In the building lecture room of the Grey Crag Roundhouse, Giles Croft stood before a ten-foot slate blackboard with a stick of soft French chalk in his fingers.
Seated upon the split-ash benches were Captain Kenneth Drake, Master Borin Bronze-Lung, Toby Karr, Master Caleb Thorne-Wood, and twenty senior centurions of the Frontier Legion.
Behind the wide mullioned windows of the bay, the cold morning wind rattled the glass panes. In the erecting pit below, Hauler Zero-One sat quietly upon its six driving wheels. He smelled of cold metal tube oil and fresh asphaltum paint.
“Feudal military doctrine assumes that a defensive force must match an invading army in man-for-man front-line mass,” Giles began. His chalk tapped against the slate with rhythmic care. “Grand Duke Val-Khorne has twenty thousand shock infantry.
You have two thousand five hundred. If we march into the mud at Riverbend and form a classical infantry line of battle, we will be outflanked, wrapped around, and crushed by superior mass.”
Kenneth Drake leaned forward, resting his scarred elbows upon his knees.
“That’s the royal doctrine of the hammer and anvil, my lord,” Kenneth said.
“The infantry pins the enemy center. The three thousand cataphracts sweep around the flank and trample the rear. When five thousand tons of barded horse and plate armor charge an open meadow, infantry squares collapse under shock mass.”
