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‘W e should have met them,’ Harleen growled. ‘Right there and then, infantry and mammoths be damned.’

‘The pikes were lowered,’ Jai said. ‘It was too late, and I’ll hear no more about it.’

Jai and his Small Council were gathered in Jai’s small travel tent, looking at the map arrayed in front of them.

‘Their pikes will be lowered tomorrow too,’ Harleen said. ‘And they’ll be even further dug in by then.’

Jai sighed, and let his silence draw out, to let them know that was the end of it.

‘We know the legion races for the Kashmere Road,’ Jai said. ‘Now, it is just over the horizon.’

‘And we’d have caught them earlier if...’

Jai closed his eyes, his exasperation evident, and she trailed off.

‘Why do you think I made that speech to them?’ Jai asked. ‘Do you think I thought for a moment they would surrender?’

Harleen shrugged.

‘I wanted them to know where safety lies. It gives them somewhere to run to.’

She looked back, her brows furrowed.

‘Imagine, if you will, you are a legionary in the middle of the Great Steppe. Surrounded by so-called savages that’ll skin you alive, drink your blood, take your head.’

His words drew chuckles from the rest.

‘Now, imagine you are in battle, and all seems lost. What do you do?’

He was met with blank stares.

‘You fight on. There is nowhere left to go, no other choice. But what if your salvation lies in the distance? What, then?’

He stabbed his finger southwards.

‘We do not want to surround them, to force a battle of the death. We want them to turn tail.’

‘They’ll never make it,’ Sindri said, shaking her head.

‘An army’s rout is never logical,’ Jai said. ‘If you think each of our knights will kill four legionaries apiece and live to tell the tale, you are mistaken. Our best chance of victory is to break them. Then cut them down while they run.’

‘But we have to make them run first,’ Tenzin said, leaning over the map and peering at the neat lines that Jai had drawn up. ‘My mammoths can lead the charge, but pikes’ll work against mammoth flesh same as khiroi.’

Jai nodded slowly. He had been working on this plan all week, but he had not yet shared it with his generals. His father’s supposed betrayal was still remembered, especially by him. Still, now that it was time to voice it, it seemed the work of an infant, of a child general.

Unfortunately, he had none other to suggest.

‘They’ll draw up battle lines, in the half-moon formation. That is what any general with sense would do.’

He pointed at the legion, a series of toothpicks and wooden squares, where he had arranged the line in a shallow curve, bending in to prevent a flanking manoeuvre.

‘So we bring our archers forward, pepper them with arrows. With our cavalry so close, they’ll not dare break ranks and charge. We’ll have them at our mercy.’

Feng leaned forward, shifting a large block, marked with a simple bow and arrow, towards the legion.

‘They’ll draw together into testudo – a tight formation of men, shields above and to the front, pikes extended.’

‘So we go around,’ Sindri said.

Jai nodded.

‘Exactly. But not behind them – we do not want to block their way to the road. To the sides, like so.’

He took the slider from Feng, shifting half of his khiroi to the left of the legion, the other to the right.

‘With their flanks threatened, they will close the half-moon – that is their doctrine. We will have them in a tight ring of men – a circle. And all the while, as they manoeuvre, gaps appearing, our arrows will fall.’

Jai turned to Tenzin.

‘Have we bows enough?’

‘They’re simple things, bamboo and rawhide, but they’ll pull an arrow.’

‘Good,’ Jai said. ‘And have we arrows?’

‘Enough for a few volleys, no more,’ he said.

Jai shook his head.

‘I want the men fletching arrows all night. Knights included. If we can’t forge arrowheads fast enough, sharpen the wooden tip and harden them on the fire.’

‘Why, my khan?’ Sindri asked. ‘Surely they will be useless against the testudo?’

Jai shook his head.

‘Not so. Some will slip through; it is not impregnable. Enough to injure some, kill fewer.’

‘Then why—’

‘Because their shields will be weighed down by the arrows by the time we’re through. And they’ll be worried there will be more. Shocked by the onslaught. It will soften them up before we strike.’

‘You want our knights spending their night fletching arrows instead of resting?’ Harleen said. ‘Sire, you go too far.’

‘I don’t go far enough,’ Jai said. ‘Now, watch.’

He pointed at the legion, pushing them into place until a rough circle had formed.

‘Tenzin’s mammoths will charge their front,’ Jai said. ‘The khiroi will sweep back his way, and follow behind him.’

Tenzin huffed, as the mammoths were shoved home, their rough-carved pieces clacking against the spines of the legion.

‘So your khiroi ride over the bodies of my mammoths, is that it, Jai?’ he said.

‘No,’ Jai said. ‘Because now they are so tight-packed we need only break a hundred feet of their lines, to make a breach our men can ride through and put to slaughter.’

He pointed at each mammoth.

‘Our best soulbound will ride with you,’ he said. ‘Before you meet, they will blast a hole in their front lines. It is for you to hold it, and my khiroi to exploit it.’

Tenzin hesitated, staring at the map, before nodding grimly.

‘I did not doubt your father when he had my father breach Leonid’s camp. Many mammoths were lost, but we won the day. Sometimes, victory requires a little butchery.’

‘One last thing,’ Jai said. ‘At the moment our lines meet, your soulbound will not be alone.’

He plucked a wooden figure from his pocket, one he had commissioned some days before.

‘I will fly the line,’ he said, tossing the sun-bleached miniature dragon into the midst of the legion, sending them scattering. ‘I will burn a hole so deep and wide, they’ll see the flames from the Blue Mesa itself.’

The room was thick with tension, the atmosphere heavy with anticipation and doubt in equal measure. Every pair of eyes turned to the miniature dragon in the centre of the map, a mark of Jai’s commitment.

Harleen’s hardened expression softened just a bit.

‘If they target you, if you fall, it is all for nought. You carry more than just flames, Jai. You carry our hope.’

Sindri nodded in agreement. But Tenzin, resting a hand on Jai’s shoulder, said, ‘It is as sound a plan as any. He is his father’s son, a general born.’

Harleen relented, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. ‘Perhaps.’

Jai returned her smile. ‘Let’s hope I make a better High Khan.’

‘Let’s hope you survive,’ Feng muttered, then looked up, aghast that he’d said it aloud.

But Jai just stared at him... then laughed.