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.”
Under Stark’s direction, the battalion built a fortified camp, digging ditches around the perimeter, throwing the earth to the inside and placing stakes at the top of the rampart they formed. They worked in shifts, every other man using his shovel while the rest stood in ranks holding the diggers’ shields and weapons, but there was no renewal of the barbarian attack. The maris rode endlessly around the perimeter of the camp, just outside bow-shot, darting in to fire arrows and wheeling away before an answering volley could be launched. MacKinnie ordered the men to ignore the harassment.
“They’ll get close enough to fight before the night’s over,” he told them. “They can’t do us much harm from the range they’re shooting from. You’ll get your chance later.”
It was dark before the cookfires were lighted, but MacKinnie would not allow any rest until camp was completed. When the last stake was driven, the sun had set, and a thick overcast obscured the moons. From his command point atop Mary Graham’s wagon, MacKinnie could see dozens of fires dotting the plain; barbarian camps, each a band of hundreds of men.
“There are sure enough of them,” he remarked.
“I don’t see how we can win against so many,” Mary answered. “No matter how many you kill, there will always be more.”
“Not if there’s nothing to eat. They’re foraging pretty wide already. It’s only the grain crops that keep them able to stay here. Without those, they’d have to go back into the interior. We’ll drive them off all right.”
“What were you a colonel of?” she asked. “I thought you were more than just a Trader from the time I met you, and I wasn’t very surprised when your man let it slip.”
“You’ve heard of me,” he said. Out beyond the palisade, something was moving. The nearest enemy cookfire was obscured momentarily, then again.
“You mean your name is MacKinnie? Let me-” She looked up in surprise. “Iron MacKinnie? The Orleans commander? I should hate you.”
“Why?”
“My fiance was at Blanthern Pass. A subaltern in the Fifth.”
MacKinnie climbed laboriously from the wagon, surprised at how tired he was even in the low gravity of Makassar. “The Fifth were good troops.”
“Yes. They’d have won against anyone but your men, wouldn’t they? I think everyone in Haven hated and admired you at the same time after that battle.”
“It’s done. Now we’ll all loyal subjects of King David. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She moved closer to him, trying to see his face in the dim light from the cookfire. “From these millions of miles away, the big important politics of Prince Samual’s World look pretty small. Until today I was sure we’d never get back home. Even now it doesn’t seem very likely. But if anyone can do it, you can.”
Nathan laughed. “You’re beginning to sound like Hal talking to the recruits, Mary Graham. For now you’d best get the men fed, because we don’t have very long before the barbarians try their hand with a night attack. I’ll have the troops sent here in shifts so we keep a decent perimeter, and we feed the interior troops last. It’s the pikemen and shield boys we want to take care of tonight.”
“When do the knights eat?”
“After they’ve fed their mounts like any good cavalry. And after my pikemen. Your pardon, freelady, I have to see to my men.”
The night wore on. MacKinnie was relieved when no attack came before his perimeter guards were fed, but did not relax until every man was back in his place, lying at ease with his weapons, while swordsmen stood guard to peer futilely into the darkness.
“They’re coming,” he told Stark. “I’ve seen them stirring around, and there’s a feel about it. You get it, too?”