pets blared, sending Daoud's blood racing.

Daoud drew his double-curved bow of horn and sinew out of the case
hanging from his saddle and nocked an arrow as the galloping hooves of
his horse jolted his body. He let his voice pour out of him in a long
scream.

The braying of the Tartars' signal horns floated over the plain. They,
too, were galloping, bent over the necks of their ponies. The Tartar
horses were short-legged, their barrel-shaped bodies encased in leather
armor.

_Ugly little horses_, Daoud thought.

The ponies of the Tartar unit passing him all appeared to be white with
black spots. The Tartars' tunics were brown, their trousers gray, and
their fur-trimmed iron helmets painted red.

Ahead of him Daoud saw Baibars's yellow standard fluttering against a
sky gray with dust. Baibars's wing and the Tartars were riding past each
other. The emir was leading his men eastward. To Daoud's left, across an
empty space of grassy plain, the Tartar army was passing them, charging
to the west. Arrows flew from the Tartars, but singly, not in volleys.
Daoud loosed an arrow of his own at the passing horde. It arced over the
bare strip between the two armies and fell in the Tartar mass without
result that he could see.

He looked back toward the center of the Mameluke host and saw small
figures in white robes striding through the grass. They were holy men,
he knew, dervishes dedicated to death. As they marched on foot and
unarmed against the Tartars, they were calling on God to avenge the
martyrs of Islam. Arrows flew at them from the Tartar lines, and in an
instant it seemed the dervishes vanished as they crumpled into the tall
grass.

_They are showing all of us how to die_, thought Daoud. By going
joyfully to their deaths, the dervishes reminded the Mamelukes that each
warrior who died here today would be a mujahid, one who fell in holy war
for Islam. Such a one was destined for paradise.

But he also realized uneasily that he had seen a demonstration of Tartar
marksmanship.

Signal flags, yellow, green, and red, fluttered among the Tartar
horsemen, and horns bellowed. Daoud heard the pounding of a great
battery of drums. From twenty thousand Tartar throats at once there rose
a long, terrifying scream. Daoud turned in the saddle to see the entire
Tartar army, now in a wedge formation, the beast-tail standard at the
point of the triangle rushing upon the green banner of Sultan Qutuz.

A blue flag fluttered bes