Kingdom River

by Mitchell Smith

  "I can't see with the thing." She looked back, called down-slope, "Manuel!... To your left!"

  Sam thought he saw an officer there look up.

  "Shit!" Charmian yanked her arm free and was off, limping awkwardly down the hillside as twenty or thirty Kipchaks hacked their way up into the Infantry's line — then broke it.

  "Charmian...!" She was gone and at them. Sam drew and ran down after her… heard his bowmen yelling, "No!" He saw more Lights coming along the slope to reinforce as he galloped down the hill, snow flying.

  Charmian had gone for the nearest, a big Kipchak in black furs. Sam saw the man's face, a mask of rage and effort as he struck at her.

  Then it was not fighting, but killing.

  Charmian caught his curved blade coming across — picked it out of the air with her rapier's tip, guided it sliding to the right, and thrust the long, slim blade of her left-hand dagger into his belly.

  Two more stomped up through the snow at her, and Sam yelled, "On the left!" ducked low and swung a two-handed cut across the first man's leg. He felt the sword's grip kick as the blade hacked through boot-top and bone — then yanked the steel free to spin the other way and thrust, one-handed, into the second man's armpit as he raised his yataghan to strike.

  The crippled one slashed at Sam from the snow and caught him lightly at the thigh — a touch below his hauberk — with the so-familiar icy stroke of steel, then burning.

  Sam drove his point into that man's mouth — felt his blade break teeth, then slide through delicate stuff in a spurt of blood to split the spine.

  Joy came to him as he freed his blade, joy at the wonderful simplicity of action, and he and Charmian, on guard for any others, shared an instant's glance of pleasure.

  Then his mounted bowmen, and a storm of Light Infantry from above, struck the two of them and the advancing Kipchaks together, knocking Charmian down and sending Sam sprawling. Furious officers and men stood over them — "Stupid… stupid fuckers!" — picked them up, and listening to no orders, showing no respect for rank, hauled them up the hill.

  Loosed near the ridge, his sword wiped and sheathed, Sam looked back and saw the Kipchaks once more in shallow retreat... then gathering to charge up the slope again. The base of the hill was thick with their formations — by squadrons, as if they were mounted. The dead and dying lay scattered across the snowy slope, streaks and pools of bright red gleaming under the rising sun. The hillside breeze brought the coppery smell of spilled blood, the stink of the dyings' shit.... There were great concentrations of tribesmen, and driving activity along the base of the hills. But no massive movement coming on through the forest beyond. No trembling of tangled foliage, no glimpses of columns followed by more columns marching toward them through the snow.

  "Busy," Charmian said, catching her breath beside him. She staggered a step. "Busy..."

  "Now, you stay the fuck out of that line!"

  "Yes, sir."

  Sam glanced down, saw where his leather trousers were slit a few inches at his right thigh, and felt a little blood sliding warm to his knee.

  "Sir," a bowman said, "you're hurt."

  Sam waved him to silence as flights of arrows whistled up the slopes, and the Kipchaks shouted and came again, charging higher… higher on the hillsides, their battle lines extending half a Warm-time mile.

  "Charmian, can you hold them?" He had to lean close, almost shout in her ear; the noise was terrific.

  "Yes, I can hold them — unless we're wrong, and they're strongly reinforced."

  "They won't be. I've made my mistake for the day."

  "I can hold them. And if they bleed a little more, and I commit every man and woman — and the wounded still walking — I can drive them!"

  "Not yet." Sam ducked — thought an arrow had come near him. "Not yet. Wait for a galloper with the word. We need him to come deep into the center, uncover both his flanks while he thinks we're breaking."

  "Understood." Charmian turned to yell across the slope. "Catherine! What the fuck are you waiting for? Crossbows front, for Christ's sake!" The last, a phrase once forbidden. "Stupid bitch," Charmian muttered, standing bent a little to the right to favor her wounded side, " — looking around with her thumb up her ass! Made her a fucking captain and I can damn well unmake her. I could have used Margaret here…."

  She turned back. "Sam — I know what you want. Now please go away; I don't have time for you." She limped off over the snow, calling, "Where is Second Battalion? We're replacing in echelon here. We're supposed to be replacing in echelon along the fucking line! Where are they?"

  "Can I help you, sir?" The bowman had brought Difficult to mount.

  "No." Though Sam wished he had the help, struggling aboard the beast. His leg held the stinging tingle of injury... and the fucking horse kept sidling away. "Will you hold this animal still?" A Kipchak arrow moaned past. They were fighting higher on the slope, now. Sam could hear the sword blows, like camp-axes chopping soft wood. But screams followed these.

  * * *

  He heard trumpets as he rode fast, east along the ridges, four bowmen riding behind him. He saw, in morning sunlight, the armored columns of Heavy Cavalry, the spaced squadrons of Lights, already slowly shifting along the heights, beginning to shake out into line of march, their banners leading east.

  "Thank you, Howell, for getting them moving."

  "Sir?" A bowman spurred up alongside.

  "Nothing...." As if a deck of pasteboard playing cards — but these for fortune-telling — cascaded in his mind, Sam saw on each, as it flashed by, a different problem, or an opportunity already lost to him. Great or small, it made no difference as they dealt.... Lieutenant Gerald Kyle carried vodka with him, and lied about it — what now, to keep him from misjudging and killing his company? Man should have been replaced.... Thousands of crossbow bolts needed to be greased for this wet winter weather. Had that been done? Company officers' responsibility. Had it been done?... Fodder clean? No mold or mildew to sicken the horses. Might have spoken to Ned, might have checked to be sure.... When the cavalry swung in to flank the Kipchaks to the east, had it been made clear they were to hook in — hook in after, to hold the tribesmen while the infantry marched back from their false retreat to finish them? Fucking cavalry always galloping off into nowhere, and full of excuses afterward. Had that hooking-in been made clear?

  Difficult — not so bad a horse. Stupid, stubborn, but strong for this kind of uneven going. Steep going…. And for Weather's sake, promote Jack Parilla! Poor man a captain for years — always a hard fighter, always took care of his men. No fool, and ready for more rank. Overlooked, a good man overlooked, and no complaint about it, either…. Sonora — what was it about those people? Where the fuck did they think those taxes went? Having to build that son-of-a-bitch Stewart a bridge! ... Should have at least shown Rachel how much he liked her, that he thought her an interesting woman. And good-looking, really. Should have told her that….

  Some of the cavalry saw Sam riding by, shouted and raised their lances in salute. As he passed a second column of Heavies, three horsemen broke through their formation and came galloping after him. One carried the army's banner on a stirrup-staff — the great black scorpion on a field of gold — cloth rippling in the wind of his riding so the creature seemed to crawl and threaten. All three were coming fast through a light snowfall.

  "Sir! Sir!" One of them was a captain Sam knew. Collins — Roberto Collins. "Sir," — Collins rode up beside him — "General Voss's compliments." The captain a little breathless. "He says you are to keep the fucking banner with you, sir! So people can find you, sir! And you are to have me and Lieutenant Miranda with you. Also additional escort, sir!"

  From the captain's mouth, to fact. As they rode up a rough draw to the Middle Ridge, the horses slowing with the climb, a half-dozen more mounted bowmen — Sam saw Sergeant McGee leading them — came riding to join. So, it was with a thundering tail of twelve men and one woman, the large Lieutenant Miranda, that Sam kicked Dif
ficult through a last deep drift to lunge out along the iron ranks of Butler's Heavy Infantry.

  As they heard Sam's party coming, every second man of the nearest company's rear file had reverse-stepped together, lowering fourteen-foot pikes.

  "Platoon, put... up!" The pikes rose all together. The men stepped back into ranks.

  "Phil — or Horatio!" Sam called to their officer.

  "General's down-slope, sir! One rise over!"

  Sam was reining Difficult in when the charger suddenly shied away, sidestepping through frozen crust. Sam steadied him, looked for the cause, and saw something high in the filtered sunlight... a shadow coming down with the snow. Someone behind him called out.

  Sam blinked snowflakes away, and the Boston girl sailed down and down to him out of sunlight and snow flurry, her open dark-blue coat spread like wings.

  "Over there!" She pointed north with her drawn scimitar, struck the snow, stumbled, and went to a knee. "Short walkings...." She got to her feet. "They make me weary."

  Sam saw blood on her blade.

  "The savages shot arrows at me!" Her pale, perfect face twisted in fury, and she stomped a little circle in the snow. Sam was reminded, for a moment, of the Queen's raging at Island.... Patience flourished her sword; little crimson drops flew from its curved edge. "I took one's hand — then backstroked to his throat!"

  "Be quiet," Sam said. "Now, take a breath... and tell me what you saw."

  "Oh, those fools are coming."

  "Here — here, to our center?"

  "Yes." Patience nodded. "I saw them in the forest. All of them — well, almost all. I think there are a few over there," — the scimitar swung west. "And even fewer over there," — her blade flashed toward the river.

  "Sir...." Horacio Duran, shoving the escorts' mounts aside.

  "Colonel."

  Duran, blocky as a tree stump in dull steel-strap armor, came to Sam's stirrup with his helmet under his arm. "General's received your orders, sir. Resist as we retire — not making it too easy for them."

  "Right, Colonel, and have your rear ranks guide."

  "We'll keep in formation, sir." Duran smiled, though he had a face unfitted for it. " — But with occasional cries of panic and despair."

  Sam leaned down to thump Duran's armored shoulder with his fist. "Perfect. They'll be coming soon."

  "Coming now, sir. We've seen birds and deer clearing out of those woods."

  "Good," Sam said. "I'll want some daylight left, to finish them." At which vainglory, he was slightly saddened to see Lieutenant-Colonel Duran smile again… hear pleased murmurs from his escort.

  Birds were flying almost over them — a doom of crows, cawing. Sam supposed it would be crows, in these hills — not ravens — who would come to take the eyes of the dead.

  He saluted Duran — it had become, after all, the army's habit — was briskly saluted in return, and reined Difficult around. It was time for the Captain-General to get out of his soldiers' way.

  "Wait! Take me up!" Patience sheathed her scimitar and came floundering through the snow. "I'm tired of walking." Meaning, apparently, traveling in the air.

  Sam reined in, seeing himself parading before his troops with this odd creature riding pillion behind him. Then Patience, with a boost from Duran, was on the charger's rump and settled. Seemed almost no shift of weight at all... and as he kicked Difficult through falling snow along the ridge, no odor either. No lady's perfume, no woman's warm scent. He might have had a doll behind him, or a child's snow-person.

  Patience gripped his waist, leaned her head against his cloaked and chain-mailed back. "I have a headache," she said, as they went bounding. Difficult's only virtue, strength.

  As they rode, the banner-bearer and escort spurring after, a sound like distant storm-wind, like a change in Lady Weather's wishes, seemed to come rising the long wooded slopes behind them. Barely heard… then slowly, slowly heard more clearly... until, in a rolling thunderclap — with flights of winter birds across the sky — the storm became the voice of an attacking army, its war horns a chorus, as if wild bulls bellowed from the woods.

  "Oh-oh." A child's exclamation in almost a child's soprano, and Sam felt Patience turning back to look — though nothing would be seen but the backs of serried ranks of Phil Butler's two thousand pikemen and crossbowmen, draped like a segmented steel-link chain across the ridges and hollows…. Sam closed his eyes as he rode, seeing them standing ready to receive, as ten thousand Kipchaks came boiling out of the forest, surging up the slopes in tides of steel and arrows.

  Difficult tripped on a branch in the snow, and Sam hauled him up on the reins. Along the ridge-line, the snow grew thinner, and he urged the charger to a gallop, heard his escort coming up behind. Troops were cheering as he passed — squadrons of Light Cavalry riding east. He saw a pennon through falling snow. Second Regiment, Elman's people. Good officer, but mad for fighting, and perhaps not the best second-in-command for Ned. Two madmen....

  There was a sound like a great steel door slamming. The falling snow seemed to swirl with the impact of it. The center was being hit with everything that Toghrul had. Thank God — that oldest thanks of all — thank God for Chairman's sharp ears and battle sense, her call to him to listen. It had given him just time enough. May have given him just time enough....

  The smash and roar of engagement sounding behind him, Sam rode along Main Ridge to be certain all the cavalry had shifted east. So difficult, to leave commanders alone in a battle, to depend on them to do what had to be done. It was hard to see how the Khan managed without a Howell Voss, a Ned Flores. Without a Phil Butler, a Charmian, and all their officers. Toghrul must be an extraordinary man to depend, really, only on himself. Must be lonely....

  Sam reined up, reached behind him to give Patience an arm to dismount. "Now, go down that south slope. Stay with Portia-doctor and her people."

  "I will," Patience said, "but only to rest to go back again. They shot arrows at me!" And she trudged off into the snow.

  "Comin' up!" One of the mounted bowmen.

  An officer galloping, chasing the banner... then drew up in a spray of snow, and saluted. A lieutenant, very young — what was his name? Carlton… Carter? Boy was crying, or snow was melting down his face.

  "Sir — Colonel Duran regrets to report..." Tears, they were tears. "General Butler has been killed, sir. At the very first engagement. An arrow struck him."

  Carter. Boy's name was Carter. "... Thank the colonel for his report, Lieutenant. He assumes command, of course — and is to retreat his regiments as previously ordered."

  "Sir."

  " — The dog," Sam said. "His little dog."

  "We have the dog safe, sir." A weeping lieutenant — nothing new in war.

  Sam saluted, and the boy turned his horse and was gone north, back to the center of the line, where companies, battalions, regiments of Heavy Infantry stood killing with long needle-pointed pikes, killing with hissing crossbow volleys — as ten thousand grim shepherds with slanting eyes came swarming up the hillsides.

  Phil Butler would be out of all that, lying safe behind the ranks in a warm woolen army blanket, his imperial spectacles folded and tucked into his parka pocket.... Horacio Duran would now be wearing the yoke of responsibility. He'd be here and there and everywhere, shouting orders, watching for the time to begin to back away. Then more orders, and galloping back and forth to keep the formations steady as the Kipchaks yelped their battle cries and came on, certain they were winning.

  Sam spurred Difficult south, imagining Phil had only been wounded, and Carter had said, 'Injured, sir. Seems not too serious.' If Carter had only said that, then Phil would be alive, fondly cursing his soldiers as they hustled him to the rear. Odd that a single arrow could carry a friend so suddenly away, that there was no time for goodbye…. Unfair. Unfair.

  Sam saw Heavy Cavalry where there should have been none. Saw two troops… three, through the light snowfall. Three troops standing in a defile. Standing! He spurred tha
t way, down a steep dip, then rode up the column with his people behind him — took an officer by the cloak and hauled him half out of his saddle. "What are you people doing?"

  Startled face behind a helmet's basket visor. "Cover reserve, sir! In case of retreat."

  Sam shook him hard. "There is no fucking reserve held today, you jackass! No retreat! We lose, they'll follow and kill us all!"

  "Orders, sir!" Fool almost shouting, as if Sam were deaf. " — Orders."

  "Whose orders?" Shake, shake. The man's cloak tore a little.

  Lieutenant Miranda, very large, had heeled her horse alongside. Her saber was drawn.

  "Major d'Angelo's orders."

  Major d'Angelo... decent officer. "The major was mistaken. Orders are no reserves. Everyone to the line!"

  Nods from Torn-cloak.

  "Now, you get your ass and these troopers east at a fucking gallop! You understand me? Join General Voss's people to attack on that flank."

  More nods. Sam shoved the man upright in his saddle. " — Move!"

  Sam stayed to watch them go — go galloping, as Lieutenant Miranda sheathed her saber, backed her big horse…. Three troops of Heavy Cavalry almost lost to the attack. Have to speak to d'Angelo. A little less attention to the usual ways of doing things; a little more attention to fucking immediate orders!

  "Who was that officer?" A question asked of the snowy air.

  "Captain Hooper, sir," said Captain Collins, behind him. " — Good man." Which recommendation, in the face of his commander's anger, also recommended Roberto Collins.

  Sam felt tired as if he'd stayed with the Lights to the west, been fighting all this time.... He turned Difficult's head, kicked him back up onto the ridge, and looked for a place to stand on the hilltop. Now, unless disaster came, he would be only a watcher, avoiding the dangerous confusions of casual interference. Separate from his soldiers as if he were sleeping far south in Better-Weather, or eating roast pork at the high tables in Island's hall.