The shouting along the siege lines rose in a ragged, discordant surge as five hundred junior officers tried to force three thousand frightened conscripts into an assault formation.
“Dress your ranks!” Captain Sorn’s voice drifted up through the thinning mountain mist, cracked with fury. “Dress ranks by the center guidon! You are Crown soldiers, not washerwomen frightened by an old wives’ tale! Advance at the quick-step!”
The forward companies did not advance at the quick-step. They moved in sluggish, disjointed lurches, the men in the center leaning back against the push of the rear ranks, their iron shoes churning the frosty sod into black soup. Every time an officer struck a pike-shaft with the flat of his saber, the soldier stumbled forward two paces, looked toward the dark gatehouse of the hill fort, and dragged his heels until his file-leader collided with his shoulders.
Up on the gate platform, Hesta Quill shifted her stance on the pine planks. She laid aside the heavy flannel mallet she had used for the proclamation and took up two tapered rods of dark hickory, their tips rounded and hard.
“What are you doing, Hesta?” Noll asked through the gate mortar.
“The speech is done, Noll,” she said, her breath fogging in the cold air. “If I keep hitting them with the big boom, their ears will get numb. When an audience gets numb, they start listening to their sergeant instead of the stage. You have to change the rhythm before the crowd finds its…
