Free Devices and Desires by K. J. Parker Page B

bodies, the carelessly discarded weapons that could cut a delicate hoof to the quick. He saw wounded
     men, some screaming, some dragging themselves along by their hands, some struggling to draw a few more breaths, as though
     there was any point. He could get off the stupid white horse, load a wounded man into the saddle and take his chances on foot.
     Possibly, if there’d only been one, he’d have done it. But there wasn’t just one, there were
thousands;
and that made it impossible, for some reason.
    Orsea had seen tragedy before, and death. He’d even seen mess, great open slashed wounds, clogged with mud and dust, where
     a boar had caught a sluggish huntsman, or a careless forester had misjudged the fall of a tree. He’d been there once when
     a granary had collapsed with fifteen men inside; he’d been one of the first to scrabble through the smashed beams and fallen
     stone blocks, and he’d pulled two men out of there with his own hands, saved their lives. He’d done it because he couldn’t
     do otherwise; he couldn’t turn his back on pain and injury, any more than he could stick his hand in a fire and keep it there.
     An hour ago, he’d been that kind of man.
    A horseman came thundering up behind him. His first thought was that the enemy cavalry was on to him, but the rider slowed
     and called out his name; his name and his stupid title.
    He recognized the voice. “Miel?” he yelled back.
    Miel Ducas; he’d never have recognized him. Ten years ago he’d have traded everything he had for Miel Ducas’ face, which seemed
     to have such an irresistible effect on pretty young girls. Now, though, he couldn’t see Miel’s nose and mouth through a thick
     splatter of dirt and blood.
    “There’s another wing,” Miel was saying; it took Orsea a heartbeat or so to realize he was talking about the battle. “Another
     wing of fucking cavalry; reserve, like they need it. They’re looping out on the far left, I guess they’re planning on cutting
     us off from the road. I’ve still got six companies of lancers, but even if we get there in time we won’t hold them long, and
     they’ll chew us to buggery.”
    Orsea sighed. He wanted to shrug his shoulders and ride on — he actually wanted to do that; his own callous indifference shocked
     him. “Leave it,” he heard himself say. “Those lancers are worth more to us than a regiment of infantry. Keep them out of harm’s
     way, and get them off the field as quick as you can.”
    Miel didn’t answer, just pulled his horse’s head round and stumbled away. Orsea watched him till he was out of sight over
     the horizon. It’d be nice to think that over there somewhere, screened by the line of stunted thorns, was that other world
     of an hour ago, and that Miel would arrive there to find the army, pristine and unbutchered, in time to turn them back.
    Orsea still wasn’t quite sure what had happened. Last night, camped in the middle of the flat plain, he’d sent out his observers.
     They started to come back around midnight. The enemy, they said, was more or less where they were supposed to be. At most
     there were sixteen thousand of them; four thousand cavalry, perched on the wings; between them, ten thousand infantry, and
     the artillery. The observers knew their trade, what to look for, how to assess numbers by counting camp fires, and as each
     one reported in, Orsea made a note on his map. Gradually he built up the picture. The units he was most worried about, the
     Ceftuines and the southern heavy infantry (the whole Mezentine army was made up of foreign mercenaries, apart from the artillery),
     were camped right in the middle, just as he’d hoped. His plan was to leave them till last; break up the negligible Maderi
     infantry and light cavalry on either side of the center, forcing the Mezentines to commit their heavy cavalry to a long, grueling
     charge across the flat, right down the throats of his eight thousand archers. That’d be the end of