‘I had noticed that myself – almost immediately.’
‘Be nice,’ he murmured.
Bergsten’s knights and their Peloi allies crossed the Cynesgan border on a cloudy, chill afternoon after what seemed to be several days of hard riding, and rode southeasterly toward the capital at Cynestra. Peloi scouts ranged out in front, but they encountered no resistance that day. They made camp, put out guards, and bedded down early.
It was not long after they had broken camp and set out on what was ostensibly the next morning that Daiya came riding back to join Bergsten and Heldin at the head of the column. ‘My scouts report that there are soldiers massing about a mile ahead, your Reverence,’ he reported.
‘Cynesgans?’ Bergsten asked quickly.
‘It does not appear so, your Reverence.’
‘Go have a look, Heldin,’ Bergsten ordered.
The Pandion nodded and spurred his horse to the top of a rocky hill a quarter mile to the front. His face was bleak when he returned. ‘We’ve got trouble, your Grace,’ he rumbled. ‘They’re more of those monsters we came up against in eastern Zemoch.’
Bergsten muttered a fairly savage oath. ‘I knew things were going too well.’
‘Domi Tikume has warned us about these foreign soldiers,’ Daiya said. ‘Would it offend your Reverence if I suggested that you let us deal with them? Domi Tikume and Domi Kring have devised certain tactics that seem to work.’
Im not offended in the slightest, friend Daiya,’ Bergsten replied. ‘We didn’t exactly cover ourselves with glory the last time we encountered those brutes, so I’d be very interested in seeing something that’s a little more effective than our tactics were.’
Daiya conferred briefly with his clan-chiefs, and then he led Bergsten, Heldin and several other knights up to the top of the hill to watch.
Bergsten immediately saw the advantages of light cavalry as opposed to armored knights mounted on heavy war-horses. The huge soldiers in their tight-fitting armor seemed baffled by the slashing attacks of the Peloi armed with javelins. They floundered forward, desperately trying to close with their tormentors, but the cat-footed horses of the Peloi were simply too quick. The javelins began to take their toll, and more and more of the hulking monsters fell in that deadly rain.
‘The idea is to force them to run, your Reverence,’ Daiya explained. ‘They’re very dangerous in close quarters, but they don’t seem to have much endurance, so they aren’t nearly as dangerous in a running fight.’
‘Vanion told me about that,’ Bergsten said. ‘Did Domi Tikume give you any idea of how long it takes them to run out of breath?’
‘Nothing very specific, your Reverence.’
Bergsten shrugged. ‘That’s all right, friend Daiya. We’ve got plenty of open ground, and it’s still morning. We can run them all day if we have to.’
Stung by the repeated attacks, the huge soldiers began to lumber forward in a kind of shuffling trot, brandishing their horrid weapons and bellowing hoarse war-cries.
The Peloi, however, refused those challenges and continued their slash-and-run tactics.
Then, driven and stung beyond endurance, the creatures broke into a shambling run.
‘It’s feasible,’ Sir Heldin mused in his deep, rumbling basso. ‘We’d need different equipment, though.’
‘What are you talking about, Heldin?’ Bergsten demanded.
‘Looking to the future, your Grace,’ Heldin replied. ‘If those beasts become a standard fixture, we’ll have to modify a few things. It might not be a bad idea to train and equip a few squadrons of Church Knights to serve as light cavalry.’
‘Heldin,’ Bergsten said acidly, ‘if those things become a standard fixture, it’ll be because we’ve lost this war. What makes you think there’ll be any Church Knights at that point?’
‘They’re breaking off, your Reverence!’ Daiya cried excitedly. ‘They’re running away!’
‘But where are they running to, Daiya?’ Bergsten demanded. ‘It’s the air that’s killing them, and the air’s everywhere. Where can they go, Daiya? Where can they go?’
‘Where can they go?’ Kring asked in bafflement as Klæl’s soldiers broke off from their clumsy pursuit of the Peloi horsemen and fled off into the desert.
‘Who cares?’ Tikume laughed. ‘Let them run. We’ve still got those Cyrgai penned up in that gully. We’d better get them to moving before some clever subaltern in the rear ranks has time to take his bearings.’
The Cyrgai were following a strategy from the dawn of time. They advanced steadily, marching in step, with their large round shields protecting their bodies and with their long spears leveled to the front. As the Peloi slashed in on them, they would stop and close ranks. The front rank would kneel with overlapping shields and leveled spears. The ranks behind would close up, their shields also overlapping and spears also to the front.
It was absolutely beautiful – but it didn’t accomplish anything at all against cavalry.
‘We have to get them to run, Domi Tikume!’ Kring shouted to his friend as they galloped clear of the massed Cyrgai regiments again. ‘Pull your children back a little further after the next attack! This won’t work if those antiques just keep plodding! Make them run!’
Tikume shouted some orders, and his horsemen altered their tactics, pulling back several hundred yards and forcing the Cyrgai to come to them.
A brazen trumpet sounded from the center of one of the advancing regimental squares, and the Cyrgai broke into a jingling trot, their ranks still perfectly straight.
‘They look good, don’t they?’ Tikume laughed.
‘They would if this was a parade-ground,’ Kring replied. ‘Let’s sting them again and then pull back even further.’
‘How far is it to the border?’ Tikume asked.
‘Who knows? Nobody I’ve talked with is really sure. We’re close, though. Make them run, Tikume! Make them run!’
Tikume rose in his stirrups. ‘Pass the word!’ he bellowed. ‘Full retreat!’
The Peloi turned tail and galloped to the east across the rattling brown gravel.
A thin cheer went up from the massed regiments of the Cyrgai, and the trumpet sounded again. The ancient soldiers, still in perfect step and with their ranks still perfectly straight broke into a running charge. Sergeants barked the staccato cadence, and the sound of the half-boots of the Cyrgai beating on the barren ground was like the pounding of some huge drum.