“Thousands, thousands,” someone in the ranks shouted. “We’ll never stop that charge!”
“Quiet in the ranks!” Stark ordered. “Beat to arms, drummers!” The tattoo thundered through the small formation. The shieldsmen dropped to one knee again, this time the entire perimeter sinking low, with the pikemen thrusting their weapons over the tops of the shields. A small knot of reserve pikemen stood at each corner of the wedge, while Brett’s cavalry milled about. The archers fired into the oncoming horde as the cooks and camp followers struggled to load crossbows and pass them up to the bowmen. Every bolt took its target, leaving riderless horses to run aimlessly, bringing confusion to the enemy charge.
“They don’t have what you’d call much formation to them,” Stark observed coldly. “They’d do better to all come at once instead of in little bunches.”
“Insufficient discipline,” Longway said. “They’ve more than the normal on this world, but that isn’t much.”
As the drums thundered to a crescendo, the charge hit home. On all sides barbarians plunged and reared, unable to penetrate the shield walls, milling about in front of the wedges, while crossbow bolts poured out.
“Swordsmen! Swordsmen here!” MacLean shouted from his station as commander of the rear section. At his order, a dozen men with shortswords and bucklers ran to his aid, throwing themselves into a gap in the line, thrusting five dismounted barbarians out into the seething mass beyond. A knot of pikemen trotted to station behind them, while the formation closed ranks over the bodies of five shieldsmen, killed when one of their number turned to run.
The maris called to their companions, withdrew a space, and charged the weak spot in the line again.
“They’re massing back there against MacLean,” Stark reported. “Getting hard to hold.”
“Prepare the cavalry,” MacKinnie said softly. “I’ll go get MacLean ready.”
MacKinnie ran across the thirty yards separating the point from the base of the wedge. “Prepare to open ranks, Mr. MacLean.”
“Aye, Colonel. Drummers, beat the ready.” The drum notes changed subtly. “Fuglemen, pace your men!” The seaman’s voice carried through the din of battle, and they heard the orders rattle down the ranks. MacKinnie eyed the situation coolly.
“Now, Mr. MacLean.”
“Open ranks!” MacKinnie commanded. The shieldsmen side-stepped, bunching up on each other, leaving a clear gap in the center. The enemy shouted in triumph and poured toward the gap.
The rich notes of a trumpet sounded from the center of the formation. Slowly, gathering speed, ponderously, the heavy cavalrymen trotted across the wedge from their gathering place at the point.
They built up speed, lances were lowered, and they drove into the advancing enemy, using the maris’ own momentum to add to their own, sweeping everything before them, riding the enemy down under the hooves of their beasts. Brett and Vanjynk, at each end of the first wave of knights, sounded a cheer as the heavy armor of the iron men proved too much for the light-armed maris. The barbarians scattered and swordsmen poured into the gaps, running alongside the knights, slashing down the enemy, killing the dismounted. The charge pressed onward, the knights scattering to pursue the enemy. The tight formation broke up, and the maris withdrew, formed in tight knots.
“Sound recall,” MacKinnie ordered. The trumpet notes were heard again, this time plaintively, disappointed. “Sound it again.” He turned to Stark. “This is the turning point, Hal. If Vanjynk and Brett can’t control those brainless wonders, we’ve had it.”
He saw his officers shouting to the knights. Slowly they began to wheel, first one, then another, then the entire group. For a moment they paused, and MacKinnie saw that Brett was actually dressing their ranks before they rode in, proudly, contemptuously, in perfect order, their pennants fluttering from their lances, while the shield wall closed behind them over the bodies of a hundred foes.
MacKinnie drove them relentlessly on, across the plain toward the first of the nomad encampments. Twice more they withstood a massed assault from the maris, the column halting to plant spear butts in the ground. The second attack was heavy enough to cause MacKinnie to order the cavalry charge again. The armored knights broke through the concentrations of the enemy before wheeling around to recover their position within the shield wall. In each battle they left a pile of the enemy dead to be crushed beneath the wagon wheels as the column marched on.
They reached the enemy camp, a group of leather tents stretched across wooden frames, a few wagons which the barbarians pulled to safety before the army arrived. A thin wall of men with light shields stood in front of the camp. Brett and Vanjynk rode forward to MacKinnie.
“We can scatter them with a single charge!” Brett shouted. “Open the ranks.”
“No. I will not risk our cavalry in a charge beyond the shield walls. There are too few men for that, and we would never return to the city if something went wrong. We march together or we die together. Would your knights abandon us?”
“We would not leave you though you stood alone among a thousand enemies,” Vanjynk said quietly. “I have been talking to the knights. Not one of us has ever seen the like of this day. We have left more of the enemy behind us than we number. Each time we fought them before, our charge would carry them away until suddenly they swarmed about us to cut us down. We will stay with you.”
The column moved forward, cautiously but inexorably, the drums giving a slow step as the pikemen advanced. MacKinnie rotated the formation until the point was aimed directly at the enemy, then massed his reserve pikes behind the leading men. His archers were silent, their store of bolts nearly exhausted. MacKinnie spoke quietly to the Temple officer who commanded them.
“A full volley on the men to the right of our point. I want a hole driven in their formation. They can’t fight as infantry, they aren’t trained for it, and they don’t like it. We’ll break through and roll up their flanks.”
As they approached nearer, MacKinnie gave a signal. The archers fired their volley as Todd led a knot of swordsmen forward, cast javelins at the enemy in front of them, and retired behind the forest of pikes. The leading elements of the column struck just behind the javelins.tearing through the thin line by sheer momentum, before the first rank of pikemen fell into a hidden pit behind the maris. Their screams echoed up from below.
“That’s what you would have ridden into,” MacKinnie told Brett softly. “I thought there was a reason they’d stand like that. They were hoping for a full charge of cavalry.”
The barbarians broke and ran, gathering their mounts from hiding places behind the tents and galloping away. Mary Graham’s auxiliaries hauled the wounded men from the pits below, leaving five pikemen impaled on stakes set in the ground. She turned pale as she stood looking into the grisly trench, but Nathan had no time for sympathy.
“Bury them there,” MacKinnie ordered. “It’s an honorable enough grave. Send for the chaplain.” He moved about the formation placing men in line, setting the shield wall around the perimeter.
A small scouting party entered the enemy camp. They returned with excited reports. “There is much food here,” one said. “But we must enter with great care, for they have tethered scarpias on the walls and ridgepoles.” The scarpia was a warm-blooded lizard-like creature eight to twenty centimeters long. It faintly resembled the Earth scorpion, and its bite was far more deadly.
“We will camp beyond the enemy tents,” MacKinnie ordered. “Use their ridgepoles to add to our stakes, and be sure to set the stakes carefully. They may attack at night. Bring as much food as you can carry for the city.”