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They jammed the shovel blades into the ground and hammered them home with boot-heels. The shunk of steel in dry soil sounded over and over again for a few seconds; when it was done a forest of spear-points jutted forward, three ranks deep and slanted at just the right height to catch the chest of a horse. Then the whole formation took four steps back, and they had a barrier ahead of them that most horses would refuse to take-at least at a gallop.
He looked left and right while the clansfolk worked; northward was a battery of the Corvallan field artillery, their glaives stacked as they labored like maniacs with pick and shovel to pile up berms in front of their throwing engines. Beyond them the first of the Portlander infantry, leaning on their spears with their shields still slung across their backs.
In the distance there he could just make out Tiphaine d'Ath's ba
The First Armsman of the Mackenzies filled his lungs again:
"Make ready!"
The bows came out of their carrying loops beside the quivers. Here and there some of the clansfolk stretched and twisted or rotated their right arms. From each contingent one trotted out to the front, planting a red-painted stick every so often out to three hundred yards-extreme battle range-to help the archers judge distance.
"Good open ground," Oak called to his father, gri
Chuck nodded back, matching the smile-but it was a conscious gesture for him. He envied the youngsters their calm acceptance of it all; there was still a touch of unreality to this, for him. As if he'd wandered into a tale…
Hooves thudded behind him. He glanced back; the carts with the spare arrows were already trotting along behind the Mackenzie line. Youngsters like Rowan-just a year or two too young to stand in the battle line-grabbed bundles and rushed them forward, planting them point down by the warriors' feet until each had three or four, and then poising ready to bring more as needed. A Mackenzie war-quiver held forty-eight shafts, but those were the chosen handmade arrows that each bought or crafted to suit their own fancy for precision work. These were from the stored reserves, and making them to the standard pattern was winter work, done as a part of the Chief's Portion that every dun paid from its crops and labor for the Clan's common purposes. All the heads were alike, too-narrow bodkins shaped like a metalworker's punch, of hardened alloy steel.
When the work was complete the ground around the clan's warriors seemed to bristle like the hide of some monstrous boar, topped with the gray goose feathers of the fletching.
Chuck took a sip from his canteen and spat to clear the alkaline dust of this dry Eastern land. Some of the others did likewise; more were lifting their kilts and taking a last chance to empty their bladders downslope towards the enemy-that always happened, for you went tight when danger approached. The bawdy jokes were as traditional as the harsh ammonia smell.
Horsemen cantered up before him, led by Wi
Wi
"Whoa, that's war- paint," he said, looking at the crimson-gold-black-green designs that swirled over the faces of the nearer Mackenzies. "You white-eyes always go overboard with an idea once you steal it."
A few of the archers who could hear elevated their middle fingers in neighborly wise. Chuck gri
"The woad was traditional long before we decided to relocate, sure an' it was," he said, exaggerating the Mackenzie lilt that had become second nature over the years. "Along with scalping and head-hunting."
"No accounting for taste," the Indian said. Then he went serious: "They're going to be here soon. Light cavalry-Ranchers-they've got a good screen, but I saw a lot of them massed farther back, nearly a thousand horse-archers. Then the Cutter mounted levies, and then the Sword of the Prophet behind them, they've got bow and lance both. The Boiseans are over north, opposite the Portlanders, horse and foot-mostly infantry. And the Pendleton city militia in the center. Pikemen mostly, it looks like. We can't hold the Pendleton Ranchers off you much longer. Too many. Most of their cavalry is on this flank, but it looks like they're concentrating their field artillery in the center and the northern wing."
The three leaders looked at one another. The northern edge of the allied army was anchored on steep ravines, but the country southward was open and rolling, ideal for a horseman's battle.
"Well," Eric said to his son and Mike Havel Jr., who rode behind him with the snarling bear's-head ba
He nodded to Chuck. "We'll hold 'em off while you get out," he said. "But you'll have to rake them hard first."
"Sethaz is going to regret ordering the horse in there," General-President Martin Thurston said, leveling his binoculars.
The long glitter of the swine feathers showed close through the lenses, and behind them the archers leaning on their weapons or squatting, waiting patiently or talking to one another-a few were even napping, amid the furze of arrows stuck in the ground. God alone knew how anyone could sleep near the savage music of the pipes and drums.
God, I'd love to have those longbowmen on my side! And someday I will, he thought, and popped a piece of the tasteless twice-baked hardtack into his mouth; there hadn't been time for breakfast, or even much sleep, and he chewed doggedly at the compacted-sawdust taste of it.
No time after that cluster-fuck at the Bossman's house last night.
His memory shied away from that a little.
And Sethaz' people act damned odd, sometimes. Well, they're lunatics, but even so… I thought Sethaz was a cynic exploiting fanatics… maybe he's more sincere than that.
"You think it's a mistake to attack?" his aide said. "About even odds-a thousand or so each. And they're light infantry; if the Pendleton cavalry can unravel them, the whole enemy position goes into the pot and we could bag them all."
"I've seen Mackenzies shoot," Martin said. "Two of them, at least. If they were within a couple of miles of typical, rushing a thousand of them head-on is a bad idea. Or maybe Sethaz won't regret it. The holy Prophet is sending our glorious local allies in first over there, I notice."
The Boisean command group were on a slight rise behind the line. Thurston's brown face was considering as the mass of Pendleton light horse finished sweeping their CORA equivalents out of the way and charged towards the Mackenzie archers. He took a deep breath, full of the smell of war-acrid dust, sweat of humans and horses, dung, piss, oiled metal, leather, dirty socks, the musk of fear and tension.
"Yeah, the wogs'll do to soak up arrows," the aide said, and a chuckle ran through the men around Thurston. "And if they get killed by the shitload, then afterwards there are that many less around to cause trouble."
"Those Cutter maniacs are polygamists, aren't they?" another said. "Lots of widows…"
The line of kilted archers was silent, and then a chant began-too faint to hear at first, but building until it rang clear even over the hammer of the drums and the noise of the hooves: