A Life for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  “Better clear them away with your cavalry, Seg. But I shall keep the nikvove regiments under my hand for a space.”

  “Yes, my old dom, and make damned sure they nip in quick when they’re needed. By the Veiled Froyvil! I really think this is going to be a battle that will be remembered to the end of time.” He walked with me toward the four-place voller he required as a commander and which he would quit for a zorca or nikvove when he reached his battle line. “This is going to be a big one, Dray!”

  “Aye. Would to Zair it was not necessary.”

  In the voller waited his pilot, his trumpeter and his standard bearer, all old friends to whom I spoke a few words. Then Seg Segutorio took off, flying forward into battle. Would I ever clap eyes on my blade comrade again? That kind of thought always occurs to me, always tortures me, and is always a stupid nonsense. When Zair crooks his finger, then up you go, my friend, and nothing will detain you on Kregen...

  It was time for me to perform what later generations would call the Public Relations Stunt. Mind you, I do not denigrate the value of thus showing myself, as the commander, and the flags. Mounted on as large a nikvove as we could find, a superb charger called Balassmane, and clad in a brilliant golden armor, emblazoned with scarlet, I rode along the forward face of the army. The blazing Mask of Recognition glittered in the light of the Suns or Scorpio. Scarlet feathers fluttered. I lifted the drexer high in salute.

  Following me trotted Cleitar the Standard bearing the flag with the yellow cross on the scarlet field, Old Superb. With him rode Ortyg the Tresh proudly lifting the new red and yellow flag of Vallia. Volodu the Lungs rode to hand and his silver trumpet, much dented, gleamed like a leaping salmon. At my back and on the side nearest the enemy rode Korero the Shield. It would take a very great deal to shift him from that devoted position. Others of my Sword Watch trotted in that imperial cavalcade, glittering with light, colorful with uniforms, proud, eager, nerved to the occasion, men you have met in this my narrative, men I am proud to call comrades.

  As we passed down the lines the roar of approbation swelled and the men in the ranks lifted their weapons, a swirling forest of blades, and cheered. The answering shouts from our foes drifted in, thin and attenuated. But, then, all our bellowing would reach them as a mere whisper beside their own war chants.

  “By Aduim’s Belly!” said Dorgo the Clis.

  “I never thought to see a day like this,” said Targon the Tapster.

  “Nor me,” said Naghan ti Lodkwara.

  Their words were lost and blown away in the swelling cheers from the army.

  By the time that morale-boosting and flag identification exercise was over and we had returned to our positions, the first clashes had taken place. The archers had been sent forward by Zankov to prepare our mass. He must, then, have a great deal of control over the unruly clansmen. But Seg would have none of that and he would not sit on his hands when there was shooting in the wind. His advance guard cavalry swept out, screeching, long lines of glittering figures bounding over the moorland. They tumbled the enemy archers over and Seg’s mounted Bowmen roared forward. He had so few Bowmen of Loh to hand that he reserved them for the special occasion, the point d’appui. But the compound reflex bows of our men spat. The range to the enormous mass of clansmen was far too far; but the confused fighting between the two ranked armies slowly sorted itself out, and then the recalls were blown and our men, triumphant, rode back.

  Of course, the discomfiture of that ploy of Zankov’s would merely make the grim Chuktars of the clansmen say in their savage way that he should not have bothered with all this fancy strategy and tactics. Let the clansmen charge. That would be the end of it.

  Our position on that little ridge must have worried Zankov. I had not formed any great opinion of his qualities as a military captain; but something must have alarmed him at the sight of those massed ranks and files of men, silent and motionless in their crimson and bronze. Perhaps he had heard of the fate of the radvakkas against the Phalanx.

  Looking about, I’ll admit I missed the warm and eager presence of Barty Vessler. Nath Nazabhan cantered over and instantly wanted me to order the advance. I looked at him and he said: “Well, majister, by Vox!”

  “Once Filbarrka has been at work for a space, then you may advance, Nath. But you will not move until you have my personal word. Is that clear?”

  “It is clear and it makes sense, as we planned. But it is damned hard standing still with a pike in your fist at a time like this.”

  “Agreed. You saw their bowmen?”

  He ducked his head, eager, alive, vehement. “I did. I may have spoken harsh words against the Kov of Falinur in the past, when I did not know him. No one could have cleared our front as well as he has just done.”

  That, I may say, pleased me enormously.

  The clansmen with the failure of their missile men were not as foolish as the knights at Crecy. There was no Comte d’Alençon in their ranks to bay out: “Kill me this rabble! Kill! Kill!” and go spurring down on his mercenary allies. They waited calmly for the outcome of this first encounter and when it went against them they waited for the ground to clear. Again, that made sense, for even a vove in the midst of a charge may stumble over a wounded man or a wounded and terrified zorca or totrix. So we watched them and the ranks held and the suns crawled across the sky and I knew Filbarrka was bringing his torrent of zorcamen up on flanks and rear.

  Whether the clansmen charged before or after he hit them, I knew, made little difference to Filbarrka. Except that if they attempted to charge afterwards their onslaught would be a little dinted...

  For myself, I would prefer the vove charge to begin and then for Filbarrka to hit them, as they rode bunched, knee to knee.

  A certain amount of aerial activity took place. Our flutduin regiment had done splendid work in scouting; but there were too few of them to affect in any greatly material way the outcome of the main battle. But, at least, it was better they fought for us than against us. I saw them swooping down and shooting into the ranks of the vovemen, and presently a mirvol-mounted force of aerial cavalry flew up and tried to chase them off. The aerial evolutions were pretty to watch. But my Valkan flutduinim had been well-trained by Djangs who are past-masters at the art of aerial combat, and they both held off the mirvols and continued to attack the army below.

  Those mirvols — they wore gaudy trappings and their riders no less gaudy uniforms. Uniforms, I fancied, I had last seen in Fat Lango’s army.

  Abruptly, Nath rapped out an oath. “I am for the Phalanx, majister. They move! See! The clansmen move!”

  And, indeed, the front ranks of the vovemen were in motion, leading out, beginning to stretch forward into the charge.

  So — the moment everyone waited for, hoped for and dreaded, had at last arrived.

  “Stand like a rock, Nath!” I bellowed after him, and he half-turned in the saddle and flung up his hand in parting salute.

  I could tell to the mur when Nath arrived with the three Phalanxes. From every Jodhri the battle flags unfurled and broke free, thirty-six Old Superbs, to add a special luster to the display of heraldry and defiance flaunting in the breeze.

  Cleitar the Standard grunted and shook his own flag, Old Superb, making it ripple and glisten.

  “It is a right they have earned, Cleitar.”

  “Aye, majister. And, anyway, the Jodhri banners are smaller than your own personal standard. As they should be.”

  And I had to smile.

  Where one caltrop will bring a four-legged animal crashing to the ground, a vove with his eight legs will carry on until he is a veritable pincushion with the vile things tangling him. I do not like caltrops or chevaux-de-frise as a cavalryman; as an infantryman they are gifts from the gods. The vovemen moved. They advanced. Their banners fluttered. Their pace increased. Like the irresistible ocean, like the Tides of Kregen themselves, like — like a charge of vovemen! — like nothing else in Creation, they charged.

  The drumming hoo
fbeats battered the ground. The ground shook. The onward surge consumed the senses. On trampled the vovemen. On thundered the sea of steel. Forward they came. Six thousand in that first charge. Six thousand monstrous beasts. Six thousand ferocious warriors. On they rode, onward, ever onward, cantering into a gallop, racing full stretch, pouring resistlessly on, on, roaring down on the grim compact masses of the Phalanx.

  How they rode! How they rode, those wild shaggy clansmen of the Great Plains!

  Timing their attack to coincide with that great charge, the enemy’s vollers crested forward above that sea of tossing heads and flaring pelts, of horns and fangs, of clansmen gone wild. But our own airboats rose, reserved for this stratagem, and soared up and forward to tangle in a wild melee above the onrush below.

  And now the clansmen shrilled their warcries. Onward they rushed.

  Onward, a torrent of monstrous beasts and savage men, onward in a tempest of steel.

  Silent, motionless, solid, the Phalanx awaited the shock.

  By Zim-Zair! I admit to it. The fire scorched into my blood. I have ridden in many a vove charge and thrilled to the mad onward rush when all the world blurs into a flowing frieze of color. When you know nothing and no one can stand before you and live. The sheer bulk of the vove beneath you, the solidity of him, the square impact of his eight hooves beating the ground in unison, the smooth flowing onward rush, the steadiness of the lance couched and pointed, its steel head sharp and glittering, bearing on, bearing on!

  These vovemen had shattered and destroyed two Phalanxes already. We had rebuilt, and there was the Third. But, but . . . Oh, yes, by Vox, I sweated apprehension, tension — and fear.

  Six thousand in that first wild charge. And the other four thousand? The spyglass confirmed it. They were circling out on the flanks, two Divisions each, like horns, like pincers, raking forward to encircle and crush us.

  But a stir was visible in that onrushing riding horde on either flank. The vovemen were in disorder there. And, at the rear of the great main charge a further disturbance attracted the attention of my men.

  Filbarrka was in action.

  His zorcamen, light-armored, swift, deadly like wasps, darted in and out, maddening, pirouetting, curvetting, slaying. In orderly groups they fought with intelligence and cunning and high courage. Their archery shot coolly and methodically. Their dartmen raced in, flung their barbed weapons, and withdrew. The darts were poor at penetrating armor; but against unarmored parts of men and animals were highly effective and unpleasant. They penetrated deeply and were hard to remove. They caused constant pain as they flopped about in the convulsive movement of the voves, maddening the animals and causing them to disorder the formations still further.

  The long slender twelve-foot lance was employed against man or animal. Then the mace — the vicious, heavy-headed mace, unerring — crunched with bone-smashing power. The zorcamen were nearer the ground than the vovemen. Many a clansman felt that stunning smash against his thigh or pelvis, toppling, his armory of weaponry flailing the air over the aggressive zorcaman, falling, being hit again as he fell. Oh, yes, Filbarrka’s Lancers and Filbarrka’s Archers wreaked enormous havoc and confusion as the vove charge poured across the plain and narrowed the gap.

  And that gap itself proved a deadly obstacle to the voves. Liberally we had strewn the ground with caltrops and chevaux-de-frise, with narrow, wedge-shaped ditches. Many voves pitched to the ground, all their eight legs unable to cope with the obstacles. And our own dustrectium flayed them. Shaft after shaft sailed across the narrowing gap. Our archers shot well on that day, thanks be to Opaz. The steel-tipped birds of war thinned the onrushing mass. But still they came on, upborne with pride, with knowledge of their own invincibility, and, by Krun, my heart rode with them, for they were clansmen.

  Following them rode the mass of totrix and zorca cavalry put into the field by Zankov and Stromich Ranjal. Their infantry waited in dense masses for the outcome. But the charge, the charge of the voves — that was the battle winner!

  Watching, lifting in my stirrups, I saw the way the leading masses roared up the first of the slope to the ridge. Would nothing stop them? On and on they raged, beating on and up, and the pikes all came down as one, and the trumpets pealed, and the crimson and bronze stretched out, taut and thin to my eye, firm and like a rock in a raging sea.

  The three Phalanxes had been arranged with the First on the right of the line and the Second on their left and half of the Third, the Fifth Kerchuri, on the left of the line. The Sixth Kerchuri stood fast in reserve to the rear. All the emotion of two worlds concentrated down for me in that impact. I was aware of the flanks surging on and of churgur infantry and spearmen clashing on the wings. I was aware of the ceaseless flights of arrows. I was aware of the cavalry fights taking place all over the plain. But the impact, nearer and nearer, took my attention and I could not tear my eyes away from that enormous collision.

  Irresistible and immovable objects? No, by Krun, not quite. For the Phalanx had been bested before by the clansmen, and the clansmen knew nothing of defeat. The impact, when it came, racketed such noise, such clamor, such soul-searing horror, that I felt the salt taste of blood on my lips.

  That was where I should be, down there, in the front rank of the files with the faxuls, down there, wielding my pike against that onrushing host. And I sat my nikvove and watched and could only judge the time to send forward the Sixth Kerchuri and order in the churgurs and the spearmen. The Hakkodin were slashing and slicing away, the front swayed, locked, striking in insane fury. Incredible, the ferocity of the charge and sublime, insane, the solidity it met.

  The Second swayed.

  The Second Phalanx swayed and its front crumbled.

  I saw the yellow and red flags go down.

  Voves began to pour through a narrow gap that rapidly widened. At my instant order Volodu blew Sixth Kerchuri; but Nath was before me and I saw the Sixth moving up, solid and dense in their masses, the crimson and bronze shouldering forward to plug the gap. The Second recovered. The officers down there were raging and bellowing and the files reformed and the pikes came down again, all in line. But the lines were thinner, now.

  The confusion down there tantalized me. The voves recoiled and came on again. The Phalanx held. I saw the rear markers going up, the Bratchlins urging the men on. I saw the swaying movement as though the very sea itself sought to pour on and over a line of rocks. And the zorcamen were in among the voves now, prancing around on their nimble steeds, striking and sliding return blows. The state of flux might continue, or it might break on an instant.

  Zankov flung his infantry in, before they had time to decide if the day was lost or won, hurling them on intemperately to support the charge, to get in among the Phalanx. Our own infantry moved to mask the flanks, channeling the attack onto the melee. The Hakkodin now had fresh targets for their axes and halberds and two-handed swords.

  This was the crucial moment.

  Even when he fights in the melee a clansman is an opponent greatly to be feared. Even when he does not hurl forward in the charge, he is a fighting man of enormous power. The slogging match had begun.

  At that instant a troop of zorca riders flew up the long slope to my left side, riding hard, and I saw they were girls, Jikai Vuvushis.

  Some of the Emperor’s Sword Watch angled out to halt them; but I saw the leader, drooping in the saddle, saw the arrow in her shoulder.

  “Let her through!” I bellowed.

  Jilian hauled her lathered zorca up before me. Her pale face was so white I fancied she had no blood left at all, and knew that was not so, as the blood stained around the ugly shaft in her shoulder. She tried to smile and the pain gripped her.

  “I am sorry to see you in such case, Jilian.” I spoke with anger. “I had thought you in the reserve where—”

  “Where you ordered my girls, aye, Jak, I know. But I have had another zhantil to saddle. My regiment is in the reserve and will go forward with the victory.” She swayed and I
leaned down from the nikvove and got a hand under her armpit. “But there is no time. You must fly—” Her gaze flicked to the reserve troop of flutduins who waited beside Karidge’s Brigade, in the reserve, under my hand. Her girls were there, brilliant and chattering, and every eye fixed on that titanic fight going on along the face of the ridge. I looked there, alert for any change; but the slogging match continued and the Phalanx had not moved and the clansmen had not retired. Men were dying down there, dying by the hundred.

  “The empress . . .” Jilian swayed and I was off the nikvove and hauled her off her zorca, and held her, looking down, and my face must have appeared like a chunk of granite.

  “What of the empress?”

  Jilian caught her breath. And I saw she bore an axe wound in her side, gashing and horrible, exposing pink and white ribs.

  “That is nothing, Jak. The empress needs assistance — the Sakkora Stones—”

  “I know it.” I placed her down, gently, for she was a great spirit, and bellowed at my company of brilliant aides. “Send to Seg Segutorio, the Kov of Falinur, commanding the vaward. My compliments. He is now commanding the army.” I was running toward the flutduins as I shouted, and each one of the great birds ruffled his feathers, as though asking me to pick him. “Tell the Kov to send in the reserve the moment the line wavers. Not before, not afterwards. He will know.”

  Then I was hauling the flutduin Jiktar off his bird and mounting up, disdaining the straps of the clerketer. Everyone was yelling. Shouts of consternation broke from the Emperor’s Sword Watch. The flutduin troop gaped. I cracked the bird and he rose at once, his wings wide and gorgeous and of immense power. Together we rose into the air.

  Below us a tremendous battle raged. Thousands of men were locked in hand-to-hand combat. I barely saw the red horror of it, barely heard the screeching din.