Robert Adams - Madman's Army

Bralos sighed. “Then, Master Haigh, with luck, he’ll be crippled, only. I can see where you’re going, but be you apprised that it is traditional that lancers’ armor be only helmet and light breastplate. And those who command this army insist upon almost-slavish adherence to tradition, alas.”

The smith frowned and pursed his lips for a moment, then flitted the trace of a smile. “What would my noble lord think of a grade of fine, strong, but very light double mail that might be easily sewn into an arming shirt or a gambeson to protect troopers’ upper arms and armpits, eh? Since it would not be visible, thus would this mad tradition be served.”

Bralos skeptically cast a glance into the rather small shop—only the smith, a brother and three lads— replied, “Man, it sounds good, but it would take your shop years to produce enough of the stuff for my command. We’re talking here of two per man and between four and five hundred men.”

The smith’s lip-corners twitched. “Oh, no, my lord, I do not make this fine mail; it is produced by some … relatives, in the north.”

Bralos barked a short, humorless laugh. “Master Haigh, not even I can afford Pitzburk prices plus wagoning costs to protect my men, much as I would so like to do.”

The smith shouted something through the doorway that led into the shop and forge, something in a harsh-sounding language, and in a moment, one of the lads came in with a bundle wrapped in oiled suede, placing it at a word from the smith atop the table, then departing to shortly return wheeling a carved wooden dummy of a man’s torso and a brace of heavy-bladed shortswords in wood-and-leather scabbards.

Still seated, the master smith unwrapped the oiled suede to show an underwrapping of coarse, unbleached woolen fabric as thick as blanketing and also oil-impregnated. Under the wool was the mail.

Bralos thought that the gleaming metal mesh might have been wrought of fine silver, so lustrous was it; leaning close, he could see that each and every small ring was riveted—a quality product and no mistaking it, each ring joined to other rings in eight places and all finely finished and polished.

Lifting one of the three hauberks, for such this lot were, the smith’s big, scarred hands rolled and compressed it into a ball that looked impossibly small, then proffered it to his principal guest.

Bralos found it extremely light, yet when he unrolled it and laid part of it out on the tabletop, he could not get half a finger-width of the point of his boot-dagger through it, shove as he did.

Standing, the smith took the hauberk from him and draped it over the scarred, dented wooden dummy. When it was draped to his critical satisfaction, the big man turned back to the table, selected one of the brace of shortswords and drew it from out its scabbard, then he reversed and offered the weapon for Bralos’ inspection.

Handling it carefully, for the winking edges showed it to be honed to a very keen degree of sharpness all along both edges of the roughly two feet of broad blade, Bralos knew immediately that he had never seen or handled its exact like before. In some ways, it bore a similarity to the standard Ehleen army infantry shortsword, but it was wider, thicker and differently balanced from that weapon. The central rib would no doubt impart decided strength to it, while the four fullers down most of the length on both flats reduced significantly the overall weight.

With the sword once more in his hand, the master smith shoved the dummy a little farther from the table and his guests, took a stance and, whirling the weapon up above and behind his head, shouted some phrase in the guttural foreign tongue and delivered several cuts and looping slashes at the mail-draped wooden form. No one could doubt that he was striking with all his not inconsiderable strength, for twice a shower of sparklets flew upward from the buffets, the fabric of the hardwood dummy creaked and groaned protestingly and, at the last blow, one of the axles of the dummy-cart bent and a freed wooden wheel went skittering across the floor.

There having been no arms to help hold it in place on the dummy, the mail had of course been moved out of its original drape, but aside from this; Bralos was able to detect no slightest breaking or bending or even scarring of the rings anywhere on the fine steel shirt, for all that the edges of the sword showed the effects of hard contacts with steel. Even so, he rearranged the drape of the hauberk and went at it for a few strokes with the other sword. At last, he used his left hand to hold the dummy still and drew back his arm, clearly intending to thrust at the chest.

“No,” said the master smith, adding, “And it please my lord, no; that sword will break the mail and penetrate, though one of your own swords probably would not do so. That sword was designed to pierce mail and scale armor at the hard thrust, you see.”

Bralos stepped back from the abused dummy and nodded, smiling. “I thought so when I saw that almost-edgeless, diamond-shaped point and that ribbed blade. It’s a good design for a sword, though a bit short for my own tastes. You’d play hell trying to use so short a blade on horseback.”

“My peo … that is, the people who developed that sword live in mountains and mountainous foothills, my lord, and own precious few riding horses. They bestride mountain ponies to the site of battle, then fight on foot.”

Bralos nodded again. “Which is probably why and how this fine, very strong, but exceedingly light mail came to be, eh? Who are your people, Master Haigh?”

The smith shrugged. “But another race of what my lord’s folk call mountain barbarians, though our lands are in no way near to these Consolidated Thoheekseeahnee. Would other tribes leave us to bide in peace, we would do naught save farm our valleys and graze our flocks on the heights, but such has never for long come to pass, and so have we been compelled to learn to practice the ways of war.”

Bralos shook his head. “Using those swords and this fantastic mail as indicators, I would say that your people have assured themselves of the wherewithal to practice war quite well. If you can fit it to me, I’d like to buy one of those hauberks from you, one that will hang to about mid-thigh.

“So far as the half-sleeves for my men are concerned, how long would it take your tribe to produce five hundred pairs and get them here to Mehseepolis? Oh, and what will the pairs cost?”

Once they had worked out a price that was mutually agreeable, the smith said, “My lord, much of the iron that my people use is smelted locally from ores or rendered from rusted ancient-times artifacts. If my lord desires quicker delivery and would be willing to advance a bit more gold to buy pig iron …?”

Senior Captain Thoheeks Portos summoned Bralos to the heavy horse camp on a sunny but bone-chillingly cold January day, snow lying deeply on the ground. Within his plastered, wooden-walled office, a brace of braziers warmed the room to such degree that, with a cupful of brandy, a man could be almost comfortable.

“We … you have a problem, Bralos,” said the cavalry commander, with his usual bluntness.

Bralos could think of no problems of any consequence within the squadron, so he raised his eyebrows quizzically and awaited elucidation in silence.

“It has gotten back … rather, been borne back by certain envious officers,” said Portos, “that you are coddling your squadron—overindulging them with rough, warm clothing, decent food and wine or beer, protective boots and gauntlets and ash lance-shafts, where the other squadron must make do with issue oaken shafts. Therefore, the Grand Strahteegos has decided that if you can afford to so pamper the common troopers of your squadron, you can equally well afford to increase your squadron strength to four troops.