A Sword for Kregen (9 page)
By Zair! I just hoped that what I was doing was correct. The whole situation was likely to slide out of hand. Once the fronts locked in combat and all hell broke loose it would all be down to those initial dispositions and the sheer fighting ability of the men in the ranks.
The orders were to go on. We would appear and attack. There would be no waiting. This was no defensive fight. This was onslaught,
guerre a l’outrance,
and look at the mess that has caused, by Krun!
The brilliant golden Mask of Recognition was affixed over my face. Cleitar the Standard and Ortyg the Tresh shook out their banners. Volodu the Lungs closed up and Korero, as always, hovered a golden shield at my back. Delia rode close, and Korero knew his duty there.
In a little group we rode forward and so came to the last stand of trees. The sheen of the suns lay across the grass, the little stream and the rounded hill beyond.
Ranked before us, line on line, mass on mass, the waiting formations of the enemy seemed to fill all the space and overflow in a blinding brilliance of color and steel.
Taking out my sword I lifted it high and then slashed it down in a vehement gesture, the point aimed at the heart of the foemen.
Silently, the leading ranks of our men plunged into the stream.
The Battle of First Kanarsmot
Thus began First Kanarsmot.
The feel of the zorca between my knees and the close confinement of the helmet and the Mask of Recognition, the itch of war harness on my shoulders, the brilliance of the splashing water drops as we forded across the stream — all these sensations in one form or another must have been felt by all the men in that little army. All, except the Mask of Recognition. The thing served a purpose, although I doubted if it would stop even a short-bow’s shaft. As we came up on the far bank a sudden and sweet scent of white shansili filled our nostrils. The familiar scent must have brought aching-memories of familiar homes and dear faces to the men for those lovely flowers are often grown in trellises over the doors of Vallian homes.
In advance ran the kreutzin, lithe limber young men, raffish and wayward; but thirsting to get their javelins and arrows into play. Half naked, some of them, fleet of foot and agile, they raced forward to be first in action.
Scrambling my zorca — who was faithful old Grumbleknees — up on the opposite bank I rode forward far enough to allow space for the Sword Watch to form at my back.
The enemy were already moving. Their masses came on steadily, and I looked to see who would make first contact.
From the enemy’s right they were drawn up thusly: the swarth force of a thousand; two dense masses of paktuns, five thousand each arrayed one behind the other; the central body of totrix and zorca cavalry, five thousand strong; the irregulars a little in advance and already beginning to race onward; the six thousand masichieri, who hung a little back; and, finally, on the left wing, the two thousand zorca-mounted aragorn. Ordered in two sections of five each, and out in front, the dermiflons lifted their stupid heads and brayed. The glitter of the suns smote back from the weapons of the men in their armored howdahs — armored castle-like structures the warriors of Kregen call calsaxes — and the dermiflon handlers ran yelling and pushing around the enormous beasts as they sought to force them into their clumsy stumbling run.
The main strength of the enemy, therefore, lay in his right wing. I did not discount the aragorn; but they and the masichieri would fight only for as long as they could see slaves and plunder coming their way.
Already our bowmen were loosing at the dermiflons.
Once we had seen them off, the real fight could begin.
Equally, massive and impressive striding citadels of war though dermiflons truly are, they must not attract all a commander’s attention and he must not allow them to deflect him into wasting too many of his precious resources on them.
From the left we were arrayed thusly: the totrix cavalry division attached to the Phalanx; the Phalanx itself; the Tenth Brigade of Archers; the First Cavalry Brigade of zorcas with the Fourth slightly to their right. I lifted in the stirrups and looked across to the right toward the woods that masked the backward-curving bend of the river. There was no sign of movement among the trees.
With great whoops from the drivers and riders and a veritable Niagara of fountaining splashes, the artillery crossed the stream. A number of different draught animals hauled the equipment, and they galloped on through the intervals and unlimbered to our front. At once they were in action, shooting their cruel iron-tipped darts. Within the space of ten murs they had shot two of the dermiflons out of it, the ungainly beasts turning around on their ten legs, braying angrily, lumbering back for all their handlers shrieked and beat at them with goads.
The forward movement of our men continued. They were not yet charging — they tramped on steadily, rank on rank, file on file, and the pikes lifted, thick as bristles on a wild vosk’s back.
The twin suns slanted their rays onto the battlefield from our right flank. Again I looked. Still no movement within the trees flanking the curve of the stream.
Delia said: “The paktuns are coming perilously close.”
“Let the bowmen and the spear men play a little longer on the dermiflons.”
As I spoke another gigantic beast decided that he no longer wished to go in the direction from which these nasty stinging barbs were coming; braying, he turned about and with his ten legs all going up and down like pistons, he lumbered off.
There were twenty-eight thousand of the enemy. I had spoken lightly of our near thirty thousand — but in that I lied or boasted. Of men we could put in fighting line we had sixteen thousand seven hundred infantry and seven thousand three hundred and twenty cavalry, plus the artillery. And, already, some of our bowmen were down, caught by the deceptive arrow, tiny bundles on the grass, lying still or, more awfully, kicking in the last spasms.
The balance of our thirty thousand was made up of logistics people, medics, vets. Some of the wagoners would fight if it came to it — but I hoped profoundly it would not come to that.
The swarths were moving, the scaled mounts advancing directly with the aim of crunching into the left flank of the Phalanx.
Chuktar De-Ye Mafon, a Pachak with great experience in command of the Tenth Cavalry Division attached to the Phalanx, countered the move. His division consisted of a brigade of three regiments of zorca archers and a brigade of three regiments of totrix lancers. Now he launched the zorcas at the oncoming swarths. The nimble animals swirled in evolutions practiced a thousand times, lined out, and their riders shot and shot as they swooped past the right flank of the enemy mass.
Disordered, the swarths angled to their left and, at that moment, Chuktar De-Ye Mafon led his totrix lancers into them.
The outcome of that fight had, for the moment, to be awaited as the enemy commander pushed through in the center.
The Phalanx had been aimed at the enemy’s center, his ten thousand infantry and his five thousand cavalry, mercenaries all, tough, professional, the hard core of his army. With that swerving recoil of the swarths pressing in on the massed infantry, the enemy general had ordered one of the tactical moves he had left open to himself. The ordered ranks of the paktuns inclined to their left. They broke into a fast trot, their banners and plumes waving, their weapons glinting.
They would lap around the right flank of the Phalanx and I was about to give the order for Karidge’s Brigade to move up in support, when the last of the dermiflons on this side of the field broke. They fled back, immense engines of destruction, festooned with darts — one with a varter dart pinning three of his starboard legs together — and they crashed headlong into those smart and professional paktuns.
The paktuns were professionals. They opened ranks; but in the incline that proved not quite so easy as it sounded. We were afforded enough space for the Phalanx to go smashing into them, the pikes down and level, the helmets thrust forward, the shields positioned, rank by rank, to serve each the best purpose. The noise blossomed into the sky. The yells and shrieks and the mad tinker-clatter of steel on iron, of steel on bronze, and the crazed dust-whirling advance encompassed by the raw stink of spilled blood brought a horror that underlay any thoughts of glory. On drove the Phalanx. On and with blood-smeared pikes thrust the paktuns aside.
Now was the time for the enemy Kapt to hurl in his five thousand cavalry — and our Hakkodin, our halberd and axe and two-handed sword men, knew it.
The Hakkodin flank the Phalanx and they take enormous pride in the protection they afford and their ability to ensure that no lurking dagger-man, no cavalryman, can smite away at the undefended flanks of the Phalanx. And the soldiers, hefting their pikes, know that and relish the feel of solid Hakkodin at their flanks and rear.
Although, mind you, in rear of the Third Kerchuri as it advanced lay only strewn and mangled corpses of paktuns.
The enemy shafts had been deflected by the uplifted shields of the Phalanx, the field of red roses in the popular imagery, the field of crimson flowers, and now our own archers of the Tenth Brigade stepped forward to assist the bowmen of the Phalanx. It was going to be touch and go. The second massed formation of paktuns was advancing in steady fashion and their incline, avoiding the tumultuous upsets of the disaster with the dermiflons, would place them astride the shoulder of the Phalanx. Engaged as the Kerchuri was, it could not toss pikes and turn half-right. That kind of evolution is very pretty on the parade ground; in the midst of battle with the red blood flowing and the screams and yells and the dust boiling everywhere — no, you grip your pike and you go on, and on, when it comes to push of pike.
A zorcaman came galloping up to me, his feathers flying, his equipment flying — he hardly seemed to touch the ground. I knew who he was, right enough.
“Majister!” He bellowed out as Cleitar the Standard had to back his zorca a trifle. “Jiktar Karidge’s compliments — will you loose him now — please!”
Deliberately I lifted in the stirrups. I looked not toward the furious turmoil in the center of the field. Deliberately, I looked to the right. The six thousand masichieri were on the move. The two thousand aragorn flanking them were trotting on, splendid in the lights of the suns. The noise everywhere dinned on and on, and those fresh bodies of troops would go slap bang into the flank of our army when Karidge and the other brigade of the light cavalry division charged.
“Give me ten murs more, Elten Frondalsur.” The galloper’s face shone scarlet with sweat and exertion. He gentled his zorca as the excited animal curveted. “Just that, no more.”
“As you say, majister!”
Elten Frondalsur, even in that moment of high tension, had the sense not to argue or plead. Karidge would understand. I just looked steadily at the galloper, and so with a salute he flicked his zorca’s head around and took off back to Karidge. Also, I knew that in ten murs, and exactly ten murs, Karidge would set his brigade into a skirling charge. That was the way he would interpret the message the Elten brought.
Calling over the galloper attached to my staff from the light cavalry division, I sent him off to convey the same message to the officer in command. He, cunning old Larghos the Spear, would find himself commanding only the Fourth Brigade when the charge went in. But everyone in the army understood the impetuous ways of Karidge, aye, and loved him for it — well, most of the time.
In six murs the movement I had been fretfully waiting from the trees over by the bend in the stream heralded the arrival of our flank force. And, by Vox, only just in time!
In one sense, they were late, for the paktuns were now at handstrokes with the Hakkodin. The mingled cavalry swirled around ready to complete the impending destruction of the Phalanx, as they imagined. And the aragorn and the masichieri came swiftly on.
From the trees erupted the archers of the Ninth Brigade. Following them and pounding on in their armor, strong, powerfully built men, the front line of the three brigades of sword and shield men burst onto the battlefield. Out to their right and flanking them, galloping swiftly on, roared the Heavy Cavalry Division, two thousand totrixmen formed, clad in armor, bearing swiftly on with lances couched. When those lances shivered they would haul out short one-handed axes, and stout swords, and they’d go through the zorca-mounted aragorn like the enemy had fancied he would go through our ranks.
That marked the beginning of the end.
The commander over there must have looked with despair upon that battlefield. He saw his vaunted swarths mightily discomfited and driven off. He had seen a powerful force of mercenaries, containing Rapas and Fristles, Khibils and blegs, shattered, and a second about to be overwhelmed. The masichieri and the aragorn were hauling up, their ranks disordered and in turmoil. It took little imagination to picture what they were doing, to hear what they were shrieking as they saw this new menace rushing up to smash into the flank. And, with his dermiflons gone, the enemy commander saw his fancied force of cavalry recoil from the center of the field as the Light Division hit them full force.
I do not like letting slip zorcas in a charge; but Karidge and Larghos the Spear had no doubts.
In moments the face of the battle changed.
Everywhere the enemy were in retreat.
That was the end of First Kanarsmot.
An Axeman Drops In
“It would perhaps have made better sense,” said Delia as we sat in the tent and looked at the maps, the casualty returns ugly and horrible on the table, the sounds of an army at rest all about us in the mellow evening. “Perhaps, to have sent the Light Cavalry instead of the Heavies in the flank force.”
“As it turned out, it would have been. But they were late.” I yawned. “Mind you, my heart, by this time a man should have learned to expect delay in any plans he makes.”
“And a woman, also.”
“And what plans are you fomenting?”