Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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guard's javelins, shouting, "What's going on?"
She left the uproar behind her, heading to the darker portions of the camp. Four more pebbles, four
more disturbances to arrange. The Arkans weren't going to be in good spirits for the battle tomorrow…
"Slow march," Shkai'ra commanded.
The white dust of the road was still soft and heavy under the horses' hooves, lain by the dew that left a
crisp taste in the air. To the east, light lay like a band of salmon-pink along the horizon, fading through
purple-blue to a darkness where a few stars glittered around a moon huge and pale and translucent as if
painted on backlit glass. The cavalry passed through the last of the village's whitewashed cottages, out
among fields that rolled in long quiet swells like a gentle sea. The wheat was early-summer-high and
bronze, rippling in swells starred with red cornflowers; in the woodlots scattered among the grain fields,
the deep green crowns of oaks caught dawn light like a flash on metal. Purple gentian and wild white rose
starred the long silky grass by the side of the road, their scent overwhelmingly sweet; a flight of quail
started up at the muffled pounding of the hooves, skimming like flung stones over water before they went
to ground, disappearing beneath the yellow waves.
Sova's eyes followed them, watching through a screen of bush head-high as she rode by, through a
spiderweb starred with blue-white jewel beads of moisture. "Beautiful," she whispered, to no one in
particular. "It doesn't seem quite real. Like we were looking at everything through diamonds."
Shkai'ra laughed softly to herself, chanting in a half-whisper:
Morning red, morning red
Will you shine upon me dead?
Soon the trumpets will be blowing
Then must I to death be going
I and many merry friends.
The girl patted her mount's neck, was answered with a quiet whicker. "Even the horses feel it, don't they,
khyd-hird ?" The world seemed to pause, waiting between breaths.
"They smell fate on a wind from tomorrow," Shkai'ra said. She turned, looking critically to where the
column behind them climbed the low rise; eight hundred lances swayed like a bed of metal-tipped reeds,
blades the smooth color of salt.
She still normally commanded a hundred; but today she'd been sent to lead this mission.In other armies
I could name , she thought,I'd know it was because my superior didn't feel like getting out of bed
this early. In this one… it's a test .
"Trumpeter," she said; her voice was not much louder, but she pitched it an octave higher. "Sounddeploy
into column ."
The column split, the horses stepping higher as they plunged and heaved through the breast-high wheat,
trampling paths that lay tumbled and chaotic through the grain. Their coats and the chest-guards of metal
and leather most wore glistened with moisture; they tossed their heads, nostrils flared into red pits and
eyes rolling as they chewed at the bits. The standard-bearer rode up beside Shkai'ra and Sova, and the
trumpeter on the other side.