Captured oxen were brought up to hitch to the winch that would haul the machine back to its ready position, and men began to roll another rock forward.
Edain showed teeth in what was not quite a smile.?I thought the Cutters were against machinery?? he said quietly.
He wasn?t using glasses, but his unaided vision was the keenest the Mackenzie heir had ever met. ?They are; complex ones. Not levers,? Rudi said grimly.?And to be sure, that?s as simple an application of leverage as you can get, short of a club like the Dagda?s for the bashing of heads. They?ve bashed well at the blockhouses on either side of the stretch they?re knocking down, you notice??
He?d brought Edain up for a reason. The young man was more than bright enough to learn more of war than what you needed to lead a few archers.
And I?m going to need him. For all that I?ve got so many capable commanders-in-the-making in this band.?Engines there?? Edain said. ?There were. And enough well-protected archers shooting through slits to make an assault like sticking your rod into a meat-grinder with a madman turning the crank. Whoever?s in charge there knows his business. It?s how I?d take the place myself, if I was in too much of a hurry to starve them out. Now quiet for a second.?
He turned his attention to the rest of his enemies? efforts. There were the two ships anchored offshore, keeping the water approach covered with their deck engines. He estimated them as a bit more than two hundred tons? burden each, substantial but not large. Probably with large crews, but there was no way to tell for sure how much of their space held men and how much food and water-they were far from home and from secure supplies.
And a camp ashore at twice bowshot from Kalksthorpe?s defenses, of tents and brushwood huts surrounded by an abatis of tree trunks with their branches sharpened to act as obstacles. He rough-counted the men there, and the ones behind a row of mantlets before the breech. There were archers, stepping aside from the cover of the wheeled shields to shoot now and then, dueling with those on the wall. Two light throwing machines as well. One bucked and spat as he watched; what the western world called scorpions, more or less. The roundshot smashed chips off the pointed edges of the logs along the fighting platform, and he thought he saw a man fall, though he couldn?t be certain. There was a haze of smoke over the town, but no great black plumes. The attackers weren?t using incendiaries.
Still, overshot rounds will smack through roofs and into kitchens or forges. Fire?s always a threat in a wood-built town. ?Twenty-five or thirty of our old comrade Graber?s Sword of the Prophet,? he said. ?Sure, and they?re as hardy as cockroaches!? Edain said. ?They?re good fighting men, and no mistake,? Rudi said.?Nor is there any giving up in them, at all. They?re worthy of a better cause. Three times that number of those Bekwa savages; maybe four.?
Edain grunted thoughtfully. Rudi could read his thought: fierce men, fearless and deadly on their own ground, but lightly armed and not trained for a stand-up fight. ?And as many again from those ships, the Moorish pirates. They look well armed and most malignantly expert in their trade, the grievous sadness and pitiful misfortune of it, ochone.? ?Two hundred inside the wall, less any they?ve lost, from what our friends of this land say,? Edain said.?Counting every booger and arsewipe, as me da would put it.? ?And just thirty-six of us here,? Rudi said.?Call it two hundred, two hundred and thirty on either side.?
He cased the binoculars and tapped his knuckles thoughtfully on his chin for an instant. ?This is going to require the most careful timing,? he said. ?We?re enough to pull it off… but only just, do y?see.? ?With luck, and the Lugh?s own favor.?
They slid down the tree, dropping from branch to branch and springing the last ten feet or so. His companions gathered around him. ?It can be done,? Rudi said.?To boil it down, we wait until they?re all engaged, then attack them from the rear. But it?s possible only if we have some advantage of surprise. Take them at just the right moment, and it will work. Otherwise, bloody failure. The problem there is that the Cutter magus has what I?d be calling a most unpleasant habit; he knows things he should not. Not with just his five senses.?
Thorlind was gray-faced but determined.?He will not.? ?Not this time,? Heidhveig said.?I can… feel him. Like putting down your hand and having it push into a rotten corpse seething with maggots. He?s very strong. But we can blind him. For a little while.? ?A little while is all we?ll need. We must also take out their sentries, as many as possible. Delay the alarm as long as we can.? ?When will you attack?? Thorlind said. ?Not until they?ve made their breach in the wall. Not until they?ve launched their attack, and are fighting in the town itself, tangled up amongst the buildings with no way to run.?
Thorlind?s face was grim, and Heidhveig?s like an age-worn stone. ?So long?? she said.?You must wait until they?ve entered our home?? ?Yes,? he said with calm firmness.?We aren?t enough to count on driving them off if we attack sooner. A blow struck when your enemy?s off-balance is the one that knocks him down so that you can put the boot into him. And even if we did put them to flight earlier… we would not reap and savage them as we must. Pushing an enemy back isn?t enough, nor even making them run; too much chance of their returning the favor, manyfold, some other day. I want to catch them between my hammer and the anvil of the town and crush them. And the price of that must be paid, for it is the price of victory.? ?Paid by my people,? Thorlind said.
Rudi met her eyes and nodded.?For the most part, yes. The cost of defeat would be much higher.?
Heidhveig gathered her bearskin robe around her shoulders.?I?m glad I don?t have to make decisions like that,? she said softly. ?And I?d be glad never to make them either,? Rudi said.?But if I?m to make them, make them I will, and properly.?
He raised his head from the map.?Ingolf, you?re in charge of the main body; Father Ignatius, you?re second in command.?
Then his finger went over the parchment.?As for their sentries. .. Mary and Ritva, you take the ones here. Edain, Asgerd, here. Fred and Virginia, here. Matti and I will see to the removal of the ones here in the center, and them causing such a blockage and obstruction, the spalpeens.?
That was a legitimate use of his own talents; he was much more likely to succeed than anyone else they had.
I?m a general with an army of about platoon size, right now. And one with a round half score of followers fit for the command. ?Ingolf, you come forward with the main body, and we?ll rejoin as you do. Then we cross the open ground and hit them before they can disengage. Keep ranks; no quarter until I command, or they all throw down their arms. Lady Heidhveig, Lady Thorlind, you?ll remain here. Is everyone clear? Then let?s go.?
The enemy sentries should be here, Rudi thought, twenty minutes later, baffled. They had perches in the trees.
Instead everything looked just as it had; the last fringe of pines, towering over hummocky ground covered in thick soft snow… and no sentries waiting concealed in their branches, as Edain and the others had reported.
That snow exploded upward right at his feet. A man came after it, the long knife in his hand flashing upward. The point struck him in the pit of the stomach, and breath gusted out of him with a grunting uffff!