Gaise walked from his tent. His eyes felt gritty. There was a stream close by and he wandered to it, crouching down and splashing his face with cold water. Then he called for a mount and rode back to where Ordis Mantilan and his musketeers were camped behind the line of eastern hills. For a while he spoke with Mantilan, discussing the likely attack plans of the enemy. Walking to the top of the fortified rise he stared out to the south. Mantilan joined him.
‘My guess is they’ll come at us from two sides,’ said Mantilan. ‘Going to be hard to hold them for long. I’d be happier with six more cannon, set out on the eastern slopes.’
‘If we had six more you’d be welcome to them,’ said Gaise. ‘You’ll have Bael Jace and his Rigante in reserve. Do not call them in until the situation is desperate.’
Mantilan chuckled. ‘I have to say that Bael Jace makes me uncomfortable,’ he said, running his fingers through his curly hair.
‘I always feel he is staring at my head and longing to separate it from my shoulders.’
‘He doesn’t like the Varlish,’ said Gaise. ‘But he’ll fight.’
‘Oh, I know that, sir. Those Rigante are a terrifying bunch. If they scare the enemy half as much as they scare me we could actually win.’
‘That’s a good thought.’ Gaise stared out over the battle site. There were six hundred yards of open ground to the southern hills. He pictured the enemy formations. They would form up on the hills, set up cannon, and begin a barrage. Then the infantry would attack on two fronts. The heavy cavalry would ignore the staked hill fortifications and ride through the centre. Gaise had placed a two-hundred-yard wall of earth bags there, packed to a height of four feet, behind which musketeers would defend the open ground. This area too would be within cannon range.
The first stars began to twinkle in the new night sky. Gaise rode back to his camp and ate a meal of thin stew and bread. Lanfer Gosten approached him. Gaise looked into the older man’s face and saw the concern there.
‘What is it, Lanfer?’
‘I couldn’t obey your orders, sir.’
‘What?’
‘The Rigante refused to surrender their prisoners to us.’
The three prisoners were all young men, wearing the red coats and yellow sashes of the King’s Third Infantry. One was little more than a boy, and he sat trembling, wide eyes staring at the powerful men of the Rigante who had gathered round the camp fire. They had been told to sit where they were and await events.
All three knew what the ‘events’ would lead to. They had been among the first to see the forest of heads as they entered the north-lands. Crows had pecked out the eyes, and stripped flesh from the cheekbones. Many carrion birds were waddling on the ground between the stakes, their bellies full of flesh.
The youngest of the prisoners, thirteen-year-old Slipper Wainwright, had begun to cry. He had not wanted to go on patrol through the woods. He had been filled with a sense of foreboding that he now took to have been a premonition. When the Rigante had come upon them – seemingly out of nowhere – the ten-man patrol had not even been able to fire a shot. Seven men were dead in a matter of heartbeats. The youngster, and the two men sitting alongside him, had thrown down their weapons and put their hands in the air.
The Rigante leader, a ferocious killer with a scar on his right cheek, had stepped in close. Slipper thought he was going to die right there, and had squeezed shut his eyes. Nothing happened.
He and the other two men had been hauled away, back through the trees and along a narrow trail. After an hour they emerged into this camp. Then the man with the scar had questioned them about their unit, and their division. He had asked for the names of officers, and wanted to know how skilful they were. So many questions that the boy could not answer. How could he know how good the officers were? He had only joined the regiment five days prior to the invasion. He had lied about his age and signed up in Baracum because food was running short and his family could not afford to eat. The signing on payment had been two chaillings, which he had given to his mother. Slipper told all this to the killer, who listened without comment.