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The critical thing was that Trianal had held the command together. Many a formation would have shattered like glass on an anvil under that sudden attack. If it had been composed of veterans, their troop commanders and sergeants would probably have rallied them … eventually. But in the meantime, their attackers would have sought to take ruthless advantage of their confusion. Yet Trianal’s orders had stilled that automatic, instinctive urge towards flight before it could take effect, and the armsmen Baron Tellian had sent with him to Glanharrow were hand-picked veterans themselves. Like Yarran’s own men, they knew the difference between an officer who had a firm grip on his command and one who did not, and they were responding to Trianal’s mastery like the well drilled troops they were.
Now to find out if the young man beside him knew what to do with them.
Trianal watched the main body of his men spread out as they fell back towards his standard. Sothoii tactical doctrine had taken over, and each troop commander knew exactly what to do. His troopers swirled in what anyone who had never faced Sothoii cavalry would undoubtedly have thought was utter confusion, but Trianal’s eye saw the underlying pattern. His men had their bows out now, and they sent their own shafts hissing back in reply to their attackers.
The ugly, bickering battle which had sprung so suddenly into existence was developing into a classic clash between light cavalry units. All was movement and speed, bursts of archery followed by sudden wheels away from the enemy while another twenty-man troop dashed up to rake the flank of anyone who followed the withdrawal too closely. Neither side was scoring a high percentage of hits now, for galloping horses, swerving evasively, were difficult targets.
Half a dozen of his troopers who’d been dismounted when their horses were wounded or killed were racing back towards his standard on foot. He saw some of their still-mounted companions swoop up beside them, reaching down a helping hand and offering them a stirrup as they galloped further back from the front of the combat. Riderless horses were also galloping back from the fray. Many of them, as well trained to the bugles as the riders they’d lost, were falling back, not simply ru
“Pigeons!” he snapped, and a wizened little trooper appeared as if by magic at his elbow. Soft, anxious cries and the flutter of worried wings came from the wicker carrying cage on the other man’s packhorse, but he laid a hand atop the cage and made soft, soothing noises to its inhabitants.
Trianal fumbled a block of thin, expensive paper and a stubby pencil out of his map case. He gazed out at the intensifying battle—damp as the ground was, dust was begi
“Send it,” he said, and handed the tightly folded message to the pigeon-keeper. The wizened man had already coaxed one of the pigeons out of the cage. Now he quickly but carefully fitted Trianal’s message under the band on the bird’s leg and threw it into the air. It circled twice, then headed off, straight as an arrow, into the west.
Trianal had no time to watch its flight. He had turned back to Sir Yarran even before the pigeon-keeper launched the bird.
“We’ll fall back towards Shallow Cross,” he told the older knight quickly, stabbing the air towards the northwest as he spoke. “I don’t want to let them force us into a close action, but I don’t want to break contact completely, either.”
Sir Yarran glanced at the swirling wave of combat falling steadily back towards them. Although horses were moving at breakneck speed in every direction, the actual westward movement of the combat itself was much more gradual, moving little more quickly than a single horse might have covered the same distance at a slow trot. That would probably change once the other side was completely free of the tangled underbrush and could begin to make its full numerical advantage felt, but both sides were Sothoii, and no one was better than the Sothoii at this sort of fight. The attackers would be wary of pressing too hard, too quickly, of letting themselves be drawn into fighting piecemeal. They would settle for a more cautious pursuit, using their greater number of bows—and, even more importantly, the greater number of arrows so many men could carry—to wear down Trianal’s command. They would nibble away, killing and wounding men and horses, exhausting the remaining mounts, and forcing Trianal’s troopers to expend their own arrows beating off attacks until, quite abruptly, the moment would arrive. The moment both sides would recognize, when mounting casualties, fatigue, and lack of ammunition shifted the momentum suddenly in the stronger side’s favor and the time came for it to finish its opponents off.
The only true counter to that eventual outcome was for the weaker side to break contact and pull away as quickly as possible. He knew it, and so did Trianal. But he also knew what the youngster had in mind, and it might just work. The odds were against it, but Trianal had the audacity of youth, and the superb quality of the troopers under his command might just let him pull it off.
Might.
Sir Yarran Battlecrow weighed the options and alternatives, considered his responsibilities as Trianal’s adviser and mentor, and made his decision.
“Aye,” he said grimly. “Shallow Ford should do fine, Milord.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sir Fahlthu broke out of the undergrowth and guided his own horse up the northern bank of the ravine to the grassland above. It wasn’t the best vantage possible, but it meant he could finally see at least some of what was happening with his own eyes. He pulled his double-glass from its case and raised it, adjusting the knurled wheel between the twin tubes until the standard at the crest of the hill to the west snapped into focus. He couldn’t make out as much detail as he might have liked, even with the double-glass, but the figure on the tall, black stallion beside the standard wore the blue and white of Balthar, and the white bow and crimson-headed, green-fletched arrows of the House of Bowmaster showed clearly against the breastplate of his blackened cuirass. That had to be Trianal. And the other rider beside him, the one in the gray of Glanharrow and the plain, battered breastplate, was probably Yarran.
He lowered the double-glass and let his unaided eye sweep the seeming chaos of galloping horsemen. Trianal and Yarran would have a much better view of the action from their higher location, but Fahlthu was experienced enough to read the tempo of the battle from the smaller portion of it he could see. And as he absorbed it, he smiled grimly.
The fiery young hothead on top of that hill had made a serious error. Perhaps he’d underestimated the total strength Fahlthu could throw at him. Or perhaps he’d simply reacted with the stubborn inflexibility of youth. Either way, he’d made the wrong choice. He ought to have fallen back immediately, riding hell for leather to break contact while Fahlthu’s greater numbers were still occupied making their way clear of the tangled brush and woodland which had concealed them. Instead, he’d accepted battle. No doubt he’d hoped the numbers were close to equal, or—depending on his optimism—even in his favor. In either case, he’d clearly believed he could skirmish successfully, even against superior numbers, and break off if the engagement grew too hot. But this was a game Fahlthu had played before, and he began giving orders to his bugler.