The Tyrant g-5

by David Drake

  "Ha!" she barked. "You savages parade around in public all but naked anyway. So why in the name of the gods would you want to saddle yourself with that Emerald silliness? Separate the sexes in the baths? That means twice the number of baths-and twice the work." With a sneer: "Only the damn Emeralds, who confuse simple arithmetic with 'Mystic Number,' would come up with such foolishness."

  Helga glanced at Adrian to see if she was getting a rise out of him.

  Nope. Hard to do, that. Harder than with any man I've ever known.

  Adrian was smiling also. "I agree, Prelotta. And the gods know I'd rather look at naked women than naked men. I've been in both, and Vanbert baths are just plain more interesting. "

  Prelotta nodded, as solemnly as if they were discussing the fate of the world. Which, in a weird and twisted way, Helga realized, they might be.

  "Done, then. I shall so instruct my people." The solemnity was fleeting; the sly little smile was back. "And no doubt that will do much to reconcile my Vanbert subjects to their new status."

  Helga tried to picture a Vanbert public bath, men and women mixed together casually, crowded with virtuous matrons and…

  Dammit, I'm going to giggle again.

  Chapter 24

  Two days later, Helga had no trouble at all to keep from giggling.

  "The gods save us," she muttered. From the top of the wagon where she was perched, she had a perfect view of the Confederate army. Tomsien might not have had her father's flair for war, but he was an experienced and capable field commander. Even with a force as gigantic as this one, his Vanbert regulars were spreading out in the valley and taking up their positions smoothly and easily. It was more like watching a machine than men.

  She turned her head toward Jessep, standing next to her. The ex-soldier looked as tight-faced as she suspected she did.

  "Never seen it from this vantage point before," said Yunkers softly. "Been in the middle of it, of course. Which, I can tell you, always gives a soldier a solid sort of feeling."

  Grimly, he watched the Confederate army continue its evolution. "From this perspective, though, it's downright scary. If your man's scheme doesn't work the way he thinks it will…"

  He left the rest unsaid. Confederate armies were almost always harsh toward defeated opponents, even civilized ones like the Emeralds. Toward barbarians-especially ones who had plundered the southern provinces as savagely as these had just done-they would be utterly merciless.

  Granted, the infantry itself wouldn't be able to butcher those who managed to flee the immediate area of the battle before being swept up. Confederate regulars would maintain their disciplined formations at all times, and, in the nature of things, a single man-especially if he's mounted-can outrun a hundred moving together.

  But that was one of the principal reasons the Confederacy employed auxiliary troops. Cavalry, mostly, the bulk of them from the Southron tribes themselves. Vanbert military tradition didn't consider cavalry of much use in an actual battle. Confederate generals used their cavalry for scouting, skirmishing-and to pursue and butcher a routed foe. Which task their auxiliaries handled splendidly, and the fact that they would be butchering other Southron barbarians wouldn't bother them in the least.

  Helga started to make some sour comment about savages and their innate disloyalty, but her own innate honesty kept the words from being spoken. If push came to shove after all, Jessep and his own men were quite prepared to kill other Confederates in this battle.

  She eyed him sidelong, for a moment. Then, abruptly: "Does it bother you? Being on this side, I mean."

  He shrugged. "Can't say it pleases me any. But… 'bothers' me? No, lass."

  He turned away from the sight of the coming army and faced her squarely. Jessep's face seemed blockier than usual.

  "There isn't much of 'loyalty' left, in a man who's served twenty-five years in the regiments. Except, maybe, loyalty to such men as led you well, in battle, and saw to your retirement if you survived. Like your father, first and foremost."

  Yunkers waved his hand toward the cluster of wagons at the very center of the laager, where Adrian and Prelotta had set up the compound which served as their field headquarters. From the center of it rose a twenty-foot-tall watchtower, hastily but solidly built from lashed-together logs. "I don't work for your boyfriend, girl, or his half-tame savages. I work for your father. Same's true for my boys. Verice Demansk sent us down here, and told us to do whatever you wanted. For them, as me, that's good enough."

  He glanced back at Tomsien's huge force, which was now beginning its march across the valley. "Little the Confederacy ever did for me and mine, when all is said and done."

  Helga couldn't keep from smiling. "Whatever I wanted, is it? Then why-"

  Jessep snorted. "He was quite precise on that matter, girl, however loose he may have been otherwise. 'Just make sure you keep the hoyden out of any fighting herself.' Speaking of which-"

  He looked down into the laager. Helga's personal bodyguard Lortz was standing not far away, staring up at Jessep and his charge perched on the wagon.

  "Speaking of which, Lortz is looking none too happy. They'll be within javelin range before much longer, and the field artillery will start up even sooner. It's time you got down from here, girl, and went back to your Adrian. And stay in the center compound, dammit."

  "As if I'll have much choice," she grumbled. "You and the hundred will be there right alongside me. The biggest-and certainly the grumpiest-governess I ever had."

  But it was just a token protest. Helga took one last look at the endless files and neat formations of the coming Confederacy, and discovered that she really wasn't at all keen to meet them personally. Those locked shields looked impenetrable, and the assegais, sharp. She scrambled off the wagon in quite a sprightly manner, truth be told.

  Once on the ground, though, she took the time to peek into the interior of the wagon through one of the gunports on the inner side. She could see into it quite easily, since the gunport was being unused. The Reedbottom warriors within the wagon were all clustered on the other side, facing the enemy.

  She could see all fourteen of them. Two were at each of the five gunports, one of them with an arquebus already poking through and his partner with two more ready. Toward Helga's side of the wagon, the remaining four men of the crew had still more guns loaded and were ready to begin cleaning and reloading the used ones.

  It was an impressive bit of organization in its own right, Helga had to admit. The more so since she knew this same scene would be repeated over and again, identically, in every one of the four hundred or so wagons which formed the perimeter of the laager. Before she'd come down here, she wouldn't have thought Southron barbarians could even count as high as fourteen-much less maintain that same number, repeatedly, as well as Vanberts maintained their own allotted forces.

  In truth, most of the tribes couldn't have managed it. But the Reedbottoms had three advantages. First, they were farmers rather than herders. Reedbottom villagers were accustomed to working together throughout the year in the fields, not just during the periodic great hunts. Second, their own style of fighting, adapted to their marshy lowlands, favored heavily armored warriors wielding axes and flails in close formation. As close, at least, as those weapons permitted. Out on the open plains, the other tribes could savage them with swirling cavalry tactics and mounted missile fire. But whenever someone had to meet the Reedbottoms on their own terrain, it was another story.

  Third, there was Prelotta. The Reedbottom chief was charismatic enough that he'd been able to impose a degree of discipline on his tribesmen which was unusual for barbarians. Charismatic enough-and, when necessary, brutal enough.

  A fourth advantage, too, now that she thought about it. Peeking through the gunport, Helga saw that four of the crew-judging from what she could see of their tattoos and hairstyles-came from other tribes. Life was brutal for the nomads. Their incessant feuds and blood vendettas constantly shredded people from their own tribes. Whether decl
ared official "outlaws" or simply on the run from victorious clan enemies, hundreds of them could be found roaming loose at any time in the southern half of the continent, taking what livestock they could salvage and desperately trying to find shelter somewhere.

  The Reedbottoms were one of the traditional "shelters." Had been for centuries. As distasteful as their lifestyle might be to most Southrons, there had always been enough refugees trickling into the lowlands to have steadily increased the size of the "Nephew of Assan." To the point where, now, the Reedbottoms were certainly as numerous as their Grayhills rivals.

  She stepped back from the gunport and examined the wagon as a whole. Then, slowly turning her head, surveyed as much of the laager as she could see. Which was all of it, except for the part obscured behind the central compound-and, of course, those parts obscured behind the masses of mounted Southron warriors from other tribes. Just as Adrian had predicted, fragments of the other tribes had come scampering to the Reedbottoms for shelter.

  Chief of Chiefs Norrys himself was here, she'd heard, brought there by Adrian's brother Esmond and his own still-large force of warriors.

  She scanned the area, trying to spot Esmond. She couldn't see him, but she assumed that the largest group of mounted warriors toward the eastern side of the laager-maybe a thousand in all-was where he was located. Esmond had distinguished himself in the fighting which had taken place since the breach of the Wall, by all accounts. Although Helga wondered, sarcastically, how a man "distinguishes" himself in slaughter and rapine.

  But… perhaps she was being unfair. She'd never liked Esmond, even before his rupture with Adrian. There had been some fighting, after all, against sizeable Confederate garrison units in the southern provinces. From what she'd heard, Esmond had usually played the leading role in breaking those units.

  He'd even, according to rumor, managed to hold off Tomsien's huge army long enough to rescue Norrys and keep the badly-wounded Chief of Chiefs from falling into Confederate hands. That had been the one and only major encounter so far between the Southrons and Tomsien-Norrys must have been seized by delusions of grandeur-and Esmond seemed to have been the one barbarian warleader who came out of the fiasco with his reputation enhanced.

  The wagons which made up the laager were huge-sixteen feet long and six feet across, with a covered roof about six feet from the floor. They were drawn on wheels to match-great clumsy things, which protruded beyond the sides of the wagons themselves because they were four feet in diameter and couldn't have cleared otherwise. The wagons were not much more than two feet off the ground.

  Helga couldn't really see the ground itself, under the wagons. Once the laager was locked into position, heavy wooden shields had been lowered to prevent any enemies from crawling under the wagons. Similar shields, except taller, had been fitted into the interstices between the wagons. Like the walls of the wagons, those shields had loopholes through which guns could be fired.

  In this case, guns in the hands of Adrian's own Fighting Band. The long two-man arquebuses which they favored wouldn't have fit inside the wagons. The Reedbottom gunners were armed with the crudest possible firearms, the kind which Prelotta's own blacksmiths and helpers could produce once Adrian and his experienced gunmakers showed them the trick of it. Short-barreled, with big bores-something Adrian called". 75 caliber." The weapons were incredibly inaccurate, beyond close range. But they had been designed for close-range fighting, after all, and Helga knew that if those heavy bullets did hit a man they would hammer him down. The shields used by Confederate regulars, so effective at deflecting javelins and arrows and slung stones, would be useless.

  Helga shook her head, a bit ruefully. Emerald scholar or not, in his own bizarre manner Adrian had devised a method of warfare which amounted to a moving version of the Confederate army camps which had kept Vanbert's enemies at bay for centuries.

  And bizarre it was, too. Adrian claimed this tactic had first been used on a planet called "Earth" somewhere back even before the times of the legends. By somebody with the peculiar name of Jan Zizka, and the Hussites. Then, of course, he'd had to explain to her what a "planet" really was. She remained skeptical. Or, perhaps, it was simply that she had fond memories of Ion Jeschonyk. It had been he, on one of his visits to her father's estate, who'd explained to Helga at the age of eight that "planets" were really the spirits of the gods. Had to be. They moved, didn't they, unlike all the other stars?

  Helga also wondered how these "Hussites" would have moved their wagons. The Reedbottoms only managed it because they were one of the few tribes which had domesticated the enormous animals called "tuskbeasts." Helga had heard of them, of course, but never seen one until she came to the southern half of the continent. They reminded her of giant pigs, more than anything.

  Placid enough brutes, though, at least usually. The Reedbottoms used them extensively in their agriculture. Tuskbeasts were even slower moving than greatbeasts, but with their size and strength they could dredge fields and create dykes where a smaller animal would be overmatched.

  She could hear the tuskbeasts making their peculiar snorting sounds, over in the corrals which Prelotta had erected in the middle of the laager. They had been herded there after pulling the wagons into place, along with the greatbeasts which had been plundered from the countryside. Separate corrals hadn't been needed, as they would have been for velipads. Greatbeasts were cantankerous brutes, given to extreme territoriality. But not even an old bull was going to pester a tuskbeast.

  "It's time to go, ma'am," urged Lortz. "Past time."

  Helga didn't argue the point. Following her guard, Jessep at her side, she trotted toward the central compound several hundred yards away.

  She heard a peculiar sound behind her, and started to turn around. But Jessep's firm hand on her shoulder kept her moving steadily forward.

  "That's a bolt from a ballista, girl. And-trust me-this is as close as you want to hear it. Too close." A moment later: "It's starting, may the gods look kindly upon us. Though I can't think of any reason they would."

  Neither could Helga. She began walking more quickly.

  A new sound now, a thud. Several. She had no trouble this time figuring out what it was. That was the sound of a spear driving into wood. A very big spear.

  She broke into a trot.

  "Good girl," approved Jessep.

  Chapter 25

  By the time she reached the compound, however, she'd slowed back down to a brisk walk. She was the daughter of Verice Demansk, after all, even if almost no one here knew it.

  Dignity, dignity.

  The compound was a small laager itself, formed in the same manner as the larger one surrounding it, except the shields covering the interstices and the undercarriages were absent. It was not more than two hundred feet across, with the log tower rising from the very center.

  She'd assumed Adrian would be on top of the tower, but discovered instead that he was still in their own wagon. Standing beside it, rather, maneuvering a ladder into place with the help of one of the soldiers in Helga's hundred. The hundred itself had taken up positions guarding the wagon. They would not take part in this battle at all, hopefully, unlike Adrian's men. Their job was to protect Helga, the politics of the whole thing be damned.

  "Not enough room on the tower," Adrian explained. "Every damn sub-chief in the tribe is trying to fit himself up there alongside Prelotta."

  He gestured at the ladder. "Come on. Let's watch it from atop our own wagon. The view won't be as good, but at this stage of the battle it doesn't really matter." He put practice to words, scrambling up ahead of Helga. Over his shoulder: "Not at any stage, really. No maneuvers, here. Just hammer back at them when they charge-and try to plug the breaches."

  "Breaches," muttered Helga, as she climbed up after him. "Why don't I like the sound of that word?"

  Even before she reached the top, however, a new sound arrived which perked up her spirits. The first volley of Adrian's arquebusiers, firing on the advancing Confederates. Helga
knew it was Adrian's men who were shooting, not the Reedbottoms in the wagons. The long-barreled two-man arquebuses had a distinctly different sound from the squat guns of the tribesmen.

  It was a very ragged volley, naturally. Adrian's men were scattered all around the laager, two teams to each interstitial shield. The men and the officers commanding them were too spread out to be given coordinated firing commands. So they had been ordered to fire as soon as the enemy in front of their own guns reached "close range"-which, for Adrian's men, was defined as fifty yards.

  Still, she was impressed by how closely the guns went off. Adrian's Fighting Band, unlike the tribesmen, had quite a bit of experience using firearms in a battle. Prelotta, on the other hand, had commanded his people not to fire until the Vanbert infantry was at point-blank range-and had then added the most bloodcurdling threats regarding the way he would punish warriors who violated the rule.

  Which, of course, had been half pointless. As she climbed onto the wagon top, Helga could already hear the duller booms of the tribesmen's guns going off. At least fifty guns, she judged.

  Adrian was none too pleased, that was obvious. He was scowling fiercely, and as soon as Helga came next to him. exclaimed: "Stupid bastards! They can't hit a barn at fifty yards with those guns."

  "That army's a lot wider than a barn," said Helga soothingly. "Even taller, when you figure in the depth of the ranks and the range of the bullets."

  She was soothing herself, she suspected, even more than her lover. From atop the wagon, the view of the oncoming Confederate army was…

  Impressive. Let's call it that. Since the only alternative is "terrifying" and it'd really wreck my dignity to start pissing in public.

  "Terrifying" was a lot closer to the truth. To begin with, Tomsien's army was huge. Flank to flank, not counting the cavalry, the lines covered over two miles of front-much wider than the laager itself. And that was only the first two brigades, each of which was three ranks deep. Behind, separated by a space of not more than thirty yards between them, came two more blocks of brigades. In theory, thirty thousand men in all-coming relentlessly toward a force half their size. It wasn't even so much the numbers which gave that sense of irresistible power as it was the incredible degree of organization. Tens of thousands of men, marching forward into battle as if they were all cogs of a single machine.