Xykos was so tall and strong that in his home village his nickname was "the Bull." Still, the double weight of armor and shield was beginning to tell on him as he tramped across the rocky ground; he wondered how those without his strength were faring. To be sure, his shield was twice the average height, large enough that two musketeers were moving half-crouched behind it.
Halfway to the Styphoni lines and still not a shot fired from the blue and orange square ahead. Excellent fire discipline, he thought, is how Kalvan would put it. He'd been fortunate enough to partake in some pike drills led by the Great King himself; a great man, unlike many of noble blood, who was not afraid to get his hands soiled. My brothers will not falter, even when the bullets come. We are the Veterans of the Long March.
They were the survivors of four times their number of foot who had died at Tenabra and the days following when Grand Master Soton chased after them. Xykos himself had been only a member of the Hostigi militia before Tenabra; now he was one of the four hundred men of the Hostigos regiment, the Veterans of the Long March, so named by Prince Ptosphes himself.
Xykos had been blooded long before Tenabra; first at the Battle of Listra Mouth, then later at Fyk, where he'd liberated his armor from the dead body of a baron of Sask.
Tenabra had been his first battle where the Hostigi had lost, all thanks to that Dralm-damned traitor Balthar! After Balthar and his troops had bolted, leaving a gap that the Styphoni had quickly exploited; the Ktemnoi billmen had mowed down the Hostigi foot at Tenabra like a farmer's scythe in a field of barley. Somehow he knew that Balthar would not have done his foul treachery if King Kalvan had been in command. Prince Ptosphes was a fair ruler and a good leader of men, but he was no gods-sent Kalvan!
Xykos' bones would have been fertilizing the fields of Tenabra now if he hadn't been lucky enough to unhorse a Zarthani Knight with his two-handed sword and take his mount. The charger had proved to be a valued friend, once Xykos had proved who was boss, but the journey back to Hostigos had been a long one and his friend had given his life so that Xykos could see his newborn son again.
Vurth, his wife's father, had argued after his return from Tenabra that he'd paid his debt to their Prince and that he should remain and tend his farm. "Let the gods settle matters between Great Kings!" had been his father-in-law's advice. However, Xykos knew where his loyalty and duty lay; if they didn't stop these Styphoni dogs here and now there would never be any peace-or even a Hostigos. Besides, he was now one of the double-pay Veterans of the Long March; the extra silver would help greatly when it came to buying new stock for the farm after the war.
Then Xykos saw a most wondrous sight: from either side of the enemy Great Square ahead, a line of musketeers moved out like a hinged arm. Before he'd covered a dozen more paces, there was a thunderclap of muskets and the buzz of metal hornets in the air. He heard cries of pain all around and staggered as his shield slowed a bullet enough that it only dented his breastplate. He stumbled for a moment, then caught his footing and fell back into step with the men to either side.
Another volley! This time Xykos felt a bullet crease his helmet. How much longer before Petty-Captain Lytog gave the order to halt and return fire? Each musketeer was carrying two or three loaded smoothbores taken from a Hostigos armory filled to the rafters with the loot of Kalvan's victory at Chothros. A new ditty sung in Hostigos taverns told how Kalvan took cheese and bread to Hos-Harphax and returned with steel and lead.
Two more Styphoni volleys, each more ragged than the last slammed, into the lines, then the petty-captains gave the order to halt. Xykos set his shield and caught his breath, while the musketeers planted their musket rests. In the third Hostigi rank, he was close enough to the enemy front to make out individual men. The Ktemnoi Sacred Squares were dressed in blue shirts and breeches, with brown boiled-leather jacks for the musketeers and polished steel breastplates for the billmen, set off by orange sashes. They all wore the high-combed helmets Kalvan called morions with orange and blue plumes. The Royal Square was dressed differently; they all wore silvered armor, like the Saski bodyguard, and orange stripes down their sleeves and the sides of their breeches.