by John F. Carr
"The chariots, too?"
"Yes. Let Kalvan's iron hats break their teeth upon them."
The two were young men on fresh horses; they vanished in a spray of mud clods. Sargos drew his sword and adjusted his throat guard, his one piece of armor that was metal all through instead of metal over leather. Althea waved as she rode off with her small army of archers. Headman Hyphos was just there for those hardheads who could not accept having to take orders from a woman-already, as Althea proved her prowess with the bow and as a commander, they grew fewer and fewer in number until now it was truly her command.
Sargos' sword hummed over his head as he whirled it. The day was too overcast for sunlight to shine on it, but those close by saw it and heard it humming. Their shouts told others what was happening, and the war cries rose until they seemed a solid wall across the front of the advancing foe.
Then Sargos made a quick prayer to the Raven Hag, lowered his sword and spurred his horse through the thicket. Behind him came the thunder of thousands of charging horses. A moment later he broke through the hedge and onto a rise, where he surprised a troop of Rathoni iron hats. One lifted a poleax and before he could strike, Sargos' sword buried itself in his armpit, where the chainmail armor was most vulnerable. The axeman lost his balance, bleeding profusely, and dropped both poleax and reins. Sargos slashed his sword at the horses' neck, opening a long scarlet wound; the horse bucked off its rider and knocked into two more horses. The iron hat was lost in the churning hooves.
Moments later the archer vanguard was by his side, sowing death and confusion among the Rathoni iron hats. At this close range, their arrows went through the Rathoni chainmail armor like cheesecloth. "Red!" he cried. One-Eyed Red, splattered with blood, but uninjured, rushed to his side.
"Warlord?"
"I've got a message for Althea. Tell her to ride right up to our foes before they fire. If they'll hold their formation and fire at twenty rods, they can cripple Kalvan's flank!"
One-Eyed Red nodded, pumped his arm, turned his mount and rode away.
IV
Only one of the green rockets flew high enough to be seen. That was enough. The cheers from both armies drowned out the trumpeters and captains like a hurricane drowning out a mouse's squeak.
King Nestros was pointing frantically downhill. "There! Behind that hedge! Sargos forms his battle line! We must reach it before he brings up reinforcements."
Nestros couldn't have been in more of a hurry if he'd read Napoleon's maxim, "Ask me for anything but time." Once again he was doing the tactically sound thing, out of a desire to cross swords with an enemy chief.
On his head be it, thought Kalvan.
No, wait a minute. If Nestros gets too far ahead of you, the Trygathi will say their Great King was braver than the Great King of Hos-Hostigos.
"Harmakros!" What would have been a shout under other circumstances was about as audible as a whisper.
The Captain-General reined in beside Kalvan. "Yes, Your Majesty?"
"You stay back here with the mobile command post. I have to charge with Nestros."
"That Dralm Bl-" began Harmakros, who thought better of using his trooper's vocabulary about an allied king, then mock-saluted. "As Your Majesty wishes."
Kalvan started to count off guards to ride with him, then saw Nestros and his heavy cavalry digging in their own spurs. This time Kalvan had to restrain his curses. Instead he signaled his own bannerbearer and dug in his spurs. It was a good thing Rylla wasn't here; she'd never let him forget this charge!
The bannerbearer took the reins in his teeth and drew his sword. Bearing the Great King's banner had been a much safer job than fighting in the front ranks-at least, until today!
V
Sargos jumped his horse over a ditch and turned it, meanwhile drawing his sword. To retreat was cowardly more often than not, but to stand with the men he had would not even slow the enemy. Like the Great River flooding, the enemy horse flowed on as if only the gods could stop them.
Crossbowmen were running up, but the range was still long. At this distance against armored men they would most likely waste their bolts. Against the enemy's horses, perhaps-"Hold your fire! Wait until they're closer and aim for their horses."
"Look, my chief!" Warchief Halgoth was pointing. He had just arrived with a hundred and fifty of his Raven Clan, some of them panting and foaming at the mouth, not six deep breaths ago. "Warlord, the kings offer themselves to the gods!"
It was true. The two royal banners were forging steadily toward the head of the enemy horsemen. Under those banners, Sargos could now see tight bands of splendidly armored cavalry. Their polished and silvered armor glistened under the lances of sunlight than poked out of the dark clouds above. Is this a warning or blessing from the god?
"They offer themselves to us!" Sargos snapped, since the gods refused to give their answer. He tried to quiet his own doubts. Have the kings had an omen, that the gods will give victory if they offer themselves as a sacrifice'?
"Then let us take what is offered," Warchief Vanar Halgoth cried.
Sargos patted his horse's neck and looked about him. The warriors he'd summoned were streaming toward him from all sides. Already the first of the chariots was in sight. Not all would be with him before he had to face the Kings, but the rest would know enough to fling themselves on the foe.
"Hoaaa! Tonight we offer two Kings' heads, to the gods of our land and the spirits of our dead!"
THIRTY FOUR
I
Captain-General Harmakros paced back and forth, puffing on his pipe, as he watched the two kings race down the hillside with their armies trailing behind. He was sweating so much, that he took off his burgonet helmet and wiped his forehead. This was the kind of stunt he expected from Rylla, not Great King Kalvan, for Dralm's sake! If anything happened to Kalvan, this army of the Great Kings would fall apart like a rock-gutted ocean galley.
Even worse, Harmakros truly enjoyed being in the thick of the action, as Kalvan called it, rather than watching the battle like a spectator. His hand, of its own volition, found his sword hilt and he had to forcibly restrain himself from drawing steel. Down the hill, he saw the Warlord's men leaving the Spirit Grove to support their center. There was a colorful wagon that had to be Ranjar Sargos war wagon, with the Warlords Raven banner-a black raven on a white field.
Then Harmakros saw a sight that almost took his breath away; a large force of light archers coming out of a copse of trees. The archers were angling toward the Army of the Trygath's right flank, where the Rathoni Army was thickest. Harmakros had fought with the Sastragathi archers and knew first hand how much damage their compound bone and sinew bows could wreak-even on good plate armor.
Harmakros turned to one of his colonels and ordered, "Tell the Mounted Rifles to mount up and protect the right flank. There's about fifteen to twenty thousand light archers about to hit Nestros' Army. If they have a commander who's worth his pay, they'll turn the Rathon flank and Dralm knows what damage they'll do!"
The Colonel looked at his Captain-General as if he'd taken a sharp rap to the head without his helmet on. "Archers!"
One of the problem with the new crop of officers, since Kalvan had arrived in Hostigos, was they tended to think only in terms of rifles, guns and rate of fire. They had never watched a Sastragathi mounted archer shoot a pigeon-the kind Kalvan called Carrier Pigeons-out of a tall tree, or fire three arrows in the space of time it took to say the words.
"Yes, tell Colonel Democriphon that an army of archers are about to join the right flank. He'll know what to do." Democriphon was a good soldier, even if he was a bit of a dandy. Kalvan was thinking about raising his rank to general, with the general rank inflation that occurred when an army doubled its size every winter, it was well deserved.
Already Colonel Democriphon and the Mounted Rifles were advancing downhill. The archers were harrying the Rathoni flank and Harmakros could see the formation begin to fray. Meanwhile, Sargos substantial reserves had come
out of the woods, joining the large host of tribesmen and nomads at the bottom of the hill, waiting for the allied army. He saw the colorful great six and eight-man chariots, he'd only heard about before in tales around the campfire, strengthening the nomad center.
The flying battery, was limping-rather than flying-its way down the hillside. One of the larger guns, probably an eight-pounder, had hit a pothole and was tipped over on its side. Engineers and artillerymen scrambled over the disabled cannon like a horse-kicked termite's nest. While the rest of the battery was continuing down hill, Sargos great host was forming up to meet Kalvan and Nestros head on!
II
The advance of the two kings was turning into a race. Nestros reached the horde first. Kalvan swerved without slowing, nearly colliding with his bannerbearer, holding Kalvan's personal flag-a maroon keystone on a green field. The trooper's sword pricked Kalvan's horse, which protested by nearly bucking his rider into a ditch.
By the time Kalvan had sorted himself out, Nestros was crossing swords with everyone in reach. Nestros had won the race but not by enough to dishonor his ally.
In fact, his ally was going to have a busy time in about two minutes, keeping this from being Nestros' first and last battle as Great-King-Elect. On both right and left, warriors were streaming toward the battle of kings.
"Stands the standard of Great King Kalvan!" the bannerbearer shouted. He thrust the butt-end of the staff into the muddy ground and drew a pistol. The bannerbearer pistoled the first warrior to come within lance-range, but the nomad stayed in the saddle. Kalvan shot him with his horse pistol, then drew his own sword and cut a second opponent across the face, a third in the arm.
Few of the nomads here had real armor and Kalvan's old-style heavy horse cut through the first ranks of light cavalrymen like a sword through a wedge of cheese. Kalvan took a few sword blows, but gave five times what he received. His heavy armor easily absorbing the blows, although his muscles ached and a sword point had left a cut on his cheek. The nearest he came to being hurt was when his horse was shot in the chest, but the heavily gilded horse armor that Nestros had given Kalvan as a gift, did its job and his horse was just shaken up rather than mortally wounded.
After that, Kalvan lost count of his opponents and all track of what he was doing to them. Somewhere in the next five minutes he managed one coherent thought that was not concerned with his own survival. If I was fighting armored opponents, I'd be dead by now.
Then, about five minutes after that, it struck him that armor might not make all that much difference. These nomads were damned hard to kill, like the Moro juramentados he had heard an Old Army veteran describe. Come on, Alkides! Are you the Flying Battery or the Flighty Battery? Kalvan moved his head down, just in time to avoid decapitation by a double-headed ax wielded by a warrior wearing a buffalo-head hat with horns and all.
Suddenly the mass of tribesmen and light cavalry moved aside as scores of huge chariots drove forward straight towards Kalvan's center, which was already stalled by the attacking clansmen and the thousands of dead littering the battlefield. Kalvan pulled out his last loaded pistol and fired a shot at the lead chariot, and by some miracle-since it was better than a hundred feet away-the ball hit the driver full on in the abdomen. The driver was pitched out of the chariot, while the horses panicked, tossing the chariot into a band of heavy lancers, knocking riders and horses every which way.
Then the chariots slammed into the charging Hostigi cavalry and it was a real donnybrook! Kalvan saw Nestros, surrounded by his heavily armored bodyguard, attacking one of the chariots. Kalvan's own Lifeguard was trying to push him back, while simultaneously moving into the thick of the nomad lines.
A moment later, Alkides' octet of four-pounders signaled their arrival with a blast of case shot that tore into the ranks of friend and foe with awful impartiality. A chunk of lead snapped the banner staff; the banner-bearer dove to keep it from hitting the ground and sprawled with his nose digging up the mud. He held the banner clear of the ground, though.
Kalvan leaned down to pick up the banner, and then found his horse sagging to one side. As the animal toppled, Kalvan leaped clear, the weight of his armor driving him to his knees. The horse fell on his side, crushing its armor, blew blood from his nostrils and died.
Kalvan waved his sword at the enemy and cursed Alkides' gunners, both emotionally satisfying if not very useful. At least the litter of dead men and horses around him included more enemies than friends. If this were a hurricane, he thought, it would definitely be the eye.
Let's hope to Galzar we didn't wing Nestros!
More cavalry were riding up, a second troop of Nestros' Bodyguard. Their captain reined in, shouting a request for orders.
"Look to your King!" Kalvan shouted back. "He's beyond that hedge. If you get no orders from him, advance cautiously five hundred rods."
"As Your Majesty commands," the captain called. "Will you be here?"
"Here or in Hadron's Realm!" was Kalvan's parting shot. The regiment cheered as their colonel maneuvered his horse through the hedge. More shouts of 'Down Sargos!' and they disappeared into the woods.
Kalvan mentally crossed his fingers, hoping he had not sent away men he would need for his own protection. But no live enemies were within lance range that he could see, and Alkides' guns were now firing steadily. That meant Harmakros and the reserves had to be closer than any organized enemies.
He was safe enough, from his enemies. He wished he could say the same about Rylla's tongue.
When my lovely wife hears that I raced a Trygathi king into the enemy lines, the first thing she'll do is laugh herself silly. The second is remind me never to complain about her leading a charge from in front again as long as I live!
III
For the first time in her life, Althea knew what it was like to be a man-as bullets whizzed by like metal bees and the screams of wounded horses rent the air. It made her both sick and exhilarated. Her archers were within spitting distance of the Rathoni cavalry and the armor-piercing arrows were taking a terrible toll on the surprised and now disorganized Trygathi. The air was so filled with arrows that it was as if a veil had been put between her and the sun. If she could put enough fear into these dirtmen, they would break: it had always been this way. Then her warriors could turn upon the rear of the Hostigi soldiers and grind Kalvan's warriors between the teeth of her archers and her man's great army.
Althea saw one captain try to organize a counter-attack and put an arrow through the eyehole of his helm, knocking him backwards off his horse. The dirtmen were beginning to stall and the constant deluge of arrows was thinning the enemy ranks. She saw one light cavalryman with a leather jerkin, who had so many arrows sticking out of him he looked like a porcupine as he fell out of his horse. Arrows pierced many of the armored men and some of them had five or six wounds, leaking blood. She smiled fiercely as Headman Hyphos faced down a charging iron hat and grabbed his lance with his hand, upending the horseman.
Then she heard a sound like that of thunder, but different from that of the firesticks. Hundreds of her archers were knocked down or pitched out of their saddles. She pushed her way though the milling men, hitting them with her bow. "Keep shooting!"
There was another thunder clap and hundreds more dropped. Now the iron hats were reforming. Althea had to see what was happening to her army. Something sharp parted her hair and for a moment she was blind as blood filled her eyes. Ignoring the pain, she used her sleeve to wipe her eyes. Her archers were completely disorganized now. Many had turned their mounts and were fleeing back to safety. Others milled around like sheep caught in the open and surrounded by a wolf pack.
Althea looked up the hill and saw several hundred dismounted cavalrymen with the firesticks that Sargos called arquebuses. But these weren't the usual firesticks that had to be right next to a target to hit it. She doubted that her strongest archers could match the range of these 'new' terrible firesticks.
As another thunderclap sounded and cleared
saddles by the score, Althea gave the order to sound retreat! It was time to disengage from the enemy and find Sargos to tell him about these new firesticks before they surprised him, too.
IV
Warlord Sargos had just sliced the arm off a Hostigi soldier with his bat-tleaxe, when he saw Althea-her face bloody-riding toward him. His heart almost stopped beating until he realized that it was dried blood, not fresh. "What news do you bring?"
Althea looked down to avoid his eyes.
"What happened to your archers?" He knew in his heart the news was bad because she would have never left them otherwise.
She looked up. "Kalvan's men hit us with far firesticks. They shot my army apart, far beyond even our arrows range. I had the horns blown rather than see our archers die like puppies in a bag tossed into the river."
Sargos said, "You have done all anyone could. We are losing ground here, too. Kalvan's big fire tubes are butchering our warriors. Right before Sargos' eyes, one of the chariots took a direct hit from a cannon ball, snowing the clansmen with splinters.
He saw a big chunk heading their way and shoved Althea out of her saddle. Then something hard hit Sargos' head and before he could react the world turned pitch black.
V
Captain-General Harmakros hastily pulled on his high-combed helmet. The battle of the two kings had changed dramatically in the last half candle. The Mounted Rifles had taken a terrible toll on the archer cavalry and after half a dozen volleys the archers had left the field. That allowed their heavily battered Rathoni allies to reform and re-join the main battle downhill, which had already changed momentum following the arrival of Alkides Flying Batteries. Using case shot, the guns had scythed through the horde, killing thousands and putting even more to flight. He had watched in amazement as entire troops disappeared and war chariots were blown into kindling.