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to him."Old Gudmund and Anna will take care of you. We have to go. They'll send word when they can. You're their nephew Karl. A falling tree hurt you."
It was a struggle to open his eyes, to force his mind to think, his mouth to speak.
"Can you get a message to your hold, up the top of Mainvale?"
There was a long silence, voices whispering together.
"Yes. It will take time."
"No hurry. When someone goes. Lady Aliana. Nobody else. Niall. His father. Home next spring."
"We are to tell the Lady Aliana in Valholt at the top of Mainvale that Niall's father will be home next spring?"
Harald nodded, closed his eyes, was again asleep.
He slept for a long time, brief intervals for water, a little soup. The legions advanced, a wall of shields, unbreakable. He signaled; the trumpet sounded. The boulders rolled down. He saw the faces, horror, courage, surprise. Crushed bodies. Men moaning. The wind blew, the field faded like mist. Leonora pulling off corpses with a cold face, looking, finding. He forced his eyes to open. His leg hurt.
A wrinkled face leaned over him. Behind her a lifted curtain, beyond a small room, a fireplace. She was saying something. He strained to understand. His mouth was dry; he nodded. She held the cup to his lips.
After the fever broke the dreams changed for the better. Sometimes he was awake for hours, strong enough to lift a cup, spoon soup. Sliding away into sleep, he saw the Imperial left come down on the Order—heavy cavalry, Belkhani, twenty cacades, a forest of lances. The Ladies stood their ground, pouring arrows into the charging ranks. Watching from the hilltop, waiting for the center and right to move against him, he stopped breathing. At the last moment, impossibly late, the front ranks almost on them, up and away, fleeing for their lives. The Order's lights gradually drew away from the slower heavies; the charge ground to a halt. Two hundred yards beyond the milling lines the Ladies were again dismounted, too far for his eyes but he knew arrows were flying down the wind, Belkhani falling. A second time, a third, impossibly precise, perilously close, the line of Ladies shooting as the cavalry bore down on them, up and away before the lances closed.
He had seen the drill over and over. This was real. The fourth charge ground to a halt, the Belkhani ranks thinned, tired horses, tired men. Their lances swung up. At the left end of the Order's line a figure raised her hand.