Once again she marveled at the details he thought of. Nothing seemed too trivial for him to worry about. Any good chieftain inspected his clan’s weapons, but Rick looked at their boots and sleeping cloaks as well. Who would have thought of bringing spades? Or grindstones? Or of having special details to bring in wood for cooking fires? Without him they’d be lost. He was right to stay on the roof of the villa instead of at the forefront of the clans. He wasn’t afraid of battle, no matter what some of the young warriors said.
She dismounted at the villa steps. Just in front, her brother sat his horse with their father’s banner, surrounded by their few armored cavalrymen. Tylara grinned to herself as she went up the stairs to the roof. These proud young men might protest that their place was at the forefront of the battle, but now that they’d seen the Romans, they didn’t look so eager to charge out.
Rick was looking through his far-seeing glass. Binoculars. She’d have to remember that word. She went to the parapet to join him. His smile warmed her.
“How close did you get?” Rick asked.
“Longbow shot. They carry short bows, and we did not want to be closer.”
“You’re learning,” Rick said. He muttered to himself in his strange language, then spoke in hers, but still more to himself than to her. “Lances and swords. No shields.”
“Why have they halted?”
“Dressing ranks,” Rick said. “But mostly they’re hoping we’ll break formation and come after them.” He turned to a staff officer. “Go out to each regiment. Make certain the commanders understand that the Romans may charge and then act as if they’re running away. They want us to scatter. If we take that bait, they’ll cut us down. The first man I see breaking formation without orders, I’ll shoot down from here.”
“I had better take that message myself,” Tylara said. “The clansmen will not like to hear it.”
“They’ve heard it before, and I’ll need you here. Get moving, Duhnhaig. And come back when you’ve told them.”
The sept chief looked curiously to Tylara. She smiled thanks and gestured him on his way. “You speak roughly to important chiefs,” she told Rick when Duhnhaig was gone.
“God damn it—no. Sorry. You’re right. It’s my fault if we lose no matter why. That’s why I need you with me. I can handle the Romans—it’s our own troops I have to worry about.”
There was a blare of horns from the Roman ranks. They had formed into two massive blocks, each ten ranks deep, horsemen knee to knee, their lances with pennants held high. The trumpets blared again, but there was no movement.
They were answered by the drums of the clan women, and the shriller sound of Tamaerthon war horns.
Prefect Marselius cursed silently. He had hoped the barbarians would either charge him or break and run, and they weren’t doing either. More and more he was certain that a Roman officer led them. He’d never heard of hill tribes standing in regular formation to wait for an attack.
Those blocks of spearmen looked remarkably steady, too. Over the centuries Rome had worked out tactics to deal with any situation. Standard practice when opposing standing spears was to come to extreme bow range and gall them with arrows until they charged, then cut them down with swords.
That wouldn’t work here. He could see all too many archers formed behind those ditches and stakes, and he’d had experience with those hillmen’s longbows. They outranged anything a horse archer could carry, and an exchange of archery fire would cost far more than it gained.
Standard tactics against archers was a charge with lance. You rode as hard as you could and lost some men getting in among them; but once there, the battle was over. If they were mixed in with spearmen, as they often were, you did the same thing. If they’d planted stakes and other obstacles, several centuries would dismount and cut a path for the rest.
The tactical writers hadn’t considered the situation of mixed blocks of archers and spears. Marselius had never heard of such a situation. But then he’d never heard of barbarians penetrating this deep and waiting for a battle, or of having cavalry screens that kept watch on him from camp to battlefield.
“The men grow restless,” his senior legate said.
“Let them. Leave time for fear to grow among our enemies.”
“We also tire the horses.”
True enough. An armored man was a heavy burden, even for a war-horse. The longer they were saddled and still, the slower they’d be in the charge. “Sound trumpets,” Marselius ordered. “Play false calls. Marching music.”
The cornu blared out, to be answered from the barbarian camp by their own horns and drums. That, at least, was standard. The hillmen’s women rattled tom-toms incessantly. It was said to be a form of supplication to their barbarous gods.
He reviewed the situation again, reconsidering his decision not to send any of his force around either the lake or the forest to fall on the tribesmen from behind. The moral effect of an attack from the rear was often devastating, but he suspected these barbarians wouldn’t be shaken by it. Anyway, in that mass of irrigation ditches south of the villa, his cavalry would be worthless. It wasn’t worth the cost of dividing his legion.
He could withdraw. Shadow the tribesmen, wait to catch them in the open. The legates would not care for that—it smacked of fear. And although in the open the barbarians would be the more easily defeated, more of them would also get away. No. They must be taught not to invade the Empire.
There was one other factor. The villa had not been burned. A bold stroke now would return it intact to Sempronius’s family—perhaps even rescue the patrician alive. Instead of hatred there might be gratitude from Caesar’s relative.
They must attack while the horses were still fresh. There was nothing to be gained by waiting. He stood in his stirrups. “Sound the calls for a charge with lance,” he ordered.
3
The steel tide broke forward into a walk, then a trot. The lances came down in unison, and the armored horsemen poured toward them, spurring to a canter. Rick felt a final twinge of fear, swallowed hard, and gained control of his nerves.
They came in a single wave four ranks deep, riding almost knee to knee, their line stretching nearly from woods to lake. “They mean to roll right over us,” Rick said. He wondered what he’d do if he were the enemy commander. A hard charge carried home? That would certainly be a more effective tactic than the French used at Crécy, where they’d come in small driblets of undisciplined feudal lords. These troops were a lot better than anything Philip had with him that August day.
They were almost within extreme archery range. Rick could be certain of the exact line because he’d had it marked with stakes. The archers lifted their bows and drew back. One or two released arrows. Rick hoped their noncoms got their names. The time of release had been carefully calculated: assume heavy cavalry moves at 15 miles an hour, and time the flight of an arrow to longest range— “Let the gulls fly!” someone called. The arrows flocked upward in a volley, arced high, and fell among the charging horsemen.
The effect was instantaneous. The lines in front of the archers lost their geometric precision and dissolved into a wave of rearing wounded horses. There were screams as horses and men felt the bite of the iron-tipped shafts.
English longbowmen could get off a flight every ten seconds. The Tamaerthon archers were just about as good. As the Roman cavalrymen—Rick still couldn’t bring himself to call a formation of armored men on horseback a “legion”—covered the final 250 yards, the Tamaerthon gulls flew three more times. Then the archers skipped back among their stakes and fired at point-blank range.
What struck the archer’s line wasn’t an orderly formation at all. The horsemen were moving too fast to stop when they saw the angled stakes, and tried to guide their mounts around them, but the horses got in each others’ way, while wounded and riderless mounts dashed randomly among them.
Meanwhile, the First Pikes had taken the initial shock—only there wasn’t one. The first rank of pikemen knelt and held their weapons butt grounded, angled at the eyes of the horses. The next three ranks held theirs high, points outthrust over the heads of the kneeling first rank. They presented a wall of pointed steel, and the horses wouldn’t stand it. They swerved about, or halted, some with a shock that dismounted their riders. Not a single lance struck home among the pikemen.
“This would be the time for a charge,” Rick muttered. “But I can’t. They’re not disciplined enough to stay in formation.”