by John Dalmas
They estimated that Kazi's army, on the other hand, still must number twelve to fourteen thousand horse barbarians and more than six thousand orcs.
Zoltan Kossuth and Jan Reszke had been in contact with members of the Inner Circle and reported on other armies. The Danes and Frisians together had already started out with seventeen hundred knights, while an army of Austrians and Bavarians believed to number as many as two thousand had left or was about to leave. The lords of Provence, on the other hand, were still fighting one another. Casimir remarked wryly that they would be doing that until doomsday, which might be nearer than they appreciated. The French king had refused to commit himself until his exasperated nobles finally killed him. As soon as they could agree on a new king, which might take some time and fighting, they could provide an army of as many as five thousand.
When the two psis had finished their report, Casimir stood up and looked around. He had lost a lot of weight and a lot of men. "Who wants to bet that Kazi's army won't cross the French border before the French do?" he asked. "The fact is that those western cretins, the whole obscene bunch, sat around sucking their thumbs while we've been fighting. So we're still on our own, what there are left of us, while they squawk and flap their arms, and I guess we all know what that means."
Nils stood and answered the Polish king quietly. "You knew from the start that Kazi's strength was much greater than ours. But you chose to fight because the only other thing to do was worse. It still is. Now we can hurt Kazi most by killing more orcs. Without a strong army of orcs he'll lose his power over the chiefs of the horse tribes. But we can't get anything done by sitting here in the woods waiting to be attacked or letting him ride past us into the west. Tomorrow we need to send out a number of small patrols to learn where the enemy is camped and what he is doing."
"And then what?" Casimir challenged. "What will we do then?"
"We'll know when they come back. But it will be… as much as you could wish."
"Do not underestimate what I can wish, Northman."
Nils laughed, not derisively nor tactically but in open pleasure and admiration, startling the knights. "Let me correct my words," he said. "We will do as much, at least, as you might hope for."
"And how do you divine this?"
"I don't divine and I cannot say how, but it will happen."
By the following evening the patrols were returning. Several had found newly abandoned enemy campsites while two reported a huge new camp. Bunches of cattle were being driven there, and the fumes of many fires suggested that meat was being smoked.
"It sounds to me," Casimir said gruffly, "as if Kazi has gathered his whole army together to pass us by and move west. Apparently we're too few to trouble with any longer." He looked at Nils. "What do we do now, Northman?"
A sentry hurried into the circle of firelight. "M'Lords," he broke in. "A patrol has brought a prisoner."
"When did we start taking prisoners?" Casimir growled.
"Not an enemy prisoner, Your Highness. It's a foreigner. There are a lot of them, sir-men, women and children-and this patrol ran into some of their scouts. The one they brought in speaks Anglic and offered to go with the patrol so that we wouldn't attack his people."
"Attack his people? We've got too many enemies already. What kind of people are they?"
"The one the patrol brought in says they're Finns, Your Highness, whatever Finns are, and that the whole race of them left their homeland in the north."
"Bring him here," Nils ordered. "I know a little about Finns. Maybe there'll be some help for us here."
The man was Kuusta Suomalainen; Nils sensed his idenitity and also his psi before he could see him. The man had been trained.
The Finns totalled nine thousand, including nearly two thousand fighting men, but none were knights or warriors in the neoviking sense. They were roughly equivalent to the neoviking freeholders-independent, vigorous and tough, but with modest weapons skills except for excellent marksmanship. With a few others, Kuusta had been scouting a day ahead of the main body of migrants and saw the end of the battle between the knights and the horse barbarians. They had returned to their people then, and their headmen had elected to continue into the war zone, taking their chances on getting through safely.
"There is no safety," Nils told him. "Not anywhere in Europe while Kazi is alive. He has perhaps twenty thousand men while we have about four thousand. Sit and listen awhile, old friend. Maybe before the council is over, you'll offer your help."
The others deferring to him, Nils questioned the patrol leaders carefully. The Kazi camp was near the west bank of a river, in a long stretch of prairie some four to six kilometers wide that extended from great marshes on the north southward along the river for tens of kilometers. On the east side of the river, and protected by it from prairie fires, stood a forest.
Local knights knew the place. The river, although sixty or eighty meters wide, could be easily crossed at this season, when water levels were low and currents weak. But the steep banks were troublesome.
When no one else had any more information, Nils outlined his plan. There were more unknowns in the situation than any leader would like, but there was no time to scout the site himself. "This is our chance," he said. "We don't know how long they'll stay there, and if we miss it, we're not likely to get another as good. Tomorrow we'll rest and tomorrow night we'll ride." He turned to Casimir. "And don't feel left out, good friend. You'll have other chances, and the firesetters will be yours. But this action takes stealth and foot soldiers, so it has to be ours."
The next day Kuusta Suomalainen arrived with four hundred volunteers, brown-faced and sinewy, their quivers stuffed with arrows. The rest of the Finns would wait for the survivors to return.
The waxing moon gave good light until nearly dawn. Crouching quietly in the forest some distance from the river bank, the northmen tested the air for a breeze. Too many things could go wrong. At least there did not seem to be an east wind, although down among the trees a light breeze might go undetected. But they could smell the enemy horses across the river to the west. And while the clear night had lowered the temperature almost enough for another freeze, the air was dry enough that, even in the open, there was likely to be little dew on the grass.
Nils had slipped ahead and lay in the brush at the top of the riverbank, two meters above the water. Psi sentries would not detect his single quiet mind. In the dim light of dawn he could see thousands of horses in a great paddock that lay between the far bank and the enemy tents.
Finally the sun rose, brightening the kilometers of tall tawny grass beyond the enemy camp. Orcs and barbarians began to stir among the horses. A breeze came up, a good west breeze, and Nils could smell the horses strongly.
Back in the forest, men lay with the patience of those who hunt for their living.
Foreign thoughts mumbled faintly at the fringes of his awareness, a psionic background to the morning. As the sun slowly climbed, the breeze became brisk, and then he saw several lines of smoke across the prairie. They grew as he watched, coalescing.
He wiggled backward through the brush, got up, and slipped back to his men. The order passed down the line in both directions, in soft Scandinavian and by gestures to the Finns. Quietly, then, they moved toward the river, the freeholders and Finns selecting suitable trees along the bank.
Through the screen of vegetation they could see and hear some of the growing excitement in the enemy camp. Trumpets blew and men hurried about. The smoke of the distant prairie fire had grown to a tall curtain. Northmen and Finns reached back over their shoulders to make sure their arrows were within ready reach and came easily from the quiver. Barbarians and orcs began to trot into the horse park carrying saddles and gear, while others caught and soothed nervous horses. The freeholders and Finns started up their chosen trees with helpful boosts, keeping behind the trunks. Within a few moments a unit of orcs had mounted and were moving down the bank into the water. When they were two-thirds across, a war horn blew.
For half an hour arrows hissed into the ranks of soldiers. At first there were both orcs and horse barbarians in roughly similar numbers. Some made it across piecemeal, to die fighting at the top of a bank that grew slippery with splashings of water and blood. After a bit the horse barbarians stopped coming and could be seen riding along the bank in both directions, trying to outflank the long wall of flame accelerating toward them. But the disciplined mail-clad orcs kept coming. Many took arrows and disappeared. Some drowned in the deeper water when their horses were killed under them. Many scrambled out on foot, slipping and swearing, to face the deadly blades above them, or spurred dripping, falling horses up the bank. One by one they established bridgeheads and fought to expand them. Freeholders and Finns began to jump from the trees, quivers empty, running back through the forest to the place where the horses were tied. A war horn signalled that the enemy was crossing in force below the south flank of the neoviking line, and the warriors too began to run for their horses, shouting and crowing.
They galloped away almost unmolested, then slowed, jogging their horses northward through the forest until they approached the marsh. Scouts sent down to the river reported large numbers of horse barbarians on the opposite side who had outflanked the fire, perhaps by swimming their horses down the river. Nils had his men abandon their horses, and they moved into the marsh, hidden in the wilderness of tall reeds and cattails and safe from any cavalry attack.
Not far downstream they found a ford, crossed the broad, sluggish current, and started westward. They moved concealed well within the marsh's edge. It wouldn't do to be detected. If they were, there'd be no chance of reaching the remounts they'd left the night before.
"What do we do if someone's found the horses?" asked a blood-spattered warrior.
Nils grinned at him. "You're spoiled by all the riding we've done in this country. Imagine you're back in Svealann and be ready to walk. We'll know in a few kilometers."
After a bit a scout came through the reeds to him. "Nils," he said in an undertone. "We can see the woods where we left the horses. It's crawling with enemy."
Nils turned to his runners. "Hold the men up. I'm going to see what possibility there is of drawing them into a fight. I don't think they're foolish enough to attack us in the marsh, but we don't want to miss any chances."
He moved to the marsh's edge and lay on his belly in the muck, looking through a screen of reeds across the narrow band of prairie separating him from the woods. There were hundreds of mounted orcs in the vicinity; it would be suicide to try to reach the horses. Then he recognized a banner and his eyes narrowed. They were the elite guard.
Nils called out strong and clear in thought. "KAZI! (He projected an image of himself, sword bloody, foot on a dead orc.) HOW MANY MEN DID YOU LOSE TODAY? THREE THOUSAND? MORE! AND I DOUBT WE LOST MORE THAN A HUNDRED."
There was a commotion among the orcs as several psi officers caught the taunt, and a huge figure in glistening black mail rode out from the trees on a magnificent horse. Although Nils lay concealed, the face looked exactly at him.
"So it's you, Northman." The thought entered Nils's mind, cold and quiet. "Have you come to die?"
"Not me. We're enjoying ourselves too much." Kazi's utter calm alerted him for some deadly surprise. "You like to watch butchery, Kazi. Why don't you send your orcs into the marsh?"
The great cold mind fixed on his without discernible thought or emotion, only deadly presence. Finally it spoke. "Will you fight me, Northman?"
"What assurance can you give that your men won't attack me if I come out?"
"I'll come most of the way to the marsh's edge," Kazi answered. "We'll be closer to your men than mine."
Again their minds locked for a moment, like eyes, and Nils read no sense of treachery there. Only grimness. He turned to his scouts. "The black giant is Kazi, the one called Baalzebub. We've spoken through the mind and agreed to fight, the two of us. If any of his people ride out toward us, blow a war horn and cover me so I'll have a chance to run for it."
Then he looked out through the fringe of reeds again while a line of archers formed behind him. Kazi was speaking to the officers with him in what seemed to be Arabic. Some of them rode in among the troops, but still Nils sensed no treachery.
After a moment Kazi dismounted and walked toward the marsh, slowly, his iron mind locked shut. When he had covered somewhat more than half the distance, he paused, and Nils came out of the reeds. They walked toward one another. To the northmen peering out, Kazi looked immense, emitting an aura of utter and indomitable force. When only a few meters separated them, they raised swords and shields, and then they met.
Kazi's first stroke would have severed a pine ten centimeters thick, but it was easily dodged, so that his sword nearly struck the ground and he barely caught Nils's counter on his shield. Shock flashed through Nils's mind: the man knew little of sword work. Kazi's second stroke followed too quickly after a feint, so that it lacked force and left him extended. Nils's shield deflected it easily and he struck Kazi's thigh, cleaving flesh and bone, knocked the black shield aside as Kazi fell, and sent his sword point through mail and abdomen, feeling it grate on the spine. A third quick stroke severed the head, and Nils turned and trotted for the marsh. But no orc rode out and no arrow followed him.
20.
The northmen and Finns slogged westward along the edge of the marsh until, in early afternoon, the prairie beside it ended in forest. They turned south among the trees, rested awhile and went on. When night fell, they were still walking, following game trails by instinct and moonlight. At length Nils sensed thoughts that indicated Polish conversation. Leaving his men, he approached until he could hear quiet voices and called out an Anglic. "Ahoy. We're the northmen, back from the ambush. Where is Casimir?"
A knight moved warily through the shadowed moonlight, peered closely at Nils and recognized him. "The army is scattered and Casimir is with us. I'll take you to him."
He found Casimir squatting dour and tired beside the dying embers of a fire. The king's eyes fixed him in the darkness. "Well, they're through us, and that's that. Thousands of them, about midday, riding hard. We jumped them, and it was hot and heavy for a while, but we were getting too scattered and cut up, so I had retreat blown and we fought our way back into the timber the best we could. They disengaged then and rode west down the road through the forest."
"Were they all horse barbarians, or were there orcs with them?"
The king sat silently for a few seconds as if looking at the question. "All horse barbarians. We didn't see an orc all day."
"You probably won't. I killed Kazi, and the orcs took heavy losses at the river. Without Kazi I expect they'll turn back. He was the very source of their being, and they'll be lost without him."
"Kazi dead! Then we've won after all!" Fatigue slipped from Casimir as he got to his feet. "Without him the horse barbarians will split into raiding tribes, feuding with each other, and scatter all over Europe. Given time, we can destroy them or drive them out, and rape and destruction we can recover from."
"Yes," said Nils, grinning in the moonlight. "And you can bet the western kings will get their share of fighting now."
During the next few days the allied forces re-gathered and recovered. Knights counted bodies while northmen and Finns scoured the countryside rounding up the horses of the dead, replenished their stock of arrows, and smoked racks of horsemeat over fires. A head count showed nineteen hundred allied cavalry able to ride but fewer than four hundred dead or badly wounded, leaving about a hundred unaccounted for. One of the dead was the gangling Jan Rezske. The bodies of nearly six hundred horse barbarians were tallied.
The northmen had lost seventy-eight and the Finns nine.
It was dusk. Zoltan Kossuth and Kuusta Suomalainen squatted on the ground with Nils, a psi tuner beside them on a fallen tree. Nils was giving Raadgiver a resume of the fighting, ending with Kazi's death and the westward movement of the horse barbarians, bypassing the allied f
orces. "There'll be some ugly fighting yet, and the western kings can't rely on the Slavs to do it for them any longer. You need to hold the western armies together now, especially the French."
"And what will your northmen do?"
"We're going back to northern Poland until our people have finished landing. They have only freeholders there to protect them. We'll see more fighting yet. Then we'll go to Kazi's land, or the others will. I'll follow them later, with a little luck."
Briefly Raadgiver's mind boggled. The ragtag northern tribes with only twelve hundred warriors surviving were deliberately going to Kazi's land. And without their guiding genius. So Kazi was dead; his empire still was powerful. The old psi felt a wash of dismay: they would do this in the face of sure destruction, yet seemingly with full confidence! It threatened his reality.
"My people are more able than you think," Nils responded calmly, "and you overrate my importance to them. As for myself, I know the woman I want to live with and have children by. She is one of the kinfolk. I'm going to Bavaria to find her."
Kuusta interrupted. "Are you going alone, Nils? The country'll be dangerous with horse barbarians. I'd like to stay with my people, but if you need a companion… "
"I don't expect to go alone," Nils replied with a grin. "When I mention it around, some of my people will offer to go with me."
The next morning the northmen started west with their new horse herd.
BUT MAINLY BY CUNNING
1.
The four neoviking warriors walked their horses easily along the dirt wagon road through the woods. Although their eyes moved alertly, they seemed neither tense nor worried.
The leaves had fallen from the beeches and rowans, but firs were master in these low Bavarian mountains, shading the road from the haze-thinned October sun of Old Wives' Summer. A shower had fallen the day before, and tracks of a single wagon showed plainly in the dirt, but around and sometimes on them were the marks of unshod hooves. It was the hoof prints that had sharpened the riders' eyes and stilled their voices. Independently they judged that nine men had followed the wagon, and none of the four felt any need to state the obvious.