Book 5, Chapter 33: The Long Morning
“Princess, they’re attacking.”
“What?” It was still dark in the tent and by the entrance. Morry’s words hit me then and I sat up, “Damn!” then grabbed a dress and pulled it over my head while exiting the tent. I could hear it now. Shouting, men in armor clanking, the sound of bowstrings hitting wood, and screams of pain and fear.
“An hour to go until dawn.”
“Let’s go to the front!”
“Aren’t you going to put your armor on?”
“I don’t need it. You should, though.”
“Will your magic protect you from an errant arrow?”
“Alright, yes, no. No, not unless I . . . ok, get yours on first, though, I’ll go get started.” I went back into the tent, began tearing clothing off, pulling the two-piece underwear, then gambeson on.
“Cayce?”
“Yeah, Brin, you’d better get up. They attacked without parley.”
“Oh no!” She yawned. “I’ll help you-”
“-put my armor on? Do you know how?”
The blond girl sighed. “You’re going to the frontlines aren’t you? Did you even brush your teeth this morning?”
“Jesus, Brin, really?”
***
Twenty minutes later, the sky lightening into dark blue hues, Morry and I stood behind one of the new catapults, not far from a ballista, with the master smith explaining, “Best I could do is get five of these contraptions up and running. We haven’t tested them yet.”
“Now’s as good a time as any.”
Thank God – or Carlisele in this case – our army had put traps and dug pits all over the slope up to the pass. They’d frustrated the enemy soldiers, giving them a tough go of it. Now the enemy had formed a shield wall and were attempting to skirt the traps, move up the hill.
Our ranged were keeping the enemy moving slowly. They weren’t loosing on the Laemacians constantly, but when an opening presented itself. When a shield slipped, someone moved too near a pit, or when the advancing soldiers were forced into narrow formation, along curves in their path. Then a barrage of arrows would harass them enough that a few would fall, either to the arrows or into the spike traps. I was glad to see Carlisele down there leading the efforts. He was holding the crossbowmen in reserve for now.
“The target, my lady?”
“The leading edge of the attack. Loose when you can. You know what? Let’s test out all the ballistae. And the catapult.”
He looked surprised, but shouted to those around us to prepare.
“What about the ballistae on the other side?”
“Can they coordinate from this distance?”
“With flags, we could.”
“We should have worked this out yesterday. Morry, why don’t you-” an arrow crashed into my armor, deflecting off to the side, as a volley fell about us.
One of the ballista helpers, a man on the loosing mechanism, was struck in his chest and he collapsed, blood coming out of his mouth.
“Shit!” I ran over to him, pressing on his chest, “Where are the priests? Damnit, why isn’t the army ready?”
“Carlisele’s down there with the ranged. Never mind. Princess, I’ll get the army organized.”
“Please! And get the goddamn medical people up here and ferrying the wounded back! You and you!” I pointed at two of the nearby soldiers, “Take this man to the infirmary, the hospital tents! And keep pressure on his wound.” Damnit, I felt like a fool for thinking these guys would wait until morning to attack. Yup, wait till the sun’s up, everyone smiling at each other and getting a suntan.
The master smith’s voice rang out, “Loose!”
The sound of metal beams snapping back straight, a metallic banging sound as one of the ballista broke, it’s iron rod flailing like a disturbed worm as it soared into the air, and wood crashing into wood as the catapults let fly. The large stones landed all over the place, none hitting enemy troops, but some coming close. Ballista missiles flung dirt into the air as most missed their targets, some flying well behind the soldiers, and one crashing straight into and through the shield wall, leaving a wide hole in the middle of the group, men falling away on either side into the pits.
Our ranged immediately took advantage of that and loosed straight into the hole adding misery upon misery to those behind the shield wall. At least Carlisele was that competent.
The smith shouted again, “Reset your ballistae and nock!”
My mind spun for a bit with the terminology, but the crews understood and were busy cranking the pully systems, tightening the metal rods. I moved over to the catapult. “Did you see where your stone hit?”
The pully system looked like a ship’s steering wheel, except that as it pulled the ropes down, the large wooden beam came with it. “Yes, ma’am!”
“Good. I want you to – look out!” Another volley of arrows landed all around us, none hitting my armor this time.
The catapult crew ducked and, surprisingly, the wheel didn’t spin out of control. Looking more closely, it had teeth, holding it in place, and a lever to release that mechanism. This master smith was getting a damn raise!
“I want you to target those archers. Instead of stones, use the whiskey barrel.”
Daylight began to break, the sun’s rays lancing over the mountains, across the plains below. I could now see their army amassing. Archers at the bottom of the hill, regiment after regiment, skirmishers and peltasts already making their way up, calvary behind the archers, rhinos behind and to the flanks. Otholos was holding the phalanx back, which made sense. Until the barriers were cleared, they wouldn’t be much use on a hill.
Fortunately, facing downhill, our phalanx would be an effective barrier to his infantry. Yet their numbers! We had to keep them back with our ranged. And I hoped and hoped our heavy weaponry would do enough damage to deter them.
The best they could do with their archers were volleys. That worked in our favor, since volleys were the least effective way to use archers. Except, again, their numbers. Some were getting through and as we lost men those losses would wear down our ability to contain their infantry. But our sarissa regiments would suffer the least from volleys. If we lost all our ranged soldiers, sarissae would be holding the pass. They’d do well against the infantry, but without our missile defense, Otholos would send his cavalry or, worse, the rhinos.
I had to come up with a better plan.
“The barrel is ready!” shouted the catapult guy. “Loose it as is?”
“Hold a moment.” Crap! I didn’t have a cloth handy and wasn’t wearing a dress. How much of my magic could I use before losing control? Definitely some. I’d used tiny bits of it from time to time. Heating steam off me, melting weapons, lighting fires. I shrugged. Well, if I go full goddess mode, I wouldn’t have to come up with a plan.
Touching my hand to the barrel, I moved the wood molecules faster and faster until they came to life, spreading fire all over the outside of the barrel. “Ok, loose!”
Pulling the lever back, he released the rope mechanism, the wooden neck of the catapult slammed in the brace, the burning barrel flying high into the sky and toward the archers.
They tried to scatter, but so many of them made it difficult and the barrel crashed into the ground, bursting and flashing fire over a bunch of them. Then we heard the poof, and shouts then screams, men trying to put themselves out and spreading the fire around in the process.
It barely caused a dent in their forces. Perhaps ten, twenty men. The rest loosed and another volley hit into us. We really needed a hundred or more catapults. We had five.
“Load another one!” I wondered how the other catapult crews would light theirs on fire.
“Your Highness!” Tread was shouting at me as the crew quickly pumped the mechanism to reset the catapult. “Morry’s gotten the hospital tents up and running, he’s organizing supply lines to our archers and crossbowmen. The crossbowmen are doing badly, they don’t have the armor the soldiers have.”
“Tread! You’re not a goddamn messenger boy, you’re an earl! I need you to organize what Morry can’t. We need shields – get skirmishers mixed in with the crossbow regiments! And up here. We need to protect the catapult and ballistae crews! And when you finish that, get over to the other damn side and get those ballistae firing!”
“Firing?”
“Loosing! Loosing, Tread, get on it!”
“Ma’am!” He ran off.
Shit! I’d forgotten the Molotov cocktails. Having our phalanx toss them at the enemy infantry coming up the hill would cause them some issues. I needed a messenger and I’d just turned mine into a field commander.
Another volley of arrows hit around us, a couple going into the barrel. I lit it on fire, they sent it into the sky and arching toward the enemy. It looked like the other group we’d hit had largely recovered. Ethanol wasn’t gasoline, didn’t cause as severe burning, nor burn as long. Potato starch, I should have added starch to the whiskey, make it thicker and sticky.
Shaking my head, damn, I’m turning into a monster. But we had potato starch and we had flour.
“Keep flinging rocks at them. A bunch of heavy stones if you can. And be careful about those arrows! The barrels only if you can get them lit. Make a hole, stick a cloth in it, light it up!”
“Ma’am!”
Up and to the left, the metallic twang of another ballista breaking, its tension rod wriggling high into the air. I ran off to the whiskey wagons.
***
“That’s right, bags of flour and starch.”
“Ma’am?”
“Just bring them! Over to the whiskey glasses and jugs.”
“In the wine, too?”
“No! Nor the ale. Come on, hurry up now!” I’d gotten a crew together, putting a couple spoonfuls of whatever starch into each jug, shaking like crazy. Another group were tearing up tent fabric and stuffing it into the bottles, placing these on a wagon. I’d imagined we’d just hand them out to infantry, but now I realized the wagon crews themselves would be doing the tossing.
What a mess, what a goddamn mess. I should have planned better, but I just didn’t think about the logistics behind all this. It was one thing to see Brundle organize existing regiments and a different thing altogether to create new ones during battle.
“First wagon’s loaded!” said a young man.
“Bring torches. To the front!”
Horses pulling the cart and stomping along, the sound of the bottles and clay jugs bumping into each other soon drowned out by the shouts of men, heavy thunking of catapults, twangs of ballista, and groups of crossbows and bows.
Arrows fell sparsely around us as we neared the back lines of the sarissa forces. They were lined up neatly, shields in front, sarissae high into the air. Arrows bounced off these, falling harmlessly to the ground. Boys no older than twelve ran here and there gathering the unbroken arrows, taking them to our archers in turn. Jesus. I hoped they’d not get hit.
This is what Otholos has reduced us to.
“Your Highness?”
I shook off these thoughts. “Right. Light up the cloth and throw them at the enemy. Phalanx! Open up and let us through!”
They did and we ran through, passing soldier after soldier, their sarissae high into the air, carrying burning Molotov cocktails. At the front, the situation was getting worse. Their shield wall had advanced three quarters of the way up the hill, more such infantry following in groups. Sappers were filling in the pits behind them, and peltasts, nestled between their shield-carrying-infantry, loosed stones at our troops, but thankfully they were doing little damage.
A ranged contingent was making its way up the hill. A bunch of enormous missiles slammed into them from the right side – Tread! Each tree trunk cleared anywhere between five and ten people, their regiment falling apart and shouting to get help. Runners moved up and down the hill, carrying the wounded.
I threw one of my jugs in a high arch at the shield wall. Then the second, and stepped aside to let other throwers through. They tossed theirs, ran back to get more, but I stayed to watch. The first cocktail came down behind the line and I couldn’t see what happened. Yelling and their ranks opened up, men trying to get away from or put out the fires.
The second one hit the top of someone’s shield, splashing his face and those nearby with burning paste. He slammed his hands to his face, wiping and wiping, shouting, but inhaling was a terrible idea when on fire. The wall opened up there and our own peltasts and archers went to work.
“Jesus. I am definitely going to hell for this.”
“Your Highness?” said a sarissa soldier behind me.
Facing him, I patted his shoulder. “You’re doing good work. Stay strong and we will win this.” Then I headed to the wagon, told them to keep going until we were out of whiskey.
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