“And Gwaynn?” Samantha asked feeling a drop of sweat trickling down the left side of her body beneath her loose gown. She was growing heavy and the heat of the fire made the room stifling to her, though both youngsters were quite chilly. Moments before she was going to suggest they go to the large hall where it was cooler but after Laynee’s revelation she didn’t want to move.
“He’s…he’s talking to the lady from Noble…Vio,” Laynee said, though in fact Gwaynn was just breaking away after giving Vio a brief hug. Laynee, though young, was shrewd enough not to mention the fact.
“Is he in the front?” Samantha asked, positive he was. Laynee’s answer was interrupted as Traveler Jess na Gall burst past Cobb, who stood outside the room guarding the door. He was not alone; he now had the company of four other personal guardsmen Gwaynn assigned for Samantha’s protection. He did not want another Executioner surprising them.
“Has the battle begun?” na Gall asked, having come to the rear to have her wound cleaned and bandaged. She came to Manse on Lonogan’s insistence, since the Travelers would not play a major part in the battle to come. na Gall did so reluctantly and as she entered the room she instantly realized that Laynee was in the act of projecting and reporting on the action to Samantha.
“Not yet Mum,” Daniel said with a slight bow.
“The Knights are coming!” Laynee repeated her eyes wide. “They were confused at first but they were coming now…in a long straight line…charging fast.”
“Gwaynn,” Samantha pleaded.
“He’s in a middle diamond…not near the front,” Laynee reassured her and this time it was the truth.
“And Lonogan?” na Gall asked and then shot Samantha a shy smile and moved to the far side of Laynee and sat on the bed. Samantha reached out across the young Traveler’s lap with her lone hand and took hold of Jess’ left.
Laynee paused for a moment, searching. “He’s in the rear, on a small hill behind the army,” Laynee answered, her voice barely intelligible and her hands were beginning to shake. Daniel knew she was tiring and began going through the twenty-nine steps. It was his turn to watch out over the coming battle.
Laynee went very still and then mumbled. “Lonogan’s safe, surrounded by maybe fifty horsemen.”
Laynee grew very quiet then, and suddenly she was back, panting and sweating in the small room. She almost immediately began to shove bits of meat and bread into her mouth and Samatha’s attention shifted to Daniel, straining to see what the young Traveler was seeing, but no matter how Samantha tried, she only saw the interior of her bedroom.
“…they’re coming,” he finally said, his voice a bit slurred. “There are arrows in the sky.”
ǂ
Gwaynn stood almost directly behind Vio. He could see perfectly well now that he was nearly a full head taller than his deadly little friend. At first the Knights seemed to be confused by the unique Massi formation, but now they were lining up and preparing to charge across the open field and do battle.
Gwaynn could understand their confusion; the Massi infantry were not aligned in the normal manner. There was no shield wall, strong and solid, to repel a charge of heavy horse. Instead of forming a continuous line, the Massi army was arranged in a series of smaller formations all in a crude diamond shape. Each formation contained around one hundred and fifty men. But what was truly curious was that the formations were spread out with wide swaths of open country between each. This was unheard of and left the Knights puzzled for several long moments. And though Gwaynn had perfect confidence in his General, he had to admit to feeling slightly exposed and vulnerable. The diamond formations had approximately twenty-five to thirty feet of open space between them, and now in the heat of battle it seemed a large distance to place between friends and reinforcements.
But the arrangement was not by accident, the formations were separated in order to split the enemy lines as they charged among them. The diamond shapes were set up into four long rows each offset slightly from the other two. It was hoped that any charge of heavy horse would be quickly split many times over until a strong unified attack became impossible. In all, the Massi army covered well over a half a mile from end to end. Inside each diamond formation there were around fifty archers located within a large open center. The area inside was big enough for the archers to spread out a bit so they could draw and fire without impeding one another. Gwaynn checked on the archers in his own formation and saw that they all had multiple arrows sticking out of the ground in front of them to allow for easy retrieval and very quick, repeated fire. Because of the unique nature of the formations, the archers would have to be very disciplined and fire only at the Knights who were actually threatening their formation. Every arrow had to have a clear target; they had to minimize every miss, for errant arrow fire would be just as dangerous for the other formations as it would be for the Knights. Over the weeks and months prior, Captain Hahn and Samantha had drilled into the archers the need for patience and accuracy.
Surrounding the archers was a layer of heavy infantry and on the extreme outer edges were the halberdiers, strong men and women with long spears. The spears were unique, for they not only had a cross piece about three quarters of the way down from the tip which was designed to allow for a firmly controlled grip while wielding the weapon, but they also had three hooks symmetrically placed around the shaft connected directly to the spear point. The razor sharp tips of the spears were designed not only to skewer any Knights within reach but also to discourage the horses from charging into the formation. The hooks were added to snag any Knights galloping by. With the help of the crosspiece, the hooks would allow the halberdiers to catch and pull the enemy from the saddle. The design was as yet untested in battle but in mock training sessions the halberds appeared to work exceedingly well.
If the Knights somehow made it through the gauntlet of diamond formations, then they would meet the Toranado heavy infantry, which would be spread out into a standard shield wall directly behind the Massi army. Their task was to halt the progress of the enemy Knights. If everything went to plan the Toranado’s job would be relatively easy against a broken and haphazard cavalry charge. For the first time in the war however, the real pressure would be on the Massi infantry, particularly on those residing in the very tip of the lead diamond formations. They occupied the very pressure points that, if successful, would split the oncoming charge and reduce the enemy army from a strongly formed line of attack into a myriad of individual groups able to be surrounded and cut down. The Massi army though all infantry, outnumber the mounted Temple Knights by more than two to one. If the charge could be split and stopped, and the enemy’s momentum broken; if their avenues of escape could be closed, well then it might be possible to defeat the vaunted cavalry army that was preparing to gallop down upon them. There were a lot of “ifs.” Of course armies throughout history employed countless strategies against an enemy of heavy horse and most of them failed…and against the Knights of the King’s Island all of them failed.