The sweet notes of Mark’s bugle rang. The columns opened out like fans; a few moments later the First Richland was strung out in a great line two men deep, rippling and twisting as it moved over the swells of the ground. Ingolf looked left and right and over his shoulder; the Sioux were closing in from the rear, their formations more like the flocking of birds than regular lines, but keeping up easily. Three Bears slanted through the Richlander files to ride beside him, his quarter horse matching the longer strides of Boy.

“Got ’em all!” he called, over the growing, growling thunder of hooves; there were fresh scalps at his saddle. “And the remuda. Good horses.”

Horse-theft was the Lakota national sport; you just had to accept that they were obsessed.

“Any prisoners?”

“Nah, they all fought to the death. Brave as shit. Look, cousin, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. They may not have been alone, you know? Yellow Bird and her tree huggers and some of my boys are sweeping back west of here.”

“Good. Let’s get this part done quickly.”

He chopped his hand left, to the north, where the little creek ran down from the hills and came closer to that steeper edge of the valley.

“Keep them from getting across that, will you? It’s fordable everywhere but it’ll slow them if they try to cross and you can shoot the shit out of them. We need them bunched and I don’t want to extend that far. Your call on when you get stuck in.”

“Right, cousin. Ki-yi-yip-ki!”

He angled away again, and the Lakota veered in that direction, pulling ahead at a gallop. A growing pillar of dust was rising from the pounding hooves, fortunately mostly swept behind them by the wind and the speed of their own passage. The spicy scent of crushed grass mixed with Ingolf’s own sweat and Boy’s and the oily metallic smell of his mail and the muskier stink of leather. Ahead the Boise formation was reacting with commendable speed now that they’d realized . . .

They’re about to be corncobbed, Ingolf thought with a taut grin, reaching over his shoulder for an arrow.

The wind in his face would give the other side a slight advantage in a horse-archery duel. You had to be careful about that sort of thing, and remember always that mounted men could only shoot ahead, behind and to a half-circle arc on their left. Even worse, the enemy had a battery of four springalds. Spitters, they were called sometimes. Not as bad as scorpions or twenty-four pounders throwing dart-bundles, but bad enough and very mobile. A four-horse team could drag them almost anywhere cavalry could go, and about as fast.