But she got Buldshak quieted before Payma drew abreast—in no small part because Payma saw her coming, and the wall of spears behind her, and reined the gelding in.
There were cries of fear and wonder from the spearmen. When Samarkar risked a glance back, she couldn’t believe what she saw: Temur had regained the saddle, and he and Bansh were beyond the line and had turned to flank the mounted man, his bow once more drawn. The man whirled his dark mare in place. She was a dancer, one dainty hoof falling where another had rested a moment before, and now Samarkar saw that the man on her back held not a blade, but a mirror. He raised it high just as Temur loosed. Though Samarkar could not see where the arrow struck, she could see that he did not manage to knock this one away.
The veiled man sagged sideways in the saddle. His horse bolted past Bansh and, in a thunder of hoofbeats, was gone.
Now, at last, the violet flames guttered and died, leaving the ozone stink of sorcery behind.
The spearmen struggled to reverse their unwieldy weapons, hindered by the cramped space that had protected them a moment before. Samarkar could not understand how Temur had passed them, unless Bansh could run on air.
The air was growing brighter as the sun crawled up the sky behind the caging mountains. Another flight of arrows whistled around her as she turned Buldshak back to the fight, one piercing the meat of her left arm. There was a sharp and sudden shock; it knocked her forward, bruising her belly against the pommel yet again, but she felt no pain. She trembled, yes, but it was with weariness and fear.
Calm.
If she could walk into the belly of the earth in her underthings, she could face an assassination attempt on the highway. She had the strength within herself. Or if not the strength, she had the stamina. She had the craft.
She touched the protruding arrowhead with her fingers. Even that light touch sent nauseating agony through her. But she gritted her teeth and stayed upright. She stayed in the saddle, and she did not scream.
She was Samarkar-la, and she was far from finished yet.
She reached down within herself and found the spark, the quiet, the flame in the darkness, and the darkness at the heart of the flame, paradoxically where the fire burned hottest. Payma drew up beside her, face grimly stoic, her gelding favoring a rear leg. Samarkar reached out and put her hand on Payma’s thigh, feeling rough wool. Samarkar’s wards flickered into tattered brilliance again, thin and worn in places, moth-eaten, threadbare—but there. If more arrows fell, Samarkar never saw them.
“We should charge them from behind,” Payma said. “If your mare will fight.”
“She’s a steppe horse,” Samarkar said. “Have you ever heard of one that wouldn’t?”
The princess nodded, her lips bitten thin. She touched her gelding’s neck. He snorted, mincing. When Samarkar turned her head, she could see the dark wetness that streaked his flank.
“Go,” Payma said, both hands on the reins, and touched her gelding forward as Temur loosed the first of three arrows shot in such quick succession Samarkar barely saw his hand move.
It was only a half hundred strides or so to the spearmen. They had learned already tonight that Buldshak was faster over a distance, but the dun gelding had sharp speed in his chunky rump. In three leaps, during which his body bunched and extended like that of a frightened hare, he drew ahead, blood streaking his wounded haunch. Buldshak, irritated to be shown his hindquarters, shook her head and stretched out to compete, nibbling at his lead.
He was still ahead when they swept into the disorganized spearmen, snorting and kicking out. Buldshak bulled into one of the men who was still standing, knocking him aside. He clutched at Samarkar’s wounded leg, trying to drag her from the saddle. She kicked him hard in the chest with the edge of the stirrup; Buldshak struck out with a hoof in passing; he let go and sat down.
Something fell past her from above, a russet blur in the morning gloom, silent as the grave. She heard the thud as it struck the man she’d knocked aside, and no other sound but the tearing of flesh.
This time, when she brought the mare around, no one remained to fight. Hrahima, her arms red halfway up the forearm, bleeding from new wounds, stood over one downed man.
Temur was rising from the side of another, his knife dripping in his hand. In the wash of green from Samarkar’s wards, she saw his face twisted into a grimace, saw the way he moved without seeming to see.
He came straight toward her.
“Payma,” she said. “Stay back.”
She’d read of this before, men caught up in war rage, and she knew only one answer. Flexing her left arm sent showers of agony through her, and moving cloth against the arrow shaft was worse. Still she fumbled her jacket open, wincing through tears. Buldshak backed away as Temur came closer, as unnerved by him as was Samarkar. There was no time to unlace her halter; she simply grasped the lower hem in her right hand and yanked it up over her breasts. Fabric cut across her spine, burned her hooked fingers.