The Pen and the Sword (Destiny's Crucible Book 2) (38 page)

Mixed
muskets and pikes
,
thought Yozef.
And probably formed in blocks like smaller versions of the
Spanish tercios that evolved as musket and cannon fire developed on Earth. Each
block can defend in all directions and provide support for adjacent blocks.

Culich
listened to the answer, then said, “Can we take a few minutes to let us all
gather our thoughts before continuing? I would also like to consult with my
advisors.” The session had been going for only an hour, and Moreland looked
surprised at the need to break the discussion so soon. With a sour look, he agreed
to begin again at the top of the next hour.

Culich
rose and walked out the door, followed by Lewis, Kennrick, and Denes, who came
back to Yozef, still standing against the rear wall and wondering what was
next.

“Come,”
said Denes, “you need to tell Culich what you told me.” Denes gripped his left
elbow and forced-marched him out of the still crowded room. The Keelan group was
standing under a large shade tree about forty feet from the house.

When
Yozef and Denes reached them, Culich looked at Yozef, who wondered whether
Culich was angry at being interrupted. However, Culich’s face was neutral, and
he simply said, “Denes tells me you have thoughts on what’s been discussed
inside.”

“Well
. . . I guess two things seem important to me. One is that your people don’t
seem to understand the importance of ‘infantry’—men fighting on foot. I’m
guessing, but I wonder if the largest battles in Caedellium history were a few
thousand on each side, all on horseback.”

Yozef
looked expectantly to Culich, who nodded. “In my lifetime, perhaps one thousand
total on both sides, though in the histories, and before the conclave was
established, there were some that supposedly involved three or four thousand.”

“All
on horseback?”

“Yes.”

“Never
on foot?”

“Only
when raiding towns, a few less-than-successful attempts to besiege major towns
or fortresses, or during battles when many men became unhorsed. That was long
ago.”

Yozef
shook his head. “What you have here is something totally different. The
Narthani cavalry is mainly to protect the infantry from your cavalry getting
behind them or attacking their flanks. They figure on winning any battle with
you with their infantry and cannons.”

Although
Culich was dubious, Yozef saw that the hetman was trying to comprehend what he was
saying. Yozef continued, this time with more energy, forgetting he was no military
tactician and simply took his understanding from reading, movies, books, and
video games.

“Hetman,
consider that the infantry is armed with muskets and pikes. That’s what those
long spears are called. They are meant to present a wall of spear points far
enough in front of the men so that enemies with only swords, lances, or shorter
spears can’t reach them. Only another wall of pikes has any chance of defeating
when it’s hand to hand. The pikes serve two other purposes. They protect the
men with the muskets. The pikes hold off the enemy, while the muskets shoot
them. The other main purpose against your men will be to stop your riders.
Horses will not charge into a wall of pike heads. They’ll either stop or look
for a way around, no matter what the rider tries to make the horse do.”

Yozef
sweated as he spoke, not knowing whether he was telling them what they needed
to hear or if he should say anything at all. He could make things worse,
because he was hardly a military tactician, but every fiber of his being told
him he had to say what he thought.

“Then
all we’d have to do is not charge them,” said Culich, “and wait for them to
retreat, since they can’t catch our men and force a battle.”

“Eventually,
they
will
force a battle. What if they advance on Moreland City to burn
it to the ground? Will the clans stand aside and watch it happen?”

“No.
The Morelanders would fight even if alone, and the rest of the clans would have
to join in, because destruction of Moreland would put all other clans in worse
danger.”

“There
you have it. A battle is inevitable. Something else to remember. The Narthani
don’t care about Moreland City. They only use it as a lure. Their goal is to
kill so many Caedellium fighting men that the clans are forced to surrender.
With forces of this size, seizing land, crops, gold, women, or whatever is not
the objective. Destruction of enemy forces is the objective, and all else
follows from that.”

Culich
seemed to be understanding more and not liking it.

“And
then there’s the Narthani cannon,” Yozef added.

“Why
are cannon important here?” Kennrick asked. “Oh, I see their importance in
protecting harbors and forts, but in open field combat, while being hit by a
cannonball is fatal for whoever it hits, they can’t possibly kill enough to be
decisive.”

“Canister,”
said Yozef, to a look of incomprehension from Kennrick. Only Denes, Culich, and
Luwis understood. Denes had personally seen the effects of Yozef’s carriage-mounted
swivel guns during test firings, and while Culich and Luwis had read reports,
Kennrick had not.

“Imagine
that instead of firing a single cannonball, the cannon fired hundreds of musket
balls at the enemy. The balls would spread out farther from the cannon. Imagine
these hundreds of musket balls hitting a charge of clan horsemen. Then imagine
scores of cannon firing all at the same time.”      

“Like
the loads we sometimes use to shoot birds,” added Denes.

“If
the bird is flying, a single musket ball has very little chance of hitting the
bird. But birdshot, with hundreds of pellets, always hits the bird,” Kennrick
said, catching on.

“Now,
imagine you fire a single musket ball into a flock of birds so thick you can
hardly see the sky behind them,” Yozef continued. “How many birds might that
musket ball kill?”

“It
might go through several birds. Say, two to four birds,” answered Kennrick.

“How
many birds would you hit in that dense flock with birdshot?”

“It
could be a dozen, if the birds are that thick.”

“Now
imagine that each of those birdshot pellets was the size of a musket ball.”

The
grim visages of most of the men evidenced the message had gotten through. Luwis
spoke slowly, as if framing his words carefully and reluctantly.  “So, if we
charge, the pikes will prevent us from closing with their infantry, the muskets
will fire at us from behind the pikes, the cannon will fire canister into our
ranks, and their cavalry will keep us from attacking their rear or flanks
before their infantry can make countermoves. Plus, if we don’t attack, they’ll
move on Moreland City and force the battle in the open, or we’d have to fight
them within the city, which will almost certainly lead to as much destruction
as if the city weren’t defended at all. That’s the unpalatable scenario you’re
telling us?”

“I’m
afraid so, Ser Luwis.”

There
was silence among the Keelanders until Vortig Luwis spoke. “If we can’t attack
and can’t wait them out, then what
do
we do?”

“What
I’ve told you are lessons from the history of my people. Not necessarily my
people experiencing all of this themselves, but having written histories of
other nations and peoples over long periods of time. What I’ve said is what I
remember reading or hearing about. I can’t know for sure whether the Narthani
fight battles the same way or not. Maybe I’m wrong, and they’ve left themselves
open to being destroyed, as Hetman Moreland believes. Yet when the fate of your
people is at risk, isn’t it best to plan for the worst?”

“As
the
Word
says,” recited Culich, “the faithful pray to God but must work
for their own salvation.” He then looked again directly at Yozef. “So what is
it we
can
do?”

 “What
I would definitely
not
do is charge directly into the Narthani until you
can see how they plan to fight the battle. Musket and pike fighting usually
means they’ll form into blocks, probably longer sides facing you, with rows of
men. The first few rows will hold the pikes and present a front of pike heads,
while the rear rows will have the muskets, who either will step through the
pike rows, fire, and then return to the rear to reload, or the pike men might
kneel or lie on the ground, while the musket men fire over them. If you pretend
you’re ready for battle and perhaps even start a charge, then whatever
formations the Narthani assume would tell you exactly what you’ll face.”

Culich
nodded thoughtfully. “I see the wisdom. We’ll see their intentions and can
withdraw and reconsider our next move. There’s no reason to rush to get so many
killed.”

Culich
turned to the other Keelanders, and they discussed what they’d heard and what
they should propose to the other hetmen. They asked a couple of short
clarification questions of Yozef; otherwise, he wasn’t part of the rest of the
discussion. A bell rang, calling the meeting back into session, and they joined
the other clans in filing back into the room.

Moreland
looked at Culich with a raised eyebrow. Was he ready to proceed? Culich nodded.
It took two hours of discussion and argument before the majority of the hetmen
agreed to Culich’s proposal that the clans demonstrate in front of the Narthani
by mid-day to test the invader’s reaction. Moreland wasn’t pleased that the
clans wouldn’t attack immediately.

First
Day

The
sun was two hours past mid-day before the clans were arrayed, facing their
enemies. The Narthani were in their final positions two hours before the
masquerading clan army. Yozef winced far too many times while the clans sorted
themselves out, as the Narthani commanders allowed their men to sit in place
and watch the entertainment.

 Confusion
reigned. Hetman Moreland tried insisting he command the entire mass, but Culich
and the other hetmen demurred, and the final organization was for three groups.
The clan center was composed of Moreland, Stent, Adris, and Hewell, with Hetman
Moreland as the lead. Hetman Orosz led the right wing, including Bultecki and
Pewitt, who had answered the call for help to everyone’s surprise. Culich
Keelan led the Tri-Clans of Keelan, Gwillamer, and Mittack on the left. Culich,
with Yozef’s urging, had convinced the other hetmen not to bunch their men but to
present the Narthani with an even distribution across the entire front and not
give them information on intention or organization. What the Narthani saw was a
mile-and-a-half solid line of Caedelli horsemen six deep.

Yozef
and his two caretakers didn’t join the Keelan men, much to Carnigan’s and
Wyfor’s annoyance. Yozef wanted to get a clear view of the potential
battlefield. The Narthani had obviously picked this spot for some reason, and
he wanted to know why. He and the others stood under trees behind the arrayed
clan horsemen on a hillock twenty feet above the surroundings, the only
elevated feature in an otherwise flat plain two miles across. On their right
(the Narthani left), a ridge spine rose sharply from the plain. The spine
started just before the Narthani position and ran to the southwest, cutting off
any easy route around the Narthani left flank. To the Caedelli left (the
Narthani right) appeared an area of low hills covered in trees. Beyond the
trees ran a creek bed and more brush and trees, with reduced fields of fire and
difficult terrain for horses to move fast and maintain any semblance of order.
Beyond lay a forested lower ridgeline.

Yozef
needed to get higher, so Carnigan threw a rope over a sturdy-looking limb forty
feet up a tree and pulled the other end of the rope down. They rigged a rope
saddle, and the two men hoisted Yozef up into the tree. From the limb, he was
able to climb another thirty feet, and there, seventy feet above the plain, he
had a panorama as the two foes finished positioning. The Narthani were so
organized and precise in their movements, Yozef wondered if they were laughing
at the chaos on the Caedelli side.

Well
,
overconfidence
on their part can only help. If only that overconfidence wasn’t justified!

Yozef
had all of the information he was going to get long before the clans were in
position. Thanks to the discipline of the Narthani troops, it didn’t take him long
to draw out their positions and make notes. Initially, it was depressingly
informative and puzzling at the same time. The Narthani infantry was organized
into five-hundred-men blocks. Yozef saw enough detail with the latest telescope
from one of his shops. The lenses weren’t perfect, so there was distortion, but
the magnification was better than expected, and after some experience his brain
adjusted to the view.

Each
Narthani square was composed of five rows of about a hundred men each. The
first two rows carried pikes; the last three, muskets. There were ten such
squares. The forward positions were symmetrical, starting from one end, a
square, then artillery, two more squares with a third square positioned behind
them, a surprisingly big gap before a single centrally located square, then
another gap and a mirror image of the other wing.

To
the rear of the Narthani center was a group that, if the flags were an
indication, included the Narthani commander. Several smaller groups were
scattered behind the squares that Yozef thought were likely auxiliaries, such
as medical units waiting for the expected casualties. A tenth square was just
to the right of the command group, serving either as security or as a reserve
unit to plug breakthroughs. On both flanks were masses of horsemen, somewhere
between one and two thousand on each wing. Yozef hadn’t noticed him appear but
found Denes next to him on top of the tree. Denes identified the flanking
horsemen—Eywellese on the Caedellium left, and both Narthani and Selfcell on
their right. Yozef had no trouble distinguishing their identities: the Narthani
cavalry were orderly.

Yozef
wrinkled his brow, as he studied the Narthani deployment: two strong points on
each wing and a thin line in front of the command group.

What
are they thinking? What if I’m the Narthani commander? I have a disciplined
army facing a totally unorganized mass of cavalry. How do I get them to do
exactly what I want and kill as many of them as I can?

He
wrestled with the possible answers before one jumped out.

They
WANT the clans to attack at the center!
The apparent vulnerability of the
Narthani command station is the lure.

He
looked closer at the two wings.

The
clans may think they can break the Narthani line in half and destroy the
command structure by launching an all-out attack on the Narthani center.

He
noticed the end units were more advanced, and the two artillery positions slanted
slightly inward instead of straight ahead. He envisioned the Narthani might let
the central block move back and the two rear-positioned blocks move into gaps next
to the central block. All of the infantry and two battery positions could form
a 145-degree arc with muskets and canister producing crossing fields of fire. Whatever
clan horsemen entered the arc would be slaughtered. If the clan riders then
broke and tried to retreat, the lack of central command, uncertainty over who was
doing what, and the shock of the slaughter would be ready made for the three
thousand cavalry in the Narthani flanks to sweep around the retreating clans in
a classic double envelopment. Yozef’s memory pulled up histories and sketches,
such as the Carthaginians crushing a Roman army at Cannae in 216
bc
, and the pincer movements of
the Germans in World War II. It could be repeated right before his eyes on the
planet Anyar. Such a crushing defeat would be a death knell for the clans.

I
wonder if the
Narthani need a chemist
.

He
tried to shake the thought, but his mind refused to ignore that he might be
seeing the end of whatever life he’d built on Caedellium. If the clans lost, he
might survive if he could convince the Narthani of his value and save Maera and
their unborn child, though that might be iffy, because she was of the hetman’s
family. Others he knew, such as Carnigan and Denes, if they didn’t die in
battle, they’d probably be executed as potential fomenters of resistance.

Well,
shit! Let’s see if there’s anything I can do to avoid this outcome
.
First, I have
to convince Culich that a center attack would be a disaster.

The
clans
had
to attack. By threatening Moreland City, the Narthani negated
the islanders’ mobility advantage. All the Narthani had to do was wait. There
was only so long the different clans could leave this many men in front of
Moreland City. In a sixday, two at the most, clans would start leaving. Culich
had brought fodder and feed for the Tri-Clan horses, enough for perhaps two
sixdays when supplemented with grazing. Sixteen thousand horses from individuals
and wagons would consume a lot of grazing, especially since it was late in the
summer and the grass was brown, with limited nutrient value.

Yozef
used the telescope to look at the two flanks. If a center attack was out, that
left the flanks and the rear. Getting behind the Narthani was unlikely to be
successfully coordinated by the islander mob, plus it would leave Moreland City
open for occupation and destruction, something to which the Morelanders
wouldn’t agree. It would have to be the flanks. Another quick look at the right
flank confirmed it couldn’t be attacked. The spiny ridge provided an impossible
barrier for the Caedelli horsemen. He kept coming back to the Caedelli left
flank. From his current perch he could see low tree-covered hills but no
details and nothing in depth. He needed to get higher.

He
handed the telescope to Denes. “I need to examine the land on the left side and
see what it’s like.”

Denes
took the telescope, put it to his right eye, and swung it back and forth over
the area. “Okay. We should be able to get onto the lower ridgeline, but we’ll send
out men to push back any Narthani.”

“We
don’t want to seem too interested and alert the Narthani,” cautioned Yozef.

“We’ll
do the best we can, but my orders are strict that you not be put in any more danger
than absolutely necessary.”

They
climbed and slid down the tree on the ropes, and they and ten escorts circled behind
the arrayed clans to a rocky point atop the lower ridgeline south. It took half
an hour to get to a position where they could see the entire potential
battlefield, this time from the side. The Narthani squares, the flanking
cavalry, and the auxiliary units of the Narthani arrayed north to south were
clearly visible, even without the telescope.

Yozef
compared his notes from their view on top of the tree, facing the middle of the
Narthani positions, and made a few changes and additions to his earlier
sketches. He focused on the terrain directly below them. To the Eywellese left
was the Narthani infantry square, to their right the low hills and trees,
except for a hundred-yard-wide lane running south away from the Eywellese.
Three hundred yards down the lane was a streambed where the lane widened to a ford
in the stream. The ground sloped, so that a horse could gallop down one side,
cross the stream, and continue up the other bank whose top was covered with
chest-high brush. He looked again, envisioning the scene and possible movements,
starting from the Narthani lines and coming back to the streambed. Then again—he
looked farther southwest for the terrain circling back behind the Narthani.

This
might be it. Or, at least the only chance I can see.

By
now, the two armies had faced each other for nearly two hours. As planned, the
clans began moving back toward Moreland City, making it seem they were uncoordinated,
which didn’t take much effort.

“Denes,
please find Hetman Keelan and see if he can come here.”

Denes
took another look around their position. “Is it wise to risk bringing the
hetman here?”

Yozef
looked surprised, as if he hadn’t considered that problem. He scanned the
surroundings. “The Narthani are likely to fall back into their encampment once
they’re convinced the clans are pulling back toward the city. I think you
should be able to push enough men forward from here into the trees to secure
this position and still not be detected by the Narthani. We should do this as
quick as we can, before they send any patrols in this direction.”

Denes
walked away, shaking his head doubtfully. Twenty minutes later, he returned
with fifty riders, whom he directed to fan out in between them and farther
along both sides of the ridgeline. Following shortly were Culich and fifty more
riders, who stopped short of Yozef’s position, while Culich and Vortig Luwis
came forward to his observation point.

“What
do you see, Yozef?”

Yozef
knew the hetman’s question asked both what they could see from this position
and whether Yozef had an idea, an inspiration, or a vision.

“Thank
you for coming, Hetman.” Without further preliminaries, Yozef started
explaining. He pointed out the Narthani positions and the terrain details, both
as they could see them and on the map. They then worked their way down to the
creek Yozef had noted on the map and knelt under a spreading tree, where Yozef
laid the map on the ground and drew a similar map in the dirt.

He
pointed out the Narthani positions. “When one looks at their deployment, one
might think the center is weak and subject to attack.”

“Yes,”
said Luwis impatiently, “we can all see this. If this is their normal
arrangement of men, it gives us the chance to break their middle and split
their army in two. Perhaps even kill their leaders, if we’re fortunate.”

“That’s
likely what they
want
you to believe,” said Yozef. “This is an
experienced Narthani army and leaders who have likely commanded in many battles
before. Don’t you think it strange that they would arrange their men in such a
vulnerable manner?”

Luwis
frowned, scratching his beard as he looked at the map. “I have to say that
thought occurred to me. I took it as overconfidence or stupidity on their part.
But you’re right to point out it may be deliberate.”

“If
this formation is somehow to fool us, what do you think are their intentions?” asked
Culich.

“Of
course, I
can’t
know their true intentions, though I’ll point out one
possibility.” With a hand, Yozef smoothed over the positions in the dirt of
Narthani formations and redrew them with the stick, showing movements. “What if
you charge the center, and the Narthani move their men this way . . . ?” He
drew the development of crossing fires.