by John F. Carr
Phidestros had no time or energy to do more than ask himself the question before a Hostigi captain with long blonde hair and no helmet was trying to skewer him with the longest and most pointed blade Phidestros had ever seen. His breastplate turned away several thrusts, then he found himself out of reach of the blond captain. He looked around and suddenly saw himself adrift in a sea of red sashes and red and blue plumes of Hostigos. He shot a Hostigi trooper aiming a musketoon at him and saw a red blossom appear where the man's face had been. Turning his head over his shoulder, he was very relieved to see a score of green and black plumes and orange sashes of Iron Band troopers fighting their way to his side.
Suddenly Snowdrift screamed loud enough that it pieced even Phidestros numb ears, then he reared, coming down hard on all four hooves. Snowdrift tried to rear again, then his hind legs collapsed and tumbled backward. Phidestros leaped from the saddle, landing hard enough to make his bad knee complain loudly.
Blood was pouring out of Snowdrift's mouth and from his flanks; he was dying but not fast enough for Phidestros just to leave him. He pressed his pocket pistol to the gelding's head, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.
That gesture almost cost him his life. Phidestros opened his eyes to see Snowdrift relaxing in death, but neither un-wounded horses nor friendly riders close enough to help him remount. Geblon was the closest, about forty paces away, trying desperately to control a wounded horse without dropping the Iron Band's banner.
While he was trying to attract Geblon's attention, a bullet sang past his helmet. He dropped to hands and knees behind Snowdrift and shot a Hostigi cuirassier off his horse with his last loaded horsepistol. He looked back to see an Iron Band lancer riding up, leading a blood-smeared but seemingly fit remount. Too small to carry him far, but better than standing in the midst of this carnage.
As Phidestros rode back to the Styphoni lines, he saw large groups of mercenaries—some entire companies!—raising helmets on sword points or holding out reversed pistols. His stomach sank. What will Grand Master Soton say? The only consolation was that none of them wore the green and black plumes of the Iron Band.
II
Brother Mytron clenched his hands tighter together each time he heard another scream from the Royal Bedchamber, now the royal birthing room. He knew Rylla well enough to know that only terrible pain could wrench such cries from her lips. It was just as well that King Kalvan had other matters of great importance to keep him occupied. It was obvious that all was not well in the birthing room.
If only he could see for himself! However, Amasphalya, the chief midwife, had refused him entrance, nor would she answer his questions the few times she'd come out into the antechamber. The next time he saw the old witch he'd have his answers if he had to shake her by the neck!
A moment later the door flew open and Amasphalya lumbered out, followed by one of her ladies. She would have made three of even Mytron's fairly considerable figure; suddenly, the thought of shaking her by the neck seemed as ridiculous as him leading the Royal Bodyguard!
She used her hip to shove him aside, then stopped and looked him up and down like a butcher deciding whether or not to condemn a side of beef as fit only for dogs.
"What is it?" he demanded, pleased to hear how steady his voice sounded despite the quaking in his knees.
"I need more help. Come. You'll have to do."
Mytron put a hand on her broad shoulder to stop her, but she brushed it off like a bothersome fly. She half pushed him into the birthing chamber, where Rylla lay sprawled on the royal bed. She was alive, praise Dralm! But Mytron could not look at her pale, pain-lined face long enough to tell more than that.
Amasphalya and the other midwife each grasped one of Rylla's arms, while the one who'd remained in the chamber stood back.
"Take her feet, priest!" Amasphalya snapped.
"Why?"
"No time for questions, priest! Do it—NOW!"
Mytron found himself obeying, even thought he still questioned why. Rylla screamed, a terrible cry, as he gripped her feet. He felt his head grow light. "What do I do now?"
"Shake!" Amasphalya cried.
Without thinking, Mytron began to jerk on Rylla's feet in time with the two midwives holding her arms. Rylla's screams rose higher until he thought his ears would break. He fought an urge to faint.
I must stop them. They're killing her! What will I tell Kalvan—?
"Turn her! Turn her!" Amasphalya was shouting, apparently not to him. Then: "Don't stop now, priest! We've almost done it!"
Done what? Mytron asked himself, but like a puppet he kept his arms moving, shaking Rylla who was now lying on her side, right or left he didn't know.
"There, the Allmother be thanked!" Amasphalya said. She sounded almost as if she were praying.
"Is the baby coming?" Brother Mytron had to lick his lips three times before he could get the words out.
"Not yet, but now it's to where it can," the chief midwife answered. The next moment her face set as if she regretted having said even so much to a man about her profession, and she growled, "Be off with you now, priest! We've enough to do without picking you up off the floor, too."
Mytron started to snap off a reply, then took a step and realized his knees had turned to syrup. He had to hold onto the bedpost for a moment before he could weave his way to the door.
Looking back, the smirk on Amasphalya's face gave away all her thoughts about the male half of humanity. He looked away and at Rylla, her face no longer twisted in agony. The Great Queen was breathing more strongly; when the contractions came she groaned rather than screamed. Whatever had been done, it appeared to be a good thing. For the moment, at least, he need not fear the burden of having to tell Kalvan that his wife and child were dead.
One thing that he would always wonder for the rest of his life: why he'd been fool enough to want to know what went on in the birthing chamber!
III
"Where are my reinforcements?" General Alkides asked, his face and breeches black with soot. "What did Chartiphon say?"
"The Great King ordered him to hold back a reserve in case the Knights defeat or outflank Ptosphes," Verkan said. "Which is exactly what Chartiphon intends to do, Great Battery or no Great Battery."
Alkides—already at wits' end over the loss of his precious guns at the redoubt—appeared to be nearly beside himself at the thought that the Styphoni might soon be using his precious guns, Verkan noted. To make matters worse, the Hostigi and the Holy Host were so thoroughly entangled that the gunners of the Great Battery had been holding their fire for most of the battle.
Verkan understood why Chartiphon was holding back the last reserve, the Ktethroni pikemen. It was clearly the safest course of action. Verkan also knew that the safest course of action in a battle was not always the best strategy.
Harmakros' Mobile Force dragoons had brought the advance of the Royal Square to a halt, but now it was advancing again. It struck Verkan that the Ktemnoi infantry were living up to their reputation. For that matter, so were the Hostigi regulars, and in any case the time for the dispassionate evaluations of comparative military prowess was about over. The Mounted Rifles were the last line of defense for the Great Battery; they were either going to stop the Holy Host or die trying.
Verkan saw Harmakros lead another company of dragoon musketeers to a small barricade that had now become the next-to-last line of defense.
"Colonel," one of his subordinate captains, with only one eye, said, "We should be going down to join those dragoons."
"We haven't any orders, Captain Itharos."
"Sir, we haven't any orders not to, either."
Verkan frowned. The captain had been at Tenabra, where he'd lost his eye, and obviously wanted to avenge forty or so lost comrades badly enough to argue with his Colonel. By regular Aryan-Transpacific standards he wasn't committing a serious offense, particularly against an outlander, but for the Mounted Rifles, right here and now standards—
Another gun bla
st saved Verkan the trouble of replying. He looked down the slope. The Royal Square was still advancing, slowing in the face of fire from the barricade. Both the front ranks of billmen and the rear ranks of shot looked much neater from a distance than they doubtless did close up. The ground between the Ktemnoi and Harmakros' position was littered with discarded weapons, dead horses, and dead and not-so-dead men of both sides...
Verkan knew from First Level studies and his own battlefield experiences that many of the wounded had minor or survivable wounds, but by evening most would be dead of shock or just plain self-hypnosis—it was easier to die than to face the reality of losing, or even worse facing another battle!
On the other hand, some soldiers just didn't know when it was time to die, like the four battered and battle-stained Hostigi soldiers running just ahead of the enemy up the rocky slope toward their position. The big man in front was a giant in armor that looked as if it had been chewed on by wolves with metal teeth! He was holding upright, in one hand, a two-handed curvy bladed sword taller than Verkan. Right behind were two men with bloodstained halberds and a badly wounded banner-bearer, only just on his feet.
"Acting Petty-Captain Xykos reporting, Colonel," the giant said between breaths.
"Who ordered you here, Petty-Captain?"
"No one, sir. We're all that's left of the Hostigos regiment, the Veterans of the Long March—or all we know about. We fought our way out of a mess of the enemy, sir. I thought the Great Battery was where we might be needed."
Verkan shook his head in amazement. Most NCOs would have taken hours to answer that question, with blow-by-blow accounts of every skirmish. Here was a man with leadership potential; he'd have to talk to Kalvan about Xykos—that is, assuming all of them survived this killing field.
"Captain Xykos."
"Captain, Sir?"
"Yes, consider it a battlefield promotion. Why don't you and your men stay with me? I think we'll have all the fighting we want in less than a quarter of a candle." Or sooner, he thought. Most of the retreating Hostigi had dispersed to either side of the Great Battery. Verkan hoped Harmakros could rally and re-form them, but that couldn't happen soon enough to make up for the lack of the Ktethroni reinforcements. Verkan needed all the help he could get, and Xykos looked to be worth a whole platoon by himself.
"Yes, sir!" Xykos answered with a savage grin.
As if that was a stage cue, Captain Itharos came running up, followed by a messenger.
"What is it?"
"The Holy Warriors of Styphon are coming against the Great Battery," the messenger blurted.
The Captain's jaw dropped. "Great Galzar, have mercy!"
Verkan didn't bother replying. That meant that either Ptosphes and the Hostigi left wing were in retreat, or that Soton was so confident of victory that he'd committed what had to be nearly his last reserves to help the Sacred Squares take the Great Battery. Nether was particularly good news, although he preferred the latter to the former. If Ptosphes had to carry the weight of another defeat, he wouldn't be worth a thing either to himself, his daughter or Kalvan—who already thought of him as a surrogate father.
Verkan knew that with Harmakros' help they might be able to stop the Holy Warriors, who were more a rag-tag group of lower nobility and younger sons then a proper fighting force. Still, whatever the Holy Warriors lacked in tactics they more than made up for him fervor. Without Chartiphon's reserves or the Ktethroni pikemen, it was going to get interesting.
"It looks as if it's mostly up to us now. Let's see how those anvil heads deal with hot lead!"
Xykos smiled as if he'd just been given a free jug of his favorite winter wine.
Verkan moved through the ranks of the Mounted Rifles patting shoulders and giving encouraging little remarks while he mentally noted the number of walking wounded and near battle-fatigue cases. The Great Battery was firing more continuously, now that most of the Hostigi center was behind it or around the rise. The crowd of soot-blackened figures dancing in and out of smoke around the guns gave the impression of a horde of demons toiling at some sinister task—which wasn't far from the truth!
Verkan was glad he wasn't carrying any First Level gear in this battle; the odds were too good that the dead-man timer would detonate the security charge on his body among live comrades. He was willing to kill deliberately to protect the Paratime Secret; he'd be Dralm-damned if he would do it by simple chance if he could avoid it.
Verkan took his own position along with his bodyguard behind a boulder, shouted "Down Styphon!" and looked down the hill. The Holy Warriors of Styphon were mounted volunteers who'd come from all over the Great Kingdoms to fight for their god, Styphon. Not too well mounted, he noted, or else they'd been at the back of the line when supplies were distributed. Not too well armed either and fewer than he had expected were armored. If there were many nobles, they were mostly country squires and younger sons with cast-off armor and weapons. Still, some three thousand—according to First Level surveillance—or more fanatic cavalry against five to six hundred of Harmarkos' dragoons, a hundred and thirty or so rifled muskets, and the battlefield remnants—call it a thousand and some men—of the retreating center still wasn't Verkan's idea of safe odds.
Then the mass of Holy Warriors was coming up the slope at a trot, and Verkan stopped worrying about anything but finding a target. Harmakros' musketeers fired a solid volley; the front rank of the Warriors swayed and shivered.
"Fire at will," he ordered. He didn't bother to tell them to choose their targets with care—these were veteran Styphoni killers.
Verkan sighted on a thin man with gilded armor, wearing a back-and-breast with Styphon's stylized red swastika painted on it. He braced his elbow on the boulder, squeezing the trigger. The men-at-arms fell forward on his horse's neck, his horse reared and lost its footing, and two more lost theirs trying to avoid the fallen ones.
Petty-Captain Dalon—one of his Paratime operatives—picked off one of the fallen riders as he struggled to his feet. Dalon Sath had taken Ranthar Jard's place with the Mounted Rifles, now that Ranthar was busy 'babysitting' the Kalvan Study Team. "Having fun yet, Chief?" he asked in First Level sign language.
Verkan laughed despite himself. "It won't be so funny, Dalon, when I leave and put you or Ranthar in charge of this outfit."
Dalon gave him a jaunty smile. "Some good boys here. I won't mind. Besides, I've already done my duty watching over those clucks at the University hen house! Ranthar can have that job."
Verkan was too busy yanking out his ramrod, the next bullet from its leather pouch and fumbling for his powder horn to reply. He cursed the spectacle he must be making of himself—the outlander friend of King Kalvan who wasn't as well trained as his men! Even Petty-Captain Dalon had finished his re-load and was already beading in on a Styphoni horseman.
Suddenly his rifle was loaded and swinging down to firing position; he had a beautiful target in a rider turning broadside to avoid a patch of tough ground. This time he hit the horse, and someone firing wildly hit the top of his rock close enough to spray rock dust into his eyes. He found the old familiar motions coming back so perfectly that he didn't even wait to blink his eyes clear before he started reloading.
On his next reload he heard volley firing close at hand and looked around to find that his bodyguards had scrounged enough abandoned arquebuses, calivers and muskets to give each one of them several weapons apiece. He gave them a thumbs-up signal—an almost universal hand signal on every time-line—and felt pleased when they responded with wolfish grins. It was almost a shame he couldn't take them along with him the next time he had to appear before the Executive Council on Home Time Line!
When he looked down again, the Holy Warriors were at Harmakros' makeshift barricade, in the process of being repulsed by his musketeers and pikemen. Wielded by veterans who knew their strengths and weaknesses, the eighteen-foot pikes were deadly against the poorly equipped Holy Warriors, spearing some right off their horses. He saw one man take a pikehead t
hough the mouth that came out in the other side of his head in an explosion of blood, teeth and gore. Others were speared out of their saddles and sent tumbling down to join the rocks under the horses' hooves.
At last the Holy Warriors retreated back down the slope out of range and dismounted. Someone with a lot of plumes and gilded armor was yelling and waving his arms at them, probably telling them to dismount. Most were beginning to follow his orders, when at almost point-blank range, a round shot took out a dozen or more men just to his right. To give him credit, the near hit didn't appear to faze the commander and he continued with his rant. Another half dozen cannons fired almost in a volley and shifted the entire front line of the Holy Warriors, scything down horses and men with equal impartiality.
The commander got back on his horse and the dismounted Holy Warriors advanced on foot over their own casualties and up the slope at a dead run. Harmakros' musketeers shot them down by the dozens, but that wasn't enough; hundreds of them reached the barricade and suddenly it was every man for himself. Verkan's riflemen continued to help thin their ranks, but more kept coming from behind. To make a difference here, Verkan's riflemen would have needed breech-loaders or Gatling guns!
The Mobile Force pikemen at the barricade dropped their pikes in favor of swords, mallets and pistols, while the musketeers swung their muskets like clubs. Over a third of his dragoons and reinforcements were dead or wounded before Harmakros began a slow retreat to the top of the ridge. Of the three thousand Holy Warriors, at least half their number littered the ground or had run away. Still, a formidable number kept charging.
Verkan fired five shots and hit four men before the first wave of dismounted Holy Warriors reached his boulder. He fired a sixth shot with his hide-away pistol, then used his rifle like a club, letting his unarmed-combat training take over his muscles and reflexes. He might look a little strange if anyone was watching carefully, but he'd not lay any bets on that and he did intend to stay alive.