The Beacon: The Wedge (2)
Episode 35: "Assault at the Ford"
Sergeants had roused the army’s camp at midnight. By the light of the nearly full moon, the soldiers had eaten cold rations again and packed their gear, shuffling into the line of march before an hour had passed. Their officers led them east, where a sharp-eyed scout had found a cleft in the ridge, through which the army could pass northward unmarked and descend into the valley of the Highwater River, more than a mile above the ford.
As the moon set a few hours before dawn, King Lorens III Ankara sat astride Ranger as he studied the nearby countryside, his staff and the two marshals sitting their mounts a few yards back. A well-traveled east-west road followed the southern riverbank, skirting grassy, sloping hillsides rising to the ridge that had screened their approach. On either side of the ford, thick growths of birches, willows, and a few varieties of oak and maple blocked his view, but they did the same for the Leitani on the other side. We can march to within less than a furlong of the ford without them being any the wiser, he thought. Their sentries will likely hear our approach before any of them lay eyes on us.
A couple of his scouts had returned to him, one of whom had waded across the shallow river upstream of the ford. The Leitan force that held the bridge, they reported, amounted to several hundred men with little discipline and readiness. A veteran of almost thirty years, the grizzled senior scout opined that the Leitani knew nothing of the Margonni army’s approach. “If they knew we were here,” he said, chewing on an unlit cigar, “they would have called up reinforcements to hold the ford, but over yonder are the same Leitani that were there yesterday and the day before.”
His companion, a small, wiry man, apologized to the king in a piping voice. “I tried to slip around the Leitani camp at the ford, and I did, lord, but the ground was thick with brush, and it took me too long. I knew my time to report drew near, so I climbed a tree, but the moonlight didn’t show me any other camps beyond. Not even pickets. I saw nothing but empty road between the ford and as far as I could see.”
“So, an unsuspecting rabble and no support,” the king summarized, crossing his arms. “Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Yes, lord,” the two scouts said together. The older one added, “They will break and run, lord.” The smaller man nodded in agreement.
Lorens thanked and dismissed them, calling his marshals forward. “You heard their report?” he asked when they brought their horses to stand on either side of him.
“Yes, sire,” Terosh Mortimor answered.
“Thoughts?” the king asked. “Recommendations?”
Vytor Vash grinned, his teeth shining in the darkness. “Soften them up with a rain of arrows out of a black sky while the cavalry crosses the river and sweeps through the camp. Follow them with a regiment of infantry. I will happily lead the assault, lord, if you wish.”
Lorens nodded as he thought. “Where would you place our bowmen?”
The more taciturn Mortimor grunted. “It is less than a hundred yards from where the hillside starts to the edge of the Leitani camp across the river. In this darkness, we could sneak a regiment of archers into position, bunching them on the hillside directly across from the ford. Even cadets could hit that target.”
“No reservations?” the king asked.
“None, lord,” Vash replied. “Unless they have many more soldiers hidden in holes and behind trees, they are too few to resist us.”
Mortimor nodded, a movement barely perceptible in the now moonless night. “If they don’t run, they will be annihilated. The only thing that would save them is an emanation.”
“Do not speak of it!” Lorens scolded fiercely. A moment later, he said in more softly, “The Shepherd forbid that such a thing should cross the field of battle. Do not call it from afar.”
“My apologies, lord,” Mortimor said, sweeping a bow from his saddle. “It was thoughtless of me.”
“No harm done,” the king said with a shake of his head. “I am unnecessarily sensitive. I beg your pardon. Let us not speak of such things.”
“Yes, lord,” Mortimor said.
A minute later, Lorens cleared his throat and spoke more cheerfully. “I like this plan. Marshal Vash, you will lead the assault. Two hundred horse and a regiment of infantry. We can send in more if necessary. Marshal Mortimor, you will oversee the opening hail of arrows. Three hundred bowmen should do it. Measured flights until the cavalry begins to climb the far bank. We should conserve our arrows for the larger fight, I think.”
“Should I pursue those who flee, sire?” Vash asked.
“Yes, with cavalry out to, say, five hundred yards,” Lorens answered promptly. “I doubt any will get that far. Beyond that point, we have little information until the city walls.”
“Understood, lord,” Vash said, nodding. “Prudent.”
“At five hundred yards,” the king continued, “set up defensive lines while the rest of the army moves across the river. We will not linger once I get word that the enemy force has been dispatched.”
“Yes, lord,” Vash said.
“Mortimor,” the king said, pausing as he considered his tactics.
“Lord?”
“Begin your barrage at the very first light of the sun,” the king said, “as soon as your archers can distinguish the target. Vash will move once your bows begin to sing. Then, move your bowmen across the river immediately behind the infantry. Find them a spot where they can cover the road from Blayne.”
“Yes, lord,” Mortimor said.
“Very good, my friends!” the king said, smiling. “Position your men! The Shepherd go with you.”
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A powerful voice roared in the morning twilight, “Draw . . . aim . . . release!” Immediately, three hundred bowstrings thrummed, chased by the whoosh of three hundred arrows arcing up into the imperceptibly brightening sky and down on the drowsy Leitan camp across the river.
Before the arrows reached their targets, another voice bellowed, “Advance!” and two hundred horses and a thousand men surged toward the rocky ford. Fed by springs in the Dragon’s Teeth Mountains, the Highwater’s late-summer current flowed shallow and languid, the riverbed narrower by many yards than in the rush of snowmelt in the spring. Wide lines of high-stepping warhorses splashed across the water, hardly slowed by the river.
Screams and shouts rose from the waking camp once the first arrows struck home, and a second command sent another three hundred deadly darts across the narrow river valley. Rising from their blankets, many Leitani warriors fell back onto them, dead or wounded. They sought enemies among them, but there were none, just arrows hurtling from the gray clouds above.
Behind the horses, which approached the far bank, foot soldiers marched into the ford, wading across, holding their swords and spears above their heads. Another flight of arrows whistled over their heads, adding to the confusion in the camp. Ahead, Vash’s captains shouted orders to the horsemen as they gained the riverbank, lowering their lances and advancing with speed and deadly precision on the camp, line after line, letting none escape. The soldiers who followed found little work left to be done.
King Lorens forded the river immediately after Mortimor’s archers crossed, seeing no living Leitani. Joining his marshals at their advanced position, he congratulated them on their efficient victory. “But the next clash will not be so easy,” he warned.
Calling for his glass, he surveyed the road to Blayne before them and as far as he could see. In the west, the fortified town, about ten miles away, sat well below him but too far to discern any details. Abandoned homes and farms, their animals and crops commandeered by the Leitani, dotted the patchwork landscape. A few had been burned. The road, however, lay open to them.
Handing the glass back to his aide, he turned to the marshals. “Send out the scouts. I want to get within a mile of the walls before we stop for the day, gentlemen, but I’m not sure that rabble will be content to let us set up camp. If so, we need to pick the field of battle, preferably wide open spaces where we can use our horse to great advantage.”
“Yes, lord,” Mortimor said. “We know what to look for.” He called for his aide and passed on his instructions.
“Splendid!” the king said, smiling. “That really was too easy.” He looked back at the bloody Leitan camp they had just decimated, and his smile vanished. Shaking his head, he said in a low voice, as if to himself, “I was hoping Margonne had been wrong, but he was right.”
“Margonne, lord?” Vash asked. “What did he say?”
Pursing his lips, Lorens did not answer immediately, pondering if he should wave the question off, but after a long moment, he chose to respond. “Most do not know that, near the end of his life, King Margonne wrote a memoir of sorts for his sons, particularly for my namesake, Lorens I, his heir. It is full of his private thoughts on many topics, and for that reason, Lorens later decided not to publish it, a decision every king since has honored. However, it is required reading for every crown prince.”
He paused, considering what to say as Ranger fidgeted under him. “Margonne wrote a long chapter on the Leitani. I think he included in it everything he knew about them, their tribes, their religion, their culture, and so forth. He credits Qadira with teaching him about them, hoping that he could rule them well. A long dissertation ends the chapter, and in it, he attempts to describe how they think. For our purposes, it is the most important part of the book. I reread it before we set out from Palisade, so it is fresh in my mind.
“He wrote that, even many years later, he regretted that his army killed so many Leitani during the war, but they gave him no choice. You see, when he invaded, he intended to force their leader, Chogan, to negotiate a peace, or failing that, to remove him and his Red Hawk inner circle, then deal with what remained. But Chogan refused to speak with Margonne or his representatives. He treacherously killed the first emissary Margonne sent under a flag of truce, and tried to kill the second, but he escaped with his life, though his guards all died but one.
“In battle, the Leitani refused to surrender, fanatically choosing to spend their lives hoping to slay just one of the hated invaders. They would throw themselves recklessly at his knights, who, with their superior weapons and armor, would slaughter them until they were utterly weary and sick of killing. Thousands of Leitani warriors died fervently chanting Azuri’s name like it was a talisman, and the rest died to prove their bravery and preserve their honor. Margonne concluded that death meant little to them, only their pride, foolish as it was.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I fear, gentlemen, though two hundred years have passed since the Battle of Palisade, the Leitan mind has not changed. If I am right, in their rekindled zeal for Azuri and their irrational belief that they are not free, they will not surrender. Chances are high they will fight to the last man. We will soon find out.”
A note:
Margonne’s and Lorens III’s conclusions about the Leitani mind were flawed in that they took a part for the whole. The proud, “never surrender,” “fight to the death” mentality was the Red Hawk warrior ethos, which most non-Red Hawk Leitani decried. However, Red Hawks dominated the Leitan government until the position of Great Chief became quasi-hereditary, and their war leaders came almost exclusively from the Red Hawk tribe. Their aggressive, honor-based mindset worked well in maintaining order among the many, often feuding Leitan tribes and keeping the Red Hawks dominant. However, faced with a superior force like the Margonni, it was, in the end, ineffective, and some would call it suicidal.
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Sounds like Lorens is wary just in case the Leitani have changed over the years.