At dawn the following morning, Rurik rode out to the cavalry field beyond the city gates. The air was sharp with frost, and the grounds thrummed with the noise of training. Four hundred horsemen had gathered there, among them Gunnar, whose voice carried above the din like the crack of a whip.
Given that few of their number possessed any real mastery of horsemanship, Gunnar had elected to focus on a single art—the couched-lance charge. Each rider bore a shield upon his left arm and a three-meter spear gripped firm beneath the right armpit. With the improved high-arched saddles and long stirrups recently introduced, the swaying of the rider's body during a charge had been greatly reduced, lending far greater precision to their strikes.
Rurik watched in silence from the field's edge as twelve mounted men arrayed themselves into a single, gleaming rank. Sunlight slanted across the pale winter sky, flashing along their spearheads.
"Walk forward!" came the order.
