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By Root 891 0

to Federal lines in Kentucky to report the Confederates had been reinforced from all directions, all through the night—there was an army at full strength. Already, thanks to such stratagems, rumor had inflated Forrest’s numbers from two thousand to five—by tomorrow the guesswork would balloon to twenty thousand. As he passed his circling soldiers now, Forrest stopped to exchange salutes with the officers as smartly as he knew how, then lowered his gloved right hand and passed on, the Damascus sword still riding upright in his left. Most of their wagons were clustered around a livery stable here, and there was a little forge attached to it, idle now, its fire gone cold. Earlier that afternoon Forrest had impressed the blacksmith to trim hooves and shoe the horses that needed it, but the man had gone home to his supper, long since. Ginral Jerry was lingering there; he’d spent the afternoon holding horses for the smith, and soon Ben came to join him.

Forrest passed the forge, the anvil and the bellows, bending his eye on a grindstone, big as a wagon wheel and a hundred times as heavy, riding in a stout wooden carriage under the stable eaves. The pale stone seemed to glow a little in the dusk.

Jerry moved toward the crank handle, automatically, and the great stone round broke its inertia and began to revolve. Its surface was wide as both of Forrest’s palms together, and Forrest didn’t have small hands.

“I thought you told us a cavalryman was better off with a six-gun,” Henri said.

“What if I did?” Forrest set the blade against the spinning stone; a thread of grating sound rose from the contact. “A man’s better off with all he kin get.”

Morton moved up for a closer look. Whatever Forrest turned a hand to fascinated him. Matthew came up too, rustling at Henri’s elbow in the dim. Willie must have gone off somewhere to race the new-shod horses, with other young sports excited by the little victories of the day.

Forrest carried the blade with a slicing motion at a close angle against the turning stone, his grip so firm the metal never bounced or clattered, and the drone of the grinding was steady and smooth. Orville, the young Virginian who’d joined them several months before, kept clearing his throat for some reason. “Hold up,” Forrest said to Jerry, who released the crank and let the stone drift to a halt. Forrest pushed back his sleeve and ran the top of his forearm across the freshened edge. A couple of wiry black hairs came away and floated off into the gloaming. “Another thang,” Forrest grinned as he raised the blade. “This here don’t never run out of ammunition.” He turned to Jerry. “Let Ben step up. This part is goen to take a mite longer.” A shower of sparks flew up this time when Forrest brought the steel to the turning stone, for he was grinding the blunt top of the blade. Henri exchanged a silent, white-eyed glance with Matthew.

Nath Boone raised a hand to his chin. “He’s laid himself out a job of work.”

Henri nodded and smiled faintly. He could see now that Forrest meant to file down an eighth-inch of metal on the top side of the blade, to make a second edge where none had been intended by the smith who forged it. He’d end up with a double-edged, razor-sharp sword, and likely it would not be used for shaving.

“General Forrest,” Orville piped up.

Rapt in his task, Forrest didn’t seem to hear him at first. He seldom paid much attention to Orville, who had been in his first year at West Point when the war began. Young and impetuous as John Morton, he was not half so likable. But he was strong in the saddle, and when he joined their company after Shiloh he’d been riding one racehorse and leading another.

“General?” Orville insisted now. “You’re not supposed to sharpen a sword that way.” He cleared his throat for the thirtieth time. “It’s contrary to the rules of war.”

Forrest heard him now, and turned so briskly that every man took one step back, including Ben. The crank kept on revolving with the momentum of the stone.

“The rules of war?” Forrest said.

Henri braced himself for a torrent of cursing.

“War ain