“What has happened to the army under Piloxides?”

“I don’t have news yet,” said Eugenides. “The attack on Piloxides was a feint, meant to distract him. There was no complete engagement.”

Attolia returned to her tent without speaking.

In her sleep she heard gentle rain falling on the roof of the tent and woke to shouting. Her legs were still wrapped in the blankets and she was just sitting up when Eugenides pushed the cloth away from the door and stepped into the tent. The lantern hanging in the tent had been left burning, and by its light she could see the sword unsheathed in his left hand.

“What luck you have,” he said, stepping toward her.

She wouldn’t cower. She lifted her chin as he crossed the tent toward her. When he reached her side, he did not raise the sword as she had expected. He bent down and kissed her briefly on the lips.

Shocked, she pulled her face away and kicked at the blankets binding her legs. By the time she was standing, livid with fury, Eugenides was gone, and the flap of the tent had dropped behind him. She stalked to the doorway to push the cloth aside.

The sentry, the same young man as before, stood outside. “Please stay in the tent, Your Majesty,” he said more firmly than he’d spoken before, hopeful that she might obey.

Soldiers with their blades bare crossed in front of the tent at a run. Attolia stepped out of the doorway and let the door cloth fall behind her, cutting off most of the light from inside. It was raining again, though not hard. The moon was gone, and it was difficult to be sure what was happening. As her eyes adjusted, she could see men coming across a ridge that ran along the edge of the mountain terrace. “Who is it?” Attolia asked, her heart in her throat.

“Your Majesty, please go inside,” the sentry said again, his voice raised.

Attolia stood her ground. Short of pushing her, the sentry couldn’t get her back into the tent, and he looked no more willing to use force than previously. She saw the crests on the armored helmets of the soldiers coming over the ridge and her eyes widened. They were not her troops. They were Medes.

The Eddisian camp was in chaos as the soldiers in it rolled out of their sleeping blankets, dragging their swords from their sheaths and snatching up their hand-shields before running toward the Medes in haphazard order. The Medes strode down the ridge in the orderly formation that had won their empire, the soldiers shoulder to shoulder, with their shields locked. They were perfectly organized into an overwhelming fighting unit, and Attolia looked away as they met the first line of Eddisians.

She had tried to explain the Eddisians once to Nahuseresh. He’d pressed her to commit her army to taking the pass up to Eddis, thinking that once they were past the danger of the cannon overlooking the gorge, they could easily sweep through to the top of the pass and win the mountain valleys. She’d refused, doubting that her army would succeed in fighting its way past the cannon without being eviscerated. Nahuseresh had attributed her reluctance to an entirely understandable female timidity. He didn’t seem to understand that the people of Eddis had very little to do all winter beyond develop superior artisan skills and train for war.

As the Mede soldiers reached the first of the Eddisians, the Eddisians threw themselves onto their knees, leaving their backs unprotected as they cut the legs out from under the men at the front edge of the phalanx. More Eddisians, running up, threw themselves at the shields, pushing the Medes backward as their supporters pressed them forward. The first rush died, spitted on the swords of the Medes, but the orderly formation compressed and then collapsed. Swinging their swords, the remaining Eddisians drove into the chaos that had been a fighting unit. The Medes struggled to re-form, but they were overwhelmed. For a moment Attolia thought she saw Eugenides, but in the darkness she couldn’t be sure.

Then the darkness was driven away by the light of a flare fired into the air on an arrow or crossbow quarrel. It drifted slowly to the ground, its light making it easy to distinguish the bare heads of the Eddisians from the crested helms of the Medes. By the painful light of the burning magnesium ball, Attolia picked out the Thief of Eddis. Beyond Eugenides, she saw the soldier who’d earlier helped her down from her horse. Though they were not close, as Attolia watched, she could see that he and the Thief fought in tandem. Eugenides pressed his opponent. When the man flinched backward, he stepped into the range of the other Eddisian, who spitted him neatly, then turned back to his own attacker. Together Eugenides and his partner had carved a hole deep into the remains of the Medes’ fighting unit.

Then the Mede crossbows, in position above the fighting, began to fire by the light of their flare.

“Your Majesty will please go inside the tent.” The sentry beside her was shouting. He’d lifted the flap of the door behind them, silhouetting them both against the light inside. He took her by the arm and pulled. Attolia shrugged him off, but his hand was already slipping away. She turned as he fell to the ground as a tree falls, a crossbow quarrel through his throat. Dark blood welled up to mix with the rain. His body spasmed and then was still.

The door cloth of the tent had fallen, and the light was gone, but the queen sidled out of the doorway and beyond the edge of the tent, so that she would not be visible against its lighter surface. From there she continued to watch the fighting. One Eddisian after another dropped in a rain of quarrels. Attolia scanned the melee for Eugenides but couldn’t find him again.

“Peace,” yelled a Mede from the hillside. “Peace now, Eddis.” The remaining Eddisians fell back, lowering their swords. The Mede soldiers lowered theirs as well and waited.

Eugenides was there, shoulders heaving, sword in his hand, as he used his forearm to push the wet hair off his forehead. The older man was beside him. He spoke, and Eugenides turned to face him. They stayed like that for a moment before Eugenides shook his head and turned away. He looked up the hillside to where the invisible crossbowmen of the Mede lurked.

“Peace!” he shouted into the air, and threw his sword down into the mud. The other Eddisians did the same. Peace and surrender to the Mede.

The gray-haired man spoke again, and Eugenides replied. Whatever he said made the older man give a sour laugh. Then they turned together to look at Attolia as if they could see her through the tent. She could see their pale faces, a little blurred by the rain. Eugenides said something else to the other man, who then nodded and stepped away, distancing himself from the Thief.

Beyond them a figure was silhouetted for a moment on the ridge. Attolia knew who it must be, stepping carefully down to the terrace now that the fighting was done, and she walked out into the open to meet him. When she reached the Mede ambassador, she laid both her hands in his and smiled.

“I have much to thank you for, Nahuseresh, more now than just the pleasure of your company.”

“It is my honor, Your Majesty. I only wish I could have saved you the strain of your terrible journey.” He bowed over her hands to kiss them both. Even in the rain, his hair lay neatly on his scalp. His cloak swept the tips of his polished boots where the raindrops seemed to sparkle in the torchlight.

She lifted her gaze from his boots back to his face as he straightened.

“A fine rescue,” the queen said.

“I have landed my army at Rhea and ordered it to the base of the pass to Eddis to support your soldiers there. I can only hope that Her Majesty will forgive me,” the Mede said, “for bringing my men uninvited through her territory.”