"Clear the way," shouted Bayan's outriders, spurring their horses forward, lances lowered. Crowds of Sklavenoi parted before them, the mountain barbarians staring at the khagan as he passed. Many of the blond and redheaded men watched Bayan pass with ill-disguised anger. The khagan ignored them, for they lived in huts of wattle and daub in the high mountain valleys. Though they were sometimes brave, they could not withstand the practiced efficiency of Avar soldiers.
Horns blew, ringing in the air, and the royal guardsmen began to form up by rank and file, shifting around Bayan like a cloud of dark birds. The hring banner came forward and the khagan raised a hand in salute. Other banners-long dragon-mouthed tubes of cloth, or square blazons holding images of the sun and the lightning-surrounded him.
Ahead, beyond clumped umens of spearmen and axemen, Bayan heard the sound of battle. The earth quivered and he could see arrows in the air, flashing bright as they fell.
"The Khazars," he said, caressing the stave of the bow laid across his saddle horn. "Are they attacking in earnest, or only flourishing before our lines?"
"They harass the foot soldiers," barked one of the beki jegun, quilted armor spattered with dust. The man's voice echoed from behind a full face mask. "Like Huns themselves."
"Very well." Bayan raised the black bow and every man within sight focused on him, their eye drawn-willing or no-to his face. "Form wedge and prepare to attack! We will drive off these slaves of the T'u-chueh and show them how real men fight! You, messenger, inform the commanders of foot we will be moving up. They will clear a lane through their mob for us!"
Men wheeled their horses, eager to do his bidding. Bayan smiled, then laughed aloud.
The day was perfect. His quiver was filled with arrows, fletched with gray goose, and each shaft, he knew, would find destiny in a Khazar heart.
Jusuf slashed his arm down, pointing with the sword, and his line of horsemen bolted forward, hooves drumming on the stubble. The Khazars swung out, riding hard at the Avar line and clumps of high grass, isolated trees and marshy wet ground flashed past. Jusuf held his mare back a bit, letting the first wave of lancers sweep on. A clot of couriers, young faces gleaming with sweat and wild grins, swerved with him and his own bannermen and trumpeters held themselves close, hands tight on their standards and horns, mounts guided by knee pressure.
The lancers swept diagonally across the front of the milling Slavic infantry. There was a great angry shout and the mass of spearmen lunged forward, breaking ranks. The Khazar riders loosed at the gallop, bows singing and arrows flashed down into the ranks of the enemy. Another, angrier, roar smote the air. The lancers nipped in, stabbing overhand, and men toppled backwards along the frontage, faces and chests smeared with blood. Jusuf grinned in delight, letting the mare course across the ground. The Khazars wheeled away, throwing clods and dust into the faces of the Slavs. The Avar infantry ran forward, disintegrating into a mob, screaming and shouting. Even the Avar beki jegun were charging, swords whipping around their heads.
Jusuf turned, letting the dust drift past, then his hand shot up and the flagmen tensed. The Slavic roar was building, growing louder and louder. Out of the corner of his eye, Jusuf saw his lancers swing back and regroup, forming around their umen banners, checking their armor, binding wounds and drawing new weapons to replace those they had lost.
"Again!" Jusuf shouted and his bannermen dipped their flags. The trumpeters winded, sending up a hair-raising noise. The lancers began to trot forward. Dust settled out of the air, and Jusuf felt an almost physical shock. The Slavic infantry was still screaming and shouting, raising a huge noise, banging spears on shields and yelping like a vast pack of demented wolves. But they had not continued their pell-mell, mindless charge. Instead the beki jegun checked their wild rush and the entire mass of the enemy split open like a melon.
A solid mass of horsemen-armor gleaming, twin queues bouncing on armored shoulders, lances glittering like stars, their tube banners stiff in the air-was advancing at a quickening trot, straight for Jusuf and his couriers.
The Khazar's heart stuttered and his mouth went dry. The Avar heavy horse-two, maybe three thousand men in full armor of iron scales sewn to leather and backed with felt, mounts likewise protected on head, neck and forequarters, helms flared and throats protected by an iron gorget-thundered towards him. They were perhaps a hundred yards away, erupting from the mass of infantry with frightening speed.
Dahvos, he gibbered to himself, will only need a moment, just a grain of time…
"Charge!" Jusuf howled, spurring his mare forward. All thought of keeping himself safe fled, and the couriers and bannermen leapt forward with him. In an instant, in a cloud of dust filled with the war cries of a thousand men, the Khazar lancers sprinted forward, spears leveled. Jusuf cursed leaving his lance behind and spared a half-grain to wrap a strap around his wrist and through the hilts of his sword. He shrugged his left arm, feeling the shield strapped there. Wind keened in his helmet and everything became terribly clear.
The Avars spurred forward as well, voices raised in a single huge shout, and the tiny distance between the two lines of men vanished in the blink of an eye.
Jusuf staggered, feeling a wrenching blow on his left arm, and his mare jinked to the side. An Avar lance sheared across the shield, ripping through the first layer of wood and tearing away the iron boss. The Khazar turned hard in the saddle, hacking down with his sword. The lance flicked away as the Avar knight flipped his weapon out of harm's way. Jusuf reversed his blow and blocked desperately with the shield. The lance stabbed past his head, missing his left eye by inches. Shouting, Jusuf slammed his shield out, knocking the long spear away. The Avar's horse, a nimble black creature, snapped at the mare's head and she shied, dancing back. Jusuf cursed again. He needed a lance of his own.
Arrows whistled overhead. A great din stormed at his ears, deafening him with the roars and shouts of men, the whinnying of horses, the clang of metal on metal and on wood. Jusuf spurred, and the mare responded, leaping forward. The Avar knight was already trading blows with another Khazar and Jusuf rushed past, stabbing across his body. The triangular tip of his sword plunged into the man's armpit and came back slick with blood.
There was no time to see if the wound was mortal. More arrows sleeted out of the sky. A Khazar within Jusuf's field of vision jerked and then slid from his saddle, leaving a wide smear of red across mottled gray horsehide. Three arrows jutted from his chest. Jusuf tried to turn, trying to see what was happening, then furiously parried an Avar mace. The blow rocked him against the rear saddle plate, but he wrenched the mare's head around, turning the whole horse and the mace slithered away along his blade. Without thinking, Jusuf punched the Avar knight in the face, his metal-studded glove sparking on a bronzed metal face mask. Pain jolted up to his elbow. The Avar clawed at his mask, trying to adjust his helmet.
Jusuf whipped his sword sideways, cutting into the man's hand and then, as tendons popped and finger bones split under the blow, into his throat. The sword belled, ringing back from an iron gorget around the Avar's neck. The Khazar cursed, laying in another heavy blow. This time the man jerked back, still blind, and the sword blade wedged between chest plate and helm. Another arrow smashed into the shield on Jusuf's left arm, punching through the laminated wood.