Tol urged his borrowed pony forward. Seizing the collar of Tokasin’s fox mantle, he drove his hilt into Tokasin’s jaw. The chief’s head snapped back, but he kept his seat. Tol hit him again just as their horses stumbled apart. Nose streaming blood, Tokasin fell sideways off his horse.

There was no opportunity for Tol to push his advantage. A heavy blow fell across his shoulders. Instantly his arms went numb, an icy chill racing to the tips of his fingers. He knew he was falling-the dust-veiled sun wheeled past his gaze-but he didn’t even feel himself hit the ground.

All sound ceased. Horses towered over him, pirouetting in the dance of battle. Blades and spears continued to fall. Yet he could hear nothing. He thought this must be what it was like to die.

You never see the blade that kills you, Egrin used to say.

That homily was meant to reassure nervous new shilder. Now Tol knew it was true.

He became aware of a shadowy figure standing over him. He thought it was Tokasin, come to finish him off, but soon realized the figure was in fact defending him from any who drew too near. Vision blurred by the stunning blow and the roiling dust, he couldn’t make out his protector’s identity.

Tol struggled to rise, cursing his awkwardness. The figure looked down at him, and he caught a glimpse of a bushy black beard and formidable brows over pale eyes.

Wilfik.

A set of hooves suddenly came plummeting toward Tol’s head, and he had to roll swiftly aside. Continuing the motion, he retrieved Number Six from the dirt and sprang to his feet. When he got himself upright, Wilfik was gone.

Tol was a good nine paces from his own line. The nomads had broken his half of the militia in two, driving the right portion northward, back to Tylocost’s position. Pride swelled in Tol as he saw the remaining Ergothians withdrawing in good order to the stump of a tower that had once graced the wall of Juramona.

Coated with dust, Tol was indistinguishable from the mounted foes around him. This fact saved his life. The nomads took him for a fallen comrade, as no other Ergothian had dared break their line. He wended his way through the milling horsemen, felling only a sole nomad who tried to stop him.

When he reached the broken tower, the militia regarded him in breathless wonder. They thought he’d been killed.

Tol nodded tiredly. “I thought so, too. Where’s Wilfik? I have him to thank for my rescue.”

The soldiers regarded him blankly. Tol said the disgraced soldier had fended off nomads until he could get back to his feet.

The captain of the Eighth Company shook his head. “It couldn’t have been Wilfik, my lord. I saw him slain before you were unhorsed. A nomad blade took his head from his shoulders.”

If the captain was certain of what he’d seen, no less certain was Tol. Apparently, even after death, Wilfik had been determined to redeem himself.

A furious blast of rams’ horns ended the discussion. Plainsmen wheeled their ponies about and flowed back down the hill. The slope before the broken tower was heaped with the slain and wounded from both sides. Injured horses fought to stand. Men cried out for water, or mercy.

One of the pikemen near Tol cried, “Mishas spare us!”

He pointed. The nomads were re-forming, plainly preparing to charge again. The brave defenders of Juramona could not withstand another assault.

Before panic could take hold, another blast of horns sounded, this time from the far right of the nomad host. A sizable body of horsemen faced about and rode off to the west. The remaining nomads milled about in confusion, an emotion mirrored on the faces of their foes.

Tol shaded his eyes from the late afternoon sun, trying to see what was afoot. At the same time, he warned his people to stand fast.

Yet another fanfare sounded on the left, from east of the ruins. A roar went up in the distance, which was quickly drowned out by the thundering sound of horses approaching at the gallop.

A battered pikeman sank to his knees, blood draining from his face. “We’re dead!” he moaned. “More nomads have come!”

The leather-clad host before Tol’s position wavered, then spontaneously broke apart. Half the riders turned their steeds east and galloped away. The rest scattered to the winds.

The horns sounded again, closer, and a great rush of relief surged through Tol’s veins. He lifted Number Six high, shouting, “Those are brass trumpets! Ergothians! Riders of the Great Horde!”

Arrayed in the famous wedge formation created by Ackal Ergot himself, four hordes of imperial cavalry passed through the confused ranks of the nomads like a knife into a sack of grain. The remaining plainsmen resisted briefly, then they too scattered.

The armored wedge drove straight across the field. Any plainsmen in its way were ruthlessly sabered. Before the sun touched the western horizon, no living enemy remained.

From their last-ditch position at the base of the shattered tower, the weary militia knew they’d been given’ back their lives. Without orders, the men sank to the ground. A few were asleep as soon as their heads touched the burned turf.

A score of Riders peeled off from the main horde and cantered toward Tol. The first face he saw was Egrin’s. A broad grin split Tol’s face. The grin became wide-eyed surprise when he spotted Egrin’s companions. Riding beside the former marshal of Juramona was a gray-haired warrior in an old-fashioned pot helmet. All the Riders wore armor twenty years out of fashion, and bore the standard of the Plains Panthers horde.

Egrin reined up and dismounted. Tol limped to him and they clasped arms.

“Never have I been so glad to see your face!” Tol declared.

“And I yours, my lord,” Egrin replied warmly.

Tol asked how they’d found him, and Egrin gave a rare grin. “All the raiders in the Eastern Hundred had gathered here,” he said. “Why else would they return to a despoiled town but to kill Lord Tolandruth?”

The gray-haired warrior riding beside Egrin was a big, clean-shaven fellow mounted on a fine gray gelding. The Rider had a familiar, misshapen nose.

“Lord Pagas!” Tol said, saluting the commander of the Plains Panthers, with whom he had campaigned long ago in the Great Green. “You looked like Corij himself, coming to our rescue!”

Pagas looked pleased by the praise but made no reply. A warrior of long service and steadfast courage, he had a high, nasal voice, the result of his misshapen nose. Although the injury had been honorably received in battle against centaurs, Pagas found his childish voice a severe embarrassment, and spoke little.

The Plains Panthers was one of the landed hordes, not part of the regular imperial army. All were former Riders of the Great Horde, who now lived and worked on country estates.

In time of crisis, an emperor could summon the landed hordes to his service. Ackal V had never called the Panthers, nor any other landed horde, to war. Unlike his full-time warriors, Ackal couldn’t bully the gentry, nor chop off their heads if they displeased him.

“He’s losing the war,” Pagas said, referring to the emperor. Word had spread about the defeats inflicted by the bakali. The debacle at Eagle’s Ford was only the latest in a series of blunders.

The lizard-men were now across the Dalti, Egrin related. Whether they would attack Daltigoth was still an open question. Thus far, they had not directly assaulted any walled city, as they lacked siege equipment. But west and south of the capital lay the richest land in the empire, the very heart of Ergoth. The region’s farms and herds fed the entire country. What was more, the sea route to the Gulf lay that way, too. If the bakali ravaged it, or worse, simply occupied it, the empire would be done. The cities would starve. Ergoth would shrivel.

Tylocost’s half of the Juramona militia marched over, providing Lord Pagas and his retinue with the shocking sight of a Silvanesti in command of Ergothians. Tol asked Egrin if he’d received word of Kiya, but the old warrior had not seen the Dom-shu woman since she’d departed for Hylo.