The Excalibur Alternative

Then he shook the thought aside. The enemy was coming on much more slowly and deliberately than the Thoolaas had, but they were still drawing close enough that it was time to leave off his woolgathering and focus his attention on the matter at hand.

The opposing force was less of a mob than he'd first thought. It still boasted nothing he would have called discipline, but now that it was approaching, he could at least see what its commanders had had in mind. Two massive columns, each over a hundred warriors across, were headed roughly for the center of his own line. There must have been eight or nine thousand natives in each of those columns, and another four or five thousand had been detailed to cover the columns' flanks. The rest of the force, a solid mass of dart-throwers, was positioned between the columns, and he grimaced at the sight. There were at least seven or eight thousand of them, and this time the natives had been careful to adopt a formation which would not inhibit their fire.

Their intention was clear enough. They pla

On the other hand...

"The Tairnanto are becoming restless." Computer's tenor voice was as emotionless as ever as he spoke in Sir George's ear. "Some of their subchiefs are pressing for permission to attack."

"Tell Chief Staramhan to remind them of the plan!" Sir George said sharply.

"Acknowledged," Computer replied calmly, and Sir George reached into the front of his bascinet to rub his nose irritably. All he needed was for his "allies" to revert to their normal tactics at the last moment!

There was no doubt in his mind that they would have done precisely that if left to their own devices, even though they must have known that the disparity in numbers would have led to inevitable defeat. They were even more like the French than he'd thought, in that respect, and only his "archangel" status had permitted him to break them, even imperfectly, of that gallic impulsiveness. Unfortunately, he couldn't be certain that they would remain broken of it.

He swung himself into the saddle and took his reins from Snellgrave. For a moment, he considered riding down the line to Staramhan's position to make his point in person, but he banished the temptation. It would take him several minutes, even on Satan, to get there, and those were minutes he could not afford to waste. He had a much better view of the approaching enemy from here than he would from Staramhan's location on his left. Besides, riding over to quell one trouble spot would only ensure that he was out of position to deal with any others as they arose. Better to rely upon Computer's ability to relay his commands and stay where he was.

This relying on superior communications took some getting used to, he thought with a snort. He must remember not to let old habits betray him into casting away the advantages they bestowed.

The enemy force's pace was increasing. They were still too far away for him to make out individual voices, and even if he'd been able to do that, he would have been unable to understand what they were saying. But he didn't need to be able to hear individuals or to understand the natives' language to know what they were shouting. The deep, guttural rhythm of a chanted war cry rolled back along the lengths of the columns, the war drums thudded harder, louder, faster, and the entire mass of the opposing army accelerated quickly.

There was a new note to their war cries, one of what he rather thought was contempt. They were jeering at his own troops, taunting them for standing their ground rather than charging to meet them as proper warriors would. A small stir went through the ranks of his own army, but the chiefs and subchiefs stilled it quickly, and Sir George permitted himself a nasty smile as his formation settled back. His allies were holding their ranks after all, and that meant the oncoming natives were about to discover how much more dangerous than warriors soldiers were.

The enemy moved from the long, steady lope with which the natives normally covered ground into a full run, hurling themselves forward, and Sir George felt himself tighten internally as a cloud of javelins went up from their dart-throwers.

"Shields now, Computer!" he shouted, and all along his formation, the large, rectangular pavises he had introduced went up like protective roofs.

The baron's native allies had protested vociferously when he first introduced the concept of shields. None of them had liked the idea of giving up half of their hand-to-hand weapons for what was basically a useless piece of wood. But he'd insisted, and when he demonstrated the reason for his insistence, much of the protest had faded into silence. There were still reservations, but they were prepared to give the concept a try... especially when Computer reported to them the number of dart-throwers the enemy had managed to amass.

Now the slender javelins came sleeting down like lethal rain, and Sir George heard the rattle and thud as their bronze heads slammed into the interposed shields. Screams went up as some of the javelins found a home in flesh and bone, but the vast majority of them were intercepted and bounced harmlessly aside or embedded themselves in the shields.

The rain of fire from the enemy dart-throwers seemed to hesitate for a moment as the unprecedented shields blunted their attack, and Sir George smiled again. Pavises were more common at Earthly sieges, where they were used to protect archers against return fire, than in the field. But that was because human archers required both hands to use their bows, and so each pavise had to be held by someone else or else mounted permanently in place on a supporting framework. The natives of Shaakun, on the other hand, had four arms each, and so they could shield themselves and still have two hands free for weapons. They might have felt under-armed compared to someone with weapons in all four hands, but they seemed to be getting over that, Sir George thought. They were shouting just as loudly as their foes, now, and most of what they were bellowing sounded like insults directed at the enemy dart-throwers.

The rest of the enemy army howled furious war cries and lunged forward, but Sir George had expected that. As the twin columns came on, he barked another order, and his own dart-throwers sprang into action. Because they, too, carried pavises, their rate of fire was lower than that of their opponents, but despite the smaller total size of his army, Sir George actually had more missile troops than the other side did, for he'd recruited them ruthlessly from every tribe. It hadn't been easy, because the locals were as prejudiced in favor of hand-to-hand combat as French knights were, which explained the low proportion of dart-throwers he had initially observed. The combination of javelins and throwing sticks was the customary hunting weapon of Shaakun, and most of any tribe's warriors had at least some skill with it, yet they stubbornly insisted on meeting their enemies one to one.

Sir George had solved that problem by being even more stubborn than they were, and in the end, over half his total native force consisted of dart-throwers. Many of them had insisted upon bringing along axes or flails as backup weapons, but each of them also had at least one full quiver of javelins, and now they sent a lethal cloud of darts back at their enemies.

Despite the fact that the other side's dart-throwers could use all four arms, and thus could maintain a considerably higher rate of fire, the contest was brutally uneven. Sir George's missile troops swung their pavises aside and exposed themselves only when they actually launched one of their own javelins. Their targets, on the other hand, were totally unprotected, and the oncoming columns began to slow as the warriors in the lead ranks stumbled over the javelin-sprouting bodies of their fellows.