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Kahlan grabbed the Captain's lapels and began dragging him off. She growled to the two lieutenants. "You two come along with us." She glared over their heads. "Everyone go back to what you were doing!"
There was a rattle of swords being returned to scabbards and arrows to quivers as she dragged the Captain out of earshot of his men. When she reached the trees, she pulled him toward a log and and released him with an angry shove.
Kahlan flopped down on a snow covered log as if it were a throne. She folded her arms. Chandalen stood to her right, Prindin and Tossidin to her left. They planted the butts of their spears and waited in silence.
She gritted her teeth. "What is your name, Captain?"
He fumbled with a brass button on his open coat. "I'm Bradley Ryan." His blue eyes came up. "Captain Bradley Ryan, Mother Confessor." He quickly glanced away to the man at his right. "This is lieutenant Nolan Sloan." He pointed to the other side. This is lieutenant Flin Hobson."
"How many children do you have along with you, Captain Ryan?"
He stiffened a little. "Mother Confessor, we may be younger than you, although not by much, and you may not think highly of us, but we are soldiers. Good soldiers."
"Good soldiers." She was hardly able to keep herself from screaming at him. "If you are such good soldiers, why was I able to walk, unnoticed, through your line of sentries?" His face reddened and he made a visible effort to remained silent. "And is there a one of these good soldiers, including you three, that is beyond eighteen?" He pressed his lips tighter and shook his head. "Then I repeat, how many children do you have along with you?"
"There are four and a half thousand under my command."
"And do you know, Captain Ryan, that you are about to stumble upon a force ten times your size?"
Captain Ryan lifted an eyebrow and a little boy grin grew out of one side of his mouth. "We are not about to 'stumble' upon anyone, Mother Confessor. We are about to catch them. We've been chasing them. I think we'll have them tomorrow."
She gritted her teeth anew. "Have them? Tomorrow, if I hadn't caught up with you, young man, you and all your 'men' would die. You have no idea of the army you are about catch."
He lifted his chin. "We know what we are chasing. We have scouts, you know. I get reports."
Kahlan shot to her feet, thrusting her arm to the right and pointing. "There are fifty thousand men around that mountain!"
"Fifty two thousand, and a few hundred." He shrugged. "We're not stupid. We know what we're doing."
Her arm dropped as she glared. "Oh you do, do you? And just what were you going to do once you caught them?"
Captain Ryan smiled as he leaned in, sure that he could prove to her that he indeed did know what he was doing. "Well, they are about to come to a divergence in the pass. I'm going to send a force up there, around them, to come in from each fork. They'll think they are being attacked by a large force. We're going to drive them back this way, where we're going to be waiting for them, beyond the narrows just ahead.
"Then, we're going retreat back this way, to the narrows, then split the flank, let them in, until they have nowhere to go. The pikemen will be bunched in the narrowest place; they are called the Anvil. Archers to the sides will hold the enemy to the center. The force driving them is called the hammer." His grin widened. "We'll crush them in the middle."
He flicked his hand in a casual manner as he straightened a little. "It's a classic tactic. It's called the Hammer and Anvil."
Dumbfounded, Kahlan stared at him. "I know what it's called, young man. The Hammer and Anvil is a bold maneuver... under the right conditions. Against a force ten times your size it is beyond foolhardy. You are a badger trying to swallow an ox whole."
"We were taught that with good timing, and determination, a small force of good men, in a tight place, like this valley..."
"Good men? You think that is going to count with the spirits? Is that what your pride and presumption leads you to think!" The Captain's eyes descended to the ground. "You can't push a boulder with a stick! The only way to move them back this way is to frighten them into moving back." She thrust her arm out, pointing off toward the enemy again. "Those are experienced, battle hardened men! They have been fighting and killing for a good long time. Do you think they don't know what a Hammer and Anvil is? Do you think that just because they are the enemy they are stupid?"
"Well, no, but I think..."
She jabbed a finger at his chest as she cut him off. "Do you want me to tell you what is going to happen, Captain? You don't have enough men to push them. When you send that detachment around them, they will accommodate you and move a little, and as they do they will wing out to let your force in. That's called a Nutcracker. Guess who the nut is.
"Then they will move. For your anvil. They will be hounds roused to the scent of blood. After they have wiped out your Hammer, there will be nothing to contain them, nothing to keep their flanks from wheeling as they drive in. They have battle experience and know exactly what to do.
"They will split your pikemen and their archers, and cut them off from their supporting swordsmen. A flying wedge protected by shields will drive into those pikemen. Crescents to the sides will trap them. Their armored cavalry will come at a full charge and rake down your wings of archers, who will by then have no pikemen to blunt the charge. You will all fight bravely, but you will be outnumbered perhaps twenty to one, because you have already sacrificed part your force to be the Hammer, and they will all be dead by then.
"To fight a larger force, you must divide them, and conquer them one bit at a time. Instead, you will have done the opposite. You will have divided yourself in half for them, so they can kill half at a time. At their leisure."
The Captain stood his ground. "We can make a good show of ourselves. You don't know how good we are. We are not novices."
"Every one of those children under your command will die! Have you ever seen anyone die, Captain? Not die like an old man in bed, but in battle? You will be run through with spears, shot through the eyes with arrows. Swords will hack off arms, split open ribs. Blades will rip your bellies open and spill your guts across the cold ground.
"Faces you know, your friends, these children, will look up at you in panic as they choke on their own blood and vomit. Others will be screaming for help as your enemy moves through the wounded on the ground and eviscerates them, to make them suffer a gruesome death. The ones who surrender will be executed while your enemy dances and sings about the great battle they have just won."
Captain Ryan's head finally rose. His lieutenants still stared at the ground. "You sound like Prince Harold, Mother Confessor. He has given me close to the same speech on a number of occasions."
"Prince Harold is a smart soldier."
Captain Ryan buttoned two of the brass buttons on his dark brown wool coat. "But that doesn't change my decision. Of all our choices, the Hammer and Anvil is the best chance we have against them. I believe we can make it work. We must."
Chandalen leaned toward her and spoke in his tongue. "Mother Confessor, these men are the walking dead. We should be away from them so we do not get caught in their foolishness. They are going to die to a man."
The Captain frowned. "What'd he say?"
Kahlan leaned close
to the young Captain. "He says you are all going to die tomorrow."
Captain Ryan looked Chandalen up and down. "What does he know about battle. He's just a savage from the wilds."
Kahlan lifted an eyebrow. "Savage? He's a pretty smart man. He speaks two languages. His, and ours." Captain Ryan swallowed. "And he has fought in battles. He has killed men. How many men have you killed, Bradley?"
He glanced to his two lieutenants. "Well, none, I guess. Look, I'm sorry, I meant no offense, but I know about war."
"And what do you know about war, child?" she whispered.
"We are all volunteers. Myself, three years ago. Almost no man here has less than one year. We have all trained hard. Prince Harold himself has worked with us, taught us tactics. We have won mock battles against him several times. We may be young but we have experience. We were sent on this expedition as a final test before our assignments. We have been afield nearly a month, practicing war games and battle tactics. We know what we are about. Just because we are young, that does not mean we can't fight. We may be young, but that also means we're strong."
Chandalen laughed. "Strong? You travel like women." He cleared his throat when Kahlan lifted an eyebrow to him. "Well, some women. You are not so strong as you think. You are soft. You have wagons to carry your needs. That makes you soft. You will die tomorrow."
Kahlan turned back to the three soldiers. "My friend is wrong. You are not going to die tomorrow."
The Captain brightened. "We're not? You believe in us, then?"
She shook her head. "You are not going to die tomorrow because I will not to allow it. I'm sending you back. You are to take your division back to your command unit. That, Captain, is an order. I'm on my way to Aydindril to take care of this. I will put a stop to that army of killers."
Captain Ryan's expression hardened. "We have no command to return to. They were wiped out in Ebinissia. That was where we were training, but we were out on maneuvers. We have the trail of the ones who did it, and we are going after them."
