by K. J. Parker
- Except that, as he bent down over his horse’s neck to deliver a straightforward diagonal cut along the line of some footslogger’s collar-bone, his saddle-girth snapped, sending him sliding helplessly down the vector of the stroke. He landed with his shoulder in the dead man’s face, with his saddle still gripped between his thighs.
If it had happened to somebody else he’d probably have wet himself laughing as he rode to the rescue; but comedy is relative, and when he looked up, the first thing he saw was a man standing over him. He was wearing a shirt, a kettle-hat and nothing else, and he was just about to stick a halberd into Sildocai’s chest.
There wasn’t a lot he could do about it; the damned saddle stopped him moving his legs, so all he was able to do was throw up his left arm in the way of the halberd. He had a boiled leather vambrace on his forearm; the cutting edge of the blade slid across it like a skater on ice and came off at an angle, making contact with his face at the point of his cheekbone and slicing off the top of his ear. That left his hand in good position for grabbing hold of the halberd shaft; but what with the shock and all he muffed it a bit, and the blade slit the web between his thumb and forefinger before he was able to tighten his grip and pull.
The manoeuvre was a qualified success; he got the halberd away from the man, but he pulled it down across his own face, cutting another line more or less parallel to the first, from the corner of his eye across the lower part of his scalp. He couldn’t keep hold of the halberd, and dropped it. The man stared at him, then kicked him in the face – not a good idea for either party, since the man wasn’t wearing anything on his feet. Sildocai was sure he felt one of the man’s toes break at the same time he felt the bone go in his nose.
He had his right arm free by now, and he used it to grab the man’s ankle and try to pull him down; but he muffed that too and was left gripping a flailing leg, hardly able to see because of all the blood in his eyes. There didn’t seem much point in holding on, so he let go, at which point the man suddenly threw his arms wide and fell on top of him.
He’d been hit hard, but not hard enough to kill him; at a guess, a scimitar-cut slantwise across the base of his neck under the rim of the kettle-hat. Now the bastard was lying right on top of him, their mouths almost touching, like lovers; the man’s eyes were open wide and he was making some sort of stupid glugging noise; he was trying to say something, but Sildocai wasn’t interested. ‘Get off me!’ he screeched, and jerked and pulled at his trapped left arm until he had it free. The fingers were stiff and tight (Permanent disability, Sildocai noted, worry about it later) but he had enough use of it to get a grip on the man’s shoulder and push. He didn’t want to go, but it turned out he didn’t have much choice; he rolled on to his back without moving, except for more eye-rolling and gurgling. With a lot of effort Sildocai found a way to scrabble himself up on to his knees, but things weren’t getting any better; a man running past him rammed him in the back, knocked him on his face and went sprawling down beside him. Damn, Sildocai thought, this is hopeless. The man was picking himself up; there was a sword lying beside him where he’d dropped it. But he left it there and skittered away, running very fast, which at the time seemed like a piece of luck.
Bad luck, as it turned out. The reason he’d bolted without even picking up his sword became horribly obvious as Sildocai lifted his head in time to see a horse’s hooves rearing up over his head. He dropped down again, but that didn’t help; he felt an unbearable pain in his back, felt something give way as the horse trod on him. He tried to shout, but his mouth was full of dirt and besides, all the air had been squeezed out of him. It took a lot of painful effort to put some back in its place.
Broken ribs, he diagnosed, with the part of his mind that somehow wasn’t involved, this isn’t getting any better. For two pins he’d have stayed where he was; but he could still recall a time when he’d been in charge of this situation, and one of the things he could remember about it was that as soon as the job was done, they were getting out of there and going home. Sildocai didn’t want to be left behind, so it was very important to stand up, find his horse (or any damned horse) and get back to the fortress.
The man next to him was still making that ridiculous glugging noise, like a fractious baby. Sildocai rolled over on to his right shoulder, kicked with his legs and jack-knifed himself on to his feet; he staggered, nearly went over again, caught his balance just in time. The operation was unbelievably painful – I shouldn’t have to be doing this, a man in my condition – and breathing had become a test of character. He took a step forward, but apparently someone had stolen the joints out of his knees while he’d been sprawling in the dirt. He managed to stay upright, but that was about the best he could do.
‘Steady now, chum, it’s all right.’ Whoever he was, Sildocai hadn’t seen or heard him coming; he was just there, a man to his left grabbing and holding on to his arm. ‘It’s all right,’ he repeated. ‘Let’s get you out of this before you fall over.’ It was a horrible sing-song voice – the Perimadeian accent had always grated on Sildocai. ‘Come on, this way.’
The bastard was trying to make him go back, towards the camp; that wasn’t the right direction, so why was he doing it? Then it made sense. This was the enemy, mistaking him for a friend (like the man lying blubbering in the dirt, who’d expected him to help) – well, that was just fine, but it was the wrong direction. Fortunately, the man was an idiot; there was a knife hanging from his belt, just handy. Sildocai pulled it out and stuck it between his shoulders. For once, something went in the way it was meant to, but he’d missed the spot he’d been aiming for. The man gasped with pain and shock, but stayed on his feet. ‘Oh gods,’ the poor fool said and grabbed at Sildocai for support – he hadn’t realised that Sildocai had stabbed him, must be thinking he’d been hit by an arrow or something. He took the man’s weight on his shoulder as best he could, though it was nearly enough to bring him to his knees; then he pulled out the knife and stuck it in under the man’s ear.
This time he did go down, but of course he was clinging on to Sildocai’s shoulder, and so they hit the ground together. This one was easier to shove off – he was dead, which helped – but getting up again was probably going to be too hard for him to manage. Well, he’d tried; and, as his father used to say, if you’ve done your best, they can’t ask any more of you.
Breathing was becoming harder, if anything. It was as if he had a big carpenter’s clamp screwed across him, pressing his chest and back together while the carpenter waited for the glue to dry. But some people never learn (four generations of leaders). He dragged his elbows towards his knees, pushed his knees forward, tried to straighten his back – no future in that. Thanks for nothing, he thought bitterly, aiming his displeasure at the man he’d just killed. I’d have been just fine if you hadn’t interfered. Then he straightened his legs and arms, probably the most gruelling physical effort he’d ever made in his life. It got him on his feet again. It was worth it.
Now then; all I’ve got to do now is find a horse, get on it . . . There didn’t seem to be much in the way of battle-noises, he noticed with dismay. He had no idea how long it had been since he’d come off his horse. It felt like his whole life, of course, but that was subjective time. Quite possible, likely even, that his men had done as they were told and pushed off as soon as the job was done. In which case he needn’t have nearly killed himself getting up.
He took three steps forward – a technique of controlled falling, whereby he aimed himself at the ground and stuck out a leg at the last moment. His left hand was hurting almost as much as his back – a different sort of pain, throbbing instead of sharp. Dragging in breath was getting to be more trouble than it was worth.
And then he saw the horse. Amazing creatures; in the middle of a battle, with all that death and pain around it, a riderless horse will still stop, put its head down and nibble at the grass. Sildocai looked at it for ten seconds, a long time in that context. He was trying to work out, from first principles
, how to walk over to where the horse was standing, get on its back and make it go where he wanted it to. He knew the project was possible – we can win this, as Temrai would say – but at that particular moment he couldn’t quite see how to go about it.
Sheer hard work and application, in the end. Luckily, the horse had the grace to hold still until he reached it, and then at least he had something to lean against while he bent down and lifted his foot up to the stirrup with his now mostly useless left hand. Getting into the saddle was always going to be the hardest part. No grip in his left hand, so pulling on the saddle was out. The best he could do was try to force his left leg straight and hope momentum and body weight would do the rest. It nearly worked; but while he was standing with one foot in one stirrup the horse decided to move, and it took him a long time to find the strength to get his leg over the horse’s back and down the other side. When he’d accomplished that, he found that he had nothing left; he slumped forward against the horse’s neck, his nose buried in its mane, and tried for one last breath. The horse kept walking; and since it was just a horse, and the enemy were too busy to bother with stray livestock, it carried on walking in the direction it remembered home used to be, until it came to a river. There it stopped to drink; and after that, it wandered a short way, snuffling for grass, until dawn; at which point someone on the other side of the river noticed it and started making a fuss. They swung out the bridge and sent some men to catch it; the horse didn’t mind that, and they led it over the bridge and took the load off its back.
‘It’s Sildocai,’ someone said.
‘Is he still alive?’ Sildocai heard that. Good question, he thought.
‘I think so. Get him down.’
In the event, Sildocai decided that he was still alive, because it doesn’t hurt if you’re dead. He slipped away from the pain after a while, and when he woke up someone whose name was something like Temrai came and stood over him and told him the raid had been successful. He wanted to ask, What raid? but he didn’t have the energy. He went back to sleep for a few hours, until the crash-thump of trebuchet shot landing all round him (the raid had been a success; it took the enemy five hours to make good all the damage they’d done) woke him up again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘We could do this for the rest of our lives,’ said the engineer, ‘and we’d be no better off. I say we stop mucking about and follow up; otherwise we’re just wasting our time.’
It was the third day of the bombardment. The day before had been like the day before that; while the sun shone, the trebuchets had pounded the lower stockade, the engine emplacements and the path. When the sun set, Temrai’s men had patched up the lower stockade, replaced the smashed and splintered sections of the engines and filled in the gaps hammered out of the path, and in the early hours of the morning his light cavalry had made a sortie and hamstrung the trebuchets. On the second night, they’d had a different leader and met with sterner resistance; but they’d learned a few things too, and the net result had been the same. For the third night, Bardas had detailed two companies of halberdiers to guard the trebuchets and had given orders for a stockade of his own, only to be told that all the timber within easy reach had been felled to build the fortress, so he’d have to make do with a ditch and bank, which would of course take time . . .
‘No,’ he said, ‘we’ll keep going. Sooner or later there’ll be so much damage they won’t be able to patch it up any more – you can’t keep patching on to patches, believe me, I’ve tried it. We can lose this war very easily, with just one error of judgement. I’d rather waste time than lives, if it’s all the same to you.’
The engineer shrugged. ‘You’re the boss,’ he said. ‘And I’m telling you, I wouldn’t have your job for anything.’
There was no cavalry raid that night, and the halberdiers, who’d been standing to arms for nine hours, went off duty with a feeling of having won the moral victory, giving place to the artillery crews. It was during the changeover, about half an hour after sunrise, that Temrai sent out his horse-archers, arguably the most effective part of his army. Before Bardas’ sentries had a chance to identify them and signal in, they’d been shot down; then the three troops drew up in line and started a bombardment of their own, from two hundred yards; further than Bardas’ bowmen could shoot; within range of the crossbows, but they could only loose one shot every three minutes, and the second troop was concentrating its volleys on them. Bardas called for the siege pavises, large oxhide shields designed to cover crossbowmen during siege operations, but there was a problem. The wagon master had stationed supply wagons all round them, hemming them in (after all, nobody had told him they were likely to be needed, and he had to park the damned wagons somewhere). In order to get them out, he had to shift the wagons, which in turn meant bringing about a third of them through the camp . . . Within a quarter of an hour, the streets of the camp were jammed solid with wagons, impeding the shot wagons that were supposed to be fetching trebuchet shot from the dump. Not that it mattered; the first and third troops of horse-archers were shooting at the artillerymen, and those who’d managed to get under cover weren’t likely to be loosing off any shot until the enemy had withdrawn.
‘No,’ Bardas kept saying, when they urged him to do something. ‘Cardinal rule: don’t charge horse-archers with heavy cavalry. I learned that the hard way. And if you think I’m sending infantry out into that—’ (no need to ask what that was; the volleys of arrows were lifting, planing and dropping like spurts of boiling water from a geyser; the thought of being underneath one of those plumes was enough to make your mouth dry). ‘So,’ he went on, ‘we sit tight. You know how many arrows a plainsman carries? Fifty; twenty-five on his back, twenty-five on his saddle. When they’ve used up their arrows they’ll go away, and we can get on with our work.’
He was right, of course. Not long afterwards the horse-archers pulled out, leaving behind them the best part of a hundred thousand arrows that King Temrai was in no position to replace in a hurry. They were everywhere; sticking in the ground, in the timbers of the trebuchets and the wagons, hanging by their barbs from the sides of tents and wagon-covers, smashed underneath dead men, slanting upwards from the chests and arms of dead and living men; they covered the ground like a carpet of suddenly sprung flowers, the carts and engines like moss or lichen, their fletchings like the tufts of bog-cotton on the wet marshes, and the snapping of shafts underfoot as the artillerymen came out from cover sounded like a bonfire of twigs and dry grass. Like ants or mosquitos they’d got in everywhere; like bees dazed by the smoke from the bee-keeper’s bellows they lay exhausted, their flight and stinging all done.
‘Clear up this mess,’ some officer was shouting. ‘And get those engines working, we haven’t got all day. Where’s the chief engineer? We’re going to need twelve new crews for number six battery. Casualty lists – who’s got the damned lists? Have I got to do every bloody thing myself?’
Half the artillerymen out of action; more wounded than killed, but not by a wide margin. The injured lay or sat around the shot-wagons, the arrows still sticking out of them; the surgeons were rushed off their feet, sawing shafts and dragging out barbs the hard way, throwing the recovered arrowheads on to piles under the tables, and they didn’t have time to look back at the work they still had to do. From time to time a man would die, quietly or making a fuss, and at intervals they came round with a handcart for the bodies.
They came and asked Bardas what they should do now. ‘Carry on,’ he said. ‘Keep plugging away at the path and the stockade. You can put halberdiers on the engines, so long as there’s an artilleryman to each team to tell them what to do.’
They went round with big wicker baskets, picking up the arrows – reasonable quality materiel that’d come in handy some time, if not in this war then in some other war, where the Empire saw fit to deploy massed archers – and when the baskets were full, they packed them in empty barrels and loaded them on to supply carts. The broken arrows were sorted into two pi
les; heads for scrap, shafts for the fire or the carpenters (an arrowshaft makes good dowel rod for small structures, like pavises and screens and the floors of siege-towers and the rungs of scaling-ladders). A platoon of pikemen with nothing else to do sat cross-legged in a circle, cutting off the fletchings and dropping them into big earthenware pots, ready for the quilters to use for stuffing gambesons.
‘It was a gesture,’ Bardas explained, ‘nothing more. And the best thing to do with gestures is to ignore them, like your mother did when you were a kid and wouldn’t eat up your porridge.’ But all the while he was thinking about the second grade of proof, the proof against arrows; to meet the specification, an armour should turn a bodkinhead arrow shot from a ninety-five-pound bow at seventy-five yards, or a seventy-pound bow at thirty yards. Most armours fail that test and go in the scrap, along with the spent arrowheads.
They got the trebuchets going again, and the beams slapped upright like hammers on the anvil, pounding dust out of the side of the hill.