Dorian kissed her. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.” He stepped through the tent flap and saw a young man sweating, obviously bearing a message for him, and obviously too afraid to wake a Godking. “What is it?” Wanhope demanded.

“Your Holiness. The warchief wishes me to tell you that the attack on Reigukhas was a ruse. Our spies were wrong. The Cenarians outnumber us by more than ten thousand now, and . . .  Your Holiness, they’re attacking.”

86

Fighting in these damn robes was going to be a chore, but Vi was glad she hadn’t worn her scandalous wetboy grays. Well, she’d worn them, but under the robes. Going into battle without her grays would be like going into battle with her hair unbound.

A blond man wider than he was tall brought his horse into the line next to her. A mage, she could tell. “Feir Cousat,” he said. “You Vi?”

She nodded. They were positioned ten ranks back, behind pikemen and shield bearers who were guarding the bridge in front of the dam. From their elevated position, they could see the whole valley.

A flag went up among Garuwashi’s men down in the market. The third time it waved, the Ceurans began marching toward the river. Lantano Garuwashi himself rode beside the front lines, and when he drew his sword, it glowed in the low light. A cheer went up.

Vi squinted at the sword. There was something wrong with it.

“What’s wrong?” Feir asked.

“The glow . . .  did you make that?”

“What?! You can see that from here?”

“It just looks like you. Like your work, I mean. I don’t know.”

The highlanders who made up the center of the Khalidoran line were slow to react. They did nothing until half of Garuwashi’s five thousand had made the opposite bank. “What are they doing?” Feir asked. “The Khalidorans didn’t shoot any arrows.” Then the highlanders began trotting forward.

Garuwashi’s flag dropped when the highlanders were thirty paces away and a shrill keening shriek sounded from every Ceuran throat. Shrieking, they charged. To a man, the sa’ceurai ran with their long swords trailing behind them, the other hand extended forward. Charge was too inelegant a term.

Then the lines crashed together. The average highlander was taller and thicker than the average sa’ceurai, but as the clash of arms and rattle of armor resounded to where Vi watched, it was highlanders who fell ten to one. The sa’ceurai whipped their swords under and up, or over and down, or feinted and threw their shoulders into the highlanders instead.

“Best solo fighters in the world,” Feir said. “There are twice as many highlanders out there—and look.”