Damen said: ‘We will not let them cow us, subdue us or force us down. Ride hard. Don’t stop to fight the front line. We are going to smash them open. We are here to fight for our Prince!’
The cry rang out, For the Prince! The men gripped their swords, slammed their visors down, and the sound they made was a roar.
Galloping his horse the length of the troop, Damen gave the order, and the travelling column re-formed at his word. The days of sloppiness and straggling were gone. The men were green and untested, but behind them now was a half-summer of continuous training together.
Jord, when he drew up beside him, said, ‘Whatever happens to me afterwards, I want to fight.’
Damen nodded. Then he turned and let his eyes pass briefly over Touars’s troops.
He understood the first truth of battle: soldiers won fights. Where there was no numerical advantage it was essential that the quality of troops was higher. The orders given by the Captain meant nothing if the men faltered in carrying them out.
They had, unquestionably, the tactical advantage. Touars’s front faced Laurent, but he was flanked by the Patrans: Touars’s formation advancing would have to swing around in order to make a second front facing in the Patran direction, or be quickly overrun.
But Touars’s men were a veteran force drilled in large-scale manoeuvres; splitting on the field in order to fight on two fronts would be something they well knew how to do.
Laurent’s men were not capable of complex field work. The secret then was not to stretch them beyond their means, but to focus on line work, the one thing they had relentlessly drilled, the one thing they knew how to do. They must break Touars’s lines, or this battle was lost, and Laurent would fall to his uncle.
He recognised, in himself, that he was angry, and that it had less to do with Aimeric’s betrayal than with the Regent, the malicious rumours that the Regent employed—warping the truth, warping men, while the Regent himself remained pristine and untouched as he set his men to fight against their own Prince.
The lines would break. He would make sure of it.
Laurent’s horse drew alongside his own; around them, the scent of greenery and crushed grass that would soon transform into something else. Laurent was silent for a long moment before he spoke.
‘Touars’s men will be less unified than they appear. Whatever rumours my uncle has spread about me, the starburst banner means something here on the border.’
He didn’t speak his brother’s name. He was here to take up a place on the front, where his brother had always fought, except that unlike his brother, he was riding out to kill his own people.
‘I know,’ said Laurent, ‘that a Captain’s real work is done before the battle. And you have been my Captain, in the long hours with me planning drills, shaping the men. It was under your instruction that we kept the drills simple, and learned how to hold and to break.’
‘Frills are for parades. An unyielding foundation wins battles.’
‘It would not have been my strategy.’
‘I know. You overcomplicate things.’
‘I have an order for you,’ Laurent said.
Across the long fields of Hellay the lines of Touars’s men stood immaculately arrayed against them.
Laurent spoke clearly. ‘“A clean victory without the disintegration of a rout.” What you meant is that this has to be done quickly, and that I cannot afford to lose half my men. So this is my order. When we are inside their lines, you and I will hunt out the leaders of this fight. I will take Guion, and if you get to him before I do,’ said Laurent, ‘kill Lord Touars.’
‘What?’ said Damen.
Each word was precise. ‘That is how Akielons win wars, isn’t it? Why fight the whole army, when you can just cut off the head?’
After a long moment, Damen said, ‘You won’t have to hunt them out. They’ll be coming for you, too.’
‘Then we’ll have a swift victory. I meant what I said. If we sleep tonight inside the walls of Ravenel, in the morning, I will take off the collar from around your neck. This is the battle you came here to fight.’
* * *
They didn’t have an hour. They had barely half of that. And no warning, Touars’s hope being to reverse their advantage of position with surprise.
But Damen had seen Veretians ignore parley before, and was waiting for it; and Laurent was of course harder to surprise than most men realised.
The first sweep across the field was smooth and geometric, as it always was. Trumpets blared, and the first large-scale movements began: Touars, attempting to swing, was confronted by Laurent’s cavalry, riding straight for him. Damen called the order: hold, even and steady. Formation was all: their own lines must not disunite in the zeal of the escalating charge. Laurent’s men held their horses to a canter, hard-reined, though they tossed their heads and wanted to break to a gallop, the thunder of hooves in their ears and rising, their blood up, the charge catching like a spark that makes racing fire. Hold, hold.
The shock of collision was like the smashing of boulders in the landslide at Nesson. Damen felt the familiar battering shudder, the sudden shift in scale as the panorama of the charge was abruptly replaced by the slam of muscle against metal, of horse and man impacting at speed. Nothing could be heard over the crashing, the roars of men, both sides warping and threatening to rupture, regular lines and upright banners replaced by a heaving, struggling mass. Horses slipped, then regained their footing; others fell, slashed or speared through.