Free The Scepter's Return by Harry Turtledove Page B

as I could.”
    â€œI’m glad you did, and I won’t forget it,” Grus said. “You’ve given us the time we need to shake out our battle line. Hirundo, if you’ll do the honors …”
    â€œBe glad to, Your Majesty,” the general replied. He shouted commands to the trumpeters. They raised their horns to their mouths and blared out martial music. Not quite as smoothly as Grus would have liked, the army began to move from column into line of battle.
    â€œPut a good screen of horse archers in front of the heavy cavalry,” Grus said. “We don’t want the Menteshe to find out we’ve got the lancers along till they can’t get away from them.”
    Hirundo sent him an amused look. “I thought you asked me to do the honors.” In spite of the teasing—which embarrassed Grus—he followed the king’s orders.
    â€œYou’ll want me here with you, Your Majesty?” Pterocles asked.
    â€œOh, yes.” Grus nodded. “We’re not on our home ground anymore. This is country where the Banished One has had his own way for a long time. I don’t know whether the Menteshe wizards can do anything special here. If they try, though, you’re our best hope to stop them.”
    â€œYou may put too much confidence in me,” Pterocles said. “I know these wizards can do one thing—if we lose, if they capture us, they can make us into thralls.”
    â€œYes,” Grus said tightly. “If we lose, they won’t capture me.” He’d made up his mind about that.
    Pterocles said, “What I can do, I will do. You have my word.”
    â€œGood.” Grus made sure his sword was loose in its sheath. The gray in his beard reminded him he wasn’t a young man anymore. He’d never been especially eager to trade sword strokes with his foes. He could do it when he had to, and he’d always done it well enough, but it wasn’t his notion of sport, the way it was for more than a few men. The older he got, the less enthusiastic a warrior he made, too.
    After a while, more horns cried out, this time in warning. Men up ahead of Grus pointed toward the south. Peering through the dust his own soldiers had kicked up, he spied the unmistakable plume that meant another army was on the way.
    Soon the Menteshe became visible through their cloud of dust. They were marvelous horsemen. They started riding as soon as they could stay in the saddle, and stayed in the saddle most of their lives. He wished his own cavalry could match them. That the Avornans couldn’t was part of what made the nomads so dangerous.
    The Menteshe started shooting as soon as they came into range, or even a little before. Avornan scouts sent arrows back. Men on both sides pitched from the saddle; horses fell to the ground. The scouts galloped back toward the main body of soldiers. Whooping, the Menteshe pursued them.
    That was exactly what Grus and Hirundo wanted them to do. The king began to wonder just how much he wanted it when an arrow hissed past his ear. If the nomads could cause chaos in his army …
    They thought they could. Like any soldiers worth their hire, the Menteshe were arrogant. Some of them, surely, had fought Avornans north of the Stura. They must have known their foes weren’t cowards. But they must also have taken them for fools or madmen—how many years had it been since Avornans came to fight on this side of the river? Why wouldn’t they break up and flee when peppered with arrows?
    We’ll show them why, Grus thought. He waved to Hirundo, who waved to the trumpeters. One of them fell silent in mid-call, choking on his own blood when an arrow pierced his throat. But the rest roared out the command the army had been waiting for. The archers screening the heavy horse drew aside to left and right. Grus and Hirundo both raised their right hands. They both dropped them at the same time. When they did, the horns cried