Kreg spared a glance at the hilltop above him where Shillond waited. If Kreg had need to send word to Shillond Bertan would be his messenger. Kreg would trust no other.
The first Schahi troops topped a rise in the road. They advanced in three columns. As Kreg watched they spread to cover the width of the valley.
In front, they placed archers. In the center, one division formed a front three to four hundred yards across and five ranks deep. To right and left there was a gap of about fifty, then two more lines of archers, each spreading over two hundred yards of front and the same five ranks deep.
The archers were armed with the same short bows that had been ineffective at Griselde and Kreg hoped they would be equally ineffective here.
Behind the archers were lines of infantry armed with shields and spears. The infantry formed in small blocks, about five men wide and five ranks deep with gaps a few yards wide between the blocks. In total, the line of infantry covered about a half mile.
And behind the infantry, coming over the rise, were cavalry. Like the infantry, they covered a front of about half a mile across organized in small blocks, but these blocks were only three ranks deep.
Those gaps in the lines of infantry and cavalry worried Kreg. Someone on the Schahi side had learned something from Griselde. When the archers retreated, as Kreg was confident they would, those gaps would allow them to retire to the rear without their own forces trampling them.
A violet glow formed over the approaching army, matched by a golden one over their own. Kreg waited for a moment, but nothing else visible happened. The hairs on the back of Kreg’s neck rose at the interplay of forces, the testing of magical defenses by each side. Although battle-trained, Kreg's horse shifted beneath him. The knights around him looked at one another nervously.
“Bertan!” Kreg called.
“Here, Sir Kreg.”
“Ride to the hilltop. If Shillond can answer, ask him what role magic will play in today’s battle.”
“At once, Sir Kreg.” Bertan pulled his horse around and rode off, cantering up the hill.
“What nonsense is this?” Efrij said. “You send a lance away on a foolish errand. It is well known, their mages cannot strike at us. Our mages cannot strike at them.”
“Your mages, perhaps not,” Kreg said, “but your mages are not Shillond. Let us see what he says, now that he’s had a chance to taste the other side’s strength.” Kreg only wished that he felt the confidence of his words.
A few minutes later, Bertan returned, letting his horse pick its way down the hill.
“The Schahi magic is not great,” Bertan said when he pulled up alongside Kreg, “They have two mages of moderate power and several little more than apprentices. Shillond believes he has concealed his own power from them and could break through their defenses once, maybe twice, but he would then lack the strength to defend our own forces from magic. He suggests caution, but that he is ready to strike if you give word.”
“Well done, Bertan,” Kreg said and grinned. They had an advantage, an advantage the other side did not know about. That was good. “Stand ready,” he told Bertan, “when the time comes, I may need to send you to Shillond again.”
The Schahi army advanced. The infantry in the second line began to beat the shafts of their spears against their shields. The rhythmic thunder was clearly intended to intimidate and, looking around at the nervous faces of the knights around him, Kreg saw that it was working.
“Why, look,” Kreg said, keeping his voice cheerful, “they play some music to die to.” He turned in the saddle and shouted, “Trumpets! Give them a tune in response. To arms!” The trumpet call was redundant. The army was already at arms, but it was a sprightly tune and Kreg saw the knights around him take heart.
A shriek rent the air as the line of archers charged up the hill. Arrows flew from the Meronan archers to fall among them. Many of the Schahi fell, but still they charged.
"We must charge!" Efrij stood in his stirrups.
"No!" Kreg shouted. "Hold. We have the best of it. Let them come to us."
Below, the Schahi archers on the wings concentrated on the Meronan archers. The greater power and accuracy of the Meronan longbow, the protection of the shield bearers, and the higher ground gave them the advantage. While Kreg winced at every scream, three Schahi fell for every Meronan.
The center group concentrated their volleys on the infantry of Kreg's own lines. The peasant levies huddled behind their shields. They suffered few casualties.
In the fury of the arrows arcing across the sky, Kreg almost missed the advance of the infantry.
The arrows stopped. The archers filtered back through the gaps in the infantry’s lines, then the rear ranks of the infantry stepped forward, filling those gaps and turning the infantry into a solid, unbroken line.
The Meronan archers continued their rain of arrows. The wings of the infantry line bowed backward.
“Hold fast,” Kreg said to Efrij.
“But...”
“Give the order,” Kreg said, pitching his voice just loud enough for Efrij to hear. “We have the advantage so long as we hold fast.”
His face white under his helmet, Efrij nodded. He stood in his stirrups and shouted. “Hold fast.”
The trumpets sounded.
The infantry continued its march up the hill, the ends of the line continuing to bow backward as arrows fell among them. Then, for one moment, they stopped, fifty yards from the center of the Meronan lines.
For a few seconds the two armies regarded each other across the field of battle, then the Schahi infantry charged. The peasant levies in the center bowed backward. Bowed, but held. In minutes the attack broke off and the Schahi infantry fled down the hill.
No sooner did the infantry disperse than the cavalry arrived. The Schahi left, the wing in front of Kreg, forged ahead of the rest of the line. The Meronan cavalry lowered lances and waited.
The Schahi cavalry lowered lances in turn and charged. Kreg tried to force calmness through the seat of his pants as his horse started to fidget. He brought his shield up, mindful of the brief instruction Kaila had been able to give him before they had parted company at Norveth. Before they could meet, a Schahi fell screaming from his saddle, clutching at an arrow in his thigh. The archers had shifted their aim from the retreating infantry to the front ranks of the charging cavalry.
The combination of archery from the flank and unbroken line of Meronan cavalry proved too much for the Schahi horsemen. They turned and followed infantry down the hill.
The Meronan knight to Kreg’s left spurred his horse after the retreating cavalry. Just beyond another was also giving chase. In seconds, dozens of Meronan cavalry were racing down the hill, followed by hundreds a few seconds after.
Kreg stood in his stirrups. “No! Hold!”
"Charge!" Efrij shouted.
"No!" Kreg cried. “Dear God, No!”
Yelling and shrieking, the entire right wing of Meronan cavalry plunged down the hill.
Kreg found himself caught in the charge before, swept up through no choice of his own. He watched the events as though from a great distance.
They caught the fleeing cavalry. Men and horses screamed.
Suddenly, blood splashed against Kreg’s helmet and face. The man on Kreg's left fell, a lance ripping open his body and spraying blood like a fountain. Ahead of Kreg, a lance struck another horse through the haunch and it fell, forcing Kreg’s mount to veer to avoid it.
The Schahi center had wheeled and fallen on their flank.
Outnumbered, the small contingent of Meronan cavalry fell back. The Schahi cavalry swept around them until the Schahi surrounded the remaining Meronans. The Meronan knights huddled atop a small knoll, seeking for nonexistent weakness in the wall of encircling cavalry.
"You have led us to ruin!" Efrij snarled at Kreg.
"You were supposed to hold!" Kreg snarled back. "And your stupidity has killed us all."
The Schahi cavalry circled the knoll b
ut making no effort to close in. Kreg saw why. The archers had reformed and were marching their way.
In horrid fascination, Kreg watched as fingers fitted arrows to bowstrings. Bows bent. Arrows flew. Two arrows struck glancing blows and rebounded from Kreg's breastplate, a third from his helmet. Another grazed his left thigh, leaving a bloody line. His horse fell, screaming, mortally wounded by still more arrows. Kreg scrambled free as it fell, lest he be pinned underneath its body.
A short pause in the sleet of arrows left Kreg with a moment to look around. Only a few dozen of the Meronan cavalry remained standing, most on foot. Horses were larger targets than men for the rain of arrows. King Efrij lay by Kreg's feet, an arrow having struck him in the cheek and angled upward through his head. With a sick feeling, Kreg realized that Bertan was not among those standing. Around them, the archers drew arrows to breast once more.
The ground erupted under the archers, hurling them through the air. Lightning struck out of a clear sky, scattering the cavalry before them.
*Run Kreg,* the thought burst into Kreg's brain unbidden, sounding like a familiar voice.
"Shillond," Kreg whispered, then shouted, "To me! Rally to me!" He charged at the disarrayed cavalry, yanking his sword free of its sheath as he did so.
Confused and demoralized by the magic lightning and earthquake, the Schahi scattered before the handful that followed Kreg. The survivors trudged back up the hill as the Schahi regrouped in the valley.
"King Efrij led us to this evil," one of the knights said. "We are undone."
Kreg agreed with the knight. But if that sentiment spread, the army would break and the Schahi would run unopposed through Merona.
Back at the Meronan lines Kreg found Shillond, leaning on Bertan.
"Bertan!" Kreg grabbed the boy by the shoulders.
"I didn't abandon you!" Bertan shrank back, fear in his voice.
"I thought you dead." Kreg hugged Bertan to him. "How...?"
Bertan hung his head. "When King Efrij charged, I remembered how you said that an ill-timed charge could lead to disaster. I went to get Shillond. It was all I could think to do."
"It is good that he did," Shillond said. "I was in dream state, maintaining a shield against magical attack when Bertan woke me."
"And thereby saved all our lives," Kreg said.
Shillond smiled and shrugged.
Kreg saw that Bertan's face still held fear.
"Bertan," he said, "you did the right thing. I'm proud of you."
"But I ran away."
"No. You saw what was happening and, in all the confusion and without time to think, you made the right choice. If you'd come with me, no one would have gotten to Shillond and we all would have died."
Bertan managed a slight smile.
"Kreg," Shillond said, "we have a problem. Breaking through the Schahi's own magical defenses has cost me. I have spent my strength. Too little remains to hold our own defense for long. If you have any plans, now would be a good time."
Kreg glanced down the hill. The Schahi had not yet regrouped, but he could see that they would soon renew the attack. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the map of the area that he had studied. "Shillond, can you make a marsh passable? Dry it up, or freeze it, or something?"
"I think I just have the strength, yes."
"Good," Kreg turned to one of the knights. "Go to the other wing. Gather the knights. Then have the peasant levies fill the gaps." Without thinking that Kreg had no authority to give such orders, the knight rode off to do as instructed.
"I don't think we can win," Kreg told Shillond. "Not now. But maybe we can buy enough time to turn a rout into an orderly retreat."
In the valley, the Schahi army formed their three lines.
#
Kreg reined his horse around to face the rest of the cavalry who followed him. They had ridden over a marsh, frozen by Shillond. Kreg, and those surviving knights that had followed Efrij in his charge, rode spares brought up from the rear. The crossing had cost them two horses, injured in falls on the slippery ice. The slightest opposition would have prevented crossing. Fortunately, the Schahi did not seem to know of their presence.
Kreg had left Bertan to tend Shillond, who had collapsed from the effort of freezing the marsh. Fewer men at arms rode with Kreg than he remembered being in the force. "Remember," he said, "we have to confuse them, break them up, scatter them if possible. Hit hard, hit fast, then pull back. While their attention is on us, the peasant levies and archers will retreat. Then we get out of here ourselves."
"Peasants," one knight said. "Leave them, I say." There were murmurs of agreement. "We have lost. No good will come if we ride on to our slaughter."
Kreg stood in his stirrups. Maybe he could use their devotion to honor above all, even reality. "Are you all cowards?"
"There is no shame in being overmatched," the knight said.
"No?" Kreg said. "Would men of honor slink away like whipped dogs? Would men of honor leave those who served them well to die? I go. Let men of honor go with me."
Kreg wheeled his horse and trotted off without looking back. A few seconds later the jingle of mail told him that others followed behind him. He waited a long moment before glancing back. The group that followed was smaller, but not much so. He smiled grimly. A small band, perhaps, but one that would fight.
"Please," Kreg whispered to himself as they rode on. "Please, no magic." With Shillond no longer able to shield them, and the High Seer's abilities unsuited to the task of defense, the army had no protection against even the feeblest wizardry.
As they rounded the arm of the hill, Kreg swung to the left, riding up the slope. From this vantage point he could see the Schahi army had already begun its next attack. The archers had withdrawn and begun to reform their lines behind the cavalry. The infantry were advancing up the hill. The entire Schahi army faced the forces on the hill, none looking in his direction.
Kreg did not know who had taken command of the peasant levies but they were holding. Their lines were thinner as they had spread to fill the gaps where the cavalry had been but they were holding. And the archers still poured arrows down on the advancing Schahi.
As the Schahi infantry collided with the Meronan shield wall an idea burst full formed into Kreg's head. If he could time it right...
Kreg waited, his lance held in an upraised hand to restrain the impatient knights. As the Schahi infantry broke off their attack, he dropped his lance and urged his horse forward. "Charge!"
Kreg's shout, and the stampede of shouting voices, the pounding of cantering hooves, drew the Schahi's attention. The archers turned to face them. They managed only a few poorly aimed shafts before the Meronans crashed into their lines. The archers fled, dropping their bows in their haste.
The timing was perfect. The archers collided with the rear of the Schahi cavalry just as the infantry reached them from the front. In an instant the army of Schah dissolved into a howling, disorganized mob.
The Meronans swept them back, up the hill. As the Schahi retreated, the Meronan arrows began to fall among them from above in a deadly cascade. By the time the sun was low on the horizon, the battle was over. Meronan cavalry met Meronan peasant levies across a field littered with the bodies of the Schahi army.
#
A few of the Schahi had slipped away and Kreg let them run. Kreg dismounted his horse as Shillond, again leaning on Bertan, approached.
“I thought,” Shillond said with a grin, “that the plan was to give the army a chance to retreat, not to win another victory.”
Kreg shrugged, “Plans change. The foot was holding so well that...” He looked back at the carnage-strewn field. Many of those bodies would vanish with the dawn but for now...The screams that rent the air from wounded men and animals finally penetrated Kreg’s awareness.
“Oh, God,” Kreg whispered. Griselde had been almost clean. But this? So many dead. So many wounded. And the pitiful cries of the wounded, men and horses, stabbed at Kreg’s ears
like daggers. But worst of all was the smell, the smell of blood, the smell of feces.
One man, one of the Meronan foot--Kreg could no longer think of them as “peasant levies”--half disemboweled by a sword stroke, was attempting to drag himself up the hill, intestines trailing behind him.
“No.” The reins of Kreg’s horse fell from nerveless fingers. He dropped to his knees, then fell to a ball as sobs wracked his frame.
Kreg felt hands take hold of his shoulders and turn him. Between them, Bertan and Shillond lifted Kreg’s shoulders so Shillond could cradle him in his arms.
“Your Grace,” Bertan said, “Is there anything you can do? Make him sleep or something.”
“I could, boy.” Shillond kept one arm wrapped around Kreg’s shoulder and, with the other, held his head against his shoulder. “But he needs this. Wounds of the spirit are like wounds of the body. The sooner they are cleansed, the less chance for them to fester.”
Some time later, Kreg wiped at his face and stood. With Bertan’s help, he mounted his horse once more. He walked the horse toward where the foot still stood in battle lines.
The army cheered. Kreg said nothing and raised his hand in a tired wave.
When the cheering had died down, Kreg said, softly, “See to the wounded.” He looked down to where Bertan stood by the side of his horse. “Bertan, go tell the knights to send out scouts, about two miles down the road, and sentries. I don’t think there are any more armies headed our way but let’s make sure.”
Kreg watched as Bertan ran off. “I am so tired.”
#
The army marched for another day before reaching the town of Callens, a day of marching past burned farms, empty pastures, and bloated bodies. A day in which Kreg grew progressively more morose.
“Kreg?” Shillond said as they reached Callens.
“Wait, I’d said,” Kreg whispered. “Let the Schahi come to us.” He turned aside to look at a farm. The family that had lived there lay outside a burned cottage. In the cool weather, their bodies had not yet started to bloat. They had been hacked repeatedly, long after they had died. There was no telling what tortures they had undergone while still alive. “And all the time the Schahi were doing this? When Efrij said they were ravaging the country, I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”
The Hordes of Chanakra (Knights of Aerioch) Page 21