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Beneath him, his horse struck out with steel-edged hoofs, giving Rael time to yank free his blade, turn, and open the face of the man who threatened on his right. He tightened his legs and the warhorse leaped forward. Another Melacian went down, gurgling blood, his ribs a mass of splintered bone.
    Then there was nothing in front of them but a rock-strewn slope, and the stallion stretched into a canter. They thundered up the hill, wheeled at the crest, and looked down over the valley. The warhorse stopped so suddenly at Rael’s command that the prince rocked in the saddle. After four passes across the valley, cutting their way through the enemy position, the animal knew that this was his chance to rest and he stood, sides heaving, while Rael, no less winded, lifted his visor to better suck in great lungfuls of air. Beside and behind him, other members of the Elite did the same.
    The valley held a seething mass of men and weapons and dead and dying. Hale’s horsemen, more lightly armored than the Elite, darted in and out of the melee, sabers red and dripping. The space was too enclosed for their speed and maneuverability to be totally effective, but they stung the flanks of the enemy like gadflies. The ducal guards ofBelkar, Cei, and Aliston fought in clumps, lending their strength and skill when they could to the farmers, fishermen, and herdsmen who fought beside them but too used to fighting as units to do more than slow the slaughter of the common folk. Over it all, crows and other carrion birds rode the updrafts, waiting for nightfall and their time in the valley.
    Safely out of it for the moment, Rael was conscious of the noise in a way he hadn’t had time to be while he fought. It filled the bowl of the valley, the deep-voiced defiance of thousands of men and the slam and clatter of thousands of weapons, with eddies of greater noise where the fighting was fiercest, and every now and then a scream piercing through the din like torchlight through smoke.
    From here, Rael mused, the Ardhan and Melacian dying sounded very much alike.
    From a distance, as though he wandered through someone else’s mind, he considered the absence of terror and disgust and shame—at what he’d seen and what he’d done. His ability to feel had gone as numb as his nose; he’d long since stopped noticing the omnipresent stench of blood and guts and sweat. His brain had apparently decided to concentrate on the essentials, survival and command, and let all else wait until later.
“Much later,”
he prayed, remembering how he’d felt during the butchery of the first charge.
“Please, much later.”
    â€œOver there, look!”
    Down the line, one of the Elite called and pointed and the men raised a ragged cheer as a flight from Belkar’s archers collapsed an advancing enemy line. Although the rest of the Elite saw the arrows as smudges against the sky and could tell only by their direction which side fired and which died, with his mother’s eyes, Rael watched each double-barbed arrow land, diving deep to burrow through armor and into the soft meat beneath. He tried not to flinch. It wouldn’t look good.
    â€œCristof lost his horse, Commander, but he got out on his Half’s stirrup. And we’ve got two cut reins from those damned hooked blades.”
    Rael started as the First broke through his thoughts and, glad for an excuse to stop watching the carnage, he turned to face the officer.
    â€œKeep the Halves together.” That much, at least, he knew he had to do. The Elite fought in pairs; each man a Half and each man’s Half closer to him than mere comrade or friend. It was not a commitment all chosen for the Elite were willing to make and those men who weren’t stayed in the Guard, but it was a part of why the Elite fought so fiercely; each Half
knew
another’s life depended on his skill. “Have Cristof’s Half give his reins to repair the two reins cut.