vanished. 'Debouch by companies!'
The battles' officers and sergeants amplified the commands as the regiment dropped its packs and began to smoothly deploy into the serge alongside the dusty road. Tregaron heard the crack of a whip and snapped his head around to see one sergeant coiling his badge of office back into his hand. He rode over as the man raised it for another How. 'You are a fine sergeant, Gren,' Tregaron said through clenched teeth, 'but you are no longer in the Seventeenth. If you raise that starter to another one of my lambs without good cause, I'll have you flogged back to your old regiment. Is that clear!'
The sergeant, his face pale, nodded silently. Tregaron jerked his horse's head around and rode to take his position with the standards, by then positioned on the left-center of the line. The battles' guidons had long since returned to their units.
Front-rankers aligned the regiment into four neat rows, using pikestaves as guideposts. The pikemen in the first two ranks took their intervals, setting their shields between them to provide cover if the cavalry stormed them with arrows. The rear ranks, composed of swords-
men each equipped with two heavy javelins, marked off their running distances and prepared their gear.
The javelins were cunning weapons. The swordsmen wrapped lanyards around the middles, which, when held between the casters' fingers when throwing, imparted a spin on the spear. Spinning spears flew farther and more accurately than straight-thrown, though no one knew why.
The javelins' heads were attached to the shafts with weak glue or brittle pins. When the weapon hit, the glue usually failed or the pin broke, making the thing useless for a return throw.
The regiment's longbow company moved quickly out in front, ready to act as skirmishers and contest the ground in front of the regiment with long range fire. Two scouts galloped across the field, plunging whitewashed stakes into the ground at hundred-pace intervals to mark the boyers' ranges.
The farthest scout turned, and using his last stick as a goad, pounded back toward the readied regiment.
Cogern cantered up beside him. 'As for tactics, sir,' he asked, 'butterfly wings?'
Tregaron nodded. 'If they let us. Have Luhann double her leftmost companies. If they try to turn our flank, her side'll be the most likely place they'll try.'
Cogern passed the instruction to a runner. Most battlefield situations were too complex for trumpets. Runners gave more precise messages, but were slow and often got lost or were lost.
Cogern smiled the easy grin of man with a secret. Tregaron rarely saw the Pikemaster as happy as he was before a fight. Vkandis knew
'Your horse, sir,' Cogern said. Tregaron dipped his head and dismounted. Mounted officers made easy targets.
They gave their animals to an orderly to take behind the line.
'Where's the damned Oriflamme?' Tregaron snapped. 'It should be here.'
'Here, Colonel,' Solaris said, stepping through the ranks to join them. Tregaron saw she wore no mail and carried no weapon.
'Where are your cohorts?' he said, a little more harshly than he'd intended, but only a little.
She made a wry face. 'They've decided to support your fight from back there.' She pointed toward the area behind the regiment, where the horses, gear, and a few noncombatants waited.
'That'll do 'em no good a'tall if n they get behind us,' Cogern said. He looked at Solaris. 'Do you have a weapon?'
She held up the Oriflamme. 'I have this.'
Cogern looked closely at her a long moment. 'Then what are you waitin' on, girl?' He pointed to the Stainless Banner. 'Show 'em what we're fightin' for.'
She grinned and hefted the pole, raising the 'Flamme high above their heads. She waved it about, swirling its swallowtail in a gentle arc. The center battle cheered. The shouting built as each battle fought to outdo the , others.
The skirmishers' reappearance quieted the noise. The horsemen paused at the hill crest to fire one final volley at their pursuers, then fled across the open ground. They opened the sacks tied to their saddles and tossed handful after handful of small black objects into the grass behind them.
'What are those?' Solaris asked, lowering the 'Flamme and grounding the haft.
'Caltrops,' Cogern said with malicious glee, 'four sharpened pieces of iron welded together. No matter how they fall, one prong always points up—a little dainty for a horse's hoof.'
The first mass of Hardornan cavalry crested the hill, a black tide that quickly covered the facing slope. Tregaron heard the thin voice of the archers' commander. 'Take your aim—four hundred paces. Loose!' A thin iron sleet rose and fell. Some arrows struck home, here and there felling a horse or rider. The range was a bit long for accurate fire, but Tregaron hoped the harassment would goad the Hardornans into leaving.
The mass reacted by spurring their horses and charging.
'They've got no order at all!' Cogern sniffed, sounding offended. Tregaron knew he hated inefficiency, even when displayed by an enemy.
'Three hundred paces!' the archer leader yelled, timing his fire so the riders would cross the stake just as the arrows arrived. 'Loose!'
The toll grew heavier as arrows found their marks or pierced armor. Horses pulled up and fell, screaming and thrashing, as the cruel iron caltrops pierced their hooves. Most riders scrambled to their feet, but here and there one lay still, either knocked witless or themselves victims of the spikes hidden in the grass.
'Two hundred!' More riders fell. The Karaite horse archers added to their toll with their shorter-ranged bows as they moved to the flanks to cover the ends of the formation. Here and there a Karsite fell, arrowstruck, but the Hardornens' volleys were erratic and largely ineffective. The cavalry's thunder grew louder as they galloped down onto the waiting Karsite line.
'One hundred!'
Cogern turned, cupped his hands around his mouth, and bellowed. 'Set to receive cavalry!'
With a wordless shout, six hundred pikes came down in a single glittering arc, their bitter edges bright in the noonday sun. The rear ranks gave way a pace, ready to hurl their javelins on command. The archers scampered for the rear.
Cogern grabbed the regimental standard and raised it over his head. At the instant he dropped it, the battles' commanders dropped their swords and six hundred javelins smashed into the onrushing horses. The cavalry slowed, their charge blunted by the heavy spears. A second volley crashed home an instant later, cutting down the lead ranks like a scythe through wheat. The rear
ranks piled over the dead and dying and pressed home the attack.
The crash of the horsemen hitting the readied pikes roared over Tregaron like a tide of sound, a breaking wave of iron-shod hooves and slashing, cursing soldiers. His world retreated to a circle five yards across. A Hard- ornen, her horse gutted by a pikeblade, bowled over the front ranks and plowed into the command party. One orderly slashed the animal across the knees, bringing it down and throwing the rider. Two officers plunged their blades into her before she could rise, the second twisting his weapon to gore her before withdrawing it She collapsed, dead, blood fountaining from her mouth and nose.
The lead Hardornen was dead, but the gap she'd forced in the line filled quickly with other horsemen, slashing and stabbing as they tried to widen the breach. Horns blew in alarm on either side of the command party as squads detached from the flanking units to help seal the break in the line. Tregaron, looking for more troops to throw at the Hardornens, whipped his head around and saw Solaris using the Oriflamme's staff to fend off one horseman while Cogern moved to his flank. The Pikemaster stabbed deep, driving his sword deep into the horse's barrel, dropping it in its tracks. He then brained the rider with his sword pommel and ran him through with a quick thrust as he tried to rise.
Karaite swordsmen flooded the area, surrounding the horse troops and attacking from all sides. Their grim intensity and lacquered red-and-black armor made Tregaron think of ants swarming a moth.
Distant horn calls announced the arrival of the second regiment. He craned his head toward the sound and saw it advancing over the hill crest in slightly better order than the first. The newcomers made a token effort to dress ranks, then charged across the caltrop-littered ground. A few fell to the hidden spikes, but the charge went home almost unblunted.
