Kushiel's Mercy

my shoulder blades itched. I was wearing my hauberk beneath my robes, but I wasn’t sure it would turn away a well-thrown weapon. I fought the urge to heel my spirited mount to a gallop and flee.
    Two thousand. I hadn’t thought Astegal would send so many against so few.
    Still, the Carthaginian line was strung out the length of the road. When the Euskerri troops hiding in the forest burst forth with their fierce, ululating cries, I thought I’d never heard a sweeter sound.
    This was the Euskerri’s preferred method of battle. Hundreds of Carthaginian soldiers were slain during that first onslaught, brought down by javelins and stones. But there were hundreds more yet coming.
    There was no question of risk or heroism. It was an ugly, bloody melee. I fought from the saddle, chopping and hacking on both sides, simply doing my best to stay alive. Men cried aloud, fell, and died. Our men. Their men. The roads grew slick with blood and gore, cluttered with bodies. Somewhere in the distance, horns were blaring an insistent alarm and that sound too should have been sweet to my ears, for it meant the rearguard attack had begun. But at the moment, I was too busy trying to survive.
    If it hadn’t been for the horns, I’m not sure we would have won our skirmish. Astegal’s soldiers fought hard and they were more skilled than the Euskerri when it came to hand-to-hand fighting—more skilled and better armed. But when the horns grew ever more strident, several hundred of those closest to the city peeled away in answer to the summons, mayhap suspecting that this attack was a mere decoy.
    The rest we killed.
    Gods, it was a grim sight. I’d seen battle, but never carnage on this scale. Over a thousand Carthaginian dead and hundreds and hundreds of Euskerri dead or grievously wounded. I reckoned there were no more than four hundred yet fit for battle.
    And this was only the beginning.
    “Right,” I said wearily. “Janpier?”
    Janpier Iturralde was dead. The surviving Euskerri argued among themselves and finally produced a boy younger than Paskal who spoke Aragonian. He looked to be in a state of shock, his eyes stretched wide enough to show the whites, but he translated obediently for me.
    “Here’s the thing, lads,” I said in tones far more gentle than aught Gallus Tadius had ever used. “We need to take the bridge and the ground outside Amílcar’s gates between the trenches. We have to give Aragonia a chance to mount a full attack on the rear of Astegal’s forces, or there’s going to be a slaughter. So gather your courage and strip the dead of any arms or armor you can use.”
    It was an ugly business. I dismounted and shed my damp Amazigh robes. I used the head-scarf to bind a deep gash in my left thigh. Working quickly, I scavenged a helmet, a pair of greaves, a shield, and a spear. The Euskerri followed suit and outfitted themselves with the spoils of the dead. We were a desperate, ragtag bunch, but at least we could no longer be mistaken for Amazigh.
    I mounted. “Let’s go.”
    We went. All four hundred of us.
    Short of the river, we paused. Astegal wasn’t a fool. There was a battle raging in the distance that dwarfed our skirmish, and Astegal himself must have joined it, for he was nowhere in sight. But he had left a company of archers to defend the bridge; and beyond them was another company holding the ground between the trenches: his Nubian mercenaries with their long spears and zebra-skin shields, a thousand strong. Their dark faces were set and grim. I thought of Sunjata with an unexpected pang. Atop the walls of the city, I could see Aragonian sentries watching and waiting for an opening. I prayed they’d be swift to seize it when we gave it to them.
    Someone asked a question in Euskerri.
    The boy translated. “What do we do?”
    In the distance, I could hear the hue and clamor of war. I gazed at the blank stone walls surrounding Amílcar, the waiting archers, the waiting soldiers. I thought about Sidonie in the valley. Safe. She would be safe. She’d wanted me to promise I wouldn’t take unnecessary risks. This wasn’t. Without Aragonia’s full aid, the Euskerri and the troops from Tibado would be slaughtered, and Astegal’s hold on the nation more certain than ever.
    I had to do this.
    I had to try.
    “We charge the bridge. And then we fight and live or die.” I settled my spear like a lance.
    “Riders to the fore. Infantry follow.”
    We charged.
    Astegal’s archers knelt and