"That's a good trick, switching the ranks like that," Odard said thoughtfully.
"Yeah," Ingolf agreed. "Keeps the men fresh… well, sort of fresh. Fresher than the other guys, I'd bet."
Rudi nodded, though that hadn't been uppermost in his mind. It was true, though. Fighting was brutally hard muscle work, worse than digging earth or cracking rocks with a sledge, especially when you did it in armor. The man who got tired and slow first was nearly as helpless as a sheep held for the butcher's knife. With the differ ence that an enemy wouldn't take trouble to make it painless or apologize to your spirit.
What I was thinking of was how difficult that was to do, and no mistake! Just a bit wrong, and the enemy would smash you up while you were at it like a hammer on an egg.
Another light water cart came up to supply the command group.
"My turn," he said, and everyone handed him their canteens.
Thurston came over to the water wagon as the Mackenzie tanist filled his friends' canteens and put his own under the other tap; despite knowing that half of leader ship was showmanship, Rudi was a little impressed at the casual confidence that showed.
"Disappointed?" the older man said.
He spoke through a mask of dust and sweat; even the red-white and-blue transverse crest of his helmet was nearly khaki. His dark eyes still twinkled a bit.
"Not in the least," Rudi said, truthfully. "I'm not so in love with handstrokes that it grieves me to miss a fight, and I don't enjoy watching men die. And I've learned a good deal from following how you managed the battle, sure."
The corner of Thurston's mouth curved up in a smile. "Maybe I shouldn't have let you. I might have to extend the nation's writ out west, someday."
"In your dreams… sir," Rudi said cheerfully, and they shared a smile.
"What's your appraisal, youngster?" Thurston said, a considering look in his eye.
"Well, you're beating them, so far. It's been like watching a man try to batter down a wall by running at it with his face, so."
Thurston nodded. "It's nearly over, though they may give one last hard heave; they've got an uncommitted reserve somewhere; I can feel it."
Thurston peered eastward into the dust, rubbing water over his face and then taking a long drink. "Damn this dust, though. It makes my gliders useless, and I had to land them back around noon."
"There's that airship of yours," Rudi said. "The good father was most impressed with it. Like something out of the ancient times, he said."
"Yeah, on a nice calm day close to home it's a world-beater," Thurston said."The rest of the time, it's me trying to explain why I wasted the public's hard-earned money on it. Hanks is too damned persuasive and he makes like that pedaling platoon of his is a diesel engine…"
"It would be useful here now," Rudi said. "The airship, that is, not the easel."
"Diesel-" Thurston began, then snorted laughter. "You know perfectly well what a diesel is-was."
The noise of fighting began to die down a little, enough so that you noticed how loud they remained. Thurston's voice was meditative.
"If they weren't so stubborn, it would have been over hours ago. They've got better infantry than I expected, and horse archers are always a pain in the ass, but they don't have a hope of breaking us and they can't go around us."
"Why not?" Rudi asked. "It's a spacious landscape you have here, to be sure. I was thinking just now that it was as if you and they had agreed to fight here."
"Go around?" Thurston's grin was feral. "Yeah, with fortified villages in it like raisins in a cake, and my army across their line of communication ready to corncob them. And they must have lost two, three thousand men today-they weren't expecting our field artillery, not a bit. I've kept it out of sight the last ten years-no big pitched battles where I really needed it."
"What will you do next?"
"I can beat them, but I can't catch them if they back pedal and don't want to fight; they've got more cavalry. So I'll just march towards Twin Falls in battle order. Then they can either fight with the city as the anvil and us as the hammer-and get broken completely-or they can lift the siege and pull right out of the Snake River plain, losing everything they've fought for three years to get. After that… we'll see."
The general's head came up, looking westward towards his reserves. The dust made it difficult to see, and the huge roaring surf of combat cut hearing, but it looked as if men were moving. He waved Rudi aside and strode back to his subordinates.
To an aide, he snapped, "Get to Moore and find out what's happening there!"
A minute later the young man came galloping back. "Sir, Captain Thurston reports-"
"Captain Thurston? Where the hell is Colonel Moore, then?"
"Dead, sir. He went to contain an enemy break through-stray arrow in the eye. Captain Thurston says that he had to shift the twelfth and four batteries of the artillery reserve to contain it."
Thurston grunted. "Sergeant Anderson!"
The tall silent blond man came forward. "Captain?"
"Go see what the hell is happening with Martin and why he's senior man there-or acting like it. Get back here soonest."
The noise to the front died down then, almost to si lence. The wind rose slightly; Rudi could feel trickles of it on his neck, stealing down to leave tormenting bits of comfort in the greasy, itchy sweat that accumulated under armor. He filled his helmet before the water cart trundled off, and then dumped it over his head; it ran down into the padding beneath his brigandine and mail, a flush of delicious coolness. His friends were silent as he handed out the canteens, their eyes fixed eastward.
Dust parted before them, though everything was still blurred by a brown-gold haze. Through it the foot sol diers of the Church Universal and Triumphant could be seen, pulling sullenly back in a thick dark mass of large round shields edged with steel spear points. They parted in the center like a door opening.
Beyond that was a line of glittering metal points of light over red brown… the lance heads of the Sword of the Prophet, three thousand horsemen strong. The line of light rippled and flashed as the butts of the lances were lifted out of the scabbards; it would be cold steel now, not long-distance play with arrows.
Thurston grunted as if he'd been punched in the belly. "Christ! Well, now we know where their reserve was. Courier! Courier! Get spare pila forward-"
Rudi stepped back as Thurston's voice rapped out in a string of orders and men exploded outward like a covey of geese spooked from a pond. Off to the north the dug-in artillery batteries were in a flurry of activ ity too, crews pumping like madmen to send water through the armored hoses to the hydraulic jacks that cocked their actions. More field catapults galloped up from north and south and deployed as he watched, and their loaders dashed back and forth to the ammunition wagons, staggering under loads of four foot javelins and hundred-and-twenty-pound rope bags of round shot. Others broke out bundles of beehive-wicked-looking six-inch finned steel darts, needle-pointed and heavy.
His friends tightened girths and set their helms on their heads; you left that for the last minute if you could. Wearing a helmet for hours at a time gave you a headache, as sure as a blow from a mace.
"For what we are about to receive-" Ingolf said.
"-may the Lord make us truly thankful," Odard fin ished, then kissed his crucifix, tucked it back under his hauberk and crossed himself; Mathilda and the big easterner followed suit, and Odard's servant Alex.
"Lady of the Ravens, fold me in Your wings," Rudi murmured. "Antlered One, God of my people, You whose voice is heard on the mountainsides, lift Your hand over us. To both of You I dedicate the harvest of the unplowed field."