by Alexey Pehov
“Forty-seven.”
“Ah … Are they in your unit?”
“No, they’re in the center, as far as I know.”
“Hmm,” said the gnome, blowing out a smoke ring. “Then how come you ended up in the army on the right?”
“They said they needed a unit officer.”
“So you and your lads are going to defend our beards?”
“It looks that way.”
There it was again in the distance. Boom! Boom! The gnome stretched himself up to his full low height, took out a little spyglass that had obviously been made by a dwarf, and pointed it at the castle that stood directly in line with Slim Bows.
“They’re having a hot time of it. Forty minutes they’ve been blasting away. And the enemy’s in no hurry to come our way. Surely Lepzan’s not going to do all the work for us? He used to be a real jackass, too. Couldn’t even light a fuse properly. And now just look at him blaze away! I remember what happened one time in the Steel Mines…”
Honeycomb wasn’t listening to the garrulous gnome. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. It had been a bit of a surprise to find himself at the Field of Fairies. It wasn’t all that long since the magician at Cuckoo Castle told the Wild Heart he was well and completely cured of the after-effects of the orcish shamanism. A month and a half at the most.
When he left the Border Kingdom, Honeycomb had made his way to Ranneng, and from there to the capital, where he had to deliver the letter left for him by Alistan Markauz. When his business had been dealt with and the Wild Heart was wondering what to do next—wait for the group to come back to Avendoom or go straight to the Lonely Giant—the Nameless One had invaded the kingdom.
Chance had brought him together with Izmi Markauz, who remembered the yellow-haired warrior from his fight with the ogre in the royal palace. The lieutenant of the Royal Guard immediately offered the Wild Heart the command of a unit of a hundred men. Honeycomb had tried to refuse at first, saying his place was with his comrades who had survived the fall of the Lonely Giant, but Milord Izmi could be quite persuasive.
So now Honeycomb found himself in command of sixty swashbuckling rogues, selected for Slim Bows from various different forces, and forty crossbowmen from Shet’s detachment of northerners. The warrior had never commanded anything bigger than a platoon of ten men before, and at first he was a little frightened, but after a week with the unit he realized there was practically no difference between ten men and a hundred. Just give the orders and make sure the lads didn’t do anything rash when there’s no need.
And now his unit had been ordered to defend one of the three cannons located at Slim Bows.
“Will you look at that! I swear on my granddad’s bugle, those lads have all the luck!”
The gnome’s sudden exclamation roused Honeycomb from his reverie. The Wild Heart got to his feet, picked his ogre-hammer up off the ground, and looked to the left. There was a detachment of cavalry approaching the hill at full gallop. And another detachment the same size—a line of red and green—was heading toward the left army.
“Four thousand in a detachment!” declared Rott—the commander of the crossbowmen in Honeycomb’s unit—screwing up his eyes. “It looks as if the Crayfish have put all their cavalry into the field. The left flank is in for a tough time all right.”
“Rouse the lads,” Honeycomb ordered as he watched the red and green wave rolling on. “If they falter going up the hill, they’ll come our way.”
Bang! The heavens trembled and Honeycomb ducked and pulled his head into his shoulders in surprise.
“That’s the boom of the Crater on the hill,” Pepper chuckled, raising his head to look up at the sky.
Honeycomb looked up, too, and he saw a column of smoke go soaring up toward the sun, hang for a moment at its highest point, as if it was wondering whether it ought to fall or not, and then come shrieking down toward the ground.
The gnomes on the hill had miscalculated—the cavalry had already ridden past the area where the ball landed—and the mighty explosion simply threw soil up into the air. The only positive outcome was that the horses in the rear line of the cavalry were terrified, and for a while there was complete chaos in the lines.
“What do you think you’re firing at, you villains?” Pepper roared, shaking his fists, as if they could hear him. “Fire at the target, you lousy bunch of dwarves. You’ll be reloading the thing for another half hour now! Crack-handed idiots! Who’s in that team up there? Zhirgzan! Rotate our weapon. With the help of the gods, we’ll hammer the cavalry in the left flank! When are we ever going to get a chance to fire?”
* * *
Izmi Markauz’s horse was still nervous after the shot from the Crater, and he scratched its ear. The animals didn’t like the strange noise, but there was nothing that could be done about that.
On the left flank of the center everything was still calm and the reserve had not been required. The greater part of the battle was still to come, and all the soldiers of the Royal Guard could do was watch as the Crayfish cavalry that had arrived along the left road divided into two equal sections and made for the infantry in the center and the battalions of the left army.
* * *
Bang!
Bang!
Two explosions shook the air behind the prince’s back and two cannonballs went flying over the infantry’s heads and hurtled toward the advancing cavalry. The first whistled over the horsemen’s heads and landed far down the field, without doing the enemy any harm. The second smashed straight into the galloping cavalrymen, knocking several men down, and exploding in the center of the attacking formation.
Even from there he could hear the screams of the men and the whinnying of the wounded and terrified horses. The Crayfish cavalry’s attack formation was broken, creating a scene of total pandemonium. The riders could scarcely control their hysterical horses, and there was no way the attack could be continued.
“Well done, the gnomes!” shouted one of the bowmen standing behind the infantry.
The prince turned round. The bowmen standing only ten yards away from him had certainly not been wasting their time. Each of them had brought two sharp-pointed poles up onto the hill, and now they were surrounded by an entire forest. Before the enemy could get to the Wind Jugglers in their light armor, he would have to force his way through this barrier. Facing a barrage of arrows. And if he did manage to get through, the warriors would hang their bows on their shoulders and take up their swords.
Bang!
Stalkon thought he must be mistaken, but it really was a cannon shot. The left flank of the enemy cavalry was flung up into the air and pieces of broken human bodies and horses went flying in all directions.
“That was a shot from Slim Bows, milord,” the prince’s arms-bearer told him.
“So I see. The gnomes are spoiling for a fight, too.”
Meanwhile something like order had been restored to the ranks of the cavalry and, to the sound of jeering from the soldiers on the hill, the Crayfish retreated to the rear of the Field of Fairies. The prince reckoned it would take the enemy at least fifteen minutes to recover from what had happened. Exactly the amount of the time the gnomes needed to cool their weapons and reload them.
* * *
A horn sounded, and the unit commanders gave the order.
“Halberdiers into the fourth rank.”
“Into the fourth rank! Change places with the pikemen!”
“Crossbowmen, at the ready! Pikemen in the fifth and six ranks, stay awake!”
“Crossbowmen, make ready!”
As if the action was taking place in a training exercise, not in a real war, Jig moved into the fourth rank without any fuss or bother, and stood sideways so that the crossbowmen could get past him easily. Bedbug repeated his partner’s movements like a reflection in a mirror. The only hitch was the magician, who didn’t know what he was supposed to do; a sergeant who happened to be close by shoved him into a gap.
“Crossbowmen into the
fourth rank!” The order rang out in the battalions on both sides of them.
All the battalion commanders had chosen the standard arrangement for defending against cavalry. When horsemen attacked, the men with halberds could make the best use of their weapons from the fourth rank, striking slashing blows from above or thrusting above the shoulders of the pikemen standing in front of them. From there the halberdiers couldn’t impede the first or second ranks, and the halberds didn’t catch on the pikes. The fourth and fifth rows of “anglers” became the fifth and sixth rows.
A horn sounded again, and an order rang out in the battalions.
“Front ranks down on one knee! Pikes at the ready!”
Sticking the heels of their pikes into the frozen ground and angling their weapons so that if the cavalry tried to take the battalion head on it would have to break through a forest of pikes, the soldiers went down on one knee.
“Second ranks! Pikes at the ready!”
The second row lowered its pikes, holding them at the level of their hips, above the shoulders of the kneeling front rank.
“Third rank! Pikes at the ready!”
Another forest of pikes was added to the ones already lowered. The soldiers standing in front of the crossbowmen held their weapons at the level of their chests, in order not to hinder the second row in the fight.
The cavalry were close, a hundred and fifty yards from the Wine Brook. The horsemen had lowered their lances, preparing to rip the battalion open, to shatter it like a blow from a battering ram.
Jig watched a rider in the front line who seemed to be coming straight at him. The warrior, in a horned helmet with green plumage and a scarlet and green tunic that concealed his armor, lowered his long lance decorated with numerous ribbons and little flags.
Arrows sang in the air—the detachment of elves standing beside the Luza Forest had started bombarding the cavalrymen’s right flank. The dark elves might handle their bows like gods, but here were only three hundred of them against several thousand, and they wouldn’t stop the cavalry.
The uproar was indescribable. The earth shook under the pounding blows of thousands of hooves. A horn gave a low growl and the unit commanders yelled fit to burst.
“First line of crossbows! Fire!”
A sklot gave a dry click right beside Jig’s ear. The second line of crossbowmen had already taken the place of the first.
“Fire!”
Then another switch of ranks.
“Fire!”
The third rank of crossbowmen hastily withdrew to the center of the battalion, where their comrades were reloading their weapons.
“Fifth and sixth rank! All together! Pikes at the ready!”
The fifth and sixth ranks of anglers had already occupied the places where the crossbowmen were standing. They swung their pikes over to the left in order not to hinder the second and third rows, and froze.
Now all three battalions standing on the left road looked like very big, very angry, and very dangerous hedgehogs that were impossible to approach.
The time between salvoes from the crossbowmen and switches of rank was no more than eight seconds. The crossbows inflicted a lot of damage on the front ranks of cavalry, the elves rained arrows down on the enemy, and now the horses in the rear ranks had to advance over the bodies of the dead, which reduced their speed. And the Wine Brook had its effect, too—while the first ranks (most of them already dead) had leapt cleanly across the obstacle, the rear ranks noticed the brook too late, and dozens of horses and riders went tumbling head over heels, sowing even more confusion.
The horses had to be reined back, disrupting the rhythm of the attack formation so that the famous impact of a shattering blow from heavy cavalry was lost. But the scramble didn’t extend all the way along the Wine Brook. Many horsemen hurtled toward the battalions, as if they wanted to winkle those accursed crossbowmen out of their centers.
“Hold formation, you monkeys!”
“Stand firm! Don’t run! Pikes!”
“Ho-o-o-old!”
“Sta-a-a-a-a-a-and!”
The cavalry came rolling on, closer and closer, closer.…
“A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-aa-aa-aa-aaa-aaa-aa!”—all the battalions uttered the same mighty roar, combining the anticipation of battle, and a curse, and fear … and the desire to instill fear in the horses and their riders.
The horsemen were no fools; they had no intention of running onto the pikes.
The cavalry always tries to frighten the infantry, and it always believes the infantry will run. And very often the infantry does run, although its salvation lies in holding a solid formation, not in running away.
Most of the Crayfish had swung their horses round in time, and now they were hurtling along the line of the battalions. Another section went galloping into the gaps between the bristling squares of infantry. The crossbowmen on the sides couldn’t risk firing at the enemy in case they hit their own comrades in the other battalions, but the crossbows in the rear ranks didn’t hesitate, and as soon as the cavalry flew out into the rear they fired a withering salvo, and then they were joined by the crossbowmen from the front section of the battalion, who had already managed to reload their weapons.
But even so, some riders among those who attacked the left army drove their armor-clad horses straight at the pikes without the slightest fear. Some of them were fools, some were recklessly brave (that is, hopeless fools), some were carried away by the dash and fury of the battle, and some simply didn’t manage to halt or turn their horses in time. The front of the battalions took the impact of several hundred horsemen.
Rumbling and clattering, desperate screams, the clanging and scraping of metal on metal.
The impact of the cavalry sent the ranks staggering back. Some men fell.
“A-a-a-a-a-a!” One of the riders was unable to stay in the saddle and, like a stone from a catapult, he went flying over the heads of the cavalry to land somewhere in the rear ranks.
Jig hoped very much that the lousy rat would be welcomed with wide open arms back there.
Up at the front there was a full-scale scrimmage. The pikemen were zealously skewering anyone who came within their reach. One of the horsemen reared his mount up on its hind legs and rode it at his enemies. The horse immediately ran its belly onto four pikes and collapsed, crushing two soldiers in the front rank; the rider leapt down agilely off the poor beast and started waving his sword, hoping to hold out until help arrived, but Bedbug had his wits about him, and his heavy halberd came plunging down on the valiant man’s head right between the horns of his helmet. Without hesitating, Jig added a blow of his own, thrusting his halberd in under the man’s helmet.
While several soldiers in their section were pulling their pikes out of the horse’s body, another horseman performed the same maneuver, and his horse crushed part of the second rank. Two more horsemen drove in through the gap, then more.
And more.
The cavalrymen were losing their horses, but they were achieving something very important—a frontal section of the formation of the central battalion had been torn open, and the Crayfish who were nearby wasted no time.
Jig went dashing forward. The halberdier’s job is to deaden the momentum of the attackers but, without even knowing how, he found himself in the thick of the slashing and hacking. There were no more than fifteen Crayfish, and only three of them were still on their horses. The pikemen grasped their swords.
Jig struck one of the cavalrymen in the back with the shaft of his halberd, hacked at the leg of another with all his might, then took a good swing and thrust the spike of his halberd through the heavy cuirass of some noble warrior. Bedbug, who had somehow appeared beside him, cut off a horse’s leg, and the rider fell straight onto some soldier’s thoughtfully positioned pike.
Before Bedbug could straighten up, a cavalryman nearby struck downward with his lance and pinned the guardsman to the ground. Jig screamed out loud and attacked. The rider held out his shield. The guardsman struck again, c
aught his enemy by the neck with the hook of his halberd, and jerked, dragging him off his horse. Once again one of the pikemen was there to finish off the man, who was lying dazed and helpless on the ground after his fall out of the saddle.
“Form up!” someone shouted at Jig, and a soldier pushed him back.
He obeyed—he couldn’t bring Bedbug back now. The cavalry breakthrough had been halted and the pikemen re-formed their ranks.
“Cro-men, fire!”
The crossbows sang again. The crossbowmen in the frontal ranks of the battalion were joined by those from the rear ranks, who had already shot the cavalrymen who galloped through to the rear.
The remnants of the cavalry of the Crayfish Dukedom sensibly withdrew, taking crippling casualties from the steel rain of crossbow bolts.
“First rank stand erect! Crossbowmen! Into the third rank! At ease! Pikes in the air! Horse traps out of the ground! Ten paces back! To the count of the drum, march!”
Jig tramped back willingly with all the others, leaving an area littered with the bodies of men and horses in front of them.
“Hey, friend!”
Jig didn’t realize straightaway that he was being spoken to. It was a pikeman he knew.
“Glad you’re still alive.”
“Me, too.”
“Great, the way you dragged that bastard off his horse! Good for you!”
“That was too good for him! He killed Bedbug.”
“Yes, I saw. I’m sorry for the lad, but we gave them a good mauling!”
“What did they do to us?”
“About eighty gone.”
“Ha-alt!” came the order, and the battalion stopped.
The right and left battalions had followed the example of the central one, moving back to maintain the line of defense.
“Rest!” The order ran along the ranks.
It was only now that Jig realized just how heavily he had been sweating during the brief battle.
* * *
Izmi sighed in relief. Despite his misgivings, the left army had withstood the impact of the cavalry, and not only withstood it, but inflicted serious losses. More than a thousand Crayfish had been left lying on the ground, most of them killed by the hail of crossbow bolts and the elves’ arrows. The sections of the Nameless One’s army that retreated had now reunited with the cavalry that had been testing the strength of the center a few minutes earlier, and the surviving horsemen were re-forming into a broad attack formation. Izmi reckoned there were slightly fewer than seven thousand of them.