Champion of the Last Battle

by Robert Adams

  “If all you spout out is to be taken at face value, then you are at the best a fool and should be locked away with the rest of the madmen, not left to command anyone’s army. War is not a game, to be played by strict rules or not played at all. War is something to be avoided at all costs, except when it becomes a necessity. When it does become necessary, it is something akin to lancing a boil — you do it hard and quick and with all available force, so that it is the sooner done and men can return to the pursuits of peace.

  “If, on the other hand, you are the cynical hypocrite I suspect you are — and if you are an average representative of your race — one who mouths the usages of honor in a self-serving attempt to rob war leaders of their natural advantages, warriors of their lives and folk of their lands, then I feel you all to be even more despicable than the Ganiks, the men who eat men, or than certain Ehleen rebels who butchered little children and drank their blood!

  “If you truly want to close with my force so badly, Sir Ahrthur, let your schiltrons reform and charge us. Or do you Skohshuns lack the stomach to fight save in close formations and against men whose weapons are shorter than are yours?”

  With a roar of inarticulate rage. Sir Ahrthur drew his sword and lashed out at Bili’s face, exposed by the open visor. But quick as the old man drew and struck, Bili brought the huge, heavy axe up faster. Catching the edge of the blurring blade in one of the gaps between axehead and steel shaft, he gave his thick wrist a practiced twist which tore the sword from Sir Ahrthur’s hand so forcefully as to snap the leather sword knot and send the blade clattering to the rocky ground.

  The other three men and Lieutenant Kahndoot all held their breath, hands seeking out hilts, awaiting the general melee they all expected and feared would come when Bili axed down the truce-breaker.

  Sir Ahrthur’s red face had gone pale, as he sat panting with exertion. His only other weapon was a slim dagger — a mere joke against that monstrous double axe, “Well,” he finally gasped, “kill me, you butcher! Or would you rather send for an archer to do your execution for you?”

  But Bili was even as the old man spoke lowering his axe to rest again across the bow of his saddle. “If I meet you in battle, Sir Ahrthur, I’ll kill you if I must, but needless killing or maiming is not a part of my nature. I think that we may consider this in-saddle truce to be done?”

  Bili had just reached his own lines when a farspeak from Sir Geros by way of Count Steev Sandee by way of Whitetip beamed into his mind. We are some quarter mile from the camp of these Skohshuns, Lord Bili. What are your orders for our advance?”

  “Pass wide of the camp” beamed Bili. “There are crossbowmen at the corners of it, and I’ll be unsurprised it they have a few engines, as well, for all that we burned up the last batch they had built. Bypass the pike formations, too. Once past them, ride directly into my lines. I’m hopeful that the mere sight of you and your reinforcements will overawe them enough to allow for a peaceable settlement and their withdrawal, after all; but if not, I’ll let your archers and dartmen and my own nibble at them a bit more, then well all charge and roll over the buggers. With you and yours, we’ll finally have the numbers and the weight to do it up brown.”

  * * *

  Erica’s transceiver buzzed insistently. She picked it up, held it in position and activated it. “Yes, Jay?”

  “Erica, I thought you said that that battle was going on somewhere just north of your camp — rather, the camp of the Skohshuns? Over.”

  “That’s right, Jay, though it looked damned little like a battle when I was up on the gate platform a little while ago. The Kuhmbuhluhners were riding up and down in front of the Skohshuns throwing darts and small axes, and the damned stupid Skohshuns were standing so close together that I doubt if any of those things thrown had a chance to miss. Anyway, at every circuit those riders made, those poor damn pikemen dropped like flies. Now they’re raining them with arrows; I can see the sun glinting on the shafts from here. What was that battle where the British wiped out a whole German army with bows and arrows? Apparently these Skohshuns never heard that particular story.”

  “It was the English, Erica, not the British, fighting the French, not the Germans, and it was two battles — Crecy and Agincourt. But the reason I radioed you again was that my scouts and I have spotted a very large force of cavalry riding in your direction from the southwest. Scads of them, maybe as many as fifteen hundred, and about half look suspiciously like Ahrmehnee warriors, to me. Over.”

  Erica chortled gleefully. “That pompous, presumptuous old goat! Sir Ahrthur has gotten his hairy balls in a crack for good and all. He refused to listen to the advice of a mere woman, and he will, no doubt, shortly be in the shit up to his silly mustache. It serves the chauvinist pig right!”

  “Well, Erica, in light of these new developments what do you want us to do about getting you all out of there? Over.”

  “Just blow out the back gate, Jay, and come on in. All of the fighters are either out there getting their asses beaten off or standing up at the front corners or above the front gate. The only people left in the camp are cooks, servants of the officers, medical personnel and quite a number of wounded men.”

  “I don’t like the thought of getting trapped in there, Erica. Look, I’ll set my mortars up a couple or three hundred meters off and blow that gate, then drop a few mortar bombs in and around the front gate just to put the fear of God into them all, maybe throw in a rocket or two for luck. You and your men hotfoot it out to me. Bring along mounts if you can easily come by them, but don’t waste a lot of time trying to if you can’t. Over.”

  “Oh, all right. Jay. Your plan is probably best — after all, you’re the professional soldier, not me. I’ll send half my men up to the picket lines and get them to saddling mules. All of the horses are out there getting their asses peppered as thickly with arrows as their riders are, I’d imagine.”

  “Okay, Erica. Just tell your types to stay clear of both of those gates, My Broomtowners are good, but hand-held mortars have been known to be somewhat inaccurate on occasion. Over.”

  “I will, Jay. Immediately you blow out that back gate, we’ll be on our way to you, to Broomtown Base and a long, hot, luxurious shower with real soap! Out.”

  * * *

  Brigadier Sir Ahrthur Maklarin and his staff could but sit their horses, gaping in goggle-eyed astonishment, as the hundreds of armored horsemen swung wide around both their camp and their schiltrons to cross the space separating them from their elusive foes and rein about, forming common front with the bare thousand or so New Kuhmbuhluhners.

  When the last of the seemingly endless files of riders had joined the Kuhmbuhluhn army, so that the wings of the reinforced host now greatly overlapped both of the Skohshun wings, three riders — one clearly Duke Bili, recognizable by his black warhorse and plumed helm — were seen to ride forward at a slow walk, following the Kuhmbuhluhn herald on his big white stallion.

  “All right, Sir Djahn, the brigadier barked, “get out there. Let’s see what the forsworn by-blow wants this time! Well, Senior Colonel Sir Djaimz, must I issue you an engraved invitation? You and one more, let’s go.”

  Bili the Axe wasted no time with polite formalities through the two heralds but addressed himself directly to Sir Ahrthur. “Old man, you first tried to lure me, then to shame or hector me into a battle to be fought on your terms against your more numerous forces. When I refused to lay my brains on the shelf and accede to your wiles and shameful practices, you attacked me with bared steel in violation of a sworn truce, which goes only to show that no matter how much you prate of a lack of honor in others, you yourself own no shred of it.

  “Well now, old, honorless man, the boot is on the other foot, and I lead enough force to make blood pudding of you and your pikemen. But I’ll do that only if you force me to it.

  “I hereby extend you three options, more than ever you gave to me. You may agree to immediately lift the siege of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk and the occupation of those
lands and the glen you earlier seized from the Kingdom of New Kuhmbuhluhn, and depart with your army and your folk from the kingdom; I would suggest that you lead them due west or southwest.

  “Your second option is to let a single combat decide the outcome of this stupid exercise in wholesale bloodletting. I will fight for New Kuhmbuhluhn and you, considering your lack of stature and your advanced years, may choose a champion to ride against me for the Skohshun army and people; I will be armed with axe and sword, your champion may ride with those weapons he prefers or favors.

  “Your third option is a full-scale battle, which I now consider futile and pointless, as too should you. But let me warn you well in advance, if this last is the option you choose, there will be no immediate attack on your schiltrons. Rather will I do just as I did before — bleed you, further eat away at your strength from a safe distance with missiles, Then, when I feel your formations to be sufficiently disorganized and shrunken, I will lead my horsemen against you with a cry of ‘Havoc.’ ‘No quarter.’

  “I’ll have your choice, old man, now!”

  Senior Colonel Sir Djaimz kneed his mount close beside that of Sir Ahrthur and, leaning closer, whispered, “It might be

  better to withdraw, Sir Ahrthur, We can hold the glen, fight again at a time and a place of our choosing.”

  “Never!” snapped the brigadier. “Do you want to kill him? You’re damned close of a size, the two of you. I’d give my eyeteeth to do it myself, but the bastard is right, I’m too old.”

  Sir Djaimz eyed Bili critically, then nodded. “Yes, Sir Ahrthur, I’ll fight him. But please understand, it’s not to salve your foolish pride, but rather to save the army that our people need. But I want your sworn oath, sir, that if I die, if that young man kills me, you’ll march the army out of here and straight back to the glen, then turn over your command to whoever the colonels decide should replace you.”

  The brigadier looked his hurt puzzlement.”But . . . but why, Sir Djaimz? Simply because we lost this battle?”

  “No, Sir Ahrthur, because you enjoy the respect of every Skohshun — officers and nobles, other ranks, and civilians — and I want to know that you will retire and, eventually, die with that respect intact, unsullied. While in most ways, at most times, you still are the same brigadier, more and more of late you have been lapsing for varying times into childish rages for little cause or none. You’ve done it twice today already.

  “The Sir Ahrthur who received me into the army as a pink-cheeked ensign, who nurtured me and trained me for years, that Sir Ahrthur would never have reacted with such unseemly violence to the good-natured twitting of a man who had fought you, knocked you down and taken merely your sword when he could have had your life as well. Nor would that Sir Ahrthur ever have even thought of baring steel during a sworn truce, much less of attacking another member of the truce party.

  “Will you swear as I ask, Sir Ahrthur?”

  * * *

  Bili had never really liked the lance or the common practice of one-on-one tilting — lance dueling — but he had long ago, perforce, mastered that and all of the other martial arts during his years of training at the court of the Iron King, Gilbuht of Harzburk. He had announced his intention of fighting this duel to settle the Kuhmbuhluhn-Skohshun conflict with axe and sword, ahorse or afoot. However, when the Skohshun champion had chosen to run the initial contact of the engagement with lances, Bili, the Kuhmbuhluhn champion, had had no option but to comply.

  A party had ridden up to the city and returned laden with necessary weapons and gear from the well-stocked armories of the palace — a selection of battle lances, horse armor, several tilting shields of differing shapes and sizes, additional bits and pieces of plate for strengthening Bili’s own panoply to withstand the tremendous shock of the impact of steel-tipped lance with the combined weights and strengths of a horse and a strong warrior behind it.

  A swarm of men fitted the black stallion, Mahvros, with a combination of plate, mail and boiled-leather armor — a heavier chamfron, a segmented plate crinet to cover the lighter one of mail peytral to protect chest and shoulders, flanchards on the flanks and the leather-and-plate crupper behind the high and flaring tilting kak to shield the hams and back — all covered with a thick, heavy, quilted bard of red-dyed doeskin. The warhorse was a good bit less than pleased by the additions, constituting as they did a confining and rather uncomfortable additional weight of upward of a hundred more pounds for him to bear even before his rider mounted him.

  “Brother,” he mindspoke Bili ominously, “if these twolegs try burden Mahvros with one more piece of metal or leather, Mahvros will show them how well his teeth tear manflesh, how easily manbones shatter under his hooves. Let them be warned!”

  Bili, standing bathed in sweat while extra pieces were fitted to his own harness, beamed as soothingly as he could, “Mahvros, my dear brother, do not harm those men. What they are doing is for your protection, just as the extra armor they are buckling to me is to protect me. It is a hot day, yes, and this extra gear is stifling, but it gives us both a better chance to still be alive in the cool of the coming evening.

  “Husband your strength and your proven ferocity for the fight which will shortly commence, dear brother. The man and your brother are about evenly matched, but Mahvros should have little to fear from the mount; for all that he is as big as are you, he is merely a gelding.”

  With flaring nostrils, the black destrier snorted and stamped one big forehoof to indicate disgust, beaming, “Never has Mahvros been able to fathom why twolegs call call a sexless creature like that ‘he,’ as if it still had its stallion parts. Why not call it ‘she,’ instead?”

  After carefully weighing the offerings, Bili chose a lance, then one of the long, narrow, tapering shields. But when his fitters made to buckle the shield firmly to his armor, he shook his head. “No, I’ll bear this thing only as long as I have to. Once the spear-running be done, I’ll need both hands for my axe, so I’ll need to quickly and easily shed the shield.”

  He also refused to trade his battle helm for one of the huge, thick-walled, ornate tilting helms. “I’ve seen men swoon with lack of breathable air whilst wearing those things on far cooler days than is this scorcher. Too, I prefer to see what I’m axing, thank you.”

  But he did allow them to cover a good part of his harness with a surcoat of white samite stitched thickly with red and gold traceries, thinking that it weighed little enough, was not at all confming and would at least keep the sun from beating directly upon some of the steel plates.

  However, when the Skohshun officers inspected, the barding was ordered stripped from off Mahvros, for there was not one available for Sir Djaimz’s gelding, Jess, and the two champions were more or less expected to possess parity in defensive attire. For this same reason, Sir Djaimz was constrained to shed his oversize helm and redon his own battle helm.

  Mahvros both beamed and exhibited great pleasure in being relieved of the weighty, stifling bard, which pleased Bili, especially since loss of the thing was no lessening of real protection for the great horse. Moreover, unaccustomed as the stallion had been to such a thing, there had existed the very real chance that Mahvros might step on the leading edge of the bard and lose his balance or even fall at a critical moment.

  The shouting match and near cancellation of the duel came when the Skohshun officers, after all trying the weight and balance of Bili’s great double axe, announced that the champion of Kuhmbuhluhn either must forgo the use of any axe or make do with one of more average proportions and heft.

  At length, Bili rnindcalled the Moon Maiden, Lieutenant Kahndoot. “Little sister, these Skohshun bastards are determined to weight this contest firmly in the favor of their champion and have, therefore, refused flatly to allow me to use my own axe, obliquely endeavoring to limit the fight to only lance and sword. But I mean to outfox the sharp-eared creatures. Ride over here and trade axes with me for the length of time it takes me to put paid to the account of this Sir Djaimz.�
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  While the various armings and inspections and disarmings had been occurring, members of both armies had been engaged in the removals of corpses of man and of horse, dropped weapons and equipment and other battle debris from the narrowed space now separating the two annies, that space whereon the duel to decide the outcome of this affair of New Kuhmbuhluhners versus invading Skohshuns would shortly take place. A course of one hundred and fifty yards was decided upon for the tilt, and marker stakes were driven. Then all was declared to be in readiness.

  Sir Djaimz, mounted on his big, battle-trained dark-chestnut gelding, took his place at the far western end of the course. Bili, on Mahvros, took the eastern end. Then both men waited for the bugle flourish that would announce the beginning of the bloodletting.

  Chapter XV

  As they awaited the signal, Sir Djaimz seemed to be experiencing difficulty in controlling his gelding, to the point that finally a brother officer took a firm grip on the section of rein near the bit and lent his weight and strength to prevent the nervous beast from sidling.

  Mahvros, on the other hand, stood stockstill, as Bili had telepathically instructed him to do, ready to charge at the first brazen notes of the trumpet.

  Both riders had fully extended their stirrup leathers to the point where they actually stood in their stirrups, thighs tight-gripping the barrels of their respective mounts, their buttocks bunched up hard against the high cantles of the tilting saddles, bodies angled forward and shield held high so that it protected all of the torso, nearly the entire length of the left leg and the neck and head right up to the bars of the visors.

  The mounted hornman, Gy Ynstyn, raised polished bugle to the lips hidden in his beard. Despite the deadly danger of the impending duel to his young lord, Duke Bili, still Gy could barely contain his joy. Though there had as yet been no chance to seek her out and exchange words, he had recognized among the Moon Maidens following the banner of Sir Geros his lover and battlemate, Meeree.