"Look!" said Horace suddenly, pointing with his sword. In response to more flag signals, and unseen by the defenders on the left flank, several hundred riders from the original Temujai charge had now completed a full circle and were wheeling back to the aid of their embattled companions.

"Just as Halt said they would," Horace muttered, and Will nodded wordlessly.

In the command post near the center of the Skandian line, Erak was saying much the same thing.

"Here they come, Halt, just as you said," he muttered. Ragnak, standing beside him, peered anxiously over the breastworks at his exposed men. Nearly a hundred Skandians had streamed out of the defenses now and were engaged with the Temujai.

"You called it correctly, Ranger," he agreed. From this remote position, he could see the trap about to be sprung. Had he taken his normal place, at the thick of the fighting, he would have been totally unaware of the tactic.

"Can Kormak be trusted to keep his head out there, and not let his men get out of control?" Halt asked the Oberjarl. Ragnak scowled at the question.

"I'll kill him if he doesn't," he said simply. The Ranger raised one eyebrow.

"You won't have to," he said. Then, turning, he gestured to one of Ragnak's signalers, who stood nearby with a huge ram's horn in his hand. "Get ready," he said, and the man raised the horn to his lips, pursing his mouth to form the right shape to create the mournful but penetrating note.

It was a game of cat and mouse. The smaller group of Temujai were pretending to retreat, all the while managing to stay engaged with the leading elements of the pursuing Skandians. For their part, they were simulating a wild and undisciplined pursuit, and getting farther and farther from their own lines. And all the while, the first Temujai force were circling back to fall on the exposed Skandians.

There was only one more element in the game, which was unknown to the Temujai leaders. Before dawn, Halt had directed a hundred Skandian axmen to take up positions in the fringe of the wooded slope bordering the valley. Concealed in hastily dug shallow trenches and behind fallen logs, they waited now for the signal that would tell them to make a surprise attack on the Temujai who were planning to surprise their comrades.

"Signal one," Halt said quietly, and the ram's horn sounded a single, extended note that echoed across the valley.

Instantly, the pursuing Skandians, strung out in a long line behind the retreating Temujai riders, broke contact with the enemy and ran to form a defensive circle, their round shields forming an impenetrable wall. They were none too soon, as the second wave of Temujai horsemen was nearly upon them. As the eastern riders swept in, they were surprised to find an enemy already in a defensive formation and obviously awaiting them. The charge broke against the shield wall and another seething, struggling skirmish formed, with the hundred Skandians defending desperately against at least five times their number of horsemen.

Haz'kam, commanding general of the Temujai invasion force, frowned from his command position as he watched the well-rehearsed, coordinated movement of the Skandians as they formed their shield wall.

"I don't like the look of this," he muttered to his second in command. "This is not how these savages are supposed to react." And then the ram's horn rang out again, this time sounding three short, staccato notes that seemed to punch the air. A signal of some kind, he realized. But for what? And to whom?

The answer wasn't long in coming. There was a roar from the main Skandian ranks as a group of foot soldiers broke from the cover of the trees and ran to fall upon the encircling riders from the rear. The Skandian battle-axes took a terrible toll of the surprised Temujai, who found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly caught between the hammer of the new attacking force and the anvil of the shield wall. Surprised and confused, and with the momentum of their charge long since spent, the horsemen were easy marks for the savage northerners. In a matter of a few seconds, Haz'kam estimated that he had lost at least a quarter of his engaged force. It was time to cut his losses, he knew. He turned to his bugler.

"Retreat," he said quickly. "Disengage and retreat."

The silver notes of the bugle spilled over the battlefield, cutting through the consciousness of the highly disciplined Temujai cavalry. This time, as they withdrew, they made no pretense of staying in contact with the Skandians. Their rapid disengagement showed how false their previous feigned retreat had been. In a matter of a few minutes, the riders were streaming back toward their own lines.

For a moment, it looked as if discipline and reason had forsaken the Skandians. Ragnak realized that, in the heat of the moment, they were on the verge of pursuing the retreating Temujai back to their own lines-and to certain death for the Skandians. He quickly jumped up on the breastworks and bellowed, in his loudest storm-quelling voice: "Kormak! Back here! Now!"

There was no need for the ram's horn to reinforce the order. The Oberjarl's voice carried clearly to the Skandians and, as one, they ran for the shelter of the fortifications. Realizing what was happening, some of the Temujai sheathed their sabers and turned back to send a volley of arrows sailing after the Skandians.

But it was too little and too late. Apart from a few minor flesh wounds, there were no injuries.

Will and Horace exchanged glances. So far, things had gone pretty well as Halt had predicted. But they didn't think the Temujai would be trying that particular trick again.

"Next time," said Will, "it'll be our turn."

G ENERAL H AZ'KAM TROTTED HIS HORSE ALONG THE FRONT rank of his army, watching as the first skirmish party made their way back to his lines. He had lost perhaps two hundred men, killed and wounded in that first encounter, he estimated. And perhaps half that number of horses. With an army of six thousand combat troops, of course, the numbers in themselves weren't terribly significant.

What was significant, however, was the behavior of the Skandians. That first attack had been designed to reduce their numbers by several hundred, not his own. In fact, there had even been the slight hope that the majority of the Skandians might have been drawn out from behind their defensive positions, into the exposed ground where they would have been easy meat for his mounted archers.

He reined in as he came level with a group of his officers. Among them, he recognized Colonel Bin'zak, his head of intelligence. The colonel was looking decidedly uncomfortable, he saw. As well he might be.

Haz'kam caught his eye now and jerked his head toward the Skandian defenses.

"That was not what I was led to expect," he said. His voice was deceptively mild. The colonel urged his own horse forward a few paces and saluted as he came level with his commander.

"I don't know what happened, Shan Haz'kam," he replied. "Somehow, they seemed to see through the trap. It's not the way I expected them to react. It's:" He searched for the right words, finally saying weakly, "It totally un-Skandian behavior."

Haz'kam nodded several times. He held in his anger with an effort. It was undignified for a Temujai commander to show emotion on the field of battle.

"Does it occur to you, perhaps," he said eventually, when he was sure he could keep control of his voice, "that the Skandians may have someone with them who knows our way of fighting?"

Bin'zak frowned as he turned this thought over. In truth, it hadn't occurred to him. But now that the Shan mentioned it, it seemed the logical conclusion. Except for one factor.

"It would be unlike the Skandians to give field command to a foreigner," he said thoughtfully. Haz'kam smiled at him. But it was a smile without the faintest touch of humor in it.