Nor was the reinforced squadron that Thoheeks Portos had brought down from the north your normal unit of lancers either. To Pahvlos’ way of thinking, they were becoming true heavy horse, and he used them as such, obtaining from Thoheeks Grahvos a half-squadron of old-fashioned light-horse lancers to take over the scouting, flank-guarding and messenger functions of traditional light-horse usage.
To Thoheeks Portos’ questions regarding the reassignment of function of his squadron, the old strahteegos answered, “My lord Thoheeks, to my way of thinking, if you put a man up on a sixteen-hand courser all armored with steel and boiled leather, the man himself protected by a thigh-length hauberk and steel helm and armed with lance and saber and light ax and long shield, then that man is no longer a mere lancer but a medium-heavy horseman at the very least. Your so-called lancers differ from Lord Pawl’s force only in that his are equipped with bows rather than lances, carry targes instead of shields.”
Although inordinately pleased with all of his cavalry, both native and alien, Komees Pahvlos was not quite certain what to make of or do with the most singular pikemen of Lord Guhsz Hehluh. Unless they chanced to be the foot guards of a king or some other high, powerful, wealthy nobleman, or of a walled city, Southern Kingdom pikemen simply were not armored—save for a light helmet of stiffened leather with strips of steel and a thick jack of leather, plus a pair of leather gauntlets that were occasionally reinforced with metal—and only the steadier, more dependable front ranks were provided with a body shield, to be erected before them where they knelt or crouched to angle their pikes. Traditionally, of course, they had died in droves whenever push came to shove; such was and had always been expected.
But not so in the case of the big, mostly fair-skinned, thick-thewed barbarians commanded by Lord Guhsz. Only the cheek-guards and chin-slings of their helmets were of leather, the rest—crown-bowls, segmented nape-guards and bar-nasals—being of good-quality steel. Their burly bodies were guarded to the waists and their bulging arms to the elbow by steel scales sewn and riveted to padded canvas jacks; both their high-cuffed gauntlets and their leathern kilts were thickly sewn with steel mail, and below a steel-plate kneecap, their shins and calves were protected with sets of splint armor riveted inside their boot linings.
Moreover, each and every one of these pikemen carried a slightly out-bowed, rectangular shield a good two feet wide and near twice that in length, and on the command, each man of a formation could raise that shield a bit above his head in such a manner as to over- and underlap those of his fellows and provide a roof that could turn an arrow storm as adroitly as a roof of clay tiles turns a rainstorm.
Nor were these the only differences in the equipage of the alien foot and those of the Southern Kingdom. Aside from his fifteen-foot pike, your average pikeman bore no weapons other than a utility eating knife, while not a one of Lord Guhsz’s men but did not also bear a heavy, double-edged sword about a foot and a half in its sharp-pointed blade, one or more shorter dirks or daggers, sometimes even a short-hafted belt-ax of the sort that could be either tool or missle or weapon.
Burdened as they were, the old strahteegos had doubted that these overprotected, overarmed, overequipped pikemen could maintain the needful pace on the march or in a broad-front charge. But that had been before he put them to it; after he had, he knew the—to him, near incredible—facts of the matter. It was at that point that his formerly rock-firm opinions began to undergo a change and he began to wonder just why so many generations of his forebears had callously, needlessly, sacrificed so many pikemen with the excuse, now proven false, that proper armor and secondary weapons would decrease mobility. Colonel Bizahros agreed with him, but Colonel Ahzprinos did not, flatly, unequivocally, and at very great length.
So the eeahtrosee, with their bandages and ointments, their saws and other surgical devices, arrived. The artificers were assigned, the quartermasters and the cooks, the smiths, the farriers, the wagoners and the mule skinners. Finally Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos, tired of waiting and drilling, announced to the Council that he intended to start on his campaign with only the three cow elephants he already had, wanting to get the business over and done before the autumn rains arrived to complicate things for a field army.
Mainahkhos Klehpteekos and Ahreekhos Krehohpoleeos had risen fast and high from their origins as common troopers in the first, almost-extirpated army of Thoheeks Zastros. That both men were savage and completely unprincipled had helped; that they were good war leaders and inordinately lucky had helped even more. During the years of howling chaos in the Southern Kingdom, they and the heterogeneous packs of deserters, banditti, escaped criminals, shanghaied peasants and stray psychopaths they had led had sometimes signed on as a mercenary force to first one then another army of the battling lords.
Sometimes they had given the service for which they had been paid. But more often they had either deserted en masse or turned their coats at a crucial point, especially if the ongoing battle showed signs of being a close one. At length so odious had their reputation become that no lord or city—no matter how desperate—would even consider hiring them on; at that point they followed their basic inclinations, becoming out-and-out warlords, they and their lawless band of ruffians at open war against the world.
When at long last Zastros had made himself High King and, after scouring the length and breadth of the land for soldiers and men of military age, had marched his half million and more north out of the kingdom, on the road to his death in Karaleenos, the two warlords had found themselves in pigs’ paradise, able now to prey not only on villages and travelers and isolated estates, but on walled towns and cities as well.
They had behaved in their usual bestial fashion at the intakings of the first few of these urban sites, which were by then all but defenseless despite their walls, what with their once-garrisons now marching north behind the Green Dragon banner of High King Zastros—first raping, plundering, torturing, then killing whole populations until the streets ran with gore, and finally burning everything combustible in the stinking charnel house they had made of the towns.
Then, of a day, a broken nobleman who had joined the bandit army to avoid starving had had words with the two warlords and slowly convinced them of the sagacity of those words. For all that they and their followers were become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams of avarice, each succeeding victory had cost them men—and men of fighting age and strength were become almost as precious as rubies in this land stripped of warrior stock by Zastros’ strenuous recruitments. Moreover, scattered and fast-moving survivors of those intakings had spread the word of the atrocities far and wide so that all walled enclosures within weeks of marching time were doing everything possible to strengthen their existing defenses and had put aside any previous thoughts of trying to deal with the marauders on a near-peaceful basis.
So although it went hard against the grain, the warlords had begun to rein in their savages, dealing gently—by their personal lights—with the inhabitants of those places that opened the gates without a fight and showed a willingness to treat. Mainahkhos and Ahreekos even took it upon themselves to move against, either recruiting or wiping out, numerous smaller bands of their own ilk then lurking about the countryside. Then they began to recruit from the remaining garrisons of the smaller towns and cities, and slowly their howling pack of human predators metamorphosed into a real, more-or-less organized army.
By the day, three years ago, that they had appeared under the walls of the city of Kahlkhopolis, one-time seat of the Thoheeksee of Kahlkhos, the few straggling hundreds of ill-or sketchily armed bandits were become an impressive, very threatening sight indeed.
All classes of infantry marched in their ranks, fully armed and equipped; heavy cavalry rode in that column, with light cavalry on the wings and riding guard on the awesome siege train. Only elephants were lacking, and this deficiency was partly alleviated through the use of old-fashioned, mule-drawn war carts as archery platforms—the stout, armored cart bodies with
scythe blades set in the wheel hubs and the big mules all hung with mail having proven almost as effective as elephants at the task of smashing in infantry formations for years before the pachyderms had been adapted to warfare.
The last thoheeks, Klawdos, was by then five years dead, a casualty of the civil war, along with all his male kin. His wife and infant son had disappeared shortly after his death, and the city was then being held by a distant cousin of the ancient line, a bastard with little claim to noble blood, even less to military experience. So when he ordered the gates to be closed and the walls to be manned by the pitifully few men he owned, what was left of the city council did the only reasonable thing: They murdered him.
Since then Mainahkhos had been thoheeks in all save name, having seen to it that the city councilmen quickly followed their victim into death by one means or another. He had been upon the teetering verge of declaring himself Thoheeks Mainahkhos Klehftis of Klehftispolis (as he and his men had become “respectable,” he had adopted the new surname, and now no man who was undesirous of a messy, agonizing and brutally protracted demise ever called the warlord Klehpteekos “the thief”), when he had learned that the son of his legal predecessor still lived.
He and his fellow warlord had both chanced to be out of the city when the boy had come nosing about in company with some arrogant dotard, but the snooping pair had been gone beyond recall when the would-be thoheeks had returned, and he had had the fools who had allowed their escape flayed alive and rolled in salt for their stupidity. Those cured skins still hung in a prominent place in his hall of audience—a silent, savage warning to his surviving followers.
As the would-be thoheeks sat at meat with his principal officer-advisors and his longtime partner, Ahreekhos (who had never bothered to change his surname, still reveling in the cognomen of “Butcher,” although he was grown now far too fat to do much real fighting of any nature), the topic of the discussion was that army which they had received word was even now advancing against them from the southeast.
In answer to a query from Mainahkhos, the heavy cavalry commander, one Stehrghiahnos—who had been born and reared the heir to a vahrohneeskos, though he had forfeited title and lands and very nearly life itself through too early a support of the then-rebel Thoheeks Zastros—said cautiously, “My lord, it might be as well to essay a meeting with these commanders. After all, my lord’s claim to this thoheekseeahn is as good as any; he has been a good lord and owns the support of the people of the city, at least…”
Ahreekhos nodded agreement. “He’s right, you know, Mainahkhos. From what all my scouts have told me, that army a-coming ain’t one I’d of cared to face three years agone, even when we was at full strength, much less now. And they got them elephants too, at least three of the critters, prob’ly more.
“Why not send out Stehrghiahnos, there, and a couple more fellers and let them palaver with this strahteegos, huh? Ain’t nuthin to be lost by that, is it? Old Thoheeks Grahvos and them is making new thoheeksee and komeesee and such all over the place, and like’s just been said, you got you as good a claim to this here city and all as anybody has. Could be, since you say you’ll stand a-hint Thoheeks Grahvos and them, ‘t’won’t be no battle a-tall.”
Mainahkhos shrugged. “Hell, that’s right. Ain’t a damn thing lost by talking with them bastids… but I want the levy and all raised at the same time too. And send word to old Ratface Billisos to brang up ever swingin’ dick he can lay claws to from the western komeeseeahnee too, and all the mounts what he can beg, borror or steal too.”
Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos received Stehrghiahnos of course, but he treated him with the contempt that he felt a renegade nobleman deserved. When he had heard him out, he shrugged and spoke.
“Were the house indeed extinct, there might possibly be a bare modicum of sense in what you have said, but it is not extinct. Here, at this very table, sits the rightful Thoheeks of Kahlkhos.” He nodded his white head in the direction of young Ahrahmos, who sat stiffly and blank-faced in his dusty, field-browned armor, his plain helm and sheathed sword on the table top before him.
From where he stood (Pahvlos had deliberately proffered no chair or stool), Stehrghiahnos eyed the husky boy critically, then said, “We might avoid a general, assuredly costly battle, you know, my lord Thoheeks, by the simple, old-fashioned expedient of arranging a session-in-arms between the present Thoheeks of Kahlkhos and this pretender you present here.”
“Cow flop!” the old man snorted in scorn, adding, “In addition to being an arrant traitor to your class and your breeding, you seem to possess all the native intelligence of a braying ass. And I warn you, sirrah, if you make the mistake of drawing that blade, I’ll see you lose that hand a joint an hour before you leave this camp!
“To begin, Thoheeks Ahrahmos here, far from being some pretender, is the rightful overlord of Kahlkhos, Thoheeks by birth; as such, he deserves and is being afforded the firm support of every loyal, right-thinking nobleman of this new Confederated Thoheekseeahnee… which is precisely why I and my army are here.
“The sort of resolution you’ve suggested does not apply to this situation. It was considered legal only for cases wherein both contenders owned equal birthright claim or no claim at all. Besides, no gentleman—no true gentleman— of my army is going to go forth to meet a common bandit-chief on terms of equality… and I find it significant of just how far down the ladder you have descended that you would even suggest so dishonorable a course to me and Thoheeks Ahrahmos.”
Strahteegos Thoheeks Pahvlos’ original order of battle had been to place the armored pikemen of Hehluh and Bizahros at the center of his line, retaining the unarmored pikemen of Ahzprinos as a reserve, and placing half of the Horseclan’s medium-heavy cavalry on each wing to provide enfilading archery against any aggressive movements on the part of the enemy. He did not intend to advance until the opposing force had been bled a bit at trying to break his line.
Reports of probing cavalry patrols, and information gleaned from captives as well as from a few loyalists who had managed to flee the city, had assured the old soldier that, although outnumbered, his was much the better, more reliable army.
The broad, verdant plain surrounding the city was the logical place for any battle. True, it was not all open ground; there were a few copses here and there, a few folds of the landscape, but none large enough or deep enough to allow for ambushes or unpleasant surprises for any save the smallest of units.
A week after the visit of Stehrghiahnos to his camp, the elderly Strahteegos was apprised by a sweating, bleeding galloper that a detachment of his far-ranging lancers had made contact—violent contact—with an estimated two thousand men, mixed horse and foot, who were apparently guarding a long wagon train, a large herd of cattle and a smaller herd of horses and mules. The newcomers were marching west-to-east, in the direction of Kahlkhopolis.
Grinning like a winter wolf, Thoheeks Pahvlos dispatched Thoheeks Portos and a mounted force consisting of both the heavy and the medium-heavy cavalry. As an afterthought, he reinforced the units of lancers that were ambling about just beyond bowshot of the city walls, lest someone in there get the idea of riding forth to succor the obvious supply train.
A bit after nightfall, Thoheeks Portos rode into camp to report few casualties to his own force, most of the foemen dead and the few survivors scattered and running hard. His troopers were bringing in the wagons and the horse herd but had left the scrawny cattle to wander at will.
At dawn a herald was sent to the main gate of the city to summon Stehrghiahnos. When that renegade dismounted before Pahvlos’ pavilion, ranged beyond the hitching rail were a number of wooden stakes, each crowned with a livid, blood-streaked head. The sharp features and prominent, out-thrust incisors that had given Ratface Billisos his name were on one of those ghastly heads, and that fact gave Stehrghiahnos the clear, indisputable message that there would no be no reinforcements or resupply, no matter how long his overlord waited.
Pahvlos’ w
ords were short and brusque. “Yesterday, Master Stehrghiahnos, my cavalry intercepted and extirpated the western contingent of your chief’s bandit band. We captured some two hundred head of horses and mules, considerable amounts of arms and armor and horse gear, and over fifty wagon- and wain-loads of supplies, as well as so many cattle that we had to leave the most of them running loose around the site of the battle.
“You had best advise your chief that he will not now be reinforced or supplied, so he had best come to battle with me as soon as possible, before his force within the city begins to suffer and be weakened by starvation and disease. Not that Thoheeks Ahrahmos and I give a damn how many bandits and renegades starve or suffer or waste away of the pox or the bloody flux, but we want no undue suffering to befall the innocent, the noncombatants within the city.”
Screened by a long file of mounted lancers who, under orders, were raising as much dust as possible in their slow progress, Gil Djohnz and the elephant Sunshine led the way toward the assigned position. Sunshine, Tulip and Newgrass were armored for the coming battle, but their huge, distinctively shaped bodies had for the nonce been covered with sheets of a dull-colored cloth, while the heavy, cumbersome, wood-and-leather archer boxes had been dismounted and were now being borne in their wake by the teams of archers who would occupy them.
After the third or fourth time he slipped and stumbled on the broken, uneven footing, Gil found himself steadied and lifted easily back onto his feet by the gentle but powerful trunk of Sunshine. “You are silly to try to walk, Man-Gil,” the pachyderm mindspoke him. “Your poor little feet will be sore beyond bearing tonight. Those men yonder are astride their horses, so why do you not ride Sunshine?”
Gil sighed. Sunshine was as stubborn as any mule when she so chose to be. “It is still as I have said ere this, sister-mine: High as you are, if I mount you, those watching from the other army will know that at least one elephant is in this area, and it is our plan that they not know such until we are ready to attack them.”
There Will Be War Volume IV Page 17