The Pixilated Peeress (34 page)

             
"Battalion, halt!" roared the major from the middle of the square. The underofficers and noncommissioned officers repeated: "Battalion, halt!" Bugle calls and drum beats reinforced the command.

             
The phalanx stumbled to a
halt, with lurching and shoving. Pikes rattled as they struck one another with a clatter like that of storks' bills.

             
"Dress ranks!" cried the major. This command, too, was repeated. The sergeants bustled about, shouting and shoving to align their men. Th
e colonel trotted by on his horse, followed by several mounted adjutants. He exchanged shouts with the majors commanding the three battalions.

             
Vulkop, the sergeant of Beta Company, also with hal
berd on shoulder, wandered around the corner of the phalanx
to Thorolf. During a lull, Vulkop said softly: "I like it not, Thorolf." He jerked a thumb toward the Brandescan Army. " 'Tis said the foe have a mort of thunder tubes yonder, of a new and deadlier kind."

             
"One of those stone balls may strike down a few,
" said Thorolf, "but we shall be upon them long ere they can reload."

             
"I hear they shoot, not stones, but balls of iron," persisted Vulkop. "That makes these 'guns,' as they call them, nimbler and farther-reaching. I've warned the officers, but I might a
s well have bespoken the deaf."

             
"I, too, have told them we shall need a new plan of battle, to no avail," replied Thorolf. "The push of the pike, quotha, will ever rule the field. And where the devil's our cavalry?"

             
"Late as usual," snarled Vulkop, trotting back around the corner of the formation.

             
After an eternity of waiting, while officers conferred and noncoms nagged their men, the major commanded:

             
"Attention! Front rank, lower pikes!"

             
The pikes of the first
rank came down to horizontal.

             
"Second rank, slant pikes!"

             
The pikemen behind those in front lowered their pikes to an angle of thirty degrees, holding so that they passed between the heads of the soldiers in front of them.

             
"Arbalesters, cock your wea
pons!"

             
The crossbowmen at the corners each placed the muzzle of his device on the ground and put a foot into the stirrup in the nose. They squatted, seized the bow
string in both hands, and bent the bow as they straight
ened up with a grunt and a heave.

             
"Prepare to charge!"

             
Thorolf pushed his way between the men to the inner side of the square. His r61e was to continue to com
mand and discipline the men from the inner side. If the enemy threatened to break into the square, he would stiffen the resista
nce with swings of his halberd.

             
Shouts arose from the phalanx. Out from the ends of the Brandescan line streamed squadrons of cavalry. As they neared, Thorolf saw from their baggy garments and turbans that they were Saracens, brandishing scim
itars, jave
lins, and bows. He had heard that Brandesco, weak in cavalry, had hired these foreign horsemen to make up the lack. Yelling, the Saracens galloped toward the Aemilian phalanxes.

             
"Hedgehog!" screamed the major. "Hedgehog! Hedgehog!" came the shouts of his
subordinates.

             
The outermost ranks and files of the phalangites faced outward, knelt, and jammed the butts of their pikes into the so
ft earth. Behind them, the second ranks slanted their pikes as the second rank of the front had done before, thus presenting a spiky obstacle all the way round the formation.

             
The arbalesters at the corners discharged their cross
bows with a rattle of thu
ds. Although they could hardly miss at that range, they did no visible harm.

             
Along the Brandescan line, puffs of smoke bloomed to cauliflower shape. Half a heartbeat later came the crash of cannon fire. Cannon balls sailed overhead or plowed up the soft
earth on either side. The men of the battalion set up a jeering outcry:

             
"Couldn't hit the side of a mountain!"

             
"Attention!" came the command. Again the pikes were raised to vertical, while the kneeling soldiers rose. Delay followed as officers conferre
d and sergeants cursed their men to get them lined up. The colonel and his adjutants galloped past, throwing up clods of mud. At last came the command:

             
"Prepare to charge!"

             
Along the Brandescan line in the nearer distance, Thorolf glimpsed men rushing
about, swabbing out gun barrels and hefting iron balls and bags of powder.

             
"Charge!" yelled the major. "Charge! Charge!" cried the others.

             
The phalanx started forward at a trot. As the Bran
descan line came closer, the Saracens hovering out of crossbow
range swept in again, whooping and yelling.

             
"Halt! Hedgehog!"

             
The men obeyed, more raggedly than the first time. Then the Brandescan cannon opened up again. Two balls plowed into Thorolf's phalanx, with a crash that mingled the crackle of shattering s
pears with the din of breaking men in armor. Pikes toppled; screams arose.

             
"Close up! Close up!" bellowed the sergeants.

             
"Attention! Prepare to charge! Charge!" came the commands.

             
Again the formation started forward, leaving the wounded and slain spr
awled on the brown earth. Again came the Saracen charge, the hedgehog, and the cannon volley. Several cannon balls plowed into the formation; more pikes toppled. In addition, a crackle of handgun fire ran down the Brandescan line. Commands were drowned ou
t
by a rising chorus of screams and yells from the wounded. Sergeant Vulkop shouted in Thorolf's ear:

             
"Another volley like that and we shall be down to half our strength! The men are wavering!"

             
"Where's the major?"

             
"There he is, what's left!" Vulkop p
ointed to a head
less body in half-armor, lying with several others with
in the square. All the officers had fallen or disappeared.

             
The Saracens whirled past as the crossbowmen got their weapons cocked and let fly. Thorolf stumbled over a mess of spilled
entrails. He told his two surviving fellow sergeants:

             
"There's something feigned about those Saracens. They shoot their arrows or cast their darts not; and our arbalesters' bolts go through them and their horses without harm."

             
"Sorcery!" said Sergeant
Herminus.

             
"Aye; the Saracens are but an illusion cast by their wizards, to halt us in range of their tubes. If we can get the men moving again, one good charge, ignoring the illusions
—
"

             
"Too late!" said Vulkop. "Look yonder!" He pointed to the middle
one of the three phalanxes. It was breaking up; men were leaving their shattered ranks and streaming back across the plain. Most of them dropped their pikes to move faster.

             
"And yonder!" said Herminus, pointing toward the
Brandescan line, from the ends o
f which rode more cavalry. These were no phantom Saracens but armored lancers bearing the eagle flag of Brandesco on their lance tips.

             
Thorolf, tripping over a severed leg, hurried around the square, bellowing: "Get back in line! Get in line! Hold your p
osts, if you would not be stuck like pigs! It's your only chance!" Where a couple of men dropped their pikes and started off as the men of the other pha
lanxes were doing, he pushed through to the outside and drove the men back into ranks with blows of th
e
shaft of his halberd.

             
By shouting himself hoarse and by blows and kicks, with the help of the other sergeants he got the surviving men back into a ragged hedgehog formation. A squad
ron of Brandescan lancers rode up, then sheered off from the hedge of p
ikes and galloped away across the plain after easier targets, the backs of the fleeing pha
langites. Then the Aemilian cavalry, long overdue, ap
peared; but at the sight of the two broken phalanxes they turned about and rode off, leaving the Brandescan ri
d
ers to spear the fleeing foot until the plain was car
peted with bodies.

             
Thorolf's surviving phalanx tramped its way in a stolid square back across the plain, presenting a ready hedgehog of pikes every time a group of Brandescans came nigh. The walking w
ounded limped along inside the square. The more seriously stricken had perforce to be left to the mercy of the Brandescans.

             
Without planning to do so, Thorolf had fallen into command of his group by energy, brawn, and presence of mind. The other sergeant
s seemed willing to follow his lead.

             
Night had fallen when the group, down to fewer then two hundred, reached the village of Formi.

-

             
Under a sinking half-moon, Formi seemed curiously deserted; no villagers were in sight. Instead, a few men of the Aemilian army, many staggering drunk, moved about the streets, in which lay several bodies in peasant garb.

             
As Thorolf's battalion moved int
o the main street in column of fours, the rabble of soldiers moved aside. Some called out:

             
"Where in hell did you knaves come from? The bat
tle was lost, was it not?"

             
"Who are you?" asked Thorolf.

             
"Never mind who I am. I got away with a whole skin, w
hich most of my comrades did not."

             
"Where are the villagers?"

             
"In hell or in hiding. When we slew a few who crossed us, the rest thought a little travel good for their health." The man giggled. "Help yourself to the lo
cals' wine; some is not bad. Otma
r of the Third caught a pig the locals were not quick enough in getting away; the lads are roasting it."

             
"Where's the Duke?"

             
The soldier shrugged. "None hath seen him since the rout. Belike he galloped back to Fiensi with his gentle
men, to shut the ga
tes against our comrades demanding their pay."

             
"What befell the wagon train, with our rations?"

             
"Gone on ahead, with the cavalry."

             
"Then is there aught to eat here?"