"You seem to have this group working pretty well," he said.

Will felt absurdly pleased at his mentor's praise.

"Oh," he said, trying to sound casual. "We're not doing too badly."

"Better than that from what I saw," Halt told him. Then he repeated his earlier suggestion. "I meant what I said, Will. Give them the rest of the day off. Yourself too. You've earned a break. And unless I miss my guess, we're going to need all the rest we can get in the next few days."

I T WAS A MUTED SOUND-SURF ON A BEACH A LONG WAY AWAY, or maybe the rolling of distant thunder, Will thought. Except no thunder had ever sounded like this. This sound never seemed to start and never seemed to end. It just continued, over and over, repeating itself constantly.

And, gradually, growing louder. It was the sound of thousands of horses cantering slowly toward them.

Will flexed the string on his bow a couple of times, testing the feel and the tension. His eyes were fixed on the point where they all knew the Temujai army would appear-a kilometer away, where the narrow coastal strip between the hills and the sea jutted out in a promontory, temporarily blocking their view of the approaching army. His mouth was dry, he realized, as he tried, unsuccessfully, to swallow.

He reached down for the water skin that was hanging by his quiver and missed the first sight of the Temujai horsemen as they swept around the bend.

The men around him let out an involuntary cry. The horsemen rode stirrup to stirrup, in one long extended line, each horse cantering easily, matching the pace of the horse beside it.

"There must be thousands of them!" one of the archers said, and Will could hear the fear in his voice. It was echoed in another dozen places along the line. From the ranks of Skandian warriors beyond them, there was not a sound.

Now, above the dull rumble of the hooves, they could hear the jingle of harness as well, a lighter counterpoint to the rumbling hoofbeats. The horsemen came on, moving closer to the waiting ranks of silent Skandians. Then, at the single blaring note of a bugle, they reined in and came to a halt.

The silence, after the rumbling beat of their approach, was almost palpable.

Then a massive roar rose from the throats of the Skandian warriors who stood by their defenses. A roar of defiance and challenge, accompanied by the ear-shattering clash of axes and broadswords on shields. Gradually, the sound died away. The Temujai sat their horses silently, staring at their enemies.

"Keep still!" Will called to his archers. Now that he saw the Temujai front rank, his force seemed ridiculously small. There must have been six or seven hundred warriors riding side by side in that first rank. And behind them were another five or six times that number. At the center of the army, where the commander sat his horse, a sequence of colored signal flags waved. Others answered from positions in the line of horsemen. There was another horn blast-a different note this time-and the front rank began to walk their horses forward. The jingling of harness was apparent once more-then a massive metallic slithering sound filled the air and the weak sun gleamed on hundreds of saber blades as they were drawn.

"They're going to fight close in," Horace said softly beside him.

Will nodded. "Remember what Halt told us? Their first move will be a feint-an attack and then a false withdrawal to draw the Skandians out from behind their breastworks. They won't commit to their real attack until they have the Skandians strung out in pursuit."

The eighteen hundred Skandians were drawn up in three ranks on a narrow strip of flatland between the sea and the heavily timbered hills. They waited behind carefully constructed earthen breastworks. The sloping ramparts facing the Temujai were thick with sharpened stakes of various lengths, designed to impale the enemy's horses.

Halt had located their main defensive position at the spot where the strip was narrowest, with their flanks protected by the steep, wooded mountains on the left and the sea on the right. Hallasholm itself was barely two hundred meters behind their line. Will's force of archers were on an earthwork berm on the right, some meters behind the main defensive line. At the moment, earth-covered wicker ramparts kept the archers hidden as they crouched behind them.

Halt, Erak and Ragnak were in the command position, more or less in the center of the Skandian line, on a small knoll.

Now, more signal flags were seen and the advancing cavalry broke into a trot, beginning to wheel slightly toward the Skandian left flank.

There was a stir among the archers crouched behind the breastworks. Several of them reached for the arrow bins in front of them, instinctively feeling the need to arm themselves.

"Stay down!" Will called, wishing, as ever, that his voice wouldn't crack. Halt didn't want him revealing the presence of the archers until the Skandians had made several of their usual probing attacks.

"Wait till they're committed to a full attack, then we'll surprise them," he had told his apprentice.

The line of archers turned now to look at their young commander. Will forced himself to smile at them, then, feigning a casualness he certainly didn't feel, leaned his bow against the breastworks in front of him, signifying that there would be no action required of the archers for some time yet.

Some of the other men copied the action.

"Nice work," Horace said quietly beside him. "How can you stay so calm?"

"It helps if you're terrified," Will replied, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. He was surprised at the warrior apprentice's question. Horace himself seemed to be the epitome of calm, totally unworried and seemingly unconcerned. His next statement dispelled that idea.

"I know what you mean," he said. "I nearly dropped my sword when they rode around the bend there."

The Temujai charge was gathering pace now, breaking into a fast canter, then a gallop. As they neared the Skandian line, a major part of the force swung away, seemingly deterred by the fortifications and the sharpened stakes. They wheeled their horses to run parallel to the Skandian line for a few seconds, then began to curve back toward their own army. The Skandians yelled abuse and scorn at them. A shower of spears, rocks and other missiles erupted from the Skandian line. Most of them fell short of the galloping horsemen.

A smaller group, maybe less than a hundred, continued to close on the left wing of the Skandian line. Leaning forward in their stirrups, shouting their war cries, they forced their shaggy mounts up the earth breastworks, ignoring the screams of those horses who were struck by the stakes. About two-thirds of their numbers made it to the Skandian line and they leaned down from their saddles, striking left and right with their long, curved sabers.

The Skandian defenders joined the battle eagerly. Huge axes rose and fell and more horses came down, with tortured screams. Will tried to shut his ears to the sound of horses in agony. The small, shaggy Temujai mounts were nearly identical to Tug and Abelard and it was all too easy to imagine his own horse bleeding and terrified, just as the Temujai horses were. Obviously, the Temujai thought of their horses as a means to an end, and had little affection for them.

The seething battle occupied one corner of the Skandian line. For some minutes, there seemed to be no clear picture of what was happening. Then, gradually, with cries of panic, the Temujai began to give ground, backing down the sloped earthworks, wheeling their horses and moving away, and letting the Skandians come after them with increasing eagerness.

Yet, to the more distant observers, it was obvious that the retreating enemy wasn't moving as fast as they might. Even those still mounted made no real effort to gallop clear. Rather, they withdrew gradually, maintaining contact with the foremost of their pursuers, drawing them farther and farther from the defensive positions they occupied and into the open ground.