As you know, we didn’t get as far as Brimedius. We crossed through the main pass to Sounis and forded the Seperchia to avoid the fortified megaron there, then moved across the foothills heading inland. We had reached Atusi, where I meant to pick up the road to Brimedius, when we met the rebels. I had just brought my small army out of the hills and onto the road when my scouts came in to tell me that the rebels were both ahead of us and behind us.

I had prepared my Attolians and my Eddisians carefully. Every time I talked with the Attolian commander, I remembered what Eugenides had said: “He does not actually run on all fours and bay at the moon, but you will have to explain what you want from him very carefully.” I know he did it to make me laugh, and it helped. I would have otherwise been too much intimidated by a man who reminded me so much of my father.

We were already assembled on the road. On our right, two ridges reached out from the foothills, and a shallow valley lay between them. To our left, olive trees came almost to the road. The road curved around the foothills, keeping the rebels ahead of us and behind us out of sight. It was an excellent place for a trap, and we had sprung it. My scouts warned me that the men behind us on the road were farther back but mounted and coming up fast.

Around the curve of the hill ahead of us, we had our first view of the men approaching from that direction. I sent my Eddisians forward and turned back with the Attolians and my mounted force, leaving our pack train with supplies in the middle.

It was my first battle. It was exhilarating and terrifying and sickening. The Eddisians and Attolians did just as they’d been instructed. The road sloped down slightly toward the Sounisians in front of us, and the Eddisians rushed down it to attack.

The force behind us was twice the size of ours, or more. When it hit the Attolian formations, the Attolians broke. They made an attempt to re-form but broke again and began to scatter. Their captain, at my signal, called the retreat. Some of the Attolians turned back toward the Eddisians to re-form with them, but fully half ran into the olive trees to seek cover there. The Eddisians had no one to cover their flanks; to save themselves from being surrounded, they were retreating into the shallow bay between the two hillsides. I was with my mounted men, trying to provide some cover to give the Attolians time to re-form. We weren’t very effective, and I wasn’t any use at all. Although Procivitus’s instruction had helped my sword work, it was of little use to me on horseback. All I could do was wave my sword around to defend myself and try not to cut the ears off my own horse. I had to hope that my countrymen didn’t really want to kill their own king. The magus and my personal guard never left my side until we turned to run ourselves, ahead of the Sounisians, toward the protection of our Eddisian pikemen.

The Attolians who had run to re-form with the Eddisians appeared disorganized. Though my horsemen had slowed the approach of the army behind us, the bulk of it was rounding the curve of the hill and would soon be charging across the small valley onto the Eddisians and the Attolians who had not yet reached cover inside the Eddisian formation.

Without needing a signal, the Eddisian captain whistled a retreat. The Eddisians went in better order than the Attolians had, but they went fast, heading toward the trees behind them, where the charge of rebel horses would do less damage. They would fight in smaller groups, withdrawing back uphill until they could regroup safely.

My mounted men were racing toward the trees at about the same time. The horses would have to be abandoned. I had been toward the front of my men when we were fighting. When we turned to retreat, I fell behind. My guard was still with me, but only barely, when I loosened my grip on my reins. In the blink of an eye, I fell off.

I landed badly, just exactly like a sack of rocks, and tumbled across the grass until I landed flat on my back with all the wind knocked out of me and without the breath to curse my breastplate, which I was certain had done me more damage than it had saved me from. When I could get my feet under me and straighten up, my cavalry was already far away. They had slowed and looked back in confusion, but I waved to them to ride on. I was not too far from the hillside that had hidden the rebel army on the road behind us, and once I got my feet moving, I scrambled up it. With my chest aching for air, my hands and feet felt as if they belonged to someone else. I kept falling on my face, but I eventually made it to the top, covered in grass stains and still not able to get a breath, to find the consequences of battle laid out before me.

The flat top of the hill was scattered with the bodies of dead men in the uniforms of Sounis and Eddis. The outposts of both armies had met here. As I stood staring, I thought, These are my dead. All of them. The battle hadn’t been unanticipated or forced on me, as the raid in the villa had been. I had chosen it. These men, Eddisian and Sounisian alike, had died for my decisions.

When the magus stepped from the bushes toward the back part of the hill, I was more than horrified. I was perilously close to distraught.

“You aren’t supposed to be here!” I shouted. “Get back!” When he ignored me, I was almost weeping. “If they catch you, they’ll kill you.” The magus just walked closer and grabbed me in his arms to hold me tight. When he pulled away and looked into my face, I knew that he would tell me that I was Sounis and that I needed to pull myself together.

“Your uncle,” he said, “in all the years I saw him rule, never had a moment of self-doubt. Never a regret for a single life lost. Do you understand?”

I understood that I didn’t want to be my uncle.

He patted me on the back and disappeared into the bushes, to work his way down the hill. Instead of continuing toward the Eddisians, he must have turned toward the trees as soon as I had fallen. He’d left his horse and worked his way back along the hillside toward me. I could only pray that the gods would lead him safely back to the rest of the troops. I turned around to face the people climbing up the open face of the hill. They had seen me fall. So long as I, too, didn’t try to hide in the bushes, no one would look there for the magus. I drew my sword.

When the first men of Sounis reached the top of the hill, I shouted clearly, “I am the king of Sounis,” on the slight chance that the silvered breastplate with the Sounis colors in velvet underneath didn’t identify me clearly enough. I raised my sword as they approached, but there was little I could do to stop them from surrounding me at a safe distance. We waited then for the baron of Brimedius to arrive. He came puffing up over the edge of the hill just ahead of the Mede I’d met in my father’s tent, Akretenesh.

“What a surprise to see you here,” I said to him, not surprised at all.

“Your Majesty,” said the Mede as he bowed very low, “you are among friends here. It is a misunderstanding, a sad misunderstanding that has taken place.” He looked at the dead men and shook his head. I wanted to throw my sword at him, but there wasn’t much point. Instead I offered it to Brimedius, who politely handed it back, and we all went down the hill.

And so by late afternoon I was in Brimedius, almost exactly as I’d originally planned.

Our pack animals had been abandoned during the fighting, as had our horses. They were collected up by Brimedius’s men, and I had my luggage with me when I arrived: my new clothes, my books and papers, my traveling writing desk, and the small case holding Attolia’s gift. All of them were trundled up to a guest apartment.