"But you have won battles against them," Rick said. "You must have, or they'd have simply occupied Tamaerthon and had done with it."
"Aye, we've beaten them in the passes," Drumold said. "In the passes, in the hills. But no one has ever beaten the legions on the plains. I think no one remembers the last time anyone tried."
So far it sounded a lot like the Scottish border country. Scotland remained free, but just barely. But there had been a time after Bannockburn when England feared Scotland… The rifles would probably win a single battle. The result wouldn't be anything more significant than looting a border province, but that could be the difference between life and death for Mac Clallan Muir. And for Tylara.
An organized raid, with a wagon train to carry out grain and a properly organized force to delay the legions while the wagons got into the passes. It was possible.
"How many men could you put into the field against the Empire?" Rick asked. "For the biggest raid ever. Something to sing about for a hundred years."
Drumold frowned. "Not all the clans would respond to the summons," he said. "Perhaps three hundred lances. Two thousand archers. Another three thousand lads wi' swords. Perhaps a thousand more freedmen armed wi' whatever they can find. No more."
"And the nearest legion is four thousand strong," Rick mused.
"Four thousand legionaries," Drumold protested. "Wi' mail shirts, and good horses. Man, on level ground they'll ride us down."
Two thousand archers. Edward had four times that many at Crйcy, but Edward faced the entire chivalry of France, at least thirty thousand men. Proportionally, Tamaerthon could field more troops against the Empire than Edward ever had.
But there was a vast difference. Archers alone could never face cavalry. Edward's main line at Crйcy had been dismounted men-at-arms, fully armored knights. From what Rick had seen, Tamaerthon's three hundred lances would be at most five hundred men with no more than half of them armored. There was no way five hundred could form a shield for the archers. The legionary cavalry would sweep through. Once at close quarters, it would be all over for the archers.
Gunpowder? No. Even assuming Gwen was wrong about the possibility of the Shalnuksis helping Parsons, there just wasn't enough time. They'd need at least a thousand arquebuses and a ton of gunpowder. They'd need ring bayonets, too. It would take years. No. It wouldn't hurt to have some of the younger clan warriors start a systematic search for sulfur, just in case, but gunpowder wasn't the answer.
But there was another way. Heavy cavalry had been finished on Earth well before gunpowder put the final nails in their coffins. "Have any of your clansmen ever drilled with pikes?"
"Pikes?" Drumold asked.
"A long pole with a sharp metal point."
"Ye mean spears. We have spears."
"No, I mean pikes. How long are the spears you use? What formation do you fight in?"
That took a while. Eventually a henchman brought in a typical weapon. It was about six feet long, far too short to be any use against cavalry. The pikes used by the Swiss, and later by the landsknechts, had been eighteen feet long. As for formation, men who could afford no better weapon than a spear were peasants and didn't fight in any formation at all. They just went off to battle in droves and died in droves.
"How long can you keep the clansmen together without fighting?" Rick asked. "To drill." He had to explain the concept of training arid drill. By now even Tylara was wondering about his sanity.
"The fields and herds would go to waste," Drum-old protested. "And there's nae enough to feed such a horde in one place."
"There's food in the caverns."
"For the Time," Yanulf protested. "And not enough for that."
"Not enough for the Time," Rick agreed. "But enough to feed an army in training. What good will it do to keep what little we have? A properly trained army can beat the legions. We can march in-" he thought rapidly. There'd not be enough time for real training, and keeping the men too long without a battle would be disastrous for morale. "-in six ten-days."
"Harvest time," Drumold shouted. "Now I know ye're daft. You'd strip the land of the men at harvest time."
"You've said yourself it will be a poor harvest," Rick said. "Leave it for the women and children to gather."
"What do we eat for the winter?"
"It will be harvest season in the Empire, too. We take their crops. And they have to have granaries or they couldn't support regular troops in garrison. We'll have that grain, too."
"And you truly believe you can defeat a legion wi' your star weapons?" Drumold said.
No.1 can't possibly. But they're not invincible-or wouldn't be if everybody didn't think they were. There's one way to fix that. "Sure. We've got other weapons you haven't even seen. But Mason and I can't do it alone. We'll need your lads properly trained and properly armed." Now's the time to back out, he thought. To hell with that. "If we're going to do it, late harvest season is the time."
"Tis a bold plan," Drumold said.
Tylara's brother had listened in silence. Now he stood. "I have lost comrades to the imperials," he said. "And I for one would like the chance to repay."
Tylara smiled happily. "It would be better to lose and die on the field than to starve in the Time," she said. "But with Rick's aid, we will not lose."
"You are crazy," Gwen said in English. "Stupid, bloodthirsty crazy-"
"Is it better if we all starve, Tamaerthon and the Empire alike? Do you have a better suggestion?"
"We don't have to stay here-"
"No," Rick said. "We don't have to. But I'm not running this time. I've given up running."
3
Drumold was arrayed as Mac Clallan Muir, High Chief of the Clans of The Garioch. His kilts were splendid, his armor covered over with silver badges. Gwen recognized some of the symbols: the horned bull of Crete splayed across a caidron; the ancient linked spiral found in virtually eveзy Bronze Age site in Europe and which Yanulf said represented order grown from primeval chaos; a dragon. There were others which she thought might be fabulous creatures-but after what she'd seen in the ship's data banks, she couldn't be sure.
Other clan chiefs were arrayed around Drumold, all dressed in their finery. Some of the bright-colored plaids might have come from the ancient Celtic tombs found in Dalmatia on Earth. The splendor of the chiefs contrasted strongly with the drab clothing of their warriors and the even drabber robes of the various priests.
Gwen could not keep track of all these. There were too many gods, and each had an order of priests. Some, like Yanulf, were full-time and consecrated; many of the minor gods, though, were served by men and women who had other tasks-artisans, landholders, ladies of households.
They all assisted at this ceremony. Reverently they opened a tomblike chamber cut into the granite cliff that towered above the alpine meadow; reverently they removed a stone box and opened it with great ceremony. Balquhain, Drumold's oldest son, took a battle-axe from the box.
The axe was double-headed and made of flint chipped to resemble bronze. Gwen felt tingles at her spine. This double-axe might have come from Earth four thousand years ago!
Drumold took the axe from his son and displayed it aloft. Then he went to a log altar erected in the center of the village green. A ram was tethered there. Drumold felled it with a single stroke of the axe.
He dipped the axe into the flowing blood. Two priests came forward with stone bowls of blazing pitch and bound them above the axe blade. Drumold brandished the fiery axe and chanted. Everyone present took up the cry.
Where had Gwen seen this before? Then she remembered. Scott's poem, when Roderick Dhu had summoned Clan Alpine. Roderick had sent a fiery cross through the hills, but that was in a nominally Christian land. Here they sent a stone axe with two fires. The ritual Scott described must have been more ancient than he knew.