Another week passed and we got a welcome respite from blizzards. Sky opened up into the infinite Nirvana, as azure as back home. It even tinted the blinding white of the snow with a bit of blue. Frigid air froze mud into stone.
I faced Snehora's troops across the still lake. Mythra--
No other word of prayer came to me. So I released Their name in puffs of white breath. Mythra. Mythra. Mythra.
Those under my command looked to the Knowable World to relieve tension thickening around us. The Haida riders started a contest to see whose spit flew far enough to freeze before hitting the ground to the cheers of the Tverizh infantry.
I pulled the icepard's skin, borrowed from Ondrey's packed belongings, tighter around my shoulders. The bristles cleaned up nicely, yet the underside still hid a bloodstain. It was only fair. He wore my face--I wore his blood. May Mythra favor both of us today.
***
Shenora positioned her troops to flaunt her advantage in numbers, but I felt her reserves swarming the forest like killer-ants. May they enjoy what is coming for them! The wood darkened to my eyes despite the bright sunshine.
With giddiness both faked and inevitable, I galloped up and down our sparser lines. My right hand waved the saber bravely in the air, my left—undid the helmet straps. Hair swung and streamed in the wind. Brave, restless and stupid was the look I strove for. Just one more thing remained to do to lay the foundation for a thousand years of prejudices about the piss-filled Southerners.
I rode forward, staying just out of their mounted archers' arrow range, put my hands to my mouth and yelled, "Are any of you woman enough to beat Ismar in single combat?!"
An enchanted lute string, courtesy of Phedoxia, amplified my voice to three times the volume of a normal yell. It thundered over the ice, and must have reached into the forest. Breva reared up and a smile twisted my lips. What a pretty prize to take from a foolish Southern girl!
They hesitated.
Did Ondrey get caught? My imagination pictured a messenger rushing to me to thrust a stained bag into my hands. I'd open this bag to see his blond head with stiff features, staring eyes and a blackened slice at the neck--
Mythra's fangs, get a grip!
I pranced about. What did Parneres call me once? A princess in disguise? May Indara make me look that way to the six thousand women standing on the lake and hiding in the forest! For once, just for once, make me look like a witless noblewoman!
"Mythra favors the brave!"
One hundred. Ninety-nine.
Snehora rode out to the front, surrounded by her bodyguard. She was dressed in white wool. Her cloak was edged with white ermine. And her steed was--yes, it was white. She shone in the cold sunlight of her land. Beautiful.
Her banners flapped in a gust of wind. Their ends were cut to triangles, each edged in crimson. The device was a Sovereign mounted on a white--naturally!--horse on a green field. The Sovereign rode towards Tashaya's golden sun, overlaid by Yansara's silver crescent and a spray of stars. Good grief, Snehora didn't forget a single Divine! I guess, it made for brave banners. Phedoxia would be looking for Bhutas in vain.
I squinted and pressed my hand to my brow as if to protect my eyes. "Lo! Is there something crawling against the snow? A rabbit in her winter coat?!"
My taunt was just a fool's shot. It was too much to hope for Princess Granda to refuse my challenge and prove herself wise to the world, but a coward to the fighting women gathered on that day by the Lake of Bones.
One of her bodyguards was half-Divine, with the obvious signs of a powerful lineage. A centaur, I thought at first, but no. Not quite. The body wasn't of a horse, but that of a more powerful beast with knobbly knees, wider chest and a square body. A moose.
So that's who the Princess wanted to send against mundane me. Alright! Let's do it!
Even from the distance of fifty paces that separated us, I could see Snehora's unnatural blue eyes lit up with glee. "Our serf Katyusha will be the Tverizh champion," Snehora announced. "She is the Mistress of Our stables. Her rank's too high to meet a baseborn shrew up-jumped to command, but We didn't have the time to send for Our jester. Katyusha is willing to dirty her spear by puncturing your bladder, Ismar-ka."
"My bladder? How oddly specific!" I shouted back.
"Aha," Katyusha said with a moronic grin under a bulbous nose. Mystra's fangs, how did all these teeth fit in when she closed her mouth?! If she ever closed it. She seemed to be the perpetually scowling type. "Puncture the Southern swine's bladder to make the green bile gush!"
"Good thing she isn't your medic," I said and pulled tight the straps of my helmet, making sure the fit was proper. I wanted to sit by the campfire tonight, telling Miccola how I'd met a woman uglier than her, twice bigger than her, with bigger teeth--and killed her.
I wheeled Breva around, and just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ondrey. He was looking down, slouching to hide our resemblance. A few rows back, in the infantry's press, but somehow he showed himself to me. Or, maybe, I had eyes only for him. My chest swelled with joy. What could a spear-wielding moose with a few drops of divine blood do to stop me? Absolutely nothing, that's what!
Or absolutely nothing where the outcome was concerned. The details remained up in the air. I had a heartbeat to see how I could kill her—plenty of time.
Any fight is a shortcut to kill them. Everything is fast. The plan, the moves, the kill or death. If it isn't, you're doing it wrong. There are other schools of thought, but who has time for them?!
My saber whistled circles through the air over my head. 'Plenty of time!' it sang as it whirled.
Katyusha's shortcut would be to drag me off Breva, pound me into mincemeat with those hairy hooves. Even one of the four two-pronged killers cleave my skull. But first, she had to get me breast to breast and mow me under, to the ground. For that purpose, her spear had a crescent cross-piece under the almost foot long leaf-blade. Hook and pull, like a fish.
She charged—not like a horse rider, nimble in the saddle, commanding the full circle with bow or saber—no, like a giant pike soldier on top of a battering ram, with some side-reach for the attacks, but mainly forward.
Breva danced away to Katyusha's blind spot basically on her own. It even snorted her derision.
My contribution was to lay flat under the thrust of the wicked spear.
And to draw a thin line of blood.
A scratch from the blade's tip on the joining of the human and moose's bodies, where her armor bunched up like a skirt on a hasty lover. As far and as deep as I could reach... not fatal, but noticeable for the other reason: the first blood drawn.
I expected the outraged growl, but credit where credit was due: Katyusha surprised me with her next move.
Her ugly head sprouted broad, flat antlers wrought of shimmering light.
I was not sure if they were heavy or not, but the momentum of their emergence carried her forward, crashing them into my shoulder.
The blow connected solidly, despite the translucency of the adornment. Pain shot through me, all the way to the ribs, down the sword arm, vibrating me in the saddle.
"Nice rack," I grated, veering away and testing the grip on the hilt, flicking the wrist. "Your husband's?"
The saber swished, but further up... Let's just say, I wouldn't be swinging liberally.
It wasn't just the blow that hurt me. A heart-stopping spasm from whatever phantom energy forming the ridiculous appendage squeezed my chest.
I tossed aside the small round shield Miccola pressed on me to protect my left. I didn't know enough to lift it up in time and take Katyusha's blow on it, like Miccola would have... to the River Vash with it. The black dagger slipped into the shield hand instead, my sweet asp!
It was my turn now. My shortcut.
I smiled bravely, riding for her, saber out flat, level with the shoulder. As if I was riding through Her Majesty's flower-beds, shaving off the blossoms' tops for the amusement of the courtiers... Lift the arm too high, and I would lose the grip.
Katyusha puffed clouds of rage and steaming air. Maybe I did too.
The antlers flickered on and off. Head bowed, she went to intercept.
Breva danced.
I threw the saber at the moose.
Mythra's fangs! It hurt! But my wince turned into a crooked grin. She flinched! That tiny flinch was an opening. I jumped in the stirrups, used Katyusha's aimed spear as a pivot and landed on her generous hindquarters.
She didn't have a full circle reach, but she twisted at the waist as much as she could, swinging a wrought iron mace. Instead of a ball, it ended in a metal fist, lovely workmanship. Intimidating. The spikes nearly caught my nose, driving home the point that she saw me coming.
She knew her weaknesses.
She didn't know my strengths.
I dodged, and I slashed lefthanded with black steel, opening up ten thousand cuts. Maybe far less, I let the Scribes do the counting when preparing the corpses for burial, but each cut drained her, invigorating me.
The High Scribes would tell you that black steel doesn't steal vitality for the wielder, otherwise it would be cursed. Who am I to contradict the women who spent their whole lives reading long scrolls about steel?
Very well, the smell of blood filled me with berserker strength, dismissing the pain from my mind. I snaked around and crouched on my gigantic foe's galloping back.
Her helmet was conical, with chain mail piling down to cover the neck and a narrow nose guard.
I screamed and drove the dagger through her eye.
Half-divine or not, stupid big or not, nobody lives long with black steel embedded in their brain. My main concern was to leap off before Katyusha went down, thrashing on the ice, the murderous hooves flying wide.
Breva neighed, rearing over me. I rolled away from her hooves, got up and dusted red snow off my gray cloak. Four thousand stone-still faces loomed from an arrow-shot distance. On the other side, a cheer went up.
They knew me now, friend and foe, as Ismar who kills.
The time had come to do what mattered to the map-makers.
We were ready to join the Battle of Ratne.