by David Weber
"Fortunately, they appear to dislike that style of fighting and will adopt it only when their villages are actually threatened by forces larger than they themselves can muster. If the numbers are even near to equal on both sides, however, they almost always choose to attack rather than to be attacked. Since their numbers will be so much greater than ours, and since they can have no concept of what our weapons can do to them, I feel confident that they would rush eagerly to the attack under any circumstances. In this instance, however, I have labored with Computer's advice to devise a strategy which will assure that they do so, and it's for that reason that I've selected the specific field I've chosen."
He gestured at the imagery hovering just above the crystal tabletop. Or what he still thought of as a "tabletop," at least. In fact, he was beginning to have his doubts that whatever it was actually had anything a good Englishman would consider a "top" at all, for there was something very peculiar about it. He'd had no opportunity to examine it closely himself, yet nothing the demon-jester had ever set upon it in his presence had made the slightest sound, and objects seemed to slide over it even more easily than they might have slid over slick, winter-polished ice. At the moment, however, the nature of the demon-jester's furnishings was of considerably less importance than the image hovering above it, and Sir George had to admit that that image represented one aspect of the demon-jester's arcane arts of which he wholeheartedly approved.
Since the first time the demon-jester had shown him England and her neighbors through the eyes of God's own eagles, the baron had spent much time studying the marvelous "electronic" maps and "satellite and overhead imagery" Computer could produce upon request. It had been difficult for him, at first, to visualize the reality accurately from the "satellite imagery," in particular, because the pictures were so unlike any human map with which he had ever worked. Familiarity and practice, however, had overcome those difficulties, and he was awed by the unbelievable detail Computer could produce. No map he'd ever seen on Earth could match the precision and accuracy of this imagery... especially when Computer imposed a "three-dimensional, holographic topography" upon it and allowed him to see every rise and fall, every swell and hollow and stream, down to the tiniest rivulet, in true dimensions rather than as a flat representation. The baron had always had a tactician's eye for terrain, but no human commander had ever possessed the ability to visualize a field of battle with such devastating accuracy. Despite his servitude to the demon-jester, the soldier within Sir George rejoiced at the advantage he had been given. "Maps" such as these trebled his effective strength... at the very least.
The imagery currently displayed above the demon-jester's tabletop was one of Computer's "holograms" which showed a large hill, thickly grown in the dark purple grass of this murky-skied place. It rose perhaps fifty or sixty feet above the surrounding plain at its highest point, and its perfect roundness proclaimed that, despite its size, it was artificial, and not the work of nature. The hill was large enough that he could place his entire force upon it with some room to spare, if he arranged his formation carefully, and its stone-faced slopes angled sharply up from the level of the plain before the gradient eased off into something much more gentle as it continued upward to the summit.
"Computer has told me that this hill is sacred to the Thoolaas tribe," Sir George told the demon-jester. "It is the tomb in which they bury their heathen kings and priests, as sacred to them as Jerusalem itself to us. If we place our force upon it, they will attack us."
The baron did not add that the site he'd chosen for the battle offered no means by which the English could retreat if things went against them. He disliked that far more than the demon-jester possibly could have, even if it had occurred to the small creature, yet he saw no real alternative. It was obvious that his value to the guild, and that of his men, as well, depended solely upon their ability to win victories. If they lost that value, there would be no reason for the guild to retain their services, and he had no doubt whatsoever that the demon-jester would slaughter all of them as the cheapest and simplest way to rid himself of his poor investment. Almost worse, it had also become equally obvious that the demon-jester, for all of his arrogant self-confidence and contempt for the English, was less competent than some drooling village idiot when it came to planning and organizing a single battle, far less an entire campaign.
Computer had been much more forthcoming than Sir George had expected when the baron pressed him for information about the Thoolaas and the other local tribes, and Sir George had rapidly come to the conclusion that the demon-jester's analysis of the local situation was both overconfident and wrong. True, the Thoolaas were the largest and most powerful single tribe in the vicinity, and their king claimed the title of hereditary overlord, along with tribute, from all of his neighbors. But from what Computer had said, his authority was far more a matter of tradition than of fact. His "vassal" war chiefs were an unruly, independent-minded lot who were constantly at war with one another and who never bothered themselves with the formality of seeking his authority before marching out to slaughter one another. Only the other tribes' longstanding, traditional rivalries and the Thoolaas' chieftain's ability to keep their jealous leaders divided by playing one off against another had so far prevented two or three of them from banding together to overthrow him and bring an end even to his nominal authority.
From Sir George's perspective, that meant that defeating the Thoolaas could be no more than a first step in achieving the demon-jester's full purpose. These creatures clearly were at least as stubborn as Scots and as divisive as the Irish, which meant the defeat of one tribe, be that defeat ever so sound, was very unlikely to terrify its neighboring rivals into prompt submission. At least one or two of the other tribes—probably an alliance of several of them—would also have to be defeated before all of the local chiefs and subchiefs were prepared to submit. He had put that suggestion forward as diffidently as possible in his first strategy meeting with the demon-jester, but the idea had been waved aside. The "Commander" was positive that the elimination of the Thoolaas alone would solve all of his problems, and Sir George had decided not to argue the point. He'd made his own view a part of the record, and perhaps even the demon-jester would be able to recognize that he had been right after the fact.
And perhaps not. Sir George had seen altogether too many nobly born humans who were so sublimely confident of their own judgment and wit that they were fully capable of ignoring even the most painful lessons of reality. Particularly, he thought bleakly, when someone other than they has to pay the cost for their stupidity in blood and pain and death. That could very well be the case here, as well, but at least the demon-jester claimed to set a high value upon them as an "asset" of his precious guild. If his claims were honest, then perhaps he would at least be bright enough to learn from experience that it was valuable to listen to Sir George's advice.
But whatever the future might hold, the unpalatable present truth was that the demon-jester expected Sir George to deliver a quick, decisive victory. The baron might have managed to dissuade him from ordering an all-out frontal assault on the principal village of the Thoolaas, but that was the only concession he'd been able to win. And he felt confident that if, having obtained it, he failed to achieve the speedy triumph the demon-jester sought, he himself would be discarded at the very least. It was virtually certain that he would also be turned into an example of the price of failure for whatever of his subordinates survived to be elevated in his place, and Matilda and Edward would almost certainly die with him, probably—hopefully—without ever even being awakened.
His mind tried to shy away from that thought like a frightened horse, but he'd forced himself to consider it and face it fully. That, too, was one of the responsibilities of his rank, for if the demon-jester was willing to remove him, the hopelessly incompetent creature would undoubtedly insist upon exercising direct and total command over whoever replaced him.
And that would spell disaster and the ultimate death of all
of those under his command and protection.
That was the reason Sir George had chosen a position from which there could be no retreat. In the long run, there was no option but to attain total victory or to perish anyway, and the position he'd selected gave him the best opportunity for victory. Not to mention, he thought mordantly, the fact that men who know they cannot run away have no option but to fight to the death.
"As long as I'm allowed to entice them into coming to me when and where I choose," he told the demon-jester with an absolute confidence he was very far from feeling, "I will promise you the victory you seek, Commander."
The demon-jester regarded him in silence for several endless heartbeats.
"Very well," the creature said at last. "I would still prefer a swift, decisive attack that would take the Thoolaas by surprise and crush them in a single blow, but as you have said, you have far more direct experience than I in the employment of such crude and primitive weapons. I will allow you to fight this battle as you wish... but I strongly recommend that you honor that promise and produce the victory my guild requires."
It was remarkable, Sir George thought, how much chill threat could be packed into a completely expressionless and uninflected sentence.
* * *
"Can't say I much care for this position, M'lord." Rolf Grayhame hawked and spat a thick glob of spittle into the unnatural, purple-colored grass as he turned his head, sweeping his eyes over the featureless plain which surrounded the hill. Thanks to Computer's demonstrations, he was as familiar as Sir George with how quickly the natives' loping gait devoured distance... and knew that no human footman could hope to outrun them even if he got the chance to retreat. "Nor for this whole damned place," he added with a grimace.
"I'm not exactly overjoyed by either of them myself," Sir George told the powerfully built archer calmly. "Unfortunately, they're the ones we have, so I suppose we'll just have to make the best of them."
Grayhame chuckled sourly, then nodded and touched his forelock with a bob of his head.
"With your permission, M'lord, I'd best go make one more check."
"Go on, Rolf," Sir George said with a smile. "And remind the lads that whatever he might have to say," the baron jerked his head at the strange device Computer called an "air car" where it hovered unnaturally in midair above them, "this little brawl really is important."
He saw a trace of surprise on the archer's face and barked a laugh. Grayhame's reaction didn't surprise him in the least. The demon-jester had spent the better part of an hour exhorting "his" troops to do battle in the name of his guild. If it hadn't been for the life-or-death power he held over all of them, his ludicrous, bombastic harangue would have had every man of them in stitches of laughter. The very thought of "honoring the guild we serve with the offering of your courage and blood" was enough to make any one of Sir George's hardened veterans laugh—or puke—and the thought that the demon-jester could think them stupid enough to be taken in by such bilge was even worse.
"Oh, I don't give a rat's arse for him and his precious guild!" the baron grunted to the bowman. "They could all take the pox and rot, for all of me, and the sooner the better! But whatever we may think of them, our lives depend on convincing them that they need us, and that means winning."
"Not to mention the little matter that if we lose, the four-arms will slit all our throats, M'lord," Walter Skinnet put in dourly, and Sir George chuckled.
"Aye, not to mention that," he agreed, then waved at Grayhame. "So be off, Rolf, and pass the word."
"Have no doubt of that, M'lord," Grayhame assured him with a crooked grin, and trotted off while Sir George turned back to survey the field around their hilltop position.
There were enough subtle and not so subtle differences between this place and Earth to make the entire scene seem just slightly unreal, like a fever dream or a hallucination. The sun was a cooler, dimmer thing. The "trees" which dotted the plain about the burial hill were too tall, too spindly, and completely the wrong color. Even Sir George's own weight felt wrong, for he was too light on his feet and felt too charged with energy. He was accustomed enough to the surge of energy which the threat of battle always seemed to bring forth, but this was different. He'd mentioned it to Computer when the "tenders" from the demon-jester's main vessel had deposited the English and all of their equipment and horses here, and Computer had replied that the local "gravity" was lower and that the local air contained more "oxygen" than that to which the English were accustomed.
The baron had no idea what "gravity" or "oxygen" were, but if they could make him feel this way, then he wanted all of them he could get!
His mouth quirked in a grin at the thought, but it was fleeting, and his eyes narrowed as he continued his survey.
The oddly colored grasslands stretched to the limit of his vision, broken up only by an occasional, small clump of trees and the steeply cut banks of the small but deep river that wound around the western edge of the hill upon which the English stood. The lands were flat enough that the Thoolaas' main village was clearly visible on the far side of that stream, perhaps five miles from the hill, and even as he watched he could see the surging tide of the tribe's warriors shoving and jostling for position as they loped through the grass, waist-high on a human and reaching almost to mid-thigh on them, towards the ford that carried the trail from their village to their burial hill. Even at their pace, it would take them some time yet to reach the hill, and he could make out very few details from here, but the deep, rhythmic booming of their war drums already came faintly to his ears.
"How many dart-throwers do they have, Computer?" he asked quietly.
"Approximately nine hundred and seventeen out of a total force of approximately six thousand two hundred and nine," Computer's voice replied in his ear.
Despite the fact that Sir George knew Computer reported everything he heard to the demon-jester and the rest of the crew, hearing the other's voice at this particular moment was a great comfort. The numbers Computer had just reported, on the other hand, were not. Without the mariners and other untrained men Sir George had convinced the demon-jester not to commit, he had barely eight hundred men in total. True, sixty percent of them were archers, but the enemy had him outnumbered by two-to-one even in missile weapons, and his bowmen were much more lightly armed for close combat than his men-at-arms, with only daggers, short swords, and an occasional maul or hammer to supplement their bows. If the rest of that horde ever got to grips with them, the longbowmen would be at a deadly disadvantage.
Which meant that somehow Sir George had to prevent the Thoolaas from getting to grips. That was where the hedge of sharply pointed wooden stakes set into the slope of the hill came in. Not to mention the caltrops hidden in the river and seeded thickly through the tall grass all the way from the edge of the stream to the foot of the hill. And also not to mention the double line of dismounted men-at-arms between the stakes and the front ranks of the archers. It was ironic that after arguing so strongly with the demon-jester about the necessity of horses, he had dismounted all but fifty of his men-at-arms for the very first battle.
Of course, he reminded himself, turning to look at the ranks of horses being held at the rear of his formation, once the Thoolaas had been broken—if they were broken—he would need all of those mounts for the pursuit he intended to put in. In the meantime, Skinnet and the fifty mounted men under his and Sir Richard's direct command represented Sir George's only true reserve.
At least his men were by far the best armed and armored troops he had ever led into battle, he reminded himself. For all of the demon-jester's contempt for the crudity and primitive nature of their equipment, the "industrial modules" of the guild's huge ship had met and surpassed all of the requests Sir George and his advisors had submitted.
Like every commander of his day, Sir George was only too intimately familiar with the cost of properly equipping men for war. Knights and mounted men-at-arms usually had priority, because they were the decisive element in hand-
to-hand combat, where protection against hostile blows was paramount... and because knights were usually wealthy enough to afford better quality armor. No liege lord or captain could possibly have afforded to provide his entire force with such armor, however, and the archer and the footman-at-arms usually had to make do with less effective but far cheaper forms of armor. An archer was fortunate if he could afford brigandine rather than simple leather jack, and a footman was fortunate if he could afford a proper haubergeon instead of brigandine. Even knights and mounted men-at-arms were frequently forced to substitute boiled leather for the bits of plate armor used to reinforce their mail.
But not Sir George's men. Their armor might not be made of the same marvelous alloys as the ship or even the armor of the wart-faces, but it was made of a better steel than any smith born of Earth had ever forged. There was far more of it, too, and, unheard of though it was, every mounted man's armor was identical to every other mounted man's... and all of them were as well armored as any knight Sir George had ever seen. Indeed, the entire company's equipment had attained a uniformity and quality Sir George had never dreamed of when he first set out for France.
Men being men—and, especially, Englishmen being Englishmen—there had been some grumbling when the equipment that had been taken from them during their "processing" wasn't returned. That grumbling had faded quickly once the veterans began to recognize how much that equipment had been improved upon, and Sir George had never even been tempted to complain. Oh, he missed the familiar armor that had once been his father's, but that was no more than a nostalgic wistfulness, the loss of something which had connected him to people and places forever lost to him. His new armor was both lighter and far more efficient at protecting him from enemy weapons, and he was much too practical to regret that.
Even their horses were better protected. The destriers the demon-jester and his mechanical servitors had stolen one bloody night in France were not the massive chargers of true heavy horse, nor were they as heavily armored as those chargers would have been, but that was fine with Sir George, who preferred mobility and endurance to ponderous weight, anyway. Yet even though he had never been as enamored of heavy horse as most of his contemporaries, or perhaps because he never had, he was delighted with the barding and horse armor the demon-jester's modules had created. Like his own, it was lighter and tougher than anything he'd ever seen on Earth, and it afforded a high degree of protection without overburdening the mounts. Which was just as well, since the demon-jester's fear that horses might prove ill suited to phase drive stasis appeared to have been well founded. Computer told Sir George that they had lost no fewer than ten of their mounts during the voyage here (wherever "here" might be), and Sir George disliked thinking about what that promised for the long-term future.