Kingdom River

by Mitchell Smith

  Victory. A first victory. Now, the court ladies would coo and flutter… then moan, lie back and raise their lace skirts in dark, secret rooms smelling of the oils of flowers, so that a hero might do as he pleased, and so please them.

  Perhaps... Though perhaps only smile and murmur behind their fans. 'See the little Indio… watch our brown hero try to manage both his chocolate cup and cake plate. See him spill crumbs on his uniform, perhaps a drop or two of chocolate as well....'

  But either way — a victory. The Indian colonel would come with his regiment to The City, and the Emperor would see he brought a battle won, as his banner.

  "Something shone, high in the mountains." Tomas Reyes, a milk-face but a decent fellow, had spurred up alongside on that showy gray — a trumpet-horse color.

  "What something?"

  "Colonel, I don't know. Two of the men saw it."

  "Bandits. Curious shepherds."

  "I don't know, sir. Should we arm a squadron?"

  Rodriguez considered. It was the cataphract problem. — Well, there were two cataphract problems. One was the size of horse required to carry both the heavy chain-mail that guarded its own chest and flanks, and a man wearing that same chain-mail draped and belted from helmet to boot.

  So, the proper horse was one problem; the full suit of mail was itself the other problem. No man, not even a very strong man, wished to wear it day and night.

  Bandits, probably, high in the mountains above the pass. A spear-tip or sword-blade flashing an instant in the sun. Too far south, too many days south, now, for any interference by the northerners. They wouldn't have more than a few hundred Light Cavalry left at This'll Do. Would have been busy for a day or so just burying their dead. And wouldn't have had time to bring more than... say, a headquarters' detachment down through Please Pass to follow.

  "Unlikely," Rodriguez said.

  "Sir?"

  "I said, 'Unlikely.' But just in case" — a favorite Warm-time phrase of his father's — "just in case, have Third Squadron fall out and arm."

  "Sir." Captain Reyes saluted with a cadet-school flourish, showed off with a rearing turn, and galloped back along the files. Fair enough, the man was a fine horseman — unlike, say, a certain nearly-plump Indian, who nevertheless had won a victory.

  Almost a sand-glass later by the sun's shadow across the narrow pass, and deep into an afternoon now truly warm, his guidon-bearer, Julio Gomez, saw steel glittering on the steep mountainside above them — and properly called it out.

  There was, as Rodriguez had quickly discovered, a sadness nesting amid the pleasures of command. It was the sadness of knowing — knowing more than his officers and men. Knowing unpleasant things they did not yet know.

  — Such as realizing immediately that this second conveniently revealed sparkle of steel was deliberate, meant to provoke him to action, and so, was no affair of bandits, but a military matter.

  Which therefore meant that some of the northerners had followed him down. And since no local commander would have taken the remarkable risk, after a lost battle, of pursuing days deep into imperial country — certainly riding day and night to do so, certainly killing horses to do so — and with what must be a modest force of the few troops at hand, it meant as well that this northern commander was probably the commander, Monroe himself.

  Rodriguez felt chilled and hot at once. Chilled, because such determination, such an extraordinary pursuit of several days south, was frankly a surprise, and disturbing. But hot as well, at the notion of doubling a triumph and bringing to Mexico City not one victory, but two. And the head of Sam Monroe.

  He stood in his stirrups, turned, and called for Captain Reyes. It was going to be... it was going to be all right. This pass, Boca Chica, was narrow, its sides much too steep for cavalry to come down on his flanks. So, whether the northerners maneuvered in front of him as the pass widened, or tried to attack from the rear, the result would be the same. His people would hammer them, ride them down.

  The colonel saw Captain Reyes cantering to him for orders... and felt the early autumn wind's caress as a promise of victory.

  * * *

  "He's armed a squadron — no, he's arming all his people down there." On the mountainside, Howell Voss sat slumped on a sweated horse, a remount. He'd left his wonderful Adelante wind-broken and dying two days back, as they'd left other horses his troopers had ridden to death on the fast chase south through these mountains. A brutal cost in fine animals. They had no fresh mounts left.

  Beside him, Sam Monroe sat his horse, a weary sore-backed bay, looked down the mountainside's steep slope, and said, "Perfect."

  In the narrow defile below, the cataphracts were lifting their heavy folds of chain-mail from the pack-horses' duffels, shaking them out, wrestling into them, fastening latches and buckles. Then, weighty, lumbering to their chargers to dress them in oiled jingling steel skirts.

  " 'Perfect'? I don't see how this is going to get done at all." Voss leaned from his saddle to spit thirst's cotton. His empty eye-socket itched, as always when sweat ran into it under the patch. "We've got only Headquarters' Heavies, that's two hundred and fifty of my troopers — and what's left of Ned's Lights fit to fight, another two, three hundred."

  "Yes."

  "Sam, there are maybe seven hundred cataphracts down there."

  "Seven hundred and fourteen."

  "Our people are tired, and our horses — the ones we have left — are even tireder from chasing these imperials for almost a fucking Warm-time week."

  "So?"

  "Sir, go down there, I'd say we're asking for another cavalry disaster."

  Sam smiled at him. "That's what I'd say, too, Howell, where cavalry's concerned. But what we have down there, to quote old Elvin, is 'an infantry situation.' "

  "We're not infantry."

  Sam swung off his horse. "Ah — but we're going to be."

  * * *

  "Pass begins to widen up ahead," Rodriguez said, "past the next turn of rock." Captain Reyes stood in his stirrups to look.

  "Scouts out, sir?"

  "To report what, Captain ? That the pass widens slightly past the turn, as we know it widens ? That the enemy has come down and is waiting, as they surely are?.... Now, I want our formations shaken out into ranks three deep across this Boca, wall to wall. Third Squadron to reverse order and hold in place farther back up the pass to cover the rear. If any of the northern cavalry — and it must be cavalry to have caught up with us — if any have followed down the pass, Davila is to immediately charge and strike them."

  "Yes, sir."

  "He is not to wait for my command."

  "Understood."

  "If most, or all their force, has come from the hills and is waiting before us — Mother Mary, please make it so — we will charge them in march order. First Squadron, then Second in support, if there's anyone left to ride over."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Pass those orders — and see they are understood, Tomas."

  "I will!" A fine salute — and another sample of horsemanship as he turned and galloped away on the gray.... Man was a pleasant fellow, but really an ass.

  Soon enough, another rider came up. Major Moro — practically elderly, and would never be more than a major. Very dark, too, well named Moro.

  "Am I to suppose, Colonel, that this time Reyes got an order right? My squadron remains as marching, and first for the charge if the cabrons come down to meet us?"

  "That is exactly right," Rodriguez said. "And be careful of your language, Major. The angels may be watching us, now."

  Major Moro made a face. "It is those things from the north the angels need to watch, and carry their filthy souls away!"

  "Absolutely." Rodriguez crossed himself to seal that truth. "The orders are as given. Now, get back to your men."

  Moro saluted and was gone.

  The pass was turning… opening. Two long bow-shots, now — no more.

  Rodriguez held up his right hand. First Squadron's trumpeter immediately
blew three short, rising notes — and the colonel heard, behind him, more than two troops of heavy-armored cavalry spur to the trot, horses' hooves beginning a rhythmic hammer, draped chain-mail making soft music as they came.

  Proud of them, he said to himself, certain such pride was forgivable. The pass was turning. Turning. An edge, a sliver of open grassland was becoming visible past the mountain's slope. Steel sparkled against that hint of green.

  Rodriguez reined Salsa far to the right — his guidon-bearer, Gomez, following — to clear Moro's men for the charge.

  Called commands.... Then First Squadron began to wheel in stately turn to the left, ranks in good order as the pivot files slowed. It swung ponderously out into the pass's mouth; Salsa, champing his bit, was shouldered into the Boca's rough wall as the right-flank ranks rode by.

  No mounted troopers were waiting at the pass's narrow entrance. No horses.

  Only big, bearded men — and what seemed to be a few women — in polished cuirasses, black-plumed steel helmets, brown wool, leather, and black thigh-boots. Two long rows of these people, all holding short, square shields grounded, and gripping twelve-foot lances like pikemen, heavy straight sabers sheathed at their sides.

  There were two more ranks behind them. Those, Light Cavalry — men, and many more of their godless northern women — in hauberks, and armed with lighter lances, curved sabers.

  And all on foot, drawn up as infantry.

  Clever, if they're up to it... don't miss having horses under them. Rodriguez wanted a moment to think, to consider the situation, but Major Moro was not a thinker. First Squadron's trumpeter sounded two bright notes, then a long silver third — and more than two hundred huge horses sprang from the trot to the gallop, kicking stones, sending red dirt flying. They launched themselves and their riders as one, so chain-mail shook and rang like bells above the drumroll of hooves. As they passed, Rodriguez smelled coppery dust, horse sweat, oiled steel.

  The first rank of cataphracts leaned to the right in their saddles, lifting their battle-axes free. And as if in a dance agreed upon, the northerners' long lances swung down in response into a glittering needled hedge, the men crouched low behind them, shields braced.

  For a few moments that seemed more than moments, the space of air and light between the gallopers and those waiting ranks contracted, grew shadowy... then collapsed as the ground jarred and shook.

  They came together in a great splintering crash that smothered trumpet calls. Bright steel shone through roiling red dust, and horses screamed — not men, not yet, though the cataphracts' own furious armored weight drove them to impalement, even through their draperies of chain-mail. Their battle-axes, flailing down right and left, struck with the solid sound of woodsmen's axes into ripe wood — or rang skidding off shields set slanting.

  A black charger — all Moro's squadron rode blacks — exploded out of confusion riderless, bucked and raced away, kicking at its dragging entrails as it went. Under red dust, horsemen spurred in, shouting as they hacked with heavy axes, while the northerners, fighting silent, caught these men and mounts on ranked lance points that rose and fell in rippling lines.

  "Column!" Rodriguez shouted for that fool, Reyes. "Second Squadron to form column!"

  "Yes, sir!" And there Reyes was. A fine horseman.

  "Second Squadron into column — and advance!" There was an extraordinary amount of dust now... clouds of it, hard to shout through.

  "Sir!" Reyes turned his horse — and seemed to meet an arrow come down out of nowhere, that rang off his chest's steel and whined away. "Look!" He pointed up.

  Rodriguez looked up and saw infantry — no, more fucking dismounted cavalry, Light Cavalry by their mail shirts — high on the steep slopes of the Boca. Not many, perhaps thirty of them on each side, but they were using bows — those fucking longbows with the short lower limb. Barefoot, too — most of them he could see — to keep from stumbling and falling into the pass.

  Using their bows — as I should have had each squadron's archers deploy to do. Too late now. Rodriguez waved Reyes away. "Into column! Column!"

  "Sir!" Reyes spurred — and galloped into another arrow. This one took him in the belly by worst chance, just where the heavy fall of mail divided at his saddle-bow.

  Dead. Rodriguez looked to see the captain fall, but he didn't. He rode bent over his saddle like an old woman — his fine seat gone in agony — but galloped out to Major Ticotin. Second Squadron was shouted slowly out of extended line… slowly into column of ten.

  "Receive these!" Colonel Rodriguez called to the enemy as he rode, intending to go in with Ticotin. "Receive these, you fuckers!" He had no need to see what had happened to Moro's troopers. His ears told him. At the mouth of the pass, under the screams of dying horses, sounded the bright swift hammering of steel... the sobbing, grunting, barely caught breaths of men gutted on the pikes the northerners had made of their long lances.

  "Well, you're very clever!" Rodriguez, galloping to Second Squadron's guidon, addressed Sam Monroe. "Now, let's see you stop cataphracts in column!"

  "You are not going in with us. Absolutely not!" Major Ticotin looked furious, face pale above his beard. Dust was drifting around them like red fog. "You are staying back, Colonel!"

  "I'm going in with you!"

  There was a squealing sound — a damned pig somehow mixed up in this — and Rodriguez saw Captain Reyes off a way, saw him quite clearly leaning far back in his saddle, plucking at something. — The arrow shaft, of course, sticking out of his belly. He was making the sound.

  "Your ass is staying back!" Major Ticotin reached over with the blade of his saber and sliced through Rodriguez's reins. Almost took his hand off.

  "You're under arrest!" Rodriguez laughed at having said something so stupid. He tried to turn Salsa to follow with knees alone, then climbed down to catch the reins and knot them together.

  Second Squadron poured past him like a river. Chestnut horses. Trumpets... trumpets.

  He found the rein ends — goddamn horse circling around — knotted them, and swung up into the saddle, grunting with the jingling weight of his armor, just as Second Squadron, at full gallop, struck the center of the northerners' line.

  Struck it, broke it, and thundered through.

  I have him. I have him — thank you, Mother of God. "Reyes!" ... No Reyes. Reyes was gone. Rodriguez spurred back up the pass. A long bow-shot down the defile, Third Squadron still waited, facing north, where now no enemy would come. "Orders! Gomez!" His guidon-bearer, not very intelligent, seemed startled to be transmitting orders in place of Captain Reyes.

  "Go to Major Davila. Third Squadron to reverse front, and advance! Now, you idiot!"

  Gomez hauled his horse's head around and kicked the animal into a gallop as Rodriguez watched him go — watched for a moment to be certain an arrow didn't come down to Gomez, cancel the order. Worse rider than I am. Really a ridiculous figure... bouncing on the goddamn saddle as if he were fucking it.

  No arrow for Gomez. It seemed to Rodriguez that fewer arrows were coming down. Harder to mark targets, now, through the dust — and thank God's Mother for it. He turned Salsa back to the noise of fighting, cantered that way… and heard trumpet calls behind him. Third Squadron would be reversing files.

  Rodriguez rode to the fighting — glanced back, and saw Gomez galloping down the pass to catch up... saw Third Squadron reforming. The noise of fighting ahead was extraordinary — crashes of metal, shrieks of injured horses echoing off the Boca's narrow walls as if the devil had sent a band from hell to serenade the dying.

  Through a haze of dust, Rodriguez saw that the northerners' line was certainly broken. Ticotin's men had driven deep into their center, so the long ranks of dismounted lancers were swinging away to either side of the breach like cantina doors, their dead dotting the dirt and grass behind them.

  Swinging away... so Second Squadron, galloping in, cheering, ax blades flashing through red dust, rode deeper between the northerners' ranks. The noise
was terrific, the clangor, and thunderous sound of the chargers' hooves.

  Then, louder, answering thunder sounded behind him, behind and high above. Rodriguez turned in his saddle, but there was only clear blue sky over the pass's rim, and Third Squadron now in motion, starting down the pass at a steady trot.

  "Sir... Sir!" Gomez rode up, shouting, miming listening, his hand cupping his ear. Rodriguez thought he meant that odd sound of thunder — then heard a trumpet call out of the fighting, an imperial call. The rally.

  Why?

  Rodriguez spurred Salsa to a gallop, drew his saber, and rode into the hammered dust of fighting, his guidon-bearer still calling after him.

  There was, he thought, as he leaned to strike one of their wounded cuirassiers staggering past — there was an odd satisfaction in seeing the difficulty.

  The ranks of northerners, that had swung so wide apart at Second Squadron's charge, were now slowly swinging shut to enclose it. Remarkable, such a maneuver, and accomplished by dismounted cavalry. Fine officers....

  The rally sounded again, Ticotin trying to keep his horsemen together — to drive deeper yet, break the trap's jaws.... It would not work.

  Rodriguez longed to charge into the fight. He felt that he could ride into the battle, gallop over the battle like an angel, and save his men. He spurred Salsa closer to the fighting, and rode against a file of men, bearded, covered with dust, clumsy in their high boots. One saw him, turned, and presented a lance-point. Rodriguez parried it aside, cut down at the man, struck something — perhaps only the lance shaft — and that man and all of them were gone, swallowed in clouds of dust, shouted commands, confusion.

  Dust was in the colonel's mouth, but a breeze had come and bannered red haze aside to show clearly how Ticotin's troopers were dying, as if a great carnivorous plant — its petals treacherously open — now closed bright thorns upon them from either side.