"Toot, toot, toot..."
The cavalry bugler blew the command with all his strength, and the Republic's riders guided their mounts forward at a steady trot.
Sergeant Pierre rode at the head of the formation, gauging the distance to the enemy. Seven hundred paces... six hundred... five hundred.
It was time.
Almost the very next second, just as Pierre had that thought, the officer to his right raised his flag and swept it forward.
That was the signal to urge their horses into a faster run.
Cavalry armed with sabers and pistols began their charges at three hundred paces, but Pierre's First Cavalry Company charged from five hundred-two hundred paces farther, and a much more demanding distance.
The reason was simple. Unlike light cavalry fighting with firearms and sabers, medium-armored shock cavalry equipped with lances and breastplates needed those five hundred paces. It was the ideal distance for a lance charge: too close, and they could not build enough momentum; too far, and their horses would run out of strength.
Led by Sergeant Major Pierre, First Company broke into a brisk run. The front-rank riders braced the butts of their lances in the bronze sockets on their saddles' cantles, sliding the three-meter basswood shafts along their right arms and beneath their armpits. Like steel vultures folding their wings, they advanced with their breastplates flashing coldly in the sunlight, a moving torrent of steel.
The riders from the third rank onward carried no lances. Instead, they wielded long, pointed arming swords and knightly shields.
The foremost rank was known as the Death Platoon. Its riders received one and a half times the pay of the others, and suffered the highest mortality rate.
That was because the Death Platoon bore a heavy responsibility. They were the spearhead, and whatever lay before them, they