Chapter 2

War is universal, and they had arrows.

Perhaps I am naive—even some of the pretend-violent parts I auditioned for in London when wanting to be an actor did not prepare me for the reality of actual combat—and I gasped into my gag as I saw shafts of feather-flighted arrows carve through the bright sky before plunging towards us. Arrows that seemed to gleam even brighter than the blue sky, impossible though that seemed. The cries of the charge took on a more fearful note in an instant: some riders of humanhorses reined their charges back, others charged on but the cry from the riders’ lips was clearly one of warning and even fear rather than victory.

Akrith, my Egri rider, ignored the shouts and dug her spurs into my thighs to urge me on. Death or glory, indeed, but already the bright arrows were finding their mark. Just a fraction ahead of me and to my left a humanhorse—a muscular dark-skinned, probably African woman—went down with an arrow in her naked belly. She fell forward, tumbling down the slope having thrown her small rider from her shoulder saddle. The Egri warrior flung clear of the dead or dying Earth woman was clambering to her unsteady feet but in that instant another arrow slew her, punching through her iron armour as if it was nothing but brown fabric. I saw, briefly, a look of astonishment on the Egri rider’s face before she dropped without a sound.

“Mage arrows!” I heard Akrith cry above me. “On! On, Egri! Our mages will protect us!”

Yet whatever this protection might be, more of the humanhorses and their small riders were going down under the rain of death. One, struck by an arrow to my right staggered against me (though by a miracle her jutting Grethek elbow weapon did not stab me) and I went down too, spilling Akrith. I started to scramble to my feet but sank back in terror as a gleaming arrow whirred past my shaved head, its glowing feathers brushing my ear. Akrith was starting to get to her small feet too—being only three feet tall the Egri are perfectly proportioned—but in her fall she had lost her sword. I saw it behind her, and went to yell (despite my bit gag) to try to tell her where it was, but a riderless humanhorse, pale-skinned like me—crashed into Akrith and sent her flying backwards. The humanhorse’s knee had caught my rider in her face where her iron armour did not protect her. Akrith lay unmoving on her back, her bright blood on the grass round her blue-haired head.

There were screams, not of victory, but of agony all around me. The arrows had broken the charge, but in the same moment I saw the second wave of human horses following fast on our heels. I half-crouched and realised in a moment of cold clarity that we in the first line had been the sacrificial charge. We were the old idea of the ‘Forlorn Hope’ and thus had drawn these cursed mage arrows, so the second wave of armoured riders could urge their human steeds through our torn and bloodied line and on to the battle below us.

I feared for Akrith, for though I owe her no loyalty I felt an overwhelming urge to protect her, should she be alive. I lunged forward and dropped myself in a protective crouch over her small, still body with my head down. If a humanhorse’s iron hooves hit my unprotected back—save for the saddle I still wore—it would be the end for me. I closed my eyes as iron hoofs thundered past and around me. Maybe someone vaulted me—I felt a kick on my saddle—as if perhaps a humanhorse had been trained to leap despite the burden she carried on her back. But when I dared to look up I was alone. Before me, down the slope, the lines of riders comprised of the survivors of our first line but now bolstered by the second wave, had met head on. Egri had collided with Tankic, swords flashed and glinted, humanhorses writhed and twisted to both use their elbows and try to avoid the same horrible weapons. Despite the bit gags we were all required to wear I heard human female screams and curses, in a different Earth languages too. French and Spanish and even what I took to be Chinese as well as my native English.

A mage arrow thudded into the ground by me to remind me that I was not out of danger yet. The only thing I had as protecting was my leather saddle and if these arrows could pierce iron then even hardened, polished leather would present no barrier. I stared at the arrow where its brightness, having met something if not a flesh target began to fade, and I felt a huge swell of anger. I was being attacked, and some primitive fire in me flared. A lust for revenge, perhaps. As I knelt up, I was aware of Akrith opening her eyes and staring at me: her nose had been broken and her face bloodied but she was still breathing if a little raggedly.

“I am not in heaven,” she said, a slight puzzled tone in her voice. Then she turned her head and spat blood out. I took it to be the action of someone still ready to fight.

Despite my bit gag I said as clearly as I could. “We are not dead, Inria!” Inria is the word a humanhorse, when permitted to speak and knowing the Egri language, uses to address its superior. Akrith was my rider, my superior, and as much as I detested being a slave turned into a horse, I was angry she had been hurt not by the enemy but a careless, wild creature from my own planet tasked with fighting against the Tankic.

Akrith blinked up at me, and then smiled. “We are not dead,” she repeated.

“Up, my lady,” I said, getting clear of her. Despite my shaking legs and the desire to piss (humanhorses going to battle have their anus plugged to prevent voiding one’s bowels) I knelt so she could clamber into the saddle and thread her legs through my secured arms. “My sword!” she cried and I could see where she was pointing. The human horse who had smashed into Akrith had somehow trodden on the slender blade and the weapon was broken. “My mother’s sword,” she cursed, but she drew a dagger from her waist band and pointed past my head. “We go on, horse,” she snapped. “To battle!”