Read Online Forest For The Trees (Book 3) by Damien Lake - Free Book Online

into his mouth.
    “Each of the red and blue forces have reserves.  A man
like Faustus would surely have expected that.  In his place, I would have held
my men back behind the trees as long as possible, until I saw the reserves
moving in.  That would be the signal that one side was growing desperate.  They
would be nearing the point of defeat.”  His eyes flew between landmarks.  “I’d
say Basill’s men were a mile or so from the main battle, if the battle remained
where the two forces met.”
    Silence from the current commander of Galemar’s
fighting men persisted, yet to Marik it seemed colder.  Was he making mistakes
in his evaluation?  He needed to do this right, damn it!  No mistakes could be
afforded if they effected his credibility later.  Time to get specific.
    “Basill has no mounted lancers or cavalry men.  His
foot is mostly swords, only a few spears, but half his men are archers.  Both
the red and blue forces have few archers.  The Tristan has more horse than the
clan brought, so he must have used them as a millstone against the larger
number of melee fighters on foot.  The clan horses would have tried to counter
that but they made a big mistake.
    “They brought no spears at all with them.  The
Tristan’s riders would have been devastating against the foot soldiers with no
spears to keep them at a distance, especially since half the horsemen are armed
with lances.  Clan riders would be fighting against their mounted enemies with
only minor effectiveness.  The warlord armed plenty of his foot soldiers with
spears to use against the clan riders.  With his own horses feinting and
leading enemy riders into traps of spear-wielding soldiers between their
attacks on the enemy foot, the Tristan should have won the day despite being
outnumbered at the beginning.  His melee fighters would fill in the cracks and
buy the time the horses needed to prepare for their next move.”
    A twitch marred the knight-marshal’s left eyebrow. 
Marik hurried on, praying silently that he would be able to cover for whatever
mistake he had just made.
    “The Tristan should have won if he used his men well,
but his forces must have taken damage.  No one gets a free ride against a force
twice the size of his own.  Still, I’d bet that the clan reserves were the ones
Basill’s scouts saw moving in to reinforce their main body.  If they came in
soon enough, they might have provided enough extra manpower that the Tristan
was forced to call in his own.  Basill should have started moving his men at
that point, preparing to attack them without warning.”
    Marik sidled along the table’s edge, seeing the valley
laid out.  The walls were steep in most places, too steep to climb easily on a
whim.  A sound reason would be needed to crawl up the sides, a prospect that
would require the hands clutching for purchase as often as a man’s feet.
    The southern end narrowed to a near needlepoint,
filled by a hill that seemed misplaced.  It resembled a skullcap left forgotten
squarely in the center of the valley.  Around to both sides, men could traverse
the valley floor without need to climb the hundred foot rise, yet the space
between the hill’s foot and the valley walls could only be forty feet on both
sides at most.  Such geography struck Marik as abnormal.  Strange.
    But he would have seen it as a gift from Ercsilon if
he found such a lovely battlefield.  He continued his speculations.
    “Basill must have made for the hill in the valley’s
southern mouth.  Holding the hill means any forces within the valley have to fight
their way through you if they want to leave in that direction.  With the tree
cover, he might have made it all the way to the perch unnoticed if the enemies
were concentrating on fighting each other.”
    Marik paused, seeing a problem.  “There’s no guarantee
the Tristan or the clan leader would want to fight Basill, though.  They
could easily head north out the valley’s other end and