He looked around for Estar but couldn’t see him. Nobody seemed to be giving orders, and the patient, disciplined ranks of Imperial infantry were standing still, like carthorses in heavy rain. Damn, Bardas thought. He stepped forward out of line and started shouting military stuff like Left wheel and Dress to your front, the sort of thing he’d learned in Maxen’s army and thought he’d forgotten. The Imperials weren’t like Maxen’s men, though; they were a joy to drill, smart and precise, men who didn’t just obey the words of command but actually believed in them, as if they were the holy words of some religion. It was unnerving, this total and unthinking obedience, with all its connotations of responsibility and trust. Don’t say I’m getting involved again, Bardas thought resentfully; but unless somebody got these men out of the line of fire, there would be avoidable deaths and injuries; Estar nowhere to be seen, the other officers standing by as faithfully as the men. The blood had reached his collar-bone; the lapel of his habergeon was soaking it up like a sponge, and the sharp edges were cutting more deep, thin slices, precise as the leaf-thin blades of the cooks’ knives as they dressed out the sheep. Almost proof, but not quite; a small puncture hole on the outside, a series of bloody gashes within.
He’d brought the army out of column into line, and gave the order to advance. For this sort of situation the Imperial writers on the art of war recommended a manoeuvre they called the ‘hammer and anvil’: invite the enemy to concentrate their fire on an apparently suicidal infantry advance, the main body of the army apparently walking directly into the hail of arrows (but that’s what armour’s for) while wings of cavalry and light infantry hook round the back and drive the enemy headlong on to the men-at-arms’ pikes. It was a sound enough tactic provided you could rely on your cavalry officers to do their job. Bardas had seen them move off as soon as he started to turn the line, riding away from the enemy before describing a wide arc and appearing unexpectedly behind them. On this ground they’d have to ride all the way round to the other side of the far ridge if they wanted to stay out of sight. It’d be a long time before they were in position, which meant the armoured infantry were going to have to stay out in the rain getting soaked. It was a wager, the lives of thousands of men riding on a bet, their archers against our armourers. Welcome back to the proof house, Bardas Loredan; we knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away.
What the hell had become of Colonel Estar? Common sense suggested that he’d gone down in the first volley of arrows, though Bardas hadn’t seen him fall. It was inconceivable that he’d run away. He was, after all, a Son of Heaven, and even Bardas Loredan needed to believe in something. If Estar was dead – things like that don’t happen, commanders-in-chief of mighty armies don’t die in the first volley of the first battle they fight in. But if he was dead (and Maxen died, remember) command of the army would pass to Sergeant Loredan, until such time as another Son of Heaven arrived from Ap’ Escatoy. The thought made Bardas shudder.
Here was an interesting problem, an examination question in the art of command. To reach the enemy they were having to march down a steep slope. It was essential that they keep in line; but the sheer weight of the armour on which everything depended was making them tend to hurry, almost to the point of breaking into a run. Bardas was having to drive his heels into the dry, crumbling turf just to keep his balance. In his mind he could clearly see the ludicrous image of an army in full plate tobogganing down the slope on their backsides, skidding and crashing into each other, tumbling head over heels into a tangled heap of steel and flesh – that was just the sort of thing that happened in a war, it was the way disasters came about and wars were lost. In a moment of great clarity he could see it, as if it had already happened; a mighty trash-heap, like the pile of pieces that had failed proof (men as well as armour that had failed proof; welcome home), with the plainsmen standing on the top of the little rise shooting at will into the mess and laughing so hard they could scarcely draw their bows. The image was so strong that it was almost impossible for him to distinguish between it and what he could actually see. He shouted back to his officers, invisible behind him, to keep the line, to slow down the advance – well, anybody could say the words, but turning the words into action, making the words come true, was a job for a real commander; he could only hope that there were a few of those in the ranks behind him. The arrows weren’t helping, either; they were on the skyline now, shooting down at almost their maximum reverse elevation; the arrows were glancing off the artfully angled surfaces of the plate and skidding away in all directions, smacking sideways into the faces and bodies of the fourth and fifth ranks. There was nothing to be done about them, they had to be ignored, as if they were horseflies on a hot day. The one thing the line couldn’t do now was stop and go back; if they tried that, they’d be tumbling down the slope in no time.
There was nothing for it but to trot the last few yards. A few men did go down, and each man that fell took two or three with him, with a thump and a crash like an accident in a smithy. No time to see to the fallen, they’d have to sort themselves out if they were still capable of doing so; there were living men pinned down under dead men, he knew, like miners trapped by a cave-in, and there they’d have to wait, depending on the general, on Sergeant Loredan, to win the battle and survive; otherwise they’d stay there till they died, or until the scrap-metal people came with their sharp knives to collect the spoil and skin the carcasses. Never should have let command fall into the hands of an outlander. Obvious recipe for disaster. He could hear them saying it now.
They’d managed to get down the slope; now came the tricky part. They didn’t have far to climb, but the gradient was steep and there were enemy soldiers at the top of it. This isn’t on; if I’d wanted to work this hard I could have stayed on the bloody farm. It was worse than carrying the grain-sacks up the ladder to the loft, or manhandling heavy timbers up scaffolding. With every step he was sure his knees would burst or the muscle would break out through the back of his calf; he could feel his muscles taking damage (this isn’t very clever, Bardas, you’ll do yourself an injury) and the thought of having to fight someone if he did manage to scramble up to the top was enough to make him laugh out loud. If they wanted to fight him, they’d have to help him up the last few yards, as if he was an old man, getting tottery on his pins.
The sound the arrows made as they deflected off the plate was extraordinary, a whistling scream of frustration. Not that all of them were being turned; because they were being shot at from above, the angles were all wrong, there were flat spots where an arrow could strike fair and square. Every man shot took two or three more with him as he toppled backwards and rolled down the hill (if the enemy had any sense they’d be rolling rocks and logs) and that wasn’t helping either. The pace had slowed right down, it was as if time had stopped (the arrow coming towards him) and there was still nothing he could do except force himself to climb another step, then another. Just breathing was next to impossible now. This is how battles are lost, this is how disasters happen; the trash-heap, the pile of parts that failed proof.
He was staring directly at a pair of boots. They were old boots, scuffed, one toe mended. I had a pair of boots like that once, he thought; and just as he remembered the dead man he’d taken them from after a battle on the plains, the owner of the boots kicked him in the forehead. That was a mistake, too; boots not sturdy enough to go kicking steel with. In spite of everything, Bardas couldn’t help grinning – no breath to laugh with, can only grin – as he heard the howl of pain. Then (he could still only see as far as the man’s knees) he lunged upwards with his pike, the bloody heavy piece of kit he’d lugged all this way and might as well use, and cut the howling short.