The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage

by Terry Mancour

  That was precisely what I wanted. I climbed to the roof of the temple when Astyral, who was in the van of the militiamen, informed me of their progress. I wanted to see how this was unfolding, and the roof of the temple afforded me the best vantage point over the valley.

  To my right I could see the walled mass of Tudry Town, perched on its hill overlooking the fork where the Anfal and the Moran rivers joined. I summoned magesight and brought the gates closer to my vision, and I could see the column slowly moving forward, and the gurvani band retreating away. The next closest, largest band in a position to reinforce them was the thousand-strong unit whose task it was to blockade the Great Western Road. As the Tudrymen moved north, the goblin messengers ran across country a lot faster than I would have imagined. The war band in the south was already on the move before they got there, however. They’d spotted the gates opening, too.

  The southern band crossed the road with impressive speed, but they were an unruly mob, not an army. Clearly the days of holding the road had given them more self-confidence than sense as they charged toward the Tudrymen.

  That’s when the Orphan’s Band and the Warbirds struck, moving quickly into place to flank the southern band, their few squadrons of horsemen chasing down the goblin stragglers. The rear of the mob slowed and then halted to face this new, unanticipated foe, and suddenly the goblin commander was faced with an enemy on two fronts. To face the Tudrymen meant exposing their backs to the mercenaries, and turning to face the Orphans would do the same.

  A wise commander would have chosen a third option, withdrawing quickly from engaging either force and retreating beyond the river to rejoin the main horde. The southern band lacked a wise commander.

  He ordered his band to attack the Orphans, head-on, with the sun in their eyes. That was perfect – Bold Asgus knew his trade, in the field as well as in camp, and he could hold that band in place and whittle it down with his more disciplined men. Meanwhile cavalry and some lighter infantry could harass the band from the rear. Either way, it kept them from descending on the column of civilians that dared the road, now that it was somewhat clear.

  By that time, word had reached the main horde that the Tudrymen were attempting to break out. Clearly the gurvani commander had been waiting for this for weeks, and he roused his troops to pursue and attack as quickly as they could. By the time the southern band was learning what well-trained infantry and archers could do in battle, the first elements of the main horde were splashing their way across the ford to support – or rescue – the southern band. The northern band, the one that was interdicting communication between Tudry and Castle Megelin, was also moving in to support the southern band.

  That’s when the horns of the reluctant Baron of Megelin sounded, and nine hundred heavy cavalry took the field from the northern road. I had coordinated meticulously with Azar, who was among them on his big black horse, to make certain the die was cast at the proper moment. And as soon as the northern band moved south toward the Tudrymen, the proper moment arrived.

  It was fascinating, watching from the roof of the temple with magesight. Ordinarily you don’t get to see the intricacies of a heavy cavalry charge up close, unless you’re either in one or one is being led against you, and in both cases you’re usually too busy to appreciate the phenomenon in the abstract.

  From my vantage point, with my spells in place, it was as if I was standing but fifty feet away, not more than a mile. I got to see the determined, weary look on the faces of the goblins from the northern band – whose standard, I saw, was a black lopsided axe they favored over their clubs for all-out battle on a field of red.

  Their commanders looked eager for the fight – after all, they had been ranging outside of the city walls for weeks, now, picking off stragglers and travelers and refugees. That had to be almost as boring as garrison duty. I’m sure the prospect of an actual scrap had the enemy commander (a tall gurvan wearing a captured iron half-helm) salivating.

  And then the horns sounded, and the ground began to shake, and I got to watch their expressions change from determination to confusion then to realization, as half of them turned to the northeast to where a large cloud of dust was rising. They couldn’t see the Megelini cavalry, at that point, but they certainly could hear it. And they could see the size of the dust plume. To a human soldier, that would have been enough to tell him what was coming. The gurvani, without cavalry, didn’t have much of an idea at all.

  The band slowed, and part of it stopped while the other part kept moving toward the militia. That stretched it out uncomfortably into a disorganized mob, not even a rapacious horde. It also gave the horsemen a much, much broader target. Had they stayed together and in good order, they might have had a chance.

  When the horns sounded close enough for me to hear them, the first line of cavalry was riding over the ridge at a trot, picking up speed. And nearly a thousand horses, stretched out in a line half a mile wide and three deep, was a fairly imposing sight, even to me. To a goblin afoot, it must have looked like thundering doom.

  Too late, the leader of the northern band realized his danger. He tried to get the horde more organized to receive the charge, but discipline was sadly lacking, and only a third of his troops obeyed and began coalescing around him. I could see him screaming orders at his frightened-looking subordinates, as they tried in vain to find some defense against the approaching horsemen. By the time they were two hundred yards away, maybe one gurvan in ten was prepared. Not that it did them any good.

  The Megelini line slowed when it hit the hundred-yard point, and while a few gurvani bowmen tried to snipe at them, it gave the stragglers time to catch up and the line to be dressed. It also gave Rogo Redshaft’s brave horse archers a chance to ride up behind the line, dismount, and prepare to volley. In an impressively short time the first wave of arrows filled the air, and before the screams of the wounded goblins died a second was on its way. It was amusing, in a macabre sort of way, to watch the goblins who had obediently massed against a cavalry charge look up to see that cloud of feathers, wood and steel descending upon them. A few raised bucklers against them. It didn’t help.

  By the second volley, the northern band’s center was decimated, and the stragglers who had gone on toward the Tudrymen had begun to return. About half of them had made it back to their chief in time to see the horse archers re-mount and withdraw behind the hill . . . while the Megelini knights were lowering their lances.

  The looks of fear and terror and resignation on the goblins’ faces were priceless, twice as funny because I knew kind of how they felt. Like when I was in Boval Castle, and half a million of the bastards had surrounded it on every side. You can’t see a way out, you know anything you try to do to avoid your fate is likely to get you killed, and there’s nothing to do but wait for the universe to finish using you as a bugger boy.

  It took almost two hundred heartbeats for the heavily-armored chargers to cross the commons meadow. I could feel the vibration in the center of my chest as four thousand hooves hit the turf, and began to pick up speed. During that time a good number of goblins, over a hundred, had already retreated at a run back toward the ford, rather than face the herd of death and steel. I watched in grim appreciation as the first lances hit the first skirmishers, ran them through or stomped them to a pulp, and plowed on. A moment later, they hit the main body of the band, and all was chaos.

  Heavy cavalry at a full gallop, three ranks deep, do a lot of damage. The destriers slowed as they crashed into the poorly-dressed front line of the horde and then waded through mangled goblin bodies three high, the ranks behind them moving forward where they could. It only took a few moments before the knights dropped their lances and drew swords, maces, axes, and hammers, and began pounding every goblin within reach. And as all good warhorses do, the chargers reared and kicked and bit at the foe. As bad as it is to be on the ground afraid of being bit and kicked as a man, it had to be worse for the shorter goblins. With the morning sun behind the cavalry, I could only
imagine how hellish it must be to the gurvani.

  For another five minutes the battle was a loud, bloody tangle of steel and fur. Several knights went down as their chargers stumbled or a lucky arrow caught them, or in some cases the rider was overwhelmed by a swarm of gurvani. A few used nets or ropes to bring down the knights and horses, but as effective a tactic as it was, it just put a much better-armored human in their midst with a sword and shield and fury in his heart.

  As I watched, the northern band got chewed away by the Megelini until the last surviving third began a full-run retreat toward the ford. There were stragglers, groups of one, two, as many as five or six in some cases, who had avoid a death on the battlefield and were of a mind to flee back across the river. My instructions were to let them go – but of course a few young hot-heads who hadn’t sated their blood-lust followed. Luckily, Azar was there to keep order. I could hear the cheers of the Tudry militia, almost a mile away, as he got contacted me by stone soon after the retreat began.

  Captain, we hold the field, he reported proudly. I’m still getting casualty reports, but it looks as if we’ve slain more than two thirds and lost only a score or so ourselves.

  It looked magnificent, I told him. Now regroup, police the field, post some pickets, and bring your men back to the north, up to the top of that little ridge.

  The Baron of Megelin isn’t going to like that, Azar warned me. Your threat to give away his lands got to Baron Merasan, I think. He made quite a speech about refusing to yield a single inch of Megelini land to the foe. Leaving the field is going to feel like a retreat.

  It’s not a retreat, it’s a repositioning, I pointed out. Remind him that it’s a lot easier to charge down a hill than up one. Besides, the point of this exercise was to get the goblins to re-take the field, in force. Remember?

  His Excellency excels as a leader of men, Azar said, diplomatically, but he lacks the vision for grand strategy.

  I understand. Do your best, but remind him that if all goes well, he’ll be repeating that glorious charge down the rise again this afternoon. He needs to rest his horses and tend his wounded, and prepare for the battle to come.

  Yes, I can work with that, Azar agreed. Oh, and Cap? There was a stone on the field. I’ve got it.

  Keep it secure until I see you, and don’t touch it. Or the big ugly skull in the pretty green ball is going to learn all of our plans, the state of Imperial magic, and the girl you last rogered.

  Last one’s easy, Azar chuckled over the link. Your sister.

  Which one? Never mind, they’re all safely married off, now. Although you might tempt them with all of those unsightly muscles. Anyway, don’t touch the stone.

  I’m not an idiot, Captain.

  I let him go persuade the stubborn baron to forego his victory celebration and pull back while I used my stone to contact Astyral, inside the town.

  Over two thousand refugees already headed down the road, Captain, he told me proudly. The wagons are going now. I’ve suggested they send a few armed guards every few hundred places.

  Good thinking. We haven’t seen them any farther east than Grimly Wood yet, but I’ll bet you they have squads for miles down the Great Western Road. Any serious trouble?

  I had to use some flashy magic a couple of times to convince people I was serious, he admitted. And some of them are having second thoughts about leaving, now that you’ve eliminated the goblins from the walls. But the wiser heads are listening and pushing the rest along. So what time do you think the main horde will try to re-take the ford?

  Late afternoon, maybe. They’ll spend some time setting up, and then try to hit us just before dusk, so that they can keep fighting into the night when they have the advantage. It’s what I would do. But they might do it before then, too. Thirty thousand heads has got to be an alluring temptation to the Dead God.

  I climbed down off of the roof and shared the news with the priests and priestesses while Hamlan brought me some breakfast. Lunch. Food. Fresh apples from the orchard, a warm piece of steamed hardtack, and three boiled hen’s eggs, which I washed down with a half-dozen swallows of wine. Then I headed down the back side of the hill where twenty-five hundred of my men were waiting patiently for something to fight.

  “It won’t be long now,” I assured the captains, after briefing them on the outcome of the first moves of the battle.

  They were milling around the front of the column with that mixture of excitement and boredom that plagues every soldier on the eve of battle. And trying to keep that many horses both calm enough to be inconspicuous and ready for battle was difficult.

  “I’m sure the chief over there is going to have to sacrifice his nuts to Ishi if he doesn’t secure Tudry for his masters. And we just made that very difficult to do, unless he brings his whole force to bear against the Megelini. As it is, he’s risking getting wedged between the knights and the militia. The smart thing is to smash the knights first, then turn his attention to the infantry.”

  “You credit these beasts with that much intelligence?” asked Kaddel, skeptically.

  “ ‘These beasts’ built siege engines at Boval Castle, and constructed sapping mines,” I reminded him. “Don’t think for a moment that they’re ignorant animals just because they don’t wear tunic and stockings and dance a pavane. Sire Koucey, the Lord of Boval Vale thought that way once, and it cost him his fief, his life, and very nearly his folk. Now he’s the Dead God’s bugger boy,” I added.

  Sir Pendolan made a face. “Yet they use stone clubs and sticks for javelins, and their armor is laughable.”

  “Did use stone clubs,” Kaddel corrected. “Many we slew at the Lantern had swords of iron or steel.”

  “You’ll be seeing more of those, I fear, as they capture weapons and turn our own tools against us. There’s iron aplenty in the Mindens, and they are adept at working with it.” I thought of Gurkarl, the only prisoner of war we’d bothered to capture so far. The gurvan had learned to speak the common tongue during an apprenticeship with a human smith in the Mindens. He was an accomplished blacksmith among his own people. That was back when the black-furred creatures were known as mountain folk more than goblins. Gurkarl could do anything a competent human smith could do.

  “As long as they die as well as beasts, that will be enough,” Sir Kavial said, resolutely. I’d learned in the past few days just how prone the brooding knight was to such dramatic statements. I started to say something to that when I got a tingling in my spine. “Bide,” I said, raising a finger and closing my eyes. Yes?

  Captain, I thought you should know, we’re seeing the first band cross the ford now. About a hundred, but our scouts report that there is a significantly larger force directly behind them, Azar reported.

  The whole horde?

  Most likely, he agreed. I’m doing my best to make the Megelini look like tempting bait. They can’t stop congratulating themselves on their glorious victory. But we’re roughly in position at the top of the rise. I figure we have an hour before they get across.

  All right. Thanks. Any glass among the bodies?

  Not that I can tell. I think Baldy’s getting stingy with his shamans. But the main horde has a gracious plenty. Wenek scried them out, and there’s at least nine stones in that lot.

  Nine? That’s – wait a minute, did you say Wenek? Isn’t he on a mission miles from here?

  Why not? He had some quiet time, and after he briefed me about his progress, I asked him to. He had better luck than I did breaking through their defenses – I swear that man has a gift for divination.

  Uh . . . thanks. Keep me informed. I’ll ride out to your rescue the moment you need me.

  If I need you, he sneered, good-naturedly. I am Azar, after all.

  Yes, he was.

  I spread the word that we could stand down for forty-five minutes or so, giving the men a chance to dismount, stretch their legs, take care of any last-minute equipment issues, sharpen their swords, take a bite, or take a piss as needed. I did the last as soon
as I could. I was wearing the same armor I had at Grimly Wood, and didn’t want to repeat the experience.

  I had just gotten mounted when Azar sent to me again. Captain, activity! Once they saw they had the ford uncontested, they’re running what looks like everything they’ve got through it! If it’s not the whole horde, than they didn’t keep back more than a tithe.

  Where are they now?

  Shit! They’re pushing past the ford. They’ll be in bowshot in maybe ten minutes. Within range of a charge not long after. Those buggers can run fast in open country!

  I called my troops to order, passing along last-minute instructions to the captains before taking my place . . . in the van? Isn’t that where all great generals lead from? At the point of the spear?

  Maybe in the cavalry. I was from the magical corps. I stuck with Rogo’s archers. The Nirodi were fast, deadly, and well-disciplined, and what I would be doing would be more effective if I didn’t have to fight for my life while I was doing it. That put us just behind the Hellriders, on the southern flank, when Kaddel gave the signal, his horn was blown two short notes and then one long, sustained on, and the column started forward.

  I really wish I could have been on the other side at that point, just so I could see the faces of the opposing leaders as they saw less than a thousand horsemen become five times that many, as we added our numbers to the Megelini, the blinding sun climbing high overhead. I’m sure the language they used was colorful.

  We went at a walk, at first, and I watched with interest as Kaddel’s sergeants told off each new rank of cavalry to the left, right, or forward. Stubborn or not, Kaddel’s people knew their business. Kaddel himself was commanding the northern flank, where the Megelini were already stationed and ready, while Pendolan led the Warbirds in the center and one of Kaviel’s lieutenants, Sir Vorgal, led the left flank.