‘Sorry, Ehlana,’ he replied, ‘but I won’t be sleeping tonight. If our friend out there makes up his mind and attacks, there are some things I’ll have to do rather quickly.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Danae?’
‘She and Talen are over there watching Bevier’s people throw rocks at the trees.’
‘I’ll go get her. You’ll probably want to keep her close to you tonight.’ He crossed the basin to where Bevier was directing the activities of his knights. ‘Bed-time,’ he told his daughter, lifting her into his arms.
She pouted a little at that, but raised no other objections. When Sparhawk was about half-way back to his wife’s tent, he slowed. ‘How much of a stickler are you for formality, Aphrael?’ he asked.
‘A few genuflections are nice, father,’ she replied, ‘but I can live without them – in an emergency.’
‘Good. If the attack comes tonight, we’re going to need some light to see them by.’
‘How much light?’
‘Sort of noonish would be good.’
‘I can’t do that, Sparhawk. Do you have any idea of how much trouble I’d get into if I made the sun rise when it wasn’t supposed to?’
‘I wasn’t really suggesting that. I just want enough light so that people can’t sneak up on us through the shadows. The spell’s a fairly long one with a lot of formalities involved and many, many specifics. I may be a little pressed for time, so would you be terribly offended if I just asked you for light and left the details up to you?’
‘It’s highly irregular, Sparhawk,’ she chided him primly.
I know, but just this once maybe?’
‘Oh, I guess so, but let’s not make a habit of it. I do have a reputation to maintain, after all.’
‘I love you,’ he laughed.
‘Oh, if that’s the case, it’s perfectly all right then. We can bend all sorts of rules for people who really love us. Just ask for light, Sparhawk. I’ll see to it that you get lots and lots of light.’
The attack came shortly before midnight. It began with a rain of arrows lofting in out of the darkness, followed quickly by attacks on the Atan pickets. That last proved to be what might best be described as a tactical blunder. The Atans were the finest foot-soldiers in the world, and they welcomed hand-to-hand combat.
Sparhawk could not clearly see the attacking force from his vantage-point on the hilltop, but he firmly controlled his curiosity and held off on illuminating the battlefield until such time as the opposing force was more fully engaged. As they had anticipated, their enemies used the cover of these first probing moves to attack the log-jams designed to impede their progress through the belts of trees set off by Sir Ulath’s avenues radiating out from the base of the hill like the spokes of a huge wheel. As it turned out, Bevier’s Cyrinics had not been lobbing rocks out into the forest entirely for the fun of it. They had rather precisely pin-pointed the range of those jumbles of fallen trees with their catapults, and they hurled basketfuls of fist-sized rocks into the air to rain down on the men attempting to tear down the barricades or to widen the narrow gaps which had been deliberately left to permit the Peloi to ride out in search of entertainment. A two-pound rock falling out of the sky will not crush a man, but it will break his bones, and after ten minutes or so, the men out in the woods withdrew.
‘I confess it to you, Sparhawk-Knight,’ Engessa said gravely, ‘I had thought your elaborate preparations a bit silly. Atans do not fight so. Your approach does have certain advantages, though.’
‘Our societies are different, Atan Engessa. Your people live and fight in the wilderness where enemies are encountered singly or in small groups. Our wilderness has been tamed, so our enemies come at us in large numbers. We build forts to live in, and over the centuries we’ve devised many means to defend those forts.’
‘When will you make the light come?’
‘At a time when it’s most inconvenient for our enemy. I want him to commit a large part of his force and to have them fully engaged before I sweep away the darkness. He won’t expect that, and it takes time to get orders through to men who are already fighting. We should be able to eliminate a sizeable part of his army before he can pull them back. Defensive warfare has certain advantages if you make the proper preparations.’
‘Ulath-Knight does not like it.’
‘Ulath doesn’t have the patience for it. Bevier’s the expert on defence. He’d be perfectly willing to wait for ten years if need be for the enemy to come to him on his terms.’
‘What will the enemy do next? We Atans are not accustomed to interrupted fights.’
‘He’ll draw back and shoot arrows at us while he thinks things over. Then he’ll probably try a direct assault down one of those avenues.’
‘Why only one? Why not attack from all directions at once?’
‘Because he doesn’t know how much we can hurt him yet. He’ll have to find that out first. He’ll learn in time, but it’s going to cost him a great deal to get his education. After we’ve killed about half of his soldiers, he’ll do one of two things. He’ll either go away, or he’ll throw everything he’s got at us from all sides at once.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we’ll kill the rest of his soldiers and be on our way,’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘Assuming that everything goes the way we’ve planned, of course.’
At two hundred paces and with only starlight to see by, the figures were hardly more than shadows. They marched out into the centre of one of Ulath’s corridors and halted while others filed out to join them and to form up into a kind of massed formation.
‘I can’t believe that!’ Kalten exclaimed, gaping at the shadowy soldiers at the end of the corridor.
‘Is something wrong, Sir Kalten?’ Emban’s voice was a little shrill.
‘Not in the least, your Grace,’ Kalten replied gaily. ‘It’s just that we’re dealing with an idiot.’ He turned his head slightly. ‘Bevier,’ he called, ‘he’s forming up his troops on the road to march them into place.’
‘You’re not serious!’
‘May all of my toenails fall out if I’m not.’
Bevier barked a number of commands, and his knights swung the catapults around to bring them to bear on the unseen avenue leading toward the road. ‘Give the word, Sparhawk,’ the young Cyrinic called.
‘We’re going on down now,’ Sparhawk called back. ‘You can start as soon as we reach the bottom. We’ll wait so that you can pound them for a while, and then we’ll charge. We’d take it as a kindness if you’d stop about then.’
Bevier grinned at him.
‘Look after my wife while I’m gone.’
‘Naturally.’
Sparhawk and the other warriors began to climb down the hill. ‘I’ll break my men into two groups, friend Sparhawk,’ Kring said. ‘We’ll circle around and come up onto the road about a half mile behind them on either side. We’ll wait for your signal there.’
‘Don’t kill all of them.’ Engessa cautioned. ‘My Atans grow sulky if there’s fighting and they aren’t allowed to participate.’
They reached the bottom of the hill, and Bevier’s catapults began to thud, launching large rocks this time. There were sounds from off in the direction of the road indicating that the Cyrinic Knights had found the proper range.
‘Luck, Sparhawk,’ Kring said tersely and melted off into the shadows.
‘Be careful, Sir Knights,’ Khalad cautioned them. ‘Those tree-stumps out there are dangerous in the dark.’
‘It won’t be dark when we charge, Khalad,’ Sparhawk assured him. ‘I’ve made some arrangements.’
Engessa slipped quietly through an opening in the palisade to join his warriors out in the forest.
‘Is it just my imagination, or does it seem to the rest of you that we’re dealing with someone who’s not really very sophisticated?’ Tynian said. ‘He doesn’t seem to have any conception of modern warfare or modern technology.’
‘I think the word you’re groping for is “stupid”, Tynian,’ Kalten chuckled.
‘I’m not so sure,’ Tynian frowned. ‘It was too dark for me to make out very much from the hilltop, but it looked almost as if he were forming up his troops into a phalanx. Nobody’s done that in the west for over a thousand years.’
