The men he led were just as anxious as the animal. "Let us go, Lord Abivard," one of them called. "Hurl us against the usurper!"
Others echoed that, but Abivard shook his head. "We wait for the signal," he repeated, thinking, Or until I'm sure the battle's swung against us. That would be time to do what he could. For the warriors, though, he added, "If we move too soon, we give away the advantage of the ambush."
He hoped that would hold them. They twitched every time a horn sounded-and so did he. Sooner or later, they would burst from cover no matter what he did to hold them back. He felt worthless-Sharbaraz would see he wasn't suited to command after all.
Blaaart. Blaaart. Blart. A shiver ran through Abivard. Now the waiting regiment could move, and he would still seem to be in control of it.
"Forward!" he shouted. "We'll show Smerdis the proper punishment for trying to steal the throne. The cry is-"
"Sharbaraz!" burst from a thousand throats. Abivard dug his heels into his horse's sides. The beast squealed, half with rage at him and half with relief at being allowed to run at last. It went from walk to trot to gallop as fast as any animal Abivard had ever ridden. Even so, he was hard pressed to stay at the head of the regiment.
"Sharbaraz!" the riders cried again as they burst from concealment. Abivard stared, quickly sizing up the battle. On this wing, Smerdis' men had driven Sharbaraz back a couple of furlongs. Abivard couched his lance and thundered at the enemy.
It worked, he thought exultantly. Startled faces turned to stare at him in dismay while shouts of alarm rang out among Smerdis' followers. He had only moments in which to savor them. Then he speared from the saddle a soldier who had managed to turn only halfway toward him. That struck him as less than fair but most effective.
Sharbaraz's backers shouted, too, with fresh spirit. Abivard and his men rolled up the left wing of Smerdis' army. Its commander had savvy to spare: he pulled men from the center and right to stem the rout before everything was swept away. But a fight that had looked like a victory for the usurper suddenly turned into another stinging defeat.
Smerdis' host had trumpeters, too. Abivard recognized the call they blew: retreat. He screamed in delight: "Pursue! Pursue!" The shout rang through not only the regiment he led but from the rest of Sharbaraz's army, as well. Just as retreat made Smerdis' men lose heart, victory enspirited Sharbaraz's soldiers. They pressed the enemy hard, doing their best to keep him from re-forming his ranks.
The warrior who had urged Abivard to loose the regiment before the signal happened to ride close to him now. The fellow had a cut on his forehead from which blood spilled down over his face, but his grin was enormous. "Lord Abivard, you were right and I was wrong and I'm man enough to admit it," he declared. "We've smashed them to kindling-kindling, I tell you."
Another soldier, this one with more gray than black in his beard, caught Abivard's eye. "Lord, you'd better cherish that," he said. "You'll count the times your men own that you were smarter than them on the thumbs of one hand-and that's if you're lucky, mind."
"You're likely right, friend," Abivard said. Some of Smerdis' men staged a countercharge to buy their comrades time to get away. The fierce fighting that followed swept Abivard away from the cynical graybeard.
"To the Void with the renunciate! Smerdis King of Kings!" a lancer shouted as his mount pounded toward Abivard. Abivard dug heels into his own horse; the last thing he wanted was to receive an attack with no momentum of his own. He got his shield up just before they slammed together.
The enemy lance shattered on the shield. His own held, but Smerdis' horseman deflected it with his shield so it did him no harm. That left them at close quarters. Faster than Abivard had expected him to be, his foe hit him in the side of the head with the stump of his lance.
His iron helm kept his skull from caving in, but his head suddenly knew what a piece of iron caught between hammer and anvil felt like. His sight blurred; staying on his horse became all he could do. He noticed he didn't have his own lance any more but had no idea where he had dropped it.
The next thing he fully remembered was a tired, thin, worried-looking man holding a candle a couple of fingers'-breadths away from one eye. The fellow moved it to the other eye, then let out a long, wheezing breath. "The pupils are of different sizes," he said to someone-Abivard turned his head and saw Sharbaraz. "He's taken a blow to the head."
"That I have," Abivard said, all at once aware of a headache like a thousand years of hangovers all boiled down into a thick, sludgy gelatin of pain. That made him sad; he hadn't even had the fun of getting drunk. "Did we hold the victory? I lost track there after I got clouted." He found himself yawning.
"Majesty, he needs rest," the worried-looking man said; Abivard realized he was a physician.
"I know; I've seen cases like his," the King of Kings answered. To Abivard he said, "Aye, we won; we drive them still. I'm going to have Kakia here take you back to the wagon your wife and sister share; they'll be the best ones to nurse you for the next few days."
"Days?" Abivard tried to sound indignant. Instead, he sounded-and felt-sick. He gulped, trying to keep down what was in his belly. The ground swayed beneath his feet as if it had turned to sea.
Kakia put Abivard's arm over his own shoulder. "Lord, it's nothing to be ashamed of. You may not bleed, but you're wounded as sure as if you were cut. With your brains rattled around inside your skull like lentils in a gourd, you need some time to come back to yourself."
Abivard wanted to argue, but felt too weak and woozy. He let the physician guide him back toward the baggage train. The serving women who had accompanied Roshnani and Denak exclaimed in dismay when Kakia brought him to the wagon in which they traveled.
"I'm all right," he insisted, though the gong chiming in his head tolled out Liar with every beat of his heart.
"Should the God grant, which I think likely in this case, the lord will be right again in three or four days," Kakia said, which set off a fresh paroxysm of weeping from the women. With the curious disconnection the blow to the head had caused, Abivard wondered how they would have carried on had the physician told them he wouldn't be all right. Even louder, he suspected. They were quite loud enough as it was.
Climbing the steps up into the wagon took every bit of balance and strength he had left. Still twittering like upset birds, the women took charge of him and led him into the little cubicle Roshnani used as her own.
She started to smile when he walked-or rather staggered-in, but the expression congealed on her face like stiffening tallow when she saw the state he was in.
"What happened?" she whispered.
"I got hit in the side of the head," he said; he was getting tired of explaining. "I'm-kind of addled, and they say I'm supposed to rest until I'm more myself. A day or two." If he told that to Roshnani, maybe he would believe it, too.
"What were you doing?" Roshnani demanded as he sank down to the mat on which she was sitting.
Even in his battered state, that struck him as a foolish question. "Fighting," he said.
She went on as if he hadn't spoken: "You could have been killed. Here, you just lie quiet; I'll take care of you. Would you like some wine?"
He started to shake his head but thought better of it, contenting himself with a simple, "No. I'm queasy. If I drink anything right now, I'll probably spew it up." And if I try to heave right now, I'm sure the top of my head will fall off. He rather wished it would.