by David Weber
But for any long-term problems to require his attention, he reminded himself, watching the Thoolaas horde loping closer and closer, he had to survive the present.
He raised one hand and beckoned for Sir Richard and Skinnet. The knight and the sergeant handed their reins to Sir Richard's squire and crossed to him.
"It looks to me," he said quickly, eyes never leaving the four-armed warriors, "as if these... creatures intend to do exactly what we'd hoped they would and come straight at us. If they don't, it will be up to you two and your lads to keep them off our backs until I can change front. I want you to withdraw the reserve another hundred and fifty paces and keep a close eye to the rear and flanks."
"Aye, My Lord," Sir Richard replied. Skinnet simply nodded, and the two of them moved quickly back to their men and began issuing orders.
Sir George left them to it, and returned his attention to the enemy.
The odds are little worse than I faced with the King at Dupplin, he thought. He'd pointed that out to his men in his own less bombastic, and more professional, prebattle speech, and it was close enough to true to satisfy them. Sir George had based his present deployment upon the one that had been used that day, and he truly expected it to give him victory, yet there were significant differences between Dupplin and this field, and he knew it. For one thing, although Edward III's army had counted no more than five hundred knights and fifteen hundred archers against almost ten thousand Scots at Dupplin, the odds against him had been only five-to-one, not eight-to-one. For another, the Scots at Dupplin had boasted no archers, whereas the Thoolaas had more dart-throwers than he had longbowmen. And, for yet another, Scots weren't nine feet tall and equipped with four arms each.
Still, it's not as if we haven't done it before, he told himself firmly as the oncoming warriors reached the far side of the stream and began splashing into it, bellowing their deep, strange war cries while the drums thundered and boomed behind them.
They should be discovering the first caltrops about... now, he thought.
As if his thought had been a cue, a huge shudder seemed to run through the front ranks of the charging Thoolaas. War cries turned abruptly into bellows of anguish as huge, broad, six-toed feet came down on the wickedly sharp caltrops. They were an ancient, simple device, no more than four-pronged pieces of wire, arranged so that however they lay, one prong was always uppermost. Designed as an anticavalry weapon, they were equally effective against the feet of infantry... especially when their presence was unsuspected. And it had certainly been "unsuspected" this time. The barefooted Thoolaas had never encountered such a weapon, and they shrieked in agony as the deadly sharp steel transfixed their feet. Hundreds of them fell, thrashing in torment, screaming even more loudly as they fell on still more caltrops, and many of them drowned in no more than three feet of water.
The entire leading edge of the aliens' formation—if such a mob could have been called a formation in the first place—came apart. But it didn't stop. Battle fever, contempt for the puny, half-sized runts on the far side of the river, resentment of the demands of the demon-jester's guild, and fury at the desecration of their burial hill, carried them onward, and Sir George's eyes narrowed in satisfaction as he watched their formation shift. At his request, the demon-jester's servitors had spent the previous night silently and stealthily sowing the river with caltrops for well over a mile, both upstream and down. But the ford directly opposite the burial hill had deliberately been left clear, and now the Thoolaas funneled towards the center of that ford, packing closer and closer together as they realized that none of the vicious, invisible, foot-destroying caltrops blocked their charge directly towards the hill.
Sir George grunted in fresh satisfaction as the four-armed warriors crowded more and more tightly into a single mass. The sheer press of bodies should greatly reduce, if not completely eliminate, the effectiveness of the Thoolaas' dart-throwers by denying them the clearance they required to launch their deadly missiles, and he waited another five heartbeats, then drew a deep breath and nodded sharply to Rolf Grayhame, who stood watching him steadily.
"Nock arrows and draw!" Grayhame shouted.
* * *
Sir George had split his archers, putting half of them on each flank of his line and slightly forward, though still behind their rows of wooden stakes, so that their fire converged on the tightly-packed column of Thoolaas warriors charging through fountains and rainbows of spray towards their position. His longbowmen were veterans all, each capable of putting twelve shafts into the air in one minute and hitting a man-sized target at two hundred paces with aimed fire. But this day the range was considerably less than two hundred paces; their targets were far larger than any human; and almost five hundred bows bent at Grayhame's shout.
"Loose!" he bellowed, and half a thousand bowstrings sang as one.
No one who had never seen English bowmen in action could have imagined the fierce, deadly hiss as that storm of arrows slashed upward with a great slithering scrape of wooden shaft against bowstave. The very air seemed to buzz as their fletching cut through it like some vast, sun-obscuring shadow of death, and then they came slicing downward like unleashed demons.
The Thoolaas shrieked in fresh agony, far worse than that inflicted by the caltrops, as the lethal rain blasted into them. Each shaft was a yard long, with a broad, razor-sharp head that drove effortlessly through the archers' unarmored targets, and for one eerie second before the howls of pain drowned them out, the solid, meaty thuds as they struck home were clearly audible from where the baron stood. Hundreds of the natives went down, but Sir George blinked in astonishment, for the deadly shafts had fallen much deeper into the Thoolaas' formation than he had expected. He snapped his head around in surprise as the front ranks of the enemy charged onward even while those fifty yards behind them shrieked and died, but Grayhame was already bellowing furiously at his archers. Some of the bowmen looked confused, but they were given no time for confusion to become uncertainty or panic before Grayhame barked fresh orders, and then a second flight arced upward.
This one fell closer to its intended targets, and the archers dropped into the familiar rhythm as they sent a third lethal storm hissing upward. And a fourth. A fifth!
The longbows had adjusted their trajectories fully by the fourth volley, and Sir George watched in a deep amazement that not even his experience at Dupplin or Halidon Hill could have prepared him for. Computer had said there were six thousand warriors in that force; in the next ninety seconds, his bowmen put nine thousand shafts into the air. When the last of them came down, the battle was effectively over. Oh, the arrows continued to fly for at least another two or three minutes, but the sheer, hammer blow carnage of that first minute and a half had shattered the Thoolaas. Despite the range and accuracy of their own dart-throwers, they had never experienced the horrific killing power of such massed, rapid, deadly fire. Probably as much as half their total army was killed or wounded in that initial, shrieking ninety seconds of slaughter. Another quarter was killed or wounded as the survivors turned and fled in howling terror, and Sir George straightened his spine as he watched them go.
For just a moment he allowed his eyes to linger on the windrows of Thoolaas strewn across both banks of the river and mounded across the stream itself like some hideous, arrow-pierced dam of flesh that turned the water downstream into a sludge of orange blood. All throughout those piles and hillocks of bodies motion twisted and writhed while the inhuman—in every sense of the word—moans of the wounded and dying rose like some horrible hymn of Hell.
He gazed upon that ghastly sight, a hardened warrior shocked despite himself by the carnage he had unleashed, and then he turned his back upon it and nodded to young Thomas Snellgrave, his squire and standard bearer.
Thomas was white-faced, and his hands trembled ever so slightly, but he returned his liege's nod and waved Sir George's standard in the prearranged signal. All through the English formation, movement and stir began as the dismounted cavalry who had thic
kened the protective line of footmen began moving towards the waiting lines of horses. Sir Richard and Walter Skinnet came trotting up from behind to join them, and Sir George walked across to the nervous groom holding the tall, midnight-black stallion.
The baron nodded to the groom, took the reins, and heaved himself into the saddle. It was a maneuver he'd learned to execute, despite his armor, when he was little older than his son now was, but it seemed much easier here. Because of that "gravity" and "oxygen" Computer had babbled about? He didn't know, and he wondered briefly if one of those factors also explained the extra range which had taken his archers by surprise. Perhaps Computer would explain it to him later if he asked, he thought, then brushed the question aside.
The horse he'd named Satan moved uneasily under him, fighting the bit and showing tooth while he rolled a wicked eye at anyone or anything, human or equine, that dared to encroach upon his space. Sir George heard the stallion's whistling challenge, but he had no time to worry over so minor a matter. He leaned forward in the saddle and rapped the horse smartly between the ears with one gauntleted fist. It wasn't a hard blow, but it did its job, for he and Satan had come to terms long since, and strength wasn't required to remind the stallion that the insignificant creature upon his back was his master. There was a symbolism there, an analogy, which Sir George chose not to examine too closely. He glanced over as young Snellgrave tucked the base of the standard's staff into his right stirrup and urged his own gelding up beside Satan.
Sir Richard moved into position to Sir George's right, with Skinnet on his left, and the baron nodded one last time in satisfaction. It was a small enough cavalry force, particularly given that at least a thousand Thoolaas had escaped the slaughter at the ford. But small or not, it was all he had, and so it would have to do. At least every man of it was well-mounted, well-armed, and well-trained.
As he looked upon his mounted men, Sir George made himself accept that some of them were about to die. The one-sided massacre the archers had inflicted would not be repeated this day. Perhaps he could have left the Thoolaas fugitives alone. After such savage losses, surely their surviving chieftains and shamans would submit to the demon-jester without further bloodshed! But he couldn't be certain of that, and he had been ordered to crush them beyond doubt or question. He dared not leave this task half-done, not when the survival of all of his people depended upon his ability to demonstrate their value conclusively to the demon-jester and his guild. And so he would insure the Thoolaas were broken beyond hope of future resistance, even if he must kill another thousand of them, or lose a dozen of his precious, irreplaceable men, to do it.
"All right, lads," Sir George Wincaster said calmly. "We've a way to go to clear the caltrops in the river, and no time to waste. Let's be on our way."
* * *
The trumpet call sent the small force of English cavalry swinging to its left, and the column deployed into a line on the move. The maneuver was as swift and well drilled as any commander could have asked, and it was as well that it was, Sir George thought grimly. The river lay two miles behind, the village lay three miles ahead, and the knot of Thoolaas warriors between his men and their homes numbered perhaps four hundred—twice his cavalry's strength. Worse, at least a score of dart-throwers stood behind them, and the spearmen and axemen sent up a howling scream of rage as they spied the cavalry.
The baron was unhappy at coming face-to-face with so many warriors, but at least they represented a third or more of the total force Computer estimated had escaped the slaughter at the ford. If they could be broken decisively, it was unlikely any other sizable force would coalesce.
The problem was ensuring that the aliens were the ones who were broken.
He took one more moment to glance to his left and right along the front of his line and grunted in satisfaction. Then he nodded to his trumpeter and slammed down the visor of his bascinet.
"Ready!" he called through its slots, and the trumpet sang.
He could have used Computer to carry his verbal orders to each of his men even here, but he'd chosen against it. His troopers were accustomed to the trumpet commands, and he had decided not to throw any more new, confusing experiences at them in this first battle than he must. There would be time enough for improvement and adaptation later, assuming that they won this fight.
All along the English line, lances swung down, Sir George's among them, at the trumpet's command, and he settled himself more firmly into the saddle while Satan stamped impatiently beneath him.
"At a walk!" he commanded, and the trumpet sang again.
The cavalry stirred back into motion, walking their mounts towards the weapons-waving mob of Thoolaas. He waited two or three more heartbeats, then shouted again.
"At a trot!"
The line of horsemen spurred to a trot, hooves thudding on firm earth as they gathered speed and momentum, and the Thoolaas warriors screamed their war cries and flooded to meet them.
"At a charge!"
The trumpet sang a final time, and a deep, hoarse bellow went up in answer from his troopers as the trot became a gallop. Sir George's vision was narrowed by the slots of his visor, but he saw the dart-throwers' arms come forward, saw the slender, javelinlike spears leaping from the throwing sticks. He smelled the dust, horse sweat and his own, and felt the sun which had seemed so dim in the murky sky beating down upon his armor while the equine thunder of the charge enveloped him. The spears came slicing wickedly downward, one of them impacting with a force and weight that struck his shield like a hammer. Somewhere he heard a horse screaming, and there were human screams mingled with the sound, but there was no time to think about that now. No time for anything which could distract him from the task at hand.
A huge Thoolaas came at him—a veritable giant, even for its own kind—with an enormous battle ax clasped in each pair of hands. The creature was as tall as Sir George mounted on Satan, and it shrieked its hatred and its war cry as it lunged towards him. But big as it was, and long as its arms were, they were shorter than a ten-foot lance, and it shrieked again as the bitter steel lance head slammed squarely into its chest.
The Thoolaas went down, but the impact ripped the lance from Sir George's grip. He was too experienced to try to maintain his grasp upon it at the expense of losing speed or balance, and his sword swept from its sheath in a reflex as automatic as breathing.
Satan thundered forward, screaming his own battle rage yet swerving, obedient to the pressure of Sir George's knees, and then the baron rose in his stirrups as another warrior confronted him. An ax and a huge, clumsy flail swung at him in a scissorslike attack, and the unbelievable shock as his shield took the weight of the flail nearly knocked him from the saddle. In an odd sort of way, the ax that struck home almost simultaneously actually helped him keep his seat. It slammed into the new, solid steel backplate which covered his hauberk, driving him forward and to the side, almost diametrically against the impact of the flail. It was like being trapped between two sledgehammers, but the baron maintained his balance, and his sword swept out and around with deadly precision.
The second Thoolaas tumbled backwards, his throat a blood-streaming gash while Satan trampled him underfoot, and suddenly Sir George was through their line, and he grinned savagely as Satan thundered towards the dart-throwers.
The alien missile troops carried no hand-to-hand weapons at all. Two last-ditch darts slammed into him—one turned by his breastplate, and the other skipping off of the plate cuisse protecting his left thigh—while a third bounced from Satan's barding, and then Sir George was upon them. He rose in the stirrups as he passed between two of them, and his sword severed one's arm on the downstroke, then split the other's skull on the backhand recovery. A third alien reached up for him with one pair of hands, trying to drag him from the saddle while two more hands stabbed furiously at him with bronze-headed javelins. But his armor defeated the javelins, and he slammed his shield into the alien's forehead. The creature staggered backwards, and one of his troopers who
had somehow retained his lance came past the baron at a gallop. The lance's steel head punched deep into the stunned Thoolaas' belly, and then Sir George and his companion were reining in hard as their speed carried them beyond the last of the aliens.
Satan turned like an antelope under him, all trace of rebellion or resistance vanished, and Sir George's eyes swept the field.
The Thoolaas formation, such as it had been, had shattered like crystal under the impact of his charging troopers. Individually huge and powerful though they might have been, the aliens had discovered that even the ability to use weapons with all four hands was insufficient to overcome the discipline and armor of their far smaller opponents. At least half the aliens were down, and even as Snellgrave arrived beside Sir George with his standard, the handful of warriors who hadn't fled were being cut down by the surviving English. Other troopers were thundering in pursuit of those who had fled, hacking them down from behind in the ancient penalty cavalry had always exacted from infantry who broke and ran. This infantry, however, was very nearly as fast as the cavalry pursuing it, and Sir George turned to his trumpeter.