The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [127]
Z’Acatto paced about with more sustained energy than Cazio had ever seen in him. He wasn’t even sure if the old man was drunk.
Taking a break from digging, Cazio went up on the levee to see how things were forming up.
On his right the field gave way to low, swampy forest, but on the left it was relatively unbounded. The carriage and the two remaining wagons of their supply train were drawn up as barriers there, but Cazio didn’t imagine they would offer much protection. The dirt in front of the levee now had three wide toothy grins of stakes and trenches.
Z’Acatto joined him.
“Had enough of digging?” he asked.
“I’ll go back to it in a moment,” Cazio said. He gestured at the field. “Why have you backed us against a river? We can’t retreat.”
“That’s a funny thing for you to say,” z’Acatto replied. “I’ve never heard you talk about retreating before.”
“It’s not just me here.”
The old man nodded. “Right. That’s what I hate about it. You see?”
“I’m starting to,” Cazio said. “But I wish you had told me more.”
“I’ve just been trying to forget all that,” the old man said. “I never meant for you to have anything to do with this sort of business.”
“It’s not your fault. My own choices led me here.”
“I’m not disputing that,” z’Acatto replied.
“So why no retreat?”
Z’Acatto shrugged. “They have greater numbers, and we don’t have enough pikes to make an effective battle square. We need our backs and flanks safe.”
“The left flank looks pretty open.”
“It’ll slow a cavalry charge,” z’Acatto said. “It’s the best we can do, given the time we have. Anyway, retreat isn’t an option. We have to win. If we don’t, we’re done.”
“What if they bring more men than we think?”
“Our scouts are pretty good. They might pick up another man or two, but for some reason the bulk of Hespero’s forces seem to be going east.”
“East? What’s east?”
“I’ve no idea, nor do I care. We’ve problems enough here.”
“Can we win?”
Z’Acatto lifted his hands but didn’t answer in words.
“What’s my part in all of this?”
“I’m putting half the archers on the field and half strung through the forest, there. They won’t send horse at the forest, but they will probably detach infantry. You’ll protect the archers.”
Cazio nodded, relieved. He’d imagined himself in the press, holding a pike, and didn’t care for the image.
Z’Acatto’s gaze shifted.
“There they are,” he said.
The horsemen formed a block in the center, and the footmen were lined up behind them with archers on their wings. Cazio had seen the formation before; it was essentially a cavalry hammer, ready to smash them. When the smashing was done, the foot would come in and clean up.
What he had never seen before, however, was the formation in which z’Acatto had put his men.
They stood tightly packed in columns five deep, with the ten columns arranged in a sort of hollow wedge open to the river. Z’Acatto called it a “hedgehog,” and with their pikes bristling out, it resembled one. The men had the pikes braced at their feet and set at various angles from low to high so that anyone charging in had to deal with at least five wicked levels of sharpness.
The bowmen who weren’t with Cazio in the woods had formed in ranks, too, out in front of the hedgehog.
No one had come out to offer terms, and it didn’t look like they would. They just kept coming closer, the horses and the metal-clad men on them looking bigger and bigger.
The archers began firing into the horsemen both from the field and from the trees. The enemy archers returned fire, targeting those visible on the field, but after a moment, as predicted, a line of about thirty spearmen with large, heavy shields broke away from the enemy foot and started plodding toward them.
Concentrating on their progress, Cazio missed the start of