“The Hîr i Dúnedain thinks you have very little time, Your Majesty.”

“Ritva Havel, if Alleyne Loring-Larsson says that, I will believe it as I would sky-tall letters of fire, written in Ogham by Lug’s spear. For now they hold, though?”

“Yes, my liege. The infantry are standing off the horse-archers but the Grand Constable says she doesn’t have enough cavalry left to rock them back on their heels long enough for the infantry to break contact. She had to keep this many to cork the bottle while the rest of her force got away.”

“A hard choice the Grand Constable had, but she made the right one,” Rudi said. “Best to risk some than lose all.”

His hand caressed the crystal hilt of the Sword. Time and force and space . . . maps and symbols moved before his eyes.

Decision formed. “Matti, you’ll be in charge of the Protector’s Guard. We’ll take all of them. Edain, mount up the High King’s Archers, the lot of them also. And . . . Viscount Chenoweth.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Your menie?”

The eldest son of Conrad Odell nodded; a squire was behind him with a sheet of paper, but he didn’t need it.

“One thousand six hundred, and ready to move immediately.”

“Leave the spearmen; just the lancers and mounted crossbows.”

“A thousand then, Your Majesty.”

“Get them here. Fast.”

He bowed his head, turned, and was in the saddle within three paces. Ignatius was already handing a note to his own aides.

“The ambulances will be moving by the time you leave, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Good.” Good man, he thought. “My lords, ladies. I suggest you go prepare a welcome for our guests.”

Edain was near, leading a horse. It was a mare, seventeen hands of night-black sleekness, deep-chested, arch-necked. She was middle-aged for a horse, especially a warm-blood—but the more closely you looked the less like an ordinary warm-blood of the destrier breed she looked, and even experienced horsemen would have taken a decade or so off her total if they were asked.

“My lady Epona,” Rudi said to her, blowing into her nose in the kiss of the horse-kind. “Are you ready to dance with me this day?”

“Sure, and she’d stamp you into mush if you didn’t,” Edain said, grinning at him. “For didn’t she travel all the way to the Sunrise lands with you and back.”

“Riding in a horsecar on the rails most of the way back,” Rudi said lightly.

And glad I was of it. The strain was showing on her. Now she looks splendid.

He swung into the saddle.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“They’re charging again,” Alleyne Loring said. “Here.”

Rudi took the heavy binoculars in one hand. Their picture was uncannily sharp, some art of the ancient world that prevented the picture that leapt to his eyes from wobbling and the magnification made little of the near two thousand yards’ distance.