And that was what he'd brought to here-and-now. Well, maybe for the best; give Styphon's House another century or so in power and there'd be no gods, here-and-now, but Styphon.
"And then?"
"Well, Sarrask was in a fine rage, of course. By Styphon, he'd meet Prince Ptosphes's demands where they should be met, on the battlefield, and the war'd start as soon as I took my back out of sight across the border. That was just before noon. I almost killed a horse, and myself, getting here. I haven't done much hard riding, lately," he parenthesized. "As soon as I got here, Harmakros sent riders out."
They'd reached Tarr-Hostigos at cocktail time, another alien rite introduced by Lord Kalvan, and found him and Ptosphes and Xentos and Rylla and Dalla in Rylla's room. Hasty arming and saddling, hastier good-bys, and then a hard mud-splashing ride up Listra Valley, reaching this village after dark. The war had already started; from Esdreth Gap they could hear the distant dull thump of cannon.
Outside, the Army of the Listra was still moving forward; an infantry company marched past with a song:
Roll another barrel out, the party's just begun.
We beat Prince Gormoth's soldiers; you oughta seen them run!
And then we crossed the Athan, and didn't we have fun,
While we were marching through Nostor!
Galloping hoofs; cries of "Way! Way! Courier!" The song ended in shouted imprecations from mud-splashed infantrymen. The galloping horse stopped outside. The march, and the song, was resumed:
Hurrah! Hurrah! We burned the bastards out!
Hurrah! Hurrah! We put them all to rout!
We stole their pigs and cattle and we dumped their sauerkraut,
While we were marching through Nostor!
A muddy cavalryman stumbled through the door, looked around blinking, and then made for the long table, saluting as he came.
"From Colonel Verkan, Mounted Rifles. He and his men have Fyk; they beat off a counter-attack, and now the whole Saski army's coming at him. I found some Mobiles and a four-pounder on the way back; they've gone to help him.
"By Dralm, the whole Army of the Listra's going to help him. Where is this Fyk place?"
Harmakros pointed on the map-beyond Esdreth Gap, on the main road to Sask Town. There was a larger town, Gour, a little beyond. Kalvan pulled on his quilted coif and fastened the throat-guard; while he was settling his helmet on his head, somebody had gone to the door and was bawling into the dripping night for horses.
THE rain had stopped, an hour later, when they reached Fyk. It was a small place, full of soldiers and lighted by bonfires. The civil population had completely vanished; all fled when the shooting had started. A four-pounder pointed up the road to the south, with the dim shape of an improvised barricade stretching away in the darkness on either side. Off ahead, an occasional shot banged, and he could distinguish the sharper reports of Hostigos-made powder from the slower-burning stuff put out by Styphon's House. Maybe Uncle Wolf was right that this was a war between the true gods and false Styphon; it was also a war between two makes of gunpowder.
He found Verkan and a Mobile Force major in one of the village cottages; Verkan wore a hooded smock of brown canvas, and a short chopping-sword on his belt and a powder-horn and bullet-pouch slung from his shoulder. The major's cavalry armor was browned and smeared with tallow. They had one of the pyrographed deerskin field-maps spread on the table in front of them. Paper, invention of; he'd made that mental memo a thousand times already.
"There were about fifty cavalry here when we arrived," Verkan was saying. "We killed them or ran them out. In half an hour there were a couple of hundred back. We beat them off, and that was when I sent the riders back. Then Major Leukestros came up with his men and a gun, just in time to help beat off another attack. We have some cavalry and mounted arquebusiers out in front and on the flanks; that's the shooting you're hearing. There are some thousand cavalry at Gour, and probably all Sarrask's army following."
"I'm afraid we're going to have to make a wet night of it," Kalvan said. "We'll have to get our battle-line formed now; we can't take chances on what they may do."
He shoved the map aside and began scribbling and diagramming an order of battle on the white-scrubbed table top. Guns to the rear, in column along a side road north of the village, four-pounders in front; horses to be unhitched, but fed and rested in harness, ready to move out at once. Infantry in a line to both sides of the road a thousand yards ahead of the village, Mobile Force infantry in the middle. Cavalry on the flank; mounted infantry horses to the rear. A battle-order that could be converted instantly into a march-order if they had to move on in the morning.
The army came stumbling in for the next hour or so, in bits and scraps, got themselves sorted out, and took their positions astride of the road on the slope south of the village. The air had grown noticeably warmer. He didn't like that; it presaged fog, and he wanted good visibility for the battle tomorrow. Cavalry skirmishers began drifting back, reporting pressure of large enemy forces in front.
An hour after he had his line formed, the men lying in the wet grass on blankets, or whatever bedding they could snatch from the village, the Saski began coming up. There was a brief explosion of small-arms fire as they ran into his skirmishers, then they pulled back and began forming their own battle-line.
Hell of a situation, he thought disgustedly, lying on a cornshuck tick he and Ptosphes and Harmakros had stolen from some peasant's abandoned bed. Two blind armies, not a thousand yards apart, waiting for daylight, and when daylight came…
A cannon went off in front and on his left, with a loud, dull whump! A couple of heartbeats later, something whacked behind the line. He rose on his hands and knees, counting seconds as he peered into the darkness. Two minutes later, he glimpsed an orange glow on his left, and two seconds after that heard the report. Call it eight hundred yards, give or take a hundred. He hissed to a quartet of officers on a blanket next to him.
"They're overshooting us a little. Pass the word along the line, both ways, to move forward three hundred paces. And not a sound; dagger anybody who speaks above a whisper. Harmakros, get the cavalry and the mounted infantry horses back on the other side of the village. Make a lot of noise about five hundred yards behind us."
The officers moved off, two to a side. He and Ptosphes picked up the mattress and carried it forward, counting three hundred paces before dropping it. Men were moving up on both sides, with a gratifying minimum of noise.
The Saski guns kept on firing. At first there were yells of simulated fright; Harmakros and his crowd. Finally, a gun fired almost in front of him; the cannonball passed overhead and landed behind with a swish and whack like a headsman's sword coming down. The next shot was far on his left. Eight guns, at two minute intervals-call it fifteen minutes to load. That wasn't bad, in the dark and with what the Saski had. He relaxed, lying prone with his chin rested on his elbows. After awhile Harmakros returned and joined him and Ptosphes on the shuck tick. The cannonade went on in slow procession from left to right and left to right again. Once there was a bright flash instead of a dim glow, and a much sharper crack. Fine! One of the guns had burst! After that, there were only seven rounds to the salvo. Once there was a rending crash behind, as though a round-shot had hit a tree. Every shot was a safe over.
Finally, the firing stopped. The distant intermittent dueling between the two Castles Esdreth had ceased, too. He let go of wakefulness and dropped into sleep.
PTOSPHES, stirring beside him, wakened him. His body ached and his mouth tasted foul, as every body and mouth on both battle-lines must. It was still dark, but the sky above was something less than black, and he made out his companions as dim shapes. Fog.
By Dralm that was all they needed! Fog, and the whole Saski army not five hundred yards away, and all their advantages of mobility and artillery superiority lost. Nowhere to move, no room to maneuver, visibility down to less than pistol-shot, even the advantage of their hundred-odd rifled calivers nullified.
>
This looked like the start of a bad day for Hostigos. They munched the hard bread and cold pork and cheese they had brought with them and drank some surprisingly good wine from a canteen and talked in whispers, other officers creeping in until a dozen and a half were huddled around the headquarters mattress.
"Couldn't we draw back a little?" That was Mnestros, the mercenary "captain"-approximately major-general-in command of the militia. "This is a horrible position. We're halfway down their throats."
"They'd hear us," Ptosphes said, "and start with their guns again, and this time they'd know where to shoot."
"Bring up our own guns and start shooting first," somebody suggested.
"Same objection; they'd hear us and open fire before we could. And for Dralm's sake keep your voices down," Kalvan snapped. "No, Mnestros said it. We're halfway down their throats. Let's jump the rest of the way and kick their guts out from the inside."
The mercenary was a book-soldier. He was briefly dubious, then admitted: "We are in line to attack, and we know where they are and they don't know where we are. They must think we're back at the village, from the way they were firing last night. Cavalry on the flanks?" He deprecated that. According to the here-and-now book, cavalry should be posted all along the line, between blocks of infantry.
"Yes, half the mercenaries in each end, and a solid line of infantry, two ranks of pikes, and arquebuses and calivers to fire over the pikemen's shoulders," Kalvan said. "Verkan, have your men pass the word along the line. Everybody stay put and keep quiet till we can all go forward together. I want every pan reprimed and every flint tight; we'll all move off together, and no shouting till the enemy sees us. I'll take the extreme right. Prince Ptosphes, you'd better take center; Mnestros, command the left. Harmakros, you take the regular and Mobile Force cavalry and five hundred Mobile Force infantry, and move back about five hundred yards. If they flank us or break through, attend to it."
By now, the men around him were individually recognizable, but everything beyond twenty yards was fog-swallowed. Their saddle-horses were brought up. He reprimed the pistols in the holsters, got a second pair from a saddlebag, renewed the priming, and slipped one down the top of each jackboot. The line was stirring with a noise that stood his hair on end under his helmet-coif, until he realized that the Saski were making too much noise to hear it. He slipped back the cuff under his mail sleeve and looked at his watch. Five forty-five; sunrise in half an hour. They all shook hands with one another, and he started right along the line.
Soldiers were rising, rolling and slinging cloaks and blankets. There were quilts and ticks and things from the village lying on the ground; mustn't be a piece of bedding left in Fyk. A few were praying, to Dralm or Galzar. Most of them seemed to take the attitude that the gods would do what they wanted to without impertinent human suggestions.
He stopped at the extreme end of the line, on the right of five hundred regular infantry, like all the rest lined four deep, two ranks of pikes and two of calivers. Behind and on the right, the mercenary cavalry were coming up in a block of twenty ranks, fifty to the rank. The first few ranks were heavy-armed, plate rerebraces and vambraces on their arms instead of mail sleeves, heavy pauldrons protecting their shoulders, visored helmets, mounted on huge chargers, real old style brewery-wagon horses. They came to a halt just behind him. He passed the word of readiness left, then sat stroking his horse's neck and talking softly to him.
After awhile the word came back with a moving stir along the line through the fog. He lifted a long pistol from his right-hand holster, readied it to fire, and shook his reins. The line slid forward beside him, front rank pikes waist high, second rank pike-points a yard behind and breast high, calivers behind at high port. The cavalry followed him with a slow fluviatile clop-clatter-clop. Things emerged from the fog in front-seedling pines, clumps of tall weeds, a rotting cartwheel, a whitened cow's skull-but the gray nothingness marched just twenty yards in front.
This, he recalled, was how Gustavus Adolphus had gotten killed, riding forward into a fog like this at Lьtzen.
An arquebus banged on his left; that was a charge of Styphon's Best. Half a dozen shots rattled in reply, most of them Kalvan's Unconsecrated, and he heard yells of "Down Styphon!" and "Sarrask of Sask!" The pikemen stiffened; some of them lost step and had to hop to make it up. They all seemed to crouch over their weapons, and the caliver muzzles poked forward. By this time, the firing was like a slate roof endlessly sliding off a house, and then, much farther to the left, there was a sudden ringing crash like sheet-steel failing into a scrap-car.
The Fyk corpse-factory was in full production. But in front, there was only silence and the slowly receding curtain of fog, and pine-dotted pastureland broken by small gullies in which last night's rainwater ran yellowly. Ran straight ahead of them-that wasn't right. The Saski position was up a slope from where they had lain under the midrange trajectory of the guns, and now the noise of battle was not only to the left but behind them. He flung up the hand holding the gold-mounted pistol.
"Halt!" he called out. "Pass the word left to stand fast!" He knew what had happened. Both battle-lines, formed in the dark, had overlapped the other's left. So he had flanked them, and Mnestros, on the Hostigi left, was also flanked.
"You two," he told a pair of cavalry lieutenants. "Ride left till you come to the fighting. Find a good pivot-point, and one of you stay with it. The other will come back along the line, passing the word to swing left. We'll start swinging from this end. And find somebody to tell Harmakros what's happened, if he doesn't know it already. He probably does. No orders; just use his own judgment."
Everybody would have to use his own judgment, from here out. He wondered what was happening to Mnestros. He hadn't the liveliest confidence in Mnestros's judgment when he ran into something the book didn't cover. Then he sat, waiting for centuries, until one of the lieutenants came thudding back behind the infantry line, and he gave the order to start the leftward swing.
The level pikes and slanting calivers kept line on his left; the cavalry clop-clattered behind him. The downward slope swung in front of them, until they were going steeply uphill, and then the ground was level under their feet, and he could feel a freshening breeze on his cheek.
He was shouting a warning when the fog tore apart for a hundred yards in front and two or three on either side, and out of it came a mob of infantry, badged with Sarrask's green and gold. He pulled his horse back, fired his pistol into them, holstered it, and drew the other from his left holster. The major commanding the regular infantry blew his whistle and screamed above the din:
"Action front! Fire by ranks, odd numbers only!" The front rank pikemen squatted as though simultaneously stricken with diarrhea. The second rank dropped to one knee, their pikes advanced. Over their shoulders, half the third rank blasted with calivers, then dodged for the fourth rank to fire over them. As soon as the second volley crashed, the pikemen were on their feet and running at the disintegrating front of the Saski infantry, all shouting, "Down Styphon!"
He saw that much, then raked his horse with his spurs and drove him forward shouting, "Charge!" The heavily armed mercenaries thundered after him, swinging long swords, firing pistols almost as big as small carbines, smashing into the Saski infantry from the flank before they could form a new front. He pistoled a pikeman who was thrusting at his horse, then drew his sword.
Then the fog closed down again, and dim shapes were dodging among the horses. A Saski cavalryman bulked in front of him, firing almost in his face. The bullet missed him, but hot grains of powder stung his cheek. Get a coalminer's tattoo out of that, he thought, and then his wrist hurt as he drove the point into the fellow's throat-guard, spreading the links. Plate gorgets, issue to mounted troops as soon as can be produced. He wrenched the point free, and the Saski slid gently out of his saddle.
"Keep moving!" he screamed at the cavalry with him. "Don't let them slow you down!"
In a mess like this, stalled cavalry were al
l but helpless. Their best weapon was the momentum of a galloping horse, and once lost, that took at least thirty yards to regain. Cavalry horses ought to be crossed with jackrabbits; but that was something he couldn't do anything about at all. One mass of cavalry, the lancers and musketoon-men who had ridden behind the heavily armed men, had gotten hopelessly jammed in front of a bristle of pikes. He backed his horse quickly out of that, then found himself at the end of a line of Mobile Force infantry, with short arquebuses and cavalry lances for pikes. He directed them to the aid of the stalled cavalry, and then realized that he was riding across the road at right angles. That meant that he-and the whole battle, since all the noise was either to his right or left along the road-was now facing east instead of south. Of the heavily armed mercenary cavalry who had been with him at the beginning, he could see nothing.
A horseman came crashing at him out of the fog, shouting "Down Styphon!" and thrusting at him with a sword. He had barely time to beat it aside with his own and cry, "Ptosphes!" and a moment later: "Ptosphes, by Dralm! How did you get here?"
"Kalvan! I'm glad you parried that one. Where are we?"
He told the Prince, briefly. "The whole Dralm-damned battle's turned at right angles; you know that?"
"Well, no wonder. Our whole left wing's gone. Mnestros is dead-I heard that from an officer who saw his body. The regular infantry on our extreme left are all but wiped out; what few are left, and what's left of the militia next to them, reformed on Harmakros, in what used to be our rear. That's our left wing, now."
"Well, their left wing's in no better shape; I swung in on that and smashed it up. What's happened to the cavalry we had on the left?"
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen k-1 Page 16