Winter shaded her eyes with her hand, trying to make out what was happening. A large body of horsemen was in motion—that was Give-Em-Hell, the uniforms were blue, and the Vordanai flag snapped at their head. It was more of a disorganized mass than a formation, but it hung together, which was more than could be said for the Hamveltai cavalry. Yellow-clad riders galloped in every direction, escaping their blue pursuers, while riderless horses ran about and added to the confusion. A sprawling mass of dead and wounded men and animals marked the point where the two sides had first come together; evidently, the Hamveltai Guardians had not been as elite as they’d been made out to be.

As Winter watched, the Vordanai cavalry overran a line of guns that had been firing at the Vordanai on the hilltops. The cannoneers struggled to turn their pieces around and face the oncoming threat, but before they could get into firing position the cavalry was on top of them, sabers rising and falling. Panicked artillerymen fled, not just from that battery but from the guns on either side as well, and the horsemen rode on without a shot being fired at them. Ahead was the Hamveltai infantry, deployed into line for the final advance on the heights. Their officers saw the cavalry coming, and drums beat a frantic tattoo while the lines writhed and attempted to shape themselves into squares.

They didn’t make it. Artillery fire from Janus’ army was still coming hard and fast, sowing confusion and death in the Hamveltai ranks. When their men turned around, they could see the wreckage of the once-proud Guardians scattered across the field, and their own artillerymen running for their lives. The first battalion in the horsemen’s path had half completed its evolution into a bayonet-fringed square, and a ragged volley of musketry emptied a few saddles, but Give-Em-Hell’s men rode around the firm part of the formation and cut into it from the sides. Without the solidity of a line of bayonets, the foot soldiers were no match for the armored horsemen, and they knew it. A few moments of bloody saber-work, and the battalion was in full flight, scattered beyond any hope of recall. The two nearest Hamveltai units, still struggling to form their own squares, broke into panicked flight along with it as the men ignored the shouts of their officers and took to their heels.