They stopped hearing orders somewhere in the second hour.
Not because the orders stopped coming — they came constantly, shouted from riders who appeared at the edges of the engagement and disappeared again, blown through signal horns that had three different interpretations depending on which regiment's manual you'd been issued. They came from sergeants contradicting lieutenants, from lieutenants contradicting each other, from a command structure that had apparently been designed for a battle that was not this battle and had not yet noticed the difference.
Hold the line. Advance the left flank. Pull back to the ridge. Hold the line.
At some point the orders stopped being instructions and became weather — present, loud, something you moved through rather than followed. What replaced them was simpler and more honest. The screaming told you where the pressure was. The silence told you where it had finished. You moved toward the screaming because that was where your people were and away from the silence because silence in a battle was a door that had already closed.
Kael lost sight of Orren in the third push. One moment the older man was there, a steady presence on his left, and then the line shifted and there was someone else there and then no one, and when Kael looked back the smoke from the burning supply wagons on the eastern edge had thickened into a wall.
Sorin materialized beside him from somewhere, bleeding from a cut above his ear that he had apparently not noticed or had noticed and decided was not relevant.
"Where's Ysse?" Kael shouted.
"Behind us, I think. Twenty steps."
"Bren?"
"With me until the second push. Lost him."
They looked at each other.
"Find him," Kael said.
"Finding him," Sorin said, and turned back into the noise.
Kael faced forward. The enemy line was closer than the morning briefing had said it would be, which meant either the briefing was wrong or the enemy had moved, and both options meant the same thing: someone had sent them into this valley with bad information, and the people with bad information were behind him on a hill, sitting in chairs.
He gripped the spear. The symbol pressed into his palm.
He went forward.