The column moved forward, cautiously but inexorably, the drums giving a slow step as the pikemen advanced. MacKinnie rotated the formation until the point was aimed directly at the enemy, then massed his reserve pikes behind the leading men. His archers were silent, their store of bolts nearly exhausted. MacKinnie spoke quietly to the Temple officer who commanded them.

“A full volley on the men to the right of our point. I want a hole driven in their formation. They can’t fight as infantry, they aren’t trained for it, and they don’t like it. We’ll break through and roll up their flanks.”

As they approached nearer, MacKinnie gave a signal. The archers fired their volley as Todd led a knot of swordsmen forward, cast javelins at the enemy in front of them, and retired behind the forest of pikes. The leading elements of the column struck just behind the javelins.tearing through the thin line by sheer momentum, before the first rank of pikemen fell into a hidden pit behind the maris. Their screams echoed up from below.

“That’s what you would have ridden into,” MacKinnie told Brett softly. “I thought there was a reason they’d stand like that. They were hoping for a full charge of cavalry.”

The barbarians broke and ran, gathering their mounts from hiding places behind the tents and galloping away. Mary Graham’s auxiliaries hauled the wounded men from the pits below, leaving five pikemen impaled on stakes set in the ground. She turned pale as she stood looking into the grisly trench, but Nathan had no time for sympathy.

“Bury them there,” MacKinnie ordered. “It’s an honorable enough grave. Send for the chaplain.” He moved about the formation placing men in line, setting the shield wall around the perimeter.

A small scouting party entered the enemy camp. They returned with excited reports. “There is much food here,” one said. “But we must enter with great care, for they have tethered scarpias on the walls and ridgepoles.” The scarpia was a warm-blooded lizard-like creature eight to twenty centimeters long. It faintly resembled the Earth scorpion, and its bite was far more deadly.

“We will camp beyond the enemy tents,” MacKinnie ordered. “Use their ridgepoles to add to our stakes, and be sure to set the stakes carefully. They may attack at night. Bring as much food as you can carry for the city.”

Under Stark’s direction, the battalion built a fortified camp, digging ditches around the perimeter, throwing the earth to the inside and placing stakes at the top of the rampart they formed. They worked in shifts, every other man using his shovel while the rest stood in ranks holding the diggers’ shields and weapons, but there was no renewal of the barbarian attack. The maris rode endlessly around the perimeter of the camp, just outside bow-shot, darting in to fire arrows and wheeling away before an answering volley could be launched. MacKinnie ordered the men to ignore the harassment.

“They’ll get close enough to fight before the night’s over,” he told them. “They can’t do us much harm from the range they’re shooting from. You’ll get your chance later.”

It was dark before the cookfires were lighted, but MacKinnie would not allow any rest until camp was completed. When the last stake was driven, the sun had set, and a thick overcast obscured the moons. From his command point atop Mary Graham’s wagon, MacKinnie could see dozens of fires dotting the plain; barbarian camps, each a band of hundreds of men.

“There are sure enough of them,” he remarked.

“I don’t see how we can win against so many,” Mary answered. “No matter how many you kill, there will always be more.”

“Not if there’s nothing to eat. They’re foraging pretty wide already. It’s only the grain crops that keep them able to stay here. Without those, they’d have to go back into the interior. We’ll drive them off all right.”

“What were you a colonel of?” she asked. “I thought you were more than just a Trader from the time I met you, and I wasn’t very surprised when your man let it slip.”

“You’ve heard of me,” he said. Out beyond the palisade, something was moving. The nearest enemy cookfire was obscured momentarily, then again.

“You mean your name is MacKinnie? Let me-” She looked up in surprise. “Iron MacKinnie? The Orleans commander? I should hate you.”

“Why?”

“My fiance was at Blanthern Pass. A subaltern in the Fifth.”

MacKinnie climbed laboriously from the wagon, surprised at how tired he was even in the low gravity of Makassar. “The Fifth were good troops.”

“Yes. They’d have won against anyone but your men, wouldn’t they? I think everyone in Haven hated and admired you at the same time after that battle.”

“It’s done. Now we’ll all loyal subjects of King David. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She moved closer to him, trying to see his face in the dim light from the cookfire. “From these millions of miles away, the big important politics of Prince Samual’s World look pretty small. Until today I was sure we’d never get back home. Even now it doesn’t seem very likely. But if anyone can do it, you can.”

Nathan laughed. “You’re beginning to sound like Hal talking to the recruits, Mary Graham. For now you’d best get the men fed, because we don’t have very long before the barbarians try their hand with a night attack. I’ll have the troops sent here in shifts so we keep a decent perimeter, and we feed the interior troops last. It’s the pikemen and shield boys we want to take care of tonight.”

“When do the knights eat?”

“After they’ve fed their mounts like any good cavalry. And after my pikemen. Your pardon, freelady, I have to see to my men.”

The night wore on. MacKinnie was relieved when no attack came before his perimeter guards were fed, but did not relax until every man was back in his place, lying at ease with his weapons, while swordsmen stood guard to peer futilely into the darkness.

“They’re coming,” he told Stark. “I’ve seen them stirring around, and there’s a feel about it. You get it, too?”

“Yes, sir. And like you say, they’re moving about some out there. We’ll hear from them before morning.”

It was nearly midnight when a sentry shouted, then vanished beneath a wave of dismounted men swarming toward the palisade.

“Trumpeter!” MacKinnie shouted. “Sound the alarm! To your feet, men!” He could see a knot of pikemen, kept awake in central reserve, rushing toward the area of the attack.

“To me! To me!” he heard Vanjynk shout. “Leave your mounts and rally to me!” Leading a party of knights with swords singing about their heads, Vanjynk charged to the perimeter, pushing aside shieldsmen struggling to their feet. The iron men stood at the top of the palisades, dealing terrible blows to the enemy attempting to climb out of the ditch. The night was filled with screams and shouts before MacKinnie had his shield wall formed properly and brought the armored men back to a central reserve.

“They’re all around the perimeter,” Stark told him. “They try one spot and then another, not much coordination to it, but nobody can rest any, Colonel.”

MacKinnie nodded agreement. “It’s a good tactic. They hope to tire us out and then cut us off from the city. It’ll cost them enough.”

In less than an hour the battle died away, leaving a quiet shattered at intervals with the groans of the wounded, but the enemy never left them alone. All night there were rushes against one part of the palisade or another, and the whistle of arrows fired randomly into the camp. Morning came slowly, to reveal hundred of enemy dead and dying filling the ditches, or stretched on the ground where they had crawled away from the battle.

Bands of nomads rode slowly around the camp, silently watching the wall of shields.

“Here’s the tricky part,” MacKinnie said. “But I think they may have had enough for now. They’ll want to see what we do next.” He carefully moved his men out before the palisade, bringing the wagons and interior troops out of the camp before abandoning the other walls. The enemy watched, but there was no attack as he marched his formation back through the enemy campsite. They burned everything they couldn’t carry away. As the maris’ possessions blazed behind them, the battalion marched in quickstep back to the city.