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*****
Tashka sat still on her horse staring across at the long line of red-clad Sietter soldiers ranged on the opposite hillside against the grey morning sky. A cold breeze riffled over her cropped hair and flapped in her banner beside her. She blinked. Her mind flipped quickly through her strategies.
Yes, they had massed themselves to the centre, their wings trailing off in the Vashin bird. She had thought they might do so, given the terrain they were on. Sietter had won here at Shier Bridge using that strategy before but then it had been Fourth, standing where she was now standing, in defence of the Maier Pass. Fourth, watching the arm of Clair el Maien, her beloved brother. They had chosen to make a stand here, thinking she would feel it, to stand here where her brother had lost one thousand four hundred and fifty-nine men including ten Lieutenants and one Captain whom he loved not only in duty of care and with his heart but with his whole body. They thought she would feel it, an officer of the H'las army where duty of care was paramount. They thought she would weep to think of the men and juniors flung away here, so many of them personally known to her. They forgot that she had been trained in Sietter. When she looked down this green valley she did not feel but thought with a cold admiration of the elegance of Hanya Vashin's victorious strategy.
It was their men who would feel it, looking across this ditch of a valley and remembering that a Sietter troop had been through such Hell here before using the Vashin bird to get victory that the officers and men who had made so elegant an achievement would still go white and weep for it. She had not been here on that day but because Fourth had been stripped out and redistributed among the other troops some of their men were sure to be standing white with horror already and stricken in remembrance; this was the failure of a structure of command focussed on victory and not duty of care to men such as those.
She had set out her troop on the brow of the hill in such a way that they looked as if they had formed a square Palair box formation. In fact there were two Units separated off on each side who would come over the brow of the hill wide of the Sietter soldiers' wings, dragging them out until Fourteenth Sietter fell apart.
The two troops were poised in place, looking across the shallow valley at each other, each waiting for some trigger of the battle. It was their first chance to assess each other's strengths, each thinking:
they have this, they have that
.
Tashka was thinking: 'Thank the Angels they have not got war-dogs. I knew they had an Unit of archers. Commander Rian has a nervous horse, he is a fool to use that kind of horse in battle but Rian always was a fool for a piece of horse-flesh.'
She heard Fiotr make a tense moan behind her. Her banner-bearer's horse shifted uneasily but she would not give Sixth H'las the signal. They all knew they had to wait for Fourteenth Sietter to move first because of the archers.
'Rian,' Tashka thought sadly. 'We have practised manoeuvres in these hills together, when you were a baby Lieutenant in Ninth and I was in Fourth.'
No tears came to her eyes in spite of her sorrow at taking arms and planning strategies against people she knew so well. She ran through her strategies again, pulling her mind to the cold clear emotionless rational place from which she would be able to bear fighting this battle - as if it were just a gigantic game of chess and afterwards they would say:
Well played, that was a magnificent strategy, el Maien
, and all go for a bowl of beer to laugh about what had gone wrong instead of weeping for it.
A ragged cry came up from Fourteenth. Rian's nerve had broken and he had sent the soldiers forward. The line of cavalry broke down the rough green hill, the infantry running after.
Tashka flung up her arm, straight up, her left arm. Cold grey light gleamed on the gold and rubies on her finger, her signal holding Sixth H'las back until the moment when they could go without fearing the archers. The moment had come. She flung her arm forward and kicked Challenger to jump forward!
Pouring down the hill, heart hammering, the blood singing in the ears so that the yell of other soldiers was almost blotted out. Sword leaping out of scabbard, spear down towards those Sietter scum, eyes wide with fear, mouth open to yell in anger.
In the engagement there was no time to think. One must get on with one's weapons as well as one could. Nobody did well. Everyone was tense, frightened, too slow, too fast. Frightened of being wounded, killed; frightened of wounding, of killing; angry, angry, hang on to anger!
A soldier falls by one's side. Do not think of it, do not look to see who it is, just hack, stab out at whatever scum brought one's fellow down. Inevitably those scum Sietter archers had been given the order to shoot although their own men were down in the field of battle - yes, any sacrifice for an elegant bloody victory - those scum!
Tashka was dragging on Challenger's reins, her sword rising and stabbing. Faces swam about her horse's shoulders. She was at the front of it all, stabbing into a clutch of Sietter red and gold uniforms, too terrified to look back and see if she had any support behind her, not even sure if her banner-bearer had been able to keep up with her.
Fiotr's horse forced a passage to her left. He was left-handed so they could keep their horses practically pressing flank to flank and each forget one side and strike out on their fighting sides.
Fiotr was screaming mindlessly rhythmically as he fought but Tashka was eerily silent, her lips in a tight line, her dark blue eyes wide and glaring. Then Tashka's Challenger plunged forward, Fiotr's Maiden fell back. Before she could turn her head to see what was on her left, Tashka felt a ripping agony in her upper arm.
She flung back her head, her knees automatically clenched tighter on Challenger's sides, her right arm came over to plunge her sword into someone's throat.
She heard the banner-bearer cry out behind her. Fiotr was furiously struggling to her side screaming
Scum scum
and striking out at the Sietter troopers. They were through the knot of infantrymen and engaged in hand to hand with the cavalry.
Tashka could feel great gouts of pain from her left arm. Her fingers were curled tight about her reins but the arm muscles were too weak to make the hand move, she must guide Challenger only with her knees. Her wide glaring eyes stared into a petrified young officer's face as her sword crashed down on his with a jolt. He jerked on his reins in his terror, she nudged Challenger to jostle his horse and he was flung off down under the hooves of the cavalry.
