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bowstave in his left hand, his sword blurred down and sliced away an icy Fish-Face, and Inch, the barbs of a trident caught in his saddle, slashed his axe in a merciless horizontal sweep that sprayed bits of fish everywhere.
    We reformed back upslope and turned, and hit them again.
    Four, five, six times we regrouped and charged.
    At each charge we were less. The zorca, as we all believed then, was not the animal for the solid shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee charge, bodyweight and mass of metal counting more than fleetness and agility. Times change — but that is for later.
    Seven times we raced fleetly over the slope, angling the direction of our lunge, trying to chew and chop at the mass of Fish-Heads as a man hews and cuts at a stubborn log of wood to shape it to his satisfaction. The fight was of great intensity during the action; the compass might be small but of individual prowess the battle was of epic proportions.
    The arrow storm I had expected to greet us from the Shanks’ asymmetrical bows stormed only once. We lost men; but I shouted and lifted my sword and beat away the glancing shafts, and others bent their heads into the sleet. We charged through that ordeal, losing men — the Pachaks suffered here — and so came to hand strokes, again. After that the arrows fell sparingly and I guessed the Shanks were running low.
    If ever the relative merits of the reptilian two-legged sleeth and the close-coupled four-legged zorca could be proved, then this battle matched them and proved decisively the zorca as the master. Pirouetting, dancing nimbly sideways, circling, the zorcas outran and outmaneuvered the clumsy sleeths. This gave us one tremendous advantage. We could drive in, deliver our blows and spin away before the sleeth riders could form front to receive our onslaught.
    The grasses stained red and green with dropped blood. Men and Fish-Heads lay upon the stained grass, some howling, some screeching, most dead.
    Eight times we roared in, and on the eighth time we were fractionally slow through tiredness and so were nearly surrounded and trapped. We fought free. Sword against serrated sword and trident, we hewed and savaged our way through the pressing ranks, rode with bent heads for the tree line past the white columns of the ancient ruin. We were nearly exhausted. All were wounded. We gasped for breath. Our superb zorcas were near the end.
    I rode a few paces before the brothers of the Order — with the Pachaks and the Khibil there in the line with us — and I lifted in the stirrups. I surveyed my men from under the helmet rim.
    “If any man wishes to withdraw through the forest, he is free to do so. I shall not think any the worse of him for that. If any one of you wishes to go, then go now, and may Opaz guide your footsteps.”
    There were gaps in the ranks, and the gaps closed up.
    No man moved back.
    The zorcas shifted on their polished hooves. Oby held the scarlet and yellow banner high.
    I let out my breath.
    “Then let us all go forward, together, as a band of brothers.”
    “They fight hard, by Erthyr the Bow,” said Seg. He shook his bow at the dark ranks of Shanks, speckled with the cruel glitter from their weapons. “But we’ll have ’em!”
    “We’ll take a few with us to the Ice Floes of Sicce,” said Inch. “By Ngrangi, this old axe will lop a few fishy heads.”
    “By Xurrhuk of the Curved Sword,” spat out Balass the Hawk. “We can lick them yet.”
    “Aye!” sang out Oby. He used an oath of the Jikhorkdun, in remembrance of other days. “You speak sooth, Balass, by the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax!”
    Other oaths rose as men swore on their honor. These men would fight to death, however nonsensical that might be. And yet — and yet? Could I detect a wavering among some of those with us? A very slight, an almost imperceptible, reluctance? Some of the shouts and cries carried overtones of hysteria. Some of these men might waver. They could see quite plainly that