The fight had been running long enough that the ground between the two lines had changed.
Horses lay in the approach zone, some still moving, most past it. Men on foot threaded back through the rear of the formation, some carrying wounds, some carrying arrow bundles to the front because their horses were down but their loads were not.
The frost between the channel and the Jochid line had been opened in patches by the hooves and by what had fallen, the cold earth showing through in dark marks.
The air above the approach carried blood and broken ground and the hot breath of thousands of working horses in near-winter cold, the whole of it sharper and further-reaching than anything the summer battle had produced.
The shafts were still crossing in both directions.
The collective release from both fronts had been layering over itself for long enough that the individual sounds inside it were gone. Release, flight, impact. Each ran constantly and at the same time.
