“Freelady!” he called. “You have no business here.”

“You gave me the commissary to organize, Colonel. I have done it. There was no one here fit to command my ragtag group, and I will not have my word undone by incompetents. Your sergeant himself dismissed that oaf from the Temple who tried to drive my men like slaves.”

He looked at her and remembered another freelady who had been headstrong, but shook the thought from his mind. Laura hadn’t really been like Mary Graham. It was hard to imagine Laura in armor — although she might well have carried a sword. Graham’s was on the wagon box next to her. As Nathan studied his ward, one of the commissary troops came up. The cook fingered an enormous meat axe.

“You leave the lady alone,” the burly man said. “She’s a saint from heaven. You touch her, and commander or not, you die.”

“Sumba, thank you, but I don’t need protection,” Mary protested. “At least not from him.”

“That’s all right, my lady, we’ll watch them all,” the stocky cook said. MacKinnie shrugged and returned to organize the battle.

The group marched forward again, the drums measuring a slow beat. From time to time a group of the enemy would gallop toward them, firing arrows, only to be driven away by the Temple archers. The barbarians’ stubby bows were useless against even the leather of the unarmored men until they came to close range, and they did not dare come very close.

“They’ll re-form for another try,” MacKinnie said softly. “This time they’ll try a mass charge with everything they’ve got.”

Stark nodded. “The men have some confidence now, Colonel. I think they’ll hold. It was a good thing, their trying a small attack at first.”

“Clan rivalry,” Longway said from behind them. “I’ve seen it on South Continent. Each clan wants to be the first to remove the insult of your presence. But they’ll be back.”

“Night’s what worries me,” Stark said. “We going to stay out here all night?”

MacKinnie nodded. “The whole point of this demonstration is to build up the morale of the troops back in the city. Just moving out and coming back won’t do any good. We have to have a solid victory.”

“I still do not see what we are accomplishing,” Longway said. “Suppose you prove that you can take the field against the barbarians and move about in formations they can’t break. All they have to do is avoid you.”

“We’ll cross that one later,” MacKinnie muttered. “Here they come, Hal. Get the men ready.”

A flood of the enemy galloped toward them across the low plain.

“Thousands, thousands,” someone in the ranks shouted. “We’ll never stop that charge!”

“Quiet in the ranks!” Stark ordered. “Beat to arms, drummers!” The tattoo thundered through the small formation. The shieldsmen dropped to one knee again, this time the entire perimeter sinking low, with the pikemen thrusting their weapons over the tops of the shields. A small knot of reserve pikemen stood at each corner of the wedge, while Brett’s cavalry milled about. The archers fired into the oncoming horde as the cooks and camp followers struggled to load crossbows and pass them up to the bowmen. Every bolt took its target, leaving riderless horses to run aimlessly, bringing confusion to the enemy charge.

“They don’t have what you’d call much formation to them,” Stark observed coldly. “They’d do better to all come at once instead of in little bunches.”

“Insufficient discipline,” Longway said. “They’ve more than the normal on this world, but that isn’t much.”

As the drums thundered to a crescendo, the charge hit home. On all sides barbarians plunged and reared, unable to penetrate the shield walls, milling about in front of the wedges, while crossbow bolts poured out.

“Swordsmen! Swordsmen here!” MacLean shouted from his station as commander of the rear section. At his order, a dozen men with shortswords and bucklers ran to his aid, throwing themselves into a gap in the line, thrusting five dismounted barbarians out into the seething mass beyond. A knot of pikemen trotted to station behind them, while the formation closed ranks over the bodies of five shieldsmen, killed when one of their number turned to run.

The maris called to their companions, withdrew a space, and charged the weak spot in the line again.

“They’re massing back there against MacLean,” Stark reported. “Getting hard to hold.”

“Prepare the cavalry,” MacKinnie said softly. “I’ll go get MacLean ready.”

MacKinnie ran across the thirty yards separating the point from the base of the wedge. “Prepare to open ranks, Mr. MacLean.”

“Aye, Colonel. Drummers, beat the ready.” The drum notes changed subtly. “Fuglemen, pace your men!” The seaman’s voice carried through the din of battle, and they heard the orders rattle down the ranks. MacKinnie eyed the situation coolly.

“Now, Mr. MacLean.”

“Open ranks!” MacKinnie commanded. The shieldsmen side-stepped, bunching up on each other, leaving a clear gap in the center. The enemy shouted in triumph and poured toward the gap.

The rich notes of a trumpet sounded from the center of the formation. Slowly, gathering speed, ponderously, the heavy cavalrymen trotted across the wedge from their gathering place at the point.

They built up speed, lances were lowered, and they drove into the advancing enemy, using the maris’ own momentum to add to their own, sweeping everything before them, riding the enemy down under the hooves of their beasts. Brett and Vanjynk, at each end of the first wave of knights, sounded a cheer as the heavy armor of the iron men proved too much for the light-armed maris. The barbarians scattered and swordsmen poured into the gaps, running alongside the knights, slashing down the enemy, killing the dismounted. The charge pressed onward, the knights scattering to pursue the enemy. The tight formation broke up, and the maris withdrew, formed in tight knots.

“Sound recall,” MacKinnie ordered. The trumpet notes were heard again, this time plaintively, disappointed. “Sound it again.” He turned to Stark. “This is the turning point, Hal. If Vanjynk and Brett can’t control those brainless wonders, we’ve had it.”

He saw his officers shouting to the knights. Slowly they began to wheel, first one, then another, then the entire group. For a moment they paused, and MacKinnie saw that Brett was actually dressing their ranks before they rode in, proudly, contemptuously, in perfect order, their pennants fluttering from their lances, while the shield wall closed behind them over the bodies of a hundred foes.

MacKinnie drove them relentlessly on, across the plain toward the first of the nomad encampments. Twice more they withstood a massed assault from the maris, the column halting to plant spear butts in the ground. The second attack was heavy enough to cause MacKinnie to order the cavalry charge again. The armored knights broke through the concentrations of the enemy before wheeling around to recover their position within the shield wall. In each battle they left a pile of the enemy dead to be crushed beneath the wagon wheels as the column marched on.

They reached the enemy camp, a group of leather tents stretched across wooden frames, a few wagons which the barbarians pulled to safety before the army arrived. A thin wall of men with light shields stood in front of the camp. Brett and Vanjynk rode forward to MacKinnie.

“We can scatter them with a single charge!” Brett shouted. “Open the ranks.”

“No. I will not risk our cavalry in a charge beyond the shield walls. There are too few men for that, and we would never return to the city if something went wrong. We march together or we die together. Would your knights abandon us?”

“We would not leave you though you stood alone among a thousand enemies,” Vanjynk said quietly. “I have been talking to the knights. Not one of us has ever seen the like of this day. We have left more of the enemy behind us than we number. Each time we fought them before, our charge would carry them away until suddenly they swarmed about us to cut us down. We will stay with you.”