Dawn was a pale warning, and the waning moon was a sliver on the black western horizon.
"Milord!" the voice demanded again. "Marshal Hansen! They're coming!"
Several trumpets sounded together from near Hansen's tent and the field headquarters.
Hansen shrugged out of his cocoon of furs and pulled on an additional linen sweater. He'd slept in shirt, breeches, and felt boots, suitable for either light use around the camp or for wearing within powered armor.
"Who's coming?" Hansen demanded as he slipped into his battlesuit. It would begin to warm up as soon as he closed it over him, but for the moment the suit's interior was at the ambient temperature of a night in late fall.
"A Solfygg army!" said Culbreth. He was already in his armor. "Ah, Baron Vandemann of Ice Ford and some of the other local lords!"
Hansen slammed his battlesuit closed. He was already shivering, but that was partly in reaction to the news. He'd counted on avoiding battle until he encamped beneath the walls of Solfygg, but the enemy wasn't obeying the West Kingdom's war plan. . . .
"Suit," Hansen ordered. "Hostile forces in red, map location."
Hansen's servants had thrown open the tent flap to admit Culbreth. The marshal stepped outside as a dozen high-ranking warriors including King Prandia arrived in their armor. Brightly-painted battlesuits gave the bustling throng the look of giant insects.
The suit's AI overlaid Hansen's immediate surroundings with a terrain map and three groups of tiny red dots converging on the blue pip at center. The nearest of the Solfygg forces were within a kilometer of the Eagle Battalion camp.
The artificial intelligence provided a numerical read-out in the upper left corner of the screen without being asked. According to that sidebar, the attackers totaled ninety-seven warriors. Roughly half of them were in the central group, with the remainder evenly divided among the flanking forces.
"The chief baron in these parts is attacking," the king said. "I can't imagine what he's thinking. We have twice his numbers in this battalion alone."
The three West Kingdom battalions were almost within mutual supporting range now that the invasion had penetrated so close to the enemy capital. That shouldn't be necessary, but Hansen was more concerned than King Prandia appeared to be.
Hansen had fought more battles than King Prandia had.
"They were trying to surprise us," grumbled Wood, a warrior from Prandia's combat team. "That's ungentlemanly!"
"Suit," Hansen muttered. Part of his mind listened to the words his officers spoke, but he had more important things to do at the moment than join pointless conversations. "Rank hostile suits on the map by color code."
Parties of mounted freemen were bivouacked along the approaches a kilometer or so from each battalion's camp. Inside the camps, at least six warriors were on duty throughout the night, watching through their battlesuit sensors for the enemy.
The entire battalion was in armor by now. Ponies and draft mammoths added their separate brands of noise to the confusion. Hansen hadn't expected an attack any more than Wood had; but Hansen had made sure his forces were prepared for the unlikely.
"Section leaders," Hansen ordered, "this is the marshal. Deploy your troops to meet attack from the west. Odd sections by the north gate, even numbers by the south. Sections Nine and Ten are the reserve. Out."
"Baron Vandemann must be mad," Prandia muttered. "What can he hope to achieve with so few men?"
The sections were units of eighteen or twenty-one men. Hansen's AI reduced the responses of their leaders to a bar of green light across the top of the marshal's screen. There was certainly a great deal of chatter as the troops advanced to meet the unexpected threat, but again the marshal's artificial intelligence protected him from the distraction.
Hansen concentrated on the new overlay the Al provided at his request. He swore softly.
Ten of the forty-four pips in Baron Vandemann's central formation shone pure white: suits of royal quality. The flanking formations were probably conglomerations of lesser nobles from the neighborhood. None of them were marked higher in the spectrum than a dull blue, the AI's shorthand for third-class armor.
"What Vandemann's counting on, Your Majesty . . . ," Hansen said.
All the section leaders and the high-ranking warriors in Hansen's immediate vicinity could hear him. That was fine.
". . . is that his ten champions wearing royal suits will slice straight through our line, kill you and me, and panic the rest of the battalion."
Which they just might have been able to do if we hadn't been keeping a good watch.
"Also," Hansen added aloud, "it's because he's a jackass. Our foragers drove off most of Ice Ford's herds yesterday. Instead of abandoning his own lands and joining his king like he ought to do, Vandemann's going to teach us a lesson personally."
"Instead of which we're going to teach him one, hey?" suggested Arnor.
"No," said Hansen. "We're just going to kill him."
He took one last look at the map, then said, "Suit, straight visuals. Your Majesty, gentlemen—let's go do it."
As Hansen led the command group out of the camp, he noticed an ancient, wizened face peering from a fur cloak by the south gate. He waved his armored hand.
Malcolm waved back. The despair in the old man's eyes was pitiful to see.