Ironhelm - Douglas Niles [94]
Gultec finally began to see the army, more than twenty thousand strong, in a more practical eye. He alone among the dozen or so chiefs here had fought the invaders already. Gultec felt that he alone possessed a satisfactory respect for their prowess.
But even he had trouble imagining the strangers, numbering perhaps half a thousand, standing against the array of force around him. Forty Payit would attack for every one of the strangers. Surely they would overwhelm and destroy the foe!
True, the attack would be made across the open plain by Caxal's order. Still, Gultec had managed to interject one measure of caution into the plan, if the men of Ulatos had the discipline to obey.
In the leading division of the army, marked clearly by banners of golden feathers, advanced three long columns, each a thousandmen of the city's own guard, men Gultec and Lok had trained for years. Now those men had been given a strange and difficult task.
Their Jaguar and Eagle chiefs had ordered these troops to advance toward the strangers, to make great noise and show, and then to swiftly withdraw when the strangers attacked. The command was exceptionally difficult because the warriors considered such a withdrawal insulting and unwarlike.
Gultec had done his best to insist upon the tactic, for he had placed thousands of slingers and bowmen behind this first rank. He had assuaged the insulted warriors' pride with the promise that, when the missiles had done their work, the men of Ulatos would be the first to meet the enemy in melee.
Now he could only wonder if they would have the discipline to obey.
"They come on quickly in the center, my general," announced the lookout. Cordell saw the advance plainly but did not admonish the man. Better to receive too much information during a battle than too little.
The captain-general had just joined the lookout atop the observation tower his men had constructed during the night. The sturdy square structure, thirty feet high, had been raised so that the general and his officers would have a good view of the flat battlefield.
Darien and the Bishou remained below, together with Cordell's signal officers and their clusters of flags. Now, as the haze lifted, he saw the surge of color opposite his center, like a wave of silk ribbons flickering across the ground.
Arrayed to meet them stood the sword-and-buckler men of Captain Garrant, protecting both flanks. Behind and between the swordsmen, Daggrande's crossbows stood in compact ranks. Other companies of swordsmen and longbows stood farther to each flank. But the five hundred men looked considerably overmatched by the mass of natives across the plain.
Hidden to the rear of the legion, near the base of the square tower, were Cordell's strongest weapons, or so he hoped. Gathered in four wings of ten or twelve riders each, the lancers remained hidden from the enemy in several ravines back from the shore. Each wing could charge into the fray within moments of receiving its order.
But the horses would stay hidden for now. Instead, Cordell would let the native warriors taste the cold death of the legion infantry.
The advance in the center became a charge, great blocks of spearmen and swordsmen each clearly marked by the colorful swath of its headdresses. The native army swept across the plain, thousands of men rushing Garrant's and Daggrande's companies amid a tremendous cacophony of sound.
"Signal the charge… for Garrant and Daggrande only. Now!" Cordell barked. In the next instant, two flagmen raised the pennants of these companies, selecting for each the banner with the bright yellow fringe.
"We'll see what these savages are made of," Cordell said, to no one in particular.
"It's the yellow flag, Captain!"
"Company, advance! On the double!" Daggrande bellowed the command without bothering to check the corporal's observation behind them. He had served with Cordell long enough to have expected the order.
He saw the swordsmen advancing to the right and