The riders were still coming, but with every stride their charge slowed. When Queen Estie saw the first Knight fall past her, she began to make sense of Crayn’s urgent gestures. Magister Rummage had sent the Knights of Ardor to meet the charge. Sword Eradimnie’s promise— Sick at heart, Estie watched cavalrymen skid or topple down the hillside, dozens of them. And beasts, some already wounded, some snapping their legs on the confusion of scree and rock, some dying as they struck boulders.

What the Knights were doing seemed impossible, but its effects were unmistakable. Estie saw them in the welter of falling bodies, and in the slowing approach of riders farther down the road. Sword Eradimnie and her comrades were mighty—

Then another Knight crashed and died. Suddenly, something above Estie changed. Men and beasts had been tumbling past her. Now most of the fallen were beasts.

Shouting with his hands and arms, Crayn told her:

—The cavalrymen dismount! They sacrifice their beasts to fight on foot!

Estie watched until she saw another iron-clad body crash downward. She thought it might be Eradimnie herself.

Groaning, she turned away.

Downhill from her, General Klamath’s men were firing. She could not hear the shots, but in the dusk of the Repository’s shadow, she saw quick streaks of flame. Blood spurted from cavalrymen and beasts. Riders and mounts dropped away.

Despite the sun’s rising, the air grew darker. Breezes curled around through Estie’s shelter, bringing a deeper cold.

On the road, confused cavalrymen halted their beasts. They wheeled in circles, milling as if they had lost their minds; searching for ways to escape. She expected the priests to issue commands, impose some kind of order. Instead, the few sorcerers among the cavalry abandoned their own mounts. Scrambling off the road, they hurried to join the throng of priests.

Bullets took more riders, more beasts. The cavalrymen had been cut off behind and blocked in front. They had nowhere to go—and no orders. Rifle-fire covered that whole stretch of the road. Queen Estie could almost identify the moment when the cavalrymen realized that their position was hopeless.

Some of them hauled their beasts plunging down the foothills. Perhaps a few of them survived the treacherous descent. Others simply dismounted and ran, diving for the shelter of the rocks. The rest surged up the slopes, hunting for Klamath’s men.

While Estie watched, the cavalry that had once come within hours of slaughtering General Klamath’s army was routed.

A premature twilight spread over the foothills. The air seemed to be marred with ash, more and more of it, a low, drifting fall. The breezes were gone. The new cold tightened its grip.

Crayn touched her arm. Mutely, he pointed at the heavens.

A black storm came sliding past the peaks. It must be riding a steady wind, but no wind reached her. The air over the whole region felt slain, as still and chill as death.