John Ringo - There Will Be Dragons

When Kane came back he took over the fire and set Herzer to feeding the horses. It was a huge herd and like all horse herds extremely hierarchical. Kane had somewhere obtained a large quantity of hay and Herzer attempted to distribute it by spreading it around, one forkful at a time but that didn’t work very well. The senior horses, a group of mares, had finished their share by the time he’d made his tenth trip and were driving the low-rank horses, including his own Diablo, off the piles. He was also getting worried about the health of the horses since the kicking and squealing was not only getting loud but vicious.

“Won’t work like that,” Alyssa said, walking over to him as he came back with another load. She was yawning and the squealing of the horses had clearly woken her but since he was sweating freely in the early morning cool he wasn’t exactly heartbroken.

“With so many of them and all in a group, all you can do is pile it up in one place,” she said. “It helps to move it to where they can get at it from every side.”

She went into the corral with a halter and returned with one of the Hanarahs that she then hooked up to a small cart. Between the two of them they loaded the cart with hay, then Alyssa drove it into the corral while Herzer fended off the horses that tried to bolt through the gate. Once inside Herzer stood in the back of the cart and forked hay to the horses as Alyssa drove it through the paddock at a slow pace. Along the way she kept up a running commentary about the horses that showed that not only did she know them all by name but their individual quirks and their place in the hierarchy.

By the time they got back, the rest of the riders were up and the mush was done. It was the recipient of some comments.

“Damn, Kane,” one of the riders muttered, taking a bite of the mush. “You’re not only ugly, you’re a damned bad cook. Why’d Alyssa ever marry you?”

“Well I am a bad cook,” Kane admitted, with a grin. “But this particular mess is all Herzer’s fault. And the reason Alyssa married me had nothing to do with my kitchen skills.”

“Wow, Herzer,” Alyssa added. “If the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach, you’re in big trouble.”

Herzer took a bite of the mush and grimaced at the burned taste. “I guess,” was all he said.

Hoping that the morning’s fiascoes were past him, Herzer finished his food quickly and went looking for his horse.

Diablo seemed less than thrilled to see him and Herzer wondered if playing polo the day before had been a good idea. But he had held back a handful of the cornmeal and it was appreciated, so it was a horse in a much better mood that he led out of the paddock.

He saddled up himself this morning, remembering to get the horse to suck in its gut when he tightened the girth. Horses had a tendency to inhale and “blow themselves up” when the girth was being tightened. That way, as soon as the rider was done, they could let the air out and get some looseness in the girth. Diablo was just about as bad as a “normal” horse on that score but it sort of made sense; wearing a girth was a bit like a corset for a horse.

On the other hand, if the girth wasn’t as tight as possible, the saddle would slip off and the rider would find himself lying face down in the dirt.

Herzer got all the straps in place and mounted creakily. All his “riding” muscles had stiffened up and it was positively painful to swing his leg over the horse’s back. But once he was up there he started to loosen up and as he moved Diablo around so did the horse. He took him through a few of his paces to get the kinks out then rode back to the camp at an easy canter.

“Raring to go, huh?” Kane asked. He had emerged from the tack shed with some new gear and a long spear.

“Just warming up,” Herzer said. “When are the beaters supposed to get here?”

“They started this morning but they have a few miles to beat and they’re moving slow. So, say five hours from dawn. But there’s going to be stuff running ahead of them. So we need to be in place in another hour or so. But Alyssa and I want to show you a few things and get with everybody to talk about responsibilities.”

Herzer dismounted to wait and work on his horse. He pulled the saddle and bridle off, switching the latter for a halter, and gave the horse a thorough currying. The horses were losing their winter undercoat so Diablo especially appreciated that. Then he hunted up a feedbag and some feed; he knew he was going to be using the horse hard today and he didn’t want it falling out from low blood sugar.

By the time he was done Kane had saddled his own horse and hooked the odd accoutrements to it. The tack turned out to be a holder for the spear, along with places to hook other weaponry. Kane also brought out a long battle axe and sword to go along with the spear. Herzer mentally changed the word “spear” to “lance” but he really couldn’t see the difference.

In the meantime Alyssa had scared up one of the little Arabs and saddled it as well. Her saddle was much more ornate than Kane’s but seemed just as functional. On the side of it she hung an odd, rectangular case. Just after Herzer recognized it, correctly, as a case for a recurve bow, she opened it up and removed the bow, which was unstrung. Stringing it turned out to be a major operation and actually took Kane doing most of the work. First she took out a long string, more of a rope, really, with two leather toggle and loop devices on either end and attached them to the opposite ends of the bow. Then as Kane lifted the bow in a curl, sweat almost immediately breaking out on his face, she carefully attached the actual string to the bow and ensured that the limbs were straight. That done Kane slowly let off pressure until the bow was fully strung. Herzer had to wonder, as she removed the stringer, how often she could actually draw the thing, which looked as if it must have a pull of sixty kilos or so.

A few of the older riders had been setting up targets and a few even brought out their own lances and holders. But Alyssa was the only one with a bow.

“Okay, cavalry means fighting from horseback,” Kane said. “But most cavalry techniques derived from hunting on horseback and only got converted to killing people later.”

“Well, the lance was probably the other way around,” Denver Quilliam pointed out. The rider was one of Kane’s coterie and while his horse work was only so-so he handled the lance with ease.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Kane argued. “There’s no clear archaeological record for it and admittedly it seemed to appear after the development of horse cavalry, but…”

“Kane,” Alyssa said.

“Oh… yeah… well we’re going to show you a little about the lance and the horse-bow this morning while we’re waiting for the first animal to arrive.”

“Are we going to be using lances and bows?” Herzer asked.

“If anyone feels like they can handle them without falling off their horse they can try,” Kane said with a laugh.

He started by demonstrating the two ways to hold the lance in a charge. The idea was to hold it lightly in the hand so that you could maintain targeting even on the horse, which was, of course, moving in three dimensions, then at the last moment “clamp down” and drive it into the target. Smaller lances could be used overhand with a throwing motion for similar effects. He drove one of each into the center of the target and then challenged others to copy his actions. Herzer and Denver probably got closest and Herzer had done his turn at a gallop like Kane; Denver had driven his home at a much more sedate canter.

Herzer had gotten very comfortable with riding Diablo. The massive chestnut was not unlike those in his enhanced reality training and was even a tad “smarter.” But he still hadn’t opened the horse “all the way up.” He had seen that blazing gallop the first day and he was still a tad uncomfortable with seeing what it was like to be on his back under those conditions; a slower gallop was still like having a rocket between his legs.