Read Ash: A Secret History for Free Online

just in sight as a moving thicket of pikes and lances.
    The first rows came on slowly. Billmen in padded linen jacks, their steel war-hats gleaming, bright hook-bladed bills over their shoulders. Ash knew billhooks had some agricultural use, but not what it might be. You could hook an armoured knight off his horse with one, and use it to crack his protective metal plates open. Men-at-arms in foot armour, with axes over their shoulders like peasants going out to cut wood… And archers. Far too many archers.
    “Three battles.” Ash pointed Richard bodily, holding him by his narrow shoulders. The little boy trembled. “Look, Dickon. In the front battle. There’s billmen, then archers, then men-at-arms, then archers, then billmen, then more archers – all down the line.”
    A hoarse voice, audible across the whole distance, shouted, “Nock! Loose!”
    Ash scratched at her stained shirt. Everything laid itself out suddenly plain in her head. For the first time, what had been an implicit sense of a pattern found words.
    She stuttered into speech, almost too fast and excited to be understood. “Their archers are safe because of their men with hand-weapons! They can shoot into us, loose an arrow every six heartbeats, and we can’t do anything about it! Because if we do try to get up close, their billmen or foot knights will kill us. Then their archers will draw their falchions and get stuck in too, or move out to the flanks and carry on shooting us up. That’s why they’ve put them like that. What can we do? ”
    ‘ If you are outnumbered, you cannot meet them in separate units. Form a wedge. A wedge-shaped formation with the point towards the enemy, then your flank archers can shoot without hitting your men in front. When their foot troops attack, they must face your weapons on each of your flanks. Send in your heavy armoured men to break their flank .’
    Ash found the hard words no more difficult to decipher than discussions she had overheard, lying in the grass, back of the Captain’s command tent. She puzzled it out, and said, “How can we? We don’t have enough men!”
    “Ashy,” Richard whimpered.
    She protested, “What have we got? The Great Duke’s men – about half as many! And the city militia. They just about know enough not to hold a sword by the sharp end. Two more companies. And us.”
    “Ash!” the boy protested loudly. “Ashy!”
    ‘ Then do not array your men too close together. They are a mass for the enemy to shoot into. The enemy are out of range. You must move, fast, and close-assault them. ’
    She dug with her bare toe in the dust between the tower’s flagstones, not looking at the approaching banners. “There’s too many of them!”
    “Ashy, stop it. Stop it! Who are you talking to?”
    ‘ Then you must surrender and sue for peace. ’
    “Don’t tell me! I can’t do anything! I can’t!”
    Richard shrieked, “Tell you what? Who’s telling?”
    Nothing happened for long seconds. Then the mass of the company moved forward, running, the Great Duke’s troops with them, crashing into the first enemy battle-line, flags dipping, the red of poppies a red mist now; thunder, iron beating on iron, screams, hoarse voices shouting orders, a pipe shrilling through the dirt rising up a bare few hundred yards away.
    “You said – I heard you!” Ash stared at Richard’s white and wine-coloured face. “You said – I heard someone saying – Who was that?”
    The Great Duke’s line of men broke up into knots. No flying wedge now, just knots of men-at-arms gathered around their standards and banners. In the dust and red sun, the main battle of the Most Serene Bride of the Sea’s army began to walk forward. Sheaves of arrows thickened the air.
    “But someone said—”
    The stone parapet smacked her in the face.
    Blood smashed across her upper lip. She put one hand to her nose. Pain made her scream. Her fingers spread and shook.
    The noise filled her mouth, filled her chest, shook the