"Displeased? No. Why?"

"You haven't called on us to help."

"Yes I have, at Big Springs. Your healing skills saved a number of lives there."

"That is not what I meant. You have not let us help you defeat enemy forces."

"We haven't needed that kind of help."

"We could have made a difference in some encounters, even though you won them easily. A mist or confusion at the right time could have saved you casualties."

Actually he'd thought of it, but didn't say so. "Sooner or later," he answered, "we'll meet an ylvin army, and if they use sorcery against us, I'll likely free you to do whatever you think will work."

She'd gazed steadily at him while they talked, no doubt observing his aura as he had hers. "Thank you, Marshal Macurdy," she said without nodding.

All four turned then without farewell, and he watched them leave. There were more than enough factors to complicate things, it seemed to him. He preferred to leave sorcery out of it, if he could.

37: Ternass

The early morning sunlight shimmered on Macurdy's armor-the opalescent, dwarf-made byrnie and helmet Tossi Pellersson had given him, the winter past, before going off to the Silver Mountain. From his belt hung the heavy Hero's saber he'd fled Oz with, strengthened by Kittul Kendersson's dwarvish spell, and freshly honed. While Hog, he had no doubt, was the best warhorse in the army; the best to carry him at any rate.

Behind him on a slightly higher hillock, the three covens of Sisters watched, Omara their director, ready to counter any ylvin spells they detected. He'd ordered her not to initiate an exchange of magicks, and she'd said she wouldn't. Her aura showed she meant it. Sisters, he supposed, were good at obeying orders, if they accepted the authority giving them.

Off to his right, the final companies were taking their positions, and a few yards away, Jeremid sat scowling in his saddle. The Ozman didn't like Macurdy's decision to take a personal part in the fighting. "What in hell will we do if someone kills you?" he'd demanded privately. "You don't realize how important you are to this army; if we lose you, the heart'll go out of it. Going out there to cross swords with some ylf is the most stupid thing you can do!"

Macurdy hadn't argued. Basically it was true; his death here would be a disaster. But he also knew that for whatever reason, he had to take an active personal role in the fighting. Had to lay his life on the line, as he required so many others to do. He'd told this to Jeremid, and the young Ozman had simply snorted.

Now the commander stood in his stirrups, staring north across young oats at the large Imperial force he faced. Its formation was defensive, inviting his attack, prepared to chew him up. Judging by their banners, there were four cohorts of imperial infantry alone, and massed in front of them, at least four cohorts of militia: crossbowmen protected from cavalry assault by ranks of pikemen. All of them-pikemen and crossbowmen as well as the imperial infantry-wore byrnies, and swords if it came to that kind of fight. As Macurdy intended it would.

On the enemy's right flank, imperial cavalry sat their horses, four cohorts of them as well, no doubt well trained, and all wearing byrnies. But the cavalry weren't his main concern. Not yet. Very likely the ylvin commander would hold them back until some opportunity or emergency called for them.

He wiped sweat, and wondered how good the enemy's endurance was. His own men were tough, had trained hard all winter and spring, then the infantry had hiked from wherever they lived to Kellerton or Inderstown, generally hundreds of miles. And after that, 130 miles from Parnston to Ternass. Of course, they weren't as well fed as he'd have liked; militias and civilians both had been hauling off or hiding a lot of the edibles in advance. But neither were they famished.

He studied the militia pikemen. He'd assumed something about them, an assumption based on a single observation. Their long, ungainly, simple-headed pikes were intended to stop cavalry, and that required mainly bravery and discipline. To use them against infantry, on the other hand, required considerable skill. He assumed they lacked that skill, and the confidence that would go with it.

His forces had run into pikemen just once, outside a town called Big Springs. A broad stone bridge crossed the river there, and some militia had taken a stand to defend it. Two companies of crossbowmen lined the far bank, while the bridge itself was plugged with pikemen to keep the southern cavalry from crossing. The Kormehri had charged anyway, in the teeth of deadly crossbow fire, expecting the pikemen to break and run, as militias always had. But these hadn't, and scores of Kormehri had gone down, horses and men, between the bristling pikes in front of them and the press of the oncoming ranks behind.

Even so the fanatical Kormehri had won. A single platoon of them had dismounted, swords in hand, and the pikemen had dropped their long cumbersome pikes to draw their own blades. The Kormehri platoon, greatly outnumbered, had attacked them on foot like wolves assaulting sheep, and the pikemen, previously so firm, panicked and broke, running from the bridge, even jumping armor-weighted into the river. Then Kormehri platoons still on horseback had overrun them, howling and killing; it was once when militiamen had not been allowed to surrender.

Even so, the crossbows and pikes had taken a heavy toll. When it was over, the Kormehri cavalry cohort, already short since that wild first night, reported only 264 officers and men fit for action, hardly fifty percent of those who'd crossed the river.

Actually the militias had fought harder the past two days. Not well, not even doggedly, but they'd stood and fought. He'd questioned prisoners, and they'd told him that the Emperor's own army was on its way south under General Cyncaidh. They no longer felt abandoned.

The army he looked at now could hardly be the Throne Army; it wasn't big enough. Mostly these would be garrison cohorts that had withdrawn ahead of him, plus others gathered from east and west and north, with their militia auxiliaries. Macurdy squinted at the sun glinting on distant pikeheads, helmets, and mail. From beneath his own steel cap a trickle of sweat overflowed an eyebrow, but except to swipe at it with a wrist, he ignored it. So far, he told himself, we've had a cakewalk, beating up on frightened militias, and on badly outnumbered imperials who didn't realize what they were up against. Here we'll learn how good we really are.

He could, of course, have waited another day. The rest of his troops would be there by then. And the enemy seemed content to wait. But Macurdy already had the advantage of numbers, and who knew how many imperial cohorts might arrive tomorrow, or even that afternoon.

Grimly he turned to his bugler. "As planned," he said. "Mounted archers out by companies." All his cavalry were mounted archers as needed, but certain units had been assigned the role for this battle. The bugler blew, company buglers responding. Three Teklan cavalry companies trotted out in single file, briskly and without spears, not toward the enemy so much as across the front of its massed infantry. The imperial commander held back his cavalry, unsure what this peculiar move might mean, what might happen next. The course of the southern cavalry took them within seventy yards of the pikemen, within range of the militia crossbows. But the militiamen only gawped, their commander unsure what this meant. Again a bugle blared, and riding parallel to the enemy's front, the Teklan horsemen began to shoot, irregular flights of arrows hissing into the ranks of crouching pikemen, and the massed crossbowmen behind them. At this, the crossbowmen released their heavy bolts, and when a horseman was hit by one, whether he wore a captured byrnie or not, he fell dead or terribly wounded.