He peered anxiously into the chaos of smoke and dust and horses and men, trying to see the Tartar standard, with its long black tails, and Qutuz's green banner. They had been close together when he last saw them. Now he could not find them.
A movement near the western horizon caught his eye. He saw a bit of green waving just below the blue Galilee hills that separated this plain of Esdraelon from the coast. Qutuz's banner, smaller, farther away.
Despair clutched at Daoud. But Qutuz could be feigning a retreat to lure the Tartars into spreading themselves too thin. Then he saw the black Tartar standard, much closer, in the midst of a furious melee of fighting men and falling horses half obscured by dust. Qutuz would not leave part of the center behind to fight the Tartars unless he were running away. Daoud remembered the tightness he had seen in Qutuz's face before the battle, the hopelessness in the sultan's voice.
He is fleeing in terror. We are all dead men. Islam is lost.
Daoud looked to the east and saw that Baibars was still sitting motionless, a small figure at this distance on his fawn half-blood, the bearer with the yellow standard sitting behind him.
Daoud turned in the saddle and swept his gaze over the long line of his own troop. Their red turbans bobbed up and down as their horses danced. The wind was from the north, and their scarlet cloaks fluttered behind them. The bearded faces in the front rank were grave, but there was no fear. There was no murmuring now, no questioning. Their mounts, brown, white, and black, the finest steeds in al-Islam, stood with necks stretched and ears laid back, eager for the charge.
An orange pennant beside Baibars's standard summoned the commanders to confer with their leader.
"I go to the emir for orders," Daoud said loudly, so they would not think he was fleeing the field.
By the time he reached Baibars, a half circle of five emirs and ten bashis had formed around their commander. Daoud could hear Baibars muttering to himself in his boyhood Kipchaq tongue. Curses, no doubt.
Far to the north Daoud saw horsemen riding westward, away from the battlefield. The left wing, under Kalawun. The Tartars had come nowhere near them. They must have given way to fear when they saw the center fall back.