Where our half squadron rides, in the rear, we can see none of this. We know nothing of the other battles playing out along the forward three-quarters of the column. We have been cut off. We are eighty horse and four hundred foot. That any get out alive at all must be credited to Flag and Stephanos, who, in the midst of the melee, divine that the Wolf’s intention, structuring the ambush, is to drive our troops either in the direction of the rear or of the river (which routes seem to offer the only hope of breaking free) and that along these courses he, Spitamenes, has concealed further concentrations of horse and foot to massacre us. Our commanders drive us toward the bluffs instead. Here the enemy waits in place to pound us with javelins and hurled stones. But it’s better than facing line after line in the other directions. If our mounts had been fresher, if we had gotten one rest of even an hour during the day, the main of the company might have broken through and, once up the bluffs, gotten clear.
But the foe is fresh and we are spent. Our limbs, and our horses’, have no strength to mount the face. Hooves lose purchase in the sand; riders spill and tumble. Those who dismount are cut down where they fall; troopers who stay in the saddle wear their mounts out and crash beside them. Only handfuls get through. When our front gives way, the foe pours upon us from both flanks and begins to shove us, infantry and cavalry, in a great mass back into the river.
To fight and win is now out of the question. The only hope is to break away. I turn my ten, or what’s left of them-Lucas, Little Red, Boxer, Rags, Knuckles, and two brothers called Torch and Turtle-to force a break on the river side. Lucas has the point. The foe are all horse archers, armed with powerful compound bows of horn and bone. They shoot for our mounts. I see Lucas’s Intrepid take two shafts simultaneously, one in the chest and the other in the throat. The horse does not even slow but plunges onward; the arrow-shafts snap from the working of his great muscles, while his eyes roll white in terror. Lucas thrusts his lance into the throat of a Daan bowman. I am on his left and see the fellow’s head snap back like a doll’s and tear open at the gorge. Lucas’s lance shivers, broken by the weight of the foe; he nearly spills from the sudden dislocation. My own half-pike has splintered long since; all I have is my saber, useless as a wand against the heavily armored foe. A Daan with great mustaches blocks my escape. I see his mace has lost its head; I go after him with my saber, but as I raise it to strike, something catches my arm and holds it. I have been shot. A bolt as long as a carpenter’s rule and as thick as a thumb has entered my right shoulder from the rear and driven clean through. The arrowhead has broken off but the splintered shaft juts out half a foot before me. It binds my shoulder. My arm goes dead. My saber falls. The limb plunges like a puppet’s whose strings have been cut. I am excruciatingly aware that whoever has shot the arrow is still right behind me, and very close, judging by the power with which the shaft has driven through. He will drill me again if I don’t get clear. I spin Snow toward the river. Directly before me rises another Afghan archer, on foot. He fires. I can see both wings of his bow kick forward. Shaft and warhead hurtle straight at the center of my chest. Over my corselet I wear an ancient iron breastplate that had been my grandfather’s and that I have cursed a thousand times for its weight and ungainliness. I have tried again and again to unload it on unsuspecting scuffs at bargain prices; no one has been dumb enough to take it off my hands. This piece of antique plate now saves my life. The bolt strikes me squarely in the solar plexus. The sound rings off the iron like a bell. But the warhead does not penetrate. The impact bowls me rearward over Snow’s hindquarters.
All sounds ceases. Light goes queer. I can’t move my limbs. Am I dead? Is this hell?
It’s water.
I’m in the river.
Instinct makes me cling to my horse’s reins. But as I go down, cleaving to this lifeline, Snow plants her hooves and rears; the leather snaps. I plunge under. The foe is everywhere. I’m going into the books for sure this time. The enemy is trampling us in the shallows. It’s a tactic; they perform it with skill. A hoof steps on my back. I inhale a mouthful of mud. The weight of my armor is pulling me under. I can’t tell up from down. I open my eyes underwater. Arrow-shafts are ripping through the gray-green silt. The Wolf’s men are right above us, firing point-blank. Those with lances impale us like fish. I am seized by the mad notion that I must save my fellows. I grab hold of a merc I don’t know and haul him surface-ward with my one good arm. I am furious that he makes no effort to help. It occurs to me that he is dead; this elevates the pitch of my rage. I heave to the surface. There, in the current, lurches my mate, Rags. Three arrow-shafts protrude from his belly. His eyes are the color of glass. He plunges in death; a Daan carves his scalp.
I am overcome with terror. I go under. A horse’s knee wallops my skull; I hear as much as feel the bone crack. I vault upward, seeking air. A merc thrashes into the soup before me. A tribesman rides him down, impales him with a lance thrust through the dorsal spine. The savage dismounts into the current and scalps the Greek while he’s still alive, then turns back, whooping, elevating his trophy. Impossibly, the merc emerges, blood sheeting from his torn and naked skull. With his last strength, he drives the severed shaft of his twelve-footer into his murderer’s liver. At this, three more clansmen rush upon him; the merc inverts his weapon, plunging it into his own throat; while he’s still alive the Daans hack off his head.
Scenes of matching horror are enacted all along the column. My last sight before unconsciousness closes over me is of my pretty little mare being led away by a dashing and handsomely accoutered Afghan. The warrior neither vaunts nor displays himself like his savage countrymen, but simply trots off, like a satisfied market-goer who has just made a canny purchase.
25
Night has descended when I come to. Lucas supports me. We hunker in the river, the pair of us, concealed beneath a cut-bank, with only our eyes, noses, and mouths above the surface.
Lucas has been sabered across the forehead. He has lost an eye. The whole left side of his face, bound up, is a mass of matted blood, hair, and flesh. Several ribs are cracked, though I don’t know this yet; his right knee is half-staved, stepped on by a horse. He holds me up from behind, arms round my chest to keep me from going under. My head lolls against his shoulder. Roots and branches screen our hideout. I struggle to speak, to thank him. He hisses me silent.