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  “This point,” she touched the long, broad blade, “will impale any horse that tries to ride into your ranks. Or any swordsman on foot. These points,” the fifteen-centimeter spikes crossing the main blade at right angles at its base, “will let the second row strike from above, while your enemy is still ten or twelve hab’la in front, dealing with your first stroke.

  “Your short swords are not to be used to attack. They are only for defense. If the enemy breaks through, you are already in big trouble. That is why you have two rows of pikemen. No one should try to throw his pike like a spear. It is too heavy and too long. When those nice men,” indicating the bored-looking nine mounted cavalry at the other end of the sixty-meter field, “ride this way, you will each set the butt of your pike into a small hole in the ground, so, and lower it so, and hold it steady.” Kirrah crouched, left knee bent deeply, right leg extended behind her, right foot holding the end of the shaft into a small depression. The shaft extended forward with its padded end chest-high for a horse.

  “Move, you snath!” growled the squad leader. Prax’soua! Irshe’s corporal, his… dakka'tachk was here! Kirrah felt warmed by the big tough’s obvious enthusiasm for her novel warmaking. As nine men fell into position around her and another ten behind, Irshe stood to one side and gave a sharp whistle. The ‘nice men’ on their very big horses, looked up and formed a line. Without the slightest insincerity, Kirrah shouted:

  “Ready! Your lives are in your pikes, hold steady!” The line of horsemen built up speed. Not a full gallop, just a trot really, gawd they were moving fast… thirty meters, twenty, ten, five… with a loud neigh, two of the animals skidded to a stop, almost throwing their riders to the ground. Another balked at the line of padded ends waving under their eyes, those at the ends of the line turned aside. Three made it into the line, and several pikes converged to bring them to a crashing stop. Two of the pike shafts snapped, riders and horses tumbled into a thrashing mass.

  “Second rank, now!” shouted Kirrah, and the second row of men stepped forward, gleefully pummeling the downed riders with their four-kilo padded tips.

  “Hold!” she shouted, and everyone paused in position, more or less. “Now think; what will happen with a rank or two of archers behind, firing between you, into these poor Wrth!” Several of the downed cavalry scowled and blushed red. “And look,” she added for emphasis, “Not one, mounted or on foot, has come within swords’ length of any of you. That is how the Wrth invaders will be broken.” That’s one way, anyway.

  “Carry on, Prax’soua-dakka'tachk. I want each man here to practice receiving a charge, at least six times exactly right, until he does it perfectly without thinking. And I want the men to trade places, to see what this wall of death looks like, from horseback.” Kirrah exchanged salutes with the corporal, whose dangerous-looking face was split by a broad grin. Irshe was waiting for her at the edge of the practice field. What was that she saw glowing in his gray eyes? Was it hope?

  “Now,” she said “Could you please introduce me to the master stone mason, the man who builds your walls? If we truly have five more days, I have another surprise in mind for the poor Wrth.” Irshe’s eyebrows rose, and his head shook in wonder as he mounted up. So much death lives in such a small woman, he thought. What must her friends be like? What would it take, to be her friend?

  Good as his word, the next day woodmaster Do’thablu presented Kirrah with a dozen of the new bows. Five hab’la or two hundred fifteen centimeters long, the length of the bow was a gracefully recurved section of the tough, resilient yag’la wood that was used for the standard Talamae bow. But laminated to the back were layers of the lighter, spongy pa’wai wood, which although easily broken would, according to Kirrah’s careful experiments, compress and bounce back to its original shape. She had tried to explain the concepts of ‘dynamic energy storage’ and ‘coefficient of restitution’ to Lieutenant Rash’koi, Irshe’s commander and the best archer among her volunteers.

  She had finally given up on the physics theory and said simply that the soft wood backing was not to make the bow stronger, but to make it push harder. That plus its ninety centimeter long, forty kilogram draw, Kirrah hoped, would do the job. As we are about to learn, she thought, as their small party stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight at the north gate of the city. Four men including Irshe, Rash’koi and Ana’the, one of the archers from her first encounter with the Talamae, carried the new bows, and four more Border Patrol armsmen carried the standard Talamae bows. Another four of the green-and-orange troopers remained mounted, and bore a number of wooden planks with white ‘X’s painted on them. These were quickly arrayed in pairs at downrange distances of about nine, thirty and fifty meters. Standing in the soft earth, the two-centimeter thick softwood planks made targets as tall as a man and about half as wide. Akaray, who somehow had no classes today, had begged a ride with Irshe and now bounced, fidgeted and generally exuded excess energy.

  “Tell them, farther out,” said Kirrah. Irshe signaled the riders to carry another set of targets deeper into the farmer’s field they had appropriated for the balance of the day. The riders trotted out to seventy meters.

  “Yet farther out,” she said. I wonder just how high his eyebrows can go, she wondered with a chuckle, as Irshe sent the disbelieving riders another twenty meters into the weeds. “That will do …for now,” she allowed judiciously. Good, hardly any wind, beautiful clear day. The four archers with her new bows wrestled briefly setting the strings in place, unfamiliar with the forward-curving tips.

  “At your will, good men. The second range first, I think, to get a feel for the difference.” With a quick lunge, she captured Akaray’s left arm and hugged him safely in front of her. On her right, four trained and experienced bowmen lifted, aimed and loosed in one fluid motion. Whthhh…thhh…whthh…thh…tok! t-tok,tok! Four clean hits, within a handspan of the X on the thirty-meter target. On her left, Rash’koi pulled and loosed the first of her new toys. Whazzzz… a deeper, more authoritative sound from his longer bow. A clean miss, a good meter and a half over the top of the target. Irshe stepped up next, and cleared the top by a half a meter. Poorly suppressed sniggers could be heard coming from Kirrah’s right. Then Ana’the, grunting a little at the unexpected strain of the pull… whazzz…Crack! The sound of a hit, but… where was the arrow? They all went running out to the target. An obvious mark, about halfway between the X and the top, half a span to the left… but no arrow. Ana’the reached the target first, looked around the back, and stuck his little finger through the hole. No arrow… because it had completely penetrated the two-centimeter plank, and was some unknown distance down range! No sniggers now, boys? A thoughtful crew loped back to the shooting line and set up for another round. Except for Akaray, who fairly floated all the way.

  “Would one of these riders do us the service of borrowing a shield and a set of steel cavalry armor?” asked Kirrah. “Just the breastplate and back, I think… an old set, if they have one…” Two of the mounted men saluted her, exchanged glances. One went galloping back to the gate on his errand.

  “I think we can skip the closest target,” she said. “Let’s try for accuracy on the second set.”

  By sunset, the increasingly elated squad had learned to perform as accurately with the new longbow as they could with their standard bows. They had also learned that the heavy bodkin-pointed arrow was not stopped by one of the wood planks, or by front and back plates of a cavalry’s chest armor, at the second target distance. Or at the third, fifty-meter range. Although at the longer ranges the arrow would not pass clear through the cavalry shield, it would put eight or ten centimeters of iron point through it. By the fourth, Kirrah’s ninety-meter target, the arrows had been airborne for just over a second, slowing their speed so that not every hit would penetrate clear through the steel body armor. But every hit will kill, Kirrah thought, as their mounted armsman rode back with the much-perforated metal breastplate showing twenty centimeters of shaft and feathers still visible on
the uprange side, and fifty centimeters of wood shaft and deadly iron point hanging out the back.

  She was a little amazed at the men’s accuracy: after an hour’s practice, every one of them could hit that torso-sized target about once in three tries at ninety meters, and the best of them, a tanned young man who had started out with the standard bow, scored over three in four. Every one of them, including the mounted messengers, had insisted on trying the new weapon, and every one was impressed.

  “It shoots so …straight!” Lieutenant Rash’koi exclaimed. “At the farthest target, I doubt it curves over twelve hab’la high in mid-flight! How far will it carry?” At that, they all had to experiment, loosing half a dozen more shafts about forty degrees high, as far as they could loft them downrange. Kirrah watched, not the arrows in flight, but the men’s faces as they loosed in unison. Whazzz… and a rapidly departing hiss of feathers through the air. The men stood rapt, their gazes tracking up, and up, and up, like so many radar antennae at a pre-space rocket launch… and by a slow count of seven, back to earth. She could see the glow starting to spread over each man's face - a mix of awe and joy and dawning hope, and a fierce predator-gleam that would mean more to their effectiveness than any weapon she could put in their hands.

  After a good deal of diligent searching, their shots were discovered in a loose cluster. Some careful pacing-off, and muttered exclamations, and a full set of raised eyebrows later, it was concluded that the farthest shot of the day was a full eight hundred hab’la, about double their best range with the old arrows. Not bad, thought Kirrah – that’s almost three hundred fifty meters. We have a surprise for you… Checking covertly with her wristcomp for the correct equivalent to Lieutenant Rash’koi’s rank, she said:

  “Sana'tachk, good men, listen carefully to me, for you will be training the others. It is not enough to shoot a Wrth out of his saddle at a hundred hab’la, or two hundred. Or four hundred. You have seen only part of the strength of your bow. The other part, you already know.” Twelve soldiers, their intent eyes hungry for their Warmaster’s next lesson - good.

  “Your bow can loose three of these,” Kirrah held up one of the new arrows in two hands, cradling it like a delicate model spaceship, “in the time it takes a Wrth rider to load and fire his crossbow once. That is the other half of your new strength, and never give it away.” It sure pissed off the French chivalry at Agincourt, anyway, Kirrah mentally thanked her 3rd year history teacher.

  “This is your assignment, my most excellent students, which you must complete during the next three days. You must teach all of our men to hit a charging line of riders, at any distance you can reach, at any speed. To learn this, you will shoot at a wagonload of straw, which will be pulled down this road by four horses and a very long rope, at least three hundred hab’la. When ten men can put thirty of these into that wagon before it reaches them, they are ready to surprise the Wrth. Of course, they should also be able to hit the board within the X…” With a sly grin at Rash’koi: “We can make exceptions for those who command, if we must. I suppose a loud voice is really more important…”

  On the brief ride back to her quarters at the school, Irshe said to her:

  “Five squads is not enough. Lord Tsano had no idea. Tonight, with your permission, I and Rash’koi-sana'tachk will petition him for more men. The Wrth are so many.”

  “Thank you, Irshe. You are saving your people.” Akaray rode, straight and proud and tiny, behind the tall pale sergeant.

  “As are you, Kirrah shu’Roehl. You are well named for the plains raptor. I bless the wind that blew you to - to us.”

  I wonder whether you’ll be saying that a year from now, with Regnum trade turning your life upside down, mused Kirrah to herself as they rode through the city in the deepening evening. And I wonder what you edited out, at the end of that sentence, my friend.

  Chapter 16 (Landing plus thirty-seven): Interlude

  “Field experience is something you get just after you need it.” - military maxim found in many cultures and species; on Terra, attributed to mythical demon ‘Murphy’, 20th century AD.

  Wyrakka was not pleased. Two in three. That was not the rate at which he expected his new soldiers to be tested in combat. Yet the hand of youthful commanders had returned from the walls of Talam with but one rider for every three they had taken. Not the full hand, only two commanders had returned, he corrected himself. The Talamae rob me of my judgement, he thought sourly, regarding those two unfortunate individuals with a disparaging look. They were both currently suspended, naked, between two poles, one ankle lashed to the top and one wrist to the bottom of each pole, spread-eagled, head-down. Fifty of his commanders and lieutenants stood in a circle around them, awaiting his lesson. In the warm noon sun, the smoke from the small fire rose and dispersed swiftly. He turned to the audience, gestured for attention-to-authority, spoke:

  “You all know how the Talamae horse-soldiers hide behind metal. You all know how their heavier swords will break our sacred blades. It is for this reason that IceWrth Herself has given us the crossbow. Even these,” his curved, arm’s-length blade gestured towards the hapless commanders, “…have heard, should know, to avoid embracing the metal-clad, sword to sword.” Wyrakka turned to the two, began pacing around them, addressed them:

  “Into your eyes we trusted a fire of riders each. Their service to the Wrth was carried in your wisdom. You have failed your first test. Now IceWrth grant that you pass your second.” Wyrakka stopped behind the older of the two commanders, the young man. He placed the tip of his blade between the man’s inverted legs, resting the cool metal tip on the man’s perineum. I give him this moment’s warning, lest he shame himself, he thought. Then, in total silence, Wyrakka drove the blade steadily down into the man’s abdomen, its tip exiting at the navel. No sound. He drew the blade back out with a twist that was leveraged against the bones of the sacrum, the arc of the sword’s tip slicing the man open from mid-belly to pubis. Not a sound.

  Good. I may light his pyre myself, Wyrakka thought, wiping foulness from his blade on the man’s rigid thigh. He surveyed his work a moment. Satisfied at the relatively slow blood loss, he stepped around to the other commander, a woman a few months junior.

  “What was your name?” he asked softly.

  “Elagai,” she said promptly, her voice sounding strange from her inverted position.

  “Elagai, Elagai,” he muttered, pacing. Two steps took him to the fire, where testing-instruments were ready. He picked one of the blunt irons, its end’s dull red glow barely visible in the sunlight. Two paces back. He knelt at her head, gripped her hair tightly in one hand, and lifted.

  “Elagai, give me your eyes,” he commanded, locking his gaze with the young woman’s. When she settled her eyes on his, he brought the hot iron over her chin, a centimeter from the skin, down past her inverted mouth, down the bridge of her nose, and pressed it firmly into the skin of her forehead. Her neck muscles twitched a short, sharp jerk, but her eyes never left his. Her skin hissed as it quenched the heat of the iron. A trickle of clear fluid ran down into her hairline. No other sound. He pulled the brand away, and stood so all could hear his judgement.

  “You have failed like the others. Because you led the warriors up to the Talamae gate, even to drawing blood from their walls, you have also saved your fire and our Nation from further shame. Therefore I judge that you die as Elagai, here, by this brand, and live as Peetha, the small rodent of our home valley. By this brand your shame and honor shall be known to all. For when we take the city, you shall be first. You shall command every one who went with you to the gates. Rith-clan has spoken.

  “Cut this one down, when the other yields his last breath.” Which may be some time, Wyrakka judged, noting the steady trickle and dripping out of the other’s massive belly wound. He had hoped to miss any major blood flows; the man was a fool and deserved some time to consider his mistakes before departing.

  The siege engines were already ashore at the landing place down
the river Geera. They would be in place in two days. Time to gather the fires.

  Chapter 17 (Landing plus thirty-eight): Transformations

  “You can't say civilization isn't advancing: in every war they kill you in a new way.” - Will Rogers, early 20th century A.D. philosopher and entertainer; United States of America, Terra.

  Where are they? Kirrah wondered impatiently. We’re all ready for a party, and the guest of honor is out there playing with horses. Get over here where I can kill you! The western sky was cooperating with her mood, putting on a show of brooding gray, lined with scarlet and orange and deep, rich blood-reds as the sun set behind a cloud bank.

  At least we get some extra training time, she consoled herself. And the stone masons did a great job. There were now four hundred archers with two or more days’ training with the longbows, some with eight full days. Half of these, plus another two hundred, were also trained with the pike. Her original targets, both the wooden board and the well-ventilated armor still impaled on the arrow, sat on a shelf in the octagonal conference room at the palace, mute testimony that ended any arguments against her novel warmaking styles. She paced around the two-by-two meter space at the top of one of the pair of towers guarding the north gate. I wish we had more scouts out there, she thought irritably. Or some satellite imagery. The trouble with fighting on a planet’s surface is, you’re so close to it you can’t see diddly. And besides, it curves the wrong way.