The Choice of Magic - Michael G. Manning Page 0,169
with Lord Fulstrom.
The fact that they only had one company in reserve was a sad testimony to how undermanned they were. The shield wall passed over the now-conscious but still helpless sentries, and the men of Company E were tasked with rounding them up and putting them under a small guard. The main line was in sight of the small earthworks before a horn blast in the enemy camp announced their presence.
They marched on without pause, while in the distance Will could see the enemy scrambling to get their men into formation and prepare to receive them. We caught them off-guard, but will it be enough?
A chaotic mass of men ran toward their line. As they drew closer, Will could see that they were all young. The spears they carried were strange as well, with short, heavy shafts connected to a long, slender head that was more of a spike than a proper spearhead. Sergeant Nash yelled a warning from behind the line, “Skirmishers! Ready shields!”
“Skirmishers?” Will asked aloud, knowing no one besides Sven or Tiny could hear him.
“They won’t engage,” said Sven. “They’ll just throw their spears and run back. Keep your shield up.”
Just as the old soldier had predicted, the Darrowan skirmishers ran up until they were almost close enough for Will to skewer one, then they threw their spears and darted away. Each of the skirmishers carried two of the strange spears, and they threw the second one before they were out of range. Men up and down the line yelled out as a few of them were unlucky enough to be hit. Will saw one of the spears hit Tiny’s shield, and the slender point went completely through the thin wood. The point had gone half a foot through the shield before it stopped, making it nearly impossible to remove.
Tiny struggled to keep his shield up properly with the long, wooden shaft throwing him off-balance. “Pull the shaft off!” yelled Sven. “It isn’t attached.”
That made little sense to Will, though he later learned the metal points were made that way to keep an enemy from picking them up and throwing them back. Even after Tiny had removed the wooden portion, he was still left with a sharp piece of steel pointing inward and threatening him every time his shield took another blow.
Glancing to one side, Will saw that one man had been much less fortunate. He’d had his shield braced against his shoulder, and one of the strange spears had gone completely through, pinning his shield to his chest. Will wanted to stop and help, but there was no time; the line kept moving.
Crossbow bolts began slamming into them then, and a few more men fell as they advanced. As the skirmishers fled the field, Will could see a shield wall topping the small, earthen ramp in front of them, and he realized they were about to march down into the ditch and then up again, all while the enemy was standing several feet above them. Shit. He was convinced he was about to die, and the urge to break and run was almost overwhelming.
But he couldn’t abandon Tiny and Sven, and even if he were willing to do that, the second and third ranks were pushing them forward. Retreat simply wasn’t an option. It was do or die. Or more likely, do and die, thought Will.
Working as quickly as he could, Will used the source-link spell and began pushing his turyn into the men directly ahead once they were in range. He managed to get one, two, three—and then the lines met, and everything went to hell. With his shield up, he couldn’t see anything; he just kept pressing forward while blindly thrusting with his spear.
The men in the rank behind him could see, though, and they used their weapons to better effect. Most of the Terabinian line stalled in the trench, but the portion in the center, where Will was, managed to get up the earthen slope. Everywhere men were dying, screaming and bleeding, yet somehow Sergeant Nash’s voice continued to cut through the cacophony. “Company B, wheel left!” The perpetually angry sergeant continued screaming, keeping order and somehow making what they had practiced in drill actually work.
Will and the men around him moved forward, swinging to the left while Company C went the opposite direction, opening a wide, clear area in the center of the enemy line which Fulstrom and the reserve company charged through.