"We are going to need to go back in," Iona opined. The Tetrarch had remounted on a horse which had belonged to a fallen rider. Phaedra scanned the churning battlefield with a practiced eye. She drew an arrow and loosed, the arrow punching through the coif of a Khareed who was attempting to rally his troops. Eudoxia and her riders were cutting into the northern flank, their fresh horses and fresh lances were making the difference as was the reformed Imperial line.

"I think..." Phaedra began and then the Atvari broke. It was as though a dam had broken. At one moment they seemed like they would hold and in the next they were running for the ford like a human stampede. A few of the braver Khareeds were still attempting to rally resistance. Miravet arrows turned on those centers of resistance like the tongues of anteaters, smashing them before they could begin to stem the tide.

"Now we are going back in," Phaedra snapped, fitting her helmet back into place. 

"It's over, why waste lives?" Iona objected.

"Sound the charge Tetrarch," Phaedra ordered, wiping the blood from her spatha. There were far too many Atvari wandering around to let this army regroup. None of them would be safe if the Atvari simply regrouped out in the desert. The horns blasted and the Miravet hung their bows, drew their swords and charged.

_____

"Now its over," Phaedra panted. Her arm ached and blood mattered her hair from a stray arrow which struck her helmet. The Atvari were streaming away into the desert. Zoe's riders were pressing them hard, but they would give off the pursuit soon. Night had already fallen and it would soon be too dark to risk chasing desert nomads who knew the terrain. The rout was more than complete. Thousands of enemy dead littered the dusty ground. Imperial soldiers were moving among them, delivering death blows to the worst of the wounded and gathering the less severely wounded for whatever care could be found.

A dismounted Miravet waved a bloody spear overhead as Phaedra approached. Erine, her skin still blacked with patches of boot polish she hadn't yet removed, was grining like a cat which had been at the cream. Phaedra couldn't help but smiling back. That young woman was in for a promotion. 

"First!" she called, "Atronarch Brasidas is over by the gate." She gestured with the spear to a gate of mud bricks. It had once been a part of the wall, but Brasidas and his men had torn the walls down when they took the city. That had been good practice when there had been a large Imperial force heading east, but with Gergicous gone who knew where, Phaedra was no longer certain that was true. She trotted over to where the armored commander stood with a knot of men whom Phaedra assumed were his senior officers.

"Atronarch," she called, sliding from the saddle. The ground seemed unsteady after so long on horseback and her legs cramped. The feeling wasn't unfamiliar and she flexed her legs twice before clashing her fist to her breast and then extending her hand in an abbreviated Imperial salute. 

"Protus Kapetanos Phaedra Commnenus," she reported, flexing the cramp out of her sword hand.