“He thinks he knows how we fight,” he said grimly. “We'll have to show him something else.”
Sasha sat ahorse on a bluff overlooking the western mouth of the Dhemerhill Valley. Before her lay the Ipshaal River, wide and calm. Immediately beneath the bluff lay the small, human town of Hama. Saalshen allowed human occupation of towns in the western Dhemerhill and upon the Ipshaal banks here, to give Jahnd access to the river and trading routes to Enora. Typically it would be surrounded by small fields, trees, and farmhouses, but now it seemed an island before a sea of soldiers.
Sasha recalled the Battle of the Udalyn Valley, where the sight of so many soldiers had astonished her. Then she had fought with the Army of Lenayin at Shero Valley, and that had been many times the scale of anything she'd previously seen. Compared to what she saw before her now, Shero Valley looked like a skirmish. The army spilled in both directions along the Ipshaal bank, as far as she could see. Hills rose steeply on this bank, becoming low mountains to either side, and providing no passage to Jahnd. The only way in was the Dhemerhill Valley, and now more than one hundred thousand men were massing upon the bank to organise in advance of moving into the valley.
“They know it's a trap,” said Arken, seated at her side in full Ilduuri armour. “That is why they hesitate.”
“Traps can be smashed with brute force,” said Sasha. “They come at us from both ends of the valley, and it is we who are trapped in the middle. We must make them pay for every advance they make, and hope that their losses are so grave by the time they reach Jahnd that they cannot trap us within.”
“Perhaps they'll try to force open the valley without first capturing these heights.”
“I hope they're that stupid. But they'll know we have artillery up here, and a wall down the valley, and if they get stuck up against that, they'll be slaughtered. They have to capture the heights first, and no commander ever won a war by hoping his enemy would commit suicide.”
She looked across to the opposite side of the valley, wishing she could have artillery on those heights also. But the hillsides there rose steadily steeper and steeper, with no bluffs or flat ground on which to place even archers, let alone bullock-drawn catapults and ballistas on wheels. They had enough of that on this side of the valley that perhaps half of the valley floor could be covered, thanks to the extra range that height provided. It should be enough, as no commander could afford to cede half the battlespace to his enemy. But they had to hold these heights from attack.
“Look,” said an Ilduuri captain, pointing below. “Stars.”
Verenthane Stars, he meant. They were carried by horsemen in black robes, mounted atop long poles, galloping before the near rank of teeming soldiers. Men cheered as they passed.
“They think the gods are with them,” said Arken. Several officers muttered rude things in Ilduuri to hear that.
“Lenays think the gods and spirits want a good fight,” Sasha said loudly. “Today they're going to get one.” That met with loud approval.
She turned and considered her position. Her Ilduuris were back from the edge of the bluff, on the off-chance that the Regent really was stupid enough to attack down the valley without capturing these heights first. That, and she did not want him to see exactly who was up here. Ilduuri Steel had smaller shields and lighter armour than the Enoran or Rhodaani armies, and when arranged in a shield line, that difference would be visible from below. She did not mind showing herself and her officers, however. To imagine that the Regent might believe there was no one up here at all would be stretching credulity.
“Should I go?” asked Daish at her side, looking wide-eyed upon the Regent's army.
“Not yet,” said Sasha. “Wait until they attack, then we'll have something to tell Kessligh that he doesn't already know.” Kessligh supervised the defence from the eastern end of the valley. That concerned him most, as it was certain to be a cavalry attack that, if not stopped, could overrun their rear and end the defence of Jahnd before it had even begun. This western side, effectively, was Sasha's to command. Ilduuri were mountain soldiers, they held the heights, and so controlled the battle. Whatever happened here would not happen as fast as in the east, and so was safer to delegate to a junior commander. Yet even so, as Sasha considered the scale of what confronted her, the enormity of her responsibility felt like the weight of the world.
Aside from Daish, Sasha had Andreyis and Yasmyn for messengers. She and Kessligh were separated by the entire battlefield and some steep hills, and there were other commanders she would also need to communicate with. Even three might not be enough. All were good riders, knew her well, and knew battle well enough to not miscommunicate a message. She hoped.
“Here,” said Arken, indicating below. “Here they come.”
Formations were advancing toward the little town below, thousands of men. “So many different Bacosh forces,” Sasha observed. “The nobility speak Larosan, but the common folk don't. They won't communicate easily.”
“They're trying to find the lightest forces to assault these slopes,” said Arken. “If heavy steel were good for climbing, mountain goats would have shells.”
Men were now pouring into the town, disappearing beneath red-tiled roofs. More were following. And now others were heading off to the left, searching for other ways up. The Ilduuri had prepared this defence for days, and knew all such ways.
“That's not enough, you fools,” said an Ilduuri captain with a smile, watching the activity below. “You'll need more than that.”
“Let's hope it takes them a while and a lot of casualties to figure it out,” said Sasha. “Artillery Captain!”
“Commander!”
“Prepare your ballistas! Save the catapults for now!”
“Yes, General!”
Men emerged from the near side of the town, and began climbing the slope directly behind it. Some followed the path, but officers were directing others straight up through the trees, realising that the path would take far too long for them all to climb. They needed to come up in a swarm, and as the captain had observed, there were not yet nearly enough of them.
Yells went back and forth in Ilduuri, artillery spotters shouting back. They'd tested these ranges before also, and knew exactly the required elevations for each ballista and catapult to hit a specific patch of hillside. Ilduuri artillery soldiers had their own language for it, and while they used primarily ballistas and not catapults, they'd incorporated these borrowed Enoran and Rhodaani catapult teams into their ranks easily enough.
“Deploy the archers?” Arken wondered.
“Not yet,” said Sasha. “Let it take a little time for them to figure out just how many we are. The longer they take to realise the strength of our defence, the more men they waste.”
Sasha found herself thinking of Regent Balthaar. Balthaar thought they were only Enorans, Rhodaanis, and Lenays, plus talmaad. He did not count on Ilduuris too. Jahnd had a domestic militia, but those would serve as defence only and, if the Regent's forces surrounded Jahnd with their own artillery, would probably all perish without so much as swinging a blade in anger.
Balthaar would presume there to be talmaad in the valleys, supporting Enoran and Rhodaani Steel in their well-suited blocking formations. But to hold these heights as well, at both ends of the valley, would dilute the strength down in the valley. Right now, he would be wondering how the defenders could possibly find enough people to serve both purposes at once.
The Ilduuri Steel would be a shock to him. Possibly not a nasty shock, but a shock all the same. Was it possible that he could overreact, and send too many men up this hill? The rest of these men by the Ipshaal were very confined, between water on one side and steep hills on the other, stretched very wide and thin along the bank. If they were sending men by the thousand up the hillsides, and not preparing for a major thrust…