At roughly the same time as the battle of Lox Wood reached its climax, he finished the preparation of materials and was ready to start building the bow itself.
‘Subtlety,’ said Sten Mogre, ‘is for losers. On the other hand, we really don’t want to mess up this battle, so let’s take it nice and steady.’
It was a blindingly hot, bright morning, with no trace of a breeze. The sun blazed and sparkled off the sea to the east so fiercely that it was painful to look at, and flashed on the copper-washed roof of the Bank as if it was already on fire. Between Lox Wood, to his rear, and Scona Town itself there was nothing but the open downs, gently sweeping towards the cliffs that flanked the bay. Perfect country for an infantry charge; enough of a gradient to add worthwhile impetus, but not steep enough to make the going treacherous. Below him, he could see Gorgas’ little army lying across the line of the road, like a thin billet of steel on an anvil ready to be beaten into shape. ‘Thirty gold quarters for Gorgas’ head,’ Mogre called out, ‘twenty more if he’s still attached to it and capable of breathing. Apart from him, we don’t need any of them for anything, so feel free to indulge yourselves. Keep in line and don’t dawdle, and it ought to be easy as treading on beetles.’
He’d put three hundred men in two ranks in the centre, and thrown out the rest in equal numbers on the wings; six hundred and fifty men to each wing, in two long lines. The plan was to advance the wings wide, giving Gorgas the impression that they were sweeping round him to avoid him altogether and attack the Town. If he took the bait, he’d either divide his forces in an attempt to stop them and be encircled before he knew it, or else he’d lose his nerve and try and fall back on the Town, in which case the centre would charge and catch him in rear while the flanks joined ahead of him and formed a noose to cut him off. In any event, so long as he kept his men spread out and moving, he’d rob the archers of any chance of snatching a fluke victory; there simply wouldn’t be enough halberdiers in any one place at any time to give them anything worthwhile to shoot at. Fond though he’d become of Gorgas since the war started – hard not to become attached to someone you’ve studied so intensely – he couldn’t for the life of him see any way that two hundred and fifty archers stood a chance against sixteen hundred halberdiers in this terrain. Briefly he toyed with the idea of offering terms, but decided against it without much internal debate. Technically this was putting down a rebellion, not a legitimate war; accordingly, rebellion protocols applied.
‘All right,’ he said calmly. ‘Let’s go. Advance the wings, steady the centre. Let’s make this one neat and tidy.’
Gorgas watched the halberdiers coming towards him on either side, and realised that he hadn’t the faintest idea what he was going to do.
Stupid, stupid. For some reason he’d got it into his head that they’d form a strong, packed centre and charge from there – an absurd notion, since that was the only scenario in which he’d have a chance of winning. Now it looked like they were ignoring him altogether, stepping round him as if he was a drunk slumped in the street.
‘Well?’ someone asked. ‘What do we do now?’
Gorgas shrugged. ‘Engage the enemy, I suppose. I think that’s what we’re here for.’
‘Which ones?’
Gorgas thought for a moment. ‘Them,’ he said, pointing at the centre of the line, ‘the buggers standing still. They’ll be easier to hit. All right, form two ranks, loose and advance in turn.’
The first volley lifted and soared like a flock of rooks scared off newly cut stubble. The range was just over two hundred yards – clout-shooting distance, and wasn’t it just as well he’d had them all training at the clout for the past six months? Just over halfway towards the enemy, the arrows faltered, stopped climbing, hung in the air for a fraction of a second -
(one tiny fragment of time; the beam of the scale balanced on a razor-thin fulcrum.)
– and dropped, gathering speed and force as their trajectory decayed. They always fall short of where you think they’re going to fall; you think they’re almost directly overhead at the high point of their ascent, but the trajectory decays, they rise gradually and fall steeply, and their momentum is greater going down than going up. The volley pitched square on the first and second ranks of the centre; and by the time it pitched, the second volley was in the air, fired by Gorgas’ second rank after it had passed through the first, advanced five paces and shot. Now the first rank came on another five paces, drew and loosed; as the volley went up, the second rank advanced, drew, loosed. The first rank held their ground, since there was nothing left for them to shoot at.
(I never thought he’d do that, Sten Mogre said to himself as he died.)
Now the wings were coming in fast, wondering what in hell was going on. Gorgas took a deep breath and gave the order to form a tight square. If they’ve got the sense they were born with, they’ll make for the Town, he reflected, reaching for another arrow. If they come for us, it’ll all depend on whether the arrows hold out. In the end, it comes down to supplies, economics.
They were coming on, the lines on either side extending so as to join and complete the encirclement. That didn’t bother him in the slightest. He’d made his square as small as he could; if they wanted to fight him, they’d have to squeeze in close, turning their extended widely spaced line into a thick, jostling mob just right for shooting arrows into, like the mess he’d seen in the river bed. ‘Hold your fire,’ he called out in a loud, clear voice. ‘At eighty-five, no further. Front rank, draw.’
The first volley thinned them a little, but the gaps soon filled, so that was all right. The staggered ranks of the square worked just as he’d hoped; as one rank loosed, the other drew, so that there was never a moment when there wasn’t a cloud of arrows in the air. The enemy were stumbling now, as if they’d been tripped by a rope across their path. Forty yards out from the square they became so tangled that they couldn’t move forward fast enough to live long enough to get past the banked-up dead and wounded and go in closer. The bank grew; it was like watching the sand forming high drifts in the bottom of an hourglass, or the moment when the incoming wave dissipates on the sand just before it’s pulled back into the sea. At forty yards out, the crucial moment was tangible, although as a problem in applied philosophy it was hardly worthy of attention. It would be decided by nothing more obscure or profound than elementary arithmetic – which was going to run out first, Gorgas’ supply of arrows, or the enemy’s supply of men? It would be very close, close enough for a recount. It might yet come down to the last arrow or the last man, the accuracy of one archer’s aim, the care with which one halberdier put on his breastplate, the true tiller of one bow, the straightness of one arrow, the turning of a head to left or right at one particular moment, to decide whether the attack broke off and fell back or surged over the bank and pressed home.
Gorgas reached down without looking and felt the fletchings of another arrow, one more than he thought he had left. The skin between the first and second joints of his draw fingers was rubbed away into a mush of raw flesh, and the muscles of his back screamed as he took up the weight of the draw, pushing against the handle of the bow with his left hand, drawing back the string with his right. As he drove his left arm forward, straightening the elbow, he heard a sharp crack and felt the top limb of his broken bow smash into his mouth, as hard as a punch from a skilful boxer, while the lower limb welted across the side of his knee. He stood for a moment with the ruins of his bow hanging comically around him – damn the thing, the useless, cheapskate heap of crap, lousy unbacked ash that couldn’t take the racking stretch across the back and crushing in the belly, it had left him defenceless in the very moment when everything was to be decided; suddenly there was nothing more he could do except drop two pieces of firewood, stand still and wait.