They’d be wondering why he gave that order, but they obeyed, hunching with their shields up under their eyes as they rode. The enemy were thirty yards away, edging to the right as the Lakota shot at them from across the little creek or began to cross themselves in fountains of spray from the plunging hooves of their horses, holding their bows high over their heads to keep them out of the wet, their yelping, yipping war cries splitting the air.

Thock!

An arrow thudded home in his shield, slamming through the sheet metal and leather and plywood, the point appearing as if by magic with four inches of shaft behind it. He grunted with the impact as it rocked him back in the saddle; sheer dumb luck it hadn’t gone through his left arm. He’d fought an action with an arrow there once and didn’t remember it fondly. Also he’d lost that skirmish and barely gotten away with his life.

Tock!

Another; he used the hilt of his shete to break them off with two sharp blows. One of the oddities of command was that you had to keep thinking when things like this were happening.

The Boise troops were bunching closer together; their commander was aiming at the gentlest, or least steep slope—up ahead to the right. If he could get his men across that he had options. If he stayed to fight, he didn’t. The numbers were against him. Being outnumbered two to one didn’t mean you were half as strong as the other side; the ratio of combat power was more like four or five to one, other things being equal.

But I know something you don’t, you son of a bitch! It’s even worse than you think it is right now.

The onrushing Richlander line overran the springalds and a few sections stayed to deal with them. The battery commander had wasted time trying to hitch his weapons up to their teams, and they all paid for it. There was a brief flurry as the gunners swung cocking-levers and billhooks, the cavalry shetes rising and falling in lethal chopping arcs, bright and then throwing arcs of red drops. It ended soon; artillerymen rarely got a chance to surrender when those they’d been shooting at from out of bow range got within arm’s reach of them for payback time.

Then...

Perfect timing, Ingolf thought vengefully.

The line of the crest above suddenly bristled steel and the Boise formation halted in a ragged stutter with yells of dismay. Steel lance heads glinted above bright pennants flapping in the wind, the steel of armor on man and destrier glinted, a glow of color shone from the heraldic arms on their shields. Another trumpet sang, this time the high harsh sweetness of a Portlander oliphant.