He had another, fresher glass of tea, watching his people busy at their tasks, and then saw the poet Campas standing idle by the door, his hand tugging at the collar of his mail shirt where it chafed his throat. Tegestu, amused at the man’s hopeless awkwardness, wondered where he’d got the old byrnie; by looks it should have been scrubbing pots in the Acragas kitchens long ago. Campas yawned, covering the gaping mouth with the back of his hand, turned and paced to the other end of the room, one eye cocked toward the door and any further messages.

  “You seem impatient, ilean poet,” Tegestu said. Campas turned to him and bowed.

  “I had thought these things moved with more speed, bro-demmin,” Campas said. “All these days of waiting, and now with the enemy two little hills away there is still more waiting.”

  “Things will move swiftly enough, by and by,” Tegestu said.

  Campas smiled. “I said that myself, to the Ambassador Fiona, just a few days ago,” he said.

  “Did you?” Tegestu said. His plans were shaping as they should; he felt in an expansive mood, rested and light-hearted. He looked up at the poet. “I haven’t yet spoken with her. Do you see her often?”

  “I see her daily,” Campas said, tugging at his mail coat again. “I speak with her rarely — Necias keeps me too busy.”

  “And she is busy herself, asking questions of my household,” Tegestu said. A wary look entered Campas’ eyes.

  “She wants to know your people,” Campas said. “She does not mean to offend.”

  “To know us is not difficult,” Tegestu said. “She may come and go, as any ambassador; her people are not our enemies.”

  “No, they are not,” Campas said, seemingly relieved. He glanced toward the door as another midnight-garbed messenger came in, breathless from having run from an outpost two miles away. She stammered out her message: the enemy column, stretched out in its long line of march, lay like a strand of soft metal twixt hammer and anvil, and Tegestu had but to let the hammer fall.

  Tegestu smiled, and rose slowly from the couch. “It is time to do some fighting, ban-demmini,” he said, “Give out the order to advance. Send someone to Marshal Palastinas to tell him — a galloper this time, no need for discretion. Tastis will think it one of his.” He glanced up at Campas. “Now you will have your wish: things will move rapidly from here.”

  “I understand, bro-demmin.”

  The messengers dashed out again, and Tegestu followed as far as the door, catching a whiff of the fragrant night air. He sensed that Campas had followed him. “I may as well go to sleep again,” he remarked. “Our people have but to follow the plan. I’ll only be needed if things go wrong, but I don’t think they shall.”

  He felt a pressure in his bladder — all that tea — and stepped out into the darkness, receiving the surprised salute of some of the Classani grooms. To his left, dimly sensed, he could discern the dark shape of spearmen standing, their bladed shafts at rest in the ground before them as they stood ready, awaiting the order to move. A lovely night, he thought, to be a young spearman and stand at rest beneath the stars, breath catching in the throat in anticipation of the battle to come. Stars, dew on the grass, breath frosting in the night air, the chink of armor... there was a poem in that, he thought. He would try to write it tomorrow, his victory poem.

  Tastis was out there, he thought. He would not miss this, he knew. He remembered his cousin, his cunning face, his agile wit. If Tastis was taken tonight, or killed, the war might well be over. But somehow he could not wish it.

  He walked some distance from the farmhouse and urinated, then turned and came back. The dark forms that were bodies of spearmen heaved suddenly, the hundreds of men moving as one, sloping their pikes forward at the ready with a sound like the distant rattle of autumn twigs. Starlight glittered on the blades; and then, almost silently, the spearmen began to surge forward, moving swiftly in a compact mass, each man aligning on his file leader. He watched as they moved up the slope, their legs swishing in the grass; then they topped the rise and were gone. A poem, Tegestu thought, truly.

  The bright lamps in the farmhouse dazzled him as he stepped inside, and he stood blinking in the doorway for a few moments as his staff stood ready. The force was divided into three main groups, each hidden along Tastis’ line of march; each, it was hoped, would strike Tastis at more or less the same time, though that was a difficult task at night. A few minutes’ difference either way would not matter.

  He returned to the couch and his tea, his mind still full of the night, of the sight of those glittering blades topping the rise. The others stood by respectfully, waiting... and then it came, softly on the still night air, the sound of metal drumming on metal, thousands of weapons smashing on thousands of shields, helmets, pieces of armor. He saw Campas look up, a frown on his face as he tried to identify the sound; and he saw satisfaction slide into the eyes of the staff, and their triumphant smiles.

  After that the messengers began to come and they were all busy. Reports were confused, not unnaturally, but they were all positive: many of the enemy had been broken at first contact, others were holding and trying to cut their way out, but were being contained. One detachment of heavy cavalry had been assigned to push its way to the bridges, cutting the enemy from retreat; this group reported an early success, but the group sent to follow, rhomphiamen to chop their way across the bridges to the other side, with pikes to establish a secure perimeter on the west bank, reported a failure: there were steady Neda-Calacas Brodaini there, repelling any attempt to take the bridge. Tegestu would have to be satisfied with denying the enemy retreat.

  A message came from Palastinas, saying that he was moving: apparently the old marshal wasn’t content to sit in camp, waiting for the enemy to be driven to him; he wanted to do some driving himself. So long as the camp was garrisoned, Tegestu thought, so that enemy stragglers couldn’t loot it, Palastinas’ attack could do some good.

  Messages came back, all reporting victory. Some of the enemy spearmen had held, their pikes forming an impenetrable ring to cavalry; but the reserve rhomphiamen had come up, heavily armored and with their long heavy sickle-blades, and chopped their way through the spears as they had been taught. Tegestu smiled with pride: those rhomphia were his particular innovation, something he had introduced to kamliss Pranoth during the long civil war, to break up the enemy’s invulnerable pike-hedges. They worked well, so long as the armored attackers were well trained.

  Now, he thought, they were being used on their brothers, the Pranoth men on the other side. Because Tastis could not keep his allegiance. He frowned. The Brodaini in this land were so few, and now more were dying. It was best that Tastis was killed or taken; that way his people might survive.

  All the messages were now of victory, of banners taken and Tastis’ people fleeing, all order lost, into the trees by the river. There they were holding out: Tegestu’s own soldiers lost their order trying to pursue into the thick woods, and the battle was swift and vicious. Little profit would be had, he thought, from heedless pursuit into the thickets, and he gave his one order of the fight, to sound the recall and wait for dawn.

  There was not long to wait; the sky was already paling. Tegestu ordered up his horse; he left word as to where he could be found and rode out across the fields, his staff following him. The first people encountered were wounded, staggering back from the fight— and then, dark on the trampled ground, the dead. He could see how it had gone: here they had given way utterly; there some cavalry had pitched into a deep depression in the ground and came to a crashing leg-snapping halt; and here again the enemy had made a stand, beaten off Brodaini spearmen, then been broken by the rhomphiamen and died in their ranks. It had been a chaotic mess of a battle, as night fights always were, but surprise had been with Tegestu’s army and the impetus had carried them through the enemy.

  And then he came to the slope overlooking the river, seeing the dark woods stretched out below in shadow, with the ranks of his own men forming just below the crest of the slope. He wished it were later in the season, for then fire could be used to burn the enemy out; now there was no way but to go after them and dig them out.

  He rode along the ranks, receiving the silent salutes of the Brodaini and the bellowing cheers of the city folk. He rattled off his orders swiftly, improvising, wedges of men to pierce the woods and the enemy line, then roll them up from either side. “Is there any news of Tastis?” he kept asking; but Tegestu’s cousin had not been seen. His banner had not been among those taken; he and his entourage must be below, waiting in the forest with the wreck of his army.

  We will not get him now, Tegestu thought, not unless his body turns up among the fallen, unnoticed. He can swim back to the friendly shore; he’s a strong swimmer.

  So the attack progressed. The Brodaini guard on the bridge were inundated by arrows, smashed by infantry and then cavalry, and sent reeling back; but by then enemy engineers had salvaged most of their bridges, preventing Tegestu from using them. The fight in the woods, more broken and confused than any night battle could ever be, took longer; but in the end those enemy who could swim took flight, and those who could not died or joined the long lines of prisoners toiling up the hill.

  Then Palastinas and his forces arrived — they were well-marshaled and still fresh, for they’d had little to do in their sweep but run down fugitives or take in prisoners — followed by part of his staff and the Ambassador Fiona — her hood was a deep blue today, Tegestu noticed. The Marshal rode up cheerfully, waving his riding whip, and Tegestu saluted him gravely.

  “The enemy are broken, but there will still be many in the wood,” he said. “I would like to use your people to ferret them out; my own are done.”

  “Take ’em,” Palastinas said with a shrug. He glanced behind him. “I’ve ordered the surgeons to move their field hospitals up here,” he said. “That should make it easier on the wounded.”

  “Thank you, Marshal,” Tegestu said. “That was thoughtful.” He looked at the faces of Palastinas’ staff — young faces for the most part, not all accustomed to war, most of them curiously glancing down into the trees, seeing the bright uniforms and armor, the banners staggering through the brush. “Has the Abessu-Denorru accompanied you?” Tegestu asked.

  Palastinas smiled a private smile. “No, Drandor Tegestu, he did not,” he said. “He started with us, but fell ill and retired to the camp.” He leaned close to Tegestu, lowering his voice. “He was a little green, I think,” he said privately. “He’s seen heads lopped off felons and the like, but he’s never seen death in such quantity before — nothing like this field.”

  Tegestu gazed bleakly down into the valley, wishing he hadn’t been told. The Abessu-Denorru, his canlan, afraid of a little blood... . Necias had always seemed a strong man, for an Abessla, unsentimental enough when ordering soldiers to do his work for him. The thought that Necias would turn ill at the sight of a massacre he had himself ordered made a black foreboding ooze slowly into Tegestu’s mind.

  “Not like our little Fiona, now,” Palastinas went on, cheerful. “She’s like an old campaigner — won’t wear any armor, just that old robe of hers, and rode through that mess without turning a hair.” He looked over his shoulder at the small figure of the ambassador, perched frowning on her mare with one leg crooked carelessly around the saddle horn. “I wonder if they fight wars where she comes from, hey?” he asked.

  Tegestu looked up at the brown face with its cap of dark curls, seeing Fiona looking down into the valley with the others, her eyes intent, glowing almost, her mouth tight and grim. She’s a hater, he thought with wonder. What’s happened to make her hate them so much?

  “I don’t know, Marshal,” he said, recovering slowly from his surprise. “Perhaps we could ask.”

  Palastinas sighed. “So,” he said. “We have other things to think about. I’ve got the Bricklayers’ Guild Scarlet Lights coming up behind me, and they haven’t wrestled with an enemy yet — where d’you think I should send ’em?”

  Tegestu turned his mind from the ambassador, then glanced down into the trees, gauging the mixed, lurching, confusing battle. “I don’t know,” he said. “Give me leave to think a moment.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Necias swirled the wine in his crystal goblet, frowning.

  “Over two thousand bodies,” Listas’ high-pitched, annoying voice went on. “I have the precise figure here somewhere — ah. Two thousand two hundred sixty-one, so far. There will have been as many undiscovered in the trees down there, and many more drowned. Almost fifteen hundred wounded and captured. Eight thousand suits of armor recovered at the water’s edge, abandoned when their owners swam for it. And,” Listas’ voice almost purred with satisfaction, “seven hundred and eighteen of the bastards captured unhurt. Ready to be delivered to your justice.”

  “Good.” Necias said, his mind elsewhere. Listas was his son by Argo, and was a popeyed, neat, orderly person with a tidy clerk’s mind and a grating voice, happy in a world of numbers. He and two of Necias’ other sons were supervising the army’s commissary for the benefit of the House of Acragas, but Listas had been borrowed for the day to replace Campas, who was off supervising the interrogation of the surviving prisoners.

  “They had thirty thousand men,” Listas said, his voice a little sharp, sensing perhaps that Necias wasn’t paying attention. “That’s almost one in five of their army that we’ve either killed or captured, not counting the bodies we haven’t found yet or the men drowned in the river, plus thousands more forced to abandon their armor and swim like water-puppies. And most of their cavalry scattered, Palastinas said, rather than fighting — they’ll be useless. Palastinas said that if he were Tastis he wouldn’t even try to oppose our crossing the river. He said if he were Tastis he’d already be sending his baggage to the rear.”

  “Is that so?” Necias asked. He turned his head and looked at his son. “How many of those dead and captured were Brodaini — Tastis’ own men?”

  “Ah — I don’t have those figures available.”

  Necias grunted, then turned to scowl at the crystal goblet in his hand, the dark wine swirling within. Wine the color of blood, the color that had drenched the grass that morning. Feeling bile rising in his throat, Necias put the goblet on the table and pushed it away.

  Men lying in the grass, hacked up with swords and spears and those Brodaini choppers, as if a horde of apprentice butchers, unused to their craft, had been loosed on the field. And with Tastis making his escape there would be more such butchery, until the renegade was caught.

  At least Tegestu had proven loyal. It had seemed suspicious to Necias that Tegestu insisted on letting Tastis’ army across the river — almost as if he wanted to unite Tastis with his own Brodaini, and turn on the Arrandal men. The suspicion had grown as the hours advanced, and Necias had almost been driven mad with worry.

  He suspected he had said a lot of foolishness last night while he was trying to reassure himself that Tegestu and his stonefaced henchmen weren’t eyeing his neck and wondering if they could hack it through with a single stroke.

  Well. That worry was done with. All he had to do was treat Tegestu with respect; that was all the Brodaini wished, and not understanding that had been Nadielas’ big mistake. Necias should be relieved, but for some reason relief hadn’t come.

  Necias grabbed the goblet suddenly and gulped the wine, trying not to look at it, trying not to think of those raglike bodies strewn over the fields. He put the goblet down and wiped his lips. He should write to the city to announce the victory — he should have done that first thing.

  “Draft a proclamation,” he said, and without waiting for Listas to collect pen and paper he began, the words rattling off his tongue without need for thought — he’d dictated proclamations before, and their composition was easy enough. “From Acragas Necias Abeissu, to the Donorru-Deissu and the people of Arrandal, Greetings. The Marshal Palastinas and I are pleased to announce a victory — make that a brilliant victory — over the forces of the renegade Tastis, fought on the, ah, the right bank of the East Rallandas River. In the field the Brodaini Tegestu commanded the left, and Marshal Palastinas the right. Tegestu’s forces alone crushed the enemy before the right could engage. Marshal Palastinas then conducted a successful pursuit, resulting in the capture of hundreds of enemy soldiers.” He saw Listas lift an eyebrow, and turned to him with a belligerent snarl.

  “That’s what happened, didn’t it?” he demanded. “Or did I get right and left turned around?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Listas protested.

  “Tegestu earned his praise,” Necias growled. “I want to spare the city any anxiety they may feel about his loyalty. Understand?”

  Listas nodded mutely. Necias turned away and held out his goblet for more wine. “White,” he told the servant, and the man took the cup, bowed, and withdrew in silence. Necias resumed his dictation.

  “Then add those figures of enemy dead, wounded, and captured,” he said. “After that, write: A trophy will be set up on the field and dedicated by our priests, and suits of captured armor will be returned to Arrandal to be set in its palaces and temples. The city of Arrandal will be pleased to know that its forces behaved with invincible spirit, courage, and steadiness.” He looked at Listas. “Got that all?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Have it sent by messenger tonight.” The wine cup returned and Necias took a swallow. Next would come letters to the barons owing allegiance to Neda-Calacas, urging them to open their gates to the Arrandalla army. Most of them, he suspected, would have avoided declaring for one side or the other: this battle would change that. He turned at the sound of footsteps.

  “Abessu-Denorru,” Campas said, walking in with his long strides. He had got rid of his coat of chain, and was back in his dark, tailored clothing. “I have a message from Tegestu. He’s got news about the new bridging train, and expects to cross the river within three days.”