The Storm's Own Son (Book 3) by Anthony Gillis Read Free Book Online Page B

brotherhood.
     

 
    4. Decision
     
    They readied for battle under a blue sky. Before them, on the plains to the west, waited the enemy. Behind them, to the east, lay Avrosa and the sea. Here, under cover of the artillery, were arrayed twenty-one thousand men. Talaos stood watchfully, ready to give the command.
    Overnight, he'd sent out thousands of militia and civilian volunteers to fill in the outer trenches and traps, while leaving the inner in place, and to collect the sharpened stakes. They’d gone in dark clothes and without torches. The enemy must still have had some idea something was amiss, but by their inaction, they’d demonstrated they hadn't understood on what scale.
    The traditional arrangement for armies fighting on open plains was to have heavy infantry in the center, screened by a front line of irregular skirmishers, heavy cavalry as a strike or enveloping force to one side or the other, then light cavalry and more irregulars on the flanks. The enemy was arranged in exactly that manner, with their fifteen hundred heavy cavalry to the north, on Talaos's right.
    Upon discussion with his commanders, Talaos had opted to try something different.
    Leaving aside militia, the enemy outnumbered them by four thousand. Talaos had fewer heavy cavalry, but after the battle of the pass, Adriko's nighttime raid, and the unequal distribution of successful defectors, he had far more light cavalry than the enemy.
    On his far right to the north, beyond the end of the enemy formation, he had Tescani. The warlord’s disciplined and armored troops were ready fend off encirclement or to take the hammer blow of the enemy heavy cavalry. Tescani's troops carried pikes for this battle, and were trained to use them. Beyond them, extending north and east to the coast, were embedded thousands of sharpened stakes culled from the trenches. It wouldn't stop a patient approach, but would disrupt formations and make cavalry maneuvers difficult.
    Next to Tescani were Drevan and the Megasi infantry, eager to regain their honor, even if it meant taking the brunt of an enemy attack. Left of the Megasi troops were somewhat less than half of the combined allied light cavalry. Their job, however, was not to fight on that flank at all, but to do something he hoped the enemy would not expect. Behind them were Ordias's troops from the League of Padra, reinforced by half of the allied heavy cavalry. Left of the cavalry on that side was his main center force of heavy infantry.
    Chosen for their discipline and reliability, Lurios and the Aledri spearmen held the right flank of the main force. After that came Ilirios with defectors from Mileno and the League of Five. Megaras and the Avrosan troops stood at the very center. To their left were Maxano and the defectors from Kyras, then Mordvan and the Teroians. On the left flank of the main body stood Gavro, with the tough troops of Imperi. Behind the main force waited a reserve made up of troops from Aro's League of Mesion Hill, and the other half of the allied heavy cavalry. Talaos had given General Aro himself overall tactical command of the army.
    In front of the main body was a screen of irregulars, far lighter than that of the enemy army. Left of the main body, at a pivot point, towered the giant Hadrastus and with him a picked group of the biggest and most heavily armed and equipped soldiers from among all the units of the army.
    On the far left of his army gathered an unusual force, separated by a gap from the rest. It comprised Adriko with more than half of the light cavalry, Talaos himself with his Madmen and his Wolves, and hidden in remaining sections of trench line, swarms of Kurvan's hillmen irregulars. Small groups of the stealthiest hillmen, experienced hunters and trackers, had crept out in the last hours before dawn and taken up hidden positions further out, among the fields and farmsteads. There they waited for the right time to show themselves.
    He had Avrosan militia on the walls,