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

by Olan Thorensen

  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 wa
sn’t pleased that the clans wouldn’t attack immediately.

  Chapter 28: Moreland City

  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. “O
kay. 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?”