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

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"Bows out. Walk-march—trot."
They crested the rise, birds and gold-bodied bees swarming up from the stalks beneath their hooves. A
thousand meters down the slope from them the long column of Arkan infantry were marching from right
to left across their front on a road that ran along the banks of a tree-fringed stream whose bed shone
silver with mist.
"Gods-damned if I know how the Yeolis knew they'd be here, unless they're using magic scouts,"
Shkai'ra gritted happily. "But this is one flanking column that isn't going to arrive on the battlefield in time.
If at all." She'd questioned it, in fact, when given the orders, though that carried risk of punishment.
"Chevenga said they'd be there, so they'll be there," the cavalry-general had answered patiently. "You'll
see—and not question again."
Arkans, Sova thought.The enemy . She'd seen their camp before—a distant, indistinct mass. She'd even
borrowed the far-lookers, fascinated to see, to measure. Scarlet lacquered breast-plates and greaves,
blond braids, light eyes, the usual expressions, same as in the Alliance camp; but through the lenses they
were still abstract, still far away in the summer haze. Now—she could smell them, sweat, dust from their
booted feet, gritty in the crystal dawn air. Now—she would ride up to them, close with them, have them
within her reach, be within theirs…
Is that why the world seems so clear? On the river last year, there'd been fights, skirmishes in the
dark, without warning; but never like this, hundreds against hundreds on a field in the cold light of day
after thinking ahead to it all night.
Am I afraid? she asked herself.No . She wasn't, somehow, to her own amazement.It's too beautiful a
morning , she concluded,to be afraid .
An officer's mount among the Arkans threw up its head and neighed a challenge. Shkai'ra's arm swept
up, then chopped down, and the trumpet sang.
A roar broke out. Through and over it ran the screams of the cavalry and the gathering thunder of their
hooves, pounding out palm-sized chunks of turf as they flung the tonne-weights of steel and armor and
flesh forward.
The infantry—two thousand of them, or a little less— halted, turning in knots and clumps as the officers'
voices screamed at them to deploy, too late. Pikes bristled and crossed in huge X shapes as they tried to
face about, and crossbowmen and javelineers tried to force their way forward. Then they were suddenly
close, arrowsthupping out from the hornbows, men falling; some of them had no room to fall, clots of
them toppling back off the road embankment and falling down towards the mud. Faces were close,
shouting, screaming, mouths wide and red.
Sova crowded in behind Shkai'ra's right stirrup as the Kommanza dropped her bow into the case and
swung down her lance. The Thane-girl's lance seemed suddenly light, and the motion of the gallop was
like the swoop of birds.I'm not afraid. I'm not —how can I not be afraid? Then it was time to close,
and she had no more time to wonder.
Thunk. Not like the sound of lances hitting practice dummies. Heavier. A shock like her horse stumbling
at speed, it was jumping and there was a twisting body on the crushed rock surface of the road with her
lance, broken, through his chest. A sound like one united scream, of massed human death-cries, so loud
her ears felt pain, the sound of hurt horses even louder. They were stopped and Hotblood had an Arkan