“Yes, sir. And like you say, they’re moving about some out there. We’ll hear from them before morning.”
It was nearly midnight when a sentry shouted, then vanished beneath a wave of dismounted men swarming toward the palisade.
“Trumpeter!” MacKinnie shouted. “Sound the alarm! To your feet, men!” He could see a knot of pikemen, kept awake in central reserve, rushing toward the area of the attack.
“To me! To me!” he heard Vanjynk shout. “Leave your mounts and rally to me!” Leading a party of knights with swords singing about their heads, Vanjynk charged to the perimeter, pushing aside shieldsmen struggling to their feet. The iron men stood at the top of the palisades, dealing terrible blows to the enemy attempting to climb out of the ditch. The night was filled with screams and shouts before MacKinnie had his shield wall formed properly and brought the armored men back to a central reserve.
“They’re all around the perimeter,” Stark told him. “They try one spot and then another, not much coordination to it, but nobody can rest any, Colonel.”
MacKinnie nodded agreement. “It’s a good tactic. They hope to tire us out and then cut us off from the city. It’ll cost them enough.”
In less than an hour the battle died away, leaving a quiet shattered at intervals with the groans of the wounded, but the enemy never left them alone. All night there were rushes against one part of the palisade or another, and the whistle of arrows fired randomly into the camp. Morning came slowly, to reveal hundred of enemy dead and dying filling the ditches, or stretched on the ground where they had crawled away from the battle.
Bands of nomads rode slowly around the camp, silently watching the wall of shields.
“Here’s the tricky part,” MacKinnie said. “But I think they may have had enough for now. They’ll want to see what we do next.” He carefully moved his men out before the palisade, bringing the wagons and interior troops out of the camp before abandoning the other walls. The enemy watched, but there was no attack as he marched his formation back through the enemy campsite. They burned everything they couldn’t carry away. As the maris’ possessions blazed behind them, the battalion marched in quickstep back to the city.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN BATTLE
The war minister was angry as he faced the assembled bishops of the Temple. “He has proved that he can fight the barbarians. He has remained a day and a night outside the walls of the city. He has killed hundreds of them. For this we are grateful. But I say that it is madness to take the entire army into the field. Let him carry on his raids with the troops he used before, not strip our walls of their defenders.”
The council muttered approval. Their voices echoed softly in the great room.
MacKinnie rose to speak. He strode forward to the platform before the council table. As he approached he looked again at the council room. Its walls were hung with tapestries; above the woven hangings stone figures, representing heroes of an Empire dead so long its very existence was legend, stared down at them. On his dais high above the council table, His Utmost Holiness Willem XI dozed in starts, interest overcoming senility for moments before his head dropped again. His word was law but the council of bishops wrote his words for him, and spoke them as well more often than not.
“Worshipful sirs,” MacKinnie said, “I would do as Father Sumbavu asks if it were possible. But our expedition was a demonstration only. Without sufficient troops to replace the shieldsmen who fall in battle, and more to allow the men rest when they tire, we could never hold against the enemy for more than a day. But with enough men I can destroy their bases of supplies, bring them to battle against us, destroy many of them, and send the rest back to their wastelands. And do not be deceived, worshipful sirs. The plainsmen have studied our methods of fighting. They will even now be devising means to fight us, ways to use their great numbers and speed against us. The next battle will decide the fate of the city. Would you fight it now, or wait until hunger has reduced our ranks to shadows? Will you fight outside the walls like men, or huddled inside waiting to be slaughtered?”
“He speaks well, Sumbavu,” the Archdeacon said. He turned his blue eyes toward MacKinnie. “And how do you know you will have success? What manner of Trader are you that you know ways of fighting never seen on this world?”
“Your Reverence, my ways are but those of the Guildsmen of the south and west. We have fought these barbarians before, although never so many of them. As to success, what can be denied the army of God? If we go forth boldly, we must win, for God is with us.”
“He was with us before, but it did not save our army,” Sumbavu muttered. The old priest glanced quickly about, fearful of having spoken heresy.
“You wish to take all the knights and archers, and your beggars,” the Archdeacon said. “This I understand from watching the fighting five days ago. But why do you also demand the swordsmen of the Temple? Of what use will these be to you?”
“The armored swordsmen will guard our camp,” MacKinnie said. “They will fight in the night-time when the shieldsmen are not of such great value. They fight against the barbarians when they leave their mounts and attack us on foot. The citizen army knows only one method of fighting; they are not trained soldiers. We must have a leavening of fighting men if we are to bring the enemy to the final battle.”
“And, Sumbavu, what have you to say except that we should not allow this? What reasons have you?” the crimson-robed official asked. “He has done what you could never do.” The Archdeacon turned to the others. “For myself, I see the hand of God in this man’s coming. Who knows what instruments the Omnipotent may choose for our deliverance?”
Sumbavu measured his words carefully, speaking softly so that they leaned forward to hear him. “I do not know. Yet I do not like this. There is something of this man I do not understand, and I do not think he should be trusted with the army of the Temple.”
“Then go with him to command it,” the Archdeacon said. “For ourselves, we have heard enough. Let the Trader kill the barbarians, and may God’s blessing go with him.”
Sumbavu bowed in acceptance, but MacKinnie felt the war minister’s intense gaze even as he left the room.
MacKinnie used two more weeks preparing for the battle. His entire force of citizens and peasants was trained, with his original group dispersed through the ranks as fuglemen. Stark drilled them relentlessly in the Temple courtyard, taking them again and again through the complex maneuvers which formed squares and columns, opened and closed rank, brought their pikes to rest and present.
Brett and Vanjynk worked with the knights, shouting and cursing to try and make them understand that their great strength lay in a massed charge, and that they must return to the shield wall to regroup after each attack or they would be split apart and killed. Each evening they discussed the day’s progress, talking late into the night, then rising early to drill the men once again.
On the night before the army was to go forth, MacKinnie held another conference. He looked intently at his officers seated at the thick wooden table in front of him, and nodded in satisfaction.
“Mr. MacLean, what of my infantry?”
“Better than when we went out last, Trader. They’ve seen the way it’s done now, and Stark sweated them until they’re hardened up. Not like veteran troops, but they’ll hold. Doubling the rations didn’t hurt any.”
“That was the Trader’s doing,” Mary Graham said. “He found someone who could be bribed at the warehouse.”
MacKinnie shook his head. “Stark again, though I thought of it. I’ve never seen a commissary yet that didn’t have a couple of people on the take in it.”
“I hope there are none in mine,” Mary said indignantly.