They rode out into the little valley.
"You didn't stick by me!" Aleksi shouted, riding up to her with blood on his face and a wild look in his eyes. He looked a little crazy. "Pull back farther, damn you!" he shouted at her. "Out of arrow range."
Then he swore again. They were halved in numbers, and isolated now. Arrows fell and skittered toward them along the ground. The infantry regrouped but did not-yet-advance, although by Tess's quick estimate the khaja outnumbered them two to one.
"Here, girl, stop that crying," Ursula yelled at Valye, but the girl was almost incoherent with fear, shaking. She had dropped her saber, and it lay in the dirt.
Tess rode over to them. "Ursula, go away. Get that arrow out of your armor. Valye." She said it firmly, but without anger. "Where is your bow?"
A sob, stifled slightly. "I couldn't-I just couldn't- So close… so many…"
"Where is your bow?"
"Here." A tear-stained face tilted up toward Tess. Gods, she was young.
"Shoot some of the bastards for me. I know you can do it."
The tears stopped. A sudden light gleamed in Valye's eyes. She pulled her bow from its quiver and nocked an arrow. And let fly. A khaja soldier stumbled and went down. The men cheered, immensely heartened. A barrage of arrows rained down from the heights, but they fell just out of range. The infantry advanced, step by slow step. Valye shot again, and hit. And again, and hit.
With a great shout, the infantry charged. An instant of indecision on Aleksi's part: the khaja center was heavy and thick with soldiers, and if the riders went to either flank, they exposed themselves to archery fire from the hills.
Then he grinned. "Retreat! We'll break back at my command."
They retreated in good order toward the distant end of the little valley. But there, on the road where it wound around a rise, a second group of infantry appeared. Tess heard the khaja shout in triumph at their victory.
And then shout a warning. "Turn!" cried Aleksi. They turned, to see Anatoly and the rest of the jahar charging through the gap and hitting the infantry from the rear. Behind Anatoly, emerging through the smoke, came the first of the wagons.
They charged through and, meeting Anatoly's group, routed the infantry between them. As quickly as wagons came forward far enough out into the valley they halted and with astonishing speed and efficiency, women shouting and cursing, a square formed. With a handful of other riders, Tess chased the retreating khaja, cutting them down from behind, those that did not turn to fight. Just in front of her, a khaja soldier fell with an arrow in his neck. A man shrieked out in pain up in the heights above.
"Fall back!" cried Anatoly. The cry went out.
"Tess!" yelled Aleksi. "Fall back with me!"
In that wild instant, Tess realized that her charge had brought her out to the very edge of the battle, that she was surrounded by khaja soldiers with only Aleksi trailing at her side. A clot of khaja turned on her. She reined Zhashi hard around, slicing with her saber. A thump jarred her helmet, and an arrow fell over Zhashi's withers and tumbled down to the ground. Tess froze, realizing in that second that she had been shot in the head. A man lunged forward, sword raised-and an arrow sprouted from his throat. Like a brilliant, sudden, red germination, another arrow sprouted from the throat of his companion, and the man next to him, and the next one, a lethal flowering. Tess did not wait to see anymore but fled, Aleksi beside her.
There was a gap in the wagons. They rode through it into the eddying calm of the center. Behind, a wagon rolled to close the gap.
"Dismount," said Aleksi in a low voice. Tess dismounted, because she was suddenly so tired that she could not think. "Were you hit anywhere?" he demanded. She shook her head. Her hands shook. Without that helmet, she would have been pierced through the skull. Bile rose in her throat.
"Aleksi, I'm going to be sick."
"Here." He held her by the shoulders while she threw up. A moment later Anatoly appeared, and with him, his grandmother. A moment later Sonia ran up and knelt beside Tess.
"Tess-? Gods!"
"No, I'm all right. Just sick."
"Ah." Sonia rose as quickly. "Mother Sakhalin, come. We need all the women old enough to shoot placed along the wagons. We need to prop up shields for cover. Boys to the herds. Some kind of screen-some wagons upended, I think-for the littlest ones." They hurried off.
"Aleksi," said Anatoly. "Come with me. The women can hold them off for the time, but I'd like your opinion-should we sortie out to that other troop before the ones we routed have time to regroup?"
Aleksi patted Tess on the shoulder and let go of her and went away. Tess sank back on her heels and groped for her water flask at her belt. It was punctured, empty. She stood, feeling dizzy and swept in waves by nausea, and staggered over to Zhashi. Thank God, the flask on Zhashi was unharmed. Tess gulped down water and then cupped water in her hands to let the mare drink. She raised her head.
Chaos. No, not chaos at all. Herds bleated; a string of boys pressed the animals into one corner of the square. The song of bows serenaded her. Sweet-faced Katerina crouched down beside a limp khaja soldier tumbled in the dirt and stabbed him up under the palate, making sure he was dead. Three silver-haired men turned a fourth wagon up onto its side and herded a troop of little children inside. Tess recognized Mira among their number. The little girl was sober-eyed, not crying, clutching the hand of an older child, who carried a baby. There, at the edge of the wagons, two young women staggered in from the outside. Each wore a wicker shield bound onto her back, and between them they carried a jaran man. Tess saw his lips move and realized that he was alive, though wounded. They laid him on the ground next to another injured jaran man, and as they turned and went to run back out, Tess realized that they were Galina and Diana.
Katerina kicked a khaja soldier and unbuckled his helmet and threw it to one side. She glanced up. "Oh. Aunt Tess! Can you help me strip these two? And then help me drag them out of here?''
The man was dead. Thoroughly dead. Perhaps Tess had killed him herself. Tess felt a haze descend on her as she stripped his armor, his weapons, anything valuable from him. She and Katya dragged the two dead bodies over to one side where a considerable pile of the khaja dead had built up, brought here by other children.
"I think we got all of the ones who were inside the wagons," said Katya, sounding as practical as her mother.
"You'd better check again," said Tess. The girl nodded and trotted off. Tess went back to find Zhashi, but the mare was gone. Over to one side a set of wagons had been formed into a square within the square, and here the wounded congregated. Young Galina sat on the ground between two men. She held her left arm with her right hand, gripping her arm where an arrow protruded from the flesh. Her face was pale, her lips set tight with pain, but she talked with the men. Cara moved among the wounded: Niko mirrored her over on the other side, and Juli Danov shouted at someone-gods, it was one of the actors, the chestnut-haired girl-who was offering water to the wounded but spilling more than she gave because her hands shook so badly. Gwyn Jones knelt beside a black-haired jaran man, delicately turning an arrow out of his side by easing the unbroken silk of his red shirt back along the twisting path of entry. Farther, at the outer line of wagons, women stood and shot, a rhythmic, deadly pattern.
"Aunt Tess! Aunt Tess!" It was little Ivan, leading Zhashi. "I looked for you. Here is Zhashi."
"Thank you, Vania." Tess let Zhashi blow in her face and watched as the mare's ears pricked up. She kissed Ivan on the cheek. "I want you to go make sure the little children are well. Where is Kolia?"