by Rob Preece
Sullivan's musketmen fired into them and the pikemen pushed ahead, trying to collapse the square. In this kind of warfare, most of the casualties are taken after one side is disorganized and Sullivan had the men to ensure that it was Sergius's rear guard that disorganized first.
Sergius's square sagged under the weight of Sullivan's pikemen and closed to fill the gaps left by Sullivan's musket fire. They marched slowly away from the camp, dying but maintaining the cohesion that kept most of them alive.
Their own musketmen fired a steady trickle of heavy bullets into the light cavalry, keeping them involved, making sure that they didn't circle too wide.
Sullivan didn't know it yet, but he was being led into a trap.
Ellie noted each landmark, praying that their square would hold, that they hadn't left two hundred men to be slaughtered.
Another three of their pikemen fell but the square closed again. It seemed impossible, but it looked like the pikemen might actually hold until they reached the line where the bulk of the army was hidden.
They were only a couple hundred yards from the base of Sergius's U when the first pikemen threw down their weapons and ran.
A ripple of panic ran through Sergius's mercenaries as more and more joined the flight. Unarmed, they could outrun Sullivan's pikemen. With the square breaking down around them, flight seemed the only option.
For most, it was a fatal miscalculation.
Sullivan sent in his knights.
* * * *
In the movies, charging knights look romantic and noble. The reality, Ellie found, was more like sadistic thugs chasing down defenseless men.
The knights used their heavy horses to shoulder through their own phalanx, shouted hoarse prayers to their God of mercy, and speared and slashed into the backs of the running soldiers.
Of the two hundred men they'd left in the camp, perhaps twenty made it to the base of Mark's trap.
"God, they're slaughtering us,” Sergius moaned.
It wasn't that much more terrible than when they'd defeated Sullivan's ambush in the forest but this time it was their guys doing the dying. And in the forest, Ellie hadn't been able to see the sadistic joy on the face of the knights.
They rode down panicked soldiers, lanced the few who turned and tried to fight, and slashed bloody swords downward like scythes.
Ellie wasn't an innocent any more. She'd killed men without counting their loss, without especially mourning them. Without spending more than a few moments wondering about the loved ones they may have left behind them, suddenly without support and protection. But she hoped she had never, and would never, approach murder with the sheer joy that these men seemed to take.
"Real soldiers shouldn't panic,” Dafed observed. “Our men were holding together, were going to make it. We probably wouldn't have lost more than thirty men if they'd held."
The cold-blooded calculus of the battlefield might be necessary. Dafed and the other sergeants, if any survived, would need to make sure the men knew their mistakes and would never make them again. Still, Ellie's feelings were more like Sergius'. The destruction was more important than the mistake.
"Signal stand forth.” Mark sounded as cold-blooded as Dafed had.
This time the bugle signal was musical, almost pretty.
It was echoed across the battlefield and Sergius's hidden army—the army Sullivan's men thought had marched away the previous day, stood and presented their arms.
With the additional muskets available from the merchant ships they'd captured, Sergius's army was down to about one third pikemen. All of those pikemen were gathered at the base of the U.
They bristled their long pikes, the front row kneeling and grounding their weapons like boar spears to let the charging knights gut themselves.
Sullivan's knights, blinded by their murderous joy, chased after the fleeing camp guards until it was almost too late.
The forest of sharp pikes wiped the sneers and smiles from their faces.
Maybe a hundred of the knights died instantly, impaled by the heavy spears of the infantry or falling beneath slaughtered horses. Another fifty or so lost their seats when their horses saw the pikes before their riders and bolted.
The remainder pulled back. They were experienced soldiers and knew better than to charge an unbroken pike army. Their own pikemen would take care of this nasty surprise. Once the overwhelming numbers of Sullivan's pikemen slammed through this group, the knights could have their moment of slaughter again.
But the knights’ retreat disorganized their own phalanx. Sullivan's pikemen needed time to reorganize, redress their ranks, reform into a unit whose momentum could sweep away the opposition that they suddenly found in front of them. And time was their enemy.
"Signal fire in volleys.” Mark had to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of horses screaming, men shouting, and the phalanx's drums signaling some organizational maneuver.
That noise, however, was completely drowned by the first volleys from Sergius's musketeers on either side of the U.
Other than the bayonet, Mark hadn't introduced any miracle weapon into Sergius's arsenal. Sullivan had at least as many musketmen as Sergius did. But Mark had persuaded Dafed and the army that the slow-loading firearms could be the primary battlefield weapon. While Sullivan scattered his musketmen, many of whom had already fired and hadn't reloaded, Mark arrayed Sergius's in deadly lines.
Musket fire cut through Sullivan's pikemen and knights like molten steel through butter.
The musketeers managed three volleys before Sullivan's men organized.
Whoever commanded Sullivan's light cavalry recognized his opportunity. Musketmen unprotected by pikes meant only one thing—targets.
Sullivan didn't have as many light cavalry as he had knights. Light cavalry was far less respectable so no nobleman would consider that career. And few peasants had the resources to equip themselves with fast horses. Which left professional soldiers the only men ready and capable of assuming that role.
Two hundred professional light cavalry charged directly toward the column of musketeers who stood in front of Sergius, Mark, Dafed, and Ellie.
The infantry had been firing volleys by column and one column brought up their weapons before the light cavalry reached them.
One hundred and fifty muskets spat lead into the onslaught.
Perhaps a quarter of the cavalry went down, some killed, others unhorsed when the larger target took a bullet.
But the rest continued.
Their plan was obvious. They'd break through the musket line, roll it up, and then hit the pikemen from the rear.
It was a good plan. It might even have worked if Sullivan's one thousand knights had thought to do it.
But nobody had told the light cavalry commander about the bayonets.
Two columns of musketeers struggled to reload, but the remaining two stepped forward, bayonets affixed, stabbing at horses, cavalrymen, and anyone else who got in their way.
From behind them the light cavalry, musketeers on the other side of Sergius's U continued to fire into the mass of Sullivan's soldiers.
The cavalry captain cut through a musket, sliced down a musketeer, broke through the line of infantry, and headed directly for the King.
Three of his men followed before the infantry swarmed the gap, cutting down anyone who didn't back into the increasing press of soldiers on the field.
Ellie drew her katana.
She'd never faced a man on a horse before. Her parents hadn't been poor, exactly, but they'd never had the money to bring mounted martial artists into the dojo to allow her to practice this kind of maneuver. On the other hand, Ken Jitsu training involves mostly forms and strikes practiced against the air—the actual swords are too dangerous to be used in free kumite. And the Kata taught their lesson.
The horse was huge and its rider struck at her as if he were ten feet tall. The horse's momentum added to his own weight to add crushing power to the strength of his sword-arm.
&
nbsp; Ellie drew on the stillness in her. Her father's voice, an ever-present element in her training, reminded her to stay calm, to let the man come to her, to trust her training.
The ancient sword Kata had been designed to protect Samurai against mounted opponents. The techniques were there for her to draw on. She exhaled and exploded.
The cavalry captain cut at her and she shifted her weight, blocked upward, and then used the power of his blow to redirect her sword into a long cutting motion slicing through his leg. The impossibly sharp sword chopped through mail armor, biting deep into muscle and bone.
The captain had time to give her a surprised expression, before collapsing from his animal.
Sergius was still fumbling for his sword as she exploited her momentum, spinning and thrusting through the second horseman.
The sharp bang of Mark's Glock took care of the third attacker.
The fourth man in the breakthrough took one look at them and spurred his horse away.
Mark stared at his gun. “Almost out of bullets. Hope you're worth it, Sergius."
"I promise I won't forget this. I'll reward both of you,” the King whispered.
Mark was the history buff but Ellie knew something about people. Promises made in the heat of battle are easy to forget once the fighting is over.
Adrenaline drained from her slowly and she was surprised to look down and see that she was bleeding. Someone had gotten through, had cut her arm. It didn't take much. If she'd moved one inch to the right, she would have lost her arm and, quite possibly, her life. The lessons of hundreds of years of Samurai warriors, distilled into their Kata, and of thousands of repetition under her father's eyes, had saved her. She wondered if her father had known she would someday return here. Had they been training her for this? Or had her father hoped that she would stay on Earth as he did. Had he intended her to be a killer, or a person for whom perfection in the martial arts meant that there was no need to kill?
"I don't want any reward,” Ellie dragged her attention back to the King. “Just do what you've already promised."
Sergius smiled. “Right. After we've won."
The light cavalry attack had shaken their musketeers. Mark and Dafed ran down the line shouting at soldiers to shape up, pull themselves together, and keep loading and firing. Keep the rain of death hammering through the enemy lines.
She'd been distracted from the main battlefield and what Ellie saw now shocked her.
Bodies were scattered over the field in heaps. Sullivan's pike phalanx had disintegrated under the intense musket fire and was fleeing back toward the city. Some of the knights had tried to follow the light cavalry but they weren't professional soldiers and the slamming volleys of musketballs discouraged them.
As she watched, they too broke. Like Sergius’ pikemen, it started slowly, one man dropping his weapons and running back to the protection of the city, then another. Then it was squads. The knights picked up the panic as a mass, charging through anyone who got in their way and doing almost as much damage to their own forces as Mark's musketballs.
Of the four thousand soldiers who had marched out of Dinan, perhaps twenty-five hundred disorganized and dispirited men struggled back. Many were wounded. Most had left their weapons on the field. They still outnumbered Sergius's small army but Ellie didn't think they'd come marching out again any time soon. It would take time to rearm them, time to reorganize them. Most of all, it would take time to rebuild their confidence. And without confidence, an army has already lost no matter how large and how well armed it might be.
* * * *
They spent the rest of the day in the ruins of their camp.
Despite the success of Mark's plan, a number of their pikemen and a few dozen of the musketeers had been wounded. All were exhausted from their march and from the fight.
They also had to decide what to do with the prisoners.
Sullivan had left his wounded in the field. Of the fifteen hundred men he'd lost, perhaps five hundred were dead. Another six hundred had suffered wounds severe enough to keep them from fleeing before Mark's trap could completely close. Four hundred were simply stunned, unlucky, or had fallen from their horses and been unable to get up without assistance.
"We'll hold the knights for ransom, of course,” Sergius declared. “A hundred belted knights. There hasn't been such a haul since my father marched across Rissel thirty years ago. The army's pay will be taken care of for months."
Ellie had spent a couple of hours helping bandage the wounded of both sides, but she had returned to hear Sergius's decisions on his next steps—and Mark's plans for recreating the rest of Lee's great victory.
"Several of the nobles have had a change of heart after this victory and wish to swear allegiance and change sides. I'm inclined to accept them."
Arnold and his young knights had helped, but Ellie didn't think their success depended on more knights.
She was shouted down when she raised that opinion.
"They are not merely knights,” Sergius reminded her. “They are the landowners who control the wealth of this kingdom. Without their support, no King can be secure. With them, no King can be assailed."
She didn't like it, but Ellie could see his logic. Sergius's uncles gained their power through their leadership of the nobles. If the nobles joined Sergius, Sullivan and Harrison would be declawed.
"What about the rest of them?” she asked.
Sergius shook his head. “What choices do we have? If we let them go, we'll have to fight them again. If we keep them as prisoners, we weaken our own forces, which are already badly outnumbered. We'll have to kill them."
That couldn't be right. “Perhaps they would swear allegiance as well,” she suggested. They could use the extra men.
"They'll desert on their first opportunity. Or stab us in the back."
She shrugged. It wasn't as if their army wasn't already littered with informants and spies. She decided to pursue the pragmatic argument. “If you kill them, who will surrender in the future?"
That thought, rather than any discussion of mercy and prisoners’ rights, finally won the day. The uninjured foot soldiers were simply drafted to fill in the ranks of Sergius's pikes—depleted yet again by deaths and by giving captured muskets to pikemen. The injured were given the choice of swearing allegiance and being cared for by the army, or refusing and being returned to Dinan. Not many chose Dinan.
Chapter 11
Over the next week, Mark's dragoons harassed Sullivan's field army, slowing what should have been a three-day march and giving Sergius's victorious forces a chance to recuperate, rearm, mold thousands of new musketballs, and incorporate their new men into the battle.
They'd left another pitiful guard in their camp outside Dinan, marched the army to a spot where the road crossed a river and threw up earthworks.
The crossing was a grassy meadow, with cropland extending on either side. Mark sent Arnold's men west and the dragoons east to destroy any boats and bridges they found and make sure there were no fords that Sullivan could use to outflank them while the rest of the army worked on making their makeshift fortifications impregnable.
Sergius wasn't Sullivan: he didn't order any of the peasants killed. He did have about a mile of cropland burned, with every tree uprooted. It wasn't nice to the peasants, but it provided the army with a field of fire. Sullivan's forces would take a lot of punishment if they tried to push their way through.
The blacksmiths had pretty much finished making bayonets and spent a couple of days making caltrops out of captured pike heads. The deadly devices were scattered in the river ford surrounding the bridge and in the field in front of their breastworks. Each could lame a horse or a man who stepped on it. Avoiding them would break a pike phalanx's cohesion and destroy an organized charge. Equally important, from the musketeer's perspective, they would slow the approaching enemy, giving more time to load, aim, and fire their awkward weapons.
Ellie and Mark surveyed their small but growing army. They'd cons
tructed a strong defensive position—which was good. But the war wouldn't be won by defense. As she reminded Mark, General Lee might have been a genius, but he'd ended up losing.
"He did what he could,” Mark said. “We're doing the same."
* * * *
Sullivan's field army arrived at the river midmorning the next day.
His advance guard crossed the bridge, ran into determined musket fire, and retreated out of range.
As the rest of Sullivan's force arrived, they set up their own camp, flung out patrols, and waited.
A little after noon, a group of knights, carrying a white flag, trotted to the bridge.
Ellie wasn't invited to the conference, but she went anyway, joining Sergius, Arnold, and a couple of the Barons who'd signed on with Sergius after the battle of Dinan.
The enemy's leader was a tall blond man who looked to be in his mid-thirties. He'd ridden without his helmet and his handsome face broke into a smile when Sergius approached.
"Nephew, it has been long indeed."
"Uncle."
"I'm surprised to see you, rather than the bishop, leading this army. According to rumor, he has you fully in his grip, held by the gentle binding of too-much pleasure."
"It became time for me to claim what is mine by right,” Sergius declared—a little pompously, but with some dignity. “I've dispensed with the bishop and all of my regents. With my thanks and gratitude, of course."
Sergius had grown over the weeks since they'd pulled an arrogant and sometimes annoying punk from his palace. He'd lost that bit of pudge that had covered his muscled frame and he'd been training hard with Arnold, Dafed and the other mercenaries. He looked like Ellie's idea of a King now—handsome, yet with a thoughtful look that never left his gray eyes.
"If only I had known.” Sullivan sighed. So much bloodshed could have been avoided. I never wanted to fight you, of course."
Sergius laughed. “You want to become King, uncle. Who would blame you? Your father was King. His father was King before. And there I was, a child without much support among the nobles. If you did nothing, someone else would become king. And where would that leave you?"
