Kroy’s men halted and the units shuffled into perfect position once again, just as calmly as if they stood on a vast parade ground: lines four ranks deep, reserve companies drawn up neatly behind, a thin row of flatbowmen in front. West just made out the shouted orders to fire, saw the first volley float up from Kroy’s line, shower down in amongst the enemy. He felt his nails digging painfully into his palm as he watched, fists clenched tight, willing the Northmen to flee. Instead they sent back a well organised volley of their own, and then began to surge forward.
Their battle cry floated up to the officers outside the tent, that unearthly shriek, carrying on the cold air. West chewed at his lip, remembering the last time he heard it, echoing through the mist. Hard to believe it had only been a few weeks ago. Again he was guiltily glad to be well behind the lines, though a shiver down his back reminded him that it had done little good on that occasion.
“Bloody hell,” said Jalenhorm.
No one else spoke. West stood, teeth gritted, heart thumping, trying desperately to hold his eye-glass steady as the Northmen charged full-blooded down the valley. Kroy’s flatbows gave them one more volley, then pulled back through the carefully prepared gaps in the carefully dressed ranks, forming up again behind the lines. Spears were lowered, shields were raised, and in virtual silence, it seemed, the Union line prepared to meet the howling Northmen.
“Contact,” growled Lord Marshal Burr. The Union ranks seemed to wave and shift somewhat, the watery sunlight seemed to flash more rapidly on the mass of men, a vague rattling drifted on the air. Not a word was said in the command post. Each man was squinting through his eye-glass, or peering into the sun, craning to see what was happening down in the valley, hardly daring even to breathe.
After what seemed a horribly long time, Burr lowered his eyeglass. “Good. They’re holding. It seems your Northmen were right, West, we have the advantage in numbers, even without Poulder. When he gets here, it should be a rout—”
“Up there,” muttered West, “on the southern ridge.” Something glinted in the treeline, and again. Metal. “Cavalry, sir, I’d bet my life on it. It seems Bethod had the same idea as us, but on the other wing.”
“Damn it!” hissed Burr. “Send word to General Kroy that the enemy has horse on the southern ridge! Tell him to refuse that flank and prepare to be attacked from the right!” One of the adjutants leaped smoothly into his saddle and galloped off in the direction of Kroy’s headquarters, cold mud flying from his horse’s hooves.
“More tricks, and this may not be the last of ’em.” Burr snapped the eye-glass closed and thumped it into his open palm. “This must not be allowed to fail, Colonel West. Nothing must get in the way. Not Poulder’s arrogance, not Kroy’s pride, not the enemy’s cunning, none of it. We must have victory here today. It must not be allowed to fail!”
“No, sir.” But West was far from sure what he could do about it.
The Union soldiers were trying to be quiet, which meant they made about as much racket as a great herd of sheep being shoved indoors for shearing. Moaning and grunting, slithering on the wet ground, armour rattling, weapons knocking on low branches. Dogman shook his head as he watched ’em.
“Lucky thing there’s no one out here, or we’d have been heard long ago,” hissed Dow. “These fools couldn’t creep up on a corpse.”
“No need for you to be making noise,” hissed Threetrees, up ahead, then beckoned them all forward.
It was a strange feeling, marching with such a big crew again. There were two score of Shivers’ Carls along with ’em, and quite an assortment. Tall men and short, young and old, all manner of different weapons and armour, but all pretty well seasoned, from what the Dogman could tell.
“Halt!” And the Union soldiers clattered and grumbled to a stop, started sorting themselves out into a line, spread across the highest part of the ridge. A great long line, the Dogman reckoned, judging from the number of men he’d watched going up into the woods, and they were right at the far end of it. He peered off into the empty trees on their left, and frowned. Lonely place to be, the end of a line.
“But the safest,” he muttered to himself.
“What’s that?” asked Cathil, sitting down on a great fallen tree trunk.
“Safe here,” he said in her tongue, managing a grin. He still didn’t have half an idea how to behave around her. There was a hell of a gap between them in the daylight, a yawning great gap of race, and age, and language that he wasn’t sure could ever be bridged. Strange, how the gap dwindled down to nothing at night. They understood each other well enough in the dark. Maybe they’d work it out, in time, or maybe they wouldn’t, and that’d be that. Still, he was glad she was there. Made him feel like a proper human man again, instead of just an animal slinking in the woods, trying to scratch his way from one mess to another.
He watched a Union officer break off from his men and walk towards them, strut up to Threetrees, some kind of a polished stick wedged under his arm. “General Poulder asks that you remain here on the left wing, to secure the far flank.” He spoke slow and very loud, as though that’d make him understood if they didn’t talk the language.
“Alright,” said Threetrees.
“The division will be deploying along the high ground to your right!” And he flicked his stick thing towards the trees where his men were slowly and noisily getting ready. “We will be waiting until Bethod’s forces are well engaged with General Kroy’s division, and then we will attack, and drive them from the field!”
Threetrees nodded. “You need our help with any of that?”
“Frankly I doubt it, but we will send word if matters change.” And he strutted off to join his men, slipping a few paces away and nearly going down on his arse in the muck.
“He’s confident,” said the Dogman.
Threetrees raised his brows. “Bit too much, if you’re asking me, but if it means he leaves us out I reckon I can live with it. Right then!” he shouted, turning round to the Carls. “Get hold o’ that tree trunk and drag it up along the brow here!”
“Why?” asked one of ’em, sitting rubbing at one knee and looking sullen.
“So you got something to hide behind if Bethod turns up,” barked Dow at him. “Get to it, fool!”
The Carls downed their weapons and set to work, grumbling. Seemed that joining up with the legendary Rudd Threetrees was less of a laugh than they’d hoped. Dogman had to smile. They should’ve known. Leaders don’t get to be legendary by handing out light duty. The old boy himself was stood frowning into the woods as Dogman walked up beside him. “You worried, chief?”
“It’s a good spot up here for hiding some men. A good spot for waiting ’til the battles joined, then charging down.”
“It is,” grinned the Dogman. “That’s why we’re here.”
“And what? Bethod won’t have thought of that?” Dogman’s grin started to fade. “If he’s got men to spare he might think they’d be well used up here, waiting for the right moment, just like we are. He might send ’em through these trees here and up this hill to right where we’re sitting. What’d happen then, d’you reckon?”
“We’d set to killing each other, I daresay, but Bethod don’t have men to spare, according to Shivers and his boys. He’s outnumbered worse’n two to one as it is.”
“Maybe, but he likes to cook up surprises.”
“Alright,” said Dogman, watching the Carls heaving the fallen tree trunk around so it blocked off the top of the slope. “Alright. So we drag a tree across here and we hope for the best.”