One thousand horses. In Kirkellan terms, that meant one thousand mounted warriors. One thousand well-trained, saber-wielding warriors on one thousand well-trained, enormous horses. That would increase the size of the army by almost half again its current strength. Jeffrey found he’d stopped breathing and his vision was getting blurry; he made himself take a deep breath and wipe the silly grin off his face. “Send a reply,” he told the technicians. “Um…message received, thanks to the matrian for her generosity and anticipate coming to mutually beneficial terms after defeating Hrovald.” That might even happen, now. One thousand mounted warriors. “Oh, and my, um, Warleader wishes to coordinate attack with yours, message to follow.” At least, Marcus would as soon as he heard about it.
Jeffrey reached out of the tent, collared a page, and sent her flying to bring Marcus to the Devisers’ tent. Imogen spoke highly of him, did she? It was nice to think he’d made as much of an impression on her as she had on him, though he couldn’t remember doing anything particularly noteworthy.
Marcus came through the door, panting. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Everything is right. Mairen’s sending a thousand warriors to join the attack.”
Marcus’s mouth fell open. “A thousand…”
“A thousand mounted warriors. They’ll be here in two days. We just have to hope to heaven Hrovald’s army gets stuck in the mud or something. I told the matrian you’d want to coordinate their attack with their Warleader.”
“Damn. That’s not going to be easy. I hope they have maps. Wait, I don’t have maps. You, boy—no, I can’t explain which ones I want.”
“I’ll go. Marcus, we may actually survive this.”
“Let’s not get overconfident…but just between the two of us, you’re right.”
Jeffrey kept his pace to something less than a run, but his thoughts went racing ahead of him. They’d need to choose their battlefield with their allies in mind. That meant moving again. Thank heaven Elspeth was well out of it; he’d married her and Owen the day before, and with luck they’d be in Aurilien before battle with the Ruskalder was even joined. Not that that would matter if they couldn’t stop the Ruskalder. If the Tremontanan army fell—but there was no point thinking like that. They would win. They had to win. Everything that came after could wait.
Marcus’s chosen battle site was a plain at the base of a low rise to the west. They took up positions that put the rise on their left and gave them room to maneuver in all other directions. The rise was important. With the commanders and Jeffrey gathered in the king’s tent, Marcus drew up his plan of attack.
“The Kirkellan are coming to us from the west. They’ll use the rise to conceal themselves until they’re ready to attack, which will hopefully rattle the Ruskalder into making mistakes. Depending on when they arrive, they’ll either attack the left flank or the rear, with smaller parties taking the fight to the front lines. Our problem is that we don’t know how soon they’ll get here. Ideally, they’ll arrive before Hrovald does and we’ll be better able to coordinate, but we’re planning for the worst contingency, which is that they arrive after battle is joined. Our strategy, therefore, allows for our allies’ presence, but doesn’t depend on it.
“Here—” Marcus drew several lines—“and here are where the riflemen will be. From this position they’ll be able to start firing when the Ruskalder are about two hundred yards from our front lines.” A murmur went up at this, and Marcus grinned. “And you all were annoyed at how much practicing they did. Our best riflemen can shoot a fly off your nose at four hundred yards and can shoot three times a minute. They’ll soften up the front lines for the infantry.”
“Where are the cavalry in all of this? They’re not being pushed aside just because we have other horses coming—horses we know nothing about, I might add?” said the captain in charge of the cavalry.
“Our light cavalry functions differently from the Kirkellan heavy cavalry, Dorcas. Your soldiers will harry the Ruskalder on the eastern flank. We want to surround them on both sides, but if the Kirkellan don’t show up right away, you’re going to be the sole flanking force.” The captain nodded, stiffly, her mouth still set in a hard line. Jeffrey didn’t know her well, but Marcus trusted her, and Jeffrey now wondered if her pride would interfere with her ability to do her duty. They needed their cavalry on the right flank to press Hrovald’s army hard, not a glamorous job or one that allowed for individuals to gain glory. Jeffrey made a mental note to discuss the potential problem with Marcus.
“The infantry will hold the line here,” Marcus said, drawing a long slash across the board. “The end of the line will move to follow our flankers. We want to enclose Hrovald’s army like this, keep them bottled up. The important thing to remember is that Hrovald doesn’t have a unified force as we do. His chiefs all maintain their own smaller armies, somewhere between three and five hundred men apiece, and though Hrovald directs the overall strategy, his chiefs dictate how their men will carry it out. We’re going to exploit that autonomy by trying to break the army into its constituent parts. We may be able to force some of those smaller armies to retreat, depending on how they’re organized. I’ll be directing our tactics from here—” he drew an X to the rear and center of the other lines—“where I can observe the motion of the enemy troops and direct our action along the army’s fracture lines, as it were.” He laid down his piece of charcoal and dusted his fingers off on his jerkin. “Any questions?”
“How soon do we expect to join battle?” asked a man to the rear of the group.
“Our scouts tell us they’ll be here sometime tomorrow no earlier than noon.”
“And we have no sign of the Kirkellan warriors.”
“Not as yet.”
“Isn’t it possible that they won’t get here at all?” The man glanced from side to side as if looking for support, and there were murmurs among the others. A couple of people shifted and looked away from Marcus and his battle plan.
“Mairen of the Kirkellan has said she will send aid,” Jeffrey said, “and I have faith that she will keep her word.”
“Begging your pardon, your Majesty, but we know little of the Kirkellan besides their reputation,” said the same man. “It is not their people Hrovald is trying to destroy.”
“What is your name, Colonel?” Jeffrey asked.
The man blanched. “Uh…Charlton Eggers, your Majesty.”
“Colonel Eggers, if Hrovald defeats us tomorrow, he will assuredly turn his armies against the Kirkellan next. Mairen knows that. She is aware that in this action, we are her first line of defense. You said we know little of the Kirkellan other than their reputation. This is true. We know that they are honorable warriors—too honorable to allow others to fight their battles for them. Colonel Eggers, the Kirkellan will come to our aid because this is their battle too. General Anselm will be watching the battle. I will be watching the horizon. And I guarantee that when our allies arrive, I will ensure that every man and woman on that field knows it.”
There was more murmuring. The colonel’s face regained its color. He inclined his head in a bow. “Thank you, your Majesty,” he said.
“If there are no other questions…?” Marcus surveyed the room. “Then return to your commands and prepare for battle. We will form up at mid-morning, and may heaven guide our swords.”
When everyone had filed out, Marcus said, “That was some speech.”
Jeffrey colored. “Too much?”
“Just enough. They look to you, you know.”
“Do they? I feel like a figurehead, most of the time. It’s not as if I’m a soldier.”
“You’re not a figurehead. You represent what they’re fighting for. Their homes. Their kingdom. You’re smart, you’re articulate, and soldier or not, you know how to command respect.”
Jeffrey went even redder. “That’s a lot of praise.”
“And not false praise, either. You hand out enough of it, I figure you ought to get some back.” He clapped Jeffre
y on the shoulder. “And it doesn’t hurt that you’re a good-looking young man. Hell, half the soldiers on the field would follow you based on that alone.”
Jeffrey laughed. “They would not. They’re professionals.”
“Professionals with good eyesight.” Jeffrey punched him lightly on the shoulder, and Marcus grinned. “Come to supper with the commanders. It’ll boost their morale. No, no more compliments; they just like to see that you aren’t unapproachable.”
“I’ll do that if you stop telling me how great I am.”
“Well, it is hard to take you seriously when the tail of your coat is tucked into your trousers like that.” Jeffrey craned his head to look over his shoulder and cursed. Marcus left, roaring with laughter.
Jeffrey adjusted his clothing and sat down where he could see Marcus’s strategy board. Marcus was smart; this would work. It had to work. He leaned his elbows on the board and put his chin in his hand. No battle plan survived contact with the enemy. It was the thing no one had said that everyone had no doubt been thinking. This all looked good on the board, but so much could go wrong. And the truth was, as much as he trusted Mairen to keep her word, he wasn’t at all sure the Kirkellan would make it in time to be of any help. The scouts should have seen some trace of them, yes?
He wondered if Imogen would be one of the warriors in the army. She led that tiermatha of hers—it occurred to him that he had no idea how the Kirkellan arranged their fighting forces. Tiny groups of thirteen couldn’t make a huge difference, could they? Or did they combine for large battles like this one? He both hoped and feared that she’d come. Hoped, because he wouldn’t mind seeing her fight; feared, because he didn’t want to see her die. Surely the matrian wouldn’t send her daughter into combat. Or would she think of it as an honor, or a duty? So much he didn’t know about the Kirkellan, and no guarantee that they’d all survive for him to learn it.
Jeffrey: Chapter Four
The engineers had built a platform that raised Marcus’s command post enough above the ground that he and his aides could see most of the battlefield clearly. The army spread out not too loosely from east to west, over two thousand soldiers in ranks seven or eight deep. The cavalry moved restlessly at the eastern end of the line, too few, to Jeffrey’s eye, to effectively press the flank, but four hundred was all they had, so it would have to be enough.
He couldn’t see all the riflemen, who were behind the lines on ground as high as they could find, but the few he could see reassured him; they were relaxed and ready to shoot. They were the Tremontanan army’s best edge over the Ruskalder, and Jeffrey hoped they were as good as Marcus claimed. Jeffrey surveyed the distant horizon through a self-focusing telescope Device. No movement to either the north or the west. He lowered the Device and said, “It’s past noon.”
“It’s not as if we agreed on a schedule,” Marcus said. “Tell Hughes to tighten up his formation,” he said to a page. “And pass the word for everyone to break out rations and get some rest. We’ll see them coming in plenty of time.” The young runner nodded and swarmed down the ladder.
Jeffrey raised the Device again and looked to the west. Their platform wasn’t tall enough for him to see over the crest of the rise. He’d know of the Kirkellans’ arrival just moments before Hrovald’s army did. He closed the Device and began to pace. Marcus eyed him skeptically. “That’s a bad habit of yours,” he said. “Tells everyone you’re uncertain. Cut it out or I’ll tie you to a chair.”
“You don’t think that would be more demoralizing?”
“No. Stop fidgeting or go somewhere else. Take a ride. Write a letter to the Dowager Consort. She’d probably put it in a vault with all the other important papers from Tremontane’s history.”
Jeffrey scowled at Marcus, but stopped pacing. He took up Owen’s relaxed pose, legs apart, hands behind his back, and thought of other things. Elspeth and Owen would be home. Owen had threatened to return as soon as Elspeth was safe, but Jeffrey was certain he wouldn’t be able to leave her alone once she pleaded with him with those big brown puppy eyes that had always gotten her everything she wanted from their father and had earned her more than one spanking from their mother. Right now Jeffrey would be grateful to discover Owen was not immune to their effect.
He dropped his pose and walked around to the rear of the platform. Three horses waited there, watched over by an older page. Three horses for the last part of the plan, the desperate final action that would mean all was lost: three horses to take him, Marcus, and Diana back to Aurilien to defend that city against Hrovald’s invaders. It would be a pointless action; Aurilien was currently defended by nothing but the few soldiers of the Home Guard, all of them top fighters but none of them able to fight off a full-sized army. But Marcus insisted that the King of Tremontane would not be slaughtered like an animal on the battlefield. No, he could be slaughtered in the comfort of his own home instead. I refuse to think like that. He went back to the front of the platform, took out the Device and looked at the distant horizon again. It was like pacing, only much slower.
There was movement on the horizon.
At first, Jeffrey thought his impatient eyes might be mistaken. He continued to watch until it was clear that what he saw was not an illusion, but people marching toward them. His heart began beating faster. He lowered the Device and said, in a low voice, “Marcus.”
“I see it,” Marcus said. He had a Device of his own, with two lenses instead of one, and he looked out across the field as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “I’ll give the word in five minutes. Give the soldiers time to finish eating and stretch a bit.”
Jeffrey once again looked at the western horizon. Still nothing. He tried to remain calm. “They’ll come,” he said, not aware that he’d spoken aloud until Marcus said, “No sense watching for them anymore. Right now the fight’s down to us.”
After a few more minutes, Marcus sent a handful of runners to the commanders in the field. Jeffrey watched as a ripple passed over the army, word spreading from the rear to the front and soldiers standing from where they’d sat to eat their cold dinner. Jeffrey tried to imagine what they were feeling: fear, anxiety, anticipation, eagerness? He turned his Device on the front line and saw only the backs of their heads, men and women with their faces turned resolutely toward the foe they couldn’t yet see.
Jeffrey went back to watching the Ruskalder approach and wished he had a better sense of distance. The Device confused everything. He put it aside and began watching with his own eyes. They were still too far away to make out individuals; the Ruskalder were a solid mass that seemed to go on for miles, though Jeffrey knew there were only about four thousand men in the army and wouldn’t be spread out nearly that far. He found his hands were clenched so tightly on the Device they were sweating, and he closed the thing to a flat disc and put it inside his coat.
Marcus was still looking through his Device. He cursed. “They’re spread out farther along the line than we are,” he said. “You, tell Dorcas Higgins to move her people farther east. They’re going to have to drive the Ruskalder farther in,” he told Jeffrey when the page had gone. “That rise is going to save us on the west. It’s steep enough that it will make moving around our people difficult. We’re going to have to flank them or be enveloped ourselves.”
And still the Ruskalder came on, close enough now to see them as individuals dressed in leather armor Jeffrey hoped was inferior to the Tremontanan soldiers’ leather and steel gear. Some of the Ruskalder wore leather caps, but most were bareheaded. They carried dual swords, long and short, though none of them had drawn weapons yet. Jeffrey couldn’t take his eyes off them. They moved like predators. Jeffrey hoped the army didn’t find them as intimidating as he had to admit he did. But no, the Tremontanan army was better armed, better armored, and almost certainly better trained to fight as a unit. The Ruskalder weren’t going to find them prey at all.
Hrovald. This was all his fault. Jeffrey pulled out his Device and swept the army. There. No, that wasn
’t Hrovald, it was one of his chiefs, but the man had a banner that set him apart from the others. “Do we focus on the banners?” he asked Marcus, who stood silent and unmoving beside him.
“Yes and no,” Marcus said. “The banners mark the locations where the armies are joined. If I give the word, the commanders know to have their soldiers strike for them, but if there isn’t a way through, going after the banner is just a way to get more of us killed.”
Jeffrey went back to looking over the Ruskalder army. “I see him,” he said, and Marcus didn’t need to be told whom Jeffrey was talking about. “Left of center.”
“There he is,” Marcus agreed. “Pity we can’t just go straight for him. I bet most of these chiefs would turn and run if he wasn’t there to control them.”
“All of them would,” Jeffrey corrected. “The chiefs would go for secure ground so they could make a play for Ruskald. Fighting us would simply lose them valuable men they might need to bring against their rivals. And all of them see themselves as potential kings.”
Marcus grunted. “Now I really wish we had a shot—” He lowered his Device and ran for the rear of the platform, climbed rapidly down the ladder and ran off toward one of the riflemen’s embankments.
Jeffrey watched him go, light dawning. If Hrovald came close enough, maybe one of the riflemen could take him out. He went back to watching Hrovald. It was a good idea, but not something they should count on. Jeffrey knew Hrovald to be both intelligent and cunning. Jeffrey would be very surprised if Hrovald couldn’t figure out the limit of the riflemen’s range and stay well out of it.
Marcus came back a few minutes later, breathing heavily. “I know what you’re going to say, there’s not much chance of it,” he said, “but if we aren’t prepared for the possibility, we’re going to kick ourselves later.” Jeffrey nodded his agreement.
Then there was nothing they could do but watch the slow, steady advancement of the Ruskalder troops. They seemed to give off a dark menace that trailed behind them like an insubstantial cloud. Jeffrey kept his Device trained on Hrovald, who rode one of the few horses in the army—not even all the chiefs rode—and was accompanied by another rider who bore a banner with the emblem of Ruskald, a fist holding a knife, point down.
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