“ Is it wise to divide the force?” MacLean asked.
“Wise or not, I’m doing it,” MacKinnie snapped. “I’m not accustomed to discussing my orders, Mister MacLean.”
“Sir,” MacLean answered.
“All right, move,” Stark said. He waited until the others had left. “Pretty good troops,” he said. “Not much protest at all. ’Course winning a battle yesterday didn’t hurt. Does wonders for discipline.”
When the troops were assembled, MacKinnie sent half the spearmen to the walls. The other half, with the knights, were marched out the camp gate. Once outside they turned due east, a right angle to the road to the city. There were mutters from the ranks, but no one questioned him.
When they were a kilometer from the camp MacKinnie turned the detachment toward the city, forming them into two columns of four with the cavalry inside. They marched in silence without drums, and Stark moved up and down the line to see that each man kept his equipment from rattling.
The sky turned gray, then crimson. When it was light enough to see men fifty meters away, Hal Stark caught up to MacKinnie at the head of the column. “They move pretty fast without wagons and junk,” Stark said. “Ought to be able to keep up this pace all morning.”
“We’ll need to,” MacKinnie said. He found it difficult to judge the capabilities of the native troops, and he couldn’t use his own abilities as a guide; months on Makassar had softened them, but the Samualites were generally stronger than the natives, and nearly all tasks seemed easier, exactly as Midshipman Landry had predicted.
The sun was nearly up when Stark sent for MacKinnie. When Nathan joined him at the point, Stark showed him deep tracks left by Sumbavu’s baggage carts. “Hard to tell how far they are ahead of us,” Stark said. “No more’n an hour, I’d say.”
“Loaded as they were, they can’t be too far,” MacKinnie said. “Okay, I want flankers out to both sides. They’ll slow us down, but this is good ambush terrain. And let’s make time.
They swung on in silence, now and again changing positions to send fresh men to lead the escorting flankers. It was hard work to break trail in the waist-high grass-like vegetation. The low hills of the plain closed around them, and MacKinnie rushed forward each time they topped a rise. Then, as they approached one low hill, they heard shouts from the other side. When they drew closer, the sounds resolved into the din of a battle.
“Deploy the troops,” MacKinnie said softly. “Columns of fours to each side.”
The parallel columns split apart, angling out to form two lines, then continued their advance up the hill in silence. The men readied their weapons and helped each other sling their shields properly.
“Draw swords,” MacKinnie ordered. “Double time.”
They trotted up the final ten meters to the top of the rise. The sounds of battle grew louder. Then they could see the low valley beyond.
A thousand barbarians had swarmed over Sumbavu’s column and destroyed it. There were so few survivors that at first MacKinnie saw none at all, but a few Temple swordsmen were huddled in knots of ten or twenty around the makeshift protection of the baggage carts. The maris swept toward them firing arrows and leaping on them with their swords. Even as MacKinnie and Stark watched, another tiny group of scarlet livery vanished beneath a wave of plainsmen.
“Make your charge straight through them,” MacKinnie told Vanjynk. “Cut through and go past, then wheel, dress ranks, and charge home again. Don’t stop to play with them, stay together as you’ve been taught. Now go.”
Brett and Vanjynk waved the knights forward. The heavily armored horsemen gathered momentum as they rode down the gentle hill, changed from trot to canter, building speed as they rode toward the enemy.
As soon as the knights were in motion the infantry shield wall began its advance. Drums sounded quickstep, then double time as fuglemen shouted frantic orders to dress ranks and keep in line. The wall moved forward.
The maris saw the wave of horsemen plunging toward them and leaped for their mounts, scattering the loot they had been so anxious to gain, but it was too late. The lances came down, and now that they had been seen, MacKinnie waved to the trumpeters. The notes carried easily over the dewy plains as the knights charged home. Lances shattered, swords were torn from scabbards as the knights shouted in triumph. A few remained to fight, wheeling about until they were pulled from their saddled by the lassos of the maris, or their mounts were shot from beneath them. The rest galloped past, riding the enemy down, thundering down the entire line of barbarians before wheeling at the top of the next rise.
The horsemen had broken the enemy when the shieldsmen arrived. Once again the wings of the shield line closed inward, trapping the enemy between ranks, while the knights charged home again, throwing back into the trap any of the barbarians who had attempted to escape, the momentum of their charge crushing all resistance. The plainsmen caught between the lines had no chance. They could impale themselves on the spears of the shield wall, or wait to be trampled by the knights. This time the slaughter was done quickly, for no one attempted to attack the infantry from behind. The plainsmen who escaped were glad of their lives.
They found Sumbavu at the head of the column, a group of swordsmen dead around his body. He clutched a sword with one hand and a crucifix with the other, and his eyes stared at the heavens. There were no more than fifty survivors in his entire command.
MacKinnie grimly formed his troops into columns and marched back to his camp, the carts rattling over the rutted plains, the groans of the wounded sounding over the creak of their wheels.
MacKinnie rested his men through the next day. In the late afternoon, a small party of plainsmen approached, wheeled outside arrow-shot, and waved feathered lances above their heads.
“He wants to talk to you,” Brett said. “It doesn’t happen very often with city people, but they do have ways of ending wars between clans. He’s treating you as the chief of a very powerful clan. The men behind him are family heads.”
“How do I meet him?” MacKinnie asked.
“Go outside the gate with a group of retainers. I doubt if he’ll trust you not to shoot him if he gets in close range. It’s what always happens when they deal with city people.”
“Can you talk to him? Do you speak their language?”
“You know I do, star man, and you know why. I’ll come with you if you like.”
MacKinnie took Brett and young Todd, leaving Stark and MacLean in command. Longway puffed after them, insisting, and MacKinnie invited him along. They walked out from the camp until they were near the extreme range of a crossbow, then halted, still barely within covering fire if it were needed.
Three figures detached themselves from the group, dismounted, and strode purposefully toward MacKinnie. A few feet away they grounded their lances and spread their arms wide. One spoke swiftly in a musical language MacKinnie had never heard.
“He says he comes to speak,” Brett said. “He says you fight like a great chief. He says never before have the robed fools fought so well.”
“Tell him he has fought well and we admire the courage of his men.”
Brett translated. Before the mari chief could answer, MacKinnie said, “Now tell him I am a great prince from the south, and that I have come in a ship. Tell him a thousand more ships full of men like mine are coming, with many horses, and we will cover the plains. Tell him his brave people will kill many of us, but more will come, and soon there will be many dead on these fields.”
“It is customary to exchange more compliments.”
“Give him a few. Tell him how brave his men are, and how well they fought. Then tell him what I said.”