanja cried, “Ashawala’i!” She charged a horseman with her lance and dove between the horse’s hooves to drive its point into the underbelly. The rider’s ax shrilled past her ear. The horse screamed. She rolled away as the monster fell, hooves thrashing, the rider tangled in the stirrups. She jerked her dagger from its sheath and turned to face a foot soldier, whose blade clashed upon hers once, twice, three times. She never even gained her balance, but simply moved her weapon to block his, with the rest of her body tumbling after it, whichever way it happened to go. There was no grace in it, she thought sorrowfully. She pierced him with a blow that was more luck than talent, and saw him fall to his knees with her dagger still caught in his ribs.

She leapt forward to snatch her dagger back, but a horse bore down on her. Empty‑handed, she dodged spiked hooves and gnashing teeth. The horse reared, and wheeled. Choking in dust, Zanja found the fallen soldier and jerked her gory dagger from his chest. The horse was on her once again. Horse and rider both bared their teeth at her, laughing, no doubt, for she was no more than a bee trying to sting them with her little blade. The rider’s ax came whistling down at her. She fell to the ground and felt its edge slash across her tunic. His lance, held in his other hand, glimmered faintly. She rolled, jumped back to her feet, and ran under the horse.

The horse reared. She tripped, and saw the big, iron‑wrapped hooves come down at her. She felt a moment of stunning pain, like a blacksmith’s hammer striking her head over an anvil. The dust‑masked stars went out like candles.

The war horse trampled her into the stones and dust. The katrimdied all around her. The peaceful history of the Ashawala’i reached a bitter, bloody conclusion. Zanja lay with the others, her blood soaking the dry soil, and the dust slowly settled around her.

She opened her eyes to the heavy mist of dawn. Far away, muffled voices called in Sainnese. She struggled to her knees, vomited from pain, and fainted. She regained consciousness with her head resting on the cold flank of a dead horse. Without moving, she raised a hand to feel her bloody head. The morning breeze blew the smoke of the burning village across the valley. In the rising light of day, she saw Sainnites working their way methodically across the battlefield, claiming their dead, finding their injured, killing any enemies found alive. She could not stand, but crawled across the bloody bodies of her kinsmen, into the smoke.

When she opened her eyes again, she lay wrapped in a fine woolen blanket, in a neat hollow guarded by giant stones. Overhead, the sky was a deep blue, with the stars starting to come out. “My sister,” Ransel said, “a dozen times today I have thought you were dead.”