“It has to fall!” he shouted to those nearest, to Uwen and Crissand and Cevulirn, and pointed toward the fortress on its hill. “We cannot go to the east! We have to break the wards of that place, or Cefwyn will die. They all will die!”
The carts went into place, a line between the rocks and the woods, men hauling gear off the carts in feverish haste—casting anxious looks at the heavens, for a pall of cloud flowed from over the ridge, west to east, and all across the horizon what had seemed hazed blue sky proved to be gray. Lightning raced across the heavens and thunder boomed from off the heights, and now men looked up from their work in fear.
“Form the line!” Cefwyn ordered his forces as lightning cast white light over all of them, once, twice, thrice. “Form the line, Ylesuin! We’ve beaten wizards before! Forward, the banners’.”
He let Kanwys have rein, wary of the woods that fringed the road on the right… on the right, where shields were on the left. Those woods slanted away rapidly toward the right as he moved past the trees into meadow, and there the hill arched away downward, while on the left the ridge descended with it in a tumble of rocks the size of peasant huts. He knew his maps: this was the dizzyingly long, broad downslope which both his grandfather’s maps and Ninévrisë’s warning had told him was a long, long highland… but gods! All the subtle rise of the land over two days came downhill at once, grassland pasturage spread out for a long, long, uninterrupted descent to the cultivated plain. The view captured the eye, distracted the wits, suddenly beset with the scale of that descent, while the sky flickered with no natural storm.
But the Dragon Guard advanced, men who had stood before worse than this. The Prince’s Guard moved, and so did Ryssand and Nelefreissan and Murandys, earliest ready, a wall of iron to shield men still preparing.
Were it not for the courage of the scout the army would have had no warning until an assault disorganized their line of march. “Bear east!” Cefwyn said. “Dragons! Ryssand! Hold center! Panys to the right! Bring the blackguards out in the open!”
Messengers sped and banners moved outward under the flash of lightning. As Panys’ line formed, light midlands cavalry probed the border of the woods—and rapidly fell back before a howling outrush of motley armed men.
Irregulars, the Saendal, armed with axes and pikes and bows, and the force with which they charged was considerable even across the slope and on the uneven ground. Brigands, hirelings, hill bandits who regarded no law but gold, hire, and murder… with them Murandys’ stolid peasant infantry proved of some use, standing for a first taste of battle largely because they did not regard the trumpet signal that called them back, and for a moment there was a sharp contest, before some of Maudyn’s forming right wing alike began to give backwards, disengaging in the distance across the hill.
“Hold fast!” Cefwyn shouted, chafing to have the rest of the heavy horse move up from behind. He chosen to engage the brigands’ ambush quickly on this eastward fringe of woods, to keep the enemy from harrying their flank. Two of his allies, Sulriggan and Osanan, were still behind the lines, equipping their heavy horse to bring them forward, please the gods, at some convenient time: damn Sulriggan’s lackluster drills!
Ryssand, however, had moved with dispatch, and so had Murandys, spreading their forces behind the immediate deployment of the red-coated Dragon Guard and the company of light horse who went at the ready.
And granted Ryssand’s naive peasants who had gotten in the way of the Guard and trammeled up their advance, those peasants still had made a line, a line they must hold long enough for the heavy horse to set itself in order. He was sure now Tasmôrden’s main force lay closer than that streamside he had planned to have for a battlefield, never dreaming Tasmôrden would give him the advantage of the higher ground, but knowing it had its disadvantages, too, in the very momentum it gave them.
Traps were more than possible.
“Guelens, Maudyn, damn it, Guelen Guard!—Tell him so, boy! Ride!”
If Ryssand’s and Murandys’ peasant farmers yielded more ground on the flank, where they had crowded together, he had to trust the Guelens, the city troops among them, would account the skirmish with the Saendal their sort of brawl. And as he shouted the order another messenger of the Guard scrambled to horse and was off behind the confused wing to reach Lord Maudyn.
The embattled Dragons, too, under Gwywyn, bore toward the tangle of the peasant line, not where he wanted them situated, for this attack he was certain was meant to create as much confusion as it could, pouring downhill at the back of his right wing if he had formed early, at very least keeping him from coming onto that slope unreported to the enemy.
“Majesty!” Now, now, there was a general movement of Sulrig-gan’s heavy horse from out of that screen of carts and forest. Cefwyn settled his shield and stilled Kanwy with his knees, putting him to this side and the other to settle his restless forward impulse. That would be the difficulty, with all the men: the impulse to charge downhill. Discipline; discipline: a peasant army could not restrain itself; veterans could scarcely restrain themselves when tumult surrounded them and deafened them to signals.
“Lance!” he shouted at his pages, and the solid ash arrived within his grip. His guard had gathered around him, and now others of his house guard had arrived, the heavy-armed center of the Dragons and the Prince’s Guard, Gwywyn’s ordinary command, solid heart of Guelen force. Panys’ younger son, near him, caught away from his father’s command, had his grooms fighting to further tighten a cinch, the horse wild-eyed and resisting.
And in the skirmish with the lad’s recalcitrant horse, one of those cursedly ridiculous incidents that precede battle, for some reason, no reason at all, he found himself in high good spirits, all the strictures and obligations of kingship fallen away from him.
“Dragons!” he shouted out, sending Kanwy on a restrained, restless pace near Anwyll’s command. “Trumpeter, sound out! Form the line! Banners! Form and stand! By the plan!”
Banner-bearers spread out, signaling men where their companies should be. And, unraveling the chaos that had threatened the right wing, the veteran Dragons answered quickly to the trumpets and the movement of the banners and set position on the left.
Osanan drew his men into line: that was the centerward edge of the left wing; and Panys and the Guelens maintained the skirmish on the right wing, while Sulriggan’s company moved in feverish and wasteful haste, crossing to the fore of the Prince’s Guard, not the rear as he ought—damn the man! Cefwyn thought, but it was ineptitude, not treason.
More slowly, with laudable precision, Ryssand, Murandys and Nelefreissan, heavy horse and the center of the line, took their place and stood firm.
In the distance Maudyn’s trumpeter sounded out another call that called the right wing to desist pursuit: the engagement there, which Cefywn could not see from the left wing, had become a downhill rout it was not Maudyn’s choice to pursue: gods knew whether the peasant infantry remembered that trumpet signal, or knew theirs from Tasmôrden’s.
More precise than the trumpets, the banners were a constant signal; and three more king’s messengers hovered close at Cefwyn’s side, awaiting orders that would send last-moment changes to the line, to answer whatever surprises Tasmôrden had contrived.
There was a moment that the army was poised, prepared. Everything they had done toward this moment came to the test.