Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 2 - Metamorphosis

As they began to disperse, Donuil caught my eye and pointed to his chest, one eyebrow raised, asking me mutely if I wished him to remain. I shook my head and waved him away. Moments later I was alone.

I looked about me, to be sure that no one was paying me attention, then kneed Germanicus slightly downhill on the landward side of the summit, towards a narrow, three sided niche in the cliff overlooking the valley Bedwyr had crossed a short time earlier. I had found and used the spot the day before, when I had been equally in need of solitude.. Once in there, I knew I was concealed from all eyes.

I dismounted and removed my heavy helmet, wiping my brow and the inside rim of the headpiece with one of the soft, daintily bordered kerchiefs Tress had made for me for just that purpose. Then I stretched hugely, rising to my tiptoes, and yawned, kneading the soreness from my buttocks. I rummaged in my saddlebag for the whetstone I carried there, unhooked and unsheathed my sword, then made myself comfortable on a rock outcrop that formed a natural chair against the sloping cliff face. I began to sharpen my weapon then, allowing my thoughts to come and go with the rhythmic, abrasive sweep of the stone's surface against the keen edge of my blade. Bedwyr maintained my weapons perfectly, as part of his training discipline, but the habits of a lifetime remained intact, and I found security in sharpening my own blades at least once each day. Then, as my mind was lulled by the sameness of the mechanical actions I was performing, my thoughts began to flow more smoothly.

Four months had passed since I last spoke with Ambrose, and more than three since I had arrived in Cambria at the head of Camulod's two legions. Since then we had been waging a make believe war, marching and countermarching the length and breadth of Cambria, it seemed, attempting to come to grips with an enemy as ethereal and insubstantial as the clouds and mists that shrouded the mountains in the early mornings. And yet the enemy was very real and numerous. We saw them frequently, in the distances ahead of us, but they remained frustratingly beyond our grasp, for the most part, melting away into nothingness as we approached.

From time to time in the earlier days of the campaign, a. foolhardy group of them, as frustrated as we were by this inactivity, would try to turn our flank, hiding in the bracken as we passed by and then springing from concealment to attack us from the rear. Our strategy had been designed to encourage that, however, and to punish such incursions swiftly and mercilessly, enfolding the interlopers and destroying them. The time soon came when no one tried it again.

. In the first days of the campaign, in truth, we had been too successful. Our arrival had attracted great attention, and a large army of the enemy, numbering several thousand, had assembled to await us and drive us back out of Cambria. Unaware of the impending confrontation, I had split my forces a few days earlier, sending half of my troops, most of them infantry, accompanied by our five hundred Scouts, southward and west along the coastal plain under the command of Tertius Lucca, to capture the harbours of Caerdyff and Caerwent, driving the occupying Cornishmen out and denying access to their supply vessels. In consequence, the force I commanded when we came to face Ironhair's host was largely made up of cavalry. Less than one thousand of my three thousand infantry remained to me, along with two thousand heavy horse.

Warned only slightly in advance that an army had materialized under cover of the night and awaited us a mere three miles distant, in an open, rising valley where they held the high ground, I had been forced to make my dispositions in some haste, and to assume a greater risk than I might otherwise have chosen to consider. I was bolstered however, by my firm belief that the odds would be in my favour if our most fundamental assumption was correct: that our heavy cavalry would be an unknown factor in the eyes of Ironhair's mercenaries. Allowing myself no time to waver, since I truly had none, I split the infantry into two five hundred man cohorts and sent them forward in formation, marching ten abreast, each division forming a block fifty ranks deep, with the cohortal standard bearers marching between the two. Ahead of these and behind them, vanguard and rearguard, I sent two heavy formations, each of two hundred cavalry, again riding ten abreast by twenty deep, the entire progression flanked by one mobile unit of fifty troopers on each side, deployed as a defensive screen. The result was a long, vulnerable looking, greatly extended line that I hoped would invite instant attack from both sides.

My remaining force of cavalry, fifteen hundred strong, I split into three equal groups. Two were sent off on either side of the route the main force would take, instructed to find the quickest, easiest way to circumvent the enemy while remaining undetected, and then to hold themselves prepared to attack from either flank upon my signal. I held the third group close to me, hanging well back behind the main advance and moving forward slowly in an extended line abreast, five ranks deep.

As I have said, my plan, extemporaneous as it was, worked all too well. The host we faced was almost leaderless, with no general, no strategist ruling the various contingents to give direction to their strength. Ironhair was far distant, we discovered later, and Carthac with him. The army that we faced was an amalgam of what remained in south Cambria, assembled on a whim of opportunity and composed of differing levies of mercenaries. Lesser leaders were there in plenty, even in profusion, but none who was there possessed the power to lead any group other than his own, and not one of them thought to send out scouts to verify our strength. Because of that, my two converging units of troopers, sent out to slip around the enemy's flanks, were able to occupy the prime high ground at the head of the valley unnoticed and unopposed, after the enemy threw away their one advantage by instantly quitting the high ground they held to charge downhill, with howls of glee, against the long, thin line they saw approaching them along the valley floor. As the howling masses charged, the cavalry contingent facing them, at the head of the column, appeared to wilt and flee, falling back and away to either side, withdrawing at full speed and leaving the long files of infantry exposed to the oncoming horde.

None of the attackers had ever dealt with Roman tactics, it was plain. None of them noticed that the fleeing cavalry regrouped immediately, on either side of the phalanx of the rearguard, which had stopped at the first sign of attack, and then stood firm. None saw—or if they did, they were too far committed to regroup—that the exposed infantry was regrouping rapidly as well, deploying outwards upon itself to form two hollow squares, each three men deep, each forming an unbreakable, four sided defensive wall before the nearest enemy could close to within throwing distance.

As the first waves of attackers began to throw themselves uselessly and suicidally against the standing squares, I arrived in the valley at the head of my five hundred and aligned my troops to the right of the rearguard. No one sought to interfere with any of us. The fighting was contained about the squares of infantry, who were having no , difficulty standing off the enemy. I looked up to the head of the valley, where my other thousand cavalry sat waiting, less than a mile away, commanded by Tessius. I realized then that I had one more order to deliver before signalling them down. I called young Bedwyr to me and sent him galloping, escorted by six troopers, to tell Tessius to lead his charge westward, downhill along the line of the squares to my left. He was to charge immediately upon receiving my order, and I would move when he did, leading my forces upward to the east, on the right of the squares. On either side, we would trample the enemy beneath our hooves, while remaining far enough away from the squares themselves to present no threat to our own infantry. I watched Bedwyr and his escort gallop away and settled back to wait for him to make the transit of the field. Nothing is as difficult for a leader as having to wait, while in front of him his men are being killed.