Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River

Difficult – not so bad a horse. Stupid, stubborn, but strong for this kind of uneven going. Steep going… And for Weather's sake, promote Jack Parilla! Poor man a captain for years – always a hard fighter, always took care of his men. No fool, and ready for more rank. Overlooked, a good man overlooked, and no complaint about it, either… Sonora – what was it about those people? Where the fuck did they think those taxes went? Having to build that son-of-a-bitch Stewart a bridge!… Should have at least shown Rachel how much he liked her, that he thought her an interesting woman. And good-looking, really. Should have told her that…

Some of the cavalry saw Sam riding by, shouted and raised their lances in salute. As he passed a second column of Heavies, three horsemen broke through their formation and came galloping after him. One carried the army's banner on a stirrup-staff – the great black scorpion on a field of gold – cloth rippling in the wind of his riding so the creature seemed to crawl and threaten. All three were coming fast through a light snowfall.

"Sir! Sir!" One of them was a captain Sam knew. Collins – Roberto Collins. "Sir," – Collins rode up beside him – "General Voss's compliments." The captain a little breathless. "He says you are to keep the fucking banner with you, sir! So people can find you, sir! And you are to have me and Lieutenant Miranda with you. Also additional escort, sir!"

From the captain's mouth, to fact. As they rode up a rough draw to the Middle Ridge, the horses slowing with the climb, a half-dozen more mounted bowmen – Sam saw Sergeant McGee leading them – came riding to join. So, it was with a thundering tail of twelve men and one woman, the large Lieutenant Miranda, that Sam kicked Difficult through a last deep drift to lunge out along the iron ranks of Butler's Heavy Infantry.

As they heard Sam's party coming, every second man of the nearest company's rear file had reverse-stepped together, lowering fourteen-foot pikes.

"Platoon, put … up!" The pikes rose all together. The men stepped back into ranks.

"Phil – or Horatio!" Sam called to their officer.

"General's down-slope, sir! One rise over!"

Sam was reining Difficult in when the charger suddenly shied away, sidestepping through frozen crust. Sam steadied him, looked for the cause, and saw something high in the filtered sunlight… a shadow coming down with the snow. Someone behind him called out.

Sam blinked snowflakes away, and the Boston girl sailed down and down to him out of sunlight and snow flurry, her open dark-blue coat spread like wings.

"Over there!" She pointed north with her drawn scimitar, struck the snow, stumbled, and went to a knee. "Short walkings…" She got to her feet. "They make me weary."

Sam saw blood on her blade.

"The savages shot arrows at me!" Her pale, perfect face twisted in fury, and she stomped a little circle in the snow. Sam was reminded, for a moment, of the Queen's raging at Island… Patience flourished her sword; little crimson drops flew from its curved edge. "I took one's hand – then backstroked to his throat!"

"Be quiet," Sam said. "Now, take a breath… and tell me what you saw."

"Oh, those fools are coming."

"Here – here, to our center?"

"Yes." Patience nodded. "I saw them in the forest. All of them – well, almost all. I think there are a few over there," – the scimitar swung west. "And even fewer over there," – her blade flashed toward the river.

"Sir…" Horacio Duran, shoving the escorts' mounts aside.

"Colonel."

Duran, blocky as a tree stump in dull steel-strap armor, came to Sam's stirrup with his helmet under his arm. "General's received your orders, sir. Resist as we retire – not making it too easy for them."

"Right, Colonel, and have your rear ranks guide."

"We'll keep in formation, sir." Duran smiled, though he had a face unfitted for it. " – But with occasional cries of panic and despair."

Sam leaned down to thump Duran's armored shoulder with his fist. "Perfect. They'll be coming soon."

"Coming now, sir. We've seen birds and deer clearing out of those woods."

"Good," Sam said. "I'll want some daylight left, to finish them." At which vainglory, he was slightly saddened to see Lieutenant-Colonel Duran smile again… hear pleased murmurs from his escort.

Birds were flying almost over them – a doom of crows, cawing. Sam supposed it would be crows, in these hills – not ravens – who would come to take the eyes of the dead.

He saluted Duran – it had become, after all, the army's habit – was briskly saluted in return, and reined Difficult around. It was time for the Captain-General to get out of his soldiers' way.

"Wait! Take me up!" Patience sheathed her scimitar and came floundering through the snow. "I'm tired of walking." Meaning, apparently, traveling in the air.

Sam reined in, seeing himself parading before his troops with this odd creature riding pillion behind him. Then Patience, with a boost from Duran, was on the charger's rump and settled. Seemed almost no shift of weight at all… and as he kicked Difficult through falling snow along the ridge, no odor either. No lady's perfume, no woman's warm scent. He might have had a doll behind him, or a child's snow-person.

Patience gripped his waist, leaned her head against his cloaked and chain-mailed back. "I have a headache," she said, as they went bounding. Difficult's only virtue, strength.

As they rode, the banner-bearer and escort spurring after, a sound like distant storm-wind, like a change in Lady Weather's wishes, seemed to come rising the long wooded slopes behind them. Barely heard… then slowly, slowly heard more clearly… until, in a rolling thunderclap – with flights of winter birds across the sky – the storm became the voice of an attacking army, its war horns a chorus, as if wild bulls bellowed from the woods.

"Oh-oh." A child's exclamation in almost a child's soprano, and Sam felt Patience turning back to look – though nothing would be seen but the backs of serried ranks of Phil Butler's two thousand pikemen and crossbowmen, draped like a segmented steel-link chain across the ridges and hollows… Sam closed his eyes as he rode, seeing them standing ready to receive, as ten thousand Kipchaks came boiling out of the forest, surging up the slopes in tides of steel and arrows.

Difficult tripped on a branch in the snow, and Sam hauled him up on the reins. Along the ridge-line, the snow grew thinner, and he urged the charger to a gallop, heard his escort coming up behind. Troops were cheering as he passed – squadrons of Light Cavalry riding east. He saw a pennon through falling snow. Second Regiment, Elman's people. Good officer, but mad for fighting, and perhaps not the best second-in-command for Ned. Two madmen…

There was a sound like a great steel door slamming. The falling snow seemed to swirl with the impact of it. The center was being hit with everything that Toghrul had. Thank God – that oldest thanks of all – thank God for Chairman's sharp ears and battle sense, her call to him to listen. It had given him just time enough. May have given him just time enough…

The smash and roar of engagement sounding behind him, Sam rode along Main Ridge to be certain all the cavalry had shifted east. So difficult, to leave commanders alone in a battle, to depend on them to do what had to be done. It was hard to see how the Khan managed without a Howell Voss, a Ned Flores. Without a Phil Butler, a Charmian, and all their officers. Toghrul must be an extraordinary man to depend, really, only on himself. Must be lonely…

Sam reined up, reached behind him to give Patience an arm to dismount. "Now, go down that south slope. Stay with Portia-doctor and her people."