Erik shook his head and smiled. ‘Well, if you’re so ready to be cutting heads, maybe I should move you to the front.’
‘Well, let’s not be doing anything so rash,’ Harper said quickly. ‘I expect there’ll be enough fighting to go around, this day.’
‘I expect,’ agreed Erik.
The advance riders moved along the road, and finally, when they were only a few yards shy of the point where Erik had ordered them killed, they turned and rode quickly back to their leader. The riders then sat motionless, waiting for the column of men who were coming down that road.
After most of the day had passed, the sound of marching feet began to reverberate from the west. At first faint, the sound began to increase, until at last Harper said, ‘Sounds like they’re bringing the whole lot this time, Captain.’
‘That it does,’ said Erik.
At the other end of the road, where the riders waited, the woods were thick on both sides of the King’s Highway. The sound of the approaching army grew louder, but no soldiers could be seen.
Then, suddenly, men emerged from the woods, an unbroken line of men with shields, wielding battle-axes, swords, spears, and bows. They marched to a point half the distance between the line of trees and the defenders, then halted.
‘What have we here?’ asked Harper softly.
‘Looks like they’ve learned a few things since they’ve landed,’ said Erik. ‘If they send the infantry first, we’re going to lose some advantages.’
Since the time when Calis’s company had served with the Emerald Queen’s forces, the usual tactic had been for them to simply unleash their cavalry at any defensive position when able. Infantry was saved for sieges and for flooding gaps in the defenders’ lines.
Erik cursed. ‘I thought we could steal a day having their cavalry getting themselves butchered.’
Harper said, ‘Don’t give up hope yet. Captain. They may do something rash still.’
A column of riders crested the distant hill, moving down the road to halt slightly beyond the infantry. Then they waited. Officers rode into view, moving each to a location along the line, stationed before their men. Still they held position.
‘If the riders come down the road, while the infantry cross the clearing, it could get interesting,’ observed Harper.
Erik said nothing.
More riders appeared at the crest, then a trumpet sounded, three short blasts. With a roar, the assembled footmen started running across the clearing. ‘Signal to catapults,’ Erik said. He raised his hand, a motion duplicated by the signalman holding a red flag.
Erik watched as the attackers raced toward his defenses. He had studied this terrain so well he could gauge the distances without markers. When the leading edge of the attackers reached the outer range of the catapults, he paused, then dropped his hand. The flag went down an instant later, and then the well-disguised war engines atop the second ridge let fly.
A shower of stones, ranging from one the size of a man’s fist to some the size of a large melon, rained down on the attackers. Men screamed and fell, dead or wounded, with broken bones. Those behind could not halt, and some of the wounded were trampled to death by their own comrades.
As if the rocks had been a signal, the cavalry charged down the King’s Highway. ‘They mean to be here before the catapults reload,’ observed Harper.
‘Black signal!’ shouted Erik, holding up his hand again. A second flag went up, and when the charging horsemen reached the appropriate range, Erik’s hand came down. The black flag dropped, and another round of missiles rained down. Horses screamed and men were thrown as the second company of catapults unleashed its rain of death upon the invaders.
‘Green flag!’ shouted Erik, and the third flag went up. When it came down, two special catapults called mangonels, large counterbalanced beams of wood with huge baskets on the long end, flung a rain of caltrops: metal stars with six sharpened points. Those that didn’t strike an attacker landed on the ground, with one point always up. Men and horses both stepped on the terrible spikes, which lamed the horses and felled men.
By the time the attackers worked through the mass of wounded in the front ranks, the first company of war engines had been reloaded and were launching their missiles. And by the time the third green flag had been raised and fell, the entire attacking front was broken and in retreat.
Hundreds of men and horses lay in the late-afternoon sun, and not one Kingdom soldier had been wounded. Erik turned to a grinning Harper and said, ‘Get the perimeter companies out and start looking for their infiltrators. They’ll want those catapults out of action by tomorrow, so expect a lot of unwelcome visitors in the hills tonight.’
Harper said, ‘Sir!’ and turned to carry out his orders.