rose and serene blue that filled the wide bowl of the sky above him, was

beautiful and calm. Whatever happened here in this valley, the sun would

rise upon it again tomorrow. The birds would call to one another. Summer

would retreat, autumn would come. The lives of men and nations were not

the highest stakes to play for. He pulled his hands into his sleeves and

turned back to the camp. At his tent, his messengers awaited him,

including Nayiit.

"Call the formation," Otah said. "It's time."

The messengers scattered, and it seemed fewer than a dozen breaths

before the air was filled with the sounds of metal against metal, shouts

and commands as his army pulled itself to the ready.

"Your food, Most High," the attendant said, and Otah waved the man away.

By the time Otah's footmen and horsemen had taken their places between

and just behind the wedges of archers, it was bright enough to see the

banners and glittering mail of the Galts. Utah's mount seemed to sense

the impending violence, dancing uncomfortably as Utah rode back and

forth behind his men, watching and waiting and preparing to call out his

commands. From across the valley, the shout and silence came again as it

had the night before. Then twice more.

"Call the archers to ready!" Otah called out, and like whisperers in

court relaying the words to lower men waiting in the halls, his words

echoed in a dozen voices. He saw his archers lift their bows and shift

in their formations. A long shout, rolling like thunder, came from

across the valley. The Galts were moving forward. "Call the march! And

be prepared to loose arrows!"

As they had drilled, his men moved forward, archers to the front,

footmen between them with their makeshift shields and motley assortment

of swords and spears and threshing flails. Horsemen in the colors of the

great houses of the utkhaiem trotted at the sides, ready to wheel and

protect the flanks. At a walk, three thousand men moved forward across

the still-wet grass and patches of ankle-deep mud. And perhaps half

again as many Galts came toward them, shouting.

In the old hooks and histories, the flights of enemy arrows had been

compared to smoke rising from a great pyre or clouds blotting out the

sun. In fact, when the first volley struck, it was nothing like that.

Otah didn't see the arrows and bolts in the air. He saw them begin to

appear, heads buried deep in the ground, fletching green and white in

the sunlight, like some strange flower that had sprung up from the

meadow grass. Then a man screamed, and another.

"Loose arrows!" Otah called. "Give it back to them! Loose arrows!"

Now that he knew to look, he could see the thin, dark shafts. They rose

up from the Galtic mass, slowly as if they were floating. His own

archers let fly, and it seemed that the arrows should collide in the

air, but then slipped past each other, two flocks of birds mingling and

parting again. More men screamed.

Otah's horse twitched and sidestepped, nervous with the sounds and the

scent of blood. Otah felt his own heart beating fast, sweat on his back

and neck though the morning was still cool. His mind spun, judging how

many men he was losing with each volley, straining to see how many Galts

seemed to fall. They seemed to be getting more volleys off than his men.

Perhaps the Galts had more archers than he did. If that was true, the

longer he waited for his footmen to engage, the more he would lose. But

then perhaps the Galts were simply better practiced at slaughter.

"Call the attack!" Otah yelled. He looked for his messengers, but only

two of them were in earshot, and neither was Nayiit. Otah gestured to

the nearest of them. "Call the attack!"

The charge was ragged, but it was not hesitant. He could hear it when

the footmen got word-a loud whooping yell that seemed to have no

particular start nor any end. One man's voice took up where another

paused for breath. Otah cantered forward. His horsemen were streaming

forward as well now, careful not to outstrip the footmen by too great a

distance, and Otah saw the Galtic archers falling back, their own

soldiers coming to the fore.

The two sides met with a sound like buildings falling. Shouts and

screams mingled, and any nuanced plan was gone. Otah's urge to rush

forward was as much the desire to see more clearly what was happening as

to defend the men he'd brought. His archers drew and fired sporadically

until he called them to stop. There was no way to see who the arrows struck.

The mass of men in the valley writhed. Once a great surge on Otah's left

seemed to press into the Galtic ranks, but it was pushed back. He heard

drums and trumpet calls. That's a good idea, Otah thought. Drums and

trumpets.

The shouting seemed to go on forever. The sun slowly rose in its arc as

the men engaged, pulled hack, and rushed at one another again. And with

every passing breath, Utah saw more of his men fall. More of his men

than of the Galts. He forced his mount nearer. He couldn't judge how

many he'd lost. The bodies in the mud might have been anyone.

A sudden upsurge in the noise of the battle caught him. His footmen were

roaring and surging forward, the center of the enemy's line giving way.

"Call them to stand!" Otah shouted, his voice hoarse and fading. "Stand!"

But if they heard the call, the footmen didn't heed it. They pressed

forward, into the gap in the Galtic line. A trumpet blared three times,

and the signal given, the Galtic horsemen that had held to the rear,

left and right both, turned to the center and drove into Utah's men from

either side. It had been a trap, and a simple one, and they had stepped

in it. Call the retreat, Utah thought wildly, I have to call the

retreat. And then from the right, he heard the retreat called.

Someone had panicked; someone had given the order before he could. His

horsemen turned, unwilling, it seemed, to leave the footmen behind. A

few footmen broke, and then a few more, and then, as if coming loose,

Otah's army turned its backs to the Galts and ran. Otah saw some

horsemen trying to draw off the pursuing Galts, but most were flying

hack in retreat themselves. Otah spun his horse and saw, back on the

field, the remnants of his wedges of archers fleeing as well.

"No!" he shouted. "Not you! Stop where you are!"

No one heard him. He was a leaf in a storm now, command gone, hope gone,

his men being slaughtered like winter pork. Otah dug his heels into his

mount's sides, leaned low, and shot off in pursuit of the archers. It

was folly riding fast over mud-slick ground, but Otah willed himself

forward. The fleeing archers looked hack over their shoulders at the

sound of his hooves, and had the naivete to look relieved that it was

him. He rode through the nearest wedge, knocking several to the ground,