Captain-General Harmakros paced back and forth, puffing on his pipe, as he watched the two kings race down the hillside with their armies trailing behind. He was sweating so much, that he took off his burgonet helmet and wiped his forehead. This was the kind of stunt he expected from Rylla, not Great King Kalvan, for Dralm's sake! If anything happened to Kalvan, this army of the Great Kings would fall apart like a rock-gutted ocean galley.
Even worse, Harmakros truly enjoyed being in the thick of the action, as Kalvan called it, rather than watching the battle like a spectator. His hand, of its own volition, found his sword hilt and he had to forcibly restrain himself from drawing steel. Down the hill, he saw the Warlord's men leaving the Spirit Grove to support their center. There was a colorful wagon that had to be Ranjar Sargos war wagon, with the Warlords Raven banner-a black raven on a white field.
Then Harmakros saw a sight that almost took his breath away; a large force of light archers coming out of a copse of trees. The archers were angling toward the Army of the Trygath's right flank, where the Rathoni Army was thickest. Harmakros had fought with the Sastragathi archers and knew first hand how much damage their compound bone and sinew bows could wreak-even on good plate armor.
Harmakros turned to one of his colonels and ordered, "Tell the Mounted Rifles to mount up and protect the right flank. There's about fifteen to twenty thousand light archers about to hit Nestros' Army. If they have a commander who's worth his pay, they'll turn the Rathon flank and Dralm knows what damage they'll do!"
The Colonel looked at his Captain-General as if he'd taken a sharp rap to the head without his helmet on. "Archers!"
One of the problem with the new crop of officers, since Kalvan had arrived in Hostigos, was they tended to think only in terms of rifles, guns and rate of fire. They had never watched a Sastragathi mounted archer shoot a pigeon-the kind Kalvan called Carrier Pigeons-out of a tall tree, or fire three arrows in the space of time it took to say the words.
"Yes, tell Colonel Democriphon that an army of archers are about to join the right flank. He'll know what to do." Democriphon was a good soldier, even if he was a bit of a dandy. Kalvan was thinking about raising his rank to general, with the general rank inflation that occurred when an army doubled its size every winter, it was well deserved.
Already Colonel Democriphon and the Mounted Rifles were advancing downhill. The archers were harrying the Rathoni flank and Harmakros could see the formation begin to fray. Meanwhile, Sargos substantial reserves had come out of the woods, joining the large host of tribesmen and nomads at the bottom of the hill, waiting for the allied army. He saw the colorful great six and eight-man chariots, he'd only heard about before in tales around the campfire, strengthening the nomad center.
The flying battery, was limping-rather than flying-its way down the hillside. One of the larger guns, probably an eight-pounder, had hit a pothole and was tipped over on its side. Engineers and artillerymen scrambled over the disabled cannon like a horse-kicked termite's nest. While the rest of the battery was continuing down hill, Sargos great host was forming up to meet Kalvan and Nestros head on!